I recently got into solo games and, due to a combination of factors, I've ended up with a terrible Frankenstein's monster of a game that I figured I'd share for people to laugh at, or maybe even take inspiration from.
Background Recently, I made a promise to myself that I would play no other video games until I finished a couple games in my backlog. I am fully intent on keeping this promise, but the problem is after a couple months of slogging through a couple of them, I've kind of burnt myself out on video games as a whole. Considering my promise was exclusive to video games, I began searching for other ways to entertain myself until this still challenge is over with. That's when I discovered journaling RPGs. Most didn't really appeal to me, but I found one, "The Librarian's Apprentice," that I thought I could have some fun with. After downloading a PDF from drive-thru RPG, I played my first session. I soon realized I didn't have any playing cards, which are a primary mechanic in that game, so I booted up Tabletop Simulator as my play space. In Librarian's Apprentice, you draw cards from a deck of playing cards to uncover new rooms of an infinite library while searching for 6 specific documents from the library's vast collections, all the while, journaling your exploits through the game's procedurally generated rooms. A string of bad luck saw my character running out of stamina before finding a single document, but I had a good time nonetheless.
Despite having a good time with it, I felt that the game had some mechanics that I would describe as 'flaws,' and as I looked into other journaling games, I found that they seemed to be a constant amongst most of them. To say it plainly, journaling games don't seem to care much about rules. I myself vastly prefer rules-light games to begin with, so I didn't think it would be as much of a problem as it ended up being. In journaling games, rules tend to exist more or less as simple guidelines or suggestions to help in the creative writing process, rather be as hard-coded rules of play. I can appreciate that some people might enjoy this style of roleplaying, but I just ended up confused as to when and how I could use certain abilities. In the case of Librarian's Apprentice, some seemingly important abilities had rules for determining whether they succeeded, but an explanation for what the skill was supposed to do or what success meant. This left me to make up uses for it, which at for me, didn't feel very great.
For this reason, I looked into more traditional D&D-like experiences and ended up picking up Ker Nethalas. This turned out to be a mistake; I was worn-out and emotionally drained by the end of my second domain. The game was very creative and it's methodology for procedural generation was great, but I personally found it too rules intensive and a bit too dark and depressing to really want to play consistently by myself.
Vastly preferring the themes, tone, and creativity of my journey through Librarian's Apprentice, I started thinking what I liked and didn't like about the game and set about adapting it to better suit my preferences.
Reflecting on What Worked I listed the pros and cons of a journaling game like The Librarian's Apprentice from my perspective and here's what I came up with:
Pros:

• The Setting - An infinite library where literally anything can happen
• Clear Objective - Finding a certain number of documents is a clear, easy to understand foundation for your adventure

Cons:

• Limited Tables - The places I was generated for myself out-of-the-box to explore were awesome, but the tables themselves weren't massive and I feel like I would be seeing a lot of similar areas by the time I collected all 6 documents
• Limited Customization - The crux of character generation was choosing and background, character description, and a pet. All of these options felt limited to me, and while I'm sure you're meant to kind of fill-in-your-own after the first game, more choices in the booklet would have been appreciated.
• Only One Objective - I know I just listed the games objective as a positive, but I personally feel like there should be options for how to continue after finding all six documents
• Lack of Direction - Certain abilities lack descriptions for when, how, or why you would use them. In a system with such a clear objective, it seems odd that the rules of play aren't as clear.
• Other thoughts - It feels like a shame that the game is more "literary?". The aforementioned 'documents' are little more than an MacGuffins for your to look for, which is fine in and of itself, but I feel like the library is a place of lunacy rather than literacy.

With those ideas in mind, I set about homebrewing a version of this game that makes sense for me as a player.
New Mechanics The System For a core system to work from, I chose the cypher system. This mainly has to do with it's extensibility and my familiarity GMing games using it. I simply had to translate my character concept into the new system which was a breeze. Naturally, this system provides a wealth of customization options and provides a clear understanding of how and when abilities can be used.
Objective I decided to expand the objective from the game from finding 6 documents to finding 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 16 documents. This radically extends play with sessions that increase in complexity over time.
Advancement Completing each goal advances the Librarian to a new rank as well as well as levels the character up to the next tier. My ranks in order are: Librarian's Apprentice, Journeyman Librarian, Curator, Archivist, Scholar, Master Librarian. EXP is gained like normal, but the character is unable to tier up from exp. If a character has not unlocked all advancements before ranking up as a librarian, the other core advancements will be unlocked automatically.
Procedural Generation I decided to leverage the wealth of tables in Mythic GM 2e to provide more variation for environments at the cost of having to use my imagination a bit more to create thematically consistent areas. I removed the card based mapping system of the original game, as I found it unintuitive and overall a weak point. Instead I switched to standard graph paper and roll using a D6 to find room positions. There is no true death for a librarian, so areas stay generated, and the PC finds himself back at the Librarian's office should he faint during his duties. The PC is assigned to a new section of the library with each rank advancement and mapping starts over. The PC can move 2 areas before I roll against a random encounter table and use the context of the current area along with description details from Mythic GM to create encounters. These events offer an additional way for the PC to loot cyphers which I restylize to fit the scenario.
Help Requests When rolling for random encounters, there is a chance of meeting friendly NPCs. In this case, they will request assistance retrieving a document located in the same room. I feel like more work needs to be done to flesh out this mechanic, but as of right now, I roll 1d6 to determine a stat pool from the available 3 and then make a difficulty 5 (DC15) check to see if I as able to assist them. If successful, I receive one artifact from the artifacts table restylized to fit the setting.
Literary Intrusions To address the problem of the library no feeling 'literary,' I added a mechanic that I hoped would encourage active reading and also help me work through my backlog of books that I've been meaning to read. Each time I roll a d20, I roll a second die. If the numbers match I consider a 'literary intrusion' to have occurred. I then read 10 pages of the book of my choosing, consider it's content and themes and then incorporate objects or ideas from the book into my game. Sometimes I use a fate chart to determine whether the intrusion is good or bad, but generally I end up with a good idea of how I can incorporate what I've read without external help. Do this has been beneficial both in a meta-game context as well as making it feel like 'the pages come alive' inside the library. Rolling a 1 on the primary die causes a standard GM intrusion like normal which I roll for in Mythic. There is no penalty for rolling a 1 on the secondary die.
This is the current state of my game. I might have missed some minor details. If anyone has any specific questions about how I handle niche scenarios feel free to let know. I'd be glad to answer any questions. Naturally, this game is somewhat cumbersome and has become a hodgepodge of ideas that weren't meant to work together, but so far it's working well and I've been having a lot of fun with it. I hope it can in some way inspire ideas for others. Cheers!

Hi guys,
I’m(sort of) a beginner to software engineering. To be exact, I am finishing up my Master’s Degree in Computer Engineering and I have been working in the field part time for the last couple of years, also had a couple of internships all in software engineering, but never in Android. I however still consider myself a beginner, probably because I am aware how big the field is and how much time you need to actually be considered an expert in any software engineering discipline, Android included.
Nevertheless, a business opportunity came up and I accepted it. In the meantime I’m almost done with the project. It is a fiscalization application. It has both a local and remote database, it runs on Point of Sale devices. I wrote the backend in Node. It has different functionalities, including the selection of items to be added to an invoice, calculating taxes of those invoices, sending SOAP requests to the Ministry of Finance for the fiscalization, checking the return code for confirmation of fiscalization, adding items that can be selected for a sale to your profile, log in, log out, overview of sold invoices, overview of customers etc.
It is working fine, but I still am sort of ‘afraid’, because I’m not sure if the quality of the code is good. I have the fear that it won’t work at some point or whatever, but u can attribute that to my generally anxious personality.
Do you think this is normal? What can I do to make myself feel more confident? Do you have any advices which can help me improve on the code quality in general? Any thoughts are welcome. Thanks

