Hey all. 15m, I was abused as a child by my dad, pretty standard stuff. anyway so I have been diagnosed with dissociative PTSD (Not CPTSD cus i'm in north america but I absoloutely fit the diagnostic criteria and my therapist agrees) and I was wondering if what I'm experiencing are "Flashbacks" or intrusive memories.
So, I get intrusive memories all the time when I'm reminded of trauma, can't think of them, try and figure out what I could've done differently, etc etc. but I also get what might be flashbacks? I'm not sure if flashbacks need a complete loss of awareness (like in the movies) or if you can retain some awareness of where you actually are? Like sometimes I'll get a "Flashback" that I'm aware isn't actually real and I know where I actually am in reality, but the emotions, visual aspects, and somatic symptoms are mostly the flashback, like being in two places at the same time but by far more inside the memory/flashback.
Would those be considered actual flashbacks or just very vivid intrusive memories?
OH! another question, can you get flashbacks that you don't remember happening or can't remember the content of? Sometimes I'll be doing something and then it's a few minutes later and I feel all shaken up and a bunch of emotions that is as if I just had a flashback but I have no recollection of the past few minutes or what the flashback was.
edit: i have read that you can get flashbacks you don't remember the content of but i'm not sure if that's what's happening here or if i'm overreacting

During a normal work week, my only contact with the world are my few online co-workers. Melissa, a former prodigy and still very young tech genius, who's also my boss. She trades stocks and builds robots for fun, gives sound financial advice, is a Trump supporter, and sometimes seems to use Machiavellian tactics to get what she wants from people.
Then there's my peer and friend David. We started working together at the same time, so we were both the new guys. We would hang out after work when we still lived near each other and got pretty close. After COVID and WFH started, we moved further apart, but we would still talk every single morning while we got started with our day, just like we used to in the office. It was great!
Unfortunately, he started abusing WFH several years ago. He always wanted to start a small side-hustle and I supported THAT idea, what's the harm right? But now he owns a business that he runs while on the clock. Not a side-hustle that sells crap online, no no no. A fully staffed brick-and-mortar business that runs 7 days a week. HOW IN THAT FUCK is that possible!? It’s getting successful too! I was initially proud that he was able to keep up with his 9 to 5 and run a business. Then I learned the truth one day in a confession he made while we were bullshitting. He hasn't been working, not one bit. He clocks in and just drives to his business or takes phone calls, does scheduling, doing payroll, inventory, all the stuff an owner needs to do for their business on a daily basis.
Meanwhile I’m at my desk being messaged all day to do random things, get people the information they need, fix bugs in production or database, give solutions to problems. That's in addition to my actual job, a new major assignments, sometimes several different ones per week. I'm at my desk a minimum of 8 hours a day, but it's usually 10ish. Sometimes I'll work all night or catch up on weekends. He and I both get paid very well for being at a smaller company, over 100k.
It’s become very clear to me I’ve been slowly picking up more and more of David’s work over the last couple years as my work load has been going up dramatically. Melissa seems to have no problem assigning everything to me and letting David’s get away with doing almost nothing.
He is given work, but it's just unimportant jobs with no timeline given. I’ve seen him take a month to scrape a website for competitor data. I know because I helped him debug, I realized he used ChatGPT to write the entire thing and asked him to throw it in the garbage. He said he forgot how to code. No joke. He ended up using a paid service to collect the data to complete the very easy assignment. At our meeting he announced he had a great deal of competitor pricing data to share, and oh boy he got so much encouragement in the meeting, lots of praise. I had to bite my tongue pretty hard. It was right then I realized I was getting very upset about it all, which in turn made me feel guilty because he's a great friend.
I can only assume Melissa is overlooking it all purposely, as a punishment to me for threatening to quit if forced to come back into the office last year when I was asked to. She is very intelligent, so it's beyond me how he is getting away with it so blatantly. David’s my friend, but he has been abusing the business that pays my bills and puts food on my table, and making me work long extra hours to pick up his slack.
My friend still has the nerve to ask for my help when he finally decides to work here and there. I’ve gone from considering him one of my best friends, to almost outright despising him in the last year. I’ve fantasized about ways to tell on him. I know it would do very little in the end. He wouldn’t be replaced and I won’t see a pay raise, so what's the point in betraying him like that. He doesn't seem to realize the side effects of his lack of contributions on my work load, and nobody is saying anything.
It's slowly been causing me to fall into a depression and I'm starting to burn out. I've got about a month of vacation time to use and nothing even sounds fun to do. I've stopped showering as often, I don't do anything fun or ever initiate a conversation with my friends. I stopped working out and running and barely go outside. Hell, I've stopped talking to my dog as much. I just kind of grunt at him now and he understands.
I'm hoping my friends business takes off and he'll just quit, cause it's making me crazy. Thanks for reading.

Hiiiiiii girlies!
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My brothers and Sisters who are anime or comic lovers. Is Vagabond worth reading and if you have read it how do you cope with content that's in it?
There's some sexual stuff in this manga, I know the Manga is about a historical person named Musashi Miyamoto who was a samurai so I want to know what do you think of this.
I am genuinely curious and I want a Christian perspective since the Series incorporates Buddhist teachingss which are not from God.

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Recently a guy added me on Snapchat. Against better judgement, I accepted and asked, “Do I know you?” I didn’t recognize his username or bitmoji at all. Now, I have made this ‘random’ account for advice.
He told me we had spoke on Reddit (another account of mine) and I thought, “Oh! I remember talking to guy about television on a group.” I assumed it was him and continued the conversation. Neither of us realized for a couple of minutes that our meeting was a “misunderstanding.”
He then proceeded to talk about his NSFW interests on Reddit and believed that I was the name he was talking to (because her Reddit name and my Snapchat name are similar.) When I asked why he didn’t just speak to her through Reddit he told me that she had deactivated her account. I was weirded out, but he seemed like a decent man so I kept talking to him for a bit, letting him subtly know that I wasn’t interested in his NSFW content or topics as much as he wanted to bring it up. He said he was old enough to be my father but lied about his age— told me one thing, his Reddit said another. Both quite a bit older than I am. I should’ve known this would happen because I grew up watching documentaries and hearing stories. I never thought I’d be involved in something like this, y’know?
He asked about my clothing, to see my face, all in subtle ways at first, “out of curiosity.” He even asked about my home life and my relationships. I answered in generic ways. “Oh yeah, I’m eighteen. Still in Highschool. Dad is around.” Those questions and answers. Sooner than I realized, he indulged in more suggestive questions. I felt so uncomfortable. The guy I liked and what I do with him, my friends at school and how they dress and act. “They aren’t as mature as you. You’re such a good girl.” Kept trying to tell him to stop and that I just wanted someone to talk to. He hasn’t stopped.
He makes suggestive jokes. Tells me about his adult interests. Said I’m vulnerable. Calls me innocent and pure and a sweetheart, says I’m the nicest girl he has talked to. He likes that I’m still in Highschool but legally not a minor. Told me his fantasies regarding not quite legal girls and how much of a perv he knows that he is. It’s like I can’t shake him. He knows my name and the region of where I live. He comments on all of my other account’s posts and his history has very disgusting, dirty comments towards other women.
I figured out where he lives because he accidentally turned on his location on Snap. Out of my state. I know about his education and the generics of his current job. I know his Instagram but blocked it a few times. I don’t know what to do. I can barely sleep. I wake up in sweats questioning if I was wrong. I was being immature, looking for some attention in our first conversations. I don’t think that I was asking for ANY of this, was I?
I’m hoping that he doesn’t find my address. I don’t think he will since my location is off and he doesn’t have any other social that would tell him so. He knows details about me from my posts and what I told him about my life which wasn’t ever too detailed. This is more like online harassment than stalking I suppose. I feel like I kind of know more about him than he does me but I’m worried. I haven’t read over this so I hope that I explained the situation well, didn’t know who else or where else to turn to.

