Hey all, my friends and I have been playing the beginner box for 3 sessions now and have some mixed feelings about it. So I would like to hear some of your opinions about it to see if their qualms are justified.
Just a few things to preface. We are all experienced dnd 5e players and I am a first time DM.
We are not using the pregenerated characters, instead just playing what we thought was fun. The most recent session consisted of only three players so I had to make some on the fly balance changes for the combats that we did.
The party consisted of A witch A monk A magus
To make up for their lack of healing I gave them a large amount of healing potions and I advised the Magus' player to take medicine proficiency and Healer's tools.
We fought the Cinder Rat (of which I nerfed the max HP and damage dice), the Xulgaths (same nerfs as the rat), they did the fountain encounter (ran away the first time and then walked along wall) and steamrolled trough the 6 (nerfed to 5) kobolds in the warren.
I also am relatively familiar with the rules because I wanted to make a oneshot myself before I aquired the beginner box, so I am using somewhat more complex rulings which are omitted from the beginner box. Such as a critical hit applying persistent damage also doubles the persistent damage that they take on subsequent turns.
My players get the feeling that this box is DM vs player and not that beginner friendly because they are getting hit a lot.
I've already told them some things that I've heard trough youtube videos and such.
E.g. AC is to avoid getting crit, not getting hit. That the Cinder Rat is considered to be hardest encounter and that because of bounded accuracy a higher CR enemy is way more deadly than a mob of low CR enemies(kobold warren).
So what are your thoughts about this as more experienced players? Is this the same for other oneshots/modules besides the beginner box?

TLDR; coax not shorted but reads very low impedance resulting in a high SWR
I have a center fed dipole (RG-8) that was working great until it suddenly showed a high SWR. I checked with my antenna analyzer and it showed a few ohms of R and tens of ohms of X on most bands.
I pulled it down thinking it was shorted at the center but could find no obvious short. I did the following tests:

1. Checked pin/shields on both ends of coax - no shorts found
   
2. Shorted the antenna end of coax and ran a continuity test from shack end - showed infinite resistance
   
3. Placed a 50 ohm resistor across antenna end and measured dc resistance - showed infinite resistance
   
4. Same test as 3 but used analyzer - showed a few ohms of R and X for all bands but 30 m which showed 50 ohm R and 200 ohm X
   
5. Open coax at antenna end swept with analyzer - similar results as 3 and 4
   

My initial thought is that I have a slightly open connection where I joined the coax about midway between the shack and antenna.
My other thought is there is water intrusion at the joined connection since it was raining when it happened.
However, I would expect open coax to have an infinite SWR on the analyzer and not a low Z that results in an SWR of 16-25:1
my coax is acting like a capacitor in some sense: open circuit to DC but still passing RF that is frequency dependent.

Yesterday was the first time I saw the dasher app ask me to verify my identity through their facial recognition software in order to schedule a dash. Because it didn’t recognize me it told me I have to wait 24-48 hours for a team member to review my account and get back to me. Calling in did nothing for my case of course. Has anyone here been in my situation? What can I expect if they come back just to tell me they can’t verify my identity? Will they shut down my dasher account entirely? I’m quite upset over this.

My situation is so specific I can’t give a huge amount of context, but I don’t know where else to turn than to the internet?
I have a huge issue with anxiety. To the point of panic attacks. Recently I have made a huge life change because I’ve been making awful, horrible, self destructive decisions.
Im very depressed and I know that but I have zero healthcare, and so therapy is not an option. Despite being below the poverty line and having a child (6) I do not get any benefits from work, the government, or any other place. I dont even quality for sliding scale programs but all I can say is I make less than $20 more than the limit for any assistance..
Now for the past 7 years my(f27) partner (m27) have really had a rift. He wanted a kid, I wanted to be child free. Despite protection AND the pill, I got pregnant. I freaked out because I would lose my job that I LOVED. It was the happiest time of my life. The guy I liked for so so so long (almost a year) and I had been together for 11 months. I knew it was a bad idea. My job was the one that made the majority of our finances and I didn’t want to be pregnant or have a child.
Well “love” (read: emotional manipulation) won and I kept the pregnancy. Yeah I’m stupid I know. Our relationship was actually good, we had fun together and the issues we ran into we worked together and fixed them or at least started the process because of my crippling anxiety and his inclination towards anger it was a process but we were a team.
That ended when he used the ultimatum to either keep him and the baby or my job (and life I mean I brought a human into a world like this and I’m doing everything I can to not feel guilt for knowing they will face hardships because my partner would leave me if I didn’t) it was entirely a stupid mistake. He is a good dad but a horrible provider. I’m now depressed and ofc hormones ppd, ppa, I developed diabetes and other chronic health conditions and became, well I wanted to get away from the world but I have a small human that needs me. Stopped wearing my seatbelt or looking before crossing the street.
Partner turned to drugs and we split. He gets clean, we work through it. My health (mental and physical) stresses him out and then he eventually relapses. Couldn’t hold a job, so I worked 2 jobs 4 weeks after having a child. This may give away something personal but after I gave birth, he disappeared after holding our child for nearly 4 hours. Then comes into the room, has not spoken to me at all looks down at arc child, and says, “are you sure the child is mine? “. I should’ve left. But my health and financial situation made it hard. I would end up having to go back because I can’t raise a child and work two jobs. I had one friend and my mom who also has health issues that would watch my little one but has nerve issues. My dad was too far to help. Childcare is expensive Well now the past few months since the last relapse and I live with my mom and we are “trying” but he’s cost me over $5000 and he works but he’s making so little and having to pay for legal costs for possession and a few other things and might go to prison for a few months/years because he enjoys his job despite the pay.
This will be odd but he wanted to apologize and celebrate my birthday. I figured it couldn’t hurt. He couldn’t pay for any of the gifts or food. There’s another $200 but he ordered me two gifts that were collectively $70-90 with shipping maybe..
Since then I can’t eat or sleep unless I’m drunk or take way. More than the recommended dose of sleeping medication. I haven’t cried a lot but today my aunt passed away and I went from crying for hours to deciding I want to leave him and move and get my old job back. I got so happy I danced around work listening to music and finally talking to my friends again.
Idk why I got so excited but I did. Unfortunately something held me up tonight so I went to get food and gas because even though I can’t eat, I keep making meals or buying food and I just stare at it until I just give up trying to eat. While I was there, I met someone here I am just getting out of a horrible relationship. But I allowed him to get my number. Technically, my partner and I are separated but today I did decide to leave them. I just haven’t been able to tell them we haven’t lived together in months. And this other guy and I start texting turns out we have a lot in common. I don’t want another relationship but I’m also moving in a few months. The advice I need to ask about is do I wait and not tell that I am leaving my partner, which would make it easier on me and probably safer or do I end it and maybe pursue seven things like a friendship with flirtation with someone that actually seems to care about the things that I like because he likes them too.? I don’t think it’ll be a forever we’re gonna get married thing just I want to be happy. I wanna have fun and not want to stop existing. I want to get excited when my phone rings instead of dreading what has happened now. I know pretending is wrong, but it would make it easier on my mental health even though I would feel like I’m cheating even though I don’t plan on doing anything like that, just casual flirtation, and possibly being like Internet friends or we don’t see each other, but we talk and play games and watch videos, but virtually using voice chat. I was also able to eat, but only a small amount of fries. I think this decision to leave is a good one. It’s the right one, but do I leave secretly it’s not like I’m gonna hide from him. It’s just that someone else is also on a similar situation. We don’t know each other very well but I know she needs to get out to her more than me, if I go and get everything ready and then come back and get her and our kids we could have a very happy life. I am almost 100% certain that this is the right choice. I just don’t know whether I should be open to my partner or ex partner or if I should tell him and risk it, possibly getting out because my child’s father is very close friends with her partner. I started trying to reach out more with her because I found out how dangerous her situation is. It is benefiting me may be more I don’t know I’m not sure what to do. Tell or wait ?

