I'm a 3rd year apprentice service plumber and am thinking about switching to a different trade. I'm considering refrigeration and boiler maintenance/install.
I think what draws me to this trade is the fact that you can work alone (how soon?), the general challenges of diagnosing and fixing something and I'm wondering how decent the money is as well.
I'm frankly getting a little bored with plumbing. I understand the systems that I work on. I just started with a new company and they unfortunately decided to pair me with someone who has less than half my experience and he's the "technician". So they pay me $22/hr. to train him, meanwhile I'm not building skills and am bored out of my mind. I could always memorize which shower cartridges go with what valve, but I think it would be wiser to gain a good understanding of the refrigeration cycle (which I know I can do) and apply that to my skillset.
I do a lot of diagnostics on water heaters and sewage ejector pumps, so I know how to use a multimeter in a basic way.
I could test for my license in NC immediately if I wanted to, or if I wanted to test for a national journeyman's, I could have it in 3 years. I'm not attached to being licensed in anything, I just want to earn a good income. I'd go back to school for an intensive program if it's worth it.
I'm 33 and single, so I'd be good with some late/on call work, but it's not something I'd like to make a habit of long-term.
Being in the South, I've never been involved with a labor union, but I'd be curious to know if there are any purely refrigeration unions. Would that just go along with pipefitting/HVAC?
I appreciate any tips you all have. Thanks!

Below is a list of the deltas awarded in this post.
Please note that a change of view is not necessarily a reversal, and that OP awarding a delta doesn't mean the conversation has ended.
For a full explanation of the delta system, see here.

Deltas from OP WaterOk9249

• 1 delta from OP to Tanaka917 for "You realize that this is kinda how things are when talking in groups yes? I don't know you from Adam..."

Deltas from Other Users

None yet.

I have had a long interest in dnd-like RPGs because there are many ways in which i feel dnd could be improved that I think these smaller scale games do a good job at. I have recently decided i want to get a group together since I haven't had one in a while but its hard to pick, there are so many! Each one takes time, money, and a group of people to even test... its kinda hard to choose.
Long and short, I like it to be relatively rules light and at least somewhat grounded but a bit flexible.
If you want meatier detail, I have had experiences with DCC, Dungeon world, and i own 5td. Ive been looking into other systems like ezd6, ICRPG, Mork Borg, Shadowdark, and even fate. I LOVE the dark fantasy aesthetic of morkborg but i havent heard much about the actual game. I also like its player facing and the players make all the rolls. Ive heard the most good things about EZD6 and ICRPG but even between the 2 it can be hard to choose. I think fate had some good ideas but its kinda abstract and idk how easy itd be to run especially for people who have never played before. I find a lot of indie rpgs really focus on combat or hardcore dungeon survival, but there's a lot of other stuff that happens in a good dnd type game.
Where do yall think I should start? I can only really pick 1 realistically, at least for a while.

I recently got my Apple IPhone 8 updated from the old Starter plan to the Welcome plan, same exact plan, just different names. I go to use my hotspot and it needs to be enabled. I go to do that, I put in my ID, I then put in my password, and it says I am not in the freaking damn system. I use that call option and talk to a automated representative. It does not even let me tell it my problem and asks for me to restate it. So I go and use the message option. I state my problem after telling it what I am having trouble with, to which it told me to reset it, “I am trying to enable my Hotspot since in changed plans recently. It refuses to acknowledge my Apple ID and password,” it tell it that I am not having problems with finding or knowing my Apple ID or password, it just won’t sign in. It tells me to freaking log in when it is refusing to log in. I have had similar issues the past 6-7 years I have had a phone where it will not acknowledge my password and I have had to reset it each and every time. This time I knew it was for sure right as I have only changed it once in the last two years and it was based off something in that time. The password failed so I changed it and it said I had to use a different one than I had in the last year, which was the one it refused to acknowledge. So I changed it and tried again, it failed, no matter how long I waited. The message ai kept saying to either log in, change my password which had no problem, or my Apple ID which had no problem, or to start a new plan when my old one had not changed only the name. It told me to talk to a representative after logging in when it will not log in. Then it broke and kept on saying to check my billing and I gave up there. I am on the verge of tears not knowing what to do and the fact that it is taking a second for each of these letters to appear on screen due to lag, even backspacing. No I will not get a new phone as this one works fine and this is a once a month glitch. So please tell me what am I supposed to do

Respect and a big shout-out to all the PDA adults here who don’t want to deal with other people’s family questions!
For people who do want to talk family systems with PDA-
I’m a single parent to 17yo with PDA. They’re an only child. I expect to give them a safe home and meet their basic needs for as long as they need. I think eventually they may find some things they will do (so far struggling hard with school, work, social activities etc). I’ve been all-in with therapy, OT, PT, medical care and daily care and support at home - I know you get what this means.
Although I accept I will likely need to support them long-term, I want to live my life, too. Pretty soon, I want to be able to go out of town for a few days, for example. I think this is important for me.
How to think of this longer term? So far my main ideas revolve around asking friends or hiring someone to “house sit” and check on them daily. Have any of you had successful experiences with this type of thing? How have you worked up to it? How have you effectively discussed it with the PDA person in your care?

I'm an Assistant Professor (TT) in the first year at a CC.
I have had an ongoing problem with students watching YouTube or TikTok via earbuds throughout my classes. I had several students who, although present for a lecture, ask me to repeat things we went over many times -- because they were listening to their devices.
I instituted a no phone policy, a student complained, and I was told I could not ask the students to put their phones away, because a family member might be in trouble and have no way to contact them.
I have one student in particular who has been working on his Associate's Degree for almost a decade. He is almost 30. Since this person has been a student for so long, he is very close to the staff, and even has a part-time job in our office.
This person is the worst offender for not paying attention in class, completing assignments, or staying on task. During a lab, he will not do any work in class at all. Like, not even a little bit. This person sits at a desk with no computer (while others are at theirs) and watches videos on his phone for hours (they're 3 hour labs). He encourages others to do the same. His behavior is rubbing off on his peers, and they are carrying it into other classes in the major. He's turning in work, but I have speculated someone else might be helping him (his girlfriend recently graduated from our program), or he may be using AI.
One day, I asked him to put his phone away repeatedly (they are required to work in their classes), he refused, left the room and immediately told the Chair and Program Coordinator (with whom he is friendly) that I was bullying him. I saw him mock crying to the Program Coordinator, who looked at me like I was a murderer. When he came back to the classroom, he smirked and said, "I hope you don't get in trouble."
At the end of the semester, the student got a B and sent everyone in the department multiple emails about how he was graded unfairly, because the rubric I used was on a scale which does not correspond to our internal system (Canvas). Obviously, I should change this, but I didn't realize the discrepancy, and I can't do it retroactively. And, obviously, points were deducted because he missed assignments and didn't follow instructions (i.e. working in class). He could not only see the percentage in Canvas, but also had access to the final grade I had just entered that day (because of his job) -- well before the other students.
Meanwhile, this person has been surreptitiously garnering sympathy about this situation by complaining to everyone in the Department. I even heard from other people in different Departments about how I was treating him unfairly. For the record, a Professor in another discipline told him to listen to me.
Long story short, the Chair and the Program Coordinator privately met with the student, encouraged him to dispute his grade, and helped him to file a "grade complaint" with the Dean. They had multiple in-person meetings to coordinate this. However, no one said a word to me about any of this nor did they help me to navigate the situation. When I requested a meeting on this subject, I was forced to jump through increasingly bizarre hoops. The meeting is tomorrow.
I don't feel supported. This student is not going anywhere anytime soon. He will probably be a student in my classes for another 10 years, and the staff is supporting and encouraging his behavior. He's going to continue to prove in my classes that no-one has to do anything that I say. Apparently, I can't even give these students bad grades.
I seriously just want to quit, but I'm a disabled single parent, and it was an ordeal to get the school to agree to accommodate those situations. I'm not sure I could do it again. I had to arrange for competing offers from two different institutions in order to get them to agree to my terms. I'm well respected in my field (I just left the industry to care for my child), but it still seems impossible.
If anyone has ANY advice, please let me know.

