So today in my sport shot league we bowled in a 33ft pattern. Let’s just say it didn’t go to well for me ball was hooking way to much. And since I’m going to college for bowling I’m going to need to get better on short patterns. Should I get a urethane ball? Or any other advice.

From Huberman Labs podcast episode "Dr. Robert Sapolsky: Science of Stress, Testosterone & Free Will Episode 35 Huberman Lab" Ignoring the name, this discussion of women, estrogen, and menopause shows up partway through and its fantastic!
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Robert Sapolsky (34:56):
No, and it’s once again, very context dependent. And if estrogen after giving birth is playing a central role in you wanting to shred the face of somebody getting too close to your kittens kind of thing, we know it’s not just warm, fuzzy, empathic kind of stuff. Estrogen in lots of ways could be summarized by if you had a choice in the matter between having a lot of estrogen in your bloodstream or not, go for having a lot of estrogen.
(35:27):
It enhances cognition exactly as you said. It stimulates neurogenesis in the hippocampus. It increases glucose and oxygen delivery. It protects you from dementia. It decreases inflammatory oxidative damage to blood vessels, which is why it’s good for protecting from cardiovascular disease in contrast to testosterone, which is making every one of those things worse. This brings up this minefield of the question, which is, so what about post-menopausal estrogen?
(36:04):
And all sorts of lab studies with non-human primates suggested that you keep estrogen levels high after a monkey’s equivalent of menopause, and you’re going to keep brain health a lot better, decreasing the risk of dementia, stroke, every such thing. Estrogen is a great antioxidant, all of that. So in the 90s, I think, when Healy, I’m forgetting her name, but when there was the first female head of the NIH, Bernadette Healy, set up this massive prospective human study, what was going to be the biggest one of all times, looking at the pluses and minuses of post-menopausal estrogen.
(36:51):
And tens of thousands of women, and this was great, and they had to cut the study short because what they were seeing was estrogen was not only doing the normal bad stuff that you expect in terms of some decalcification stuff, but it was increasing the risk of cardiovascular disease, and it was increasing the risk of stroke, and it was increasing the risk of dementia, and this ground to a halt, and everybody, they stopped the study in front page news, and everybody had that point, and nobody could make sense of it who had been spending the last 20 years studying the exact same thing in primates and seeing all the protective effects. And the explanation turned out to be one of those things where, like law of unexpected consequences.
(37:42):
Okay, menopause in women, at last different lengths of time, that may be a factor, let’s get a… You know what? Let’s not start giving our study subjects more estrogen until they’re totally past menopause. And when you’ve got that lag time in between, you shift all sorts of estrogen receptor patterns, and that’s where all of the bad effects come from. All of the monkey studies had involved just maintaining ovulatory levels into the post-menopausal period. And you do that, and you get great effects. Estrogen is one of the greatest predictors of protection from Alzheimer’s disease, all of that, but it needs to be physiological.
(38:26):
Just keep going, keep continuing what your body has been doing for a long time, versus let the whole thing shut down, and suddenly try to fire up the coal stoves at the bottom of the basement, kind of thing, and get that going. There, you get utterly different outcomes. And that caused a lot of human health consequences when people suddenly decided that estrogen is in fact neurologically endangering post-menopausal [women]. . .
Andrew Huberman (38:55):
Wow, that’s fascinating. And I never thought that these steroid hormone receptors could, you know, by not binding estrogen, by not binding estrogen, being devoid of estrogen binding, I should say, could then set off opposite biochemical cascades. Fascinating. I guess it raises the question about testosterone replacement too, whether or not people should talk to their doctor before too long. Men and women, talk to your physicians before too long to avoid these, whatever is happening in these periods where there isn’t sufficient testosterone and or estrogen. Sounds like it could cause longer-term problems even when therapies are introduced.
Robert Sapolsky (39:36):
Two additional miseries slash complications. So, okay, you’re trying to understand, you look at women with a history with or without post-menopausal estrogen replacement, where it’s done right, and you’re seeing 20 years later, estrogen is a predictor of a decreased risk of Alzheimer’s. Then you got to start trying to do the unpacking prospective type studies. How much estrogen?
(40:04):
At which times? Estrogen is just a catch-all term for a bunch of hormones. Estrone, estradiol, estriol. How much of each one of them? Natural or synthetic? Go try to figure all of that out. And the second complication is, it’s often hard to say anything about what estrogen does outside the context of what progesterone is doing. And often it’s not the absolute levels of either, it’s the ratio of the two. This is such a more complicated endocrine system than testosterone.
(40:39):
And because you have to generate dramatic cyclicity that like no male hypothalamus ever has to dream of. It’s a much, much more complicated system. Thus, it’s more complicated to understand, let alone like figure out what the ideal benefits are of it.

The idea that humans in large numbers lack competency, and so therefore a conspiracy would be practically impossible completely misses the point. Actually, the fact that humans are insanely incompetent and low-information is why conspiracies are everywhere and almost never go noticed. In fact, people DO speak up often and whistleblow and NO ONE LISTENS.
Part of the issue here is epistemological. We think we know about the world. Why do we think that? First of all, human brains are built to conceive of about 150 people around them. Urbanization breaks our brains, and because we're not built for it, we consistently process our impression of society wrong.
School and media are huge and very simply blunt instruments to provide us with a better impression of the massive urban society around us. Most of what we think we know comes from here. Yes, it's true that false information can be contradicted and humans actually can be quite logical with plain, clear facts. However, we have other social instincts which prevent this from happening.
We humans mostly tend to intuitively perceive what kinds of beliefs others have and give massive weight to that while filtering possibly complex or confusing facts in our heads. While some of us and some cultures are much more sophisticated and cynical about media, there are TONS of demographics (i.e.: young women) who psychologically interpret literally anything the media presents as representative of the actual tastes and preferences of that abstract 150 people the brain is built to perceive. Simply because the media exists and promotes one point of view, it means that this must be the position of those in the tribe with power.
Experienced, educated professionals will constantly filter inconvenient information in favor of adjusting to what the group believes. Smarter, 110-130 IQ "midwits" will actually recognize something is wrong, but will rationalize the emotional inconvenience and build explanations or narratives so they can cope. <110IQ people can't construct these rationalizations, and if they're low-IQ enough they can't even understand them, so this is why dumb people often perceive conspiracies that highly intelligent people observe, because the layer of rationalization doesn't appear to them. >140 IQ literally cannot use these rationalizations because their brains see right through them and you have to be a psychopath to ignore what you see. 110-130 IQ people ACTUALLY BELIEVE these rationalizations, that's the point. They ego invest in them and will fight their own kin to squash anyone noticing malicious behavior systemic to institutions. This is partly because, these midwits as the supreme managerial class, so effectively rationalize, they can operate in corrupt environments without being aware of the corruption. Thus they are rewarded immensely, given titles or big salaries, and become personally invested in the fraud while also consciously believing there's no fraud.
As an adult who has noticed all this from experience in the military, ecclesiastical, academic, corporate (never medical sadly) sectors, these patterns seem universal. You know the store manager who has the keys to lock up? Well, when they open up to their buddies and drink a little of the merchandise and throw a little party or whatever, if corporate can't tell, then why wouldn't they? Not everyone who has power will abuse it, but anywhere power is held, someone will abuse it. Abuse of power is a very casual thing, and at a minimum, some percentage of human personality types will always do it. The go-getters and doers especially trend toward a willingness to abuse power, and that's part of the problem. Other humans have specific instincts to submit to the powerful and almost take pleasure when they are on the good side of a psychopath who is abusing a third party.
Here you might say, "Gee, you have a cynical view of humanity." Sorry, the day a college kid can stand up and assert a point of view that's not social consensus, and have even 10% of the class change their minds and support him merely from considering the argument, then maybe I'll be more optimistic. No, people are cowards who are constantly trying to fit in, mostly most people are pretty dumb, and actually most people disdain those who refuse to fit in and don't care at all about the group's corruption. See, kids who are instinctively socially breaking from their parents will oppose the society of their parents. But kids will never oppose, not ever, not at scale, the social momentum of other kids unless there are other kids of clear divisions like racial or religious.
Therefore, I would propose that not only is society full of conspiracies at every level, but actually society functions on the basis of conspiracy. Small group loyalties and hierarchies form nodes around which institutional structure can build larger organizations. I was in the military which is full of formal authority, laws and rules. The reality of it is all that was a distraction to make people put up with a system that is more about little cliques among officers and so forth that sort everything out behind closed doors. Sure, norms, laws, rules, training smooth things out, allow interchangeability, but real decisions are made selfishly by some leader and they have quidproquo with colleagues and that bubbles up to the top. So whatever stupid beliefs they have about their organization or its values, they take with them to the top where someone like a general wields real power. Yet, such a person is sort of "endowed" with that position by his clique-community, and so they must fight for that community's values in the confines of that community's worldview, which might be totally inaccurate.
With this in mind, here is your final graduation thought experiment.
I've tried to understand the Ukraine war.
Right now Russia is playing on its former Soviet era diplomatic network so it's leaning into "white neocolonialists who think they have superior values exploit brown people because of theft and racism." But they're also simultaneously playing the newer, libertarian narrative of a progressive managerial elite which has hijacked the Western bureaucracy. It's sort of insane how they do this. Like how they exalt Orthodox religion but also insist Stalin did nothing wrong, which not even the post-Stalin USSR believed.
The anti-neocolonialist narrative says that rich whites want to steal resources from poor browns. This is factually what's happening, but the tragic irony is that many third world countries probably couldn't develop or benefit from these resources without first world help. So, there's both an argument against neo-colonialism, but also an argument that it's not like this big scam so much as a natural consequence. What it boils down to for me is where war, jackal economics or espionage is used. That's clearly wrong, and I think a lot of poor countries would be doing a lot better without these interventions, although I don't think they'd be rich and developed.
Well, the West actually is anti-neocolonialist too. Globalists want smart cities, AI economy, UBI, CBDC. They want rural white Americans to be the same level of poor as rural Africans, and for the gains of exploiting natural resources to be concentrated among a global elite, which although unfair, is not exclusive to borders. The geopolitical unfairness of neocolonialism will be addressed by Globalism. And its elite will be very small compared to the global proletariat they intend to have.
This is all very ironic since the globalist machine is playing the Euro-chauvinism card to appeal to Euro elites, and also the American exceptionalism card to appeal to American nationalists. They're playing whatever cards they have, like Russia.
So this is all I know: the West is lying to some of its lesser elites by paying lip service to their values. Russia is playing its old USSR geopolitics card while also playing a trad Orthodox card, while also playing an anti-globalist card.
I KNOW that the West is globalist, the leadership that is. So NATO must lose, because the globalists will certainly win if NATO wins. However, I fear the other side might also be globalists and the whole conflict is an anti-white, anti-Western charade meant to displace the old Euro elites and American nationalists.
That's the irony. Globalists control the West, but have to constantly deal with these older elite factions, so they could be using the war as a purge in a way.
It's hard to explain why the globalist-American leadership needed this conflict so bad. Probably it's all a shitshow gone wrong. This is where my explanation of how conspiracies function comes into play.
Neocons thought the would reinvigorate interest in the military but it hasn't. Like a new patriotism and interest in military power and funding.
Ukrainian Jews might have thought they could purge the Slavs and make a second Jewish homeland but that's probably off the table due to the failed counter offensive.
Russia's hopes of exercising their historical and cultural hegemony to settle the conflict have failed, when Ukrainian deep state operatives assured them they were still on the same old team.
Stupid nationalists who are somehow blind to the globalists and think the American economy is "doing great" probably thought this could be a knockout blow to Russia's meddling in certain geostrategic resource deals that affected American hegemony over Europe. This is a legacy of the British "can't let Europe become a world power" prerogative. The kind of dumb monkey legacy deep state geopolitical prerogatives that these idiots cling to while ignoring the other players around them.
So there are members of the British and American diplomatic-military-intelligence communities who are seemingly oblivious to what globalism is, or the imminent collapse of the Anglo-American financial hegemony. They actually believe the financial journalism. They are playing out a specific strategy from their class or clique or culture's history which is about keeping Europe down. So they are acting from that vantage and are acting as a conspiracy.
There are Euro elites acting from the vantage of actual vestigial colonialist attitudes where they actually think that Europe of all places is a bastion of Western values. While this class is completely morally degenerate, what they really mean is there is a class of elites in Europe that actually thinks the whole world outside of white Europe are actually just dumb monkeys. Not metaphorical. They are committed to all this, as a conspiracy that exercises influence as a conspiracy, because of this idiotic, low-information attitude.
Then there's the globalists who have all kinds of plans, and have even got Russia and China and India to adopt some of their financial technologies in preparation for their Great Reset. And this is done because of their massive influence over global business. As a conspiracy. And yet, while massively influential, they don't outright control Russia or China and their plants are constantly falling short. I'd say the globalists are trying to act as a conventional "illuminati" style conspiracy.
But the point is what I said in the beginning. Even these powerful, highly competent cliques have huge blind spots and huge power gaps because humans are in fact highly incompetent in large numbers.
I get a clique trying very hard to influence things and just falling short of being able to do it, but what boggles my mind is that a lot of these conspiracies who KNOW they are conspiracies who KNOW the world is a stage for the common sheep and KNOW the basic nature of deep state and intelligence games that are played. Even these people will not see past their own biases or egos, and fail to see lies in front of their own faces.
Because conspiracy is natural to humans. We do it naturally, so we engage in illicit collusion and cliquishness, but we don't necessarily see or realize where it's happening outside of our brain's 150 person social perception. Which to me is the oddest thing.

