I have never done this before but I needed to voice this one way or another. I needed away to vent my forever growing frustration in a 2024 manner. Cause calling it onto the local paper is doing shit right now. Kind of like my meme coin pics in Crypto.
I will start off by saying they have a very difficult job and our society is judging them harder than ever right now but I still and will always have love for our state, local, city PD or whomever wakes daily to pin that badge to their chest. It takes a extreme amount of courage to do that job day in and day out.
But when a non tax paying citizen(kidding I approaches a police officer in his SUV to say hey these two individuals over there are doing some type of science project with reynolds wrap foil squares and lighters. And frankly it smells like shit. I lived in my area my entire life and enough is enough with these drugs or they call them "golden trails" "blues" or "Fenty pills" Fenty powder or what ever its called. Yes I know I know Im hip and with the times bitches. The police officer looked at me and he said "thanks for the heads up we will get on it right away". I proceeded to pull away and i could hear his suv go back into park. What is that all about they are certainly not writing tickets cause just outside my neighborhood every friday and saturday is drag racing from midnight til around 3am.
So I flipped a bitch to see what had taken place and he was still in the same spot chillin amd there goes the scientists with there foil and their faces are being lite up by a small flame "Bic lighter" driving away. I wish that i would have invested into Reynolds wrap when this pandemic started. Near my house its always sold out. I cant even have a proper BBQ with friends our i the grill cause i git no damn foil. So i look like a pussy when we are all hanging out on the deck when i bring out the FORMAN. Its not a porper BBQ with a fucking Forman heating up. I make sure ti say ti the friends "its done with the red light goes off dummy".
I just want my neighborhood to go back to they it was 10 yrs ago. All even settle for 5. A mere 5 years is all I am asking for and keep that "blues" away from my fucking kids and grand kids!
So say what you want, i just wanted to vent some.
Thanks
How do you feel when you see a crime?
Would you even approach the SUV?
Whats keeping you from taking action?
Enough is enough, right?
?

I have never done this before but I needed to voice this one way or another. I needed away to vent my forever growing frustration in a 2024 manner. Cause calling it onto the local paper is doing shit right now. Kind of like my meme coin pics in Crypto.
I will start off by saying they have a very difficult job and our society is judging them harder than ever right now but I still and will always have love for our state, local, city PD or whomever wakes daily to pin that badge to their chest. It takes a extreme amount of courage to do that job day in and day out.
But when a non tax paying citizen(kidding I approaches a police officer in his SUV to say hey these two individuals over there are doing some type of science project with reynolds wrap foil squares and lighters. And frankly it smells like shit. I lived in my area my entire life and enough is enough with these drugs or they call them "golden trails" "blues" or "Fenty pills" Fenty powder or what ever its called. Yes I know I know Im hip and with the times bitches. The police officer looked at me and he said "thanks for the heads up we will get on it right away". I proceeded to pull away and i could hear his suv go back into park. What is that all about they are certainly not writing tickets cause just outside my neighborhood every friday and saturday is drag racing from midnight til around 3am.
So I flipped a bitch to see what had taken place and he was still in the same spot chillin amd there goes the scientists with there foil and their faces are being lite up by a small flame "Bic lighter" driving away. I wish that i would have invested into Reynolds wrap when this pandemic started. Near my house its always sold out. I cant even have a proper BBQ with friends our i the grill cause i git no damn foil. So i look like a pussy when we are all hanging out on the deck when i bring out the FORMAN. Its not a porper BBQ with a fucking Forman heating up. I make sure ti say ti the friends "its done with the red light goes off dummy".
I just want my neighborhood to go back to they it was 10 yrs ago. All even settle for 5. A mere 5 years is all I am asking for and keep that "blues" away from my fucking kids and grand kids!
So say what you want, i just wanted to vent some.
Thanks
How do you feel when you see a crime?
Would you even approach the SUV?
Whats keeping you from taking action?
Enough is enough, right?

I’m currently studying animation since I realized a while back ago that I honestly feel incapable of seeing myself doing anything else except some form of working in the industry. I’ve been animating since I was 10 and always idealized it but never thought it was going to be easy but I was willing to put in the work, even buying my own graphic tablet at 13 (I sold a lot of comic books). A lot of my close friends are in the arts, and I hear how hard those industries are, acting, writing, and forget being a studio arts major. I’ve followed a lot of animators in the industry and have had a couple follow me back and I asked some of them basic questions about how the industry is etc etc. Some were positive but a lot of them were more jaded responses and this is predating Covid (though it didn’t ward me off any and was nice to hear the “bad parts” of the job/industry).
But nowadays it seems like every single person I follow, even people who have 15+ years experience under their belt seem to be struggling to find reliable work. Networks cancel shows after one season and with the rise of A.I. which is all anyone talks about anymore-usually in a joking manner but it doesn’t seem to be so funny anymore. I don’t think A.I. would replace animation entirely obviously but it does make me nervous for what jobs are going to be on the cutting block. In a lot of art circles and even on this subreddit it seems like everyone’s in a panic. Harsh realities I know, but even if I wasn’t to work in animation or film or visual arts at all I’d be terrified for what’s to come, art is so little respected as it is. I’m not anticipating switching majors or anything but it’s making me think of at least think up a good minor maybe? Hah I don’t know! I’m honestly just trying to gauge how really nervous students especially should be at this moment and maybe if it’s even a great idea right now to try and I guess make a living in animation. I know there’s been periods of hardships and corporate America is very unforgiving (not sure about other countries) but I gotta say I’m starting to feel like all ‘tech’ fields are suffering a bit out here especially-someone who considered computer science for a time