Tapping into your retirement funds, specifically 401(k)s, to help beef up a down payment is a reoccurring topic on this subreddit.
Accessing retirement funds is a big decision. And like with any big decision, you should understand the ins and outs before you move forward.
An important note before we get started: 401(k)s are not IRAs. 401(k)s do not have the same rules as IRAs. This post is for education regarding the implications of accessing 401(k) funds early - via loan or withdrawal - specifically for the purpose of purchasing a home.

How 401(k)s Work

Your 401(k) is an employer-sponsored retirement savings plan. It is an account within which you can invest in various funds for growth until retirement. All transactions that occur within the 401(k) account are tax sheltered. This means that any income or investment gains are exempt from all forms of taxation. Investments can be bought and sold, dividends can be collected, and Uncle Sam will keep his grubby hands off of the proceeds - for as long as they remain within the 401(k).
In a nutshell, there are two types of 401(k)s: Traditional and Roth.
Traditional 401(k): No taxes now, taxes later
Employees contribute a portion of their pre-tax income to their Traditional 401(k) account through payroll deductions. This means that the money is taken out of their paycheck before taxes are calculated, reducing their taxable income for the year. Investment gains within the 401(k) account grow tax-deferred, meaning taxes are not owed until withdrawals are made in retirement. Some employers offer matching contributions to their employees' traditional 401(k) accounts, which is essentially free money added to the employee's retirement savings.
Penalty-free withdrawals from a Traditional 401(k) are permitted at age 59^1/2. These withdrawals are taxed as ordinary income in retirement. This means that when employees start taking distributions from their account, they will owe income tax on the amount withdrawn, rather than capital gains tax, as is typical for investment gains.
Roth 401(k): Taxes now, no taxes later
Employees contribute a portion of their after-tax income to their Roth 401(k) account through payroll deductions. Unlike traditional 401(k) contributions, Roth 401(k) contributions do not reduce taxable income in the year they are made.
While employers may still offer matching contributions to a Roth 401(k), these matching contributions are made on a pre-tax basis and are deposited into a separate traditional 401(k) account. This means that while employees contribute to their Roth 401(k) with after-tax dollars, employer matches are made with pre-tax dollars, and taxes will be owed on withdrawals of the employer contributions.
Penalty-free withdrawals from a Roth 401(k) are permitted once an account has been open for 5 years, and the owner reaches age 59^1/2. These withdrawals, inclusive of investment gains, are tax-free. Since contributions are made with after-tax dollars, employees have already paid taxes on the money they contribute, so they do not owe taxes on withdrawals in retirement.
^(\Roth 401(k)* funds can be accessed earlier than 591/2 in some cases. See:)) ^{Rule of 55, Rule 72t}

Early Withdrawal Taxes and Penalties

Withdrawing funds early from your 401(k) is costly. For both Traditional 401(k)s and Roth 401(k)s, a 10% penalty is paid on the distributions. So, let's say you withdraw $10,000 for your downpayment. The distribution will be reduced to $9,000. Uncle Sam is taking $1,000 for touching your retirement savings early. Ouch!
And he isn't done.
Traditional 401(k): Taxes on Early Withdrawals
Any amount withdrawn from a traditional 401(k) is generally treated as ordinary income for tax purposes. This means that the withdrawn amount is added to your taxable income for the year in which the withdrawal is made. When made early, you will owe federal income taxes on the withdrawn amount at your marginal\* income tax rate. Additionally, depending on your state of residence, you may owe state income taxes on the withdrawal as well.
Roth 401(k): Taxes on Early Withdrawals
When understanding the rules around early withdrawals from a Roth 401(k), it is important to differentiate between your contributions (money you earned outside the account and put into the account) from your investment gains (money earned by your investments within the account).

• Contributions: Since taxes were already paid on the employee (your) contributions, you can always withdraw them *tax-*free (but not penalty-free).
• Gains: Taxes have not been paid on the investment gains, so taxes will be owed on the withdrawal. The withdrawn gains will again be taxed at your marginal* tax rate.

^\)^{Note: The early withdrawal penalty can be waived in some circumstances. A FTHB purchase is not one of them. Note: column 3 is 401(ks. Column 4 is IRAs, which are not discussed here.})
What is a marginal tax rate, and why is it important?
Your marginal tax rate is the tax rate you pay on the last dollar of your income. In a progressive tax system like that of the United States, tax rates increase as income rises. Your marginal tax rate corresponds to the highest tax bracket into which your income falls.
For example, let's say the tax system has three brackets:

• 10% for income up to $10,000
• 20% for income between $10,001 and $50,000
• 30% for income above $50,000

If you earn $60,000, your marginal tax rate would be 30% because that's the rate applied to the last dollar you earned, which falls within the highest bracket.
Your early withdrawals fall into the "last dollar you earned" category. Meaning every (taxable) dollar withdrawn will be taxed at the highest rate possible - 30% in the example above. Your marginal tax rate could be above or below this number. See what your marginal tax bracket is for 2024 here.
Example: Early Withdrawal from Traditional 401(k) for down payment
John and Emily are a 30-year-old married couple looking to purchase their first home in Florida. They earn a combined $150,000/year. Emily has liberally funded her Traditional 401(k) and has amassed a balance of $100,000. They have also been saving for a downpayment on their first home. They have managed to accumulate $50,000 for a down payment and feel ready to start shopping.
John and Emily find themselves under contract on a $250,000 home that suits all their needs (lol, i know, bear with me). They expect closing costs of $15,000. Unfortunately, their mortgage lender decides they are only willing to extend $200,000 (John has some credit card debt and drives a Ferrari he bought with 0 down).
Uh oh. John and Emily do not have enough cash for both the down payment and the $15,000 in closing costs. Good thing Emily has some extra money stashed away for retirement, right? Let's see what it costs for Emily to tap into her Traditional 401(k)...
Emily withdraws $15,000 for the closing costs. The withdrawal will first be hit with the 10% penalty, which is $1,500.
John and Emily file jointly, putting them in the 22% marginal federal tax bracket. They will be subject to an additional $3,300 in taxes from the distribution.
Fortunately, they're in Florida, so there are no state taxes owed.
It cost Emily and John $4,800 to withdraw their $15,000.
John and Emily walk away with $10,200 cash to show for their $15,000 withdrawal. Had they never touched that $15,000, it would have been worth $261,741 by the time they retired at age 60.
See how expensive an early, unqualified Traditional 401(k) withdrawal would be for you.
Ok, so withdrawing seems like a bad idea. What about borrowing from a 401(k)?

What is a 401(k) loan?

A 401(k) loan is a loan taken out by a participant in a 401(k) retirement plan, where the individual borrows money from their own 401(k) account balance and agrees to repay it according to the terms set by the plan administrator, typically with interest.
By borrowing the money from your 401(k), the money is removed from what it was invested in. If those investments return 25% during the period which the money is borrowed, you, unfortunately, do not reap the rewards. Conversely, if those investments return -25%, you, fortunately, do not bear those losses.
Sounds like an even-sided risk, right? It's a 50/50 chance the market goes up or down? Not necessarily.

