Hi everyone,
when starting my new job 2 years ago as a IT-allrounder I received my first ThinkPad. It was an older P50 that I really fell in love with. Only downside for me was the heavier weight (riding with bicycle to work).
When our company decided to create a new department for PLC programming I received the task to buy new hardware for those. Since the programmer also run visualizations I decided to go for something with discrete GPU because of the additional vRAM. I ended up deciding between the P16s and a ThinkBook 16 G4+.
According to the internet ThinkPads seems to be higher quality and they were the same price, so I went for the ThinkPad P16s.
Since my old ThinkPad P50 was starting to make troubles (and because of the higher weight) I was happy as my boss told me I can have new hardware too.
We ended up buying 5 ThinkPad P16s:

• Intel i7-1260p
• Nvidia T550
• 32GB Ram
• 1TB ssd
• Touchscreen 1920*1200

So here is my opinion on the ThinkPad P16s after 5 months of use:

1. Build / Quality: I really like the feel of the case. It feels very robust and the surface feels very high-quality. Downside is the susceptibility to fingerprints and surely the one soldered RAM and overall upgradability. I am not a fan of non-upgradeable devices, wouldn't buy one personally but as buying for a company I didn't really care.
2. Performance: The Intel i7-1260p runs very fast, don't know why anyone should go for the much more expensive i7-1280p. In my daily work I run virtual machines, lot of browsing, and lot of different tasks at the same time. Average RAM usage is about 25 GB. Sinc e I came from the P50 the performance increase is enorm. Since we depend a lot on windows, I am running Win 11 pro.
3. Fan / Noise: Fan is running all the time, but the noise is ok. It's not noisy, more like a constant background sound. Fan is also running when there is low load on the notebook, guess that's the comprose of creating a small and portable workstation with only one fan. (Because of the constant running fan I made a 3D printed notebook stand to increase workflow when working on desk, but it doesn't seem to impact the fan speed noticeable).
4. Connectivity: All ports are accessible and work fine. When working on desk I use the Lenovo Thunderbolt Universal Dock, connected to a 34" display. The notebook is serving as second display. The docking works perfectly with the notebook and having very few issues. Sometimes you need to re-plug the dock but most time it really works reliable. It's the first USB-C dock I do not hate (I deal with so many troubles with Dell notebooks and Dell Dockings from other users).
5. Portability: Weight is low, display and keyboard is great. Touchscreen is quite handy when working for shorter period while standing without a desk. Battery life is ok, the notebook is marketed as a workstation so I didn't expect to work all day without charging. In the average I can work about 4-5 hours without charging. Not the best but could be worse.

Conclusion - I don't know the "old" and original ThinkPads, so I am not comparing the P16s with older ThinkPads here:
Nice portable workstation, plenty of performance coming along with some compromises (battery life, upgradeability). We bought the notebooks for about 1800€ (including tax), the same model costs about 2200€ now in our region so I think we made a good deal. The plc programers seem to be happy with the P16s as well.
Since I don't need the discrete GPU with additional vRAM my plan is to hand over my P16s Intel to the next programming employee and I will buy a P16s AMD for me. Have read it's integrated GPU performance is as good as the Nvidia T550 and they are about 400€ cheaper. Looking really forward to test and compare the results.

Original Source: https://boringmoney.in/p/byjus-is-sued-by-its-lenders (my newsletter Boring Money -- please visit the link to subscribe and receive similar posts about finance in India directly in your inbox)
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Four years ago I read an article in The Ken (disclosure: I was later employed here) titled The making of a loan crisis at Byju’s. The gist of the story was that Byju’s was an edtech doing phenomenally well selling its digital courses to parents of young students. But these courses were expensive and these parents were poor. So it was also selling them loans to buy these courses. Only, without telling them. Parents would expect a course (which could be cancelled) but would end up with a loan (which couldn’t be cancelled).
Three days ago, Byju’s went to court in New York. Here’s the headline from TechCrunch: Byju’s sues ‘predatory’ lenders on $1.2B term loan, won’t make further payments.
Byju’s is a company that, arguably, made a business out of giving out predatory loans. Now it’s sued its own lenders and accused them of being predatory. I’m not saying that this is poetic justice but.. okay, scratch that. This is poetic justice! If Shakespeare were a finance writer this is the kind of stuff he would come up with.