Platform: Flash, between 2008-2012
2D view from the side, action. Very similiar to Shellshock Live in the way that you were on the left side and your opponent on the right, "throwing" different "ammunition" with bullet drop and destructible terrain. You could move slowly, but not jump. Mostly 1 enemy per level, in the last level perhaps 4. It wasn´t turn-based though, real time. It didn´t have PvP as far as I remember, AND:
Not only were player and opponent stickmen, you THREW tiny stickmen ans weaponry. I remember the game to be violent. Your ammunition had bombs and rockets strapped to them and they would always die. Bloody or being ripped apart by explosions. One of them would dig straight down like in Worms, one would parachute while shooting down, dieing once having landed. One would have a timed bomb on it and walk from left to right until it exploded.
In between levels you could buy stickmen, as only the most basic explosive was unlimited.
The game had orchestral music, and the end screen after beating all levels was your stickman on a hammock/deck-chair, with the tiny stickmen in a cage.
Other details: Some of the enmies were in planes. The game may not have had "stickman" in the title, and may have had "epic" in the title.

1. Planning and Design

• **Assess Your Space**: Evaluate the size, shape, and topography of your yard.
  
• **Purpose and Functionality**: Determine the primary use of the space (e.g., relaxation, entertainment, gardening).
  
• **Style and Aesthetic**: Decide on a design style (e.g., modern, traditional, tropical, xeriscape).
  

2. Hardscaping

• **Patios and Decks**: Consider materials like wood, composite, stone, or concrete.
  
• **Walkways and Pathways**: Use pavers, gravel, or bricks to create inviting paths.
  
• **Retaining Walls**: Implement these to manage slopes and add structure.
  
• **Water Features**: Ponds, fountains, or waterfalls can add tranquility.
  

3. Softscaping

• **Lawn**: Choose the right type of grass for your climate and usage.
  
• **Plants and Trees**: Select a mix of perennials, annuals, shrubs, and trees that thrive in your region.
  
• **Garden Beds**: Create beds for flowers, vegetables, or herbs.
  
• **Ground Cover**: Use mulch, bark, or low-growing plants to cover soil areas.
  

4. Irrigation and Drainage

• **Sprinkler Systems**: Install an efficient irrigation system to maintain your lawn and plants.
  
• **Drip Irrigation**: Use for targeted watering of garden beds.
  
• **Drainage Solutions**: Ensure proper drainage to prevent waterlogging.
  

5. Lighting

• **Path Lighting**: Illuminate walkways for safety and aesthetics.
  
• **Accent Lighting**: Highlight features like trees, sculptures, or water features.
  
• **Functional Lighting**: Provide adequate lighting for outdoor living areas.
  

6. Sustainable Practices

• **Native Plants**: Use local species that require less water and maintenance.
  
• **Rainwater Harvesting**: Collect rainwater for irrigation.
  
• **Composting**: Use organic waste to enrich your soil.
  

7. Maintenance

• **Regular Upkeep**: Plan for regular mowing, pruning, weeding, and fertilizing.
  
