Hello everyone,
I'm a Digital Normad FIRE looking for some advice on the best way to transfer a large sum of money from Bahrain to Ireland without raising unnecessary flags. Here’s my situation:

• Nationality: Republic of Ireland
  
• Previous Residency: United Kingdom for 10 years (stopped being a resident 2 years ago)
  
• Current Status: Digital nomad for the past 2-3 years. Resident Visa, Bahrain
  

- Spent time in Bahrain, Portugal, UAE, , Greece, and the Republic of Ireland

• Bank Account: I have a personal bank account in Bahrain where all my income is deposited from my Bahrain employer
  
• Funds Available: Approximately $100,000 in the Bahrain account
  
• Purpose: Paying a builder in Ireland for constructing a new house where I will live when completed. I’ll become a resident in RoI then as starting a family.
  

Concerns:

• Potential delays or flags from Irish banks. Haven’t done anything wrong of shady of course, just don’t want any issues / delays or unnecessary audits. I hear transfers from Bahrain can flag as it’s outside standard ‘green light’ country lists
  
• Ensuring the process is smooth and without undue scrutiny.
  

Options Considered:

1. One Lump Sum Transfer:

- Directly transfer the full amount from my Bahrain account to the builder’s account in Ireland.
- Pros: Simple and straightforward.
- Cons: Might trigger an alert in Irish bank due to the large amount.

1. ATM Withdrawals in Ireland:

- Withdraw money using my Bahraini bank card at ATMs in Ireland.
- Pros: Potentially less likely to be flagged.
- Cons: High fees (~2% charge) and very inconvenient.

1. Multiple Smaller Transfers:

- Transfer smaller amounts (e.g., $15,000 each) to my other bank accounts in the UK and Ireland, then pay the builder.
- Pros: May appear less suspicious.
- Cons: Can still raise questions due to multiple transfers.
Additional Info:

• I have an invoice from the builder, so the purpose of the transfer is clear.
  
• I also considered using currency transfer services like OFX, CurrencyFair, and PayPal.
  

Has anyone had similar experiences or can offer advice on the best strategy to transfer this amount? Any insights on minimising potential issues would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance!

For context I do suffer from panic attacks, I used to have them daily and really struggled with insomnia. Now the panic happens occasionally but the interrupted sleep is still every night. I fall asleep easily, then wake up abruptly and feel wide awake and scared. I have to kind of reset into sleepy mode which takes a while.
I've tracked my sleep with my Garmin watch before and it says I barely get any deep sleep. I am very careful about caffeine intake and using screens before bed.
I still manage to get back to sleep and get a good 6-8 hours in, but the experience of waking up with dread is just awful. Especially after falling asleep so easily! It's not a panic attack but it's like all my fear and dread hits me at once.
I live in the UK and am on a low wage so can't access mental health support for this. If anyone has experience or understanding of a similar issue I'd love to learn more and try and work on it

Hi everyone,
I'm a FIRE looking for some advice on the best way to transfer a large sum of money from Bahrain to Ireland without raising unnecessary flags. Here’s my situation:

• Nationality: Republic of Ireland
  
• Previous Residency: United Kingdom for 10 years (stopped being a resident 2 years ago)
  
• Current Status: Digital nomad for the past 2-3 years. Resident Visa, Bahrain
  

- Spent time in Bahrain, Portugal, UAE, , Greece, and the Republic of Ireland

• Bank Account: I have a personal bank account in Bahrain where all my income is deposited from my Bahrain employer
  
• Funds Available: Approximately $100,000 in the Bahrain account
  
• Purpose: Paying a builder in Ireland for constructing a new house where I will live when completed. I’ll become a resident in RoI then as starting a family.
  

Concerns:

• Potential delays or flags from Irish banks. Haven’t done anything wrong of shady of course, just don’t want any issues / delays or unnecessary audits. I hear transfers from Bahrain can flag as it’s outside standard ‘green light’ country lists
  
• Ensuring the process is smooth and without undue scrutiny.
  

Options Considered:

1. One Lump Sum Transfer:

- Directly transfer the full amount from my Bahrain account to the builder’s account in Ireland.
- Pros: Simple and straightforward.
- Cons: Might trigger an alert in Irish bank due to the large amount.

1. ATM Withdrawals in Ireland:

- Withdraw money using my Bahraini bank card at ATMs in Ireland.
- Pros: Potentially less likely to be flagged.
- Cons: High fees (~2% charge) and very inconvenient.

1. Multiple Smaller Transfers:

- Transfer smaller amounts (e.g., $15,000 each) to my other bank accounts in the UK and Ireland, then pay the builder.
- Pros: May appear less suspicious.
- Cons: Can still raise questions due to multiple transfers.
Additional Info:

• I have an invoice from the builder, so the purpose of the transfer is clear.
  
• I also considered using currency transfer services like OFX, CurrencyFair, and PayPal.
  

Has anyone had similar experiences or can offer advice on the best strategy to transfer this amount? Any insights on minimising potential issues would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance!

Hello everyone,
I'm looking for some advice on the best way to transfer a large sum of money from Bahrain to Ireland without raising unnecessary flags. Here’s my situation:

• Nationality: Republic of Ireland
  
• Previous Residency: United Kingdom for 10 years (stopped being a resident 2 years ago)
  
• Current Status: Digital nomad for the past 2-3 years. Resident Visa, Bahrain
  

- Spent time in Bahrain, Portugal, UAE, , Greece, and the Republic of Ireland

• Bank Account: I have a personal bank account in Bahrain where all my income is deposited from my Bahrain employer
  
• Funds Available: Approximately $100,000 in the Bahrain account
  
• Purpose: Paying a builder in Ireland for constructing a new house where I will live when completed. I’ll become a resident in RoI then as starting a family.
  

Concerns:

• Potential delays or flags from Irish banks.
  
• Ensuring the process is smooth and without undue scrutiny.
  

Options Considered:

1. One Lump Sum Transfer:

- Directly transfer the full amount from my Bahrain account to the builder’s account in Ireland.
- Pros: Simple and straightforward.
- Cons: Might trigger an alert in Irish bank due to the large amount.

1. ATM Withdrawals in Ireland:

- Withdraw money using my Bahraini bank card at ATMs in Ireland.
- Pros: Potentially less likely to be flagged.
- Cons: High fees (~2% charge) and very inconvenient.

1. Multiple Smaller Transfers:

- Transfer smaller amounts (e.g., $15,000 each) to my other bank accounts in the UK and Ireland, then pay the builder.
- Pros: May appear less suspicious.
- Cons: Can still raise questions due to multiple transfers.
Additional Info:

• I have an invoice from the builder, so the purpose of the transfer is clear.
  
• I also considered using currency transfer services like OFX, CurrencyFair, and PayPal.
  

Has anyone had similar experiences or can offer advice on the best strategy to transfer this amount? Any insights on minimising potential issues would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks in advance!

Isoelectronic species and compounds with the same Effective Atomic Number (EAN) value are concepts used in chemistry to describe certain characteristics of atoms, ions, and molecules. Here's a breakdown of the differences between them:

Isoelectronic Species

Definition: Isoelectronic species are atoms, ions, or molecules that have the same number of electrons.
Characteristics: - They share the same electronic structure and often have similar chemical properties. - Despite having the same number of electrons, the species may differ in their nuclear charges (i.e., the number of protons). - Examples: - ( \text{N}_2 ) (dinitrogen), ( \text{CO} ) (carbon monoxide), and ( \text{CN}^- ) (cyanide ion) all have 14 electrons and are isoelectronic. - ( \text{Ne} ) (neon), ( \text{Na}⁺ ) (sodium ion), and ( \text{F}^- ) (fluoride ion) each have 10 electrons.

Compounds with the Same EAN (Effective Atomic Number)

Definition: The Effective Atomic Number (EAN) is the total number of electrons that surround a central atom in a complex, including both the electrons in the central atom and the electrons donated by the ligands.
Characteristics: - The concept of EAN is primarily used in the context of coordination chemistry, especially for transition metal complexes. - A complex is said to have the same EAN if the sum of the electrons around the central atom (from its own electrons and those donated by ligands) equals the atomic number of the nearest noble gas. - The EAN rule, also known as the 18-electron rule, is often applied to transition metal complexes to predict their stability. - Examples: - ( \text{[Fe(CO)}_5\text{]} ): Iron in this complex has 26 (atomic number) - 8 (core electrons) + 10 (from five CO ligands, each contributing 2 electrons) = 18, achieving the EAN of 36 (which corresponds to krypton). - ( \text{[Ni(CO)}_4\text{]} ): Nickel in this complex has 28 (atomic number) - 10 (core electrons) + 8 (from four CO ligands, each contributing 2 electrons) = 18, achieving the EAN of 36 (krypton).

Key Differences

1. Conceptual Basis:
   
   • Isoelectronic Species: Focuses on the total number of electrons in the species.
   • EAN Value: Focuses on the total number of electrons around a central atom in a complex, aiming for the effective atomic number.
2. Application:
   
   • Isoelectronic Species: Applies to isolated atoms, ions, and molecules.
   • EAN Value: Primarily applies to coordination complexes, particularly in transition metal chemistry.
3. Chemical Composition:
   
   • Isoelectronic Species: Can include a variety of different elements and ions as long as the total electron count is the same.
   • EAN Value: Involves the consideration of the central metal atom and the electrons donated by surrounding ligands to achieve a noble gas electron configuration.

Understanding these distinctions helps in predicting the behavior and properties of various chemical species and complexes.

Successor : u/tragerkrager
Hey everyone. I’ve been lurking on this page like for a year or so, having been into law of assumption and attraction for a few years. I've just recently had a massive success so I feel like I have to put my two cents in. Bear with me as this is a bit of a long story.
Summary: In November 2023 I quit my job. Went from living in the UK (not where I’m from but where I want to spend the rest of my life), good paying job in the industry (very, very, niche industry and I was at one of the best companies) to being unemployed, living with my parents in my home country. My job was located in a town (not London) I absolutely hated, but the job made it worth it.
Fun side note, before I got the job I wanted to be in London (where I’ve lived before and know I love) but kept telling people I was fine with anywhere in the country, so guess what turned up - dream job in a different part of the UK, far away from London. Anyway, I quit my job with the belief I was going to get THE job in London within like a month or so. This did not happen. Instead I spent 5 months unemployed, running up my credit cards, living with my parents in my home country. After 5 months things changed and within two more weeks I had my dream job, at my dream company, at a specific location in London I’ve been dreaming of working at for years, with a salary higher than anyone I know. All thanks to Neville.
Details: In October I affirmed for a week I was worthy of the career I wanted - and I ended up quitting my job out of nowhere, but I had a strong sense that this move was the right one. I happily put my furniture into storage and moved back with my parents (I’m in my mid/late twenties). I told people I’d rather waitress in London than work and live where I was. I went months unemployed, hating life and doubting Neville so much. It got to the point where I thought I was delusional and you were all wrong haha.
I also had an immigration deadline of 6 months, I could not be out of the UK for more than that without losing my immigration status. Hindsight should’ve just uncreated this. So the months go by and I have very few interviews but I do get one interview I really like. It’s at a massive bank although I’m not in finance I thought it could really suit me and with a yearly salary of 15,000 pounds more than I previously had. I don’t get it because I got too scared and mentally spooked it away. Essentially this job was exactly what I wanted, in the same finance district I’ve always wanted to work. The rejection really threw me off not getting it and I didn’t understand why.
So I thought, f* them, I’ll get a job at an even better bank (referred to as bank X now) with a salary of 20,000 more than I had before (which would mean a massive salary I actually could live really good on and get a decent flat with). No one I know who’s 2 years out of grad school earns that kind of money. It’s more money than both my parents earn. I got pissed and felt like if I’m creating my life I might as well throw in a massive salary.
Techniques: Anyway, months go by and I see my deadline (early May) approaching, throughout this time I’ve changed my mindset. I went from reading articles to reading Neville and implementing it (like you all say). I also read The Power of your subconscious mind by Joseph Murphy.

• I took walks where I pretended to be on the phone to my friends telling them about my new job and what was happening. Because I’ve lived abroad for many years, being on the phone telling my friends about my life felt the most natural to me. I would speak about my new job at X bank, and the salary, and other fun things like events I was attending etc. I mixed truth with future truth, so I would talk about seeing certain friends for drinks (like I always have in the past) and about my (future) job I loved.
• I did SATS, which took effort. I usually meditate every morning but I have always had issues sleeping. It took a good month of trying before I could get it right (we’re now at April ). But once I did, things just started to change. Suddenly there's all these jobs I can apply for. Like twenty a day. And my industry is very niche so this is unheard of. I was relaxing. I knew I had a job. I also did SATS in the morning and for roughly 1-2h every afternoon.
  • I know this is too much and I do not recommend anyone meditating the amount I was every day. Which would sometimes be like 4-5 hours spread out over the day. I got too obsessed but I had so much depending on it. That’s what I had to do in order to not go crazy about how I’d ruined my life, but please don’t go quit your job thinking you can think your way into a new one. Listen to Neville, do not force it. The morning of when I got the first job interview for bank X I had decided not to do SATS cause I just felt full, like the image of an overflowing glass of water.
• Something that also helped was having a different plan. I decided on a date to move back no matter job or money. I figured I could live with a friend and waitress. When I decided that, I still knew inside like that won’t actually happen, but it was like my brain relaxed more when it knew what the plan was instead of just waiting.
• I kept up with SATs and just discipline and mental diet. This was the main change for me. Treating every moment like a cross road instead of as a straight line of misery I had to “manifest my way out of.” Every moment your feelings dictate what you will experience next, there’s no set out plan of misery you can escape with this stuff. I stopped mentally reacting to the 3d and reminded myself as often as I could that this was all fake and just playing out from my own mind. I had reminders on my phone and every toilet visit went from cats on TikTok to YouTube shorts listening to Neville. The early months of unemployment I was doing similar things, but out of doubt and fear. Now it was just to keep me in the state of wish fulfilled.
• I journaled and changed my mindset about what this job actually would entail. I removed all the expectations of how it would be life-changing and all that. I just focused on having a job I was happy with, on a salary I could live good with.
• It’s just staying in the wish fulfilled for as often as you can, and it will harden into fact.
• I could suddenly see how I’d created everything, every moment every aspect. I stopped giving a shit about drama and people and who thought what of me. It’s all coming from me so there is no point in feeling fear. I am god.