Selling my sets for below mentioned price in items.
Feel free to add me/discuss.
Why u should trust me ?
Sold over 1000 TI6/TI7/TI8/TI9/TI10/Nemestice/Aghanim's/Diretide 2022 Collector's
Proof of gifting Caches Sets?
Check comments on my profile & check their inventory for my sets gifted by me.
Buyer always goes first or we can use middleman from this Sub.
Also, why would scam ? I got like 800+ cache sets to sell.
Profile https://steamcommunity.com/profiles/76561198107212373

Diretide 2022 Collector's Cache

Set name	Hero	Quantity	$$
Shadowleaf Insurgent	Hoodwink	20+	$15
Scarlet Subversion	Riki	20+	$15
Whippersnapper	Snapfire	20+	$10
Hounds of Obsession	Chen	20+	$10
Seadog's Stash	Clockwork	20+	$10
Starlorn Adjudicator	Dawnbreaker	20+	$15
Spoils of the Shadowveil	Spectre	20+	$15
Chines of the Inquisitor	Faceless Void	20+	$10
Trophies of the Hallowed Hunt	Ursa	20+	$10
Crimson Dawn	Phoenix	20+	$10
Forgotten Station	Terrorblade	20+	$15
Dirge Amplifier	Undying	20+	$15
Champion of the Fire Lotus	Monkey King	20+	$10
Deathstitch Shaman	Witch Doctor	20+	$10
Blue Horizons	Marci	20+	$30
Angel of Vex	Invoker	20+	$35
Dark Behemoth	Primal Beast	20+	$50

Aghanim's 2021 Collector's Cache

Set name	Hero	Quantity	$$
Silverwurm Sacrifice	Dragon Knight	22	$20
Scales of the Shadow Walker	Phantom Lancer	23	$15
Perception of the First Light	Dawnbreaker	22	$15
Apex Automated	Clockwerk	22	$15
Test of the Basilisk Lord	Razor	25	$10
Secrets of the Frost Singularity	Ancient Apparition	23	$8
Perils of the Red Banks	Chen	22	$10
The Chained Scribe	Grimstroke	24	$10
Widow of the Undermount Gloom	Broodmother	23	$10
Forgotten Fate	Mars	22	$5
March of the Crackerjack Mage	Rubick	24	$10
Cosmic Concoctioneers	Alchemist	23	$20
Days of the Demon	Axe	22	$10
Blightfall	Abaddon	23	$15
Pyrexae Polymorph Perfected	Ogre Magi	25	$35
Wrath of the Celestial Sentinel	Chaos Knight	8	$60

Nemestice Collector's Cache 2021

Set name	Hero	Quantity	$$
Twilight Hex	Dark Willow	23	15$
Litany of the Damned	Doom	24	15$
Astral Terminus	Enigma	23	10$
Caerulean Star	Enchantress	22	8$
Arcane Inverter	Gyrocopter	22	20$
Creed of the Skullhound	Lycan	22	25$
Desert Bloom	Nature's Prophet	23	20$
Silence of the Starweaver	Oracle	23	10$
Eyriebound Imperator	Skywrath Mage	23	10$
Anthozoan Assault	Tiny	23	25$
Vision of the Seraph Scion	Vengeful Spirit	23	35$
Defender of the Brumal Crest	Winter Wyvern	10	10$
Red Sands Marauder	Shadow Shaman	23	20$
Indomitable Legacy	Sven	23	60$
Footfalls of the Sporefathers	Witch Doctor	12	60$

Collector's Cache I 2020

Set name	Hero	Quantity	$$
Ravenous Abyss	Underlord	20+	$10
Apocalypse Unbound	AA	20+	$10
Beholden of the Banished Ones	Warlock	20+	$5
Fury of the Righteous Storm	Disruptor	20+	$5
Lineage of the Stormlords	Juggernaut	20+	$35
Silent Slayer	Silencer	20+	$10
Mindless Slaughter	Pudge	20+	$20
Heartless Hunt	Bounty	20+	$10
Herald of the Ember Eye	Grimstroke	20+	$10
Fissured Flight	Jakiro	20+	$5
Flashpoint Proselyte	Husker	20+	$15
Signs of the Allfather	Nature prophet	20+	$15
Glory of the Elderflame	Lina	20+	$25
Lineage of the Stormlords	Juggernaut	6	$35
Origin of the Dark Oath	Night Stalker	6	$25
Songs of Starfall Glen	Enchantress	20+	$5
Ancient Inheritance	Tiny	20+	$30
Forsworn Legacy	mars	20+	$50

Collector's Cache II 2020

Set name	Hero	Quantity	$$
Evolution of the Infinite	Enigma	20+	$6
Beast of the Crimson Ring	bristle back	20+	$10
Clearcut Cavalier	Timber	20+	$6
The King Of Thieves	Keeper of light	20+	$10
Horror from the Deep	Tide	20+	$20
Ire of the Ancient Gaoler	Arc warden	20+	$25
Talons of the Endless Storm	chaos knight	20+	$15
Carousal of the Mystic Masquerade	Rubick	20+	$6
Crown of Calaphas	Shadow demon	20+	$10
Wrath of the Fallen	doom	20+	$20
Blacksail Cannoneer	Sniper	20+	$10
Secrets of the Celestial 📷	Skywrath mage	20+	$5
Blaze of Oblivion	Phoenix	20+	$6
Steward of the Forbidden Chamber	Templar Assassin	20+	$25
Claszureme Incursion	Void	20+	70$

Collector's Cache 2019

Set name	Hero	Quantity	$$
Echoes of the Everblack	Abaddon	19	15$
Paean of the Ink Dragon	Grimstroke	18	10$
Scorched Amber	Dragon Knight	20	20$
Allure of the Faeshade Flower	Dark Willow	1 M*	25$
Priest of the Proudsilver Clan	Chen	18	10$
The Arts of Mortal Deception	Enigma	21	10$
Poacher's Bane	Tidehunter	20	10$
Soul of the Brightshroud	Death Prophet	21	10$
Curse of the Creeping Vine	Undying	21	20$
Appetites of the Lizard King	Slark	18	25$
Riddle of the Hierophant	Oracle	20	10$
Defender of Ruin	Disruptor	22	25$

​

Collector's Cache II 2019

Set name	Hero	Quantity	$$
Sight of the Kha-Ren Faithful	Drow Ranger	31	15$
Tribal Pathways	Warlock	30	10$
Directive of the Sunbound	Clockwerk	31	10$
Endless Night	Abaddon	30	10$
Dapper Disguise	Pudge	27	15$
Fury of the Bloodforge	Bloodseeker	30	10$
Automaton Antiquity	Broodmother	31	10$
Grim Destiny	Wraith King	29	10$
Distinguished Expeditionary	Tusk	30	10$
Verdant Predator	Venomancer	31	10$
Prized Acquisitions	Batrider	31	5$
Fowl Omen	Necrophos	34	30$

The International 2018 Collector's Cache I

Set name	Hero	Quantity	$$
Trail of the Sanguine Spectrum	Bloodseeker	20	8$
Insights of the Sapphire Shroud	Dark Seer	18	4$
Pillar of the Fractured Citadel	Spirit Breaker	21	$5
Stonemarch Sovereign	Wraith King	21	$15
The Murid Divine	Necrophos	22	15$
Primer of the Sapper's Guile	Techies	22	10$
Molokau Stalker	Venomancer	21	$10
Morbific Provision	Witch Doctor	22	10$
Raptures of the Abyssal Kin	Queen of Pain	20	15$
Grasp of the Riven Exile	Weaver	20	5$

The International 2018 Collector's Cache II

Set name	Hero	Quantity	$$
Pitmouse Fraternity	Meepo	37	10$
Fires of the Volcanic Guard	Ember Spirit	37	10$
Shackles of the Enduring Conscript	Axe	37	6$
Shimmer of the Anointed	Nyx Assassin	29	5$
Loaded Prospects	Brewmaster	39	15$
Ire of Molten Rebirth	Phoenix	36	10$
Pattern of the Silken Queen	Broodmother	26	5$
The Rat King	Chen	28	10$
Raiments of the Obsidian Forge	Underlord	22	20$

The International 2017 Collector's Cache

Set name	Hero	Quantity	$$
Eternal Testament	Death prophet M*	19	15$
Rumrunner's Carronade	Brew master	20	15$
Abyssal Vortex	Enigma	27	10$
Samareen Sacrifice	Huskar	22	10$
Pressure Regulator	Clockwerk M*	24	20$
Spoils of the Vodou Rover	Witch Doctor	27	10$
Shadowforce Gale	Luna	24	10$
Mechalodon Interdictor	Gyrocopter	27	10$
The Dread Prophet	Nature's Prophet	23	20$
Cunning Corsair	Riki	24	20$

The International 2016 Collector's Cache

Set name	Hero	Quantity	$$
Rising Glory	Magnus	1 M*	20$
Nightsilver's Resolve	luna	2 M* dtygod*	20$
Oni Knight the Dark Conqueror	Chaos Knight	2 dtygod* dopey*	20$

I am no longer entertaining joy riders so I prefer you give $3 in items when u add me as deposit.
Those $3 will be subtracted from you're total sets cost.
Don't add me if you don't like the prices.
​

• prices are subject to change.*
• sets may go out of stock even if you're waiting for one if someone else buys it before you.*

*if you don't reserve the sets.

