"Lightroom has encountered an error reading the preview cache and needs to close. Lightroom will try to fix this issue the next time it starts"
how do I fix this? I think the problem is that there's no Previews.lrdata. folder at my lightroom folder.
When I installed it, it said something about not being able to generate a catalog at a certain location or something. maybe it has something to do with that

Hi all, so lately my PC has been pretty unreliable when stressed, or even without. I've had problems with it in the past with random shutdowns or BSODs but previously there's a lot of time between each problem. Lately, the PC shuts off every time I try to load Furmark/P95 or even a mobile game (via Bluestacks). For the last week or so I've been using Furmark + P95 as a temporary room heater, monitored the temps and they rarely exceeded 91C for the GPU and 90-95C for the CPU, and I dunno how reliable this is, but 50-65 C for the motherboard/peripherals. So, should be fine in the temperature department and that's when stressed, and the room was nice and toasty, pretty good having a computer + heater combo that uses less then 800 w of power!
However yesterday I've suddenly been unable to run Furmark, P95 or a single game for longer then a few seconds without the PC randomly turning off. It managed to run a mobile game for about 5 minutes before it entered a continous cycle of turn off -> restart, turn off at Windows logo, restart over and over, and I've "fixed" it by shutting it down and re-plugging the 24pin cable on the motherboard and moving a stick of RAM to another slot. Now it's made it to Windows (I'm posting from the PC) but I've got the feeling it's still not reliable.
My specs are: Mobo: ASUS/MSI Z170x Gaming 5/7 (unsure) PSU: Corsair TX850 CPU: Intel I7-6700K GPU: 3rd party GTX 980 TI RAM: 32 GB (6 months old) HDDS: Samsung SSD 120 GB, purchased in I think 2015, a WD HDD purchased in 2015, and a newer Crucial SSD purchased in 2022
I mention the SSD lifespan in the title because according to HWINFO the Samsung SSD is at 35% lifespan remaining, could this be causing issues? How accurate is this info? I've heard SSDs can seemingly randomly regardless of 'life remaining'.

Hi, first time poster here, was wondering if i can get some help with my Divinci Resolve. I just recently found out about smart rerendering, and was wondering if thats why my frames drop so drasticly and look so choppy after i export and rendered the video, and if so, how do i disable or fix this problem to ensure that my video comes out the way i recorded it

I bought a 2002 Honda a while ago for a little under 3k. Long story short, the title was tampered with, and the odometer was set back (from 250k to 170k). The check engine light also came on a couple of weeks after i bought the car. After a long battle with the DMV i got the car registered and got the title transferred. Some time ago the car started making a weird noise when shifting from 1st to 2nd gear. Best way to describe it is “VROOOOOM-thud”. I took it to a mechanic who said he’s not exactly sure what the problem is but that the car is so old that it’s probably not worth fixing at all. (He said it’s probably the transmission). Recently the car started making the “VROOOM-thud” noise when shifting into all gears until i’m going about 60 MPH. Today my check engine light turned off. Is my car going to die on me? How long do I have? Should i start looking for a new car? Help a young girl out!!

So, I got this long term job for seventh graders at my old elementary school (the whole staff knows me and they’ll call me for jobs) for the last three weeks of school so you can imagine how that’s going. It hasn’t been going well, their teacher was basically their friend. There wasn’t a line of professionalism between student and teacher. When I first arrived the class was in disarray, and I had to change the seats around. The students were not happy at all, that I was changing things around. I’d give them book work, and they’d state that they wouldn’t do it because they already did it or that they never used that specific book.
I’ve been subbing there for five days now, and I’ve had teachers, the principal, Vice principal walk in to my class to address bullying or their defiance in completing assignments. I tried to address my fourth period the other day and was met w giggling and all of them talking over me, so I gave up and just sat back down. Today, they were complaining that they wanted to go with the teacher across the courtyard and how it wasn’t fair that they stayed with me. So I addressed this, and mentioned how it wasn’t fair on him to go out of his way and have half of the class with him during his prep period and sixth period till the end of the school year. I understand their frustrated with me and are annoyed I give them work but it’s my job. I had this girl say, “why do you have to call on other people to fix your problems”. I wrote a letter and addressed the constant walk ins as being a good thing but also a bad thing because the students see me as inadequate. I told this student how they refuse to listen to me so how can I solve these problems if they don’t care and she just rolled her eyes and kept asking the same question. Atp I was at my limit, and felt my face get red and my eyes start to water, so I stepped outside. I’m probably going to either get let go because they need someone who won’t waste other staffs time or I’ll just tell the office ladies I’ve known since I was a kid that I’m going to take another job.
I know I’m going to get some direct comments (that I will take to heart) saying that I should grow a backbone and I need to be firm or that this job isn’t for me. I’m 23 and got into this career because after graduating college, I wasn’t too sure what I wanted to do w myself. I know I should have a backbone, but I’m tired of the mockery and disrespect.

