Dollar general chino valley

Long read: An expat's life story across 3 decades abroad

2023.05.29 23:27 CuriosTiger Long read: An expat's life story across 3 decades abroad

I see a lot of expats posting about problems and challenges in their new country, and I am not objecting to that. When you're unhappy, this can be a good place to find some support or at least a sympathetic ear. But I've lived outside of my home country for nearly three decades now, and I'd like to share my story and some of the positives I've experienced.
I was born and raised in Norway. By all accounts, that's winning the birth lottery. I'm proud to be Norwegian, and that will always be a part of my identity. However, in my teens, small town Norway felt kind of boring, and I wanted an adventure, so I went on a pilgrimage.
I was a computer geek before geeks became popular. When you're a computer geek, Mecca is in Silicon Valley, or at least it was back then. And so for my first real trip outside of Scandinavia, I moved to California as a high school exchange student.
High school was different. There was homesickness, but there were also new friends, new activities and a whole new climate. I arrived proficient in reading and writing English, but my spoken accent was very characteristically Norwegian. By the time I left, I was basically fluent. A slight accent remained, but it was no longer a barrier to communication.
I came home with a very pro-US viewpoint. I was dazzled by this land of opportunity, and in retrospect, I was overlooking some of the negatives, even back then. But I decided that I wanted to go back to the US for college.
I did exactly that. This time, I moved to Texas and enrolled at the University of Texas at Austin. This was my first experience really trying to live on my own (in California, I had had a host family) and it would be a lie to say that the international factor didn't make it extra intimidating. My dorm roommate told me he couldn't imagine what it would be like to be that far away from his family. Then his parents moved from Houston, Texas to Fairbanks, Alaska, so I guess he got to find out.
Even I can't find anything positive to say about dorm food, and there were some other problems. Surviving and thriving on a student budget could be tough, for one thing. But there's a silver lining to every cloud. I was able to obtain an off-campus work permit by showing the US government that the strengthening dollar had left my scholarship (in Norwegian currency) inadequate. Work permit in hand, one of the easiest student jobs I could find was a bus driver position with the university shuttle system. Not exactly your typical job for a computer science student, but it paid surprisingly well and I could schedule my shifts around my classes, so it proved a great fit. The only drawback was that junior drivers got no work over the summer when the university ran a much reduced bus schedule.
I solved that conundrum by going into trucking...helped in part by a really nice road trip I had stumbled into with a trucker friend the previous year, and by statements from him and others that I wasn't the trucker type and would never make it in that industry (challenged accepted!) Over the next few years, I was a college student from September through May, and drove trucks coast-to-coast every summer. I made it through 46 states and got paid to see the country.
That likely wouldn't have happened in Norway. Not because Norway doesn't have truckers, but because that kind of random detour from the "ideal" career path wouldn't sit well with Norwegian society. Norway likes social order. America likes individualism. I found that American friends found my little detour into trucking cool while Norwegian friends mostly just found it...odd.
Fast-forward a few years, and my first job offer out of college landed in my lap very unexpectedly. Through a friend in Norway, I landed my first full-time job. However, it wasn't in the US. Or in Norway. It was in Vienna, Austria. And it was too good to turn down, especially in an IT job market on life support after the .com bubble burst.
So I packed my bags and moved to Vienna. I still had an overly positive view of the US, although the way the US conducted itself in the wake of 9/11 would shake those convictions to the core. The job in Austria was fantastic in every way, I had fun at work, I had supportive coworkers...and then I had a few challenges.
One of them is that I have asthma. And in Austria in 2001, people still smoked inside. The first thing that happened in my new job is that I had to walk in and tell the three people I was sharing an office with that they could no longer smoke in the office. Thankfully, HR backed me up, but that didn't exactly win me any popularity contests I tried to be humble and explain as best I could that the asthma was beyond my control, and that did work...eventually. The ice thawed, and I settled into my new job.
But what about when it was time to go home? I did not have much of a social life at first. In the beginning, I could blame the language barrier -- much like my school English, my school German was inadequate at first. My coworkers were mostly fluent in English; the rest of Austrian society, not so much. And after all, I was in their country, it was only proper that I should learn THEIR language. So I put a lot of effort into that, speaking German with my coworkers and with anyone else who would put up with me. This was when I ran into another typical expat problem: Whenever I encountered an Austrian who spoke English, he/she would detect my foreign accent and switch to English unprompted. It took me a while to pick up on Austrian accents in general and Viennese German in particular, but eventually, I did.
That still didn't help my social life. Nor did the fact that bars and other similar venues were off-limits due to the aforementioned asthma. My coworkers were nice and polite, but Austria seems to have a bit of a taboo against socializing with coworkers outside of work. Truth be told, this is a nut I never quite did manage to crack. I did eventually make a number of friends in Austria, but the majority were fellow expats.
One of those friends was an American who had moved to Austria for personal reasons, but still tried to run a business along with a business partner of his back in Florida. To make an already-long story somewhat shorter, they hired me on a skilled worker visa and I moved back to the United States. I was excited to be in the US again, and I was not sorry to leave Austria behind. But I also don't regret taking the opportunity I was given in Vienna. I learned a lot from my years there.
Since then, my career path has been more normal. I've mostly lived in Florida since, with the exception of a few years back in Norway during the Great Recession. Even then, I wound up working for a well-known US company, so I'd sit in Norway fielding conference calls from Oklahoma and Texas. Then I moved back to Florida again because my wife (now ex-wife) decided she didn't want to live in Norway. At this point, I've lived in Florida continuously since 2012. And while I miss friends and family in Norway, life in Florida has been good to me. I've met great people here, and I've had adventures that wouldn't have been possible back home.
My asthma likes the Florida climate. Warm and humid sounds like a nightmare to some, but that warmth opens up my lungs and the humidity keeps the worst of the pollen out of the air. On the social scene, many Europeans call Americans "superficial", but I find that makes it easier to break the ice and make friends. So not everyone you meet is going to be your new BFF, but what's the harm in meeting them anyway?
People often ask me why I would leave Norway when the quality of life there is "so much better" (their words, not mine.) But quality of life is subjective. Sure, there are things I like better in Norway than in the US, but the reverse is also true.
Life has not been the straightforward path I'd envisioned in my teens, but it has been an adventure so far, and I can't wait to see what's around the next corner.
submitted by CuriosTiger to expats [link] [comments]


2023.05.29 22:59 graymorz Is mixpacking that big of an issue?

For context I’ve been playing POT for awhile and have grown 12 dinos to adult (not counting all my others on panjura). I’ve grown a good mix of herbi and carni, big and small. I’ve never really been ganged up on and killed like I see people talk about. I get the occasional death typically to a lone dino, but I almost always get my juvis to adult within a day or two. I do check chat occasionally for any general warnings, and obviously don’t accept any random invites but for the most part I quest in pretty popular areas (hot springs, young grove, hunters thicket, green valley, etc) and I play strictly on global. I’ve never seen the huge mix packs of 13 rexes trikes etc. Am I just stupidly lucky or is it not that common?
submitted by graymorz to pathoftitans [link] [comments]


2023.05.29 22:54 RobertCarnitas Any idea what this spider is?

Any idea what this spider is?
I live in Santa Barbara, CA and the local spiders are generally pretty small and tame. I came out to my car today and found this. It was larger than any spider I’ve seen here and was super quick and agile. It did several laps around my mirror before disappearing.
We just got back from camping in the Central Valley, near the Sequoia Mountains, so my assumption is that it hitchhiked back.
submitted by RobertCarnitas to spiders [link] [comments]


2023.05.29 22:44 tmille74 [FOR SALE] Remainder of Collection (Random Rock/Metal/World Music/Classic Rock/Indie)

Hello! Consolidating past posts into one final lot, a lot of stuff purchased dating back the past decade. Continental US shipping $5, shipping using new BagsUnlimited mailers with records outside sleeves/proper shipping methods. PayPal only, no Friends & Family. Grading is conservative. Message if interested. Records that are $5 and under I'll do 3-for-$15 w/ free shipping.
Obliteration - Nekropsalms (Yellow) VG+ - $10
Shining - IX Everyone, Everything, Everywhere, Ends (First Pressing Black) VG+ - $10
Toxik Death - Happy Fukking Holocaust (VG+) - $10
Mayhem - Live in Leipzig (Purple) VG, creasing on corner - $15
Cattle Decapitation - The Harvest Floor (2014 Reissue - Silver w/ Red Splattter) VG+, cover wear -- $15
Today is the Day - Animal Mother (VG) -$5
Excel - The Jokes On You (Southern Lord 2016 Reissue) VG edge wear - $8
Hells Headbangers Compilation Vol. 6 2xLP (VG) - $4
The Funeral Orchestra - Feeding the Abyss Reissue (G, Corner major bending) - $4
Statiqbloom - Mask Visions Poison (Clear) VG+ -- $8
Cloud Mouth - That Ghost is Always With Me (Chron Cloud) VG+ - $4
Rodeo Idiot Engine - Consequences (White with Black Haze, VG w/ corners that have creasing -- $4
WarHorse - As Heaven Turns To Ash (Black, VG+) -- $7
Aura Noir - Black Thrash Attack (Black - Neseblod Reissue VG+) -- $12
Bleak - We Deserve Our Failures (Blue, VG+) -- $4
Karma to Burn - S/T (2014 Metal Blade, VG+) -- $9
Thrones - Day Late, Dollar Short (Grey 2005 Southern Lord, VG+) -- $9
Class of Nuke 'em High - Soundtrack (2014 180G, VG+) -- $13
The Music of Cosmos (Japan, VG+) -- $5
The Soft Pink Truth -- Why Do The Heathen Rage? (Pink, VG+) -- $8
BIT.TRIP's Greatest Chips (Multicolored Picture Disc, VG+) -- $8
The Mothers -- Over-Nite Sensation, MS 2149 1973 Gatefold – Fair Plus (Disc playable, has some wear, gatefold is in tact but heavy wear on corners and edges) – $4
Berlin - Pleasure Victim – 1983 Reissue – Good (price stickers on bottom line, wear on edges) – $4
Michael Jackson - Thriller – 1982 Stereo – Poor (Album has severe damage on bottom of cover) – $4
Michael Jackson - Black or White Single 1991 – Good (sticker wear on front and back cover) – $4
Iron Butterly - In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida -- ATCO SD 33-250 -- Fair Plus (cover weabends) -- $4
John Lennon/Yoko Ono -- Double Fantasy -- 1980 Geffen -- G (slight creases along edge of cover) -- $4
The Jam -- All Mod Cons --1978 -- G (slight creases along edge of cover) -- $4
The United States of America -- S/T 2008 Reissue -- VG (some wear on cover, comes with original envelope sleeve) -- $12
Wes Montgomery -- Tequila -- Japan Import -- G (some wear on cover) -- $12
Wake Up You! The Rise and Fall of Nigerian Rock 1972-1977 Vol. 1 - (2016) - VG (Originally came with a paperback book separate, that's not included) - $9
Songs and Dance of Syria - G (shelf wear along edges) - $4
Land of Africa - 1985 12" 45rpm - G (weabends on corners/edges) - $4
National Wake - Walk in Africa 1979-81 (if unfamiliar, kind of like a South African Clash or Minutemen) - 2013 Light in the Attic Records - VG - $6
Shugo Tokumaru - L.S.T. (White w/ Black Marble) VG+ -- $12
Washed Out - Paracosm (Black) VG+ -- $15
Violent Sons - Nothing As It Seems (Smoke) VG - $7
Jaguar Love - Hologram Jams, VG - $8
Native - Wrestling Moves (Repress Clear Red w/ Black Smoke) VG+ - $12
Dyse - Das Nation (White VG - $15
Yngwie Malmsteen - Rising Force - 1984 Black - Good Plus (some wear around edges) - $10
I Don't Want To Be A Part Of Your So Called Punk - Compilation (Norway punk compilation) VG - $10Entrance - Prayer of Death , VG+ - $10
Carpathian - Isolation (No cover) - $4
Ramming Speed/ANS 12" Split, VG+ -- $7
Electric Eel Shock - Transworld Ultra Rock -- Blue -- Good plus (some general wear; cover is autographed by band member) -- $10
Man or Astro-man? - Experiment Zero -- 2010 reissue, VG -- $10
The Misfits - WCBN Michigan Live (Blue Translucent 1989 Vinyl Not On Label), Good (some wear and creasing along jacket) https://www.discogs.com/release/2128191-The-Misfits-Michigan-WCBN -- Please only reach out if serious and have previous trades for this one, open to discussing it as there's just not a ton out there on it and bootlegs aren't on Discogs -- $65
Velvet Underground - S/T (Either 2005 or 2012 pressing, can't discern and purchased in early 2010s so hard to say, any advice appreciated) -- Good Plus (some cover dents on corners) - $15
Additionally, a lot of three Rough Guide records ($15). These were ordered a few years ago from Music Rough Guides and they shipped them poorly, so each has noticeable sleeve dings on the corners. With that said, the records themselves are in VG+ condition. Included are:
Rough Guide to African Blues
Rough Guide to the Music of Ethiopia
Rough Guide to African Rare Groove Volume 1
submitted by tmille74 to VinylCollectors [link] [comments]