Everyone wants to lend to Byju’s

In 2021, interest rates were low, loans were cheap. Tech startups were doing great, edtech startups were crushing it. Byju’s, not one to be left behind, had raised a lot of money but money was cheap so it also wanted to borrow. It wanted a $500 million loan from lenders in the US, which it wanted to use to acquire companies there. Instead, it ended up borrowing more than double—$1.2 billion—because lenders practically wanted to throw money at this overachieving edtech startup from India. [1]
The way a term loan such as this works is:

1. A company goes to an investment bank and asks for a loan
2. The bank syndicates this loan to investors, who become the lenders. Everyone comes together in a room and negotiates the specifics of the loan (which can be quite complex, as we’ll see)
3. The loan goes through and everyone’s happy. Presumably, the company likes its lenders, the lenders like the company
4. The original investors might sell the loans they own to other investors. The company’s only talking to an administrative agent representing the lenders, so over time it might not even know who its lenders are

In November 2021, prominent investment managers such as Blackstone, Fidelity and GIC had gone overboard to lend money to Byju’s. By September 2022, Byju’s lenders were desperately selling [2] their loans at a 36% discount on the principal. (Today, Byju’s debt is at a 20% discount, which is also bad.)
It’s likely that Blackstone, Fidelity and other of the OG lenders aren’t Byju’s’ lenders any more. They’ve almost certainly sold off their loans at a loss. Better get paid something than get paid nothing.
Dealers of the dead
If a company’s debt is being sold at a 36% discount, it’s because investors think that the company is unlikely to repay its loans. If you buy such a loan, you potentially stand to gain a lot—because of the discount—but well, you might also just lose everything.
If you’re a regular investment management company, like Blackstone, you don’t want to invest in such a loan. Your investors gave you this money to get predictable returns. If they wanted risk, they’d ask you to buy stocks. You don’t want to get into a fight with your borrower. If you feel they will not pay you back, you take a loss, sell the loans, move on.
If you’re a distressed debt investor, your entire business is to buy such distressed loans from regular investment managers like Blackstone. You’re going to get nasty borrowers who are unlikely to want to repay their loans but that’s okay. Because you’re nasty too. You spend less time on financial models, more in courts and around lawyers. You like to fight to get your money back. Sometimes you might lose, but the times you win, you win big. The wins cover your losses and some more.
Blackstone and the others sold Byju’s’ loans in desperation, and they were almost certainly bought by distressed debt investors. We don’t know who they are exactly, but Byju’s has indicated that one of them is Redwood Capital, a New York-based distressed debt investor.
If you’re a distressed debt investor, this is how it works:

1. You get a loan for super cheap
2. If the company repays its loan, great! You make a lot of money
3. But the company isn’t likely to repay, which is why you got the loan for cheap in the first place
4. So it’s in your best interest to not let the company die a slow death. Instead, you want to kill the company quick. You take the company to court ASAP and take all the money you’re owed while it’s still there

If the new investors waited, say, for a year, and took Byju’s to court after it had actually defaulted on its repayments—there might not be any money left! Byju’s may have given all the money to Lionel Messi or maybe laundered it away someplace the lenders wouldn’t find it. If you’re a distressed debt investor, you want to get Byju’s to court and get the court to force it to do whatever it takes to pay you back.
Last month, Byju’s’ new lenders sued Byju’s in the Delaware Court of Chancery [3]. We’ll get to the official reasons for this lawsuit in a bit, but what’s important is that Byju’s was not being sued because it defaulted on a payment. It hadn’t. It was being sued because the distressed debt investors expect it to default sooner or later, and they would prefer dealing with it sooner rather than later.