401(k) Loan: The Costs to Borrow

Traditional Borrowing Costs: Fees and Interest
401(k) loans typically cost $75-$125 to apply and originate the loan, which is actually pretty good. For those of you looking at your settlement statements, this looks pretty attractive compared to your mortgage origination fee and other up-front borrowing expenses.
Typically, retirement plans charge the current prime rate (8.50%, currently) plus 1% or 2% in interest on 401(k) loans. That interest, along with your repayments, is deposited into your account, and reinvested. Your repayments are deducted from your paycheck, although this time, after-tax. That means, for every $1 you pay back to the loan, you need to earn about $1.30 (give or take, depending on your state and federal tax bracket).
It is important to note that, although you are "paying yourself back", the interest is not free.
Interest on 401(k) loans is designed to keep you on track for retirement. As previously stated, your money is withdrawn from the market, so it will miss out the full benefits of compound growth during the repayment period. In other words: returns that would have otherwise been earned passively, you are now footing the bill for - with after-tax dollars - and it still might not be enough.
Opportunity Cost: Not Seen, but Felt
The typical 401(k) loan term is 5 years, although it can be paid back quicker. Historically, the stock market sees positive returns over a 5-year time frame. Over the past 5 years (as of April 30,2024), the S&P 500 has seen returns of 70.94%, or 11.32% annualized. The S&P 500 Index delivered its worst five-year return of -6.6% per year over the five years ending in February 2009.
As you can see, it's not quite a 50/50 shot at whether the market will see positive returns over a 5-year period. As you increase the time frame, positive market returns become even more reliable.
Even at today's higher prime rate, the interest rate on a 401(k) loan would not have kept pace with S&P 500 over the last 5 years. This means you would end up with a lower 401(k) balance, and you foot the bill for the growth.
Example: Taking a loan from a Traditional 401(k) for a down payment
Anne borrowed from her 401(k) in 2019 at a 6% interest rate in order to increase her down payment on her condo.
Assuming $10,000 borrowed at 6%, Anne will have made $11,580 in total payments by the end of the term. That $10,000, if left never borrowed, would be worth $15,357.
In order to pay that $11,580, the Anne earned $15,054, and had to pause normal contributions to the 401(k) that would have otherwise deferred taxes on those earnings.
In the end, that someone has $11,580 in their 401k - all paid in with after-tax dollars. Had the money never been borrowed, and Anne contributed that $15,054 earned to their 401(k), her 401(k) balance would be $30,411 - a difference of $18,831 at the end of the 5-year period.
After 30-years, that difference is somewhere in the ballpark of $548,000.\*
^(\Calculation assumes $15,054 in earnings was invested monthly at a flat rate of $250.90/month for 60 months at a 11.32% average annual return, then compounded at 10% average annual monthly return with no additional contributions.)*
Caveat: that $10,000 was invested in her condo, and that is important to factor.
Assuming her condo has increased in value by 50% over the past 5 years (8.45% annualized rate of return), that $10,000 is worth now worth $15,000 in home equity.
Concluding the 5-year period, Anne as a total of $26,580 to show for her decision to borrow between her $11,580 401(k) balance and $15,000 home equity. Her net worth is $3,831 less than it would be had she not taken out the loan.

Summary

While accessing 401(k) funds for a down payment on a home may seem like a viable option, it's crucial to weigh the associated costs, penalties, and long-term implications. Understanding the intricacies of early withdrawals and loans from 401(k) accounts empowers individuals to make informed financial decisions that align with their short-term goals and long-term goals.

Hi everyone,
I used to frequently lurk on this reddit looking for some ways to deal with my case of anxiety induced OAB. I thought I’d chime and share a success story that had with my battle with overactive bladder. I just want to start with some background I’m 29m with not major medical or health complications, I’m healthy and physically active (at the time that my symptoms really cracked off I was probably the fittest I had been in my life).
My symptoms all started in August of 2022 and they came on suddenly. To set the scene it was a beautiful sunny Saturday and I had some plans to go surfing with some mates latter in the afternoon. There was some pretty good swell due at one of my favourite beaches in town and I was super exited (maybe a little nervous because it was going to be kind of larger surf that I was used to. In the morning I had breakie and a cup of coffee. I was really excited about this new coffee that I had got from the store. Immediately after the coffee I was a little anxious but nothing out of the ordinary, I thought it was nervous jitters for the surf session. Anyways my mated pick me up and we head to the beach (it was about an hour drive away). On the car trip I remember having to pee but again nothing out of the ordinary. We go surfing for about 2-3 hours, and I didn’t have to go once the entire time I was out. I get out of the water and change, and that when it all started. I went to use the bathroom and immediately afterwards had to go again (I thought it was weird and tried to go again but there was nothing…okay…). pack up the car and start driving, and the urge was strong again, stoped to go again still not much again. So I suffered for the rest of the car ride home feeling like I was going to go in my pants the whole time. It was at this point my anxiety shot through the roof and I felt like a panic attack was coming on (I had one earlier in the year so I kind of recognized the symptoms of it). I get home and try everything I can to get myself to calm down and nothing worked. The plan was to go home and then meet my friend for homemade pizza at their house (20 minute drive away). I get ready and use the bathroom and get halfway to my friends house only to have to stop and go again. I struggle through the dinner have to excuse myself once or twice to go again still there was not too much. By the end of the day I had burned 3500 calories of stress. I figured it was anxiety at the time and I hoped that it would get better in the morning.
But that urge became something I constantly had to deal with, and when I say constant I mean like I’d go and immediately feel like I needed to go again (maybe 5 minutes of relief between visits). This would lead to me having to go to the bathroom maybe 20 times a day or so. I missed out on movies, shows, drinking with my mates, had to start planning my life around bathroom access, and coffee. (At the time I would have done anything to be able to have a pint or a cup of coffee with my mated and not have to worry about my symptoms getting worse). All this worry was starting consume a large part of my day to day thinking. I mean it’s not like it a symptom that you can just ignore. Fomos and the general anxiety around whether was was going to get better This really stressed me out and made the problem much worse as time went on.
I figured I’d wait and see before going to the doctor see what was going on. After about a week with nothing getting better I decided to go see a doctor. They did some test which all came back negative, I had an ultrasound and everything was clear. At the ultrasound appointment with less than 100ml of liquid in my bladder the feeling was so intense the lady even showed me that there was nothing there on her screen (again this clued me into thinking maybe this was a physiological issue rather than physical one). They said there was nothing that they could find that was medically wrong with me but they would refer me to a urologist to give me the all clear. At this point in my mind there were not major medical issues with me, so there were two potential causes (1) anxiety and (2) a nagging injury. Re (2) I had a nagging groin injury that I sustained at the beginning of the year. I was going to pt for it and thought I could have been surfing from a hypertonic pelvic floor and that was causing the oab symptoms. I couldn’t get an appointment for several months so there was a long period of just waiting while still battling with this constant urge to use the bathroom.
After that appointment I figured I’m dealing with the injury with pt already so maybe I should try to focus on the anxiety aspect. So I tired everything that I could do to reduce my symptoms, drink less coffee, meditate (headspace), saw a therapist, stepped back my work as much as I could to get some time to relax, kept physically active (surfing running climbing multiple times a week), spent time with friends and still nothing made me feel better.
I think this was a period where I was the most stressed that I had ever been. Lets just say 2022 was a year I would not want to repeat anytime soon. To list all that I had going on (tw: cancer, suicide(friend), family member death ) :

1. I was living abroad in nz and was far from family, and my partner. My dad earlier in the year had been diagnosed with cancer and was going through treatments.
2. My really good friend attempted suicide twice (The first time I was the closest person to him and he confided in me with his intentions and everything. Probably the most stressful we ek of my life)
3. My friends mental health emergency lead to me having to move flats on short notice because I didn’t feel safe where I lived because I was threatened by my friend after calling the cops on him to do a wellness check. I went from living in boarding situation with 12 really good friends to living in a studio which was super isolating.
4. I felt afraid around the town because of these treats and made it harder to relax. Plus running which was my biggest outlet for stress and the thing that I did with my friend became to hard for me to do. It kept giving my ptsd flashbacks of the event.
5. my grandfather passed away shortly after my father was diagnosed with cancer.

(tw:end)

1. I was in the process of writing my thesis at the time and had my defence deadline approaching nearer and nearer.
2. I was planning on moving back to my home country at the end of the year which meant that I was going to loose my whole support system and have to start fresh again. I had to worry about selling most of the stuff I own (car, furniture, clothes, surfboards etc.)
3. I was also planning a carrier change from one research to a completely different field of study. I’m an academic and I wanted try something new. You either get to pick where you live or the research you do.
4. worried about jobs I was going to get when I moved back and how I was going to support myself. This is related to 8)