Hey everyone, I wanted to share my story from being a below-mediocre golfer last July to significantly improving my game over the past few months or so. Although I still consider myself a mediocre player, I’ve managed to shave over 20 strokes off my game. I don’t have an official handicap yet but I’m certainly getting one soon. I wanted to share my experience with SwingTweaks and GolfTec to improve. I hope my story can help those in a similar position who want to create a passable golf game.
I was at a breaking point with golf when I saw an ad for SwingTweaks on Instagram or I heard about it on here. Around that same time, I signed up for GolfTec since there was a sale. In hindsight, it was silly to sign up for both at the same time (although I still have some SwingTweaks) but they both contributed to my progress. I went from struggling to play golf to having a reliable swing, sometimes controlling the shape of my shots, and having way more confidence.
Hopefully, this recap helps newbs in a similar position I was in.
Background on My Golf Game (skip this section if you just want to get the meat of how I improved)
For about a decade, I played golf once or twice a year with my Dad or with pals. My Dad is an excellent golf player but wasn’t the best teacher for irons and driver. I never learned the proper mechanics of a golf swing besides “keep your head down and your arms straight.” As a result, I’d “play” golf but not keep an honest score, probably shooting around 120 or more. My swing was one-dimensional, ripping my arms and hips on a straight plane back which often resulted in short, chunked, or topped shots. I later realized I was swinging over the top, but didn’t know it at the time.
Fortunately, even though my Dad couldn’t help me much with my irons and driver, he is an excellent golf coach with pitching, chipping, putting, and general strategy. So, I was able to still develop a good course strategy, understand how to aim, develop a near-green strategy, and have a strong set-up, even though my iron and driver swings were terrible. Played like that for a while and didn’t care too much for golf but then the golf bug hit me when I was playing last July and then I entered the wormhole.
I started with YouTube, a lot of range time, playing with friends, reading Ben Hogan’s 5 Fundamentals, Harvey Penick’s book, and some other less useful books, and listening to podcasts. I don’t know the quantitative amount of time I spent but it would take me ages to figure out concepts like “over-the-top, or how to hit a “low draw.” I spent a lot of time figuring out what something was, and then more time trying to implement a solution. Implementing the concepts was challenging because even if I was trying to shallow I didn’t understand how to do that without pushing the club down which affected other parts of my shot. I would record myself, and try to self-diagnose but that had varying results because of the aforementioned. In short, diagnosing issues was challenging and time-consuming. However, it helped me to learn a more general understanding of the mechanics of a golf swing and did help me at times develop a “feel.”
I did this method for a couple of months, culminating in not breaking 100 (target goal) or making my way down the fairway consistently. Golf was still fun, but I knew I wasn’t playing the game with any strategy. I was just praying to hit the ball in a generally straight direction without fatting, topping, chunking, shanking, or going completely left or right. I hit a breaking point when I spent like $40 on a round with friends to lose a good handful of balls. I thought about the money I was spending on the range/playing. I realized investing in lessons was just more economical and efficient in the long run.
Everyone suggests lessons. I did some research about instructors in my area and thought I picked a decent one. I got one for $50 at one of my local track. I felt like it was useless for me but to be fair the instructor and I may have not vibed. He just kept asking “What do I feel?” That didn’t help me much, because I already knew my club, and my hands “vibrate” or get a weird feeling whenever I mishit the club. I had a sense of what part of the face I hit when I had a bad miss off-center. That’s the only thing he focused on. The only physical thing he showed me was a minor grip change.
He did list himself as a beginner coach, but his style of coaching just wasn’t working for me. I also went to a golf “beginners clinic” that showed up some pitching/chipping and watched us strike irons for like 10-15 minutes. I didn’t learn much there either. That wasn’t much help and didn’t have the pace or individualized coaching I wanted.
I also got a more expensive lesson for $150. That was slightly more helpful and focused on the mechanics of the swing, but in hindsight, I think he was trying to give me a style to break a 100 and not a swing for a lifetime. It felt like he wanted to just help me hit the ball and keep me on a horizontal plane/over the top and not make major changes. Respectable, but not what I was looking for.
What I Did:
SwingTweaks: I think I saw a post on here or saw an ad on Instagram so I decided to try it out. For those of y’all who haven’t heard of it, SwingTweaks is an app where you send in your swing and a PGA pro sends back a short video (2-4 minutes) with 1-3 things to work on along with relevant YouTube videos if needed. The first few tweaks were pretty helpful and I was able to diagnose my backswing pretty quickly and make a minor change in my setup. I worked on that for about a week. I either got a promotion email or saw they were doing a big sale, so I pulled the trigger to buy 10 tweaks. I don’t remember exactly how much it was but I think it was around $170ish.
Golftec: A week or so later, I realized a Golftec was within 5 minutes of my apartment. For the uninitiated, GolfTec is a chain brick-and-mortar golf coaching spot. They have simulators and you hit on that. After some research, I found some people have beef with Golftec because they force you into a swing pattern focused only on draws and matching up with a PGA player’s swing. Also that it's very expensive. I sat on my research for a bit and then saw a big sale was going on. I Googled a referral code for a free “swing analysis.” Accordingly, the first lesson was a swing analysis where they matched up my swing to a PGA pro and told me everything right/wrong with my swing. I thought it was pretty useful, but I can see how people with physical inhibitions or who already developed a good swing wouldn’t find that appealing. I found it appealing because I figured if I could get a mastery of doing it the “right way” I could tweak that and make it my own.
GolfTec is going to give you a hard sales pitch. Originally they pitched 30ish lessons that included everything from playing lessons, putting, chipping, and everything else. I already knew GolfTec was a bit of a sales thing so I planned to commit to 5 lessons before I walked in, so long as it felt helpful. It was like a shitload of money for 30ish lessons even with the sale—I think what he recommended was over $2000. As I mentioned, I wanted to do 5 lessons but he suggested away from that and he seemed like after I initially told him I was not interested in the 30ish lessons, he told me he thought 5 lessons were probably not enough for me after the swing analysis. Probably a sales thing—but I bought into it.
In hindsight, I should have also bought their "practice sessions" package, which allows you unlimited use of the simulator. However, I didn’t want to spend that much. The combined cost for 10 lessons and practice sessions was around $1000. So ultimately, I got 10 lessons without practice sessions for around 700ish dollars. I did manage to negotiate a bit; he gave me a $100 discount. My coach has thrown in a couple of free practice sessions. He also goes over time all the time with the lessons, unless someone else has to use the simulator. From my research, it seems like a lot of GolfTecs don’t do this.
My biggest issue with GolfTec is the tight schedule and high cost. They have you complete the 10 lessons within 3 months, which means I was practically doing lessons week to week or now and then bi-weekly. As forementioned I was going to the range 1-2 times some weeks, so it was difficult to nail down a concept before the next lesson arrived. If you haven’t mastered the last concept, then they just go over the concept again. In retrospect, I would have benefited from purchasing the practice sessions so I could work on my swing more frequently, especially since GolfTec is much closer to me than my nearest practice range.
For context, I could have gotten 5 lessons from a well-respected PGA pro in my area for about $200-$300 more. But I didn’t want to commit to that because I had beef with the last time I got a lesson and I was at my wit's end. I also felt like considering where I was in my golf game (almost non-existent) I could get all my fundamentals down and then seek a golf coach later down the road and get more value out of that instead of being asked “What I’m feeling” like my previous session or get charged $100 something dollars to make a minor change in my set-up.
Improvement:
So, both helped in different ways. With the first few SwingTweaks, I was able to diagnose my backswing quickly and the GolfTec instructor agreed as far as their metrics were concerned that my backswing didn’t need any changes, or at least didn’t want to focus on that for now. After my swing analysis, we concentrated on correcting my over-the-top swing. I ran that through SwingTweaks and I got the same feedback, so I focused on that for a while.
During my second lesson, the GolfTec coach was pleased with my progress, so we started working on rotating my forearms (though I'm still unsure if this is the same as wrist supination). Unfortunately, this adjustment caused my over-the-top swing to return because I hadn’t nailed that down yet, so I had to revisit that issue. Meanwhile, I was still fatting the ball, which was extremely frustrating—particularly when I played with friends or went to the range. I turned to SwingTweaks for help, and they suggested a hip bump to address the fat shots. This change quickly resolved the fatting issue and, alongside fixing the over-the-top swing, was the most significant improvement I made in my swing.
I was focused on both of those concepts for a while. I returned for what I believe was my 4th lesson and the GolfTec coach diagnosed the over-the-top swing again and threw in a free practice right after the lesson (probably felt bad for me LOL). In the meantime, I also had the hip bump mostly down, so I ran another SwingTweak and that led to the same conclusion from GolfTec about the forearm rotation, albeit a bit cheaper. The wrist flip improved quite dramatically, although its still very slightly there now. I did have a couple of tweaks left and I ran another one which said I had a lot of good things going on with my swing but the Coach suggested implementing LAG along with a potential minor grip change, but I haven’t committed myself to practicing that intentionally yet since I’m pretty pleased with how I’m hitting the ball for now and just want to focus on playing. I have 3 more tweaks left (I used one for driver).
But the main point—I was trying to address too many aspects of my swing too quickly. With weekly lessons and incorporating feedback from SwingTweaks, I had a lot of swing thoughts which made it challenging to make consistent progress.
Ultimately, after about 5 lessons in both programs, I was naturally shallowing my swing, hip bumping effectively, and using my hips instead of my arms to drive the club. I mostly eliminated fat shots and felt more consistent overall. Significantly, and I think important to note for someone like me, is that SwingTweaks did identify the issues GolfTec identified, but the weekly diagnostics at GolfTec were helpful because the coach would catch any bad habits creeping back and ensure I was implementing changes correctly (according to their metrics). As mentioned, I had 10 lessons at GolfTec, so we did another range session mixed with driver so that was 2 lessons (30 min + 30 min), and then we did one on woods and hit irons again to work on throwing the club away from the body. Last, lesson we just worked a little bit on the flip with the hands.
GolfTec was pretty useful to get a diagnostic on anything else I worked on. For example at GolfTec, he shared the tour percentage for hip bumping. It provided me with a useful indicator to know that I was bumping too aggressively. I was bumping way too much when the tour average is 3%. That helped me soften my hips. As I mentioned, he didn’t tell me about this in any of our lessons, but when I started incorporating it he gave me some recommendations.
As time progressed, I found myself narrowing my focus during my own range sessions and focused only on hitting targets within 100 yards. I was pretty much hitting mostly draws with most of my clubs, including woods. I’d occasionally duff one, but I think that’s just apart of getting better. SwingTweaks and GolfTec diverged in their analysis with the driver, so I ended up using GolfTec’s swing recommendation because that let me find more fairways. I did have the GolfTec coach look at my woods, but we didn’t focus on that all that much. I admittedly have somewhat of an arm swing for woods because it seems to help me keep the angle of attack flat, but it's working for me for now.
After my driver lesson, I still had 3 lessons left. I believe one of the final techniques I learned at GolfTec was not to move my chest back during my backswing, because that could change my low point. But, we mostly focused on consolidating what I had already learned and making it second nature. I’d occasionally swing slightly less shallow or not quite as outside as whichever PGA Pro the Coach would pull up at GolfTec so we’d return to that to ensure it was 100%. He still did show me at least one thing new every time even if we didn’t focus on that and I could work on that on my own time. I journaled whatever he mentioned after the lesson, so even if it was an off-hand comment or not our focus of the day I could return to it at a future range session. But, overall it was a minor error to commit to 10 lessons. It was excessive and I spent more money than I needed to. The program moved too swiftly, and even though some of the later recommendations were helpful, my primary aim was to establish solid fundamentals so I could progress to the playing level I wanted and potentially revisit lessons later on. 5 and then maybe reloading on 5 later would’ve been fine.
The way I see it, GolfTec provided insights into how fundamental concepts could be tweaked to achieve specific shot shapes like draws, and using that information helped me understand how I can also use those same concepts to hit other shots. This coach was obsessed with hitting draws and that's the only thing they were going to diagnose around, but that information honestly was helpful in how to command fades as well.
SwingTweaks was cool because it was hella convenient for me to implement changes at my own pace. Almost every tweak I received directly addressed the specific problem I was facing, except one. Now, I may have backslid when I didn’t focus on that one change for a bit, but as long as I was focused on fixing it with the solution they gave me, I would generally have it fixed within a week or two. Moreover, it was way more cost-effective than GolfTec. On the other hand, it had some limitations, because they only work with the information provided and since they aren’t observing a series of shots, they might miss a bigger problem pattern if you have one. And of course, since they aren’t seeing you week to week if that issue creeps back up and you don’t realize it, they are going to mention it in the tweak but if it’s not exhibited in that tweak video, they naturally aren’t going to diagnose it. I did like they were able to diagnose issues quickly. I just included the relevant write-up with my video and the feedback was almost always helpful. I’d be interested to see how it assists me now that I am more advanced and how it might help better players than me in achieving more narrow goals like increasing distance or how to shoot particular shapes.
I think SwingTweaks was slightly more helpful than GolfTec. On the other hand, it may have been a combination of both programs and diving balls deep into golf through lessons, personal research, and practice. In particular, there was one moment where it all clicked when I was watching a movie, and in my head, I was like “Gravity… is the key!” I started just letting gravity put my club down after the backswing and everything else I’ve been trying to do just came together—less swing thoughts. I still have to refresh myself here and there and occasionally take a step backward when I learn a new movement, but I know it’s on its way.
In my opinion, SwingTweaks was solid for a player like me. I got a good diagnostic on the cheap and I could do my fix at my speed. On the other hand, GolfTec was good because it put pressure on me to practice because of the time limit. When I was doing GolfTec, I had to ramp up my practice because I didn’t want to waste my money or feel embarrassed for not implementing suggested swing changes. It’s expensive as hell, but the motivational push and weekly diagnostics were good. I felt like with SwingTweaks I got the same level of diagnostic—if not better—but I wasn’t as compelled to make those changes as rapidly. If I could go back and do it differently, I’d probably just do SwingTweaks for 10 lessons, but commit myself to a different target and limit myself on time. Instead of saying, “ok I want to break 100” I would change my thinking to “ok, I want to stop swinging over the top.” I’d refocus on only having a workable swing, rather than a score target. If I could’ve found somewhere I could go crazy on a simulator for a couple of months, that would’ve been great.
In saying that, I still wouldn’t recommend going to any lesson whether that's a PGA pro, SwingTweaks, GolfTec, or whatever right off the bat if you are a beginner. I’d develop some “feel” over a few months. Even if the swing looks terrible you start getting a sense of how things feel when it goes right and you gain a sense of the mind-club-body connection. GolfTec nor SwingTweaks is going to be able to help you with that, so their advice will be more helpful if you have some “feel.” I can’t quite describe what “feel” is so maybe someone in the comments can describe it better than me.
So my golf game now. I’ve improved significantly. I have confidence from before my swing to after. I examine the potential shots and targets. Pick one and commit. I have a solid set-up before the ball with the proper aim. My swing thoughts aren’t consumed by swing mechanics and I can trust my muscle memory to deliver a swing. I can swing consistently. I drive the ball forward, even if my shot dispersion isn’t as narrow as I’d like. I am not afraid of water hazards whether with a long iron or wood, because I am confident in my skill to hit over them without embarrassing myself. My GIR has improved dramatically. I might lose a ball or two per round, but I can shoot in the low 90s without any gimmies. I don’t swing over the top anymore and I feel like I’m playing golf instead of just chunking across the landscape and praying for a good shot. I would like more swing speed, but I think that will come later. Even after the shot, if it doesn’t go exactly how I planned my misses aren’t as dramatic and I know I can hit a good shot and recover. I see myself realistically breaking 90 pretty soon. I have no idea what my ceiling is but it feels like the sky is the limit! Haha.
I can’t vouch for how either SwingTweaks or GolfTec might benefit intermediate or lower handicaps, but it was effective for me. I’m happier on the course and more fulfilled when I play. I’d recommend giving it a shot if you are in the same position I was in.
Other Things That I Did:
Read a lot of books that weren’t helpful with my issues, but were pretty enjoyable:
Shortlist:

• The Four Foundations of Golf — Jon Sherman
• Ben Hogan’s 5 Lessons (probably the most helpful)
• Harvey Pennick’s Little Red Book
• Golf is Not A Game of Perfect
• Also, not for your game but I also read The Greatest Game Ever Played and Paper Tiger which were just straight-up enjoyable for anyone and let me be in the nexus of golf, but not thinking as much about my swing or my game.

YouTube:
YouTube didn’t help me much. It’s difficult for me to diagnose my issues, so with YouTube instructions, I’m hoping I have the issue identified correctly and that the video is a particular solution for that issue. I know some people have had a lot of success with this, but it just wasn’t for me unless it was specifically relevant to something someone had already told me was an issue.
Practice:
I probably was at the range 3-4 times at my peak, and then that went down to 1-2 times a week just because I was busy with life stuff. I probably played 9 holes once a week, but that dipped to 0 times a week for about a month, and then went back to 9 holes once a week.
I rarely get the time to play 18 so I might do that once a month. I also got my Dad to help me. In the aforementioned background section, I mentioned he is a killer when he is near the green, so he was able to help me with my putting/pitching/chipping. Even with the irons and other clubs, he was able to help me understand proper aiming and some other non-physical mechanics-related skills.
Recording:
I recorded my swing periodically, not every session. I felt like I didn’t want to see my swing that often because I wanted to see what crept back (over the top, hip bump, no hip movement, or anything else that had already been pointed out to me). I also feel like it is a waste of time to record, adjust, record, adust. You can’t see your swing on the course, so I didn’t feel like this was a good solution for me. I liked to see it a few times, and then feel it, and then try to replicate that feel after.
After I was told what was exactly wrong, I usually was able to get a good “feel” of when it was going right and when it wasn’t, because the first couple of times I’d exaggerate it. The times I was backsliding a periodic recording would let me see it if I already knew what the issue was.
I wasted time on Instagram’s Explore page watching golf influencers and “fun” golf channels on YouTube. If I wanted to put a positive spin on it, that type of play helped me keep going and inspired me to keep playing. I do think watching some of the older golfers highlights helped with tempo.
I’m certain some people may have achieved greater improvement with the resources & money available, but I’m content with where my game stands. I am aware there are probably areas that could be refined, but my focus was to enjoy the game and that’s where I’m at. I can play any public course with anyone and do just fine. I still get frustrated here and there, but nowadays it’s not because I completely shot a ball off into the woods, its more like “how the hell was that a fade” or “why was I lined up away from the green” or “stupid decision to club down” instead of being frustrated with my swing. I feel like I’m playing golf now. I’ll probably seek lessons again at a later point, but right now I’m good.
There is a light at the end of the tunnel no matter what you do but these programs helped me put that on an accelerator. If you use either of the programs, I’d be grateful if you use my referral code. I don’t get anything if you sign up for SwingTweaks, except entries into periodic drawings, but I believe you get 20% off. If you sign up for GolfTec we both get $100 off if you sign up.
TLDR: Sucked at everything except putting/chipping/pitching, used GolfTec and SwingTweaks to get better at irons, woods, & driver, use my code.
GOLFTEC: https://gt.golf/HP52sZ (PS my dude said referrals only work if you sign up for lessons or else you have to pay for your swing analysis).
SWINGTWEAKS: referral code - GoatTrackDhimar

For context, got a 2019 wrx that was tuned in 2022 Miles when tuned:21500 ish Miles now- 24100
Barley driven since i only drive to and back the train station
Mods stage 2: Grimspeed intake Grimspeed j pipe nameless axleback
2022: The first year tuned— MAF went, brought it back to the tune shop and they said the MAF was soaked in water. Not sure if they left it exposed.
Within the same year i go back for getting a running rich code P0172. Tuner said they did some tweaks to the tune.
2023: car is running rich again , same code Tuner did more tweaks
Within the same year i go back again and they tell me my car was on the wrong map…. Let alone i never touch the accessport
2024: code that was 02 sensor is going ,p2270. Decide to replace the issue myself because cba to fork over 200$ for bs diagnostics then another 200$ to fix the issue. After replacing the 02 sensor- code went away
This week, im getting a code for p0420. Barely drive the car, maintenance is done when needed and never abuse the vehicle but i feel as if problems keep arising. Is this normal for a car thats tuned?
Seems like i need to switch tuners bc im getting fucked, thoughts on this?

I feel like they don't. Over the past month they've scheduled maybe 2 people max per weekend in Fresh, myself included and they have this habit of having to check things at specific intervals throughout the day.
Even Sundays when it's extremely busy it's either just me or someone else alone - facing the ire of management for everything not being done: freight, vizpick, full stocked, promo sections, cleaning.
On slow days however the departments are fully staffed. But otherwise it's one person in produce and one person in the meat department.

I'm working on a script for my org that will reboot a bunch of servers every weekend.
My current method of looping through the list of systems is to use a while loop, which uses the following condition:

while ( ($MachineList Where-Object {$_.Rebooted -eq $False}).count -gt 0) { 

The issue I have is that when the where-object returns only a single item, it no longer is an array, so it has no .count property to reference.
I tried doing:

while ( {[Array]($MachineList Where-Object {$_.Rebooted -eq $False})}.count -gt 0) { 

but that is returning 1 object and evaluating True, when the returned data is actually empty or 0. Copy/paste directly from my terminal:

PS C:\> {[Array]($MachineList Where-Object {$_.Rebooted -eq $False})}.count 1 PS C:\> $machinelist where-object {$_.Rebooted -eq $False} PS C:\> ($machinelist where-object {$_.Rebooted -eq $False}).count 0 PS C:\> 

I can also do $machinelist ft and verify myself that all entries are $True under the Rebooted property.
So how can I modify this so that the While condition returns the expected .count 0 and 1 when I get down to 1 or 0 remaining entries? So far my best idea is to create a new variable just before the while loop starts:

[Array]$MachinesNotBooted = $MachineList Where-Object {$_.Rebooted -eq $False} 

And then set that as the last line of code within the While loop, and just make the while loop condition

while ( $machinesnotbooted -gt 0) 

but while this method would work, I feel like it's not the best or most elegant way to handle it.

so we all know this fandom relies on multiverse theory. I'll start with a simple one. It will be divided in sections.
Section A:Aus, Ats and ams.
Aus are alternate universes. They use the characters and setting of og undertale usually, but aren't connected to it.
Ats are alternate timelines. They're the result of the original undertale getting altered in some way.
Ams are alternate multiverses. Things like helptale and underverse being the biggest example.

 Underfell 

https://undertale-au.fandom.com/wiki/Underfell
Trivia
1.the au was originally called underhell, but it got changed to underfell because underhell already was a thing that had nothing to do with undertale
2.unlike the fanon interpretations, papyrus does not abuse sans. Their relationship is like actual siblings, they argue then they shake hands. Both try to he the cooler more mature brother.
3.sans pays grillby in socks, wich does annoy him a bit. And yes grillby does wear those socks.
4.the characters of underfell were redesigned multiple times. With the skeletone being redesigned a wopping 6 times.
5.there is no pacifist and genocide route. Instead there is the trust route, closure route and the betrayal route. The betrayal route has you pit the monsters against each other. Sans will only fight you in the betrayal route.
6.underfell actually did have a true pacifist route, where the monsters would wear purple after the route. The pacifist route got scrapped.
7.sans says "i'm gonna have one HELL of a time" when fighting you
8.sans has his glowing eye 24/7 due to being constantly stressed. As a result he's often tired.
9.mettaton's arms that have yellow gloves on them are controlled by alphys
10.all characters have say "fuck" at least once
Thoughts: i like the whole idea. The designs are great, the art is great. The story is pretty good. 8/10

 Underswap 

https://undertale-au.fandom.com/wiki/Underswap
1.the characters do not fully swap personalities
2.papyrus smokes because he wants to look edgy
3.sans still likes puns while papyrus prefers practical jokes
4.asgore was originally gonna bake cakes instead of making tea
5.underswap was agnowledged in a buzzfeed article
6.undyne was originally supposed to like cartoons but instead of anime
7.the creator of the au left the fandom when sans got completely mischaracterized by the community
Thoughts: it's pretty decent. It doesn't do a whole lot but it's pretty good for what it is, 6/10. If this was about az!underswap it would've been 8/10.

