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Experts, I have a table in a Postgres database and need to run 3 new queries all of which are very similar. I am trying to add a new index to aid these new queries but seems like whatever index I end up creating still requires a join with the primary index and some additional filter stages. I was also hoping to do this with a single new index instead of multiple new indexes.
Here are the queries with some commentary on the conditions:
```sql -- Query 1 select name from records where col_a = 'const_1' -- always the same exact value across three queries and col_b = 'const_2' -- always the same exact value across three queries and col_c = 'enum_1' -- Will always be enum_1 for this query and json_col ->> 'key1' = 'xyz' -- filter on key1 will always be present and json_col ->> 'key2' = 'abc' -- optional filter and created_by = 'some_email' -- optional filter and name like '%substring%' -- optional filter order by created_date desc -- always the same sort column and order offset 0 limit 100; -- offsets and limits values could be different
-- Query 2 select name from records where col_a = 'const_1' -- always the same exact value across three queries and col_b = 'const_2' -- always the same exact value across three queries and col_c = 'enum_2' -- Will always be enum_2 for this query and json_col ->> 'key2' = 'def' -- filter on key2 will always be present and json_col ->> 'key1' = 'ghi' -- optional filter and created_by = 'some_email' -- optional filter and name like '%substring%' -- optional filter order by created_date desc -- always the same sort column and order offset 0 limit 100; -- offsets and limits values could be different
-- Query 3 select name, col_c from records where col_a = 'const_1' -- always the same exact value across three queries and col_b = 'const_2' -- always the same exact value across three queries and ( (col_c = 'enum_1' AND json_col ->> 'key1' = 'ijk') OR (col_c = 'enum_2' AND json_col ->> 'key2' = 'lmn') ) and created_by = 'some_email' -- optional filter and name like '%substring%' -- optional filter order by created_date desc -- always the same sort column and order offset 0 limit 100; -- offsets and limits values could be different
```
Things I have tried: * A partial index on col_a = 'const_1' and col_b = 'const_2' and col_c IN (enum_1, enum2) with additional columns json_col ->> 'key1', json_col ->> 'key2', created_by and name
If my query uses a condition like col_c IN (enum_1, enum2) and json_col ->> 'key1' = 'abc' then it does pick that index, but not for query 1 or 2 (probably because the partial index condition on col_c is not an exact match).
Also, for query 3, using both json_col ->> 'key1' and json_col ->> 'key2' as conditions makes the planner choose a full scan.
I can use a GIN index of the json_col and then if I change my query expression to something like json_col @> '{"key1":"ghi"}, then it does use the GIN index but still have to filter out all the other rows based on the scalar column conditions.
Any tips?

Infosys: The company and SAP Emarsys collaborated to deliver an enhanced personalised omnichannel experience for clients.
Star Cement: NCLT approved the amalgamation of 3 units with the arm Star Cement Meghalaya.
Quick Heal Technologies: The company partnered with EET Group for cybersecurity solutions in Europe.
PSP Projects: The company has settled a dispute with Surat Diamond Bourse, agreeing to pay Rs 170 crore in tranches. The total project value for the SBD Project is Rs 1,960 crore, out of which the company has recorded revenue of Rs 1,896 crore and the remaining revenue is to be recorded upon receipt of a certificate from Surat Diamond Bourse.
JK Cement: The Board approved the re-appointment of Raghavpat Singhania as MD for five years, effective June 17, 2025.
TVS Motor Company: The company launches operations in Italy.
Eicher Motors: The company's unit, VE Commercial Vehicles, enters into a joint venture agreement with Triangle Infotech.
Medi Assist Healthcare Services: The company appointed Sandeep Daga as CFO effective May 17.
Mankind Pharma: The company clarified that the article stating the company's plan to acquire a stake in Bharat Serum is speculative in nature.
HDFC Life: on Wednesday (May 15) announced its highest-ever bonus of ₹3,722 crore on participating plans. This bonus will benefit over 22.23 lakh policyholders.
QuickHeal: partners with Europe-based EET Group for cybersecurity solutions
KOTYARK INDUSTRIES: CO AWARDED TENDER FOR SUPPLY OF 7,851 KL BIODIESEL TO OMCS WOH 638.5 MLN RUPEES
KAYNES TECHNOLOGY INDIA: CO MADE INVESTMENT IN ESSNKAY ELECTRONICS; ACQUIRED 100% OF SHAREHOLDING IN ESSNKAY ELECTRONICS LLC COST OF ACQUISITION IS 12,000 UNITS AT USD 100 PER UNIT
CIPLA: CO SIGNED DEFINITIVE AGREEMENTS FOR FUHER INVESTMENT OF UP TO 260M RUPEES IN OPTIONALLY CONVEIBLE PREFERENCE SHARES OF ACHIRA LABS PURSUANT TO COMPLETION OF FIRST TRANCHE OF INVESTMENT, CIPLA SHALL HOLD 27.27% OF TOTAL VOTING RIGHTS IN ACHIRA
PARADEEP PHOSPHATES: CO SAYS IN PROCESS OF LAUNCHING OUR OWN BIOGENIC NANO-UREA AND NANO-DAP FEILIZERS
QUICK HEAL TECHNOLOGIES: EET PANERS WITH QUICK HEAL, STRENGTHENING ITS POSITION AS THE PREFERRED DISTRIBUTOR FOR CYBERSECURITY SOLUTIONS IN EUROPE
STAR CEMENT: NCLT APPROVED AMALGAMATION OF MEGHALAYA POWER, MEGHA TECHNICAL & ENGINEERS, NE HILLS HYDRO WITH STAR CEMENT MEGHALAYA

Infosys: The company and SAP Emarsys collaborated to deliver an enhanced personalised omnichannel experience for clients.
Star Cement: NCLT approved the amalgamation of 3 units with the arm Star Cement Meghalaya.
Quick Heal Technologies: The company partnered with EET Group for cybersecurity solutions in Europe.
PSP Projects: The company has settled a dispute with Surat Diamond Bourse, agreeing to pay Rs 170 crore in tranches. The total project value for the SBD Project is Rs 1,960 crore, out of which the company has recorded revenue of Rs 1,896 crore and the remaining revenue is to be recorded upon receipt of a certificate from Surat Diamond Bourse.
JK Cement: The Board approved the re-appointment of Raghavpat Singhania as MD for five years, effective June 17, 2025.
TVS Motor Company: The company launches operations in Italy.
Eicher Motors: The company's unit, VE Commercial Vehicles, enters into a joint venture agreement with Triangle Infotech.
Medi Assist Healthcare Services: The company appointed Sandeep Daga as CFO effective May 17.
Mankind Pharma: The company clarified that the article stating the company's plan to acquire a stake in Bharat Serum is speculative in nature.
HDFC Life: on Wednesday (May 15) announced its highest-ever bonus of ₹3,722 crore on participating plans. This bonus will benefit over 22.23 lakh policyholders.
QuickHeal: partners with Europe-based EET Group for cybersecurity solutions
KOTYARK INDUSTRIES: CO AWARDED TENDER FOR SUPPLY OF 7,851 KL BIODIESEL TO OMCS WOH 638.5 MLN RUPEES
KAYNES TECHNOLOGY INDIA: CO MADE INVESTMENT IN ESSNKAY ELECTRONICS; ACQUIRED 100% OF SHAREHOLDING IN ESSNKAY ELECTRONICS LLC COST OF ACQUISITION IS 12,000 UNITS AT USD 100 PER UNIT
CIPLA: CO SIGNED DEFINITIVE AGREEMENTS FOR FUHER INVESTMENT OF UP TO 260M RUPEES IN OPTIONALLY CONVEIBLE PREFERENCE SHARES OF ACHIRA LABS PURSUANT TO COMPLETION OF FIRST TRANCHE OF INVESTMENT, CIPLA SHALL HOLD 27.27% OF TOTAL VOTING RIGHTS IN ACHIRA
PARADEEP PHOSPHATES: CO SAYS IN PROCESS OF LAUNCHING OUR OWN BIOGENIC NANO-UREA AND NANO-DAP FEILIZERS
QUICK HEAL TECHNOLOGIES: EET PANERS WITH QUICK HEAL, STRENGTHENING ITS POSITION AS THE PREFERRED DISTRIBUTOR FOR CYBERSECURITY SOLUTIONS IN EUROPE
STAR CEMENT: NCLT APPROVED AMALGAMATION OF MEGHALAYA POWER, MEGHA TECHNICAL & ENGINEERS, NE HILLS HYDRO WITH STAR CEMENT MEGHALAYA