I feel like any one of these events would be a lot to deal with on its own. This was all coming off the tail end of covid as well, thing were starting to get back to normal but there were still periodic lock downs. I feel like it had been a year of very high constant stress and everything together overloaded me. It hasn’t been uncommon for anxiety to manifest as physical symptoms for me before. I remember earlier in the year before the oab really kicked off that I couldn’t eat food without it making me feel sick. it turns out that anxiety cracks up stomach acid and that can make you feel nauseous. The doctor was able to help me out with.
Well to continue the story I went and saw urologist and he said that everything was clear and there was nothing to worry about. Just have to wait for things to calm down, he did give me some oxybutynin that didn’t really help. Then shorty after that I had to sell everything I owned and I flew back home. I remember that flight being kind of hard, I was sad to leave the country and anxious for the new life I was about to begin. It really enhanced the symptoms that I was experiencing.
I moved back to the USA at the end of 2023 and that is when I began trying to tackle this problem in earnest. The urologist recommended that I tried bladder retraining while it was helpful to see progress it still didn’t help with the symptoms that much. I tired cbd for my anxiety and had some success. It seemed to help manage my symptoms. I moved from summer in the southern hemisphere, to the middle of the winter in the northern hemisphere and the lack of sun didn’t help my mental health.
At this point I could go maybe 30 minutes between trips to the bathroom. I didn’t have coffee, or alcohol (didn’t even dream of it). Car trips were miserable, would spend most of them stressed I wouldn’t find a bathroom. Still had the constant urge to use the bathroom. Things were not fun. Luckily I had a decent amount of money in savings so I took some time to relax while I was waiting to defend my thesis. (I think I took about 6-7 months to myself)
Okay I’m sure you all know all that symptoms and how miserable they can be. Here’s what worked for me:
First thing I’d say is go see a doctor. Reddit is great but a doctor will be able to tell if there is anything physically wrong with you. Then trust what they say. When are you a dealing with a health related thing that is related to anxiety the most important thing is to make sure that you have a clean bill of health.
Once you know nothing is wrong physically here are some ways of dealing with oab caused my anxiety:

1. Talk: Talk to your love ones about what you are dealing with. Tell them you are struggling with this medical issue and you may need to pull over and use the bathroom or disappear for a couple minutes. They will understand if they love you. I waited a long time to open up to my partner about this, and I felt a lot better after I told her what I was struggling with.
2. Face this head on: Don’t retreat still do things go outside got to shows bars the store. You will be able to find a bathroom you don’t need to worry. Remember that stuff that you love to do don’t let oab rule your life. Its going to be scary but its good to face these anxieties head on. If you start canceling events because you are afraid of bathroom access will lead to further isolation, and eventually agoraphobia (not a good place to end up)
3. Bladder retraining: This gives you a way to track progress and play chicken with your bladder in a controlled manner. You are trying to teach your brain the difference between really and fake signals. This will help you gain trust in yourself again. Remember this is gradual process.
4. Professional help. Shortly after getting back to the states I started getting professional help to deal with all the stress I had in my life. I needed somewhere where I could process everything I was going through. I got the quickest appointment I could and took the first one I could get. By involving doctors and therapist and even your loved ones you are not tackling this problem alone anymore you have a team of people helping you. Plus they can give you ideas on how to manage your stress and anxiety.
5. Headspace: In a similar vein headspace and mindfulness will help with learning how to acknowledge how we are feeling and move on. We are always going to need to use the bathroom there is no way around it and we sometimes will have the feeling that we need to go when we don’t need to. In the same way there is no getting rid of anxiety, what mindfulness does is help change our relationship with these feelings. You could try the session on chronic pain because what we are experiencing is a persistent unwanted sensation from out body like a form of pain. There is also more general ones about anxiety. I think we can borrow some of the ideas that people dealing with chronic pain use to to deal with the urges that we experience ( I don’t know how much there is to this though).
6. (a) side tangent: I saw this guy in nz who said that when people are dealing with heartache sometimes taking a painkiller (like Tylenol or ibuprofen) can help deal with the pain. Even though the pain is psychosomatic the feeling is still real, and the painkiller can actually help with managing the heartbreak. (see)
7. Medication: Trying anti anxiety meds was the biggest thing for me. What I really needed after all the stress was some mental space. For me lexapro gave me this space. I know that finding the right medication to be on can be hard and its a long process to find the one that is right for you. I’m currently on the lowest dose (5mg) and I have been taking it for about 1.5 years with little side effects (only if I miss a dose I feel a little dizzy in the evening). I know anti-anxiety meds get a bad wrap these days and I feel like there is a lot of misinformation about them. People worry that it is going numb them that they are going to feel like themselves, or that people are going to judge them for taking it, but in my case that hasn’t been my experience. If you are at a high level of stress it can help bring you back down to baseline, it can give you the space to acknowledge the things that make you feel anxious and move on. I highly recommend trying this out. I should also say here that it does take 1.5-2 months for the meds to really start working, and during that time your anxiety can increase (but its worth it!!!)
8. CBD: if you don’t want to try an anti anxiety med try CBD, it really helps with stress and I found that it was pretty good at helping with some OAB symptoms at first but you build up a tolerance to it when you are taking it daily, and it can become expensive. What I found that worked for me was around 10-15mg 3 times a day (breakfast lunch and dinner). This helped me be less stressed in the car our when I was out walking places and there was no bathroom nearby.

When this all started I didn’t ever think I was going to be able to enjoy a cup of coffee again or go to a bar and have a pint and drive home with out a worry. After working at this for the last 2 years I’ve been able to get to a place where I can have a coffee and then go for a long car ride and have no symptoms. I’m able to go to a triva night and enjoy a beer without having to get up every 10 minutes to use the bathroom. I’m able to sit through meeting without having to leave 3-4. I’ve been able to give a 1 hr long talk to a large group of people (something I wouldn’t have been able to do because oab at the beginning of all this) with no issues. In my experience there is no instant cure for this, don’t say this to be negative but more so to say that its going to take hard work, and there is hope. I was able to overcome this thing and so can you! I hope this helps and thanks for taking the time to read my post.

To cut a very long story short, my landlord is as dodgy as they come. Basically I got a large council tax bill for the room that live in. UC are currently paying the rent. I argued that my accommodation did not meet the legal requirements of a self-contained flat and I would not be paying any of the council tax bill, and I would be willing to go to court if necessary.
The council today informed me that the property was registered as a HMO last August and they should not have billed me for council tax (no apology though).
My question is, how is my landlord being paid the 1 bedroom rate when the property is a registered HMO? I have an ensuite room in a house with a shared kitchen. Should the landlord not be getting the shared accommodation rate?
At the end of the day it's not me paying the rent, but I don't like the fact that my landlord is potentially abusing the system for profit. I'm more than happy to grass him up.

After Final Fantasy once again failed to meet investors' expectations, I asked myself why FF has lost its popularity. It seems to me that Final Fantasy has not only lost its identity but has simply not been handled properly.
When it comes to video games and gamers, you can say there are roughly 3 parties. Casuel gamer (mainstream), fans and hardcore fans. When it comes to Final Fantasy, it currently feels like casual gamers have little interest in the series and there are fewer and fewer fans.
I think it's no secret that many fans have been not happy with the series for years. From turn based gameplay to action games, unfinished games or even everything has to be a series (like the RE trilogy), just to list a few that are mentioned very often. But for casual gamers it's even more difficult.
For casual gamers, terms like ATB or CSB don't exist for the combat system; when they think of Final Fantasy, turn based comes to their mind. Just looking at FF15, FF16 and FF7R, all 3 have different gameplays, which can be very confusing. The older games also had different combat systems, but it didn't feel as drastic as the last 20 years. To this day, people also don't want to understand that each mainline FF stands on its own and you don't have to play the rest. Then we have the disastrous naming of games. Why is FF7 Remake Part 2 called Final Fantasy Rebirth? To the casual gamer, this sounds like a spin off and not like a continuation of a game. How can they allow such a wrong decision?
What I also noticed among casual gamers is that FF has a rather bad reputation. FF15 is a boy band meme. FF16 is cringe for many. FF7 Remake is a scam because it is only a part of the original. FF7 Rebirth has a bad ending. It's also hard to recommend Final Fantasy to anyone, as the series is probably only for "older" gamers. So SE has somehow managed to make the series not beginner-friendly and makes it more difficult for casual gamers to get into the series. Great Job.
A much bigger problem is that fans were constantly disappointed. As already mentioned, fans have not been really happy for a long time. Final Fantasy has always evolved, but the series has a true identity crisis at this point. Fans have wanted a turn based game for years and have been ignored. Fans wanted an FF7 remake and no they do something confusing and divide it into three parts. Fans want remasters and ports, and those are problems too.
They always worked against the fans and managed to get fewer and fewer fans. What is the result of all these decisions? The games are selling less and less. Not only is developing games becoming more and more expensive, but marketing, i.e. advertising, can be even more expensive, which is why AAA games have to sell 5-6 million to even break even.
I think a lot has gone wrong since the PS3 era on several levels. Final Fantasy didn't just lose its popularity in 2-3 years, but rather through constant bad decisions by several people over the course of 20 years. The new SE president is trying a new AAA strategy, but I'm curious to see how the Final Fantasy series is handled.
What do you think? Do you think the series was mishandled?