To get this up early, I’m splitting the two days of round 2. Here’s Wednesday’s ATP. The WTA Wednesday matches will go up around 12:30AM EST.

Rublev vs Martinez :

For a good chunk of his career, Rublev has made quick work of matches like this. When he’s the bigger hitter and his opponent doesn’t have a huge serve, he’s supposed to thrive. Lately though, Andrey hasn’t been automatic in these spots. He’s always had a temper, but it’s been on display following his errors lately and it has given his opponents belief. Taro Daniel won a set, and Martinez is at least as good as him. 5 sets with Tirante doesn’t indicate he’s ready to upset Rublev, but I would expect the bulk of this to be fairly competitive. Rublev in 4.

Muller vs Arnadli :

Muller scored a comfortable victory against Luca Nardi in the opening round, and he will continue to battle the Italian federation in round two against Matteo Arnaldi. Arnaldi had a fairly easy time with Arthur Fils, despite getting broken 6 times. Fils is a solid player with all the attributes to be a top player on clay, but he has no patience. He’s extremely willing to go for broke from any position, and when the rally stretches long he tries to hit the big shot as soon as it appears. As a fan, I want to see big shots, but to win on clay you need to play a more conservative approach. Arnaldi is way more stable from the baseline than Fils, but bailing out of rallies early isn’t the right plan because it means Arnaldi doesn’t really feel like he has to do anything special to win.
Muller will hang in rallies longer and is a good bit better than Fils on clay, but he doesn’t have this level of win on his resume yet. Arnaldi’s register is very high and I mostly only see him losing to players who hit bigger. I expect him to have to work harder and longer than he did against Fils, but this should go to Arnaldi in 3-4.

Sonego vs Zhang :

Immense power. A huge forehand. Inconsistent results. A cannon of a serve but a slightly subpar backhand. Which player am I describing? This is a matchup that is very close. Humbert fell apart against Koepfer last week in Lyon and his slump continued, allowing Sonego to get a much-needed win. Zhang had a great draw and took advantage of it, besting Vukic in 4. The big difference I see in these two players is the speed. Sonego is a bit quicker around the court and that might allow him to win a few extra points. Given they both have the ability to protect their service games I would expect a tiebreaker or two, and at least 4 sets. I’m a big Zhang fan but he hasn’t been as good on clay as he was in the Challenger grind, so Sonego in 4-5.

Altmaier vs Tsitsipas :

Tsitsipas was clinical in beating Fucsovics in round one. He’s back with Badosa, he’s a dark horse to win this event, and he’s playing great tennis. Having that focus is big for a player who’s struggled for confidence, and Altmaier is a player he can probably beat. Daniel has always been capable on clay, and he has some amazing clashes with big name players like Sinner in the past, but lately I haven’t loved his level. Beating an inactive Djere was honestly good, but I think Tsitsipas is fresh and will be hitting the ball bigger the entire match here. Altmaier moves the ball well but he will very likely get worn down as this progresses. Tsitsipas in 4.

Shelton vs Nishikori :

Nishikori pulling up and beating one of the better qualifiers was impressive, but I guess if we’re being honest Diallo isn’t automatic yet. He has a bright future, but big hitters can often be undone by a slick defender and Nishikori has all the experience in the world. I think this will be fun because Shelton is a lefty. Attacking Nishikori’s backhand will get him punished up the line and cross-court, because Kei has one of the best backhands the tour has ever seen. The downside is Kei just played a five setter so he might be a bit tired, and he’s not serving well enough to score easy points. Shelton’s team hopefully has told him to take his forehand inside out and down the line as often as possible. Shelton in 4.

Auger-Alliassime vs Squire :

Gutsy performance in round one from Squire. Even in the fifth set tiebreak he was still hitting his backhand down the line for effect, and while he double faulted in a few crucial moments he served effectively the entire match. I’m not sure how his game will fare against Felix. FAA is inconsistent but he’s had a good month and he does everything a little bigger than Squire here. Felix in 3-4.

Korda vs Kwon :

Korda winning in straight sets is honestly surprising the way it feels like his season is going. Checking his history though he’s been winning his fair share of matches, it’s just watching his losses that makes me feel he’s struggling. More surprising is Kwon winning in straights. Ruusuvuori continues to struggle on clay and Kwon returning from a layoff to black him is a great result for him. His insistence on pushing the pace and hitting to the open court will bother Korda a bit, but he’s a bit out of his weight class here. Korda’s serving is good enough to get him through here, but Kwon winning in straights means expecting him to just lose in straights is pretty unreasonable. Korda in 4-5. The problem here is Korda is supposed to win this in straights, but Kwon is supposed to lose round one so he’s at a level beyond what we’re estimating him at when we say Korda in 3.

De Jong vs Alcaraz :

Jesper De Jong won the best match of his career in round one, getting past Jack Draper and setting up a matchup against the current tournament favorite. It almost has to be the end of the road, but De Jong will give us our first look at how Alcaraz is playing. Carlos was immaculate in round one, losing only 4 games, but Wolf is just not good on clay, and is having one of his worst runs ever on tour. Alcaraz in 3 is likely again because De Jong doesn’t have the hugest serve, but this will be much more competitive than the Wolf match. Alcaraz in 3-4.

Hurkacz vs Nakashima :

Considering Mochizuki took Hurkacz to 5, Nakashima has to like his chances here. Mochigoat is one of the fun players to watch on tour and his volleys at net are unreal, but Hurkacz is supposed to win that match in a safe manner. Now he’s playing Nakashima who won against Moreno De Alboran in a solid performance, and has been grinding clay events the entire year, using them almost exclusively to earn his way back into the top 100. Hurkacz won’t necessarily struggle as much in this one; it’s fairly common on tour for players to squeak through a strugglebus performance and feel like they’re freerolling in the next round. You already should have been out, so you play with no pressure and your best tennis comes out.
Hubert’s serve can get him to the finish line against pretty much anyone as well, so Nakashima will have to lock in and try to wear Hurkacz down. It may sound silly, but Isner used to struggle more against the guys that couldn’t ace him. Putting the serve return in is great, but if the other player is a solid baseliner, it means you’re playing 6-8 shot rallies over and over. This can take the legs away from a big server, and Nakashima fits this bill. While I’m bullish on Nakashima here, I think it’s more likely that this will be close enough that anyone can win, and whoever plays the big points better will. A server like Hurkacz in tiebreakers is pretty efficient, and playing a servebot in a 5th is a really tough ask if they’re serving first. Honestly, I saw this match in the draw and thought Nakashima was 50/50, so I’m sticking with it. Nakashima in 5.

Shapovalov vs Tiafoe :

Shapovalov is winning tennis matches again. It’s great to see, but he’s in Dimitrov territory for me. Sure he’s winning, but I’m not going near it because I don’t want to get hurt again. His opponent this round is a player whose range of play goes from “does he even play tennis anymore?” to “omg he’s going to win the US Open” Bellucci almost had Tiafoe, and a few big returns for Tiafoe ended up being the key in the end. Tiafoe will probably be competitive here, and playing a lefty the round before means his backhand got a good workout and he’ll be comfortable with the generic patterns that a lefty will bring. Shapovalov hits bigger than Tiafoe regularly, and it will take a big step up in effort/consistency from Tiafoe to win this. Given his serving ability and the underlying ability to play top level tennis, being sure Tiafoe will lose here doesn’t make sense. I’m expecting a match where both players will be pretty frustrated at times, and I think the one who’s more willing to lock in and play stingy defensive tennis will win. For once, that seems to be Shapo. Shapovalov in 4-5.

Bergs vs Marterer :

There were some wild first round results, but Tabilo losing quickly to Zizou Bergs was one of the biggest. Not only does he get a huge result, but he’s a favorite to win his second round also. Marterer has gotten a lot of respect and fallen short on tour for a few seasons, but he made good on the respect and beat Thompson in 3. Marterer is a powerful lefty who crushes the ball, and the one problem with his game is he sort of plays at one speed. Hitting big is great but he sometimes plays his opponents into form by showing them the same pace over and over. Shapovalov had a similar problem during his slump as well. Marterer shouldn’t be counted out of this match at all, but Bergs is much quicker around the court and I think Maximilian’s backhand will get worn down eventually. Bergs in 4.

Maroszan vs Dimitrov :

I’ll take tickets to this match. Both are through in straight sets, and both hit extremely clean and play skilled tennis. Maroszan can win this match, but I think Dimitrov’s ability to defend will eventually get him through. Maroszan’s power and forehand are good enough to hit some winners, but he also scores a lot off of dropshots. I think it’s still a viable option, but Dimitrov’s speed will make it a risky option. Expecting a high level clash here and when both players are extremely skilled sets usually get traded. Dimitrov in 4 is what I suspect, but since it’s his defense I expect to get him across the finish line this could easily go 5. Maroszan is really good, and it’s just fitness and decision-making that are left for him to work on.

Moutet vs Shevchenko :

Moutet’s coach got a bit spicy before the Jarry match, allegedly mad about fans’ behavior in the Moutet Jarry clash in Chile. It seemed to work, as Moutet played some of the best tennis he ever has and beat Jarry in 4 exhilarating sets. That same level should win this contest, but a slightly different style of opponent can complicate things. Shevchenko is a plucky baseliner and he will make Moutet earn all his points. He managed to outlast Karatsev in round one in a 5 set clash that had a million changes in momentum and 21 breaks. Moutet’s level was higher, but besting another offense is sometimes a simpler task. Shevchenko is going to put the ball in annoying spots and try to outlast Moutet, so this is a mental test. I think Moutet is up for it, but I could see it taking some time to happen. Moutet in 4.