• **Seasonal Tasks**: Adjust your
  

The profusion of identical green tents at this spring’s anti-Israel protests struck many as odd. “Why is everybody’s tent the same?,” asked New York mayor Eric Adams. Like others, the mayor suspected “a well-concerted organizing effort” driving the protests. More recent reporting shows a concerted push behind the Gaza protest movement. But it is not as simple as a single organization secretly rallying protesters or buying tents. Instead, the movement’s most determined activists represent a network of loosely linked far-left groups. Some are openly affiliated with well-known progressive nonprofits; others work in the shadows.
The movement also draws on diverse but generous sources of financial backing. Those funding streams may soon be augmented by the federal government. As I chronicled last year in a Manhattan Institute report, “The Big Squeeze: How Biden’s Environmental Justice Agenda Hurts the Economy and the Environment,” the administration’s massive program of environmental justice grants seems designed to prioritize the funding of highly ideological local groups. The Inflation Reduction Act, for example, earmarks $3 billion for “environmental and climate justice block grants” intended for local nonprofits. Today, hundreds of far-left political groups include language about environmental issues and “climate justice” in their mission statements. If just a fraction of planned grants flows to such groups, the effect will be a gusher of new funding for radical causes.
As the Gaza protests spread across U.S. college campuses, many observers noted an eerie uniformity among them. From one campus to the next, protesters operated in disciplined cadres, keeping their faces covered and using identical rote phrases as they refused to talk with reporters. The Atlantic noted the strangeness of seeing elite college students “chanting like automatons.” Students held up keffiyeh scarves or umbrellas to block the view of prying cameras and linked arms to halt the movements of outsiders. At Columbia University and elsewhere, protesters formed “liberated zones,” from which “Zionists” were excluded. Around the edges of the encampments, the more militaristic activists donned helmets and goggles and carried crude weapons, apparently eager to mix it up with police or counter-protesters. We’ve seen these tactics before—notably during the “mostly peaceful” Black Lives Matter protests of 2020, when full-time agitators helped ignite riots, set up a police-free (and violence-plagued) zone in Seattle, and laid nightly siege to Portland, Oregon’s federal courthouse.
In a remarkable work of reporting, Park MacDougald recently traced the tangled roots of organizations backing pro-jihad protests, both on and off campuses. These include Antifa and other networks of anonymous anarchists, along with “various communist and Marxist-Leninist groups, including the Maoist Revolutionary Communist Party, the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), and the International ANSWER coalition,” MacDougald writes. Higher up the food chain, we find groups openly supported by America’s growing class of super-rich tech execs or the anti-capitalist heirs of great fortunes. For example, retired tech mogul Neville Roy Singham, who is married to Code Pink founder Jodie Evans, funds The People’s Forum, a lavish Manhattan resource center for far-left groups. As the Columbia protests intensified, the center urged members to head uptown to “support our students.” Following the money trail of other protest groups, MacDougald finds connections to the Rockefeller Brothers Fund, the Ford Foundation, and—surprising no one—the George Soros-backed Tides Foundation.
Of course, the current wave of anti-Israel protests also involves alliances with pro-Hamas organizations such as Students for Justice in Palestine. Last November, Jonathan Schanzer of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies testified to the House Ways and Means Committee that SJP and similar groups have deep ties to global terrorist organizations, including Hamas.
For many keffiyeh-wearing protestors, however, a recently professed concern for Palestinians is just the latest in a long list of causes they believe justify taking over streets and college quads. In Unherd, Mary Harrington dubs this medley of political beliefs the “omnicause,” writing that “all contemporary radical causes seem somehow to have been absorbed into one.” Today’s leftist activists share an interlocking worldview that sees racism, income inequality, trans intolerance, climate change, alleged police violence, and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts all as products of capitalism and “colonialism.” Therefore, the stated rationale for any individual protest is a stand-in for the real battle: attacking Western society and its institutions.
In the U.S., this type of general-purpose uprising goes back at least to the riots at the 1999 meeting of the World Trade Organization in Seattle. In those protests, mainstream liberal factions—including labor unions and environmentalists—were joined by “black bloc” anarchists and other radicals eager to engage in “direct action” against police. That pattern—relatively moderate demonstrators providing a friendly envelope for hard-core disruptors—formed the template for many later protests: the Occupy Wall Street encampments in 2011, demonstrations following the police shooting of Michael Brown in 2014, 2016’s Standing Rock anti-pipeline movement, and of course, the calamitous summer of 2020.
These uprisings were not entirely spontaneous. In some cases, activists spend months planning mass actions—for example, against economic summits or political conventions—and can recruit street fighters from across the country. In others, an event, such as George Floyd’s death, sparks popular protests involving neophyte demonstrators. Those attract far-left activists, who swoop in to organize and expand the struggle, often tilting it toward more radical action.
That has certainly been the case at the college Gaza-paloozas. At Columbia, the New York Times spotted a woman old enough to be a student’s grandmother in the thick of the action as protesters barricaded that school’s Hamilton Hall. The woman was 63-year-old Lisa Fithian, a lifetime activist, who Portland’s alternative weekly Street Roots approvingly calls “a trainer of mass rebellion.” A counter-protester trying to block the pro-Hamas demonstrators told NBC News, “She was right in the middle of it, instructing them how to better set up the barriers.” Fithian told the Times she’d been invited to train students in protest safety and “general logistics.” She claims to have taken part in almost every major U.S. protest movement going back to the 1999 “Battle in Seattle.”
America’s radical network has plenty of Lisa Fithians, with the time and resources to travel the country educating newcomers about the “logistics” of disruptive protests. And these activists appear to have played key roles in the college occupations. The New York City Police Department says nearly half the demonstrators arrested on the Columbia and City University of New York (CUNY) campuses on April 30 were not affiliated with the schools. One hooded Hamilton Hall occupier—photographed scuffling with a Columbia custodian before getting arrested—turned out to be 40-year-old James Carlson, heir to a large advertising fortune. According to the New York Post, Carlson lives in a $2.3 million Park Slope townhouse and has a long rap sheet. For example, in 2005, he was arrested in San Francisco during the violent “West Coast Anti-Capitalist Mobilization and March Against the G8.” (Those charges were dropped.)