After much consideration, and planning, I am going to return to video production. When I began making videos on a weekly or monthly basis, I had plenty of free time due to the big coof. This was me learning things like scheduling, editing, how to make the microphone work, and I learned plenty through trial and error. There is a dramatic difference between my first videos and my recent ones because of this learning experience. But as I learned about how to make videos, I learned that I was wasting my time with them.
A LOT of time.
Whatever you’re thinking is a time waste for a video is not really it, unless you’ve been there and done that. During that time, I ruined my sleep schedule and would even pass up on small money opportunities, all because I thought my Youtube videos would send me into stardom. Plant a seed, watch it grow, that sort of thing. But, looking at my numbers, it was the exact opposite. Each video coming out, utilizing the keywords and subject matter as a reason to click, was essentially a false sense of activity.
Working on other people’s channels created even more false cases of activity, which created a false sense of justifying why I’m putting labor into something.
Like most artists, I was gaslighting myself into thinking that the time spent into a project was going to translate into a future income from something else. We always see these videos where it seems zero effort was put into it and it goes viral, not realizing that years of failing and group efforts were required to reach those results. And even then, a youtube video existing doesn’t cause a person to instantly gain money from that existence. I have a friend who made a viral video and he didn’t get anything from millions of views, because there was nothing to monetize. I have another friend who made a viral video, trying to recreate the magic, and nothing came of it after a year or two of trying.
Not only is it hard to receive results, but the amount of time it takes to attempt is ridiculous. I didn’t time myself, but if I knew how many hours were sunk into each video, I would probably pull out my balls in anger. The process of each video was a mess of:

1. Writing down a script (takes more than an hour to write an hour of script)
2. Recording the audio (takes more than an hour to record an hour)
3. Editing the audio (takes about double the time of whatever its recorded)
4. Making the thumbnail
5. Making the avatar
6. Collecting images
7. Collecting video clips
8. Making images and clips
9. Editing through clips that are too long
10. Adding sound effects
11. Finding and adding music
12. Waiting for it to render (usually this is where I go to do other things)
13. Rendering it AGAIN through handbrake so it’s a smaller file (quicker than waiting for uploading a multi GB file)
14. Uploading it across youtube, bitchute, and rumble

I don’t want to make this sound like I’m complaining, but this is the bare minimum effort that goes into a youtube video, not mentioning the details of how things are edited or the issues with troubleshooting. A lot of what ate up my time was realizing when things aren’t working way too late, such as how GIFs don’t register well and they slow down a larger project. Or better yet, how a large project slows down to a crawl and you have to render multiple segments separately in order to keep things running smoothly. My files, as organized as I tried to keep them, were unorganized as hell because I would set them up during production instead of before production. Then by the end of it, there would be something wrong that I would have to edit, remove, I forgot something, something vanished between saves, or even corrupted files because I moved something and didn’t realize it was part of something else.
Video editing is utter hell in the beginning, but it gets better after you look after your process and actually organize everything well.
I spent a night the other week changing up all of my files. I put them on my desktop, where I can easily access them, and away from my downloads. This is important because your downloads can be bogged down with anything you download, and eventually it becomes a massive mess of pictures, videos, game patches, or whatever else you’re downloading; all getting in the way of your actual project. You want your files to be files within files, and each file is marked clearly for its purpose and its direction. I had a million songs splayed out in different areas and couldn’t remember where they were, of course when I wanted them, all because they would get trapped in piles of other things I downloaded for later.
My file finding time is now only limited by the slowness of my computer acquiring it.
Audio began as a mess of me going through each line to make sure there was no extra noise, and having to fix anything that was too quiet or not full enough. Turns out I was making my audio way too maximized and wasting a lot of time on stuff that people wouldn’t even recognize as an issue. Now my audio mixing is done through OBS, already set up as a particular compression and volume that will stay in the acceptable range, with noise removal already set up.
My audio recording/editing time is closer to how long it takes to speak.
Developing each chapter card, clipping them together, having to find the font, typing everything out. These, along with getting sound effects working, took up too much time. What I did is make a plan to prepare all of these first, before anything else is added to the video, so that I know how many chapters there are. They don’t take that long to render, because of how short they are, and it takes way less time to do that than to shift gears at the end of the production day. Shifting gears every couple of minutes, that was wasting too much time, which is now changed to doing one specific task each session.
My “switching” time is removed, thus saving time.
Music was added in the beginning, as one of the first things. This was wrong to do, because of how many times I would want a clip where the music continues through it, only to realize that this continuation forced me to keep a massive background of editing history, which slows everything down through production. Adding music as the last bit, and after rendering, will save me minutes for every time I boot up the video editor, which saves hours over time when I’m going to have to go back and forth on video editing. My lifestyle only gives me an hour or two at a time to sit in front of the computer, and so editing will require less wait time for the process to warm up.
My rendering time will increase(as I go to do other things), but my waiting time will decrease.
Through my new process, I am also considering a different view of each video type. Recently, I saw a video about how kindle books are categorized between low, mid, and high content; related to how much effort it takes to make each one. My previous attempts were to, essentially, make high effort content as consistently as possible, which was going to be draining when these were events that came and went. Current news like Lindsay Ellis being stupid or DSP looking like a fool on Sidescrollers are incredibly time sensitive, which is why so many people stream these “news reports” instead of making high effort videos about them. And even if it was a long term type of video, we have to question if it REQUIRES that much effort to begin with.
My plans for the future are to measure how long I take with each session, what I get done, track down percentages, and measure what the longest steps are. Figuring out what’s causing a hold-up is the best way to prevent hold-ups, in the same way city builders (should) keep track of what’s causing traffic jams. Too many traffic jams? Get rid of cars or open more lanes. Keeping track of things is going to take minutes to save hours, which is something I should have practiced more on doing through my practicing year.
Videos are done with marketing in mind, because I don’t plan to make money from them. My “branding” is storytelling, art, art-related lolcows, and I guess that pesky culture war. People begged me to go fully political, but I think political is a step below philosophical, which is where I would rather go. I would rather explain the psychology and aesthetics of media, instead of repeating myself as to how offensive or woke something is. Yes, I make fun of Lindsay for being woke, but I explain why she is and where it comes from, which is something more important than some kind of drama farming that grifters do.
I would rather be a source of information than a pointless attack dog for someone above me, which is why I try to separate myself from the people who do such nonsense. I’m not with these movements, I don’t care to promote people I don’t care about, I’m not going to go easy on people just because “we’re on the same side”. Everyone gets made fun of or nobody gets made fun of, and I’m year of monkey, bitch. This monkey wants bananas and youtube is not going to supply any. But it supplies plenty of vines to swing around from, as I Donkey Kong my way from topic to topic.
Like anything else in life, videos need to be worth my time, meaning their expense needs to be dropped dramatically. Hour long, multi-hour long, these were excruciatingly hard to do. The next goal is to make sure everything is kept around 30min long, unless it’s going to be a bi-yearly 1 hour long video that will be the highlight of the year, which is where full book analysis videos come into play. The scripts for everything else will be written down as articles, with the better of the articles being made into low content videos.
Podcast style will be for low effort, being made weekly.
A new style will be for mid effort, which is where 30min of history or explanation is presented with video clips, being made monthly. Video game clips will be placed around here as well, unless they can be made bi-weekly.
And the classic, me in my room with my ASS computer, will be for the high content, for subjects that take far too long to make on a monthly basis.
This planning is still in the works, it’s an effort to create a strategy and a schedule for everything. The goal would be to place an hour a day per video, creating steps for each video, and using each other as progress reports for the bigger ones. It will be like placing smaller squares into bigger squares until the biggest square is complete, allowing me to visually determine my progress across such a subject. This is also a way for me to appear more productive, because content will be constantly coming out on a clear schedule. Only bad side about it is that this means 3 hours of my day are used for videos, and this won’t be possible for every day until content creation is my main job.
Before I can have this be a thing, it will be a slow, preemptive creation process, with smaller projects being made as my “short stories”, to then determine if I’m ready for a bigger “novel” of a project. And that’s how I have to approach video editing: the same way I would with storytelling. No more determining that length means better, or more time means more results. Now I’m going to obey the market, go for what’s expected of me, and react to feedback. If something doesn’t work, or doesn’t make a dent, I try something else.
I think that’s why people get mad at me, when they see that I am trying something else all the time. This is normal, but I’m told that I’m “an interloper” or “will never win” because I willingly give up on things that don’t work. Sorry, losers, but being unorganized and wasting my life is not worth it. I like money, and I like vaginas. If I wanted to be poor and wasting my life, I would have kept slamming my head against a wall and failing like most of what indie does.
And yes, the OPC reviews will be translated into videos, as well as my own short stories. I began as a crackpasta narrator, after all. I was thinking of putting a lot of radio drama production into my narrations, but I would want to keep them low effort until they start attracting all of the attention from their titles. A lot of people try to narrate their stories and they don’t make a spark anywhere with them. But as time goes on, and I get more videos under my belt, I could easily narrate for others, create a network, and get things going. It’s not that hard to get things working once you know what you’re doing.
The main time waste that we all fall for is chaotic activity and the lack of planning.