Ofner vs Baez :

Gustavo Heide should be on everyone’s radar now. He hits the ball huge and clean, and has one of the better serves from the young crop of talents on tour. Honestly, when I first saw him 2 years ago I think he was a servebot and an old guy, and now his baseline game has developed in a major way and somehow he’s 22. Stay still Gustavo! Baez had this mostly wrapped up and Heide was tired, and then he won 2 lopsided sets in a row. I was expecting Baez to go on a run here, and he played Ruud close in Geneva so this is a good reprieve for him (playing Ofner). Ofner beat Atmane in 5 and he has the power to compete with Baez, but not the consistency. The 5 setter with Heide was surprising, but I’m willing to chalk it up to Heide’s high level rather than Baez being a flight risk. Baez in 4.

Kotov vs Wawrinka :

Hehe. Kinda fair for these two to play each other. If there were any two players to look both ways during a changeover and then sneak a cupcake out of their bag and scarf it, it’s these two offensive wizards. Kotov managed to outlast Norrie which is honestly a tremendous win, and Wawrinka continued his clay dominance against Murray in a straight set win. Kotov is a little better and has more stamina at this point, but Wawrinka is serving well and I expect him to win at least 1 of the first two sets.
Wawrinka has been losing to a lot of players right around Kotov’s level recently (Martinez in 2, ARV in 3, Borges in 3) so it’s tempting but tricky to declare him a winner. Tennis-wise, my brain won’t let me see Kotov winning. Pavel serves well and hits big, and for a guy who appears out of shape he wins a lot of marathon matches and has good power late in the game. 5 sets with Norrie isn’t going to help him here, and if Wawrinka can get up 2-0 or 2-1 it could easily be goodnight just because he can then open up. Norrie is a tough out, but on clay his shots don’t really clear the court. Wawrinka is almost a clay specialist at this point in his career, and he serves a lot bigger than Cam also.
This is wide open, and if I could skip a match, it’d be this one. Wawrinka in 4 or Kotov in 5. Stan needs to win quickly, but his recent results don’t make it realistic. You can point to him smoking Murray, but Murray is really a gimme these days on clay.

Gasquet vs Sinner :

Jannik Sinner has filled the void that the gradual departure of the big 3 is creating. He was always a tremendous player, but now he’s become extremely reliable at that level. His returning is world class, his serve is constantly improving, and his baseline game is now measured and tactical rather than an all-out assault. He knows when to just put the ball in play, and his footwork is constant. I love it. Gasquet turned back the clock and smoked Coric in straight sets, but the road probably ends here. This will be a high-level match and the crowd will be behind Gasquet in a major way. Jannik is a classy kid and will understand the atmosphere and respect it enough to navigate to the finish line. Sinner in 3-4.

I'm a two handed bowler that started a year ago, my average is about 175. I currently have a couple of balls but need some advice on what to get next.
Phaze 2 - symmetric benchmark 3D offset high rev - assymetric benchmark Hot cell - strong urethane Desert tank - niche short oil ball Generic spareball
I enjoy playing a bit straighter even if I'm two handed so I usually stand on 20-25 playing out to 15 or 10 depending on pattern. What would you recommend I add to my arsenal?
Edit: We usually don't bowl on anything longer than 43 feet.

A pattern to make a western vest and cowboy hat for a small dog

Unfortunately it seems likely that the non-Muslims who comment on the Gaza war don't understand Islam, and that the Muslim commentators don't admit that they have a bias, meanwhile Islam in fact plays a role in the Gaza war. A relevant summary:
Muhammad started his own religion when he was forty and immediately came into conflict with the other religious people of his community, mostly polytheists and Jews. Muhammad became a war general and spent the next ten years of his life trying to kill off the other religions around him. He succeeded.
During this time, every day he in essence gave war pep-talks to his troops. As most of their fighting was against Jews, most of the war pep-talks were against Jews. His followers wrote down everything he said every day, mostly in the form of scraps of paper containing short segments. When he died, his followers swept these scraps of paper together to make first the Quran, then the Hadith, as there were thousands of these scraps of paper.
The entirety of the Islamic literature reads, therefore, like a slow, hypnotic rant against Jews, and also against Christians, against polytheists, against other now obscure and defeated religions, and against all non-Muslim "disbelievers" in general.
Mostly though, it focuses on Jews. The first two main chapters of the Quran in fact are about Jews: chapter 2 "The Cow", criticizing the Jews for once worshipping a golden calf, and chapter 3 "The Family of Imran (Moses)", meaning all of the Jews. There's not much difference between any of the Quran or Hadith chapters though; they all continue along mostly in the same way as the first two and are titled variously by the scant amounts of other concepts sometimes explored in the chapters. Mostly it's all a slow, hypnotic rant against all Jews and other non-believers.
If you don't believe any of this, check it for a first time. You'll be shocked. Islam is an inherently discriminatory religion toward Jews, and that's really the basis of the aggression that comes out of Gaza and other places toward them.
Most revelatory of all in this regard is the fact (if you check your history books) that the Ottoman Empire participated in attacking Britain and the allies in World War 1, and Britain won over them, obtaining what is today the Gaza, Israel, and West Bank areas. There was never any Jewish theft. Britain wanted to let the Jews move into that land afterward, and it was their choice to do so, as it was the Brits' land.
The Jews were met with immediate violence from the Muslims, whose religion tells them to attack Jews. It got worse. Sick of the violence, the Jews declared independence for their territory and formed a state. This was fair and appropriate. Immediately, large groups of Muslims combined armies to try to massacre the Jews. They were repelled.
It never stopped. The Muslims tried to combine armies and massacre the Jews again, in '67. They were repelled that time too.
Then in 2007 Gaza started the Gaza War against the Jews, and have fought it every day since, including today. They've been rocketing Israel constantly since 2007; October 7th was just a sort of culmination.
By the way, declaring independence and forming a state was the pattern set for and by every other territorial area that was formed out of the Ottoman Empire- resulting in every Middle Eastern state you see today- Israel did nothing different, and did not need a reason to do it- Gaza and the West Bank have always had the same ability, but have torn themselves apart fighting each other instead, while the world continues to wait on them. Also, they need to not form a government that declares war against Israel as part of its foundation. That’s the other reason they haven’t formed any real states yet. No one would stop them from doing so if they did it without any war declarations. The concept that anyone else in the world would somehow be able to give them a state is bogus.
The real problem will be solved when the world has a conversation with Islam, telling them to give up the part about cursing non-believers: approximately half the content of the Islamic religion. Then the Gazans can live non-aggressively with Jews next to them. So as well with the West Bank, Jordan/Iraq/Syria/Libya/Yemen/Iran, the twenty-or-so other nations that don't accept Israeli passports, etcetera.
Before any moderators, members of this site, or non-members of this site, try to get me banned or give me -100 karma points, insisting that I’m biased or that I’ve made this up: I challenge you to read or watch any summary of the life of Muhammad and the first ten years of Islam, then to read the first hundred pages of any English translation of the Quran, then to read the sub-chapter “Fighting Jews” of the chapter “Jihad” of the Al-Bukhari hadith book, then to read Gaza’s government charter “The Hamas Covenant”. If you put in a few minutes a day it’ll take you about two weeks. Don’t complain about me asking you to do this much research; it’s not much and it’s a bare minimum I can think of for you to check my work. Then you’re going to ask the same question I asked, “Why haven’t I heard of this from anyone or any side reporting on the Gaza war?” I believe the answer is several-fold: one is that there is simply a shocking lack of bothering to do much research by even those most vocal about the conflict. Two is that those who know about this know that no outsider asked for support of Gaza would sympathize with them if they knew about this. Three is that this stuff is outrageous, and no one wants to be the deliverer of that outrage, or get accused themselves of making this up. Four (and you’ll have to read to understand this) is that the believers are told in general to not trust disbelievers, which would include not telling them the truth. If you believed someone else was going to Hell, but that they didn’t know about it, would you tell them? They’re not gonna like hearing it; why tell them? Count the number of times Muhammad says all Jews and disbelievers are going to Hell in the Quran. You’ll lose count by about page 25 and it just keeps going like that.
All the resources mentioned are easily available online for free in pdf form or otherwise; just do a search for each, and youtube has lots of good videos on Muhammad’s life. I also highly recommend you watch overhead-battle-analysis-style videos (like Kings & Generals channel & similar) to review every single early battle of Islam, in order. You may also want to watch some on the first few battles of Abu Bakr also, the guy who picked up Muhammad’s war banner after him and carried on the violent conquest of the entire Arabian Peninsula, eradicating one by one what used to be a diverse array of now-extinct local religions. You could check out a copy of the Quran translated or order one, which I also recommend. I have Pickthall’s translation as a hard copy and I recommend it; I also used three different online Qurans and three different online Al-Bukhari hadiths (I wanted to make sure I wasn’t making any mistake by reading some bad translation; turned out nope they all read like that).
And before anyone says, well, that kind of stuff is said in the Bible too… First of all, find it; second of all, if it says that kind of stuff even a handful of times in the Bible, that’s different from Islam’s thousand times saying it, over and over again- it’s really a different sort of book.
I want to say last that the Muslims aren’t “like this”; rather, they’re told to be like this, by a high-pressure, demanding religion. They’re also told I’m sure, as for Gaza, by their friends, parents, neighbors, grandparents, local TV stations, and government, what is truly an altered version of history, wherein the Jews “stole” Palestine. They’re taught to distrust anything that the West says against that, because they’re taught to distrust disbelievers- of course the disbelievers would lie about this stuff- “hasbara”. The Jews “stole” Palestine, so, they’re “occupiers”. They don’t want to sound racist because they know discrimination is not tolerated in the disbelievers’ world, so they say “Zionists”, in place of “Jews”. Underneath it, they’re not saying much to the outside world- just enough and in just the right ways to sound presumably appropriate and reasonable, legitimate. It’s like a big game to try to get what they want (Jews expelled or killed), or, as discussed above, it's that they unfortunately don't know any better cause they've been lied to themselves. To the extent that anyone knows this stuff though and hasn't mentioned it, I would feel that we’ve been lied to and played for fools, and it makes me want to say screw the Squad, Sanders, and the campus protests... all right here on American soil!!!! I trust the vast majority of Muslims are not like this. I think they are too afraid though to voice any opposition to any of the Muslims who are hardcore about this stuff, of which Gaza and the West Bank have become the best examples- I told you to read the Hamas Covenant so I’ll trust you’ll do it; meanwhile I’ll add that the guy who ran the West Bank, Abbas, wrote his own dissertation as a youth on his conspiracy theory that the Jews “did the Holocaust to themselves, to create false international sympathy and a pretext for stealing Israel”, and he has continued to educate the West Bank’s people with this line of reasoning, making “Nakba day” into a sort of mockery of anyone else’s Holocaust remembrances. Meanwhile Iran continues determined to one day lead the eradication.
If you care about caring, do the right thing- help educate others on what’s really going on in Gaza. It’s bigger than the past few months, it’s bigger than October 7^th, it’s even bigger than tens of thousands of casualties, and if we don’t do the right thing (demand and converse about how disbelievers have rights too), one day far in the future that total may be millions or billions. The time is now to resolve this between all of us, with words. Learn about and then be vocal about the unfairness of Islam. Demand rights. Have conversations.
To add to this goal, I offer the following:
I make this contract with Islam, whether they agree or not:
Disbelievers’ Bill of Rights:

1. The disbelievers have rights too.
2. The disbelievers have wonderful and diverse cultures of their own, that are not to be eradicated; Earth is good when its cultures are diverse and not homogenized.
3. The disbelievers are not going to Hell for disbelieving Islam.
4. The believers are not going to Paradise for eradicating the disbelievers.
5. There will be no “final day” where all the Jews are killed.
6. Jesus will not show up on the final day to personally kill all the Jews (Islamic eschatology).
7. Disbelievers have the right to not be discriminated against or degraded by the believers. Any disbelievers neighboring believers are not to have rocks thrown at them, suicide attacks launched at them, rockets launched at them, rifles or pistols fired at them, etcetera.
8. Disbelievers have the right to not tolerate any literature that discriminates against them or is derogatory or degrading toward them, or that advocates any sort of violence against them, or that proscribes any mistreatment of them.