Lenders go for the kill

Usually, the finer details of corporate loans such as Byju’s’ aren’t public. But thanks to the multiple lawsuits we know quite a bit here.
The loan was made to Byju’s’ US entity and it was secured with guarantees from multiple Byju’s companies. From Byju’s’ lawsuit this week against its creditors (which I will get to), here are the guarantors:

1. Byju’s entities in India and Singapore
2. Byju’s’ US and Singapore acquisitions; companies including Oros, Epic, Great Learning, and Neuron
3. Whitehat India, Byju’s’ famous Indian acquisition

That’s a lot of companies guaranteeing a loan! Byju’s’ Indian entity is the parent of all the other guarantor companies, so having it as a guarantor should’ve been enough. I guess the rationale here was that it would be nice to have some non-Indian companies in the mix too, we do know how efficiently Indian courts work.
Apart from Byju’s the parent company itself, Whitehat was the only other Indian company guaranteeing this loan. The problem was that Whitehat itself, on paper, had negative net worth. It had probably taken loans of its own and did not have enough assets to cover them. In practice, this would be irrelevant, because Whitehat was owned by Byju’s and it would cover any of Whitehat’s liabilities. But, apparently, RBI regulations require Indian companies with negative net worth to take its approval before guaranteeing a loan. So even though Whitehat was a guarantor, the guarantee was meaningless until RBI granted its approval.
Yeah, well, RBI didn’t grant its approval. From the lawsuit:

Plaintiffs, Borrower, and Lenders had a call on or around October 6, 2022, to discuss the Whitehat Guarantee. In a good faith effort to negate any impact of the new regulations, Plaintiffs and the Borrower offered to move all assets out of Whitehat India into other subsidiaries of the Parent Guarantor that are Guarantors to the Credit Agreement, or are owned by Guarantors of the Credit Agreement. Lenders rejected this proposal without justification.

In October 2022, after Byju’s’ debt was already sold to the distressed debt investors, the company spoke to its lenders and informed them that it was unable to get RBI’s approval for Whitehat to be a guarantor. Instead, it offered to move Whitehat’s assets into other companies and then use those companies to guarantee the loan. Which would really have been the same thing. But the lenders refused! Why?!
Continuing from the lawsuit:

Lenders subsequently asserted that an event of default under Section 8.1(e) of the Credit Agreement (an “Event of Default”) had occurred due to the failure to procure the Whitehat Guarantee.

Oh, that’s why. Byju’s’ lenders—distressed debt investors that wanted Byju’s dead ASAP—used the fact that Whitehat couldn’t be a guarantor of this loan to claim a default and use it as a reason to take Byju’s to court in the US. Honestly, I’m impressed. The Whitehat guarantee was redundant to begin with, but the lenders had found an out and their official reason #1 to take Byju’s to court.
Oh, there’s another thing. In June 2022, The Ken reported (disclosure: I once worked here) that Byju’s’ financials for 2021 had been held up by its auditors because of certain, umm, creative accounting. By this time, Byju’s should have ideally filed even its 2022 financials. It was very late! From the lawsuit:

The FY’21 Audit was delivered to the Lenders on August 30, 2022. It did not contain a “going concern” qualification or any similar qualifications about the Parent Guarantor’s ability to continue into the future. However, the FY’22 Audit could not begin until the FY’21 Audit had been completed, and the Parent Guarantor’s business has continued to grow rapidly

Byju’s’ 2021 financials were held up because auditors weren’t giving the company their go ahead, so of course its 2022 financials were held up as well.

On or around August 29, 2022, Shearman & Sterling, LLP (“S&S”), counsel for GLAS, sent a letter to Byju’s Alpha and Think & Learn requesting certain financial disclosures from Plaintiffs and Borrower, and asserting that the failure to deliver this financial information was a breach of the Credit Agreement. … Rather than actually suffering any damage from the delayed FY’22 audit, Lenders opportunistically used this unintentional and non-material delay to exert pressure on Plaintiffs and the Borrower to extract onerous economic concessions.

I love it! Byju’s’ financials were delayed. Its agreement with the original lenders said that the company must share its audited financials with them. Byju’s wasn’t able to do that. The lenders found their official reason #2 to take Byju’s to court.

