Dollar western wear lubbock texas

Hey maybe the White House will invite her to talk about inflation while she wears her designer clothes and goes back to sleep in her million dollar home. Mikayla is the queen of the world 😂

I don't work for dollar tree, but my work is right down the road, so I'll swing by for a quick lunch or stop. My work has a similar attire green polo, and holy crap the amount of stupid questions people ask I don't know how y'all keep it together, there's price signs all over the place. I even wear my work's name tag, which clearly says Mccoys. Anyways, thanks for all y'all put up with as well as the morons, makes me glad I'm just a truck driver.

(I am just venting about a unique situation I suppose. I was wondering if anyone else feels the way I do. FOR CONTEXT: I grew up in a low socioeconomic and rural town that primarily specialized in deep fried southern food and cotton fields. This meant that, in typical manner of small town America, no one ever really leaves. My mom, dad, aunts, uncles, cousins, and grandparents all attended the same high school as me. One of my childhood friend’s grandmother was the person who signed off on my parents’ marriage license. (I did not know that fact until my mom showed me their old marriage certificate several years later and I saw the familiar looking last name of said friend.) Most townsfolk married someone from their high school class, my parents being no exception. Some even had the same teachers or principals as me. The demographics of my version of small town America was composed mostly of what my teenage self would refer to as “hick rednecks'' and “military jackasses.” (I was mostly referring to the two sides of my family: dad’s side being hick rednecks and mom’s side being military jackasses.) Overall, my hometown was an interesting mix of people ranging from God-fearing Baptists and self-proclaimed “country bumpkins”. There were lots of speeches about hell and brimstone during my childhood.
I’m not sure how to sum up my experience growing up Chinese American. Up until I was an adult, I rarely bothered to share the truth about my adoption. Mostly due to feeling exhausted from having to repeat the same stories to people again and again:
“China had an overpopulation problem in the 1900s. As a knee jerk reaction, the deeply conventional and patriarchal government implemented the One Child Policy. Basically, if parents had more than one kid, they would be heavily taxed and ostracized. Now, if said second child was a girl, they’d be in some hot shit. In Chinese culture, usually it is the son that takes care of their elderly parents while the daughter is married off and becomes part of her new family of in-laws. Being born a girl was seen as an inconvenience as their culture historically coveted males. This often led to Chinese baby girls to be left for dead in trash cans, taken by the government, or even killed. Having a second daughter was seen as a betrayal to the Chinese regime and for some reason warranted infanticide. Well, I’m obviously a girl who survived what essentially was a mass slaughter. Probably the second born daughter which was extra hot shit for my biological parents. They wanted better for me (maybe), so I was put up for adoption. I hung out in a Chinese orphanage for about half a year until two random white people decided to adopt me. They brought me back to America, and the rest is history. No, I have no memories as I was a literal baby. No, I do not know who my birth parents are since adoption was conducted anonymously since putting a child up for adoption was also considered treason. And personally, just my opinion, it’s a little fucked that the government is slightly more approving of murdering babies for something completely out of their control instead of putting them up for adoption.” Or something along those lines…
I was adopted by my mom and dad, but primarily raised by a single mom for most of my childhood. I guess my peers just assumed when they saw my mom, that my dad happened to be Asian which is where I must have gotten my “exotic” genes. My childhood was also very abusive (from all sides of my family). Although I do have love for my family somewhere buried under the deep-seeded resentment, I no longer have a relationship with any of them besides of few of my distant cousins. This is mostly for my own safety/peace of mind because my relatives tend to influence me very negatively.
My earliest childhood memories involved a lot of weird and invasive questions I would hear from adults and peers alike regarding my ethnicity. Well that, and a strange feeling in the pit of my stomach that I would later identify as “survivor’s guilt” as an adult. Logically speaking, I have no reason to feel guilty for being alive, but I do. It would occur any time some adult friend of my parents would gush about how “lucky” I was to be adopted. I suppose luck had some part in my survival, but I didn’t expect people to be tone deaf enough to tell that to a little kid already struggling to come to grips with her cultural identity.
The snarky part of my brain would parody their comments:
“Oh, how these two altruistic white saviors decided to welcome a child as their own despite having no blood ties whatsoever.” Which, in part, is true. My parents did a very selfless thing. They were not able to conceive a baby of their own and they chose me out of the millions of parentless babies in the world. I think the damaging part is the underlying implications about how these nice people could have had any child and yet they settled for a baby no one wanted. My family would refer to my miracle of survival as “God’s plan.” They would talk about how God perfectly orchestrated my early life tragedies so I could be rescued from an awful life with those “evil communists.” I have nothing personal against religion nor people who truly believe in the G man upstairs. My beef comes from how this perspective is very centered on the adopters instead of the adoptees. Yes, it is BOTH our stories, but I often feel like adoptees' voices and feelings of uncertainty are often drowned out by a chorus of “you’re so lucky” and “why do you feel like that? You’re so ungrateful.” Also, I was a healthy baby girl born with no neurological or physical deficiencies. I definitely had much better odds than other babies at being adopted during the One Child Reign. Hearing these implications from people who do not understand nor want to understand the complexity of the adoptee’s experience fed into my survivor guilt and feelings of inadequacy. The adoption progress does involve a loss for the adoptee: a loss of culture, identity, and familial ties. I feel like adoption, specifically international adoption, is highly idealized and romanticized. Although I never told my mom, there was a part of me deep down that felt like a second-rate baby. Mostly because I knew how it would make her sad to know that somewhere in my little kid brain, I didn’t think that I would truly be wanted if my mom’s fertility situation went differently.
I would often describe the state of Texas as “that really annoying, overly-friendly hick cousin that comes to every holiday and gets completely sloshed out of their mind and drunkenly brags about their mediocre accomplishments” to people who would ask me to describe Texas. But for all the Texan pride and arrogance about our current Lone Star State, I suppose I could see its appeal. Living in rural Texas is a familiar, humble, and stable experience. My hometown was relatively safe. I could walk to my childhood friends’ houses after school just a few blocks away from my own house without much fear. Most people waved and smiled at each other in passing. (Looking back through adult lenses, I’m not sure how much of it was genuine.) Most townsfolk could fill their relatively uneventful lives with the downtown gossip of families going through some type of soap opera behind closed doors. And despite living in a small town, the schools were large enough to where we could participate in varsity sports seasonally. The rare minority of people who actually did have the courage to leave eventually moved back to start a family because “there’s no place like good ole home!”
The monotony is what partially induced my pubescent angst and desire to someday escape the only place I’ve ever known. That, and the fact that the things you could do for entertainment in small town USA was close to none. The drawback of only living in one town your entire life is limited world experiences. The safety net of someone’s childhood confinements has the potential to induce complacency confused with comfort. How could you ever expand your worldview when you’re hanging out with the same people with the same ideals again and again?
The Asian population in my hometown was close to nonexistent as well. In my high school graduating class, there was one other Asian kid that attended school as me. When my school’s standardized testing scores would be released, the performance metrics were broken down by how well each ethnic group of students did. Since there were only two Asian kids in my grade level, it would be pretty obvious if one of us failed. (Luckily, neither one of us did.) And of course, my peers encouraged both of us to date since “we’d be, like, SO perfect for each other! We’d get married and have little genius Asian babies!”
The feeling of being “othered” or “different” had always been present throughout my childhood. As a kid, the complexity of prejudices eluded me in my naivety, but the uncomfortable feeling of my peers hyperfocusing on my almond-shaped eyes, my flat nose, my stick straight black hair, and any other features felt like they were screaming, “ASIAN!” very loudly. A part of me felt some sort of unspoken alliance between me and my Hispanic friends. It was as if to some degree, they understood what it was like to have your whole personhood categorized by the color of your skin. Sadly, a large portion of my family was uncomfortable with the presence of anyone of Hispanic descent, and I'd often be forced to come up with excuses for my friends of color to not come over in fear of my traditionally southern family making an off-the-cuff comment about how "Mexicans are dirty, poor, and thuggy criminals." Their political diatribes, usually involving immigration, were the popular conversation starters during family get-togethers. My family was very much the type of people that would preach out being a good, godly man/woman while snickering about non-White people's "oddities." Talking about how Jesus loves all and then whispers sanctimoniously about a low-income Hispanic family on the opposite side of the room.
"Oh, GOD BLESS their hearts!"
I doubt those families needed my family's pity.
My mom's sister once texted me after I returned a stray dog to their rightful owner,
"I need to know their race so I can determine their education levels. If they're Mexican, it makes sense why they didn't pay you for rescuing their dog. Mexicans are always looking for the cheap way out."
They were Hispanic, and they were very thankful for the return of their dog. I didn't understand why a decent deed automatically required me to be compensated nor how their racial background tied into their obligation to compensate me.
I snarky replied, "What does their ethnic background have anything to do with how they should act?"
To which she responded, "Calm down. I can practically hear you getting huffy with me from your text. Don't get mad at me! I told you that those Mexicans are always coming to our country and expecting us to learn THEIR language while they refuse to learn English! Plus, when you're my age and all your tax dollars go into keeping lazy illegals afloat, you'll understand why I'm not willing to let some freeloading Mexicans take advantage of my niece."
I no longer talk to that aunt.
My dad's (now current) wife also got very sloshed at the last Christmas event I attended and ranted very loudly about how "the Bible said that evil yellow people like (me) would bring the end of the world and second coming of Jesus to end our sinful tyranny" in front of my entire family with my dad awkwardly ignoring her xenophobic remarks.
It also did not help that in elementary school, some of my classmates would see me and bow to me while one boy would pretend to bang a gong as soon as I entered the classroom and snicker while singing, “CHING, CHONG, CHINKY!” Or how during snack breaks, my peers would pop up to ask me questions like, “do you know karate,” or, “can you speak Chinese to me, " or “ew, don’t tell me you’re gonna eat my dog. He’s a really cute puppy!”
As evasive and uncomfortable these comments could get, I felt like they were fairly innocuous and were asked out of a mix of childhood ignorance and genuine curiosity. I think the part that bothered me the most was having some of my classmates point out how “weird” my eyes looked while placing their fingers at the corners of their eyes and stretching them outwards and loudly proclaiming, “LOOK, NOW I’M CHINESE TOO!!! I LOOK JUST LIKE YOU!” But the absolute worst feeling would be when someone would mention how I look nothing like my very obviously white mom or dad.
“How could they be your parents when you don’t even look like them?”
To which I had a carefully crafted answer my mom would help me rehearse beforehand: “Oh, yeah, I’m adopted from China. Not all families look the same.”
And the retort back would usually be, “Do you miss your real parents?”
Do I?
I ponder that question to this day.
It feels uncomfortable to have people refer to my sperm and egg donors as my “real parents.” My adoptive parents felt very real to me because they were all I knew.
I don’t think I fit the concept of the model minority. I did not come out of the womb as one of those “wiz kids” playing the piano like Mozart, doing linear algebra before I was verbal, and eating dogs for breakfast. My experience as being an Asian American and labeled as the “good minority” has been a weird space to be in. As much as I partially appreciated being known as the “successful, smart, culturally assimilated” race of people, a part of me felt bitter at the notion that all my successes in life might be attributed to my ethnicity. When I would express my discontent with these labels, I would often get reprimanded as ungrateful.
“Don’t you want to be smart?”
“What’s so bad about being Asian? It’s a compliment!”
“Are you embarrassed to be Asian?”
“And you’re basically guaranteed a spot in medical school to become a doctor.”
“The guys are obsessed with you because of your exotic genes!”
(Pro tip for anyone, but especially for my fellow marginalized members: if someone calls you “exotic,” run.)
The answers to these questions usually go, “yes, nothing, no, what, and ew.”
Yes, I do want to be smart. I hope that my cognitive abilities will help me contribute something positive to society one day.
Nothing is wrong with being Asian or whatever you are. It just feels very uncomfortable to hear about an entire group of people as if they’re all the same.
No. I have never and will never be embarrassed of what I am.
What? Why do you assume I automatically want to become a doctor?
Ew, exotic? I don’t even want to reply to that comment.
I wish that I had the vocabulary at the time to respond like that. Instead, I would awkwardly laugh at their comment and say something along the lines of, “haaaa, I don’t know any other Asians. If you run into them, you’ll have to ask them.”
When you would hear about brilliant minds in history such as Albert Einstein or Stephen Hawking, most wouldn't say, “Oh well, it’s because they’re white. All those white genetics are what keep them so hard-working and successful.” Instead, as a demographic that is adequately represented in society, Einstein and Hawking and so many other white men had their accomplishments acknowledged as their own individualistic brilliance. An experience I so desperately wanted. So what if I was good or bad at math? I want to be called smart because I am smart. Not because I have some God-given wiz genes that have prophesied my successes from my first primordial cell. Or what if I was terrible at math? I don’t want to be labeled as a “bad” or “fake” Asian. I don’t want to be categorized as one of those “innocent, submissive Asian girls that would make a proper wife one day.” I just want to exist in my own space as my own person. Whoever I ended up becoming.
(Does anyone have negative experiences from adoption? I would love to know because the rare fellow adoptees I have met have very different (positive) experiences than myself.)

