Old english creator.com

Recently our Male dog was part of a breeding agreement. The client had said they couldn’t afford to pay the stud service up front, and chose to take the “cost of first puppy sold” option.
They have now sold some of the puppies, and are trying to tell us they only got $750 for the first dog yesterday, and they will pay us tomorrow (we had to initiate contact as they didn’t tell us to begin with).
The issue we have is - dogs were listed for $1200 - One puppy (first sold) on listing has been “reserved” for over 2 weeks - We don’t/can’t trust them
The contracts have a minimum payment clause, which ensures we get $900, so they are saying they will cover that balance. But I can’t help but assume they are lying, and got the full amount for this first puppy, and are trying to leverage us being in the unknown and heavily relying on trust to not have to pay us in full.
That being said, with the wording in the contracts (below), and the small context provided above, would we even have a case in small claims court? Or should we take the $900 and understand it’s not worth the fight? (Money is an issue now after a lot of recent medical bills, so it’s important to us)
Contract 1 “English Cream Golden Retriever: Bruce is 33 months old and 82 lbs. He is AKC registered. Our stud fee is $600 or pick of the litter or cost of first sold puppy and will cover 2 stud services. 50% must be paid, at the time of the first service. At the first successful lock the remainder of the fee is to be collected. If arrangements have been made prior to the breeding for pick of litter puppy in lieu of a stud fee, this contract must reflect that agreement and be agreed upon by the owner of the dam and the owner of the stud dog prior to the stud service. If you wish to increase the number of services, the fee will be raised $50 per visit. If no pregnancy results, a return service will be given to the same dam at half cost on her next heat cycle. Stud owner must be notified within one week after puppy's due date, if no pregnancy results, to be eligible for the free return service. One puppy whelped alive constitutes a litter. No refund will be given if no pregnancy either time. Females usually breed between the 10th to 15th day of heat cycle. Please schedule accordingly as we want this to be successful. Dam will meet at studs' home for the service. The dam may stay at the stud's home for no more than 1.5 hours at a time unless otherwise discussed beforehand. If you require the dam to stay longer, the service price will increase. Owners of dams to be bred by Bruce agree that no offspring from a resulting litter may be sold or given to anyone who has the intent to breed to a wolf, wolf hybrid, or any agent, pet shop, guard dog business or laboratory/research facility. If pick of the litter is chosen the puppy will be picked up by the owners of the stud 8 weeks after birth and the puppy will have at a minimum their first round of shots and 1 deworming service done. If cost of first sold puppy is selected, the owners of the stud will be paid in full as soon as payment is received. Cost of first puppy sold payment will be a minimum of $900, and if the puppy sells for less, the owner of the Dam assumes responsibility to cover the balance. Owners of dam are going to be listing puppies at $1200 cost.
The agreement of this specific service will be pick of litter upon these contingencies: Dam must conceive a minimum of one female puppy. The owners of Bruce will get the first pick of litter. If no female is born, stud fee of $600 is to be collected.”
Contract 2 “ This agreement is made and entered into on this day Feb 1 2024, by and between {name} , here in after referred to as the "Stud Owner," and {name} here in after referred to as the "Dam Owner." * Stud Service Description. ** The Stud Owner agrees to provide stud services from Bruce, a cream colored Golden Retriever AKC registered, here in after referred to as the, "Stud" to, "Dam" Chicka, a cream colored Golden Retriever. * Stud Fee and Payment Terms. ** The stud fee will be the equivalent to the sale price of the first puppy sold in the litter, sired by the Stud listed in this contract. Minimum Fee. *** In the event that the sale price of the first puppy is less than $900, The Dam owner Shall Pay the difference to ensure the stud fee is equitable to the fee requested of $900 in the original add for the studs services. Payment method*** Payment shall be made via Cash, Venmo, or Zelle. Proof of pregnancy*** The Dam owner will provide proof of pregnancy or non-pregnancy by a licensed Vet on or around day 45 of the pregnancy with an X ray to confirm the estimated number of puppies present. If the pregnancy results in less than 3 puppies the stud owner agrees to a second breeding free of charge when the dam comes back into season. This will be at the Dam owner's request. At the time that pregnancy is confirmed by the Dam owner, the studs AKC paperwork will be provided to the dam's owner. Breach of Contract and Legal Action*** Non- Compliance of this contract by Dam owner or Stud owner will constitute a breach of contract and will result in legal action and recourse by the Stud or Dam owner for compensation. Agreement Terms*** Both Parties hereby agree to the terms and conditions set forth in this contract. Legal Recourse *** In the event of a breech, owners reserve the right to seek legal action and compensation.”

This is a translation of a 16 min long interview by 银河Jett on Bilibili. In this interview, BLG coach bail talks about communicating with the team in another language, whzy as a player, the differences between Korean and Chinese teams, the importance of winning pistols, the problems present in the team and the upcoming meta changes.
Q: Have you been to China before joining BLG? What’s your first impression of China and VCT CN?
A: I’ve actually been to China many times when I was a player, but I’ve never been to China just to travel. For VCT CN, I think VCT CN plays very aggressive and they really like taking fights. I’ve also faced some other Chinese teams in another game, and the style is also similar. It feels like Valorant has taken on this style.
Q: You’ve mentioned that you used to play professionally and came to China multiple times. As a lot of the audience actually don’t know you very well, can you briefly talk about how you ended up being a Valorant coach? You can talk about what games you used to compete in.
A: I used to play CS professionally in Korea, the team is called WeMade FOX. That team could be considered as the most well known team in Korea back then. As for how I got my start in Valorant, Riot was publishing a FPS. I watched the trailer and it seemed very similar to CS. Since both are FPS games, I gave it a try. I wanted to become a professional player initially, but I’m too old for a professional player so I ended up coaching.
Q: Putting the players’ performance onstage aside, who’s your favourite player or who do you get along with the best?
A: Our team is a unit, so I won’t say that I like a single player. We have a business relationship when competing, or it’s that sort of partnership. But out of the game, we feel like a big family. If I have to choose, I’ll pick players like knight or whzy who are more energetic and cheerful. I knew of whzy and I found him to be a good player before joining BLG, and I feel that he is a very competitive person and is a strong player after joining. Also, he’s more professional and works harder than I thought. He will immediately ask for my help once he encounters any problems or shortcomings, and he absorbs my feedback very well during review sessions. If I have to talk about his shortcomings, I think his mentality is slightly weak. I’m not saying that his mentality is the worst among all the pro players, but since he’s pretty good in other areas, his mentality is slightly worse.
Q: As you’ve been involved with VCT CN for quite some time, how’s your Mandarin now? Which Mandarin phrase do you say the most often?
A: Even though I’ve joined BLG for quite a long time, I’m still not that fluent in Mandarin. I only know some basic phrases that are related to the game, like smoke, left, right, a few in-game terminologies. I can also communicate some basic numbers, but the most used phrase should be ‘play together (一起打)’, I will always tell the players to play together during scrims and official matches.
Q: Since you’re not that fluent in Mandarin, a lot of the audience are curious as to how you communicate to the team during timeouts.
A: There’s also coach Jexen in the booth, Jexen knows some English. It’s still fine if the problem isn’t too huge, everyone can understand if you talk about the game in English. Before calling a timeout, I’ll talk to Jexen about where we haven’t been doing so well at, how we can get better and stop the opponent. Jexen will add his thoughts and organise them, and relay to the team.
Q: You also faced Chinese teams during the LCQ, what are the differences between the playstyles and the habits of the Korean teams and the Chinese teams?
A: I have coached teams in Japan and Korea, and I’m coaching a Chinese team now. They all have completely different playstyles. Korean teams like to gather info and find the opponents’ weak spots before they attack the site. Japanese teams like to play in a formal and methodical manner, they play the game like they’re in a regular army. Chinese teams are completely unafraid of taking fights, they’re very confident and it gives off the feeling that they feel like they can win once they start engaging in fights.
Q: I’ve previously watched the vlog from BLG, and I found this moment to be particularly interesting. You were holding whzy and kept on telling him that ‘pistol win, game win’. It’s evident that you place a lot of importance on the team’s pistols and BLG’s pistol winrate is about 50%, which is about 15W-15L. This isn’t considered very good or very bad in VCT CN, but I’d like to know your thoughts on pistol rounds and their place within the game.
A: Our pistol winrate is about 50%, but this number is a very bad statistic to me. I hope we can achieve a pistol win rate of more than 60%. This is because the team’s overall atmosphere can get very low after losing the pistol round, and the fear of losing becomes present. It’s going to be a huge blow to the players if they fail to win the third round. Also, pistol rounds will have a huge impact on the overall scoreline since Valorant is MR12 so there is a huge difference between winning and losing pistol rounds. The overall team atmosphere will rise once the pistol round is won and the players will be more confident in themselves.
Q: The next question may be more serious. From beating NRG twice to not making Stage 1 playoffs, the team has gone through many ups and downs. What do you think is the biggest problem with the team, and what is your general plan for future adjustments?
A: This is a rather hard question to answer since I don’t know the extent to which I can talk about. If I am to talk about it a little bit, I think I should first make some changes to the players’ mindset and thoughts. The team did beat NRG twice and played pretty well. Before joining BLG, I felt that the players are all pretty good, but once I actually joined the team in person, I realised that it was like what other people said, there was indeed a bit of luck involved. It could be that the players may have experienced some changes in their mindset after they attended Champions, but they’re still practising hard. They were already working hard in the past, and they’re now also working hard. As compared to other teams, our team is a little…how do I put this into words, it feels very jumpy and inconsistent, it doesn’t feel like we’ve improved much. Hence I want to single out these problems and get rid of them. There is definitely a reason behind these players getting such results in Champions. The goal is to revitalise their potential, but it seems that this hasn’t been achieved in Stage 1. In case of the direction, it seems like my tactical style during matches is somewhat different from that of the VCT CN League. I’m not at liberty to go into the specifics about the adjustments, and I still need to give some thought to it and think about what to do. But we’ll show the adjustments and changes we’ve made when we play in Stage 2.
Q: The next question is related to the current meta. What are your thoughts on the heavy nerfs to Viper? In previous matches, many teams will choose mirror comps on certain maps such as Ascent but this has changed after the nerfs. Teams like FPX and teams from other regions are trying out new comps. I’d like to know your thoughts on this.
A: I’ve given much thought to the Viper nerfs, after all Viper has been a stable pick for operating the map, I think the game will increase in pace after Viper gets nerfed and there will be more aggressive fights, we’ve also tried a lot of different styles and different comps. As to why we never selected them in the end, I can only say that scrims are scrims, and matches are matches. In actual matches, it’s more about running a comp that best suits the players’ strengths and let them be more comfortable. Of course, we won’t force a weird comp due to the meta changes, I still need to talk with the players first and run a comp that plays into their strengths best.
Q: The last question is, from your view as a coach, do you have some tips for the audience to climb the ranked ladder?
A: I want to say that when you’re playing ranked, you first need to have good luck and have good teammates, then you can win games. You just need to play the game more if you want to climb. I can also climb the ranked ladder, but I don’t even have the time to play the game. And another point, playing ranked is a good way to train your mental strength, because if you play ranked and still win even after having one or two teammates who disconnected, that would certainly be a huge boost to your mindset.