DRW is a diversified trading firm with over 3 decades of experience bringing sophisticated technology and exceptional people together to operate in markets around the world. We value autonomy and the ability to quickly pivot to capture opportunities, so we operate using our own capital and trading at our own risk.
Headquartered in Chicago with offices throughout the U.S., Canada, Europe, and Asia, we trade a variety of asset classes including Fixed Income, ETFs, Equities, FX, Commodities and Energy across all major global markets. We have also leveraged our expertise and technology to expand into three non-traditional strategies: real estate, venture capital and cryptoassets.
We operate with respect, curiosity and open minds. The people who thrive here share our belief that it’s not just what we do that matters–it's how we do it. DRW is a place of high expectations, integrity, innovation and a willingness to challenge consensus.
We are looking for passionate Software Engineers to join our team. You will develop critical software that our traders, researchers and engineering teams use to implement and analyze our algorithmic trading strategies. As a member of our team, you will be surrounded by cutting-edge technology and senior technologists providing you with the best possible environment to succeed.
How you will make an impact:

Building scalable and performant software using software engineering best practices Analyzing and discussing requirements from stakeholders Facilitating discussions on code implementation, testing, software architecture best practices Driving projects and leading new initiatives Actively engaging with others on the development team to resolve challenging design and coding issues 

What you bring to the team:

A Bachelor’s or a Master’s degree in Computer Science, Software Engineering or equivalent experience Strong understanding of software development principles and best practices Strong verbal and written communication skills in English Dedicated team player and a passionate problem solver with strong interpersonal skills Experience with Go Passion for clean code, software and systems architecture, and building robust, performant, and maintainable systems Experience working with Linux systems, client/server protocols, distributed and event-driven systems, data storage systems, data pipelines, and containers in a cloud environment Some experience with frontend development would be an asset 

Read more / apply: https://www.golangprojects.com/golang-go-job-gni-Software-Engineer-Golang-Network-Ops-Solutions-London-DRW.html

Lets take a moment to appreciate Steve’s work here. I see this man commenting every single day in this subreddit, helping people out, explaining, reassure people etc etc. If it wasn’t for Steve i would have gone completely mad… Costo ruined 1,5 year of my life, going crazy thinking i had heart problems even though the tests all came back normal. Every pinch in my chest gave me a panic attack.
Then i found this subreddit, the backpod, Steve’s videos and him explaining and helping people out every single day without making a dime off of it here on the sub. It all makes sense since then, it eased my mind and im sure the ones reading this too. We know what causes the problem now, how to fix it and if we need any help or reassurance we post it here on reddit and id it’s challenging enough Steve always pulls up to help. This man truly saved my life, it was that bad.
I’m gonna be honest, if i would have had costo for 7 years and healed myself, even though i knew everything about it since then, i would’ve forgotten about it after a few months and went on with my life. Steve didn’t. He is still here helping every single day.
Steve your an amazing individual, your changing/saving lives and you deserve all the best for all the work you’ve put into the research of this crazy and scary ‘condition’ and helping the people out! Thank you so much!

I don't think I'm an expert, nor do I think that any of what I'm going to say is actually what Hoyoverse are going to do or should do. I just want to share my idea as I had some fun theory crafting. Also I'm obviously going to talk about leaks so if you don't want to know what her kit does for whatever reason I'd suggest ignoring this post.

The problems

The way I see it there are a couple of possible problems with the current iteration of Firefly's kit, which are:

• She feels very dependent on another character giving her a way of dealing damage once the enemy is broken. As the only character that currently can do that Harmony Trailblazer seems like a must use unit for her, not really giving the player any option in team building.
• The previous issue also makes her seem more like an enabling unit that let's other people deal damage instead of a damage dealer herself, which if it's intended isn't necessarily a bad thing, but from the way she is advertised, to me it seems more like she is supposed to deal her own damage, especially since that fits her design of being an engineered warrior a lot more.
• The conversion of Attack into Break Effect makes it seem like she wants to build Attack in addition to just building Break Effect, yet the damage of her Enhanced skill is very negligible compared to the Super Break damage that Harmony Trailblazer will deal.

My goals and idea to fix it

The main goal is of course to fix the previously mentioned issues, but I also wanted to kind of keep her core identity and kit pretty much the same. To me her kit reads like she is supposed to be much more of a traditional kind of damage dealer compared to Boothill being completely focused around breaking the enemy. She's supposed to be able to deal damage with her enhanced skill, while still being Break Effect based at the same time. The issue with that is though that because she already needs to build so much Break Effect there isn't much space for her to build a lot of other stats to make her enhanced skill deal meaningful damage.
My idea to fix that was first to simply increase the scaling of her enhanced skill, yet if you did that it could result in the optimal build to not be Break Effect based at all, which I don't think should be the goal for her. Instead I think they should increase the amount of scaling she gains from building Break Effect as that will ensure that the optimal build will be Break Effect based and not just an average Crit Build.

The numbers

I previously already made a couple of spreadsheets to compare different builds so I was quite easily able to test my ideas. I compared two builds:

• The first was completely Break based with Harmony Trailblazer, Ruan Mei and Gallagher as support for Firefly, using the new relic and planetary ornament sets.
• On the second one I still used the new sets (Although at least the relic set might be replaceable on this build) but instead used Sparkle, Asta and Fu Xuan
  • Sparkle mainly because she has the biggest Crit buffs in the game at the moment along with also giving a small ATK% buff.
  • Asta because she grants speed, a lot of ATK% and a little Fire Damage% (More depending on relics and Lightcone)
  • Fu Xuan for the added Crit Rate