For our wedding, the groom is gujarati and I'm white so we're doing blended events. I'm wearing a western style wedding dress to the ceremony and reception, so using the rehearsal dinner to wear more a typical indian bridal red lehenga that my fiance is looking forward to. I just heard that the groom's older sister wants to wear her wedding lehenga to the rehearsal dinner (same color then as my planned outfit, and her's is probably fancier). Is this a tradition I haven't heard of before?

This is an OG DD from 2/23/2021 i found it while looking into todays glitch. Sadly the Dd author seems to have deleted their account history. Reposting it as it’s own post by request. ——
Greetings Fellow Apes,
It is I, your favorite sentient workout bench, Carl Benchenstein. Today, I am here to use my time to reaffirm my maths and numberages. I am not a financial advisor, nor am I really excellent with numbers, but I can very easily twist words to try and prove a thesis. So, let’s see if that’s what I can do. Prepare yourselves to have more confirmation bias and longer lasting erections that might require a consultation with your local practitioner. PLEASE HELP ME EDIT ANY INCONSISTENCIES IN THE REALITY OF THE INTERPREATION. I STUDIED EDUCATION, ENGLISH, MARKETING AND THE WAY OF THE BENCH. NOT ROCKET SCIENCE.
Truthfully, this is more of a confession that I am addicted to research and due diligence. This is a cheap substitute for addiction counseling. Regardless, we all vices.
I have been fascinated with the 2008 VW short squeeze upon my first investment into $GME in early December. This event happened unnoticed to me due to my concentration on trying to break out of an incredibly deep depressive state. It was also tracking with the financial crisis in America’s housing sector. I was a broke sad boi with a passion for World of Warcraft. Why would I look across the pond at a phenomenon happening almost exclusively off one series of interconnected stock exchanges when I could grind Wintergrasp?
Introduction
Last week, spurred on by an associate in the hunt of new data to digest, I found an article in the Pacific-Basic Finance Journal titled Detecting the great short squeeze on Volkswagen by Keith R.L. Godfrey. At the time this piece was published, 2016, Keith was employed by The University of Western Australia Business School. You can find the article here It’s an interesting perspective especially for those who were unaware of it. The most interesting piece of the squeeze came through his analysis of Regional Price Variation (329-332). He discusses a financial pricing mechanic named the “law of one price”.
The law of one price suggests that identical securities should trade at the same price. Although this “law” lacks a rigorous scientific proof, its argument is intuitive and powerful. Arbitrage opportunities exist whenever two or more identical securities trade at different prices, provided they can be traded without substantial cost. Rational traders will exploit these opportunities, and this process keeps the prices in check.
To my glossy, yet hefty gray matter, this says stonks should be traded at the same price regardless of trading venue if it is easy to. Theoretically, $GME is traded at the same price, or closely enough, and without substantial cost due to very minimal transaction fees per trade. Thus, logic dictates that it should be sound enough to venture it is applicable here most of the time. Okay, but what happens when there is a discrepancy within the trading platforms that causes the price to not reflect its actual value?
It is foreseeable that the prices of identical securities may differ when there are impediments to arbitrage such as the lack of stock being available for one or both directions of the trade (Shleiffer and Vishny (1997) discuss such limits). I make use of this insight to identify the change in the market conditions of Volkswagen stock without needing to know the reason why the arbitrage process is failing (in this case an infinite short squeeze).
BIG WORDS. WHAT MEAN. SMOOTH BRAIN. MAKE HURT STOP.
If a trade is funked up, the price of the stock will differ from where its true value lies. Specifically, if an order is unable to be completed at one time, it will be broken up into multiple smaller order while the stock is being located which will reflect differently upon different exchanges. Yet, the entire transaction that the smaller orders are predicated upon will have already gone through. Essentially allowing the one who made the order able to reflect the balance in his account, but the market would show a fluctuation as the smaller orders are completed throughout a span of time. Imagine if you will a stone being thrown into a pond and then ripples forming from the impact. The exchanges are the pond, the stone is the massive buy order, the ripples are dilated reflections of price.
Market Conditions of the Squeeze:
Volkswagen stock traded in 2008 on eight exchanges around its home country Germany — an electronic exchange Xetra and regional bourses in Berlin, Frankfurt, Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Hanover, Munich, and Stuttgart. It also traded in euros on European exchanges such as Euronext Amsterdam and the Italian Exchange, in Swiss francs on the Swiss Exchange, and in US dollars via American depositary receipts (ADRs) on Pink Sheets. In this article it is sufficient to consider just the German exchanges.
Compare this to GameStop in 2021 which traded on not one exchange but at least 20 exchanges. 20>8. On top of that, you are able to access it from shitty apps that work through shittier funds managing your order flow directly to the exchanges. Not just your pink sheets.
Perhaps arbitrageurs will look at the regional exchanges to exploit any price disparity and thereby maintain the law of one price, but any high frequency trading strategy is likely to be implemented using Xetra data. It would be easy for quantitative analysts to overlook the possible uses for the data coming from the tiny amount of regional trading.
The majority of trading in Germany takes place on the electronic exchange Xetra, which in 2008 handled around 98.5% of the Volkswagen trades. The remaining 1.5% of trades occurred on the seven regional exchanges, predominantly Frankfurt and Stuttgart
I believe we saw an exploitative dilation today starting at 9:46 AM Eastern until after 10:20 AM. The order flow on E*Trade made it look as if the books were backed up for up to 2 minutes at a time. Example 1. Example 2. On top of that, there were weird instances reported from other apes looking at L2 data and live trades from their ends at the time.
Perhaps arbitrageurs will look at the regional exchanges to exploit any price disparity and thereby maintain the law of one price, but any high frequency trading strategy is likely to be implemented using Xetra data. It would be easy for quantitative analysts to overlook the possible uses for the data coming from the tiny amount of regional trading.
I wonder, would people heavily in the red trying to leverage every penny resort to breaking off massive trades to profit off the order flow down to the regional level?
So what?
Well, Keith formed a hypothesis that one is able to predict a squeeze based on irregularities in the first hour of trading the day before in the case of the short squeeze through the usage of a series of equations.
It becomes significant in the first hour of trading during each day of the short squeeze, and importantly it is significant a full day ahead of the price spike. It produces no false positives on Volkswagen throughout the rest of 2008 despite the high volatility from the global financial credit crisis, and it does not trigger at all on the stocks of competing automakers BMW and Daimler. (333)
Well, let’s look at his math to see if we can transpose signifiers across various markets.
QUIK MAFS
Keith dictates a formula to measure coefficient of variation on page 330 in section 4.2, which would be a valuable gauge. I haven’t exactly calculated the differences in America because I haven’t looked at any of that data on a minute level because it requires a bunch of filtering with data that we won’t have until the end of the day to see its entirety. Really, trying to understand the formula hurts my head, but it involves VWAP (not very wet ass p-word) at the end of the day.
But if some kind ape wants to assist in the endeavor and see what’s good when we have it all. I’m sure we will find something interesting happened today during the first hour of trade based on the weird way the books were fulfilled today. Additionally, yesterday there was a rebalancing of 60 thousand buys at some point that was entered into the books at 15:50 EST.
Okay, and?
We might be able to forecast a potential squeeze if there happens to be more issues regarding rebalancing of orders using regional trend data. Something stanky happened EoB yesterday and SoB today that weirdly impacted the flow of stock. Here's the values for such tiny volume.
Time Volume
9:46 1.24k
9:47 800
9:52 1.13k
9:53 100
9:54 704
9:58 534
I’m not good at numbers, but a friend of the stream is! He took intraday data from Barchart to create this two day forecast of the 24th.. Who knows if this holds any weight? I don’t. It looks pretty.
TL;DR I LIKE THIS STOCK.