 Storyshift 

https://undertale-au.fandom.com/wiki/Storyshift_(Preboot)?so=search
1.chara canonically uses plant magic instead of summoning red knives (although i massively prefer the knife magic, the plant magic just looks lame).
2.asriel doesn't call himself something like "the amazing asriel", instead he roleplays as "the absolute deity" or "the god of hyperdeath". Chara is in on the larping too.
3.toriel taught asriel how to bake, wich is why unlike undertale papyrus, his food doesn't taste awful.
4.toriel and asgore ended up estranged because of asgore's experiments with dt and the creation of the amalgamates.
5.undyne got cyberized because she got injured when lifting the core.
6.papyrus doesn't hate sans and wants to forgive him. He also left to the ruins to scatter dust unlike undertale toriel wich left due to disagreeing with asgore's plan.
7.the characters do not swap personalities.
8.storyshift is technically an alternate timeline becuase it happens after you reset the original undertale.
9.there were 9 different shifts planned for the au.
Thoughts: i like the fact chara and asriel are alive. They're dripped out too. The story is nice and the fact the personalities remain the same gives it a fresh coat of paint, 8.5/10

 Horrortale 

https://undertale-au.fandom.com/wiki/Horrortale
1.the flash game was gonna have battles, but the system would've worked differently due to the point and click formula and aliza being scared.
2.aliza's name means joyful in hebrew.
3.contrary to popular belief sans isn't immortal. He's just hard to kill.
4.papyrus teeth became all fucked due to years of eating his crooked spaghetti.
5.in the reference sheet sans wields an axe made out of a femur bone. This reference sheet is outdated, his canon weapon is a cleaver.
6.horrortale was originally a take on underfell before it became it's own thing.
7.both sour apple studios and vic the underfella love each other's aus and are friends.
Thoughts: i like how simple the artstyle looks, it gives the comic an eerie vibe. The au taking place after a neutral run is unique. It doesn't rely on cheap jumpscares to be scary. Overall a great au, 7/10

 Dusttale 

https://ask-dusttale.tumblr.com/
1.sans' canon nickname is murder!sans, not dust. But you can call him dust if you want.
2.there is no frisk or chara in dusttale. Only the human/player. Frisk died when they fell and the player is possesing their corpse. Chara got so bored of the infinite genocide runs they don't even help you erase the world. Making the events entirely your fault.
3.phantom papyrus is not real, it's just a figment of sans' imagination. The phantom scolds sans for killing everyone, yet it urges him to keep killing
4.sans is aware phantom papyrus isn't real, but he talks to it anyway just to keep what's left of his sanity.
5.killing was the last option for sans. Before that he tried everything else yet it all failed.
6.dusttale has at least 3 endings: abandoned (sans wins, he's forever alone), infinite loop (sans loses, he remembers his loss and tries again), peace treaty of disbelief (the human promises to make things right yet sans kills them anyway)
7.sans drinks, a lot. He also reads books, his favourites being sci-fi novels and books with happy endings.
8.sans is fundementally a self-conflicting character. He regrets all the killing, but he enjoys it, but at the same time he hates himself for enjoying it, the only kill sans didn't enjoy was papyrus but even then he enjoyed the fact he did it instead of the human. He doesn't really think his plan will work, but he keeps going anyway because he's gone too far. Sans does immoral things for a moral cause.
9.sans would enjoy fighting the human and making them suffer, but once they quit he'll feel empty. When defeating the human all he'll say is "what should i do now pap?".
10.sans would never attack other aus for no reason. Even if he was forced to fight he would try to talk things out.
11.if core!frisk were to meet sans he would refuse to go to the omega timeline because he thinks he doesn't deserve it. He will find survivors and send them there though.
12.sans' eyes are symbolic in a way. The red represents determination. The cyan represents patience. He lost the yellow of justice.
Thoughts: it's the best au, 100000000/10.

 Something new 

https://undertale-au-fanon.fandom.com/wiki/Sans/SomethingNew
1.there are multiple endings to killer's story. The most notable one is where he betrays chara (or the player....whatever you prefer). And nightmare finds him.
2.killer does not enjoy food that brings back bad memories such as chocolate, spaghetti or ketchup.
3.killer has 4 stages. In stage 1 he is back to being sans again, stage 2 is the killer we know and love, stage 3 is a prolonged version of killer and stage 4 is completely insane.
4.killer and color are bffs.
5.the player altered sans' code so he could say yes to the deal.
6.killer does not leak hate out of his eyes, it's just overflowing dt.
7.killer's lv is 999999. His stats are 1(99)atk, 20hp and 1def. Although he is insanely durable (got his arm ripped off and didn't even flinch for example).
8.killer fights color for fun.
9.he wants help but nightmare is always there to keep him numb.
10.killer's hallucinations are so bad he can't tell what's real or not anymore.
11.killer is very romantic and tried to flirt with nightmare at one point.
Thoughts: it has some fanon stuff but it's not bad. Killer is an amazing character. The story is definetly a bit complicated, especially when you get to the multiverse stuff but it's fun. 9/10.

 Aftertale, error and fatal error 

https://undertale-au-fanon.fandom.com/wiki/Sans/Aftertale?so=search
https://undertale-au-fanon.fandom.com/wiki/Error_Sans?so=search
https://undertale-au-fanon.fandom.com/wiki/Sans/Fatal_Error?so=search
1.all 3 of them were classic sans at one point. Error and fatal error used to be geno. Error happened when geno ended up in the anti-void after playing with his determination. Fatal happened when error tried to kill another geno.
2.error has 5 blue tongues.
3.error's stats are rng based. They can go from 1 to 9999999.
4.fatal error constantly sees code.
5.error is terrified of fresh.
6.when fatal isn't stealing code he can actually be pretty kind to other people.
7.geno constantly bleeds from his chest and his right eye is melting.
8.error is very myopic and has a phobia of touch.
9.if some would turn error back into geno he would commit suicide due to the immense guilt of destroying all those aus.
10.error is good at knitting.
Thoughts: they're all pretty great aus. Aftertale is 6/10, error is 8/10 and fatal is 7/10.

 Fresh 

https://undertale-au-fanon.fandom.com/wiki/Fresh?so=search
1.fresh doesn't like swearing and censors all swear words.
2.fresh was a joke character based on dippy fresh from gravity falls (it was gravity falls, right?).
3.fresh is emotionless. But the parasite can feel anger or fear.
4.fresh!ink isn't the result of fresh possesing ink. Instead it's another fresh parasite that liked ink's style so he wanted to copy it.
Thoughts: he funky, 8/10

 ___tale 

https://undertaleoc.fandom.com/wiki/Ink!Sans
1.ink is aroace.
2.when ink loses his emotions he becomes weaker due to losing the paint inside his body. Eventually he would become an empty husk that can be controlled.
3.ink doesn't really want a soul. He considers his paint vials an advantage and doesn't want to kill someone for the sake of a soul.
4.ink's original design was inspired by another character who i don't know.
5.the doodlesphere is canonically buckets of paint instead of pieces of paper. The doodlesphere works like a web page.
6.ink and error haven't met canonically.
Thoughts: not much to say. I don't really care about ink that much, 6/10.

 Dreamtale 

https://undertale-au.fandom.com/wiki/Dreamtale
1.despite looking like sanses, dream and nightmare aren't. Their appearances were based on underswap sans.
2.if dream were to touch nightmare he would melt and die.
3.nightmare fan kill an au with his aura alone.
4.the only way to kill nightmare is to remove all negativity in the multiverse or completely vaporise his cells (good luck doing either of those).
Thoughts: i don't care much about this au either. I'm not even gonna rate it. But i do like nightmare, he's cool as fuck.

 Undertale: insanity 

https://undertale-au-fanon.fandom.com/wiki/Sans/Insanity?so=search
1.the blood on sans is the result of brutally killing frisk over and over again.
2.sans has 99atk, 1def and less than 20hp (the wiki i linked has some stuff wrong)
3.sans has infinite stamine and never gets tired.
4.sans prefers melee combat. He only uses the blasters if he's panicking or annoyed.
5.canonically he isn't scared of gaster. If he were to see him he'd get angry. The injection removed fear from sans' mind.
6.sans is half braindead.
7.the dt injection was condensed determination according to zeerodanteero. According to the new owner, utf, the injection was dt that was modified to make monsters handle it.
8.sans' theme is impossible to play in the right key on an actual piano because the notes slide between c and d minor.
9.papyrus is indeed alive.
10.according to the old music video frisk would reset for a pacifist route if they managed to beat sans. "I'll go back to the life you don't want" was the lyric that mentioned it.
11.sans and the human are still fighting to this very day.
Thoughts: i love his goofy ahh. His themes are great too. But no, insanity isn't stronger than murder. Both of them can win if they were to fight, 6.5/10.

 Xtale 

https://xtaleunderverse.fandom.com/wiki/Undertale
1.xgaster's full name may be xgaster xgaster but it was likely just a joke.
2.the x in xgaster is indeed pronounced unlike x!muffet for example.
3.in the maniaknight underverse dubs alphys was voiced by jakei....i think? I'm sounding like a real dumbass here but i think it was jakei.
4.cross prefers to be called "cross" instead of sans.
5.cross' code is x's instead of binaries. The other xtale characters more than likely have that type of code too.
6.cross loves choccy milk
Thoughts: kinda complicated. I like the au tho. Cross is cool, muffet is adorable. The art and animation are great, 8/10

 Glitchturd 

I am not even gonna respect it by linking a wiki. Fuck this au.
1.cami's an awful person that defended a pedophile on discord and also mocked the victim.
2.cami treated jakei like shit.
3.cami traced a lot of stuff
4.betty is a shitty self insert villain who could've won easily, but she's so fucking incompetent that she grabs defeat from the jaws of victory...and then gets a powerup to help her escape.
5.alphys got killed off to make undyne straight
6.character assassination everywhere.
7.the music was good tho, thanks to nyxtheshield.
Thoughts: one of the worst aus i've seen. 💩/10

 Axetale 

https://undertale-au-fanon.fandom.com/wiki/Axetale?so=search (warning, very graphic. Take some ketamine before seeing this au)
1.sans does not actually have a thing for ketchup, he only drank it as a joke.
2.flowey is powerful yet rotting if he doesn't sustain himself he will fall apart and die.
3.the monster population dropped from 2.2 million to 100000.
4.sans can make other weapons too, but he's gotten so good with his axe he doesn't need anything else.
5.if repairs aren't made the core will explode, destroying mt.ebott, the city and the countryside.
6.there are no children left in the underground. Thet all got eaten by their parents. If the hunger isn't stopped monsterkind will die out.
7.gaster can't get infected because he's in the void.
8.the hunger can be stopped if you push flowey to the void but it's easier said than done.
9.error can easily close the hole in the void caused by the glitch but he doesn't want to. The au is basically destroying itself so less work for error.
10.axetale is an offshoot of horrortale. The creators of axetale themselves have confirmed they were inspired by horrortale.
11.a whole game was planned at one point
12.the au had an entire ost but it got taken down, nobody knows who did it lmao.
Thoughts: it's a drug trip of an au. The art is actually very good. It has it's flaws but honestly it's decent, 7/10.