2023.05.29 22:38 Quitechsol Found cases of Maui Burst in a dollar general in Christiansburg, VA!

Found cases of Maui Burst in a dollar general in Christiansburg, VA! submitted by Quitechsol to mountaindew [link] [comments]


2023.05.29 22:35 adventurepaul E-commerce Industry News - Week of May 29th, 2023

Hi ecommerce - I'm Paul and I follow the e-commerce industry pretty closely for my Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter. Each week I post a summary recap of this week's top stories, which I cover in depth in the newsletter. .
  1. STAT OF THE WEEK: 70% of e-commerce shoppers experienced shipping delays without any reason provided by the business for the delay. Faced with that experience, 90% of respondents said they are less likely to buy from a brand again after a poor online shopping experience, while 29% say they are increasingly willing to share a negative review online. – According to Koerber .
  2. If some of Temu's deals appear too good to be true — it's because they are! An analysis of the company's supply chain costs by WIRED shows that Temu is losing an average of $30 per order as it throws money at trying to break into the American market. Most of Temu's subsidies are in the form of free international shipping, with even a small package costing the company around $14 to ship to the US (although it offers the shipping for free). When adding in the additional product discounts and cash coupons that Temu gives to customers, the average loss per order jumps to $30. .
  3. The FTC has proposed new rules in the US called “click to cancel” that will impact e-commerce subscriptions — but in a good way for consumers! The rules would require any business selling subscriptions to add a simple cancel mechanism on the same website as the initial transaction, and include the same number of steps. In other words, a “one click subscription” would require a “one click cancelation.” This “click to cancel” rule is part of the FTC's proposed changes to its 1973 Negative Option Rule, which establishes how subscription sellers must communicate offers, ensure consent, manage billing, and simplify cancellation. .
  4. BigCommerce announced new leadership including the appointment of Daniel Lentz as the company's CFO, Chuck Cassidy as its General Counsel, and Hubert Ban as its Chief Accounting Officer. .
  5. Google is launching Product Studio, a new tool that allows Shopping merchants to quickly edit and customize their product images for free using generative AI. According to Google's data, product listings with more than one image typically see a 76% increase in impressions and a 32% increase in clicks compared to listings with a single image. With the new generative AI tool, text prompts can be used within Product Studio to quickly make visual adjustments to product images, such as generating new backgrounds for seasonal campaigns. The tool also allows sellers to instantly remove the existing background of an image if they need a blank backdrop, and increase the quality of small or low resolution images. .
  6. Morning Consult published their annual report of Most Trusted Brands for 2023. The survey ranks roughly 1,500 brands in the US, most of which were dominated by big, well-established names including: #1 Band-Aid, #2 UPS, #3 Amazon, #4 Lysol, #5 Kleenex, #6 Cheerios, #7 Visa, #8 Dove, #9 The Weather Channel, and #10 FedEx .
  7. Axios, in collaboration with market research firm Harris Poll, also ran a recent survey to determine the Most Reputable Brands in the US. The results were very different from Morning Consult's most trusted brands. Only one company overlapped in the top ten which included: #1 Patagonia, #2 Costco, #3 John Deere, #4 Trader Joe's, #5 Chick-fil-A, #6 Toyota, #7 Samsung, #8 Amazon, #9 USAA, and #10 Apple . Bottom of the list included: #90 Family Dollar, #91 Balenciaga, #92 BP, #93 Bitcoin, #94 TikTok, #95 Spirit Airlines, #96 Meta, #97 Twitter, #98 Fox, #99 FTX, and #100 The Trump Organization .
  8. The latest data from PYMNTS shows that high earners are feeling the pinch of credit card debt and that their wages aren't keeping up with inflation. This is resulting in higher-end retailers who depend on wealthier households feeling the pinch as well. The data shows a number of correlations including that for bouseholds earning more than $100k annually, 42% were living paycheck-to-paycheck in April 2022. That number has crept up to over 49% this past year. .
  9. Netflix must have forgotten what love is since 2017 when it made its famous tweet that “Love is sharing a password.” The company has finally launched its ill-awaited crackdown on password sharing in the US and the UK. The new rules state that subscribers are permitted to share their account with members of their own household, which Netflix defines as “you and the people you live with.” Netflix will begin using a variety of tools, such as IP checking, to spot when people are using another household’s account and prevent them from doing so, or give them the option of adding a household for $7.99/month. The company expects cancellations, but optimistically (or idiotically) predicts that those same people will come back again, which will overall lead to more people paying for subscriptions. .
  10. Laws are changing in Australia to treat BNPL as a credit product. Finally! When was it NOT a form of credit? BNPL should have been recognized as a credit product the day the first BNPL company put up a coming soon landing page. Australia’s Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services Stephen Jones said that a litany of issues reported to the Australia Securities and Investments Commission have added up to “unacceptable levels of unaffordable lending occurring, largely concentrated amongst low-income borrowers.” He added that “BNPL looks like credit, it acts like credit, it carries the risks of credit.” Jones promised draft legislation in the coming months and the introduction of a final bill to the Australian Parliament by the end of the year, which will include the need for BNPL firms to hold Australian Credit Licenses and comply with Resonspible Lending Obligations. .
  11. Bill Gates said that AI could kill Google Search and Amazon as we know them, and that the technology could radically alter user behaviors, resulting in people never needing to visit a search website again or use certain productivity or shopping tools. Gates remarked that the first company to develop it will have a leg up on competitors. .
  12. A recent study conducted by Lloyds Banking Group revealed that a UK consumer falls victim to a purchasing scam that originates on Facebook or Instagram every seven minutes, resulting in a cost of over £500k per week. (That man is Michael Scott.) The banking group is now urging Meta and other tech giants to take responsibility and contribute to refunding innocent victims of scams. .
  13. Analysts at Bernstein project that Reliance Industries is poised to outpace Amazon and Flipkart in the race for India's $150M e-commerce market, citing the conglomerate's robust retail network, mobile network, and home field advantage as its biggest assets. Reliance already operates the country's largest retail chain with over 18k stores and is leveraging its presence to form partnerships with Meta, Shein, and other companies as a strategic advantage against its competitors. .
  14. Shopify is introducing its POS hardware to the Canadian market. Its mobile selling device, the POS Go, which is built to run Shopify’s POS software, was first rolled out to retailers in the US in 2022. .
  15. Meta announced that ads in Instagram search results will now be available through the Instagram Marketing API, allowing third-party social-management platforms to offer a new Instagram ad-placement type in their apps. Meta began testing the placement in March and are now opening it up to all brands. .
  16. Shein is exploring plans to build a factory in Mexico as one of its manufacturing hubs outside China, which could shorten shipping time and cut distribution costs for customers in Latin America and USA. Earlier this month I reported that Shein is creating a hub in Brazil. .
  17. Amazon opened the first phase of its Metropolitan Park on Monday, its long-awaited second headquarters in Arlington, Virginia that can hold up to 8k employees. However not all Amazon employees are excited about the new office location (or any office location). At least 1,000 office workers are planning a walkout this Wednesday to take a stand against the company's return-to-office mandate. .
  18. The Vietnamese government is putting pressure on TikTok to police its content and remove videos that fall short of the state’s standards, or risk a ban. Eight government departments are targeting toxic content deemed “to pose a threat to the country’s youth, culture and tradition” — including videos that simply criticize college degrees. .
  19. eBay unveiled generative AI on its mobile app to help sellers list new items for sale, however the company forgot to inform sellers and didn't label the icon. When clicked, the icon replaced sellers' entire product descriptions with AI generated text, with no way to recover the original description. .
  20. Boozt AB, a Sweden-based online fashion retailer, blocked 42,000 customers for returning too many items, calling their actions too costly for the company and the environment. The company said that these particular customers represented less than 2% of their 3M customers, but around 25% of the total return volume. .
  21. Twitter withdrew from an agreement with the EU to cut down misinformation on its social network, which the company joined alongside other tech companies in 2018. Thierry Breton, the EU internal market commissioner, noted that fighting disinformation will be a legal obligation from August 25th, due to the EU's Digital Services Act, so the agreement would become irrelevant. .
  22. Jeff Bezos is ripped now! The Amazon founder started working with personal trainer, Wes Okerson, who's also trained Tom Cruise and Gerard Butler, and now he's gotten super buff. This is about the least e-commerce specific news you'll ever see me share in this newsletter, but the Jeff Bezos before / after photo is kind of wild! .
  23. Amazon will close its official Amazon app store in China on July 17, which launched in 2011 as an alternative to the Google Play Store. Amazon noted that its marketplaces and AWS services will remain operational in China. However while it may be leaving China, the Amazon App Store will soon be bringing more Android apps to the Windows ecosystem. The expanded partnership will allow Windows users to access a wider range of Android apps seamlessly. .
  24. Google updated the badges some merchants display for their product listings in Google Search to say “Top Quality Store” instead of the original “Trusted Store” badge. Google said this is just a name and title change and won't have any impact on search rank or performance. .
  25. Auctane, an e-commerce shipping specialist that operates brands such as Metapack, ShipStation, Packlink, ShipEngine, Stamps.com, and others, appointed Albert Ko as its new CEO, who previously served as CEO of EWS, which is best known for the Zelle payments network. Current CEO Nathan Jones will join the company's Board of Directors. .
  26. eCampus.com, a website that sells textbooks and course materials, announced that it would keep offering textbook rentals, even though its retail partner Amazon was exiting the business. The company had been powering the program behind the scenes for Amazon since 2012, and plans to keep it going through its own website. .
  27. Walmart is partnering with Pawp, a veterinary telehealth provider, to offer Walmart+ subscribers free access to virtual veterinarians for a year, starting this week. Currently Pawp charges $99 for an annual membership. .
  28. Alibaba Group said that it aims to hire 15,000 people this year, dismissing rumors circulating that the company planned to cut 20% of its staff. They also mentioned that more than 3,000 of those hires would be newly-graduated students. .
  29. Plus 7 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest including a $12M Series A round by Laced to grow its resale marketplace for authenticated sneakers.
I hope you find this news recap helpful. See you next week!
-PAUL
submitted by adventurepaul to ecommerce [link] [comments]


