https://archive.is/B2J07
Westminster residents will have a chance to make their voices heard on the proposed fiscal 2025 budget and several major capital budgets.
The Westminster special and annual Town Meetings will be held in the Westminster Elementary School gymnasium on Saturday, May 4 at 10 a.m. Before the annual Town Meeting, voters will need to dispense with five articles at a special Town Meeting.
The following articles request money from the town’s free cash account, which currently has $3,053,515. The three articles request a total of $455,000.

Article 5 on the STM warrant requests $125,000 to pay for the "Small Projects and Initiatives program" under the direction of Stephanie Lahtinen, the town administrator.
Article 17 on the ATM warrant requests $100,000 to pay for another town administrator-directed project for a "Building and Equipment Maintenance Fund."
Article 13 on the ATM warrant requests $230,000 to reduce the increased fiscal 2025 tax rate.

If these three articles pass, the town will have $2,598,515 left in the free cash account.

Three key articles at special Town Meeting

Article 3 requests an additional $50,000 to pay for the Sewer Enterprise account that the town has with Fitchburg. Joshua Hall, director of the Westminster Department of Public Works, said the Sewer Enterprise budget was approved at last year's ATM on May 6, but they had more flow than expected this past fiscal year. The additional funds are needed to ensure there are no unpaid bills from fiscal 2024.
Article 4 is another $270,000 money transfer to the Sewer and Water Enterprise to pay for urgent projects, including repair to a watermain on Route 2A bridge over Route 2 as well as updating the 2004 wastewater capacity analysis. Hall said these two projects are in the STM warrant, not the ATM warrant, so that the town does not have to wait to start them.
Article 1 requests an additional $70,190 to be transferred into the Snow and Ice Removal account. The original FY24 budget was $397,000. Although communities across the commonwealth experienced minimal snowfall, Hall said the department still needs to salt the roads when there are below-freezing temperatures to prevent ice on the road. He said in FY24, the DPW had 20 responses, nine of which were for plowing snow. The other 11 were for salt treatment and freezing temperature preparedness.

Top three money articles at annual Town Meeting

Article 7: Approve the town budget for the 2025 fiscal year of $26,836,512
Article 13: Approve $230,000 from the town’s free cash account to reduce the fiscal 2025 tax rate.
Article 17: Approve $100,000 from free cash to pay for a “Building and Equipment Maintenance Fund” under the Town Administrator's direction.
Articles 8 through 10 need voters to approve the fiscal 2025 operating budgets for the sewer, water and solid waste enterprises, which total $3,245,193.
Article 8 is for the Sewer Enterprise FY25 budget, at $1,705,303.
Article 9 is for $1,140,730, which pays for the Water Enterprise FY25 budget.
Article 10 is to pay for the Solid Waste Transfer Facility contract the town has with Fitchburg, a total of $339,160 for FY25.

Two non-spending articles worth noting

Article 6: Change the Town Clerk position from elected to appointed. The current town clerk, Ellen Sheehan, said she is in favor of this article and that the town should always have a qualified clerk, especially now because the position demands expertise.
Article 5: Establish a full-time Assistant Health Agent.

Tldr: For the past month there has been a massive war raging in wormhole space involving most major pvp wormhole groups. Over 2T in assets have burned and another 1T looted. It’s complicated.

Wormholes Intro:

Wormholes are different. On a purely mechanical level, there is no asset safety, no local, no sov, no stations. You can anchor citadels in most wormholes, but if they get blown up, everything you own gets dropped in cans for others to enjoy. Wormholes all have a “static” wormhole, which connects them to either a type of kspace (high, low or null) or to a class of wormhole (1 through 6). Some wormholes have effects which impact ships within them, effects that get stronger the higher the class of the wormhole. The changing nature of wormhole connections (they last anywhere from 4 to 48 hours) means that the “map” of wormhole space is ever-shifting. Wormhole life is in many ways much more challenging than living in high, low or null sec. And as with IRL, hard lives breeds hard people.
Wormholes also have ratting sites that also scale in difficulty the higher the class of the wormhole – and in reward. The best C1 combat site drops 12M in loot. For a C3, the best site is 53M. The best sites in “high class” space – C5s and C6s – provide 253M and 446M, respectively! Those sites are also lethal, doing in excess of 3k DPS along with tackle, webs and powerful neuts.

Wormhole Culture:

There’s been a lot already written about wormhole bushido, or however you’d like to label it. It is true that there are some general understandings among most wormhole groups. Ethics and behavior are central to that. For many years, I tended to use a “biker gang” analogy. Wormholers live off the grid, may or may not engage in anti-social, criminal behavior – but at some level, there’s an overriding “us against them” view towards the rest of EVE – especially where LS and NS groups are concerned. You’ll wave at other bikers, but also fight one in a bar for wearing the wrong patch or looking at you wrong. So yeah, there are disputes and fights and evictions between wormhole groups, but most wormholers are wormholers first. History is replete with examples of otherwise adversarial wormhole groups coming together against kspace groups interfering in wormhole space. (There are good parallels between this and the way that otherwise adversarial LS groups have periodically come together to oppose null bloc interference in LS space.)
At any rate, wormhole groups generally share certain values. Wormhole honour brawls offer a good insight into them. Think of these as glorified tournament matches. Wormhole honour brawls operate under understood restrictions – two groups agree to a fight, and then will put an amount of ships that can reasonably fit though a capital-sized wormhole into a wormhole, and then brawl it out until one side disengages. These fights, then, generally involve 3-4b in mass of ships. That will often involve a battleship comp with 1-2 capitals, or a battlecruiser comp with 2-3 capitals. Bling ships and pods are fairly common in these honour brawls. The outcomes of these brawls, in theory, should be determined by theorycrafting, FCing, and individual piloting. A group that violates these norms (violating mass limits, batphoning third party assistance, etc.) risks being labelled dishonourable/untrustworthy. More broadly, batphoning Nullsec groups is almost universally frowned upon. This is generally accepted as a valid casus belli for home eviction as it runs directly counter to the wormhole community’s values.

From Hells Angels to Narcos

Over the past couple of years though my analogy of choice has shifted from biker gangs to something more sophisticated. In this new conception, I think of Nullsec blocs as akin to world superpowers, with smaller Nullsec alliances or corps being smaller countries just trying to carve out a role in the global ecosystem and economy. Low seccers seem to roughly split into two groups – you have your pirates, undocking to satisfy urges for pvp and looting the wrecks of those they torment, and your faction warfare groups, engaging in increasingly robust warfare within the game’s revitalized FW system (gj CCP!).
Wormhole groups are the cartels of EVE. They have strong cultural norms that are sometimes foreign to those who live in kspace, and they vacillate between fruitful collaboration, local conflicts, and – very infrequently – all-out war with existential consequences. More on that in a bit. These cartels exercise violent control over high class (C5/C6) farms. While the cartels are very territorial where farms are involved, fighting and negotiating over those valued assets, they tend to be very united in opposing direct Nullsec or Lowsec interference in the wormhole community. (At a practical level, high class farms fund those expensive wormhole brawls – wormhole groups need control of the trade in order to maintain a costly pvp lifestyle.)
There are a relatively small number of significant wormhole corps/alliances – perhaps under 50 wormhole groups with over 100 members. And those numbers are deceiving, as a sizeable portion of wormholers multibox. With the mechanical challenges inherent in wormhole space, you need probers, tackle, combat toons and you often need to be able to provide those for yourself regardless if you’re seeking pvp or pve.

Wormholes: Homes and Farms

Most wormhole groups have a “home” hole with multiple anchored citadels and where they keep the majority of their pvp toons and ships. Each day wormhole pvp groups will scan out their “chain” (the map of what their home hole is connected to) in search of pvp content, pve opportunities, or helpful connections to kspace (for logistics to a trade hub, or for other forms of pvp/pve content). Many wormholers also hold “farms” – a wormhole that they will use for primarily pve purposes – running combat sites, data/relic sites, huffing gas, mining, etc.
Of those 50 corps, there are probably fewer than 20 with the pilots, skill and experience to be significant players in the high class wormhole cartel environment. You see, there are over 2500 total wormholes – and 625 of those are “high class” wormholes suitable for farming (C5 or C6, high class because they offer the strongest effects, the highest risks and the most lucrative pve). In practice then, you have about 20 wormhole corps actively contesting control of many of those 625 high class farms.
Please note that there are a large number of wormhole groups and owners that have next to nothing to do with the above. There are C2 residents who live to roll their Nullsec static for ganking and roaming content, there are wormhole groups who focus on pve in their hole and/or static connections. The rest of this post will focus on the larger pvp groups contesting high class space, as those are the groups that are providing the majority of the wormhole combatants in the current war.

High Class Wormhole Landscape: 2023/24

As with kspace, the history of wormhole space – and high class space in particular – is convoluted and ever-changing. I will focus on the past few years, as they might be the most important to help understand the present raging conflict. On the heels of two evictions led by the Initiative, the top alliance in wormhole space (Hard Knocks) largely won EVE.
Those evictions were a major event in wormhole space, and are worth exploring. This offers a decent summary from the Initiative side: https://www.pcgamer.com/the-impossible-year-long-plan-to-destroy-eve-onlines-deadliest-fortress/
A critical lesson to draw from the Hard Knocks eviction is that even though they were the top dog and disliked by a large number of wormhole groups, when a Nullsec alliance besieged their home, a rather shocking portion of previously adversarial wormhole groups invested incredible amounts of time rage-rolling to support HK in their ultimately unsuccessful home eviction defense.
After their eviction, HK led a large coalition of wormhole groups in a campaign of aggressive retribution, evicting many wormhole groups who had collaborated with the Initiative. After that campaign, though, Hard Knocks slowly declined in numbers and activity. Indeed, this process predated their home eviction, which is likely one of the reasons it was executed in the first place – an increasingly inactive loot pinata is sure to attract eager eyes. This period of HK decline overlapped with a broader decline in high class wormhole pvp. For the past few years, there have been fewer evictions, fewer honor brawls, less activity throughout C5 and C6 space. Until a month ago.
For the past couple of years, the fastest growing wormhole group has been the Singularity Syndicate (SYNDE). They steadily added members and acquired more and more farms in both C5 and C6 space through both conquest and diplomacy. As of a month ago, SYNDE had grown to nearly 2000 members between their main and alt alliances. During that period of growth, they had a close alliance with Lazerhawks (HAWKS) with the two groups dominating C6 space, and holding a strong market share of C5 farms as well. The other major high-class wormhole players (with over 1000 toons each, give or take) are, broadly speaking, Hole Control (HC), Stranger Danger (LUPUS), No Vacancies (NOVAC), and Turbofeed or Glory (TURBO). Collectively those groups held the majority of C5 and C6 farms.
SYNDE’s extended alliance with HAWKS was a fairly standard wormhole alliance – they would not seek to evict each other’s farms. In other words, two of the larger groups had agreed on each other’s cartel territory. Fighting is fine and they fought often throughout wormhole space and in honour brawls, but the spice must flow, leave the farms be.

Betrayal and War: The Gauntlet is Thrown

Based on SYNDE leadership statements, it appears that in early-to-mid 2023, a decision was taken to build a coalition, seed HAWKS home in preparation for eviction and ultimately remove HAWKS as a major player in high class space. The reasoning was simple: SYNDE wanted a larger, richer territory - and HAWKS held the territory they wanted.
In secret, then, SYNDE built a sizeable coalition involving half of the major wormhole pvp groups, and many smaller pvp groups. Unbeknownst to some coalition members, the coalition’s foundation was a close, new alliance that SYNDE formed with the Initiative. Initiative had been renting a number of farms from SYNDE, and was eager to have a larger number of farms under SYNDE's protection. This would have important implications for the course of the Wormhole War.
In late March, SYNDE informed HAWKS that their alliance had ended. Minutes later, a large number of HAWKS farms were besieged by members of SYNDE’s carefully built coalition – SYNDE, HC and TURBO (again, along with a number of smaller wormhole groups and - waiting for the appropriate moment - the Initative). All the evidence suggests that HAWKS were unprepared for the loss of their major and primary wormhole ally. Alone and isolated, they could only watch as their territory was set afire by the expansive SYNDE coalition.
More to follow as we explore the first month of the war in the next post – Wormhole War: War in Heaven.