Within two weeks of moving back to London I had a job offer at bank X, with the exact F* you salary I aimed for, the exact role, everything. And sure I was super happy when they called, but it felt so natural I almost didn’t call anyone to let them know. The last two weeks since I got it I haven’t been overjoyed and walked on clouds, no it’s just natural. But guess whose start date isn’t until 4-6 weeks so I have to waitress to get by until then. Everything does come true, even the bad stuff.
I hope this story makes some sense and can give someone hope and trust. I read basically every story on here throughout my unemployed months and I wanted to give back. Let me know if you have any questions or comments!! I’ll probably post something in the future about further thoughts and techniques as this experience taught me a lot. But for now I just wanted to share that I got the job!!

form filling GOOD or BAD
What is form filling? - form filling is a way to enter a buyer giveaway via filling out a form on whatnots website , entering you into a buyer giveaway.
Honest opinion - Form filling is okay , and doesn’t take away from the actual buyers. Let me explain.
For one , it’s legal. Yes yes I know , “it’s legal” well it is , and if you don’t like the laws go re-write them! Be my guest! Form filling doesn’t take away from buyers because 9 times out of 10 , a buyer usually wins. Form fillers are just an inconvenience , that’s all. Is it wrong to potentially take away from buyers? No, because EVERYONE should have a chance. Not just buyers!
Should you send a form filler their win? -
Yes , you should. Be the better person! Don’t be an immoral jackass and switch up their prize , because what did they do wrong? at the end of the day… nothing! send it and go on about your day , it isn’t worth the strike you may get!
Should you break all of whatnots TOS trying so eagerly to have one of your buyers win?
No! Don’t be a rule breaker , so what if your buyer doesn’t win. That’s okay! They’ll have another chance next time!
WHATNOT GIVEAWAY RULES TAKEN FROM THE WEBSITE!
Standard Giveaways
Standard giveaways allow users to enter using the “Enter Giveaway” button once the giveaway goes live. Sellers can limit standard giveaways to domestic users (based on the seller's location). Follower-only Giveaways
Follower-only giveaways are similar to standard giveaways but allow only viewers who follow the seller to enter using the “Enter Giveaway” button once the giveaway goes live. Sellers can also limit follower giveaways to domestic users (based on the seller's location). Buyer Appreciation Giveaways
Buyer Appreciation giveaways are intended to show appreciation for users who have made a purchase during a seller’s livestream. Available in the US, Canada, the UK, and France. Users who want to enter a Buyer Appreciation giveaway must live in the same country as the seller running the giveaway. Users who want to enter must make a purchase AFTER the giveaway is created to qualify. Exception: United States and Canadian Users can enter for free by filling out a web form found on the giveaway details page. Sellers and buyers must use the mobile app to create or enter a Buyer Appreciation giveaway. Sellers must include rules pertaining to the giveaway; these rules vary based on seller location. For United States users, visit US Terms of Service (see “Whatnot Promotions and Giveaway Rules” to learn more). For UK and France users, visit EU Terms of Service (see “Section 15. Giveaways” to learn more). Sellers must ship the giveaway item regardless of who wins. For guidance on how to Create a Buyer Appreciation Giveaway or Enter a Buyer Appreciation Giveaway please see the linked help center articles. Visit Buyer Appreciation Giveaways Rules and Requirements for more info.
Giveaway Policies
Prohibited Behavior
No denying a winner: You must not deny a user the item they won during a giveaway. Winners are not required to react in any way to claim their prize at the time of the drawing. Disclose prize in advance: You must disclose what the giveaway winner will receive before running the item. This disclosure may be in the applicable listing and/or in the livestream. Mystery items may be given away provided the mystery item remains on screen until fully opened. No downgrading, withholding or changing prize based on who wins: Sellers must not downgrade, withhold or change the giveaway prize based on who wins, for example: You may not deny a giveaway winner based on whether they follow you on social media. You may not downgrade the prize if the winner has not made a purchase (or upgrade the prize based on a buyer winning). You may not deny a winner because you suspect programmatic entry; if you suspect giveaway abuse please report the user in our in-app reporting flow for Whatnot to review. You may not add requirements to win a giveaway outside of what is included in Whatnot's giveaway feature. The following restrictions are included in Whatnot's giveaway: Limit entries to followers only. Limit entries to domestic users (based on seller location) only. Limit entries to buyers who have purchased an item in your livestream and users who enter for free via a web form. Shipping and fulfillment: You must fulfill the giveaway item within Whatnot's standard shipping timeframe. No purchase necessary: Requiring purchase to win a giveaway is prohibited and you will be subject to investigation. In many jurisdictions; it is illegal to require a purchase to enter a giveaway. For example, this includes: Requiring a buyer to spend above a certain amount in your livestream to qualify for a Buyer Appreciation Giveaway. Hosting Buyer Appreciation Giveaways without an alternative method of entry (AMOE). No stopping a giveaway: Once started, a giveaway can't be paused or canceled. A winner will be automatically drawn at the end of the five-minute time limit. Comply with laws: Giveaways must comply with our Giveaway Rules and Requirements, Terms of Service, and applicable laws and regulation. No future redemption: Do not offer giveaways for redemption in a future stream. All giveaways must be completed within the livestream in which the giveaway was run. No circumvention: Sellers must not circumvent Whatnot's giveaway rules in any way, including by hosting a buyer appreciation giveaways without an alternative method of entry (AMOE) or by listing an excessive number of buyers appreciation giveaways that are not run. Permitted Behavior
Sponsored giveaways permitted outside of marketplace: Listings or solicitations to sponsor or fund a seller's giveaway is permitted provided any such listings do not appear in the marketplace. Any such listings will be removed from the marketplace. Sellers may promote and establish targets for running giveaways, such as stating a giveaway will be run at a certain sales goal or time of day. Participating in Giveaways
We want our whole community to participate in and enjoy giveaways, which requires giveaways to be fair for all users.
FORM FILLING IS GOOD!

Hello all! I'm working my way through some samples and wanted to drop some reviews for you! I'm a bit verbose lmao and I don't want the post to be too long, so I will be making additional posts in the coming days. Hope these are helpful or interesting!
Evil Eye - Arcana Wildcraft

Protection against malevolent forces. An opening of bright Sicilian aniseed leads to a creamy, addictive, gourmand heart of Mexican vanilla, dark cocoa, sugar-encrusted blonde woods, warm amber, sandalwood milk, Cetalox, and soft golden tobacco. A woody gourmand with anise and chocolate.

Wet and in the bottle: Very strong, tangy wood, to me it reads like cedar. Reminds me of my parents cedar closet in the attic. I suspect it's the sandalwood. It's very very strong, you get a sense of a sweetness but it's very overpowering in this form.
Wet and just applied to skin: The intense woody tang remains, but a lactonic, no an oaty sweetness starts creeping up more and more the drier it gets. A noticable musk is peeking out here as well.
Dried down on skin: Now the frag has arrived where it should be, it's creamy and woody and sweet. The cedarey sensation remains but it's swirled into steamed, sweetened vanilla oatmilk. Like a wood latte. Feels like something they sell at dryad cafes. The musk grows with wear. I don't get a "cashmere" note that you usually find in scents that mention that. It feels more like a soft, plush musk, something there to keep it from being just gourmand, because strangely the cedar feels kind of herbal like those flower lattes. Comes a long way from the very non gourmand WOOD opening to where it reads like wood, but wood you can eat.
Final thoughts: I'm actually deeply obsessed with this fragrance. I really really love it, even the intense opening of it. This gave me a sort of paradigm shift, where I realized all my recent faves have been perfumey gourmands and not the realistic gourmands I once thought I preferred. Fantastically imaginitive frag, I certainly would've never thought of it. Does it Vampire Blood? (This is the part where I admit I layer everything with BBW's Vampire Blood bc I'm obsessed. This section of my reviews will denote if it can be layered with VB) I did layer it, and it was fine. They both kind of exist at the same time but don't really create something together. But they don't clash, which is great news because you know me and my VB.
Fleeced Skeleton Onesie - BPAL

freshly-washed fleece skeleton onesie and a little bit of smeared eyeliner

Wet and in the bottle: Sweet laundry smell. Reminds me of hugging a friend in high school and you can smell their "vanilla orchid" scented laundry soap their mom picked out. Idk why that specifically, but that's what it's giving.
Wet and just applied to skin: I saw someone say it smelled like banana to them and I get what they mean. There's a floral sweetness (like a banana) cut by something slightly vegetal, just the tiniest bit green. Finishes with a lipsticky quality, but creamy not powdery. From afar, it smells like it did in the bottle - sweet laundry, but with a proper sniff you get the separate elements making that up. The makeup sensation seems to get stronger as it warms.
Dried down on skin: Very much like Avon lipstick. My grandma was an Avon lady and had so much Avon cosmetics, and it really reminds me of her lipsticks. White floral with a creamy quality, but not lactonic. I've smelled this in other things, someone said it's giving crisco and that's almost exactly right. A smooth but sort of aggressively quality-less creaminess. There's something here that reads as very slightly lemon-ey to me, but it mostly just serves to keep it from being sugary sweet. The laundry smell is strong from afar, similar to bedsheet ghost but more floral and less "hot". This isn't just dried laundry it's a clean shirt you folded and put away the night before. But any closer inspection of the frag, a deep sniff, and it's a heady white floral with creamy elements.
Final thoughts: I usually don't like white florals, but I like this one! I wouldn't wear it all the time, it won't become a regular thing, but I do like it. It has a sense of nostalgia, and it really reminds me of scene kids for whatever reason, which I think is what she was going for. Does it Vampire Blood? (This is the part where I admit I layer everything with BBW's Vampire Blood bc I'm obsessed. This section of my reviews will denote if it can be layered with VB) Yes! I think the tangy fruity sweetness of VB calms some of the louder white florals, and it gives it maximum scene kid.
Asses Plus Long, Qu'un Siecle Platonique - BPAL

opal-gilded white rose petals, vanilla flower, and caramelized benzoin

Wet and in the bottle: Sharp, biting, headaching rose
Wet and just applied to skin: This is a true rose, leans more realistic than the kind of fantasy powder rose. It's a little peppery like fresh roses tend to be, a little astringent. Like floral in the most literal meaning of the word. Platonic ideal of a floral. Green, planty, smooth, peppery rose. Kind of arugula adjacent (this is how I feel about smelling most real roses).
Dried down on skin: I figured this would be pretty linear as a frag because of how almost solinote-ey it was for me for a good long while. It stays its perfect rose self, I can maybe get zome benzoin at the tail end, but it melds into the astringency of the rose to where it feels like it's mostly aiding in the solinote. But, after a good long while, like 3.5 hours, it becomes pure bitter zingy benzoin. Very very bitter. Like surprisingly bitter. I sniffed my wrist after a few hours to check on it and was like staggered a bit. Interesting touch, I feel like. Makes this kind of dark and spooky in a way.
Final thoughts: I like rose as an element often but I feel like this is too much rose. It's almost scary how much rose it is. I like it and I think it's well crafted and it's cool how realistic it is for me, but definitely not something I'll reach for often. I've been trying to give florals a fair shake recently, as for a long time I'd decided they were right out but for jasmine. And while this one didn't sell me on florals or rose as a whole, it made me think there's something more interesting there than I thought. Does it Vampire Blood? (This is the part where I admit I layer everything with BBW's Vampire Blood bc I'm obsessed. This section of my reviews will denote if it can be layered with VB) Yes! Makes it a bit more what I'm used to in terms of a rose. A kind of candied, fruity rose situation. More recognizable to me. I do think it gets weird with its endstage benzoin phase though.
We're Werewolves Not Swearwolves - S92

Ambroxan, trampled moss, soft tonka, boozy vanilla, smashed pumpkin, black coffee, acid-washed denim, wild grey musk

Wet and in the bottle: Dirty coffee, a bit of sweetness. Honestly not all that appealing in the bottle.
Wet and just applied to skin: Warm, delicious toasty coffee sweetened with damara sugar. Musk and something slightly salty make it read caramelled and also ground it. Amazing, almost smokey coffee gourmand here.
Dried down on skin: Becomes a spicy, salty coffee slush of sorts. So roasty toasty, but in a way that's super wearable. Doesn't smell like you just walked out of a coffee shop but rather than you ooze coffee, and it gets stuck in the threads of your lightly perfumed (choco musk perhaps) flannel. Smells like curling up to see the stars with a fancy starbucks coffee, the ones with the crunchy caramel bits on the top. So musky and addictive.
Final thoughts: Actually one of my new favorite frags, which is highly unfortunate because I have about half a slonk and don't feel comfortable ever ordering direct from S92. Will be looking for a fullsize in the swaps. I'm soso on coffee scents, I like them in theory but I think they're either very short lived or not gourmand enough for me, instead becoming a kind of interesting earthy note. But here it's all coffee ice cream type coffee but made round and full by some classical perfumey additions. Does it Vampire Blood? (This is the part where I admit I layer everything with BBW's Vampire Blood bc I'm obsessed. This section of my reviews will denote if it can be layered with VB) It's fine, not my favorite combination. They don't so much blend as sort of sit next to each other.
Boardwalk - S92

Coconut pulp, coconut milk, Coppertone, sand, sea breeze, driftwood, melted vanilla ice cream cone, sticky cotton candy

Wet and in the bottle: Very verbena-ey to me. That kind of smooth, almost creamy greenness. Touch of sunscreeney coconut, lots of sweetness. Reads like a fancy slushy summer drink.
Wet and just applied to skin: Much sweeter, coconut imparts a nice kind of nuttiness, very much like Coconut Lime Verbena from bath and body works, which I'm a fan of. Definitely has the sunscreen quality about it. I swear at the end of the sniff, it's exactly like fresh saltwater taffy. That kind of slight saltiness, nondairy creaminess. It reminds me of the blue ones in particular, which I think were blueberry but had a slight herbal quality about them. All of this comes together to really complete the "fancy, slurry summer drink" feeling.
Dried down on skin: This scent is pretty linear for its notes, it doesn't change much to me from the wet on skin phase. Maybe that taffy at the end becomes more the forefront. Not as coconuttey a drydown as I was hoping for.
Final thoughts: I like it, but I'm not a huge summer frag person these days. I think they tend to smell kind of samey to me unless they're doing something very specific. But it's very nice, very wearable, definitely sniffed myself a lot. I feel like it's missing something I'm wanting though, maybe just more coconut, or maybe it smelling like coconut lime verbena makes me want a limey note from it. Does it Vampire Blood? (This is the part where I admit I layer everything with BBW's Vampire Blood bc I'm obsessed. This section of my reviews will denote if it can be layered with VB) Yes! I love this combo bc VB reads very cotton candy to me, and I didn't really detect cotton candy in this frag, more just a general sweetness, and the VB helps to amp that.

Bit of an odd one this. I'll be as brief as possible.
Been at Tesco for about 2 weeks. Everything is really good. Nice people, very chilled atmosphere or so I thought. I've been bantering with someone about them having a bad back and been relating it to my bad shoulder. We've had a good laugh about falling apart as you get older. Last night my SL pulled me into the office for a "chat" shall we say. This chat was preceeded with an assurance I haven't done anything wrong. I know I haven't done anything wrong. Anyway, I was informed that my bantering had brought this individual to tears about their condition. Needless to say I was shocked. I was told that I need to tone it down as this person is very sensitive to what I'm saying. Bear in mind, I'm happy to take the piss out myself first and foremost. I stated all this. Its just who I am. I do have an awareness of how far you can push stuff with certain people and I thought myself and this person had a pretty good relationship. By that I mean they joked around about stuff as much as I do. Our humour is very similar. I was told by the SL, to watch my words and I really had to bite my tongue and take it. I was understanding yet shocked to be honest.
Fast forward 2 hours later, the individual in question comes up to me and says sorry. I respect that. They had no idea this would happen until after the SL came up to them and said that they had a quiet word and I believe them. They said they were like "oh for fuck sake." The person in question knew it was all jokes and even said that to them but this SL decided to step in for no reason and potentially cause a massive issue. Myself and the other person hugged it out after and its all good. They were more upset at me being pissed off and thinking they wanted to stich me up. I believe there was no malice.
I think though from all this after sharing the episode with a workmate who I know is sound as funk, he told me to not disclose anything to anyone. By that I mean, don't talk politics, personal life, like noting with anyone apart from the few who I will learn in time are. I already know who's sound but this took me off guard. Its like the woke/fun police in full effect. Is this common in other Tesco's around the UK? Thanks for reading my rant. Needed to get it off my chest after a few hours back home.
Edit: It makes sense now why no one talks in the break room.