2023.05.29 22:35 adventurepaul What's new in e-commerce? - Week of May 29th, 2023

Hi ShopifyeCommerce - I'm Paul and I follow the e-commerce industry closely for my Shopifreaks E-commerce Newsletter. Each week I post a summary recap of this week's top stories, which I cover in depth in the newsletter. .
  1. STAT OF THE WEEK: 70% of e-commerce shoppers experienced shipping delays without any reason provided by the business for the delay. Faced with that experience, 90% of respondents said they are less likely to buy from a brand again after a poor online shopping experience, while 29% say they are increasingly willing to share a negative review online. – According to Koerber .
  2. If some of Temu's deals appear too good to be true — it's because they are! An analysis of the company's supply chain costs by WIRED shows that Temu is losing an average of $30 per order as it throws money at trying to break into the American market. Most of Temu's subsidies are in the form of free international shipping, with even a small package costing the company around $14 to ship to the US (although it offers the shipping for free). When adding in the additional product discounts and cash coupons that Temu gives to customers, the average loss per order jumps to $30. .
  3. The FTC has proposed new rules in the US called “click to cancel” that will impact e-commerce subscriptions — but in a good way for consumers! The rules would require any business selling subscriptions to add a simple cancel mechanism on the same website as the initial transaction, and include the same number of steps. In other words, a “one click subscription” would require a “one click cancelation.” This “click to cancel” rule is part of the FTC's proposed changes to its 1973 Negative Option Rule, which establishes how subscription sellers must communicate offers, ensure consent, manage billing, and simplify cancellation. .
  4. BigCommerce announced new leadership including the appointment of Daniel Lentz as the company's CFO, Chuck Cassidy as its General Counsel, and Hubert Ban as its Chief Accounting Officer. .
  5. Google is launching Product Studio, a new tool that allows Shopping merchants to quickly edit and customize their product images for free using generative AI. According to Google's data, product listings with more than one image typically see a 76% increase in impressions and a 32% increase in clicks compared to listings with a single image. With the new generative AI tool, text prompts can be used within Product Studio to quickly make visual adjustments to product images, such as generating new backgrounds for seasonal campaigns. The tool also allows sellers to instantly remove the existing background of an image if they need a blank backdrop, and increase the quality of small or low resolution images. .
  6. Morning Consult published their annual report of Most Trusted Brands for 2023. The survey ranks roughly 1,500 brands in the US, most of which were dominated by big, well-established names including: #1 Band-Aid, #2 UPS, #3 Amazon, #4 Lysol, #5 Kleenex, #6 Cheerios, #7 Visa, #8 Dove, #9 The Weather Channel, and #10 FedEx .
  7. Axios, in collaboration with market research firm Harris Poll, also ran a recent survey to determine the Most Reputable Brands in the US. The results were very different from Morning Consult's most trusted brands. Only one company overlapped in the top ten which included: #1 Patagonia, #2 Costco, #3 John Deere, #4 Trader Joe's, #5 Chick-fil-A, #6 Toyota, #7 Samsung, #8 Amazon, #9 USAA, and #10 Apple . Bottom of the list included: #90 Family Dollar, #91 Balenciaga, #92 BP, #93 Bitcoin, #94 TikTok, #95 Spirit Airlines, #96 Meta, #97 Twitter, #98 Fox, #99 FTX, and #100 The Trump Organization .
  8. The latest data from PYMNTS shows that high earners are feeling the pinch of credit card debt and that their wages aren't keeping up with inflation. This is resulting in higher-end retailers who depend on wealthier households feeling the pinch as well. The data shows a number of correlations including that for bouseholds earning more than $100k annually, 42% were living paycheck-to-paycheck in April 2022. That number has crept up to over 49% this past year. .
  9. Netflix must have forgotten what love is since 2017 when it made its famous tweet that “Love is sharing a password.” The company has finally launched its ill-awaited crackdown on password sharing in the US and the UK. The new rules state that subscribers are permitted to share their account with members of their own household, which Netflix defines as “you and the people you live with.” Netflix will begin using a variety of tools, such as IP checking, to spot when people are using another household’s account and prevent them from doing so, or give them the option of adding a household for $7.99/month. The company expects cancellations, but optimistically (or idiotically) predicts that those same people will come back again, which will overall lead to more people paying for subscriptions. .
  10. Laws are changing in Australia to treat BNPL as a credit product. Finally! When was it NOT a form of credit? BNPL should have been recognized as a credit product the day the first BNPL company put up a coming soon landing page. Australia’s Assistant Treasurer and Minister for Financial Services Stephen Jones said that a litany of issues reported to the Australia Securities and Investments Commission have added up to “unacceptable levels of unaffordable lending occurring, largely concentrated amongst low-income borrowers.” He added that “BNPL looks like credit, it acts like credit, it carries the risks of credit.” Jones promised draft legislation in the coming months and the introduction of a final bill to the Australian Parliament by the end of the year, which will include the need for BNPL firms to hold Australian Credit Licenses and comply with Resonspible Lending Obligations. .
  11. Bill Gates said that AI could kill Google Search and Amazon as we know them, and that the technology could radically alter user behaviors, resulting in people never needing to visit a search website again or use certain productivity or shopping tools. Gates remarked that the first company to develop it will have a leg up on competitors. .
  12. A recent study conducted by Lloyds Banking Group revealed that a UK consumer falls victim to a purchasing scam that originates on Facebook or Instagram every seven minutes, resulting in a cost of over £500k per week. (That man is Michael Scott.) The banking group is now urging Meta and other tech giants to take responsibility and contribute to refunding innocent victims of scams. .
  13. Analysts at Bernstein project that Reliance Industries is poised to outpace Amazon and Flipkart in the race for India's $150M e-commerce market, citing the conglomerate's robust retail network, mobile network, and home field advantage as its biggest assets. Reliance already operates the country's largest retail chain with over 18k stores and is leveraging its presence to form partnerships with Meta, Shein, and other companies as a strategic advantage against its competitors. .
  14. Shopify is introducing its POS hardware to the Canadian market. Its mobile selling device, the POS Go, which is built to run Shopify’s POS software, was first rolled out to retailers in the US in 2022. .
  15. Meta announced that ads in Instagram search results will now be available through the Instagram Marketing API, allowing third-party social-management platforms to offer a new Instagram ad-placement type in their apps. Meta began testing the placement in March and are now opening it up to all brands. .
  16. Shein is exploring plans to build a factory in Mexico as one of its manufacturing hubs outside China, which could shorten shipping time and cut distribution costs for customers in Latin America and USA. Earlier this month I reported that Shein is creating a hub in Brazil. .
  17. Amazon opened the first phase of its Metropolitan Park on Monday, its long-awaited second headquarters in Arlington, Virginia that can hold up to 8k employees. However not all Amazon employees are excited about the new office location (or any office location). At least 1,000 office workers are planning a walkout this Wednesday to take a stand against the company's return-to-office mandate. .
  18. The Vietnamese government is putting pressure on TikTok to police its content and remove videos that fall short of the state’s standards, or risk a ban. Eight government departments are targeting toxic content deemed “to pose a threat to the country’s youth, culture and tradition” — including videos that simply criticize college degrees. .
  19. eBay unveiled generative AI on its mobile app to help sellers list new items for sale, however the company forgot to inform sellers and didn't label the icon. When clicked, the icon replaced sellers' entire product descriptions with AI generated text, with no way to recover the original description. .
  20. Boozt AB, a Sweden-based online fashion retailer, blocked 42,000 customers for returning too many items, calling their actions too costly for the company and the environment. The company said that these particular customers represented less than 2% of their 3M customers, but around 25% of the total return volume. .
  21. Twitter withdrew from an agreement with the EU to cut down misinformation on its social network, which the company joined alongside other tech companies in 2018. Thierry Breton, the EU internal market commissioner, noted that fighting disinformation will be a legal obligation from August 25th, due to the EU's Digital Services Act, so the agreement would become irrelevant. .
  22. Jeff Bezos is ripped now! The Amazon founder started working with personal trainer, Wes Okerson, who's also trained Tom Cruise and Gerard Butler, and now he's gotten super buff. This is about the least e-commerce specific news you'll ever see me share in this newsletter, but the Jeff Bezos before / after photo is kind of wild! .
  23. Amazon will close its official Amazon app store in China on July 17, which launched in 2011 as an alternative to the Google Play Store. Amazon noted that its marketplaces and AWS services will remain operational in China. However while it may be leaving China, the Amazon App Store will soon be bringing more Android apps to the Windows ecosystem. The expanded partnership will allow Windows users to access a wider range of Android apps seamlessly. .
  24. Google updated the badges some merchants display for their product listings in Google Search to say “Top Quality Store” instead of the original “Trusted Store” badge. Google said this is just a name and title change and won't have any impact on search rank or performance. .
  25. Auctane, an e-commerce shipping specialist that operates brands such as Metapack, ShipStation, Packlink, ShipEngine, Stamps.com, and others, appointed Albert Ko as its new CEO, who previously served as CEO of EWS, which is best known for the Zelle payments network. Current CEO Nathan Jones will join the company's Board of Directors. .
  26. eCampus.com, a website that sells textbooks and course materials, announced that it would keep offering textbook rentals, even though its retail partner Amazon was exiting the business. The company had been powering the program behind the scenes for Amazon since 2012, and plans to keep it going through its own website. .
  27. Walmart is partnering with Pawp, a veterinary telehealth provider, to offer Walmart+ subscribers free access to virtual veterinarians for a year, starting this week. Currently Pawp charges $99 for an annual membership. .
  28. Alibaba Group said that it aims to hire 15,000 people this year, dismissing rumors circulating that the company planned to cut 20% of its staff. They also mentioned that more than 3,000 of those hires would be newly-graduated students. .
  29. Plus 7 seed rounds, IPOs, and acquisitions of interest including a $12M Series A round by Laced to grow its resale marketplace for authenticated sneakers.
For more details on each story, see the full edition: https://www.shopifreaks.com/how-much-money-does-temu-lose-per-orde
What else is new in e-commerce? Share stories of interesting in the comments below (including in your own business) or on shopifreaks.
See you next week.
-PAUL
submitted by adventurepaul to ShopifyeCommerce [link] [comments]


