Hi friends.
Sorry for the long post lol.
I've (25 F) been with my boyfriend (27 M) for 3 years, known him for 7. I've always known he has OCD and I know the details of all the times his OCD has ruled his life in the past.
When we started dating, his OCD was minimal and it didn't really affect our lives. About 2 years ago, I started to notice that it was getting slowly worse, and he was starting to struggle more and more. I suggested therapy but he brushed it off and was clearly in denial that he needed help. Over the course of 18 months, things got worse and worse. He began to live in a state of near constant anxiety, and due to his extreme fear and panic, I regularly got snapped at. Clothes had to be washed multiple times, there were corners of his flat I wasn't allowed anywhere near, food I prepared got thrown away, and there was one time he tried to get me to wash my deceased dad's jumper (he passed away 16 years ago and I have a couple of his jumpers that I don't wear, I just keep and try not to wash too frequently for sentimental reasons). When we moved in together, there were bags of things all over the flat that I wasn't allowed to go through and unpack. We ended up just cramming bin bags of his things in various corners of the place because he couldn't touch them and I didn't want them sat in the middle of the living room. Throughout this time, I was still regularly accidentally doing things wrong by touching things I didn't know he perceived as contaminated, resulting in him snapping and even shouting at me. It's important to add that while all of this was going on, I was having weekly EMDR therapy sessions for C-PTSD, so I was struggling with my own mental health and actively putting in immense amounts of effort to heal. I have since mostly recovered.
It wasn't until September last year that I couldn't take it anymore and told my boyfriend I would not renew our tenancy and I would move out if he didn't get back into therapy. After months of begging and helping him find a therapist, he finally got into therapy in January of this year, 18 months after I initially suggested it.
Unfortunately, my boyfriend was not honest with his therapist, and she was under the impression that his OCD was minimal and he just needed a bit of help. He put a wall up with her and then complained that he wasn't getting better.
About 2 weeks ago, I reached a new point of desperation. I found myself dreading my boyfriend's return from work because half of the time he would bring a black cloud into our flat with him. I found myself avoiding him, staying quiet around him, shrinking myself down around him, all in fear of setting him off and getting snapped at. I've also found myself losing empathy for him and losing my temper with him. I used to be so patient and calm and do everything I could to help him, but now I'm so exhausted and so fed up of his constant anger, I can't cope. We don't do date nights anymore, and I've found myself turning away from him in bed and sitting on the other end of the sofa when we watch TV in the evenings.
I finally reached out to his sister and met her for lunch last week. She's not only very aware and experienced with my boyfriend's OCD, but she's also got 2 psychology degrees and has been working in mental health since graduating. I don't know why I didn't go to her sooner, but she's helped lessen the burden on me and is meeting up with my boyfriend once a week. She's also been there for me to talk to if I'm stuggling or don't know how to manage a situation. My boyfriend and I also wrote letters to his therapist so we could accurately describe how bad his OCD is without him putting a verbal wall up, so now she is aware and is going to modify her approach with him and has also suggested some extra coping mechanisms. My boyfriend has also spoken to a doctor and is increasing his medication ever so slightly just to see if that helps.
All of this sounds great, right? Sounds promising. But I am so exhausted. I am so burnt out. My boyfriend's sister just messaged me to check how I am and I burst into tears. I'm not currently working (job market is hellish) so I'm home all day. I try to do nice things for myself (I go running, I read, journal, meditate, play animal crossing, etc.) as well as doing all the cooking and cleaning, but I just feel like a shell of a person. I just started crying when I got into bed last night and I don't even know why. I wake up miserable and exhausted every day.
What do I do? My boyfriend has just started getting a significant amount more support and help but we won't see any changes for a little while as these things take time.
Leaving him is not on the cards because 1) I don't want to and 2) that would just make him even worse and I will not cause him pain when he is already suffering.
Thank you in advance and I'm sorry this is so long. I hope you're all having a lovely week so far <3

Ok, while thinking over the events, and reading Feast for Crows, I found a specific line in a Cersei chapter that had me thinking.
I know most of us are aware that Blood was a former gold cloak brute who was hired by Daemon to carry out the murder of one of Aegon's sons, while Cheese was hired to help navigate the secret passages of the Red Keep, as a ratcatcher he knew them like the back of his hand. After the murder takes place, we know Blood is captured two days later at the Gate of the Gods with a bloody bag. He was severely tortured for 13 days, revealing that he was going to bring the head to Daemon at Harrenhal.
Now we know all the people involved were Daemon, Mysaria, Blood and Cheese. Daemon dies from splattering on the surface of the Gods Eye lake and becoming fish food most likely. Mysaria gets whipped to death and dies naked on the cobblestones, Blood is tortured for 13 days then dies, but Cheese is the odd one out that goes missing completely and never is mentioned again.
So it had me thinking, all of these people die but one of them just happens to get away scott free, never seen again conveniently. I at first thought it was just a simple plot hole that George forgot to go back to, but when reading over a Cersei chapter in Feast where it is describing Jaime's findings when searching for Tyrion in the walls, this excerpt is mentioned,
A passage to the black cells had been found, and a stone well that seemed to have no bottom. They had found a chamber full of skulls and yellowed bones, and four sacks of tarnished silver coins from the reign of the first King Viserys. They had found a thousand rats as well... but neither Tyrion nor Varys had been amongst them,
The basis of the theory I'm getting at, is that these yellowed bones are Cheese's, the sacks of coin are the payment he was given by Daemon through Mysaria most likely. Now how Cheese died is the big question. I think what happened is after the events of B&C took place, they fled back into the walls, into the deeper parts of the castle, Cheese led him to where he stashed the bags of silver before they went up to commit the murder. Cheese was in this for the money, not so much because of loyalty for Daemon. Blood was though, he was a brute and an idiot, I think he fatally wounded Cheese, didn't care about the money, he considered Cheese a loose end and may have been told to do it by Mysaria. He then left him there where he was found later by rats and consumed till nothing was left but rotten bones. Blood was alone because he had already disposed of Cheese. The thousand rats are a giveaway to this ratcatcher's fate also, most likely drawn to the remains.
Also fun extra detail but the chamber full of skulls was probably all the people who helped build the red keep in Maegor's era, who he killed, probably sealed them away deep in the castle, out of sight, out of mind.