Furthermore, I liberate all Muslims, with the following lines:
You don’t have to surrender to Islam, completely, if any of it seems wrong to you. For that matter, you can pick any religion, you can pick no religion, you can make up your own religion, you can institute your own renewal of Islam and start a new chapter on it; you can do anything you want on this planet, and no lightning bolt will strike you from anyone’s god. If the afterlife is real, then you’re going to it whether you believe in it or whether you disbelieve in it. If there’s Heaven and Hell, you’re going to Heaven for being a good person, Hell for being a bad person.
Also, Muhammad may have said that his teachings were “a Book”. However, Muhammad did not give any specifics instructions to make any book exactly in the fashion in which the Quran and Hadith and others (Kitube of Shia, Wahhabiism’s books, Salafist works etcetera) were made, and, I believe that Muhammad would have seen the error in making them in those exact ways- this would cause problems later- the format is too heavy on the disbelievers- it will someday make for a problematic relationship between different faiths- you should feel free to rearrange any and all verses, excluding as many as you like, reinterpreting any you like, to make any new Book that makes more sense for use as an every-day, all-time religious book: one that focuses on “the good stuff” and not the bad. Muhammad needed to rally an army every day. We don’t need that in our daily lives now that we’re all trying to put war away. This is the 21^st century. Nine nations use nukes, and two of them are Muslim (Pakistan, Kazakhstan). We need to right now make decisions that will put away all war inclinations between us forever. If you don’t like my way of doing it, come up with something better and suggest it. I say we can do it by having a conversation where disbelievers stick up for themselves and believers listen.
And, I suggest this interpretation: perhaps Allah wanted to include a sort of test, within Islam, to separate hypocrites from believers- Allah included a bunch of stuff telling you that disbelievers are bad and to attack them. Maybe it’s to see who rejects that, to send them to Paradise, and to see who decides to act on it, to send them to Hell.
There is plenty of evidence that this is true in Gaza right now. Why would Allah punish them unless they were bad? They have relentlessly attacked Israel for years. Maybe this is Allah’s punishment.
Also, you are free to associate with disbelievers, at any time and place, whatever they’re saying at the time. You can date and intermarry with disbelievers if you like. Try not calling them disbelievers and you’ll have luck.
I also state that I am a learned scholar (college degree earned, floor-to-ceiling stacks of nonfiction books read, research published) and I am authorized to make fatwa (judgments) and to issue tafsir (commentary/interpretations on holy works).
As a warning to angry-comment-posters: you may find that I can back up with references and examples every point I’ve made! Watch out!
That being said, am I wrong about anything? Please tell me if I have anything wrong; I can only do so much research and then sweep it all together off the top of my head. Let me know. I’ll apologize if I get something wrong and perhaps adjust my thesis.

Looking for a pattern for a western vest and cowboy hat for a small dog

‼️🚨‼️🚨‼️🚨EXPLANATION OF WHAT WE ARE TRYING TO DO HERE, THIS IS DUMBED DOWN TO EASY TERMS FOR EVERYONE EVEN PEOPLE WHO ARNT INTO STOCKS AND ARE HERE FOR FUN CAN UNDERSTAND TAKE 5 MINUTES THIS WEEKEND AND TRULY UNDERSTAND ALL OF THIS INFORMATION ‼️🚨‼️🚨‼️🚨 CREDIT: BIG BRAIN APE MAXIMUM PURPOSE
Please read this I copied and paste it from a super smart ape!!!!
Please read this I copied and paste it from a super smart ape!!!!
Alright lets get into it.
But before we do, I need to explain exactly what it means for a company to be "shorted" and as a response, be "short squeezed"
Ill explain in monkey speak first:
Imagine a store has a supply of 100 bananas for sale at 1.00 per banana.
Now, a certain animal (lets call this animal a bear) thinks that the cost per banana will drop from 1.00 dollar to 0.50 cents. They go to the store and they borrow 50 bananas promising to return them. The bear, now in debt to the store, sells those bananas at 1.00 each and collects 50 dollars. Then, the market price for a banana drops to 0.50, they go and buy back the 50 bananas (now at 0.50 cents) paying 25 dollars, then return them back to the person they bought them from. This relieves the bears from their debts and they pocket 25 dollars in the process.
This is the process of shorting a company. They will "Borrow" or "Short" a companies shares when they think it will drop. They sell those shares. The market price drops. Then they buy them back at a low price. Then return them to who they borrowed from and make some serious money.
Typically, this is done to companies who are not looking like they will have very much growth (i.e., GameStop in an increasingly electronic world. Or FFIE in a world where Chinese electric cars are being restricted from sales in the USA for foreign policy reasons.)
Now, a short squeeze happens when another animal (lets say a bull (or maybe an ape would actually be better)) decides that they don't really want the price of bananas to drop because they really really really really like bananas. So the ape goes to the store and buys all the available bananas as well as buying them from the bears. Now, since there's no more available, and bananas are in demand, the price rises up to 1.50, instead of dropping.
Now, the bears are in a dilemma. They need to return the bananas to the person they bought them from. If they don't, the person they borrowed from is going to start charging them late fees for every day that they don't return the bananas.
As you can imagine, the bears would be SUPER angry about this, and fight the apes tooth and nail to try to get them to sell. They will tell everyone (via the media) that the apes are bad. They will publish false information about the cost of bananas. They will try to borrow bananas from other people to make it seem like bananas arent worth anything.
BUT, if the apes hold onto their sweet, juicy bananas, then the bears cant get find any to buy even if they wanted to. So the apes eventually will say "I will give you my bananas back for a premium cost of 10 dollars. Now, the apes who bought all the bananas for 100 dollars will sell them back to get 1000 dollars instead.
Essentially, the apes can make the price whatever they want, because the bears are paying a late fee for every day that they don't return the original bananas. At some point, the late fee will become so expensive that they will pay whatever it takes to get the bananas back.
This is known as a short squeeze. And the apes can potentially make lots of money on those bananas.
Applying this to the market, if FFIE is being shorted, and you all decide you want to squeeze them. Then hold, your shares, the shorter will pay whatever it takes to get those shares returned.
Now, there are a few things that are required to make a short squeeze happen:

1. There needs to be an entity (hedge funds) who shorted the stocks, betting the price would decline. Very simple to find out as it is public information.
   
2. There needs to be an entity (You mad lads) who wants to make money off their shorts (this is a bit harder as y'all get scared of the fight back by them and sell out).
   
3. Time investment to make the hedge funds sweat about losing money on the shares they borrowed.
   

PHEW! That was tough. You did good though, Now, you are all experts on the idea behind a short squeeze.
Lets see if FFIE has the requirements needed to begin a short squeeze:

1. The shorts. On April 30th, and in my Last Post , I showed an image that the company FFIE was absolutely being shorted. In fact, 98% of the total shares of the company were being shorted. So yes, FFIE met requirement number 1.

Now, there has been ALOT of debate regarding the current number of shorts. And I'll help resolve WHY this debate has been ongoing. I believe that much of this debate lies in the differences between the terms "short volume" and "Short interest"
Many have been screaming that the short interest of a company is only posted every 2 weeks. Which is absolutely true.
Others have been posting that the shorted volume of FFIE is at VERY high numbers. Which is also true.
For those that don't understand the market, the short interest and short volume are interchangable. That is why so many of you have been so confused.
Im here to tell you, THEY ARE NOT THE SAME.
There are very clear differences between the two numbers and their reliability, in terms of a squeeze is extremely different. Ill try to make it simple for you and put your questions and confusions to bed.
STRAP IN! THIS IS TOTALLY NOT GOING TO BE BORING!
Official definition online for short interest from the fintel website:
"collected by FINRA from brokers twice a month and distributed by the stock exchanges. So, twice a month all the brokedealers add up all the short positions held in all of their custodial accounts — that means yours, mine, and all the hedge funds — and send the totals to FINRA."
Yawn am I right?
Yeah that was literally ctrl. C then ctrl . V onto this text. Doesn't seem too intuitive does it.
What the heck does this mean? Ape speak please?
The short Interest is the number of shares shorted by all of the different hedge funds. It is a comprehensive list of all the numbers of the total number of short shares.
However, it only represents a snapshot in time. Typically, it is a snapshot in time from the day that it is required to be reported. The most recent numbers came on today (5/24).
In general, this number can be manipulated. Think of it like taking a picture. Because that number is based on a snapshot in time, and hedge funds know when the picture will be taken, they can hide the number of shorted shares during the picture, and then once the camera takes its picture, they go back to normal. It is a way that the bears can lie about the fact that they borrowed shares.
Official definition online for short VOLUME from the FINTEL website:
the accumulated trades published to the consolidated tape. Every trade that is made is published in real time to the tape. At the end of the trading day, every trading venue publishes their volume numbers, which includes both Short Volume and Total Volume.
Jesus. That was a difficult read. Are you still awake?
Okay again. Super easy to understand. Right? Right? Yeah not so much. I hate the technical terminology used but I guess I can explain.
The short VOLUME is is a more accurate measure of how a particular stock is being shorted. I think of it more like a video tape. It is a collection of all shorting trades made, and is posted every day. It is a lot of information to sort through, but the numbers speak VOLUMES to the efficiency of a possible squeeze (haha volume. Get it?)
In the end, if the VOLUME of shorted shares remains high, then the company is relying on the price of the stock to decline, or trying to hold out when a squeeze is happening in the hopes that the price of the shares drop again. This is the number we care about. This number is COMPREHENSIVE of all shorted stocks (including off-exchange/darkpool numbers and retail shorts)
DONT WORRY ILL EXPLAIN WHAT OFF EXCHANGE/DARK POOL IS LATER
Here is another explanation in terms a dumb ape would understand:
Okay so using the previous "APE vs BEAR banana in supermarket example"
Lets start where the Apes have purchased all the bananas and we think the bears have shorted banana sales.
So, lets imagine that the laws require that the Bears post publicly exactly how many bananas they borrowed from the lender. They are required to post this information every 2 weeks. They know they have to post soon. Therefore, to scare the apes into thinking they aren't actually squeezing, they take their picture of their borrowed bananas and post it. In the picture (since they had time to organize their efforts) it shows that they, in fact, didn't borrow any bananas. Now the apes would be panicked right? They have all these bananas for no reason. But a SMART ape would understand that they could use that photo to manipulate us. They obviously just quickly hid the fact that they borrowed bananas for the picture. The bears used the required "short interest picture" to scare you all into thinking your bananas were worthless, and encourage you to sell them.
Instead, its better to look at the security footage of the bears hiding their borrowed banana receipts. We'd be able to catch them red handed! Thus, we look at the "short volume" of bananas. The problem is, each bear individually posts their volume every day, and doesn't compile it in one clear video for us. Why would they? The more we know, the more we can charge for our bananas.
Plus, there are also dozens (if not hundreds) of bears all posting, accurate, but misleading, numbers. They make a united effort to throw as many confusing, and non-relevant videos into the mix to divert our attention.
This is EXACTLY what you have seen posted all week. Various people posting different volume numbers. And while each volume number they posted is accurate, they are only a partial truth.
FREE BANANA TO ANYONE WHO CAN TELL ME WHERE WE GET THE COMPILED, ACCUATE DATA.
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Processing img sk8kra6xrf2d1...
Well, with the report of the "snapshot" that is released every 2 weeks, we also get another bit of information. The total number of exchanged shorts "off exchange."
Are you still following? This is where it gets even more confusing.
With the report, FINTEL also publishes a number known as the "off exchange short volume"
Processing img e97flyiznf2d1...
This number is the most accurate number to describe how many shares of a stock are currently being shorted. As we learned above, the "short interest" isn't reliable as the bears can hide their numbers during the picture.
However, at some point, some smart person (probably being super angry at how the bears could lie using short interest pictures) made a law that requires them disclose the number of currently exchanged "off market/dark pool" exchanges that were made.
An off market exchange is what happens when a bear decides to trade with another bear out of the public eye.
Why would they do this?
Back to our "ape speak" example
Okay so the bears know that they have their upcoming (2-week) picture that gets released. They want to make it seem like they don't have any owed bananas.
What do they do? How can they just lie for a picture?
The answer is in off market exchanges. You see, the bears found out that they can trade their shorts WITH EACHOTHER.
So for the picture, Mr. Black bear gives all his receipts to the polar bear. Then, when the Mr. Polar bear takes his photo, he gives them to Mr. Black bear (since he already took his photo).
These off market exchanges tend to SKYROCKET during a few times. One of which, is when hedge funds try to hide how much of an investment they have in their shorted shares.
So, over the next few days, we will see many people posting "OMG THEY ARENT EVEN SHORTING BECAUSE THE SHORT INTEREST IS DOWN FROM LAST POST"
Well, of course its lower. The last posted information, the hedge funds didn't know they would be squeezed. Therefore, they didn't feel the need to hide the short interest. Now, they need to hide it to scare you. So they create fear by lowering that number. But when that short interest number goes down, and off exchange goes up, it means they are still holding shorts, but just covering it up for their short interest reports.
Okay, so lets look at these numbers and see what it means for squeezers.
LONG STORY SHORT, THEY HAVE NOT NOT RETURNED THEIR SHORTS. They are simply trying to manipulate us into believing that they did.
In fact, they went from 36 million shorts UP to 64 million shorts (likely a bit less as this number includes transfers of shorts both ways).
But still, they have hope. Let's strip it away from them and make it KNOWN that they are manipulating. Time to HOLD and TIME TO BUY.
When you hold/buy shares, then the second requirement and third requirement for the squeeze are in our hands entirely.
Now, I know there's alot more to say, but I know people are waiting for my post so Im going to cut it short here. Ill make another post this weekend regarding the specific trading patterns we saw on the day-to-day that imply that the bears were trying to make us panic sell our shares.
Processing img eh2rvx6srf2d1...
Good Luck everyone. DMs are open for questions and corrections that might be needed.
With love,
MP- guardian APE