2023.05.29 22:06 JoelSnape An introduction to the Saturn Polar Configuration (for those who may be new to the subject)

An introduction to the Saturn Polar Configuration (for those who may be new to the subject)
In his groundbreaking book ‘The Saturn Myth’ (inspired by the work of Immanuel Velikovsky who has correspondence with Albert Einstein about his ideas) researcher David Talbott analyzed myths from ancient cultures around the world and found that they all described the same phenomenon surrounding Saturn. He found that symbolism for Saturn is the same throughout ancient Mesopotamia, India, Greece, the Americas, and Egypt — and as documented by ancient cultures, explains how there was once a celestial alignment involving Saturn that occurred thousands of years ago. Based on ancient accounts throughout the world, Talbott describes a period of “great upheaval” in celestial bodies, when Saturn, Venus, and Mars descended and aligned overhead Earth in a spectacular astronomical event dubbed the “Saturn Polar Configuration”. As Talbott says in ‘The Saturn Myth’: “[The Saturn Polar Configuration is] the idea based on comparative mythology, that the Earth was once in close proximity, or even a satellite of the planet Saturn”. During this celestial upheavel, Mars descended from its position in the sky and formed a connection or stairway to Saturn which became known by the ancients as the heaven-sustaining giant Atlas, Mount Olympus, and the Tower of Babel, inter alia. Various cultures around the world recorded this celestial stairway. For example, the Makirtare Indians of the Amazonian rainforest tell of a time where the hero Ahishama, identified as Mars, climbed a stairway to Heaven. The Mesopotamian god Nergal also climbed a stairway to Heaven and was identified as Mars. Talbott calls this stairway the “Cosmic Mountain”. There are various illustrations of how this alignment would have looked here.
COSMIC MOUNTAIN TO SATURN
During this time of celestial upheaval, Saturn and the other bodies that were aligned with it went through various configurations in the sky (see the documentary series ‘Discourses on an Alien Sky’) and at one point the light emanating from Venus behind Mars formed what appeared to be a pupil inside a triangle that Talbott associates with the All-Seeing-Eye. As Talbott explains in ‘The Saturn Myth’: “It’s impossible to pursue Saturn’s ancient image without encountering the paradise of Eden, the lost Atlantis, or the All-Seeing-Eye of heaven”. The Saturn Polar Configuration was mostly characterized by an 8-pointed star or 8-spoked wheel. Here is an image of Saturn holding an 8-spoked wheel (as shown in ‘Discourses on an Alien Sky’). The crescent under Saturn was morphed and anthropomorphized. The Saturn-crescent was morphed into wings — with the solar disc (Saturn) placed in the centre, such as with the Egyptian winged Kheper. Quote from ‘The Saturn Myth’: “Of the crescent in the primary images and ancient sources present these basic forms: The horns of the bull-god or the uplifted arms of the heaven-sustaining giant [such as Atlas]. The outstretched wings of the mother goddess (or winged god). But these same wings, or arms, constitute the great god’s sailing vessel [Saturn Ship] which in turn is depicted as two shining horns”. As Talbott points out in ‘The Saturn Myth’, the fundamental themes of Saturn imagery include the the Saturn Ship, the All-Seeing-Eye, the two sacred pillars of Heaven (morphed into the Hercules and Masonic pillars) — the two shining horns and uplifted arms of the heaven-sustaining giant which were all based on the same celestial alignment in the sky.
https://preview.redd.it/66tfb9crav2b1.png?width=750&format=png&auto=webp&s=c2c9f5dd75b84ca829e00d094d5669d4d3482229
The 8-pointed star (as seen in the Saturn Polar Configuration and as shown above) is a symbol of Freemasonry. The Masonic image below has a circle inside the 8-pointed star (called the circumpunct — an ancient symbol of the Sun). In his book ‘Morals and Dogma’, 33 degree Freemason Albert Pike connects the ancient Sun to the All-Seeing-Eye and the Masonic Blazing Star, saying: “The Blazing Star has been regarded as an emblem of Omniscience, or the All-Seeing-Eye, which to the ancients was the Sun”. This is curious, because we know that the ancients considered Saturn to be the Sun — as explained by Talbott in ‘The Saturn Myth’. The Babylonians associated Saturn with the Sun (as “son of Shamash” and “star of Helios”) and the name for Saturn in Chaldean astronomy was Alap-Shamas, meaning “Star of the Sun”. In the article ‘Saturn as the Sun of Night in Ancient Eastern Tradition’, Peter James says, “attested in Mesopotamia and followed by the Greeks and Hindus, there’s a long-standing association with Saturn as the Sun”. Troy McLachlan, says, in his book ‘The Saturn Death Cult’: “The ancients did indeed see a Sun-like object residing in their skies — and that object was Saturn”. According to political scientist Alfred De Grazia in his book ‘Homo Schizo: Human Nature’, Isaac Vail (who was an amateur scientific theorist) connected the All-Seeing-Eye (which remember was the Masonic Blazing Star) to the Saturn Polar Configuration, saying: “The All-Seeing-Eye is one of the earliest and most nearly universal symbols. Isaac Vail believed that the primordial eye was the boreal opening from which Saturn on his throne looked down upon his domain”. The letter G in the image below takes the place of Venus in the Saturn Polar Configuration. 33 degree Freemason Arthur Waite quotes famous occultist Eliphas Levi telling us that the letter “G” stands for Venus (see his book ‘The Mysteries of Magic: A Digest of the Writings of Eliphas Levi’).
https://preview.redd.it/6utnkyytav2b1.png?width=467&format=png&auto=webp&s=bf8ccc7bf37d0ddae3b5b4aa0285d8f2c64f859b
Another instance of the 8-pointed star on a Freemason building in Lisbon:
https://preview.redd.it/08azng1wav2b1.png?width=639&format=png&auto=webp&s=f512374111edcaf0ef5b48f2689ef9a910b87fd3
During the various configurations of the Saturn Polar Configuration that produced various visual characteristics, the smaller orb of Venus (and also at different times Mars which produced a darker dot as shown here from ‘Discourses on an Alien Sky’) appeared as a circumpunct that passed in front of the larger orb of Saturn. As Talbott explains in ‘The Saturn Myth’: “From one section of the world to another the planet-god’s worshippers drew pictures of the Saturnian Configuration and these pictures become the universal signs and symbols of antiquity. In the global lexicon of symbols, the most common images are the enclosed Sun [the ancient Sun corresponding to Saturn according to Talbott] and the enclosed Sun cross . It appears that every ancient race revered these signs”. Author Dan Brown explains the circumpunct as follows: “In the idiom of symbology, there was one symbol [the circumpunct] that reigned supreme above all others. The oldest and most universal, this symbol fused all the ancient traditions in a single solitary image that represented the illumination of the Egyptian Sun-god, the triumph of alchemical gold, the wisdom of the Philosopher’s Stone, the purity of the Rosicrucian Rose, the moment of Creation, the All, the dominance of the astrological Sun, and the omniscient All-Seeing-Eye that hovered atop the unfinished pyramid”. According to Wikipedia: “Throughout history, the circumpunct has been all things to all people — it’s the Sun-god Ra, alchemical gold, and the All-Seeing-Eye”. In ‘The Saturn Myth’, Talbott identifies Ra as Saturn, saying: “One finds of interest an Egyptian ostrakon (1st century B.C.) cited by Franz Boll: The ostrakon identifies the planet Saturn as the great god Ra”. The circumpunct can be seen in Freemason artwork (as shown below). The image on the bottom right is an illustration of the Saturn Polar Configuration from the documentary ‘Symbols of an Alien Sky’ (with Venus as the luminous dot).
https://preview.redd.it/8xsmwgezav2b1.png?width=750&format=png&auto=webp&s=adc33c03e84d3d3f973ccb9ff44d812cb8875516
The luminous U-shape created by the Saturn-crescent became morphed into pillars. Talbott says in ‘The Saturn Myth’ when explaining the twin-pillar or twin-peaked crescent of the Saturn Polar Configuration: “In all ancient myths of the lost paradise, the land of peace and plenty rests upon a cosmic pillar — “Earth’s highest mountain”. One of the peculiarities of the Mount is that it possesses two peaks, rising to the right and left of the central column. The Egyptian Mount of Glory (Khut) reveals two peaks between which rests the Aten or enclosed Sun 𓈌. Depicted by this sign are “the two great mountains on which Re appears”. And what is most interesting about the Egyptian symbol of the cleft peak 𓈋 is that it finds strikingly similar parallels in other lands. The Mesopotamian Sun-god rests upon a twin-peaked world mountain of identical form and the same dual mount occurs also in Mexico — here too revealing the Sun-god between the two peaks. In Hebrew and Muslim thought “the mountain of paradise is a double one” observes Wensinck. To the Hebrews Sinai, Ebol, and Gerezim were all conceived as images of a twin-peaked mountain, states Jeremias. In the primeval Tyre (paradise) according to the description of Nonnus, a “double rock” rises from the ocean. In its centre is an olive (the central Sun) which automatically emits fire, setting it in a perpetual blaze. The Syrian and Hittite great gods stand equally balanced upon two mountains. In the beginning, according to a central Asiatic legend related by Uno Holmberg, “there was only water, from which the two great mountains emerged”. From the central mount of Hindu cosmology rise two secondary peaks. Of course, the twin pillars of Hercules point to the same idea”. In his book ‘Mortal Jigsaw Puzzle’, Grieving Patriot says: “In ancient history, this twin pillar construct is also referred to as the pillars of Hercules, a gateway beyond which lay the path to enlightenment”.
https://preview.redd.it/lvcvkrq2bv2b1.png?width=669&format=png&auto=webp&s=dc0fe919e01594a12065de19fe5ef2c278d62ec2
Notice the Saturn-crescent below which appears as two pillars:
https://preview.redd.it/6x1zyhb5bv2b1.png?width=231&format=png&auto=webp&s=c2cf5fa59523763971c1545cfa46ee1b9887a9fe