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Hi all the question is out to all the ones who found jobs remotely and how did you find it which websites or resources helped you in bagging a job remotely . Im a full stack developer in c# been wanting direction in landing a job remotely. Thanks for the help provided

I lost my sh*t on a customer last weekend
Last weekend I was working a French fry shift and this was right when lunch started. My manager had asked me to run outside to hand out a couple of orders that were taken at drive thru and there was about 5 orders that I had to hand out, and since there were so many bags of food in my hand I had to give them out to cars in a random order due to the fact I had the bags of food positioned weirdly so they won’t fall out of my hands. As soon as I stepped outside these two ladies in their car started yelling at me for their food and I told them to wait until till I get to their food. Every. Single. Car. I. Went. Too they were yelling at me and when I got down to the second last car they were still yelling at me even when I told them repeatedly to hold on and reassured them that I had their food and they were going to get. When I finally got to their car they were shouting at me about how I was going to everyone else’s car when they claimed “the were here first” and let me just say they were not the first car parked because if they were they would’ve been parked in the CORRECT spot😐 I go on and try explain to them why they were given their food last and they were still yelling at me so I got fed up and just tossed the bag at them and as I was walking away on of the ladies in the car called me a cnt and I turned around and gave her the finger, and she goes on to say “YOUR GONNA LOSE YOUR JOB B*CH” and I gave her the finger AGAIN with no regrets about it. She ends up coming inside saying she wants my name and my manager and we had a pretty heated exchange. After I cooled down the manager told me that no matter how upset a customer gets me I can’t flip them off which I think is stupid because I was standing up for myself after I was getting yelled at and being called out of my name TWICE or something so minor. I was already on the edge because I was working a very early shift and had a family emergency the day before so this was my final straw.
Anyways I still have my job and the wrote up a report about the whole situation ( sorry if this is so long😁)

Someone just came to my vending machine and bought a couple thousand caps worth of stuff. I popped back to wave and say thanks. They dropped everything that they just bought in a duffle bag in front of the machine. Did I scare them off? Random act of kindness to just gift some caps? I am still newish to the game and hope I didn't make it weird.

"I got all the time in the world, so for now I'm just chillin'" - Mac Miller, "Self Care"

Basic Info

Name: Malcolm Chris Jones
Nickname: Mac
Current Age: 14
Birthday: July 7th
Hometown: (just outside of) Denver, CO
Demigod Conundrum(s): ADHD

Appearance

Height: 5' 8"
Weight: 133 lb.
Skin Tone: Decently tan
Hair Color and Style: Black, curly hair

Notable Relations

Father: Dionysus, age unknown
Adoptive Mother: Anne Jones, age 42
Adoptive Father: Jake Jones, age 43

Personality

"Well, I love the kid. He's my son, of course I love him. He's generally been a kind, optimistic kid who loves the outdoors, although if you ever get him upset, good luck getting back onto his good side. Few more... quirks, if you really want me to talk about them, but let's focus on the positives. He's humble, there's that. I've never seen him take too much credit for his own achievements. He's entranced by music, which I guess is a good thing, but it's almost the only thing he pays attention to. He's really always had a hard time paying attention to things, now that I think about it. But yeah, he's kind, positive, friendly and social, but man does he hold a grudge." - Jake Jones, when asked about Mac, one year ago

Favorite Things

"Well I really enjoyed spending time with my friends. They're basically my heart and soul, we did everything together, until we didn't when I moved away. But finding new ones hasn't been a problem yet." - Mac, discussing what he misses most from his old hometown, six months ago
"Music is the best, for sure. I love my favorite artists, they've brought me to where I am today. Go ask me about some music, I can tell you ANYTHING. Length of an album? I got you. Release year? Already know it. Do I have the vinyl? Obviously." - Mac, when asked what he wanted for dinner, two years ago

Powers, Skills, and Weaknesses

Power Category	Power Name	Description
Domain Power	Escape Artist Proficiency	A trait where one is adept at escaping traps, kidnappings, dire situations, and awkward conversations.
Domain Power	Plant Communication	A trait where one is able to understand plantlife.
Domain Power	Soil Manipulation (Edafoskinesis)	The ability to control soil.
Godrent Minor Power	Acting Proficiency	A trait where one is naturally adept in performing, especially in front of crowds.
Godrent Minor Power	Alcohol Manipulation (Alcokinesis)	The ability to control alcohol both edible and non-edible. This includes the technique of turning alcohols into non-alcoholic beverages.
Godrent Minor Power	Big Cat Affinity	A trait where big cats are naturally friendly.
Godrent Major Power	Plant Manipulation (Chlorokinesis)	The ability to control plant life, specifically vines.

Climbing trees: Mac often spent time climbing trees in his day-to-day life, and has naturally become very skilled at it.
Indecisiveness: Mac has been known to be indecisive in many situations, and it has hindered him in both daily life and encounters with monsters.
Impatience: Mac is prone to becoming annoyed whenever inconvenienced by waiting on someone else, despite the hypocrisy of his own indecisiveness.