I was rereading some old chapters that I couldn't understand very well in the audiobooks since English isn't my first language and something got my attention
Now that someone has brought up something that's kinda related to it in the sub I thought it's a good time to ask :
It might be a weird question but don't you guys find it strange that Arthur wasn't worried at the possibility of Tess being raped this whole time after she was captured ? Like how is Arthur not mad at nico ? (or not anymore at least). Just because he feels guilty for what happened between them in their previous lives doesn't mean he should be ok with this shit. Yeah TurtleMe confirmed that there won't be any NTR shit and it's true but Arthur is a character in the story, how the hell is he supposed to know that ? It would or might have happened if Tess' spirit couldn't resist against Cecil's will (Arthur didn't know it's possible until Victoriad). The one in control isn't Tessia but it's still Tess' body and based on what we saw/read, she was NOT ok with it at all. Tessia was always disgusted by him (the feeling was so strong it affected Cecilia too). I think I'm speaking for most if not all of us but if it was me (or anyone of you guys), nico's mana core wouldn't have been the only thing that would break in Victoriad because he would have met the same fate as Lucas just for that possibility. Anyway, has this ever bothered you ? Or was it ever a question to you ? Let me know your thoughts on this

I think I met a gay man today. I'm a 22-year-old straight, chubby, fair-skinned guy. He saw me, said hi, and asked me in English if I was new around here. At first, I thought he was an outsider, just like me. We shook hands and held hands until the conversation ended. As a guy, I didn't think it was normal to hold hands for that long—about 2-3 minutes. He asked me my name, whether I study or work, what kind of work I do, where I work, where I studied, and where I live. I answered briefly without giving too many details. When I asked him about himself, he didn't give me proper answers. I only asked if he was a local and if he lived here. I sensed he might be gay, but he talked to me normally like any other guy, which made me unsure. He spoke with such passion that it felt a bit creepy to me.
I don't know how to recognize if someone is gay, and I hope I'm not just being a jerk for thinking a kind guy might be gay. It was raining lightly when we met at a superstore. He was about to enter, and I was on my way home. He said hi to me, offered to share his umbrella, and started talking again while still holding my hand after shaking it. This made me feel uneasy, so I was eager to say bye and leave. He even offered to drop me home while he was entering the superstore, but I said no and left.

Hello there, I hope you're enjoying of an amazing weekend doing everything you like, resting or just being lazy because why not, right? Oh, but don't forget to do the classic Sunday cleaning and laundry 😆. In my case I'm done with that so now I'm enjoying my classic One Piece Sunday episode.
My name is Miguel, I'm a 34 years old (few pics) enjoying a simple and peaceful life in a tiny City in Mexico. I'd love to make some online friends, so we can talk about our day, share funny memes or just talking about random stuff.
I don't want to go with the classic introduction, I prefer to do something different just to make things more interesting hoping that catches your attention.
Random things about me:

• I went to a Catholic school for elementary (Used to get in trouble with the nuns for always talking during class).
• I was obsessed with Karate Kid movies as a teen.
• I take care of couple of stray dogs and one feral cat.
• I'm scared of heights, the open sea, and roaches... But who's not afraid of roaches, right?
• I had a raw bean stuck inside my nose for two days when I was a kid.
• I speak English, Portuguese, a bit of French, and I'm learning Norwegian (just for fun).
• I cry watching emotional movies.
• Used to love ghost stories as a kid, and also used to scared the shit out of my cousins and friends by reading those to them.
• Dating tv shows are my guilty pleasure.
• I'm really good at breaking bad habits out of my life.
• I like sending voice notes (but sometimes I find hard to stop talking 😆).

I enjoyed Dunki, but it wasn't as great as a RKH film with SRK as the lead that talks about illegal immigration should have been. I am not a better writer than RKH, Abhijaat Joshi or Kanika Dhillon. This is just for fun. Here we go:
ACT 1:
We open the film with a large group of people protesting in front of the UK embassy in India. Cops show up to remove the crowd. The protestors start running away and chaos ensues. We see an old man, running, clutching his chest, sweating. He regains his composure and the man is revealed to be SRK. He gets arrested by the cops and we cut to him sitting in an interrogation chamber. A woman enters, adresses SRK as Mr. Dhillon and introduces herself as Priya Varma. She says she has been appointed by the Indian government and the UK embassy to talk to him. They share some fun banter and then, Mr. Dhillon starts explaining his story.
Back in 1995, in the small village of Laltu, Punjab, lived Hardayal Singh Dhillon aka Hardy. In a short funny sequence, we learn that- He was an outsider in the village. He was in the army, but due to his cowardice causing 7 other soldiers to get gravely injured, he was expelled. Without any money, he showed up to the village of Laltu, a place where there is great respect for the army. He paints himself as a war hero in front of the villagers, and as a result, he is treated like a celebrity. Free food, free lodging, you name it. Eventually, he got exposed by some villagers. To stop matters from getting worse, Hardy sweeps this matter under the rug by using the obsession of the villagers to get to foreign countries to his advantage. He tells them that he will start an IELTS coaching centre in the village and help everyone get visas.
After this sequence ends, we cut to the characters of Manu, Sukhi, Buggu and Balli. We see their everyday struggles and how they desperately want to get to London. We also establish how they dislike their country and living in it. We see them join the IELTS classes, where Hardy and his assistant, Geetu, teach English to students. Some comedic sequences will take place here and it will get established that Hardy and Geetu just want to earn money and don't actually care about the students. Also, we see that Hardy hates living in India and wants to go abroad too. He capitalises on his students' hate towards their country by making them appear for IELTS to get a visa.
Eventually, the day of the exam comes and like the movie, we see a sequence here that is both comedic and emotional. The results come and just like the film, Balli passes whereas the others fail. As Balli is departing, Hardy and Geetu arrive to shoot a promotional video. Here, they get confronted by Sukhi, Buggu and Manu, who tell them that they don't care about the students and just started this as a hustle to earn money and save Hardy's reputation in the village. The sequence ends with Sukhi slapping Hardy, causing the latter to leave, dejected.
Manu and the other two decide that they will take the Dunki route to get to London, because they cannot die in this stupid village. Hardy arrives and decides to help them by not only giving them the necessary money, but also deciding to accompany them. The gang is skeptical, but agree to accept his help.
The next day, they go to meet an agent who will send them on the journey. Here, we get a comedic sequence where the agent tries to paint the whole journey as some kind of tourist activity and also tries to sell them packages. Hardy sees through all of this and tells the others that as a former crook himself, he understands the agent's tactics. However, left without any choice, they decide to go ahead, as none of them want to "rot in India."
END OF ACT 1

the texts that we study on english lit are actually so good like these poems are fire but why do we have to learn 15??? this is ridiculous. english lit would be the most enjoyable subject ever if these weirdos didn’t give us 15 poems to learn whoever decided this actually needs to get a hobby who has the idea to make 15/16 year olds learn 15 poems AND 3 texts oh my god get a life