This same symbol is seen throughout the ancient world such as the Phoenician Tanit symbol where the Saturn-crescent has become fully morphed into pillars:
https://preview.redd.it/6bus33k7bv2b1.png?width=220&format=png&auto=webp&s=c0fe6fd3b9553294d3fabfbb66cbb46885c86e25
The symbols above became the basis for Freemason Tracing Boards showing the Blazing Star placed between two pillars:
https://preview.redd.it/478ni6s9bv2b1.png?width=430&format=png&auto=webp&s=096f861563619f6a8a60cd69bc57e87eaced8d8c
In ‘The Saturn Myth’, Talbott corresponds the Saturn Polar Configuration to a gateway, saying: “The god “comes out” and “goes in” on the [Saturnian] mountaintop through the “gate”, but he accomplishes this without moving from his fixed abode”. Talbott also cites Coffin Text talking about how the Saturn Polar Configuration was a portal. The text reads: “I did four good deeds within the portal of the Mount of Glory. I made the four winds that every man might breathe”. Talbott explains that the sign 𓈌 is the Mount of Glory. This is the same sign given by Talbott for the Saturn Polar Configuration. Talbott expands on the idea that the Saturn Polar Configuration was a kind of gate in his article here in which he says: “One of the archetypal forms I had discussed involved the global myths and symbols of the “Chain of Arrows”, a theme inseparably connected to another archetype, the “Ladder of Heaven”. As the story was told, a great warrior launches arrows into the sky, each embedding itself in the one above to form a ladder or stairway to the land of the gods”. The Saturn Polar Configuration went through various configurations that produced various visual characteristics, but was mostly characterized by an 8-pointed star. The 8-pointed star was known as the “Cross of Ilu” or “Bab-Ilu” which means “Gate of God”. According to investigative mythologist William Henry, author of over 18 books in alternative science, the 8-pointed star represented a portal or a Gate of God, saying: “Wherever archaeologists discovered remains of the early Sumerian civilizations the symbol of the “Gate of the Gods” was prominently displayed. The Sumerians depicted this gate as an 8-pointed star”. Since the beginning of the written word, countless stories have begun by ripping holes in the fabric of reality and pulling their protagonists through. Portals date back to the oldest written text we have on record — the 4,000-year-old Sumerian tale Epic of Gilgamesh — in which the hero travels through a mountaintop portal to the land of the gods. In the Epic of Gilgamesh, the hero travels to the gate of the Sun-god Shamash at the mountain of Mashu.
The same 8-pointed star keyhole symbolism as the Saturn Polar Configuration is shown below on a Masonic stained-glass window:
https://preview.redd.it/oow7tgmhbv2b1.png?width=445&format=png&auto=webp&s=3fb43f1b14b2c6588e39e2ecd93aa0255508e922
Even though the Saturn Polar Configuration corresponds to the Masonic image above of the Blazing Star between the pillars, it’s generally assumed that the Blazing Star between the Masonic pillars is Sirius — not Saturn or Venus. Masonic historian Henry Coil says: “But whether the Blazing Star refers to Saturn or the Sun or some other heavenly body is not ascertainable”. In his book ‘Myth, Magick, and Masonry’, Jaime Lamb connects the Masonic Blazing Star to Venus, saying: “The Blazing Star’s relationship to Venus (also anciently known as the Morning Star) may best be illustrated by the fact that it’s represented in the form of a pentagram. This significance comes primarily from the fact that Venus traces [a perfect pentagram across the sky every eight years when observed from Earth”]. The fact that the Masonic Blazing Star is also sometimes represented by an 8-pointed star (as shown in the image above) might also point towards it being Venus. The Mesopotamian goddess Inanna was worshipped as the embodiment of Venus and her symbol was the 8-pointed star. In the 1875 of ‘Freemason’s Monthly Volume 6’, we read: “Venus, whose orbit is within but on a level with our own… is the brilliant “Blazing Star” that heralds the rising or attends the setting Sun”. While some argue that the Masonic Blazing Star is Venus, some have suggested that it could be Jupiter. The ancient Greeks knew Jupiter as Phaethon (Φαέθων) meaning “Shining One” or “Blazing Star”. Whether the Masonic Blazing Star is Sirius, Saturn, Venus, Jupiter, Alcyone, Aldebaran, the Moon, or some other heavenly body, it’s acknowledged by some that Freemasons misguide people as to the true meaning of their symbols. For example, the prominent Freemason, Albert Pike, said in his book ‘Morals and Dogma’: “Part of the symbols are displayed there to the initiate, but he is intentionally misled by false interpretations. It’s not intended that he shall understand them; but it’s intended that he shall imagine that he understands them”. Part of the problem is that much of what Freemasons are doing is buried under layers of armour-clad secrecy so many strata deep that only archaeologists of the distant future will have any hope of disinterring any of these things.
The Egyptian symbol of the Ankh was based on the Saturn Polar Configuration, as Talbott explains in ‘The Saturn Myth’, saying: “The Ankh (whose origins experts have long debated) is but a conventionalized image of the [Saturn] Polar Configuration”. In his book ‘Secret Societies: Revelations About Freemasons’, Philip Gardiner explains that the Ankh was seen as a gateway or portal into a higher dimension. Quote: “The Ankh is known as the Crux Ansata. It’s a simple T-cross, surmounted by an oval — called the Ru. The Ru is often seen as a gateway or portal to another dimension, such as Heaven. The Ankh therefore becomes the symbol of transition from one place to another. It outlived Egyptian domination and was widely used by the Christians as the [Latin] Cross”. As well as being linked to the Ankh, the Saturn Polar Configuration can be linked to other symbols, such as the symbol of the All-Seeing-Eye. Probably the most recognizable Masonic symbol is the All-Seeing-Eye, included in the architecture of the Great Seal of the U.S. Dollar Bill. Fixed within a triangle, the disembodied eye is surrounded by rays of light and rests upon an unfinished pyramid. The All-Seeing-Eye finds its roots in ancient Egypt as the Eye of Horus (or Ra) and can be traced back to the Saturn Polar Configuration. During the alignment of Saturn, Venus, and Mars, in their different configurations, they formed a triangle and 8-pointed star. Quote from ‘The Saturn Myth’: “Saturn wears the band as a golden girdle, collar or crown. He dwells in it as the pupil of the All-Seeing-Eye”. To see this All-Seeing-Eye alignment explained see ‘Discourses on an Alien Sky#5’. The image below is loosely how this would have looked. In his (co-authored) book ‘The Ark of Millions of Years’, physicist Alexander Agnew, who has published thousands of technical papers, says: “The portal into Heaven is marked by the All-Seeing-Eye”. So, could this be what the Saturn Polar Configuration essentially is, then? Some portal or gateway into Heaven?
THE SATURN POLAR CONFIGURATION FROM ‘DISCOURSES ON AN ALIEN SKY’
This is likely the inspiration for the All-Seeing-Eye on the U.S. Dollar Bill.
https://preview.redd.it/uwxl1cipbv2b1.png?width=641&format=png&auto=webp&s=f8f880f2d3343a38e88b941370f234ff869c1023
Some have suggested that the symbols on the U.S. Dollar Bill were created by Freemasons. After all, some of the Founding Fathers were apparently Freemasons (such as George Washington and Benjamin Franklin) and the All-Seeing-Eye was ostensibly adopted by Freemasonry in 1797 and only 5 years later was adopted on the reverse-side of The Great Seal. Many believe that Freemasons are responsible for the eye-excruciatingly small image of the owl; a Masonic symbol for “knowledge”. So, what’s the goal of Freemasons, then? Assuming the All-Seeing-Eye on the U.S. Dollar Bill is a respresentation of the Saturn Polar Configuration, which Talbott has associated with the Tower of Babel, we then have a connection between Freemasons and the Tower of Babel. Indeed, some have suggested that the pyramid on the U.S. Dollar Bill is a representation of the Tower of Babel. According to researcher Jim Cornwell: “The pyramid on the Great Seal represents the unfinished Tower of Babel”. In his book ‘Antichrist Osiris: The History of the Luciferian Conspiracy’, Chris Relitz writes: “The unfinished [pyramid] seen on the American Dollar Bill may be a reference to the Tower of Babel”. According to Christopher Hodapp in his book ‘Freemason Symbols and Ceremonies For Dummies’: “Freemasonry’s legends claim that the group was descended from the great builders of the Old Testament — Noah’s Ark, the Tower of Babel, and King Solomon’s Temple”. Researcher Alexander Slade describes how Freemasons were possibly responsible for the Tower of Babel. Tentatively then, it would make sense if the goal of Freemasons was to recreate the Tower of Babel and reconnect Heaven with Earth.
Below is an old Freemason Tracing Board showing the All-Seeing-Eye over a pillar, with the pillar likely representing the Cosmic Mountain:
https://preview.redd.it/lf6u7dxwbv2b1.png?width=476&format=png&auto=webp&s=bfc01b8fd71b15fb116ec32fea46fbf6393fac64
The image below is a comparison between the Masonic Square and Compass (on the left) the Stargate logo (in the centre) and the Cosmic Mountain to Saturn and Venus (on the right) also called the “Saturn Polar Configuration”. The design of the Square and Compass corresponds to the configuration of Saturn, Venus, and the Cosmic Mountain, as seen in ‘Discourses on an Alien Sky’. In this interpretation, the circle at the apex of the Masonic Compass represents the Blazing Star and the triangular appearance of the Compass itself represents the Cosmic Mountain or pathway.
https://preview.redd.it/f90wb6wzbv2b1.png?width=645&format=png&auto=webp&s=e26ff16f7d653d84831ce8f7e2af04a0c0d1077e
The connection between Freemasonry and the Saturn Polar Configuration becomes more apparent when we compare the stained-glass painting above to the front cover of ‘The Saturn Myth’ book as shown here.
submitted by JoelSnape to SaturnStormCube [link] [comments]