For a quarter-century now, Antifa and other anarchist networks have worked to refine tactics and share lessons following each major action. At Columbia, UCLA, and other schools, authorities found printouts of a “Do-It Yourself Occupation Guide” and similar documents. The young campus radicals are eager to learn from their more experienced elders. And, like the high-achieving students they are, they follow directions carefully. MacDougald asked Kyle Shideler, the director for homeland security and counterterrorism at the Center for Security Policy, about the mystery of the identical tents. There was no need for a central group to distribute hundreds of tents, Shideler said. Instead, “the organizers told [students] to buy a tent, and sent around a Google Doc with a link to that specific tent on Amazon. So they all went out and bought the same tent.”
In other words, America’s radical class has gotten very skilled at recruiting and instructing new activists—even from among the ranks of elite college students with a good deal to lose. How much more could this movement accomplish with hundreds of millions in federal dollars flooding activist groups around the country?
From its first week in office, the Biden administration has trumpeted its goal to funnel more environmental spending toward “disadvantaged communities that have been historically marginalized,” partly by issuing grants to grassroots organizations. Previous environmental justice (EJ) grant programs were small in scope. But, with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in August 2022, a huge pool of grant money became available. EPA administrator Michael Regan told reporters, “We’re going from tens of thousands of dollars to developing and designing a program that will distribute billions.”
More than a year and a half later, it remains hard to nail down just where the Biden administration’s billions in EJ grants will wind up. Money is being distributed through a confusing variety of programs, and the process of identifying recipients is ongoing. To help outsource the job of sifting through proposals, the EPA last year designated 11 institutions as “Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmakers.” These groups are empowered to make subgrants directly to community organizations, under streamlined EPA oversight. In all, the Biden administration has entrusted these outfits with distributing a staggering $600 million in funding. The money is expected to start flowing this summer.
The EPA’s grantmakers include a number of educational institutions and left-leaning nonprofits. For example, the EPA chose Fordham University as its lead grantmaker in the New York region. Fordham, in turn, lists as partners two nonprofits that oppose immigration enforcement. (One, the New Jersey Alliance for Immigrant Justice, states on its website: “NJAIJ believes in the human right to migrate, regardless of citizenship or political status.”) Neither group claims expertise in environmental issues. Given that the IRA’s eligibility requirements for EJ grants are extremely vague, however, perhaps that’s not a problem. Almost any activity that could help “spur economic opportunity for disadvantaged communities” (in the words of Biden’s EJ executive order) might qualify.
Perhaps the most prominent—and problematic—EPA grantmaker is the Berkeley, California-based Climate Justice Alliance. The CJA is a consortium of mostly far-left activist groups. It describes its mission as working for “regenerative economic solutions and ecological justice—under a framework that challenges capitalism and both white supremacy and hetero-patriarchy.” The group is a vigorous proponent of the omnicause, embracing almost every left-wing concern as a manifestation of climate change. For example, the CJA website proclaims: “The path to climate justice travels through a free Palestine.” MacDougald notes that the Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, one of CJA’s affiliated groups, “organized an illegal anti-Israel protest in the Capitol Rotunda in December at which more than 50 activists were arrested.”
The CJA website also includes a section dedicated to the cause known as Stop Cop City. It refers to an effort to halt the construction of an 85-acre police and firefighter training center outside Atlanta. Rag-tag activists from around the country have gathered around the facility since 2021. They have repeatedly battled with police—sometimes with fireworks and Molotov cocktails—and used bolt cutters to enter the site and torch construction equipment. (CJA’s Stop Cop City page features a cartoon illustration of three childlike activists; one brandishes bolt cutters.) The group also backs a legal defense fund for activists arrested in attacks on the training center or in other protests. For those looking for more inspiration, CJA links to an interview with former Black Panther and self-described revolutionary Angela Davis.
The Alliance is not an ideological outlier in Biden’s EJ coalition. On the contrary, when the White House assembled its White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC), a panel of outside experts meant to provide “horizon-expanding EJ advice and recommendations,” it chose CJA co-chair Elizabeth Yeampierre to help lead the committee. Like other members of the panel, she sees environmental issues through an ideological, not a scientific, lens. “Climate change is the result of a legacy of extraction, of colonialism, of slavery,” Yeampierre told Yale Environment 360. As a group, radical EJ activists tend not to focus on pragmatic ways to reduce pollution and carbon emissions; for them, the real goal is overturning what they see as an exploitative economic and political system. Since these are the voices the White House chose to help shape its EJ policies, we can assume this worldview will dominate grantmaking decisions.
In February 2023, House Oversight Committee chairman James Comer, along with fellow committee member Pat Fallon, wrote to EPA administrator Regan asking for more information on the EPA’s grant programs. They noted that the EPA’s own studies of EJ grants issued in previous years showed sloppy supervision. According to an EPA report, an earlier version of the program funded projects that did “not logically lead to the desired environmental and/or public health [result].” Without better oversight and more clearly defined goals, the congressmen wrote, the EPA’s EJ grant machine risks becoming simply a “slush fund for far-left organizations.”
Since then, the administration has done little to reassure skeptics. To the contrary, the EPA has put at least one far-left organization—CJA—in charge of distributing $50 million in grant money. No doubt, many of the EPA grants will go to worthwhile projects. But money is fungible. A group that gets a large grant to, say, clean up dirty parks or teach children about recycling will also be able to hire more staff and divert more resources to political action.
With graduation behind them, most of the anti-Israel college protesters have stowed away their keffiyehs and moved on to summer vacations or internships. But the peripatetic activists who helped guide and intensify those uprisings are doubtless already planning their next actions. After all, two political conventions are looming. This fall, the college protests will likely flare up again, though by then perhaps focused on a different facet of the omnicause. And, with hundreds of millions in fresh funding flowing through the activist ecosystem, the groups that quietly nurture extremists—like those who firebombed “Cop City,” or who chant “Intifada Revolution!,” or who block bridges in the name of “climate”—will be more emboldened than ever.
A Slush Fund for Radical Protesters? City Journal (city-journal.org)
​