Please see previous post for further news: https://www.reddit.com/arknights/comments/1ct4sva/concept_pv4_puzzle_reveals_a_huge_news/
Original source: https://nga.178.com/read.php?tid=40185395, all translated by GPT4.
Recording 1: The custodians, 9th of March, 200 91 629
我还记得，最后一次和你辩论的时候，你说自己绝对不会再和蠢人共事，就算这个蠢人，是宇宙里最后一个还在尝试挽救文明的人。呵，现在看来，我也是一个蠢人。但我绝对不是最后一个试图再做点什么的人。想必这个时候，你一定已经和家人做了告别。但他们一定不会知道，你不会进入石棺，我们都清楚。保存者计划没有得到很多支持，原因不是这项计划没法拯救所有人，而是必须有人为此付出残忍的牺牲。你会独自度过漫长的时光。而我会等待阳光，从轨道反射镜都散去。熄灭我面前的这盏灯。弗里斯顿，泰拉上的最后一个蠢人，向你告别。
I still remember the last time we argued, you said you would absolutely never again work with fools, even if that fool was the last person in the universe trying to save civilization. Ah, it seems I am also a fool now. But I am definitely not the last one trying to do something more. By now, you must have already said goodbye to your family. But they definitely won't know that you won't enter the sarcophagus, we both know that. The Preservation Project didn't get much support, not because it couldn't save everyone, but because it required someone to make a cruel sacrifice. You will spend a long time alone. And I will wait for the sunlight, after it scatters from the orbital mirrors. To extinguish the lamp before me. Friston, the last fool on Terra, bids you farewell.
Recording 2: The forsterer(sound, not know what word yet), 23rd of December, 200 28 216
洛，很抱歉没能继续回复你，但这是一个迟到的好消息。你在深蓝之树的那几位几公里长的大朋友，他们活体组织样本的环境适应性分析已经全部完成。从分析结果来看，他们能从毁灭中幸存下来。但他们也需要很多时间，才能成为播撒新希望的航船。洛，请不要认为你的成功对我们来说为时已晚，让他们活下去吧。这些美丽的海洋生灵没有必要加入我们的毁灭，未来也许他们会带上我们留下的一点点尘埃，向冰冷的虚空迈出一步。
Luo, I'm sorry for not being able to continue responding, but here is some belated good news. The environmental adaptability analysis of the living tissue samples from those several-kilometer-long big friends at the Deep Blue Tree has been completed. According to the results, they can survive the destruction. However, they will need a lot of time before they can become vessels that sow new hope. Luo, please do not think that your success comes too late for us; let them live on. These beautiful marine creatures need not join in our destruction, and perhaps in the future, they might carry a bit of the dust we leave behind and take a step into the cold void.
Recording 3: The security, 16th of January, 200 29 956
爱德，这是我最后一次向你说明我的看法。很快，所有的人造天体都会成为轨道上的墓碑，再也没人可以对他们发号施令，你也一样。我还记得你的小副业，那家开在拖船里的老餐馆，没有合成设备，只有围裙和烤炉，而你是最后一个知道怎么宰杀动物、怎么把他们加工成食物的人。你总是反对我们遗忘，所以爱德，我希望你能够理解，我们需要的不是胜利，是存续。天堂支点的确是一件强大的武器，但我们的敌人无法被武器打倒，设置(……杂音)没有意义。
Ed, this is the last time I will explain my viewpoint to you. Soon, all artificial celestial bodies will become tombs in orbit, with no one to command them, and you will be no exception. I still remember your little side business, that old restaurant in a tugboat, with no synthetic equipment, just aprons and ovens, and you were the last person who knew how to slaughter animals and turn them into food. You always opposed our forgetting, so Ed, I hope you can understand that what we need is not victory, but survival. The Pivot of Heaven is indeed a powerful weapon, but our enemy cannot be defeated by weapons, making the setting (…static) meaningless.
Recording 4: The Lumberer (no dates)
请想象一片不完美的树林，昆虫与飞鸟并不常见，也没有狩猎的野兽在其中漫步。有时，两颗原本相差无几的树苗，一颗夭折于幼年，另一颗却长出了繁盛的树冠；有时某些树木会投下恶意的影子，让他们的邻居在阴影中枯萎。这些都算不上多么可怕的事，毕竟他们只是树木而已。但是在这片树林里住着一位伐木工，伐木工勤劳地挥动着斧子，树木在他面前一一倒下，无论他们的枝杈是否蓬勃、果实是否甜美、叶片在阳光下是什么颜色。没有哪棵树了解这位伐木工的来历，那些古老的树木早已沉寂，也没有哪棵树能阻止伐木工挥动斧子，再盘根错节的枝干也会被劈开。你相信吗？竟然有这样一片树林，这样一位伐木工。好，我们继续。这一天，伐木工照常举起了斧子，又一棵树在他面前倒下，可伐木工转身离去后，树桩里溢出了树脂，把断裂的枝干粘合在一起。伐木工清理出的空地再一次长满了树木，而且还不止于此，透明的树脂吞没了这片只存在于故事里的树林，你眼前很快就只剩下一枚漂亮的琥珀，没有随风而动的树木和伐木工的斧子，也没有分型、函数、与哲学的纤维在湿润的土壤中生长。现在，我需要你记住这枚琥珀的样子，它真的很美。
Imagine an imperfect forest, where insects and flying birds are uncommon, and there are no hunting beasts wandering through it. Sometimes, two seedlings, hardly different from each other, end up with different fates: one dies young while the other grows a lush canopy; sometimes some trees cast malicious shadows that cause their neighbors to wither in the shade. These are not terrible things, after all, they are just trees. But in this forest lives a lumberjack, who diligently swings his axe, felling trees regardless of whether their branches are thriving, their fruit is sweet, or what color their leaves are in the sunlight. No tree knows the origin of this lumberjack, the ancient trees have long been silent, and no tree can stop the lumberjack from swinging his axe, even the most intricately entwined branches are split apart.
Do you believe it? There really is such a forest, such a lumberjack. Good, let’s continue. One day, as usual, the lumberjack raised his axe, and another tree fell before him. But after the lumberjack turned and left, resin flowed out from the stump, binding the broken branches together. The clearing made by the lumberjack once again grew full of trees, and more than that, the clear resin engulfed this forest, which exists only in stories, and soon all you see before you is a beautiful piece of amber. There are no trees swaying with the wind, no axe of the lumberjack, nor any fibers of division, function, or philosophy growing in the moist soil. Now, I need you to remember what this amber looks like, it is truly beautiful.