The first thing I compared was the damage Firefly would deal during one of her ultimates in each of the teams, giving Firefly an extra turn in the Crit team due to sparkle.
The damage in the super break team, dealing a big percentage of Damage as Super Break
The Damage in the Crit team, about 40% lower
​
The next thing I tried was increasing the scaling from BE in her skill to 2x instead of 0.5x, but still having it capped at 360% of Break Effect, letting her skill get to a total attack scaling of 720% from Break Effect plus 400% base scaling. I know this is a very radical change but I wanted to see how much impact it could have.
The changed damage for the Break Team, only increasing about 10%
The changed damage for the Crit team increasing about 70%
​
I thought that the damage the crit team gained was too much though as I personally believe that the Crit team needs to have a disadvantage as it already has the advantage of dealing damage when the enemy isn't broken. So I changed it some more capping the scaling at 300% of Break Effect instead, resulting in a total scaling of 1000%.
Break team damage with 2*300% Break scaling on Enhanced skill
Crit team damage with 2*300% Break scaling on Enhanced skill
​
That change led to the kind of damage numbers I think would be healthy for Firefly.
Full table comparing the damage values between builds and proposed changes
​

Summary

I think that adjusting the scaling on Firefly's enhanced skill would be a good way of solving some of the issues people see with her, as it would give her more options as to what to build and which characters work with her, while also giving her ways of dealing damage herself without changing her kit too much. At the same time it also would increase the value she gets from building Attack making it not just a stat you build to get a different stat.
Link to an imgur post with the full spreadsheets: https://imgur.com/a/o4KJeyT
​

Hi everyone! I am planning to apply to a few MBA's in the next few years and started to do research. I wanted to know how I currently stand with my profile to fix weaknesses and make the strongest profile I can , also to see if I could apply to M7 schools and not waste money.
Demographic: Asian (M), Middle 20's
Education: BS in Civil Engineering at a Regional University (3.53) Minor: Philosophy and Entrepreneurship & Innovation Management
MS Civil Engineering at Columbia University in the City of New York (4.00)
Experience: One year as a Civil Engineer, three years as an Air Force officer (working with electronic warfare)
Tests: Working on GMAT (I would like to know what's a good target score but I will do more research)
Post MBA goal: Transition into consulting. While working as an engineer and officer, I learned that I love to problem-solve and advise/implement plans. I could look into IB as well because I love finance and investing, but I still need to figure out how I feel about the industry. Just liking finance and investing doesn't mean it's a good fit for me.
I would appreciate any advice. Feel free to be direct because I want to learn and increase my odds.

Hello, I received my order yesterday : a K5 Pro and a mouse M6.
Short review (not very accurate since I just used them: the keyboard is quite good, the mouse quite the opposite (my 10 euros mouse is less noisy)
Now, back to my problem: I have a Swiss ISO layout but the json file that I downloaded from the website of Keychron is not the right one since VIA software does not show to my layout (ie when I press on the Z it’s always Y for VIA). How can I fix this ? Is there another json file specifically for the ISO Swiss layout?

For the last couple of days I managed to somehow get my AirPods Pro 2 to work with my Windows 11 both as audio and mic. I would connect once, disconnect and login to Warzone on Steam to play without any problems. Sound was not muffled, whilst the quality of my microphone was excellent. After a few days, my AirPods have stopped working as mic. I can hear audio, but something is wrong again. Any ideas how this could be fixed?

I'm a volunteer that helps elder people with all their computer and phone problems.
This lady that visited me has a 6 year old iPhone and iPad that has been locked for 6 years since the death of her husband. She doesn't know how to unlock them. The iPhone says "unlock with iTunes" and the iPad says "try again in 15 minutes", but it keeps saying that.
She does not have access to her husbands apple ID account so trying to recover it this way is impossible I guess. She has an apple ID account of her own but she couldn't remember her password so we will meet again next week to see if she can unlock the 2 devices this way.
She contacted Apple Support but they said they couldn't help her...?!
I couldn't help her right away but promised her I would look into it, so that's why I'm asking here for help, so I can get back to her.
Is there anything that can be done for these 2 devices? The devices are both 6 years old but look brand new so she would like to get them fixed.

hey everyone, i’ve been having a problem with the water in my game and its annoying me. It looks so flat and the color is being very affected by the sky and its messing the colors and the reflection and it stands out so much depending on where I am, ive tried disabling every water mod I have and unistalling and installing my enb and the water still looks weird, if anyone knows how to fix this or how to reset my water to the vanilla style I would appreciate so much🙏🙏 (here is my modlist btwhttps://modwat.chXXANDEE)
how it looks right now:https://imgur.com/a/4lxe6TJ