Hey everyone,
So throughout my teens and 20s, I was an average bedroom DJ on my Technics, and later Vestax, decks. Playing mostly drum and bass for my mates and at house parties.
Haven't touched a deck in anger in about a decade and over the years my vinyl collection has been stolen at aforementioned house parties or lost with multiple house moves and the decks went to the tip long ago.
So, here's where I need your help. One of our best friends, and mainstay of our basement raves, recently passed away and the three of us remaining are going to throw him a party he would have been proud of.
My plan is an hour set of DnB BUT I am constrained by having no kit to practice on and I need to buy my set off discogs, so I need to be sure that each track will transition nicely with no room for error.
Can anyone recommend a set builder app or website that would help me build a set in the digital world before buying everything on vinyl?
I've had a quick Google obviously but everything seems geared to modern tech wizardry DJs rather than old dinosaurs like me.
Any help spinning me back up to 45rpm is appreciated!

Hello everyone,
I’m an Italian student, currently living in Italy, who recently earned a Master’s in Entrepreneurship with a GPA of 4.0. I spent half of my master's at Georgetown (Executive Education) and the other half in Genoa, Italy, where I received my degree.
My Bachelor’s in Business & Management GPA is quite low at 2.7. At that time, I was working and starting some e-commerce businesses.
I've been coding since I was 12 and have one year of experience working as a software engineer. I'm eager to acquire more technical skills, so I'm considering pursuing a Master’s in Data Science.
One of my dreams is to work at a big tech company, which is why I'm particularly interested in UC Berkeley, given its strong brand and reputation.
Here are my questions:

1. How likely am I to be admitted to Berkeley School of Information Data Science program?
2. Is the Berkeley School of Information as highly regarded as other Berkeley institutions?
3. Is it realistic to aim for a career at a FANG company after completing a Master’s in Data Science at Berkeley?
4. Should I take the GMAT to maximize my chances of getting in?

Any advice or insights would be greatly appreciated.