Hello Reddit,
when I was ten or so I used to play this old chef game on an old pc my dad gave me to play. But the pc and all traces of the game are lost. I will try to follow the template.
Name: something close to "have a pan"
played on pc, but dont know if through CD download or something else
fist-person camera BUT, not moving in a world, but rather locked on a picture
goal of the game: trying to click animals, thus throwing a knife at them, to hunt them as cook
characters: chef had an orange mustache, animals made a funny sound, when killed, the chicken had a pilot cap, and a very fast snail
year of release: lets say 10 to 15 years ago
from who: title was english (but it could be german, as I am german and played it)
graphis: very cartoon like, very simple style
I just would like to bury my feelings for this simple game, as I know, it wont be playable anymore. All hints would be amazing. Thank you

I think one of the worst things that you see a lot of the big YEC speakers do is the misrepresentation of science and the scientific method. It's one thing to argue with the evidence, this I accept as it is at least an attempt to engage in actual scientific discourse (excluding those who just baselessly decry the science). Even Tomkins with his apparent inability to do genomics is at the very least attempting to perform scientific experiments. However, these attempts to re-define science in a way that is beneficial to a creationist agenda is insanely frustrating, since it totally ruins all form of good-faith debate, and heavily misinforms people without a scientific education, and who don't really know how scientific process takes place.
To bring this point to light - I'm going to discuss this article from AIG: https://answersingenesis.org/what-is-science/what-is-science/. It displays basically all of these claims, and I consider it to contain some of the worst of AIG's mental gymnastics.
The article opens with a spiel about how science originated in Christian Europe, and refer to how Johannes Kepler, Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton and Galileo Galilei were all Christians who believed in a young Earth. Funnily enough, However - they fail to mention that Galileo was arrested by Christians due to his ideas contradicting a literal interpretation of the Bible - that being geostaticism (the idea that the Earth is stationary). I wonder why they excluded this piece of information?
They also state that "If the universe is a product of random chance or a group of gods that interfere in the universe, there is really no reason to expect order in nature". I could probably write an entire post on why this statement is false, so I won't go into this here. Maybe I'll do a follow up to this one just about this idea.
Now comes one of AIG's points that annoys me to no end - the ideas of 'Operational Science' and 'Historical Science'. AIG frames these terms as such:
Operational: "deals with testing and verifying ideas in the present and leads to the production of useful products like computers, cars, and satellites."
Historical: "involves interpreting evidence from the past and includes the models of evolution and special creation."
These terms do not exist in actual academia. They only exist within AIG's fantasy science land where they decide the rules, so that they can lend a fraction of legitimacy to their outdated ideas. The main reason they do this is to boil the argument down to one of faith. 'Evolutionism' vs Creationism is just a debate between two religions - same as Muslims and Christians arguing over which god is the real one. They present this in a slightly different way, but the meaning is the same: "The argument is not over the evidence—the evidence is the same—it is over the way the evidence should be interpreted." Essentially, 'we have different interpretations of the same stuff, so it's a matter of faith'.
What AIG are doing here is creating an unnecessary distinction. The worst bit is the reference to 'evidence from the past'. What they really mean here are things like the fossil record, radiometric dating, the geologic column - all the things that completely and utterly gut their belief in a 6000 year old created Earth. Instead of addressing them, they claim that it's a matter of interpretation.
Actual science doesn't create this distinction. Its purpose is to provide us with a method that lets us explain things we cannot observe directly, by looking at the things we can observe. No human has ever seen an atom with their own eyes - they are too small. Instead, we used observable evidence to figure out their structure, such as Rutherford's alpha particle scattering experiment - showing how most of the gold foil he was shooting the particles at allowed them to pass through, implying atoms being mostly empty space. Now Rutherford never saw an atom, but he inferred this about them through observation, as well as repetition of an experiment to minimise error. This is how science works. Of course, AIG would call Rutherford's work 'Operational Science', so we'll have to go somewhere else.
Let's use murder as an analogy (jolly, I know) - a person was killed 3 days ago, and their body was just discovered: we never saw them die, and we can never repeat their murder - because they are dead (truly groundbreaking stuff here). However, there is a gash across their neck, and a bloodied knife sat next to them. Moreover, this knife is covered with a person's fingerprints. We can then go to the house of the person who these fingerprints match, and ask them if they know anything - which they deny, despite lacking any alibi and having a definite motive. Do we have enough evidence to determine how the person died, as well as who killed them? Absolutely we do - there's a gash, and a knife covered in blood that matches the victim's: conclusion, they were killed with that knife. The knife is covered with fingerprints that lead to a person with no alibi at all, and a good motive: conclusion, they're the murderer. Now all of these data are from the past - the blood was put on the knife in the past, the wound was made in the past, the fingerprints were put on the knife in the past - by all metrics, this murder case falls into AIG's 'Historical Science'. As such, convicting this person is simply a matter of interpretation. We can only interpret that the fingerprints perfectly match those of the suspect. Who are we to say that they didn't somehow change over time? See how nonsensical this distinction is?
AIG then go on to the subject of theories - and again, they separated 'operational theories' from 'historical theories'. The idea is pretty much the same as discussed above, though there are a few points that I want to address. Firstly, they don't do the thing that I see many creationists (and other science deniers) state - that being the 'it's just a theory' thing, and draw a distinction between the colloquial and scientific definitions, though not without the prerequisite 'Evolutionists claim' line. This point has been beaten into the ground already, so I'll just leave it at that.
They go on to discuss how biological evolution is not an 'operational theory' as it contains 'interpretations of past events' and is 'not as well founded as testable scientific theories like Einstein’s Theory of Relativity or Newton’s Theory of Gravity'. It seems that AIG don't know that while Newton's law of universal gravitation remains as a very well-substantiated piece of science, his actual mechanism for how gravity works was in fact supplanted by Einstein's theory. Good scientific knowledge from AIG, as always. The big part of this section is how they refer to predictability as a method of validating a scientific theory: "These theories offer predictable models and the ability to conduct experiments to determine their validity in different circumstances." Once again, they conveniently omit the immense predictive power of evolutionary theory, instead choosing to claim that it lacks such a property - even going as far to directly claim "Molecules-to-man evolution does not offer this opportunity because these events happened in the past", once again ignoring that one of the key tenets of evolutionary theory is that it both has happened, and is currently happening - considering that we've observed speciation events occurring in the wild: https://www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.0911761106; https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(09)01925-301925-3); https://evolution.berkeley.edu/evo-news/speciation-in-real-time/. The predictive power of evolution is immense, and we are only getting better at making evolutionary predictions as science progresses:
https://ncse.ngo/predictive-power-evolutionary-biology-and-discovery-eusociality-naked-mole-rat,
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC9850016/#:~:text=Evolutionary%20predictions%20are%20often%20based,will%20adapt%20to%20their%20environment.
There's also the brief bit where they conflate evolution and abiogenesis "molecules to man evolution". They're two different ideas - and YECs reading this post, stop conflating scientific theories, they are distinct ideas. Evolution deals with how life adapts and develops, it has nothing to do with how life on Earth began - that's abiogenesis. It's the same thing as the Big Bang: it only deals with how the universe formed, not what came before it.
There's a short aside about naturalism, but in order to stop this post turning into a thesis, I'm going to gloss over it and move onto the next bit. Here, AIG describe how "Evolution also relies heavily on the assumption of uniformitarianism— a belief that the present is the key to the past. According to uniformitarians, the processes in the universe have been occurring at a relatively constant rate.". Of course, they fail to consider that, as is the case with all other science, we have evidence to infer that processes do occur at a constant rate. They proceed to discuss rock formation erosion as one of these thing which we assume to have a constant rate - even though I'm pretty sure this is not the case - and that the rate at which these processes takes place is highly variable. To me, this feels like them taking the worst example - and borders on a straw man. Correct me if I'm wrong though - I'm not a geologist, so my understanding is limited here.
I have no doubt that the actual aim of this paragraph is also to sow doubt about other systems reliant upon constant rates of change - such as radiometric dating. Yes, if decay rates were not constant, the values given by radiometric dating would be highly inaccurate, and it would be a useless dating method. However, this would also require a total rewrite of fundamental physics - as the concept of constant nuclear decay rates is backed up by a literal mountain of maths and physical evidence.