History

[to be revealed]

Now

Mac had been walking for the last few days, but looking at him you wouldn't realize it. His top, a white shirt paired with a leather jacket, was a bit dirty, but nothing major. His jeans had holes that could have been mistaken for an outdated fashion trend. A backpack was slung over his shoulder, unzipped. It looked like the contents were about to spill out, but Mac either didn't notice, or didn't care. He had a decently full duffle bag that he was struggling to carry, but he tried his best to hide it.
Starting the final stretch of his journey, he looked at the hill, with the gigantic pine tree at the top. This was the spot. As he made it to the top, he turned, and to anyone watching, it would appear he was waving at the trees. He continued his hike up the hill, unaware of the grapevines glowing above his head.

Welp, yea title says it all. Me 27F with my bf who is 31M He bought the ring 2 mo. After we found out I was pregnant. I was pretty embarrassed to not at least be engaged while pregnant so I made a comment about not wanting to be titled “bf/gf” while I’m showing and he treated it as if it was a “ no way. We will be engaged by then” type of deal. Fast forward… Our child is 3 months old now. So almost a year after him buying it and stashing it away. No ring. Just had a talk the other day about when we’re getting married and I’m asking if he regrets buying the ring or what? He says he doesn’t and he still wants to marry me and that it’s extremely important to him and his family for us to be married but i just haven’t shown him that I’m worthy enough for it basically. We’ve stated no matter the issues we have, we will work them out for the sake of our son not growing up without both parents the same way I did. I’m Confused why he even bought it in the first place. I know he has bought the ring , during our move I was clearing everything out and found it in his gym bag. Which he doesn’t know I know He said he was going to propose the day we went to the beach for my birthday but that he didn’t b/c I was too cold and wanted to head back to the car after a short amount of time. It’s all bs and I’m fully aware. feel that it’s just being used as a pawn over my head. I know he would tell me if he regretted buying it. He’s not afraid of telling me the hard truth. But it’s gotten to the point where I’ve said I’m not going to continue to do all these wifely duties and raise a child for someone who doesn’t even see me worthy of a ring. I feel like he’s ruined all of the excitement of an engagement for me by telling me he has it, but just doesn’t see me deserving of it yet. I will say that I’ve been pretty on edge with a new baby and I have not been my absolute best towards him but I don’t feel this is right. and I’m confused where to go at this point and i need advice. And not just “leave him” advice. It goes against my values but I’d be lying if i didn’t think about leaving frequently. I don’t want to have a broken family because I know how it feels and I love my son and know how important a father is for a boy. Anyways rant over. Don’t know what to do anymore.

So my orders say I get 2 luggages not to exceed 50lbs but looking at the AMC flight they allow 70lbs. Are roller duffle bags even allowed? Why is it conflicting??
I’ll take nothing with a side of fries pls.

I've really loved this show from the beginning, but one of the most frustrating aspects for me has been the way they handle the deaths of main characters. I feel like there's never a narrative purpose or connection to actual story telling, it's always been for shock value, and often in a way that robs the audience of payoff from long established storylines.
For example, when Dr. Melendez died, it was literally just because they hadn't killed a main character yet. They wanted to be "honest" with the audience, that sometimes bad things just happen. The problem is, they had spent several seasons establishing a potential relationship between him and Claire, and ultimately robbed the audience of that payoff. And when the audience is left frustrated from unresolved plotlines, it kind of takes away from the gravity of the character's death.
Asher's death was also sudden and unexpected, but I do think that it would have been handled better had we actually had a full season. I would have loved to see a more drawn out C plot of Asher coming to terms with his religion, hints of antisemitism in the community. Maybe an episode where he is treating someone that is vocally antisemtitic (maybe this exists but I can't remember it right now). A storyline where he ultimately comes to terms with his religion, he and Jerome get engaged and have a big Jewish wedding (audience payoff), and then he is tragically murdered. I know they had Asher killed in a hate crime to make a statement, but it feels like it was very rushed and the message feels kind of hollow. Ultimately not a bad choice to kill the character off, but poorly executed.
And now we come to Glassy and Claire. I'm going to be honest- Glassman should have died a long time ago. The series itself has been focused on Shawn's growth as a doctor but also as a person. At the beginning of the series, Shawn was very dependent on Glassman to stick up for him, validate his ideas, and interpret social interactions. But now Shawn is a very competent and respected surgeon in his own right, with a wife and son. He has a whole network of people who help him navigate socially. Glassman is still a really important presence in Shawn's life, but Shawn is no longer dependent on him. And the ultimate challenge to that growth would be to see what Shawn does when Glassman dies. But we're being denied that, because he's dying at the very end of the series. So what is the point in him dying?
As for Claire....I just want to give her a hug. The girl cannot have nice things! First her estranged father comes back, and he dies. Then she starts to repair her relationship with her mom, but looky there, she dies too. And when she finally starts to get a shred of happiness with Dr. Melendez, you guessed it, he dies. Claire is not allowed to have nice things. The writers finally put her out of her misery by giving her a beautiful send off where she finds fulfillment in helping people. Despite how they treated her, the writers knew she was a fan favorite and I was initially really excited when I first learned she was coming back for the finale. But my heart sank at that first promo when they said she had cancer. Why bring back a fan favorite, who you knew the audience loved and you had already given a nice send off, just to kill her off in the last episode? I know we don't actually know what's going to happen because the finale isn't until next week, but with their track record of making Claire the punching bag, I'm expecting the worst.
Now I'm not saying you can't kill off main characters- you can and absolutely should if it makes sense for the story/narrative. I've just been deeply unsatisfied with the way all major character deaths have been handled thus far. I'd be interested to see what others have thought about them. /endrant