​

How to Study When You’re Sick of Studying

Whether studying for the MCAT or other prerequisite classes, maintaining consistent study habits can be challenging. For some, a lack of motivation causes you to spend hours scrolling endlessly through social media before getting started. Others may find themselves distracted or losing concentration after only putting in 15 minutes of work. Either way, a consistent study schedule is key for success on the MCAT. After analyzing hundreds of students who have created their Customized Study Plan, we have discovered that the students who log consistent hours outperform their peers. Here are 6 practical strategies that will best help you study when… you don’t feel like studying at all.
My name is Theo, and I took the MCAT in 2019 and got a perfect score! Having gone through the MCAT journey myself and now watching dozens of students do the same, there are two main problems I’ve seen that can decrease motivation when studying for the MCAT. The first problem is feeling like you aren’t doing enough. There is so much material in front of you and so many practice questions to get through, yet we often feel like we aren’t making any progress. Almost every time I tried to sit down to study, I ended up taking 30 minutes before I genuinely started to hit the books. The other problem that I and my students face is stress. Doing well on this exam is incredibly important for success in the medical school application process that you feel like the world is on your shoulders.
Therefore, your problems with studying are likely not due to a lack of motivation. If anything, we have too much motivation and too much pressure built up in our head to study effectively. Instead of trying to increase your motivation for MCAT studying, you need to remove distractions.

1. Put Your Phone Away

This simple step is the most important, and I’m sure I am not the first person to give this advice. We are addicted to our phones. While this advice is simple, it’s the hardest for me to follow. If I have access to my phone, it’s almost impossible for me to make it through a zoom class or study session without getting distracted. But I made a switch. Before studying, I try to charge my phone in another room. If I forget and feel my phone in my pocket (or even worse, in my hand), I’ve made a pact with myself to just throw my phone across the room. The key principle is that you should not be able to see or touch your phone from your chair. This phone addiction is linked to the convenience of having phones at our fingertips, so by making it more difficult to access our phones, we can slowly adjust to a new normal.
Pro tip: remove notifications, delete distracting apps, or take a social media detox for a week.

2. Block Distracting Websites

I use an awesome Google Chrome extension called BlockSite that allows you to block distracting websites and redirect you to a productive page for customizable hours. Similar extensions exist for every browser as well. This method takes advantage of another barrier to changing our behaviors: willpower is not enough. The more you can automate systems to work in your favor, the less you need to choose to follow them. I only had to choose to install BlockSite once, instead of choosing every minute to be productive instead of wasting time scrolling through Instagram. By reducing the number of times that you need to choose to be productive, you reduce decision fatigue. Then you have more mental energy to devote to your studies.

3. Start with a Daily Checklist

There are a million task managing apps and tools out there to help you prioritize your many commitments. I use Trello! Daily checklists are critical to MCAT productivity because they sustain momentum. Momentum can be important for succeeding in school and daily life, but it’s even more critical for the MCAT. The MCAT feels like an impossibly tall mountain to scale: there’s more content than you’ve ever had on one test and it’s spread out over months. If you can slowly chip away at that mountain and feel the accomplishment of working through the content, those students enter the MCAT Bootcamp with confidence and energy. Momentum on the micro-scale is just as important as momentum on the macro-scale. To take advantage of this in your daily routine, we recommend adding a very simple daily task to the beginning of your checklist. That way you can start the day knowing that you’ve already accomplished something. This is why you should always begin the day by making your bed.
Checklists also allow us to prioritize the tasks we hope to accomplish. For this reason, when you sit down to study for the MCAT or school, number your checklist from most to least important. Then, simply start with the most important task, no matter how hard it is. Most of us start with the easiest task first. However, this leads us to approach harder and more important tasks after we have expended lots of mental effort throughout the course of the day. Doing what’s important first ensures that you will never have to cram for a deadline or stress about being behind. It also sustains your momentum; if life gets in the way of your plans, at least you already accomplished the most important things that needed to get done.
Pro tip: Incorporate prioritization into your MCAT Study Plan. After doing the behavioral science modules, I recommend working through the remaining science modules from hardest first to easiest last. This way, if you are behind in your content studying, at least you can rush through the easiest content at the end.

4. Pomodoro Technique

One of the most popular methods for tricking your brain into studying when it doesn’t want to is the Pomodoro technique. The basic premise is that you set a timer for 25-minute intervals of study with 5-minute intervals of a break in between. In this way, you study for 50 minutes every hour with time to relax so that it never feels overwhelming. There are plenty of apps that can aid you in this method, as well as my personal favorite app: Forest. With Forest, you set a timer for the given amount of time that you want to study. In that time, a little seedling will start to grow and sprout. But if you look at your phone, the seedling dies! I don’t know why this works for me, but something about killing a cute animated tree makes me committed to not check my texts.
For those who have tried the Pomodoro technique and hated it (like me), try other methods of structured study! Knowing your own study style and what works for you is key to maximizing your effective study hours. I personally take a long time to get into a flow state. Getting in the groove is rare, so if I am in the mood to study I need to stay in it for as long as I can. Having breaks every 25 minutes is the worst for me, because those 5 minutes inevitably turn into an hour. So, I need to remove the amount of time that I take breaks as it gets me out of my rhythm. While I can’t study for 4 hours straight, I aspire to take longer, uninterrupted blocks of study, and then take longer breaks after. This way, during these longer breaks I can truly relax without checking how many minutes I have left before I need to dive back into the books.

5. Schedule your day with a calendar

Another powerful tool to get you to study when you don’t feel like studying is planning how long a task will take. Breaking up your day into manageable chunks simplifies your definition of success. Even if you’re easily distracted, you will still know exactly what you are supposed to do. I use Google Calendar to schedule everything, from MCAT tutoring to when I need to leave to catch the bus. A calendar is also a great way to set deadlines for yourself when they aren’t set by a professor or research administrator. When applying for medical school, I used calendars to keep track of every deadline and missing pieces of my application. This organization was a large contributor to getting accepted.

6. Create Your Own Study Plan

Getting and using the create-your-own Study Plan Course was the most important key to my MCAT success. Not only did it help me track my progress, but it also gave me daily accountability to myself to reach my goals. The method is simple, to improve your MCAT score, you need to put in the work to get there. Based on the difference between your current score and your goal score, the customized MCAT Self Prep algorithm will tell you roughly how many hours you need to study. This course helped me see that in order to be successful, I would need to set daily and weekly goals for the hours that I needed. I wanted to say that if I ended up being unhappy with my score, I had done my part. Therefore, I held myself accountable every week to study the amount of time that I promised myself on my study plan.
There are many, many days that I don’t feel like studying. But we’ve all made a goal to be component and compassionate doctors one day. The reality is, there is a massive amount of work that goes into becoming a great doctor. With these strategies, I hope you can chip away at the work to be done and together we can look back and be proud of all the work that we’ve accomplished.
Warm regards,
Theo
Theo scored a perfect score (528) on the MCAT and has been accepted at Harvard, UPenn, Columbia, UCLA, and other top 10 medical schools across the country.