"These are the messy, broken pieces that inevitably exist in Star Trek, not just on the ships, not just on the worlds the USS Cerritos checks up on, but within the characters themselves. Star Trek: Lower Decks makes Star Trek better because it shows us characters that are real and relatable , with problems we can identify with, and additions that keep enriching Star Trek canon."
Star Trek Is Better Because Lower Decks introduced:
"Replicator Malfunctions; Hysperia, The RenFaire Planet; Ferengi Television; Badgey; AGIMUS; The Dog, Created By Tendi; Moopsy; The Smiling Koala; Orion Culture; Starfleet's California Class Starships; The USS Cerritos Crew)."
Jen Watson (ScreenRant)
Link:
https://screenrant.com/star-trek-lower-decks-canon-best-additions/
Quotes:
"Naturally, Star Trek: Lower Decks thrives on callbacks to some of the weirdest and most beloved parts of earlier Star Trek shows, but there's no need to have an encyclopedic knowledge of all things Star Trek in order to enjoy Star Trek: Lower Decks. Instead of relying on all the Star Trek shows that preceded it, Lower Decks references itself as the seasons go on. Best of all, Star Trek: Lower Decks enriches Star Trek canon by introducing new elements that just didn't exist before, from minutiae that "upper decks" shows might not concern themselves with, to brand-new characters and creatures we all want plush versions of.
Replicator Malfunctions
What is life like for a junior officer on a starship? How do they sleep, shower, and eat? Well, it turns out that the lower deckers sometimes have to deal with what happens when the USS Cerritos' food replicators get a little ... touchy. Unlike tragic transporter malfunctions, which are the basis of many an introspective morality play on Star Trek, the not-so-tragic replicator malfunctions on Star Trek: Lower Decks are a little more comedic in scope.
If there's one true thing about advanced technology, it's that it's going to break at some point. Brad Boimler seems to get stuck with the worst of Star Trek: Lower Decks' replicator malfunctions, like a Bonsai tree for breakfast, everything tasting like black licorice, and an endless supply of steaming hot bananas. And when replicator credits are a thing, you can't just keep asking for new stuff. You get "banana: hot," and you deal with it.
[...]
Orion Culture
Star Trek: Lower Decks seeks to balance out the sexist tropes from Star Trek: The Original Series and the attempts to flip the narrative about Orion women in Star Trek: Enterprise by featuring Star Trek's first Orion main character: Science Officer in training Lt. D'Vana Tendi. Tendi showcases Orion culture from her own perspective, calling out Beckett Mariner for subscribing to harmful stereotypes, while also illustrating the true things that perpetuate the ideas of Orions being pirates and assassins.
In Star Trek: Lower Decks season 4, episode 4, "Something Borrowed, Something Green", Star Trek's first visit to the Orion homeworld offers glimpses into the aspects of Orion culture that explain persistent stereotypes and why Tendi is sensitive to them. Danger and deception are a matter of course for Orions, with aspects of piracy playing a part in everything from Orion wedding traditions to competitive games. The Orion culture seen in Star Trek: Lower Decks is surprisingly nuanced, and actually manages to reconcile seemingly conflicting ideas from earlier Star Trek shows.
[...]
The USS Cerritos Crew
By far, the best additions that Star Trek: Lower Decks makes to Star Trek canon are its characters. Star Trek: Lower Decks would be nothing without the depth and realism of the character-driven stories that lay at the heart of every single episode. Each of Star Trek: Lower Decks' main characters has their own fatal flaw, ther own way of getting in their own way, so to speak, that proves relatable to those of us who are ambitious perfectionists, subject to self-sabotage, hiding who we are, unsure how to use our talents, or trying to find our place -- no matter how old we are. At the end of the day, Star Trek: Lower Decks is about the Warp Core Five's friendships making them stronger, better people.
By offering in-depth looks at the lives of junior officers, Star Trek:Lower Decks shows the depth of life aboard a Starfleet ship from the ground up. These are the parts of Starfleet that the upper-decker heroes of other Star Trek shows aren't privy to, or left behind long ago. These are the messy, broken pieces that inevitably exist in Star Trek, not just on the ships, not just on the worlds the USS Cerritos checks up on, but within the characters themselves. Star Trek: Lower Decks makes Star Trek better because it shows us characters that are real and relatable , with problems we can identify with, and additions that keep enriching Star Trek canon. "
Jen Watson (ScreenRant)
Link:
https://screenrant.com/star-trek-lower-decks-canon-best-additions/

I (25F) am planning to move to Europe next year. I am an Australian and Russian citizen (not that it helps my goal). By that time I will have had 2 years product owner (tech) experience. My goal is to find a product owner or tech-related remote job that pays well and live in a lower cost city.
Example- Get a job in London but work and base myself in both London and other countries in Europe. E.g 2 months London, 1 month Portugal, 1 month Spain, 1 month France, back to London.
What working visas/ digital nomad visas should I be looking into to make this dream a reality? I understand I will need a UK working visa to get a job based in London, but from what I know I still won’t be able to freely travel EU countries/ Schengen regions for longer than 3 months at a time. How would this work? Would a Uk working visa + digital nomad visa help me achieve this?
Main goals -decent paying remote job (maybe London-based) -freedom to work from other EU lower-cost countries as I please -open to other countries too.

I’ve been working in Biotech for a while now, mostly as a Lab technician. I got one role two years ago for research associate. But ever since the major layoffs it hasn’t been easy to find jobs that I could move up in. I’ve been stuck with these stupid lab technician jobs or the “scientist” jobs that pay $28/hr but are mere lab tech jobs. I’m currently working as a manufacturing tech at intel while I try to find a job related to my major. But it’s so hard because they want you to have 100% of the requirements and won’t train you on the other parts. I have a Masters in Biochemistry, but I have a lot of experience with PCR but most jobs won’t hire me because I don’t have any cell culture experience. It’s so frustrating, does anyone have any advice on what I should do? Or maybe someone could look at my resume and see where I’m going wrong?
EDIT: Btw I live in the Bay Area for reference.