However, the Bible makes it very clear that some events of the past were radically different from those we commonly observe today. Noah’s Flood, for example, would have devastated the face of the earth and created a landscape of billions of dead things buried in layers of rock, which is exactly what we see.

Another claim that would take up a post on its own - so I'll skip this and tackle it later. Honestly though, just watch Gutsick Gibbon's stuff on the Genesis flood - she gives a far better explanation than I ever could.

Just as evolutionists weren’t there to see evolution happen over several billion years, neither were creationists there to see the events of the six days of creation. The difference is that creationists have the Creator’s eyewitness account of the events of creation, while evolutionists must create a story to explain origins without the supernatural.

More totally neutral and unbiased claims by AIG, as expected. There is no 'story' being created - scientists observe the (sometimes literal - pun very much intended) mountains of evidence for evolution. The fact that they have to make up a nonsense distinction to split science in two, so that they can put the bits they don't like (Big Bang cosmology, fossils, radiometric dating, geologic column, etc.) in a separate spot to the bits they do like, such as technology and medicine.

Just because many scientists believe the story does not make the story true.

Ironic, considering how much Ken Ham loves to show his lists of creationist scientists. Practice what you preach buddy.

Sup im 23M from Germany.
Since im like 17 i work full time and work with animals. (hf guessing what i do as a job haha)
Besides working i listen to alot of music, started reading again and i currently play Fallout 4. (played it befor the hype)
Other than that i cycle alot alot but couldnt rly do it last two weeks since life was busy sadly.
Idc where u from or how old you are just be friendly. Would like to find some longterm friends.
Sry for any mistakes, english wasnt my best subject haha

THE 2000 YEAR OLD MAN (1975) - FULL TRANSCRIPT 2000 Year Old Man is an old Brooks-Reiner comedy routine turned into a half-hour animated TV special. Reiner, a TV reporter, interviews Brooks, a man claiming to be 2000 years old. The interview consists of a serious of questions regarding the history of the world. Brooks' answers to Reiner's questions are priceless.
About four days ago a plane landed at Idlewild Airport.
The plane came from the Middle East bearing a man who claims to be
2000 years old.
He spent the last six days at the Mayo Clinic.
Ei, sir.
Sir, is it true that you are 2000 years old?
Oh boy.
-Yes. -You are?
It's hard to believe sir because
in the history of man nobody has ever lived more than 167 years
wich a man from Peru claimed to be.
But you claim to be 2000?
I'll be, not yet. I'll be 2000, October 16th.
You will be 2000. When were you born?
We didn't have formal years and names and writing.
We didn't know. I see.
Nobody kept time.
See, we didn't know.
We didn't write. We just sat around, pointed in the sky
and said wow hot there wow.
-That's all they said? -We didn't even know it was the sun.
You really didn't know anything.
Anything, we were so dumb.
We didn't know who was a lady.
-But they were... -They were with us.
But we didn't know who they was
we didn't know who was the ladies and who was fellows.
You thought they were just different type of fellows.
Yes, stronger or smaller or softer.
The softer ones I think was the ladies all the time.
What about that? How did you find out?
Well, they are cute, a fat guy,
could you could have mistaken him,
soft and cute.
Who is the person who discovered the female?
Bernie.
Who was Bernie?
Bernie, one of the first leaders of our group.

• And he discovered the female?
• Yeah.
  
• How did that happen?
  
• Ladies, ladies here.
  

I'm very interested to find out how Bernie discovered the woman.
-Well, he... -How did he come to find?
One morning
he got up smiling. So he said:
I think there is ladys here.
I said, well, what do you mean, you know?
He said: 'cause in the night.
I was swelled and delighted, see?
So he went into such a story that
it's hundreds of years later, I still blush.
Could you give us the secret of your longevity?
Well, the major thing.
The major thing.
Is that I never, ever touch ripe food.
I don't eat it.
I wouldn't look at it and I don't touch it.
And and I never run for a bus.
There's always another.
Even if even if you're late for work.
You know, I never run for a bus.
I never ran.
I just stroll, jump it, slowly walk to the next bus...
Yeah, well but there were no buses at the time.

• No, in my... -Right.

In my time ahnn...
What was the means of transportation then?
-Mostly fear.
-Fear transported you? -Fear yes.
You could see.
A lion, he would would growl, you would go two miles a minute.
I'd like to find out about some social customs
the origination of social customs.
For instance, singing how that started?
Oh it stems from fear.
-Could you explain? -Because in the old days,
I said old days.
I don't mean the georgian cars.
-Did you.. -I mean rocks and caves...
I'm asking you, sir, how song...
Some song came about when you really had to communicate.
-But in trouble you couldn't say help. -Yes.
But have to use your mouth.
Yes, I know.
Hello.
-I mean, I wouldn't say help, I say good morning.
Yes. You're really...
you know you in trouble.

• But somebody said eeeh eeeeh. -That was the first song.
  
• I don't know.
  
• In other words, fear, right?
  

I was singing.
We thought happiness did.
Oh, and the song came out of it.
A lion is eating my foot off.
Somebody call a cop.
A lion is eating my foot off.
Somebody call a cop.
A lion is eating my foot off.
Somebody call a cop.
A lion is eating my foot of
Somebody call a cop.
Very interesting to hear the derivation of songs
The first songs,
the first songs were all the anthem songs.
We always thought...
We always thought...
Wanna hear an anthem song?
You had an anthem song?
We had a national anthem.
-What was the anthem? -Well, ah...
you see, was only fragment...
-Fragment? -It wasn't a nation.
-Yes. -It was cave, each cave. Yes.
Each cave had a national anthem.
You remember the national anthem of your cave?
Ok. I say I'll never forget it.
You don't forget a national anthem in a minute.
Let them go to the hell
except cave 76.
For instance, how did the custom of two people shaking hands
how the handshake come to be?
The handshake? As you know...
I don't, that's why I'm asking!
The handshake has also stemmed from fear.

• Everything seems to stem from fear.
• Of course.

Everything we do is based on fear.
-Even love? -Mainly love.
How can love stem from fear?
How can love stem from fear?
What do you need a woman for?
You know what you need for?
-In my time? -Yes.
To see if an animal is behind yourself,
you had to get eyes in the back of your head.
you take two eyes that is to be a lady.
I see.
You say, lady, you look behind me for a while.
And that was the first... the first marriages.
What if you take a look behind me ok?
How long you want?Forever, we are married.
You walked back to back to the rest of your life?
Yes. You only look at her once in a while,
when you knew you it was safe?
When I knew I was in a highground.
-The handshakes they started how?
-They started to see if the fellow had a rock
or a dagger in his hand.
Where is you hand? Hi, Charlie.
How you're doing Jumpy, where is you hand?
Then you open it and you look...
And you shook another one.
And that's the way the handshakes started.
Yes, the shake.
May have a stone or a marble to stick in your eye.
In the older days
you should get a snap and all.
How the dancing started?
-Dancing is the same thing. -Fear again?
Just fear. The only thing you could do with a hand
was to see if there was a rock or a marble
or rubber band or nail or something that would stick in your head.
Right. Ok.
But while imobilizing my hand
dancing gets to complete the imobilization.
Dance and keep the feet busy so he can't get you.
Yes, but I think most people are interested
in living a long and fruitful life.
-You mentioned? -Fruit is good food, you mentioned.
Fruit kept me going for 140 years once
when I... was on a very strict diet,
mainly nectarines, I love that fruit
half a peach, half a plum, such a hell of a fruit.
It's not too cold
Not too hot, you know, just nice.
-What if... -A rotten one?
That's how much I love. I'd rather eat a rotten nectarine than a fine plum.
-What do you think about? -I can understand that.
Yes, that's how much I love them.
-Yes, I can understand, sir. -Some good things.
What did you do for a living?
Well, many years ago, thousands.
There was no heavy industry.
We know that.
Most things that we manufactured or we made,
most things we ever made,
was we would make a take a piece of wood
and rub it, rub it and rub it and rub it
then clean it and look at it and hit right with it
and hit a tree with it.
-For what purpose? -Just to keep busy.
There was not. There was absolutely nothing to do, had no job.
What other jobs were there?
Must've been something else besides hitting a tree with
the knowledge, hitting a tree with a
piece of stick was already a good job.
You couldn't get that job.
Mainly was sitting and looking in the sky
was a big job
and another job was watching each other.
-And what language did you speak? -They spoke...
-Rock, basic rock. -Years before Hebrew.
Yes. 200 years before Hebrew was the rock language, the rock talk.
Could you give us an example of that?
Hey, you don't put that rock on me.
Hey, what you do with the rock?
Do you remember you remember your Hebrew sir?
Yes, I would just I think I remember fluent...
Because I understand the modern Hebrew is different from the...