This game is not ready.
From technical issues like memory management and rubber banding to the servers struggling to cope with area transitions.
But most importantly it feels fundamentally under cooked. There are classes that feel polished like Sorceres and there are classes that feel like they just got done with their first development pass on them. And I'm not talking about damage and survivability, I'm talking about the class just not feeling right like Druids. Increasing numbers isn't gonna make Druids feel like a polished class. The class needs work that's not gonna get done in 2 months while they're preparing for a heavy launch.
Aside from that we have a severe lack of monster variety and what's in the beta already is 25% of the base game. The game needs more monsters and more variety in general. Things that aren't gonna happen in 2 months.
The game just feels rough and not ready in a way Diablo 3 never did. Diablo 3 at launch was basically a completely finished polished product. You could argue about the design, story or them making Inferno impossibly hard but the product was top notch. Diablo 4 is launching in June and it's not even in the same ballpark of the finished product quality Diablo 3 had.
They need to delay it until winter or next year to work on the game and get it right instead of us having to play through a first year of what is essentially a glorified beta test.

I beat the game with an STR build - Rusty Anchor into Great Stars. Jump attacking and staggering my way through. It was fun. And I intentionally left a lot of side content unexplored the a second playthrough. I didn't do Volcano Manor, the Depths, Haligtree, the belphries. Consecrated Snowfield, underground Leyndell etc. I killed a ton of dungeon bosses but hardly any field bosses. I wanted to save all of that for a second time so I had new and fresh things to discover.
Problem is I just can't get excited about a build. But maybe I'm not looking deep enough. I tried an INT sorcery build and a pure FTH build but magic is honestly not for me.
One thing I'd really like is to play with a setup that doesn't rely on jump attacks and staggering bosses over and over. I've thought about Reduvia with a shield but that seems like it would be more frustrating than fun. Ideally I'd like to run a build that allows me to fight bosses and really learn their movesets and conquer them rather than looking for openings to stop them from attacking. Love the Great Stars run I did but there were quite a few bosses I just pounded into the dirt on my first try and it felt kind of unsatisfying because I didn't really learn how to fight them first.
I looked up builds on fextralife but so much of that stuff feels clinical to read. So I'm hoping that some of you guys might be able to lend me some inspiration. Sorry for the long post.

Hello fellow LLM and NLP developers! Today, we're going to delve into the fascinating realm of language models and natural language understanding (NLU) from a technical standpoint. We'll be putting two prominent AI tools under the microscope: OpenAI's ChatGPT and the LLAMA NLU system.
Our goal is to dissect their capabilities, strengths, and weaknesses, offering insights into how these systems impact and advance the field of AI language processing for developers and enthusiasts like us.
​
Background
Before we jump into the comparisons, let's briefly discuss GPT and NLU. GPT, or Generative Pre-trained Transformer, is a type of language model that uses machine learning to generate human-like text. NLU, or Natural Language Understanding, is a subset of natural language processing (NLP) that focuses on extracting meaning and intent from human language.
​
ChatGPT
ChatGPT is an AI language model by OpenAI, based on their GPT architecture. It's designed to generate human-like responses in a conversational context. ChatGPT can perform various tasks like answering questions, providing suggestions, and even engaging in casual conversations.
​
Strengths

1. Highly advanced text generation: ChatGPT can generate coherent and contextually accurate responses, making it suitable for a wide range of applications.
2. Multitasking abilities: It can handle multiple tasks without requiring explicit retraining or fine-tuning.
3. Large-scale training data: ChatGPT leverages a vast amount of training data, allowing it to generate more diverse and knowledgeable responses.

​
Weaknesses

1. Ambiguity and verbosity: ChatGPT sometimes generates verbose or ambiguous responses, which may not directly address the user's query.
2. Inability to guarantee factual accuracy: Although it's trained on a large dataset, ChatGPT may occasionally produce incorrect or outdated information.

​
LLAMA
LLAMA (Language Learning and Multitask Analysis) is an NLU system designed to understand and analyze human language. Instead of generating text, LLAMA extracts meaning from text inputs and provides structured information or performs specific actions based on user intent.
​
Strengths

1. Precise information extraction: LLAMA is excellent at extracting specific information from user inputs and providing accurate, structured data.
2. Intent recognition: It can accurately identify user intent, allowing it to respond to various requests or commands effectively.
3. Domain-specific expertise: LLAMA can be fine-tuned for specialized domains, making it suitable for industry-specific applications.

​
Weaknesses

1. Limited text generation capabilities: Unlike ChatGPT, LLAMA isn't designed to generate human-like text, which limits its applicability in conversational AI.
2. Narrow focus: LLAMA may struggle with tasks outside its domain-specific expertise, as it requires fine-tuning for each new domain.

​
Conclusion
Both ChatGPT and LLAMA offer valuable contributions to the fields of AI language processing and NLU. While ChatGPT excels in generating human-like text and multitasking, LLAMA's strengths lie in extracting meaning and understanding user intent. Ultimately, the choice between these two systems will depend on the specific use case and desired outcome, but now you might have a better idea of which is best for your needs.

Donate to his veterans support charity No Duff if you can, it will go to his daughtewhanau, to return his body and continue his enduring kaupapa, which will help other whanau in this conflict and others.

No Duff Charitable Trust Givealittle page:

https://givealittle.co.nz/org/noduff

​

Kane Te Tai remembered as man of honour committed to aiding Ukraine

https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/national/486507/kane-te-tai-remembered-as-man-of-honour-committed-to-aiding-ukraine

Whānau and friends of slain soldier Kane Te Tai say he will return home as a warrior in life and death, and be remembered as a man who always fought for what was right.
RNZ understands the body of the slain New Zealand soldier has officially been identified as Te Tai and is now being transferred to Kyiv.
He is understood to have been killed while clearing a trench in the Vulhedar area of Ukraine.
Sources have told RNZ he had moved deeper into the trench, away from his team, when he was killed by Russian soldiers.
His team were forced to leave his body there, before Ukrainian marines went in and recovered him overnight.
Veteran support and advocacy group No Duff is now working to ensure a New Zealander can be available to escort his body through the country to the Polish border, before travelling with him for his final journey home.
Comrades and friends have said they believed it was important a Kiwi was always with him, but the process would not be simple.
Te Tai co-founded No Duff with Aaron Wood, who told Midday Report his mother had asked them to manage the journey home.
"We're pulling all the pieces together. A number of volunteers and interested people from New Zealand, all the way through to Ukraine and in between, are coming together to make this happen."
It was highly likely they would be able to bring him home, Wood said, but there were numerous jurisdiction challenges ahead.
Deeply respected during time in Ukraine
Te Tai joined the Defence Force after leaving high school and went on multiple deployments while serving in the 2/1 Royal Battalion.
He left the Army in 2010 and travelled to Ukraine in April last year, operating under the call sign 'Turtle'.
Te Tai was a prominent character in the warzone and was widely followed on social media.
His colleagues described him as well-known and deeply respected for his professionalism, skill, leadership and relentless sense of humour.
They said he never underestimated the importance of his job, or the lives he held in his hands.
His death marks the third New Zealander to be killed in the combat - after the deaths of his best friend Dominic Abelen and humanitarian Andrew Bagshaw.
Te Tai had become the unofficial expert for New Zealanders in Ukraine, often acting as the point of contact for Kiwis wanting to travel to the warzone. He would ensure people knew what they were signing up for, a way to get into the country and a unit to go to.
He admitted in an interview with RNZ his initial motivations for going there were selfish, but that changed quickly on arrival.
The soldier became an infamous figure in the war, often featuring on Russian propaganda sites - seen by RNZ - particularly the Wagner group, who put a NZ$11 million price tag on his head.
In a conversation with friends he joked about ratting himself out for the money, illustrating his sense of humour.
Te Tai always said to his friends he was not afraid to die, but he also was not afraid to live.
During nearly a full year in Ukraine, he garnered respect from people in all walks of life. He volunteered with Ukrainian families, taught civilians how to fight and eventually found a spot at the frontline as one of the team's leaders.
Te Tai said he was fiercely protective of his team and did anything to make sure they were safe.
During one mission in August 2022, his best friend, Abelen, was killed in trench warfare. In an interview after the mission, Te Tai said the team were unable to get his body back and it ended up in Russian hands, but that did not stop him from trying.
He told RNZ they only stopped because Abelen would not have wanted them killed in the process.
Just last week Te Tai posted on social media, revealing that while clearing a Russian position he had found a "long lost friend" who had wanted to visit New Zealand.
Te Tai had thought his friend was dead and was amazed to find him alive, describing it as a "Hollywood moment".
He said at first he did not recognise the man, who had been shot four times and was skinny.
"He'd been starved by Russians for two months and drinking anti-freeze because the Russians wanted a laugh."
The man did not want to be left with the Ukrainians, but Te Tai had to keep fighting. He promised he would return and walk him personally to hospital.
That was exactly what he did, he said.
'The people grow on you'
In that August interview with RNZ, Te Tai said he had fallen in love with the country and its people, and was deeply respectful of their resolve.
"I was sort of getting a bit bored of being at home... and coming into this conflict was just one of those things that selfishly I thought I could be close to the war without getting too entangled.
"But then that sort of changes... I've met so many people, I've been everywhere in this country and the place grows on you, the people grow on you, and their strength, and that's why I'm still here."
Te Tai said he was prepared to leave everything in Ukraine, but in the weeks before his death he had made moves to return home.
His mother said he always kept her up to date, ending the calls with "I love you Mum", but more recently it was like "I'll see you soon".
In a Facebook message to another friend he said he loved Ukraine, but it was time to start living a real life - "gotta put the toys away and start to build while I can", he said.
"That's enough war for me, I love this place, it's like a playground where I can do anything I want.
"But that's the problem isn't it? So before the game gets me or before I decide that life here is too easy, maybe it's time to start living my real life.
"This place is pure escapism, we are all trying to run from something, mine is from having a real life, but the time is near."
Passionate about the cause
Te Tai is being remembered by his friends and comrades as a man of honour who was passionate about his cause, always doing everything he could to protect people.
Longtime friend Aaron Wood described Te Tai as a beautiful man, who he loved to bits.
"He just wanted people to live their best lives and he wanted to help as many people as he could.
"That sounds like a cliché, but with him it's a truism. That's his whole life... Just serving people, that's what he did, that's what his message was."
That was what he died doing, Wood said.
His mum, Ngaire Te Tai, said there was never any talking him out of it.
"He never did anything by halves, my son. We tried to stop him, but he had his mind made up, that's just Kane.
"When you were around him, you just felt safe."
A gift she said she knew he spread much further than just Ukraine.
Ngaire Te Tai's final comment about her eldest boy was: "Don't let my son's death be in vain."
He leaves behind a 12-year-old daughter.