Hello everyone! My girlfriend and I recently made a 4x5 camera (3D printed) and today we finally gave it a try. We took a picture of a tree as the first one, using Fomapan 100 to test the camera. However as you can see, that thing doesn’t look much like a tree. There are many variables involved in this that could have been responsible:
1) The camera may have light leaks: Unlikely because I checked the bellows with the film holder in and it showed no leaks. 2) The film holder may not be perfectly opaque: The film holder is also 3D printed (Vega 4x5 on Etsy), so it may not be as good at shielding light. However I checked this with my phone flash and it showed no visible leaks. Also, the holder has great reviews and people have been using it without issues. 3) The chemicals I used were bad: I used D76 developer by Adox, 1 bag dissolved in 1 liter of water, according to instructions. After, a stop bath and then Adox Adofix P II as a fixer. The chemicals were fresh and just mixed and at room temperature. 4) I messed up the development: Could be possible, considering it is the first time, but I have experience with C-41 which is more complex, and I didn’t do any glamorous mistake with the times (at least according to videos I saw). 6 minutes develop, quick water rinse, stop bath 1 minute and 4 minutes fixer. 5) The developing tank I used is not good: To spare time and money, I 3D printed a single-sheet developing tank from Printables (see attached pictures). The design is not great because the film tends to stick to the wall of the tube it is in. Maybe this prevented the chemicals from properly acting on the film, ruining my film when I turned on the lights eventually.
What do you think? I know it’s hard to identify the problematic variable, but do you have any idea?
Thank you!