Hi everyone! I am 12 years (26 M) on Type 1 journey. I was always doing pretty good or relatively good - A1C between 5.9 to 6.9 over the years while on MDI. I was always curious how people can get it to even lower numbers while I was trying quite hard with staying active and a proper nutrition. I was always an active person traveling a lot, doing activities etc, without a standard routine. I honestly devote time for my disease, read papers, publications, watch yt videos, podcasts, trying to stay up to date with diabetes technology.
I really didn't know the circumstances of every one that could have a tigher control around and below 6% A1C over the years but I was just jealous. I was just satisfied given what doctors were telling me about my numbers, regarding the safety of complications. I'm from Greece and things are approved slowly so we were always far from latest tech. The noisy Freestyle Libre 1 was the best CGM option (with a BT Transmitter custom solution that not a lot of type 1s were aware of) which I hate it now that I see how superior the G7 is. Now, living abroad, on tandem X2 + G7 I notice how much easier it is for such a tigher control and I'm somehow not that impressed and I know I was not doing sth wrong. The access to tools and technologies is really important.
But I still do not grasp how people or even doctors (!!) can say that a 5.8% A1C or similar is just "doing good". According to studies it is excellent. For me even in closed loop it is impressive. It is close to non diabetic levels and implies the excellent control of such a disease. I hear people claiming 140 mg/dl as high and that targetting 70 -180 is loose and easy. May times I see people tuning the settings in a way to improve sth like 5.6%. Usually I notice this from US people oand doctors (??) since it is the majority with such access to these tools. I mean, this is amazing don't get me wrong, but I would like to focus on the balance and mind-freedom if I would be on that level. Are there any studies showing that it is needed? What are the long term complications of controlled people with A1C around and below 6%? I have never found anything to be stressed or worried about. I am also obsessed with doing more and better and easier in many apsects, diabetes included, but I would like to know how much the extra hustle worths for already controlled people. Please if you have a study to share, drop it below. Excuse me for the long text, I find it a nice discussion, would be happy to see other's people situation (from US or not) and/or point of view.
Cheers

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Hi Steam Deck Users! I'm currently considering purchasing a 512GB OLED but I have a couple concerns which I would love to hear from users of the device (or even the older LCD version haha I would assume some things apply too). I'm coming from a Nintendo Switch OLED which I do enjoy but don't fully utilize the library (mainly bought it for Animal Crossing + Super Smash bros) and do have a Thinkpad, though that can only play games like Minecraft, Hades, and Stardew before it starts heating up or skip frames.
My main concern for the device is its longevity of the hardware - specifically the analog sticks, buttons, and battery. As I am from Malaysia and stuff like IFixIt isn't as widely available and the controllers are not as easily replaceable as something like the Switch, I'm worried about the wear and tear of the device. I'm hoping to at least see a 5 year usage from the device (though I'm not actually sure if that's a fair amount considering it is tech, but I'm using my PSP as a reference lol) and am worried that there'll be a lot of device maintenance etc.
I'm not too harsh on my devices and would generally get cases, screen protectors, and joystick covers but am still anxious on breaking it somehow haha. Is there anything I should take note of before I purchase it? It is quite pricey especially comparing it to the Switch or even a laptop so would love to hear experiences of those that have had it for a longer time!
If it helps, the games I play and want to play are mostly pretty chill! Some examples are Stardew, Hollow Knight, and Disco Elysium. But I do want to venture into more demanding games like Palworld and Baldur's Gate as well.
Anyways, thanks for reading my lengthy post - please excuse my language or punctuation. I don't have much excuse except to say my grammar is just bad hahaha.

First. When did it get added. Second. Do we know what versions it is? It seeems to be the 1.3 judging by the quality/performance and presets (having ultra quality plus and so on). Playing on my steam deck ive seen a huge increase in performance and visual fidelity using it compared to fsr which has a lot of ghosting and worse performance/visuals. My gtx 1660 goes to live another Day lol

I have a friend who I’ve known for 10 years (we’re not that close tho). In high school I used to have better grades than them and I also went to a better college. However, I chose to major in social science whereas they majored in CS, and now I’m stuck with a job in our home country that I don’t really like and doesn’t pay as much, while they are in a big tech in the U.S. making 200k a year.
For the past few months I have always been upset by this and felt like I’m not as successful as they are. To be specific:

1. I feel like I could’ve been them: I did not choose to major in social science because I liked it or because I was bad at math, physics, etc. I was a top student in high school and had great interest in those subjects, including CS. So I felt like I could've been them had I chose the right major. Now they are living a life that I've been dreaming of and I could never have. I'm constantly saddened by my choice.
   
2. I never liked my major and therefore never had recognition for myself: Ever since I got into college, I've seldom identified with this major and I always look up to others who are in the tech business. It's not like I'm completely resentful or bad at my major (I have a master's degree and secured a decent job). It's just that, doing what I do now, I see no worth in myself and have this sense of inferiority.
   

Just to be clear, I have no ill will against this friend. We chat from time to time and are nice to each other. Also, I'm not a typical envious person; I never envy other people no matter how successful they are, except this one particular friend. I just want to know how to stop comparing myself to them and how to deal with this feeling of regret, inferiority, and self-resentment.
TL;DR: A friend is living the life of my dream that I've aways hoped for and that I think I could've had. I feel sad about my own life. How do I stop comparing with this friend?

