Having said his piece, Rene had expected the woman to accept her role as a prisoner of the Fleet. But no sooner had he taken his knee of her back than she was at him again, rolling over and cursing as she tried to spit him on her claws. Training kicked in and Rene applied the wrestling component of his hand-to-hand combat course. He secured underhooks with his arms, locking them together with his hands and hugging her tight from behind. Zildiz bucked and twisted around in a futile attempt to make room for her blades, even managing to get one of her knees beneath her and push off the ground. Rene allowed her to gain her feet, cunningly using the opening to slip the loop of his encircling arms around her waist. Now in complete control of her center of gravity, Rene swung his leg out and arched his back, heaving her up and over like a sack of turnips in a textbook suplex. A fraction of a second before he smashed the top of her skull into the hard ground, he remembered that he was supposed to keep prisoners alive and preferably not in a vegetative state, and so he cushioned the fall with his own body, falling on his side to increase surface area and dissipate the force.
Zildiz was caught totally by surprise. Unlike Rene she had neglected to tuck in her chin before the moment of impact, a vital detail which was one of the first things a recruit was taught to do on the mats.
“Oof!” she said as all the breath slammed out of her by the throw. Rene felt her body go limp as her dazed senses tried to adjust to the violent change of orientation. He took advantage of this moment of weakness and looped his legs around her body, locking his ankles together to form a full body triangle. His left forearm punched up and took her neck in a rear naked choke, a suffocating vise formed by the insides of his elbow crushing her windpipe and carotid arteries.
“I warned you,” he told her. His choking hand grabbed the inside of his other elbow, right forearm sneaking behind her neck and under his armpit, tightening the garrote even further.
“Had enough?”
“Hrrnnkk…” Zildiz choked. She lifted an arm and slid back the blade until it was the length of a finger, deliberately giving Rene the universal gesture to go and fornicate with himself, before sheathing the claw entirely and aiming her fist at him over her shoulder.
Rene ducked as the blade shot out again, only just avoiding it going through his eye socket and into his brain. As it was, it only nicked his temple, sending warm lines of blood trickling down his visor. Rene hugged her even tighter, constricting the chokehold until he heard her breathing reduced to an agonized wheeze. He throttled her until she stopped moving, her struggles weakening until she went completely lax. Then he held the choke for exactly three seconds longer, counting carefully to avoid giving her lasting brain damage. He let go and was relieved to hear her snoring faintly. Gently rolling her onto her back so she didn’t suffocate in the dirt, Rene cast about for a means to secure his prisoner. He had only a few seconds before she regained consciousness. Quickly he cut some vines from the surrounding trees and knotted them into a crude rope. He flipped her back over again and tied her hands at the wrists and elbows. He had no illusions that it would hold her for long. He tied her wings together at their bases for good measure. She had two sets of them, but the larger pair was missing one of its partners that had been torn off at the socket to reveal a gaping wound. They were wondrously tough membranes considering how thin and flexible they were, as sturdy as ultrapod leather. Rene looked over his work and loosened it a bit so as not to cut off the circulation in her arms. It wasn’t bad for something done on the fly. Then again, he’d been playing this whole thing by ear ever since the ambush that had cut his unit to pieces. Ye gods, but that whole experience felt like a lifetime ago. He had not expected to ever use that component of his hand-to-hand training designed for fighting human opponents. Of course, he’d helped put down a fair share of civil unrest in his time, but even during the worst of the food riots in Mound Ulysses he’d never so much as given a person a light shove. The civilians knew better than to antagonize a battalion of the Fleet’s finest over something as routine and reoccurring as a government rationing in the face of crop failure.
He felt quite bad about having to roughhouse the woman, that is, until she sat up awake and glowered hatefully at him, coughing and retching.
“Don’t,” he pleaded with her in exasperation as she gave him the old stink eye, “I don’t want to fight you again.”
“Why?” she spat defiantly, “Afraid you’d lose?”
“Uh huh,” Rene grunted, amused and even a little impressed by her spunk. She couldn’t have weighed more than sixty kilos soaking wet and was at least half a foot shorter than him even with that exomorph of hers, but this woman was all fight and no quit. She would have to be, living on the surface world and facing these abominations day after day. Rene looked at the dismembered corpses of the black-furred devils and had a sudden jolt of inspiration. As Zildiz tested the strength of her restraints Rene went over to the monster he had chopped to bits and poked the misshapen hump on its back, which had excreted thick ribbons of silk at the moment of death. Feeling more than a little squeamish, Rene pulled on the threads of silk. He had only meant to collect two or three meters of the material, but more and more of the stuff kept unwinding out its glands like a handkerchief from a magician’s pocket. Eventually his hands became enmeshed in the horrid stuff and he had to struggle like the dickens to unstick himself and scrape it off onto a bush where it stuck like a lumpy hammock. Remembering how his enemy had plugged the stab wound in its gut, Rene snapped off a twig and curled it into the white mess like those vendors at the fairs did with candy cloud treats, ending up with a spool of silk. He applied it to the cut on his temple by winding it around his head like a bandage, and was gratified when it stopped the bleeding almost immediately. He heard the rustle of dead leaves and turned around to find Zildiz furtively attempting to sidle away from him.
“Don’t even try it,” he told her, “Or I’ll run you down and knock you senseless. I’m taking you back to civilization. The Fleet needs to know what it’s up against out here, and you’re a veritable trove of information.”
Zildiz squatted back down and stared at him, simmering with resentment. Rene shook his head and continued his work, moving on to the monster that had been the first to die at the woman’s hands. Cutting open its hump, Rene was rewarded with a dense lump of thread still packed inside its spinneret. He took another twig and spooled it in, then wrapped the bundle of silk in a large leaf.
A leg twitched of its own accord. Rene nearly dropped the bundle as he sprang back, sword upraised. The devil’s limbs began doing a tap dance and Rene relaxed a bit, recognizing it as the onset of rigor mortis. The side of its face was split open and hanging loosely by a strap of flesh. Struck by a nagging suspicion, Rene stooped down and peeled off the segments of its head, holding the edge of his sword against its neck to decapitate it in the event that it proved too lively for his liking.
