The Universe in its INFINITE wisom felt it was necessary to connect us, bring us together - despite the oceans and literal miles between where we started. Brought us together and let us have the most incredible chemistry/connection.
You liked my nose.
Drawn to one another like moths to fire. Spending time with and communicating you only solidified how intensely I felt. You were kindred. From your words and actions I presumed you felt it, too. And then just as abruptly as you came into my life, you were gone.
Taking everything with you. Leaving me with a gaping hole in my chest where my fragile heart once was.
It was ALL your choice. Without warning or explanation for you to cease all communication, block me, and make yourself unreachable. Leaving me abandoned, confused, hurting and alone.
To not only process what I may have possibly done to have created the most epic catastrophe - resulting in this near fatal affliction I currently am suffering through.
You see, you'd been granted access to parts of me so well hidden, and guarded for so long, I didn't even know they existed any more... This access you were granted was the masterkey - and I think you knew it. Taking full advantage. Picking my heart up, lifting it so high - making it so full... to toss it up knowing full well you had no intention of catching it again on the way back down. Letting it hit the ground, to shatter into unrecognizable pieces. Even if by some chance they could be reassembled, they can never be quite the same, never quite as whole as they once were.
And this Sweetness, This is the note I composed after I realized I could no longer call you or text you. When it was all excruciatingly fresh - because I didn't know or understand anything...and I stupidly was concerned about how you were feeling... believing you had to be hurting, too.
Darling,
Was this all a creation of my imagination and entirely one sided? I do not think I could have been so off in all that. We were both saying we missed each other so much it hurt. Now without you feels like my entire chest was torn apart, the ache so strong.
I am having a really hard time untangling you, and the ideas of you from my feelings and my mind. I think even if I do, manage to separate them, I'm always going to keep a part of your memory, of us, tucked away for the rest of my life. Because I know if this was not real, it wouldn't hurt so badly.
Yet here we are...can I say I still don't understand what I've done for you to have blocked me? If I knew I could apologize. I don't even know whether or not you will get this message...
I can hope, though.
On the off chance it does, could you please, please hear me out?
I'm going to do my very best to hold it together right now and not to cry so much that you'll not understand any of it...
And I promise as hard as this is I'll respect your decision to end things, if that is still what you ultimately want.
I don't, I never did, and I guess now that you took that choice away from me, I responded accordingly.
I mean I've never been blocked before. And I don't know if you ever have been on the receiving end, but it really sucks...
Even now, it's doing still doing so much shit to my head and has been since I figured out that blocking me is what you'd done.
Yeah, at first I was upset and angry, confused, and now, now I am left here grieving the loss of you, like you've died, only its so much worse because my brain knows you're still out there. And I still want you. And my fear is I'll always want you.
It's so overwhelming - this sadness, the frustration, and despair, and there's just so much loneliness... all amplified by my feelings of rejection, and self-doubt about everything.
All of which is leading my brain to treating these emotions - this emotional pain I'm feeling right now differently than it does my physical pain...I can't remember the last time anything hurt this badly... it feels like it's killing me. I guess now I really get why some people are said to have died of a broken heart... I'd truly rather break my bones again than feel like I do now, like this!
My heart shattered and I have been struggling with my overthinking on everything... replaying and analyzing every text, each conversation, basically all we have had since the very beginning that could have led us to this point.
Trying to pickup the broken bits and pieces to make it make sense. And I don't mean to be obtuse, yet still I'm coming up empty for making it make sense.
I really had thought... with you I was safe...
And you so wonderfully kept reassuring me, telling me not to stress - because you liked me, that you missed me, you cared.
So I let myself trust, trust you, in you, believing we were on the same page in this...
I read it all so wrong?
Or was it that it changed and I missed the signs?
Was it something I said or I did? Something that I didn’t do and should have? Was it all the videos? Or was it me, was I simply too much? Not enough?
I don't even know.
I have only ever wanted you to feel as special as you made me feel.
And being completely cut off without any warning left me blindsided, hurting, and with so many unanswered questions.
I guess now I'm here pleading with you, could you please let me know what went wrong? Could you help me understand the reasons?
Maybe if we'd agrued or you'd told me your mind had changed I'd have something to go on, but even still I'd have wanted to fix it.
Can you please not shut me out entirely? I don't think I'm deserving of that. I'm not so hateful of a person that you can hope to never have to speak with me again, right?!
Maybe?
Since I am already saying things now, without having to worry too much about how you'll take it, or if I'm scared because it's too soon or maybe even not reciprocated (that was the worst fear I had, and I guess its already sorta come true...) I'll just say it... because life is too short for regrets.
I Fell For You
I love you
I think I have since our conversation about Giraffes...
And I'm sorry, so very sorry things weren't different and that eventually loving me back wasn't what you must have wanted.
I mean, if could know what I did to make it change I would, I'd go back and do it better. You have no idea how much I would take it back/and fix this.

Can someone spot my mistake?
This Github Action is sometimes increasing the build number, sometimes not. Sometimes it just starts somewhere in the middle of nowhere...
Locally, this command will always return the existing tags:

git fetch --depth=1 origin +refs/tags/*:refs/tags/* 

But when running on Github and their Runner, it doesn't do apparently. Sometimes it gets the right latest number, sometimes not. Sometimes it even starts always with x.y.1, while x und y is always right.
name: Build and Push Docker Image on Release

on: push: branches: - 'release/*' permissions: contents: write jobs: build-and-push: runs-on: ubuntu-latest steps: - name: Check out code uses: actions/checkout@v2 - name: Set up Docker Buildx uses: dockesetup-buildx-action@v1 - name: Log in to DockerHub uses: dockelogin-action@v1 with: username: ${{ secrets.DOCKERHUB_USERNAME }} password: ${{ secrets.DOCKERHUB_PASSWORD }} - name: Fetch all git tags run: git fetch --depth=1 origin +refs/tags/*:refs/tags/* - name: Get the latest tag id: latest-tag run: TAG=$(git describe --tags `git rev-list --tags --max-count=1`) echo "Latest tag is $TAG" echo "::set-output name=tag::${TAG}" - name: Increment the version id: next-version run: TAG="${{ steps.latest-tag.outputs.tag }}" BASE_VERSION=${TAG#v} # Strip the 'v' prefix IFS='.' read -ra VERSION <<< "$BASE_VERSION" PATCH=$((VERSION[2]+1)) NEXT_VERSION="v${VERSION[0]}.${VERSION[1]}.$PATCH" echo "Next version is $NEXT_VERSION" echo "::set-output name=version::$NEXT_VERSION" - name: Build the Docker image with new version run: docker build -t mycomp/myrepo:${{ steps.next-version.outputs.version }} . docker push mycomp/myrepo:${{ steps.next-version.outputs.version }} - name: Tag the image as latest and push run: docker tag mycomp/myrepo:${{ steps.next-version.outputs.version }} mycomp/myrepo:latest docker push mycomp/myrepo:latest - name: Tag the repository with the new version run: git tag ${{ steps.next-version.outputs.version }} git push origin ${{ steps.next-version.outputs.version }} --tags 