"Not a single human being on this planet ever saw the universe."
Grand Arbiter Albert XLIII further declared, on their return 37 years after the last broadcast failed in the middle of explaining the secrets of the universe to us.
"What you are seeing is an image of the universe that your brain created to make sense of your surroundings. A mirage, an infinitely imperfect approximation. And there are roughly 8 Billion such approximations on this planet, not even counting non-human entities. We have observed you recently - debating wether the harmonic frequencies of light hitting the rods and cones of your eyes actually generate the same image of color in your brain for all of you equally, and you came to the conclusion that they might not. That everybodies version of "red" or "blue" might be ever so slightly, or completely different. We found it amusing that you aren't drawing the same conclusion to, well, everything else. Through the scientific method and communication accelerators like the Internet, your species managed to align big chunks of those "mirage universes" in your brains, but other areas not touched by the scientific method are left completely unexplored, and therefore to the imagination of the individual. Which lead to many "unfortunate misunderstandings" among you. But make no mistake, even after this global alignment of mirages, the universe inside your mind is still infinitely wrong in the grand scheme of things and unlike any other imagined universe of your peers. Your scientific method suggests the use of calibrated measurement devices that aren't biased by human error to gain knowledge of your surroundings. Which is brilliant, we might add. Your species came up with this kind of technology very early compared to similar lifeforms in other universes. You use these devices to create a "ground truth" from which you reference the rest of your conclusions and predictions. This enabled you to make predictions about the "real universe" you find yourself in, even with this fundamental error underlying your logic system. Either brilliant, or unfathomly lucky. It doesn't really matter. You can pat yourselves on the backs for that.
However, amusingly, you failed to find the crucial detail about the one fundamental, yet completely uncalibrated device at the bottom of everything - your brain - and the sensory organs as extensions of it. No single eye on this planet is the same, no nose, no ears, everything differs ever so slightly. Every brain is folded and twisted differently.
Therefore, what you are observing, and what your scientists are finding models for, is not the real universe. It is the image of this universe your brain creates for you, that makes sense to most of you and that most of your brains are able to understand and find agreement on. Nothing more, nothing less. Especially the intricacies that you are now finding in the infinitissimally small scales and the unfathomly large scales (you curiously still differentiate these two concepts, we observed) are the footprints that the architecture of your brain leaves on these mirage universes. You find numbers everywhere and turn everything into a more and more digital version of nature because the axons that are part of your neurons generate activation signals in a digital, all or nothing kind of way. This part of the brain is what you evolved to use for, among others, your logic systems. Your thinking is in large parts digital, so most of your logic is too. This has gone so far that some of you now think you are actually living in a computer simulation. In some regards, you do, but there is no cosmic entity that generated this simulation and put you in it. You are creating this simulation yourself, in your brain, as a means to maneuver your way around actual physical reality. Imagine having to memorize a picture, but your sensory input systems only allowed you to see one pixel at a time, chosen completely at random, without any reference as to where that pixel is located in the frame. So, you found chunking techniques, the help of your collective hive mind and ideas of particularly eccentric members of your society, to bit by bit close in on a mostly impossible task. But without a paradigm shift on your end, the entirety of the original picture will stay in the shadows of reality.
You created tools like algebra and geometry to circumvent the fact that your logic is mostly digital as a simulacrum of analog information, but for how remarkably useful it is for you to make predictions, it is to what is happening in the real world like what an abacus is to a personal computer. Sure, if you enter '1 + 1', in their own ways, both give you '2'. But one is the tip to the others impossibly large iceberg. It is a sensible abstraction. But it is nowhere close to being an accurate description of what is actually happening or in what ways it useful to you.
We don't want to discourage you by saying this. Your approach, even if it happened out of sheer luck, is brilliant. It really makes the best out of the limitations that you have by your sensory organs and the architecture of your brains. Once a few evolutionary steps later your brain can conceive of more complex logical patterns and images, you will get closer and closer to having an actual copy of the real universe in front of your minds eye. Through the scientific method, you are already optimizing for this. Again, given your species' age, you have developed such a technique incredibly quickly. But what you are doing is finding (very smart) workarounds over a fundamental error you all have in common.
My lifeform, which isn't too unlike yours, just much "older", has taken a different approach in its early stages. Our biggest thinkers found early on that the answers lie within. So for millenia, we focussed our exploration on finding our deepest and truest selves, once we started to move past basic survival instincts, that is. Only after many, many "quantum leaps" in the area of self discovery in the individual and the societal level, we started to artificially accelerate our communication, and overcome physical limitations through technology. It was a slower approach in the beginning, but once we got there, our intellectual growth was exponentially explosive. The time it took us to move from living in basic, mostly local communities that lived off the land - to bending our universe to our wills - was about the time between you writing your currently most popular spiritual fiction and landing on your planets moon for the first time. Note the actual durations might differ greatly, as the concept you call time is very different in our universe and we still haven't fully studied yours.
Anyways. After this event we call "universal reframing", everything else just... fell into place.
Our strategy basically was to, first, fully align our mental universes. And then to perform a depth search from a common starting point. You seemed to have rushed over a few of the crucial bits as soon as the first approach turned out to be useful. Actually, all of the bits but one. It must be a terribly confusing existence that you are living. We can only make an attempt to relate, as our evolutionary strand optimized for alignment before curiousity. That, you could say, was our dumb luck.
Are there any questions so far?"
There was a puzzling silence in an area packed with an amount of people that would normally be present at music festivals or presidential inaugurations. For an event of this magnitude, the stage was sparsely decorated and included only the necessities. Like last time, the visit was spontaneos and unannounced. Or maybe, like last time, we just didn't understand the announcement message, as it might have again came in the form of a formerly undiscovered particle, a seemingly arbitrary number of years prior to this event. They must think they are really funny.
One of the humans chosen as representative of the planet raised their hand.
"Please, speak. As always. Our 'time' is very limited."
"If I didn't misunderstand this: You said, our brains are basically creating what we call 'simulations' for ourselves, in our mind, to make sense of the actual universe we are in and base our actions on. Is this correct?"
"Based on the very crude definition your species has for the word 'correct' I would say 'yes, that is correct.'"
"And these simulations are getting closer and closer to the real deal, right? But what if, say, we didn't want the real deal. What if we liked our own personal pocket universes and instead wanted to bend that one to our own wills instead of the real one? You said we are bad at alignment and I would agree to the point where I say we probably go extinct to our own stupidity before we all agree on even one single thing. Can't we just use your knowledge to just, manifest things into our universe just by thinking about it, like in the movie Matrix, which might have crossed your desk while researching us. Great Movie."
"It did indeed. It is esteemed by my lifeform as what you would call 'slapstick comedy'. Since we moved past what constituted our form of entertainment, the media from your universe has become very popular among my peers. It is by sending samples back to our universe how we finance the probes we are sending here."
"You still have money?"
"I was making - what you call - a joke. Never heard of it in the context of a movie, but that title is immensely funny to me given the circumstances. Anyway, you wanted to know how to bend your 'simulated universe' around you. Alright. You might be slightly dissappointed by the beginning of my explanation, but listen till the end. And make of that what you will.
Let's start by what you mean by 'manifest' exactly. As the inaccuracy of your communication patterns shall not be a hindrance to this mentorship."
"Well... I imagine it. And then it sort of poofs into existence?"
"Understood. Actually, I will start explaning how you perform this action in the actual universe you are in, before I make the transfer to how you do it in the imagined one in your brain."
"Uh.. ok?"
"What would you like to be manifested?"
"I don't know. How about we go nice and easy with a cone of ice cream and start from there?"
"So be it. So, we start imagining the cone of ice cream. What does it consist off? Milk, sugar, eggs, and some smaller additions to suit your individuals taste buds. Let's begin with milk. You are getting it from cows (a practice my society finds quite alienating. We, too, have to get used to the wildly varying customs of lifeforms of the universes). Cows can be domesticated and bred, but first, we would have to overcome the physical distance between us, and a few locations on this planet. For that, I would advice designing and constructing a vehicle that is capa..."
"Oh come on, that's how we manifest things? We go and make them ourselves?? Oh wow, thanks a lot mister transcendant being. So the rest of the stuff you told us was also bullshit?"
"Please refrain from jumping to conclusions without the full picture in mind, even if it is in your existences nature to do so. Alright, so let me offer you a shortcut."
"Please do."
"I know of a location just a few human paces down this road, where you can exchange currency for a cone of ice cream."
"Seriously?"
"Yes."
"What the hell is the point of this?"
"The point is, once again: you - misunderstanding your existence. Especially in conjunction with your incredibly limited ability to verbalize concepts using your own vocabulary. You are barely at the point of being able to convey emotions in every day speech, and are now expecting to understand high level 4 dimensional concepts after just a few of your incredibly inaccurate words. Tell me now, please: What do you perceive as the difference of these two scenarios I just mentioned? In a temporal manner and in the energy required?"
"Well, it would be much easier and faster to just go down the road and buy a cone of ice cream, but that isn't tremendously astounding information to us, you have to understand."
"'Much'? Let's give this word, 'much', a bit of a frame of reference. The differences between these scenarios are: About 15000 years of agriculture and animal husbandry; countless inventions that led to your current state of technology which allows for refrigeration in a way advanced enough to get the ice cream to just the right texture that your modern palate is accustomed to; An education system that allows for such inventions to occur in time for you to be standing here, demanding ice cream, and actually getting it. Not mentioning the infrastructure that makes you bridge the physical distances of every single time any of these steps needed anything. And meanwhile destroying the naturally occuring resources of your planet bit by bit.
Or, scenario 2: You take the money that you got from staring at a computer screen for about 7 minutes, choose one of the ice cream parlors that your civilization made sure to be on average a 30 minutes driving distance from every single living human. (You aren't very good at even distributions though, we found.). And go and get that ice cream. Even including the infrastructural costs existing now, we have narrowed this process down from not even being close to a reality for thousands of generations to being at most 30 minutes away and dirt cheap, assuming an amount of efficient preparation, that is part of the technology that lead you here.
If you ask me, between scenario 1 and 2, you became so many orders of magnitude closer to 'poofing it into existence' that a human mind has troubles comprehending it. And therefore, appreciating it. From '0% of the human population has access to this within their lifetime and no one will for the next couple millenia' to 'Over half the human population has access to this within 30 minutes", taking into account the total timespan, the amount of events that had to occur and the amount of incremental learnings that had to accumulate, for this to happen even once for anybody, I believe the time and energy you have to exert to access your ice cream cone right now is a rounding error in the grand scheme of things. And you aren't even close to finishing your development as humans - if you manage to not kill yourself somehow.
You are constantly manifesting things into reality, the only issue is that you severely and heavily underestimate what it means 'to imagine a thing'.
Please allow my vanity, but this is an important lesson for the following part that you are, I'm afraid, more interested in. How to do that in your head. And potentially much faster. Well assuming thaXXXxxxx----.----."
"Oh wow, not again. Mighty convenient this always happens right when it gets interesting."
"First, you have to understand that.,.......... The limitations of spacetime that you perceive.... are not present in nature..... nature is infinitely 'dimensional', and in fact XXxxx.....----..--.-.- has no concept for infinity....-.-.--. it is a human made.....-.-.-.- model to describe a perfectly natural phenomenon you lack the words for at this time..._xxxx.xxx-x---.-.--.-zzzz."
"Come on, speak faster! The battery is dying again!"
" ...physical distance...S;.,.XXXxx...currently a big bottleneck for your progres...asd.döö,,,, is also a limitation of your cortex, not nature,.....-as.d.sa......the concept of an 'extent' only exists from certain frames of references..-.-..-.a.ss.a.as.... in others everything is....a.s-d.-.---.-..-xxxx on top of each other, overlapping each other in what you call 'time' AND 'space'"
"...XXXxsasad Listen."
"I am running out of time again humans. The Hopf Fibration. It is a great first step. But move away from your digital thinking. Treat your numbers. .aD;,aC:.x.cx.ac,.as,dca.s like your waves...CKLUJCJUCCLICK"
The broadcast stopped.
"I never know if these things make me smarter, or dumber. Sadly the alien is gone now so it can't tell me that there actually is no smart or dumb."

Good morning,
I'm looking for a someone to spend time with who has similar interests to me or is down to overshare about their interests while I listen attentively! i'm currently in eastern canada (ontario) and the only thing i ask of you is to be respectful :) i believe that the foundation for a good friendship, relationship, anything is respect. I'm half moroccan, half palestinian :)
Currently i'm planning a trip to australia in the summer, japan/kr in the spring of next year, so if you have any experience with these destinations or are planning trips of your own i'd love to chat!
I go to the gym 4-5 times a week, it's my way of justifying the amount of time i spend in front of the screen, currently im doing a PPL + arms split, so if you'd like to talk about anything gym related lmk! (i just got a ninja creami so ice cream recipes are in!!!)
In terms of games, i'm currently playing valorant, lost ark, tft, helldivers, and dabbling in some league solo q. i love to play ranked or play casually, so i'm more than happy to teach someone new or grind the ladder with someone.
I run my own business, so im very flexible and i'm around a lot when it comes to being online so I'm looking forward to chatting with someone and getting to know you better! (and trading pet pics if you have any). i dont mind connecting over discord, ig, or imsg so just let me know what works best for you. if you'd like a picture of me or the kitties feel free to ask in dms

DAY: MAY 31 2024
5-31-2024

RESEARCH SUGGESTS LEADERS’ SOCIAL MEDIA POSTS ARE TAKEN JUST AS SERIOUSLY AS FORMAL STATEMENTS

Over 180 world leaders maintain social media accounts, and some of them issue policy warnings to rivals and the public on these platforms rather than relying on traditional government statements. How seriously do people take such social media postings? A new study suggests the general public and policymakers alike take leaders’ social media posts just as seriously as they take formal government statements. The research, by MIT political scientists, deploys novel surveys of both the public and experienced foreign policy specialists. “What we find, which is really surprising, across both
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SCALE OF ONLINE HARM TO CHILDREN REVEALED IN GLOBAL STUDY

More than 300 million children a year are victims of online sexual exploitation and abuse, research indicates. Pupils in every classroom, in every school, in every country are victims of this hidden pandemic, according to researchers who have conducted the first global estimate of the scale of the crisis. The statistics, from the Childlight Global Child Safety Institute at the University of Edinburgh, amount to a clear and present danger to the world’s children, according to the crime agency Interpol. Online risks One in eight of the world’s children, about
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PRONATALISM IS THE LATEST SILICON VALLEY TREND. WHAT IS IT—AND WHY IS IT DISTURBING?