“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t find anything glorious about killing young mobilised Russian boys who are crying in their trenches”
https://www.stuff.co.nz/world/europe/300777917/the-shelling-is-so-close-it-makes-you-puke-says-kiwi-fighting-in-ukraine

The shelling is so close it makes you puke, says Kiwi fighting in Ukraine

A Kiwi soldier fighting under Ukraine’s military intelligence says he’s prepared to die.
Kane Te Tai, code name Turtle, is fighting in a secretive reconnaissance unit on Ukraine’s front line in the eastern Donetsk region.
After deaths, injuries and resignations, Te Tai now leads the Foreign Reconnaissance Team after only joining in July.
A December article in The New Yorker magazine revealed the existence of the unit and featured Turtle.
It’s the same unit that 28-year-old Kiwi Dominic Abelen was fighting in when he was killed in August, and the two were like brothers.
Te Tai’s unit has set up a PayPal to fundraise for vehicles it needs to move around its area of operation, near the town of Pavlivka.
As Te Tai was interviewed, he had to be careful his phone wasn’t too bright, so as to not give his unit away to any Russian drones flying overhead.
“We live on the line, we just occupy whatever place we can find at the time. If it gets too hot we just find somewhere else,” he told Stuff.
His unit’s job is primarily reconnaissance, a small mobile force that could reach into Russian land or no-man’s land between the trenches, and destroy a tank or hold a position, before the Ukrainian army moved in.
“Find it, locate it, observe it, report it, attack it.”
Good 4x4 vehicles are a necessity.
Donetsk is known for farming and coal production, and Te Tai described the land as similar to the Canterbury plains.
Soldiers try and use the tree lines separating the fields for cover, and trench systems are built through them.
During the winter, the roads and fields are muddy, pocked by craters from Russian artillery barrages.
The Foreign Reconnaissance Team can get the necessities of war – food, bombs, clothing, bullets - just fine.
Reliable working vehicles and parts, and enough for an emergency stockpile, are harder to come by.
The Foreign Reconnaissance Team is reliant on vehicles driven into Ukraine from throughout Europe by volunteers and paying for them with donated money.
“You can use that vehicle until it is blown up or you crash it, unfortunately both those things happen all the time,” Te Tai said.
“The last three vehicles we’ve had, in the last month, they’ve been hit with artillery. Holes in the front, s... just smashed through.”
Unlike the famous International Legion Battalion, which tens of thousands of foreigners have joined since the start of the war, the Foreign Reconnaissance Team is for some of the highly-trained foreign few.
Te Tai served a tour in Afghanistan for the New Zealand Defence Force and thinks of himself as having spent his whole life training to fight.
His team is given autonomy, building trust with local Ukrainian commanders to find out what they want and then formulating missions.
Te Tai was able to talk about one operation the Foreign Reconnaissance Team conducted during a December battle in Pavlivka, first described in the New Yorker article.
Te Tai and a small team of a half-dozen were set to cross a bridge at night and enter a tree line which ran into the centre of the town.
The mission was to see how close they could get to the Russian positions before they were fired on.
“The moment that we got onto the bridge, everything just opened up, rockets, missiles everything. We ran across this bridge and were just trying to scramble to the safest nearest spot.”
Te Tai’s team managed to get into the tree line and into a trench – all in the dark – but the Russians began to shell progressively towards them down the tree line.
“I remember just looking at everyone in the pit and we all had this look on our faces like, ‘well, the party had to end some time’. We had this feeling of acceptance.”
But, just as the next shell was set to kill the team, it flew off somewhere else and the Russians then began to bomb regressively back along the tree line.
“By divine intervention we missed getting smashed... We all knew we were supposed to die that night.”
Before joining Foreign Reconnaissance, Te Tai was working for a church training Ukrainians in basic military skills.
He was open with people back in New Zealand about what he was experiencing, including old army colleagues.
Te Tai described an environment where Kiwis in Ukraine often stayed in touch and worked together, including Dominic Abelen who contacted Te Tai before making the trip.
When Abelen said that he was set to join the International Legion Battalion, Te Tai told Abelen he was hearing bad stories.
“You go there as a foreigner, you get given a weapon, some ammunition, and sit inside a trench and you fight or die, that’s how it’s portrayed.
“People would tell us: 'Thank you for training my son, he didn’t make it back, but I felt he was better off than he was before’,” he said.
Abelen, now with the nickname Tolkien, made his way into the Ukrainian army, but managed to get taken into Ukrainian military intelligence.
Talking to Abelen about what he was doing, Te Tai had had enough of training soldiers and the 37-year-old felt like he was running out of time to fight.
“I told him [Abelen], ‘I’ll jump in with you too’.
“And he [Abelen] was like ‘thank God, cool man’,” said Te Tai.
He ended the volunteer work and a recruiter told Te Tai to get to Lviv where he entered a secretive military intelligence training camp.
Recruits weren’t allowed to use their phones and were closely evaluated for a two-week period.
“Pretty much from the second they take you into the camp, they don’t tell you what’s going on.
“They operate it like a psychological test, to see if you can be just told what to do and not know any other parameters,” he said.
Access to weapons was heavily restricted and there was heavy scrutiny as Ukrainian officials went through candidates’ records and social media, trying to weed out spies and the weak.
“When you talk to someone, it’s always a cover story, you’re never talking to who you think you’re talking to,” Te Tai said.
Then, one morning in July, officials gave Te Tai a contract and drove him to the Foreign Reconnaissance Team in Donetsk.
“As soon as we pulled up... Dom had no shirt on... he said, ‘let’s do some work’.”
“I was like ‘my man!’.”
Abelen had put in a good word for him with Ukrainian intelligence, Te Tai said.
He gave Te Tai the code name of Turtle, after he had originally named himself Talon. Talon was too cool, Abelen said.
Te Tai described new troops arriving for the unit as a big event, a celebration of strengthening the group after the fighting took its toll.
“There’s a high attrition rate either by death, injury, or guys wanting to leave.”
The Foreign Reconnaissance Team currently operates out of a house, planning their missions on a whiteboard.
“We’re normally strapped for time. If we’re not out working we are resting, or we are giving instructions.”
Te Tai said there aren’t ranks in the unit, so while he is the team’s leader, he sits on the same step as the other foreigners in the unit.
He eats Ukrainian food: soups like borscht, and two-minute noodles and toast.
At night Te Tai watches Netflix and YouTube fail compilations to decompress. Sometimes, he hears the Russians shelling, keeping him awake.
When you’re fired on by artillery, you can hear the lifespan of the shell, he said.
He described how shells left the Russian gun with a distant duh-boom, screeching through the air, before exploding somewhere on the Ukrainian side of the line.
Some shells landed far away, but some hit so close to soldiers that the concussion made them puke and made them feel sick for the next day, he said.
“That shit happens like every week.”
About six weeks after Te Tai joined the unit, Abelen was killed during a mission.
“It pissed me off more than anything, it just consolidated for me that I’m not leaving any time soon.”
Te Tai said Abelen didn’t have a death wish, but he was a soldier and fighting was what he had trained for his whole life.
“I could have told him, ‘you are going to die today’ and he would have been like ‘it’s a good day to die’, that’s just who he was.”
Killing didn’t weigh on Te Tai’s mind, he said. He described it as part of the job, and said his views hadn’t changed since Abelen’s death.
“Don’t get me wrong, I don’t find anything glorious about killing young mobilised Russian boys who are crying in their trenches,” he said.
“I’m willing to die, for sure, but I don’t want to die.”
Te Tai has no plans to leave and wants to attend a victory day parade in Kyiv.
“I know we’re going to win, I know that for sure,” he said.
“I’m staying here until I can’t take it any more, or I am dead.”