First time posting on reddit so idk if this is the right sub.
Buckle up because this is going to be a wild ride. I (24f) met my ex (25m) while I was shopping at Dior with my mum in Dec 2022. He was our sales assistant. My mum was wanting to buy a sneaker so she went to have a look at it while he assisted her. I wondered around the store for a bit looking at random things when he came up and strikes a convo. I didn’t think much of it since this is very normal. My mum eventually bought something she likes after trying on a few shoes and used my Dior profile to register her purchase. So at this point, he has my phone number. We left quickly after and I told my mum I thought he was kinda handsome but then completely forgot about him as he was a stranger.
Fast forward to Feb, one of my girl friend flew in from out of states to visit me and she wanted to visit the city (mind you I live about 1.5hr from the city) so we took the trip there. We walked past Dior and she wanted to go in to have a look at a bag she wanted to buy. At this point, I’ve received a lot of ‘ads’ from my Dior SA about their products and event but had ignored them. We walked in and my SA recognized me and came to say hello. I also recognized him and joked that he actually remember me since the time I was with my mum was the first time I saw him. He said I was memorable because of what I had worn previously (my handmade skirt). After some small conversations and looking at the bag my friend wanted to see, we quickly left Dior and ventured around the city. After we left, he sent a message to my phone through Dior saying thanks for coming and he hope we have fun. I said thanks and continued on with my life.
Since then, I kept receiving automated ads from Dior asking me to come in when I have time and at this point I was a little annoyed. I didn’t want to block as it is from my Dior assistant (basically someone who is assigned to personally assist you whenever you need something from Dior). One day I was feeling really happy as I made my favorite food and then I got another ads from Dior, but this time, it was my assistant sending photos of his attempt at styling his client and asked me to come in to have a styling session as well. So i thought this would be the perfect time to hint that it’s no use sending me ads as I don’t live nearby. So i responded very politely, complimenting the styling and that I am not able to go to Dior much since I don’t live near by.
I was expecting the convo to be like ‘oh i see, thank you for letting me know’ but instead I got ‘oh! where about are you from?’ ‘i’ve always wanted to visit there’. then somehow the conversation kept on going and he had asked for my instagram as it is against policy to be chatting with client on their work phone about unrelated work stuff. So we kept on chatting until 3am. It kept on going for a couple of days until he had asked to meet up.
Since I live far away and he wanted to take me out to dinner, I had stated that I wouldn’t be able to make it home as the train doesn’t run after a certain time and at the time, I didn’t drive. I then joked that unless he can keep me, I wouldn’t be able to go. He had agreed to and the next day, he suggested us booking an apartment for the night as he has problem with his aircon and there were people coming in to fix it that day while his housemate is home. This should’ve been a red flag but I was stupid. I agreed and we split on the bill. We eventually met and had our date. It was really nice and he was a gentleman. We parted the next day and had planned a second date, during the day next time.
We rushed to meet for our 2nd date because he was going on a 15days trip to Japan and I wouldn’t see him again until he come back. We kept in touch everyday during his trip and I knew all of his schedule. I had studied in Japan for 3 years so he had asked me a lot of things during his stay there. A couple weeks went by and he came back. I went to see him as soon as he got back and kept seeing him frequently while staying at his apartment. 2 months in and coincidentally one of my friend who lives in the city was looking for a roommate and the rent was affordable and at the time, I had also wanted to pick up another university course in the city so I thought it would be the perfect time to move to be closer with my ex. So I did and eventually we saw each other more often. Since I lived close to his work place, I would cook and bring him food often.
At this point, just a little over 3 months since we started seeing each other, I had noticed a lot of red flags. He would always split our meals, even when I told him it’s not my culture to split bills (I’m asian) but I would give in since he was extra weird about money (more about this later). He would complain about his job at Dior all the times saying that it’s taking a toll on him and too much OT, and that he wasn’t making as much money as he wanted. He then told me since the start of the year, he’s ONLY earned 80k (we were in may). He would gamble his money on boxing matches and win most of the time. So it’s not like he is broke or tight on money. He would tell me his family (his mum) was pay check to paycheck and sometime struggle to pay rent but i thought it was weird since he has this much money. He would tell me about his family situation where his mum was su*cidal and that he had to take care of the mortgage for his family while his mum was struggling and that’s why he care a lot about money since he didnt want to live like that. a lot of sobbing story but at the time I understood and supported him. Thinking back? he had a lot of life sobbing story to tell me.
I met his family very early on and hanged out with his siblings a couple of times, they were very welcoming. during the time we were seeing eachother, his brother was struggling a lot with depression and had attempted to unalive himself so we took him back to my hometown and hanged out with my siblings, us and his brother. my 19YO brother paid for everything and my 25yo ex let him. I eventually paid my brother back for my ex and his brother’s and my portion. So he obviously struggled a lot mentally with all the stuff thats going on with his family and I supported him a lot during this time, I stayed with him and cooked for him, even if he acted like a manchild. He told me he hates groceries shopping so most of the time he waits in the car while I go buy groceries. I would massage him most nights and apply ointments for him, do laundry and what not. I was basically like a wife to this man.
So while I stayed with him often, at time, I would notice my stuff had been moved. My toothbrush holder somehow ended up under the sink, or I would find long silveblonde dyed hair (i have black hair) in the bathroom or with his laundry and I confronted him about it. He just brushed it off by saying he was cleaning or because they (he lives in a share house) share a washing machine that it might be one of the other tenant’s. But that doesn’t explain the hair stuck on the wall in his bathroom. He called me crazy and I just brush it off because I didn’t think this man who I had done so much for would cheat on me. But the doubt was always at the back of my head.
The was a time I threw a big tantrum because he was staying late at his female's coworker's place with his other coworker and he had plans with me that day and cancelled. He eventually apologized and came pick me up after 12am. I also confronted him about ignoring my existence when we got a ride home from his coworker's AUDI? and he was really excited to ride in her expensive car. we had to walk really far to her car and during that walk, I was about 5meters behind them while they just walked really fast. not once did he look back at me and I had told him prior that I wasn't feeling well (I have a fainting problem and he knows about it). we fought over it and I eventually let it go.
He had asked me to take him out on a date before so I did. He knows I don't earn as much as him since I was a student and worked a casual job but he racked up a $200 meal at this fancy restaurant when I had only ordered 1 item and a drink for myself which equals to about $50 (im not a big eater and it was enough for me) I was happy since he was happy but was very disappointed that he didn't consider my financial situation at the time.
So a lot of red flags and I was stupidly in love with him and the way he made himself vulnerable to me that I let a lot of things slide. Until I couldn't.
This was about 4.5 months into the relationship where I was at his house a lone and I was starting to feel sick. He told me he had a covid test somewhere and I went looking for it. I look through his medicine cabinet, which I had been through a bunch of time at this point and my eyes laid on an asthma puffer. there was a few in there as he is allergic to cat, but this one didnt have his name on it. It was another girl's name. Something in me just clicked and I decided to search for her name on instagram.
What was in-front of me was her profile picture with her lates posts, her trip to Japan. I instantly got suspicious and scared. I had remember his schedule from Japan and I cross checked with her posts. Thinking back, she might've done this on purpose but she posted a photo on the day she took it so it wasn't hard to cross check their schedule. I quickly came to the realisation that they had the same schedule, and i confirmed they were together when I saw one of her archive post with him in it. I also saw restaurants that she had gone to that he had recommend us to go a couple of times. Somehow I was really calm. I was taking lunch to him that day so i had pop the asthma puffer into my bag and went to his work place.
It took a bit but I eventually confronted him about the girl but he had denied everything and that she was just a friend and he had borrowed her asthma puffer when he was over at her place for a party and she owned a cat. I was like okay, do you have anything else to tell me about her? he said no, until I brought up Japan. Then i saw his facial expression dropped. he looked like he had dropped all the act at that point and told me what I thought was everything.
So apparently he was seeing this girl way before he met me, over 1.5years even, but they weren’t dating. He said she loved him but he never loved her and that he had broken up with her many times but got back with her because she was too devastated without him. They were still together when we met but he said he had wanted to get rid of her then (what a prick) but they had planned the Japan trip already. He then told me he had broken up with her AS SOON AS they landed and they were living together up until that point so that was why we couldnt stay at his house when we met. He kicked her out after they got back.
So i found out that I was in fact, the 3rd person. He had told me i was the person that he wanted to be with and all that jaz and that he should’ve broken up with her properly before seeing me, EVEN HIS COWORKER AND HIS BROTHER TOLD HIM TO. I was baffled. apparently he had consulted his brothers and coworkers if he should go for me before breaking it off with the girl he was seeing before and that they all told him against it and he didnt listen. I have met his coworkers MANY TIMES at this point so i felt like a big joke. after hearing his side, i stood up and quickly left. I called my friend and had borrowed her room to cry while she was out on a date with her bf. I cried for hours and days. I was devastated as he was the first person i had ever genuinely fell in love with and this felt like the biggest betrayal of my life. But i felt more devastated with the thought of losing him so I decided to give him a second chance. Big mistake. it lasted a week.
He promised to treat me well and all that sweet word but I quickly realise that he treated me worst than before. he would abuse my feelings for him and used sex against me. He had quitted his Dior job at this point and has been lazing around at home all day instead of looking for another job. During this week, I would find more lies about him. I had previously asked when was the last time he saw this girl and he said when she had moved out but that wasnt the case. apparently he saw her a couple more times after they broke up because she was too devastated.
I had actually spoke to this girl on the day i would out everything and she had told me she didnt know anything (which i doubted it) and later i’d speak to her again and found out that it wasnt only her looking for him but he also looked for her for comfort when his brother tried to unalive himself. Eventually he admitted that she knew him better and understood his situation more than I did which hurt me a lot.
I had also found out that his mum knew. So, ironically, his mum is suicidal because her husband had cheated on her multiple times and her son is going around doing the same thing, so i was like to him ‘imagine if your mum knew what u were doing’ he told me she knew… apparently when he first brought me home, his mum was confused and had asked him about me after we left because she had just taken him and his so called ex to the airport for their japan trip just w few weeks prior. he told me that his mum was very disappointed in him.
His roommates probably knew too thus why they were cold to me after a while. the girl was friend/acquaintances with his roommate’s gf who also lived there and i see her often. she is really nice to me, and her bf (the bf is my ex’s best friend) at first but at some point he ignores me entirely. i would greet him and he would ignore or he would refuse to be in the same room as me. I thought it was weird and confronted my ex, asking what was up with his friend. my ex instead blamed me, saying i might’ve said something to his friend when i have never really had a proper conversation with them. thinking back, they obviously knew about him cheating of me with the previous girl.
Anways, after all the mistreatment and more lies, i was devastated. i asked him if he loved me and how could he have done all of this to me when all i did was loved him. he said he couldn’t live me anymore because i am always crying and broken. so basically he dont love me anymore because he had broken me. I then left, feeling even more devastated.
he then called me the next evening and suggested that i should come back and we try again for a week since he wast in his right mind before. he sounded very convincing. but i had accepted him once again. same thing repeated and we eventually broke up a week later. i was devastated but i couldn’t bet myself be abused anymore. he called me a couple days later and told me he was really depressed and wasnt feeling well and he needed someone to be with him just for that day and that he promises he wouldnt touch me. So i gave in as i was also unstable. I found out he got a new job and that his job was flying him out in 2 days. i ended up staying with him for 2 days until his flight to vietnam (my home country). we parted
while he was in vietnam, i was mentally unstable. i would cry and call him often to swear at him and kept asking why he did what he did to me etc. I decided to take work off for 2 months and move back home with my family since i was unable to look after myself. I had blocked him when i move back. During that time, i would stalk his social media on my alt account and would see that while he was in vietnam, he followed a lot of OF girls who also followed him back. I was hurt but i was more stable at this time and consulted my brother, who had been with me through the whole thing. I told him how my ex bragged about his new job when i saw him last but REFUSE to tell me anything abt it and that they were flying him out which i thought it was weird when he JUST got the job and they were already giving him paid work travel. my brother put 2 and 2 together and said ‘OF management’
I was skeptical but i didn’t have any way to confirm. then one day, he EMAILED ME. it was a very textbook narcissist email where the first line was a sorry (didnt state what he was sorry for) and the rest was about him. how he has a dream job which pay a lot but he is still un happy blah blah blah etc. hope i do well yaddiyadda.
Since i had taken 2 months off work, I had a lot of time and after spending time with my family and working on myself, i could see that i was stupidly manipulated by this guy and that I was blind my love. I still loved him at the time but i was not stupid enough to fall into his manipulation again. so i used the time i had and wrote him a 19 pages document of all the things that he did to me that had hurt me and i also dissected his email, not forgetting to put in my deductions of his so called new career path possibly being OF management.
I eventually found out that it was true and that he had STARTED A COMPANY with his cousin? and friends and that they wanted to work with him so much they paid for his trip for the business meeting with other people, and ofc OF girls. so this man, started an OF company in my HOME COUNTRY after ruining my life. and he did it behind my back while we were still together.
So thats the story of how my narcissistic ex ruined me. This all happened in the span of 6 months (counting from when we got together) which is crazy. I was stupid then but I have learnt my lesson. I have healed and moved on and I am happier now. I’m working an amazing job from my hobby and I spend more time with my family and friends.
I had received a msg from the ex a week or 2 ago (i blocked him everywhere but apparently not facebook since i dont even use it nor ever spoke to him on there) but i had blocked him before he said anything else. thinking back, everything sounds crazy but i wanted to share since i am able to joke about it now and that i want to expose him since he has the audacity to contact me again. I hope his friend and family will be able to recognize him from this story and be ashamed of the person they brought up/friends with as he is toxic, abusive and manipulative.