For Malcolm and Simone Collins, declining birth rates across many developed countries are an existential threat. The solution is to have “tons of kids,” and to use a hyperrational, data-driven approach to guide everything from genetic selection to baby names and day-to-day parenting. They don’t heat their Pennsylvania home in winter, because heating is a “pointless indulgence.” Their children wear iPads around their necks. And a Guardian journalist witnessed Malcolm strike their two-year-old across the face for misbehavior, a parenting style they apparently developed based on watching “tigers
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HOW SCIENCE, MATH, AND TECH CAN PROPEL SWIMMERS TO NEW HEIGHTS

One hundred years ago, in the 1924 Paris Olympics, American Johnny Weissmuller won the men’s 100m freestyle with a time of 59 seconds. Nearly 100 years later, in the most recent Olympics, the delayed 2020 Games in Tokyo, Caeleb Dressel took home the same event with a time that was 12 seconds faster than Weissmuller’s. Swimming times across the board have become much faster over the past century, a result of several factors, including innovations
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BANNING SEX CRIME OFFENDERS FROM CHANGING THEIR NAMES DOESN’T MAKE US SAFER

The government of British Columbia recently introduced a bill to ban people convicted of serious offenses from legally changing their name. The proposed amendment to the province’s Name Act would also prohibit those found not criminally responsible due to mental disorder from changing their name. The government announced the move after media reports that Allan Schoenborn legally changed his name to Ken Johnson. Schoenborn was found not criminally responsible for the deaths of his children in 2010 because of a delusional disorder, and was placed at a psychiatric hospital.
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SILICON VALLEY ISN’T THE START-UP UTOPIA WE THOUGHT, RESEARCH FINDS

Silicon Valley—considered the world’s hub of technology and innovation—can breed inequality and sameness among budding entrepreneurs, according to new research. Behind the multi-million-dollar deals and tales of start-up utopia, Silicon Valley’s “uneven” investment landscape is in fact a barrier to many budding businesses, says the study from the University of Stirling and Georg-August-University Göttingen. But the researchers suggest other countries could still learn from the more discerning entrepreneurial ecosystem that bred giants such as Apple and Google, to be more selective in backing start-ups. While it is not uncommon for
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I WANT TO KEEP MY CHILD SAFE FROM ABUSE—BUT RESEARCH TELLS ME I’M DOING IT WRONG

Child sexual abuse is uncomfortable to think about, much less talk about. The idea of an adult engaging in sexual behaviors with a child feels sickening. It’s easiest to believe that it rarely happens, and when it does, that it’s only to children whose parents aren’t protecting them. This belief stayed with me during my early days as a parent. I kept an eye out for creepy men at the playground and was skeptical of men who worked with young children, such as teachers and coaches. When my kids were
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OVER 300 MILLION YOUNG PEOPLE HAVE EXPERIENCED ONLINE SEXUAL ABUSE, EXPLOITATION, FINDS METASTUDY

It takes a lot to shock Kelvin Lay. My friend and colleague was responsible for setting up Africa’s first dedicated child exploitation and human trafficking units, and for many years he was a senior investigating officer for the Child Exploitation Online Protection Center at the UK’s National Crime Agency, specializing in extra territorial prosecutions on child exploitation across the globe. But what happened when he recently volunteered for a demonstration of cutting-edge identification software left him speechless. Within seconds of being fed with an image
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CYBERFLASHING IS A FORM OF GENDERED SEXUAL VIOLENCE THAT MUST BE TAKEN SERIOUSLY

Sexting—sending sexually suggestive or explicit messages and images—is now a widespread practice, and can be a healthy way to express and explore sexuality. However, there is a need to distinguish between consensual sexting and forms of sexual harassment like cyberflashing. Cyberflashing refers to the act of non-consensually sending sexual imagery (like nudes or “dick pics”) to another person. It is facilitated through communications technologies including text, AirDrop and social media applications like Snapchat and Tinder. Similar to flashing—when a person unexpectedly and deliberately “flashes” their genitals to others—that occurs in
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VIRTUAL TRAINING MAY BE AN EFFECTIVE, COST-EFFICIENT OPTION FOR CHILD EDUCATORS

Teachers and other child educators can benefit from regular professional development, but in-person training can be expensive. New research found that virtual training can be a budget-friendly alternative—and especially effective for certain groups of educators. The study—a collaboration between researchers at Penn State and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and published in the International Journal of Professional Development, Learners and Learning—found that educators who took a virtual training reported feeling more confident in their abilities to implement practices shown to support positive youth development. In particular, after-school providers who did not
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HUMBLE LEADERS BOOST EMPLOYEES’ WORKPLACE STATUS AND LEADERSHIP POTENTIAL, FINDS STUDY

There are many different types of workplace leaders, from those who prioritize the needs of team members and the organization above their own, to authentic leaders who foster openness, trust and transparency. A recent study by the University of South Australia published in the Journal of Organizational Behavior has highlighted the significant benefits of humble leadership in the workplace. According to the study by UniSA’s Dr. Xiao Lin, humble leadership can effectively elevate the workplace status of employees by boosting their sense of respect and prominence. It also leads to
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WHY ARE GROCERY BILLS SO HIGH? A NEW STUDY LOOKS AT THE SCIENCE BEHIND FOOD PRICE REPORTING

Rising food costs are squeezing Canadians around the country. Nearly everyone is feeling the pinch, and it’s not just an inconvenience—high food prices are a major threat to food security for many Canadians. Understanding why food prices are so high and why they are changing is critical to the well-being of our society. Unfortunately, consensus on why food price are so high is in short supply. Explanations given in reports like Canada’s Food Price Report and the news media range widely, from the war in Ukraine to supply chain issues
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WILL GENERATIVE AI CHANGE THE WAY UNIVERSITIES COMMUNICATE?

Is artificial intelligence an unprecedented opportunity, or will it rob everyone of jobs and creativity? As we debate on social media (and perhaps use ChatGPT almost daily), generative AIs have also entered the arena of university communication. These tools—based on large language models that were optimized for interactive communication—can indeed support, expand, and innovate university communication offerings. Justus Henke has analyzed the situation of German realities about six months after the launch of ChatGPT 3. “The research was conducted about a year ago when enthusiasm was high, but it was
5-31-2024

STUDY SHOWS RELATIVELY LOW NUMBER OF SUPERSPREADERS RESPONSIBLE FOR LARGE PORTION OF MISINFORMATION ON TWITTER

Classification of superspreader accounts. A large portion (55.1%) of accounts are no longer active. For each class annotated with political affiliations, colors indicate the ideological split. The last group aggregates all accounts with political affiliations. Credit: PLOS ONE (2024). DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0302201 A small team of social media analysts at Indiana University has found that a major portion of tweets spreading disinformation are sent by a surprisingly small percentage of a given userbase. In their study, published in PLOS ONE, the group conducted a review of 2,397,388 tweets posted on Twitter
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HOW LIFE’S BIG MOMENTS CAN CHALLENGE STARTUPS

Life-changing events like the birth of a child, the purchase of a new home, or a lottery win could threaten the survival of a new business venture, the positive family events had a comparatively greater influence, albeit negatively, on the survival of a new venture, compared with
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RUDE AT WORK? FEELING GUILTY CAN MAKE YOU A BETTER, KINDER WORKER

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RESEARCHERS INTRODUCE A PLANETARY INCLUSION SCALE TO FOSTER BROADER ETHICAL THINKING

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‘LEAN IN’ MESSAGES CAN LOWER WOMEN’S MOTIVATION TO PROTEST GENDER INEQUALITY

Women in leadership are often told to “Lean In,” designed to be motivational messaging demonstrating that they are more confident, strategic and resilient to setback. However, new research indicates that such “lean in” messaging can hinder women’s motivation to protest gender equality. Popularized in a book by American technology executive Sherly Sandberg, the “Lean In” solution to gender inequality advises women that demonstrating personal resilience and perseverance in the face of setbacks is key to career advancement. Now, a new study led by the University of Exeter, Bath Spa University
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ALGORITHMS COULD HELP IMPROVE JUDICIAL DECISIONS

A new paper in the Quarterly Journal of Economics finds that replacing certain judicial decision-making functions with algorithms could improve outcomes for defendants by eliminating some of the systemic biases of judges. Decision makers make consequential choices based on predictions of unknown outcomes. Judges, in particular, make decisions about whether to grant bail to defendants or how to sentence those convicted. Companies now use machine learning based models increasingly in high-stakes decisions. There are various assumptions about human behavior underlying the deployment of such learning models that play out in
5-31-2024

DIGITAL CAMPAIGNING IS A HUGE PART OF ELECTIONS NOW—BUT GOING VIRAL ISN’T EVERYTHING

The election has commenced and the race is on—to amass as many likes, shares and comments as possible. Digital campaigning, particularly through social media, is now a key part of political candidates’ communication toolkit. In fact, every general election campaign since 1997 has at some point been lauded as the first to make effective use of digital campaigning. But it was in 2015 that David Cameron’s campaign first made strategic use of social media to drive an election victory. As political reporter Tim Ross outlines in his excellent book, Why
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WHY ARE ORGANIZATIONAL COVER-UPS SO COMMON?

The TV dramatization of the UK Horizon Post Office scandal evoked outrage and disbelief. However, as another example of dysfunctional organizational behavior, it was expected rather than exceptional. The Post Office saga joins a long list of cover-ups or scandals that includes Hillsborough, Enron, Grenfell, the infected blood scandal, the Tuam babies scandal in the Republic of Ireland, Boeing 737 Max and Nasa (Columbia space shuttle). They represent what happens when there is a move within organizations and institutions to cover up the causes of
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AMONG GEN Z AUSTRALIANS, 38% IDENTIFY AS SPIRITUAL AND HALF BELIEVE IN KARMA. WHY IS SPIRITUALITY SO POPULAR?

Spirituality is increasingly popular with young Australians: recent research shows 38% of Gen Z Australians identify as spiritual. It also reports 50% of them believe in karma, 29% in reincarnation and 20% in astrology. When it comes to activities equated with spirituality, 28% of Gen Z Australians practice meditation and 22% practice yoga. In Australia, spirituality is strongly, enduringly central to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, and culturally and religiously diverse communities. Yet until recently, spirituality has received far less attention than religion. Spirituality may be
5-31-2024

COMPANIES CAN IMPROVE THE SUSTAINABILITY OF THEIR PRODUCTS IN THE EARLIEST PRODUCT-DESIGN STAGES

An interdisciplinary team of researchers from Lithuanian and Italian universities propose a tool that allows companies to assess the circularity of their future products. The self-assessment tool emphasizes the co-creation of circular design in the early (creative) stages of product development, encouraging entrepreneurs and designers to think more systematically and collaborate better by integrating related stakeholders into the product development process. The study is published in the Journal of Industrial Ecology. “The majority of existing practical tools (systems of indicators) are aimed at measuring the environmental impact of products already
5-31-2024

RESEARCH EXAMINES HOW RECREATIONAL MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION AFFECTS A STATE’S COLLEGE ENROLLMENT

New research has revealed up to a 9% increase in college first-year enrollments in US states that have legalized recreational marijuana compared with states without such legalization. The study, which is published in Economic Inquiry, found that the increase was from out-of-state enrollments, with early adopter states and public non-research institutions experiencing the most pronounced increases. Recreational marijuana legalization did not negatively impact degree completion or graduation rate, and it did not affect college prices, quality, or in?state enrollment. The findings suggest that some students perceive recreational marijuana legalization as
5-31-2024

RESEARCH EXAMINES HOW RECREATIONAL MARIJUANA LEGALIZATION AFFECTS A STATE’S COLLEGE ENROLLMENT

New research has revealed up to a 9% increase in college first-year enrollments in US states that have legalized recreational marijuana compared with states without such legalization. The study, which is published in Economic Inquiry, found that the increase was from out-of-state enrollments, with early adopter states and public non-research institutions experiencing the most pronounced increases. Recreational marijuana legalization did not negatively impact degree completion or graduation rate, and it did not affect college prices, quality, or in?state enrollment. The findings suggest that some students perceive recreational marijuana legalization as
5-31-2024

HOW THE ‘MODEL MINORITY’ MYTH HARMS ASIAN AMERICANS

May is Asian and Pacific American Heritage Month, a time when Americans celebrate the profound contributions of Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders—a group that is commonly abbreviated as AAPI—to U.S. society. It’s also a time to acknowledge the complexity of AAPI experience. And as a professor who studies equity and inclusion in business, I think the focus on AAPI communities this month provides an excellent occasion to push back against a stereotype that has long misrepresented and marginalized a diverse range of people: the myth of the “model minority.” The
5-31-2024

WONDERING HOW TO TEACH YOUR KIDS ABOUT CONSENT? HERE’S AN AGE-BASED GUIDE TO GET YOU STARTED

The Australian government’s new campaign Consent Can’t Wait challenges us all to improve our understanding of consent. It asks a series of questions to illustrate this issue is more complex than simplistic “no means no” messaging. The campaign invites viewers to consider the nuances of consent, so we can raise these important issues with children and young people in our lives. But what is a good age to start talking about consent? How do parents tackle such conversations when this information probably wasn’t readily discussed in our own upbringing? How
5-31-2024

A PRODUCT OF NATURE OR NURTURE?