 Coretale 

https://undertale-au.fandom.com/wiki/CORETale
1.frisk's full name is frisk marusina. They're slovakian.
2.frisk has burn marks on thir back.
3.the reason the omega timeline is a white void is because the creator of the au got lazy when designing it. A happy accident that resulted in a place with a very distinct aesthetic.
4.frisk's original design was a bit different. Their legs were cut off and bleeding profusely, they had a giant wound on their stomach and could manipulate and levitate electronic objects.
5.frisk has ptsd.
Thoughts: the skrunkly. Other than that not many thoughts on the au. It's cool, and the multiverse would be less interesting without them. 6/10

 Dustbelief 

https://undertale-au-fanon.fandom.com/wiki/Papyrus/Dustbelief
1.it isn't explained where papytus got the coat from other than "from his closet"
2.the reason for the design was because aude-javel did not want to make papyrus look generic
3.the orange in papyrus' eyes symbolize bravery (fighting the human no matter what). The blue and green symbolize integrity and kindness (who papyrus once was)
4.the sword came from an old disbelief drawing aude made.
Thoughts: the only reason it doesn't get a 10/10 is because i prefer dusttale. The story is great, papyrus is awesome and dripped the fuck out, 9.99/10
Section B: combo, stack aus and the name order.
Combo aus are made when you combine 2 different aus. Swapfell and fellswap for example.
Stack aus happen when you stack the same au. Swapswap, dustdusr, etc.
The name order has different combo results.
Swapfell is underswap felled. Some trivia cuz' why not.
1.papyrus is pretty greedy and usually harasses others or steals from them.
2.sans isn't allowed in the royal guard because he's a loose cannon.
3.papyrus' bones are yellow due to smoking so much.
Thoughts: 7/10
Fellswap is underfell swapped. This one has a lot of takes. Fellswap gold, wich takes place in the cold war (no rating for this one, pretty decent tho), fellswap red (also no rating for this one) and fellswap emerald (the best one, 7/10)
Fellswap emerald trivia: papyrus sells overpriced chicken nuggets. Papyrus is 24 years old while sans is 21.
Other examples of combo aus include dustswap and swapdust.
Swapdust happens when underswap papyrus goes dusttale
Dustswap happens when undertale papyrus is the murderer and sans is the mentor
Swapshift/history recast and storyswap are also different. History recast happens when the characters of underswap get shifted. Storyswap happens when the roles of storyshift swap.
Swapspin and spinswap use the same logic.
Stack aus are a bit simpler to explain.
They essentially are an au². These have many takes.
Some good ones are. Dustdust: faded memory, dustdust: shadowy echoes. Horrortale: hell's back, horrortale: petrified leftovers, something new: in control and undertale hatred unleshed.
Section C: outcodes and incodes.
Outcodes are characters that exist outside their own aus, or characters that don't have one. Fresh, error, ink, fatal error, core, dream, nightmare and even killer are outcodes.
Characters that don't exist outside their aus are incodes.
The entire multiverse works on code basically.
Section vitamin D: extra stuff. These probably deserve their own sections but this post is already gigantic so i'm just skimming through these.
1.horrordust is currently owned by itshorrorsansplayz. The canon name is horrordust: whispers from hell. Jbones used to own it but gave all his aus away.
2.killerdust is currently owned by hoderline and swappy. Ihsp used to own it too, along with horrorkiller. But he lost interest in those.
3.carno-power used to own dustdust but gave it away, no idea who has it now.
This post was a long one. I probably made myself look like a fucking deranged lunatic, but there ya have it folks. An entire guide to this hellhole we call a fandom.

When looking for heavy-duty folding chairs under $1000, you want to consider factors like weight capacity, durability, comfort, and additional features.
Here are some of the best options available:

1. Lifetime Commercial Grade Folding Chair

• Weight: 12.2 Pounds
• Material: ‎Polyethylene, Alloy Steel
• Features: Portable, Lightweight, Durability, Foldable, Cushion Availability

2. Costco padded folding chairs

• Weight: 7.2 Pounds
• Material: Alloy Steel
• Features: Durable,Lightweight

Personally I've ben very satisfied with the chairs from costco. They're not marketed as big and tall, but after I sat on a friend's camping chair and it collapsed under me, I have been careful about camping chairs to save myself that embarrassment. The Costco chairs feel super solid and I would definitely recommend them.

Via Fellow Redditor

3. Flash Furniture Hercules Series Folding Chair

• Weight: 36 Pounds
• Material: ‎Resin, Foam, Vinyl
• Features: Ready-to-use with no assembly required, Hassle free stackable storage

4. Cosco Resin Folding Chair with Molded Seat and Back

• Weight: 7.5 Pounds
• Material: Plastic, Resin material and steel frame
• Features: Molded resin for comfort, powder-coated frame, weather-resistant

5. National Public Seating 3200 Series Premium Folding Chair

• Weight: 300 lbs
• Material: Hinged steel frame folding chairs with vinyl upholstered cushions
• Features: Two U-shaped double riveted cross braces

6. ALPS Mountaineering King Kong Camping Chairs

• Weight: 13 Pounds
• Material: 600D Polyester
• Features: Portable, Arm Rest, Cup Holders

My chairs showed up yesterday. The King Kong is a beast. Very strong and sturdy. I feel like it will definitely be worth the money. I got a couple of other chairs from them, too. One is a folding chair with a footrest. It's definitely not as sturdy as the King Kong, but seems like it will last and will work well for my wife. The 3rd chair was a folding low rocking chair. Very cool design and very sturdy. Seems like it would be great chair to sit by a campfire in, and my son loves it!
Alps Mountaineering King Kong. It’s supports 800 lb and is very burly. Folds up but is larger than most fold up chairs. I’m 6’2” and it’s big like easily support someone much taller.

Via Fellow Redditor

7. Big Agnes Big Six Camp Chair

• Weight: 10 Grams
• Material: Aluminum
• Features: ‎Lightweight,Premium,Sturdy,Waterproof

Big agnes big six. They have all metal frames unlike alot of this style chair. The big six is wider and taller so you don't have the pinching of the torso/back that many smaller chairs do.

This curated collection is the result of collaborative efforts with enthusiastic contributors from diverse online communities, including forums CampingGear, BuyItForLife, camping
For more Helpful shopping, Deals, Sales, follow us ThisMadeMeBuy

Hello everyone,
I'm excited to share that I've reached the 1,000-hour mark in my Spanish comprehensible input journey! A lot has happened since my last update at 600 hours that took me forever to reach due to work, my baby turning 2, and my businesses. I want to provide a detailed review of my progress and experiences.

Intro:

Hello hello t's been a year since my last post. Over the past 12 months, I've been dedicated to my Spanish immersion journey despite some ups and downs. Here’s a look at my progress and what I’ve learned along the way.
Daily Routine:

• Hours per day: I aim for 1 hour of Comprehensible Input (CI) daily. I found that 1 hour is the most sustainable for me compared to the 2-3 hours I was doing. Parenting and expanding business hours made me adjust.
• Changes: The majority of my CI time involved listening to Spanish podcasts during my 30-minute commute to and from work in the past, but I have switched to videos. I enjoy Learn Spanish and Go and Españolistos. I also dabble in Spanish music and occasionally challenge myself with faster Spanish content like Telemundo. However I have been primarily focusing on videos now.

YouTube: For the past 300+ hours, I have really been focusing on videos. This is my main way of getting content. I stopped subscribing to Dreaming Spanish with Pablo, not because it isn't a good platform, but because I got tired of the videos and was only using it for its hour tracker, which I now use Google Sheets for. My main channel is RichardBetaCode. He plays tons of video games with 10+ years of content. I'm currently going through all the OG Resident Evils, sometimes with subtitles on, sometimes off. When not watching Richard's channel, I'm on Luisito Comunica's channel where he travels the world to interesting places. I used to watch Mateo & Lisanna but got rubbed the wrong way due to the age gap in the relationship, clickbait, and their overly positive reviews and never being negative.
Video Watching: Video watching definitely suits my attention span. I used to use Language Reactor for videos with Spanish audio and subtitles, which greatly improved my reading and listening skills, but I haven't used it for about a year. I want to get back into it but life has been happening. I wish they had a mobile version; it would be a lot more helpful for my style of learning. I honestly have no idea how many words I know right now because of that, but it is definitely a lot more.
When not watching video games in Spanish, I play games with Spanish audio. I'm currently on Resident Evil 4 remake and The Last of Us 2.
Tutor CI:

• Sessions: I started working with a new tutor around the 800-hour mark.
• Experience: My sessions have focused on conversation practice and comprehension for the first 30 minutes, followed by workbook exercises he created.
• Progress: I’ve noticed significant improvements in understanding spoken Spanish, although I need a lot more help.

Main Areas:

Reading: By far my biggest area of fluency. CI does a fantastic job in this area. I feel like YouTube videos with subtitles in the target language only are the way to go. In my opinion, CI does not help with phrases or grammar, and at that point, you need to switch to a tutor, find a partner, or complete immersion. I have a new patient who relied solely on CI and never had a tutor; his target language was Portuguese. He eventually switched to just talking with a partner and saw a gigantic improvement. After 200 hours, he is very confident in his Portuguese and has gone to Brazil.
Listening: While CI is good for watching videos or podcasts, I can get easily distracted and need to refocus myself. I also go back and forth in my head with direct translations, which messes me up because then I miss the remaining context. If I relax my mind and just let it flow, the Spanish comes to me easier. I feel as I get more hours, it will become easier. The issue with YouTubers is that their speaking is different compared to natural conversation, so there’s a bit of a learning curve. Also, depending on the country, the Spanish can be very fast.
Speaking/Writing: My weakest area. CI doesn't help with speaking, at least for me. I still do a lot of direct translations from English to Spanish. The only time I get to speak is with my tutor, and that 1 hour is definitely not enough. The only way to improve this area is by increasing speaking hours, which I plan to do more compared to watching videos.