The musculature and armor tore away just like it had with Zildiz’s helm, and for the second time that night he found himself staring into the face of another living human being. Only this time it was a man whose face was utterly disfigured, a perversion of the basic form. In the place of his lower jaw were fingerlike protrusions of gummy tissue and exposed nerve endings. His nose cartilage was likewise missing, leaving only a pair of holes dribbling with snot. The man blinked, and glassy eyes with almost no whites at their edges fixed Rene in their gaze.
“Kill…me…” the man whispered.
Rene began to shake uncontrollably, wiping a trembling hand across his mouth as he was forced to consider the carnage he’d just wrought in a new and horrifying light. These weren’t three dead monsters littering the jungle floor; these were three dead men, and some of them he had killed himself.
“Kill me!” the man begged him. He was young, barely Rene’s age, his smooth skin untroubled by the wrinkles of age and worry. He had clear brown pupils and dark, expressive brows. If it weren’t for all the rest of him, Rene might’ve mistaken him for a fresh-faced recruit at the academy, or a paperboy climbing up the terraced apartments of inner hive to deliver news of the Fleet’s latest victory.
On unsteady legs Rene staggered back to Zildiz’s side and away from the awful truth he had uncovered.
“Something the matter?” Zildiz asked in a gleeful tone, “Feeling a little worse for wear, are we?”
“Shut it,” Rene said distantly. He dragged Zildiz to her feet and began winding the silk around her wrists, layering them over thick and tying them off with a simple knot. He kept the vines on her for added insurance and told her to start walking.
“Where to?” she demanded.
“I’m not feeding you to my children, if that’s what you’re asking,” he muttered, “I don’t have any to begin with, and even if I did, I sure as hell wouldn’t raise them to be cannibals.”
Zildiz didn’t move, so Rene grabbed her and frog marched her away. He had no real destination in mind—he just had to get away from this place and the bodies he’d made. Zildiz rounded on Rene, saying:
“Aren’t you going to deal with him? I only severed his neural connection to paralyze his exomorph. He’s still very much alive.”
“No!” Rene yelled, “That’s not how I—how people do things. Almighty ancestors, is that so hard for you to grasp?”
“Yes,” Zildiz replied quite candidly.
“He’s a living, breathing human being. I don’t know if you’ve heard, but those are pretty rare on Arachnea and worth keeping around.”
“No. He is a Leaper. After extracting your gilt helix, he and his packmates would devoured you right then and there.”
“That’s why you saved me, isn’t it? So they couldn’t obtain this shiny helix thing?”
Zildiz ignored his question, continuing:
“If you leave him here, at best he will die of exposure. At worst, his tribe will come looking for him, and if they find him, they will run us down and kill us anyway.”
Rene bit his lip. She spoke the truth and they both knew it. But after all this world had already taken from him, there remained one thing which he refused to part with. And Rene knew that if he gave in now and took the expedient option—the sensible option—he would be surrendering it forever.
“Sorry,” he said finally, “That’s against the rules.”
He dragged Zildiz over to the Leaper and spoke to him, saying:
“I won’t kill you. I’m not about to eat you either, so you can stop begging for a quick death. As long as you tell me what I want to know, we’ll leave you here and go our separate ways. I might even patch your wounds if you’re cooperative. Does that strike you as a fair bargain?”
The Leaper met this pronouncement with a look of utter perplexity that mirrored the one on Zildiz’s face.
“I’ll take that silence as a yes,” Rene said impatiently, “You’ll begin by telling me your name.”
“Kryptusshh,” the Leaper said slowly, as if not daring to hope.
“Very good. Are there any more of your people out there, Kryptus?”
“Why sshhould I trusht you? I would only be dooming more of my kindred, and there issh no certainty you would not kill me afterwardssh.”
“It’s a chance you have to take,” Rene shrugged, “Either that, or I’ll let this woman do as she pleases with you. And just between you and me,” he said in a loud stage whisper, “She doesn’t seem all that fond of your sort.”
Zildiz and Kryptus locked eyes with each other. Rene could almost feel the waves of hatred coming off her as she bristled, every tendon in her body tensing expectantly. Kryptus must have seen something he didn’t like, for he looked away and said:
“I am a warrior of the Weeping Vipersh. We are roughly eleven hundred sshtrong. One tenth of that number are bravesshh like me.”
“He lies,” Zildiz said, baring her teeth in a snarl, “That is less than half their true strength. He does not count the adolescents and the old loom-mothers, who are the deadliest of their kind.”
“Three hundred, then, if they are consshidered,” Kryptman quickly admitted, “Your pardon, merciful one.”
“I’ll excuse your forgetfulness just this once,” Rene warned, “But your memory better not fail you again.”
He questioned the Leaper closely. Kryptus claimed that only he and his pack had seen the safety pod’s crash landing, and that they had told no one else as they wished to claim the great prize all for themselves. The Weeping Vipers were the largest tribe in the rainforest and were always looking for an advantage over their numerous and belligerent neighbors. Apparently Kryptus had hoped to gain a modicum of the Divine Engine’s power by extracting something called a ‘gilt helix’ from Rene’s blood.
“Jussht one sample would have shatishfied uss,” Kryptus swore, “Then we would have taken you back to the Loom alive.”
“I’m sure nothing would’ve pleased you better,” Rene said wryly, all too cognizant of Zildiz’s earlier assumption that he planned to feed her to the Fleet’s youth.
Rene learned from Kryptus that the Divine Engine had ignited a blazing wildfire that was swiftly spreading north and west. The tribes would likely have noticed it by now, and would all be sending braves in a joint effort to douse the flames. For some reason all the Leapers felt collectively responsible for the wellbeing of the region, and could not allow it to come to harm for fear of dire repercussions.
“Last question. Is anyone going to come looking for you?”
“Not till the morning.”
“Good!” said Zildiz, breaking out of Rene’s grip and aiming a vicious kick at the side of the Leaper’s head. Rene barely caught her and yanked her back, shouting:
“Blood and thunder, woman! Is there nothing you won’t do to piss me off?”
“Are you insane? You cannot possibly mean to leave him alive!” the Gallivant hissed.
“That’s exactly what I’m going to do. Now come here!”
Rene took her by the elbow and pulled her forward, leaving Kryptus where he lay.
“You promished you would tend to my woundssh!” the Leaper cried after them.
“Don’t push your luck!” Rene said over his shoulder, “Anyone who follows us will meet the same end as your friends.”
He and his prisoner went tramping off into the night, Zildiz raging at him all the while.
“Fool! We will both come to regret that decision!”
“You’re probably right,” Rene had to agree.
“Then why did you do it?”
“For the same reason I’m letting you strut around and screech into my ear. What can I say? I’m a conversationalist.”