The concept of cultural entrepreneurship has many facets. It encompasses both the cultural and social impact of entrepreneurial training, and the environmental factors that influence its development. Some societies, such as the U.S., have a strong entrepreneurial culture. This means that certain characteristics are celebrated and encouraged, such as the ability of individuals to assume risks, patience when confronting challenges, and innovative problem solving, especially in uncertain situations. However, not all countries have such an entrepreneurial culture. Entrepreneurship struggles to take off in Europe In general, entrepreneurship can drive economic
5-31-2024

STUDY BRIDGES ANIMAL BEHAVIOR RESEARCH AND COMPUTER CODING TO ENGAGE CHILDREN IN STEM

A graphic depicting a student coding. Credit: Carnegie Mellon University Teachers today face a bit of a conundrum, according to a new study from researchers at Carnegie Mellon University and the Rochester Institute of Technology. Their goal is to prepare young students to enter a rapidly changing world. Even basic jobs require technical proficiency, which requires computational and analytical skills. To address this need, many educators are pushing to fold these important STEM skills into elementary curriculum. Here’s the problem. Young students can lose interest and even develop an aversion
5-31-2024

STUDY SHOWS VR CAN HELP TEACHERS BETTER DISTRIBUTE THEIR GAZE

On the left, a bird’s-eye view of the virtual classroom; on the right, screenshots of each of the four gaze-visualization conditions. Teachers need to know their material, but they must also keep their students engaged and interested. Part of that involves making eye contact with their students—all of them. A multidisciplinary team of researchers tested several methods of data visualization in an immersive virtual reality (VR) classroom, to give teachers a way to gauge
5-31-2024

MARKETERS CAN MANAGE ‘FEATURE CREEP’ SO CONSUMERS FEEL LESS INTIMIDATED BY TOO MANY FEATURES IN A PRODUCT

Wifi-enabled washing machines. Voice-controlled microwaves. App-enabled TVs, vacuum cleaners, and even window blinds you can control from the comfort of your couch. Many of the technological features now included in everyday products are useful and accessible. But research has shown that having too many can overwhelm potential buyers, making them less likely to make a purchase. In recent research, Wayne Hoyer, marketing professor and James L. Bayless/William S. Farrish Fund Chair for Free Enterprise at Texas McCombs, digs into the phenomenon of “feature creep” and its impact on consumer sentiment.
5-31-2024

RESEARCHERS EXPLAIN SOCIAL MEDIA’S ROLE IN RAPIDLY SHIFTING SOCIAL NORMS ON GENDER AND SEXUALITY

A new paper summarizing decades of research demonstrates how social media has supported an explosion of diversity in gender and sexuality in America during the 21st century, and also how these technologies have equally enabled a cultural backlash. The paper’s authors, UC Santa Cruz Psychology Department faculty members Phil Hammack and Adriana Manago, identified five main narratives about gender and sexuality that they believe emerged through social media as people have strived to be “authentic” on these platforms. The findings, along with resulting recommendations for psychology researchers and practitioners, were
5-31-2024

KEY FACTORS IN TRAINING ASSESSORS FOR ENHANCED PERFORMANCE RATINGS

New research is examining how organizations can improve their training programs by customizing frame-of-reference training to emphasize identifying negative behaviors critical to their goals. While assessors naturally identify positive behaviors, C. Allen Gorman, Ph.D., associate professor in UAB’s Department of Management, Information Systems and Quantitative Methods, says targeted training helps them recognize harmful actions that can hinder organizational objectives. Involving assessors in defining important performance dimensions and examples of behaviors, both good and
5-31-2024

STUDIES CHALLENGE WIDELY HELD BELIEFS ON APPLICANT DIVERSITY AND WOMEN IN THE WORKPLACE

Justin Frake is interested in cause-and-effect relationships in real-world data and the hidden dynamics that shape workplace behavior and equality—or inequality, as the case might be. His curiosity has led to research that challenges some popular beliefs as well as published studies related to women in the workforce. One study shows that firms promoting flatter hierarchies inadvertently discourage female applicants and another study counters several recent studies that claim women CEOs negatively impact career outcomes of other women. Both are published in the Strategic Management Journal. The assistant professor of
5-31-2024

CHALLENGING LEWIN’S MOTIVATIONAL CONFLICTS THEORY

A recent series of experiments challenges the longstanding theory of motivational conflict resolution introduced by Kurt Lewin. According to Lewin, conflicts between two undesirable outcomes (avoidance–avoidance conflicts) are typically harder to resolve than those between two desirable ones (approach–approach conflicts). Lewin posited that avoidance–avoidance conflicts, where individuals must choose between two undesirable outcomes, are typically more challenging to resolve compared to approach–approach conflicts, which involve choosing between two desirable options.
5-31-2024

MEN WITH ‘TOXIC MASCULINITY’ ARE MORE LIKELY TO MAKE SEXUAL ADVANCES WITHOUT CONSENT, STUDY FINDS

No means no when it comes to sex. But what happens when a woman makes a more passive response to a sexual advance? According to new research from Binghamton University, men differ in how they interpret these types of responses, and men who display hostile masculinity, known commonly as “toxic masculinity,” tend to act on them regardless of whether or not they think it’s consensual. A team of researchers, including Binghamton psychology professor Richard Mattson and graduate student Michael Shaw asked men between the ages of 18–25 to respond to
5-31-2024

WHY WE DEHUMANIZE OUR POLITICAL OPPONENTS

Some of human history’s greatest atrocities—genocide, slavery, ethnic cleanings—are rooted in our ability to dehumanize people from other social, political, or cultural groups. Whereas prior research has traced dehumanization to the belief that others think or feel less than we do, new research co-authored by Haas professor Sameer Srivastava shows that our tendency to dehumanize can also be influenced by how we think others view important facets of the world. The greater the difference between our perceptions of an outgroup’s worldview
5-31-2024

STUDY SUGGESTS CHILDREN ARE OFTEN EXPOSED TO PROBLEMATIC CLICK BAIT DURING YOUTUBE SEARCHES

When a child peruses YouTube, the content recommended to them is not always age appropriate, a new study suggests. Researchers mimicked search behaviors of children using popular search terms, such as memes, Minecraft and Fortnite, and captured video thumbnails recommended at the end of each video. Among the 2,880 thumbnails analyzed, many contained problematic click bait, such as violence or frightening images, according to the Michigan Medicine led research in JAMA Network Open. “Children spend a significant amount of time on free video sharing platforms that include user-generated content,” said
5-31-2024

STUDY FINDS WOMEN ARE VULNERABLE IN POST-WAR PEACE PROCESSES

Post-war peace processes are a dangerous period for women. Many are forced to live close to men who committed serious abuse during the war or are expected to testify in various types of truth commissions, which can be both retraumatizing and stigmatizing. These are the findings of a new study by peace researchers at Uppsala University, published in the journal PLOS ONE. “In short, peace projects can force women to live side by side with ex-combatants who committed atrocities during the war. This puts them at risk of further threat
5-31-2024

HOW EMBRACING THE CRINGE CAN HELP YOUR DATING LIFE

We can all agree that dating is hard. Getting to know people can feel vulnerable, but at the same time, exciting. We can also agree that feeling rejected can be one of the worst feelings, especially after we put ourselves out there. Dating can also expose us to a lot of cringey things, maybe even something we didn’t know we’d consider cringey. Think of cringe like something that makes you uncomfortable, or something about someone else that you don’t find attractive. Before dating, most of us consider what we’re looking
5-31-2024

PERSONAL CONNECTIONS AT WORK POSITIVELY IMPACT RETENTION AND MENTAL HEALTH, SAYS REPORT

New survey results from Wiley suggest people still feel connected at work despite the prevalence of hybrid and remote work environments and the rise of artificial intelligence (AI). According to the latest Wiley Workplace Intelligence report, “Human Connection: The Crucial Secret to Thriving in the Digital Age,” nearly 8 in 10 employees surveyed (78%) said they feel connected with their coworkers, and almost 7 in 10 (69%) said they also enjoy making connections with their colleagues. Around half even said they want to learn more about their coworkers by doing
5-31-2024

RESEARCHER DEVELOPS MODEL OF INFLUENCER IMPORTANCE WITHIN INSTAGRAM NETWORKS

A study has provided new insights into social media influencers, particularly focusing on those in the women’s fashion sector on the well-known image and video sharing platform Instagram. In a departure from the approach taken by earlier studies, Jens K. Perret of the International School of Management in Cologne, Germany, has used network statistics and centrality measures to establish a model of influencer importance within their network. Perret analyzed data from 255 influencers covering a four-year period. Influencers are loosely
5-31-2024

MOST PEOPLE TRUST ACCURATE SEARCH RESULTS WHEN THE STAKES ARE HIGH, STUDY FINDS

Rank (X-axis) does not affect the evaluation of trustworthiness (Y-axis, mean-centered) of accurate results. This lack of relationship is robust across experiments (columns) and for clicked results (top row, red) as well as non-clicked results (bottom row, blue). The trend lines represent the predicted change in trustworthiness ratings per unit decrease in rank fitted by the linear regression models. Credit: Scientific Reports (2024). DOI: 10.1038/s41598-024-61645-8 Using experiments with COVID-19 related queries, Cornell sociology and information science researchers found that in a public health emergency, most people pick out and click
5-31-2024

MISLEADING COVID-19 HEADLINES FROM MAINSTREAM SOURCES DID MORE HARM ON FACEBOOK THAN FAKE NEWS, STUDY FINDS

Despite the greater potency of “fake news” on Facebook to discourage Americans from taking the COVID-19 vaccine, users’ greater exposure to unflagged, vaccine-skeptical content meant the latter had a much greater negative effect on vaccine uptake. Credit: Jennifer Allen, Duncan Watts, David G. Rand Since the rollout of the COVID-19 vaccine in 2021, fake news on social media has been widely blamed for low vaccine uptake in the United States—but research by MIT Sloan School of Management Ph.D. candidate Jennifer Allen and Professor David Rand finds that the blame lies
5-31-2024

CRITICAL DIALOGUE HELPS STRAIGHT MEN CONFRONT SEXIST, HOMOPHOBIC BELIEFS

Adult heterosexual men with sexist and homophobic views can potentially improve their attitudes toward gay men and women by engaging in critical dialogues that use illustrations as a springboard, according to a new University of Michigan study. The work is published in the journal Sexual and Gender Diversity in Social Services. The process by which people shift from a prejudicial stance to one of relative acceptance is a key innovation of the study. Guided by trained facilitators, critical dialogues reflect illustrations depicting different gender roles and sexual identities. The images
5-31-2024

RELIEVING A FEAR OF PUBLIC SPEAKING

If you dread public speaking you are not alone. It is a leading social phobia, one that can cause a state of anxiety that reduces otherwise articulate people to nervous incoherence. A strong fear of public speaking is known as glossophobia. Academic studies estimate it affects 20% of the population, but depending on the sample and methodology, the figure could be as high as 40%. As American writer and humourist Mark Twain said, “There are two types of speakers: Those who get nervous and those who are liars.” But help
5-31-2024

HOW SOME PRIVATE COMPANIES ARE MARKETING TECH AND AI SOLUTIONS

How do universities and colleges decide who to admit? Given the earnings advantage of a post-secondary degree both globally and in Canada, this is an important social mobility question. While the answer varies from one institution to the next, most focus on education criteria like exam scores and grades. However, Canada’s new intake cap on study permit applications puts increased pressure on Canadian institutions to also consider immigration criteria when admitting international undergraduate students. This is just the latest example of immigration’s growing influence on the societal roles of Canadian