Byju’s sets up a defence

Before the lenders sued Byju’s last month, Byju’s tried its best to negotiate a deal. It gave the lenders an assurance of the company’s financial health, gave them concessions worth “tens of millions of dollars” and requested (pleaded) to take back their claims of Byju’s defaulting.
The lenders refused. They asked for either the full principal back or two-thirds of it, with an increment of 7% (!!) in the interest rate. Byju’s, of course, said no.
At this point, Byju’s knew that the lenders weren’t going to negotiate realistically. So it prepared its own defence. From the lawsuit:

The Credit Agreement prohibits transfers or assignments of the Lenders’ interests in the Term Loans to “Disqualified Lenders.” The Credit Agreement includes in its definition of Disqualified Lender “[a]ny [] Person (including an Affiliate or Approved Fund of a Lender) whose primary activity is the trading or acquisition of distressed debt,” and “those banks, financial institutions and other Persons separately identified by name . . . on or before the syndication . . . (which may be updated . . . from time to time . . .)”

In its agreement with the original lenders, Byju’s had put in a clause restricting its loan from being transferred to distressed debt investors. This is a risky clause to agree with, because it’s only these folks that buy loans that turn sour, but the original lenders had gone with it.

On information and belief, the entire course of Lenders’, and Defendant’s, bad-faith conduct has been driven by these distressed-debt lenders, who were never meant to have been lenders in the first place, and who acted with the intent of causing harm to Borrower and Plaintiffs. Meanwhile, Borrowers and Plaintiffs were initially unaware that the lenders were in fact being controlled by distressed debt dealers, and were therefore unable to take action to prevent their bad-faith plan from being implemented.

In its lawsuit this week, the crux of Byju’s’ argument is based on the fact that its loan is owned by distressed debt investors who were not eligible to be owning its debt in the first place. Also interesting is that Byju’s doesn’t seem to know who these lenders are. In its post-lawsuit statement, Byju’s named Redwood as one of the lenders, but it’s not named anywhere in the lawsuit.

Now what?

If push comes to shove, does Byju’s have the cash to pay off its lenders?
Last month, Byju’s transferred $500 million out of its US entity. The lenders had filed their lawsuit and there was a chance the court would freeze Byju’s’ US entity’s assets, so this was a precautionary move. So Byju’s has this $500 million. But that seems about it. Byju’s has been in the news saying that it’s trying to raise $700 million to pay off its debt. Yeah, between the horrible edtech market and the colourful lawsuits Byju’s is in, good luck with getting investors to donate their money to Byju’s.
But of course, Byju’s is now suing its lenders too. It does have an agreement that says that its debt can’t be held by distressed debt investors. So it’s not a frivolous suit.
Can Byju’s win? Sure. It would still have to pay its debt eventually. And it’s not straightforward. There are probably tens or even hundreds of lenders. It’s apparent that the distressed debt investors are the guiding force behind the lenders’ lawsuit, but it’s definitely not necessary that they form the majority of the lenders. In which case, Byju’s’ whole lawsuit falls apart.
The lenders are saying Byju’s defaulted by not keeping its part of the agreement, even though it had technically paid its dues. [4] Byju’s is saying that the lenders shouldn’t be the lenders in the first place and must be disqualified. We’ll see who’s right.
Footnotes
[1] It was a 5-year loan with a floating interest rate of 6% over Libor. Think of it as 6% over this magical interest-rate called Libor that some fancy-pants banks set amongst themselves everyday. Back in November 2021, Libor was at 0.25% and this was a 6.86% interest loan for Byju’s (the floor for Libor was 0.75%). Today, Libor is at about 5.64% and it’s an 11.6% loan.
[2] Multiple reasons for the investors to sell. One, interest rates went up and cash became more dear. If they had money stuck with Byju’s, it was money not being lent out to someone else. Second, edtech all around the world was in trouble. Kids were back in school and people didn’t think much of them anymore. Third, Byju’s as a company was showing its red flags.
[3] What a cool name!
[4] Until now, that is. Byju’s filed its lawsuit this week the same day it was supposed to make a $40 million interest payment.
​
Original Source: https://boringmoney.in/p/byjus-is-sued-by-its-lenders

Unknown tags
I’m taking it that military runs unknown most the time I just watched a Blackhawk take off and a second from a south location and third from north all th three meet up down south and are off our coast line meanwhile a tanker flight is coming in and all this has no tags and unknown destination