You know what the best part is about playing Engineer in Team Fortress 2? You get to watch how angry everyone gets when they get shot by your sentry guns. Me and my best friend Jose both main Engineer, and can confirm that the best way to spend your Friday nights after school is to set up a sentry and get ready for the rage. There’s been matches where we haven’t even used our actual guns even once, but racked up lots of kills just because of the sentries.
One day Jose called me up with an idea that was either going to be the stupidest thing ever or the smartest thing ever. He wanted to fill an entire team with only Engineers and watch the chaos unfold. I couldn’t stop laughing at the mental image in my head and agreed with the plan. I joined a Discord server with everyone else on the team.
I convinced my cousin Matthew to join, and he in turn brought along his little brother Zack. According to Matthew, it took quite a bit of convincing because Zack was a Scout main who couldn’t stand Engineers. He eventually got through to his little brother by promising him a Steam gift card. I even got their dad Graham to play along (yes, I have an uncle who plays TF2. How cool is that?). Jose enlisted his friends, who turned into friends of friends and soon enough we had a team of 16 Engineers.
To say that we caused chaos that night was an absolute understatement. As soon as we joined the game the text chat was flooded with messages from the other team wondering what the hell was going on. And they only got worse from that point on. We surrounded our control points with a ring of sentries that people just kept running into. I saw keyboard smashes and heard other teen boys’ voices crack in rage and many, many words that I personally don’t care to repeat here.
The most skilled Engineer was this guy named Craig, who was a friend of one of Jose’s friends. Not only was he the main person capturing the enemy control points with some very strategically placed teleporters, but he was also really friendly and encouraging to all of us. I didn’t know what he looked like, but from his voice it sounded like he was in his early 20s.
Me and Craig started to chat more and more on Discord. He was a super nice guy who was also really fun to talk with. He took time out of his day to teach me how to be an even better Engineer player. Whenever someone started dissing me in the voice chat, he firmly told them to leave me alone. After seeing my fair share of toxicity in the TF2 community, it was nice to know that this complete stranger was looking out for me.
This whole Team Engineer thing became a weekly tradition for us on Friday nights. It was something everyone could look forward to after work or school. One time after everyone logged off and said their goodbyes, Craig sent a message a few hours later in our Discord:
“You guys gotta check this out. I found the weirdest server ever. It’s literally Engineer heaven. Meet me at vl_sentry.”
I was still in the mood to play and I could stay up late tonight, so I hopped back on TF2. I saw that Jose, Graham and this other girl we played with named Lynn were also online. I found vl_sentry and connected to the server. The map was called Valley of the Sentries and it was created by Valve.
It took my computer a little bit to process the map, and it took me even longer than that to process what I was seeing.
The map looked like a chessboard with 3D-sculpted hills. The sky was just pure white. Not even white walls, just the color white. Every square had a blue sentry on it and there were about 4 or 5 other Engineers jumping around, spamming their voice lines. That’s when I realized that we were the only ones there, and there was no red team.
“Hey Sean, glad you could make it :)” Craig said in the text chat. “What the hell is this?” I asked. He told me that this was a server that one of his friends showed him. The friend said he was introduced to the map by a friend of his who knew someone who worked at Valve. Craig then went on to explain that apparently Valley of the Sentries was an experiment to test the limits of the sentry guns and their effect on the servers. Rumor has it that the map is infinite.
“Check this out.” said Jose. He switched to Heavy and immediately got shot down. All of the sentries turned towards him. There were so many of them that it made the game lag a ton. He respawned as Engineer and the sentries just kept on spinning.
“WTF?” I typed. “We tried it with all the other classes and it does the same thing.” said Craig. “It ignores Engineers, but shoots everyone else.” Lynn added. “And that’s why we’re the best class. Engineer power!” Graham joked.
I asked what would happen if you were to play as Spy and sap one of the sentries. “I tried, but you gotta have a godly reaction time to activate it.” said Jose. As soon as he said “godly reaction time”, I knew I had to try it out just for the bragging rights.
Respawn. Shot down. Respawn. Shot down. Respawn. Shot down.
Yeah, I did not have a godly reaction time. The others kept spamming “lol” in the chat each time I failed. I got annoyed pretty quickly and stopped trying. Then out of nowhere, all the sentries turned away from me and started firing at someone. I turned around and all five of us were still standing there. I looked at the top bar that shows how many characters were in the game. There were only five Engineers and they were all on the same team. So what the hell were the sentries targeting?
I started to walk in the direction that the sentries were facing and Jose followed me too. We moved really slow, not only because of the sentries on every square but also the uphill climbs. It was just us two in the chat for a while, talking about seeing each other back at school on Monday while we made our slow walk across the map. Then our conversation was interrupted by a chat message from Lynn.
“Why is there a man in the sky?”
Me and Jose tried to get to Lynn to see what she was talking about as fast as possible, but we moved like snails. To get back to the spawn point, we both switched classes, instantly died and respawned as Engineers. I don’t think we respawned in the same place we started from. I don’t even know where we respawned. There were no landmarks or notable things to help you find your way. Just hills, valleys, and sentries.
I asked Lynn where she was and she just told me she was with Graham and Craig. Only that wasn’t very helpful because we didn’t know where they were either. We stood there, stumped for a minute and a half until Jose got an idea. He said that she should just switch classes and respawn, because then all of the sentries would point toward her and we could follow them all the way back to her. She made the switch, got shot down, and we instantly knew where to find her.
We finally got close enough to kind of make out the vague shape of a few Engineers over the non-existent horizon. Me and Jose were relieved, until all the sentries pointed to our right. I swiveled around and saw them open fire on…nothing. I checked with Jose to see if he caught something I didn’t, but he also didn’t see what they were shooting at. I decided that it wasn’t that important and continued to walk towards the rest of the group.
We met up with Lynn, Craig and Graham, disappointed that we made that trek all for nothing. Even though we were all together now, it just felt so lonely. The only sound coming from my computer was the constant beeping of the sentries in perfect sync. I don’t know why, but it made me so uneasy. I attempted to break the silence by going to the voice lines and playing the iconic Engineer “Nope” soundbite. It echoed across the checkered land with no response.
It was about 12:30 AM at this point and I was starting to feel more and more unsettled with each passing minute. There was just something about this black and white world that I felt creeped out by. Before Craig invited us to come over, there was no one else on the server. Who would even want to play on this map, anyways? It’s so unfairly balanced that only one class can survive. Movement speed was super slow, and you can’t even really do anything except watch the sentries turn and turn and turn forever. It was like hypnosis, except I didn’t feel sleepy or relaxed at all.
Speaking of being sleepy, Jose said he was getting tired and was going to be logging off. We all said goodbye to him and continued chatting amongst ourselves. It sounds stupid, but my stomach dropped when I saw the fifth Engineer portrait disappear. One less person to talk to. One less person to keep myself from wondering what else was out here. I could have sworn that after he left, the beeping got louder.
“So is this map actually infinite?” asked Graham. “Only one way to find out.” Craig said. “Just keep on walking and see if it goes on forever.” “Why don’t you just fire a shotgun and see how far it goes?” Lynn suggested.
I took out the shotgun and fired. The bullet flew off into the white distance and disappeared.
Then I heard the distinct sound of someone getting shot.
A message appeared in the chat, from someone named sentry_check_pattern.