[Vaer] Pre-Owned Review
Hi everyone recently I decided to purchase 3 watches for Vaer's preowned site. My experience was mixed and I thought I would share how things went. I just note that first watch I bought exclusively because it was out of stock on the main site. The other two I bought purely for the discount.

1. The first watch I purchased was a D5 Atlantic with a Khaki quick release strap for 450$ dollars with the retail being 599$. I got this one because the Atlantic model on their site was sold out, and I really wanted the Atlantic model. Anyways the condition was listed as good with minor surface wear. I should state Vaer rates their pre-owned watches on the following grade Excellent, Good, and fair. In the photos their looked to be a decent size scratch by the crown, but I didn't really care since I was getting a 150$ discount. Anyways the watch arrived and everything seemed good. Only thing was that the exhibition case wiggles a little bit. I don't know if this is normal as it's my first Vaer automatic, but it bothers me a little bit as my other watches with exhibition cases don't do this. Also the scratch that I saw in the photo turned out to be a piece of thread or something, so the watch was actually in really good condition. Overall the experience was an 8/10 because I don't know if the case back is supposed to wiggle a bit. Other autos I have don't do this including a DW automatic which was my first automatic (I know already, you don't have to tell me DW is bad, but my parents gave me the watch), so if DW can make a case back that doesn't wiggle I don't know why Vaer wouldn't be able to.
2. The Second watch I purchased was a Vaer S3 in Black. This costed me 99$, and the watch brand new retails for 159$. This watch arrived exactly as described, and was listed in Fair condition although it didn't have much wear. Only complaint is that something was wrong with the rubber strap it came with. The quick release was broken or something and I literally had to rip the strap from the lugs to replace it with a Nato strap. 9/10 experience
3. The final watch I purchased was a Vaer C5 field white for 179$. Contrary to the other two watches my experience with this one was very negative. The watch itself was listed in good condition however it was in far worse condition than the S3 which was listed as fair. This didn't really bother me though as it wasn't terrible, and I still got a solid discount. What did bother me though was the fact the movement stuttered. Between 9:00 and 3:00 the second hand would tick 3-5 very quickly while only moving the distance of 1 second. This didn't effect the time keeping, but I expected more from the "rigorous time and feature testing" that they claim to do. Anyways I emailed Vaer about this and attached a video where you can clearly see the second hand stuttering, but I never got a response. The packaging was also awful. It literally looked like the took the watch, wrapped it in some bubble wrap, and stuck it in a padded envelope (This was not the case with the other two watches) About 15 days later I sent an email, and still did not receive a reply. If anyone is curious of what the stuttering looks like I can send you a video. 4/10 experience. (Also the stuttering is not due to the battery if your wondering, I think its something wrong with the movement)

To conclude I would give the experience as a whole a 7/10. I expected more in terms of quality control, and their customer support is straight up bad. The D5 is great besides the exhibition case wiggling (which again I don't know if its normal or not). Looking back to the photos though its odd that they don't clean the watches before shipping them. In all the photos you can clearly see dust, and other small debris. For example for the photos of my D5 I thought there were scratches when they were actually just threads of some sort. Anyways if anyone could offer me their opinion about the case back I would appreciate it, but for now I would not recommend Vaer pre-owned. I think it is more worth it just to shell out the extra bit of money and buy from the main site. The only circumstance I would recommend buying from the pre-owned site is if they have a watch you want that is not in stock on the site.

Hi,
This post is for those very few people. I am from Houston, Texas. Well, I live just outside of Houston, but people who live near Houston usually say they are from Houston.
Anyway, I am 25 years old, and I was studying medicine overseas. I have permanently returned to the USA to continue my education. I work part time as an uber eats driver. This might be a relatively long post.
Hobbies/Interests: My hobbies are similar to most people, and we don't have to share the same hobbies or interests. - Movies and TV (Sci-fi, horror, and crime) - Exercising, especially running - Food (Thai, Mediterranean, and Indian) - Reading - Boardgames and videogames - Nature-y stuff. Walking outside. - Music (Instrumental, orchestral, and rap). I listen to songs from each genre. - Investing
I want to pickup more hobbies and interests. I would like to learn how to play the piano and violin. I want to learn a new language. I want to do outdoor activities such as hiking and maybe even camping. I have always wanted to learn video effects. It's great if you do one or multiple of these things, so I can learn or participate too. We can pickup a joint hobby too. However, I am a homebody.

• I have no physical requirements because I like people of all sizes and shapes. My tastes vary. However, I do want someone who is healthy. I would like someone who is understanding, open, and versatile among other things. I believe romance and intimacy are vital to a relationship, so I am drawn to physical affection. I love food, so that is one way to get to my heart.
  
• Physical Description: I am 5' 7" ~ ish. I have short black hair right now, but I am looking to grow it out again. My skin is light caramel, and I have dark brown eyes. My body is slim to average, but I would like to think I am fit. I enjoy running, and I like lifting too. I workout at home since I do not have a gym membership. I might sport some stubble, but I am usually clean shaven. My clothing style is atrocious. I usually wear shorts and a shirt. I need to improve my clothing game.
  
• Religion & Politics: I like to call myself a non-resistant nonbeliever, which is similar to agnosticism. I attended a Christian church when I was younger, and my undergraduate school was Catholic. My parents practice Hinduism, so I have some exposure to religion. I am open to anyone regardless of religious affiliation, and I would definitely like to learn. The same applies to politics. I think it is important to be challenged and to grow as a result. It's hard to pinpoint my political stance, but it is neither conservative nor democratic. My political ideology is always evolving.
  