First time posting on reddit so idk if this is the right sub.
Buckle up because this is going to be a wild ride. I (24f) met my ex (25m) while I was shopping at Dior with my mum in Dec 2022. He was our sales assistant. My mum was wanting to buy a sneaker so she went to have a look at it while he assisted her. I wondered around the store for a bit looking at random things when he came up and strikes a convo. I didn’t think much of it since this is very normal. My mum eventually bought something she likes after trying on a few shoes and used my Dior profile to register her purchase. So at this point, he has my phone number. We left quickly after and I told my mum I thought he was kinda handsome but then completely forgot about him as he was a stranger.
Fast forward to Feb, one of my girl friend flew in from out of states to visit me and she wanted to visit the city (mind you I live about 1.5hr from the city) so we took the trip there. We walked past Dior and she wanted to go in to have a look at a bag she wanted to buy. At this point, I’ve received a lot of ‘ads’ from my Dior SA about their products and event but had ignored them. We walked in and my SA recognized me and came to say hello. I also recognized him and joked that he actually remember me since the time I was with my mum was the first time I saw him. He said I was memorable because of what I had worn previously (my handmade skirt). After some small conversations and looking at the bag my friend wanted to see, we quickly left Dior and ventured around the city. After we left, he sent a message to my phone through Dior saying thanks for coming and he hope we have fun. I said thanks and continued on with my life.
Since then, I kept receiving automated ads from Dior asking me to come in when I have time and at this point I was a little annoyed. I didn’t want to block as it is from my Dior assistant (basically someone who is assigned to personally assist you whenever you need something from Dior). One day I was feeling really happy as I made my favorite food and then I got another ads from Dior, but this time, it was my assistant sending photos of his attempt at styling his client and asked me to come in to have a styling session as well. So i thought this would be the perfect time to hint that it’s no use sending me ads as I don’t live nearby. So i responded very politely, complimenting the styling and that I am not able to go to Dior much since I don’t live near by.
I was expecting the convo to be like ‘oh i see, thank you for letting me know’ but instead I got ‘oh! where about are you from?’ ‘i’ve always wanted to visit there’. then somehow the conversation kept on going and he had asked for my instagram as it is against policy to be chatting with client on their work phone about unrelated work stuff. So we kept on chatting until 3am. It kept on going for a couple of days until he had asked to meet up.
Since I live far away and he wanted to take me out to dinner, I had stated that I wouldn’t be able to make it home as the train doesn’t run after a certain time and at the time, I didn’t drive. I then joked that unless he can keep me, I wouldn’t be able to go. He had agreed to and the next day, he suggested us booking an apartment for the night as he has problem with his aircon and there were people coming in to fix it that day while his housemate is home. This should’ve been a red flag but I was stupid. I agreed and we split on the bill. We eventually met and had our date. It was really nice and he was a gentleman. We parted the next day and had planned a second date, during the day next time.
We rushed to meet for our 2nd date because he was going on a 15days trip to Japan and I wouldn’t see him again until he come back. We kept in touch everyday during his trip and I knew all of his schedule. I had studied in Japan for 3 years so he had asked me a lot of things during his stay there. A couple weeks went by and he came back. I went to see him as soon as he got back and kept seeing him frequently while staying at his apartment. 2 months in and coincidentally one of my friend who lives in the city was looking for a roommate and the rent was affordable and at the time, I had also wanted to pick up another university course in the city so I thought it would be the perfect time to move to be closer with my ex. So I did and eventually we saw each other more often. Since I lived close to his work place, I would cook and bring him food often.
At this point, just a little over 3 months since we started seeing each other, I had noticed a lot of red flags. He would always split our meals, even when I told him it’s not my culture to split bills (I’m asian) but I would give in since he was extra weird about money (more about this later). He would complain about his job at Dior all the times saying that it’s taking a toll on him and too much OT, and that he wasn’t making as much money as he wanted. He then told me since the start of the year, he’s ONLY earned 80k (we were in may). He would gamble his money on boxing matches and win most of the time. So it’s not like he is broke or tight on money. He would tell me his family (his mum) was pay check to paycheck and sometime struggle to pay rent but i thought it was weird since he has this much money. He would tell me about his family situation where his mum was su*cidal and that he had to take care of the mortgage for his family while his mum was struggling and that’s why he care a lot about money since he didnt want to live like that. a lot of sobbing story but at the time I understood and supported him. Thinking back? he had a lot of life sobbing story to tell me.
I met his family very early on and hanged out with his siblings a couple of times, they were very welcoming. during the time we were seeing eachother, his brother was struggling a lot with depression and had attempted to unalive himself so we took him back to my hometown and hanged out with my siblings, us and his brother. my 19YO brother paid for everything and my 25yo ex let him. I eventually paid my brother back for my ex and his brother’s and my portion. So he obviously struggled a lot mentally with all the stuff thats going on with his family and I supported him a lot during this time, I stayed with him and cooked for him, even if he acted like a manchild. He told me he hates groceries shopping so most of the time he waits in the car while I go buy groceries. I would massage him most nights and apply ointments for him, do laundry and what not. I was basically like a wife to this man.
So while I stayed with him often, at time, I would notice my stuff had been moved. My toothbrush holder somehow ended up under the sink, or I would find long silveblonde dyed hair (i have black hair) in the bathroom or with his laundry and I confronted him about it. He just brushed it off by saying he was cleaning or because they (he lives in a share house) share a washing machine that it might be one of the other tenant’s. But that doesn’t explain the hair stuck on the wall in his bathroom. He called me crazy and I just brush it off because I didn’t think this man who I had done so much for would cheat on me. But the doubt was always at the back of my head.
The was a time I threw a big tantrum because he was staying late at his female's coworker's place with his other coworker and he had plans with me that day and cancelled. He eventually apologized and came pick me up after 12am. I also confronted him about ignoring my existence when we got a ride home from his coworker's AUDI? and he was really excited to ride in her expensive car. we had to walk really far to her car and during that walk, I was about 5meters behind them while they just walked really fast. not once did he look back at me and I had told him prior that I wasn't feeling well (I have a fainting problem and he knows about it). we fought over it and I eventually let it go.
He had asked me to take him out on a date before so I did. He knows I don't earn as much as him since I was a student and worked a casual job but he racked up a $200 meal at this fancy restaurant when I had only ordered 1 item and a drink for myself which equals to about $50 (im not a big eater and it was enough for me) I was happy since he was happy but was very disappointed that he didn't consider my financial situation at the time.
So a lot of red flags and I was stupidly in love with him and the way he made himself vulnerable to me that I let a lot of things slide. Until I couldn't.
This was about 4.5 months into the relationship where I was at his house a lone and I was starting to feel sick. He told me he had a covid test somewhere and I went looking for it. I look through his medicine cabinet, which I had been through a bunch of time at this point and my eyes laid on an asthma puffer. there was a few in there as he is allergic to cat, but this one didnt have his name on it. It was another girl's name. Something in me just clicked and I decided to search for her name on instagram.
What was in-front of me was her profile picture with her lates posts, her trip to Japan. I instantly got suspicious and scared. I had remember his schedule from Japan and I cross checked with her posts. Thinking back, she might've done this on purpose but she posted a photo on the day she took it so it wasn't hard to cross check their schedule. I quickly came to the realisation that they had the same schedule, and i confirmed they were together when I saw one of her archive post with him in it. I also saw restaurants that she had gone to that he had recommend us to go a couple of times. Somehow I was really calm. I was taking lunch to him that day so i had pop the asthma puffer into my bag and went to his work place.
It took a bit but I eventually confronted him about the girl but he had denied everything and that she was just a friend and he had borrowed her asthma puffer when he was over at her place for a party and she owned a cat. I was like okay, do you have anything else to tell me about her? he said no, until I brought up Japan. Then i saw his facial expression dropped. he looked like he had dropped all the act at that point and told me what I thought was everything.
So apparently he was seeing this girl way before he met me, over 1.5years even, but they weren’t dating. He said she loved him but he never loved her and that he had broken up with her many times but got back with her because she was too devastated without him. They were still together when we met but he said he had wanted to get rid of her then (what a prick) but they had planned the Japan trip already. He then told me he had broken up with her AS SOON AS they landed and they were living together up until that point so that was why we couldnt stay at his house when we met. He kicked her out after they got back.
So i found out that I was in fact, the 3rd person. He had told me i was the person that he wanted to be with and all that jaz and that he should’ve broken up with her properly before seeing me, EVEN HIS COWORKER AND HIS BROTHER TOLD HIM TO. I was baffled. apparently he had consulted his brothers and coworkers if he should go for me before breaking it off with the girl he was seeing before and that they all told him against it and he didnt listen. I have met his coworkers MANY TIMES at this point so i felt like a big joke. after hearing his side, i stood up and quickly left. I called my friend and had borrowed her room to cry while she was out on a date with her bf. I cried for hours and days. I was devastated as he was the first person i had ever genuinely fell in love with and this felt like the biggest betrayal of my life. But i felt more devastated with the thought of losing him so I decided to give him a second chance. Big mistake. it lasted a week.
He promised to treat me well and all that sweet word but I quickly realise that he treated me worst than before. he would abuse my feelings for him and used sex against me. He had quitted his Dior job at this point and has been lazing around at home all day instead of looking for another job. During this week, I would find more lies about him. I had previously asked when was the last time he saw this girl and he said when she had moved out but that wasnt the case. apparently he saw her a couple more times after they broke up because she was too devastated.
I had actually spoke to this girl on the day i would out everything and she had told me she didnt know anything (which i doubted it) and later i’d speak to her again and found out that it wasnt only her looking for him but he also looked for her for comfort when his brother tried to unalive himself. Eventually he admitted that she knew him better and understood his situation more than I did which hurt me a lot.
I had also found out that his mum knew. So, ironically, his mum is suicidal because her husband had cheated on her multiple times and her son is going around doing the same thing, so i was like to him ‘imagine if your mum knew what u were doing’ he told me she knew… apparently when he first brought me home, his mum was confused and had asked him about me after we left because she had just taken him and his so called ex to the airport for their japan trip just w few weeks prior. he told me that his mum was very disappointed in him.
His roommates probably knew too thus why they were cold to me after a while. the girl was friend/acquaintances with his roommate’s gf who also lived there and i see her often. she is really nice to me, and her bf (the bf is my ex’s best friend) at first but at some point he ignores me entirely. i would greet him and he would ignore or he would refuse to be in the same room as me. I thought it was weird and confronted my ex, asking what was up with his friend. my ex instead blamed me, saying i might’ve said something to his friend when i have never really had a proper conversation with them. thinking back, they obviously knew about him cheating of me with the previous girl.
Anways, after all the mistreatment and more lies, i was devastated. i asked him if he loved me and how could he have done all of this to me when all i did was loved him. he said he couldn’t live me anymore because i am always crying and broken. so basically he dont love me anymore because he had broken me. I then left, feeling even more devastated.
he then called me the next evening and suggested that i should come back and we try again for a week since he wast in his right mind before. he sounded very convincing. but i had accepted him once again. same thing repeated and we eventually broke up a week later. i was devastated but i couldn’t bet myself be abused anymore. he called me a couple days later and told me he was really depressed and wasnt feeling well and he needed someone to be with him just for that day and that he promises he wouldnt touch me. So i gave in as i was also unstable. I found out he got a new job and that his job was flying him out in 2 days. i ended up staying with him for 2 days until his flight to vietnam (my home country). we parted
while he was in vietnam, i was mentally unstable. i would cry and call him often to swear at him and kept asking why he did what he did to me etc. I decided to take work off for 2 months and move back home with my family since i was unable to look after myself. I had blocked him when i move back. During that time, i would stalk his social media on my alt account and would see that while he was in vietnam, he followed a lot of OF girls who also followed him back. I was hurt but i was more stable at this time and consulted my brother, who had been with me through the whole thing. I told him how my ex bragged about his new job when i saw him last but REFUSE to tell me anything abt it and that they were flying him out which i thought it was weird when he JUST got the job and they were already giving him paid work travel. my brother put 2 and 2 together and said ‘OF management’
I was skeptical but i didn’t have any way to confirm. then one day, he EMAILED ME. it was a very textbook narcissist email where the first line was a sorry (didnt state what he was sorry for) and the rest was about him. how he has a dream job which pay a lot but he is still un happy blah blah blah etc. hope i do well yaddiyadda.
Since i had taken 2 months off work, I had a lot of time and after spending time with my family and working on myself, i could see that i was stupidly manipulated by this guy and that I was blind my love. I still loved him at the time but i was not stupid enough to fall into his manipulation again. so i used the time i had and wrote him a 19 pages document of all the things that he did to me that had hurt me and i also dissected his email, not forgetting to put in my deductions of his so called new career path possibly being OF management.
I eventually found out that it was true and that he had STARTED A COMPANY with his cousin? and friends and that they wanted to work with him so much they paid for his trip for the business meeting with other people, and ofc OF girls. so this man, started an OF company in my HOME COUNTRY after ruining my life. and he did it behind my back while we were still together.
So thats the story of how my narcissistic ex ruined me. This all happened in the span of 6 months (counting from when we got together) which is crazy. I was stupid then but I have learnt my lesson. I have healed and moved on and I am happier now. I’m working an amazing job from my hobby and I spend more time with my family and friends.
I had received a msg from the ex a week or 2 ago (i blocked him everywhere but apparently not facebook since i dont even use it nor ever spoke to him on there) but i had blocked him before he said anything else. thinking back, everything sounds crazy but i wanted to share since i am able to joke about it now and that i want to expose him since he has the audacity to contact me again. I hope his friend and family will be able to recognize him from this story and be ashamed of the person they brought up/friends with as he is toxic, abusive and manipulative.