2023.05.29 22:05 brendhanbb so for anyone who started aff at 18 or 19.

so i am honestly curious for anyone who started at 18 or 19 how did you manage to save up or come up the money to do aff skydiving and even just have enough money to go skydiving in general at least at that age. like i am really curious what your story was because to me its like at age 18-19 i was litreally broke i had 0 dollars okay well i had like maybe 100$ to my name but that was after years of saving up my allowance lol.
submitted by brendhanbb to SkyDiving [link] [comments]


2023.05.29 22:02 IceQueenWeiss Selling epic games account + coupon 25% expire june 15

5/26/2023 Coldest Circles Quest Pack
5/19/2023 DEATH STRANDING
5/13/2023 The Sims™ 4 The Daring Lifestyle Bundle
5/5/2023 Kao the Kangaroo
5/5/2023 Against All Odds
4/27/2023 Poker Club
4/27/2023 Breathedge
3/10/2023 Epic Cheerleader Pack
3/10/2023 Rumbleverse™
12/29/2022 Mortal Shell
12/22/2022 Fallout Tactics: Brotherhood of Steel
12/22/2022 Fallout 2: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game
12/22/2022 Fallout: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game
12/15/2022 Bloons TD 6
12/15/2022 Fall Guys - Snowberry
11/24/2022 Evil Dead: The Game
11/24/2022 Dark Deity
11/24/2022 Epic Cheerleader Pack
10/28/2022 Saturnalia
10/28/2022 Warhammer 40,000: Mechanicus - Standard Edition
10/27/2022 Evoland Legendary Edition
10/27/2022 Fallout 3: Game of the Year Edition
9/24/2022 Gloomhaven
9/2/2022 Destiny 2
9/2/2022 Submerged: Hidden Depths
9/2/2022 Knockout City™
8/16/2022 Cook, Serve, Delicious! 3?!
8/16/2022 MultiVersus
8/16/2022 Rumbleverse™
6/30/2022 Iratus: Lord of the DeadIratus: Lord of the Dead
6/30/2022 Hood: Outlaws & LegendsIratus: Lord of the Dead
6/30/2022 Geneforge 1 - Mutagen
6/23/2022 Roller Champions™
6/23/2022 Car Mechanic Simulator 2018
6/21/2022 Fall Guys
6/16/2022 Supraland
6/9/2022 Maneater
6/3/2022 Wolfenstein: The New Order
5/28/2022 BioShock: The Collection
5/21/2022 Borderlands 3
5/13/2022 Redout: Enhanced Edition
5/11/2022 Terraforming Mars
3/24/2022 EVE Online - Superluminal Pack
3/17/2022 In Sound Mind
3/3/2022 Centipede: Recharged
3/3/2022 Epic Slayer Kit
3/3/2022 Black Widow: Recharged
2/25/2022 Cris Tales
2/17/2022 Brothers - A Tale of Two Sons
2/11/2022 Windbound
1/28/2022 DAEMON X MACHINA
1/23/2022 Relicta
1/8/2022 Gods Will Fall
12/30/2021 Tomb Raider GAME OF THE YEAR EDITION
12/30/2021 Shadow of the Tomb Raider: Definitive Edition
12/30/2021 Rise of the Tomb Raider: 20 Year Celebration
12/29/2021 Salt and Sanctuary
12/25/2021 Prey
12/25/2021 Pathfinder: Kingmaker - Enhanced Plus Edition
12/23/2021 Vampyr
12/21/2021 Second Extinction™
12/21/2021 Loop Hero
12/19/2021 The Vanishing of Ethan Carter
12/17/2021 Neon Abyss
12/16/2021 Shenmue III - Standard Edition
12/9/2021 Godfall Challenger Edition
12/9/2021 Prison Architect
12/2/2021 Dead by Daylight
12/2/2021 while True: learn()
11/18/2021 Never Alone (Kisima Ingitchuna)
11/18/2021 Guild of Dungeoneering
11/18/2021 KID A MNESIA EXHIBITION
11/13/2021 Rogue Company
11/13/2021 Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep: A Wonderlands One-shot Adventure
11/4/2021 Aven Colony
10/22/2021 Among the Sleep - Enhanced Edition
10/15/2021 Stubbs the Zombie in Rebel Without a Pulse
10/15/2021 Paladins Epic Pack
10/7/2021 PC Building Simulator
9/30/2021 Europa Universalis IV
9/28/2021 2064: Read Only Memories
9/24/2021 Santa's Sweatshop
9/16/2021 Tharsis
9/16/2021 Speed Brawl
9/9/2021 Sheltered
9/9/2021 Nioh: The Complete Edition
9/3/2021 Yoku's Island Express
8/26/2021 Automachef
8/25/2021 Saints Row®: The Third™ Remastered
8/19/2021 Yooka-Laylee
8/19/2021 Void Bastards
8/12/2021 Rebel Galaxy
8/6/2021 Core
8/6/2021 A Plague Tale: Innocence
7/30/2021 Mothergunship
7/30/2021 Train Sim World 2
7/15/2021 Offworld Trading Company
7/15/2021 Obduction
7/8/2021 Ironcast
7/8/2021 Bridge Constructor The Walking Dead
7/1/2021 The Spectrum Retreat
6/24/2021 Sonic Mania
6/24/2021 Horizon Chase Turbo
6/17/2021 Hell is other demons
6/17/2021 Overcooked! 2
6/10/2021 Control
6/3/2021 Frostpunk
5/27/2021 Among Us
5/20/2021 NBA 2K21
5/14/2021 The Lion's Song
5/7/2021 Pine
4/30/2021 Idle Champions of the Forgotten Realms
4/23/2021 Alien: Isolation
4/22/2021 Hand of Fate 2
4/15/2021 Deponia: The Complete Journey
4/15/2021 Ken Follett's The Pillars of the Earth
4/15/2021 The First Tree
4/9/2021 3 out of 10: Season Two
4/1/2021 Tales of the Neon Sea
3/31/2021 HITMAN 3 Access Pass: HITMAN 1 GOTY Edition
3/30/2021 HITMAN 3 - Free Starter Pack
3/25/2021 Creature in the Well
3/23/2021 Magic: Legends
3/18/2021 The Fall
3/6/2021 Wargame Red Dragon - The Millionth Mile
3/6/2021 Wargame Red Dragon - Norse Dragons
3/6/2021 Wargame Red Dragon - Second Korean War
3/6/2021 Wargame: Red Dragon - Russian Roulette [10v10 ...
3/4/2021 Wargame: Red Dragon
2/28/2021 PHANTASY STAR ONLINE 2
2/25/2021 Sunless Sea
2/18/2021 Absolute Drift
2/18/2021 Rage 2
2/11/2021 Halcyon 6
2/4/2021 Metro: Last Light Redux
1/28/2021 Dandara: Trials of Fear Edition
1/21/2021 Galactic Civilizations III
1/14/2021 STAR WARS™ Battlefront™ II: Celebration Edition...
1/7/2021 Crying Suns
12/31/2020 Jurassic World Evolution
12/29/2020 Solitairica
12/28/2020 Stranded Deep
12/27/2020 Night in the Woods
12/26/2020 My Time at Portia
12/25/2020 Darkest Dungeon®: The Musketeer
12/25/2020 Darkest Dungeon®
12/23/2020 Tropico 5
12/21/2020 Alien: Isolation
12/20/2020 Defense Grid: The Awakening
12/19/2020 The Long Dark
12/18/2020 Oddworld: New 'n' Tasty
12/17/2020 Cities: Skylines - Carols, Candles and Candy
12/17/2020 Cities: Skylines - Pearls From the East
12/17/2020 Cities: Skylines - Match Day
12/17/2020 Cities: Skylines
12/10/2020 Pillars of Eternity - Definitive Edition
12/10/2020 Tyranny - Gold Edition
12/3/2020 CRSED: F.O.A.D.
12/3/2020 Cave Story+
11/26/2020 MudRunner - Old Timers DLC
11/26/2020 MudRunner - Valley DLC
11/26/2020 MudRunner - Ridge DLC
11/26/2020 MudRunner
11/19/2020 The World Next Door
11/19/2020 Elite Dangerous
11/13/2020 Neverwinter
11/13/2020 The Textorcist
11/5/2020 Dungeons 3
10/29/2020 Blair Witch
10/29/2020 Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered
10/22/2020 Layers of Fear 2
10/22/2020 Costume Quest 2
10/15/2020 Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs
10/15/2020 Kingdom New Lands
10/8/2020 ABZU
10/8/2020 Rising Storm 2: Vietnam
10/1/2020 Pikuniku
9/29/2020 Heroes & Generals WWII
9/24/2020 RollerCoaster Tycoon® 3: Complete Edition
9/23/2020 Rocket League®
9/17/2020 Football Manager 2020
9/17/2020 Watch Dogs 2
9/17/2020 Stick It To The Man!
9/10/2020 Railway Empire
9/10/2020 Where The Water Tastes Like Wine
9/7/2020 Spellbreak
9/3/2020 3 out of 10, EP 5: "The Rig Is Up!"
9/3/2020 Into The Breach
9/3/2020 Diabotical
9/1/2020 Commander Lilith DLC
8/27/2020 3 out of 10, EP 4: "Thank You For Being An Ass...
8/27/2020 Shadowrun Collection
8/27/2020 HITMAN
8/22/2020 3 out of 10 Episode 3: Pivot Like A Champion
8/20/2020 God's Trigger
8/20/2020 Enter The Gungeon
8/13/2020 The Alto Collection
8/13/2020 Remnant: From the Ashes
8/13/2020 Might & Magic: Chess Royale
8/13/2020 3 Out of 10 Episode 2 Foundation 101
8/13/2020 A Total War Saga: TROY
8/6/2020 3 Out of 10 Ep 1 Welcome to Shovelworks
8/6/2020 Wilmot's Warehouse
7/31/2020 Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery EP
7/31/2020 Barony
7/31/2020 20XX
7/23/2020 Next Up Hero
7/23/2020 Tacoma
7/16/2020 Torchlight II
7/10/2020 Delores: A Thimbleweed Park mini-adventure
7/10/2020 The Escapists 2
7/10/2020 Lifeless Planet: Premier Edition
7/10/2020 Killing Floor 2
7/3/2020 Trackmania
7/3/2020 Hue
6/25/2020 AER Memories of Old
6/25/2020 Stranger Things 3: The Game
6/18/2020 Pathway
6/11/2020 ARK Valguero
6/11/2020 ARK Crystal Isles
6/11/2020 ARK The Center
6/11/2020 ARK Editor
6/11/2020 ARK Ragnarok
6/11/2020 ARK: Survival Evolved
6/11/2020 SAMURAI SHODOWN NEOGEO COLLECTION
5/28/2020 Sludge Life
5/28/2020 Borderlands: The Handsome Collection
5/21/2020 Sid Meier's Civilization VI
5/14/2020 Grand Theft Auto V
5/2/2020 Amnesia: The Dark Descent
5/2/2020 Crashlands
4/23/2020 For The King
4/17/2020 Wheels of Aurelia
4/17/2020 Just Cause 4
4/15/2020 Paladins
4/15/2020 Sherlock Holmes Crimes and Punishments
4/15/2020 Close to the Sun
4/4/2020 Gone Home
4/4/2020 Drawful 2
4/4/2020 Hob
3/26/2020 Tormentor X Punisher
3/26/2020 Figment
3/26/2020 World War Z
3/20/2020 Watch Dogs Standard Edition
3/20/2020 The Stanley Parable
3/2/2020 InnerSpace
2/21/2020 Magic: The Gathering Arena
2/21/2020 Assassins Creed Syndicate Standard Edition
2/21/2020 Faeria
2/14/2020 Aztez
2/14/2020 HD Voice Pack - English
2/14/2020 HD Voice Pack - German
2/14/2020 HD Voice Pack - French
2/14/2020 HD Sound Pack
2/14/2020 HD Texture Pack
2/14/2020 Kingdom Come: Deliverance
2/6/2020 Ticket to Ride
2/6/2020 Carcassonne
1/30/2020 Farming Simulator 19
1/23/2020 The Bridge
1/16/2020 Horace
1/10/2020 Sundered Eldritch Edition
1/1/2020 Darksiders Warmastered Edition
1/1/2020 Steep
1/1/2020 Darksiders II Deathinitive Edition
1/1/2020 Yooka-Laylee and the Impossible Lair
12/30/2019 Hello Neighbor
12/29/2019 The Talos Principle
12/26/2019 Faster Than Light
12/23/2019 Ape Out
12/13/2019 The Wolf Among Us
12/13/2019 The Escapists
12/5/2019 Jotun Valhalla Edition
11/29/2019 Rayman Legends
11/21/2019 Bad North Jotunn Edition
11/15/2019 The Messenger
11/7/2019 Nuclear Throne
11/7/2019 RUINER
10/31/2019 SOMA
10/24/2019 Layers of Fear
10/24/2019 Q.U.B.E. 2
10/17/2019 >observer_
10/17/2019 Alan Wake's American Nightmare
10/10/2019 Surviving Mars - Mysteries Resupply Pack
10/10/2019 Surviving Mars - Space Race
10/10/2019 Surviving Mars
10/4/2019 Minit
9/26/2019 Metro: 2033 Redux
9/26/2019 Everything
9/19/2019 Lego Batman Trilogy
9/19/2019 Batman Arkham - Trilogy
9/18/2019 Conarium
8/29/2019 Inside
8/29/2019 Celeste
8/23/2019 Fez
8/21/2019 The Cycle Early Access
8/15/2019 Mutant Year Zero
8/15/2019 Hyper Light Drifter
8/8/2019 GNOG
8/3/2019 Alan Wake
8/3/2019 For Honor Standard Edition
7/25/2019 This War of Mine
7/25/2019 Moonlighter
7/18/2019 Limbo
7/11/2019 Torchlight
7/4/2019 Overcooked
7/3/2019 Dauntless
7/3/2019 Last Day of June
submitted by IceQueenWeiss to GamingMarket [link] [comments]