• Matrimony & Kids: I envision a meaningful connection that is built on the premise of transcending the confines of societal expectations of matrimony and children, for I firmly believe that true love and commitment cannot be reduced to a legal contract or the obligation of raising offspring. I do not see myself in matrimony. While some people might find it strange, I believe that a strong and meaningful relationship doesn't require a matrimony certificate. However, I would throw that out the window if the right person asked me for mstrimony. Only Siths deal in absolutes. I prefer to focus on building a connection with someone without the added pressure and expectations of matrimony. I also do not want kids. I value my time and would rather use it to focus on my partner. If anything, I'd consider adoption, but I'm leaning towards no kids. This subreddit does not allow me to use the word m a r r i a g e in my posts. Cmon.
  
• Please message me via DM or PM. No ghosters please as if that will deter them. I'd like to talk regularly to build a connection. I cannot tell you how frustrating it is to be ghosted or receive messages from people who only send me one word replies. Please do not ask me to send you money. At least 50% of the replies I receive ask me for money. Like seriously. I might have mentioned too much in this post. You don't have to read everything, and I don't mind repeating myself. I am willing to send a picture to verify. If you have any advice on improving my post, then let me know. Peace out.
  

Hello!
I didn't take any picture so I can only describe it with words:
I occasionally see people at yard sales selling dolls (not toys, maybe "figurine" would be more appropriate? They do wear clothes made out of fabric) under glass bells or glass bubbles. "Glass" which might be made out of plastic in some cases, I've seen some that turned pretty yellow so I doubt they were actually glass, just something transparent. They're not very big in most cases, I think the tallest bubble I've seen was about 25cm tall? I doubt I've seen all of them but the ones I've seen are around that size or smaller.
The dolls wear clothing that is not modern or modern-looking but I'm not familiar with fashion so I can't pick a decade or country. Their outfits are pretty elaborate so I wonder if their purpose it to showcase these clothes specifically? I didn't think about them too much until recently so I haven't gotten the opportunity to ask the people who sell them anything about them. Like what are they called in my language, is there a mark that tells you when it was made and what year and country the clothes they're wearing are from, and are the clothes representative of the real clothes people wore back then or was it completely made up, and can you clean them and the clothes at all, etc.
So yeah, I was wondering if people here have any idea what these types of dolls are called? I did try to google keywords like "doll glass bell" but didn't find anything that looked similar.
TL;DR: what's the name of the dolls that you can find under glass bells? Fairly small, white/beige skin, elaborate western-style clothing, not modern, don't know if the fabric is natural or synthetic, dolls themselves are probably at least 20 or 30 years old given how yellow some of the plastic casing is. I doubt they're worth any money though.

Howdy to the people of CFB! Welcome to my ranking of the 2022 uniforms for TCU Football! Sorry for the lengthy delay. It’s been a very busy few weeks. And even though my Wildcats got horse kicked by TCU in the Big 12 Baseball Tourney, I’m still so hyped to check out the Horned Frogs suits from this last football season. I intend on ranking each Big XII team and new additions (BYU, Houston, UCF, and Cincinnati) soon. If you are interested in my thoughts regarding the Big XII uniform season, check out my 2022 Uniform Awards post and Big XII Uniform Tracker 2022: Season-in-Review post. If you want to see more rankings, I just reviewed WVU a while ago, plus KU and OSU earlier. But for now, let’s see the Frogs uniforms from 2022, featuring some facts, stats, and history.
As always, feel free to disagree with me or tell me if my rankings hit home. I’m interested in hearing what you think, or in seeing how y’all would rearrange the rankings! TCU is a great purple bro, I have some associates that went to TCU, and in general, really respected their program this past year.
Season Gallery Link: https://imgur.com/a/4aLKooA
I’m u/matte_purple, and let's 3,2,1 go!
11. Purple/White/White Week 9 @ WVU (W 41-31) and Week 4 @ SMU (W 42-34)
Link: https://imgur.com/CTvWhrT
Okay, first things first: I love the color purple. Part of that is my alma mater, of course, but it’s also just a great look. Plus, there’s only about two dozen D-1 schools that use purple as a main color. The perceived rarity makes it a treat to look at on the field. Second, TCU has some of my favorite uniforms from this past year. That means that despite this look and others being lower on the list, I really like most of them. You could make the case that many of these should be full-time.
Anyways, I think the reason why TCU’s icy white look is so beloved is because of the “Black Panther-esque" collar. It not only looks cool but adds more purple than a normal uniform would have. Because of this, the purple helmet (which wasn’t my favorite helmet from this season anyway) kind of throws off the balance. I don’t doubt this will be a controversial take.
10. Black/White/Purple Week 11 @ UT (W 17-10)
Link: https://imgur.com/W108RdO
Anyone who has kept up with my tracker knows I have a general disdain for tri-color looks. This tends to be more pronounced with warmer colors, but I still just can’t get over it with purple and black. There is a distinct lack of flow and symmetry that I just can’t get past. I love the helmet, which was first announced in Week 5, but I just don’t think it matches up with the rest of the uniform. More about the helmet, they released a helmet identical to this (except for a purple horned frog instead of silver) in 2016 that was worn as recently as Game 11 of 2021. The silver is a FAR better option, and it really pops. I called these “Sooner Slayer” helmets after such a great win, and they worked pretty good on the Longhorns too.
9. Purple/Purple/Black Week 10 vs TTU (W 34-24)
Link: https://imgur.com/AeLbp8s
And just like that, we have already made it to some spectacular uniforms. While this is the same helmet worn in spot #11, it is instantly uplifted by those purple shirts. These tops only showed up 3 times this season, which seems like a pretty small number for a very purple-centric school. The fact of the matter is, however, TCU, like Johnny Cash, looks great in black. Plus, the purple helmet is arguably my least favorite helmet the Horned Frogs wore this season. Black was just the better color this season. These are sensational, but the upper echelon is yet to come.
8. Black/White/Black Week 6 @ KU (W 38-31) and CFP vs UGA (L 65-7)
Link: https://imgur.com/xWKuT5I
I’ll refrain from talking about the CFP game too much, but TCU should still be very proud of that game, regardless of the score. They should also be proud of those dope-ass “Oreo” uniforms. The purple on the collar, facemask, and font provides a welcome tinge of color to a still very dark look. And honestly, it looks fantastic against that big bold red. I was delighted to see it used against KU when they wore their red uniforms, and was thoroughly excited when I saw it would be used against UGA as well. There are some better away uniforms here, though. Let’s get into it.
7. Purple/White/Purple Week 1 @ CU (W 38-13)
Link: https://imgur.com/eE0OqRI
Oh darling, these are a treat. With black being such a staple of this season, the purple is a stunner. It’s still not my favorite mostly purple look on this list, but it was featured on my 2022 Uniform Awards post as one of my top OOC matchups uniform-wise. TCU’s darker shade of purple contrasted CU’s old gold nicely, and similar to the #9 and #11 spots, that helmet is nice. But it’s no coincidence the next few looks (sans one) feature a white or black helmet. We’re about to get to the top!
6. White/Purple/White Week 2 vs Tarleton (W 59-17)
Link: https://imgur.com/BTVIUXT
Similar to the last combo, this is a sharp contrast to the darker palette. And while I like the change and idea behind this look, there’s just a few changes that would really make this elite. First, white pants are EXCELLENT. They are professional, slick, and simple. Perfect when combined with the color purple. The reason the black “Sooner Slayer” helmet works so well is because of the silver logo blending with the silver font of most of the uniforms. In this combo, the silver font really confuses the rest of the “feng shui.” It doesn’t help that they also played against another purple team. The purple will lead to some top tier outfits later on, but we have now officially passed into the top half!
5. Purple/Gray/Gray Week 7 vs OK-State (W 43-40)
Link: https://imgur.com/FKa0Hnm Everybody has an opinion on these. Me personally, I’ve come around to them. I know this may totally invalidate my rankings, but these are AWESOME! There are 14 (17 in some circles) species of horned lizards that live in desert areas from Central America up through the western US. But eight species (including P. cornutum, the true inspiration for TCU’s mascot) can contract the muscles around their eyes, cutting off blood flow back to the heart. This builds pressure until the blood shoots from the eyes in a wildly metal defensive technique. The red is a wonderful tertiary color to purple. Honestly, if the recruits love them, and the equipment staff has the balls to release something like this, they should be applauded, good or bad. My taste is certainly debatable, but enough people seem to agree that they didn’t make a big fuss over these being my 3rd best alternate in my 2022 Uniform Awards. What do you think? Damn, I want one of those helmets bad.
4. Black/Black/Black Week 8 vs K-State (W 38-28)
Link: https://imgur.com/k5uMGq4
Nothing screams power like the blackout game. This was the only true blackout game on TCU’s docket. They even painted the logo at the 50 and the endzones black for this special showdown. I love the continuity of the silver on the helmet flowing through into the font, the special black facemask in lieu of the standard purple, it all leads to a pretty menacing uniform. But it just doesn’t have quite enough purple. I think it would have been pretty rad to try and lean into the lack of color more as well, maybe going with a charcoal and silver collar to really sell the blackout. But hey, I evidently like it enough to put it at just about the halfway mark!
3. White/White/White Week 12 @ BU (W 29-28) and vs Michigan (W 51-45)
Link: https://imgur.com/jJpeFDj
Going from a blackout to an icy white look, TCU knows how to get it done. Sheesh, these are gorgeous. As we have clearly discovered from the rest of the Horned Frog’s repertoire, the collar sells it. I went back to the 2019 announcement to get some info on these Nike Vapor Untouchable refresh and discovered that the geometric shapes on the collar actually dates back to the 2000 uniform, when Gary Patterson was coaching the great LaDainian Tomlinson. Neat stuff. There isn’t a ton to say about these besides the fact they were worn in two of TCU’s best games this season and look spectacular. The purple in the numbers, collar, logo, and facemask really accentuate what would be a pretty normal whiteout look.
2. Black/Purple/Purple Week 13 vs ISU (W 62-14)
Link: https://imgur.com/BK3ztvS
According to TCU’s main site, students in the late 1890’s chose new school colors: “Purple for royalty, white for a clean game.” And boy howdy, these guys are royal. The mostly purple look is only the third time this season that more than two of the three uniform pieces were purple. That automatically makes these special, but they also flow the best out of the other options. It makes perfect sense that the top spot is the inverse of this.
1. Black/Black/Purple Week 14 vs K-State (L 31-28 OT) and Week 5 vs OU (W 55-24)
Link: https://imgur.com/hBoyahV
Okay okay, I know your first inclination is to say that this uniform was obviously picked by a K-State fan, I can honestly say that this is a top look for a reason. I mean have you seen this thing? I went back to the release video for these bad boy helmets and man, I don’t think anyone had anything bad to say about these. The “Sooner Slayer” lid was released to wide praise, and ended up getting worn in 7 games (with one instance replacing a purple facemask with black). Each piece of the uniform features a small amount of purple, and the silver numbers complement the oversized Horned Frog logo in silver. The black and purple balance well while looking aggressive, punctuated by that sharp silver that shines nice under the lights. It helps that K-State also wore mostly white and silver, making TCU look even better, but the look obviously worked versus OU as well. What else is there to say about these? To end, I thought I’d relay how the horned frog was supposedly chosen as TCU’s mascot.
Older Texas and New Mexico natives will tell you about the days when you would find them everywhere, but the widespread use of pesticides and invasion of the harmful fire ants from South America has depleted their main food source, the harvester ant. The desert lizard species has been endangered since 1977. The reptile became TCU's mascot after its appearance first on the school's yearbook publication. The book was named "The Horned Frog" in 1887 and was selected over the other option "The Cactus." Gradually, the name was accepted into athletics, and sports teams began calling themselves Horned Frogs as well. According to myth, the name was selected by the yearbook because of the plentiful number of lizards that would bask in the sun on the football field. TCU has also had a goat named Samuel and a dog named Blackie as unofficial mascots in the 1930s and 1940s. Let’s just say I like that lizard a little bit more than the past options.
How about a round of applause for Head of Football Equipment Jason Jones? The Decatur, TX native has done an awesome job, and preparing the equipment for the blitzkrieg of Big XII Champ game, then Fiesta bowl, then CFP Champ game all while traveling must be a huge headache. Great job to the whole TCU football staff for a great season, let’s see how the next one goes!
Well, I think that does it! I hope you enjoyed my 2022 season TCU Football uniform rankings. What a year for the Horned Frogs. I’ll be slowly releasing more rankings for each of the Big XII teams as the offseason goes along. Again, feel free to comment or message me with any suggestions or changes to the rankings! What do you think of the “Bloody Threads” TCU wears? Did your favorite look seem properly placed? Let me and all of CFB know! Have yourself a great day, and remember, "Fight 'em until hell freezes over. Then fight 'em on the ice!"