Love it or hate it, this topic is essential for everyone to chew on, the sooner, the better. Esp the whole lot of PAP supporters that would come over here can spam the downvotes.
This would be what I would deem as Lee Hsien Loong's most damaging legacy in political office - his use of state organs to cultivate political idolatry in Singapore.
Case in point, his use of tax dollars to create social studies and national education in Singapore.
If you have been through the education system or had a look of social studies textbooks from cover to cover, which is not difficult to do so, you will notice a few things - 1) these materials are personally written by the PAP-controlled MOE's curriculum planning division. Textbooks of other subjects are written by private publishers. 2) In these materials, we can see one general theme - "PAP's policies are the best". "PAP is the best". "Only the PAP is good for Singapore". "Only The Leader in Lee is good for Singapore". No discussion on the downsides to or criticisms of PAP policies.
Now, some of you might say or think, "these textbooks are for Secondary School students, they are not ready to digest issues of policy or political debate". I would say, I don't think so. In Geography and History (esp that on international issues), different sides to an issue would be presented, especially in Geography, when topics such as development and "geography of food" is discussed. Hence, why can't at least the downsides and criticism of policies like Singapore's healthcare policies, foreign talent policies, the GRC system, just be stated in these MOE-written social studies textbooks, for the sake of balance and objectivity?
Because there is no intention for such. The purpose of National Education and social studies is not for objective discussion. It is to ingrain in the minds and hearts of the people of Singapore that only the PAP, in particular LKY, made Singapore so great, that she is machiam the "best the in the world". It is to cast the PAP and the Lees as the quasi-gods of Singapore, in an unspoken manner. Case in point, just look at all the CNA documentaries on LHL the weeks leading to the leadership handover - all gushing over how LHL is the best, the most brilliant. No qs asked on very questionable things that happened under his (LHL's) watch, such as 38 Oxley Road, the "presidential election" of 2017, or the constant increases of GST, in particular, that slated for 2023-24, all while $900 million of taxpayer dollars was used to bail out SPH, even though 1) SG would not be in a "no media" scenario if SPH sinks and 2) the money could come from Temasek Holdings' investment monies!
This deliberate cultivation of political idolatry is the most damaging part of LHL's legacy, even possibly LKY's legacy - when his son launched National Education (the vehicle for the problem in qs) (https://www.nlb.gov.sg/main/article-detail?cmsuuid=44fa0306-ddfe-41bc-8bde-8778ff198640#2), LKY refused to speak up against it or stop it behind closed doors, even though he might at least have some leverage to do so as Senior Minister.
The Lees were painted as "servants of people" and "people who gave their lives to Singapore". But this act of cultivating political idolatry raises serious qs on that narrative - are they really people who "gave their lives for Singapore", as altruists? Or are they only interested in ensuring that their family legacy and political power remains entrenched? (Sidenote - there are serious qs on this, esp in how LHL is still very much in cabinet as Senior Minister. At the very least, there is the impression he will still have a significant measure of power behind the curtains. If indeed LHL is really not interested in political power or legacy, why don't he step aside completely, like what Hu Jintao of China did when his term expired in 2012, in resigning from all his political offices?)
And at what cost? Maintaining authoritarian cultures in schools that prioritise conformity. How are these useful in producing students with the innovative dexterity to adapt to this new economy? Is it any wonder why Singapore has been criticised for having a dearth in innovation, or, if there are articles praising Singapore for innovation, these so-called innovation are copy-cats of existing models, like how Grab is a copy-cat of Uber?
And the other qs is, is producing this Singapore sonderwag healthy for Singapore? Mao Zedong's cultural revolution was able to succeed through his ability to cast himself as the quasi-god of China, of whom the people are obliged to bow their knee at the altar. Some scholars have (partially) attributed Hitler's rise to the long running German sonderwag - "Germany should not adopt British ways of liberal democracy, and German authoritarianism and ways are what made Germany the great nation she is".
Sounds familiar? As such based on precedence of history as laid out in the above para, it would be foolishly naive if we think the legacy of Lee's actions won't come back to haunt us, down the road.

Hey all. I hope everyone is safe and sound with their loved ones in this crazy world.
I've been lurking the subreddit for a time now and all i see is repetetive complaints about the game. Couple memes here and there, maybe a cool or mediocre play that made the playing guy excited but other than that it was all "cheaters ohoooo, matchmaking ohoooo, lon ammo is op ohhooo, shotguns are unjust" etc. It was last couple days that people making noises for the good of this game. So i thought i might share my hunt experience with all good and bads.
Well, i'm not saying this game is not making me rage time to time. 3 minutes loading + 5 mins of running just for getting a weird headshot is always frustrating and i think we all understand this or maybe spiraling a compound and getting pumped easy from a nonsense corner does the same, i think we are all in the same ship on this one. Lastly i know that while you're trying to take maybe 1 kill and extract in a 4* just to realise there were 2 teams full of 5-6* ~5k hours sweaty players, when u get a sparks pistol headshot from 130 mt is giving you existential crisis.
Here is my sanity checks about this topics
1- There is a reason ammo types are separated to types.
°Compact ammo is low damage but generally faster than any other types. Means if both parties shoot non stop with optimal aim, compact ammo would win a tight fight. Also you can spam it, means you have much more scans than a long ammo. °Shotgun ammo. Well, if you hear a shotgun and came close to it ~15 mt, with equally talented aims, you're gonna die, i'm sorry but that's how shotguns work (even in irl) °Long ammo looks the most advantageous but except mako and krag, they are fricking slow and their ammo is scarce. If you hear a mosin and if you try to bite each other from 80 mt, man... Its not the long ammo, close the fricking distance.
EVERY AMMO TYPE HAS A PLAY AGAINST IT.
2- Hunt mmr is like chess.
You killed a cowboy better than you? voilà! you get more points. You get killed by a cowboy worse than you? ehh, kudos to the underdog they landed a good shot and took a good bit of your mmr. Most of the time i'm very happy if i'm playing against better players. It forces me to learn angles, make rotations or use a strategic way to approach rather then brute aiming.
3- They are problably not cheating.
Sometimes you just land an insane shot, don't you? i meant the ones that make you go "oooiiii" in such a tight angle or vision. Are you trying to shoot from same angle 2 time with exact body movement? or are you sure that no body heard/saw you while rotating? hmm maybe we couldn't form a consensus of snipers are snipers for a reason and that's the scope advantage. Some folks watching you running 4k with an aim on your head. i played this game for 600 hours now, never seen one.
Idk if you realise but, hunt is problably the most unique fps game out there. The world design, bosses, gameplay loop, guns, atmosphere, sound desing, gunfights, even the ammo system you are complaining about... Do we have anything like this in fps genre? Every major fps game has its own clone but not hunt and that's for a reason.
I guess most of the complaints are coming from people that wants to warp reality's terms rather than copping with it. it's rather a fundamental approach problem than the game's lack of something and it's not a stance of 'git gud'. It's a way of saying "Stop complaining we are in a fight, do your job with what you have"
Also... HUNT IS A ROGULIKE GAME until you reach a point that you feel very comfortable about swinging your gun. So get used to die in most absurd ways you could imagine. Re roll a hunter, get some perks and try to beat the dungeon again.
TLDR: Hunt is one of a kind. It's an incredible game if you come to accept it's own reality. Everything has an answer against it. Change the way you approach things, not just hunt. You can't bite while you are talking and you should take a huge chunk out of enemies, so it's better for you to stop complaining and think 'hmm what can i do to this problem'. They are problably not cheating and hunt is a rogue like until you have the self esteem of a cowboy.
See you in the fields bois and gurls. Don't forget the check your angles, people be sitting at weird places out of stress i guess.