I (48M) met my wife (44F) when I was in my mid to late 30s. I was a bachelor, never married, career and hobby focused and not open to a serious relationship. Two years later we were married, joyfully so, and we've had a really solid marriage. My wife and I are extremely close, share everything, and keep no secrets. Our kids are our 2 shih tzus and they run the house.
My wife is a school administrator and does mental health counseling. She is the sort of person who absolutely everyone loves, who everyone wants to be around. She lights up the room when she enters. But she has sadness in her too. She's not able to have children and stayed single for a very long time prior to us meeting because of that.
About a month ago, on a Saturday morning, the doorbell rang. My wife and the dogs answered it. I could tell my wife was having a hard time hearing over the barking so I walked over, picked up the shih tzu barking ring leader which always quiets him down, and saw a young woman standing there. She was nicely dressed and holding a file folder stuffed with papers. She introduced herself, looked me square in the eyes, and said more than asked "You're so-and-so" by name.
I immediately thought she was a process server and I was being sued. So I confirmed I was me and she asked if we could talk about a delicate family matter. My wife opened the door and invited her in. We sat at the dining room table and she began talking. She told us her name, we'll pretend it's "Kate Doe", her mother was "Clara Doe". I immediately recognized the name. I dated Clara, her mother, seriously 20 years ago. We broke up around 18 years ago due to a combination of factors limited to proximity to family, relocation, and work. Clara's only family were her parents who had retired to Florida and she had been struggling being away from them. Her mother and I loved each other very much but, sometimes love just isn't enough. I never heard from Clara again when she moved to be near them and my work kept me tethered to where I was living.
Anyway, Kate was there to settle her mother's will. She apologized to my wife citing how unusual and awkward this situation must be for her. Clara had left a box filled with memory cards which I knew must be filled with photos we had taken and printed photos of our time while dating and her sailboat to me. We had spent a tremendous amount of time on her boat when we were together, sailing all over the place in our area. It's a 45 foot blue water cruiser and was her prized possession. Over the years when I've thought back to Clara and that time in my life, my mind goes immediately to the time we spent on the boat.
The boat is a significant asset and I suggested to Kate that she take it instead, that it should go to her. But she insisted that this was what her mother wanted and she agreed with her mother on that, and that her mother had taken care of her, she wasn't in need of anything, and that she hoped I would feel comfortable accepting it. As it turns out Kate's grandparents passed about 10 years ago and now that her mother has passed, she had no family left. That she had the same last name as Clara meant to me that her father wasn't in the picture for whatever reason. And she told us that the boat was too much for her to take care of properly.
So I signed some paperwork to transfer the title. We spoke a while about Kate, how she's holding up, if there was anything we could do for her. My wife gave her our contact info, which she obviously already had but it was an intentional gesture from my wife, and encouraged her to reach out to either of us if there was anything we could do for her or if she ever wanted to talk.
And then she left.
Over the next week or so we worked with her over email to travel to Florida to assess the boat and to "maybe spend a little time seeing the area together". My wife and Kate had taken to messaging a lot over FB Messenger casually chatting about mundane life things. At the same time, my wife and I began speculating about how wild and unusual this situation is. We're both thinking that Kate might be a child I never knew I had. I think the timing for it lines up, if she was born about 9 months after we broke up. It was so long ago that I can't remember the dates but am fairly confident about the year.
We traveled the Florida. We stayed in a hotel for two nights and spent Friday evening through Sunday afternoon with Kate. We spent a good portion of Saturday on the boat. It has been impeccably maintained. Yes, some minor things but every boat has minor things. Boats are holes you toss money and time into. After that, we hung out with Kate and learned about her life, told her about ours, saw the area, had some good food. Then we flew home.
We're now planning on sailing the boat back up to where I live when the weather warms up more by way of the ICW. The three of us. Sometime in June or July.
So that's the background. I want to confront Kate about who her father is. I don't know if she knows and is keeping it from me, if she doesn't know, if it's someone else. She looks just like her mother. When I look at her, her face, her eyes, it's like I'm looking at her mother. Her hair is slightly darker than her mother's blond and super bushy / curly... like my hair, and probably half the population's hair.
How do I confront an deceased ex-girlfriends kid about parentage? I feel that my wife and I have a right to know if she's my kid and that I have a right to be there for her, even if it's just in waiting if she wants nothing to do with me after this. But she's also going through a lot - not just in losing her mother, which I'm honestly feeling loss about as well because her mother was a truly kind and good person, but in facing the reality that she no longer has living family. I also don't want to chase her away or overwhelm her by adding to everything that she's going through. I feel like we're building a friendship and want to handle this delicately. How do you raise this in discussion? If any of you have been through something similar, how did you handle it and would you recommend a similar approach?
tl;dr I think I have a daughter who showed up on my doorstep to settle her mother's will and want to determine if she actually is and have no idea how to do that delicately and responsibly?

Title: Leveraging ChatGPT for Data Analysis and Reporting in Various Industries
As the amount of data available to us continues to expand at an exponential rate, the need for efficient and accurate data analysis and reporting has never been greater. In nearly every industry, from finance to healthcare, the ability to quickly interpret data and make informed decisions is paramount. This is where ChatGPT, a powerful language generation model, comes into play.
ChatGPT has shown a lot of promise in helping streamline the data analysis process. Its ability to understand and generate human-like text makes it an excellent tool for creating comprehensive reports from raw data. By simply instructing ChatGPT with the right prompts, professionals can obtain clear summaries, actionable insights, and automated reporting that would otherwise take hours to compile.
In the healthcare industry, ChatGPT can take large sets of patient data and assist in identifying patterns or anomalies, facilitating quicker diagnoses and more personalized treatment plans. It can also help in generating easy-to-understand reports for patients or stakeholders who may not be well-versed in medical terminology.
The finance sector benefits significantly from ChatGPT's natural language processing capabilities, as it can analyze market trends, simplify complex financial data, and generate reports that support investment decisions or risk assessments.
In the field of marketing, ChatGPT can evaluate campaign performance data, condense customer feedback into actionable strategies, and produce content that resonates with specific audiences without needing extensive man-hours for market research.
The education sector too can harness ChatGPT for tracking student performance, customizing teaching materials, and coordinating administrative tasks with the analysis of educational data trends.
Despite ChatGPT's capabilities, it should be considered a complement to human expertise rather than a replacement. Analysts and industry professionals need to guide, interpret, and make judicious calls based on the insights provided by the tool. Moreover, ethical considerations around privacy and data security are paramount when integrating AI like ChatGPT into these processes.
The versatility of ChatGPT opens the door to vast possibilities for data analysis and reporting across various industries. As we continue to refine and integrate AI into our workflows, it's exciting to think about the new levels of efficiency and understanding we'll be able to achieve. Let's start a discussion on the opportunities and challenges of deploying ChatGPT in our respective fields. How do you see this tool shaping the future of data analytics and reporting in your industry?

Hello everyone! I apologize ahead of time if this is quite long, but I want to make sure to hit everything. My name is Sere (She/Her) EST. I have been RPing since way back in the AOL days, so over twenty years. I am an advanced lit/multi-paragraph writer. My post lengths range anywhere from 400-1500 words usually, give or take some depending upon the scene and what my partner is comfortable with. Overall though I really do believe quality is more important than quantity. I can definitely supply writing samples and would love the same in return from any prospective partners.
I will say that I recently (2022) finished chemotherapy and that does jumble some things in your mind. So sometimes I make typos or the wrong word slips in where it shouldn't. I usually try and proofread, but sometimes they sneak by. If you are an absolute perfectionist, I may not be the lady to write with. I do most if not all of my writing on Discord now and really prefer it to other means. I am happy to create a server for us where we can keep all the writing, memes, music, aesthetics, etc. we dig up for our RP.
My response time is usually once a day or more, every once in a while I may fall behind a day or two, but I am always available to ping. While I may be too busy one day to get a reply out, I can still chat ooc or throw up aesthetics. In fact I really like being able to chat ooc and get along with the person I am writing with. Ideally we invest a lot of time into these stories, we should like the people we are giving that time to, right? Though seriously not in a romantic sense, I am quite taken ooc and not looking for anything like that.
I do really enjoy romance in RP and am only looking for FxF or FxNB pairings. I also tend to write femmes and I am really looking for butch/masc characters to play opposite of. Please, please do not approach me if you only want femme for femme. If your character turns up in a dress without it being purely for comedic values, it’s probably going to immediately turn me off of the RP. I will usually make a new character for every RP because I like them being unique to that story.

Basic requirements:
♥ 25+ Years Old. Sorry y’all, I am 40 and anything younger than that just feels weird to me.
♥ No male RPers. I hate to say this, but I have had way too many issues with men trying to play women at this point. So I am just gonna make this a rule going forward.
♥ 3rd Person Perspective Only
♥ Willing to communicate, plot, etc.
♥ Discord RP
Genres: I am open to most genres. My favorites tend to be modern, modern fantasy, cyberpunk, low fantasy period settings (IE: Game of Thrones), also been kinda toying with the idea of some Bridgerton era stuff, I am also open to other genres, just try me!
Themes: Slice of Life, Drama, Angst, Romance
Dynamics: Enemies to Lovers, Opposites Attract, Slow Burn, Instant Connection, Friendships to Lovers, Pre-established History, and Many More!
I think that for the most part sums up what I am looking for in a partner. Hopefully my robust ad hasn’t scared everyone away. If you have any questions or would like to discuss anything, by all means just let me know. Thank you for reading! ♥

Hello everyone! I apologize ahead of time if this is quite long, but I want to make sure to hit everything. My name is Sere (She/Her) EST. I have been RPing since way back in the AOL days, so over twenty years. I am an advanced lit/multi-paragraph writer. My post lengths range anywhere from 400-1500 words usually, give or take some depending upon the scene and what my partner is comfortable with. Overall though I really do believe quality is more important than quantity. I can definitely supply writing samples and would love the same in return from any prospective partners.
I will say that I recently (2022) finished chemotherapy and that does jumble some things in your mind. So sometimes I make typos or the wrong word slips in where it shouldn't. I usually try and proofread, but sometimes they sneak by. If you are an absolute perfectionist, I may not be the lady to write with. I do most if not all of my writing on Discord now and really prefer it to other means. I am happy to create a server for us where we can keep all the writing, memes, music, aesthetics, etc. we dig up for our RP.
My response time is usually once a day or more, every once in a while I may fall behind a day or two, but I am always available to ping. While I may be too busy one day to get a reply out, I can still chat ooc or throw up aesthetics. In fact I really like being able to chat ooc and get along with the person I am writing with. Ideally we invest a lot of time into these stories, we should like the people we are giving that time to, right? Though seriously not in a romantic sense, I am quite taken ooc and not looking for anything like that.
I do really enjoy romance in RP and am only looking for FxF or FxNB pairings. I also tend to write femmes and I am really looking for butch/masc characters to play opposite of. Please, please do not approach me if you only want femme for femme. If your character turns up in a dress without it being purely for comedic values, it’s probably going to immediately turn me off of the RP. I will usually make a new character for every RP because I like them being unique to that story.

Basic requirements:
♥ 25+ Years Old. Sorry y’all, I am 40 and anything younger than that just feels weird to me.
♥ No male RPers. I hate to say this, but I have had way too many issues with men trying to play women at this point. So I am just gonna make this a rule going forward.
♥ 3rd Person Perspective Only
♥ Willing to communicate, plot, etc.
♥ Discord RP
Genres: I am open to most genres. My favorites tend to be modern, modern fantasy, cyberpunk, low fantasy period settings (IE: Game of Thrones), also been kinda toying with the idea of some Bridgerton era stuff, I am also open to other genres, just try me!
Themes: Slice of Life, Drama, Angst, Romance
Dynamics: Enemies to Lovers, Opposites Attract, Slow Burn, Instant Connection, Friendships to Lovers, Pre-established History, and Many More!
I think that for the most part sums up what I am looking for in a partner. Hopefully my robust ad hasn’t scared everyone away. If you have any questions or would like to discuss anything, by all means just let me know. Thank you for reading! ♥

The IDL parser and stub code generator for the Microsoft Extension of the C706: DCE/RPC 1.1 like impacket or samba rpc client.
MS-RPC allows to perform various administration tasks, like configuring/viewing MS DNS/DHCP servers, WMI queries, eventlog dump, joining AD domain, or performing NTLM validation via Netlogon secure channel.
Git: https://github.com/oiweiwei/go-msrpc
Go pkg: https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/oiweiwei/go-msrpc
Manual: https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/oiweiwei/go-msrpc/dcerpc
Examples (WMI exec calc.exe on remote machine, windows registry dump, DNS zones download, endpoint mapper (EPM), NTLM session key retrieval by external auth, eventlog download): https://github.com/oiweiwei/go-msrpc/tree/main/examples
Collaborations are welcomed! Would be grateful for your inputs.