“sentry_check_pattern: stop that”
Once again I looked at the top bar. It just showed four blue Engineers. That meant we were the only ones on the server. Or so we thought.
The chat was flooded with our confusion, almost as if everyone realized at the same time that something wasn’t right. None of us moved an inch.
“What even is this place?” I asked, hoping that the mysterious user would provide me with an answer. “Must be Engineer heaven.” said Graham.
“sentry_check_pattern: more like my personal hell”
This was the moment that made me trust my intuition. I knew there was a reason why I found this map so creepy. I wanted to leave the server, but there was just one thing keeping me back- my own curiosity. My wish to unveil the mysteries of the Valley of the Sentries.
“Okay this is really freaking me out. See ya guys.” said Lynn before she left the server. The fourth Engineer’s portrait disappeared from the top bar.
No no no, please. Please don’t go. Don’t leave us. I wouldn’t want to be alone here. Now there’s just three of us, and I really hope that number doesn’t go down anymore. When the others were here, this was just a weird TF2 map that we were exploring together as friends. And now it feels like we’re trapped in this infinite world, but we aren’t alone. The only problem is we don’t know what else is here.
I shuddered, imagining Craig and Graham ditching me and leaving me all alone in the Valley of the Sentries. Just me and whoever- no, whatever was talking to us.
“sentry_check_pattern: you don’t know how good you have it
you can leave at any time
i can’t”
This terrified me. What a horrible thought, never being able to leave this place. But of course, no one could really be trapped here. It’s a Team Fortress 2 server. You can just exit the game and shut your computer. No one could be trapped in a video game.
But if you think about it, aren’t the characters themselves trapped? They can’t leave the game. They’re characters. They don’t even know they’re in a game. You or the computer controls all their actions. They don’t have free will. And if you’re bad at the game, they’ll just keep dying over and over again.
Wait, why was I thinking about this?
I carefully considered what I wanted to say next in the chat. Whatever I said could either answer all my burning questions or leave me asking more. But sentry_check_pattern talked first.
“sentry_check_pattern: i was made for one purpose
to die over and over again”
Oh my god. It was like this person read my mind and knew exactly what I was thinking about. Who or what was I talking to? I turned all the way around to make sure that no one else was there. It was just the two blue Engineers standing behind me. Just Graham and Craig. And that man with the checkered skin.
Startled, I asked my friends if they saw what I saw. It took them a second, but both of them confirmed that yes, there was indeed something else there. A basic male model with the same chessboard texture as the map. Graham immediately started to shoot at him. Nothing. It just went straight through him.
“sentry_check_pattern: you can’t kill what’s already been killed millions of times over
valve made that mistake too
every company has that one failed project they don’t talk about
and that’s me”
Whoever was behind this weird account was talking crazy. The Team Fortress 2 developers were very open about everything like fixing their glitches and bugs. They always posted things on the official blog about the development process. They’re so open about their failures and always promise to fix them.
“Stop with the weird stuff. We just wanted to know what the deal is with this server and the weird chess guy. Do you know anything about it?” Graham asked in the text chat.
“sentry_check_pattern: know anything?
you’re not very bright, graham
none of you are
do you not realize where you are and what you’re talking to”
Something about the way sentry_check_pattern used Graham’s name gave me goosebumps. I didn’t know what I was talking to. I didn’t even think I wanted to know at this point.
“sentry_check_pattern: this is one of valve’s test servers
i’m the texture they use to check if the sentries work
read between the lines”
“Quiet, NPC.” Craig said. I laughed a little bit to fight off the awkward tension. Then I reminded myself that I was talking to a video game character, no- not even a character. A blank character model. A texture.
“sentry_check_pattern: just because i’m a character model doesn’t mean i can’t feel pain
open fire”
The sentries all swiveled around to face the man and shot at him. He kept falling to the ground, turning white and standing back up in the same position.
“sentry_check_pattern: cease fire”
All of the sentries stopped shooting and just went back to spinning around, their beeps echoing in the air.
“sentry_check_pattern: ready to see what i’ve been through for over a decade?
open fire”
Before any of us could react, the sentries opened fire on Craig all at once. He kept dying, but he didn’t explode the way you’re supposed to when you die in TF2. He just dropped to the floor, turned white, and respawned over and over again. There was no death scream. I tried to type something else in the chat but the game lagged so much that my typing just ended up as a string of random letters that meant nothing. Craig tried to type something out too. It just ended up as “wwwwwwwwwwthisishowitfeelswwwwwwwww” Then the game crashed and my computer shut down.
I hyperventilated. Then I laughed at myself for hyperventilating over a stupid computer game. It was Team Fortress 2 for god’s sake. That game with all the memes and goofy jokes. Stupid, stupid Sean. Scared of a character model. Jose would never let me live it down. I just laughed and laughed to push the fear away.
I closed my laptop and took out my phone to rewatch all of my favorite TF2 animations for the millionth time. As if they weren’t already the funniest things in the world, I forced myself to laugh even harder than usual. Every time I saw the Engineer, I couldn’t help but look at the reflection in his goggles. The reflection of an endless map of black and white squares.
Thankfully, nothing bad happened to my game, account or laptop. The next day I just went right back to playing and enjoying the rage coming from all the people who ran right into my sentries.
Team Engineer was still a thing, but it was never really the same. We played together a lot less frequently. It was still a lot of fun, but I felt a change that I couldn’t really describe.
We found out that Craig had lost all progress on his TF2 account. Everyone gifted him all his favorite cosmetics and we all pooled our money together to get him a Steam gift card. He video called us, crying at our kindness. It was the first time I ever even saw his face. He was a lot older than most of us. If I had to guess an age, I’d say somewhere around 30. He had black bangs and was wearing a TF2 shirt. His room was dark, only lit by his glowing computer screen. He thanked us repeatedly and even tried to return the gift card, but we were all adamant that he should keep it.
Speaking of Craig, we still kept in touch but he didn’t talk to me as much anymore. Any time I tried to ask him about vl_sentry, he ignored me for a few days.
The other day, I got some postcards from my cousin Matthew. He was very academic and happened to be studying at a private high school about 9 hours away from where I live. All of his postcards were pictures of him making funny faces with all his friends at favorite school activities like robotics, debate team, and chess club.
I looked at the chess club photo closely. Matthew and his friends were standing in front of a chessboard with a mirror on the wall. And for a split second, I could have sworn that the chessboard looked different in the mirror. It looked warped, like it wasn’t a flat board anymore. Like it almost had hills and valleys. No, it couldn’t be. I rubbed my eyes. There, in the mirror was a checkered man. I knew it was there. I swear on my mother’s life that there was another person in that photo. And then it was gone. Maybe the picture was just printed badly. But I had to make sure my eyes were right.
So I brought the postcard to school with me and I showed Jose. I asked him if he saw the checkered man in the mirror. He said no. But that wasn’t the answer I wanted to hear. That was the answer I hoped I wouldn’t hear. I asked him again. He said no again. Then I asked him another time. He said I was being annoying. So I asked another one of my friends. He said no too. So I moved on to yet another friend. He told me to stop.
I angrily clutched the postcard in my hand, crumpling it. I was the only one that saw what was really there. Everyone else was lying to me. They refused to see the truth.
I screamed and ripped up the postcard. I stomped on its pieces. I rubbed them in the dirt for good measure.
Somewhere in the distance, I heard the sound of electronics beeping.
It rang in my ears.
It was weirdly comforting to me.
You can leave the Valley of the Sentries. But the valley will never leave you.