I couldn't find satisfactory documentation on this and the app is useless junk, tbh.
Whenever I watch something on my laptop and I get a notification on my phone, the app switches the audio to the phone and plays the notification. Even if I open a menu and I'm not even sure there is a sound related to that, the audio on my laptop cuts out.
I was thinking, that maybe my phone is somehow a "primary" source and I could maybe switch their order in the app, but I couldn't figure out how, I also didn't find anything to configure in the app, because it is useless junk.
When I read about the 2 device feature of the Heaphones, I imagined them being equal citizens but my phone can interrupt my laptop, while that's not true the other way around.
I can't remember if it always worked like that, but given how annoyed I am at this after 3 months of owning them, I feel like it didn't.
Is this annoying to anyone else? I could mute my phone, but that seems like a crude solution to something that should obviously at least be configurable, imo.

I thought I'd share since they make it such a pain to find them again. I didn't realise how stupid of a feature the super like was before I used it, I didn't send a message with it and the profile was gone forever. So I did to following to find the person again to send a message.
I had to make a separate profile with some junk in the area where they are. I used a picture of the rock, maybe he'll get some likes 🤣 I then used ping me to get past the SMS verification. Finally I reduced my preferences to match the person to get them to appear. Then in desktop if you like them they will appear in your liked section, you can click on them to get their actual profile URL.
Once you have the URL log back into your normal account and hit the URL. You can then send a message or whatever.
I hope this helps some people find their long lost super like.

Brynnhildr is a bruiseassassin with disruptive short ranged skills and the ability to enter battle on her own terms. She starts out as a high impact assassin and transitions into a disruptive bruiser.

Lore

Frodnar stood up, blinking, with much effort. Why was he on the ground? Where were his axe and shield? Why did everything seem so unreal and dreamlike? The sounds of battle seemed distant and the muddy field was steeped in an unearthly glow. As he slowly pondered these questions, still stunned from that mace blow, someone behind him put a hand on his shoulder. "Frodnar, it is time", she spoke.
"They got me, didn't they?"
She nodded silently, waiting for his bearsmead trance to wear off. As the blood left his body, so would the elixir leave his mind. They had made it farther than the enemy must have expected, just the twenty of them with axes and wolfskins going up against the entire legion. The ambush was flawless, but it was not enough. She knew it was never going to be enough.
"Where is the warband? How many of the rooster draggers did I take down with me?"
She shook her head, with not a hint of sadness in her eyes. "Grapeshot."
"But I can't... The village needs me! The women and children...!"
She remained silent.
"You can skewer their whole legion on that god-spear of yours. Do something!"
"The Gods wove the tapestry of fate to be admired, not touched. Your death was prophesised." She handed him his axe and shield back and coolly continued, "Come with me, einherjer. Your time on Runeterra is over, but one final battle awaits," as the earth quietly dropped out from under the pair and the skies faded into a brilliant white glow and gave way to the myriad stars of Nivheim.

Lying on the floor of a hastily dug trench, a young woman looked up at the stars, watching the glare of a falling star streak past overhead. A portent from the heavens; a sign of victory or doom? She did not dare to hope for much more than a bitter victory, and even that would be a miracle. The legion was still advancing on their position and her brothers were probably already dead. Their only hope was that the men had done enough damage to dissuade them from a frontal attack.
"Mom, the falling star, what does it mean?", a boy asked, no older than fifteen.
"It means we will win this, Bjarn. The Gods are with us. Maybe you'll get to kill a war elephant!", she said, gesturing to the makeshift crossbow he was holding in his knuckles.
It sounded very unconvincing, and Bjarn knew it, and so did the falling star descending invisibly on the small group of defenders. Unbeknowst to the mortals in the trenches, the enemy already knew their position and were loading their cannons. Bjarn would never even get to shoot his crossbow, and then she would rush the enemy ranks in a suicidal charge and that would be that. Wrong place, wrong time, as fate ordained.
As she gave her son a hug, the falling star landed silently on the ruins, watching the small group of defenders in the trench that would be their tomb. A single ethereal tear fell and vanished as the cannons flared in the distance.

Behind the thunder of the barrage, a faint ripple in the tapestry drew the messenger's eye, a single thread unwinding far behind enemy lines. The defenders were still alive: one of the cannons had not fired. Through the din of battle, she listened.
I will not shoot at women and children so the high command can add a few more miles to their borders. Fire! Fire, soldier! This is an order! We can just put down our weapons and walk away. We can put an end to this. Hands in the air! Drop the match! Drop it!
She cast one last glance at the stars she would never touch again and landed at Bjarn's side, taking care not to startle the boy.
"Be not afraid, Bjarn. You need to do something. You know how to use that crossbow?" "Yes, I... shot a rat... just yesterday..." "Good. See that star up there, just a bit brighter than the others? Aim straight at it and shoot." "Who are..." "Do not sit here waiting to die. Shoot. Follow my last prophecy. Unravel the tapestry."
And Bjorn did as she asked, and watched the crude dart arc into the distance, carried by a lucky wind.
This is bigger than you, soldier. If you don't fire, someone else will, and if they don't, someone else will. You are nothing!
Suddenly, unexpectedly, but exactly as the messenger had prophesised, a crossbow bolt fell from the sky, knocking the lit match out of the soldier's hand, sending it tumbling through the air and into a nearby barrel.

As the echoes of the bombardment faded, the mother gripped her sword, awaiting the charge. In the distance, the enemy line rushed towards them, then hesitated, stumbled; swept off their horses and knocked to the ground by a scorching wind as the horizon lit up with a brilliant glow. Burning debris and a cloud of gunpowder smoke filled the sky.
"The cannons! Bjarn, the cannons!" She turned to her son and who is that wait is that a--
"Is... is Bjarn dead?" "Not right now. Maybe later," the messenger replied. "Are we going to die?" "I do not know. The tapestry is unwoven, your fate is now in your hands alone. I have broken my oath; the power of prophecy is no longer mine."
The messenger looked around the trench, pointing her spear at the enemy line where the soldiers were clambering around, disoriented, searching for their weapons and horses. "Listen up! The children stay here and watch for ambushes. The adults join me! We strike that wagon over there before they remember which way to point their swords. That's their carrier pigeon cage. We take that out, we cut their communication lines."
"We can actually win this?", the mother asked.
"We have been given a chance. Nothing more, nothing less. The rest is up to us," the valkyrie replied.
And when her warhorn sounded and she took to the air, the villagers rose up from the trenches and the einherjer with them, rushing the enemy line, as flaming debris rained down from the heavens like falling stars.

Model

Brynnhildr is a valkyrie who has broken her oath and is doomed to remain in Runeterra. She has gray feathered wings with hints of iridescent starlight and wears elegant gray starmetal armor, a deep blue feather cloak and a circlet decorated with starmetal wings over long blonde hair streaming behind her.
She uses her wings to hover just above the ground, but walks when slowed.
Her weapon of choice is a long starmetal spear. She usually holds it one-handed, but grips it in two hands during [Q] Star of Hope.
When she dies, her corpse burns away with starlight flames, leaving no body.

• Easter egg: On her left hand she wears an enchanted ring, forged by Ornn out of stolen Runegold.

Skins

• Death-Fate Brynnhildr: Raven feathers and a black hooded cloak; one of the Greek Keres.
• Merciful Brynnhildr: Old soldiers may fade, but HEROES NEVER DIE.
• Biblically Accurate Brynnhildr: Be not afraid. (Legendary skin; three lion heads and flaming wheels rotating like helicopter blades.)

Abilities

[Passive] Taker of the Slain

"I have good news and bad news. The good news is that the Gods have taken an interest in you."
Doom-Sight: Brynnhildr has vision of all allied champion corpses on the map.
Guide the Einherjer: Brynnhildr can right click an allied champion corpse within range to fly to its location and carry off its spirit. For each spirit chosen this way, she gains bonus damage and defence until that champion respawns. This can only be performed once per corpse.