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The Treasure Fleet of 1551 arrived in the last week of July that year. One ship was particularly large, well-armed, and well-decorated with Ming imperial insignia. Onboard was a man named Cui Hejing, an envoy on a mission given to him directly by the Jiajing Emperor (though not in person, given how reclusive the emperor was). Cui was politically unconnected to either Yan Song or Xu Jie, meaning that he was, theoretically, neutral in the rivalry between them, and this is why he was chosen for this mission. His orders were clear: these 'Meixigou People' would have to be brought into China's orbit. During its heyday, the Chinese overseas empire had included tributaries from all over the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean too. Things had deteriorated since then, but the Ming's self-confidence had not. Surely, after the thrashing they received at Acapulco, Meixigou would be all too happy to send a tributary embassy to Beijing to talk things out and make a deal that would allow for the unimpeded flow of silver into China (and other goods as well: Yan Song was fond of a good cup of hot cocoa in the morning).
Any deal made with the Meixigou People would need to have the support of both Wei Chengjia and Bai Guguan in order for it to hold. It didn't please the emperor to have North Province and South Province sponsoring pirates to raid each other's shipping. Actually, to be honest, the emperor didn't care as long as he got the full tribute from both provinces every year—but currently that wasn't happening.
The first order of business, then, was to meet with the two governors.
Dongguang was the eastern terminus for the Treasure Fleet in those days, so Cui met first with Bai in Dongguang, then with Wei in Ningbo. Finally, the three met in Dongguang and hashed out what they could agree to. Without the NSS under his control, Bai Guguan had turned to piracy once again to obtain the silver he needed, and was still falling well short of what he owed the emperor (This was called the Third Silver War, a conflict on the high seas that began in 1550 with Wei's reinstatement). That would have to stop, Cui told him. Bai was happy to cease sponsoring pirates if Cui could convince the Meixigou People to let DSS members purchase silver. Cui asked Wei why he hadn't done more to convince the Meixigou People to remain peaceable, to which Wei responded by pointing out that Bai had sent a military expedition to wreck a Meixigou port. Bai countered with the accusation that Wei started the Silver Wars by attacking the Cabrillo Expedition under false flags, which Wei denied.
Cui Hejing sighed.
Negotiations carried on for several days in the first week of August, with Wei and Bai frequently arguing while Cui played the peacemaker. Wei Chengjia agreed to support South Province's right to trade with Meixigou in exchange for a concession near and dear to Bai Guguan's economic policy.
In 1450, the Treasure Fleet had officially been established as an annual convoy sailing between Xinguo and China, sanctioned by the imperial government and given a naval escort. The Jingtai Emperor who ruled China at the time set the fleet's terminus at Dongguang in order to hurt Wei Shuifu, whom the emperor deemed to be too powerful already. As the discoverer of Xinguo and the biggest proponent of settling the New World, Wei Shuifu had immense influence in the early colonisation period. Having the Treasure Fleet stop in Dongguang was of profound importance for the city's economy. Establishments such as hotels and pubs thrived on the business brought by the Fleet, farmers and fishermen sold their products to restock the Fleet for the return trip, and even Ningbo had to come to Dongguang to deliver its annual tribute to the Fleet, while NSS merchants had to come to purchase Asian wares for resale in Xinguo. All this gave Dongguang a significant edge over its rival. Over the years, the fleet had occasionally stopped in Ningbo instead, when emperors felt they needed to send a message to Dongguang, but they always switched it back to Dongguang within a few years. In 1551, however, Wei Chengjia's requirement for his support of a deal with Meixigou was that Ningbo be set as the permanent terminus for the Treasure Fleet. Bai Guguan agreed to this, albeit begrudgingly. Both men shook hands and signed a paper agreeing to these terms. Two copies were made of the paper, one of which was kept by each governor while Cui Hejing kept the original. No chances were to be taken on either man reneging on his side of the deal.
The hard part was done. Now it was time to deliver a message to the foreigners requiring their presence in Beijing at the earliest possible time.
Cui Hejing sailed his ship down to Acapulco, arriving on August 18^th, 1551. Fortunately for him, Chinese ships arriving at Acapulco were an everyday occurrence so soon after the Treasure Fleet's arrival. Pirates were on a campaign of plunder all around Acapulco and the Spaniards still couldn't tell the difference between a North Province freighter, a South Province freighter, and a Wokou pirate ship. Sometimes, pirates pretended to be merchants until they got close, then opened fire. This made the Spaniards rather trigger happy for most of the year, wary as they were of ambushes. With so many North Province merchantmen showing up in the preceding week, however, Cui made it into the harbour without difficulty. The harbour was now overlooked by Fuerte de Oñate, a newly-constructed star fort on the west side of the bay named for Cristobal de Oñate himself. Colloquially, it was called Fuerte del Vasco, or Fort of the Basque, in reference to Oñate's heritage. In 1551, the fort was rather bare-bones and parts of it were still under construction, but eventually it would be expanded into a sprawling defensive network, making Acapulco the most heavily fortified city on the Pacific coast of Spanish America. It was home to a permanent garrison of 1,000 men and 8 warships, who were constantly on the lookout for pirates. Bai Guguan's privateers often ambushed ships exiting the bay or even sneaked into the port at night for a little moonlit robbery. The Spaniards had already picked up the word 'Wokou' from their North Province trading parters as 'Oacao,' which they applied indiscriminately to all pirates or privateers originating from north of Mexico and operating in the Pacific Ocean. In later centuries, 'Oacao' would even be applied to British, Portuguese, and Russian privateers in the Pacific.
Upon Cui Hejing's arrival, he introduced himself and his mission to the mayor of Acapulco. This was conveyed to Mexico City, where it was received by Viceroy Antonio de Mendoza. Mendoza invited Cui to the capital. Upon arrival, Cui Hejing delivered a letter inviting Meixigou to send a tributary embassy to Beijing so that they could establish diplomatic ties with the Ming Dynasty. This was standard Ming practice. No one could have diplomatic ties with China without bringing tribute for the emperor. The emperor would respond to the tribute with a gift of his own, although this part doesn't seem to have been communicated clearly enough.
The viceroy, however, didn't have the power to authorise such a mission on his own, so he penned a letter to Madrid and sent it, along with Cui's invitation (together with a Spanish translation), to Spain. Two months was the minimum time in which to expect a reply, but three was more realistic.