• Yes. The difference in some of the

-phonetic alliteration paterns. -Yes.
Can we hear an example of the ancient Hebrew?
A very ancient Hebrew is...
Oh, hi there, hello.
Hello there. How are you.
-Hi. How are you. -That's English.
-Oh wait, wait. -You remember any Hebrew?
Very little.
I don't think I remember.
I must have forgot a great deal of it.
-I think you forgot it all. -Maybe all, yes.
Maybe all. Thousands of years since I needed it.
Now, sir, did you ever...
Did you ever have any formal job as we know it today?
Yeah, well, I was a manufacturer. I was owner.
What kind of a factory did you have?
I had a I used to make the star of David, Jew stars.
Making a little money?
Where's that? Yeah.
Soon as religion came in, I was one of the first in that.
I figured this was a good thing.
How did you make them? Did you have tools?
Well, we didn't have a lady.
I employed six men each with a point.
They used to run together in the middle of the factory
A great speed, it was huge.
They were making a star.
Yes. We would make two a day because of the many accidents.
Six men running and... you know.
Lots of accidents.
You never thought of going into anything else?
Oh, no, I had an offer once.
-It came to me. Simon. -What Simon asked you to do?
Said he had a new thing, a new item,
a winner, looks like a winning item.
That was gonna be a big seller is called a cross.
And I looked at it and I turned it over
and looked in all sides of it
and I said, it's simple. It's too simple.
I didn't know then. Element.
-I didn't know with such a -You turned him down?
and I said, I'm sorry, but I'm too busy.
See, I could have I could have fired four men,
two men run together, bang, that is a cross.
Would say that I would I would have earned
over a hundred dollars doing that crosses and everything.
Yes, certainly.
Do you have a few moments, sir?
What do you mean? Money or the time.
No, we have to cut way for messages now.
-Okay, let's do it. Is it in English? -Yes.
By the way, sir, are you married?
I have been married several hundred times.
-Several hundred times? -Yes.
You haven't, man. Do you remember all your wives?
-One I remember well. -Which one was that?
The five one, Shyla.
I remeber her well.
I'm afraid to ask the next question, you had many hundreds of wives...
-Hundreds and hundreds. -But how many children you have?
I have over forty two thousand children.
And not one comes to visit me.
It's awful, sir
well, sir, it's really you mean to say there isn't one daughter...
there's many daughters, but, but they
you know how they are, children.
Good luck to them, let them go.
I don't want listen, let them be happy as long they're happy
I don't care. But they could send a note
write how're you Pop how you're doing Pop
you know, they don't.
Sir... ahn, you must have known
some great men in your time, you did travel to...
I knew the greater and the near greater.
Can I ask you about some of these...
Certainly, I'll tell you the true
the true whether I knew or not.
For instance, people are people are
very interested in somebody like Joan of Arc.
A lot has been written about her, we read a lot...
Aah what a kiss.
You knew Joan of Arc?
I went for her, damn it, I went for her.
Nowhere in history do we know of Joan going with it anybody.
Well, they don't print everything.
You did marry her? No.
No. I didn't marry her because she was on a mission.
she used to say to me
she used to say to me, I've got to save France.
I should say I look.
I've got to wash up. You save France.
See you later after you save France. I'll wash up, you know.
-How did you... -Hold it, I... yet.
How did you feel about her being burned at the stake?
Terrible.
I didn't I didn't know.
Sir, how about some of the legendary characters
who supposedly might have existed?
For instance, Robin Hood.
-Did he...? -Oh, yeah. Lovely man.
Ran around in the forest.
Did he really steal from the rich and give to the poor?
No, he didn't.
He stole from everybody and kept everything.
Out of the legend?
Out of the legend let's bring up that
he had a fellow monk, hired a press agent
running all the paper and roll and scroll.
He takes from the rich and gives to the poor, who knew?
You knew you took such a knock in the head
when he robbed you wouldn't knock him down.
-In other words... -A tough guy.
I hate to have our legendary figures smashed
Well, I hate do smashing for you.
So much to discuss, for instance,
-somebody like William Shakespeare -Oh what a pussycat.
-You are saying that you knew -A pussycat.
You did know it, for instance
Oh, that little beard, that cute hair...
He was reputed,
I guess you are agreeing that he was the greatest writer of all times.
Oh no, hey, hold up he was small.
What you mean? You just said he was great.
-Oh boy!
-And I said he was great... -No sir.
A cute man and a pussycat.
William Shakespeare was not a great writer?
Not good writer at all.
He wrote 37 of the greatest.
Shakespeare was not a good writer, no.
He wrote 37 of the greatest.
Would you ever see the original the first folios?
You mean they were edited by someone else?
Never mind the edit, did you see the folios?
No, I never saw them. Did you see?
I saw that folios, your wanna see how they are?
A blast...
A 'm' you know that look like a 'D'
an 'M' didn't look like an 'M'
I know that is a 'V'
Every letter was cockeyed and crazy.
Don't tell me he was a good writer.
The worst printmanship I ever saw in my life.
What he did? He did as it was reputed,
he did write 37 of the greatest plays of...
-38! -I only know 37.
Would you care to look at this list sir?
These items are listed come down to the ages.
-You know one that should be there? -Yes.
What's that?
Queen Alexandra and Morris.
Is there any copy of this unexistent?
This is a play that I put invested money in.
Probably the only one that didn't come to light.
Come to light and closed in Egypt.
Sir, you remember...
you remember any of the dialogue of Queen Alexandra and Morris?
Queen Alexandra turn to Morris and said:
Oh, Morris. What could it have been that I have seen?
Is it not in my marrow or we not have one on ourselves?
And he would say to her:
What are you hollering?
What are you hollering?
-Sir, what... -Wake up the whole castle, you know.
Sir, what did you do 2000 years ago to entertain...
-Walk and wing. -I want to know wether...
-Were there comedians -Oh sure sure, we had.
You remember any of the... 2,000 years ago...
A matter of days, let me see.
I remember one comedian gave us some laughs
while we were hysterical.
Well, who is he? Some good laughs.
Murray the Nut. He gave us a laugh.
A tiger came in the cave one afternoon.
Soothed in uninvited naturally.
Nobody asked how a tiger did walk in.
Tiger came in and Murray, you know, the joker
the tumbling, you know, the Nut
jumps at and grabs the tiger by the tail
yahaa, yahaa, yahaa...
and the tiger turn around and ate him in a minute.
and we get histerical laughing and laughing.
Best joke we ever had.
Oh sir, that's not very funny.
That was all we have, our chaos then that was all we have.
Terrible, I would consider that...
Have to pass me out, Murray took the tiger.
-That was entertainment? -Yes.
I would consider that in the realm of tragedy rather than comedy.
It's a point of view, to me tragedy is... is
if I cut my finger, that's tragedy.
It clinch and I cry and I run around
and I go into Mount Sinai for a day and a half.
I'm very nervous about.
And to me comedy is if you walk into an open sewer
and die, I like that.
Comedy I say.
-My finger is important. -Yes
In the 2000 years you've lived, you've seen a lot of items.
Certainly.
What is the biggest change you've seen?
In two thousand years the greatest thing mankind ever devised
I think in my humble opinion is saran wrap.
You can put a sandwich in it.
You can look through it. You can touch
you can put over your face and fool around and everything.
It's so cool you could wrap up
-You would ate it? -I love it,
put three olives in it and put a little one.
can put ten sandwiches and make up this.
-Whatever you want, It's clean and it sticks with.
-You equate this with... -You can look right through.
You equate this with man's discovery of space?
That was good, that was good.
-Sir, we ah... -Yes, yes.
We have to take time out for message now.
Why do you have to take time out?
You take the message, I'll keep talking.
That was a good message.
Well, sir, if we don't have too much more time
but we all here would like to know your code.
Well, alright, is this it?
A farewell? -A farewell address.
Hello there. This is 2000 years talking to you
from the depths of back there when we was
now I'm still and they not and I just want to say
keep your smile on your face.
And stay out of a Ferrari
or any small Italian car.
stay out of them. I wanna tell you that it's been
it's been a wonderful two thousand years
and you've been a wonderful civilization
and it's been a thrill living for 2,000 years
and eat a nectarine, is the best food ever made.