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Hello everyone, A Little summary of my schooling to make you understand better about my case so maybe if at least even one of you can help me here
I have completed my 10th grade in the form of Cambridge IGCSE (basically 10th but from UK system, which is very popular in the and in India and is accepted) in the year of 2021
now, In my grade 11th. I shifted back to a CBSE school in Science stream and got less percentage mainly due to JEE prep being poor (I got 83% in Class 11th in PCM and 76% Overall in all 5 subjects) and I completed in April 2022)
Now for 12th grade, I once again changed schools and this time. I went to a State board school (Gujarat state board). However, when my 12th Board exams happened. i was very sick due and my health was very low and thus my 12th exam went bad and I was only able to get 66% in PCM subjects which are used for admission into Gujarat's colleges.
Thus I decided to give 12th class again and so I filled out the improvement form which required to give up my 12th result (where i got 66% marks) and thus it was now invalid (this was 2023)
in simple terms, I had to give my class 12th exams again like how a fresh student would and my former class 12th result's record no longer exist. so, now in 2024 I again gave my class 12th exams and was able
to achieve 96% in PCM and 93% overall, I was quite satisfied with it.
But I came to know of Germany and thus I was interested in that now. I want to study Mechanical Engineering there in TUM or KIT as those are part of TU9 and I like the cities as well
So as 12th class result is not sufficient for admission into German unis. I have to came know about the International A Levels (basically the same UK system in which i did 10th, now A Levels basically mean grade 12th). those can be used for direct admission.
and I most likely willl take them in oct-nov 2024 session and get my results in jan 2025 and will have about 9 months before i go to germany
Now there are several doubts of mine here:-
(1) How will my APS work if I have 12th result and A Level (A Level will be used for direct admission)
(2) Will this create problems in VISA or not
(3) has anyone u know or u yourself have took the path of Germany through A Levels
(4). my school leaving certificate is of 2023 only, as I gave 12th exam in 2024 as improvement exam and thus my school is not there now
(5) will I also have to TestAS in this case of me giving A Levels or not?
(6) do u need language certificate for APS compulsorily or nor
I will actually be starting my uni in India right now in August in Comp Sci (my father won't understand for Mech Eng in India, he says you can take Mech Eng in Germany only and that too he will consider first if he wants or no).
I know i can go to germany after 1st year if i wanna continue with CS but that route will be more hectic and less time for me. unlike here in case of giving A Levels. where i will have results in Jan 2025 and will be able to have good time for APS, Visa and uni application
I am already on B1 level (I came to know of germany in October 2023 and started with german after that).
hopefully by Feb 2025. I will get TestDAF (16/20) as well
my_qualifications: 10th (IGCSE) in 2021
11th (CBSE) in 2022
12th (Gujarat state board) in 2024 officially, 2023 one does not count and is invalid now

on april 27 i was hanging out with my boyfriend and we were having oral sex. he rubbed his penis on my vulva a little bit and there might have been precum but i told him to stop because i didn’t want to get pregnant. then a few days later i thought i got my period but it was really light and i didn’t have cramps or anything (i normally do). it was also sort of a brownish colour instead of red and it was a lot less blood than is normal for my period. according to my period app my period is 3 days late (tbf i am not always good with recording on the app but it serves as a reasonable estimate for my cycle). i live in a country where pregnancy tests are available but plan b pills require a prescription from a doctor. if i was pregnant, would it be too late for a pill anyway? please help me i am so stressed out i am in the middle of my exams (17 years old) and i know i should have been smarter about my decisions. i also checked my period app and it was i was ovulating on april 27. so its just a series of bad decisions that i made but i am really stressed out still. i haven’t had sex before so does that mean that the sperm wouldn’t have been able to get all the way in because i still have my hymen? there was no penetration but some people have said that all it takes is one drop of semen to get pregnant.
i feel like i could probably be overreacting but i really need some reassurance because some of the dots are connecting a little bit too well (ovulating. rubbing. precum? late period.)

Let me be clear here: I AM NOT ADVOCATING FOR PIRACY!
I need to know if there is any way to acquire screenshots and/or short snips from the Ankama Launcher streams of the animated series. At present, no matter what software I use, the window turns invisible or just causes the whole screen to turn black in the recording.
I know this is an anti-piracy measure, and that much I totally understand. However me and a group of mutuals are currently working on revamping the Wakfu Wiki and presently the Ankama Launcher has the most crisp, HD versions of the animated series and OVAs available currently. I have found similarly high-quality uploads elsewhere but they all have open captions on them, which makes it more difficult to get quality shots for the wiki.
And just for the record, I am aware that it might be possible to do it via an HDMI dongle of some kind, but that will require me to spend extra money and wait for something to be delivered. I'd rather not do that.

Hello, I've posted before about my situation with my husband who is the USC. Our marriage had to be rushed because I was affected by layoffs but we didn't have any problems proving our marriage was real because of all our joint history and well because it was real, just moved up. I've since been living together with my husband and share the same bank accounts.
Here's the problem - I moved into his apartment and he has an ongoing rift with his landlord where he doesn't want to sign a new lease with them because right now it's month to month after the previous one naturally expired. He is required to add everyone staying at the residence on his lease but doesn't want to add me on it because the landlord will use it as an opportunity to force him into a new tenured lease. He likes the flexibility of month to month and doesn't wanna lose it. As a result we don't have a ton of joint address evidence and as I've posted before we have found some fundamental incompatibilities that may mean we head for divorce but everything is amicable, there is no abuse - we're just very unhappy but still care and look out for each other deeply. If apply for a divorce waiver i751, would the following evidence be sufficient?

• Joint bank account showing both our direct deposits and usage (although there's no way to show this other than screenshots of our chase transactions)
• my car is registered here my credit card statement showing this address
• his utility bills showing this address
• we can get affidavits from friends and family too
• I'm on his health insurance from work
• I'm currently on his life insurance and other beneficiary
• he is beneficiary of my stock investments but I've almost sold my full position

I'm trying to convince him to go to couples counseling and he might relent so we might have invoices from that too.I didnt intend on this outcome for my life but here am, I am just really worried about the life I have built here over the last 10 years also so want some advice. Will the above case with that evidence look too fishy to USCIS? Should we just stay married until I get my GC? (And endure another 2-3 years of this unhappiness?