Thought this might be a fun story for those who had bad teachers as a young one.
So, I guess for one I am a Canadian in Ontario and we have elementary school from kindergarten to grade five (ages 5-10, essentially. I am born in September the starting month of school so it’s much easier to remember). I am currently a 35F but this discussion came up over Mother’s Day.
I was always bullied in Middle School and High School but my only bully in elementary was my God damn teacher. I won’t say her name and I am not even sure if she still lives. We will call her Mrs.R. So! I was and still am always a Tom Boy and I’ve always talked with my hands (probably from both biological parents, dad being French Canadian and mom being born of an English immigrant father).
This woman used the fact I would “fight” with boys as a way to try and suspend me or give me detention. We were wrestling, completely mutual and they were never the ones to get in trouble, just me.
Next, the way she taught long division was impossible for me to understand. The year prior I was taught the exact same thing but in a very simplistic manner, she added zeros where it confused me. Finally, after almost a year of failing math tests and with help from not only my own parents but my best friends (who also had to deal with her), I just said “fuck it” and did the math the way I understood. I nailed the test. She accuses me of cheating and called in my mom. My mom fought and won once she made Mrs.R give me a problem to solve on the spot, and I did, in my own way.
Number three! And honestly the most traumatic to me, was when she had asked me a question and I answered with my hands and arms giving emphasis, as I still do today. She took this moment to stand in front of THE ENTIRE CLASSROOM and blatantly mock me. Saying “Oh! Look at me! I’m Valkyrie and this is how I talk!” Literally prancing around the black board. I remember the one closet friend who sat beside me (and was one who I apparently “attacked”) rubbing my back as I cried in silence.
So, because of number three I came home very upset and mom noticed it. I tried to lie but that woman has inhuman abilities. I told the truth. Now, my mother is ride or die for me, I am an only child and, in her words, she can “go from mother hen to mother bear in a nonosecond”. And so fucking true over the years. Next thing I know, I’m in that classroom with her, Mrs.R and my stepfather (who is a big dude but doesn’t DARE step between my mother and me) and my mother is LOOSING it on her, hands flailing far more than mine were. She was temporarily suspended once my mom escalated it to the principal.
Soooooo, here is where the Karma comes into play. My mom was also one of those moms whom always volunteered for class trips as a “guide” and she was damn well good at it, all my peers loved her. Well, we went to the R.O.M (Royal Ontario Museum) and this bitch, Mrs.R, clearly shoves a child’s head into the stucco walls of a fake bat cave (with loud automatic sounds of bats flying around) because this kid was clearly scared and screaming. My mom witnessed it. This kid wasn’t even from our school. Two weeks or so pass and my mom gets a phone call… from Mrs.R. She is being sued. Asks my mom TO FUCKING DEFEND HER. My laughed at her, hung up, got the necessary info and did the exact opposite… she left on “retirement” not too long after.
My mom, to this day, thinks she was going through hard menopause but at the same time does not excuse the behaviour. She said on this Mothers Day “Bitch needed some extra estrogen in her system”. And always thinks she should have quit before all of this came about.
Anywho! That’s my story, let me know if you want to her about my Ma knocking out my first boyfriend with one (well deserved) shot to the face.

How long did you guys wore a faja? And when you stopped did you noticed swelling? Did you stopped wearing it cold turkey or how was your process?
I’m 8 weeks post op and my dr said I could stop wearing it. I was so happy that the very next day I took it off but two days after that the swelling in my upper abdomen was crazy, I looked pregnant and I wish I was exaggerating. I of course freaked out so I posted here and I also reach out to my Drs office cause I didn’t know what was going on, if I messed up my MR or something.
Dr got back to me saying it was just swelling and to use my faja 24/7 for another month.
I hate the faja and just want to be over with it but I wonder if every time I stop wearing it is it gonna be like this and swelling will be out of this world. Or maybe I should wean myself off taking it off for just one hour and then increase that time slowly?

I've seen some glowing reviews, and some pretty bad reviews.
I myself posted a fairly negative review a couple weeks ago.
Took me a while to realize why folks haven't been seeing eye-to-eye on the 550.
Broadly speaking, there seem to be two groups looking at this vehicle.
On one hand, you have folks coming from a more off-road utilitarian SUV background. Think 4Runners, Jeeps, Broncos, etc. This crowd seems to be thrilled with the 550, which makes sense. The upgrades to the GX's off-road ability make it a legit competitor with these other dedicated off-road vehicles. But unlike these other vehicles, the 550 has a much nicer and more refined interior than something like a Bronco or Jeep. Plus the 550 enjoys the benefits of Lexus build quality. I totally see how this car would be a home-run for this crowd.
In this vein, lots of journalists reviewed this car in the context of off-roading (notice how many YT review vids included an extensive off-road course as part of the review), and when they compare it to things like the Bronco, I can see how they'd rate the GX highly.
On the other hand, you have folks coming from BMW X5's and X7's, from Mercedes SUVs, from Audis and such. Plus folks coming from other Lexus SUVs like the RX, LX, and especially the old GX. For these folks, they are looking for a luxury SUV that also happens to be highly capable off-road; they expect luxury first and off-roading ability second. They are hoping for something like an affordable Range Rover. To use the outgoing GX as an example, it felt luxurious, but it also happened to also be a beast off-road. As a result, when some folks (me included), test drive the 550, it feels like a surprising step down in refinement (ride quality, sound system quality, wind noise, etc.). Along these lines, David Chao of Automotive Press and Kirk Kreifels (another car journalist) are both deeply familiar with the outgoing 460, and in a long livestream conversation, they talked about being disappointed with the 550 on the points I mentioned, and Chao was even talking about canceling his 550 order and holding onto his 460 instead.
It would've been nice if Lexus did a better job highlighting how they are changing the spirit of the GX with this redesign, so potential buyers would know how to contextualize it in the marketplace. As a result, folks' impressions could be polarizing depending on which of the above-mentioned camps they're coming from. If you're an off-road enthusiast coming from Jeeps and 4Runners and Broncos, and you're willing to shell out a little extra for something more refined, the 550 is a home-run. But if you're coming from BMW or the old 460, and you were hoping for a luxurious SUV that happens to have off-road ability, you might be disappointed. Neither group is right or wrong; the 550 is just an entirely different sort of GX, and it's targeting the off-road SUV market more aggressively than Lexus ever has before.

Across gamedev, indiedev, and solodev, I hardly ever see anyone trying to make a gacha mobile game.
Why?
How come everyone is trying to make shitty souls likes, rouge lites, metorvanias, and top down bullet hells or zombie games, or the like?
Yet nobody really wants to make a waifu collector gacha, and get paid.
I understand that there are infrastructure costs in terms of servers and all that (I used to work in IT and DevOps so I know how it all works and what it takes).
Still, gacha, are some of the most profitable games out there *if* done right. There is both a ton of competition (where isn't there?), but also massive demand for the *next* thing.
I understand that these days they aren't exactly small team projects but it can be done, and you could pull it off via kickstarter or with a publisher if you got a solid demo/prototype.
Most big publishers salivate at the sound of gacha. They print money. Most of EAs and other big publishers profits come from mobile.
I'm sure it would be easier to pitch something like that then another open world Souls Like or yet another crafting game or whatever.
Here is a use case...
Puzzle and Dragons came out in 2012. It is a Match 3 puzzle game with team building. The dev team was originally only 4 people at release. Then it grew to 20, and in 2014 to 40 people, and eventually around 120 people. Still this is a pretty small team compared to many AAA studios or popular game devs.
Puzzle and Dragons after a year of release made 183 million dollars and eventually by 2013 and 2014 a billion dollars. In 2015 it made 1.5 bullion.
It was the first mobile gacha to reach a billion dollars.
It made over 7 billion since then. Not bad for such a small team. It's still making money, mostly from Japan and NA. NA now only makes about 600k or so, but the game has been around for 11+ years and now we got everything from Genshin to a million other gachas.
Still, a game like PAD but with updated graphics, and actual dungeon crawling instead of a tower like progression that it uses (think Mortal Kombat towers) would probably make a shit ton of money. The mechanics are pretty deep.
You don't need to make a billion or even a million or even 600k. A small team making 100-500k after costs would still be fine to start. It's doable. Over time you would make more if you didn't piss off your community and released regular content.
Then you got games like Epic 7. Lots of people love the game, but hate the RNG gear grind, hate how stingy it is, hate how grindy it is, hate how unbalanced it is, etc.
Yet if you made a game just like it, but eased up on the grind, eased up on the RNG, eased up on the bs, and you actually were involved in the community with good communication which E7 lacks, you would have a winner. People would spend money in it.
Even with all it's bs the game makes around 5 million a month.
I guess my question is, why do so many devs including indie devs prefer to live in despair and mediocrity, making almost nothing from Steam sales and releases, when they could at least try making a gacha which could possibly net them way more money in the long run?
Even if the game isn't amazing and it would End of Life in a year or 2, you'd still make money, because there are a ton of whales out there willing to throw tens of thousands of dollars to acquire their favorite waifu or epic weapon.
People will spend money on pretty and sexy anime girls! That is a fact.
People will also spend money on acquiring gear and building their roster and box.
I mean just look at things like Diablo Immortal, where people spent upwards of $100,000 dollars. Dudes like Tectone spent hundreds of thousands on games like Genshin. People in Puzzle and Dragons would spend thousands on a banner. This is normal in gacha.
So why not try to profit off that? Why make shitty Steam games that barely get noticed and barely make any money? Why make shitty mobile rpg games or puzzle games without the gacha element?
Even if you made a Steam game, why don't any of you simply make waifu collectors? That shit will sell.
Am I the only one who realizes this? Why make a shitty derivative souls like, or yet another Vampire Survivors clone when you could make a waifu collector and get paid?