New account because I got myself in a predicament. Some backstory is required.
I’m 22 years old with an entrepreneurial mindset. The best way to learn is through experience, so I opened a brick-and-mortar business at 18. I also pursued a Bachelor of Science in Advertising as a backup plan, graduating in three years (August ‘23). Alongside college and running my business, I completed three 6-month digital marketing internships for extra hands-on industry experience.
I own a dance studio. Our annual revenue is $135K, with $60K covering operating expenses and $75K for our administration and a full teaching team. Although I could pay myself $75K a year and teach everything, my dream is not to be a dance teacher. Instead, I have a full team running our services, which allows me the time and headspace to work “on” the business—not “in” it.
Now that we have a full team, established systems, and consistent lead generation, the studio doesn't require much of my attention, and it’s growing quickly! I need the studio to grow at this level before scaling. In the meantime, I need two things:

1. To be surrounded by people who are more successful than me so I can keep learning.
2. Have some money going to savings since the business is break-even.

I started looking for a job where I’d be heavily involved in operations. I was hired by a startup marketing agency four months ago. The agreement was to train me part-time as their Operations Support Intern for six months, followed by full-time employment as the company’s Growth Operations Manager upon finishing my training. During the training period, I’d be compensated $1K a month. Afterward, I’d transition to a salary range from $80K to $90K per year.
This setup was perfect for me because it was a startup where I could be closely involved in the company’s success, grow with them, learn a ton, and earn a decent income—all while they understood that I'm still a business owner and need a flexible schedule.
However, I’m having some issues:

1. I was told I’d be supporting the agency’s operational processes and project execution internally to grow the business, eventually running the department myself as the Growth Operations Manager as the agency grew. Instead, I am the Project Manager for all of our clients.
2. I was not briefed on who the clients are or our relationship with them. After a couple of months, I learned that we just sold these clients a $2K service (our unique “Growth Operations System”) for me to run Agile project management for them. I had two weeks of observing my boss run these meetings with them (Sprint Reviews, Planning, etc.) before I took over the Scrum cycle with no other training.
3. I did not know I was the “Scrum Master” (and all other roles within the agile framework) until a consultant on the team referred to me as that in passing; this was well after I was running with the accounts.
4. No training has been provided other than the first two weeks of watching my boss lead Scrum meetings. I’m told to figure it out on my own.
5. Performance reviews were supposed to be conducted at 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32-week intervals; none of them have happened yet.
6. We agreed the hours of the internship would be flexible as I am still a business owner and needed a flexible, remote position, with the understanding I would be available for any required meetings. The required meetings start at 7:30am and end at 3:00pm, which turns my “24 hours per week” into a full-time job.
7. After onboarding, I learned my boss's business model is employing virtual assistants from the Philippines and never paying full-price for an employee; why would he bring me for $80-90K a year if he could hire someone overseas for a fraction of the cost?
8. He pays my invoices 4-6 weeks late.
9. The business model in its entirety is unstable. He’s still figuring out how to scale the business. He told me that he has systems for everything and is already scaling operations, which was true, but now that I’m involved in operations, it’s falling apart.

I’ve addressed all of these points with him and regularly voice my concerns. Generally speaking, he does try to improve, but the company is mostly in a state of constant hustle and disorganization.
I could always wait it out until my “internship” ends in July, then see if I get offered the salaried position. It wasn’t the job I expected to do, and I’m not in a season of learning that I thought I’d be in, but it would be $80-$90K going directly to savings for an easy job. I also already spent four months here, so it’s the sunken cost that’s getting me.
I just need some outside perspectives and advice on what I should do. A sounding board would be great; thank you.

New account because I got myself in a predicament. Some backstory is required.
I’m 22 years old with an entrepreneurial mindset. The best way to learn is through experience, so I opened a brick-and-mortar business at 18. I also pursued a Bachelor of Science in Advertising as a backup plan, graduating in three years (August ‘23). Alongside college and running my business, I completed three 6-month digital marketing internships for extra hands-on industry experience.
I own a dance studio. Our annual revenue is $135K, with $60K covering operating expenses and $75K for our administration and a full teaching team. Although I could pay myself $75K a year and teach everything, my dream is not to be a dance teacher. Instead, I have a full team running our services, which allows me the time and headspace to work “on” the business—not “in” it.
Now that we have a full team, established systems, and consistent lead generation, the studio doesn't require much of my attention, and it’s growing quickly! I need the studio to grow at this level before scaling. In the meantime, I need two things:

1. To be surrounded by people who are more successful than me so I can keep learning.
2. Have some money going to savings since the business is break-even.

I started looking for a job where I’d be heavily involved in operations. I was hired by a startup marketing agency four months ago. The agreement was to train me part-time as their Operations Support Intern for six months, followed by full-time employment as the company’s Growth Operations Manager upon finishing my training. During the training period, I’d be compensated $1K a month. Afterward, I’d transition to a salary range from $80K to $90K per year.
This setup was perfect for me because it was a startup where I could be closely involved in the company’s success, grow with them, learn a ton, and earn a decent income—all while they understood that I'm still a business owner and need a flexible schedule.
However, I’m having some issues:

1. I was told I’d be supporting the agency’s operational processes and project execution internally to grow the business, eventually running the department myself as the Growth Operations Manager as the agency grew. Instead, I am the Project Manager for all of our clients.
2. I was not briefed on who the clients are or our relationship with them. After a couple of months, I learned that we just sold these clients a $2K service (our unique “Growth Operations System”) for me to run Agile project management for them. I had two weeks of observing my boss run these meetings with them (Sprint Reviews, Planning, etc.) before I took over the Scrum cycle with no other training.
3. I did not know I was the “Scrum Master” (and all other roles within the agile framework) until a consultant on the team referred to me as that in passing; this was well after I was running with the accounts.
4. No training has been provided other than the first two weeks of watching my boss lead Scrum meetings. I’m told to figure it out on my own.
5. Performance reviews were supposed to be conducted at 2, 4, 8, 16, and 32-week intervals; none of them have happened yet.
6. We agreed the hours of the internship would be flexible as I am still a business owner and needed a flexible, remote position, with the understanding I would be available for any required meetings. The required meetings start at 7:30am and end at 3:00pm, which turns my “24 hours per week” into a full-time job.
7. After onboarding, I learned my boss's business model is employing virtual assistants from the Philippines and never paying full-price for an employee; why would he bring me for $80-90K a year if he could hire someone overseas for a fraction of the cost?
8. He pays my invoices 4-6 weeks late.
9. The business model in its entirety is unstable. He’s still figuring out how to scale the business. He told me that he has systems for everything and is already scaling operations, which was true, but now that I’m involved in operations, it’s falling apart.

I’ve addressed all of these points with him and regularly voice my concerns. Generally speaking, he does try to improve, but the company is mostly in a state of constant hustle and disorganization.
I could always wait it out until my “internship” ends in July, then see if I get offered the salaried position. It wasn’t the job I expected to do, and I’m not in a season of learning that I thought I’d be in, but it would be $80-$90K going directly to savings for an easy job. I also already spent four months here, so it’s the sunken cost that’s getting me.
I just need some outside perspectives and advice on what I should do. A sounding board would be great; thank you.

I am not well rounded with knowledge when it comes to website creation.

I'm using PortfolioBox to showcase my skills as a freelancer.

What type of services do I offer? Many, but here is this... VIRTUAL ASSISTANT RECRUITMENT & TRAINING SUPPORT VIRTUAL WEDDING PLANNER & EVENTS COODINATOR ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT
DEADLINE: Friday May 3, 2024 by 11PM Central Standard Time

What I need done:

• Beginner friendly tutorial of how to use the site. Just show me the basics or foundation of being able to navigate and understand the website.
• Pages created for site navigation. You can create and edit pages to fit my services and elevate the level of presentation of services. I don't want difficulties with the Page URL. Make this simple, for example: www.website.com/contact www.website.com/BookServices

Pages Needed Below(please organize the pages from top to bottom starting with this page order or similar)

Intro>Services & Pricing>Book Today>Make A Payment>Contact Me>Gallery>Reviews
If your expertise knows a better way to rename these and organize them, please feel free to be open with communication for this overall project.
A.) Intro Page/About Me: I see this with a company logo and brief description of what services I offer B.) Services & Pricing Page: I will provide information on services. I offer a wide range of services as per the job titles listed above. You will have to describe the role of each position(I will provide you with job description and duties) and what services are offered through these services. I'm not sure how you'd like to implement this. My work account is u/thick_hamster3002 and you can see from my previous posts what I offer for services and how pricing may be. It imperative that I keep my accounts separated because I post for help and hire on assistance on one reddit account(this is also a more adult sub based account) where as the other reddit account I have is for posting my own services. C.) Gallery Page: This will include documentation that I personally have created and photos of work as well. I think maybe 15 photos max will be good enough to showcase my work D.) Book Today Page: Create or utilize the site tools in order to allow my services to be booked through my site/Portfolio include pricing just as a good faith reminder. Give the potential client options like a calendar where they can choose a time for a Zoom or Google Meet Interview so I can discuss their project or job details E.) Reviews Page: Create a place on the page where past clients can leave their honest reviews. I would like to be able to manage these with the 5 star rating and filter from highest review to lowest. I also want the ability to delete reviews on just end if needed. It would be really great if you could use a bigger font to showcase 1 or 2 reviews as a spotlight. ** F.) Contact Page:I will provide you with all of my business contac t information. Also, list my Instagram & Facebook Work page as options to contact me as well. **G.) Payment Page: Some services offered can be broken into payments that need to be made monthly or contain a deposit needed to hold services for a specific date and time. I'd like a payment ID reference number or similar so Paying Clients can see their paid and remaining balances with due dates provided.
Again, these pages can be in the order I listed above or renamed and reorganized as far as page order. I did not type them in any order here.

• Google Analytics and Tags must be made/applied, and reports go directly to me. I also need to learn how to use some of these tools and how it will apply to my portfolio web page. Just a quick run down or light training. I can even go off of your notes if they provide all the necessary info and knowledge for me to understand how this works
  
• Portfolio Aesthetics: Ensure that the page stands out from others but still professionally fits the overall roles. Feel free to change fonts and colors. Just make sure it's organized, user-friendly, and applicable.
  
• Change the current website domain from Cosmicconnectionelevation.com to CosmicConnectionSolutions.com
  
• Teach me if there are other ways to receive immediate site notifications to my phone like when services are booked, upcoming meetings or consultations, payments, and more important information.
  