Cui Hejing was incensed upon being told he'd have to wait for three months, give or take. He decried this as an outrage—how dare a mere king like the ruler of Meixigou make the emperor's envoy sit and wait? Mendoza reminded Cui that he, Mendoza, was just a viceroy, and that he needed authorisation from Madrid to get such a thing done. Then he told Cui again to settle in and wait. Cui was given comfortable lodgings, but simply couldn't contain his anger at being forced to wait. Every day, he sent complaints to the viceroy's office along with requests to see the king of Meixigou.
In truth, Mendoza had no patience for Cui Hejing's antics. He was preoccuppied with making a choice he'd been given by Emperor Karl V of the Holy Roman Empire, who was also King Carlos I of Spain. Since the viceroy of Peru had been killed by rebels in 1546, Peru needed a new one, a position which had been offered to Mendoza. In fact, a week after Cui's arrival on the Pacific coast, a man from Spain arrived on the Atlantic coast with orders to take up whichever viceregal position Mendoza turned down.
There were plenty of other, more pressing matters on Mendoza's plate as well. The Chichimec War was still blazing, cutting into New Spain's potential silver output. The war was so expensive New Spain kept having to beg Madrid for money to pay for it. In addition, conquistadors were still pushing the frontiers ever northward and southward, Maya city-states on the Yucatan peninsula were giving them trouble, and there was the matter of the New Laws. When a conquistador conquered a new area, he effectively installed himself as feudal lord of that area. Madrid gave a stamp of approval to this practice by creating the encomienda system, which converted the indigenous population of the area into the conquistador's serfs. Madrid dislike the practice, however. Unlike China, Spain took an active role in colonial administration and was loathe to allow conquistadors to establish hereditary control of large swathes of the New World. Therefore, they'd introduced a series of laws in the 1540s in the hopes of curbing the power of the encomenderos. Enforcement of these laws in Peru led to the viceroy being killed. In New Spain, Antonio de Mendoza adopted a policy which he described thusly: “I obey, but I do not comply.” In other words, he applied the New Laws very carefully and very selectively, so as to avoid the fate of Peru's viceroy.
All in all, Cui Hejing had come at a bad time. Furthermore, he seems to have been profoundly confused by the situation. As discussed previously, 'Spain' was referred to by the Xinguans as 'Meixigou', or some variation thereof. This was taken from 'Mexica,' which was the Aztecs' name for themselves. Xinguans saw the Spaniards as being akin to a new dynasty ruling the same land that'd long been one of their prime sources of silver. The land was still Meixigou, and its people were still Meixigou People, regardless of who was ruling there. Thus, officials back in China were given the impression that 'Meixigou' was a kingdom existing in the New World presided over by a viceroy, whom they interpreted as the equivalent of a prime minister. Meixigou's king was, presumably, residing in Mexico City, or in a country house somewhere nearby. They had no concept of Meixigou's connection to Spain—not that they would've known what Spain was anyway. Despite an overwhelming air of superiority over all others, China has traditionally been a rather insular place that prefers to deal with its own matters and doesn't pay a lot of attention to things far from its own borders. Europe was very far away indeed, so China had little idea of the political geography of the continent. Europeans were likewise rather ignorant about Asia in the mid-16^th century.
Hence Cui Hejing's angst. He seems to have been under the impression that Mendoza was making up a story about a capital city (Madrid) on the other side of another ocean purely to snub to Cui. There was no reason in Cui's eyes why he shouldn't be allowed to see the king of Meixigou, and it was making him madder by the day. Mendoza wasn't helping things either. He was busy with other matters and anyway, he was pretty confident Karl V wasn't about to send tribute on demand to another emperor on the other side of the globe (Mendoza also doesn't seem to have caught the part where the Jiajing Emperor would reciprocate the tribute with a gift of his own—or perhaps he simply didn't care).
On August 29^th, Cui Hejing announced he wasn't going to wait any longer. He told his hosts that they'd be sorry they snubbed an envoy of the emperor, then he packed his bags, headed back to Acapulco, and set sail for Xinguo. Mendoza made no attempt to hinder his departure.
Upon his return to Xinguo, Cui Hejing considered what he'd done. Going back to China without accomplishing anything was out of the question. He didn't want to end up being banished to the western frontier like Lin Weishi and Peng Chao'an. That would end his career, or at best would be a long hiatus before he might be allowed to return. Therefore, Cui resolved to get at least half of his mission completed.
To that end, he met with Wei and Bai again and informed them about what'd happened in Acapulco. However, the fact of Meixigou's non-compliance didn't have to be a problem. Circumvention of Meixigou's ban on DSS merchants coming to Acapulco wouldn't be hard. All they needed was for NSS merchants to purchase twice as much silver as they needed and sell the excess to the DSS. That way, South Province could still get the silver it needed. Wei agreed readily, but he still wanted the Treasure Fleet to switch its destination to Ningbo. Bai took a day to mull it over before finally agreeing. There was one condition, however. Wei would purchase silver from the NSS merchants out of his own pocket and then sell it to Bai at cost. This would mean Bai wouldn't have to pay an exorbitant mark-up for the silver he needed to pay the tribute. Wei agreed. Once again, three sets of the agreement were written out and signed by both governors. It might as well have been a treaty between foreign nations.
Cui Hejing returned to China with the Treasure Fleet in July 1552, with the agreement between the two governors in hand. Although it wasn't strictly necessary for him to wait to return with the Fleet, he thought it best to present the emperor with news of his trip at the same time as he received full tribute from both provinces, including the back-tribute South Province owed from 1551 and '50. Yan Song was incensed at Cui Hejing's account of how he was treated in Mexico, as was the Jiajing Emperor when Yan relayed the story to him. They were also upset at Cui Hejing for his reckless initiative in coming up with a solution all on his own. That being said, the Jiajing Emperor was now getting what he wanted. Needless to say, tribute wasn't coming from Meixigou. However, Bai Guguan had agreed to stop sponsoring pirates, which put an end to the Third Silver War (1550 – 1552), and South Province was now able to meet its tribute obligations. This was... an acceptable outcome.
Far from the banishment he'd been fearing, Cui Hejing was rewarded with a position as permanent commissioner to Xinguo. A commissioner was a man who was given the power to represent the emperor in order to accomplish a specific mission. Typically, any such commission was temporary, but in Cui's case it was a permanent posting. He would travel to Xinguo every year to relay the emperor's will to the governors and collect their reports on happenings in the colonies before returning to China to hand these in to the emperor (or at least, to the senior grand secretary). True to his agreement with Wei Chengjia, Cui Hejing managed to convince Yan Song to divert the Treasure Fleet to Ningbo. It took some persuasion, but it wasn't too hard since Yan Song viewed Bai Guguan as an ally of his arch-rival Xu Jie ever since Lin Weishi's expedition.
[Next]