"Not a single human being on this planet ever saw the universe."
Grand Arbiter Albert XLIII further declared, on their return 37 years after the last broadcast failed in the middle of explaining the secrets of the universe to us.
"What you are seeing is an image of the universe that your brain created to make sense of your surroundings. A mirage, an infinitely imperfect approximation. And there are roughly 8 Billion such approximations on this planet, not even counting non-human entities. We have observed you recently - debating wether the harmonic frequencies of light hitting the rods and cones of your eyes actually generate the same image of color in your brain for all of you equally, and you came to the conclusion that they might not. That everybodies version of "red" or "blue" might be ever so slightly, or completely different. We found it amusing that you aren't drawing the same conclusion to, well, everything else. Through the scientific method and communication accelerators like the Internet, your species managed to align big chunks of those "mirage universes" in your brains, but other areas not touched by the scientific method are left completely unexplored, and therefore to the imagination of the individual. Which lead to many "unfortunate misunderstandings" among you. But make no mistake, even after this global alignment of mirages, the universe inside your mind is still infinitely wrong in the grand scheme of things and unlike any other imagined universe of your peers. Your scientific method suggests the use of calibrated measurement devices that aren't biased by human error to gain knowledge of your surroundings. Which is brilliant, we might add. Your species came up with this kind of technology very early compared to similar lifeforms in other universes. You use these devices to create a "ground truth" from which you reference the rest of your conclusions and predictions. This enabled you to make predictions about the "real universe" you find yourself in, even with this fundamental error underlying your logic system. Either brilliant, or unfathomly lucky. It doesn't really matter. You can pat yourselves on the backs for that.
However, amusingly, you failed to find the crucial detail about the one fundamental, yet completely uncalibrated device at the bottom of everything - your brain - and the sensory organs as extensions of it. No single eye on this planet is the same, no nose, no ears, everything differs ever so slightly. Every brain is folded and twisted differently.
Therefore, what you are observing, and what your scientists are finding models for, is not the real universe. It is the image of this universe your brain creates for you, that makes sense to most of you and that most of your brains are able to understand and find agreement on. Nothing more, nothing less. Especially the intricacies that you are now finding in the infinitissimally small scales and the unfathomly large scales (you curiously still differentiate these two concepts, we observed) are the footprints that the architecture of your brain leaves on these mirage universes. You find numbers everywhere and turn everything into a more and more digital version of nature because the axons that are part of your neurons generate activation signals in a digital, all or nothing kind of way. This part of the brain is what you evolved to use for, among others, your logic systems. Your thinking is in large parts digital, so most of your logic is too. This has gone so far that some of you now think you are actually living in a computer simulation. In some regards, you do, but there is no cosmic entity that generated this simulation and put you in it. You are creating this simulation yourself, in your brain, as a means to maneuver your way around actual physical reality. Imagine having to memorize a picture, but your sensory input systems only allowed you to see one pixel at a time, chosen completely at random, without any reference as to where that pixel is located in the frame. So, you found chunking techniques, the help of your collective hive mind and ideas of particularly eccentric members of your society, to bit by bit close in on a mostly impossible task. But without a paradigm shift on your end, the entirety of the original picture will stay in the shadows of reality.
You created tools like algebra and geometry to circumvent the fact that your logic is mostly digital as a simulacrum of analog information, but for how remarkably useful it is for you to make predictions, it is to what is happening in the real world like what an abacus is to a personal computer. Sure, if you enter '1 + 1', in their own ways, both give you '2'. But one is the tip to the others impossibly large iceberg. It is a sensible abstraction. But it is nowhere close to being an accurate description of what is actually happening or in what ways it useful to you.
We don't want to discourage you by saying this. Your approach, even if it happened out of sheer luck, is brilliant. It really makes the best out of the limitations that you have by your sensory organs and the architecture of your brains. Once a few evolutionary steps later your brain can conceive of more complex logical patterns and images, you will get closer and closer to having an actual copy of the real universe in front of your minds eye. Through the scientific method, you are already optimizing for this. Again, given your species' age, you have developed such a technique incredibly quickly. But what you are doing is finding (very smart) workarounds over a fundamental error you all have in common.
My lifeform, which isn't too unlike yours, just much "older", has taken a different approach in its early stages. Our biggest thinkers found early on that the answers lie within. So for millenia, we focussed our exploration on finding our deepest and truest selves, once we started to move past basic survival instincts, that is. Only after many, many "quantum leaps" in the area of self discovery in the individual and the societal level, we started to artificially accelerate our communication, and overcome physical limitations through technology. It was a slower approach in the beginning, but once we got there, our intellectual growth was exponentially explosive. The time it took us to move from living in basic, mostly local communities that lived off the land - to bending our universe to our wills - was about the time between you writing your currently most popular spiritual fiction and landing on your planets moon for the first time. Note the actual durations might differ greatly, as the concept you call time is very different in our universe and we still haven't fully studied yours.
Anyways. After this event we call "universal reframing", everything else just... fell into place.
Our strategy basically was to, first, fully align our mental universes. And then to perform a depth search from a common starting point. You seemed to have rushed over a few of the crucial bits as soon as the first approach turned out to be useful. Actually, all of the bits but one. It must be a terribly confusing existence that you are living. We can only make an attempt to relate, as our evolutionary strand optimized for alignment before curiousity. That, you could say, was our dumb luck.
Are there any questions so far?"
There was a puzzling silence in an area packed with an amount of people that would normally be present at music festivals or presidential inaugurations. For an event of this magnitude, the stage was sparsely decorated and included only the necessities. Like last time, the visit was spontaneos and unannounced. Or maybe, like last time, we just didn't understand the announcement message, as it might have again came in the form of a formerly undiscovered particle, a seemingly arbitrary number of years prior to this event. They must think they are really funny.
One of the humans chosen as representative of the planet raised their hand.
"Please, speak. As always. Our 'time' is very limited."
"If I didn't misunderstand this: You said, our brains are basically creating what we call 'simulations' for ourselves, in our mind, to make sense of the actual universe we are in and base our actions on. Is this correct?"
"Based on the very crude definition your species has for the word 'correct' I would say 'yes, that is correct.'"
"And these simulations are getting closer and closer to the real deal, right? But what if, say, we didn't want the real deal. What if we liked our own personal pocket universes and instead wanted to bend that one to our own wills instead of the real one? You said we are bad at alignment and I would agree to the point where I say we probably go extinct to our own stupidity before we all agree on even one single thing. Can't we just use your knowledge to just, manifest things into our universe just by thinking about it, like in the movie Matrix, which might have crossed your desk while researching us. Great Movie."
"It did indeed. It is esteemed by my lifeform as what you would call 'slapstick comedy'. Since we moved past what constituted our form of entertainment, the media from your universe has become very popular among my peers. It is by sending samples back to our universe how we finance the probes we are sending here."
"You still have money?"
"I was making - what you call - a joke. Never heard of it in the context of a movie, but that title is immensely funny to me given the circumstances. Anyway, you wanted to know how to bend your 'simulated universe' around you. Alright. You might be slightly dissappointed by the beginning of my explanation, but listen till the end. And make of that what you will.
Let's start by what you mean by 'manifest' exactly. As the inaccuracy of your communication patterns shall not be a hindrance to this mentorship."
"Well... I imagine it. And then it sort of poofs into existence?"
"Understood. Actually, I will start explaning how you perform this action in the actual universe you are in, before I make the transfer to how you do it in the imagined one in your brain."
"Uh.. ok?"
"What would you like to be manifested?"
"I don't know. How about we go nice and easy with a cone of ice cream and start from there?"
"So be it. So, we start imagining the cone of ice cream. What does it consist off? Milk, sugar, eggs, and some smaller additions to suit your individuals taste buds. Let's begin with milk. You are getting it from cows (a practice my society finds quite alienating. We, too, have to get used to the wildly varying customs of lifeforms of the universes). Cows can be domesticated and bred, but first, we would have to overcome the physical distance between us, and a few locations on this planet. For that, I would advice designing and constructing a vehicle that is capa..."
"Oh come on, that's how we manifest things? We go and make them ourselves?? Oh wow, thanks a lot mister transcendant being. So the rest of the stuff you told us was also bullshit?"
"Please refrain from jumping to conclusions without the full picture in mind, even if it is in your existences nature to do so. Alright, so let me offer you a shortcut."
"Please do."
"I know of a location just a few human paces down this road, where you can exchange currency for a cone of ice cream."
"Seriously?"
"Yes."
"What the hell is the point of this?"
"The point is, once again: you - misunderstanding your existence. Especially in conjunction with your incredibly limited ability to verbalize concepts using your own vocabulary. You are barely at the point of being able to convey emotions in every day speech, and are now expecting to understand high level 4 dimensional concepts after just a few of your incredibly inaccurate words. Tell me now, please: What do you perceive as the difference of these two scenarios I just mentioned? In a temporal manner and in the energy required?"
"Well, it would be much easier and faster to just go down the road and buy a cone of ice cream, but that isn't tremendously astounding information to us, you have to understand."
"'Much'? Let's give this word, 'much', a bit of a frame of reference. The differences between these scenarios are: About 15000 years of agriculture and animal husbandry; countless inventions that led to your current state of technology which allows for refrigeration in a way advanced enough to get the ice cream to just the right texture that your modern palate is accustomed to; An education system that allows for such inventions to occur in time for you to be standing here, demanding ice cream, and actually getting it. Not mentioning the infrastructure that makes you bridge the physical distances of every single time any of these steps needed anything. And meanwhile destroying the naturally occuring resources of your planet bit by bit.
Or, scenario 2: You take the money that you got from staring at a computer screen for about 7 minutes, choose one of the ice cream parlors that your civilization made sure to be on average a 30 minutes driving distance from every single living human. (You aren't very good at even distributions though, we found.). And go and get that ice cream. Even including the infrastructural costs existing now, we have narrowed this process down from not even being close to a reality for thousands of generations to being at most 30 minutes away and dirt cheap, assuming an amount of efficient preparation, that is part of the technology that lead you here.
If you ask me, between scenario 1 and 2, you became so many orders of magnitude closer to 'poofing it into existence' that a human mind has troubles comprehending it. And therefore, appreciating it. From '0% of the human population has access to this within their lifetime and no one will for the next couple millenia' to 'Over half the human population has access to this within 30 minutes", taking into account the total timespan, the amount of events that had to occur and the amount of incremental learnings that had to accumulate, for this to happen even once for anybody, I believe the time and energy you have to exert to access your ice cream cone right now is a rounding error in the grand scheme of things. And you aren't even close to finishing your development as humans - if you manage to not kill yourself somehow.
You are constantly manifesting things into reality, the only issue is that you severely and heavily underestimate what it means 'to imagine a thing'.
Please allow my vanity, but this is an important lesson for the following part that you are, I'm afraid, more interested in. How to do that in your head. And potentially much faster. Well assuming thaXXXxxxx----.----."
"Oh wow, not again. Mighty convenient this always happens right when it gets interesting."
"First, you have to understand that.,.......... The limitations of spacetime that you perceive.... are not present in nature..... nature is infinitely 'dimensional', and in fact XXxxx.....----..--.-.- has no concept for infinity....-.-.--. it is a human made.....-.-.-.- model to describe a perfectly natural phenomenon you lack the words for at this time..._xxxx.xxx-x---.-.--.-zzzz."
"Come on, speak faster! The battery is dying again!"
" ...physical distance...S;.,.XXXxx...currently a big bottleneck for your progres...asd.döö,,,, is also a limitation of your cortex, not nature,.....-as.d.sa......the concept of an 'extent' only exists from certain frames of references..-.-..-.a.ss.a.as.... in others everything is....a.s-d.-.---.-..-xxxx on top of each other, overlapping each other in what you call 'time' AND 'space'"
"...XXXxsasad Listen."
"I am running out of time again humans. The Hopf Fibration. It is a great first step. But move away from your digital thinking. Treat your numbers. .aD;,aC:.x.cx.ac,.as,dca.s like your waves...CKLUJCJUCCLICK"
The broadcast stopped.
"I never know if these things make me smarter, or dumber. Sadly the alien is gone now so it can't tell me that there actually is no smart or dumb."

Mr. Cruel is the moniker for an unidentified Australian serial child rapist who terrorized Melbourne, Australia during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Here are the key details about this disturbing case:

• Years Active: Mr. Cruel operated between 1987 and 1990, during which he carried out three confirmed attacks.
• Suspected Murder: He is also the prime suspect in the abduction and murder of a fourth girl named Karmein Chan in 1991.
• Modus Operandi: Mr. Cruel meticulously planned each attack, conducted surveillance on victims and their families, left no forensic traces, and covered his face at all times. He even left red herrings to divert attention from his identity.
• Confirmed Attacks:
  1. Lower Plenty (1987): Armed with a knife and a handgun, he broke into a family home, tied up the parents, and raped an 11-year-old girl.
  2. Ringwood (1988): He abducted a 10-year-old girl after breaking into her home, leaving her bound and gagged. She was released eighteen hours later.
  3. Canterbury (1990): He broke into another family home, molested a 13-year-old girl for fifty hours, and then released her¹.

Despite extensive investigations, Mr. Cruel has never been identified, and his crimes remain unsolved cold cases. The police describe him as highly intelligent, methodical, and elusive. In April 2016, the reward for information leading to his arrest and conviction was increased to A$1,000,000¹. The case continues to haunt both law enforcement and the public.
Case 41: Mr Cruel - Casefile: True Crime Podcast (casefilepodcast.com)
Was Mr. Cruel active before 1987? There has been speculation among the Voctria police about if Mr. Cruel was already active as a serial rapist before the Lowr Plenty attack.
Here's list on 10 home invasion rapes pre-Lower Plenty that are thought to have been the early work of Mr. Cruel by Victoria police:
What is known about Mr. Cruel?

1. Mr. Cruel had forensic knowledge

Mr. Cruel went to great lengths to avoid leaving behind any forensic evidence that detectives could use to catch him. It has therefore been suggested that perhaps he had some level of forensic knowledge.

• Bathed two victims to remove DNA evidence and wiped sinks and benchtops to remove fingerprints
• Transported victim to release site in garbage bags
• Made victims brush teeth and clean nails
• Left no DNA at crime scenes or on victims
• Told Nicola Lynas: “you will be taken to a hospital and they will test you you will be examined by a police surgeon. They’ll be looking for evidence to link me to you and they won’t find anything.”
• Mr. Cruel had access to property under flight path

It is believed the perpetrator had access to a property which was located under one of the two main flight paths into Tullamarine Airport.

• Both Sharon Wills and Nicola Lynas heard planes landing while in captivity. Nicola Lynas told detectives she could hear the planes banking after they passed over her.
• An investigation into flights operating that day determined the likely location of the property as under either the Tullamarine east-west or north-south flight paths.²
• Spectrum Taskforce Head David Sprague said that based on how loud the planes were, they might have been just 400m above the house.
• Police searched 30,000 houses in 15 suburbs including Coolaroo, East Keilor, Niddrie and Westmeadows without luck
• Mr. Cruel followed media about his crimes
• Watched Lynas family press conference with Nicola and spoke to her about it, saying “Think you’re worth $25,000?”
• Went out to buy the Sun and seemed to enjoy the stories about his crimes and the parallels being drawn to other abductions
• Photos of at least two of Mr. Cruel’s victims appeared in newspaper articles in the leadup to their attack.

Mr. Cruel videotaped his victims:

• Sharon saw a wooden tripod at the foot of the bed she was held in
• Mr. Cruel used red herrings
• Pretended to talk to an accomplice during Lynas abduction
• Pretended to be seeking $25,000 ransom during Lynas abduction
• Pretended to make a phone call during Lower Plenty home invasion
• Pretended to be looking for money during Lower Plenty, Wills and Lynas attack
• Spraypainted Chan’s car with words ‘Pay-back Asian drug dealer. More anon. More to come.’

Mr. Cruel listened to radio

• Left radio on 3TT throughout Wills attack
• Played KZFM in his car during Lynas attack, and had radio on in his bedroom
• Brought in radio and tuned it to 3KZ in Lower Plenty attack to mask sounds of attack

Mr. Cruel’s lifestyle gave him freedom of movement at certain times

• Slept in until 10am during the Lynas attack on a Wednesday morning in July 1990
• Was unshaven during Lower Plenty attack in August 1987
• Abductions of Sharon Wills, Nicola Lynas and Karmein Chan occurred in or leading up to school holidays
• Was able to conduct extensive stalking and surveillance in the lead up to his attacks

Mr. Cruel’s language

• Used terms “bozo” “worry wart” “yous” and “missy” to his victims.
• Lower Plenty victim and Lynas described his voice as ‘deep’ ‘gruff’ ‘uneducated’
• Wills family described him as ‘no accent, well spoken, fluent English’ suggesting that he was Australian
• “You’re not going to be a hero are you?” to John Wills, “Think you’re worth $25,000?” to Nicola Lynas; “Do you feel brave?” to Lower Plenty victims
  
• Mr. Cruel could tie knots
  
• Knots used by sailors, truck drivers, farmers and fishermen.
  
• Was confident enough in his knots to leave adult victims tied up in other rooms
  
• Apparently was able to tie knots while wearing gloves
  

Mr. Cruel almost certainly had prior criminal or tactical experience

• Controlled multiple adult victims in Wills and Lower Plenty attacks
• Cut phone lines
• Always parked car around corner or in front of vacant blocks to avoid detection
• Entered via various means: removing window pane with knife, forcing roll-out window, pushing key through lock
• Had weapons and handcuffs
• Carried a kit containing housebreaking implements and restraints³
• Evidence of planning suggests offender spent time conducting reconnaissance and surveillance on his victims.⁴

Mr. Cruel possessed a gun

• Lower Plenty family described his gun as a small black pistol-style handgun.
• Wills family described a dark-coloured handgun with a square grip, a squarish barrel with a silver bit at the end, possibly a pistol.
• The Lynas sisters described the gun as a gun with a silver barrel and a brown wooden handle.
• Karmein Chan was shot with either a .22 calibre weapon (according to Andrew Rule and John Silvester in The Age in Sep 1999) or a .38 calibre weapon (according to the Herald Sun in May 1992)

Mr. Cruel’s physical appearance

• Mr Cruel went to extraordinary lengths to ensure he was not seen by his victims and descriptions varied
• Lower Plenty description: aged mid 20s. Australian. 178cm to 183cm tall, slim to medium build with brown, greyish/white hair with white spots in it. Greyish/white bushy eyebrows. Unshaven, with a couple of days growth. Oval face, soft hands, possibly right handed. Wearing blue denim jeans, good condition, close fitting, a brown tweed sports jacket, a blue nylon waterproofed zip up jacket, blue runners with white flashes down the side, white soles in good condition and white cotton socks. Navy blue balaclava with an open face and some type of material covering the eye area. Dishwashing or surgical gloves light in colour, possibly yellow.⁵
• Wills attack description: Australian. 173cm to 180cms tall, thin to medium build. Had either a moustache or whiskers, possibly an early beard growth. Aged mid 20s to 30s. Right-handed. Hairy chest. Wearing a dark coloured boiler suit, gloves and a dark coloured ski mask or balaclava which had eye and mouth holes and white stitching around the eye and mouth holes, possibly with red stitching as well.⁶
• Lynas attack description: just under 170cm (though Nicola’s sister estimated his height at 182cm), well built, slightly big stomach, like a beer belly. No body odour; hands felt hairy with rough skin and shortish fingernails; arms were quite solid and stocky with fine hair; that he had fine hair on his chest and no hair on his back.⁷
• Mr. Cruel took trophies from his victims

Mr. Cruel stole several distinctive items from victims including:

• Ecuadorean Shirt Company parka with fake black fur collar
• a gold diamond engagement ring with the number 4132 stamped inside
• classic gold record set by London Philharmonic Orchestra
• Rosemary Lynas’ driver’s licence, Medicare card and credit card
• Ken Done beach bag
• A PLC summer uniform, tracksuit pants and school jumper
• A Melbourne football club beanie

Mr. Cruel’s car
During the Dec 1988 and July 1990 abductions of Sharon Wills and Nicola Lynas, Mr. Cruel transported his victims in a car:

• It was a four-door vehicle with carpeted floor, bucket seats, a low glove box and a floor gear shift
• The vehicle smelt clean but sounded old and he had trouble starting it
• The floor carpet, front door, arm rest and press down lock were all cream coloured
• He told both girls the car was stolen, which may suggest the car was not in fact stolen
• On the night Sharon was released, a White Commodore Vacationer sedan with three blue stripes along the side was seen acting suspiciously nearby
• Three independent witnesses have reported seeing a ‘van’ near Karmein Chan’s house, and a ‘ute’ or ‘truck’ where her remains were discovered – NB these sightings have not been verified by police

Familiarity with certain areas in Eastern and Northern suburbs
Mr. Cruel left his victims in secluded locations, that he must have been familiar with. It is likely that he had previously lived, worked, or visited these locations at some point.