WARNING: LOTS OF WORDS
I did some digging on this sub and found a number of useful threads on how knowing VBA can be a (sometimes) valuable skill to have as a chemical engineer. Unfortunately, though, I couldn’t find any threads that reflected the experience that I’ve had thus far. And to be honest, none of the threads that I scanned through even had specific experience or examples. But that’s kind of understandable given the sometimes confidential nature of our work.
Nevertheless, I ask you for a few minutes of your day to read through my experience. Maybe it will help you out in your role…maybe it won’t. But hopefully, you’ll have at least learned something (or got a good laugh out). So let’s get into it! And feel free to call me a hypocrite for this, but I’m going to be kind of general when talking about projects I’ve been a part of.
I recently graduated with a BS in Chemical Engineering from a college in the Midwest. Like most of the folks here, I did a few internships throughout my time in college and started building my technical and more importantly, people skills (which is something I struggled with…hence why I’m an engineer). And although I was aware of it, I never really had the opportunity to dive into automation using VBA during my internships.
Anyways...here’s what you came for.
Write macros...but to do what?
Most tutorials online cover the basics of what is possible with Excel macros. And an overlooked functionality of VBA code is its ability to create files.
In late 2023, I was preparing for a maintenance shutdown of our manufacturing building. I was involved in projects that were completing installation during this shutdown, and I was responsible for all post-installation startup documentation. As some of you may know, this involves creating IQ sheets, OQ procedures, and sometimes PQ. Creating this documentation can be time-consuming and being a new employee only made things take longer. And it just so happened that I had to create a lot of documentation.
I didn't have it at the time, but I've since written a macro to do the following: (1) take user input on which documentation to create, (2) find most recent revision of template(s) for requested documentation, (3) populated templates where possible, and (4) save files as new documentation. From here, I'd only have to review the created documentation to verify that the populated areas are correct.
Automate SAP...huh?
From talking with college friends, as well as coworkers, it sounds like the public opinion on SAP is...not good. If you haven't heard of SAP, then consider yourself lucky. I'm obviously joking (kind of), but depending on your company's SAP interface, it might be your most feared or loved application. Regardless of what your SAP looks like, it'll have a built-in functionality called SAP scripting.
This functionality lets users record SAP actions (much like what can be done using the Excel recorder to create macros). The SAP recorder logs your actions as VBA code that can be pasted in a subroutine. Let that sink in for a minute...you can automate SAP.
So let's go through an example! Let's say you have to run a transaction code to export test results from production lots on a weekly basis. Running the transaction code takes you 30 seconds, but you have to run it for 20 lot numbers. With the data exports, you now have to clean it up and subsequently perform some form of data analysis on it (creating tables, charts, etc.).
Believe it or not...this process in entirely automatable and to do so would look as follows: (1) record yourself using the SAP recorder running the transaction code and exporting the results, (2) paste the exported VBA code into a subroutine and adjust it for variable declaration and for loop integration, (3) write a subroutine to perform the data analysis, and (4) write a subroutine to send the results as an email. Feel free to ask ChatGPT for help at any point throughout the process, but be sure to not share confidential information. With all of these subroutines written, you can create a "main" subroutine to call them in order and boom...the task that you've been doing every week for the last year is done with a single click.
Summary
Keep in mind that I had to omit some less impactful examples in an attempt to keep this post digestible. And for confidentiality reasons, I can't share screenshots of project files. But I'd be more than happy to answer any questions that y'all might have, whether it's about my journey with learning this stuff or how to get started yourself. I'll also be writing a Python post that mirrors this one but with Python-specific examples (which there are a lot more of).
Remember that we have so many tools at our disposal for automating redundant tasks, and you'd be doing yourself a disservice for not giving them an honest try.
“There is no learning without having to pose a question. And a question requires doubt.” - Richard P. Feynman
EDITS
EDIT #1, 6/9: Reformatted as Reddit seems to not like indented lists. I removed a bunch of filler as I didn't feel like retyping it for what felt like the 8th time. And the verbiage might look different for the same reasons, but the content is relatively the same. I was finally smart enough to copy and paste the post to a .txt file, so editing it should no longer make me want to pull my hair out.

I'm a total beginner here. I just went through Brackeys' tutorial and am noticing a small but very noticeable input lag. I googled around, and folks suggest disabling V-sync, limiting FPS, running fullscreen, etc. Disabling V-sync makes things noticeably better, but the image quality is poor—it's stuttery and hard to describe.
I'm using a Mac and have tried it on two different models: an i9 Intel and an M1 Max. The lag feels like the repeat key control on macOS—it feels like I'm pressing the button, and it waits for about 0.1 seconds before starting the movement. If I press the button slightly, it's not registered. The deadzone key setting is 0.01 now (from 0.5 default), which made things a bit better but not significantly.
I searched Google but was not able to find anything except this V-sync suggestion. It's also worth noting that in the 2D platformer example on Unity, everything works great and without any lag. Thank you!
EDIT: Also worth mentioning that Platformer 2D example project have this lag too
EDIT 2: I have tried same code on windows laptop, everything works perfectly fast and there is no lag. So both of my macs have same behaviour so i guess this is macos specific issue or my macs specific issue?
Player code is:
extends CharacterBody2D
const SPEED = 120.0
const JUMP_VELOCITY = -300.0
# Get the gravity from the project settings to be synced with RigidBody nodes.
var gravity = ProjectSettings.get_setting("physics/2d/default_gravity")
u/onready var animated_sprite_2d = $AnimatedSprite2D
func _physics_process(delta):

`# Add the gravity.` `if not is_on_floor():` `velocity.y += gravity * delta` `# Handle jump.` `if Input.is_action_just_pressed("jump") and is_on_floor():` `velocity.y = JUMP_VELOCITY` `# Get the input direction and handle the movement/deceleration.` `# As good practice, you should replace UI actions with custom gameplay actions.` `# get the input direction` `var direction = Input.get_axis("left", "right")` `# Flip sprite` `if direction > 0:` `animated_sprite_2d.flip_h = false` `elif direction < 0:` `animated_sprite_2d.flip_h = true` `# Change animations` `if is_on_floor():` `if direction == 0:` `animated_sprite_2d.play("idle")` `else:` `animated_sprite_2d.play("run")` `else:` `animated_sprite_2d.play("jump")` `# Set the direction` `if direction:` `velocity.x = direction * SPEED` `else:` `velocity.x = move_toward(velocity.x, 0, SPEED)` `move_and_slide()` 

Picture this, it's early morning, I've just kicked off a new startup project. Energy is high and the team is buzzing with enthusiasm. Being a lean startup, every move we make matters and we're all on edge as to how things will roll out. Now, to my utter surprise, our product manager starts talking about Emotional Intelligence (EI) instead of deliverables, KPIs, or deadlines. Sounds weird, right?
Well, turns out, he was onto something.
The first thing we took from our EI training was a heightened sense of self-awareness. We began to understand our emotions, what triggers these emotions, and how they influence our actions. We started to evaluate our initial reactions to stressful situations and started to respond in a calm, collected way, rather than lashing out or shutting down. For instance, instead of blaming a team member for a code error, we would identify the problem at hand and work together to come up with a solution.
The next bit was self-management, which, in a high-pressure environment like ours, turned out to be a game-changer. It taught us how to navigate through our emotions and manage them in a very healthy and productive way. We learned to take small breaks, to voice our concerns, to maintain positivity despite the setbacks, and to aim for consistent progress rather than perfection.
Then came social awareness. We started understanding our peers better and learned to respect their emotional experiences. We became more empathetic, and started to take note of non-verbal cues and body language. It helped us greatly in team building and maintaining healthy work relationships.
Last but not least, we dove into Relationship Management. This meant not only cultivating good relationships but also handling conflicts in a mature and considerate way. We became better at having difficult conversations, giving and receiving feedback, and acknowledging our teammates’ emotions.
Over time, we were surprised at how everything fell into place. Our productivity increased, the quality of our work improved, our team morale skyrocketed, and we were more agile than ever.
So, for any lean startup out there, don’t brush past Emotional Intelligence. It truly is the secret sauce for a thriving work environment.
P.S. Although the story sounds like an episode straight out of "The Office", it's purely hypothetical! But seriously, who needs Dunder Mifflin when you've got emotional intelligence and mental models in your toolkit?

Thesis

Sources:

• Tweet
  
• The ADL - Israel: A Guide For Activists
  

Elaboration

The ADL promotes 'replacement theory' in Israel, while condemning it in America.
Awhile back, the ADL put out a hasbara handbook - a guide to advocating for Israel.
In the handbook, on pages 59-60, the ADL espouses views that are word-for-word taken from 'replacement theory'.

• The ADL - Israel: A Guide For Activists

Excerpt:

A bi-national state, in principle and in practice, would mean the ideological end of the Jewish State of Israel and lead to the forsaking of Jewish nationalism and identity, along with its special status as a refuge for Jews fleeing persecution.
Furthermore, bi-nationalism is unworkable given current realities and historic animosities. With historically high birth rates among the Palestinians, and a possible influx of Palestinian refugees and their descendants now living around the world, Jews would quickly be a minority within a bi-national state, thus likely ending any semblance of equal representation and protections. In this situation, the Jewish population would be increasingly politically – and potentially physically – vulnerable.
It is unrealistic and unacceptable to expect the State of Israel to voluntarily subvert its own sovereign existence and nationalist identity and become a vulnerable minority within what was once its own territory.

• Alarmism about 'birth rates' = ✅
  
• Alarmism about immigration = ✅
  
• Alarmism about the demographic majority becoming a minority and losing its privileged status = ✅
  
• Equating the privilege of being a demographic majority with 'sovereign existence' (which in-turn negates the existence and/or concerns, agency, progress, etc. of the Out-group) = ✅
  

All of this is typical 'replacement theory' talking-points.
A commentator on Twitter points out that the ADL uses the same rhetoric as American and European ultra-nationalists, who fear-monger about PoC and immigrants.

The interplay between right-wing nationalism & support for Israel

The ADL's primary purpose now is to defend Israel's apartheid regime.
Note how Rep. Stefanik is pictured in the ADL tweet. She is the one leading the charge right now with these public antisemitism inquisitions of college administrators.
Right-wing nationalists support Israel because they want to emulate Israel's policies towards Palestinians (as a stand-in for immigrants, PoC, leftists, etc.).
A study on European antisemitism found that xenophobes (who rated higher in antisemitism) tend to support Israel due to its immigration policies. Whereas those critical of Israeli policy were less xenophobic & less antisemitic.