Key Insights:

1. I need to start embracing mistakes and understand they are part of the experience, but it is hard not to get discouraged.
2. Using a mix of resources helps keep the learning process from getting stale.
3. I need to increase my speaking hours to really improve, and that will be my main area of focus. I plan to visit a Spanish-speaking country, most likely Peru or Bogotá, Colombia, depending on my schedule.

Looking Forward:

I’m aiming for the 1,500-hour mark next. My goal is to improve my speaking fluency and achieve native-like comprehension.
Tests to show you where I am at:
Translating to English:

Spanish Paragraph:

Durante los últimos meses, he estado dedicando una hora diaria a mi aprendizaje de español. Este método de inmersión ha sido muy efectivo, pero también he enfrentado algunos desafíos. A veces, es difícil mantener la motivación, especialmente cuando estoy ocupado con el trabajo y la familia. Sin embargo, he notado una mejora significativa en mi comprensión auditiva y en mi capacidad para leer textos en español. Estoy emocionado por seguir avanzando y alcanzar un nivel de fluidez aún mayor.

My Translation:

During the last months, I have dedicated an hour daily to learning Spanish. This method of immersion has been very effective, but also I have been faced with some challenges. Sometimes it is difficult to maintain motivation, especially when I am busy with work and my family. However, I have noted more improvement in my compression in listening and my capacity to read text in Spanish. I am engaged in advancing and alcanzar?? a level of better fluency.

Corrected Translation:

During the last months, I have been dedicating an hour daily to my Spanish learning. This immersion method has been very effective, but I have also faced some challenges. Sometimes, it is difficult to maintain motivation, especially when I am busy with work and family. However, I have noticed significant improvement in my listening comprehension and my ability to read texts in Spanish. I am excited to continue advancing and reach a higher level of fluency.
Translating to Spanish: Last summer, I decided to start a small garden in my backyard. I planted a variety of vegetables, including tomatoes, cucumbers, and bell peppers. It was a lot of work, but seeing the plants grow and eventually harvest the vegetables was incredibly satisfying. Every morning, I would water the plants and check for any pests. By the end of the season, I had more vegetables than I knew what to do with and shared them with my neighbors.

My Translation:

En El pasado verano, decidi empiazar un Jardin pequnio en my patio. plante vegatales various, including tomatoes, cucumbers y bell peppers. Fue mucho tiempo pero viendo El plantes grow y harvest El vegetabels fue incredible satisfecho. Cada manana, deberia water los plantes y observar por any insects. Por El fin de season. tenia mucho vegetables sabia que estar con y shared con mi neighbors.

Corrected Translation:

El verano pasado, decidí empezar un jardín pequeño en mi patio trasero. Planté varios vegetales, incluyendo tomates, pepinos y pimientos. Fue mucho trabajo, pero ver las plantas crecer y eventualmente cosechar los vegetales fue increíblemente satisfactorio. Cada mañana, regaba las plantas y revisaba si había alguna plaga. Al final de la temporada, tenía más vegetales de los que sabía qué hacer y los compartí con mis vecinos.
As you can see my translation from Spanish to English is far better than me translating to Spanish. Looking over the corrected translation to Spanish I can see where I made mistakes and kick myself in the ass when I forget the words.

Conclusion:

Thank you for following my journey after multiple years of doing this. For anyone on a similar path, I highly recommend the CI method if traditional methods haven’t worked for you. Although it is a longer path, I feel it is worth it but definitely need to implement a tutor.
Feel free to ask any questions or share your own experiences. ¡Buena suerte a todos!
shout out to for his fantastic site that is Dreamingspanish.com . If you are wanting to learn Spanish recommend using his program.
Shout out to my Spanish professor Carlos - Italki Link to his profile
My previous post at 600 hours: 600 hours post

I graduated college last month but this story starts almost three years ago. Sophomore year, six of my close friends and I lived on a co-ed floor. At the beginning of the school year we all met this girl (I'll refer to her as R) and I was head over heels for her right off the bat. I continued to talk to her and within a month or two we were pretty good friends. One Friday afternoon, my friends and I (plus two girls) were going to a local lake to go cliff jumping so I asked her on a whim if she wanted to come too. She said yes and we had a great time and she eventually started hanging out in our friend group (of 7 guys) often (including getting lunch with us). Pretty much every weeknight she would come sit in my room and we'd talk for hours; we weren't more than friends but some of our conversations were very flirty. In the spring, we had class together so we spent even more time together walking to and from class, studying, etc. By this point (and honestly way before that) everyone knew how much I liked her (her friends, my friends, our whole floor). Then, the week before spring break she came back from a party one night and told her friends and a couple of my friends that she was into me (I didn't know at the time). She then came over to my room and invited me over to hers. I went over there and when we were talking she said that it was really cute that I had woken up early in the morning just to say bye to her when she was catching an early flight a few weeks before. In my head, one part of me was thinking if this could possibly mean that she was into me; but the other part of me was like this is too good to be true. After a few moments, I worked up the courage to ask her what she meant by that and stuff and she just giggled. I kissed her and we ended up hooking up. We hooked up a couple more times that week and then went on spring break (she didn't come with my friends and I btw). When we got back, she told me she thought it over and actually just wanted to be friends. I was devastated but I accepted that and we went back to being friends after about a week.
Fast forward to the summer when I get a text from my closest friend in the friend group in July saying that he had something to tell me. He proceeds to send me audio messages saying that he's now dating R and they starting hooking up right before the end of the school year without telling anybody. I was honestly pretty over her romantically at this point and had other stuff going on so I didn't make a big deal out of it, even though it did feel a little bit scummy. Him, R, and I were very good friends before Spring Break (he talked to her the second most out of our friends) and I did notice them seeming to get closer towards the end of the school year. There was also one time that we went to his room at the end of the year and he wouldn't let us come inside. He made up a lot of crazy-sounding excuses when he poked his head through the crack, which was suspicious at the time, but it all makes sense now. Anyways, him and R's two best friends hated each other due to some drama from the fall, so when they found out she was dating him they were pissed. Some stuff went down and R told one of her best friends that she didn't care about her feelings in the matter at all. R's two best friends and other friends (other girls from the floor, many of whom I wasn't super friendly with) all thought that was shitty of her because of breaking girl code and because of how that would make me feel. They all abandoned her as a friend, and her and my friend dated all of junior year. The relationship was very toxic and abusive (details of which I learned about this year), probably because they each had their own deep-rooted issues and her losing her friends over it all. He was also worried she would go get with other guys since she's very flirtatious, so he wouldn't leave her side at all. They were together 24/7. I tried to be friends with both of them despite everything, because she did say that she wasn't interested in a relationship with me before they started dating, even if they went about things seemed a little scummy (I feel like he could've talked to me about it up front and been honest when he wanted to start dating her). However, he was a terrible friend that year. He was inconsiderate of everyone's time. An example is when I went to get lunch with them one day at the dining hall. They came late (probably because they were stuck in an argument beforehand) so I was there with my food eating by myself. They come in and he's already talking about needing to leave because his class is in 20 minutes across campus, so he wants to get the food to-go. She tells him to go and she'll eat with me. He can't stand that idea so he argues and argues and argues with her until she finally says she'll go with him to class. So I just get stuck there eating alone. All my friends (including him and R) studied abroad together in the spring and I stayed on campus, so I didn't have to deal with them that semester. They end up breaking up that summer.
Senior year comes around and he tells my friends and I the details about the relationship that he never told us while it was ongoing. We knew it was super unhealthy but we didn't know how abusive it was. He asks me to choose between being friends with him and her, and I'm like why do I have to choose, I tried being friends with you guys last year so I'll do the same this year. He doesn't take it super well and I'm kind of weirded out but whatever. I ended up getting lunch with R twice that semester and talking to her on FaceTime once in a while, so it's not like I was spending all my time around her like I had Sophomore year. Around January she got in a fight with her roommate and called me asking if she could sleep over since she didn't feel comfortable sleeping in her apartment that night. I said sure and she did; we cuddled but didn't kiss or hookup. When my friends and I would go out on Thursday nights we would see her at the bar pretty much every time. She would come up and hug me and we would talk. Then around spring break I had a falling out with my friends. I could feel us growing a little distant before that but they cited two reasons for not wanting me around anymore. 1) Me being friends with R made them uncomfortable (all/most of them, not just the ex) and 2) me and a different kid having problems (not relevant to this story).
When I talked to them, I told them if anything I feel like I had been wronged in the whole thing since I didn't hold it over either one of their (R and the ex) heads and I was close friends with both of them before they started dating and I tried to be both their friends afterwards. Their argument was that even though he didn't show it like I did, he also liked her before they started dating and that "she was never my girl." He's also the glue of the group; he's the closest with everyone and is kind of like the leader, which I think influenced their opinions a good amount. AITAH for trying to stay friends with both of them after they broke up?

I'm just curious to know where/how people got hooked :D Would be cool to hear some stories. I'll start
I bought some courses off udemy to update my JavaScript knowledge as I had become a bit rusty over the years and some of the more fun new JS changes had all but whizzed me by. The course I stuck with was from Andrei Neagoie, who later started ZTM Academy and they have a Discord server with a pretty lively community, which is where my story starts.
On the ZTM discord server a couple of years ago, before December, there was an announcement that there would be a community event surrounding Advent of Code, with a chance for prizes. I had no idea what Advent of Code was, but I took a little look and was immediately blown away by the amazing silly and engaging nature of it. The promise of prizes lured me in, but the coding challenges themselves made me stay! :D
That year I engaged heavily. Being out of a job, and wanting to update my JS knowledge, I got to work applying myself to the problems quite heavily. I am mostly self-taught, so I do not have the same background as a lot of people do with CS degrees. This proved to be a challenging obstacle as there were a lot of concepts that were quite foreign to me; even as basic as Big O notation.
I hacked away doing the best I could for the first few days, and it was quite easy. I could feel the challenges getting harder as the days went on though, and I started engaging more and more with the ZTM community. They had set up a dedicated channel for the event where there were people from all skill levels helping each other out, learning and teaching the concepts and methods needed so that each of us could find our own solutions.
It was one of the most transforming experiences of my career, and it has sent me down a path that is much more focused on quality and foundational understanding of CS concepts. I have a good job today, where I get the chance to apply myself, and the thirst for knowledge and learning has stayed strong since that first Advent of Code.
I'm really happy I stumbled into that ZTM course, and into their Discord, because without them, I'm not sure I'd have ever come across or gotten interested in AoC in the way I have now. The interactions with other people and communal learning aspect of it made it into my most anticipated event of the year :D
I can safely say that Advent of Code has transformed my life, both personally and professionally. Eric Wastl is a gem of a human, and I deeply appreciate all his work. And I can't give enough shoutouts to the ZTM community for igniting the spark in me, and keeping it alive with their efforts to be helpful, patient and encouraging.
That's enough rambling from me, hope somebody has an input or two on this :D