Paramount: Deal Rumors Aside, What About The Operations? Can The Company Turn A Profit?
May 21, 2024 2:41 PM ET
Summary
Paramount Global remains my worst investment, but I still believe in its potential for success.
Paramount's "lack of scale" is not the reason for its underperformance as it spends about as much on content as industry leader Netflix.
Paramount's loss last year was largely the result of one-off writedowns, both domestically and internationally. These losses will not repeat going forward.
Paramount's streaming operation suffers not from lack of scale, but an abundance of overload waste, which may be alleviated under new management.
The sports slate remains best-in-class, and CBS is still the leader in broadcast scripted. CBS Television City in Los Angeles, Ca, USA. JHVEPhoto/iStock Editorial via Getty Images
Paramount Global (NASDAQ:PARA) (NASDAQ:PARAA) remains my worst investment. Let's just get that clear from the start. I said two years ago it was madness not to buy Paramount. That was wrong, wrong, wrong. The fact that I recommended against buying the new Warner Discovery at the same time, and heeding that warning saved a lot of money, makes me feel a little better, but not much.
And no, the fact that Warren Buffett made the exact same mistake as me doesn't help much, either. Mr. Buffett and I are about to part ways, anyway. He is now completely sold out of Paramount, while I am hanging in. Yes, I am still buying. Get all the ribbing out of your systems, and then read on.
Although a few rounds remain to be played in the game, it is no longer inconceivable that none of the various deal permutations that have been put forward for Paramount will pan out, and that it will continue as an independent company. Essentially, Redstone will block a deal with Apollo Global Management, Inc. (APO) and Sony Group Corporation (SONY) and the 'B' shareholders will litigate a Skydance deal to death.
Because so many Seeking Alpha articles are already offering a blow-by-blow analysis of the deal talks - and I absolutely encourage you to read them - I wanted to turn back for just a minute to a more in-depth look at Paramount's actual operations. If it stays independent, can it turn itself around?
Scale Is Not The Issue I'm angry. Usually, when an investment goes wrong, I can manage to be philosophical or even dispassionate about it. Risks of the trade, can't win 'em all, pick your maxim.
But this one is really getting to me. I'm sure part of that is simply the sheer amount of my portfolio that has suffered - I bet a lot more on Paramount than I did on my typical investment, so sure was I that it had the tools needed for success. Fortunately, some of my other media investments have worked out much, much better, or I'd really be hurting. In fact, my Netflix buy has repaired all the damage my Paramount buy has done.
Still, I'm unusually angry, partly because of the sheer amount lost. But it's also that I still don't believe there is anything wrong with Paramount, at its core. It has become quite commonplace to speak of Paramount's "lack of scale" as the reason for its apparent impending demise, or at least subsumption. But I would still argue that that isn't born out by the numbers. Paramount spent roughly $16 billion on content in 2023, the same total as 2022, when $4 billion of it was spent on streaming. That is only slightly less than Netflix, Inc. (NFLX) which leads the industry in market cap and performance, if not in spending. While the gap with other studio peers is larger, I'm not sure spending at Netflix levels equals a "lack of scale."
What's more, a lot of that extra spending by other traditional industry players like Warner Bros. Discovery, Inc. (WBD) and The Walt Disney Company (DIS) is not spending that investors should necessarily cheer. As I've explained before, Paramount's lower spending total is almost entirely accounted for by its far more profitable approach to sports rights; a lot of that extra spending that Disney and Warner are doing isn't particularly profitable or even sensible.
What then, does account for Paramount's underperformance?
Stock Performance That depends on which underperformance you're talking about. First, the stock price. Paramount cut its dividend in spring 2023. That announcement, with its Q1 earnings, was enough to cause half of the past-year decline in a single day. Paramount went from $21 to $16 with the dividend cut and was still at $16 as late as December.
Since then, the other half of the decline has reflected the increasing evidence that Paramount is more or less ready to throw in the towel, and intends to be a distressed seller to another studio or private equity firm soon. More specifically, it is actually Shari Redstone, who exercises control over Paramount through her 77.3% share of Paramount's Class A voting stock, who is ready to call it quits. The perception that she has no leverage and will be forced to accept a fire sale offer has driven the stock lower.
Operations All that, however, merely explains the stock market decline; what is the operational explanation for Paramount's troubles? The company reported a $600 million loss for full year 2023. How is it that one of the Big Five movie studios, with the most popular of the Big Four broadcast networks, the most popular show on cable (Yellowstone) and the only profitable sports slate in American television, can't make money?
Accounting Element First, we need to acknowledge that there are some accounting factors in that 2023 loss. Paramount took a "programming charge," i.e., a write-down of the value of programming assets, of roughly $2.4 billion in Q1 and Q2 last year. That is money that would ordinarily be amortized over a period of years - it's mostly streaming originals, which Paramount usually amortizes over a 4-year period - that instead saw its red ink taken all at once. Had it been amortized normally, Paramount would have reported an operating profit of roughly $1.2 billion, more or less identical to 2022, instead of reporting an operating loss of the same amount.
Still, that write-down reflects the fact that the content isn't performing well, so those losses were always going to happen, and they're quite real; the accounting change is simply a timing issue. So Paramount is operationally deficient, even if perhaps not quite as operationally deficient as this one-time write-down makes it look. We cannot dismiss Paramount's operational issues by putting them down to accounting distortions.
TV Scripted Content Difficulties Paramount did not break down the programming charge, but outside reports have about half of it owing to the integration of Showtime in Paramount+ as a single service. It's not entirely clear which side of the ledger those losses are coming from; one of the less understood things about merging services is that it potentially makes content on both sides less valuable as it is replaced by more popular content from the other side. Showtime's Q1 2023 viewership was very top-heavy, with just two shows, Yellowjackets and Your Honor constituting 30% of all viewership. Presumably, those two shows reduced the value of some Paramount+ existing content while the rest of Showtime's library may have suffered from competition with P+ content.
Regardless of the exact source, Paramount's content is not performing. That's a little surprising considering that, as I said, CBS content is actually quite popular on the linear side. In fact, in the earnings call following the annual report now-former CEO Bob Bakish reported that CBS had the top 16 scripted programs and 18 of the top 20 in the first week of post-strike broadcasts. Paramount has disclosed in the past that CBS content makes up roughly half of the viewership on Paramount+; and this is despite the fact that P+ isn't even the sole beneficiary of CBS content; roughly $600 million per quarter of Paramount's licensing revenue comes from CBS shows as well.
One possibility that I perhaps did not consider sufficiently was the chance that the unique characteristics of CBS would make it harder for that channel to transition to streaming than its other broadcast peers. CBS is the most popular of all broadcast networks, but that popularity owes disproportionately to more elderly viewers; in the demo, it is actually Comcast Corporation's (CMCSA) NBC which takes the top crown.
With elderly viewers both less appealing to advertisers and less likely to make the transition to streaming, it is perhaps not so surprising that CBS is continuing to perform well on linear but having trouble translating that to streaming.
International Shortfall The damage isn't through yet, either. Paramount disclosed that it took another $1.2 billion impairment charge on content in the first quarter. This one has to do with the international side; a few years ago Paramount commissioned 150 new, original international shows and movies to try to boost international growth. Now, Paramount reveals that even international consumers spend no less than 90% of their time streaming Hollywood content; the local originals aren't doing very much for growth or retention.
About the only good thing that can be said about this complete and utter debacle is that it is a one-off; unlike Paramount's US content spending, which is ongoing and therefore must be made more efficient if Paramount is to survive and thrive, Paramount is gradually exiting International production. In fact, to help cover the losses on its international originals it is selling its share in Viacom18, the network that formerly served as Paramount's onshore operation in India, to its partner Reliance for a little over $500 million.
Where Are The Children? Yet another factor is children's programming. While many have essentially written off Paramount's entire cable channel group, and I agree the prognosis for MTV and Comedy Central is rather grim, I have argued that Nickelodeon remains a real asset, as one of the top two children's channels in linear TV. I believed that would be a powerful subscriber acquisition tool, alongside sports, as the streaming transition continued.
It hasn't worked out. Surveys consistently show the Big 3 for parents with children are Netflix, Disney, and the third is Amazon.com, Inc. (AMZN) of all things. Neither Paramount+ nor Warner Discovery's Max make the cut, despite ownership of top children's linear platforms/libraries Nickelodeon and Looney Tunes, respectively.
The prognosis here isn't entirely grim. Paramount has reported that half of their streaming subscribers touch kids' content regularly, so clearly Nickelodeon does mean something to the subscribers. It's possible it helps with retention, even if it doesn't drive acquisition. Paramount owns the number one brand for pre-school kids, Paw Patrol.
Paramount has shut down the separate Noggin streaming service and will presumably be amplifying the kids content on P+ as a result, so perhaps this trend will yet turn around. With so many other things going wrong, though, the inability to make kids content more central to the strategy is a painful blow.
The Mismanagement Of Streaming I suspect, however, that Paramount's single biggest defect over the past few years has been the competency of its management. In a streaming world, success hinges overwhelmingly on the efficiency with which a content budget is deployed. That efficiency, in turn, requires avoiding the trap of "overload," something cable doesn't have to worry about but which can kill a streaming service.
What Is Overload? In brief, overload is when a streaming service spends money on content that appeals primarily to those subscribers who were already subscribed and intending to remain subscribed, even without that content. Because revenue does not increase with more viewership, such spending is essentially wasted money. I have been arguing for several years that some economic models of streaming profitability fail to take account of this significant element.
Paramount seems to have had a lot of overload in the last few years. Specifically, its single most broadly appealing piece of content is the NFL, which Paramount is an anchor broadcaster for. Because NFL fans are accustomed to spending upwards of $100 a month on cable just to watch the NFL - over 10% of cable subscribers say that the NFL is the only reason they're still subscribing - Paramount's $6-$12 a month fee for streaming really doesn't need anything more than NFL games to attract these 40-50 million fans.
The Earnings Jaw-Dropper And yet, it seems that's where a lot of the extra streaming money has been going. On the Q2 earnings call last year, CEO Bob Bakish, watching the stock price steadily decline, seemed to be eager to reassure he had a handle on the situation and began describing some of the changes he'd be making. It started out well enough, really; he told investors that NFL viewers churn drops dramatically if they also engage with entertainment titles, which is what you'd expect.
But then, he stunned me and I expect just about everyone listening when he said, "we probably need to do less for [the NFL viewer] in the fall, and more outside the fall because we can rely on the NFL." Compounding the almost Looking Glass-feeling, he then went on to reassure everyone he would be "fine-tuning" the content strategy to address that point in the years to come.
It was, frankly, stunning. Both me and I suspect just about every analyst who was modeling Paramount had just assumed it went without saying that of course, any entertainment content targeted at retaining NFL viewers should drop in the other half of the year when the NFL wasn't playing on TV. My own calculations of the profit margin on CBS's NFL deal had always incorporated that.
And while that was bad enough, it also raised the concern that a management team that didn't understand that going in might have put a lot of other overload in other categories as well. Suddenly, it wasn't so hard to see how the best-scripted shop with the most profitable sports contracts was having trouble making money. Double-loading for 50 million households would be a major drag on the financial performance for streaming.
Light At The End Of The Tunnel Despite all of this, I still think there are bright spots in the Paramount picture, even without a merger. Its operations, as well as its merger discussions, don't seem to lack potential.