It’s so dumb, I never even dated him. Never even came close. Maybe it was because of the ages that I liked him, middle school and half of high school. Those seem like the most developmental years of childhood crushes, and I liked him for all of them. It doesn’t matter anymore, I liked him for a long time and then I chose to move away. I chose to tell him how I felt and I also chose to be a coward and never find out how he felt back. I have to live with that. It’s been two years, I’ll probably never see him again, I’m mourning something that’s been dead for a long time now. I’ll do what I’m starting to do now, try to spend day-to-day life putting it out of my head and when I do remember everything I tell myself there’s no point dwelling on what will never have another outcome. But I can’t stop thinking about it all, all those stupid little things that made me care for him so deeply all those years. So I leave it here. Here is a detailed list of all of the things off the top of my head that made me fall for him:
.I once spent an entire bus ride reading to him because he told me no one read to him since he was a kid
.When I was struggling a lot mentally in 7th grade he compared me to a flower and told me I needed to let the sun in to bloom. I love the Sun now.
.One time my necklace fell off and I couldn’t get it on so I asked him to clasp it for me, he couldn’t. His hands were too shaky.
.He used to promise to save up and buy me headphones cause I’d watch shows with subtitles on.
.He said he hated the people in Yearbook and then paused and said “well, except for one, of course.” and smiled at me. As you might have guessed I was in yearbook.
.I told him I was debated with my friends over what color my eyes were. They said green and I said hazel so he made me take off my glasses and decided on “sage green”.
.I once told him about how I liked to study people’s faces and what features you’d focus on most when you’re drawing them. He made me take off my glasses and said he wanted to see, so we just sat there for a couple minutes in silence just staring at each other, studying the other’s face.
.We had plans to run away to neighboring farms in Peru one day.
.He asked me if everything was okay because I’d been absent for a couple of days and he was worried something had happened to my mom (he knew she had been diagnosed over quarantine).
.The first time I saw my mom’s shaved head after chemo he sat with me because I was scared to open the picture up alone. He helped me respond to her and he told me to add an “I” to “love you” because “it doesn’t mean as much without the I”.
.When I found out he had friends on the bus that he never told me about. So everyday he’d wait until after my stop to move to the back and sit with them.
.The one time he did go sit with them he asked me for permission and even after I said I didn’t mind he texted me the whole time he was back there.
.How he used to put his phone away in his pocket any time I started talking to him.
.The cinnamon gum I bought him that he’d proudly chew every bus ride after, always offering me one too.
.He loved to write. He was amazing at tech and computer stuff but his writing was beautiful.
.That once time he spent an entire bus ride fiddling with a battery, explaining every step to me, giving me random facts along the way.
.When I complimented that sweater of his and he always wore it after that.
.How he’d confuse my drawings for the reference photos.
.That page I have in my sketchbook of the drawings I made with him.
.When I was debating moving and he told me I wouldn’t be happy here, that it was the right thing for me to move.
.When I decided to move and he promised me we’d stay in touch. That he’d still be there when I came back in a semester. I never came back.
.The poem he wrote in his class after I left, the one with the girl who he spoke to through the crack of a bus seat. Her and her unwavering trust.

Back in the 80's I lived in a town with a lot of military families so we were used to students arriving mid-semester and being gone the next. This new kid joined our class (Grade 4) and made friends with a few of us but I felt uneasy about him, I had never gotten a bad vibe from a kid my age before. He invited us to come by friday after school and we all agreed. On the walk to his place he told us his brother new a spell that would summon a demon and once it flew throughout the house slamming doors and cupboard drawers. A strong urge to leave hit me but I ignored it. We got to his house and sat in the kitchen, he introduced us to his Mom and then she went to the living room down the hall. Once she left he whispered "Everybody stay quiet and whisper or I'll get in trouble". We nodded in agreement and curiosity. He reached under the table, opened a hidden drawer by the floor and pulled out the Illuminati Card Game. As he opened the box he excitedly whispered about how the game could make things happen in the future. Just then his Mom appeared and went into a rage. She slapped him and yelled "You know you aren't supposed to show this to anyone"!!! She told us we had to leave immediately before turning her rage back on him. We got out of there asap and the weird thing is we never talked about that incident afterwards. I guess it was way too out there to bother addressing? Anyways, the kid never showed up at school again and the family had apparently moved almost overnight. No, I'm not saying they moved because of it or anything like that but have you guys ever looked at the decks of the cards? I have seen videos of certain decks and they show the twin towers being attacked with an explosion, the pentagon attacked with an explosion, gay activists, market manipulation, epidemic w/ quarantine... here's a vid showing other interesting similarities https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rtjyk1M4jzw Has anyone ever played the game and does anyone else get a bad vibe from it? Thanks, sorry tldr