• This fits the American Right too.
  
• Former New Republic editor, Peter Beinart, wrote about this in an article titled 'The Beinart Notebook - Are Zionists more antisemitic than anti-Zionists?'
  

Since Zionism is a form of cult-like nationalism, it's no surprise that the ADL would adopt 'replacement theory' talking-points when discussing their concerns about the political agency of the Jewish demographic majority in Israel.
In order to maintain that demographic majority, Israel uses discriminatory legislation & enormous State violence.
A lot of Zionists obfuscate what Zionism means now (for all practical purposes) by signaling some support/empathy for Palestinians. So the primary question one must ask, is whether you support a Jewish demographic majority in Israel.
If the answer is 'yes' - then you're justifying massive discrimination & violence against the Palestinian out-group. It no longer matters what games one plays with the 'definition' of 'Zionist'.
Get straight to the functional point. Are you morally consistent?

The ADL, Mike Pompeo, and the Jewish National Fund

Peter Beinart, in a discussion with FMEP's Lara Friedman & political strategist Rania Batrice, talks about how the ADL supports discriminatory policies in Israel that it would never support in America.
Peter notes that Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the ADL, has to 'code-switch' when advocating for Israel, for this very reason. Whereas, someone like Mike Pompeo, who is also a cultish nationalist, is more forthcoming in what he wants for America (a Christian nationalist State).
For Pompeo, it's perfectly fine to support an analog to the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in America (ie a hypothetical Christian National Fund; an organization that would support land access/development for Christians only). Greenblatt would lose his mind if a CNF existed in America - but he won't propose abolishing the JNF in Israel.
In Israel, the government controls 93 percent of the land¹ - directly or indirectly through quasi-governmental bodies like the Development Authority (DA) or the JNF. But all of it is administered by a governmental body, the Israel Land Administration (ILA).
The JNF's mandate is to develop land folease land to Israeli Jews, so 13% of the land in Israel excludes Palestinian citizens of Israel & everyone else. Thus, when the ILA tenders a lease owned by the JNF, they are directly complicit in "outright discrimination".²

1. The Israel Land Administration
2. Human Rights Watch - Off the Map: Land and Housing Rights Violations in Israel’s Unrecognized Bedouin Villages
3. Human Rights Watch - Israel: Discriminatory Land Policies Hem in Palestinians

Israeli historian at Tel Aviv University, Prof. Gadi Algazi, explains how the Ben-Gurion utilized the 1949 Absentee Property Law to facilitate the JNF acquiring stolen Palestinian land.

• The Real News Network - Israeli Tree Campaign "Judaizes" Expropriated Land

Ben-Gurion circumvented any future international legal intervention by 'selling' (absolutely illegally) the land entrusted to the custodians (Ben-Gurion appointed Israel the custodians of the stolen Palestinian land following the 48' War) to the JNF so that Israel, in the case of an international debate, could say 'sorry, it's not in my hands anymore'. Within days, about a million dunams (1M dunams = about 250K acres) of land were sold for a price well below their value to the JNF. Another million would be sold later on.

Then-Israeli Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion appointed the Israeli government as custodian of the land and then sold 250,000 acres to the Jewish National Fund. The problem of the Arab refugees was forgotten in the main despite the United Nations trying to resolve it. Ben-Gurion thought that time would eventually solve the problem. The abandoned village land and houses were given to Israeli soldiers so Arabs couldn’t return.

• The Berkshire Eagle - Leonard Quart: A documentary about Israel's past digs at the roots of its present uncertainty

Some speculate the JNF never even paid for the land. Instead, the Israeli government agreed to subsidize the purchase in exchange for assurances the land would be set aside for Jewish settlement.

But the Israeli cabinet ordered the JNF to stop all efforts at buying land from Palestinians directly, and the men returned to Israel.144 Ben Gurion told Weitz and Danin in December 1948 that “The JNF would buy land only from the State. There was no need to buy land from Arabs.”145
[...]One month after Ben Gurion told Weitz that the JNF should buy land only from the state, the two sides finally concluded a major deal by which the JNF would purchase a huge amount of refugee land in January 1949. Despite his mistrust of sharing power with the JNF, Ben Gurion had long wanted to sell captured Palestinian land to the JNF. In fact as early as May 13, 1948, the day before he publicly read Israel’s declaration of independence, Ben Gurion offered to sell a massive 2 million dunums of land to the JNF for £P0.5/dunum. He was trying to sell land he did not yet control to raise money for arms.

• Fischbach, Michael. Records of Dispossession (Institute for Palestine Studies Series) (pp. 61-63). Columbia University Press. Kindle Edition.

The deal involving the so-called “second million” dunums was finalized on October 4, 1950, and involved the transfer of an additional 1,271,734 dunums by the Custodian of Absentee Property on behalf of the Development Authority to the JNF, 99.8 percent of which (1,271,480 dunums) was rural land. Granott later placed the amount at 1,278,200 dunums. The amount of £I66 million was to be paid to the government over a ten year period. Some sources indicate that the JNF was actually to turn the money over to the Jewish Agency on the government’s behalf; the amount then would be considered a loan by the government to the JA. Others claim that the JNF never actually paid the amounts it owed under the two deals.163

• Fischbach, Michael. Records of Dispossession (Institute for Palestine Studies Series) (pp. 65-66). Columbia University Press. Kindle Edition.

Thus, Israel confiscated Palestinian land and held it in trust - only to sell it to an organization that would only allow the land to be used (sold/leased/etc.) by Jewish people only.

The JNF faced no such obstacles and was free to discriminate against Arabs in favor of Jews. Its charter mandated that all land that it purchased thereafter would be inalienable, to be held by the JNF on behalf of the Jewish people in perpetuity. Because the JNF could not sell land it acquired, it leased land to Jewish settlements and individual Jews on the condition that it not be re-let to non-Jews and that only Jewish labor be used on the land—the policy of “Hebrew labor” [Heb.: ‘avoda ‘ivrit]. Thus as a nongovernmental organization free to manage its own land on an exclusivist basis within the new state, the JNF argued for its control of refugee land on this ideological base: if the JNF obtains the land, it will be the best way to guarantee that it is used for Jewish settlement only. This attitude was expressed by a JNF official at the 23rd congress of the World Zionist Organization held in 1951, the fiftieth anniversary of the JNF’s establishment, who stated that the JNF “will redeem the lands and will turn them over to the Jewish people—to the people and not the state, which in the current composition of population cannot be an adequate guarantor of Jewish ownership” [emphases in the original].

• Fischbach, Michael. Records of Dispossession (Institute for Palestine Studies Series) (pp. 59-60). Columbia University Press. Kindle Edition.

It's important to note that all throughout the history of the JNF, its officials openly talked about dispossessing the Palestinian people and taking their land.
In Records of Dispossession, Michael Fischback writes about the culpability of Zionist organizations in the expulsion of the Palestinian people - and singles out one important figure, Yosef Weitz of the JNF.

The question of to what degree Jewish authorities deliberately expelled Palestinians is a hotly contested one.13 For many historians of the Arab-Israeli conflict, the issue comes down to whether Zionist authorities ordered the deliberate expulsion of the Palestinians according to a master plan of ethnic cleansing. It is beyond dispute that some expulsions occurred as it is that, even before the fighting began, various figures in the Zionist movement were actively investigating the idea of what they euphemistically called “transferring” the Palestinians out of the country. One such person was Yosef Weitz of the Jewish National Fund [Heb.: Keren Kayemet le-Yisra’el]. Weitz was born in Russia in 1890 and immigrated to Ottoman Palestine in 1908. He began working for the Jewish National Fund (JNF) in 1918. The JNF was established by the World Zionist Organization [Heb.: ha-Histadrut ha-Tsiyonit; later, ha-Histadrut ha-Tsiyonit ha-‘Olamit] in December 1901 to acquire land in Ottoman Syria for the establishment of a Jewish state. It acquired its first land in Palestine in 1904. In 1907, the JNF was incorporated in London as the Jewish National Fund, Ltd., although its offices were located on the continent and moved several times over the decades. Starting in 1932, Weitz had risen to serve as the director of the JNF’s Land Development Division. He was also involved in the establishment of the Histadrut, the all-encompassing Zionist labor federation.

• Fischbach, Michael. Records of Dispossession (Institute for Palestine Studies Series) (pp. 4-5). Columbia University Press. Kindle Edition.