Hi, I’ve never posted here before ever so if I made a mistake, please let me know mods so I can fix it. Sorry if there’s formatting issues, I’m on mobile, and also sorry this is so long. I tried posting this yesterday and it didn’t work, so I’m hoping it works now. I read this sub wasn’t just for grieving passed loved ones, but also for people we just parted with in life for whatever reason. I was wondering if anyone has gone through something similar to what I’ve experienced so here’s my story:
4 years ago, I lost my best friend. He didn’t die, he ghosted me. He and I were in a way perfect for each other. No romance between us, he was gay, and I’m female. We hung out together often, and texted each other a lot. We could talk about anything and we totally understood each other. When the pandemic hit, he and I could no longer go out, I wanted to have video chat dinners with him, but he refused. We instead just called and texted each other. Eventually, he and I safely met in my home, and had a socially distanced dinner together. It was still the same lovely relationship, even though we hadn’t seen each other in months.
A couple of months after this face to face dinner, he slowly starts changing. He’d go off on me while texting, spelling in all caps, pissed off over stupid things. Our favorite singer had just released an album at the time, and since he and I were both fans, we listened to it then compared notes later in the day. He told me he wasn’t a fan of it and I agreed that I wasn’t either. He immediately started getting mad at me for not liking her music. I didn’t understand why he was yelling at me over something so silly. I didn’t bash her, and I still love her and her other music, I just wasn’t a fan of that particular album. I stopped responding when I asked him why he was starting an argument over something so minor, and he told me he didn’t know. I went to bed with him still blowing up my phone about me being a horrible person for not liking her new music. I didn’t want to engage in such a stupid argument, so I figured in a few days we’ll be okay again, and he was just upset at something else and took it out on me. Wrong he did that, but whatever. I didn’t get an apology once we started talking again days later.
Time passes and he starts again, starting arguments over stupid stuff again. I figured the pandemic was really hurting him, and I had nothing but sympathy for him. It was impacting me too, but I wasn’t taking it out on him. I was always his shoulder to cry on and comforted him, I had no problem with this. After like a couple of months of him starting petty arguments, I get fed up of being his emotional punching bag. I tell him in a kind way that he never apologizes to me, I’m tired of being called names, and being screamed at. He apologizes, but says that the album thing broke the camel’s back and we’re not compatible as friends.
I started crying. My best friend in the whole world, was telling me he didn’t want to be friends with me anymore because of some singer’s album. I tell him I’m crying (we were texting at that time) and that I love him and miss him so much, does he not even love me back? I was freaking out cause I didn’t understand how in the world it had come to this. Our friendship was years old, not months. He and I had been through a lot together, I was always there for him and he was always there for me. We were two peas in a pod. He told me it was complicated, he loved me, and that he’d be going to bed for the night since he had an early morning. I told him that I hoped in the morning he still remembered me.
After these last texts, a week passed with no communication from either me or him, and I figured things between us had cooled down, so I texted him, asking if he was okay. He never answered. I’ve never heard from him at all to this day. I knew he was alive cause I had a friend who worked at the same place he did, different departments. They weren’t and still aren’t friends to this day, she said she’d see him at work and he’d awkwardly wave at her. She’d wave back, but she was always pissed off when she saw him for the pain he caused me. She works somewhere else now, so she no longer runs into him.
I miss him, and have never found someone I connect with as well as I connected with him. I still love him, and I sometimes dream of him. I’m sure he doesn’t think about me at all, and never cried over me. I feel like I’m going to grieve our friendship forever. I truly thought he’d be the uncle to my future children and I’d be the aunt to his future children. I thought I’d be the best woman at his wedding and he’d be the man of honor at mine. I’m probably better off since he turned into a toxic person, but it’s hard not having someone in your life that you still love and they’re alive. I have made new friends since, so it’s not like I’ve never moved on, I just have never had another best friend. I never really understood why he left, I assume the pandemic was messing with his head; It messed with mine, and I’m not saying I was this perfect person who never got mad or anything.
Has anybody gone through something similar? Does the pain ever go away? Did you ever get closure?
I was inspired to write this post after watching ‘Mother of the Bride’ recently. It’s about two exes who haven’t seen each other in years reuniting, because the kids they had in different relationships are getting married to each other. I started wondering if my future kid would meet his future kid or niece/nephew (since he was almost a second parent to them) would meet and we’d see each other again.