Hello !
My brother and I will be coming in Copenhagen in July for Rammstein concert and we think that may be a good occasion to get some tattos during our stay. We don't know yet what tattoo we will be doing, but I was thinking of nordic runes (with old danish/old east norse words, maybe 'sibling' or 'brothesister') on hands or arms. Not a big thing but something we can both have. Anyway, I'm looking for recommendations of tattoo shop/artist that could do runes for example, or with a strong black work, witchy, viking art or medieval engraving style.
Thank you in advance ! (And sorry for my wonky english, not my first language)

Hi dear Fantasy World Building community,
I am sending this message through different reddit communities and it is mainly focused on game creation and writing (through platforms like RPG Maker, Twine, Ren'Py and others).
First of all, I am kind of new and unfamiliar with Reddit, so apologies if I infringe on any rules. Please let me know, and I will correct any mistakes.
To introduce myself, my name is Alioune, a 35-year-old French game-making, amateur creation, and interactive fiction enthusiast. I run a (French-speaking, sorry XD) blog on these two subjects: https://medium.com/@aliounebfall In addition to my blog, I am working on a project for an amateur creation platform. As part of this project, I would like to conduct a small market study through a survey (very quick, less than 5 minutes) to understand the habits of creators and writers. Hence my call to the Fantasy World Building community.
For those who wish to participate in the survey, feel free to do so here: https://us2.list-manage.com/survey?u=2fc1d183a9c7896d5e4cd6867&id=201fb4b454
A huge thank you to the participants, and may the force be with you for all your beautiful ongoing projects! ❤️

Hello all,

I am just looking for somebody who is grammatically better than me to make sure I am not making any glaring mistakes when using certain words in their current tense. Or maybe a word doesn’t fit and another would be better. I’m no English major ,but do want to get my thoughts out to my girl effectively. Not looking to rewrite but open to suggestions. Thank you all so much in advance. Good bless! 

Vows- You are at its core ,if studied, the Essence of my being. Your reactions have defined who and what I am. From 1 blessed soul to another, I pray throughout all the trials and tribulations, we share a union and an attraction that may never be broken. Our union is like venturing into the uncharted territory of a black hole. We may not be able to stare down the abyss but we know there will be tremendous pressures and unknowns along the journey. I promise to be your beacon of hope when all seems lost, as you have been mine. As wicked and wretched scoundrels interpose tumultuous and deafening disorder. I stand as your vociferous and indomitable partner to all that attempts to deviate this journey. We are indivisibly mended to one another, as is the very fabric of space/time we displace and experience jubilation in the riches and blessings god bestows upon us. As long I draw breath I’ll draw joy knowing your heart beats in this reality and by the most deserving soul I know. I feel blessed to be able to cherish moments together “like our children’s first loves or making lifelong running jokes like “it’s for the children!!” No matter what has ever transpired or transpires in this reality we call a life. Know that you are at the most deserving person of happiness I know. Many are worthy but you are undoubtedly in a class of your own when it comes to showing grace, resilience, and perseverance in the face of insurmountable challenges. You are my inspiration and motivation, daily, to propel this family into the next generation of successful spirits produced. Your love keeps me grounded and spiritually fueled up. You are my destiny. I promise always to remember how much you mean to me. That’s a vow I’ll make till the day we’re old and grey. You’re the peanut butter to my jelly, the salt to my pepper shaker, and the ranch to my fries– we’re just better together. You are a one-of-a-kind spice I need in life, and I will forever move heaven and earth for one more taste. You are the love of my life and I promise to adore you, cherish you and respect you for all the days of my life.
————————————————————————-
Proposal-
Since I first set eyes on that beautiful smile and those enchanting dimples at that podium I have been enthralled with you. The days of vows only being “you know I love you girl” are over. Moving forward genuine care and thought is going to be put into everything that we try to conquer and overcome together. You are the spirit that intrinsically keeps me bound to this reality I convince myself is “my life”. You are the true elixir that makes this genie in a bottle grant all the wishes a mother fucker could. Cause we built like that. Nah saying! Jenae You’re my lobster. You're my person. You will always be my person. I want all of you, forever, you and me, every day. When I look into my heart, I see only you. If you can look into your heart and only see me, then we should spend the rest of our lives together. There are many ways to be happy in this life, but all I really need is you. Babygurl will you marry me?

I am a 21-year-old undergraduate from the Middle East, currently in my third year of studying English. I've recently seen many posts about FIFO jobs and their high wages, and I'm curious if someone like me, with no experience in any trade, could find a job in this field.

first of all, sorry for my english, it’s not my first language. I (22F) am a ballet dancer in a small city. i’ve been in the same ballet school since im 10, most of my friends stopped bc of their studies, i didn’t, i love ballet and this school too much. i left only one year bc of an exchanged program in my studies and when i came back everything changed.
My teacher’s (75F) favorites dancers left bc they have a job/are tired/some are pregnant so they don’t attend anymore classes or barely come for one class.
I come every saturday for 3 different classes, lately i’ve been exhausted because my master degree is very hard and managing both are hard.
This year we are doing a dance that I’ve already done in 2019 so i remember it perfectly. another girl, let’s call her Mia, did it but only replaced someone who hurt herself during the presentation. So we are two people who knows it. Every single time the teacher asks for help, she will ask Mia. Never me. And when I try to help she will tell me to shut up bc i tell shit or she will just sigh and ignore me.
I’ve never been the type of girl who speaks during class bc i’ve never been sure of myself to step in. But since i’m 22 i know my capabilities and my dances too. I’m not jealous but it hurts my pride, Mia doesn’t remember well and all i want to do is help, idk why im seen as the bad one in that part.
So one day we were doing this dance and im pretty exhausted, very pale and didn’t eat a lot so talking to me was not the ideal thing to do. I do a small error and she start screaming at me. I was chocked. I know she’s under stress and starting to get old for that so we don’t say anything when she’s upset but this time i was fed up. From accumulating stress from school AND her screaming at me for such a small error made me feel like sh*t and screamed back that she should stop talking to me like that.
(Update) since she never wants my help, younger girls are scared to ask for details so they ask me. fun fact i get yelled at more because i’m talking to them, apparently disturbing her class… in my opinion (not to be mean or anything) she needs to realise that ballet isn’t that easy for a small school and some are shy. anyway im always happy to help
FYI she never screamed at anyone personally. She screams at us when we don’t do well but never at anyone in their faces. So when i answered every was shocked that i responded. I was shaking and in tears because i realised she was like that only with me and no one else. Why would she be like that, i come every saturday, on point, dressed, hair tied, i know my dances and even if im sick i come . it just seems so unfair, i’ve been here for 12 years and never been able to get past the back line. it’s just tiring.
I even asked my friends and they realised that she was like that with only me. It just hurts a lot when i think about it, i even regretting yelling at her because a friend of mine stopped talking to me because i was “mean” to her. I don’t care about loosing a friend but i just want to be respected as a human being.
there’s so much more things like I’m always at the back because i’m too tall and fat (her words not mine) and this year i have a solo but at the end another girl is under the light not even me so what was the point of doing this…? like is it a joke?
So i don’t know if i did “well” for screaming to treat me right because now it’s even worse than before…

This has been my flip flop for years, without a true passion for anything (except photography). I have a decade old BS in IT and little actual tech experience. most of my gap is filled with 'freelance daytrading' or english teaching. I am not good in either. Also, I Have a bit of engineering interest, arduino stuff and whatnot, I have an associates in EE I rarely ever mention anymore as it's over 10 years old and I cant even process how long ago that was.
Where I'm at now, I sign up for various seminars for cybersecurity, and researching this stuff is more like a hobby, too much new info gets overwhelming. I do have a tryhackme subscription and looking at going through a course in cybrary.it as well. Soon I'll be taking a google cloud course offered by them.
My minor was computer science, so I am familiar with development, and my friend is offering to help me get a developer interview at his bank, but I feel very inadequate for not doing much coding nor having a portfolio.
One thought was to run analytics on stock data, but this might take too long, I do need work asap.
Or just sit down, and run through every program and attack methodology found in security+ and certified ethical hacker certs and mitre. make a youtube of each topic or blog, I rather blog, but I think at this point HR is probably shifting to younger than me even.