I felt like I should post this here because the same thing happens to men but I just wanted to be able to talk about it in a female space.
My boyfriend (22m) has this friend, let’s call him todd. Todd is 20. Todd spent 16 to 18 in rehabs for children due to his drug addictions, anorexia and undiagnosed personality disorder.
Todd has been dating this girl on and off since he was 18 and she was 17. We will call her mary. Mary has a father that is…well extremely fucking gross. Like we live in Washington state and her dad has taken her to bikini baristas with him (for people that don’t know a bikini barista is baristas who serve coffee in lingerie) and just like made her sit there while he hits on these 20 year olds.
Mary doesn't really talk or stand up for herself. I’ve tried in the past to be friendly with her and she’s super fucking timid. Obviously non of this is her fault, but it does get me wondering how Todd treats her behind closed doors.
Now they have been on and off multiple times. The last time they were off we took Todd to a rave with us (my bf me my friends) I work in a beauty based industry so all my friends look like literal super models. Bro. The way he spent the entire time acting like the textbook definition of a FREAK trying to bang my fucking friends!! It was so bad I had to apologize to my friends after because I was so embarrassed of my fucking bf for bringing him.
After that incident, anytime Todd would come over (which wasn’t often) he would bring some new girl he met from tinder with him. And without fail every damn time, after they would bang the girl would block him.
For anyone that is wondering yes I started getting hella mad at my bf for being friends with him. But they weren’t super close so I kinda let it slide.
So after a few months of that. Mary and Todd decide to get back together! So Todd has a female friend that lives and works in socal. His friend invites them to come live with her and the old man she’s living with.
Mary and Todd end up getting kicked out because the old man (who owns the property) wants to fuck Mary. So they leave and are homeless atp.
So my bf and I let them crash with us. Considering they are fucking BROKE as shit and spent all their cash getting back to WA from CA. I’m an exotic dancer (pls be nice) my club hires waitresses and they are usually able to work the same day, and make like 300$ in tips a night. So super quick money if you’re in a pinch and it’s not a hard job at all. It’s absolutely nothing like being a stripper. It’s just a waitressing job. You bring drinks and clean. You can wear whatever you want, zero obligation to show any skin.
So I offered to take her. Before she could say anything Todd (with the most dumbfounded look on his face) goes “I don’t think so” Mary backs down right away and says “yeah I guess not”
PLEASEWWW LIKE A MAN SPEAKING FOR YOU GIRL BE SOOOO FOR REALL!!! and like y’all are DIRT broke but okay. I can understand not wanting to work in a club fr but she didn’t even get to say yes or no before he answered for her. Keep in mind he is literally crashing on a strippers couch😐.
So after a week of them sitting doing nothing. Todd’s aunt in texas says they can come live with them. Funny because originally I’m from texas…where the minimum wage is 7.25. Where maybe if you’re lucky you will get a more liberal independent business owner boss who pays you 10 an hour. It’s not cheap to live there either.
So they go. I haven’t been talking to either of them, neither has my bf. Until today. Until Todd ducking texts my bf “guess who’s gonna be an uncle! Mary and I are pregnant!”
I’m so fucking sick of it dude. As someone with a life controlling mental illness like Todd. I can’t fathom bringing a child into this world. I’m so sick of how women feel like they should bend to what a man wants. It doesn’t even matter if she wanted to get rid of it anyways, cus they’re in fucking texas.
No money, no career path, no therapy or anything….bruh.