I am open to ANY advice or suggestions you have in order to elevate my business further
If things are done with professionalism & and quality, I may be willing to compensate more than the listed $45. This is up to my discretion, and I ask that you do not ask for more than what has been offered.
BONUS EXTRA $5 OPPORTUNITY: Create an email with the domain example@CosmicconnectionSolutions.com as I would like everything uniformed and have similar underlying themes.
Please send me a *message through my reddit** profile u/texanasiann. We will move to email and phone communication after this. In your message, please include why you should be the candidate chosen for this task and show any work you've done in the past. I accept referrals/recommendations but prefer to see your website creations rather then going based off description of pages and will most likely make my decision off of what I can see. Again, any advice or tips are always well received and welcomed. THANKS IN ADVANCE!*
ALSO COMMENT BELOW SO I CAN KEEP TRACK OF SCAMMERS AND RECOMMEND YOUR ACCOUNT BETTER TO OTHERS I will write and review anything you'd like me to after you complete this project. If you need reviews across 5-6 website locations, then you should know... I'm an expert at giving reviews. Highlighting strengths, skills, and project turnaround time.
I can pay you via Cash App, Chime, or Paypal. I will not pay until the project is completed and work is turned in

https://www.reachthefinals.com/patchnotes/260
https://youtu.be/-TRJ4mf-HLY
Terminal Attack is a new 5v5, single-life, attack-and-defend game mode in which contestants take turns delivering the decryption key to the terminal and the best of seven rounds wins. Attackers are tasked with completing the upload, while defenders must prevent it by any means necessary.
No healing. No revive. One life.
Players can regenerate health up to 100 hp, and gadgets do not regenerate at all, so engage with caution and go in with a plan. You can play Terminal Attack in the SYSHorizon, Monaco, and Las Vegas arenas, and be warned, the destruction you cause will carry over through all seven rounds.
Throughout the event, cash in contracts to earn event cosmetics to show your support for CNS, a rogue hacking collective, and VAIIYA, a cyber-security firm. Which side are you on?
Get in there, contestants!
This week, we have a special article from our Design Director, Matt Lowe, who explains League ranks, the journey THE FINALS has taken, changes in this update, and the potential future of ranked play. Please give it a read here.
This update has plenty more to offer, all outlined in the bullet points below. The highlights include a change to Private matches that allows matches to start with as few as 2 players and the addition of Power Shift! Let the 1:1 battles commence!
We’ve added two bonus Battlepass pages with rewards for the grinders out there. Make sure to check out the new drip!
Power Shift has a new arena in rotation! Now you can ride the platform through Seoul.
Finally, for the first time ever, the new outfit added to the store will allow you to purchase individual items from the bundle as well as the entire bundle all at once. We’re testing this feature to see how it works. We also added a way to equip your new item to the contestant of choice at the time of purchase, but this feature has a bug that displays the wrong image and fails to equip. We have a fix already, but it will come in the next update.
Despite the annoying bug, here's what's in store:
https://youtu.be/fLpGSPlGqSE
A note on Anti-cheat:
We are acutely aware of and actively combating the current state of cheating. Our team includes skilled engineers, data analysts, security experts, and machine learning experts whose full-time jobs are centered around anti-cheat. Talking too much about anti-cheat can provide too much information to those who build, sell, or use cheats. And yet, if we say nothing, many will feel we aren’t doing enough.
Easy-Anti Cheat is our base software. It acts as the first line of defense and a catch-all for blatant, non-careful cheating. After that, we have added additional layers of prevention methods and anti-cheat tools and software that obfuscate, check telemetry, hardware behavior and more. With each passing week, we add more rules based on our own data and adjust the old ones. This is because anti-cheat is a game of cat and mouse. With every change we make, the cheat makers respond, and we switch tactics and they follow suit.
When we catch cheaters, depending on the level of offense, we may provide a 7-day ban or a permanent ban. If the offender is cheating for a second time, the ban will become permanent.
We have also introduced a video report program on Discord, where you can capture cheating when you see it and provide the video as evidence. This is to catch cheaters who evade our current anti-cheat preventions and to provide our community of players with a place to report hard evidence. From these reports, we will be able to better understand the types of cheats that evade our current systems.
Please know that we are developing several new technologies and techniques that we will test and deploy as soon as they are ready. We will never back down from this challenge.
Now, let’s look at the mid-season update in detail:

Balance Changes

Gadgets
Barricade

• Increased the size of the Barricade by 20%

Glitch Grenade

• Update glitch effect so that it will now pass through Mesh Shields and Dome Shields

Stun Gun

• Increased the Stun Gun projectile’s maximum travel distance from 12m to 16m
• Players who are stunned can now use their Specializations and Gadgets while stunned
• Players who are stunned can now aim down sights while stunned
• Players who are stunned can now crouch Dev note: We felt that the Stun Gun was a little too dominant as a Gadget and led to many slow, inevitable deaths. The stun effect now mostly lowers the target’s movement speed, blocks them from jumping, mantling, or vaulting over obstacles, and interrupts interactions. This makes stunned players vulnerable but gives them a fighting chance.

Vanishing bomb

• Decreased the impact of the cloaking effect on the Vanishing Bomb, so affected players are slightly easier to see when moving

Maps
Monaco: Power Shift

• Tweaked the traversal options between Villas and Park for easier access to rooftops
• Minor adjustments to the spawn points around the Forest and Royal Plaza areas to provide a clearer frontline during the final stretch
• Slightly adjusted the path of the platform to fix some clipping issues and make it more accessible on the road between Shopping District and Forest

Specializations
Cloaking Device

• Decreased the impact of the cloaking effect so that cloaked players are slightly easier to see when they are moving

Weapons
FCAR

• Decreased damage from 25 to 22
• Increased magazine size from 20 to 25
• Increased the fall-off damage multiplier at max range from 50% to 55%, meaning the weapon does slightly more damage at range Dev Note: Our data shows us that the FCAR is very strong in the hands of good players but harder to use for newer players. These changes hopefully rein in the weapon’s power at higher skill levels, while making it slightly more forgiving to use for newer players

Content and Bug Fixes

Animation

• New intro and idle animation added for Dagger and Sword
• Swapping items when quick meleeing will now instantly cancel the quick melee animation
• Fixing an issue preventing hand gestures from playing for dual-wield items

Audio

• Increased priority of enemy footsteps, and tweaked attenuation and occlusion to make them easier to hear.
• Tweaked loudness of dematerialize and rematerialize sounds

Battlepass

• Added two bonus pages of rewards to the end of the BattlePass – good luck contestants!

Characters

• Fixed an issue where the fur on the bunny outfit was flickering when viewed at close distances
• Fixed an issue where players did not get the default outfit when creating a new contestant

Controller Gyro Aiming
Important! There is currently a serialization issue with some of the new gyro settings in this patch, which causes players to initially get the wrong defaults. We recommend that you restore defaults in the Gyro tab before enabling and trying out the new settings.

• Moved gyro aiming options to a separate tab in the settings menu.
• Made general improvements to the responsiveness and precision of gyro aiming controls.
• The "gyro orientation" setting now has three modes:
  • World (New) - Rotation is based on the controller's rotational movement in the world
  • Local - Rotation is locally read from the controller's point of view
  • Player (Previously World) - Rotation is based on the controller's rotational movement from a player perspective
• Vertical gyro sensitivity is now an absolute value, rather than based on a ratio of the horizontal sensitivity
• Added a new setting that enables focal length scaling for gyro aiming, which scales sensitivity based on changes in FOV, making scoped weapons more precise
• Added options for inverting each gyro axis individually
• Added new settings for gyro acceleration, which increases sensitivity the faster the controller rotates, allowing for sharp turns while maintaining precision for small and steady adjustments
• Add a new ‘flick stick’ mechanic that can be enabled with gyro, which changes the functionality of the look stick so that you can quickly snap to face any direction
• Added the following optional controller binds:
  • Reset vertical rotation (necessary when playing with flick stick)
  • Toggle gyro aiming (On/Off)
  • Disable gyro aiming (Hold)

Gadgets

• Flashbang
  • Fixed an issue where weak flashes could overwrite strong flashes
• Fixed an issue where Grenades, Mines, and C4s with default customization sometimes got a random customization applied
• Fixed an issue where spectators could trigger mines
• Fixed several issues where it looked like the player could place an object but no object appeared
• Fixed an issue where the preview arc showed the in-air detonation effect on grenades that don't actually detonate on a timer

Game Modes

• Power Shift
  • Added Seoul to the map pool

Graphics

• Reduced graphical Temporal Anti-Aliasing (TAA) artifacts on consoles

Maps

• General
  • Adjusted collision on some bushes to improve interactions with placeable jump-pads
  • Fixed an issue where Zipline Cables did not break correctly when intersecting certain objects
• SYS$HORIZON
  • Reduced the intensity of some of the interior colors Dev note: Monitor and graphic settings that boost saturation make the colors more intense. Adjusting these settings can help to further reduce the intensity.

Private Matches

• Lowered the requirement to start private matches to 2 players
• The private match lobby creator now has the option to opt out of participating in the match
• The private match lobby creator can now kick players from the lobby
• Minor UI improvements to the private matches screen
• Power Shift is now available in private matches

Ranked Tournaments

• Reduced Ranked Tournaments size from 48 to 24 players Dev Note: This change should make matchmaking faster, make tournaments available to more players in different regions, and help improve the quality of skill-based matchmaking leading to closer games.
• Reduced Ranked Tournament duration from four rounds to three, to account for the change in the number of players
• Increased the speed at which visible league rankings synchronize with SBMM ratings
• Improved matchmaking to closer matchmake player within their league rank
• Added an indicator in the league overview screen to show your change in rank progression from the last tournament you participated in Dev Note: This is the same arrow indicator that you get after a ranked tournament has been completed so that if you missed it, you can review it on the league overview page.

Settings

• Add a link to the Embark Portal in the system menu

Specializations

• Fixed an issue where turrets lost targeting on players with riot shield
• Fixed an issue where turrets would fall through buildings and not rotate when landing

Stability

• Fixed three of the most common crashes
• Fix for being able to close the "Compiling shaders" screen resulting in a softlock

Store

• Players can now purchase single items within a Bundle (in one bundle to start, as a test)
• There’s now an equip button in the store rewards screen

UI

• We have added a score log to display more scoring events in all different game-modes
• Various playertag marker changes
  • Playertags now show distance to you
  • Playertags in-game are now uppercase
  • There’s now an effect on in-game healthbars to indicate healing
• Fixed an issue in Game Summary where you could see duplicate stats for the same player
• Fixed an issue where the 'Contracts' tab could faultily be accessed from the Battle Pass screen
• Fixed an issue where the camera could be misplaced after inspecting rewards in the circuit screen
• Polished and refined how pings are visualized in-game
  • Ping-icons are now smaller and will scale depending on their screen-centeredness
  • Pings, team health bars and objective icons now fade out when they come closer to the center of the screen
  • Off-screen enemy pings now behave like other off-screen icons and hug the screen edge closest to the pinged location. (Was previously not visible when off-screen)
  • Fixing bug where spectating players wouldn’t fade icons when the spectated player enters aim-down-sights
• Voice lines for the default ping (when you ping a random location with no object attached to it) have been updated to be more consistent. Previously it would use “I will…” and “We should…” intermittently
  • In general, pinging something will now ask your allies to engage with that object, while pinging the ground will announce your own intention to move there
• Updated options in the Contextual Ping menu
  • “Huddle here” changed to “Group up,” with all new voice lines
  • “Moving here” changed to “Go here,” using more consistent voice lines
• Fixed an issue where you didn’t go to the correct page in the Battlepass from the outfit screen
• Fix rare instances where first-person animations such as, reloads, inspects, and deploys could not be changed through customization
• Added the ability to track contracts with a right click on the circuits screen
• Fix for showing a single item rarity in the UI when previewing out of a bundle instead of the bundle rarity
• Hit-indicator now differentiates damage from these types of attack
  • Long range damage
  • Short range damage
  • Melee damage

VFX

• Polished the grappling hook wire animation.

Weapons

• Improved melee aim assistance so that it not only looks for targets when the attack is initiated by the player, but also validates that they are still correct at the time aim correction is applied. This should reduce the number of occasions where melee attacks could pull the player away from a target

Security and Anti-Cheat

• Added a requirement to have Secure Boot enabled for certain players
• Several new suspension rules based on anomaly detection
• Added suspension rule for using Aimbot
• General improvements and fixes

I am not well rounded with knowledge when it comes to website creation.

I'm using PortfolioBox to showcase my skills as a freelancer.