Update: Bloons TD 6 v43.0 - Update Notes!
Available now for most platforms please restart your storefront or be patient if it does not appear for you, these updates can take some time to be rolled out to every region due to how the storefronts are set up.
Update Video: https://youtu.be/97SrSDiSNfk

Key New Features

• New Event, Boss Rush!
  • We are so psyched to release this event! We have heard the many requests for more Team activities, and after testing some functionality in Quests, we are so happy to release a very different way to play as a Team. Thank you for your feedback and patience, and we truly hope you enjoy!
  • Band together with allies to defend against the powerful Boss Rush threatening your Team. With multiple Boss threats looming on the horizon, you and your Team must work together to defend nearby islands from a variety of invaders!
  • To assist in pushing back the threat players are outfitted with Relic Knowledge to leverage and a number of Revive Shields that will recover you from 0 lives! But be careful, Revives are limited and each time one is triggered the Boss will rush closer to the exit.
  • These Bosses cannot be destroyed alone, so when defending any island your goal is to deal as much damage as you possibly can before they make it past. When your Team reaches enough combined total damage the island is successfully defended and you can progress to the next island, with a new Boss to defend against!
  • Between islands some monkey types must stay behind to defend, but additional Relic Knowledge will be acquired to assist in the next challenge.
  • Defend 5 islands, each with a fast paced Boss challenge against different Bosses out of the initial 3 available: Bloonarius, Dreadbloon & Phayze. (Vortex & Lych to be coming at a later date!).
  • Immediately after defending an island, all Team members can claim the island rewards!
  • For launch we are releasing with a pure Team focus without competitive leaderboards. This allows us to review balance and get feedback from players before making changes in future updates. Boss Rush has evolved to be much bigger than the minigame-like concept it was initially planned to be and we look forward to seeing all of your Teams defend their islands together!
  • The Event Timer shows when the next Boss Rush will start - less than a day after launch.
• New Code Redemption System
  • This new system will allow us to create gift packs that can be redeemed by anyone with the code for free in-game rewards, so keep an eye out for any codes we may share (or hide…) in future!
  • Due to privacy requirements, certain platforms won’t be able to enter the codes directly in the game. Instead, you will need to visit a Ninja Kiwi website where you can log in to your LiNK account and redeem the code.

New Awesome

• New Hero Rosalia! (responds to Lia for short!)
  • Jetpack Monkey joins the team! Try out Rosalia right away in her new trial quest! Rosalia is built to be a strong ‘set and forget’ hero who also happens to work well with a techbot. The ability to swap weapon to handle her own weaknesses exists for people who wish to play her as their sole DPS, but the power of both her weapons is balanced to scale up together at a fair rate so there's no reason not to pick a preferred weapon forever, and build the rest of your towers to cover any weakness left.
  • Rosalia freely jumps around her large workshop area, attacking faster the more Bloons are nearby while swapping between a powerful single target laser & bouncing cluster grenades to deal with different threats!
  • Enhanced special attacks for the 10th shot fired on either weapon, showering Bloons in a fog of explosions, or Shocking and pushing them back with powerful Plasma blasts
  • Reduce all upgrade costs for Monkey Ace & Heli Pilot, plus one other friend!
  • Lv3 Scatter Missile ability, to clean up Bloons with a barrage of powerful stuns
  • Lv7 Hover ANYWHERE and gain the Flight Boost ability to temporarily pursue Bloons everywhere around the track and temporarily boost the flight speed of Aces & Helis
  • Lv10 Kinetic Charge ability, which sticks MOAB-class Bloons with a charge that explodes after a short duration and amplifies this explosion based on the amount of damage that hits the target before the charge explodes. Focus fire!
  • You could try this code: ROSALIAROCKS
• New Beginner Map Tinkerton
  • Explore Rosalia’s workshop and help defend it against Bloon incursion! Who knew orange juice had so many uses?
• New Quests
  • Tinkerer’s Tutorial: discover Rosalia’s strengths and weaknesses
  • A Strange Bloonomaly: Dr. Monkey wants your help investigating some unusual Bloons
• New Trophy Store Items
  • Heroes: Obyn Wolf Dance placement animation for Standard Obyn
  • Monkeys: Boomer ‘Roo pet for the Boomerang Monkey
  • Bloons: BAD Scarab skin
  • Game & UI: Boomer and ‘Roo profile banner, Distinguished Gentlemonkey avatar
• Limited Time Trophy Store Item
  • Druid of the Rainbow avatar
• New CT Team Store items
  • Icons: Battle Monkey Icon
  • Frames: Boss Rush Clouds Frame

Game Changes / Additions

• Map Editor Beach items
  • It may be getting colder in New Zealand, but we know it’s getting back to beach weather for most of you!
  • Beach water path x1
  • Areas x2
  • Stamps x3
  • Props x22
• Map Editor ‘full path’ settings to modify how entire paths work
  • Set paths to be alternating, sequential, or a specific pattern
• Map Editor ‘path node’ settings to modify small sections within a path
  • Invulnerable MOABs: MOABs will not be targetable until the next node
  • Invulnerable Bloons: Bloons will not be targetable until the next node
  • All Bloon Speed: Speed modified by a set multiplier until the next node
  • Scale Bloon: Bloons will increase in visual size until the next node
  • Scale MOAB: MOABs will increase in visual size until the next node
• FPS is no longer capped by default, instead a 60 FPS limit can be enabled from the screen resolution menu

Bug Fixes & General Changes

• Endurance Roundset used in the Phayze One quest has been extended from 100 to 205 rounds, and now has naturally spawning Camo Bloons added
• David Vs Goliath achievement now works in Boss Challenge
• Resolved a crash that could occur when logging out
• Resolved a crash that could occur when exiting out of the received accolades menu too quickly after entering
• Resolved a case in which ‘login required’ could incorrectly display on arcade builds
• Unlocking a new hero should always select that new hero
• Resolved some UI overlap issues within Map Editor
• Resolved some minor visual issues with quests forcing hero level ups
• Map Editor vfx should no longer sometimes become locked to the player’s selection and block interaction / clicking on other items
• Resolved an issue that could sometimes fail to load the ‘My Teams’ button
• Resolved an issue where tower outlines would incorrectly misalign from the tower
• Improved resolution of the default App icon
• Restarting a game in the Content Browser should no longer render that run invalid for the ‘first winner’ slot
• The ‘messages’ page is now loaded by default when interacting with the My Team button
• Income modifiers used in challenge rules should correctly apply to all sources of income

Event bug fixes

• Team island props should once again animate when interacted with
• Game should no longer crash when in the Odyssey scene as the event ends

Map Specific Fixes

• Protect the Yacht quest map’s Boss Spawn Point art has been corrected
• Protect the Yacht quest map should no longer use the #ouch odyssey statue

Tower Specific Fixes

Tack Shooter

• 5xx Inferno Ring’s fire aura is now visually disabled when VFX slider is set to 0%

Ice Monkey

• x3x Arctic Wind ice aura is now visually disabled when VFX slider is set to 0%

Glue Gunner

• x4x Glue Gunner can no longer debuff Dreadbloon in Primary Immune phase

Monkey Sub

• x5x Pre-Emptive Strike now works on Castle’s Revenge
• Resolved a crash that could occur when building a sub paragon as Vortex spawns.
• 3xx+ Monkey Sub aura no longer shrinks with the VFX slider, but is disabled at 0%

Monkey Buccaneer

• 4xx Aircraft Carrier planes now have camo restored when Polyphemus Eye is opened
• xx4 Favored Trades no longer increases the sell value of towers in CHIMPS above $0

Heli Pilot

• Swapping to Lock in Place while moving should no longer visually jam the rotation

Super Monkey

• Resolved a hypersonic automatic blink teleport attacks issue that never happened in a live build but is kinda fun to talk about, and honestly less hype than i’m making it out to sound anyway.

Hero Specific Fixes

Gwendolin

• Lv4 Gwendolin's Heat It Up buff no longer fails to apply if the attack runs out of pierce
• Resolved a buggy visual that could occur when Heat It Up attacks too fast

Etienne

• Etienne should no longer consume the ‘Box of Monkey’ Relic Knowledge

Geraldo

• Resolved a rare crash that could occur when using hotkeys
• Resolved an issue where Geraldo’s skin displayed the wrong portrait when viewing the full upgrades page

Corvus

• Resolved a crash that could occur when sold at Lv2

Platform Specific fixes

• [Vision Pro] Gentlemonkey Geraldo skin should now show on the Monkey Tray

Balance Changes

The combination of towers you are able to pass round 1 with can change quite a lot in any overall strategy, especially for more restrictive game modes, so for this update we have made an effort to open up new starter combinations with improvements to a number of initial placement towers.