So I recently bought a 2000 Dodge/Plymouth Neon, the second I've owned actually lol. But this one didn't come with AC, which I took as my cue to learn about the AC system. How hard could it be, right? Right?!? "Just pop all the parts inside, toss the fluids into it that it needs and I'm set, probably" is what I said to myself. Except the more I learn about it the more doubtful I am. And finding info on this particular subject isn't too easy-- installing an entire new system into a vehicle, that is.
The car is even already wired for AC though! Many of the mounting brackets and such are already in place... So it's really just the actual PARTS that are missing. That was a big reason I felt the inflated level of confidence that I did lol.
I've already begun gutting other Neons at my local junkyard and have about half the parts. I guess I'm wondering a few things.
First, can I just install a few parts at a time as money allows?
Second, if yes to that, once the compressor is on, is it okay to have the belt attached to it before the rest of the system is in place? I don't want to damage components that are already old (and expensive). But finding the right belt for this model vehicle that DOESN'T have a compressor has been an exercise in frustration so it'd be neato if I could just pop a compressor in and bypass that annoyance.
I'm also kinda crossing bridges when I come to them, so I'll worry about next steps after all my parts are acquired and installed. That's been the initial plan at least, yet here we are wondering if perhaps I need to rethink my strategy.
And lest anyone wonder, I'm completely confident in my ability to learn new stuff and ready to try and fail til I get it right-- so if it CAN be done without pricey equipment and tools, I plan on figuring it out, so please don't discourage my dreams unless it's truly necessary~

I (18F) am the class monitor, a silent one who never talk with any friends outside my class. I heard about people from my school from other people, without really communicating with them face to face and in somw ways, I believe in all the gossips my friends had about other people. I used to study in class A, and this year, our class is blended with class B and divided into 2 new classes. I am the A monitor, and there is a guy who are B monitor. I had to work with this guy a lot for our classes, since there are members of my class in his current class.
The thing is, I have heard many bad things about this guy, how he gaslighted my friends and all sort of how terrible he is. I have worked with him and we donot communicate that much for me to get to know him. But from my friends saying, I had a very bad impression of him. I am always worried that he may do the same for me. I am always afraid of him, though he did nothing wrong to me.
When prom comes, our classes are asked to choose a name for both, cause we are originally blended into one another. We as the class monitor have different opinions, and I tried to protect my opinion by saying that my class wants this name, not the one he and his class decided. I literally harshly give out my opinion without considering his class's feelings. Afterwards, I won the argument. But then memnbers from my old class (in his current class) said that I did not have them involved and that I have forgotten them, which hurt them deeply.
I started to regret all the terrible words that I said. And I realised that I was so harsh just because I was scared that the guy might have won against me, and I was weak compared to him. So I did everything to prove that I was right and that I was not afraid. But in fact, I am so mentally weak that I am deeply affected by every single thing that people said to me.
I feel guilty for making my friends hate me, and more inportantly, I hurt the guy without even knowing him that much. I hate the fact that I am so mentally weak, I cannot decide things on my own and usually second think due to other people's effects.
How can I do to overcome the guilt, I need to do it right now cause the college exam's coming soon and I have lived in guilt for 2 days. How can I improve myself?
Thanks for taking your time.

The game is so laggy on my (not that old) phone. The mode would turn off all unnecessary animations (all the floating and flying money, etc), stop any automatic scrolling and generally reduce the cpu workload. It’s just a game about tapping, not some intense 3d experience.

Any advice on anxiety related accidents? I’m always constipated at home, but if i’m in public, I need to go really badly.
It’s gotten so bad that I have been going days without pooping, so I go for a walk around the block to try and loosen my bowels.
The exact story i’m about to share is what has caused me to write this post.
I went for my usual walk around the block to try and help poop, normally I will walk, come home and poop (relatively) easily. And I can usually keep my anxiety/stress under control because since it is just around the block, I am always close to home, and there’s a public toilet halfway around the block in case i have an emergency (which happens often, but again, i’m okay with it). On this particular walk, by the time I make it around the block, I still don’t need to poop. So i decide to keep walking. And I decide to walk around 3 blocks. By the time i reach halfway (i.e, the furthest from my house), the need to go kicks in. I immediately freeze and try to contain it, which i manage to do. So i figure i just have to make it back to the public toilets and I can go. I start walking and begin to realise this is an impossible task. I sit down to try and control myself but after sitting down (very uncomfortably) for about 5 minutes I realise i’m not going to make it.
I’m not proud of this, but I made the decision to just give up and poop myself then and there. the relief was immense, genuinely nothing I have ever experienced in my years of poop troubles. but that relief lasted for about 3 seconds before it became embarrassment.
The point of the story is, that i’m asking for advice on controlling anxiety triggered accidents. I have had plenty in the past but they were, well… accidents. This one wasn’t so much. For what its worth i don’t regret it but i would rather avoid it entirely