Weitz countered with a hard-line vision of transferring the Palestinians completely out of the country. He detailed his ideas in his diary:

It should be clear to us that there is no room in Palestine for these two peoples. No “development” will bring us to our goal of independent nationhood in this small country. Without the Arabs, the land will become wide and spacious for us; with the Arabs, the land will remain sparse and cramped . . . . The only solution is Palestine, at least Western Palestine [i.e., Palestine without Transjordan], without Arabs. There is no room here for compromises!14

Weitz and Lifshits agreed to try to work toward this goal. In fact, in 1948 they served together on a committee that investigated transfer (see below). When the fighting broke out in 1948, Weitz believed that it provided a golden opportunity to effect such a transfer. By the spring of that year, thousands of Palestinians were already in flight and leaving behind large stretches of land. For Weitz, the proper course of action was simple: prevent their return and take over their land. On May 20, 1948, Weitz noted in his diary that the refugee flight would create “a complete territorial revolution . . . . The State is destined to expropriate . . . their land.” 15 Once the fighting was underway, he would move to realize this.

• Fischbach, Michael. Records of Dispossession (Institute for Palestine Studies Series) (pp. 6-7). Columbia University Press. Kindle Edition.

The ADL's history of anti-Palestine activism: the spying case

Historically, the ADL surveilled Arab-American and Jewish-American activists who were sympathetic to the Palestinian struggle.

• The Los Angeles Times (1993) - New Details of Extensive ADL Spy Operation Emerge : Inquiry: Transcripts reveal nearly 40 years of espionage by a man who infiltrated political groups.
  
• The Associated Press (1993) - Arab-Americans Sue Anti-Defamation League Over Alleged Spying
  
• The Los Angeles Times (1999) - Anti-Defamation League Settles Spying Lawsuit
  
• The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (2002) - ADL Settles Privacy Lawsuit, but Denies It Did Anything Wrong
  

Excerpt, from a JTA (2002) article on the ADL spying on anti-Zionist Jewish-Americans:

Both sides had filed appeals in July when a San Francisco Superior Court judge dismissed the cases of plaintiffs Anne Poirier and Steven Zeltzer, but not that of Jefferey Blankfort, who claimed the ADL obtained his Social Security number "for nonjournalistic purposes." Because the settlement took place before the appeals came though, the ADL agreed to compensate all three.

Blankfort explains the court case:

• The National Press Club - Jeffrey Blankfort: The ADL: Covert action, censure, and courting law-enforcement.

In earlier decades, the ADL put out dossiers on pro-Palestine activism with titles like, 'Target U.S.A: The Arab Propaganda Offensive' (1975).

• Source: Stanford University, the Berman Jewish Policy Archive.

News article coverage from that time, reporting on then-director of the ADL Jerome Bakst's speaking engagement in town.

• Source: The Evening Herald of Pennsylvania, November 1975.

In the present, the ADL still keeps tabs on pro-Palestine activism & activists like Mohammed El-Kurd.
With so many more Zionist groups now, the ADL no longer has to be a one-stop-shop for all things Israel advocacy. They no longer need to spy on Americans when plenty of other organizations do. They no longer have to profile people, because other Zionist groups like Canary Mission do.
So while the ADL isn't outright spying people as it did years ago, it's not out of some moral shift. It's because they no longer have to.

Visit this page for Foot Action Coupon Code for June 2024. The website offers a wide selection of coupons, promo codes, and discount deals that are updated regularly, just visit the website to find the perfect one for you.

Hello to those who are reading this! My team and I would like to get some more opinions from a wider range of people who we've decided to come on here and ask a few questions on a game that we've been creating for the past year or so. Here are some details about the game itself:
Overview
Title: Echoes of Silence
Genre: Post-apocalyptic survival, Action-Adventure
Platform: PC, PlayStation, Xbox
Perspective: Third-Person Perspective with an Over-the-Shoulder Angle
Art Style: Realistic
Setting: A diverse post-apocalyptic environment with urban decay, wilderness, and small towns
Target Audience: Mature (17+), fans of survival, narrative-driven games
Story
"Echoes of Silence" is set in a world ravaged by the Vardent Plague, a mysterious and deadly virus that has decimated the population and left society in ruins. Players take on the role of Amara, a resilient 16-year-old track athlete, as she navigates this dangerous new world in search of safety and answers. The game focuses on Amara's journey of survival, the relationships she builds, and the moral dilemmas she faces along the way.
Key Features

1. Narrative Depth and Player Choice

• Branching Storylines: Every decision made by the player influences the storyline, leading to multiple endings and varied experiences.
• Character Development: Players shape Amara’s personality and relationships through dialogue choices and actions.
• Moral Dilemmas: Tough decisions that impact Amara, her family, and other survivors.

1. Survival Mechanics

• Resource Management: Scavenging for food, water, medical supplies, and crafting materials.
• Health Systems: Managing physical health (injuries, hunger, thirst) and mental health (stress, trauma).
• Crafting and Building: Creating tools, weapons, and shelters to aid in survival.

1. Dynamic World and Environmental Storytelling

• Dynamic Weather and Day-Night Cycle: Weather conditions and time of day affect gameplay, such as visibility and enemy behavior.
• Environmental Storytelling: Abandoned places, scattered documents, and visual cues provide context and backstory.
• Interactive Environment: Players can interact with objects and structures, using the environment to their advantage.

1. Realistic and Engaging Combat and Stealth

• Combat Mechanics: Engaging in combat with a variety of weapons and limited ammunition.
• Stealth Options: Avoid combat by sneaking past enemies, using distractions, and performing silent takedowns.
• Tactical Decisions: Multiple approaches to encounters, encouraging strategic thinking.

1. Companionship and Relationship Building

• Companion Mechanics: Shadow, Amara’s loyal dog, assists with tasks like scouting and alerting to danger. Caring for Shadow strengthens their bond.
• Family Dynamics: Interactions with Amara’s mother, older brother, and younger sister, with choices impacting their relationships and well-being.
• NPC Relationships: Building trust with other survivors, forming alliances, and navigating conflicts.

1. Immersive Audio-Visual Experience

• Realistic Art Style: Detailed environments and character models, with dynamic weather effects.
• Sound Design: Ambient sounds, realistic sound effects, and a fitting musical score.
• Visual Cues: Subtle details like eye dilation, sweating, and the condition of infected creatures.

1. Replayability and Exploration

• Multiple Endings: Different story outcomes based on player choices encourage replaying the game.
• Hidden Secrets: The world is filled with hidden locations, side quests, and lore that reward exploration.
• Dynamic Events: Random events and encounters make each playthrough unique.

Conclusion
"Echoes of Silence" aims to deliver a deeply immersive and emotional post-apocalyptic survival experience. With a focus on narrative depth, dynamic relationships, realistic survival mechanics, and engaging gameplay elements like farming, the game provides a rich and varied world for players to explore and survive in. Through careful decision-making and resource management, players will navigate the challenges of a world forever changed by the Vardent Plague, shaping their own story of resilience and hope.

The reason we are providing you with some mechanics in the game is that we wish for you to critique it as you see fit. Many designs are still in process and we're (still) going through the debate about how some of the characters could look, so we apologize for the lack of visual evidence. One major question that we see fit to ask is: What features would you like to see in the companion (Shadow) mechanics to make them more useful and emotionally engaging? (due to Shadow being considered a "main character" and players will be seeing and interacting with him a lot). If you wish for more detail on certain key details, Amara, or even minor details, feel free to ask. :)

[Your Name] [Your Address] [City, State, ZIP Code] [Email Address] [Phone Number] [Date] United States Congress Washington, D.C. 20515
Dear Members of Congress,
As retail investors, we are writing to express our strong support for the implementation and robust utilization of the Consolidated Audit Trail (CAT).
We believe that the CAT is an essential tool for the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to effectively monitor and regulate market activities, and it is crucial for maintaining the integrity of the financial markets.
The CAT, designed to create a comprehensive database of all equity and options trades in the U.S. markets, will provide the SEC with unprecedented transparency and insight into market behaviors.
This level of transparency is vital for detecting and prosecuting illicit activities such as naked short selling and other forms of market manipulation that undermine investor confidence and market fairness.
Naked short selling, where traders sell shares they do not own and have not borrowed, is a particularly egregious form of market manipulation. It can create artificial supply pressure on stocks, driving prices down unjustly and harming legitimate investors.
The ability to track and audit these activities through the CAT is indispensable for identifying and taking legal action against those who engage in such practices.
We, the retail investors, demand that this information be submitted to the SEC promptly and comprehensively. It is imperative that the SEC has all the necessary tools and data to investigate and hold accountable those who exploit the market for their gain at the expense of the investing public. The CAT will empower the SEC to perform its regulatory duties more effectively and ensure a fairer, more transparent market.
In light of the above, we urge you to support initiatives that enhance the SEC's capabilities through the full implementation and utilization of the CAT. This will not only protect retail investors but also uphold the integrity of the U.S. financial markets.
Thank you for your attention to this critical matter. We look forward to your support in ensuring that the SEC has the resources it needs to enforce market regulations and protect all investors.
These are the representatives who oppose the CAT system and most of them have previously voted AGAINST the Short Selling Transparency Act, and Market Fairness Acts.
WE DEMAND FAIR MARKETS, FREE OF MANIPULATION AND FRAUD.