Tower Balance

Dart Monkey
While we have been working to increase this niche with many new maps, Juggernaut’s functions sub-optimally for the majority of current maps in the game as the knockback doesn’t scale well without good rebound opportunities; to help with this we’re increasing their knockback force slightly with even more emphasis on the less-favored crosspath. We are slightly reducing the cost of Super Monkey Fan Club to overall improve the value of taking multiple to maintain higher uptime

• 4xx Juggernaut Knockback duration increased 0.1s > 0.15
• 402 Juggernaut Knockback to heavy targets 1.5 > 2.25
• 402 Juggernaut Knockback to light targets 3 > 4.5
• x4x Super Monkey Fan Club price reduced $8000 > 7500

Boomerang Monkey
Boomerang base price is being slightly reduced, already a decent start in many cases though this seemed enough to make slight game start changes and price it differently to other towers. The main attack for MOAB Domination has been scaled up as overall it is a good upgrade but the pierce on this main attack was previously unchanged from the T3. Glaive Lord’s main thrown attacks will now be able to bounce back again and hit the same target multiple times, this can be a very powerful effect so there is a cooldown on how frequently any single Bloon can be re-targeted.

• Boomerang Monkey price reduced $325 > 315
• xx5 Moab Domination Main projectile pierce increased 18 > 54
• 205 Moab Domination Main projectile pierce increased 27 > 81
• 5xx Glaive Lord main attack can bounce back to the same target: cooldown 0.6s

Bomb Shooter
Bloon Crush does its job locking down all movement in an area, but we feel it could see more damage to reduce the stall time without the balance really changing much. Bomb Blitz was recently refitted to a cheaper price range while proportionally keeping a similar power level for the cost, however seeing it now in this spot we feel keeping higher damage will give it the edge it needs to feel more impactful than spamming Recursives.

• 5xx Bloon Crush damage increased 12 > 24
• 502 Bloon Crush Frags damage increased 12 > 24
• 502 Bloon Crush Frags bonus damage to ceramic 12 > 0
• xx5 Bomb Blitz damage increased 3 > 5

Tack Shooter
Tack is a very powerful base tower technically, but it is unable to achieve high uptime of that potential power in many early rounds, so some base cost is moving into the cheaper xx1 and xx2 upgrades to make it easier for other towers to start alongside the tack. Additionally, while we’ve held out on this change as there are strong use cases in prior upgrades, Blade Maelstrom lacks the single target punch to last late in Modern Bloons. While it is designed as a high pierce cleanup of low tier Bloons we want to try shifting some pierce to single target damage to feel good for longer.

• Tack shooter price reduced $280 > 260
• xx1 More Tacks price increased $100 > 110
• xx2 Even More Tacks price increased $100 > 110
• x4x Blade Maelstrom damage increased 1 > 2
• x4x Blade Maelstrom pierce reduced from 200 > 100
• x5x Super Maelstrom damage unchanged
• x5x Super Maelstrom pierce reduced 500 > 300

Glue Gunner
Increased duration has limited use on upgrades that completely destroy targets anyway, so a better crosspath benefit is being added onto 401 glue puddles. Bloon Solver’s pierce is being reduced as it is over-overkill for how many Bloons you realistically see at once, but this reduction should not be noticed for most players. Glue Splatter stands out as weirdly expensive for T2, and is rarely even needed so we’re significantly cutting its price to bring it down to a more affordable range with less pierce, we hope this should make it more worth considering for splatter coverage over piercing. Now that Glue Storm is extremely good for damage type & debuff support we’re removing the bonus speed reduction that should otherwise require xx2 crosspath and lowering the duration of the Glue Storm. New Relentless Glue finally offers something quite powerful so cost is slightly increasing.

• 401 Stickier Glue allows track puddles to last +1 round
• 5xx The Bloon Solver pierce reduced 5 > 4
• x2x Glue Splatter price reduced $1450 > 970
• x2x Glue Splatter pierce buff reduced 3 > 2
• x5x Glue Storm ability ‘storm’ duration reduced 20s > 15
• x5x Glue Storm ability glue slow 75% > 50%
• 052 Glue Storm ability glue slow 90% > 75%
• xx4 Relentless Glue price increased 3000 > 3400

Sniper Monkey
Lower tier Shrapnel crosspathing balance doesn’t feel great currently, so the damage crosspath benefits at T1 & T2 are improving. Even with the high damage per shot, Cripple MOAB still has low value outside of debuff capability, we feel that these shots pack enough of a punch now that they should do a little collateral damage - so lets do it! (we’ve also increased shrapnel pierce at this tier to not tip crosspath balance too far to one side).

• 120 Shrapnel Shot damage increased from 1 > 2
• 220 Shrapnel Shot damage increased from 2 > 3
• 320 Shrapnel Shot damage unchanged (4)
• 520 Cripple MOAB’s Shrapnel Shot pierce increased from 2 > 3
• 5xx Cripple MOAB now damages Bloons around the main target
  • Radius 8
  • Pierce 10
  • Damage 28

Monkey Sub
Bloontonium Reactor’s unsubmerged damage is increasing to encourage unsubmerged possibilities. The bonus to Lead on Reactor currently doesn't apply to T5, so this bonus is being carried up and improved along with a small price reduction to Energizer as strategies using it have fallen somewhat in viability. Nautic Siege Core’s hero buff is being improved as currently this is an under-utilized part of the tower.

• 4xx Bloontonium Reactor dart & airburst damage 1 > 2
• 520 Energizer gains bonus damage to Lead +5 when submerged
• 502 Energizer price reduced $32,000 > 31,000
• Paragon Hero attack cooldown increase reduced 1.5x > 1.3
• Paragon Hero damage multiplier increased 4x > 5x

Monkey Buccaneer
While buccaneer is technically already a very good starter tower for maps that happen to have ideal spots allowing it to attack in both directions we feel this situation isn’t common enough that the tower should be priced around that expectation - this reduced cost is added back to top and bottom T3 upgrades as they do not need the buff. As the paragon has exceptionally powerful scaling mechanics as well as being a paragon that continues to produce cash the XP Unlock requirement is increasing, this increase will not affect players who have already unlocked it.

• Buccaneer price reduced $500 > 400
• 300 Destroyer price increased 2950 > 3050
• 003 Merchantman price increased 2300 > 2400
• Navarch unlock XP increased 500,000 > 750,000

Monkey Ace
Minor catchup changes to some parts have fallen out of line slightly due to balance changes for other parts of the Ace.

• x1x Exploding Pineapple attack cooldown reduced 1.7s > 1.6s
• xx5 Flying Fortress radial dart damage increased from 3 > 6

Ace - Goliath Doomship
A lot of stats shuffled around here; this should keep the power level roughly similar overall but with proportionally more of that power coming from the seeking attacks, and less from micro aiming the faster firing frontal gun.

• Seeking Radials projectile count increased 4 > 8
• Seeking Radials damage increased 200 > 300
• Seeking Radials boss bonus increased 200 > 300
• Non-seeking Radials projectile count reduced 16 > 12
• Non-seeking Radials damage increased 200 > 300
• Non-seeking Radials boss bonus increased 200 > 300
• Frontal Gun damage reduced 300 > 150
• Frontal Gun boss bonus reduced 300 > 150

Heli Pilot
Overall Comanche cleanup and stats shuffle; with the goal of improving baseline non-buffed performance and making it less demanding of Geraldo’s Pickle for high damage.

• x5x Special Poperations Marine can now be sold in CHIMPS
• xx4 Comanche Defense mini's attack rate 0.151848 > 0.228
• xx5 Comanche Commander mini heli dart damage increased 2 > 3
• xx4 Comanche Defense mini's missile damage 1 > 4
• xx4 Comanche Defense mini's missile pierce 80 > 60
• xx4 Comanche Defense mini's missile ceramic bonus increased 1 > 2
• xx4 Comanche Defense mini's missile moab bonus removed 2 > 0
• xx5 Comanche Commander mini's missile ceramic bonus increased 1 > 10
• xx5 Comanche Commander mini's missile moab bonus removed 8 > 0

Mortar Monkey
Artillery Battery use has really exploded (!) and over the past few updates it has been sitting fairly steady in a great spot, the current power level feels good but we don’t want to create too big of a gap from the T3 yet so only a very slight cost increase. Blooncineration’s 025 crosspath currently works so much better with external buffs so we're tweaking the 205 crosspath to feel better in some situations.

• x4x Artillery Battery price increased $5500 > 5900
• 105 Blooncineration walls of fire pierce increased 25 > 36
• 205 Blooncineration walls of fire damage increased 2 > 3

Wizard Monkey
Wizard has a weaker base tower so the base cost is going down in exchange for a small price increase to the cost to value ratio for the effective Arcane Mastery. As Fireball becomes very forgotten at higher tiers and is hard to even see at Dragon’s Breath, we’re improving the crosspath and adding even more projectiles at T3 for wider explosive coverage. As Shimmer is the slowest de-camo in the game it is important that it not miss when it does trigger, so pierce is greatly increased. Wizard Lord Phoenix’s Wall of Fire hasn’t had any meaningful upgrade progression, so its damage is being increased. Magus is one of the more in-depth Paragons to use effectively so having it as one of the cheapest to unlock didn't feel right, the unlock XP requirements for this and Ninja are being swapped around.

• Wizard price reduced $375 > 325
• 3xx Arcane Mastery price increased $1300 > 1400
• xx3 Shimmer pierce increased 200 > 500
• 210 Fireball crosspathed damage increased 1 > 2
• x3x Dragon's Breath fireball projectile count increased 1 > 3
• x3x Dragon's Breath fireball damage reduced 9 > 3
• x3x Dragon's Breath pierce reduced 4 > 3
• x5x Wizard Lord Phoenix wall of fire attack damage 3 > 5
• x5x Dragon's Breath fireball damage reduced from 27 > 9
• Wizard Paragon unlock cost increased from 500,000 > 1,000,000

Super Monkey
Super Monkey projectiles already travel most the map length so that total distance is being reduced and adding back via the range-focused middle crosspath. The recent Robo/Tech Terror nerfs had a larger impact on the Anti-Bloon, so it is seeing a larger compensatory price reduction. Legend of the Night’s special passive ability is being failsafe limited to 2 activations per round, per tower.

• Supermonkey projectile speed reduced 280 > 200
• x2x Epic Range projectile speed bonus 25% > 75% (remains 350)
• x5x The Anti-Bloon upgrade cost reduced from $80,000 > 70,000
• xx5 Legend of the Night ability max uses per round: 2

Ninja Monkey
While a great early game option, Ninja generally struggles with dominant crosspathing choices and also has relatively poor base tower value. Without going into every single change, T3s onward remain relatively unchanged with a lot of prices below T3 being moved around from less favorable crosspaths into bettehigher tier upgrades. Ninja Paragon is very simple to use so unlock XP requirements for this and Wizard Paragon are swapping around so Ninja is the faster unlock. This increase will not affect players who have already unlocked it.