Art can transform a house into a home, adding a touch of personality and beauty to every corner. From striking paintings to delicate sculptures, incorporating art into your home decor can create a captivating and inviting atmosphere. Hang a statement piece above the fireplace or create a gallery wall that tells your story. Whether you prefer abstract Wall art, modern, or traditional styles, art allows you to express your individuality and create a space that reflects your unique taste and aesthetic sensibilities.

1. Statement Pieces: Use large abstract art or animal paintings as statement pieces in your home. Hang them on a prominent wall where they can become the focal point of the room. Choose vibrant and bold colors to add a pop of excitement and energy to your space.
2. Gallery Wall: Create a gallery wall by arranging smaller abstract art and animal paintings in a cohesive and visually pleasing manner. Mix and match different sizes, styles, and subjects to create an eclectic and personalized display. Play with colors and textures to add depth and visual interest to the wall.
3. Color Coordination: Use abstract art and animal paintings to enhance the color scheme of your home. Choose artworks that complement the existing colors in your space. For example, if you have a predominantly neutral color palette, opt for paintings with bold and vibrant hues to add a striking contrast and create visual harmony.
4. Theme-based Rooms: Create theme-based rooms using abstract art and animal paintings On Canvas. For instance, if you have a wildlife-themed room, hang paintings of various animals to bring the theme to life. Use abstract art to add a touch of contemporary flair to any room. Experiment with different styles and subjects to suit your personal taste.
5. Mix and Match: Combine abstract art and animal paintings with other art forms to create an eclectic and visually dynamic environment. Mix them with photographs, sculptures, or other wall decor items. Play with different textures, materials, and styles to achieve a harmonious blend of artistic expressions in your home.

Remember, the key to decorating with abstract art and animal paintings is to let your personal style shine through. Don't be afraid to experiment, mix different elements, and create a unique and captivating ambiance that reflects your personality and artistic preferences.

I've come across a strange bug on my Pixel 7 pro.
After a restart, Google Assistant works as normal.
However, if I dictate a voice message, (I use default gboard), Google Assistant breaks in a way I haven't seen documented. It will pop up when prompted (either lock button or hey Google) and transcribe my request, but it does not perform the search or act upon the request. it just sits for maybe 15 seconds or so and acts as if it didn't hear a request at all (it says "sorry, I didn't get that" even though the words I spoke were literally on the screen before the search aborted).
The solution I have found is force stopping the Google app. After, Assistant works as normal again, but only until I dictate a message - at which point it breaks again.
I have updated Google Assistant, Gboard, and the system software.
Has anyone had or heard of this problem?

Hi, I want to start stating that I basically don't know any coding.
I set up stable diffusion using this guide on youtube.
Everything looked cool until I uploded a still image for img2img and clicked on interroate clip. It started counted the seconds and it doesn't stop at all.
I tried other features like txt2img but most of my attempts at that also failed, although after turning it off and on again countless times I did manage to generate an image from text but my problem remains.
I just want to turn some short clips into animation like in the youtube video I linked. Can anybody here help? I would be grateful. Thank you!

Hi, I want to start stating that I basically don't know any coding.
I set up stable diffusion using this guide on youtube.
Everything looked cool until I uploded a still image for img2img and clicked on interroate clip. It started counted the seconds and it doesn't stop at all.
I tried other features like txt2img but most of my attempts at that also failed, although after turning it off and on again countless times I did manage to generate an image from text but my problem remains.
I just want to turn some short clips into animation like in the youtube video I linked. Can anybody here help? I would be grateful. Thank you!