TL/DR...my carry-on is a duffle bag with backpack straps; it's 5 inches longer than specified on the WJ website. We're traveling from Atlanta to Vancouver for a cruise. Will they make me gate check my bag or should I be OK? It's obviously a soft bag and able to be compressed a bit.

For the first time since his incarceration, Bankman-Fried described his daily life in a detailed interview with journalist William D. Cohan of Puck:

On a recent Tuesday, I went to the Metropolitan Detention Center in Brooklyn for an intimate chat with America’s most famous prisoner, Sam Bankman-Fried. During our 75-minute conversation, we discussed everything from Caroline Ellison and the travails of his new life, to his regrets about the demise of FTX and his forthcoming appeal.
I got the distinct impression that Sam still doesn’t believe he committed any crimes, only that he was the one responsible for putting FTX in a position where it was vulnerable to a bank run and the devious actions of its competitors

WILLIAM D. COHAN -- May 9, 2024
On Tuesday afternoon, I found myself in the most unusual circumstances—sitting on a small plastic chair at a cramped table in the Metropolitan Detention Center, the federal prison on 29th Street in Sunset Park, in Deep Brooklyn. Outside, it was a gorgeous day, the sort of picturesque and slightly humid one that inevitably reminds longtime New Yorkers of the weather on the morning of September 11th. Inside the prison’s visiting room, however, there was no natural light, no sunshine, only the Hitchcockian buzz of fluorescent bulbs and three vending machines standing in a corner. Posters on the wall attempted to compensate for the bleak atmosphere by buoyantly welcoming visiting families.
I first met Sam Bankman-Fried in December 2021, during the height of his power and influence, when he was the richest person in the world under 30. My friend Anthony Scaramucci, a.k.a. The Mooch, had connected us. On a cold winter night at the One Hotel, on Sixth Avenue, I interviewed him for a documentary I am part of making about Bitcoin and its developer, Satoshi Nakamato. Sam showed up an hour late, in a black t-shirt and cargo shorts, apparently having just flown in via private jet from the Bahamas. A month later, Sam’s cryptocurrency exchange, FTX, would raise its final $400 million round of financing from a group of highfalutin investors—led by Softbank, Temasek, and Paradigm—at a valuation of $32 billion, making the company one of the most valuable in the sector. At that moment, Sam was said to be worth $26 billion.
This week, we reconnected amid very different circumstances. Sam and I arranged for this visit through his Corrlinks email account, at the suggestion of his mother, Barbara Fried, and the family’s prison advisor. We met on Tuesday around 1 p.m. because that was the only day that visiting hours are permitted at MDC, a hangover from the Covid era. Prisoners can have visitors for one of two sessions, either starting at noon or at five in the afternoon.
We were meeting later than noon because of the staffing shortage at the facility. I was allowed to bring in $1 or $5 bills, up to a total of $30, in case I wanted to buy Sam some water, soda, or snacks from the humming vending machines. I was told to put my $20 bill as well as my wallet and iPhone into a locker. Sam was not permitted to buy anything himself.
Following about an hour of bureaucratic snafus (I went to the wrong building at first, and I wasn’t wearing dark pants—although an exception was made for me) and other forms of prison processing (shoes and belt off, metal detection, sticking my hand in a scanner) I was finally allowed inside the prison, without a phone, a watch, a recording device, or even a pad of paper and a pencil. (I knew this in advance, of course, and set about preserving my recollections of our conversation immediately after leaving the facility.)
After a few minutes of waiting, I looked up to see Sam Bankman-Fried, over in the corner, dressed head to toe in a chocolate-brown prison jumpsuit, along with the still-wild frizzy hair that has been his trademark. These days, Sam looks considerably thinner than the last time we met—it appeared he’d lost 25 pounds, at least. But he looked better and fitter than I thought he would, to be honest—less pudgy, less manic, less fidgety, no bags under his eyes.
He was sustaining himself on rice and beans, he said, because the prison food was unsurprisingly inedible, especially the vegan entrées he was served, which his fellow inmates thought literally smelled like shit. He wasn’t complaining, mind you; he noted that he was just trying to make the best of a bad situation. The rice he buys at the prison commissary has become one of the currencies of the realm inside MDC. We joked briefly about how the arbitrage opportunities in jail were better than anything he experienced trading crypto at Jane Street Capital or buying and selling assets at Alameda. He looked me in the eye pretty much the whole time, something he rarely did with people in the old days.
After we shook hands, he sat down in his own plastic chair as a camera watched us from the ceiling. We were surrounded by a couple of other inmates, dressed similarly, facing their visitors. Sam declined my initial offer to buy him some snacks but ultimately agreed to a $4 bottle of water and a small $2 package of Wheat Thins, which he eagerly consumed.
We talked for the next 75 minutes or so, the first in-person interview he has given to a journalist since he was locked up in the MDC last August and then subsequently convicted of two counts of wire fraud, conspiracy to commit wire fraud, securities fraud, commodities fraud, and money-laundering at his federal trial in November. In March, he was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Our chat, under these rather drastic circumstances, was a profoundly jarring and fascinating experience.

Prison Diaries

Sam began by answering my question about his life in prison. According to him, he lives in an area of the jail that was dedicated mostly to incarcerated women, save for the 35 men with whom he shares a dormitory-style existence in a big open room—bunk beds, no privacy, extreme boredom, and four television sets tuned to ESPN, Telemundo, BET, and a news channel. Sam said he could try to persuade his fellow inmates to change up the channel selection, but television bores him, so he has no interest in that challenge. He prefers watching a small selection of movies or playing some inferior video games on a tablet, without an internet connection, that the prison provides him and other inmates.
When I told him he seemed better than I had anticipated, he replied that he’d become good at faking it. So, yes, life inside the MDC is not the Bahamas. But, truly, I had expected to see him coping less well. At the MDC, Sam has mostly been permitted his prescription medications, and the cocktail he’s been allowed has him thinking clearly, he said, and energized for the legal battle he plans to wage soon against the verdict.
In the meantime, he told me, he doesn’t fear for his safety. He can use the bathroom and shower a couple of times a week in peace. He’s always been a light sleeper, and he’s still not sleeping soundly at the MDC, but mostly because people sometimes bug him during the night about those bags of rice, which they intend to use to barter. He has not been touched or abused, and he seemed notably thankful for that.
He acknowledged that he has a unique rap sheet at MDC, and his fellow prisoners indeed recognize him. He estimated that about half of the other 35 men in his unit were murderers who had been turned into cooperating witnesses for the prosecution in exchange for not serving a life sentence. In prison, many inmates consider cooperating witnesses the lowest form of vermin, lower even than child molesters. Sam also told me that some of the other prisoners tried to get close to him, thinking they would benefit financially from the proximity to a former billionaire. He doesn’t play along, he said.
We didn’t talk about his trial strategy or whether he intentionally siphoned off the $8 billion of FTX customer funds into Alameda. Both topics seemed moot at this point. We did discuss his onetime girlfriend, Caroline Ellison, whom he selected to run Alameda after lawyers kept hounding him about the inherent conflicts in him running both FTX and the hedge fund. (He chose to run FTX.) He acknowledged that he had asked a few other people if they would be interested in the role, but they turned him down. Ellison, he said, was a good manager of people and a good administrator but didn’t like making big investments and didn’t like taking risks. (Obviously, this seems like a bizarre aversion for a hedge fund manager, but I didn’t belabor the point.) In any event, Alameda ended up doing both.
He regretted that he had not tried harder to find another executive. He also said he should have ignored the lawyers and just kept running both FTX and Alameda, conflicts be damned, sort of like how Elon Musk oversees his various companies. Wishing he had ignored his lawyers’ advice emerged as a theme of Sam’s during our visit.