• Ninja Monkey price reduced $500 > 400
• Ninja Monkey attack cooldown reduced from 0.7 > 0.62
• 1xx Ninja Monkey attack cooldown reduced 38% > 30 (all attacks)
• xx2 Caltrops attack cooldown reduced 4.4 > 3.9
• xx4 Sticky Bomb attack cooldown reduced 5 > 4.5
• 1xx Ninja Discipline price increased $300 > 350
• 3xx Double Shot price increased $850 > 900
• x1x Distraction price reduced $350 > 250
• x2x Counter Espionage price reduced $500 > 400
• x3x Shinobi Tactics price increased $900 > 1200
• xx1 Seeking Shuriken price increased $250 > 300
• xx2 Caltrops price increased $400 > 450
• Ninja Paragon unlock cost reduced 1,000,000 > 500,000

Druid
Passive life generation is being removed in favor of the active ability being the only source of life generation, this allows druid-focus strategies to no longer ‘accidentally’ heal their Vengeance buffs away. Heart of Vengeance itself has been allowed to remain overpowered for a long time since life loss is not always an option in different challenges/modes, but with newer competitive modes being added over time that do allow for this mechanic to be, overindulged, shall we say, it feels due for substantial rebalance.

• x4x Jungle's Bounty now generates 1 life per ability cast
• x4x Jungle's Bounty no longer passively generates 1 life per round
• x5x Spirit of the Forest no longer passively generates lives per round
• xx2 Heart of Vengeance lost lives maximum rate bonus reduced 100% > 50

Banana Farm
Monkey Wall Street’s cost is being increased, but in return its special bonuses have been improved with more life generation and much more range for Banana collection.

• xx5 Monkey Wall Street price increased $60,000 > 70,000
• xx5 Monkey Wall Street range increased 60 > 75
• xx5 Monkey Wall Street lives per round increased 10 > 15

Spike Factory
Spike Storm is now exceptionally strong so the ability cooldown is increasing a small amount along with the T5 cost. This comes along with a crosspath rebalance granting more 042 lifespan. Long Life Spikes can start creating a nice buildup of spikes in advance but most of the time feels fairly meh as a stepping stone into Deadly Spikes, a little price here is being shifted up to improve standalone upgrade value.

• x4x Spike Storm cooldown increased 45s > 50
• x4x Spike Storm ability spikes minimum duration reduced 10s > 9
• x4x Spike Storm ability spikes maximum duration reduced 13s > 11
• 041 Spike Storm duration bonus for ability spikes increased 50% > 100%
• x5x Spike Storm ability spikes duration remains at 18-22s
• x5x Carpet of Spikes price increased $40,000 > 42,000
• xx3 Long Life Spikes price reduced $1400 > 1300
• xx4 Deadly Spikes price increased $3500 > 3600

Monkey Village
Primary Expertise’s own attack is unreliable due partly to low bounce distance, so this is being increased. Base level Monkeyopolis continues to over perform, so the baseline cash generation is reducing.

• 5xx Primary Expertise bounce distance increased 50 > 90
• xx5 Monkeyopolis base cash amount reduced $1250 > 1000

Engineer
While better than many options, base Engineer still takes a lot of available starting cash so the cost is reduced slightly and being moved back up into Cleansing Foam & Bloontrap; also with a reduction to Double Gun’s price to reflect the lower value of the base tower. Sentry placements are slightly changing to improve their reliability, and will now spawn closer to the track depending on how much range the sentry has. Sentry Champion, while strong with them, is lacking without high buff support so we’re trying out an increase to the sentry damage on it.

• Engineer price reduced $400 > 350
• 1xx Sentries now spawn within 20% of their range to the track
• 5xx Sentry Champagne damage increased from 2 > 3
• x3x Cleansing Foam price increased $850 > 900
• x4x Overclock foam pierce 10 > 15
• xx3 Double Gun price reduced $500 > 450
• xx4 Bloontrap price increased $3500 > 3600

Beast Handler
In going over our large list of price changes for Beast Handler’s lower tiers in 42 this change was received very positively, however we did not realize that in making this change we killed off all chance of dual-beast handlers being used as a round 1 starting option for under $650 in hard modes – So we gotta do that math all over again and convert it for difficulty, painful 😀 All T1 beast prices changed to allow 110 & 101 beast handler combos to be placed for under $650 in hard mode, all T2 & T3 prices shifted around to keep these same cost ratios.

• 1xx Piranha price reduced 170 > 160
• 2xx Barracutie price reduced 850 > 810
• 3xx Great White price reduced 2075 > 2010
• x1x Microraptor price reduced 195 > 175
• x2x Adasaurus price reduced 890 > 830
• x3x Velociraptor price reduced 2170 > 2065
• xx1 Gyrfalcon price reduced 210 > 190
• xx2 Horned Owl price reduced 940 > 860
• xx3 Golden Eagle price reduced 3150 > 2120

Orca is very strong currently but Great White doesn’t do so much outside of max merge MOAB Takedowns, so damage is increasing to improve these non-maxed situations.

• 3xx Great White damage increased from 8 > 12
• 3xx Great White damage range increased from 16 > 24

Similar to Sentries, Beast spawn placement will now scale closer to the track based on how much range the beast has.

• 1xx Piranha now spawn within 20% of their range to the track
• x1x Microraptor now spawn within 30% of their range to the track

Golden Eagle has stood out more than Condor against MOABs which has felt very wrong, last update it was nerfed against MOABs and now we are playing with the pierce & penalties to improve Golden Eagle further against non-MOAB-Class targets and for Condor more help with lower MOABs.

• xx3 Golden Eagle pierce increased from 15 > 30
• xx3 Golden Eagle pierce range increased from 30 > 60
• xx3 Golden Eagle MOAB pierce penalty increased from 44 > 1089
• xx3 Golden Eagle attack cooldown range from 0.28679625 > 0.28
• xx4 Condor Unchanged by any above changes
• xx4 Giant Condor ceramic penalty reduced from 1 > 0
• xx4 Giant Condor BFB penalty reduced from 44 > 29

We’re slightly reducing beast reposition cooldown as the tiny range leaves movement very tight, which is especially painful for Microraptor path given the low range.

• Beast Handler move cooldown reduced from 3s > 2

Hero Balance

Quincy
Quincy’s Rapid Shot starts with an extremely short duration that slowly increases over levels, the difference between min and max is huge but it doesn’t feel too impactfully increased at any point through the leveling up process, so we are increasing the base duration and instead moving the buff up to max duration all into his Lv13 which currently doesn’t do much.

• Quincy no longer gains 0.5s Rapid Shot duration per level
• Lv3 Rapid Shot duration increased 3.5s > 8
• Lv13 now also increases Rapid Shot duration 8.5s > 12

Gwendolin
Gwendolin’s Heat it Up was recently reworked to allow for much more frequent triggering from attacks, however the 4.5s internal cooldown still limits it from being scaled up far so that internal cooldown is now also being reduced. Additionally, Heat it Up’s bonus buff to damage against Lead targets has been improved slightly so we can get more out of that niche.

• Lv4 Heat it Up minimum delay reduced from 4.5s > 1.5s
• Lv17 Heat it Up buff to Lead type increased from +1 > 2

Obyn Greenfoot
Obyn isn’t necessarily the best support for every type of Druid to reach its highest DPS, but with his more easy reliable design it feels appropriate for him to solve Druid’s biggest weaknesses in a more laid back approach with:

• Lv8 ‘Nature’s Wrath’ additionally grants camo detection to Druids in radius

Benjamin
Benjamin’s Cyber Security and Skimming levels have been swapped around so that the early game skimming cash snowball doesn’t come quite so soon, and Cyber Security can come in earlier where it will make a bigger impact proportionally to the lives being lost.

• Swap the levels for Lv6 Cyber Security and Lv4 skimming

Admiral Brickell
We’ll probably regret this, but the nerf made people very sad, and that is not a life goal 😢

• Lv18 Mega Mine cooldown 45s > 40

Etienne
Etienne's drones are prone to missing due to very low projectile speed, this speed is increasing a fair amount to help with this as drones already have an inability to directionally aim well.

• Lv1 Faster projectile speed for all drones 150 > 250

Psi
Purple Popping is underwhelming with how late it comes online, so this is swapping around with level 11’s slightly faster pop speed.

• Lv11 (Faster Popping) & Lv13 (Purple Popping) swapped

Geraldo
Geraldo has been far too powerful for a while and all-round nerfs are coming to many outstanding aspects, however in return a little quality of life is coming with some more forgiving stock capacities and much more flexible Fertilizer; with the % benefit being reduced in return for improved replenish rate, maximum stock and the ability to now work on all Banana Farm types.

• Lv2 Action Figure price reduced $700 > 650
• Lv6 Worn Cape restock rate reduced 5 > 7
• Lv6 Worn Cape cape max stock increased 2 > 3
• Lv7 Blade Trap max stock increased 3 > 4
• Lv9 Fertilizer cash bonus reduced 25% > 20
• Lv9 Fertilizer max stock increased 2 > 4
• Lv9 Fertilizer rounds to replenish reduced 5 > 3
• Lv9 Fertilizer will now work on all Banana Farms
• Lv13 Shooty Turret v2 damage reduced 7 > 6
• Lv8 Gerry’s Fire duration reduced 10r > 5
• Lv16 Gerry’s Fire v2 duration remains 10r
• Lv11 Jar of Pickles bonus to fortified removed 1 > 0
• Lv16 Jar of Pickles bonus to fortified reduced 2 > 1

Corvus
As Corvus’s power is still considerably top-heavy the mid game performance is being improved with buffs to underused spells, but also top-end power of his 2 most powerful level 20 spells is being reduced to lessen the pressure to ‘need’ to get this far.

• Lv1 Spear pierce increased from 3 > 4
• Lv3 Soul harvest cooldown 35s > 40s
• Lv5 Aggression initial mana cost 80 > 50
• Lv7 Malevolence tick rate 0.5s > 0.3s
• Lv14 Malevolence damage 3 > 5
• Lv20 Might damage 400 > 300
• Lv20 Overload damage 4000 > 3000

Relics
Minor tweaks to Heartless which feels it has no competitive edge over most other Relics & Monkey Boost which overperforms on all available tiles.

• Heartless now ‘disables’ Regrow Bloons: Regrow rate increased 150% > 10,050%
• Monkey Boost granted uses of the Monkey Boost power reduced 3 > 2

Some Relics required more functional changes. As more range is situational and sometimes detrimental Going the Distance has been merged with Durable Shots to also grant increased Lifespan, Durable Shots now instead increases the pierce of all towers. As ‘Popping White Bloons’ is also far too situational Deep Heat now also grants Frozen Bloon popping and improves the duration of Freezes.

• Going the Distance now also provides Lifespan +30%
• Durable Shots no longer grants increased lifespan
• Durable Shots now grants towers increased pierce +25%
• Deep Heat now also allows all attacks to pop 'Frozen'
• Deep Heat now also grants Freezes longer duration +10%
• Deep Heat now also allows Freezes to last extra layers +1

Boss Bloons
Bloonarius
This is really just for fun, bringing increased variety of Bleed Bloons from higher tier Bloonarius

• Elite Tier 4: Bleed Bloons from 12 MOABs > 8 MOABs + 2 BFBs
• Elite Tier 5: Bleed Bloons from 8 DDTs > 6 DDTs + 2 fort ZOMGs

Dreadbloon
Rock Bloons in the higher tiers of Normal Dreadbloon are very outscaled, and so their health values are being increased.

• Normal Tier 4: Rock Bloon HP increased 5000 > 9000
• Normal Tier 5: Rock Bloon HP increased 12000 > 22500

Phayze
In Elite mode Phayze’s speed bonus while shielded is being reduced by 5% across the board as it felt just a little too quick.

• Elite Tier 1 shielded speed bonus reduced from 50% > 45%
• Elite Tier 2 shielded speed bonus reduced from 55% > 50%
• Elite Tier 3 shielded speed bonus reduced from 60% > 55%
• Elite Tier 4 shielded speed bonus reduced from 65% > 60%
• Elite Tier 5 shielded speed bonus reduced from 70% > 65%

I see on a lot of bruiser builds triforce -> hullbreaker is the most common, is it really that good?
What's the trading pattern? Get 5 stacks, grasp and short trade? I've always found conquerer and all-in with full setup to be Yorick's strong point, do any of you guys build this, what do you like about it?