Possible triggers regarding motorcycle accidents
I’m currently living in Colorado but I originally grew up in western New York. My dad still owns my childhood home and going out there every summer used to be the highlight of my year. Three years ago I went back out to visit and was riding a motorcycle alongside my dad through the backstreets of my hometown. I don’t remember much of what happened but was told a deer ran in front of the bike and the next thing I knew I was being airlifted to a hospital with life threatening injuries. I spent two months in the hospital and the next year and a half recovering. Flash forward to now, I got news a few weeks ago that my grandma (living in NY) was diagnosed with late stage cancer and doesn’t have a lot of time left. I’m flying out this week T o spend time with her but my anxiety is through the roof. I can’t sleep because of the reoccurring nightmares of the accident, and my chronic pain (from the accident) is flaring up. I’m going to force myself to go regardless because I know this is the only time I have to see her one last time but I’m so so so scared. My dad has been an absolute saint and is going to make sure I don’t have to do any driving myself, but even just thinking about being back on those roads terrifies me. The place that was once a sanctuary for me is now a nightmare and I hate it. I’ve spoken to my therapist for the past few weeks to prepare for this but it still feels impossible. I feel so alone and so trapped and I just needed to vent to anyone who’d understand. PTSD sucks.

my boyfriend of 6 years plans on marrying me and going into the navy. he got me pregnant and is now telling me that his benefits would go to our child but not me. from what i have seen, those benefits are usually split between the wife and the child. should i be concerned that he is excluding me, his wife, from that luxury? while i do plan on being self sufficient and doing my best for the baby, the entire point of him leaving for the military is for him to provide a life for us. why would he want to give a quality life for only our child instead of both me and our baby? my pregnancy hasnt been the best, i have been stressed out, crying, throwing up and i have even spotted. things got violent already and we have both put our hands on each other and ruined each others lives in the worst way possible and other people have already became a problem before and during my pregnancy. he promised that one day he would make everything up to me and that the dynamic would change considering that i stayed with him for years when he was poor and had nothing. should i be concerned that he will have money to spoil me and the baby when he comes home, yet he only plans on proving for the baby and not me?