Stat	Value
Guide the Fallen: Range	400
Guide the Fallen: Buff: Bonus attack damage	5 (+level/2) (=5-14 to 20-56 total)
Guide the Fallen: Buff: Bonus armoMR	3 (+level/3) (=3-9 to 12-36 total)
Guide the Fallen: Mana cost	30

[Passive] Gray Swan

hums 'Ride of the Valkyries'
Brynnhildr can fly at a higher altitude, assuming a more streamlined pose and gaining bonus movement speed, ghosting and increased vision range.

• To activate, Brynnhildr must move in the same direction for a certain distance to attain enough lift, after which she automatically flaps her wings to climb.
• The ability ends when Brynnhildr attacks, casts an ability or takes damage.

Stat	Value
Movement speed	+30% (+2/level) (=32-66%)
Vision range	+150
Activates when moving in the same direction for a distance of	1250

[Q] Star of Hope

"Remember the dead, but fight for the living."
Brynnhildr performs a short dash with her spear, damaging the first enemy unit in her path. On impact, she flaps her starlight infused wings, dealing area effect damage to enemy units next to the target in a line perpendicular to its travel path. The dash can collide with terrain obstacles.
If Brynnhildr is in [Passive] Gray Swan mode, she performs a much longer ranged point-and-click "Swan Dive", swooping down with a shrieking cry and crashing into the target with a spear attack followed by a wing spin that deals area effect damage in a radius around the target. This version of the ability can travel over terrain obstacles.
The "Swan Dive" can also target allied champion corpses at an even longer distance, immediately applying [Passive] Taker of the Slain to the corpse.

Stat	Value
Range (Regular)	450
Range (Swan Dive)	900 (1350 if corpse targetted)
Wing strike (Regular): Width	250
Wing strike (Swan Dive): Radius	300
Wing strike: Physical damage	40/70/100/130/160 (+1.15 total AD)
Cooldown	12/11/10/9/8 seconds
Mana cost	70/75/80/85/90

[W] Between Worlds

"It is not yet your time. Return whence you came."
Brynnhildr grabs an enemy unit in melee range and carries them into the sky, making both herself and the target untargettable for a short time before dive bombing the target back down for major damage and a slow. If this is the last enemy unit and the damage kills it, she then immediately goes into [Passive] Gray Swan mode.
If Brynnhildr activates this ability during [Q] Star of Hope, it immediately casts on impact instead of waiting for the animation to finish. This deletes the wing strike and its area effect damage, dealing the damage only to the direct target, but prevents the target from escaping after the dash lands.

Stat	Value
Duration	Up to 1.25 seconds (impact occurs 0.25 seconds before the end)
Impact: Physical damage	30/50/70/90/110 (+1.0 total AD)
Impact: Slow	50% fading over 1.1/1.2/1.3/1.4/1.5 seconds
Cooldown	18/16/14/12/10 seconds
Mana cost	80/85/90/95/100

[E] Valravn

"Your fall was preordained. Come with me."
Passive: The enchantment on her Ring of Runegold increases Brynnhildr's attack speed against enemy champions and applies a stacking "Doomed" mark to the target, up to 3 stacks.
Active: Must be cast at a target in melee range with 3 "Doomed" stacks on it. Brynnhildr grabs the target and leaps backwards with a flap of her wings, taking the target with her. If she jumps over a terrain obstacle this way, the target is pulled into the obstacle and stunned, allowing her to escape.

Stat	Value
Passive: Bonus attack speed	20/25/30/35/40%
Passive: Mark duration	2 seconds (refreshed on attack)
Active: Backwards leap distance	350
Active: Terrain collision stun to target	1.5 seconds
Active: Cooldown	12/11/10/9/8 seconds
Active: Mana cost	60/65/70/75/80

[R] Götterdämmerung

"Fight. Go. Take back this world from the Gods."
Brynnhildr sends the einherjer, the immortal spirits of her chosen champions, to attack her opponents.
The einherjer are invulnerable and intangible flying warrior spirits with swords and axes (canonically they are the champions she has chosen with [Passive] Taker of the Slain). They appear behind Brynnhildr, seek out an enemy champion with "Doomed" stacks from [E] Valravn and fly into the target while swinging their weapon for damage. They pass through their target several times, turning around with wide arcs to attack again before dissipating when their attack limit is reached.

• If more than one enemy champion has stacks, the attacks are split between them depending on their relative number of stacks (if one has 3 stacks and one has 1 stack, the damage is split 75-25%).
• The stacks on the target(s) do not fall off while the spirits are attacking them.
• If the target dies, the spirits will find other targets with stacks to exhaust their remaining attacks.
• The spirits will pursue targets indefinitely, but have a maximum duration and will dissipate when it runs out regardless of how many attacks remain.
• This ability cannot be cast if there are no enemy champions with stacks within its detection radius.

The number of spirits increases based on the number of champions she has chosen with [Passive] Taker of the Slain.

Stat	Value
Detection radius	800
Number of Einherjer	3 + Number of champions currently chosen with [Passive] Taker of the Slain
Einherjer: Movement speed	600
Einherjer: Attack limit	3 (destroyed after 5 seconds)
Einherjer: Physical damage	15/25/35 (+0.1 bonus AD) (=45/75/105 (+0.3 bonus AD) per spirit) (=135/225/315 (+0.9 bonus AD) to 315/525/735 (+2.1 bonus AD) total)
Cooldown	180/140/100 seconds

Gameplay

Brynnhildr goes top or jungle, starting with [Q] Star of Hope in top lane and [E] Valravn in the jungle.
In either role, her lack of sustain hampers her ability to passively farm and she should hunt for early kills instead. Engaging with [Q] Star of Hope into [W] Between Worlds results in decent damage and delays their escape, potentially leading to a pull from [E] Valravn to stall them further while she auto attacks them.
In the jungle, she is very mobile thanks to [Passive] Gray Swan. It does need a runway to activate and turns off when she gets hit, making it much harder to use in top lane and mitigating the potentially abusive scenario of being able to hard engage from outside the opponent's range.
At level 6, the ultimate comes online. It only deals damage, and not a lot of it at first, but the spirits continue to pursue the target until their duration or attack limit runs out. It is primarily useful for counterganking and dragon fights because the damage scales up if her allies die first and [Q] Star of Hope has a very long range when aimed at an allied corpse.
Her weakest point is the mid game. Her AD scaling is not the greatest and she lacks defensive buffs and therefore needs [W] Between Worlds as an aggro dump, using it like Playful/Trickster instead of as part of her combo. This is a transitional phase and she should build hard defence at this point.
In the end game, her role shifts into a disruptive bruiser tank of sorts. Damage falls off, but her attack speed gets fast enough to chain [E] Valravn after [W] Between Worlds, trapping the target in a CC combo if they don't manage to escape the slow. Furthermore, she now benefits from staying longer in the fight due to [Passive] Taker of the Slain and the power of [R] Götterdämmerung to turn a losing teamfight around if she waits until the last moment (but no longer) to cast it.

Champion Creation Contest

• Late: I thought it said "Fate" until I read the following paragraph, but I like my version better.
• Ability with multiple distinct uses: [Q] Star of Hope can be a tactical dash with damage perpendicular to its path, or a point and click long ranged dash with splash damage.

I can’t find any other men like this
I met a guy and honestly he’s the most beautiful man I had ever seen. The most beautiful eyes, long hair, very neat perfect beard, tall. He had a very feminine nature about him, you would look at him and expect a deep voice but in fact his voice was quite high pitched. He was very sweet and soppy and I fell in love with him. He was musical and creative and I liked that his profile said he was an lgbtqia ally as a lot of my friends are in that group. He had good morals and was so sweet. He became my boyfriend.
But he never initiated sex or dates. I had to initiate all sexual contact and he enjoyed it it seemed, but never asked for it. He said it was because he was a lower libido man and preferred a cuddle to sex. So over time our relationship became sexless but he was still sweet and supportive and I liked him a lot. But I did wonder why he didn’t care about sex, was I unattractive?
Then he told me him and his ex girlfriends enjoyed anal sex which was quite a surprise for me as he was so prude. Made me feel weird thinking about it but I said it wasn’t my thing at this point in time.
Over time however, incompatibility started to show and we ended up breakin*up. He only had female friends which made me feel a bit weird and he was liking all their pics including them in their bikinis. He just didn’t make friends with other men
I’ve been trying to date ever since but on the dating apps, there is never anyone as beautiful as him and has that feminine nature about them.