1: My Usual Paramount Bull Argument: Sports Profits

One thing that continues to go right is sports content. A few years ago, I wrote that Paramount was a strong contender to become a sustainable streaming business because it had the only profitable sports slate in the business. The stock hasn't gone where I wanted it to go, but that is the one part of my thesis that has been definitively borne out. In fact, many now say that it is CBS's sports deals, at least as much as Paramount's film/TV studio, that the prospective buyers of Paramount are after.
I've covered these in other articles already. The March Madness deal runs until 2032 and the NFL deal runs until 2033, although the NFL has an opt out after 2029 that it will probably exercise given the utterly ludicrous bids the NBA is receiving, so the last four years of that deal might have to be chopped off the profit projections. Even so, Paramount can probably generate $1.25 billion a year in profit just off of those two deals for the next six years.
Those are probably the biggest, but it doesn't stop there. Almost every sports deal Paramount has is profitable. For all the flak management has deservedly taken, Paramount continues to show discipline and focus on sports. You won't find Paramount throwing $2.5 billion a year at the NBA's 'B' package, which is more money than the NFL gets for its 'B' package despite having 10x the viewership.
For all its many, many missteps, a Paramount that can just manage to stay afloat long enough for some of these ludicrous sports bets at other companies to blow up may yet find itself with cards to play later in the decade.

2: Recouping Write-downs Via Preferred Conversion

Another small boon has been the official conversion of the preferred shares. The Paramount mandatory convertible formerly trading under the PARAP ticker was capped at 0.85 shares per common share. Given the initial price of the convertible at $100 per share, that effectively means that a preferred share that was carrying a $100 liquidation value has just been converted into 1.1765 shares of a common stock currently trading around $12. A total value per preferred share of around $14.
And they sold for $1 billion, so that's basically $860 million back into the common equity that management was able to get at the peak of the boom. That actually repairs almost all of the red ink from Paramount's doomed international originals push on its own.

3: An End To Streaming Waste

Finally, a lot of the waste in streaming may soon be ending. Bob Bakish was finally fired a few weeks ago, and while I never want someone to lose their job, he frankly had looked overmatched for a while. Bakish was a lifetime cable executive who seemed to be having trouble making the transition to a streaming-world mindset. Frankly, if I knew about it in 2021, the CEO has no business fine-tuning it into the strategy in 2023.
With international originals no longer draining the coffers and overloaded entertainment programming shifted to months of the calendar where it can be more productive, streaming may yet turn the corner.
Investment Summary I recognize fully that each fall in Paramount stock makes my bullish optimism seem ever more out of step. I do believe, however, that Paramount's failures are more failures of execution than lack of scale or structural disadvantage. Paramount CEO Bob Bakish simply wasn't up to the job. Ironically that wasn't what got him fired; Bakish was almost certainly fired for opposing Redstone's plan to enrich herself at the expense of other shareholders, probably the most competent thing he did in the last few years of his whole tenure.
Paramount has everything it needs to be successful; profitable sports contracts, which is just unbelievable in this day and age, a thriving scripted TV operation, and a viable, if recently somewhat mismanaged, streaming service. An end to overload waste, the continued exploitation of its favorable sports slate, throttling back unhelpful international originals and boosting kids content engagement may yet produce a different streaming picture going forward. Should older viewers start to get more comfortable with streaming going forward and following their favorite programs to Paramount+, that would just be icing on the cake.
It's been a depressing ride the last few years, but I'm sticking with Paramount.