Find your representative here:

https://www.house.gov/representatives/find-your-representative

I wanna replay whole missions like in shadow of war i love these main missions and the soundtrack man. Like i dont wanna just do the action i wanna watch the cinematics again too. Do the devs read reddit? I wish they add this feature to the 2nd game at least.

There's little more satisfying than a hyper-aggressive doom as Lifeweaver. They put out so much pressure that the enemy team usually can't even think of diving me. With my high, reliable healing and saves (16 in 10 minutes) aggression that would normally be inting suddenly becomes effective.
Replay code: QV2GM4

I just passed task1 on this and thought I'd provide some insight.
For the timeline, I just used MS Word. Under Insert, I used SmartArt to make arrows I could label and I copied a section of 3 arrows in order to make 6, then labeled them and wrote in specifics of the timeline underneath each one. It doesn't have to match your real timeline, but it has to be less than 30 days, even if you take longer.
For the persona, there are really fancy ones shown in the course tips, but I just used Word again and inserted a table with 2 columns, put a free internet image on one side and some facts for an imaginary user on the other. It does have to be a plausible person based on the information given about past visitors, though, so if you pick a user who arrived by cruise ship, you'd better put their age and other info as being from that same section of the report. I found lots of personas online and each included different information about their imaginary user, so I just put in some basic name, age, location, occupation info, but then I also added a line for the info given about the visitors, like transportation to island, length of stay, visitor status, number of people in party, etc. I wasn't sure if I needed to do this, but I did. Of course, I merged the rows on the image column side, but it looked very table-y and not fancy and it still passed.
For the low fidelity wireframe, I spent way too much time on this trying to find a suitable site to help me build one and I ended up very frustrated. In the end, I found a blank image of a rectangle desktop browser window and I copied it and pasted it into MS Paint for each page of my website idea. The main image at the top was the home page and then I copied the navigation section and pasted it to the right of the main image and drew an arrow to it and labeled it "Navigation" and then did an arrow from the first link to the wireframe of that page, an arrow from link2 to it's wireframe, link3 to it's wireframe, etc. They want us to show the "flow" of the website, which I showed with arrows and that was accepted. Then, I copied and pasted my MS Paint .jpg into my Word document and made sure it could be seen well enough from the document. There are several decent examples of low fidelity wireframes in the Course Tips section of the course if you want more examples. You don't need any colors, images, or even text in this wireframe. I used squares with an "x" in them for image placeholders (and wrote "image" to be on the safe side), used Link1, Link2, Link3 for links and used the generic Lorem ipsum text placeholder text for filler text. If your link pages link elsewhere to an internal page, be sure to include that in your wireframe, as well.
For the guerilla testing part, I just made up 3 reviews using members of my household and a friend. I put something like 'User 1 is a 69 year old female...' and then I made up the rest based on what I thought her review would be. I did something similar with the others. I really did put myself in their places and wrote actionable feedback from their imagined points of view and came up with a few ideas to add to my wireframe. Be sure to write about how you'll incorporate their feedback into your design for part 2. I read someone else's post saying they updated their wireframe afterwards with the new feedback, but I didn't and still passed.
For the prototype, this is where you make the website for Taniti and it takes the most time. You can hand-code if you want to, but I used a free Wix account. They try to get you to sign up for web hosting and other stuff, but I left my site at the generic yourusername dot wixsite dot com URL and that worked just fine for these purposes. Be sure to get all of the info from the "About the island" doc in there somewhere and try to make it easy for others to find. Be sure your links work. Someone who reviewed my site actually checked the links from each page to be sure and I'm sure the graders will, too. I reviewed someone else who had no working links.
For the 5 usability tasks, there's some help here in the Course Tips section. They want a specific question that can be given to a stranger who will then go to your site to find, so don't make it too broad. Maybe something like, 'What's the drinking age on Taniti' and not 'Are there activities on the island?' Put a little thought into this and if your prototype allows people to find those answers easily enough, because you'll have 3 strangers using those same questions in Task2 to find the info on your site.
For the APA sources, I had some trouble with this because I used all AI images and wasn't sure how to cite them properly. There is conflicting info online and I didn't want to cite each photo on the site. I wrote to my instructor who said putting a note in the footer for each page stating what site they all came from (if one site) should be fine, but just to be sure, I did that plus I added the following citation format in section G for each image used: Name of image. (n.d.). Website. Retrieved [date] from [URL].
For section H, I never know if I need to include anything there for 'demonstrate professional communication,' but I just put 'I believe I have done so.'
Finally, be sure to look over the rubric and check your spelling before submitting and that's it for Task1. I got it back in 2 days as a pass.
For Task2, you have to record yourself giving feedback to 3 others. Be sure to record your screen and your face in a picture in picture mode. Try to say something on each of their written tasks so they have something to write about in their submission. Once you get your 3 reviewers, you have to summarize what they said and then specifically write about what they said for each of your usability questions. I had a lot of "good" comments and that's pretty much it, so I had to summarize that for each question for each person and write if it was actionable or not, which most were not. This is a much quicker task than the first. My videos somehow ended up saving to a wrong folder, so I had to edit them to move them to the class folder so people could see them, so be on the lookout for that. I also didn't get the emails you're supposed to get after making each video, so luckily, I'd saved the links right after making them. I'd suggest doing the same just in case. I wrote up everything on the Task 2 template they provide and just submitted this morning.

Hi, I'm looking into using the ADB Wifi action, and from what I gather it uses the legacy implementation (Android 10 and below) where a pairing request only needs you to (accidentally) tap Allow (on a popup that suddenly appears when an attacker tries to connect) (as opposed to an attacker needing to enter a pairing code shown on the phone with the current implementation).
I'd rather not have the legacy server running all the time. And I do need to have Wireless debugging running all the time for Shizuku and Shizuku-enabled apps, so I can't just use the Enable Debugging (Check Help) option in the ADB Wifi action to enable it as needed.
Are there any plans to support modern Android wireless debugging? Or Shizuku integration?
The best solution I've found so far to not downgrade the security model is using the Termux Tasker plugin and run Shizuku's shell implementation rish with it. Now I'm wondering, can rish also be ran directly from Tasker somehow, without Termux as an intermediate?
Thanks in advance for any tips & feedback!

Hi!
I recently got back into training to increase specifically my tracking aim. My flicking aim isn't too bad, i usually score around 75-80k on gridshot ultimate, but im comfortable with that score at least for now.
What I've noticed is that my tracking aim is AWFUL, specifically shaky. I've realised this mainly happens when my wrist is learning around 60% of its full range of motion right or left it starts to get incredibly shaky. I have tried tracking using more arm movement but I am way worse at it and my tracking turns into flicks almost as i cannot move my arm smoothly.
Is this something I can fix? Or is it just something I have to come to terms with and get used to playing only with flicks?
Thanks in advance!
(can also share replay codes for circletrack / strafetrack if wanted)

I wanted to learn how to code with gamemaker this summer and have just started,I was following shaun spalding's video on a recreation of asteroids. https://youtu.be/455ytzjNSBc?si=ofdePknYTC0E1Odl And ran into this error above,ive tried creating the variable in a create event and in the obj_bullet but still run into this issue. Any help would be much appreciated.

I am diving into the world of building LLM applications and could use some guidance. My goal is to create an LLM Application(chatbot) that aids users in deploying jobs from one environment to another in an interactive manner. Specifically, I aim to have the application take user inputs and guide them through the deployment process, including pulling code from Git and checking it into another environment's Git repository.
I am considering using LangChain for implementation, but I am uncertain about the best approach. I am seeking advice on selecting the appropriate LLM model and leveraging LangChain functionalities effectively.
here is a breakdown of the deployment functions I envision:
Login, Tagging, Listing code dependencies, Pulling code, Checking in code, Providing a summary of the deployment process
My plan is to utilize custom tools within LangChain to map these functions and use agent to select the appropriate actions based on user input. Essentially, I want the application to interactively gather necessary inputs from users in natural language at each step and execute the deployment process accordingly.
Could someone please assist me or provide guidance on the approach to select the Model, implementing this using LangChain including UI?
Thank you in advance for your help!