Hello, I've posted before about my situation with my husband who is the USC. Our marriage had to be rushed because I was affected by layoffs but we didn't have any problems proving our marriage was real because of all our joint history and well because it was real, just moved up. I've since been living together with my husband and share the same bank accounts. Here's the problem - I moved into his apartment and he has an ongoing rift with his landlord where he doesn't want to sign a new lease with them because right now it's month to month after the previous one naturally expired. He is required to add everyone staying at the residence on his lease but doesn't want to add me on it because the landlord will use it as an opportunity to force him into a new tenured lease. He likes the flexibility of month to month and doesn't wanna lose it.
As a result we don't have a ton of joint address evidence and as I've posted before we have found some fundamental incompatibilities that may mean we head for divorce but everything is amicable, there is no abuse - we're just very unhappy but still care and look out for each other deeply. If I apply for a divorce waiver i751, would the following evidence be sufficient?

• Joint bank account showing both our direct deposits and usage (although there's no way to show this other than screenshots of our chase transactions)
• my car is registered here
• my credit card statement showing this address
• his utility bills showing this address
• we can get affidavits from friends and family too
• I'm on his health insurance from work
• I'm currently his life insurance and other beneficiary
• he is beneficiary of my stock investments but I've almost sold my full position

I'm trying to convince him to go to couples counseling and he might relent so we might have invoices from that too.
I didn't intend on this outcome for my life but here I am, I am just really worried about the life I have built here over the last 10 years also so want some advice. Will the above case with that evidence look too fishy to USCIS? Should we just stay married until I get my GC? (And endure another 2-3 years of this unhappiness?

my boss enlists me in hiding his multiple affairs from his wife
Originally posted to Ask A Manager
TRIGGER WARNING: infidelity, abuse of authority
Original Post Jan 30, 2017
My boss is having multiple affairs. I am his assistant, so I know about all his visitors and his schedule. He is married, but he often has visits from two different women, and he outright told me to never tell his wife about them. When either of them visit, he locks his door and tells me he is not to be disturbed. This happens almost weekly.
He sometimes asks me to book local hotel rooms for an hour or an afternoon, and he sometimes buys jewelry and flowers for the two women he sees regularly. I know this because he sends me out to pick up the jewelry (which I later see them wearing) or asks me to have the flowers sent to them. He never does anything like this for his wife. One of the women just had a baby who is named after my boss and has his surname.
One time, his wife showed up for a surprise visit to take him out to lunch, and he directed me to lie that the woman who was in his office was there for a job interview. He also submits expenses from his business trips (where he has traveled alone) and I have to re-calculate everything because he has upgraded the company-provided hotel room to a better one on his personal credit card and bought breakfast for more than one person the next morning. When this happens, he tells me he had “company.” There was also an incident where he came to work panicked because he said he accidentally used his company credit card at a strip club. He sent me to retrieve it and pay his tab with cash, but the address he sent me to was actually a massage parlor.
Normally I honestly don’t care what people do in their own private lives, but I hate that I’m part of his lies to his wife. She is a nice person and she is dealing with a heart condition that just required surgery. I know they don’t have an open relationship because my boss lies to her and also directs me to lie to her about his actions. He says she can never know. I get sick whenever I think about what he is doing. I know a way I can out him to his wife anonymously. Do you think I should let her know, or is this none of my business and I need to stay out of it?
Update March 9, 2017
Two days after you published my letter, my boss was served with divorce papers here at work. His wife publicly outed his affairs, and she sent copies of emails and text messages sent between him and the two women he was having affairs with, as well as one of the escorts he was seeing regularly, to some people here at our office (including me), his relatives, and some of their friends. She also sent these to the two women and the escort, and some of their relatives and colleagues at work. The texts and emails prove that all three of them not only knew he was married but that he was seeing other women besides each one of them. They also include his acknowledgement he fathered a child outside of his marriage and evidence he used funds from the joint account and his wife’s pay to spend money on them, as well as for the random women he cheated with when he was out of town on business.
His wife has filed alienation of affection lawsuits against the two women and the escort he was cheating with regularly. All of three of them kept calling and coming to see him here at work to confront him after they were outed to people and served with the lawsuit papers, and I heard them talking (sometimes yelling) about it each time and him saying his wife moved out the day he was served with divorce papers and he has no way to contact except through her lawyer (hey have no children and apparently she has cut all contact).
I played dumb the entire time and no one, including his wife, has accused me of knowing anything or asked me if I did.
Before all of this happened, after reading your response and the responses in the comments, I decided to seriously start looking for another job. The same week my letter was published, there was an opening inside my company for a receptionist in a different division. The company usually posts jobs internally before they look externally, and since I’m classified as admin and the posting is for an administrative position, I didn’t have to apply and could just put in for a transfer.
They gave it to me, and I have been in my new job for two weeks now. I love it so far. I spend all day on the phone with people or talking with people who have come in to see or meet with my colleagues. The division has over 100 people, so while I have a screen where I can search for people by name and receive memos and things through email, I don’t have a computer that I am stuck staring at for hours a day. It’s definitely not for everyone but I love dealing with people all day and having no other responsibilities or a mountain of tasks or paperwork to do. My new colleagues have been welcoming and while everyone is talking about what is going on with my boss, no one has brought me into the drama and it only gets talked about around me the same as it would any other person. I don’t engage in any gossip and I certainly don’t talk about what I know, even though no one has asked.
I now have set hours, don’t ever have to work outside of those hours (no overtime or weekends or holidays) and no company cell phone. Since all my work involves dealing with people during working hours at work, I couldn’t do work at home even if I wanted to. Work is now separate from home, and overall I am much more relaxed because I have a clear line between working and not working and I don’t have to deal with my boss and his drama any more.
Thank you for your response to my question and to all the people who were supportive in the comments. I felt better knowing my feelings were valid and I wasn’t overreacting or wrong to be upset.
(Also there was some speculation in the comments about whether my boss could be engaging in some kind of embezzlement or falsifying because he had me separating expenses. There was nothing like that going on. The company has a policy where they will reimburse business expenses put on personal debit or credit cards. Non-work expenses are not allowed to be on company cards. So if the company paid for a hotel room when my boss traveled on business and he upgraded to a better room, the company would only reimburse or pay the original room price and he would have to pay for the rest of the upgrade. I would separate personal and work expenses before submitting them. This is in line with the company handbook and everyone always does it this way. There were no issues with him or me because of it. As for him using the company credit card at the massage parlor, they are legal where we are and since he had the charges reversed the same day and submitted proof of the reversal, the company never had an issue because he followed policy and hadn’t used the card for anything illegal.)
Final Update Oct 20, 2017
My former boss was fired. His wife outed a fourth woman for sleeping with him, same as the others. She works here. Having an affair with a subordinate and the multiple yelling matches with the other three women here at the office was enough to get him fired. The fourth woman was married (unlike the other three) and her husband filed for divorce after she was outed. She took job somewhere else but left amicably and was not fired like my former boss was. At least two of the women his wife was suing are settling with her to avoid it going to trial. The yelling matches he was having made it clear she wasn’t using the lawsuits as a bargaining chip and would not drop them in exchange for stuff from him.
Now that both he and the woman from here that he was having an affair with are gone, things have calmed down. No one has mentioned the affair in weeks and everything here is boring again. I don’t mind the lack of gossip and am still enjoying my new job and great colleagues. I got a small bonus at my yearly review because my boss was so happy with my work. I love my new colleagues and they have been nothing but welcoming to me.
(Also there was speculation in the comments in my first update about whether his wife outed the escort for her affair or being an escort. The answer is both. I don’t agree with her actions but I empathize with how much pain the affairs have caused her.)
THIS IS A REPOST SUB - I AM NOT THE OOP
DO NOT CONTACT THE OOP's OR COMMENT ON LINKED POSTS, REMEMBER - RULE 7