Unpacking the Light Police. Light Pollution News.
Show Link: https://lightpollutionnews.com/podcast/unpacking-the-light-police/
Subscribe: Apple Podcast Spotify Google Podcast
Social: Instagram LinkedIn
Guests:
John Barentine of Dark Sky Consulting, LLC.
Kaitlyn Evans, Conservationist.
Show:
I was busted by the light police. They had a point, Dana Milbank of the Washington Post.
Dana Milbank purchased a home in, soon to be not, rural Virginia. At night he kept the formerly vacant property lit to the degree that spurned one commentator to call it “spaceship lighting.”
Milbank recaps being visited by the “light police,” a group of concerned citizens who help educate neighbors and instill a sense of pride in the brilliance of their starry night skies.
At first, he was taken aback, but later, not only did he appreciate their efforts, but he also converted his blinding always on, white light flood lights to warm 2700 Kelvin motion sensing lights.
Per Ruskin Hartley, executive director of the International Dark Sky Association, “for 4.5 billion years there was no artificial light at night. It’s really only in the last five human generations that we transformed that. It’s one of the most profound transformations of our environment.”
Many of you may recall an earlier story, way back in our Hormone of Darkness episode, showcasing concerns by local residents prior to a 760 house (now 761) plus town center development moving into the Culpepper County, VA area. Per the Rappahannock News, this development features “a resort style swimming pool, clubhouse, tot lot, and multiple sports fields and sports courts, all connected by a network of biking and walking trails.”
The forgotten medieval habit of ‘two sleeps’ by Zaria Gorvett of the BBC.
Gorvett opened my eyes to something I never knew about, the medieval custom of two sleeps. For those of you unaware, two sleeps are exactly what it sounds like.
Folks would partake in a communal nap, complete with rigid sleeping arrangement conventions, between 9 – 11pm, then awaken for a few hours to do everything from hang out to brew beer! In fact, the idea of multiple sleeps crossed cultures and was found in places as far from Europe as indigenous South America.
How can one’s circadian rhythm make sense of all of this?!
Well, for starters, until the invention of the alarm clock, which humorously was invented by a clocks salesman so he could wake up and sell more clocks, people had no firm way to wake up at a consistent time. The industrial revolution enforced a new circadian standard.
And there’s some science behind this! In the 1992 study, In Short Photoperiods, human sleep is biphasic, researcher Thomas Wehr found that after four weeks of 10 hour days, his subjects began to engage in this two sleep cycle, involving a one to three hour period for which they became awake and engaged in between.
Want to Learn About Light Pollution? There’s a mini-course for that!, Jennifer Sensiba of Clean Technica.
Quoting Sensiba, “As I got older, I traveled a lot more and saw the problem more for what it is. Not only did I see that in many places there is no refuge from it, but I also saw that it was slowly growing worse. Places that had been dark 30 years ago had more and more light creeping upon the horizon.”
If you’re interested in learning more, or more importantly, know someone who might benefit from learning more, Sensiba links up to an International Dark Sky Mini-Course on light pollution, call it Light Pollution 101!
There’s a Play Date at the National Museum of Natural History: Lights Out exhibit!
But unfortunately, by the time you listen to this, and hell, by the time we talk about this, it has passed.
Ann Arbor named best place for sunrises, sunsets in Michigan. Sarah Parlette for Click on Detroit.
Evidently gambling websites have decided to honor April’s International Dark Sky week in a strange new content marketing campaign, which was to rank the best places in each state to see sunrises and sunsets. My favorite one, “Ann Arbor named best place for sunrises, sunsets in Michigan,” comes from Click on Detroit, whereby a quote “study” examined Michigan’s most populated cities.”
According to Click on Detroit, “to celebrate International Astrology Day on Saturday, staff at Great Lake Stakes, a Michigan online gambling news site, looked at light pollution in the five most populated cities around the Mitten state to determine which offers the best views every morning and evening.”
Star bathing is the new outdoor travel trend we should all be trying for Summer 2023, according to Amy Beecham at Stylist.
Evidently, as an attempt to destress and promote mindfulness, romanticism about sleeping under the stars has birthed a 70% increase in searches for the term ‘star bathing’ on Hipcamp. And to be sure, “Hipcamp recommends checking a stargazing calendar which outlines major astrological events – like supermoons, pink moons, and star showers.”
“Industry Must Face an Inconvenient Truth — Most LED Lights at Night are Unhealthy”
Dr. Martin Moore-Ede, a circadian clock expert, recently published an article in LEDs Magazine chastising the lighting industry for not recognizing and reigning in the negative externalities of its products. Per the piece, such effects are, obesity, diabetes, depression, cancer, and more.
He cites three categories of industry responses, making the correlation that long term Denial or outright Ignorance of the Facts, may result in “asbestos-scale liabilities or draconian regulations.”
Per the piece, a recent survey by the Circadian Light Research Center of 2,697 peer reviewed scientific articles confirmed that human circadian clocks are highly sensitive to blue wavelengths, and that exposure to such wavelengths leads to major health disorders.
Moore-Ede calls for the industry to harvest the “commercial opportunity” to greatly limit future liability by creating and managing its own standards for circadian modulated lighting.
Unpacking the Wallpack, by Dan Weissman in LD+A Magazine.
Weissman, who recently purchased a telescope for his family in Cambridge, MA, discovered that the scope could only afford him views of some solar system objects and a few brightly burning stars.
The ire of Weissman’s pen takes the shape of a rectangular fixtures, be it box like or simply a panel these days, that typically hang off the side of an exterior wall or above an exterior door. “Devoid of aesthetic value” this light is often put up under the “pretense of security and safety” by “recommended practices and adopted municipal codes.”
Weissman recognizes labels that often accompany, what he calls, “Glare bombs,” including “contractor-select,” “energy efficient,” or “light pollution friendly.”
Further, per an earlier LD+A article, such lighting driven by its extreme contrasts is exceedingly common in minority communities where light is weaponized as a tool of power. It becomes a “device of alienation, creating a zone of control and separation.”
Weissman recognizes that the true reason such fixtures are selected often comes down to cost. He recognizes that it may take equally as much cost to persuade building and homeowners away from such lighting into the realm of more responsible, lower lumen, shielded lighting.
Weissman calls for producers of these glare bombs to be labeled as polluters, putting them in line with fossil fuel manufacturers and PFAS makers.
Songbirds, dusk and clear skies: Scientists explore migratory flights, by Erin Blakemore.
Bird migration season is ending here in the Mid-Atlantic. I was lucky enough to catch several Baltimore Orioles and Indigo Buntings last week. Researchers looked at 400 songbirds from 9 major species, “including the yellow-rump warbler, American redstart and Bicknell’s thrush.”
The question they hoped to answer was how are these birds so darn precise in identifying the best time to take off for their nightly migration? Scientists found that 90% of the migrating birds in the study took off within 69 minutes of dusk. A “much narrower takeoff window,” that even shocked the research team!
Per the study, taking off at night is all about maximum flight time. In addition to being able to precisely schedule their take offs, a feat that every airline I’ve flown with over the past few years has proven inept at, birds also are apparently good meteorologists! They often depart when the atmospheric pressure rises over a day’s span. Other factors also trigger migration, including sex, age, and celestial cues.
‘Lights Out’ initiative appears to be saving birds from crashing into Philly buildings by Sophia Schmidt.
Preliminary results indicate that bird death counts are down 70% at one Market Street tower, since it began its participation in Lights Out. As we spoke about on a previous show, birds utilize the stars to navigate, but city lights can disorient the birds. Combine the lights with reflective or transparent glass, and that spells fatal trouble for our migrating warblers!
Per Keith Russell, a program manager for urban conservation with Audubon Mid-Atlantic, “We’ve lost almost a third of our birds – and [collisions] contributing to that. If we’re going to want to preserve the bird populations here in North America, we have to look at these types of problems. And this is a preventable one.”
The Knoxville, TN Zoo is offering up what they call “Twilight Tours” per WVLT 8. Each event will feature a guide to showcase nocturnal critters.
I did something similar in Singapore years ago. The zoo had very dim lights in the exhibits – and they kept those lights dim as you walked so that you didn’t lose your night vision. It was a very different and, might I say, peaceful experience than the typically chaotic daytime zoo.
Flashlights posing major threat to nesting sea turtles. Fox35 Orlando
Apparently, a single flashlight can deter female sea turtles from coming onto a beach and nesting. Florida, as I did not know, is home to 90% of the sea turtle nests across the world, so losing sea turtles can affect the global ecosystem.
One visitor to Cocoa Beach stated, “Just leave them alone. Stand back and look. You don’t need a flashlight.”
Another, “It’s not super surprising because more buildings go up, more technology. As it increases, nature and stuff like that decreases,” said Zoe Jovaag, whose grandfather used to take her on walks to see sea turtles.