What type of services do I offer? Many, but here is this... VIRTUAL ASSISTANT RECRUITMENT & TRAINING SUPPORT VIRTUAL WEDDING PLANNER & EVENTS COODINATOR ADMINISTRATIVE ASSISTANT
DEADLINE: Friday May 3, 2024 by 11PM Central Standard Time

What I need done:

• Beginner friendly tutorial of how to use the site. Just show me the basics or foundation of being able to navigate and understand the website.
• Pages created for site navigation. You can create and edit pages to fit my services and elevate the level of presentation of services. I don't want difficulties with the Page URL. Make this simple, for example: www.website.com/contact www.website.com/BookServices

Pages Needed Below(please organize the pages from top to bottom starting with this page order or similar)

Intro>Services & Pricing>Book Today>Make A Payment>Contact Me>Gallery>Reviews
If your expertise knows a better way to rename these and organize them, please feel free to be open with communication for this overall project.
A.) Intro Page/About Me: I see this with a company logo and brief description of what services I offer B.) Services & Pricing Page: I will provide information on services. I offer a wide range of services as per the job titles listed above. You will have to describe the role of each position(I will provide you with job description and duties) and what services are offered through these services. I'm not sure how you'd like to implement this. My work account is u/thick_hamster3002 and you can see from my previous posts what I offer for services and how pricing may be. C.) Gallery Page: This will include documentation that I personally have created and photos of work as well. I think maybe 15 photos max will be good enough to showcase my work D.) Book Today Page: Create or utilize the site tools in order to allow my services to be booked through my site/Portfolio include pricing just as a good faith reminder. Give the potential client options like a calendar where they can choose a time for a Zoom or Google Meet Interview so I can discuss their project or job details E.) Reviews Page: Create a place on the page where past clients can leave their honest reviews. I would like to be able to manage these with the 5 star rating and filter from highest review to lowest. I also want the ability to delete reviews on just end if needed. It would be really great if you could use a bigger font to showcase 1 or 2 reviews as a spotlight. ** F.) Contact Page:I will provide you with all of my business contac t information. Also, list my Instagram & Facebook Work page as options to contact me as well. **G.) Payment Page: Some services offered can be broken into payments that need to be made monthly or contain a deposit needed to hold services for a specific date and time. I'd like a payment ID reference number or similar so Paying Clients can see their paid and remaining balances with due dates provided.
Again, these pages can be in the order I listed above or renamed and reorganized as far as page order. I did not type them in any order here.

• Google Analytics and Tags must be made/applied, and reports go directly to me. I also need to learn how to use some of these tools and how it will apply to my portfolio web page. Just a quick run down or light training. I can even go off of your notes if they provide all the necessary info and knowledge for me to understand how this works
  
• Portfolio Aesthetics: Ensure that the page stands out from others but still professionally fits the overall roles. Feel free to change fonts and colors. Just make sure it's organized, user-friendly, and applicable.
  
• Change the current website domain from Cosmicconnectionelevation.com to CosmicConnectionSolutions.com
  
• Teach me if there are other ways to receive immediate site notifications to my phone like when services are booked, upcoming meetings or consultations, payments, and more important information.
  

I am open to ANY advice or suggestions you have in order to elevate my business further
If things are done with professionalism & and quality, I may be willing to compensate more than the listed $45. This is up to my discretion, and I ask that you do not ask for more than what has been offered.
BONUS EXTRA $5 OPPORTUNITY: Create an email with the domain example@CosmicconnectionSolutions.com as I would like everything uniformed and have similar underlying themes.
Please send me a *message through my reddit** profile u/texanasiann. We will move to email and phone communication after this. In your message, please include why you should be the candidate chosen for this task and show any work you've done in the past. I accept referrals/recommendations but prefer to see your website creations rather then going based off description of pages and will most likely make my decision off of what I can see. Again, any advice or tips are always well received and welcomed. THANKS IN ADVANCE!*
ALSO COMMENT BELOW SO I CAN KEEP TRACK OF SCAMMERS AND RECOMMEND YOUR ACCOUNT BETTER TO OTHERS I will write and review anything you'd like me to after you complete this project. If you need reviews across 5-6 website locations, then you should know... I'm an expert at giving reviews. Highlighting strengths, skills, and project turnaround time.
I can pay you via Cash App, Chime, or Paypal. I will not pay until the project is completed and work is turned in

Just picked up a SkyAactive G 2024 CX-90 with mostly base options (captains seats are the only added feature + random stuff). Still close to 50k. We are coming from the older 2022 CX-90 Carbon edition and couldn't believe how much they cut from the newer version. Even at base options, these are basic features that should be included on a brand new 50k car.
Base 2024 CX-90 gives us:
No Garage Connect clicker on the center car mirror (Old one did) - This is crazy to me its just all plastic??
No more safety features for Lane Assist (Old one did) - Literally nothing besides I-Stop, Lane departure no longer has a haptic feedback through wheel
No more Wireless charging bay in center console (Old one did) - Just 2 USB -C ports
No more foot motion sensor undercard to open trunk
It fucking beeps when going backwards like a construction tractor (Old one did not do this) - Is this normal or can be turned off?

Prosecutors HAVE TO ask for incarceration!
https://www.cnn.com/politics/live-news/trump-hush-money-trial-05-02-24/index.html
Prosecutors are asking for a $1,000 maximum fine for each alleged violation, but they are not yet seeking incarceration. Merchan did not immediately issue a ruling.
Here are the key takeaways:
Prosecutors allege several gag order violations:

• Trump's alleged violations impact fairness of trial: "His statements are corrosive to this proceeding and the fair administration of justice," prosecutor Chris Conroy said on Trump's four alleged gag order violations. "The defendant is doing everything he can to make this case" about politics, Conroy adds.
• Trump is aware of gag order parameters: Conroy reminded the court that Trump attorney Todd Blanche assured the judge last week that the former president "does in fact know what the gag order allows him to do and not allow him to do."
• No jail request: Prosecutors told the judge they were not seeking that Trump be incarcerated for the violations.

Trump's defense argues he did not violate gag order:

• Trump needs to defend himself against attacks: Blanche argued that upcoming witnesses Michael Cohen and Stormy Daniels are "not people who need to be protected."
• "Cohen has been inviting and almost daring President Trump to respond to almost everything he’s saying," Blanche said. Blanche added that Stormy Daniels shouldn't be covered by the gag order either, though he acknowledged that her comments about Trump are not so "voluminous." Merchan reiterated that the order means Trump is "not allowed to refer" to foreseeable witnesses.
• On comments about David Pecker: Blanche argued that Trump calling former National Enquirer publisher David Pecker "nice" didn't violate the gag order. "There’s no animosity between the two of them. There’s no threatening, menacing statements," Blanche said.
• "It's not about just Mr. Pecker," the judge responded. "It's about what the other witnesses see." He added, "It affects those witnesses as well."
• Trump speaking to press: Blanche again argued that Trump can't respond to 24/7 social media posts of everything that's taking place in the courtroom, including their whispering conversations. Merchan said: "They’re not defendants in this case. They’re not subject to the gag order. I don’t have authority over the press, I don’t have authority over most of the people who are saying things." Merchan also said there are no surprises when it comes to the media coverage of this trial, as Trump is a leading presidential candidate.

Using throwaway because of personal details I'm including here. I know this is long, so thank you so much to anyone who takes the time to read all this
We adopted our girl, Lily, in September from a shelter in Maryland (we live in NYC). We got lucky because we found out a litter of these pups had recently been repossessed from a backyard breeder and we would be able to bring her home immediately if we went down to get her. I don't know if this will be relevant, but just in case it is I'll mention: Lily was spayed at 3 months
This is obviously very young, and not something we would have chosen if we had the choice, but it was a rule at this shelter (and a law in Maryland) that all dogs must be neutered/spayed before being adopted
For the first few weeks Lily's stool was fine. Very normal, stiff, uninteresting. However, after about a month and a half she started having diarrhea. We found out this was because of giardia and figured everything would go back to normal after we give her her meds.
We finish her meds, retest, giardia free. A few weeks later, diarrhea again. Worried somehow that she got infected again we tested the stool we were able to collect, and it was negative. No giardia. Something else is causing diarrhea
We begin to gave her Hills Prescription Diet Gastrointestinal Biome Kibble on the vet's orders. It worked, but as soon as we transition back to normal kibble, diarrhea again.
We try again, more gastrointestinal kibble, it works again but when we go back, diarrhea.
Keep in mind every time we switch Lily's food back and forth, we're not doing it abruptly. Each time we take about a week to switch her on or off her new food. At this point she's about 5 months old.
We try again with the gastrointestinal kibble, but this time it has no effect. We test her again for giardia to make sure, but no. Negative. She's having diarrhea on the Gastrointestinal Biome kibble.
We tell the vet and they're shocked, it's never not worked for a dog before so they prescribe Royal Canin Gastrointestinal. Doesn't work.
We figure maybe she's allergic to chicken since that seems to be a common allergy for BMDs and its a common ingredient in these foods. We try instead Purina Pro Plan Sensitive Stomach Salmon & Rice formula for puppies. Doesn't work.
At this point she's had almost continuous diarrhea for about 3 months. When I say diarrhea it's often just very soft, wet, sometimes mucusy stool. Other times it's pure liquid that she urgently wakes us up in the night for. Most of the time it's not urgent, but even if it's urgent midnight diarrhea 20-30% of the time, that's a lot of waking up in the middle of the night for us.
Her behavior otherwise is totally normal. Shes playful, happy, energetic. Just like any other puppy. We've gone to the vet multiple times and they have no idea what's going on. They say diarrhea is common in puppies and even the mucus isn't a big deal. They do admit however that Ruby does seem to have an especially sensitive stomach for whatever reason, but they're unable to recommend anything to us other than these kibbles that are sensitive stomach kibbles/gastrointestinal biome kibbles or whatever.
My father is a doctor, so out of desperation I ask for his advice. He says to me that chicken and rice works hell in humans to address diarrhea, and he used it himself for our dog growing up, so I should try that. Sure.
It worked! Lily finally is having still normal poops for the first time since she was a puppy. This goes on for a few weeks before my girlfriend and I realize that although her poops are stiff, she's probably not getting all the nutrients she needs from just chicken and rice. We try again to transition her to the kibble she had as a puppy, before she started having diarrhea. However, this didn't work, and she quickly got diarrhea again.
We spoke to a breeder, she also recommended chicken and rice, but said we should include peas and carrots in it, add some salmon, she likes using Fromm foods pate. Maybe add a raw egg once a week or so. She also recommends a probiotic.
We make all these changes except the probiotic at first and they work! Lily is doing great. No urgent poops, no diarrhea or soft stool. Normal still stool just like we wanted. At this point shes about 8 months old.
We try adding Berner's Perfect Poop as a priobiotic since we've seen that recommended quite a bit to others, but she immediately gets diarrhea. "That's odd" we think to ourselves, and stop giving it to her after 2 days. Poop goes back to normal
About a week or so later we try again. Diarrhea. So we stop the Perfect Poop all together. We feed her chicken, rice, carrots, peas, and Fromm Salmon Pate. This works for about a month and a half.
2 weeks ago things were going so well I tried again to add the Perfect Poop, but immediately she had diarrhea again. I stopped only after one day, but the diarrhea continued. I started taking things out of her food, no more pate, then no carrots or peas. My goal was to just take everything out and get her back to what we know works: just chicken and rice.
It's been two weeks now and shes still having diarrhea. I've even been adding Stool-Fix to stiffen up her poop since that's worked for us before, but it's had no effect. We submitted a stool sample and it's still not giardia. She's been waking us up in the middle of the night and been having urgent poops at irregular points in the day. I should also mention that at this point Lily is 10.5 months old
We've also realized we have a scaling problem. Even if we only fed her only chicken and rice for the rest of her life, that's a lot of rice to make and chicken to boil, and makes this extremely difficult when we need someone to watch her if we go away, or if we wanna bring her with us on a week/weekend trip anywhere.
So here's my question: has anyone else ever had an experience similar to this before? A puppy with an extremely sensitive stomach? Does anyone have an recommendations on prepackaged food we can give her? Kibble doesn't seem to work and we can't feed her just chicken and rice forever. I've read a lot of posts in the sub and tried things I didn't even mention here, but anything would be much appreciated
If you read all of that, thank you for bearing with me. We're desperate to find a solution.
TL;DR every kibble gives dog diarrhea. Only thing that doesnt is chicken and rice. Looking for an alternative to feed her that doesn't include us boiling chicken and making rice all the time, while also still not causing her to have diarrhea.