Have had SebDerm since 2015, and the affected areas in my case we're scalp, nose, eyebrow, ears (inside and on their back), beard (significantly less than the other areas though).
WHAT I DID IN THE PAST:
I first have to mention that when for a couple of years I only had flakes on my hairs, and therefore I haven't cured anything other than that.
On the first medical visits I've always been told it was psoriasis, and I've been treating it ever since as such. The cure included combined use of lotions and medical shampoos , which actually worked for a few years.
Alleged psoriasis seemed to increase in times of stress in the meantime, so as doctors suggested I took it for granted that it was true that it could be influenced by this factor, other than genetic ones.
Then I started in 2017/18 having it on my face too, on the previously mentioned areas: I went on with other medical visits , some of the products that I've been prescribed were Gentalyn Beta (which worked sometimes), then more recently Enstilar (made my face so oily, what a hassle... it worked sometimes just because I was so overly oiled that flakes couldn't come out). Other products I've been alternating these two with were commercial skin creams and karité oil, which most of the times didn't work because their initial effect would vanish after a while, leaving me with a dry skin once again once they were absorbed.
So, I kept going for a few years since I wasn't really having that many problems, and overall the meds were kinda working.
RECENT UPDATES:
Since September 2022, I started having flakes on my face in a very consistent and significant way, tried many products (beside commercial creams, I've been using some other psoriasis lotions) and even though none of them worked properly, it was all under control for a while.
Anyway I started figuring out that it could actually be SebDerm rather than Psoriasis, went to another doctor , explained her how I've been treating my skin with psoriasis products rather than SebDerm ones. She agreed with me on concluding that it's SebDerm (even though she admitted that sometimes it's hard to tell whether it's one or the other, hence the reason for which doctors just mistook the two for so many years), and suggested me to use two main products:
-Flogan gel : used this for nose, eyebrows and back of the ears;, it seemed to work for the first few days, it formed an additional layer above the skin, not letting flares come out basically. Anyways after a while I started having thicker flares on my eyebrows, red skin around my nose and between my eyebrows. Also, when I applied this gel to the eyebrows, the gel dried after a while, and the additional layer due to this gel (mentioned above) rolled up with eyebrows forming some white flakes .anyway I stopped using this product when I saw my face started turning all red, and haven't used it since. It just kept working for the back of my ears, so I kept applying it there.
-Mellis Med shampoo + Propsocap : haven't used them yet, I'll update the post once I'll have results.
WHAT I'M DOING NOW:
Being so exasperated by this skin condition, I kept looking by myself, found this community, and started knowing more about this issue
I found an article which describes the usage of various products to treat dermatitis, such as moisturizer, describing how dermatitis is due to a damaged skin barrier which lets the water inside the skin evaporate , leaving the outermost skin layer dry and eventually flaring up like in my case. So the role of the moisturizer (which in the majority of the cases include water and oil) in all of this was to add water to the skin and then lock the water in by "placing the oil" on the outermost layer of the skin, so that it doesn't evaporate.
So I apply a good quantity of moisturizer on nose and eyebroes whenever I'm home and let it absorb slowly , it doesn't take too much time to be absorbed and it doesn't anoint my skin, didn't have a problem ever since I started applying moisturizer. (Beside this of course I hydrate myself properly)

I don’t really know how to do this but I need advice. I, F 21, haven’t always had the best luck in my relationships. My last one consisted of two years of trauma from a guy who couldn’t stay loyal to me to save his life. I completely lost myself in that relationship, so when it ended I spent the next year and a half focusing on healing and bettering myself. Then I met my current partner, M 21. Meeting him has felt like the best thing thats happened to me. He’s everything I could’ve asked for and more, he’s raised every bar. And everyone in my life that’s met him instantly loves him. We’ve been together for a year and a half now.
After everything in my last relationship I told myself that before going into a new one I wanted to talk to the person first about what each other’s boundaries might be, that way if there’s any issues they could be talked about before things got too serious. So that’s exactly what I did with my current relationship. For me, there are three main things that due to my past I’m just not comfortable with my partner doing. One and two are similar and for the same reasons, I don’t feel comfortable with my partner following half naked girls on social media, and I don’t want them going on OnlyFans. I don’t really have an issue with porn, but those two things just feel really personal to me while porn feels more disconnected.. I don’t know how to explain I guess.. And my last thing is I just don’t want to be lied to, especially not about big things. When I told my boyfriend that he said he felt the same way and that there wouldn’t be any issues.
Recently my boyfriend was telling me about some post someone made and wanted to show me. We were sitting next to each other, he pulled out his phone, opened Instagram and went to the search bar. That’s when we both end up seeing that his search history is filled with half naked girls. I immediately asked what the deal was and his answer was just he didn’t know. Or that he hadn’t looked someone up in a long time so he didn’t know. I started feeling anxiety attack approaching and felt this slight fight or flight instinct kick in. In hindsight, I know a lot of other people wouldn’t be upset over this kind of thing, but it was one of my boundaries being crossed and it triggered a lot of emotions for me. I impulsively took his phone out of his hand and started looking through the app. I didn’t even know what I was looking for, I just kept tapping and asking if he was hiding something. He stayed quiet, watched the floor and let me do my thing. Then I end up clicking on something that said “Links you’ve visited”. I didn’t know about it before but it’s pretty self explanatory. It tells you what links you’ve visited through the Instagram app and when. Looking at his, it was instantly clear that each one were links to OF accounts. And sure enough when I revisited them they each took me to a different girls page. ((Notable dates I saw include my birthday, Valentine’s Day & our anniversary)) At this point we’re both crying and I’m seeing red. I ask him about the links and he just keeps saying he doesn’t know. Then at some point the story changes to he had an account before we met and he would watch people but stopped when we got together, but that he still occasionally gets emails from them so he wanted to delete his account but can’t remember the log in info. I tell him it wouldn’t make sense for Instagram to be saying he went to all these different links on so many different days if he was really just wanting to delete it and could’ve done that through the emails he was supposedly getting. ((I saw no evidence of there ever being any emails)) He still stuck with his story. Finally I just say “So what you’re telling me is you had an account that you wanted to delete and you thought the best way to do it was by going on instagram, looking up multiple specific girls by name, and clicking the link in their bio that takes you to their personal OF page?” I thought saying that would make him hear how dumb I thought it sounded. But instead he just looked me straight in the eyes and said “Yes.” At that point it felt like all three of my boundaries had been crossed and I felt defeated. By then it was late and we had to be up early for work. We both just broke down crying and tried to talk it out, then went to bed. I told myself I was going to think it over and figure out what I wanted to do the next day. Well, it’s been two weeks now and nothing’s happened but I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it. I don’t like feeling like I’m being lied to, especially when it’s about something that could determine my decision on whether or not I want to stay with him.
((There is one other thing that I think is important to know, there was one other time where he crossed a boundary for me. It was earlier on in our relationship and again with IG, he was scrolling through his feed when I look over and noticed it’s all naked girls. We had a little disagreement about it and he said he’d unfollow them. He did unfollow them but there was one girl in particular, we’ll call her Abby, who he followed like six different accounts of hers, I got really in my head about it and secretly compared my body to hers for weeks. Well when this thing happened the other day Abby OF’s was one of the links visited recently. Which makes everything more suspicious for me. ))
I’ve broken down and brought it back up a few times, but his story stays the same. It seemed so impossible to believe at first, and even still… But I want to believe him so bad that a part of me does. He’s just so convincing. And in all other aspects has been a dream. I don’t know what to believe anymore.. I’ve never been on OF before, so maybe I just don’t know how it works? Could he be telling the truth? He swears up and down that he is… I guess I’m asking if other people think he’s lying. Or if someone knows something about how it all works, that I don’t. I don’t know what to do, I could really use anything..

SGI Members Doing Good In Their Communities is getting quite long so I am carrying it over to a new post here.
Practicing Buddhism has opened up my altruism. Julie and I go at least once a month to the rehab center or the VA Hospital amputee wing. She sings, I talk. No big deal. I've also been asked by counselors, pastors, or parents to come and talk to teens who are the victims of trauma or depression. I'm not a counselor but I tell my story and people can hear me because my roots are deep in this community and I am brutally honest about my PTSD.
None of this will make the newspaper and I do not consider myself a hero. I served my country and now I enjoy serving my community.
So, Blanche and Complete-Light-2909, you don't believe what we write in MITA. Fine, your constitutional right. I've read in other posts in Whistleblowers that you also don't believe the experiences in SGI Publications or meetings because they've all been edited. But this experience in the World Tribune is very unique because there is a parallel account in a well-recognized local news source.
Gene Marie O'Connell's story is compelling. After joining the SGI she lifted herself out of dependency, became a gifted RN, and worked so diligently in her hospital that she ultimately rose to its CEO. It was not an easy assignment because her hospital was one of the largest inner city hospitals in the country. Her tenure there was exemplary. In fact, it was the longest tenure of any CEO in that hospital's history. She was also able to secure funding for a new building that met earthquake resilience codes.
I've read in prior Blanche posts her belief that there should be a demarcation between jobs and volunteering. I think that is SUPER silly, so silly. You can express altruism either way. It can even come through the way you work in a traditional corporate or retail job. Oh, I am thinking right now of "Eloise," that wonderful woman who greets us on Saturdays at Costco with her big smile, sweet voice, and twinkling eyes. She knows us all by name and always has a little present ready for the twins. They light up when they see her and she lifts everybody's spirits. In my book Eloise is the epitome of altruism.
So what did Gene Marie do when she retired as CEO? She volunteered for many years as a director on the board of a local hospital.
You know, Blanche and Complete, you lose your credibility with your stance that anything, anyone, anytime that is associated with the SGI is evil. Just because you add italics, bolding, and H1 font to your contentions don't make them truer. Nor do you have to be 100% correct in order to make some substantive points. You can just admit that my post here is lock tight.
Big day ahead. Julie and I are picking up members and guests and bringing them back here for breakfast. Hopefully we will be taking two full cars of youth to the SGI activity center for today's "Be the Protagonist" youth meeting.