Capture the Dark 2023 officially is under way!
The International Dark Sky Association opens up its annual photo contest complete with prizes across eight categories and an additional People’s Choice category. Voting begins on July 3rd, entries must be received by June 30th.
City Tests Traffic Light That Only Turns Green for Drivers Who Obey the Speed Limit. Erin Marquis for Jalopnik.
And hey, you better not speed in Brossard, Quebec….otherwise you may be waiting around for a while. Brossard is testing out a new traffic light that will stay red until it senses oncoming traffic. However, it will only change to green if the car is going the speed limit. Per the Jalopnik article, “FRED [the French acronym for “educational traffic calming light] forces fast drivers to stop and gives them a chance to reconsider their life choices.” Such lights are already used in Europe, but this will be the first for the Great White North.
Why the Greatest Threat to Star-Gazing Isn’t Light Pollution, and this comes to us from Dorin Elin Urrutia at Inverse.
Elin Urrutia writes, in her compelling piece, that the greatest threat to star-gazing is actually the weather. Citing notable examples of the Mount Stromlo Observatory in Australia (which burnt down due to bushfires) and the Arecibo Observatory in Puerto Rico (which sustained structural damage following the winds of Hurricane Maria).
While the threat of human-caused climate change has presented new challenges, Elin Urrutia references proactive burns that saved Los Angeles’ Mount Wilson Observatory from flames in 2020.
On a similar note, ABC News (the Australian Broadcasting Company, not to be confused with the American Broadcasting Company), brings us “A World Without Darkness Could Be a Reality within a Few Years.”
Per Carol Redford of Astrotourism Western Australia, “There are some people in the world now who don’t actually experience darkness anymore. They’re in a city like Beijing, Toyoko, or London. In all those big cities, it’s never dark, it’s always light. During the day of course with the sun, but then during the night with all of the artificial light. They’re not experiencing darkness, and definitely not seeing those beautiful stars…”
In the 66 years since the implementation of the UN Convention on the Peaceful Use of Outerspace, around 11,000 satellites orbit the Earth. But it’s about to get wayyy busier. Driven by innovations that have led to dramatic reductions in costs, over the next ten years, Per attorney Steven Freeland, it’s anticipated that somewhere between 100,000 to 500,000 objects will be sent up. Let me pause on that for a second.
On the travel front, we stay in the land down under, “Aussie region determined to keep its darkness is a stargazer’s dream” by Chantelle Francis of News.com.AU.
The town of Swam Reach, population 270, resides in a 3200sq km region of Southern Australia that received its International Dark Sky Reserve status over three years ago. On a scale of darkness between 0 – 22, the River Murray Dark Sky Reserve at Swam Reach, measures in at a whopping 21.9!
Tourism has become a growing business. The reserve hosts numerous telescope pads and offers tours of the night sky. There’s hope that an observatory and/or planetarium may also arrive in due course.
Best smart lights for outdoors in 2023, Brittney Vincent of CBS Essentials.
Oh there’s a lot not to love here, but it does fall in line with last month’s ‘Lumens are Coming’ article.
For those of you who feel the need to light your trees, because for some reason they need light at night I guess…I’ll try and pretend it’s not solely for ostentatious and narcissistic reasons. By the way, does anyone remember when those were negative characteristics?
The article features spotlights that can be programmed to over 16 MILLION colors including…lucky for us, ALL shades of white….which you can also do for a 500 lumen flood light set.
And hey, Ring now has solar path lighting. Don’t worry though, the fixtures themselves put out up to 80 lumens of sideways light.
You know, it’s astounding when you look at some of these pictures. The amount of redundant lighting. It honestly makes no sense to me. You have a porch light, which lights up the path. Path lighting, which lights up the path. And, in the one picture, god awful frontward facing flood lights, which also light up the path. How bright do you need these paths!? I digress. But the lumens are indeed coming.
LDS Church will get to light up its Heber Valley Temple after all, but the faith didn’t get everything it wanted, Blake Apgar of the Salt Lake Tribune.
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints fought hard to rid itself of any nighttime lighting responsibility by pressuring Wasatch County, Utah officials to approve new lighting rules that would enable the church to light a proposed new temple the same way it does for every other temple.
The Church received permission to uplight the temple, enabling an exception to be made in Wasatch’s rather stringent nighttime lighting rulebook. However, the temple will be restricted by the level of lumens it can use, and it must have exterior lighting turned off an hour after sunset or an hour after normal business hours.
Smart Street Lights Market is Expected to Hit USD 14,751.1 million at a 23.4% CAGR by 2030, Market Research Future Press Release
The pandemic is officially over, smart street lighting is about to boom. Combine the rush to LED fixtures with the Internet of Things, and expect to see street lights moonlighting as traffic and parking monitors, air quality meters, and more. Not to mention, “it is anticipated that camera-connected smart street lighting will increase road safety by lowering the likelihood of accidents and criminality.”
Texas now has 7 dark sky communities for spectacular star gazing, Sana Ameer, MRT.
Let’s cheer on the city of Bee Cave, everyone! Bee Cave joins a growing list of dark sky places already in the Lone Star State, including 2 Dark Sky Sanctuaries, 5 Dark Sky Parks, and 1 Dark Sky Reserve. Nighttime is alive and well in some parts of Texas!
Our Afraid of the Dark article is a bit scary! Hilton Head’s dark roads and pedestrians are deadly combo. What the town is doing about it, Blake Douglas at The Island Packet.
Per the article, 9 pedestrian and cyclist fatalities occurred since 2018, with five occurring after dark. Prior to that period, there were 28 recorded deaths from 2000 – 2016, with 20 of them taking place after dark.
In 2018, an 11 year old resident was struck and killed while walking her dog across an intersection one night. Lighting advocates began taking shape in what otherwise is a very conservation focused island. Hilton Head, SC has a limited number of street lights, priding itself on “avoiding light pollution and blending nature with construction.”
Lighting advocates appear to be, at the very least, asking for flashing crosswalk lights on the island to indicate when an individual is crossing.
It should be noted that the article shows a chart of 9 after-dark-deaths since 2014, only two of them occurred at crosswalks. In fact, during the same time frame, 6 additional deaths occurred at crosswalks during the daytime.
As a whole, the National Safety Council reports that 74.5% of pedestrian deaths occurred at night, whereby 39.1% took place in lit areas and 35.38% took place in unlit areas.
Bryan Bloch, an auto safety expert, surmises that car companies bear some of the blame – producing cheap or ineffectual headlight fixtures, and drivers themselves, who don’t realize that they need to regularly clean their headlight lenses.
Despite opposition from residents, it appears that Hilton Head will be receiving lights at two new intersections and possibly more depending on engineering studies currently in progress.
Is lighting the key variable here? Is more light going to solve pedestrian deaths?
Our featured research article of the month comes to us from Animal Conservation, “Manipulating spectra of artificial light affects movement patterns of bats along ecological corridors.”
Bats are already known to have a wide range of responses to artificial light at night (also known as ALAN). Fast flying species tend to be more opportunistic in the presence of ALAN while slower ones tend to be more light averse. We know that “long wavelengths and reduced intensity” can minimize their environmental effects on bats. It’s not unheard of for bats to travel upwards of “tens of km per night.” Furthermore, bats are very dependent on the landscape and the structures within those landscapes.
Despite the nuances between species, the consensus is that ALAN, especially high intensity ALAN, negatively affects bats. This study attempted to answer what exactly bats do when they encounter ALAN – how do they react depending on different types of ALAN.
The study used three different light fixtures – one green, one red, and one white. The control was devoid of light fixtures. The researchers attempted to ascertain the behavior of bats as they encountered lights adjacent to woody areas. The researchers looked at three different bat groupings based on their foraging-echo location behavior, that being one of open field foraging, forest edge foraging, and narrow space – or more aptly forest foragers.
Researchers found that open and edge foraging bats increased their activity close to white and green lights, and to a lesser extent red lights. However, narrow space bats were more likely to veer away from all colors of lighting. Edge foragers were also less likely to cross a white light.
The positive effects of white and green light on open and edge foraging bats appear to be attributed to the accumulation of insects around light sources containing more blue light.
The nighttime sky over Oahu will be lit up with green lasers in the coming days. Here’s why. Hawaii News Now
Before we close up today, do you live in Hawaii? I know I wish I did!
If so, do you recall seeing green lasers streak across the night sky? Well, the Army Corps of Engineers was using lidar at night to complete a coastal mapping survey.
Why did they survey at night? Specifically, why did they do this between midnight to 5am? Simply b/c the airspace is so busy, that time was the only chance they had to complete the survey. The remaining survey was completed during daytime hours.