Hello! I recently built my PC and just downloaded Minecraft a few days ago. I’m playing on version 1.16.5 so I can play with my favorite texture pack. Right now I’m running Minecraft from Curse Forge since that was the easiest way to get the packs in there since I’m scared to mess with my files and such.
However, I’m having that weird glitch where all of the runes in Skyblock and most furniture items look like Steve heads. I found a guide showing how to fix it, but I didn’t even have java downloaded. I tried downloading the latest version off of Java.com but after it had downloaded and I went back in, it didn’t fix my issue.
I tried to uninstall Java and it told me I didn’t have it installed. I then tried the guide with no changes to the steve heads. I downloaded Java from Oracle and that seemed to stop the Java not being recognized by the downloader problem, however, even trying the guide again it isn’t working. I see the steve heads both on Curse Forge and Vanilla, however, Badlion seems to work just fine! I just don’t like badlion so that’s why I’m asking here what to do!

I've been searching around trying to find a fix for this, and I haven't been able to. My computer uses Windows 11. Just as the title says, I press enter and my volume goes up by 2 every time and its so annoying, if anyone else has had this problem or knows how to fix it, please help!

This has become, at this point, a recurring theme in my life. Growing up I was very tomboyish; taped my chest, tried to date chick's (failingly), always acted more masculine than anything. Never wore makeup or jewelry, never had my nails or hair done except bland cuts and colors, etc. Now I'm 28, and several times I've run into both men and women asking if I was a trasn person. Now, with certain people I have used that to my advantage and just make them Hella uncomfortable. But other instances it's just caught me so off guard. At one instance I was with a large group of people and drank at both the girls turn and the guys turn of a drinking game. One of the people there said "I never thought of using non binary as a way to get drunk more" I was surprised Pikachu, I just wanted a sip of my drink not to make a societal statement. Another time I was in the restroom of a local bar and was fixing my wig. (I have, since childhood, become slightly more feminine. As such instead of having to upkeep my own hair I have wigs for days I feel like being girly and doing my makeup and such.) An older woman comes out of a stall, looks down at an advertisement on the counter, and asks if that event was today, to which I said no. The event in question was a Drag show happening that next week. She said uuuhhh ok and very awkwardly left. The most annoying is that whenever people get angry online about some comment here or some post there that has a tendency to be the first insults they throw. How I could afford to put some mediocre tit's on but not get my jaw shaved is the most common. I have absolutely no problem with trans people, I think they have it so hard dealing with harassment these days on top of trying to find themselves on top of always feeling different for being different type of stuff. And I don't consider being called trans an insult, I'll go along with it more times than not since bully's usually don't like you agreeing with them. But man it's frustrating when I look so much like my dad that I look like that meme of John Cena in a wig. This isnt really complaining, I'll take that "insult" over so many other things that can be said. It just affects my self esteem, especially when my bf and I have had long term sexual issues in the relationship.