hi cora since it’s so obvious you read this snark. everything about cora’s mentality towards life makes me so mad. she is almost twenty years old & genuinely has nowhere to go in life if she continues on the path she’s on. look at all these washed up influencers who average ~400 likes a tiktok. she doesn’t post unique, enjoyable, or entertaining content, so she’s next in line to just fall off. like look at her being stuck at 1.9 for two years. her ‘mental health’ is so frustrating. of course you’re gonna be depressed and anxious when you sit at home all day, eating crumbl & junk food all the time & the only time you see sun is to walk into target (in your pajamas). there are so many things that can support you to heal, and help you. therapy, medications, support groups, & getting of a snark of people who don’t like you ;) the tiktok she posted about “needing meds to be happy” “it’s just a chemical imbalance” to “there’s nothing they can do to help me” baby they are medical professionals who have probably dealt with harder cases than you, they can’t help you unless you help yourself. when she spoke about her ‘sa’ (implying christian) made me have a soft spot for her when she spoke about it. as a sa victim from a relationship, i didn’t leave either, but girl. girlllllllll. you were out, you talked all this shit about him & publicly hinted that he sa’d you, just to get back & be happier than ever? you’re a mockery to all victims, and i hope this hurts your feelings WHEN (cause we all know you the most active in the reddit) you read this. stand the fuck up, act your age and do something with your life. stop begging for sympathy online & get a real job. a REAL JOB. anyways ms. cora tilley, please from the bottom of my heart, figure your shit out. get proper nutrients as you and your (cheating) boyfriend look like two starving victorian children with the black plague 🥰

I’ll try to keep it as short as possible, for sake of understanding.
Since about a year, the relationship with one of my best friends (me 31M, her 32F) evolved into being a very deep and connected romantic one.
Since day one it started as being poly on her side, as she had a previous (long term, distance) relationship. I was of course aware of it and I know the guy, given our friendship. They had an agreement of being poly, but this is the first time one of them has another committed relationship.
Apart from the first couple of months, in which it didn’t bother me much, it started being a bigger issue. Just for context, I was always interested in the ENM/poly lifestyle, but never really put it in practice apart from a couple of kinda open relationship, that were too short anyway. This is a major point for me, because in the last 5-6 years I just had casual things and short (not more than 2-3 months) relationships. And I struggled with it. So, speaking about it after around a year it started, it’s already a big achievement for me :) I realize that I missed so many tools to handle a relationship by itself, let alone a poly one. Luckily, we have great communication.
She has been really loving and great, while standing behind her need of being poly as she sees it as an integral part of her identity. We had although so many arguments and fights and were several times close to break up due to me struggling with accepting it (in many shapes). Now we are on a much better wave and after some time of having an agreement of her not looking for other partners of any kind, she expressed the need to change it and went on a first date with someone she got a crush on, a few days ago. Even if nothing sexual happened, it was really hard for me. ah, some months ago I’ve also seen a couple of other persons but both faded away quickly, she encouraged me to but things didn’t click much. It was nice and exciting, but I feel it wasn’t a deep need of mine.
That’s more or less the context :)
What I’m asking here is a bit of advice on how to more deeply embrace and truly accept her poly identity, without hoping that it will somehow go away one day. We have grown a lot during this time, individually and together, I know that I deeply love her and we have a future together. But I feel dying inside every time she is with her other partner (every 1-1.5 months), even though things got better. Yet, the idea of her starting dating someone new regularly really scares me and I freaked out with her after the date.
I’ve read a few books on the topic and suggested content here (thanks!) but I feel like is not helping much, as the whole situation is not really what I’ve chosen myself in the first place, but had to accept it to be with her. On top, I guess it might stay on this kind of mono/poly setup for a while, as I feel like I don’t want another committed relationship atm and don’t feel much drawn to being poly myself.
Thanks for reading till here and to whoever might answer! Xx

Happy Wednesday, Barkada --

The PSE lost 49 points to 6634 ▼0.7%

Shout-out to Jing for alerting me to the crypto pump, to Rat Race Running for knowing that when talking about FILRT it's all about the context, to Atot for the positive feedback on Raymund's "would you rather" question on DDMPFILRT, to ApCap for simply laughing at FILRT, to Bestpupever for remembering MVP's botched Skycable deal, to grinsken, princessybyang, VodkaMartini_007, and Nv21 for the happy bday wishes, and to arkitrader for the accurate Tuesday meme.

▌In today's MB:

• VREIT Q1 div drops 23% q/q
• Ayala Land sells P3.2-B block of AREIT
• Figaro confirms "double-digit growth" plan
• Alliance Global injects P2.6-B into Megaworld

▌Daily meme Subscribe (it's free) Today's email

▌Main stories covered:

• [DIVS] VistaREIT Q1 dividend drops 23% q/q... VistaREIT [VREIT 1.75 ▲0.6%; 0% avgVol] [link] declared a Q1/24 dividend of ₱0.04132, payable on June 27 to shareholders of record as of June 5. The dividend has an annualized yield of 9.4% based on the previous closing price, which is considerably smaller than VREIT’s pre-dividend yield of 12.3%. The total amount of the dividend is ₱310 million, which is 100% of the ₱310 million in distributable income that VREIT declared for the quarter. Relative to VREIT’s IPO price, the div increased VREIT’s total stock and dividend return to 18.55% (up from 16.19%). The VREIT Q1 dividend is up 5.4% y/y, but down 23.2% q/q.
  
  • MB: I don’t know enough about VREIT to understand the quarter-on-quarter drop. This is the first dividend decrease in VREIT history, so we don’t have a past narrative of a Q4 to Q1 dip to gain comfort that this is just part of the regular business cycle for a malls-based REIT. Last year, VREIT’s dividend actually increased 1.5% between Q4/22 and Q1/23. But a 23% drop? *FILRT** be like: VREIT, I owe you an apology, I wasn’t familiar with your game. Does anyone have context to help me understand this one?*
• [UPDATE] Ayala Land sells ₱3.2-B worth of AREIT in block sale... Ayala Land [ALI 29.00 ▼2.4%; 121% avgVol] [link] disclosed that it sold 98 million common shares of AREIT [AREIT 33.00 ▼3.4%; 848% avgVol] in a private placement block sale at a price of ₱32.45/share. ALI said that the transaction was two-times oversubscribed at the clearing price, which was 5% under AREIT’s closing price from the previous day. The transaction raised ₱3.18 billion for ALI and increased AREIT’s public float to facilitate the planned property-for-share swap between ALI and AREIT.
  
  • MB: While I didn’t know exactly when this second block sale would happen, I did know that it was going to happen and I speculated back in January that it would probably come as a surprise and at a discounted price to AREIT’s market price at the time. Here’s a link to that analysis if you’re interested. At the end of the day, the first sale was at a 7.2% discount whereas this one was only at 5.0%, and the public float is now prepped to handle the SEC’s eventual approval of the transaction (whenever that happens) without plunging AREIT’s shareholders into chaos and confusion like what happened to *SP New Energy** [SPNEC 1.05 ▼0.9%; 85% avgVol] when the SEC approved its share swap and caught Leandro Leviste’s management team flat-footed.*
• [NEWS] Figaro confirms ₱1-B FY24 capex and “double-digit growth” target... Figaro [FCG 0.75 ▲1.4%; 95% avgVol] [link] confirmed statements made by its Chairman, Justin Liu, in an interview with Manila Bulletin. In that interview, Mr. Liu said that FCG’s FY24 capex target is ₱1 billion, that they’re looking to open 70 to 80 new stores this year, and that he expects this expansion effort to push earnings to grow “double-digits” this year. FCG confirmed all those statements. FCG’s indicated that it would expand from 150 stores at the end of 2022 to 300 stores by the end of 2029.
  