Below you will find a weekly reminder of our Rules and partial FAQ. It's definitely a long read, but it's worth your time, especially if you are new to the community, or dropping by as a result of a link you found elsewhere. We periodically revise our rules, this weekly notice will help keep you informed of any changes made.
NOTE: These rules are guidelines. Some moderation discretion is to be expected.

Community Rules

1. Kindness Matters

Advise, don't criticize.

• Post with empathy, thoughtfulness, and constructive commentary rather than judgment. Don't be an asshole.
• Name-calling, slurs (including gender or race based slurs), and insults towards other community members will not be tolerated. Do not attack others for their personally held values, custody situation, marital status, physical distance from stepkids, or economic status; or on the basis of race, sex, sexual orientation, age, religion, or ethnicity.
• No name-calling toward children, including the above-mentioned insults or the term "skids", or terms such as "mini-wife" or "mini-husband."
• Comments advocating spanking or any mention of wanting to harm children are not allowed.
• This is a support sub, not a judgement sub, assholes are not tolerated. Comments with terms used in other subs to pass judgement on assholes will be removed.

2. No Drama

This is a support sub.

• Bickering, nitpicking, and thread derailment will not be tolerated and will be subject to removal at moderator discretion.
• Do not repeatedly badger a poster demanding answers, or refuse to acknowledge an answer that's already been given.
• Do not use sensitive issues from past posts (either from this sub or other subs) to attack another user, as we are all discussing vulnerable topics.
• Crossposting anything from /stepparents to any other subreddit might result in a ban and may result in the original thread being locked. Brigading our sub will result in an immediate ban.

3. Report, Don’t Rant

No backseat modding.

• If you see someone breaking the rules, report the post or comment to the mods rather than engaging them in an argument. Failure to do so may be subject to comment removal at moderator discretion.
• No meta posts complaining about rude comments, DMs, or general sub issues.
• If you think someone is a troll or previously banned user, either use the report function or message the mods to direct their attention to the issue.

4. No Naming & Shaming

No userpings or links.

• Tagging/pinging users or other subreddits in an attempt to bully, harass, or complain will not be tolerated. Do not tag other subs, ever.
• If you want to complain about another subreddit being hostile to stepparents, do not name the subreddit. "Other parenting/advice/judgement subs" will suffice.

5. No Platitudes

Nobody knew what they were getting into.

• Comments like "You knew what you were getting into", "Love them, love their kids!", "They're a package deal!" and "You have to love them like your own!" will be removed.
• Comments suggesting that OP is not cut out for stepparenting will be removed at moderator discretion.
• Comments like "This is just a part of parenting, deal with it!" will be removed at moderator discretion.

6. No Trolling

We have zero tolerance for trolls.

• This is a support sub. Our subscribers do not have the time, nor inclination, to provide support to internet trolls. Posts that are suspected to be trolling attempts will be immediately removed, and the poster banned.
• Concern trolling, devil's advocating, gish-galloping, sealioning, and general asshattery are subject to immediate removal and banning without warning or notice.
• Any attempt to circumvent the ban by creating a new username will be reported to reddit admins and possibly result in account suspension.

7. No Personally Identifiable Information

Use discretion when posting.

• We highly recommend using a separate account for support subs to help prevent being doxxed. Do not post any information that may allow others to figure out your identity.
• Do not post photos of children, or any other photo that could be used to identify you or another user on the sub.
• Any image that contains a name or other identifying information should have the name or identifying information blurred out. This includes drawings, notes, and screenshots.
• Do not link to social media or any articles/blogs where you or another user on the sub is mentioned by name.

8. No More than 2 Posts per 24 hours

Use the daily threads.

• We are not a huge sub, but we are no longer a small sub. If you have multiple grievances to air, use the daily discussion threads instead of multiple posts.

9. Follow Reddiquette

Remember the human.

• Adhere to the same standards of behavior online that you follow in real life.
• Read it in full here.
• Downvoting is reserved for comments that don’t contribute, and shouldn't be used to indicate disagreement.
• If you believe someone is in violation of the subreddit rules, please either use the report function or message the mods to direct their attention to the issue.
• Suspected brigading will be reported to reddit admins.

10. No Porn, Spam, Blogs, or Research Studies/Surveys Without Mod Approval

Just don't.

• This is a SFW subreddit. Posting pornography will result in immediate post removal and permanent ban.
• Advertising on the subreddit (outside of Reddit's own advertising) is not allowed.
• No personal blog posts are allowed without express moderator permission.
• No advertising without prior mod approval.
• No asking for money/posting fundraisers/etc.
• For links to parenting research studies or surveys, please message the mods for permission before posting.

11. Disputes in Modmail Only

Don't argue with the mods on the sub.

• Any issues specifically related to how a mod is moderating should be addressed to the full moderating team via mod mail. This ensures that all mods are aware of any concerns and prevents disintegration of the topic thread at hand.
• This means to do not message or send chat requests to individual mods. All discussion and complaints about mod actions need to be done in mod mail ONLY. Failure to follow this rule can result in an immediate permanent ban.
• Comments in threads asking about mod decisions are subject to removal without notice.

12. Moderator Actions

We aren't kidding.

• Users are expected to know the rules before posting. If you are warned or banned for violating the rules, ignorance is not an excuse.
• Moderators will remove posts and comments and/or lock threads in accordance with the rules above. Typically this happens when threads have gone off-topic in a way that is not productive for the OP, or comments overall have become contentious or disrespectful.
• If a poster continues to argue or to willfully violate these rules, temporary and permanent ban procedures will be followed. Any attempts to avoid or bypass temporary bans will result in a permanent ban. User bans will not be discussed in the sub. Questions posted about user bans are subject to removal and the poster subject to warning/ban procedures. The mod team will not discuss a specific user ban with anyone other than the user involved.
• New accounts are subject to manual approval until they are no longer deemed "new" by the mod team. This helps to weed out trolls and ban evaders.
• We rely on Automoderator to scan for specific words and phrases that are not welcome here and notify the mod team to review the comment or post. This includes slurs of any type and platitudes such as "Love them as your own!"
• The mod team uses a combination of blacklisting and banning when dealing with trolls.
• We employ the use of a bot that automatically bans anyone who comments in subs that have historically harassed our users. If you are picked up by the bot for telling trolls to get fucked, reach out via mod mail and we'll get you sorted out.
• The rules above as well as ban procedures are considered guidelines only; some deviation may be necessary on a case by case basis and/or at the mod team's discretion.

13. Ban Procedure

These actions are at moderator discretion.

• Pornography will result in an automatic permanent ban.
• Extremely egregious content will result in an immediate permanent ban.
• You may receive a 7 or 30 day temporary ban for first and second rule violations, depending upon severity.
• Continued rule violations will result in a permanent ban.
• Willful attempts to avoid or bypass temporary bans will result in a permanent ban.
• We recognize the reddit site-wide rules of using alt names to get around bans and will ban those as well as report them to reddit admins.

​
​

FAQ - About the Rules

What does Kindness Matters mean?

• Shortest version? Don't be an asshole. People come here for support and advice, they do not come here to be yelled at or told they are the reason everything is going sideways. There are ways to point out that someone may want to do some reflection on their own actions and reactions without being an asshole about it.
• The purpose of this subreddit is to provide support and a sense of belonging for struggling stepparents. We aren't here to pass judgement, but rather to offer support, empathy, and constructive commentary. That does not include "hard truths" or "tough love." Stepparents get enough of that in every other subreddit, we're not passing it out here. Be respectful.
• Remember, most people aren't going to come to a sub like this when everything is going great and everyone is getting along. People are coming here when they are down, when they are feeling defeated and stretched to the limit. Kicking someone when they are down is shitty behavior and we don't tolerate it.

What about being kind to the kids?

• "Won't somebody think of the children?" Pearl clutching isn't needed here. If you read the Kindness Matters rule closely, you will see that there is a clause in there about name calling children. We don't allow it. We also don't allow people rolling in telling OP that they feel sorry for their stepkids because OP is feeling overwhelmed and overloaded.
• If anyone is advocating slapping, spanking, or any other form of violence, report the comment immediately. We do not advocate violence towards children of any sort. The mod team does not advocate any sort of physical punishment at any time.
• Venting about behaviors is not the same as insulting the kids. However, if you see a post or comment where kids are being name called or dragged to the point of no return, use the report button. We try to catch the posts and remove them before they hit the sub, but we cannot see every comment without your help. Use the report button to bring problematic comments to our attention. Don't engage in a war of words on our subreddit.

Why is this sub such an echo chamber?