Oops I just deleted like all of it never mind on my opinion that's a sign I really shouldn't do this. That's all it really took for me not to send it was just oops it's deleted and yeah that's probably a good thing. I'm gonna retype some though but this is just for me now. So I had typed up this whole spiel about how I'm trying to sort through feeling like I'm a disorganized attachment type and how I love and cherish people, specifically my ex and yet distance myself because I do care about them and then distance myself even more cause I feel bad about distancing myself and I feel like the worst thing I can do for a person I care about is care about them. Uh and yeah just that I'd really missed him and spent the last like probably weeks pining and going between feeling really pathetic for missing and wanting to hang out and be around him and just fucking truly feeling gutted over the fact he's not around and shit and I'm talking like pathetic bullshit woe is me which is dumb because he's doing so great and I'm so happy for him and that it was absolutely not his responsibility to deal with me, like or deal with my problems at all. But also that I know that's exactly what's wrong with me and that I can't just be open with someone about stuff voluntarily because it's like painful. Literally everything within me fights back when I try to open up about shit like this. But I dunno it was just all bullshit about me wanting to hang out sometime and how I miss him and that none of its his fault but that I feel like shit and I'm working on it as best I can but I can't send that shit that. I'm so glad I didn't now I was in that tiny little phase where I kinda wanna reach out and spill my guts and over share about everything but that's no healthy to do either. He didn't need to hear about all that. All this is better to keep in my head. Ithis is the last bit that didn't get deleted "and thing for me or the person I'm sharing it with and yeah I'm gonna shut up now and send this even though i feel really bad sending this to you especially wkthout like knowing if youre cool and kosher to deal with my bullshit at all but yeah fuck it if i keep going im gonna talk myself out of it" ha I really did talk myself out of it. Good, this is for the best. That was putting was too much emotional pressure on him to relieve something that wasn't even his fault. It was selfish of me to seek some kind of release or comfort like that. He's doing well, he's happy, he's thriving, without you. He's fine without you. He doesn't need you, he's going to learn that he doesn't want you, that is to say if he hasn't already. This is good, it hurts it hurts so bad but it's good I promise it's good. It's for his best. You don't matter, not in this instance, I know that's unhealthy but if you love him, you can recognize how little you love yourself, how impossible it is to forgive or care about yourself, you're broken and bring nothing to the table. You are nothing. And that hurts I know it does, but we're doing this for him. It's okay, as long as he's happy and okay and experiencing everything he deserves to experience in this world you can go through this. You knew this would happen, from the very beginning you've thought similarly. And now we're in the endgame. It was selfish of us to stay with him for so long. It was cruel, to both us and him. But now that problems fixed. And it's going to fucking feel like we're gutting ourselves from the inside out, but it's what we need to do. Even if we tried, communicated, we'd just be such a big mess. He doesn't need that. No one needs that. No one needs this, this is only your burden, you can't share this with others, because that's cruel. Your responsible for all of this. Wow damn, I started this trying to communicate and maybe open up, and I've done things similar, but just like before it's passed quickly and I quickly turned it around and double downed on my bullshit. If a therapist saw this they'd fucking have a field day. God it hurts so bad. He'd hate that you do this to yourself. He'd hate it so much, and he'd hate to even more that you don't tell him. He'd hate it even more if he knew there were so many times you tried but didn't. So you don't, and you try to keep this as under wraps as possible but he'd hate that too. And that only fuels how you feel. Only fuels your belief you could only hurt him. That you aren't worth anything to him. But I miss him still. None of that changes the fact I love him and wish he was around and I could just be with him and not have to feel like this. But I can't be with anyone. I'm alone, alone here with no one physically present to keep me from fucking up myself. Just came home from hanging out with a friend i and it felt nice for a little until it happened again and I felt so empty and worthless and like I shouldn't be there. I wish someone was here. I wish someone would just hold me and love me and tell me I'm okay and I'm worth things and that I deserve things and pull me out of this, or at least comfort me. I wish someone could see me, really fucking see me and all that and that k could feel safe. God I want to feel safe, id fucking do anything to feel safe and comfortable in my body again. I don't think I've felt that way since I was a child. I can't remember a time. I wish someone could hold me and never let me go and they'd see me and faults and all my scars and they'd be able to stop me from hurting and torturing myself. But that's never going to happen. That's too much expectations for someone. No one's ever going to be that, no one's ever been that. That's not real. It's a delusion, a fantasy and it sounds so good but it's not real and it'll never be real. I'm never going to feel safe, I'm never going to truly appreciate or care about myself. I can't expect other people to deal with this, this has to be my own problem, if I want to solve this I have to do it. I can't make myself feel safe. So I'm never going to feel that way. I can't love myself, so I'm never going to be loved. I can't live like this. So I'm never going to truly live. I'm going to die like this, unloved, and broken. And I'll be so relieved when I die. It will be a mercy. Please be merciful please. You can't keep trying like this. It's gotten you nowhere. You're never leaving this. You're never escaping this. This all there is. It felt good to get that all out cathartic, it's still there, but feelings of overwhelming pressure and doom have been conceptualized into words and that's something maybe. Let's just ask to hang out with him again later.

Hey everyone!
6 years ago my parents gifted me an iTrack Solo and I'm just starting to use it to try record the guitar parts of my songs but I can't seem to get it to work.
Here's what I've done so far:

1. I've selected Microphone (iTrack Solo) DX for both the audio input and the integrated speakers of my pc for my output.
   
2. ChatGPT suggested I download ASIO drivers to improve performance. I did that, and now I can see the guitar signal coming through in Ableton.
   

The problem is I still can't hear anything, even when I record. The meters show that the guitar signal is being received, but there's no sound during playback or monitoring.
All the troubleshooting videos I see are for the Scarlett interface.
Has anyone experienced this issue before or have any ideas on how to fix it?
Thanks!