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This is a throw away account just in case my partner finds it. I have grown up with a pet filled household all my life and now as an adult I own 2 cats. The issue is that one of my cats really likes to get into things he's not supposed to. To me its just a part of being a pet owner. I always verbally scold and separate him and what he's getting into, and he knows he isnt supposed to (even though he continues to), but I just continue on with my day for the most part. My partner gets so angry and upset though when he gets into stuff like the sink or food and we have had numerous arguments about it. It's become exhausting having the same argument about 12 times a month. I refuse to get rid of my cat, point blank, and I just don't know how to train him better. In my opinion it's usually the owners fault for leaving out something they can get into, but they disagree saying he knows better and does it to upset us. Do you guys have any advice to help with the cat conflict?

So I used to be friends with this girl, and any time she was into a man so say she was into a white man at the start. She would start acting like a white woman and displaying characteristics that are white women would have after she went through really bad break up with these white men, she moved onto black men, and she started displaying qualities and acting however, a black woman would act.
This was after she was going through her break up with her previous ex-boyfriend, which was a white man, and so she seemed very desperate for attention at this time, but even when she was into white guys, she would always ask me to hook her up or set her up with white men that I knew.
So while she was going through her break up with her ex, she started obsessing over black guys and one day. We went out to smoke and we were getting high and because my husband was worried about me being by myself and with my friend and getting high, he wanted to come over make sure that I was okay. A bit of context we were in a lounge and we were both high so my boyfriend decided to join in and get high too. She started flirting with my boyfriend and it was very vague flirting. She was actually just laughing a lot at his jokes she was putting me down to make herself look better by comparing our salaries. There was one moment where she acted as if there was something in between her legs like a mark on her trousers, and she kept rubbing it my husband at the time notice that she was acting very weird so he ended up leaving and after that day I confronted her about it and she said she wasn’t flirting. She was denying all that accusations even though I considered one of my best mates, I couldn’t even bring myself to speak to my husband about it, because I just felt so embarrassed and I just felt like it was feeding his ego.
It’s been a year now and she called me yesterday twice and then she called me today and I didn’t pick up but she messaged me saying hey can we call and I messaged back saying hey what’s it about after a whole day had gone by? I was curious as to why she called me, as I felt like she had something to tell me , so I called her back and she picked up and she said that she called me because she was thinking about me and she wanted to know how I was and I told her how weird it was that she was calling me after so long, but we just started going into a mutual conversation telling each other about our lives, and then I had a dog in the background and she said it was my boyfriend‘s dog And then she goes “guess what my boyfriend is Italian”.
Bearing in mind me her and my husband we are all Italian, but since I’ve been friends with her, she’s always gone on about how she would never go for an Italian guy or a guy that is the same ethnic race as us as she just had a stereotype against Italian guys, and evidently from what I’ve been saying she would go for a guy that is far from our ethnic group. I was obviously very taken aback by this because of how much she said that she would not go for an Italian guy, and because of the way our friendship break up had happened at because of how much she said that she would not go for an Italian guy, and because of the way our friendship break up had happened and the fact that I had stopped speaking to her because I felt like she was flirting with my husband right in front of my face. I just find it so weird that she was thinking about me and when she calls me she tells me that she has an Italian boyfriend. I’m not trying to be cocky or anything or make any assumptions, but I feel as if she wanted what I had during that time, and for some reason she wanted to take that away from me and that obviously to us not being friends anymore, but the fact that she called me just to tell me that I just find it so weird. What do you guys think ?