So, I am running Bias FX 2 Elite on my HP Pavilion Laptop 15-eg0067st, which came with 12 GB of RAM and a 512 GB M.2 SSD for storage. I've noticed that sometimes, even when running in standalone mode, that I get artifacts in my tones, and other times, when I'm really jammin' and playing some heavier stuff the program will go from sounding really great, as it should, to just going off the wall, and getting ugly sounding, and at times will even cut the audio out all together.
I am curious as to what causes this. I guess it's also worth mentioning that I am plugging my guitar in to my Pavilion laptop via a Focusrite Scarlett 2i2 audio interface (firmware version 1605) . Sample rate is 44.1 kHz, with a buffer size of 128. My round-trip latency is 15.2ms - (666 samples), and I am in "safe mode". I am getting ready to upgrade my PC since I am going to already be opening it up in order to install a new fan, which it needs just because the original one isn't doing so hot, and I don't like my laptop getting too, well, hot.
I plan on installing a Crucial 32 GB RAM kit (which will consist of two 16 GB sticks), as well as a storage upgrade in the form of a Crucial 2TB M.2 PCle NVMe SSD. These upgrades will obviously work wonders for my trusty laptop (which is about 3 years old at this point in time, and has been a great PC, which I have not had a single issue/problem with throughout the entire time I've owned it thus far) from many different angles, one of the biggest improvements of which, I assume will be my performance when using multiple plug-ins while recording/tracking in Reaper, in which I always only use either Bias FX 2 Elite, or Amplitube as far as my plug-ins are concerned.
I am just wondering if these audio anomalies and such which are occurring as I am playing guitar, might be another item which I might expect to see some improvement upon once I have completed these fixes and upgrades. I learned very early on, that if one expects to be able to play using BIAS FX 2, without experiencing a noticeable amount of latency (or any other plug-in for that matter), that RAM is one's best friend. The more RAM one has, the better these programs will run. More seamlessly, and with less latency. So, I know that I will be improving my usage of BIAS FX 2 Elite, I am just curious as to which ways I might expect to see noticeable improvements, aside from the fact that I should be able to get round-trip latency way down, to a point where it will not be noticeable at all anymore, and more like playing on an actual amplifier.
It's definitely sweet to be able to jam using my computer as a means of amplification. But any considering taking this leap for themselves, who have not already, be warned, it is absolutely NOT, just as simple as purchasing a license, downloading some software, and BOOM, you're in the game! Unfortunately, there is a great deal more involved than that, the main thing being, the fact that regardless whether you are sporting a MAC, or a PC, either way, it must be a relatively powerful machine. Positive Grid's website states that a minimum of 8 GB of RAM is required to run BIAS FX 2. However, based upon personal experience, and the fact that almost all of us are going to have other programs and apps being put to use on our computers, other than just what is necessary to play our guitars - think, DAWs for example... because chances are, if you are interested in playing guitar on your MAC or PC, then you are almost certainly going to want to start doing some tracking/recording as well... and that's still just sticking to the guitar related stuff - , I would highly recommend investing in a desktop, or laptop with absolutely no less than 16 GB of RAM.

I’ve read through what I could online and asked my accountant, who told me we needed a planning meeting at her hourly rate of $285…and I thought is it really that complicated? After reading its documentation and a bunch of articles, I think I’m just looking for a general agreement with my specific situation I’ve got the right understanding.
Relocating out of TX for a job in CA. Potentially listing our home for sale in June 2024. We bought this house in October 2022. The price that we bought and what our realtor thinks we can list for is a different of $50k. With commissions and all the closing fees, we might have $20k “gained” and would pay the long term capitol gains 15% tax bracket(married filing jointly). So a tax liability of $3k.
I did read there are exclusions as in having to sell because you are relocating for work. So did I understand the very not straightforward complicated tax code , I’ll probably have to pay $3k in taxes?