Need to fill ONE spot in a keeper league (12th year). It's an Auction Draft style ($270 Budget), 12-team, Roto 6x6. ESPN league. Draft is set for Sunday March 26th at 7:30pm EST.
Here are the details:
**Batter Cats:** R, HR, RBI, SB, AVG, OPS
**Pitcher Cats:** K, W, SV, ERA, WHIP, K/BB
**Roster Positions:** C, 1B, 2B, 3B, SS, MI, CI, OF (4x), UTIL; SP (2x) P (4x), RP (2x); Bench (5x), IL (2x)
**Auction Draft - $270 Budget**
**Keeper Rules**

1. Keep up to 5 players.
   
2. The 1st year a player is kept $3 will be added to their established salary. The 2nd year and each year following, $5 will be added to their salary every year the player is kept.
   
3. Players acquired during the season via the Free Agent Auction (FAA) process will have their salary set for the keeper purpose at $8.
   

**In Season**

1. The Waiver Process Day and Time will be Monday and Thursday at 11pm EST of every week.
   
2. $100 Free Agent Auction Budget (FAAB). The Minimum Offer is $0.
   
3. Lineup Changes - Daily - Lock Individually at Scheduled Game time
   

Top 4 teams receive payouts. Based on 12 teams allocations are: 1st Place = $310 2nd = $150 3rd = $90 4th = $50
**We use Leaguesafe with Majority Approval for payouts
Let me know if you are interested.
Here's a link to view the available keepers and costs for the two open teams: https://www.dropbox.com/s/g8i6u477bjbxflb/2023%20Afternoon%20Baseball%20-%20Available%20Team%201%20Keepers%20and%20Costs.jpg?dl=0
Leaguesafe link to join: https://www.leaguesafe.com/classifieds/listing/4096050

When I (23M) was 10 years old my father divorced my mother and about two years later he married my stepmother with whom he has 3 children. After my parent's divorce, my mother went to live about 10km away from my father, who bought a house with my stepmother, they still live there to this day. My family has always been multicultural, apart from my stepmother being Ghanaian, my mother is French and my father's parent emigrated from Czechoslovakia in the 80's. By the way, English is not my mother tongue, therefore I'm sorry for any mistake I could make.
I've been aware the situation has been deteriorating for a while, a few years after they've got married, my stepmother developed pathological jealousy and suspiciousness towards my mother. She basically forbade my father to contact her over any matter, throwing a fit and almost leaving the country with my stepsister when she discovered they were still talking together over work related issues. We all quickly realized we were walking on eggshells, she would be deeply suspicious of him and would pick fights with him over little misunderstandings, even for things me and my (1 year younger) sister would say. Overall she revealed herself to be quite selfish and irresponsible, she's the one that earns the most money in the marriage, yet she spends it on beauty products, expensive clothes and sends a significant amount to Africa, where she launched some business. She's hardly ever there for the kids, leaves my father at home with the them and goes out with friends or after-work events. From my father's perspective, she's a bad mother and I would tend to agree on this.
On the other side, my father hasn't been himself lately. He found a new job with the help of my stepmother and is now earning about as much as she does, but at the same time he keeps working for his own company, even though he's supposed to have closed it for months. My grandfather got sick with rapidly progressing dementia, last year, he's now in the late stages, unable to move, and is taken care of by my grandmother, my uncle and him. My sister dropped out of college and works for my father's company, she's clueless as to what to do with her life and lives with her boyfriend, which doesn't seem to care much about it. He has to take care of the kids, take them to school, take care of the house which is basically still under construction. So many things lie on his shoulders and he looks exhausted. Overall he seems to be letting everything unfold as if he wasn't part of it. He takes forever to answer to us - me and my sister - and changes his mind all the time, he doesn't seem to see things clearly. Lately he has been talking about buying a house for my mother, because she's in a precarious financial situation, but as soon as my stepmother heard about it, she disappeared for a week to "make him realize his mistake".
My father is a very secretive person, he does not talk about his problems, he keeps everything inside and never seeks help from anybody. After living a few years in Czechia, I realized this attitude was very common amongst Czechs, as it is unacceptable, in the Czech society, to bother other people with your personal issues.
He's basically the one on which my whole family relies, but it is beginning to get clear that he's failing at it, because nobody can stand that much pressure without putting his own health in jeopardy. On the other side I must say that he was not always a good father to us - me and my sister - he left us alone when we were 10, we didn't see him for a year. He would give me financial help when I was abroad, and then decide to cut it without warning. He told me many times he did not believe in me and I basically had to make myself alone. It's beginning to clear to me that he doesn't know how to manage his own life, but at the same time I just see what's on the surface and God knows what he's going through by himself.
I've been living in a city about 100km away from them, and came to visit yesterday, while staying at my mother's place. Last night my stepmother proposed to take me back there because it was late and I came without my car. Upon arriving, we started to talk about my father, she told me how she feels exhausted from him, how he's been hiding things from her. There was, for instance, some issues with the nurse that takes care of my grandfather, as she's apparently been sending very personal messages to my father, she noticed it and also noticed he was buying train tickets for her. When she confronted him about it, he went to see the nurse and apologized for my stepmother's jealousy, the nurse recorded it and sent it to people in the local African community, now apparently everybody's talking trash about my stepmother. She then fired her, but my grandmother called her back and told my stepmother to stay away from her house. On another occasion she found a hotel reservation for two people on the backseat of my father's car.
She then went on to tell me she was, in fact, not suspicious at all of my mother, but the fact that my father would try to hide every conversation they had from her made her think that there was more to it. Also the fact that my father keeps so many things inside makes her very distrustful of him. She then told me she has been gathering evidence and contacted a lawyer, but she's waiting to see if my father wakes up and changes something after their trip to Africa, next April.
I'm sorry for the length, but there you see how complicated this whole situation is. I've always known that it was, but I didn't suspect it to be nearly as bad as this. I told her I would discuss with my father, but just what am I supposed to tell him? I don't even understand who's at fault, if not both of them. Of course he could take charge of his life, sell his company, get more sleep and be more clear and honest when communicating with other people, but isn't this just a consequence of this terrible marriage? I don't really understand what's going on and yet I bear this information and am clueless what to do with it. Should I warn my father about a potential divorce ahead? Should I tell him what my stepmother think is wrong and ask him why he's been behaving this way? She did not say she would divorce, but she's considering it.
TL;DR : my stepmother told me she's considering divorce with my father and I don't know what to tell him, but they both seem to have messed up.

I purchased a 2017 model Skoda, with 74,000 miles for £11,500 in July of 2022. In February 2023, while arranging a new MOT, I discovered that in an MOT of 2021 the car had a recorded 141,000+ miles. I reported this mileage discrepancy to the car dealer from whom I purchased the car, and their lawyers say the dealer did know about the discrepancy and will pay £7,800 to buy the car back, because I have had the car for 8 months and have added 8,000 miles. They are using what they call an "industry standard" calculator to value the car's new low price. I am saying the car is worth £10,000. How can I fight this law firm? What are my rights regarding how much I can expect to claim back?

After Shadow for updated with Win11 I get a black screen after running it on my MacBook Pro M2.
If I open it on my phone or iPad it works normally.
Does anyone else experience something similar and did someone perhaps found a solution to it.
Thanks in advance for any help.

If you didn't know already, the DEA has a proposal to change telehealth laws to make it required that patients see their clinician in person for controlled meds which would include psychedelics.
Many people will simply not have any prescribers near them and not be able to get access to care.
It is open to public comment only for a few more days, and closes on 3/31.
(The comments and participation does matter, as we just saw with a psychedelics proposed law that was cancelled due to public comments here.)
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Here is the link to participate:
https://www.federalregister.gov/documents/2023/03/01/2023-04248/telemedicine-prescribing-of-controlled-substances-when-the-practitioner-and-the-patient-have-not-had#open-comment