It's been two months today of my breakup & one month of no contact. It's weird that today I was watching a show "maxton hall" on prime, doing that a lot these days to distract my mind. Paused it in the middle & got me thinking somehow that, the day he broke up with me, while breaking up with me, he was yelling at me.. screaming at me, so rude, so cold. He was this whole another person. I kept calling him & texting him and this was his text - it's over 😊, yep with a smily emoji. Next day i couldn't even wake up. I was alone at home & got a panic attack. I actually figured it out today that it was a panic attack. And I was having those panic attacks continuously for a month. Even after all these feelings for him, i just don't feel like talking to him anymore, or reaching out to him. Everything's blank now...I said sorry to him so many times when it wasn't even my mistake. I regret it now...putting my ego & self respect aside to fix the relationship..I regret it now. Knowing that he is out there talking to someone else, flirting with someone else, I regret everything now..... But I am glad it happened, I can see him now for what he is, for who he is & the person he choose to be. I don't regret loving him though... Wanted to send him a long text...but it doesn't matter now i guess..... P.s. please suggest some new movies or shows u guys are watching

The Spanish government has sent us to steal some valuable information from an American facility, looks like its been inactive for 7 years… We where trained to fight against the enemy soldiers, but they’re already dead… The wounds aren’t bullet wounds and we keep hearing weird noises, sometimes you feel like if you were being observed from the shadows, something seems off… something must’ve happened here, something so horrible we couldn’t be even be able to comprehend.
We were a team of 12 spies and divided in 4 groups of three, Alpha-72, Charlie-59, romeo-03 and Juliet-16. Charlie guarded the outside, Romeo went to the first floors and Juliet and Alpha in the deepest floor, which was the biggest one and also divided in two zones. I was in Juliet and went to the 032 zone.
We got really deep into the facility and camped for several hours, those weird noises weren’t gonna make us give up, we needed that intelligence, and we couldn’t back up… and i regret not backing up, we were hours in there, maybe days or even months, it was gigantic and we even lost one of our soldiers inexplicably, just perished when we weren’t looking at him.
We lost contact with Alpha and Romeo, and then we got a message from Charlie that they were evacuating, we tried to get back but we were lost.
If you’re hearing this you must know that im probably dead, and you will be too…

Hey all...want to hear some outside advice from people in a bunch of tech subs.
I'm in a predicament here. I am currently a junior sysadmin. I just got offered a 60% increase from my current salary at another company.
My thing is, I will most likely be learning less stuff at the new job, with not as many tools to play it, and will probably stunt my learning growth with on the job stuff. I would need to work very hard off the clock to keep up with skills and learning new ones, especially if I want to go higher than sysadmin (which I want to do asap).
Current job, I get underpaid. Im salary and still put in 12 hour days pretty much all the time. I knew that once I took the promotion to junior sysadmin. But saying that, this is a much bigger company that i currently work for, with more access to new tools, more projects, stuff of that nature, so im nervous that I wont be learning as much at the new place than now.
What do you guys think? Stay? Or go? Obviously the $$$ will help me out TREMENDOUSLY, but I am super worried about plateauing at the new job quickly.
Whoever reads this, thank you very much for taking ur time to read it!