Title. Currently job searching but I’m not sure exactly what it is I’m looking for. Preferably something not retail, but that’s about the only people who would realistically hire me. I have a degree, which is a bachelors of science in video game design, and (shocker!) it’s basically useless. Even though my advisor helped me use the program to do architectural visualization, which uses some of the same programs, my experience isn’t enough and I have absolutely no portfolio to show for myself. As such, I can’t get my foot in the door anywhere with an opening related to what I actually went to school for.
Right now my plan is to go back to school and transfer into a masters in accounting program. But it will be at least 2 years before I can complete it. I want to be productive in that time and if I can help it, not work some dead end job.
Again, I’d prefer something that’s not retail but that’s my only experience. I just want a consistent schedule, like a standard Mon-Fri 9-5. I’m tired of all the weekend shifts, the closings, and especially so with openings immediately after. I’m tired of the customer interactions. But I feel like there’s nothing else I can do.
I’m good with office software and I have experience with programs like AutoCAD, Revit, a little bit of 2020 Design, also Adobe Illustrator & Photoshop. I’ve tried to get jobs at kitchen designers before but they either say I don’t have enough experience or end up going with another candidate anyways because they’re not willing to really train. EVERYONE WANTS 3-5 YEARS FOR ENTRY LEVEL!!!!
And I can’t really go into game design despite it being my degree. The projects me and my groups made were not portfolio worthy. I’m honestly not sure how we even graduated. When I had to present with my group our projects on stage during my senior year, I was embarrassed. They were awful. I’m decent at 3d modeling structures and such albeit slow at it, but I can’t really do texturing or modeling characters at all. Definitely not coding. A large game studio isn’t going to hire me, and I don’t feel I could contribute enough to a small indie studio. And again, I have no portfolio to really show for myself.
I just don’t know what to do right now. Maybe things will turn around if I complete my masters degree since an accounting degree is bound to be much more helpful than a video game design degreee. But until then, I feel like I’m wasting so much time and potential and getting nowhere.

I’ve done my research in basically complete isolation aside from my advisors, almost never participating in the departments or networking or anything else. I’m truly not disinterested in these things, at least not inherently. I would love to be part of a team working towards real-world change or doing exciting collaborative research, and I have always fulfilled my immediate/mandatory obligations. My advisors have been passably happy with me and I have written 8 decent papers over the last 5 years. I’m just really bad at motivating myself in this type of remote-work environment. I probably average 4 hours of work a day because I’m distracted and feel zero interest a lot of the time, and work weekends and many holidays to compensate for the lack of productivity. I always end up being lazy and not putting in the activation energy required to do things like read papers or network, even though I know intellectually they are necessary in the long run. If something isn’t mandatory in some capacity (see: producing research), I probably don’t do it.
Yet, I enjoy some aspects of my research: the algorithms, the coding, the data analysis generally, and the creativity of it (until it’s no longer new and exciting lol).
My impression of successful scientists is as being very self-motivated, but I think that I lost a lot of my interest in learning once the rigid structure of K-12 education was removed, and I’ve always avoided other people more than I should.
My hope is to find an in-person role with more structure, because this is untenable in the long run (+ not very enjoyable). Wondering if anyone feels the same/has advice for how to fix just not caring enough. I’m at the point where my apathy has led to me having huge gaps in the fundamentals and career experience that make me question whether I can rightly continue. I already know I don't want to be a professor, but...should I try to find a different type of career altogether?

Builder.AI, an organisation who uses AI for nothing but marketing. Lots of organization outsources their employee to BuilderAI, to work on their projects.

Why not to work with them ?

• Developer Experience : Builder uses React for web, React Native for mobile and ROR in backend, I work with React Native. They have their own trash wrapper around fetch and navigation which make simple things complex, everything is run on Events, you call api somewhere else and handle response totally somewhere else. Till now hooks is not normalized here. Stuck with old RN versions, I always have hard time finding a compatible version of third party native modules to work with. And absolutely 0 chances of getting exposed to other tech.
• Useless yet forced UI Engine : They have an useless tool that converts Figma to ReactNative code. Useless because those code can't be used, lists are hard coded, each and every styles is made with "absolute" positions. Coding the design by myself is much faster and robust than refactoring the generated codes. But guess what, they have issues with that too, they would deduct hours used in coding the UI.
  
• IDE : I have no access to Android Studio GUI or XCode, have to code in a Guacamole instance (basically RDP/VNC through web) which really sucks in terms of visual clarity.
  
• They provide Simulators through appetize.io which doesn't persist data.
  
• The metro bundler disconnects from simulator if you didn't touch the simulator for 5-10 seconds or autosave is not on. Even so, it will get disconnected soon.
  
• You won't find contrast between "#FFFFFF" and "#EEEEEE" in that IDE, it sucks that much.
  
• Team Lead/Sensei : We don't get to connect with these peoples unless some really urgent issue exists. Half of them have no idea how the pipeline works in the projects and never helps. (I know some good guy exists, talking about majority)
  
• Hour Tracking and Offset: They would try their best to deduct work hours in billing with BS reasons. It should be handled between organization and BuilderAI, but that isn't the case. Devs, designers have to suffer and take mental pressure for the hours. You work for them 160 hours a month (actually we end up working more), in return they will approve 70-90 hours and put BS reasons, or sometimes no reasons given at all. Till March, no one knew what was wrong with code. Recently they added a new code analysis tool, which is faulty, it doesn't generate reports based on MR, 99% of the time it generates reports for whole project, and they offset the tracked hour based on the wrong reports. To tackle this we need to create a new support ticket for every fkn MR that the report generated was misleading, its not like they don't know it is faulty, It is just on purpose to harass the devs and deduct hours. These offsets feels kinda random or based on project location maybe, I know some devs who doesn't follow these rules yet they got no issues. Even though my org knows these are false claims, I am damn sure my appraisal is having direct affect for these BSs. One of my teammate (from other org, was working together in a project) got fired from his org as BuilderAI refused to pay for his 500+ hours, while he did nothing wrong, We both followed PMs instructions. My current org however didn't fire me till now, but it can happen any day. I don't know how many other devs have suffered the same.
  

Please do yourself a favour, don't join any organisation affiliated with BuilderAI.
Edit : fixed a typo

(15F) I've recently came to the conclusion that I like one of my friends, but i'm not really sure on how to go about telling them if I do. Some friends have recommended trying to drop hints when we go to hang out together next week but i'm not sure how. I’m like physical touch personified, I’d burry myself in my friends skin if I could, so being overly touchy is already a norm for me and that wouldn't land. And our friend group is the type to flirt and things of the sort as joke, so there's nothing I can do short of like making out with him or something that intimate that I could do to hint anything.
I'm probably not confessing now and if I ever do, it'll be sometime in the future since they just recently broke up with their gf and we were all friends, and that's so awkward. That's another problem i'm having, they broke up really recently and that's like so not girl code and it just feels wrong. They’re also slightly older (turning 17 soon) than me in a way that could possibly seem weird at our ages and that also means they’re graduating soon. I’m just not sure what to do or if I should even do anything.

So right now I use webstorm while learning html and css, I'm a relatively new programmer and I love all the nice features it has. So I really want to use zed, I love how fast and light weight it feels and overall am just a big fan of the overall "mission goal" of the dev team for the editor.
So, that all being said, I just had one or two things that I wanted to kind of prod and prick about to see where exactly the project is, since I feel like its actually somewhat close to being usable for me depending on if some or all of these features are or will be put in.

1. Color icons, something like the atom material icon pack in jetbrains products or even a vscode icon pack is just a must for me, the mono-color icon stuff is very visually appealing, for about 10 seconds, then I really being to miss the very nice colored icons that also kind of give a nice visual for what my code base looks like IMO. This one I am hoping is in the soonTM coming list.
   
2. Collapsable folders that are empty, so if you have an assets folder and inside that only an images folder, they collapse visually into assets/folders/content.png or whatever else. Not a deal breaker by any means but def a nice thing to have.
   
3. Better auto complete for html tags? I am by no means expecting IntelliJ/WebStorm level auto completion (or at least not right now) but here are some weird things, from a begginer programmers persepective i should add:
   

• Hitting tab on an html element only completes the name IE: `ht -> html`, versus also inserting the closing `>` or even the corresponding closing tag, which feels like I must be missing something since that def feels like it should be in there.
• When i do insert the `>` myself it does auto insert the closing tag, but then i guess im wondering why it just doesn't do that when I hit tab in the first place. But if its a preference thing, then a setting at the very least would be nice to enable that :)
• And last, when I hit enter to bring the closing tag to a new line so i can have text between an opening and closing paragraph tag for nicely ordered code for putting stuff between a div, it correctly inserts me between them but doesn't indent my cursor automatically, so might just be missing something but again, as small as these seem they are big things for me. But I could totally see that maybe from more experienced programmers point of view none of this matters or aren't actually issues which is totally fair but figured it was worth asking about.

1. Live-server plugin or built in support, the editor should work for me not force me to use an npm package and include a config file just to support what I feel like should be an auto include for any editor that wants to support live viewing of a web page. But again, I imagine this has to do with my experience with web stuff and that the more serious programmers don't need that due to frameworks providing built in live-server-esque stuff already.
   
2. Somewhere I can go to see what I can actually use for settings. It comes with great defaults but if i want to change anything, I have literally 0 idea how to do so. 0, nada, nothing on how to for example, enable collapsing empty directories. That feature could totally exist but I just have 0 idea how to find it, and I don't think diving through the default settings or trying to get the autocomplete for settings to show me the right thing is even a remotely serious suggestion, at least from me who is still in school learning to code, even tho I do spend a great deal of my personal time learning.
   

I am super close to just using this full time, I really feel like color icons and a better way to look at what settings and related options are available would probably be all I need, maybe better auto completion for html stuff or an option for it would be nice especially the better indenting for having a tag on two lines, but to be honest I feel like this is such a good editor that I am this close to recommending my CS department that I reguarly talk to to start recommending it instead of bluejay or replit cause its just that good and I defintely want to start using this full time instead of IntelliJ or Webstorm or even Neovim cause this feels like the editor I've kinda been looking for. Neovim feels too close to the metal/configurable and IntelliJ/WebStorm feels like the exact oppisite, trying to shoot birds with a golden WW2 style canon.
Sorry for the long read, and apologies if these have been asked before, love the project and best of luck to the team :)

• The whole AGI nonsense was introduced for large investments and people really started believing in artificial sentience by watching a bit too many sci-fi movies and not applying their own head.
• Yes , a vague imitation of sentience can be achieved in this century that can understand common sense and things like that to a certain length .
• Artificial sentience can never be achieved as one cannot put free will into a robot.
• Many people here have not understood the basics of philosophy such as notions of free will vs determinism etc , I would urge them to clear their perspectives regarding this otherwise we will be having an endless philosophical argument.