2023.05.29 22:00 d-y-d-y Shadow of War: my least favorite triple-A game

LOTR is not my strong suit (the only Tolkien media I have ever consumed was the Hobbit movie from 2012), so if I show my lack of lore knowledge I apologize in advance. I also haven't played the story expansions as of the time of writing.
I bought this game on sale for eight dollars because I liked Shadow of Mordor (though I had not played that game in years when I bought this). I knew it had a pretty mixed reception but compared to the original price ($50) 8 bucks is nothing. I mention the sale because this game is very good for $8 but absolutely not worth $50. The amount of raw effort put in by the developers may warrant the price in the abstract but that effort adds up to bad controls, janky combat, and a grossly inflated game. Out of all the triple-A games I have played I like this one the least.
I will start with the good. I like the voice acting and the writing of the lines (though I think the story in general is not well-executed). The deliveries and lines of the Men and the elves have this loftiness to them that fits the setting. The orcs sound appropriately brutish and their lines talking about eating humans and arbitrary murder reflect their inhumanity and primitivity.
The "day-to-day" gameplay (traversing the map and combat) is not bad in concept. Parkour and fast movement are nice but as someone who has played more Hitman than Assassin's Creed the implementation of stealth is lacking given how much it comes up in story quests and captain stuff. By the mid-game I found that I barely needed to be actually stealthy; I could run up to someone holding the sneak button and stealth kill them even if I had been detected during the jog over to the enemy (this was actually a thing I remember from Shadow of Mordor so it is unfortunate that nothing much changed). Fighting is not all that complicated but there are flashy executions and ranged attacks that are satisfying in the moment, though I never used the glaive. The problem is more in the execution of both, particularly the tendency for the player character to magnetize towards completely random things during parkour and combat. Talion is only good at moving up, whenever I tried to go sideways during parkour he moved up instead or jumped to god-knows-where. Several times during combat he stopped attacking a captain so that he could literally glide a building's width away to hit a random grunt. There's a move where if you freeze an enemy you can "flurry attack" them (e.g. mash attack). There were times when he stopped doing this to attack random animals. Several times inputs were simply eaten and nothing happened during both parkour and combat. I have no idea what is going on half of the time because what I am doing does not correspond to what is happening on the screen. The nemesis system is fine as a concept - the idea of making long-term enemies that grow stronger over time, but in execution I found myself making no actual nemeses because if a captain killed me I could usually kill or dominate them the next time I saw them. This is because the game never generates a captain that is significantly stronger than the player so killing them is not a large hurdle. It's really an impossible situation because if they were stronger then the player would never fight them, but as they are now it doesn't make for an actual "nemesis" system and is really just a way to procedurally generate boss fights.
There did not need to be five maps. Not enough happens in the game to justify having five maps. Not enough happens in the maps themselves to justify having five. There is a single questline that spans multiple maps that arguably needed to span multiple maps involving a Balrog, and this is only because it comes from a fire level and dies in an ice level. Otherwise, the only reason to have five maps is that the game's central multiplayer and story content revolves around capturing and defending fortresses. I never bothered with any online content so I will just write about fortresses in single-player. Fortress capturing is fine once in a while. You fight a bunch of orcs and orc captains at once and then do a one-on-one fight at the end. The captains are nothing special; they're the same as any other captain you find on the map and there is no special gimmick to any of the fortress captures. I do think that if the fortress captures had some sort of level gimmick to them (e.g., the fire level has a bunch of fire mines or something) it could have justified having five maps, though that is a very big "could". Capturing fortresses is not fun enough for me to want to do it five times and the story's explanation for why you want to do this (raising a big army to fight Sauron) is not presented in a motivating manner. Defense is defending your fort along a bunch of friendly captains against waves of orcs and enemy captains. Again there is no special level gimmick and every orc is one you could find by running around the map. There is especially no reason to do what the final chapter does and make you have to do five consecutive siege defenses with no other story content. The justification for this is that you have to keep Mordor at war so that a future generation of heroes (i.e., Frodo and his crew) can defeat Sauron but this is mentioned so little that I nearly forgot what I was fighting for. Maybe the developers were making a profound statement.
I'll put a warning for spoilers here because this is about plot stuff but I will also tag things.
The game has some fairly severe ludonarrative dissonance (i.e. the plot does not match the gameplay and vice versa). The plot mainly focuses on how Celebrimbor's cynicism, contempt for "bad" decision-making, and militaristic empire-building attitude conflict with Talion's focus on protecting the freedom of Men, as well as Celebrimbor's ring potentially being as morally corrupting as Sauron's. The notion that Celebrimbor's goals are opposed to human nature crops up often in dialogue and is supposed to be the main interpersonal tension driver. The issue I find is that Talion's pushback against Celebrimbor is weak and at the end of the day you have to do both the empire-building quests i.e., conquer forts, mind-control orcs, etc. and the quests where the morality of Celembrimbor's goals are questioned. The feeling I got from the story was that what I was doing was questionable at best but there was no reason not to do it. At the near-end of the game Talion has a "eureka" moment where he realizes "hey, Celebrimbor is just Sauron but blue", but it's a bit blindsiding considering he just went along with Celebrimbor's plans without much of a fight, and he can't really claim deception when half of the elf ghost's dialogue is "every sentient being is merely an asset/pawn to us" and "Men can't make good decisions". I think the writers were going for a "necessary evil" type thing where the empire-building was key to defeating Sauron and Talion's goal was to jump ship right after but it's really not fleshed out. There needed to be more disagreement and more justification if they wanted to tell a whole "power is dangerous, light or dark" story with all the nuances.
The end chapter is a simpler example of such dissonance: Talion is more or less forced by circumstance to wear an actual Sauron-made Ring and as all Rings go it makes him weaker over time until he becomes a Nazgul. I didn't actually become weaker in any measurable game statistic and the game did not get any harder (i.e. Orcs and captains remained on par with my own level. It was about as difficult as the previous 40 hours
The way the story is organized is not great. There are a bunch of mostly-independent questlines that hold little relevance to each other. Two questlines merge at the end but otherwise, they don't "interact" mechanically or conceptually; Talion never mentions how he intends to do the fort capturing stuff in the quests where he rescues human captives, for example, although he does talk about remaining in Mordor. I think that much of the dissonance could have been worked around if the questlines held some relevance to each other i.e., Talion tells the human commanders that he is assembling an Orc army and there is some kind of reaction.
I would in general say that the combat is okay, the movement is okay, the story is poorly executed, and the game is too big. They were better off making a smaller game and honing plot/quest stuff at the absolute minimum and ideally cleaning up the jank. Don't buy at full price.
submitted by d-y-d-y to patientgamers [link] [comments]


2023.05.29 21:47 Dev_Null2019 42 [M4F] #Southern Oregon - Touch-Starved Nerd Introvert ISO Nerdy FWB

About Me
That is some general information about me what I am looking for is a bit on the specific (Impossible?) side. I am looking for a friend who likes Video Games, Dungeons & Dragons, Anime and that kind of stuff that we can talk about or enjoy doing together but also might be interested in having a physical relationship as well with no commitment or expectations. I would prefer local (Rogue Valley Area) however, I am not opposed to do a little bit of driving to make this work. If this sounds like something that you might be interested in go ahead and shoot me a DM, I even have a picture I can show you if you want and I would like if you were open to showing one of yourself as well. Thank you for your time and I hope that I will hear from you soon
submitted by Dev_Null2019 to AgeGapPersonals [link] [comments]


2023.05.29 21:35 themaninblack08 [US-MD][H]Kashtira Fenrir, XYZ Encores, binder [W] Edison cards, Listed

Unless otherwise noted, I'm generally not selling any of the ultis or ghosts, only trading or in majority trade deals. Not trading outside the US unless it's for something big/urgent (but will buy). Note that I generally do not sell to accounts with transaction counts below 5.
Using Ebay or TCG solds from the past 2 months for values on higher value items. Willing to look through binders.
For sales, free stamp and envelope shipping $35 and under, add $3.50 for tracking w/ first class package. Free tracking above $35.
Binder, vintage and higher value stuff towards the front
Denglongs I forgot to put in the binder
**Stuff I'm willing to Paypal for**
\\- 1x 2017 Worlds Promo Ghost DMG (Opened, non-graded only)
\\- Reverse Misprint North American MRL Blue Eyes Toon Dragon (reverse secret example)
\\- TAEV 3D Secret Misprints (examples)
\\- CBLZ Wrong Shadow Secret Misprints (examples)
\\- Ghost rare 1sts (Eng Only)
- Power Tool Dragon
- Red Eyes Black Dragon

**Collectibles I heavily prefer to be trading for, but can Paypal for:**
\\- (Ultimate rare, vintage secrets, Goat, and Edison wants)

**Notable Vintage/Weird Wants:**
\\- 1x EOJ 1st Ulti Destiny Hero - Dreadmaster (EU Print)
\\- 1x ETCO Starlight Ghost Mourner
\\- 1x CYAC Starlight Guiding Quem, the Virtuous
\\- 1x LOB 1st Gaia the Dragon Champion (NA English only, not Asian English, LOB-E, or LOB-A)