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

Hello...I just finished replaying DS1 and I was blown away by how well Artorias stands up, even against DS3/ESekiro modern quality. It seems to me Miyazaki really learned from the making of DS1: as much as I love this game, its bosses simply can't stand up mechanically compared to later entries (which I can't fault it for, obviously).
But the DLC blew it all out of the water, and it's such a dramatic shift I wish I could replay the Artorias fight again and again. As I was fighting him this time, I had some observations I thought were interesting enough to share.

• His attacks feel extremely well telegraphed. Like, seriously, there are attacks even in later games that feel like I had no legit way of knowing what was coming, but everything in the Artorias fight has always felt natural to me on some level, even when my hands couldn't keep up with my instincts. The stabs and slashes are clearly stabs and slashes, and you know where they'll go, and you know how you should address them. The sludge fling is oddly intuitive for a backhanded AoE attack, all things considered. The sludge that appears wherever he moves helps outline where the hitboxes are, so you can learn to avoid more tricky moves like the leap. The Lion's Claw slams have a clear midair pause where he stops tracking you and you're safe to roll and you can figure it out extremely quickly. All of it is plain to see, but he's fast and relentless so it doesn't feel too easy. It's a simple puzzle demanding you put it together, and I'm all too happy to oblige.
  
• Limited healing windows force you to learn the moveset By making it almost impossible to heal outside of a few long recovery attacks, you're forced to learn the fight and earn back your vigor. No longer is estus an easy way to trade hits midfight while poising with full havels: It's not a free mistake, it's an option you have to buy back by dodging the attacks you got hit by. This also creates some of the most intense moments I felt in any bossfight in any fromsoft game, as I was constantly on the edge of death, but there was always a feeling of hope. There were no BS attacks to worry about, only me and the enemy, and all I need to do is put into action what I already know...and before I knew it, instead of 'learning to dodge until the healing windows,' I was nohitting my first fromsoft boss, and it felt beautiful.
  
• It punishes the poise and trade and turtle playstyles By being relentless with Lion's Claw as well as buffing damage and moving quickly across the arena, Artorias punishes the ways people tank through everything with the most op gear. You can't use a shield if he slams you into the ground 10x in a row. You can't tank the damage if he buffs enough to eat your entire health bar in one stab. You can't poisetrade through his crap when he keeps darting and flipping around like a badass. At the very least, I could probably see someone exclusively building for a light roll poise build and an op weapon and still sort of cheese him. But I'd wager Artorias does an excellent job at forcing people to learn him, challenge him, and overcome him in an extremely satisfying way.
  

I did at one point have a mild criticism with how he spams Claw, but when I realised you can stop them by dodging far to the sides, I only came to appreciate the fight more.
Sorry for the ramble, I really, really like this fight (and this is without even talking about the lore) so anyway, I eep

LLM inference systems are like high-performance engines ⚙️—complex, powerful, and full of intricate settings. Efficiently deploying them to maximize GPU performance is a challenge typically tackled by experts at orgs like OpenAI and Meta 🚀.
Our latest research at Microsoft & Georgia Tech , shows that suboptimal configurations can more than double your deployment costs! 🤯
Introducing Vidur 👳🏽—the first full-stack LLM inference simulator. Designed to find the optimal deployment settings in minutes, it lets you maximize your GPU output 🏎️💨.
Deploying LLMs involves numerous decisions: GPU selection, parallelism strategy, batch size, scheduler choice, etc. Navigating this vast config space manually is not only time-consuming ⏳ but also costly 💸.
Vidur with its 🚅 lightning-fast, ✅ high-fidelity simulations can explore this extensive space in minutes—no GPU needed 😇.
What's the secret sauce of Vidur? It models every layer of the system with precision:🔀 Global scheduler – Routes requests across cluster replicas.🗂️ Replica scheduler – Batches requests within a replica.⏱️ Model execution – Manages operation execution on devices.
Our dashboard features ~100,000 simulation runs, offering insights into how various settings impact performance across different models and workloads.
Some fun insights from Vidur: 1️⃣ Deployment configurations must consider both the model and the specific workload. We identified optimal setups for chat 💬, translation 🔀, and summarization 📝 for LLaMA-2-70B, showing up to 2X cost differences when misconfigured 🤯.
2️⃣ Contrary to popular belief, our findings reveal that latency SLOs are often breached long before memory utilization peaks, indicating inefficiencies not bound by memory alone 😳.
3️⃣ Model inference cost isn't just about the number of parameters; even slight architectural differences, like the choice of attention mechanism (MHA vs GQA), can significantly affect performance. Our data shows up to 2x cost variance between Llama2-70B and Qwen-72B.
Ready to dive deeper? Access our code here: 🔗 github.com/microsoft/vidur. For a detailed exploration of our methodology and findings, read our paper: 🔗arxiv.org/abs/2405.05465.

Like every product/service. SaaS products are different. They are intangible. They have intangible buyers. They have subscribers like Netflix, who have to pay for their product/ service annually, monthly, or quarterly.
To increase sales, they have a few tricks which are by giving annual discounts, showing off customer testimonials, social media promotions, enhanced customer experience, demos, Live chats, CTA, set up calls, and Feedback to retain the customer.
Not only this, this industry has its process as it has an intangible audience. So, they have to understand their presentations not through body language but by how they are expressing their views or presenting their questions in an email or call.
Providing Free trials is mostly there in the SaaS industry. As the audience will get to know what your product is creating value to their biz and how it is helpful in the growth of the biz by saving time/ money.
The free trial should not be too long or short. It should depend upon the complexity of the software.
Before knowing the technique one should know what Saas is and how it works. Right? Like before buying anything we ask for the price of the product.

The Fundamentals

“Having a repeatable process empowers your sales reps to sell with efficiency and confidence”. The process begins from:
Prospecting:Since we are selling it to the tech-savvy audience, we will do inbound marketing which includes blogs, online posts, email newsletters, whitepapers, etc.
In addition to that, we can do face-to-face interaction with potential buyers which is rare in this SaaS industry.
Qualifying: Not all visitors on your website or trial subscribers will buy the product. To know that, there are lead scores which is an automatic way to qualify leads and you will get information and interpret it from your data and assign it with the lead scores from 1 to 10.
Another way is to start a trial is to email them or call them for after-sale service. So, you will get an idea of the status of the buyer.
Presenting: Mostly it’s not possible to present in face-to-face interactions in the SaaS industry otherwise we have got it through body language.
Through online mode, presenting would be done through email sequence and frequent follow-ups which will let us know the pain points the way it’s been expressed.
Handling objectives: After presenting, prospects have questions and concerns about the product or service. So, you must have known what most of the customers ask and know how to handle the response of the prospect.
Closing: At this moment, the prospect becomes your customer. In this stage, we will deliver the final proposal of the product and negotiate with the customer.
Nurturing: to retain the SaaS customers excluding customer support which includes training for existing and new customers. Feedback includes reviews, rates, and testimonials.
Part of their happy moments by sending happy birthday, and celebration notes, etc.