To constitute artificial sentience , three things are needed :

• Deterministic Aspect of Life : for determined decision making , reflexes , behavior , conditioning..
• Nature / Goal of the being : Self Sustainability .
• Free Will Aspect : Independent decision making(without being programmed) , feel , uniqueness , genuine empathy , independent moral code , soul / essence.

Why Free Will can not be achieved (if it was not obvious )

• The first two aspects can be achieved through complex neural networks and very large LLMs . But there is no way to achieve Free Will.
• The concept of life is and will be a forever mystery no matter how technologically advanced we get so is with the "secret" of the universe. Yes , we push the boundaries and the impossible becomes possible as we have seen it throughout the history BUT are we solving any of the original questions ? NO ! we are advancing and pushing boundaries of reality but the intrinsic questions remains unsolved.
• The only way to achieve AGI is if we find out what life is , but that is impossible because the moment anyone figures out what life is , the universe will cease to exist (maybe just my paranoid belief ).
• Now a good counter argument these "learned" people can come up with is that humans are also essentially made up of atoms as cells are made up of atoms. This is rather an interesting take. For this I have a theory/hypothesis of mine which is that consciousness is achieved when a system crosses a certain threshold of complexity and the nature of the system is self sustaining. I understand my hypocrisy here as I'm contradicting myself. But yeah , if someone is able to come with the equation or the "threshold" here , AGI might be achieved.

Edit : Corrected Grammatical errors , refactored into points , and removed rude / hate /unnecessary stuff.

Let me preface this by saying this isnt just about my MIL, but my husbands whole family. How such a wonderful and kind man came from this insanity is beyond me.
My husband, lets call him Daniel (26M), and I (26F) have been married for almost seven years. We have three beautiful children, and a happy life together. But our history is straight out of a telenovela. See, my husband and I met in high school. We are both members of the LDS church, so we come from similar religious backgrounds. My MIL never liked me. From the moment we met, I had an intense desire to be friends with Daniels family, and I was always met with disdain. I spent a huge chunk of our seven years married, plus six years dating, trying to get on the good side of my inlaws.... and most recently I have drawn a line.
In the beginning of 2024, on my youngest daughters first birthday to be precise, we were evicted by our landlord (long story short, there was a difference in the definition of "up to health code" when he tried to raise our rent and he took it upon himself to kick us out because of our picky nature about the mold and roaches. But I digress.) In this moment of panic and in need of help to get everything out in our allotted three days, I called upon my inlaws and my family to see if we could get some help. My mother in law offered to watch the kids, while my father in law offered to come help. Now, to understand this next part, you need to understand that my husband and I are avid gamers. We play video games together, as a family, with my brothers, and with friends from around the world that we met on the game and that weve come to know as family. This is a big no-no in Daniels family. So to "teach us a lesson" my FIL came to help, but decided to sit on his phone the whole time. I later learned that he even told Daniels siblings not to come help. He was trying to show us that video games waste time, but what he did was hurt us in a time that we had no time to be taught lessons. We spent the whole day doing everything ourselves. My family didnt come, and my friends were busy since it was such short notice. The only time my FIL got off his phone was when I asked him to drive my kids to his house so MIL could watch them. But heres the kicker.... he only got off his phone to start the car. Continuing to play his phone, he not only didnt listen when I said these are my precious babies in the car (1yr, 3yrs, and 4yrs), he also ran a red light and couldve killed us all. When I confronted him about it, he told me that he was just showing me how video games are a waste of time. I never, in any of my years of playing games, have touched my phone while driving. Nor have I treated someone else as if they werent important. I dropped everything when my MIL was having seizures and stayed with them for three weeks without games so you would think they would see that my life isnt just me being stuck to a screen. But whatever.
Later that day, after we had gotten everybody settled and everything out of our house (it was two bedrooms and my husband and i were working through the frustration), my brother in law decided to step in to speak with Daniel. We thought it was going to be fine, but no. Daniels brother is 17 and a senior in high school. He decided that we needed to know that Daniels decision to not serve a religious mission and attend a college, and instead get married and enter the workforce immediately was the worst decision of his life. Now, ive been told many times that im the biggest mistake hes ever made. This doesnt necessarily bother me anymore. Its when my MIL and FIL stepped in to let us know that hes right. They asked Daniel "what about those other more appropriate girls you were dating before you got married?" and this has thrown me through a LOOP. I was outraged. I let them know that this is not the time nor the setting to have a conversation about our marriage and our decisions. Daniel and I make enough to pay for our family and the things we need. But because we were just evicted and had nowhere to go right away, we instead let them have their words with us and accepted their offer to let us stay there for a while. Was this the best decision? No. But it was the only option we had.
We found a little apartment to rent inside our budget, but it wouldnt be available for a few months. In order to save money, we decided to bite the bullet and take the kindness that was given to us and stay where our kids would be fed and safe, and we would just get by on each others love and God. But we didnt realize just how hard the bullet was that we were about to be chomping. The next several weeks, we were met with many, many.... MANY issues. First off, we were willing to give up our video games while we were there, since my inlaws had views that they were satanic and hey, their house their rules. This isnt a huge issue, as we saw them as a hobby and not as a necessity. It wouldve been a non issue if they didnt let their son (17) and their daughter (13) stay up all night playing video games. Second, my inlaws are HUGE into religion. We are church goers, but were not going to say youre going to hell because you believe something different or you live something different. However, Daniels parents are AGRESSIVE. If you missed even one Sunday at church for any reason, you need to repent. As we tried to live peacefully through the next few months, we did everything Daniels parents asked. It was when I started to see more hypocrisy happening that things circled the drain.
My husband is known as the geek of the family, and this makes him the black sheep. Everyone else is what could be known as "popular". They are having parties constantly. His parents cared when Daniel did something like stay out too late, but when it comes to his siblings they are very out and open about sneaking out of the house to drive to another state and makeout with a girl, stealing doughnuts from krispy kreme dumpsters to throw at cars driving down the highway, and trying to hotwire peoples cars. These are all REAL THINGS that Daniels siblings have done that nobody cared about. I try to raise my kids as normal and polite, so i tried to keep them away from the stories that got told and got passed off as fine. Daniels little sister had friends over pretty often. Now remember, shes 13. She would be watching scary movies all the time. With my inlaws being super religious and judgy at any game they thought was innappropriate, I thought this was pretty weird for her to be allowed to do. So whenever she did this, I took my kids to the park or to a friends house. I didnt want them having nightmares. One day, my MIL asked me where I was going. I simply explained that because there was a horror movie playing in the room where my kids toys were, and I didnt want them getting upset because they wanted to spend time in that room, I was just going to take them to play at the park. MIL asked why. I told her that my view is that its not my job to judge what she allows her kids to watch, but I dont want my kids seeing that stuff until theyre old enough to be able to handle the thoughts and feelings they would get from it. She went BALLISTIC. "MY DAUGHTER IS NOT WATCHING A SCARY MOVIE, SHE WOULD NEVER, SHE ALWAYS TELLS ME WHAT SHES WATCHING." And when Daniels sister even said she was watching a rated R movie about the antichrist, MIL still didnt believe it and said I was being ridiculous for taking my kids out of the house.
From there it did not get any better, as MIL began to attack our parenting. My husband removing my son from the room while my daughter got dressed made him physically abusing (all he did was pick him up and walk out of the room.) My kids going into the kitchen to get cereal in the morning instead of asking me for help made me neglectful (I genuinely cant watch them if Im not woken up when they get up). But this is where I drew the line, and where my AITA question comes in. My daughter has been working on going potty for a year. Seriously. A year. Weve been slowly getting it, but shes stubborn and the eviction kind of messed it up and reverted back to just diapers for a while because hard times can do that. Weve been patient, and Ive been doing a lot of reading and researching on how to help her feel comfortable for this. I read that letting her go around in a diaper and not worry about her pants and shirt can really help. So I did that. She was in a diaper. We also incentivized "big girl panties" and getting rid of "baby diapers" for good. Do you want to be a baby forever? No! Lets go be a big girl and go potty! As far as i know, this is normal. But her being in a diaper in the summertime inside the house is incredibly abusive, and when my back was turned, my MIL put one of her shirts on my daughter. This thing was huge, and even more in the way than her own pants would be. So when I saw it I was like hey can you not? Im trying to help her potty train and be a big girl so shes not a baby. This set MIL off. SHE IS NOT A BABY, SHE IS A TODDLER. Well, yes, we know that, but my daughter is still only 3 and she needs clear distinction between baby and big girl to help her potty. WITHHOLDING CLOTHING FROM A CHILD IS ABUSIVE. Im not withholding clothing, Im just helping her with the initial step of recognizing that she needs to potty and only having one thing to remove could be helpful to her. THIS IS MY HOUSE AND I WILL TELL YOU WHEN I SEE THAT YOU ARE BEING A BAD PARENT AND THESE ARE MY GRANDBABIES. WHAT HAVE YOU DONE TO MY SON TO MAKE HIM AGREE TO BE ABUSIVE AND TREAT HIS CHILDREN IN THIS WAY. This... This was the final straw. I told her exactly this "I genuinely dont care who you are or who you think you are to my children, if you do not start to respect my husband and me as people and as the parents of our three children, I will take our kids and I will walk out that door and we will never return." She said "fine, go." And we did. This was the last time we saw any of his family, back in March.
She didnt think we were serious. Shes shown up at my moms house (who sent her away because my mom took my side) and she has texted my husband. She even texted me out of nowhere calling me a rat. Thats fine. Im a happy rat who is living without the intense drama and stress of my husbands family. I have told my husband that i will never stop him if he wants to see his family, but I will not be joining him. My kids can join if he wants that but I strongly suggest no for now. My husband has taken my side and has made that abundantly clear.
Now heres my question. Ive always been a people pleaser. Ive always wanted the approval of my inlaws because I thought that it would make our family stronger and better if we all got along. AITA to them for cutting them off? AITA to myself for giving up on my dream of a many generational happy family? Or should I even be feeling guilty? There was so much that I didnt even include in here, and so much that i felt like i was within my right to stand up for myself and my husband, but i feel like cutting them off has made a rift in the family and it makes me feel guilty. Should I try again later down the road? Theyve treated me like this for 13 years now.... Im always the one who apologizes and takes the blame...