• Not allowing contributors to pile on and tell OP that they are a terrible human being who should never be around children does not equate to being an echo chamber. Many contributors here will offer OP suggestions to help them work through their resentments and frustrations, and the most egregious situations are called out. We simply ask that it be called out with respect.
• If you feel that a post is simply too much for you to handle without following the rules, move on to another post.
• If you believe that a post itself is crossing the rules report it. If the mod team has approved the post, it is because the mod team believes that the OP needs help from the community or needs a moment to vent and move on from their vent. That does not give you license to pile on disrespectfully. Unless it is proven that OP is a bot, assume that OP is a human being with real thoughts and feelings and has posted from a place of vulnerability.

Why can't I tell OP that they are an asshole?

• Because this isn't a judgement sub. We aren't AITA, we don't want to be AITA.
• Comments with terms like YTA, NTA, ESH, NAH will be removed.
• Don't start your posts with INFO either. We generally recognize that as a fishing attempt for more information to pass judgement on OP, and again, we are not a judgment sub.

But OP asked if they were an asshole?!

• Their post somehow got past our automoderator. Just use the report button. We will address it with OP.
• If you've asked if you are an asshole, a-hole, a*hole, a**hole, whatever, don't be surprised if your post is removed without warning. This isn't a judgment sub. If you want judgment, you know where to go.

What is a gendered slur?

• While it seems that everyone understands what racist slurs are, people struggle understanding the concept of gendered slurs. Generally speaking, we are talking about derogatory nouns or verbs that are used to negatively describe people or situations based on gendered terms.
• We've gone back and forth on this a few times, and the truth is, we get it, it's your safe space and you want to be able to vent about BM/BD how you want to vent about them, without us telling you how to vent about them. Fair enough. Vent away. What we are going to stick to here how people are referring to other users and to stepchildren.
• Examples that are not allowed:
  • "My SD is such a little bitch."
  • "She dresses/acts like a slut."
  • "My SS acts like a pussy."
  • "My SS is such a beta male."
  • "You are all fucking whores."
  • "Any dude who is raising some sluts kids is a cuck!"
  • "Little Lord Fauntleroy over here thinking he runs the house!"
  • "You're just the bangnanny, get used to it."
• Don't call users here names, don't call stepchildren names.
• Masking the term with asterisks or other neat little tricks might get you around the bot, but if we see it, we're removing it and quite possibly giving you a time out. The intended word is still there and you deliberately tried to skate the rule.
• As there is not enough space to list every term that is offensive and does not belong, nor every situation in which term or phrase may be allowable in context, this rule is enforced based on moderator discretion.

Seriously? You are the language police now?

• We're here to talk about stepparenting. And we would like for that to happen in a respectful way. Attacking each other doesn't help. Belittling stepchildren draws in trolls who don't understand your frustration, all they see is an evil stepmonster talking shit on the internet about a poor, innocent baby. Yes, even if that "poor, innocent baby" just robbed you blind and set fire to the house on their way out the door. That's just how it goes.
• We are aware that this is a relatively new rule and a lot of older posts and comments contain a lot of problematic language, including some from mods themselves. We are growing and evolving, and rules change as the sub grows and evolves.

What does No Drama really mean?

• Pretty much what it says, do not bring drama from other subs into this sub. Do not engage in vote brigades. Do not try to incite other subscribers to riot in a different sub. Don't follow posters into this sub from other subs to continue to harass them. Do not badger someone or derail threads. Do not harass community members because you don't agree with them. There's enough drama in the daily lives of subscribers, more isn't needed.

What is thread derailment?

• When a comment chain has devolved to the point where all you are doing is arguing back and forth with someone about the same thing over and over again, you have derailed the thread. Also known as bickering. It's what children do. We assume if people are in a stepparent role they are adults. We expect you to act like it.
• If you aren't a stepparent, or in a stepparenting role, consider that perhaps this subreddit isn't for you. If you want to participate, do so with respect. Thread derailment, arguing, bickering, and nitpicking are not allowed.

But what if they didn't answer my question?

• No one has to answer your questions. This is a support sub, not an inquisition. Jumping on a bandwagon with "OP is evading the question" in a 20 comment long chain is the epitome of thread derailment. You'll find more information about trolling below and how this might be considered such.

Why am I being silenced? I'm just asking for a back and forth!

• Thread derailment, badgering, and nitpicking are considered harassment. Continued harassment of either community members or mods will get you banned.

Why can't I look at someone's post history and comment about it?

• No mod in the history of this sub has ever once said post histories are forbidden. What we do frown upon is using someone's post history to attack, belittle, or otherwise harass someone.
• Example Post: "My stepkid's mom really hates me. How can I make this better?"
  • Okay: "Based on the timeline and your post history, it looks like this may have started as an affair. Unfortunately there's going to be outstanding issues for a long time due to that. Try focusing on yourself and how you can move forward without worrying about how someone else feels about you."
  • Not Okay: "Holy shit! You were the OW! What the hell do you expect, homewrecker?!"
• Example Post: "I am completely overloaded and feeling very down about myself."
  • Okay: "In your post history you mentioned that your spouse wasn't really helping around the house. Has that changed at all?"
  • Not Okay: "LOL, you already got the answers you need in your post on relationships. You are stupid for sticking with your lazy spouse."

Why can't we crosspost stuff to other subs?

• We can't stop you from doing so. The problem isn't that something has been crossposted, it's when the community that it's been crossposted to feels the need to come over here and harass OP. When we see that happening, we lock the post and start passing out bans. If you did the crossposting, you'll be banned. If you participated in the brigading, you'll be banned.

What if it's my own post?

• Again, we can't stop you from doing so. We prefer that you don't technically crosspost, but rather just copy and paste your post. Why? Because inevitably the above will happen. Redditors from other subs will follow you back to /stepparents and start attacking users here. It just happens.

What is "brigading"?

• Reddit defines vote manipulation and brigading as follows:
• Using multiple accounts, voting services, or any other software to increase or decrease vote scores.
• Asking people to vote up or down certain posts, either on Reddit itself or through social networks, messaging, etc. for personal gain.
• Forming or joining a group that votes together, either on a specific post, a user's posts, posts from a domain, etc.
• We, along with pretty much every other subreddit that has ever had to deal with this nonsense, further define brigading as this: You saw a post on another sub that linked to our sub either via a link in a comment or a crosspost. It was basically saying something along the lines of "OMG, check out these assholes over on /stepparents! They literally hate all their stepkids!" And then you and your friends come over and start hammering on OP and telling OP how much they suck. Congrats, you have just participated in a brigade.

What is this whole Report, Don't Rant thing about?

• If you see a post or comment that breaks the rules, instead of engaging, report it. When you report it, it sends notification to the mod team. We will act on it where appropriate. Engaging with bad faith users may result in your comments being removed. If you repeatedly do so, you may end up being banned.

What if I see an obvious troll?

• Report it.

What if they are being really mean in comments?

• Report it.

What if they are harassing me in private messages?

• Step 1: Report them to admins. You can report harassment to reddit by using this link or send a DM to reddit admins. Include the link to the DM, admins can see your inbox and providing a direct link is helpful for them to weed out bad actors.
• Step 2: Block the person so they cannot directly contact you again.
• Step 3: Send us a mod mail and let the mod team know. Tell us who they are and what they said, send us a screenshot if you can - admins can see your DMs, mods can't. We'll take action where necessary by banning from the sub if they aren't already banned.

What do you mean by No Naming & Shaming?

• Just as we prefer to not be linked to or crossposted from, we do not allow linking to or calling out other subs by name. If you see something you want to share, say it's a hot post that has hit the front page and a stepparent is being absolutely flayed, just refer to it as "that hot post that hit the front page." If you want to complain about other places in general, "other parenting/advice/judgement subs" will suffice. Absolutely under no circumstances should you link to anywhere else.

I can't link to other subs?

• Do not directly link to another sub. (e.g.: "/insertsubnamehere is ridiculously hostile to stepparents!")
• Do not name other subs. (e.g.: "I won't link to it directly, but insertsubnamehere is ridiculously hostile to stepparents!")
• Do not abbreviate other subs. (e.g.: "I know that ISNH is ridiculously hostile to stepparents!")

I can't ping other users?

• Do not summon another user with a username ping/tag. (e.g.: "insertusernamehere was being an asshole.")
• If you are agreeing with someone, it is okay to link to them. (e.g.: "I agree with insertusernamehere, you need to take a couple of steps back and reflect on this.")

What does No Platitudes mean?

• Sanctimonious, overused clichés that grossly oversimplify the stepparenting experience are neither wanted nor allowed here. We have all heard it a thousand times before, we don't need to hear it again. It's not nearly as insightful and wise as some would like to think.

Why don't you people understand it's a package deal?

• Any comment that suggests that OP should have known what they were getting involved with, or that they needed to understand that the kids were part of some package they needed to accept before signing up for marriage is subject to immediate removal.
• This is one of the most insensitive things you can say to a stepparent. Most stepparents were aware of the children, but they were probably not aware of all of the family dynamics.