Cigarettes and rebellion have always gone hand-in-hand, and in an age of cigarette packet-sized health warnings, now more than ever, smoking a fag says: 'I do not give a fuck.' But if Brandon Flowers is hoping to strike a seditious pose by sparking up at the start of the interview, it's not going according to plan. The Killers' frontman is on all fours rooting through the junk that carpets the anteroom at the band's rehearsal space. "Has anyone seen my lighter?" he asks, rocking back on his heels. The question hangs in the air while Brandon cocks his head, waiting for an answer like a meerkat listening for a predator. Twenty-five years old and with a delicate bone structure, there's something almost dainty about him. Receiving no response, he returns to his search. "Oh, Jeez," he sighs. "I had it just a minute ago."
It's a scene that emphatically does not suggest a rebel without a cause. The mess isn't helping. The Killers' HQ - an industrial unit sandwiched between a construction supplier and the offices of a housing development just off Dean Martin Drive in West Las Vegas - is ankle-deep in designer clothing. A Dior Homme suit lies crumpled by the door; there's a pile of shoes topped like a sundae by a pair of Marc Jacobs trainers; and anyone wishing to enter the shoebox room the band use as an office must negotiate a mountain of discarded jeans. Many items are identifiable as coming from the wardrobe of Hot Fuss, The Killers' hugely successful 2004 debut album - triple platinum in the UK with two weeks at Number One and five million sold worldwide. Look! There are the shirts, ties and suit jackets they wore when they thrilled Glastonbury 2005 with indie rock anthems Mr Brightside and Somebody Told Me. That was the crowning moment of a two-and-a-half year tour that finally concluded in October of last year. It seems that after playing that final date in Miami, they returned to Vegas and shrugged off their image onto the floor of this bland white box.
Now a fine layer of dust covers the dead clothes. The Killers have no further use for white tuxedos on their second album, Sam's Town. Today, Brandon wears a black polo shirt, black pin-stripe waistcoat, black jeans and black boots. Where there used to be a layer of foundation, there is now a beard - an untrimmed beard at that. Dave Keuning (30, guitar), Mark Stoermer (29, bass) and Ronnie Vannucci (29, drums) all echo Brandon's black ensemble. Ronnie has added Aviator shades and a handlebar moustache for a dash of motorcycle cop, Dave's frizzy bubble of hair gives him a Marc Bolan-ish air, and there's something very teenage about Mark's scuffed Vans.
Short of walking around wearing sandwich boards saying, "Our new record is a bit heavier than the last one," The Killers couldn't hope to communicate that message more effectively. And they have gained some musical girth on Sam's Town. The pop hooks that made Hot Fuss so irresistible survive intact - see the ringing guitar riffs on first single When You Were Young - but there's a newfound punchiness, coupled with an epic sweep. The minor-to-major uplifts on Bones are fabulously dramatic, the coda to Why Do I Keep Counting? thrillingly intense. Comparisons to Bruce Springsteen have been made. If they overstate the case a little, they are at leaset qualitatively accurate. The Killers are back and this time it's serious - they've got the bootlace ties to prove it.
"Hey, it says here that Springsteen's headlining Glastonbury next year," shouts Ronnie, who's flicking through the NME. He nods sagely at the page without looking up.
"Really?" asks Dave, nicknamed Crazy Dave on account of his alledgedly volatile nature.
"The Boss is headlining one night, we're playing second on the bill the next night and Kylie's headlining the Sunday," says Brandon, charging like a bull through Michael Eavis' as-yet-unannounced line-up with what subsequently proves to be a characteristic gaucheness.
But that lighter is proving elusive. This being America, none of the people hurrying to-and-fro prepping the world for the release of Sam's Town smokes. Manager Robert Reynolds - Bobby Rey to the band - barks into his mobile, booking his band onto eye-wateringly demanding tours. "We're going to make a lot of money," he cackles to himself before switching calls to make a series of stern pronouncements on legal matters. Dave, Mark and Ronnie disappear for a jam session. Artwork is approved, B-sides are decided on and schedules are hammered out.
"I can't find it," Brandon says, finally. But he's not going to be denied the opportunity to underline The Killers reinvention with a puff of smoke. "Let's go to the gas station. I'll have to buy one. It's too busy to talk here anyway."
+
Brandon's black (of course) Volkswagen Touraeg four-wheel drive is barrelling down West Flamingo Road into town. "I was a bell boy there," he says, pointing out of the driver's window at the stucco facade of the Gold Coast casino. "I was working there when we were signed."
Coming from Las Vegas, it is perhaps inevitable that casinos play a big part in The Killers' story; not only is Sam's Town named after one, it was recorded in one, too.
The band began writing songs while on the road with Hot Fuss, turning up early for soundchecks to run through new ideas. On a trip home to Vegas, George Maloof, a hotelier known for cultivating famous friends, invited them to record the album in the new studio he'd built at The Palms, his flagship hotel-cum-gambling den. When the tour finished in October 2005, they returned to Vegas and spent five month finessing the songs they'd sketched out on the road. Then, in February, they decampled to the third floor studio at The Palms and recorded Sam's Town over 11 weeks.
Producer Flood (U2, Depeche Mode) encouraged them to experiment. They overdubbed, fiddled with synthesizers and played with new equipment. It took them five weeks to get the backing vocals right. The band sang the harmonies, then double-tracked them four times. The end result recalls Queen wondering, "Is this is the real life? Is this just fantasy?" When Ronnie, a trained classical percussionist, brought some kettledrums down, eyebrows were raised; but the fabulously bombastic coda on Why Do I Keep Counting? vindicates his indulgence.
"That's kind of the Ben Hur of the album," he says. He's not wrong. Sam's Town is a record on an epic scale. "Yeah, it has drama," he continues. "But, at the same time, I think it's a little more exposed than Hot Fuss. It's a little more naked. Last time it was about a lot of fictional things." By "fictional", Ronnie means that Hot Fuss wore its predominantly British influences for all to see. Brandon's taste in music is rabidly Anglophile - he constantly references The Smiths, The Cure and Joy Division - and it showed. By contrast, Sam's Town is an unequivocally American record. The lyrical imagery is pure American dream - cars, girls, wide-open spaces and escaping to a better life. "We're burning down the highway skyline/On the back of a hurricane that started turning/When you were young," sings Brandon on When You Were Young. That's the basis of the Springsteen comparisons then, though the lack of pathos more closely recalls another blue-collar rocker from New Jersey - Jon Bon Jovi.
The phrase "this town" recurs throughout the album, and it's always receding into the distance as The Killers escape to a new life. "This town was made for passing through/I never did get along with everybody else," sings Brandon on This River Is Wild. On Read My Mind he "never really gave up on breaking out of this two-star town", while on the title track he offers something of an explanation: "Nobody ever had a dream round here."
"With the first record, there was this feeling that there was this world out there that we didn't know," says Mark later in the day. Before The Killers, he studied philosophy: now he's their quiet one. "We wanted to get out and away from this and be somewhere else. We hadn't had a lot of experience - hadn't travelled much - then we were gone for three years. We didn't sit down and say that we wanted to make a record about how we're glad to be home, but that's what happened naturally."
It's not an angsty record. The Killers have already escaped with Hot Fuss, and, having done so, they view the experience fondly now they're back. There's a mistiness to Brandon's eyes as he explains how the album got it's name.
"Sam's Town is a casino on the edge of Vegas," he says. "I grew up in Henderson, which is out on the way to the Hoover Dam. My mom and dad lived in a trailer park, and my dad used to hitchhike up and down Boulder Highway, which is the only way you could get to Vegas. Sam's Town was the first thing you saw on your way in to town. So, when you're driving down Boulder Highway from Henderson, I always thought you finally knew you were getting somewhere when you saw Sam's Town. It was kind of like a beacon."
"It's not a completely American album," contines Brandon. "We still have our English influence, but we're also from the Wild West. Somehow we've managed to unify all that on this album. it's just such a perfect resemblence of what we are."
At the petrol station, Brandon rummages through the glove box looking for change to buy a lighter. "This is a great album," he says, pointing at Highway Companion, the latest from iconic American rocker Tom Petty. "I've always been a big fan of his. He's such a great American artist."
Yes, Brandon: we get the point.
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When Brandon finally lights his cigarette, he smokes it awkwardly, like a child mimicking something he's seen the grown-ups doing. However, when he cheerfully admits that, "I feel the same mentally as I did when I was 12," it's not a knowing nod to the fact that he sometimes behaves like a loveably precocious child, but a reference to an unusually comprehensive grounding in pop music at an early age.
When Brandon sings about "this town", he doesn't mean Las Vegas. He means Nephi, Utah or Henderson, Nevada, where he spent his childhood. His parents are Mormon and he is the youngest of six children. "I was a surprise," he says. "I've got a 42-year-old sister." If he was issues about his "surprise" status, he chooses to gloss over them. "It turned out perfect because my brother was a teenager when I was a kid," he says. "He would bring home things like Rattle And Hum by U2 and I would watch it. I remember he bought Live In Dallas by Morrissey. It was always him watching these things, or his door was shut and you'd hear The Head On The Door by The Cure blasting through the house and rattling the walls."
The Killers were formed when Brandon answered an advert Dave had placed in a local paper in late 2002. Dave cited Oasis as a big influence; Brandon had seen them play recently and responded; and, as Dave has said in previous interviews: "He was the only person to reply to my ad who wasn't a complete freak." However, the band was born in Brandon's brothers bedroom.