• Bayswater Secondary College, near Dandenong Creek
• Thomastown terminal station, near Edgars Creek

FBI Profile of Mr Cruel

On 24 April 1991, the FBI provided the following profile of Mr Cruel to Victoria police based on their ‘research and investigative experience in similar cases’:

• he may reside or work in proximity to his first and last known attacks i.e. Lower Plenty, Templestowe.
• he is likely to be employed or involved with a school due to the use of school uniforms and timing in school holidays (though NB the Lower Plenty attack and abduction of Nicola Lynas did not occur during Victorian school holidays)
• he will appear genuinely dedicated to students and this may have been recognised with awards which seem to make him above suspicion
• he will have kept home-made pornography including of his victims
• he is a functional individual with steady employment, is generally regarded as a good neighbour, polite, quiet, somewhat introverted, and may be involved in community projects
• if he has a partner they will have been away during the time of his attacks and will know of his sexual dysfunctions, use of pornography and schoolgirl uniforms etc.
• those around him may have noticed changes in behaviour during and after attacks, including uncharacteristic use of alcohol, interest in religion, missing work or appearing distant and preoccupied

The FBI profile was criticised by forensic psychologist Ian Joblin and other local experts as simplistic and potentially off target at the time of its public release in April 1992.
Credit: Who is Mr Cruel? – Website dedicated to unmasking Melbourne child predator Mr Cruel
What are the others attacks thought to have been committed by Mr. Cruel?
1.) The abduction and sexual assault of a 14 year old girl in Hampton in February 1985.
2.) The sexual assault of a 30 year old woman in her Warrandyte home on 4 December 1985.
3.) The sexual assault of a 30 or 35 year old woman in her Donvale home on 6 December 1985.
4.) The sexual assault of a woman in Greensborough in March 1987.
5.) The sexual assault of woman in Greensborough in August 1987
6.) The sexual assault of an unknown victim in Hawthorn between 1985-1987.
7.) The sexual assault of an unknown victim in Brighton between 1985-1987.
8.) The sexual assault of an unknown victim in Caulfield between 1985-1987 (unknown if this is the crime referenced in this newspaper article in which a woman was abducted from her Caulfield home on 16 February 1986 and driven to Chelsea Heights).
9.) The sexual assault of an unknown victim in Dingley between 1985-1987.
10.) The sexual assault of an unknown victim in Dingley between 1985-1987.
Mr. Cruel documentary: Mr. Cruel: The Mystery Murderer Of Melbourne - YouTube

I need some opinions of those with experience if my new partner is narcissistic or overly sensitive/emotional.
I’m 6 months into a new relationship, for background not much has changed he’s still the same nice guy as when we started but he has some red flags such as tested to see how much I care/what I’ll do for him, lots of gifts, lots of future talk & trip & I’ve caught him in lots of little lies. All the above could be normal but the multiple little lies are concerning nonetheless. Today he left a voicemail pretty much in tears about an awful vivid dream he had of me leaving him for my ex and how he just wanted to hear my voice (he works away so we do chat on the phone). Is that normal?
The little lies are strange too, they are lies to impress me but he blows his cover so fast, a couple examples: says he quit vaping but I seen it in his pocket, says he bought my fave ice cream but when I came over he said he didn’t buy it yet, says he’s viewing a house to buy but when I ask about it later he said he cancelled, and others similar. The thing is, he has a pretty good memory, he remembers little things about me.

Wanted to share this Ben and Jerry’s vs Haagen Dazs video from five years ago as I think it’s hilarious. This YouTuber Timothy’s Takeout often breaks out into song. Very Reddit worthy, dumb but catchy songs. Such as:
^ “Don’t be mad it’s my opinion, can’t be mad it’s my opinions” ^ ”You sound really butthurt right now”
I am also here for his quips. Another thing is I’ve tried a fair amount of these ice creams and agree with his opinions.
Link to video here
The video is helpfully broken up into comparison chapters such as “vanilla,” “peanut butter,” “banana,” etc as well as two random rounds at the end. In some comparisons though Ben and Jerry’s is at steep disadvantage as Timothy could only find the non-dairy versions, which I heard sucks ass! (At least some do). However I think Ben and Jerry’s still won overall in the end.

• BURNING QUESTION: who makes the better pistachio flavor? The sub has been divided, but Timothy thinks the winner is clear: Ben and Jerry’s! I did see another Haagen Dazs taste test video of many many flavors, and it was a favorite among Haagen Dazs flavors? I wonder why?

If you like the Haagen Dazs Pistschio though, Private Selection Pistachio and Honey sounds like it could be similar or possibly a little more interesting as it also has honey swirls and a (very mild) pistachio base rather than what Timothy described as Haagen Daz’s cream flavor. I think it’s an ok flavor. I’d be interested in stronger pistachio though!

Good morning all,
Welcome to your weekly Sunday social. This was the result of a great suggestion by one of the community. So if anyone has any suggestions then feel free to send them to us, and successful ones will have a reward with some reddit gold!
The idea behind this is to give LabourUK members a weekly thread that lets everyone have a rest from politics. This will hopefully allow everyone to get to know each other outside of our political views and discuss anything non-political. You never know, you may actually have similar interests! So to keep in the spirit of our authoritarianism, there are a few things first:

1. The subject matter is to try and stay away from politics please
   
2. Feel free to ask anything
   
3. New members are more than welcome to contribute, and this may be a chance to introduce yourself to the sub!
   
4. The normal sub rules will apply to this thread
   

So feel free to post whatever you want to moan/chat/raise, talk about your hobbies or anything you like (following rule 1 of course)!

From the log of Edward Price – Clerk for Diplomat Howard Weathers – 03.28.2803
I suppose a summary is in order for things to be clear. Humanity has a bit of a reputation as an odd lot in the galaxy. Most aliens don’t know really know what to think about us. You see, most aliens are actually somewhat boring, having fallen into galactic societal niches over thousands of years. The Atroxians are were space pirates, the Vontacruz own the casinos and travel cruise industries, and the Hordun operate the most efficient morgues this side of the galaxy – usually because of the Atroxians. But the Delridians? They are diplomats. And dare I say that they are the weird ones.
Delri Prima is the homeworld of the Delridians, a tall, lanky race who look like the grimdark cousins of a Star Wars Kaminoan. Brilliant medics, they apparently don’t see a difference between medical work and diplomacy, seeing both fields as the healing arts. Their medicocracy has a long list of accomplishments throughout the galaxy, enough that it’d look like an 18-hour credit reel on a movie. My guess is that they may have been the “Humans” of the galaxy preceding us before they finally settled, and rumors have it that the K’kituun Death Puppets are an ancient offshoot from their early days on the galactic stage.
But more to the point, after about 180 years on the galactic stage, Humanity has made a decent name for ourselves as the handyman and eccentric nerd. We are celebrated, thrown strange looks, worried glances, and altogether treated as small children. Though with the destruction of Axtroxia, they may want to worry about what will happen when we hit puberty. The Delridians have already been through that, though they were never as eccentric as we are.
They reached out to Humanity with a diplomatic frigate appropriately named Olive Branch about a year ago. I’ve learned they like to reflect the cultures they are talking to, so as to ease negotiations. Can’t imagine what the Atroxian equivalent was. Probably something like ‘Torn Heads’. Regardless, Diplomat Weathers was finally selected as the Earth delegate to talk on Delri Prima, and oh boy. That is a dark world. Like, bring a flashlight dark. I don’t know whether it is the slow spin of the planet, or the climate generators they have, but the entire twilight band is just dark and grey. It rains, and thankfully it is safe water, but it is eerie. From the embassy city they built to make us more comfortable, you can look out across the Delridian jungle and see the many other diplomatic cities slowly being devoured by the vines and trees.
The first night was fine, though I’m not sure any of us slept well. We were each provided a separate room or, well, house really. The entire city was made of a cold stone, themed after some old Italian city on Earth. The wind slipped through the narrow streets with a soft whistle, bringing with it a faint jungle fog. Somewhere down the street was a clattering window shutter, but with how much stone they used, and the strange alignment of the streets, you could hear a pin drop from eight blocks away!
Talks went well for the first three days as Diplomat Weathers and the Delridians got to know each other. I met with and discussed a number of cultural similarities with a member of the alien entourage, a Nurse Kelayo, when I wasn’t with the others in my group exploring the city. She was very proud of the settlement they built for us, but in our talks, she asked what we thought of the book. What book?
Well, after having a wonderful meal with my coworkers and some of the alien entourage, we said our farewells and parted ways. Kelayo was vague, but had explained how they had acquired a copy of the book, and that she hoped that we enjoyed the effort she put into it.

I didn’t look into it immediately when I returned to the lonely, lifeless house that was my quarters. Mark was my closest neighbor, and he was a block down. The Delridians, fresh from talks with the Hordun, thought we may want some privacy from each other. And while it is nice not having to hear Mark snore in the cabin like on the flight here, the house was a little… too private.
It was as I was preparing to turn off the light to go to sleep that I thought to look in the nightstand beside me. Kelayo had told us about the book, and when I opened the top drawer, it was indeed there. Sitting center and alone was an old Earth book of gnarled leather and no visible title. Whatever poor creature the Delridians had used to make the cover had terrible skin!
Opening the book, I found it to have been printed in an old dialect of English from before the Third World War, with some much older words I did not recognize. It certainly looked like it was printed in the archaic methods of old Earth, with wet ink instead of modern digital ink that provided touch-based pseudo-memoric context.
I began to flip through the pages of this strange book, turning up the brightness on the nightstand lamp to see better. The faded pages of the book looked sick and moldy, and my skin crawled just touching it, but the letters, despite the stains and grunge, seemed to pop from the page in crisp black. In fact, the ink was so black that it felt like I was staring into the void with each letter. Kelayo’s book was some archaic text of old Earth culture from the end of the 20^th century, though I did not recognize the name. Written by a Bishop Simon from some archaic cult or religion, the book functioned as a “spellbook” like a deepdive virtual reality fantasy game might have. It was filled with a plethora of gods I did not recognize, and a ton of phonetic gibberish that sounded good when said, but easily complicated.
I hadn’t gotten too far when I heard a man’s scream next to me. Jumping out of my skin, I found no one there. But I remembered where I was, and crept to the window. It was Mark’s voice, more panicky than I had ever heard him. Peeking through the slats of the window, I scanned the street towards Mark’s place. The light was on, and someone was shuffling down the street, murmuring in pain.
Rushing down to the street, I rushed out to help him. Mark’s mutterings were too quiet, and he was holding something to his chest. It may have been a minute before I collected myself and tried to get answers from him, but you have to understand, I’ve never seen a dying man before. Not in real life. In the dim and permanent gloom, I could barely make out the trail of blood behind him. He pleaded again and again, and I had to find out where he was injured, and what it was he was carrying.
I went to take what he held, only to realized that in my own fervor to aid him I still had that creepy book. I put that down to wrench free Mark’s own possession. I really wish I hadn’t, for his grip was weak, with only one hand. I held his other, and everything above it.
My own voice was the next I heard echoing down the street as I most certainly fell backwards. Sorry Mark, but I lost your arm. Well, your first one. The second is decorating some chandelier somewhere, courtesy of Vanessa.
Please understand that for anyone in my situation, gorey horror was never my fancy, and I hope no one in the auditing board holds it against me. I would bet credits that any of you would have done much the same as I did.
Time is… unreliable on Delri Prima, with its twilit band and gloom. The only thing that moves is that blasted fog. And the vines. Especially the vines. I’m not sure how long I ran, but Vanessa was the one to find me, flanked by a street littered with Human bodies. Far more people than joined us on the crew… I think. You might want to review the ship manifest just to be sure.
Vanessa, once she verified my identity, guided me through the littered street, still gurgling and reaching out to us. Give her a raise, by the way. She’s the one that got us out of there. We met up with Dwayne and Harry, both armed with metal pipes and whatever other junk they salvaged, and we retreated to a boarded up house with other surviving members of the crew. They were glad to see me, though I don’t remember who they were. Many were new faces to the ship for this mission.
We settled here for hours? A day? Our comms were filled with static, and we couldn’t reach Mr. Weathers to see if he was ok. We needed to get off this planet. Someone mentioned that the ship was still parked at the landing bay. All eyes turned to someone in the back of the group, who slowly stood up, her form long and lanky. Kelayo, the Delridian nurse.
Vanessa worked with Kelayo on a plan to move through the city to the landing bay, while the rest of us sought supplies. This house had a basement, connected to a series of tunnels which we would use to slip under whatever muttering, mumbling horrors pleaded us to come outside.
Slowly, and as quietly as we could, our train of survivors crept through the tunnels. Our flashlights that Ben had found were pathetically dim, and frequently flickered out, sounding with a loud clunk whenever someone whacked it awake. Icy water dripped from the long tangled hairs of wriggling moss that clung to and between the bricks, the lights illuminating white lice-like that lived within the tangle.
Splashing was the only sound we heard for a long time, along with someone’s horrid cough. He was in the back of the line, far behind me, but kept coughing and groaning. Others frequently shushed him, louder than he coughed. But for all the good their efforts to keep him quiet were, it paled in comparison to Kelayo’s odd excitement. When I inquired her about her unusual positivity, she admitted fascination over the many accounts of average Humans combatting the supernatural evils that threatened Earth. How we could survive on a planet infested with the dead with only equally dark magicks astounded her, despite our culture not having widespread knowledge or application of this means of survival. It was faint, but she had nodded at the book. Why did I still have this disgusting leatherback that seemed to shiver in the cold?
I apologize for any impact I may have had on diplomatic relations with the Delridians, but I said some uncouth remarks about the whole situation and the book. I flipped it open to a random page to give an example, forgetting in my annoyance just how dark it was in the tunnels. But that ink… that horrid archaic stain… was fully legible. I admit I came to a stop in awe, though shortlived as the train of people behind me bumped into me. That coughing was gone.
So were half the people we had been travelling with. Kelayo glanced around with a chitter. She was having too much fun with the spooky, and now we heard skittering and scrape scrape scraping on the bricks. Vanessa fired a shot down the tunnel and urged us to run, so we did.
We were near the landing bay when we ducked into a sideroom per Kelayo’s prompting, and shoved a convenient table in the way of the door. The skittering was above us on the ground floor too, and then someone grabbed my foot. It may have been Mark. Well, the part of Mark I dropped.
Long gnarled fingers covered in dirt were the hallmark of these freaky things. Human hands with a life of their own, skittering around like bugs as they fled the flashlight’s beam and sought dark corners. These shelters included their unholy wriggling up our pants and jackets, some grips strong and muscular, and others gentle and cautious. If you have ever had a massage, you may never want one again once a chilly, slimy, dismembered hand tries to nest between your shoulder blades.
Vanessa fired off a few shots in her desperate attempt to keep the grabby hands off, though she nicked Ben’s ear in the process. The loud noise scattered the skitterhands enough for us to fling the last few from our persons. Vanessa slammed the book I still carried, ordering me to read it. She had lost her copy early on, but had the gist of its contents.
The ink on the book was darkest on one particular page, with a weird symbol that looked like it said XOOD. An old-Earth linguist may understand it better than I. Kelayo was forced to provide guidance, as she was the expert on the book, and with many, many attempts, and a dark horde gathering upstairs, were ready to begin. Vanessa was out of shots in her gun, and Ben and Dwayne were futiley pushing back the horde of impossible crewmen. These people smelled horribly of rotten meat, and overtook Ben first, followed swiftly by Dwayne.
Vanessa had backed into a corner, clearly scared. I can’t blame her, since I was, too. But I couldn’t move, couldn’t join her in the false safety of the corner. The rotten crew… this dead crew, was in the room with us, and were already grabbing me. Amidst the noise and confusion, I could hear Vanessa being attacked behind me, and the dull nails of my own assailants tearing at my skin. Kelayo, her form thin and dark, simply stood amidst the dead.
Read it, she said.
Say it with all your heart.
I remember the word that pierced the world that day, but can’t remember saying it. But my throat burns whenever I utter it now. BARASHAKUSHU. The dead froze in place, their fingers dug deep into my skin. BARASHAKUSHU. Limp, lifeless, just as they should be. BARASHAKUSHU. The haze in the air, even in the basement, lifted. BARASHAKUSHU. Vanessa breathed deep as I pulled her from the bodies and out the house to the crowded, lifeless street.
We limped, though we did not bleed, filled with holes and grime, and caked in blood. Kelayo followed wraithlike behind us, always ten paces behind. The landing bay was before us. Our ship and salvation was before us.
Diplomat Weathers was fine, though alarmed at our state. Delridian doctors tended to us as we explained what happened. A full transcript is available via the ship’s DIA-Log.
When all was said and done, the Delridian diplomat thanked us for being so willing to open discourse. To celebrate successful talks between our species, he offered us a parting feast. He motioned Kaleyo over, who had apparently been tasked with researching Human culture for the talks.
She explained over dinner about how she had poured over a stunning variety of Human dishes from our many cultures, but that she had settled on one that appeared to be a universal favorite. An Italian dish of long, stringy noodles over their equivalent of a white cream sauce. And dinner was fantastic! But Kaleyo seemed confused as well, stating that she had a difficult time picking out the right recipe. The instructions were apparently all over the place with a lot of strange steps that seemed superfluous to food preparation.
I asked her what she meant, to which she replied, “The base ingredients were simple, almost mundane. Of note, the various rituals in the preparation exhausted many of our best doctors. Some are still seeking treatment after one batch escaped. You Humans have a very strange culture of food, especially with the names. I believe you called this one… creepy pasta?”
Then the meatball on my fork blinked at me.