Today I want to tell my story of how I self-advocated and what I did to achieve that goal. I'm telling my story to help those who are in a similar position to what I was in and to inspire those to self-advocate.
To recap from my earlier posts. I have ADHD and fell under the "multiple disabilities" characterization. My high school teacher claimed that I have autism (Not diagnosed). I personally don't believe I have autism or at the very least I have a high functioning autism. Throughout most of my school career, I was in a self-contained classroom with kids with severe disabilities. Even if I was in the general population I had a paraprofessional or peer tutor. I never believed that I should have been in that position. As a consequence, I never really learned any social skills, I was segregated, and felt like that people didn't want anything to do with me because I was sped. The reason why I ended up in this position was probably a combination of me having the "multiple disabilities'' characterization and me testing low in three year revaluation tests. If you want more info on this then feel free to search my profile. This is an alt account and is primarily used to ask questions about special ed so It's really easy to find stuff about me.
Before I get into my story I just want to make it clear that I'm not against special ed. There's good and bad people in every profession. I believed I was in danger for myself and for my future. I don't believe that my teacher was evil and had the best of intentions but he was putting me in a position that was hurting me and I had to act. If you have any questions or feedback feel free to let me know in the comments. Another thing is that this post has been really hard to make. It opened up some old wounds and as a result took several days to write.
Here's my story: So in late middle school I was tired of the placement that I was in. I was tired of not having friends, Not being able to socialize with my peers, not being able to date. I also was thinking about what my life will look like after high school, I was concerned that I was going to never have friends, Never be in a relationship, and not have the social skills to make those friends. I was generally very concerned for my future. So I decided that for my 8th grade year (2017-2018) I would do my absolute best for both my behavior and academics. Throughout the year nothing changed. I was hoping that me doing well would show that I didn't need any support but at the end of the year I still had paraprofessionals in most of my classes and was being pulled out for tests. In the summer between middle school and high school all I can think about is I want high school to be different. I wanted friends, I wanted a relationship, and I had dreams of me in the student council. When I got into high school I had peer tutors along with paraprofessionals (Peer Tutors are general ed students who sign up as an elective to help special needs kids. They basically serve the role as paraprofessionals with less responsibility). I did everything again and had the exact same result. In January of 2019 (freshmen year) I decided that my current strategy wasn't working. They also started making the peer tutors fill out behavioral checklists for their student(s) by grading them on how well they behaved/followed directions and gave them badges that say "peer tutor" which made me feel singled out. Because of that the peer tutors felt more like babysitters then someone that is an equal. So I went to my special ed teacher and asked him to remove the paraprofessional and the peer tutors. He told me no and said that I needed them. I changed my strategy again and I was going to ask for the Peer Tutors to be gone first, then focus on removing the paraprofessionals. I was more concerned about the peer tutors over the paraprofessionals because I was concerned that since they were part of the student body that this was going to affect me when I was running for the student council. I was worried that they'd tell others I was special needs then people would think I was incompetent. So every 2 weeks I would ask him again to remove them and each time he would give me a different excuse on why I couldn't be alone. Here's some of the excuses he gave me: "The peer tutors need to be there to collect data", "You need to prove that you can do the work yourself", "It's not up to me. It's the general education teacher that decides if you need a peer tutor or an aide", "Peer Tutors are supposed to represent a trainer for a job. If you refuse training then you're going to get fired". I brought it up again during my yearly IEP which took place in March. Once again my teacher said no, bringing up another excuse. As far as I can remember, my parents were neutral about the aide situation. Later one peer tutor was removed, what happened is that the peer tutor moved to a different town and they didn't bother on sending a substitute. A win is a win so I celebrated it. At the end of my freshman year I was pretty much defeated and didn't achieve the goal of being 100% independent. Over the summer I took a look at my situation and decided that my current plan is not working. I knew that when my sophomore year of high school starts I will have aides and peer tutors in classes. I knew that if I wanted to get what I wanted I would have to do something big. I knew that I would have to put up a fight, and put in a lot more effort. Over the summer I developed a war mindset inspired by two quotes from Sun Tzu:
"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win”
“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
I knew that I can't be going into sophomore year blind, so I started drafting a plan. I created a Google doc outlining my goals and what I wanted to accomplish. I knew that I won't be able to win every battle and that I need to choose which fight is worth fighting for. I thought to myself, “Well the peer tutors we're given training on the first day of school and probably have strategies to deal with poor behavior but what about planned well organized protests?” So I began researching strategies on how paraprofessionals/peer tutors dealt with negative behavior and reverse engineered those tactics. I read forms, I Watched YouTube videos and found as much information that I could find. For the peer tutors I didn't know too much about them. I didn't know if it was something that only my school did or if other schools did it. I did some research and found out that other schools had a peer tutor program and some have uploaded training videos on YouTube. Some peer tutors told me that they did babysitting and did nanny work so I looked up babysitting tips. I reverse engineered all of those tactics and came up with strategies to counter those techniques and put all that information that I learned into a google doc that I can use for future reference. During this time I also researched how to become a better negotiator and started learning a little bit of psychology. The plan was to first negotiate and if that doesn't work I will protest and make demands and negotiate. Over the summer I got really good at negotiating and practiced a lot on my father and my sister (they were totally oblivious). To this day I use those negotiating tactics. After I created my document and was satisfied with all the information, I went to bed that night and knew that I have already won and that my sophomore year will be my last year that I 1-1 peer tutor or aide.
Fast forward to the first day of school, as expected I had peer tutors and aides assigned to me in classes. My sped teacher had a chalkboard On the back wall full of sticky notes that had everyone's schedules and a name of someone was assigned to that student for each class. This time around I only had one peer tutor outside of the special ed classes. This is a big improvement over the three I had before but I still have my original goal of having none. For the paraprofessionals I had 2 in Gen classes.The goal was to first remove the peer tutors then the paraprofessionals. Even though this seems to be an improvement I continued with the plan. Since this was the first day, the peer tutors were in another classroom learning policies and other stuff they needed to know so I was alone for the day. I walked over to my special ed teacher and ask him one final time to remove the peer tutor he says no and then I asked him to let me be alone for 2 weeks so I can prove I don't need help and he still denies me. I then tell him that I will allow the peer tutor for 2 weeks and after that she needs to go. My teacher doesn't respond. (To add context the peer tutor that I had, she was a peer tutor in my math class in the prior semester so I already know who she was. We used to talk a lot and was surprised when I saw that she was assigned to me.)
For 2 weeks she mostly left me alone with her occasionally checking up on me. For those 2 weeks I purposely close my self off and adopted a body language that would subconsciously discourage her from approaching me. I did this by keeping my head low and staying as focused as possible. The only thing she did was confront me when I start packing up 2 minutes before the bell rings. She tells me that I shouldn't be packing up and to pull my stuff out again. I tell her no and hold my ground. She writes in my planner that I packed my stuff up early and refuse to pull it out. That happened like 2 or 3 times. On Thursday on the second week my class was tasked to create a PowerPoint. FYI this was a mythology class, while I was doing this PowerPoint I decided instead of manually trying to type in the locations and people from this mythology which the names were very long and complicated. I decided would be easier just to copy and paste them in. My peer tutor sees me doing this and doesn't say anything. At the end of class she writes that I plagiarized in my planner and tells my special ed teacher in person what happened. My sped teacher pulls me out of class (I had his math class right after mythology) and starts telling me that my peer tutor has seen me copy and pasting paragraphs and goes on this lecturing on why plagiarizing is bad. I explained to him that I wasn't copying paragraphs It was only copying names and locations and explain my reason for it. He didn't believe me but he didn't make me retake the assignment. After that I was pissed off and the next day I confronted her about it. I forgot what her reasoning for not telling me was but I told her that she needs to look into things before she makes false reports. After that incident, I decided to wait a week before I ask my teacher to remove her. Also during those first 3 weeks I turned down help from peer tutors and paras if possible In the special ed classroom. I did this to prevent sending any mix signals. I personally didn't mind if I had to work with a peer tutopara or not In the actual sped classroom. I only cared if it was in any of the general education classes. I just thought it would look contradictory if I was accepting help in the sped class and then requesting peer tutors to be removed from my gen classes.
At the beginning of the fourth week I went to school early and went to my sped teacher's class before first hour starts and then I again asked him to remove the peer tutor and the paraprofessionals. He says no again and brings up that I was being academically dishonest by plagiarizing. I tell my side of the story once again on what happened and he still doesn't believe me. At this point I leave and more pissed off. At this point negotiations didn't work so I started small protests by preventing the peer tutors from filling out my planer and the behavioral checklist. Most of them didn't care since there was other students they can fill out and they only need to fill out one to be graded for the day. One peer tutor gave me the puppy dog eye treatment and I eventually cave and let her fill it out. I still let the one peer tutor that was assigned to me in the gen class due to me being the only student and my intention wasn't to ruin, her grade. During the fourth week I began brainstorming ideas on how I can do a massive protest.
On Thursday of the fourth week of school, a walk into the mythology class and it started out like any other day. Class started and my teacher starts talking. I pull up my phone to respond to some messages and my peer tutor sees me. She asks me to hand my phone over to her and I tell her no. She tells me that I can't be on my phone and I tell her okay but I'm still not giving it to you. She then pulls out her phone and puts it on the table. She then tells me to put my phone on the table. I tell her no again. A few minutes past and the teacher finishes up talking. She passes the assignment and immediately my peer tutor begins to try and help by reading the questions. I slide the packet over closer to me and start ignoring her. I was hoping that she will get the hint and leave me alone. She doesn't so put on my hoodie and tried to mentally block her out. I don't remember what she said during all this since I was blocking it out but I do remember her touching me and the general ed teacher coming over and start assisting the peer tutor. It was a lot of pressure and I was actually about to give up because it was too much. But they both gaved up before I did and I was very relieved. After that, the class was pretty much quiet. The peer tutor wrote an entire paragraph on what happened. I walked to my math class and sat down. I then see my peer tutor walking into class and ask for my sped teacher. I already knew it was about me. I see them talk for 2 minutes and sure enough I see my teacher calling me over. I walked outside the classroom and me and the teacher begin to go at it. We end up saying the same things we have said before. However, my teacher this time mentioned that if I keep up my behavior that he's going to call in a meeting with my parents. The rest of math class was pretty much the same. However, my English class with the same teacher he went on a rant about using accommodations seeing that he had a disability growing up which was tourette's and he were love to have a peer tutor. I was quiet for the whole class since I was already exhausted because of everything else that had already happened. For the rest of the weekend, I've been coming up with plans on how I would be able to pull off a massive protest.
Now for the good news. On the fifth week of school, I noticed that my peer tutor was missing. My teacher pulled me aside again and told me that he decided that he was going to pull her for 2 weeks to see how well I would do without her. I told him thank you, that's what I wanted since the beginning of the school year. After those 2 weeks he didn't reinstate her and I didn't have a peer tutor or paraprofessionals in gen classes since. The deal moving forward was as long as I had a D or better he wasn't going to send any support unless I asked for it. My relationship with that sped teacher also had improved significantly. Later in my Junior year of high school I ran in my school's election and won. I was given the social media position.
In hindsight, I'm glad I didn't have to pull off a big protest. But the same time I wish that this situation could have ended in a different way.
Everything that I just told you is only the tip of the iceberg. There's so much detail that I had to leave out just to make this story shorter. Lot of it I'm still processing even though I found great strength in myself fighting back against a system that I believe was ruining my life. That war mindset hasn't left my mentality yet. I'm still dealing with the consequences of me being in special ed. Everything I told you happened 5 years ago and I'm still living through it like it just happened. I'm mentally recovering and eventually I will recover. Right now I'm in therapy and I'm writing down everything I can in a Google doc to process everything emotionally. Maybe one day I'll give that story to a writer and make a book out of it.
If you have any questions feel free ask them, I would love to answer them.