**Non-Collectibles or Meta Wants:**
\\- 3x PTDN 1st Cyber Valley
\\- 1x AP06 Traptrix Trap Hole Nightmare
\\- 1x ABYR Ulti 1st Abyssphere
\\- 3x Super 1st Dimensional Prison
\\- 1x HL07 Dark Dust Spirit
\\- 3x Secret 1st Junk Synchron
\\- 3x Elemental Hero Absolute Zero
\\- 3x LODT 1st Substitoad
\\- 1x CR 1st Fateful Adventure
\\- 1x ETCO 1st Accesscode Talker
\\- 1x BLAR 1st Chaos Emperor, The Dragon of Armageddon
\\- 2x BLCR 1st Chaos Space
\\- 1x CYAC 1st Chaos Angel

**OTS wants:**
\\- 2x Ulti Solemn Judgment (Euro Print)
\\- 1x Ulti Fallen of Albaz (Euro English Print)
\\- 1x Sky Striker Ace - Raye (only variant with texture)
\\- 1x Ulti Spright Blue (only variant with texture)
Feedback thread (old system); note that I am no longer in Oregon
submitted by themaninblack08 to YGOMarketplace [link] [comments]


2023.05.29 21:19 applefritter55 yellowstone and Grand Teton lodging itinerary recommendations

(crossposted)
Hello!
We're in the process of planning a summer 2024 trip to the two parks-- I'm guessing the total trip will be 7-10 days. We have plenty of time to nail down the day to day activities, but I know lodging needs to be booked like a year out. So a few questions--
1) do these parks lend themselves to bouncing around from lodge to lodge? Yellowstone in particular is very large, I'm assuming you wouldnt want to stay in one area the whole time since you'd be doing a lot of driving? (as opposed to doing a loop of the whole park and moving your lodging as you go. On this note, can you recommend specific areas/lodging we should book? (i.e. spend the first two nights in Northern Yellowstone, then the next night in southwestern etc). We will have a two year old in tow, so we probably will be slightly slow moving
2) I definitely want to get the full experience if possible- we're generally thrifty, but when it comes to these bucketlist destingations, we splurge when we should. I see Jenny Lake goes for 4 figures per night (though includes breakfast and dinner, so the incremental cost is probably not too crazy for a single night). This would definitely be the most expensive night we've had anywhere, but if it's a must do, I am not completely opposed to it.
For comparison sake, when we did Yosemite, we stayed at Curry Village (both tent and cabin) and a night at Awahnee. Everything is pretty much in the valley, so theoretically we didnt need to bounce around, but it was cool to experience each one-- The Awahnee was awesome, but I think we would have gotten just about the same experience walking around the public areas of it-- I'm glad we did it, but definitely dont need to go back..
submitted by applefritter55 to yellowstone [link] [comments]


2023.05.29 21:18 applefritter55 Grand Teton and Yellowstone lodging itinerary

Hello!
We're in the process of planning a summer 2024 trip to the two parks-- I'm guessing the total trip will be 7-10 days. We have plenty of time to nail down the day to day activities, but I know lodging needs to be booked like a year out. So a few questions--
1) do these parks lend themselves to bouncing around from lodge to lodge? Yellowstone in particular is very large, I'm assuming you wouldnt want to stay in one area the whole time since you'd be doing a lot of driving? (as opposed to doing a loop of the whole park and moving your lodging as you go. On this note, can you recommend specific areas/lodging we should book? (i.e. spend the first two nights in Northern Yellowstone, then the next night in southwestern etc). We will have a two year old in tow, so we probably will be slightly slow moving
2) I definitely want to get the full experience if possible- we're generally thrifty, but when it comes to these bucketlist destingations, we splurge when we should. I see Jenny Lake goes for 4 figures per night (though includes breakfast and dinner, so the incremental cost is probably not too crazy for a single night). This would definitely be the most expensive night we've had anywhere, but if it's a must do, I am not completely opposed to it.
For comparison sake, when we did Yosemite, we stayed at Curry Village (both tent and cabin) and a night at Awahnee. Everything is pretty much in the valley, so theoretically we didnt need to bounce around, but it was cool to experience each one-- The Awahnee was awesome, but I think we would have gotten just about the same experience walking around the public areas of it-- I'm glad we did it, but definitely dont need to go back..
submitted by applefritter55 to nationalparks [link] [comments]


2023.05.29 21:16 carebear2u New Job Inquiry

Hi, you guys…
Story Time.
Currently I’ve been an afternoon Daycare Teacher for 1 years olds for about a month now. I work in a Infant Centre full of baby babies. I work from 2:45-6pm. The employees/Teachers are quitting because first they aren’t getting paid enough and secondly the job is exhausting. When I got hired I got a decent pay rate, but that’s not the point. I LOVE THIS JOB. The only thing I don’t like is the drama! But my room is fine… it’s just the other rooms.
Today I got offered a position with more pay and benefits. It’s just 1 dollar and 35 cents more plus benefits, 401k and yatta, yatta. It’s a medical receptionist postion with different roles. I have generalized anxiety so idk…
I’m having trouble deciding on what to do. Help!
submitted by carebear2u to jobs [link] [comments]


2023.05.29 21:15 rossgellerisgay I helped a homeless woman and her son today

I was glad I was able to get her and her son some food and some diapers, but it just hurts me so much to know they have nowhere to go. We were walking into the dentist today when she approached asking for money, and I don’t really carry cash. We walked down to McDonald’s and got a bit of food, then to the dollar general to get some more food and some diapers.
I’m so glad that I was able to help her, I’m not well-off myself but I can spare a bit. But it just hurts my heart the way we treat the homeless in this country (USA). I could tell she loved her son so much and was trying her best for him. I wish I could have done more for them…
submitted by rossgellerisgay to offmychest [link] [comments]


2023.05.29 20:52 Von_Lehmann Trip Report: 3 Weeks in Thailand and 2.5 Weeks in Spain and France

Had a few trips back to back to back so I felt I should do a write up because this community has been helpful in packing for those trips!
Our first trip was a three week holiday in Thailand, we spent about a week in Bangkok and two weeks on Ko Phayam island, so the vast majority was on the beach but we needed a little city wear to get by as well. Although I would say the bar was pretty low in terms of backpacker style. Lot of Patagonia because they give a great pro discount.
THREE WEEKS IN THAILAND
Bag:
Clothing:
Toiletries:
Tech:
Misc:
I felt like I packed pretty well here, I had an absolute ton of space. So this was a bit of a luxury. Everything got used and I was able to do a bit of laundry. Once I was at the beach, then I basically just lived in my baggies and a t shirt or linen shirt. I think maybe a light fleece or merino sweater would have been better than the long sleeve shirt though, at least for the airport. To be honest, I brought a lot of this to Europe with my as well.
I flew back from Thailand, landed in Finland...had a few days here and then flew to San Sebastien for my Sister's wedding and a few weeks with my family in San Sebastien, Biarritz and in the South of France. I had a tougher time packing for this trip, I needed so much more stuff because of the wedding and the general vibe of where we were going and what we would be doing. My family really enjoys going out to eat and drink so I was forced to bring a suit, nicer shirts and better shoes, all of which took way more space. I was in San Sebastien at an Air Bnb so I could do laundry, then we had a day trip to Biarritz and then flew to Nice where we stayed in Antibes and Aix-en-Provence. Eating well, drinking well, all that fun stuff. Ill copy and paste a few things below that were the same.
2.5 Weeks in Spain and France
Bag:
Clothing:
Toiletries:
Tech:
Misc:
I definitely wouldn't bring those chelsea boots again, I plan on getting some Hoka sneakers in all black and im considering some white sneakers. I think I could get by with basically one or both of those if I needed to. I could probably have lost at least one button up shirt for Europe. I probably didn't need my linen shirt, but I love that shirt so I brought it anyway. I kind of wish I had some kind of tablet for watching films with my girlfriend, sharing the phone was doable but not ideal. I also felt while the Better Sweater was great, it took up a lot of room and I maybe need to look for something lighter, maybe another fleece like the R1 or a merino sweater from Isto.
So yea, that was a long write up but thanks for reading it if you did. Questions, comments and criticisms are welcome.
submitted by Von_Lehmann to onebag [link] [comments]


2023.05.29 20:25 Full_Stall_Indicator Whitefish and Flathead Valley General Question Thread - June 2023

We're going to convert to monthly posts to keep them a bit fresher. I'm posting the June one a bit early to get it rolling.
Thanks to everyone who posted or answered questions in the previous thread!
This post's purpose:
  • This question thread is generally intended for non-locals to ask questions about Whitefish and the surrounding area. Questions about visiting, moving here, Glacier NP, transportation, bars, food, etc., should all be in this thread in the future.
  • Locals (or informed visitors) can opt-in to this content and help answer questions.
  • Ideally, this cuts down on repeat questions, as folks will be able to see all the questions and answers in one place.
  • This post doesn't mean all questions need to be here. Unique (seriously) questions that warrant the entire sub's attention are still welcome to be asked as full posts.
Expectations for people asking questions:
  • Please search the sub and within this thread before asking your question. Chances are you're not the first person with your question.
  • Please provide as much detail as you can. Vague questions are challenging to answer.
Expectations for people answering questions:
  • Please follow Reddit's first rule when responding: Remember the human. Sometimes questions aren't asked correctly, or the person didn't do enough research, which can be frustrating. That isn't a green light for you to rake them over the coals, though. Don't be a nuisance.
  • Please do your best to avoid misinformation by answering with accurate info and providing source links when appropriate.
View the previous megathread Q1 2023
submitted by Full_Stall_Indicator to whitefish [link] [comments]


2023.05.29 20:05 honestlyeek Allergic reaction to drugs

I spent most of my life not going to the doctor or taking medication when sick. Even if I had a headache or cramps, I would toughen it out and not take meds. I was generally healthy, rarely got sick, and not allergic to anything.
Last fall, I decided to pay thousands of dollars to get my PMDD treated. That started me on SSRIs and birth control pills. Then, I had a pretty intense allergic reaction to the SSRI, and my GP gave me several different meds to try to treat my rash not yet knowing it was an allergic reaction to the meds. That’s more drugs in a span of a few months than the past nearly 3 decades of my life.
Also, my work requires a doctor’s note every time I’m sick, so my GP keeps misdiagnosing me and giving me all these different kinds of meds. (GPs in this Asian country I’m currently living in honestly suck and are, in my opinion, less educated and not adequately trained.)
Now, every time I take medication—antihistamines or antibiotics—I develop a rash on the back of my hand. I now have allergic reactions to medication.
It is extremely frustrating, miserable, and disappointing.
submitted by honestlyeek to medical [link] [comments]


2023.05.29 19:59 pocketbearla What’s happening in San Diego? Almost no public restrooms use at shops and cafes, and the only one I found, a McDonalds, had a camera right outside the restrooms.

What’s happening in San Diego? Almost no public restrooms use at shops and cafes, and the only one I found, a McDonalds, had a camera right outside the restrooms. submitted by pocketbearla to sandiego [link] [comments]


2023.05.29 19:58 SoundTight952 Ramen on the stove top ft. Dollar general straws

Ramen on the stove top ft. Dollar general straws submitted by SoundTight952 to shittyfoodporn [link] [comments]