Title really. I recently got a Western Digital Gold 16 TB HDD hard drive because I needed the storage for my work but it had an unbearable clicking sound every exactly 5 seconds which I learnt was normal for the drive, and as such I had to return it and search for another.
By now I think that most people in this situation are aware of what that sound is, it is called PWL and it is a "feature" with most HDDs that have more than 8TB of storage. In the case of WD I have heard that most large Reds, Blacks and Golds have this but up until now I haven't heard the same about Blues.
In contrast I read somewhere on the internet that the 6TB Blue one doesn't have it and so I would like to ask for your help, to anyone who might know or who might possess this product, if the 8TB Western Digital Blue HDD Hard drive has this PWL noise or not so that I can buy it and finally be at peace.
To everyone who also had the same problem and couldn't stand the clicking, maybe we can also make a list of hard drives that do and don't have the PWL feature for future reference as most companies seem to be terrible at disclosing this. Thank you in advance for your help!

Howdy Folks,
In October 2021 I began doing videography and editing work for a local retired Doctor. She is a president of a special interest group for a local philanthropy club, and I was putting together an educational series for a subscription website she is the CEO of. It consisted of health lessons of her talking to a camera for 10-20 minutes about health, and readings from popular library books which were filmed in a local theater featuring many community members such as the former mayor, teachers, real estate agents, etc. She is a highly charismatic 87-year-old woman who talks about how she got millions of pounds of food and glasses donated worldwide and was responsible for putting up various covid clinics. She told me she worked with Steven Spielberg and that she'll introduce me to him one day. She paid me roughly 2000 dollars or so to edit this series of videos. I completed it, and she paid me, it was a little late, but she paid me and I believed she was a wonderful woman and told all my friends about her. She was like the grandmother I never had.
In early 2022, she told me that there was a big opportunity ahead of us, there were millions in funding, they had contracts with the School district and with other countries, and she would like to have me on board, so in June I began filming another series of videos, there were close to 100 videos that needed to be edited in both English and Spanish, and my co-editor and I polished the hell out of these videos. The website looked like garbage, but I liked that since this was a small team, I would have a great influence on how this company turned out. And she was paying so I did the work. Some of that included:

• Filming her political videos for her run for this local philanthropy club president.
• Website input, graphic design.
• Traveled to Reno to shoot with a subsidiary company that focused on teaching reading to illiterate people. Filmed a story there with a local news reporter.
• Synchronize sound to the picture using tools in Adobe
• Watch the whole video and time mark the places where the b-roll or videos that illustrate the point and note what needs to be seen.
• Remove awkward pauses
• Download 10-30 clips from my paid stock site, and synchronize the B-roll to the timeline
• Generate Subtitles using the tool in Premiere and correct grammar
• Add musical animation intro (Illustrated and edited previously with my girlfriend)
• Create quizzes from the template I created in Divinci using questions from the COO's wife
• Export with correct codec settings for web distribution
• Upload video
• Export English subtitle STL files for translation through the COO who hired a voiceover translator. She would then create the Spanish subtitles based on the English STLs which contain the timecode that matches the timeline
• Import Spanish sub and dub to premiere synchronize subs to audio
• Create Spanish quizzes using Divinci, export
• Import the quizzes and add them to the end.
• Export again and upload to Dropbox.

During this time, she said there were 2000 missing videos from her previous vendor. Which did not make sense to me, because all the videos we found on her hard drives only added up to around 300. I made documents with this information. She emailed the previous Vendor, and they didn't want to release the files because they didn't believe she would write a check for them. Also, this is when things started to look a little fishy. She said if there wasn't 2000 videos, she would lose a million-dollar contract. So I searched everywhere for the missing videos and came up with alternative plans to get 2000 videos by the deadline. But it didn't add up. There was no way she could have put out 2000 videos in the time she was working on this. So I kept working on the current series, enlisting another editor to help me get these videos done by January 10th.
Things I noticed: she split ties with her previous videographers, different learning management system vendors (imagine a Netflix for education videos with built-in quizzes) as well as her former COO, and she requested that the quizzes be directly in the video because she thought it would prevent theft. Personally, it didn't make sense to me and I thought, who would want to steal this? But she was paying. And I later realized it was because she has screwed over a lot of people over money.
The plan was to launch these videos by January 10, 2023. From the months of July to September, she paid me $70/hr for roughly 20-30 hours per week. On average it was around 5K each month. She paid me for 3 months and stopped paying me for the months of October, November, December, and the first week of January. I assumed she was behind because she usually was a little behind on payments. The total added up to roughly 17k.
But when January 10th came, I was told by her COO she took a fall. I don't know if that actually happened, but he told me to let her rest, but I demanded to know why the COO wouldn't tell me what was going on with the money. I took back access to the files, to which she called me immediately and sounded terrible, pausing every other second between words, saying the funding was tied up and they haven't gotten paid yet, and she left a check for me for 1k at her door which I picked up. Then I gave them access back to the files, a big mistake.
She has told me since then on 3 occasions, as well as in a phone conversation with my co-editor, that 40 million dollars are tied up in foreign banks and they can't transfer it because it could be drug and gun money.
I was advised by a mutual friend of a friend to write her husband as he just became treasurer of their club, and so I did. And I also sent a stern document saying I will sue on the 25th of May. She agreed to meet with me at Starbucks on May 24.
Now I'm speculating here, but I have no proof she was ever injured in the first place. She spoke fine, and she wasn't wearing a cast from where she fractured her arm. I could be wrong, but something worth noting.
She asked me how I was doing, and because I had been behind on money, she asked me if I was eating, and I told her my situation. She teared up saying she was crying on the inside, and outside too. She handed me a document, "International Bill of Exchange" telling me that they were buying coffee to pay me and that the money will be delivered to my house by check by Friday or Monday at the latest. Nothing came, and I further investigated this document. The lawyer's name on the document is a real lawyer, but apparently, he was reprimanded for something. When I called his office, his secretary said he would call me back, and they texted me from an iPhone instead, telling me to contact an email not listed on the document, but the same domain name was listed on the document. The website contains a ton of legal jargon meant to confuse you, but I realized it's all a clever scam to not pay me. I removed the names but this is what the sketchy email said.
"Dear Sir:
Please review [link ommited] ... in short... the [name omitted] COFFEE IBOE you received is "money"... but you probably want to receive "money" in a form you are used to using... and that is the same request as if you had a $100 FEDERAL RESERVE NOTE and you want to exchange it for that same value in quarter coins... that goes through a process... which NAME OMITTED is to provide and complete... as stipulated in the [name omitted] COFFEE IBOE.
At this time, several major banking transactions are being executed, any one of which will allow NAME OMITTED to satisfy your request... but the timing is subject to international banking... and is not under her control... or ours... so... please have NAME OMITTED keep you posted.
Sincerely,
ADMIN"
When I reply to the email asking who I'm speaking to it says: "This is the administrative service for [name omitted] SERVICES, INC." and leaves it at that.
My plan is to take her to small claims for 10K and forfeit the 7K, but can I also press charges for attempted fraud? I've also been in talks with the previous vendors, who said she owes something like 200k to them for years of work But they don't want to challenge her for various reasons, i.e. she is a charismatic powerful person who is an eloquent speaker and has the ability to get people to buy into her bullshit, they think lawyers will be expensive and they don't know if she can actually pay it back. She owns a waterfront house and a car and I know people in her club.
She is a clever con artist, and if I didn't owe my co-editor 6k, I would have probably let it go. What are your thoughts? Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Summary: A "DoctoPhilanthropist" I worked for paid me consistently for months and then stopped and has been telling me that the money is trapped in foreign banks. I did not have a contract because she was paying me consistently and I trusted her. I have months of email correspondence and proof of the work. She gave me a fake IBOE document that sends me to a crooked lawyer that in turn sent me to reach out to someone via email and that person replied like a Nigerian prince scheme. They might be the same person.

Hi All,
Some of you who have been a part of this community may remember someone who posted a series of wedgie stories. Well I had to delete that account. But I am here to retell these tales.
My name is Clement McManus and I am one of the biggest nerds at Stoneball Park High. I typically wear a blue buttoned down shirt tucked into khakis and wearing brown loafers or black dress shoes. Oh, I also wear glasses and I sometimes wear bow ties. I used to go to a private school, my parents are fairly rich. My grandpa was a scientist who made drugs and he became a man worth over 200 million dollars because of it. Then his kid (my father) became spoiled and has a job as a scientist (which I heard he doesn’t deserve) and makes 6 figures, but through my lifetime, 8 million dollars have came from my grandpa to this family. At the private school we were supposed to dress nicely, but not in uniform. Supposed to teach us something about life I guess. Most kids just wore a polo and jeans, with boat shoes. But then my parents decided to move me to a public school to show me what life for the average kid looks like. I showed up to school wearing a plaid button down dress shirt tucked into slim fit khakis and I was wearing brown loafers. In 6th grade, I wasn’t bullied surprisingly, I was a smooth talker and kids had respect for me because of my wealth. But that seemed to change in 7th grade.

I am fairly new to this great community, and I live in Texas. I was blood tested back in April and tested positive for DGP IgA only. I have been reading and posting on here ever since. I finally got in to see my GI doctor today, and it was a good visit. I told him about my blood test and how I had been learning ever since how to become gluten free. He was just fine with blood test and diagnosed me right there. He also asked if the gluten free eating was helping? I told him yes, but it was slow going. He said not to worry, that people like me that have had it longer and undiagnosed, would be a much longer healing period. He repeated what I already knew that there was nothing he could do for me but to keep eating gluten free. I told him my husband wants me to get an endoscopy just to have a plumb line on the damage to my intestines. He said that was fine, and he hoped that when he got in there, in august, that he would find me healing nicely.
Then it hit me, the reason why so many people like us suffer for so long without a diagnosis or are not believed, or told we are crazy is simply because there is no money to be made off our disease. Eat gluten free.... goodbye! If there were lots of medications and treatments for us, they would test for this in EVERY blood test. There are no pharmaceutical kickbacks or tons of expensive treatments. We are not economically viable. So, the longer the Celiac's go undiagnosed, the better chances there are that it will lead to more profitable diseases. Let us face the facts. There have been billions of dollars poured into drugs and treatments in my 59 yrs. here on earth, but no cures for people's diseases. They do, however, maintenance our diseases so that we live with them. But never an outright cure. There is no money in it. So as long as our health systems are kept this way, then Celiac will be at the back of the medical book, just as my pain doctor told me it was.