I’ve just learned of this interesting sword via a Facebook post - this thing has been doing the rounds for several years now. The source is an article at online magazine 'La Brujula Verde' entitled 'The sword embedded in the rock of the precipice of Rocamadour for 9 centuries' written by Guillermo Carvajal in Spanish in 2016, then published in 2019 in English, which seems to be what prompted it to go 'viral' to some extent. I'm a few years late but still hoping to nip this one in the bud as far as posting something that the curious can easily find if they care to look. I would link an image of the sword but all images appear on pages with associated bad history and the rules say not to link to that. Anyway...
I saw several people lamenting that the Cluny Museum had taken this treasure down and put it in a museum. For one thing, if a piece of ferrous metal had truly survived 900 years in an exposed rock crevice (the more famous ‘sword in the stone’ at Montesiepi Chapel was at least protected from the elements), it certainly would have required salvage and preservation. However, what the article’s author failed to bother to find out is that this thing was completely fake in the first place, put there to attract tourists (Barber, Arthurian Swords I, Arthurian Literature XXXV, Volume 35, p.14):

Tourists can see [Durendal] fixed in the cliff face above the doorway to the shrine of the Virgin at Rocamadour; but this is a relatively modern feature and the sword is a nondescript nineteenth-century decorative sword of poor workmanship. In 1787 or 1788, a local lord, the Vicomte d'Anterroches, bullied the canons at Rocamadour into agreeing to present the sword then shown to visitors as Durendal - a coarse short dagger, possibly Bronze Age to the prince de Condé, whose collection of antiquities was dispersed at the Revolution. At some point a story was created that Henry the Young King had stolen the original sword when he came to Rocamadour during his rebellion against his father in 1183, but the first printed record of this is in the work of a late nineteenth-century English historian. There is no known connection between Roland and Rocamadour, and even the origins of the idea that Durendal might have been at the shrine are totally obscure.

Barber’s reference for the sword being fake is none other than the Cluny Museum itself, where the now-relic fake ended up (L'épée: usages, mythes et symboles : Paris, Musée de Cluny--Musée national du Moyen Âge, 28 avril-26 septembre 2011, p.97). The Cluny didn’t acquire it to preserve some 900-year-old treasure, they took it because of its significance as an example of how swords are used symbolically. Notably, as they say, pregnant women in the early 20th century would ask that particular fake sword for favours for their unborn children. Now, there has to have been an earlier sword there because Alexis de Valon noted in 1851 that;

...in Rocamadour and its environs, local people revered Durandal, believing that both it and its modern substitute could make childless women conceive.

(Harry Redman, Jr. 1991. The Roland Legend in Nineteenth Century French Literature, University Press of Kentucky, p.104).
Despite Barber’s comment about unknown origins of the Rocamadour 'Durendal' we do in fact know these, back to the early 17th century at least and summarised by Redman as follows:

Writing in 1620, Scipion Dupleix stated that Roland had been interred at St. Romain's and that, according to tradition, his sword had been placed at his head and his horn at his feet. Later, he added, the sword was taken to Rocamadour, while the horn was deposited in St. Seurin's. Mérimée, Inspecteur Général des Monuments Historiques, was in an excellent position to know where such things ought to be, and he thought the sword was still at Rocamadour. Frédéric Mistral was convinced of it. Mérimée's friend Alexis de Valon was not so sure and held that it had been removed from Rocamadour at the time of the French Revolution and replaced by another one not at all resembling it. Prince Lucien had the sword, along with its owner, interred at Roncevaux. For Peyrat, Roland, his sword, and his horn were all buried where the paladin was struck down. Cervantes, we recall, believed that the sword was in the Madrid museum where Quinet claimed to have seen it.

(Harry Redman, Jr. 1991. The Roland Legend in Nineteenth Century French Literature, University Press of Kentucky, p.213). Lots more in that article on the background to a claimed Durendal at Rocamadour prior to the insertion of the fake removed in 2011 (and since replaced by a new fake!).
Note that the sword referenced by Cervantes is an entirely different one in the Real Armería de Madrid, which was never claimed to reside at Rocamadour. So we have two competing 'surviving' Durendals, neither of which are even period, much less anything to do with Roland. This is typical of ‘surviving’ heroic swords which are mostly contemporary to the time when they are first claimed to be original. There's every chance that the Rocamadour sword is a replacement for something much older. Redman speculates that there may have been three swords there prior to 2011 (p.106). Whether any sword once in that rock face dated to Roland's era or could even have been his, we will never know. I suspect it originated as a classic ecceliastical fundraising effort, like Arthur and Guinevere's grave at Glastonbury Abbey. Regardless, the claim at hand is about the sword removed in 2011, and we can be certain that the this was definitively a fake, itself now replaced by a sword that will likely also be assumed as real in future. And if you've been to Rocamadour since 2011, the sword you saw is brand new.
Sources - inline with text/linked.