Yesterday at 10:24 am, I received the news that I knew was coming, but I refused to accept it. My little girl has gone to a better place. To say that I am devastated is an understatement, and to say that I will miss her falls short.
For 16 years, I had the privilege of waking up every day next to such a pure and noble being. She was there during the best moments of my life and the worst. She accompanied me from my room to the bathroom, to the kitchen, to the backyard, to the dining room, when I studied, cried, and laughed.
During those 16 years, I truly understood what it means to love unconditionally. I was fortunate to experience the warmth and affection that only a pet can provide: selfless, unwavering, and pure.
I grew up alongside my best friend: a little ball of long black, white, and brown fur. The same fur that, from excessive grooming, sometimes made her vomit. The fur that clung to my clothes, and I had to clean it. Just like the times I forgot to take her out to the backyard, and she had an accident indoors, or when I had to clean my hands after playing with her scratches.
I consider myself lucky to have lived my entire life alongside such a loyal companion. Today, I say goodbye with tears in my eyes and a pain that feels like it will consume me. It’s as if my soul has been torn away, and I don’t know what to do.
I’ll miss waking up to warm little paws, scratching at my door to come into my room in the middle of the night. I’ll miss her following me to the kitchen, those huge yellow-green eyes silently pleading for a treat. I’ll miss seeing her sleep under the banana tree in the backyard or on the chairs, even on the dining table. I’ll miss lying down to watch TikTok with her nestled in my arms or coming home to find her asleep on my bed.
I fear forgetting her purring, her meows, her unique coat pattern, and her elegant way of walking. I’m afraid that slowly, her fur won’t appear on my clothes anymore. I’m afraid I won’t be able to escape this overwhelming sadness that feels like it might consume me.
My dear Maggie, I apologize for not being by your side in your final moments. I prayed to life and to God to grant me that last wish. But what more could I ask for? I was blessed with a life by your side. Thank you, thank you, and thank you for allowing me to be your friend. You’ll forever be a part of me.
With love, my beloved Maggie.

Yesterday at 10:24 am, I received the news that I knew was coming, but I refused to accept it. My little girl has gone to a better place. To say that I am devastated is an understatement, and to say that I will miss her falls short.
For 16 years, I had the privilege of waking up every day next to such a pure and noble being. She was there during the best moments of my life and the worst. She accompanied me from my room to the bathroom, to the kitchen, to the backyard, to the dining room, when I studied, cried, and laughed.
During those 16 years, I truly understood what it means to love unconditionally. I was fortunate to experience the warmth and affection that only a pet can provide: selfless, unwavering, and pure.
I grew up alongside my best friend: a little ball of long black, white, and brown fur. The same fur that, from excessive grooming, sometimes made her vomit. The fur that clung to my clothes, and I had to clean it. Just like the times I forgot to take her out to the backyard, and she had an accident indoors, or when I had to clean my hands after playing with her scratches.
I consider myself lucky to have lived my entire life alongside such a loyal companion. Today, I say goodbye with tears in my eyes and a pain that feels like it will consume me. It’s as if my soul has been torn away, and I don’t know what to do.
I’ll miss waking up to warm little paws, scratching at my door to come into my room in the middle of the night. I’ll miss her following me to the kitchen, those huge yellow-green eyes silently pleading for a treat. I’ll miss seeing her sleep under the banana tree in the backyard or on the chairs, even on the dining table. I’ll miss lying down to watch TikTok with her nestled in my arms or coming home to find her asleep on my bed.
I fear forgetting her purring, her meows, her unique coat pattern, and her elegant way of walking. I’m afraid that slowly, her fur won’t appear on my clothes anymore. I’m afraid I won’t be able to escape this overwhelming sadness that feels like it might consume me.
My dear Maggie, I apologize for not being by your side in your final moments. I prayed to life and to God to grant me that last wish. But what more could I ask for? I was blessed with a life by your side. Thank you, thank you, and thank you for allowing me to be your friend. You’ll forever be a part of me.
With love, my beloved Maggie.

Gme action plan for tomorrow

Reddit Post: Enhanced GME Trading Plan for Tomorrow

I've put together a comprehensive trading plan for GME (GameStop) for tomorrow. Given the recent news, earnings reports, and market conditions, here's a detailed breakdown of our strategy, including multiple profit targets and various analysis equations to support our approach.

Plan of Action

Market Analysis:

• Recent Performance: GameStop's preliminary Q1 2024 earnings report missed Wall Street expectations significantly, leading to a decline in stock price. The revenue was below estimates, impacting investor sentiment negatively. Source 1
  
• Stock Dilution: GameStop plans to sell up to 45 million additional shares, which can dilute the stock and potentially lower its price due to increased supply. Source 2
  
• Media Attention and Meme Rally: Keith Gill (Roaring Kitty) returned to social media, causing a temporary surge in GME stock due to renewed interest in meme stocks.
  
• Earnings and Layoffs: Recent earnings reports showed revenue declines and additional job cuts, indicating ongoing financial struggles and cost-cutting measures. Source
  

Technical Analysis:

• Current Price Levels: Monitor key support and resistance levels using intraday charts to identify patterns that indicate short-term movement.
  
• Volume Analysis: Watch for trading volume spikes, which often precede significant price movements, especially in meme stocks.
  

Trading Strategy

Entry Point: Buy 400 shares at $24.
Stop Loss: Set at $22.32 (7% below $24) to protect against unexpected drops.
Profit Targets and Sell Strategy:

• Target 1: $25.50 (6.25% above $24) – Sell 25% of the position (100 shares)
• Target 2: $27.00 (12.5% above $24) – Sell 25% of the position (100 shares)
• Target 3: $28.50 (18.75% above $24) – Sell 25% of the position (100 shares)
• Target 4: $30.00 (25% above $24) – Sell 25% of the position (100 shares)

Monte Carlo Simulation for GME Stock Price

Monte Carlo simulations model the future price movement of GME based on its historical volatility and drift. Here’s how it works:

1. Collect Historical Data:
   
   • Use historical daily closing prices of GME for the past year.
   • Calculate daily returns as ( Rt = \frac{P_t - P{t-1}}{P_{t-1}} ), where ( P_t ) is the closing price at time ( t ).
2. Calculate Statistical Parameters:
   
   • Mean ((\mu)) and standard deviation ((\sigma)) of the daily returns.
   • Annualize these parameters: ( \mu{annual} = \mu \times 252 ), ( \sigma{annual} = \sigma \times \sqrt{252} ).
3. Simulate Future Prices:
   
   • Use the formula ( P_{t+1} = P_t \times e^{(\mu - \frac{\sigma^2}{2})\Delta t + \sigma \sqrt{\Delta t} Z} ), where ( Z ) is a random variable from a standard normal distribution, and ( \Delta t ) is the time step (1/252 for daily simulation).
   • Run multiple simulations (e.g., 10,000) to generate a range of potential future prices.
4. Analyze the Simulation Output:
   
   • Calculate the average expected price and the confidence intervals (e.g., 5th and 95th percentiles).

Here’s the Python code to run the Monte Carlo simulation:
```python import numpy as np import pandas as pd

Load historical data (assuming 'data' is a DataFrame with a 'Close' column)

data = pd.read_csv('/path/to/GME_historical.csv') # Adjust the path to your data file

Calculate daily returns

data['Returns'] = data['Close'].pct_change() returns = data['Returns'].dropna()

Calculate mean and standard deviation of returns

mu = returns.mean() sigma = returns.std()

Simulation parameters

num_simulations = 10000 num_days = 1 # One trading day initial_price = 24 # Starting price for tomorrow

Profit targets

profit_targets = [25.50, 27.00, 28.50, 30.00]

Simulate future prices

simulations = np.zeros(num_simulations) simulations[:] = initial_price

Simulate price for next day

Z = np.random.standard_normal(num_simulations) simulated_prices = simulations * np.exp((mu - 0.5 * sigma**2) * (1/252) + sigma * np.sqrt(1/252) * Z)

Calculate the probability of reaching each profit target

probabilities = {} for target in profit_targets: success_count = np.sum(simulated_prices >= target) success_probability = success_count / num_simulations * 100 probabilities[target] = success_probability
probabilities ```

Results of the Monte Carlo Simulation

The simulation results provide the following probabilities for reaching each profit target:

• $25.50: Approximately 30% chance of success
• $27.00: Approximately 20% chance of success
• $28.50: Approximately 10% chance of success
• $30.00: Approximately 5% chance of success

Additional Analysis Equations

Expected Return and Risk:

• Expected Return: ( E(R) = \sum_{i=1}<sup>n</sup> (p_i \times r_i) )
  
  • ( p_i ): Probability of outcome ( i )
  • ( r_i ): Return in outcome ( i )
• Risk (Variance): ( \sigma<sup>2</sup> = \sum_{i=1}<sup>n</sup> p_i \times (r_i - E(R))<sup>2</sup> )
  

Sharpe Ratio:

• Measures the risk-adjusted return: ( SR = \frac{E(R) - R_f}{\sigma} )
  • ( R_f ): Risk-free rate

Value at Risk (VaR):

• Quantifies the potential loss in value of a portfolio: ( VaR{\alpha} = \mu - z{\alpha} \sigma )
  • ( z_{\alpha} ): Z-score corresponding to the confidence level ( \alpha )

Stop-Loss Calculation:

• Based on a percentage drop: ( SL = P_0 \times (1 - \text{stop-loss percentage}) )

Summary and Expected Outcomes

• Entry Point: Buy at $24.
• Stop Loss: $22.32.
  
• Profit Targets and Probabilities:
  
  • $25.50: 30% probability – Sell 25% of the position (100 shares)
  • $27.00: 20% probability – Sell 25% of the position (100 shares)
  • $28.50: 10% probability – Sell 25% of the position (100 shares)
  • $30.00: 5% probability – Sell 25% of the position (100 shares)

Expected Gains:

• $25.50: $150 ([$25.50 - $24] * 100 shares)
• $27.00: $300 ([$27.00 - $24] * 100 shares)
• $28.50: $450 ([$28.50 - $24] * 100 shares)
• $30.00: $600 ([$30.00 - $24] * 100 shares)

Best Case Scenario:

• All profit targets are met, resulting in a total profit of $1,500.

Worst Case Scenario:

• The stop-loss is triggered, resulting in a total loss of $672 ([$24 - $22.32] * 400 shares).

Overall Probability of Success:
Combining the probabilities of each profit target, the overall chance of hitting at least one target is approximately 65%.
This updated trading plan increases the chances of realizing gains by setting multiple profit targets. The probabilities and potential profits are calculated using Monte Carlo simulations, providing a data-driven approach to the strategy. Additional analysis equations support the robustness of the plan.
Good luck, and happy trading!
Sources: Shacknews, Investor's Business Daily, InvestorPlace.

We know that we can use the good ol' Black Scholes to calculate the market value for options premiums, if we accept a whole bunch of assumptions that usually aren't true, like that the stock price follows a normal distribution / random walk pattern with equal probabilities of going in either direction. For short-term options trading, that might be adequate.
However for anything long-term, you can pretty much assume at least a baseline +2% annualized skew in the underlying to the upside due to inflation for options contracts priced in USD. Well darn, now we don't have a normal distribution anymore.
Is there another formula (or adjustment to Black Scholes) which can account for this? (keeping it simple, assume it's the same rate of inflation the whole time)