Hey all...want to hear some outside advice from people in a bunch of tech subs. I know this sub is mostly for Computer Science related stuff but I know pay gets talked about a bunch here.
I'm in a predicament here. I am currently a junior sysadmin. I just got offered a 60% increase from my current salary at another company.
My thing is, I will most likely be learning less stuff at the new job, with not as many tools to play it, and will probably stunt my learning growth with on the job stuff. I would need to work very hard off the clock to keep up with skills and learning new ones, especially if I want to go higher than sysadmin (which I want to do asap).
Current job, I get underpaid. Im salary and still put in 12 hour days pretty much all the time. I knew that once I took the promotion to junior sysadmin. But saying that, this is a much bigger company that i currently work for, with more access to new tools, more projects, stuff of that nature, so im nervous that I wont be learning as much at the new place than now.
What do you guys think? Stay? Or go? Obviously the $$$ will help me out TREMENDOUSLY, but I am super worried about plateauing at the new job quickly.
Whoever reads this, thank you very much for taking ur time to read it!

So, I had a chippy from my local last night and I had a Mcdonald's tonight (for explanation, see my username). The difference is stark.

1. Chippy

The order: fish supper with onion rings. I stood by the till waiting to order. No-one acknowledged me. Not even a 'hello', nevermind a 'be with you in a sec.' I must have stood there for 5 minutes. When I finally got my chance to ask for what I'd like, the lady behind the till barely looked at me. When she did, it was with disgust. I was given a pager and waited outside. When it buzzed, I walked back in to find my order half wrapped up already. I didn't get asked if I wanted salt and vinegar. She finished wrapping it up, bagged it and simply placed it on the counter. No words spoken whatsoever. In case you were wondering, I was polite through all of this, so it's not as if I did anything to warrent this. When I ate the food at home, I was quite disappointed. The fish was thin (may as well have had fish fingers), the chips were soggy and the onion rings were bland. I've been there several times previously, so I have no idea what that was all about.

1. Mcdonald's

The order: large chicken big mac meal with a double bacon cheeseburger on the side. I went through the drive-through. The girl behind the telecom said hello and asked what I'd like. I asked if I could give her my code first, because I have the app. She said that was fine and took it easily. I then asked for what I'd like politely and she responded in kind. When I paid, again, the exchange was very pleasant. The manager who handed me my food had a smile on his face and was genuinely polite to me (I know they are supposed to be and all that, but it didn't feel forced). I thanked him and drove home. I know what Mcdonald's tastes like, so there were no surprises in the eating of it. Although, it was much nicer than the chippy the night before.
My question to you, the reader, is: why should I support my local chippy other the closest Mcdonald's when every aspect of the meal from Mcdonald's was superior to the one from the chippy? I even get rewarded for eating there through their app. What do I get rewarded with for eating local? Cheek and shite food. Surely, it should be the other way round? I find it quite bizarre thay I'm willing to support a multi-national corporation over a local, family-run chippy.
Has anyone else been through something like this recently?

I (18f) was at this house party a couple weeks ago, and my ex happened to be there.. I ended up kissing his best friend, which might make me the asshole, but at the same time i don't know if it was my fault. Anywayss, we didn't really end on good terms as he cheated on me, so we weren't really talking. But after a few drinks I started socializing which is unlike me because i'm usually pretty introverted. Anyways, I started socializing and started talking to this guy named ben, who is one of my ex's best friends. We were just having a normal conversation at first but then we started to get a little touchy, as we had a couple of drinks.. One thing led to another, and before I knew it we were making out in the middle of this party. We stopped for a second and I looked over only to see my ex giving us both death stares. He started walking over looking pretty angry, and before I could tell ben, my ex came up and just started screaming in our faces.. I got kinda scared and ended up just running over to my group of friends to tell them what happened. We ended up just leaving the party, and when I saw ben a few days later and he looked kinda rough.. He wouldn't even talk to me or anything. I don't know if I should feel bad or not, what do you guys think?
(this is a repost, my last one got removed for some reason. i'm sorry if this isn't allowed)

While I know the SAHM is not a “luxury” everyone can do. As well as some people feel they are forced into the SAHM life. I’m treading very lightly when I’m speaking my truth.
I currently am a new SAHM. Literally, quit my job today. I have been on maternity leave for the last three months. Without getting into the weeds, I am unexpectedly not able to go back to work.
Being a SAHM has been my ideal way of having children for me. I’m excited! However I feel like things aren’t as I hoped I’d be. I have a two year old and almost three month old. I feel like I’m getting into this shovel late and am playing catch up. I want to do all the things I couldn’t before working 10 hour days. However I also thought with all the “extra time” I’d have a more organized house.
I’m not upset about my situation but so confused why it comes so naturally to other people? I know they put in the work and it’s obviously not easy. However it feels like it’s a second nature to be “tidy” and also present with the littles and be able to go to the library, park, etc. in one piece. lol
Veterans, how do you get your stinking laundry done to the point of in drawers all the time???