How to increase your SaaS conversions using the right marketing strategy:

Create strategic trial duration
Most of the SaaS products have a trial duration. As it is a great way to hook new customers to buy, however, to make it worthwhile, you should plan it strategically.
When the customer has the opportunity to get trials which will help them to know the value of the product in their biz as well as the benefit of your offering.
The trial period should depend on the software. if the software is complex then 14 days or more trials would work. But what if the software is easy to adapt and gives the trial for 30 days?
It would only make the sale cycle long and there would be fewer customers buying the product. As they know every part of your software and will compare with the alternatives of the service. So, it depends on the product.
Custom/ live setup call
Many of us don’t know how to set up the software. How did things work? These customers have the priority of how the software will work for them by giving lesser importance to how your products work.
SaaS has the highest conversion from this special technique of Live setup call only. This CRM would help them to achieve their objective related to the product they have taken a trial or purchased.
Leverage Annual discounts
Many SaaS products offer annual discounts in exchange for the customer paying the bill all at once in a cheaper amount as compared to paying it every month which attracts customers to attain the service. While the company gets a sizable influx of cash at a moment and doesn’t get worried about a customer leaving at any moment.
Automated follow-up
As you see whenever you log in to the florist website or hospital website. They will ask ‘how may I help you?’ which is an automated way of assisting you. In the same way, these automated services will help the new customer to assist with the service and product and they have common queries stored which will be solved by the assistant by putting up the questions and shortening the sale cycle.
Content Marketing
This is the only way of communication between the buyer and seller. By reading your content, understanding it, and perceiving it makes the buyer come into your contact. Biz around the globe is using content marketing to reach the audience and generate leads. With consistency, you share the content it will increase its value over time
PPC( pay per click) also generates leads but with valuable content. So, content marketing is an asset for biz owners while online ads are temporary or rented. Biz around the globe is using content marketing to reach the audience and generate leads. Keeping content quality consistent across multiple channels helps increase brand awareness among your audience.
Search Engine Optimization (SEO)
This feature works hand in hand with content marketing by making it discoverable in google, bing, and ranking it in two ways: On-page SEO and off-page SEO.
On-page SEO: This form is under your control. You create content that people search to read. By adding internal links, UI, use of the title, and description.
Off-Page SEO: Mainly, when we hear about SEO, links are the things that click us. But getting the right trusted and authoritative link is what matters! The best way to gain links and shares is by a distribution strategy.
Google AdWords
While inbound marketing reduces the spending of Adwords, zillion people are still clicking on the search engine ads per day. If you don’t want to miss out on these people to generate leads then you should still invest in PPCi.e pay per click.
PPC is beneficiary as it is scalable, generate leads, and generate the best ROI for your biz
Pro Tip: to increases sales, some strategies to take care of is to choose the right model of SaaS, identify the target audience and its value proposition, set prospect qualification criteria, create templates, call scripts, set revenue goals, create a customer support system, and keep track of sales performance metrics that will be effective in rank in the SEO.
Want to connect or schedule a call with me? send an inbox.

Writing is wonderful, isn't it?
I'm Zach. I'm in the information technology sector by trade, but a writer otherwise. I work with interactive fiction, currently delving into two of my latest projects (one based in my high-fantasy universe that's been in development for over ten years!)
Anyways. That's a small tidbit, but I've got something better formatted.
What's my Age?: Twenty-Five (25).
Where am I located?: Columbus, Ohio!
Why'd I make this post?: The truth is simple. I'm looking for friends, people that I can grow with, get to know, and if something further emerges - so be it. Above all, personality is a key cornerstone for me. I can work with differing hobbies, cultures, and lifestyles, as long as you can do the same.
What's my Fatal-Flaw?: I'm loyal to a fault. It's screwed me over a bit in the past, but I've since worked to correct it. Nonetheless, I stick my neck out for those I've grown to care for.
How about some hobbies?: Alright, let's line 'em up!

• Writing. I've adored working with interactive fiction, and have multiple novels in development and in the publishing stages. With a little magic and a bit of luck, I'll be a published name pretty soon.
  
• Gaming. I'm into a variety of genres. These range from strategy to RPG, to MMO, to shooters, and beyond. Co-op tends to be a specialty of mine, though I'm quite flexible.
  
• Game-Development. This binds together with writing - especially interactive fiction. I love crafting interactive universes that others can delve into. Dynamic stories filled with choice and riveting corners down every turn. There are so many options to explore, so many characters to meet, befriend, antagonize, and more!
  
• Walks. I love exploring, and taking random walks throughout areas is a favorite of mine. Especially if there's food around to grab a bite of!
  
• Travel. Similar to above. Traveling is a favorite. I'd love to take a trip throughout Europe eventually, or one that winds through the entirety of the U.S. over a two-week extravaganza. What's your dream destination?
  
• Cheese-Making. This one's pretty new, and I'm still in the studying stages. I'm planning on getting into the craft of making cheese. Working with the cultures, ensuring I can create different types, and taste-testing with others. My goal in the long term is to create an artisan business if I can!
  

What's your career?: Currently, I work in the information technology field as a Support Engineer. I'm still quite passionate about what I do, but my long-term goal is to create a self-sustainable income from my writing endeavors.
Lastly, what are some random fun facts about you?: Lining them up!

• I'm credited in a critically acclaimed video game.
  
• My friends find me weird for adoring cottage cheese.
  
• I'm an avid dog lover who has a pitty-girl that's a rescue!
  
• Lastly, I can spend an entire night talking about anything at random, especially if a friend needs a distraction.
  

Anyways. It's been fun. I'd love to get to know you, so feel free to send me a message! Take care, and have a wonderful afternoon!
~Zach

Writing is wonderful, isn't it?
I'm Zach. I'm in the information technology sector by trade, but a writer otherwise. I work with interactive fiction, currently delving into two of my latest projects (one based in my high-fantasy universe that's been in development for over ten years!)
Anyways. That's a small tidbit, but I've got something better formatted.
What's my Age?: Twenty-Five (25).
Where am I located?: Columbus, Ohio!
Why'd I make this post?: The truth is simple. I'm looking for friends, people that I can grow with, get to know, and if something further emerges - so be it. Above all, personality is a key cornerstone for me. I can work with differing hobbies, cultures, and lifestyles, as long as you can do the same.
What's my Fatal-Flaw?: I'm loyal to a fault. It's screwed me over a bit in the past, but I've since worked to correct it. Nonetheless, I stick my neck out for those I've grown to care for.
How about some hobbies?: Alright, let's line 'em up!

• Writing. I've adored working with interactive fiction, and have multiple novels in development and in the publishing stages. With a little magic and a bit of luck, I'll be a published name pretty soon.
  
• Gaming. I'm into a variety of genres. These range from strategy to RPG, to MMO, to shooters, and beyond. Co-op tends to be a specialty of mine, though I'm quite flexible.
  
• Game-Development. This binds together with writing - especially interactive fiction. I love crafting interactive universes that others can delve into. Dynamic stories filled with choice and riveting corners down every turn. There are so many options to explore, so many characters to meet, befriend, antagonize, and more!
  
• Walks. I love exploring, and taking random walks throughout areas is a favorite of mine. Especially if there's food around to grab a bite of!
  
• Travel. Similar to above. Traveling is a favorite. I'd love to take a trip throughout Europe eventually, or one that winds through the entirety of the U.S. over a two-week extravaganza. What's your dream destination?
  
• Cheese-Making. This one's pretty new, and I'm still in the studying stages. I'm planning on getting into the craft of making cheese. Working with the cultures, ensuring I can create different types, and taste-testing with others. My goal in the long term is to create an artisan business if I can!
  

What's your career?: Currently, I work in the information technology field as a Support Engineer. I'm still quite passionate about what I do, but my long-term goal is to create a self-sustainable income from my writing endeavors.
Lastly, what are some random fun facts about you?: Lining them up!

• I'm credited in a critically acclaimed video game.
  
• My friends find me weird for adoring cottage cheese.
  
• I'm an avid dog lover who has a pitty-girl that's a rescue!
  
• Lastly, I can spend an entire night talking about anything at random, especially if a friend needs a distraction.
  

Anyways. It's been fun. I'd love to get to know you, so feel free to send me a message! Take care, and have a wonderful day!
~Zach