Why can't you just love them like they are your own?

• Demanding that a stranger you do not know love children that are not biologically theirs as if they were theirs can be incredibly damaging to someone who is already in a vulnerable situation. Any comment that falls along these lines will be removed.

What do you mean by No Trolling? I was just...

• No means no. No trolling. No pretending to be a stepparent and then whipping out the Greatest Hits Bingo Card of The Worst Stepparent in the History of Stepparents. We see you. We've seen you a thousand times.

What does "concern trolling", "gish-galloping", and "sealioning" have to do with stepparenting? This isn't a debate sub, why are you using debate terms?

• That's absolutely right, this isn't a debate sub. And yet, here we are, day after day, having to defend ourselves against this sort of thing. So, enough. No more. Usage of any of these things will get you banned.

What is "Concern Trolling?"

• A concern troll is someone who disingenuously visits sites of an opposing ideology to disrupt conversation by offering unwanted advice on how to solve problems which do not really exist.
  • Example Post: OP expresses concern that she will feel, and possibly act, differently towards her stepchildren after her husband decides that no, he doesn't want anymore children after all.
  • Example Concern Troll pulled from actual mod mail after their comment was removed: "Possible child abuse claims need to be sorted out well before whatever empathy you believe the OP was looking for."

What is a "Devil's Advocate"?

• "I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but have you considered that maybe BM is just really tired and needs a break, too?" BM has dozens of different mom based subs alone on reddit she can complain on, this sub is for stepparents. The stepparent doesn't need to consider that maybe BM is just really tired and needs a break.

"Gish-galloping?" What does that even mean?

• The Gish Gallop is the fallacious debate tactic of drowning your opponent in a flood of individually-weak arguments in order to prevent rebuttal of the whole argument collection without great effort. The Gish Gallop is a conveyor belt-fed version of the on the spot fallacy, as it's unreasonable for anyone to have a well-composed answer immediately available to every argument present in the Gallop.

And "sealioning?" What's that?

• Sealioning involves jumping into a conversation with endless polite, reasonable questions and demands for answers, usually of entry-level topics far below the actual conversation (e.g. "please prove sexism exists"). This tactic differs little from harassment; instead of discussion, the point is to derail discussion, receive criticism (for their ignorance) so as to look like a victim, or to make someone feel overwhelmed and quit talking.

Who gets to define what is considered asshattery?

• The mod team, of course! If we feel that comments are out of line, are trolling, are leading up to a fight or "just asking questions", we are going to remove them and most likely ban the offender.

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FAQ - Sub Questions

Posting Guidelines for Stepparents

• Body text is required, we suggest you use line breaks between paragraphs as a wall of text is difficult to read. Posts that have only a title are likely to be removed. Instead of using names (even fictitious ones), try to use the sub acronyms. It helps our users to follow along if you use the acronyms and not names.
• Assign a post flair that accurately describes what your post is about and what you are seeking. If you are posting an update from a previous post, include a link to that post.
• Flairs are applied to posts to determine what a person is looking for. When submitting a new post, you should choose a flair that specifies if you are looking for advice, support, etc. The following link flair is available and is color coded with side bar links so that you can search by flair:
  • Advice - For when you are specifically asking for advice or help.
  • Announcement - Mod Use Only, for subreddit announcements.
  • Daily (Formerly TTP) - Mod Use Only, for our daily discussion threads.
  • Discussion - A little advice, a little "How does your family handle this?"
  • JustBMThings - Pretty sure this is self explanatory!
  • Legal - Asking for legal advice? Tag it with this!
  • Miscellany - Just a sort of off topic thing? Use this tag.
  • Resource - Sharing a good resource or asking for one? This is the tag you need!
  • Support - For those days when you want nothing but a good old fashioned cry and some community love.
  • Update - Updating us on something that you posted about previously? Use this one!
  • Vent - We all need to vent sometimes. Respect the tag as a vent. This isn't how OP talks all day every day.
  • Win! - Celebrate those wins with us with this tag!
  • Megathread - Mod Use Only, for large mega threads (typically around major calendar events.)

Posting Guidelines for Bioparents

• Stepparents is a support community for stepparents, by stepparents. As bioparents, you may want to have more insight into how the stepparent in your life feels or thinks. You may have questions on how to ease the transition for your partner. However, please keep in mind that this community was not created for you. It was created for your partner or your ex's partner. If you are seeking support on how to deal with a stepparent, there are other subs more suited for your situation and your post is subject to removal.
• There are some posts from bioparents we will accept:
  • Seeking advice on how to support your partner as they navigate stepparenting
  • Seeking resources to help you better support your partner
  • Seeking resources for your partner
• There are some posts from bioparents we will not accept:
  • Complaints about how the stepparent is too involved in your kids lives
  • Vents about how the stepparent is not involved enough in your kids lives
  • "Cautionary tales" advising stepparents to back off
  • Seeking advice on how to tell the stepparent to back off
  • The Do's and Dont's of Stepparenting
  • How your kid's stepmom is literally The Worst
• Comments from bioparents that are helpful and supportive are welcome and appreciated. Comments from bioparents that are not helpful or supportive are not welcome and subject to removal. There are several other subs that may meet the needs of bioparents better than we can. We recommend /coparenting, /parenting, /parents, /blendedfamilies, and /singleparents as starting points.

Guidelines for Stepkids

• At this time, we do not generally accept posts from stepkids. Comments from stepkids that are helpful and supportive are welcome and appreciated. Comments from stepkids that are not helpful or supportive are not welcome and subject to removal. If you are a stepkid seeking support, we highly recommend /stepkids. It is a very supportive community specifically for stepkids. We also recommend /blendedfamilies as another potential group for support.

What the heck are all these acronyms? I'm confused!

• Check out the Common Acronyms wiki page. We try to keep this updated as new terms are introduced to the sub.

Why aren't my posts or comments showing up?

• New posters and accounts go through a waiting period before their posts will show in the sub and the comments on posts automatically. During the new account approval period the mod team will check posts to be sure you aren't attempting to circumvent a ban with a shiny new account. Please be patient while the timer runs down on your "new" status and the mod team approves your posts and responses.

Why was my comment removed?

• Comments are removed when they do not follow the rules of the sub. These rules are published in several places for your reading pleasure.
• Comments are removed at moderator discretion. In some cases your comment may be removed while another remains up. If you find this to be the case, and you believe the comment to be violating the rules, instead of arguing with mods or demanding they remove the additional comments, just report it.

This comment/post is really offensive! Why is it still up?

• All moderators are volunteers and have busy real lives. Sometimes things get past us. The best thing you can do is report anything you find offensive or inflammatory. It's the quickest and most reliable way of alerting us to an issue.

I've received a hurtful/unwanted PM from someone about my recent post. What should I do?

• If you receive an unwanted/hurtful PM from a name you don't recognize, please report it to Reddit Admins using our handy pre-populated form. Be sure to include the permalink to the message. We've been dealing with a few unhappy folks who like to attack stepparents, and reporting it to the admins is the only way to make it stop.

What are the general moderator guidelines?

• Users are expected to know the rules before posting. If you are warned or banned for violating the rules, ignorance is not an excuse.
• Moderators will remove posts and comments and/or lock threads in accordance with the rules above. Typically this happens when threads have gone off-topic in a way that is not productive for the OP, or comments overall have become contentious or disrespectful.
• If a poster continues to argue or to willfully violate these rules, temporary and permanent ban procedures will be followed. Any attempts to avoid or bypass temporary bans will result in a permanent ban. User bans will not be discussed in the sub. Questions posted about user bans are subject to removal and the poster subject to warning/ban procedures. The mod team will not discuss a specific user ban with anyone other than the user involved.
• New accounts are subject to manual approval until they are no longer deemed "new" by the mod team. This helps to weed out trolls and ban evaders.
• We rely on Automoderator to scan for specific words and phrases that are not welcome here and notify the mod team to review the comment or post. This includes slurs of any type and platitudes such as "Love them as your own!"
• The mod team uses a combination of blacklisting and banning when dealing with trolls.
• We employ the use of a bot that automatically bans anyone who comments in subs that have historically harassed our users. If you are picked up by the bot for telling trolls to get fucked, reach out via mod mail and we'll get you sorted out.
• The rules above as well as ban procedures are considered guidelines only; some deviation may be necessary on a case by case basis and/or at the mod team's discretion.

I've been wrongly banned/Why can't I comment here?

• Due to an influx of harassment from users with specific user histories, we have employed a user history ban bot as described above. If you think this has affected you and wish to appeal, please message the mods.

Why was I banned without warning?

• There are numerous reasons that the mod team might opt to move perm banning without warning. Message the moderators if you have specific questions.