  • MB: According to its Q1/24 press release, FCG ended 2023 with 203 stores after adding 68 stores that year. If FCG were to put up another “70 to 80” stores this year, that would leave it with 273 to 283 total stores by the end of 2024, and give FCG plenty of time (5 years!) to complete the remaining 127 to 117 stores. Usually in the quick service restaurant world, periods of intense growth don’t correspond with periods of great profitability, so the “double digit” earnings growth target is what stands out to me the most. FCG net income was up 7.2% y/y last quarter, and that’s actually considerable given the previous year’s expansion and the current expansion, but that’s not double-digit growth. One thing that confuses me, though, is that in its Q1/23 quarterly report from a year earlier, FCG said that it ended 2022 with 150 stores. If it had 150 stores at the end of 2022 and then added 68 stores in 2023, shouldn’t it have 218 stores by now, not 203? I know, I know: 15 stores isn’t that big of a deal. Maybe it’s just a miscommunication between marketing and operations. Maybe there was a little bit of internal pressure to count 15 nearly-completed stores as completed stores in order to hit that IPO prospectus goal of 150 total stores by the end of 2022, and then they double-counted those 15 stores as part of the 2023 completes? I don’t know. I’m just going by the info they tell me. Any readers have any insight?
• [UPDATE] Alliance Global injects ₱2.6-B into Megaworld... Megaworld [MEG 1.89 ▼0.5%; 156% avgVol] [link] clarified the recent subscription of its parent company, Alliance Global [AGI 9.30 ▼2.8%; 185% avgVol], to 1.375 billion common shares at ₱1.90/share to say that it is part of a plan to increase MEG’s outstanding authorized capital stock by ₱5.5 billion (from ₱40.2 billion to ₱45.7 billion). MEG explained that it “intends to submit its application for increase in authorized capital stock... by around June 2024”, and will list the shares issued to AGI once the full payment of the subscription price is received. MEG said that the purpose of the sale and the larger transaction is for “supporting growth and future business expansions of [MEG] in line with [MEG’s] strategies and directions.”
  
  • MB: Once approved, this will give MEG’s management team 4.125 billion common shares that it can sell to fund its ambitious capex for FY24 and beyond. If MEG sold the remainder at the same ₱1.90/share price, that would bring in an additional ₱7.8 billion. If I were a shareholder, I’d be less concerned by the details of the transaction as I would be about the meaningless word salad of the rationale behind it. I know many MEG shareholders who are frustrated with the stock’s laggard price performance. MEG just recently touched a 12-year low, and is trading at prices that the stock has not seen since early 2012. It’s down 4% year-to-date, down 8.7% over the past 12 months, down 34% over the past 3 years, and down 69% (not nice) from its all-time high that it set back in July 2019. What’s the plan? So far it seems all I hear is “townships townships townships” but that “strategy and direction” hasn’t been profitable for shareholders for almost 5 years now.

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• Lesson video
• Complementary video

INTRO

Today you're going to set-up another user on your system. You're going to imagine that this is a help-desk person that you trust to do just a few simple tasks:

• check that the system is running
• check disk space with: df -h

...but you also want them to be able to reboot the system, because you believe that "turning it off and on again" resolves most problems :-)
You'll be covering a several new areas, so have fun!

YOUR TASKS TODAY

• Create a new user
• Create a new group
• Create a new user and add to an existing group
• Make a new user a sudoer

Follow this demo

ADDING A NEW USER

Choose a name for your new user - we'll use "helen" in the examples, so to add this new user:
sudo adduser helen
(Names are case-sensitive in Linux, so "Helen" would be a completely different user)
The "adduser" command works very slightly differently in each distro - if it didn't ask you for a password for your new user, then set it manually now by:
sudo passwd helen
You will now have a new entry in the simple text database of users: /etc/passwd (check it out with: less), and a group of the same name in the file: /etc/group. A hash of the password for the user is in: /etc/shadow (you can read this too if you use "sudo" - check the permissions to see how they're set. For obvious reasons it's not readable to just everyone).
If you're used to other operating systems it may be hard to believe, but these simple text files are the whole Linux user database and you could even create your users and groups by directly editing these files - although this isn’t normally recommended.
Additionally, adduser will have created a home directory, /home/helen for example, with the correct permissions.
ATTENTION! useradd is not the same as adduser. They both create a new user, but they interact very differently. Check the link in the EXTENSION section to see those differences.

ADDING A NEW GROUP

Let's say we want to all of the developers in my organization to have their own group, so they can have access to the same things.
sudo groupadd developers
On most modern Linux systems there is a group created for each user, so user "ubuntu" is a member of the group "ubuntu". But if you want, you can create a new user directly into an existing group, using the ingroup flag. So a new user fred would be created like this:
sudo adduser --ingroup developers fred

ADDING AN USER TO GROUPS

Users can also be part of more than one group, and groups can be added as required.
To see what groups you're a member of, simply type: groups
On an Ubuntu system the first user created (in your case ubuntu), should be a member of the groups: ubuntu, sudo and admin - and if you list the /valog folder you'll see your membership of the sudo group is why you can use less to read and view the contents of /valog/auth.log
The "root" user can add a user to an existing group with the command:
usermod -a -G group user
so your ubuntu user can do the same simply by prefixing the command with sudo.
Because the new user helen is not the first user created in the system, they don't have the power to run sudo - which your user has by being a member of the group sudo.
So, to check which groups helen is a member of, you can "become helen" by switching users like this:
sudo su helen
Then:
groups
If you try to do stuff only a sudo user can do, i.e. read the contents of /valog/auth.log, even using the prefix sudo won't work. Helen is not a sudo and has no permissions to perform this action.
Now type "exit" to return to your normal user, and you can add helen to this group with:
sudo usermod -a -G sudo helen
Instead of switching users again, simply run the groups helen to check. Try that with fred too and check how everything works.
See if any of your new users can sudo reboot.

CLEVER SUDO TRICKS

Your new user is just an ordinary user and so can't use sudo to run commands with elevated privileges - until we set them up. We could simply add them to a group that's pre-defined to be able to use sudo to do anything as root (like we did with helen) - but we don't want to give fred quite that same amount of power.
Use ls -l to look at the permissions for the file: /etc/sudoers This is where the magic is defined, and you'll see that it's tightly controlled, but you should be able to view it with: sudo less /etc/sudoers You want to add a new entry in there for your new user, and for this you need to run a special utility: visudo
To run this, you can temporarily "become root" by running:
sudo -i
Notice that your prompt has changed to a #
Now simply run visudo to begin editing /etc/sudoers - typically this will use nano.
All lines in /etc/sudoers beginning with "#" are optional comments. You'll want to add some lines like this:

# Allow user "fred" to run "sudo reboot" # ...and don't prompt for a password # fred ALL = NOPASSWD:/sbin/reboot 

You can add these line in wherever seems reasonable. The visudo command will automatically check your syntax, and won't allow you to save if there are mistakes - because a corrupt sudoers file could lock you out of your server!
Type exit to remove your magic hat and become your normal user again - and notice that your prompt reverts to: $

TESTING

Test by logging in as your test user and typing: sudo reboot Note that you can "become" helen by:
sudo su helen
If your ssh config allows login only with public keys, you'll need to setup /home/helen/.ssh/authorized_keys - including getting the owner and permissions correct. A little challenge of your understanding of this area!