"His room was like a shrine," enthuses Brandon. "It was a holy place. I wish I could show you a picture of it. It was covered in posters. There'd be a big picture of Elvis wearing a bow tie that just said 'The Smiths' [the artwork for The Smiths 1987 single Shoplifters Of The World Unite]. You had The Cure wearing face paint [the artwork to The Cure's 1985 single In Between Days] - all that kind of stuff. I remember Morrissey being on the cover of the NME, with the halo [from 1985] - stuff like that. You just wanted to know about these people 'cause they were so cool. My brother seemed like such a cool person. But he was a teenager, so he wasn't going to be that nice to me, a kid."
Brandon was fascinated by his brother's collection of music, magazines and posters, but he was denied access to them - officially, at least. "I would sneak in," he says. "I knew he'd be angry if he found out, but I would go in as soon as he left the house." For a long time Brandon was too scared to actually play anything. "That didn't come 'til later. I just used to go in there because I liked it. Then I got to the point where I'd actually take a tape out and put it in. It took more guts to do that."
It was a life-changing moment. "I was ten and the first song I played was Sing Your Life by Morrissey. I remember dancing about to it."
The lyrics to Sing Your Life include the lines, "Sing your life/Just walk right up to the microphone/And name all the things that you love/All the things that you loathe." It's intriguing to wonder what Morrissey makes of the neophyte he inspired with these lines.
Eventually, Brandon inherited his brother's tape collection. "It was around the same time CDs started coming out in a big way. He started buying CDs and gave me his tapes. And that was it: it took off from there. I got a hundred of the best albums - all the New Order, all the Morrissey, all The Smiths, The Beatles. I started buying posters. I went to see The Cure in concert. It was just kind of a continuation of my brother. And it was nice because, though my parents were strict, they were already used to it from him. There was no, 'My dad doesn't understand me,' or any of that kind of stuff. My mum likes The Smiths."
Brandon was 13 and his favourite band was late-'70s/early-'80s American new wavers The Cars, and particularly their jaw-droppingly catchy 1979 single Just What I Needed.
"I wouldn't exist without that song," he says. "That was the one. I remember driving around with my mum when I was 13, and we're living in Nephi - a really small town - and I felt so cool when I put that song on. Like: 'I have something that none of these kids I'm going to middle school with tomorrow have.' That excitement is what music's about, isn't it? That's why I understand the mentality of people that don't like us because we've sold so many records. I used to like it when no one else knew about a band. So I get that - I do."
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Brandon's first band was called Blush Response. It was never going to work out. Not because he refused to move to Los Angeles with them, but because he is utterly - comically - shameless. He's given to making outrageously boastful statements like: "It's not like the '60s, '70s and '80s now. There are only a few bands around that are really good, that just do it. I mean, there's what, five or six of us?"
For the record, in Brandon's estimation, those bands are Franz Ferdinand, Razorlight, The Strokes, The White Stripes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs and, of course, The Killers.
"I don't want people to think I'm lumping myself with other people just to make us sound cool," he says. Really? It sort of sounds like you are. But he just steamrolls through it. "Yeah, but you know what I mean," he says, grinning at his own cheekiness. He's so disgracefully forward you can't help but laugh along with him - Oh you are awful, Brandon! But joking aside, The Killers are the most commercially successful of all the bands he mentions.
Later, back at the rehearsal space, the band run through Sam's Town at deafening volume in preparation for the forthcoming tour - first the US, then the world. The infectious, almost contagious, chorus of When You Were Young sounds fabulous, as do the U2-like guitars and Twin Peaks synths of Read My Mind. Meanwhile, Smile Like You Mean It and Somebody Told Me benefit from the newfound harder edge.
They somewhat heavy-handedly underline the new direction by playing Paranoid by Black Sabbath and Get It On by T Rex. That's the thing: The Killers are not a subtle band. Their songs are like a wet kiss from a girl who's a bit too drunk. They are big and brash, and not everyone loves them for it. Mr Brightside and Somebody Told Me might go down as well at hip nightclubs as they do on the festival circuit, but the DJs play them with the same guilty look they wear when playing a pop record.
"I hate that," says Brandon. "Like writing a song you can hum somehow cheapens it? It makes me think of this quote by Morrissey. Everybody knows how he read Oscar Wilde, Keats and Yates when he was growing up and that he wanted to be a writer. He was talking to this journalist who asked why he hadn't become a writer, and Morrissey said: 'What I do is more powerful than what you do because I can write down these words and you get it to a melody. How can you beat that?' I'm of the same opinion. I don't understand why a good melody that's memorable is a bad thing."
Being dismissed as pop particular aggrieves Ronnie. "When we first came out we got compared to Duran Duran all the time. Jesus Christ! We got a keyboard player now all of a sudden he's Nick Rhodes! Come on!"
"The people who criticise us for being too poppy don't get it," agrees Mark. "I think that's the problem with a lot of rock music. People are afraid to write a song any more. Either that or they can't. And that attitude hurts music in general. The best bands ever have all written great songs. You can still do it and do it intelligently and it can be original. This isn't a studio creation with a producer writing these songs for us. We're not Avril Lavigne, or something like that. We're a real band writing real songs, just like a punk band would do, except that we write pop songs."
You get the impression that The Killers knack for showboating pop hooks that border on vulgar is inextricably tied up with the brazen side of Brandon's personality. But while his ebullient charisma, not to mention the songs themselves, mitigates his outrageousness, there is a less attractive side to his ego. He has a combative streak. He can't resist taking pot shots at emo bands, notably Fall Out Boy, whith whom The Killers share an A&R man.
Has he heard how many emo kids it takes to change a light bulb? "No." None. They just sit in the dark and cry. It's a full 30 seconds before he stops laughing. When he does he admits: "Yeah, we've had problems with other bands. You know, when you walk in the room it's like..." He whistles the theme to The Good, The Bad And The Ugly. "We're like gangs."
And while the other members of the band are diplomatic on the subject of Brandon, you don't have to read too deeply between the lines to conclude that there have been internal issues, too.
"Some people will think Brandon's the big genius," says Dave, visibly bridling. "There are songs, such as Why Do I Keep Counting?, where he's written every note. But there are others, like When You Were Young, that were more of a collaboration - like Mr Brightside, where I had some of the music and Brandon came up with the lyrics. We always have arguments about who wrote what. The truth is that we all help in that process."
When asked how success affected them, Ronnie says: "There were certain things that needed adjusting. When you're on tour for two years, people can get a little needy. It doesn't help that you're surrounded by yes men and everybody's working for you. At times we've had to say, 'Who do you think you are?' to people. No one wears the trousers, but some people would like to. I think if it wasn't for the people in the band kicking each other in the ass... Let's just say there was some ass-kickin'."
It doesn't take a genius to work out whose ass needed kicking most often.
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It's the following day and The Killers are back at their rehearsal space. The topic of discussion is what to wear in the video for Bones, the second single. It's a big deal: the director is Tim Burton. "I feel like Frank Sinatra when I sing it," announces Brandon. "With maybe a little bit of Morrissey and a little bit of Elvis, too."
Of course he does. But if securing the services of Tim Burton tells you one thing, it's that The Killers are about to get even bigger, perhaps even make the leap to the same level as Coldplay et al. Already stars, they are about to become superstars. Brandon can hardly wait.
"Do you know that Rolling Stone didn't want to put us on the cover last time," he says indignantly. "They didn't think we were stars. We sold five million albums! What more do they want from a band?"
Whatever was required, Brandon would be happy to do most things. "I'll do stuff that some people don't want to do, 'cause I want people to hear the music," he says. However, even he has limits. "The Rolling Stone thing made the record label think: 'What can we do to make them stars?' If I go on vacation with my wife, do they have to send somebody to be there to take pictures of me? Is that how you become a star? I don't want that. I walked down the red carpet one time and I realised I don't like it. But you don't have to walk down the red carpet for people to hear your music. We do still have some of that indie blood running through our veins."
He heads off at a tangent: "When you walk around Liverpool, you think of The Beatles, or you go to Manchester and you think of The Smiths or Oasis. I want you to come to Las Vegas and think of Sam's Town. And I think we've started to capture that, which is a truer version of The Killers, 'cause that's where we're from."
He pauses.
"I used to live across the street from Sam's Town. Maybe it'll be like our Abbey Road where people go to take pictures."
Is that what he'd like?
"I wouldn't mind it," he says, desperately hoping it will come true.
He puts a cigarette between his lips, looks down at his trouser pockets and pats them in search of the lighter he bought yesterday.
"Hey, I don't suppose you've got one?"

Is anyone an IT project officer working for govt / private?
How many hours do you work, is the work stressful, is there a steep learning curve, do you have ambitions to become a business analyst or PM?
I’m looking at a job with the state govt. Responsiblies include: - plan meetings and logistics - attend meetings/ record minutes - develop and maintain project artificars like risks, issues, project schedule, budget sheets etc - prepare briefing material for the PM - lead team meeting when required - support preparing project material in line with PRINCE2 documentation
Any opinions on this role as a platform for future roles as well?