Legal Therapy

We did talk a fair amount about his appeal and about how he believed he was set up to be the fall guy—the victim of the old build-’em-up-only-to-tear-’em-down narrative arc. His theory of the case was that by the fall of 2022, it was every man for himself on a boat that looked to be sinking. By early November 2022, FTX was facing a liquidity crunch. Sam first sought a deal with Binance, which quickly fell apart or was never truly real, and was in the process of trying to raise billions in capital when his lawyers advised him to turn the keys of FTX over to John J. Ray III, which he did. Ray quickly filed FTX for bankruptcy and installed Sullivan & Cromwell, the company’s outside counsel, as counsel to the debtor.
Sam became the target of federal prosecutors, he told me, soon after FTX’s outside counsel at Sullivan & Cromwell made a presentation to them, on November 9, 2022, a day or so before the bankruptcy filing, about what they believed Sam may have engineered between FTX and Alameda, which has been described as the theft of $8 billion of customer money. In a sworn declaration about that meeting, S&C attorney Andrew Dietderich said he reported to the D.O.J. only what Ryne Miller, FTX’s U.S. general counsel, told him about a problem of “reconciling digital assets with entitlements” on FTX’s U.S. exchange, and nothing about Sam and his alleged transgressions.
Sam told me that had he not been persuaded by Sullivan & Cromwell and then by his personal attorneys to relinquish his job as C.E.O. to Ray, the company would not have filed for bankruptcy, and it would still be a thriving enterprise, worth $80 billion now. In this alternate reality, he would be worth $40 billion and he certainly wouldn’t be at the MDC. (S&C declined to comment on Sam’s theory of the case. It’s also fair to reiterate here that Sam was sentenced to 25 years in prison after a jury convicted him of the crimes described above.)
I got the distinct impression that Sam still doesn’t believe he committed any crimes, only that he was the one responsible for putting FTX in a position where it was vulnerable to a bank run and the devious actions of its competitors, not unlike how both Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers failed in 2008. Why, Sam wondered, was he prosecuted when no one at either Bear or Lehman faced criminal prosecution? During our chat, Sam was contrite and certainly chastened, but not exactly apologetic: He was adamant about his innocence, aside from a few degrees of negligence—punishable, in his view, perhaps by civil consequences, not criminal penalties and a quarter-century sentence.
According to Sam’s theory, he isn’t in prison for commingling assets of FTX and Alameda. Instead, he’s an innocent guy who didn’t get a chance to negotiate a deal with the federal prosecutors, and wonders why he was even prosecuted at all for what he believes was a form of a bank run. Instead, they just presented him with his indictment and told him he could eat it— accept it and plead guilty and then get sentenced, or go to trial and try to fight it. Since there was no plea bargain on the table, he said, he fought the charges at trial, and lost. Unlike his fellow inmates, he told me, Sam speaks to his new attorney nearly every weekday for an hour or so, as the focus of his appeal comes into view. He expects to file it this fall. Yes, he will appeal, but most people think he faces long odds of success.
On the day of my visit, Sullivan & Cromwell, still counsel to the debtor-in-possession in FTX’s bankruptcy case, filed a first draft of a plan of reorganization that appears to give its customers and creditors all of their money back, plus a little more—a return of $15 billion on $12 billion of claims—in large part because of the investments Sam made through Alameda. The plan, which still has a long way to go before being confirmed, also gives Sullivan & Cromwell, along with other FTX advisors, “exculpation” from future lawsuits related to its conduct in the matter. This is not unusual in a plan of reorganization. But Sam has exhaustive thoughts on this subject, which I may explore with him in a follow-up conversation.

Go West, Young Man

I’m not sure how much longer Sam will be at the MDC, and neither is he. He has asked to remain in Brooklyn at least until the fall, when his appellate brief will be filed. But that’s not up to him, of course. If he gets moved, which could come at any moment without warning or explanation, I’m told, it would probably be to California, closer to Palo Alto, where he grew up, the son of two Stanford Law professors. At that point, the question will be whether he gets to spend his incarcerated years in a federal penitentiary, which are mostly nasty places filled with hardened criminals, or in more of a minimum security prison, as Mike Milken once did.
If he does get moved out of Brooklyn, his family and legal team worry, he could spend as long as four months on a bus, handcuffed to the seat, making his way, slowly, across the country. Such prison buses make frequent stops—picking up new prisoners, dropping off others—which explains why they take so long to reach their final destinations. There’s also a remote possibility that he could be placed on one of the many planes operated by the U.S. Marshals Service, a.k.a. “Con Air.” But he’s more likely to get the infamous “diesel therapy,” they fear. Either way, during this hypothetical cross-country journey, Sam would be completely incommunicado with both his family and his lawyers until he reaches his new home in California, deprived of the minimal access to the internet and email he now enjoys in Brooklyn.
Just as we were getting ready to discuss some knotty issues, such as his choices during his trial or the fact that many of the people who once worked for him had turned against him to save themselves, our visiting time was up. It was non-negotiable. We quickly shook hands again. Then Sam went back to his dormitory and I went back outside into a glorious spring afternoon.
Credits/Via: https://puck.news/exclusive-prison-chat-with-sam-bankman-fried/

I have often had frozen salmon filets shipped to my house. And I always forget to defrost them in time. It takes a good day in the fridge. I have tried cooking from frozen but don’t think texture is as good.
I am also a stickler for not defrosting things at room temperature. My engineering background tells me that at the boundary between the room temperature air and the frozen food there is a definitely a layer of food that is hanging out in the temperature danger zone. My wife studied microbiology and knows what can grow there.
So i decided to try defrosting sous vide style. I seal the fish in ziplock or vacuum bag, and put it in a water bath with ice that is 40° F (4° C). I use my Anova sous vide stick to keep the water circulating and let me keep an eye on the temperature.
The heat transfer is much more efficient and the fish defrosts in less than an hour. Nothing ever gets in the danger zone. Fish seems about as good or better than a slow defrost in the fridge.
Anyone see any problems with this method?