Shared false memories are often perpetuated when one person's false memory, misquote, joke or inaccurate reference makes it into pop culture where it is seen by millions.
SHATNER, SALLY FIELD & HANNIBAL Jim Carrey in Ace Ventura calling a monacled man the Monopoly guy, or doing Shatner from The Twilight Zone, "There's... someone on the wing! Some... THING!" or imitating Sally Field in The Mask and Hannibal Lecter in The Cable Guy: these were comedic impressions, not quotes.
TANK MAN & THE LINDBERGH BABY I was recently watching episodes of The West Wing which perpetuated 2 more common MEs. Richard Schiff's character mentions people watching TV and seeing a man get run over by a tank - a reference to Tiananmen square. A woman sarcastically confesses to a crime, adding that if you search her house, you'll find the Lindbergh baby. People watching could easily remember these events incorrectly.
GHOST POTTERY Patrick Swayze was still alive during the pottery scene. Family Guy spoofed this scene with Swayze's character as a ghost, and you have probably seen similar spoofs, leading to the false memory that he was a ghost in that scene. YOU WANT SOME CORNBREAD, MR. JINGLES? Michael Clarke Duncan's character rarely interacted with Mr. Jingles and never fed him cornbread. That was a different inmate. The Simpsons spoofed this, with MCD saying "You want some cornbread, Mr. Jingles?" which is how many people remember the movie. SARAH MICHELLE GELLAR'S DRAMATIC MONOLOGUE In I Know What You Did Last Summer, SMG witnesses a murder while performing on stage, to a stunned audience who remain silent. Some people remember the audience erupting in applause. That was a parody scene in Scary Movie.
You may have seen a different version of a popular movie as a child.
PHILOSOPHER'S STONE There are 2 versions of the first Harry Potter movie. The title macguffin is called the Sorcerer's Stone in American releases, the Philosopher's Stone in UK and Canada.
AUSTRALIAN PETER PAN If you remember Peter Pan having a British accent, Tinkerbell saving him from a poisoned cake, and Smee going home to his mother at the end, the you saw an Australian version not made by Disney. This one MESSED with my head after watching the Disney version as an adult.
CALIGULA There are MANY different edits of this film based on it's country and time of release and censorship laws. Some versions include hard-core pornographic scenes which were cut in other versions. Some versions have the order of scenes mixed up. You could watch 2 versions edited so differently that the plot is not even the same. I have seen 2: one that starts with Caligula in bed with his sister, the other that starts with a hunting scene intended to come later.
BRIAN COX AS HANNIBAL LECTER? You may have seen either or both Manhunter and Red Dragon - 2 adaptations of the same novel. Manhunter came out before Silence of the Lambs and featured Brian Cox. Red Dragon was made later as a prequel featuring Anthony Hopkins. There could be many instances of people confusing originals and remakes.
If you tend to watch DVD special features, you may remember deleted or alternate scenes more vividly than the actual movie.
DON'T DROP THAT NECKLACE, ROSE! Yes, there was an alternate ending of Titanic in which Bill Paxton confronted Old Rose on the back of the ship, but it completely messed with the flow and the audience's catharsis. Bravo to James Cameron for chosing the better ending. One of my Favorite movies.
IT'S THE DIRTIEST JOKES THAT STAY WITH YOU Years after watching Team America: World Police on DVD, the only 2 scenes I remembered were a disgustingly graphic scat sex scene between two marionettes, and a scene of man-on-man oral sex that ended with the superior saying it would be hard to make his subordinate into the perfect soldier... because he's gay now. I was dismayed when I watched it a second time and both these scenes were absent. Turns out, years ago, I watched the deleted scenes in the DVD special features.
Historical films VS reenactments
HOUSTON, WE'VE HAD A PROBLEM This is the line as it was actually spoken in real life and, subsequently, in several dramatic reenactments. In the popular movie, Tom Hanks says "Houston, we HAVE a problem."
THAT'S NOT HOW THEY KILLED BIN LADEN! Shortly after it happened, you may have watched one of several dramatic reenactments of the raid, including an animated recreation of the actual helmet cam footage, which differed drastically from how it was portrayed in Zero Dark Thirty. Aside from the production quality, the reenactments were far more enthralling.
FALSE TRAILERS Yes, sometimes a movie trailer is made using whatever footage is available, before the final cut of the film is finished. Therefore, it is not uncommon for scenes from the trailer to be missing from the movie.
WATCH OUT FOR THAT TIE FIGHTER! That's right, Jyn never comes face-to-face with a TIE fighter in Rogue One, despite it being one of the most exciting shots from the trailer.
LIVE. DIE. REPEAT. Not the title of the movie. It was called Edge of Tomorrow, though you wouldn't know it from the constant repetition of the tag line in the trailer and minimal use of the actual title. Most DVD/Blu-ray releases have this tag line prominently on the cover art, so viewers know what movie it is.
SOUNDS LIKE A SEXY HAMBURGER! Seth Rogen never says this in Superbad, in reference to the fake name McLovin, but it is one of the most memorable lines from the time of the film's release.
False memories sometimes form from combining several related ones.
TINKERBELL DOTS THE I No, she doesn't. But you've seen her flitting across the screen and flicking a wand to make words appear or the castle disappear in several different title sequences. See the Disney home video one, for example.
I SEE WHITE PEOPLE! No, the line spoofing The Sixth Sense was not spoken in Scary Movie, but you DID hear it the same year. At the 2000 Oscars, host Billy Crystal did a bit where he had the camera zoom up on celebrities in the audience and he said what they were thinking in that moment. He spoke this line when the camera was zoomed in on Michael Clarke Duncan, to much laughter.
SINBAD THE... SUPERVILLAIN? Sinbad did not play a genie called Shazaam, but in 1996, the same year Shaq played Kazaam, Sinbad played a mischievous character in a ridiculous costume as the main antagonist in the Christmas film Jingle All the Way. You may have combined these 2 images in your memory.
THAT DARN CORNUCOPIA No, it wasn't part of the Fruit of the Loom logo, but it was a frequently reproduced image every kid saw in school when they learned about Thanksgiving. The 2 images were so similar that many teachers made the assumption they were the same, telling kids they may have seen it on their underwear. In fact, the cornucopia image was so common, it seems to have even been used on some knock-off brands of socks and underwear, making this MA totally understandable.
MIRROR, MIRROR ON THE WALL... The evil queen never said it when you were a kid, but Lord Farquad did in Shrek when you were a bit older, which probably misinformed your memory of the original line.
IT'S THE EYE OF THE TIGER... Does the song make you think of the movie Rocky? It shouldn't. It was never used in the original film, only the sequels. Although Rocky's original theme music is just as iconic.
OH, NO! NOT PLASTIC SHEETS! There were none on the floor for Tommy's hit in Goodfellas, but you may be thinking of a similar scene in Lethal Weapon 2.
IS LIBERTY ISLAND A THING? Yes, it always was. You always associated it with the immigrants who came over through Ellis Island when you learned about them in school. Your teachers may not have bothered telling you the name of the island that houses the statue and you assumed it was the same. And here's something else to think about: Liberty Island is located in the waters of New Jersey, not New York.
THAT'S THE WRONG ACTOR! Meg Ryan was not Maverick's love iterest in Top Gun; she was Goose's wife. Some people made that mistake as Ryan soon became a household name and was mentioned in a lot of the film's marketing, especially for the home video release. Ben Affleck was not in Saving Private Ryan, but you have seen him collaborate with Matt Damon many times, and there was an actor named Edward Burns who bares a bit of a resemblance to him. I hope not many of you have made this mistake, but some people remember Angelina Jolie in the original Mission Impossible. It was an actress named Emanuelle Beart... thank God, since she was playing the wife of Jon Voight - Jolie's father. And of course, anyone who watched The X-Files as a kid might remember some episodes with David Duchovney as Agent Mulder, when it was really his replacement, Robert Patrick as Agent Doggett.
Sometimes, a movie or show doesn't go the way you were expecting, or you think "wouldn't this have been better" and your mind dwells on your own version more than on how it actually happened, then, years later, you only remember your version. In some cases, so many people were thinking the same thing, that when you mention your ending later, others say "Oh, yeah! That was great!"
DOLLY'S BRACES She never had any. But she did have pigtails which, like braces, are often associated with youth and feminine cuteness. Add to that the fact that Jaws had metal teeth and you were rooting for them to get together, and it would have given them some great common ground. So when she gave that slow, shy smile at the end, you saw what you wanted to see.
THEY WERE DEAD THE WHOLE TIME! That's not how Lost ended. Whine all you want, or just go and watch it again and pay attention. It was such a popular theory that people were simply expecting it. The popularity of the theory inspired the producers to give us a glimpse into the afterlife in the last season, but by the end, it was made very clear that everything that happened on the island really happened. Christian might as well have been looking directly into the camera when he spelled it out for his son. But many of you couldn't accept that your theory was wrong. If you watched the Jimmy Kimmel Live special that immediately followed the finale, you saw that even Jimmy subscribed to this theory and refused to let it go. It was a classy move for the cast to refrain from berating him about it on his own show.
AVE SOL INVICTUS! The Sun is classified as a yellow dwarf star, which is why it has always been drawn yellow. Since you were a kid, you drew the Sun with a yellow crayon. When you were older, you learned that sunlight is white light, which is composed of every color in the spectrum. White light surrounds us all the time, but we don't see it. We only see the colors that are reflected off surfaces based on their material composition. The Sun EMITS white light, but it APPEARS yellow, or orange-yellow.
That's all I've got for now. I hope I've given you lots to think about and would love to hear your responses!

I fear that I have BPD. I am diagnosed with depression and anxiety. If something triggers me I go in to bouts of rage where I cannot control myself or I completely shut down and go into a spiral of extreme self hatred and self destructive behaviours. Mood swings. I have addiction problems and have relied on drugs to escape my mind/these issues. I have self harmed and I have wanted to kill myself. I have a serious fear of abandonment. Everything has come to a head all of a sudden, I literally cannot be this person anymore I cannot cope and I am afraid of myself.
When I ring my gp (in uk) they just throw a bunch of SSRIs at me- I tried these before for depression but they sent me into what I can only describe as some type of mania. I don’t have the money to seek private help. I desperately want help, my relationships, work, my health are so negatively impacted by this. Can some please advise or offer any words or similar stories and how you got out of this?
It’s 2am here and I had an episode earlier today so this post probably doesn’t read well or contain enough information- sorry in advance.

I have my first colonoscopy scheduled for later this month. I know it is important to get this done and to follow the prep instructions to the letter, having lost my mom to colon cancer. I’m mentally prepared for the prep!
However, I am a migraine sufferer, and one of my most consistent triggers is hunger. If I skip a meal, or just wait too long to eat, I can end up with a headache. If that’s the price I have to pay for getting this done, fine. I have a triptan prescription, and it’s not like I’m going to be going anywhere anyway, except to the clinic for the appointment. But I would obviously prefer to not have a migraine on top of everything else.
So my plan is to eat a filling (but low-residue) breakfast 26 hours before the colonoscopy and then spend the rest of prep day eating a ton of non-red Jell-O and drinking cup after cup of clear chicken broth. I’ll fill up on ginger ale and clear juices too. But I am curious to hear from other people with similar issues (migraines, but also other health conditions that are exacerbated by even temporary fasting) about whether you were able to feel satisfied and stave off symptoms on the liquid diet. Does focusing on the broth and gelatin help?
I plan to alternate salty and sweet liquids and plain water. If I do this, is there an upper limit to how much broth and Jell-O I can or should consume? Is it better to have less and be hungrier, or to have a lot and just not worry about the sodium levels, sugar content, etc.? And if I do have a TON of gelatin, will I regret it when the prep kicks in?
(I don’t even LIKE Jell-O, but if it’s going to keep me from feeling hungry and having a throbbing temple, I will suck it up and try every flavor on the approved list.)