EXTENSION

If you find this all pretty familiar, then you might like to check and update your knowledge on a couple of related areas:

• Restricting shell access
• Linux Password & Shadow File Formats
• What's the difference between 'useradd' and 'adduser'?
• How to create users and groups in Linux from the command line
• Learn how to use the $EDITOR environmental variable to set your default editor to vim. With this done, visudo will use vim rather than nano for editing.

RESOURCES

• How To Edit the Sudoers File
• Sudo – An Advanced Howto
• A cartoon that should now make sense!
• Basic Linux Permissions: sudo and sudoers (video)

PREVIOUS DAY'S LESSON

• Day 12 - Transferring files

Some rights reserved. Check the license terms here

the last time i played the game was probably about a year ago. i fell away from it, partly cause of some of the problems/bugs, and partly because i just moved on. i read some of the patch notes, but the lists were VERY long and most of them didn't seem to have major updates... have their been any new significant content additions?
The biggest problem i remember having was the outpost resupply/transportation of resources was entirely bugged and did not work in the slightest. has this been fixed?
also have they done anything in shipbuilder? it was definitely my favorite part of the game, until i spent so much time there that i came to be bored.
any optimization? in the past hour it feels smoother at least a little.
anyways yeah what are the noteworthy changes lately?

[TW for mention of SA]
Making this post because lots of people are still actively spreading misinformation and lies about Hyuna's boyfriend, Junhyung, and it's harmful in many ways, because as opposed to what many people think and tell, the investigation concluded that Junhyung never shared SA videos or received SA videos, or hidden camera videos, or sex-tapes, and that he was never part of the JJY group chats.
Jong Joonyoung (JJY)'s group chats in which hidden camera videos were shared without the consent of the girls (molka) and the Burning Sun scandal are two different things, but JJY's group chat was discovered through the Burning Sun investigation (2019). If you want to learn about it, the BBC has just released a documentary on Burning Sun, JJY & the molka chatrooms are also adressed in it. (You can already note that JJY & Junhyung's names are pretty close, therefore lots of people mistaked them when the news of his relationship with Hyuna came out in January. There were enough people to clarify that and make it clear that JJY ≠ Junhyung though, but not so many know what was actually Junhyung's part and are therefore still spreading misleading information.)
When SBS's '8'O'Clock News' news first shared screenshots of messages JJY and other idols had exchanged in the chatrooms, Junhyung's message was added and edited, which made it seem like he was part of the groupchats when he wasn't.
In 2015, he was sent one video by JJY (1-1) that was not a sex-tape but a video of a girl taken in a pub in which he (JJY) was touching her (or she was touching him) (no nudity or intercourse in the video), the video was made with her consent but was not sent with her consent. This is the video he's talking about in his statement about leaving Highlight, and the video he made crude comments about. There are no other videos.
(see first line of the table: kbs court documents translation*, he is not mentioned again *original article link)
He later on received a message from JJY that was something like "I got caught sending the video", to which Junhyung replied "You got caught by her? (the girl from the video)" (that's the message that was edited by SBS that made it seem like he was part of the groupchats), and didn't report him.
I'm adding a part of a comment of another redditor that went through the case's files, as it sums up things well: "[...] The video in question was of JJY engaged in making out with a woman in a bar and that she put her hand on a "certain part of his anatomy". The police transcript went on to say that the video was taken with the woman's knowledge and consent, but she did not consent to having it shared. There was no nudity or intercourse shown in the video. I don't know if Yong Junhyung knew it was sent without the woman's consent. The transcript did not reveal what the text of the messages about the video said, however Yong Junhyung has said he feels embarrassed and ashamed about what he said in response to receiving this video. So no doubt it was something douchy, but not necessarily worse than what you would expect guys texting about such a video would be. There is no evidence in the transcripts to suggest that Yong Junhyung knew that women were being [SA'd] or that illegal videos were being made and shared. The video he received was not exactly something you could take to the police as its not illegal to make out in a bar."
He did not go to jail and wasn't sentenced, he was called in as a witness and fully cooparated with the police, left his group to atone and protect Highlight from the backlash.
Also Junhyung is NOT the guy (Choi Jong Bum) that abused and blackmailed Goo Hara back in 2018/2019. Junhyung and Hara dated for about 2 years in 2011, anyone claiming he abused her is making things up (according to official sources, Junhyung was a supportive boyfriend who helped Hara through some hard times, and the two ended things amicably and decided to remain friends).
I've seen people on Twitter, on Reddit, on Youtube, in Hyuna's comments section, call him a rapist, saying he was involved in 'non-consensual gang bangs', watched 'SA videos of young girls', is a 'sex traffickant', 'sex criminal' or that he admitted "watching SA videos", and to what we know by the investigation that was led, that is NOT TRUE.
That's for the actual facts, please do not spread misinformation and don't buy in everything you read. It's ok not to support their relationship but spreading lies or misinformation is not.
more sources: Statement from Around Us Ent. before Junhyung left HIGHLIGHT (before clarification): "Hello, this is Around Us Ent. We are writing in regards to the news of the reveal of singer Jung Joon Young’s KakaoTalk chatroom, which was reported on SBS’s ‘8 O’Clock News’ on March 11, 2019. We are aware that people are saying that Highlight member Yong Junhyung is the ‘Singer Yong’ that is shown in the contents of the conversation from the group chatroom with illegal hidden camera footage that was revealed on the news. Yong Junhyung has no connection to the filming or sharing of illegal videos. Also, Yong Junhyung has never been in a chatroom where Jung Joon Young’s illegal hidden camera videos were shared. In addition to that, we have confirmed that he has never been in any group chatroom at all with Jung Joon Young. We directly confirmed with Yong Junhyung after the news report and found out that conversation that was shared in the news was originally the content of a one-on-one conversation between Jung Joon Young and Yong Junhyung. Previously in 2016 [actually 2015 but Around Us Ent. didn't have this information at the moment, cf Junhyung's declaration coming after] when Jung Joon Young was having a hard time due to a personal matter, Yong Junhyung asked him what was happening. Jung Joon Young replied ‘I got caught taking a video and sending it [the message included symbols for laughter],” and [Yong Junhyung] asked in return, ‘You mean you were caught by the woman?’ In regards to the simulated group chatroom screenshot that was shared in the news, we plan to verify with SBS News about the authenticity. [...]" referring to the fact that in the screenshots first shared by SBS, it made it seem like he was part of the chatroom
Junhyung's declaration when leaving Highlight: "Hello, this is Yong Jun-hyung. First, I sincerely apologize to the members and all fans who have had a hard time because of me these past few days. After the SBS 8 o'clock news on the 11th, I received a call from the company to check the facts. At that time, I didn't understand the point well and only conveyed that I wasn't in [the] group chat. Therefore, the company, taking my side, officially stated that the report was not accurate, but it was based on the wrong information I provided. In the process of preparing the official statement with the company, I mentioned that the incident was in 2016 because the conversation with Jung Joon-young wasn't saved in my KakaoTalk, so I couldn't accurately check the date at that time. I apologize for adding to everyone's confusion on this as well.
Regarding the KakaoTalk content from late 2015 reported in the news, the conversation with Jung Joon-young was after we drank together the previous day. He told me about an incident (being caught sharing illegal video recording), and I replied, "You got caught by the girl?" I did not receive that video at that time, but I did receive one on a different occasion. In addition, I had inappropriate conversations regarding it. All these actions were extremely immoral, and I was foolish. I failed to recognize this as a crime and illegal behavior, and was complacent about it, and I regret not firmly stopping it.
Yesterday, I went for a reference person investigation related to this issue. I spoke truthfully about everything I knew and cooperated with the investigation. While receiving the witness interview, I saw exactly what conversations I had in the past, and I felt indescribably ashamed and [horrified/regretful].
I have never engaged in illegal acts like taking or spreading hidden camera videos. Since the end of 2016, my relationship with Jung Joon-young was just occasionally asking about each other's well-being. However, knowing about it, I thought and acted too easily and carelessly, being an onlooker to this serious issue that could've led to more victims.
I'm truly sorry for betraying the trust of the members and fans who believed in me, failing to reciprocate the love given to me. I realize the severity of this matter, and I do not want any further harm to be done to my fans and members who must have been disappointed because of me, so I will leave the group Highlight as of March 14, 2019. I will live while reflecting on myself again and again. I apologize sincerely once again."
(edited for typo/better wording)