Guys, do you have more info about this ? This company claims that it is the partner of Ryanair in Morocco, but as I know the period of Ryanair is six weeks not three months. Any help, please.

Hey all! I don't have tons of web dev experience, but am looking to become a front-end developer eventually. Being just out of college with not a lot of experience, I offered to make a site for my friend, both to further develop my skills and to give me something for a portfolio. For context, my friend wants a website where people can learn a little bit more about him and then buy digital downloads of music compositions he's created. I thought this would be easy at first, but after thinking it over, I realized it might be more complicated than I originally thought. I did a bit of googling trying to figure out what might be the best framework or whatever to use, and a lot of what I was seeing kept mentioning Shopify, wix, square space, etc. One form even had a guy saying to use one of those instead of trying to create the page from scratch just because there's so much involved in creating an e-commerce site. All that being said, I was hoping you guys might be able to tell me/suggest if I should just use Shopify to create this site for my friend, or if I should try and do something different?? Thanks in advance, and I apologize for being such a noob 😂

I really hope someone out there can help.
I have a Pico Neo 3 Link. I want to connect to my PC using the supplied DPUSB cable.
It simply will not work, I have so far spent 21 solid hours troubleshooting, yes I have been counting! No amount of Googling, Youtubing, Pico Support chat can solve this so its down to you guys.
The closest I can get to this goal after all this time is this.
Pico Link loads (yes I know! ill get to why I use that further in this post), it cannot "see" SteamVR. But hey, I press Start DP Connection, Pico Link waits, I put on headset, I plug in DP cable to headset, I select start DP connection inside headset, Pico link ticks all its boxes and goes ahead and loads steamvr. White Pico Circle and then blackness. I take headset off, and press "Display VR View" in Steam, and there, in that tiny little window is what I should be seeing. SteamVR Home environment tracking to its hearts desire, it can see my controllers and everything.
I put headset back on and still nothing, just blackness.
I have read about the issues people have with the openvrpaths file. Mine reads thus:
{
"config" :
[
"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\config",
"c:\\program files (x86)\\steam\\config"
],
"external_drivers" : null,
"jsonid" : "vrpathreg",
"log" :
[
"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\logs",
"c:\\program files (x86)\\steam\\logs"
],
"runtime" :
[
"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\steamapps\\common\\SteamVR"
],
"version" : 1
}
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I have tried manually editing the above to this:
{
"config" :
[
"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\config",
],
"external_drivers" :
[
"C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\common\PicoLink\driver"
],
"jsonid" : "vrpathreg",
"log" :
[
"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\logs",
],
"runtime" :
[
"C:\\Program Files (x86)\\Steam\\steamapps\\common\\SteamVR"
],
"version" : 1
}
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
But then when I try to run everything again, I get the same experience described above. When I go to then check the VR paths file.... something changes it back to the first version, with "null" as the drivers! Everybody one the entire internet is under the impression you can just edit this file, not me, it changes itself!
Now before you all inevitably ask about driver versions, Pico Connect and so on; EVERYTHING IS THE LATEST VERSION, Steam, SteamVR, Pico Headset, I have tried using Pico Connect and with that software I get even less of a result so I have written that off. With Connect it throws 108 errors in SteamVR, it cant recognise the headset or controllers and sits "Waiting for Connection" so I've binned Connect as an option, its like HP printer software - garbage.
Please help me before I just return all of this apparent waste of money and just forget the whole thing. Ill give it 10 years and try again, clearly all this stuff is half developed, we aren't there yet are we. THIS SHOULD NOT BE THIS DIFFICULT.
Anywho, I look forward to the next phase of troubleshooting with you all. At this point I feel like a part time failed R and D employee, I come home from work, work on this Pico PCVR issue, fail and try again the next day. Enough is enough.
Thank you all in advance for your time,
Kind regards,
Chris