Hello,
Thank you to anyone who reads this, any advice or thoughts would be appreciated.
I met my ex 1.5 years ago, whom I believe is a soulmate of mine. It took me 1.5 years to get over him, he was my dream guy but we ended on strange notes. Our relationship moved too quickly and I think it was bad timing. our relationship and breakup forced me to grow in such important ways.
Anyway, I only recently fully let him go, and accepted our departing. I've never been happier.
Well, last year, I befriended this guy who I had a very powerful and overwhelming spiritual connection with at a rooftop party by chance. We'd gone on a few dates, but I get my emotional distance as our connection was so strong and it wasn't the right timing and we were just in different spots. Well, every few weeks or months we'd check in, meet etc. We have never had intimacy, because my gut keeps telling me it's not right. not yet. and he has agreed, he does not want to unless we are in love and committed to one another.
I've recently come into town and stayed at his place for a week, this guy is a very kind person. during this week we grew very close, talk for hours and hours every day and well our chemistry and affections for one another in undeniable. He is ready for a real long term partnership. And, for the first time in my life I feel so happy in my life, so content. and I am scared. He told me he sees we could make each other happy, and he could see his life married to me. This week has ended, and we agreed to not see each other for a week so we can think and decide if it's right for us. He told me he wants to clean up any loose ends he has so if/when we decide to be together, there won't be anything lingering on his end.
That got me thinking, even though I have departed from my ex, he lingers in my head and often when I write (I am a writer) I write to him, like he is my muse but for only myself. And, I realized I need to tie my loose ends too.
I want to message my ex, and make sure that we are 100% over. I have dreams of him often, about him coming back, and I get spiritual messages about him. I know we are not 100% over each other. but if I enter this partnership with we can call him A, then I want to enter it without any questions of "what if."
How should I send this message? I don't know how to start off.

Hey! Any swedes here?
I've been reading some theory and consuming a lot of marxist content lately, but all of it is from authors and creators from other parts of the world (like the deprogram). Which is great, I've learned a lot.
But in order to get a better grasp on what can be done on a local level I feel the need to educate myself more on local matters. So, I'm looking for Swedish authors/content on politics and history from a marxist perspective. Any recommendations would be appreciated!
Also, are you organized? I'm looking to join some type of org but I don't know where to begin.
Thanks!

Hi everyone
I got an MakePico ESP32-D0WDQ6 for school. I was wrighting a program for a class later this week in the Arduino ide. But i couldn't get it wright so i asked chat GPT what to do and after a few times i was able to uplaudf my program. But after it got uplauded i got weird tekst in the serial monitor. so i chenged some thing and tryied uplauding it a again. But after compiling it gave following error in the output.
Sketch uses 231141 bytes (17%) of program storage space. Maximum is 1310720 bytes.
Global variables use 20968 bytes (6%) of dynamic memory, leaving 306712 bytes for local variables. Maximum is 327680 bytes.
esptool.py v4.5.1
Serial port COM14
Connecting....
Chip is ESP32-D0WDQ6 (revision v1.0)
Features: WiFi, BT, Dual Core, 240MHz, VRef calibration in efuse, Coding Scheme None
Crystal is 40MHz
MAC: 08:3a:f2:ba:cd:04
Uploading stub...
Running stub...
Stub running...
Changing baud rate to 921600
Changed.
WARNING: Failed to communicate with the flash chip, read/write operations will fail. Try checking the chip connections or removing any other hardware connected to IOs.
Configuring flash size...
Flash will be erased from 0x00001000 to 0x00005fff...
Flash will be erased from 0x00008000 to 0x00008fff...
Flash will be erased from 0x0000e000 to 0x0000ffff...
Flash will be erased from 0x00010000 to 0x00048fff...
Compressed 18992 bytes to 13110...
A fatal error occurred: Packet content transfer stopped (received 8 bytes)
Failed uploading: uploading error: exit status 2
Now i can't uplaud any thing to it anymore. Does anyone now a solution to this? Or is it broken for ever?
this is the code i think #@$!* it up.
enum CustomPinStatus { PIN_LOW = 0, PIN_HIGH = 1, PIN_CHANGE = 2, PIN_FALLING = 3, PIN_RISING = 4 };

Hi everyone
I got an MakePico ESP32-D0WDQ6 for school. I was wrighting a program for a class later this week in the Arduino ide. But i couldn't get it wright so i asked chat GPT what to do and after a few times i was able to uplaudf my program. But after it got uplauded i got weird tekst in the serial monitor. so i chenged some thing and tryied uplauding it a again. But after compiling it gave following error in the output.
Sketch uses 231141 bytes (17%) of program storage space. Maximum is 1310720 bytes.
Global variables use 20968 bytes (6%) of dynamic memory, leaving 306712 bytes for local variables. Maximum is 327680 bytes.
esptool.py v4.5.1
Serial port COM14
Connecting....
Chip is ESP32-D0WDQ6 (revision v1.0)
Features: WiFi, BT, Dual Core, 240MHz, VRef calibration in efuse, Coding Scheme None
Crystal is 40MHz
MAC: 08:3a:f2:ba:cd:04
Uploading stub...
Running stub...
Stub running...
Changing baud rate to 921600
Changed.
WARNING: Failed to communicate with the flash chip, read/write operations will fail. Try checking the chip connections or removing any other hardware connected to IOs.
Configuring flash size...
Flash will be erased from 0x00001000 to 0x00005fff...
Flash will be erased from 0x00008000 to 0x00008fff...
Flash will be erased from 0x0000e000 to 0x0000ffff...
Flash will be erased from 0x00010000 to 0x00048fff...
Compressed 18992 bytes to 13110...
A fatal error occurred: Packet content transfer stopped (received 8 bytes)
Failed uploading: uploading error: exit status 2
Now i can't uplaud any thing to it anymore. Does anyone now a solution to this? Or is it broken for ever?
this is the code i think #@$!* it up.
enum CustomPinStatus { PIN_LOW = 0, PIN_HIGH = 1, PIN_CHANGE = 2, PIN_FALLING = 3, PIN_RISING = 4 };

Hey there to those whom it may concern,
Long story short, the class's medium difficulty in terms of a more general scale. For a math person, it shouldn't be a problem at all. I took the class with Dias Plinio Bicalho (ended up with an A) and I'm just surprised at the low average of the exams while the content's pretty straightforward. Just make sure (for his class) you know everything on the PowerPoint and don't question anything even if they seem to make no sense to you in the first place — that's the way of living in the Econ domain.
You don't need STATA (although they recommend you get one) and I highly suggest that you don't get one. Because STATA is not important for the success of this class as long as you know the format of the code, and can read the STATA chart associated with linealogistic/etc regression & interpretations of which; it's there for you to experiment with, and clarify your knowledge (but if you are rich, nvm).
I do have to advise you that this class is VERY proof-heavy. Make sure you understand how each proof associated with a specific formula works around. You must be able to use secondary conclusions you derived from your previous proofs and how you can apply them to prove something new.
Exams (for his class) are much recitation with a bit blend of analysis. Make sure you know word to word the stuff he wants you to know for the recitation part (free points). For the analysis part, it's not hard either but requires a deeper understanding. There might be, occasionally, one or two real hard ones on the exams (proofs you've never seen or tricky questions) — well, bona fortuna.
Bicalho does give out extra credit but don't even think about it because it's psychological warfare. You can try to get the extra credit he randomly gives in class (by answering or asking specific types of questions that he thinks are worthy of extra credit). He might very likely give you an R-Studio assignment for a 5-point extra credit. But trust me, you don't want to spend too much time on it. It's just the equivalent worth of a multiple choice and it takes you like... 36 hrs min (idk I never did it)? You can use this time to actually learn and solidify your knowledge — know your tradeoffs!
Finally, a little tinge of info on the grading scheme (for his class): 25% midterm 1, 25% midterm 2, and 50% final. But if you did really badly on one of the midterms, you can also do the highest midterm 25%, and final 75%, depending on your performance.
That's it. All the best luck in your future endeavors.

Hi all, longtime listener, first-time caller. Please see my query and first 300 below.
My biggest question is this: 95% of the story takes place in 2014, but the book opens in 2020 when my main character receives a letter from the California Dept of Fair Housing & Employment informing her of an investigation into behavior at Chatpic. Receiving the letter spurs her to tell the story of what happened back then. The book checks back into 2020 in the middle as my MC tries to get more information about the investigation, and then it ends back in 2020 again when she decides what she wants to do about the letter.
The reason the story takes place in 2014 is because the time period--pre #MeToo/Donald Trump/the workplace reckoning of 2020--informs the decisions the MC makes back then, and she's looking back at it from a wiser perspective. If you've read The Rachel Incident, Caroline O'Donoghue does a similar thing as she retells a 2008 abortion story from the perspective of present day.
In the end, the investigation is not a driving force of the plot--so my question is how important is it that it's mentioned in the query? I ask because I've found that trying to add that piece to what I've already written starts to get convoluted, though obviously I can work at it. I think it's very clear once you read the first 300, but for agents who don't want a sample, is it clear in the blurb that this story is looking back to a time gone by?
Mostly looking for insight on this question specifically, but if you have further feedback about the letter for first 300, open to that as well. Thanks!
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
Dear [Agent],
Thank you for the opportunity to submit my query for TERMS OF SERVICE, a true-ish fictional story about a young woman in a nearly impossible workplace a la UNCANNY VALLEY meets THE DEVIL WEARS PRADA (with shades of 9 TO 5). TERMS OF SERVICE is complete at 95,000 words.
It’s 2014 and down-and-out celebrity blogger Maggie Clarke is desperate for a fresh start. Not only is she broke in New York City, but at 31, she thought she’d be writing something a little less embarrassing than Justin Bieber listicles by now. When her longtime internet friend Aron York–recently named the world’s youngest billionaire–offers her a lucrative position at his massively popular social media app Chatpic that puts her at the center of his inner circle in Los Angeles, it’s exactly the step-up she’s been waiting for. As Maggie learns to manage the always-on hours, the slew of acronyms, and the unlimited access to free cold brew, she encounters another more complicated problem–the boys’ club. Except this isn’t the typical ham-fisted sexism she’s used to–this is the tech bro variety: insidious, inexorable, and infuriating. When she meets an ambitious young reporter who encourages her to speak out, Maggie has a shot at revenge. But in a world before mansplaining and microaggressions, is blowing the whistle worth the risk? And is anyone ready to hear it?
Like Maggie, I was also plucked from internet obscurity by the world’s (then) youngest billionaire, [redacted], to come work at his massively popular social media app, [redacted company]. I was a founding member of the company’s content team, and all I have to show for it is six footnotes in the [redacted company] biography [redacted title] and the brutal feminist awakening that inspired me to write this manuscript. Before that, I was a full-time writer in New York whose work has appeared on MTV, Rolling Stone and Elle. Currently I’m a content and editorial consultant in Chicago, and I’m also on TikTok where 21,000 people watch me rant about work and office culture. (It’s also where 2M people enjoyed my show-and-tell video about the “sentimental” stock certificates [redacted company previously mentioned] gave a few early employees–that were worth exactly $0.00.)
As the agent who represents [Author 1] and [Author 2], you have a strong list when it comes to complex female characters embroiled in complicated social dynamics. TERMS OF SERVICE would be a great addition to this track because, while similar themes of class and workplace are explored, my flavor of levity and sarcasm makes my work distinct from [Author 1] and [Author 2], bringing a new facet to your program.
If you are interested in reading TERMS OF SERVICE, I would be happy to forward a sample of any length you suggest. Thank you for your consideration!
___________________________________________________________________________________________________________
First 300:
Chapter 1
2020
A lot of people might revel in the idea of receiving a letter announcing an investigation into their ex-employer.
One might, for example, envision draping themselves in a mink stole, lighting the cigarette at the end of their old-timey cigarette holder, and dialing the investigator’s number from a rotary phone atop a solid wood desk under shadowy, film noir lights. One might then imagine whispering I knew this day would come into the receiver between bursts of psychotic, hysterical laughter as they rejoiced in the long overdue arrival of the long arm of the law.
But me, I wasn’t so sure. Maybe because I didn’t have a mink stole.
No, I was crouched on the ground of my parents’ musky basement in Des Plaines, Illinois, knee-deep in piles of old diaries and CDs when I received notice of one such letter. It was month four of COVID, and Dad and I were only halfway through his cleaning list. He was already a germaphobe so a global pandemic was all he needed to justify a top-to-bottom disinfection of the entire house. And since my routine trip home in the middle of March turned into a hapless extended stay when the world shut down, it was the perfect excuse to put me to work. Just like the good old days.
We wiped down every square inch of the place. We soaked the faucet heads in lemon juice, we scrubbed the coffee mugs with baking soda. We vacuumed the damn fridge.
Reorganizing the basement shelves was a beast. Every box was like a Russian nesting doll of useless crap: old TV Guides, corroded double-A batteries, dried-out cans of paint primer, an unsettling number of hand saws. I made decent headway through the “tools” and “electronics,” but I lost all steam when I got to my high school stuff—faded Polaroids and folded-up notes stopped me in my tracks.

This probably doesn't really need a spoiler tag, but I'll be cautious. Something I've been wondering for a while is why, in the Hathaway movie (and I think more modern reprints of the books' covers), federation collar rank insignia is changed from what it was in basically all other UC content I've seen or read (outside of animation errors or in the original show when it would occasionally get wonky because they I guess hadn't really picked a standard yet). For example, Kenneth before promotion has an equivalent rank to what Bright has in Zeta/ZZ/CCA/Unicorn, but it looks different. For Kenneth, it's the expected three diamonds but instead of the normal two lines it's three. Just seems like a very random change to make so far into the series, especially if it can't align with anything later UC like F91 or Victory.
Also since I'm asking about HF-era ranks is the wiki just wrong about Bright's rank like inexplicably? It says Bright is a rear admiral, but I can only ever remember him getting called captain in the movie or the books (checked the movie and its definitely still "taisa" so he's not been promoted since CCA). Like I thought the whole joke with Bright is that they haven't promoted him since like Zeta despite him leading all these important factions. Hell if I remember right the third book makes it clear they're actively not promoting him because they're scared of him getting too powerful and getting involved with another rebellion.