Hello everyone, I’m new to this thread and have never posted anything, but I’m feeling overwhelmed, anxious, and helpless recently due to the amount of credit card debt I have collected over about 5-6 different cards. I know I’ve screwed up, so being lectured is not what I came here for (just throwing that out there). COVID happened and then my wife and I started a new business together which made things very tight for us, resulting in us putting bills and everything else onto these cards and only paying the minimum (yes, I know…). We had no choice.
Now these cards have accumulated $30k (yes, I know…) in balances that are going to collections. I had already accepted the fact months ago that they would go to collections. The only collection agency that has contacted me via mail is TSI. Obviously there will be more to come. I don’t know if a consolidation loan is possible due to my credit being absolutely destroyed over the last year+.
I have a few questions/concerns that I hope you lovely folks can help me with. 1) How negotiable is the debt amount with these collection agencies, if at all? For example, one card has a $3,700 balance and I’m wondering what an agency would settle with on average. 2) Do these agencies ever offer any sort of payment plans? 3) This is the one that worries me most, will these agencies literally pull funds from my bank account after a certain amount of time? 4) Is bankruptcy even an option for me? I have no idea how that process would work or what it would cost, and if I’d be able to keep my bank account open afterwards. 5) This is not a question, but I’m scared. I’m anxious and quite terrified of all of this. Like I have an entity hovering over me just waiting to take money out of my bank account no questions asked.
I know this post is long, so I hope at least someone here can help with my questions and anxiety and offer some hope for me. I feel lost and lonely and honestly like I could cry (30yr old male here). Thank you all for reading.

Ok so on day 3, at the BTSM set at bass pod, I was dancing back by the carnival ride. Some guy with a really good camera set up came and filmed me. I have no idea if he was part of edc or not.
Could anyone help me find the footage this guy took of me? I lost my phone at EDC so I don't have any photos of myself.
I was wearing the Sullivan King x Scummy Bears Mango Cloak, sleeves rolled up, and hella Kandi. I had my hair half up, no shirt on under the cloak, and had on refraction glasses that fell off midway through dancing.

It's so disappointing to see no direct connectivity to Vizag from UAE. 4 hours duration journey is almost taking double the time by bro journey and cost is also up by atleast 50% if booked in advance. Any signs of starting direct flights to vizag from UAE (Dubai).

Hi everybody,
I’m having some problems and don’t know how to deal. They aren’t major problems but I can’t seem to process. I am in my late twenties.
Financially, i’m doing great. I’m relatively young but I am in the top 5% earners. I have saved up 100K at 28 years old and have a dividend income each year of 2K. I also did this myself without help. The downside is, i try to save everything to become financially independent as early as possible. For the last 2 years, i did nothing except work. I didn’t go to parties. I never joined at lunches with my friends. I even biked home (40 miles) each week to save petrol costs. I bought nothing for myself. I work 60 hours in the week and during the weekend i work 12 hour shifts at restaurants
8 months ago, my girlfriend left me after 3 years. This hit me hard. I still don’t know why. I tried to give her everything. Since, i feel completely worthless. I am afraid to commit again.
I am not eating well. After the break-up, my focus was to become more attractive by working out and losing weight. I lost 8 pounds and ran 2 Marathons. But i was/am not eating healthy. I eat in the hospital to save costs. I occasionally vomit after binge eating. This is completely new for me but i feel like i deserve this.
I have a fantastic family and a bunch of friends, but in the last 6 months i barely saw anyone.
Professionally, i am not happy. I have a job, that pays great. It took a lot of energy to get where i am today. But after 7 years of study and training, i can’t just switch to something else. Most people wouldnt understand.
I have received help, but can’t seem to find purpose in life. It all seems so pointless, i just want to get out

Don’t get me wrong; I want to reduce CO2 emissions. And quickly. But I also prefer to do it economically and by incentivizing people to make smart decisions by making the green decision the cheaper, better decision. I absolutely do not believe in forcing sub-par and more expensive products on a populace in the name of reducing a tiny overall percentage of worldwide emissions at the cost of hundreds of billions of dollars.
Count me out.
Yet that’s exactly what we are doing with electric vehicles.
My ex-wife and I went to buy a car in November of 2021. Remember this was at the height of when vehicles were scarce and prices were high. My lease ran out a month later, so we did not have much time. We went skiing frequently, so we wanted an SUV. Our trips were long (4-6 hours) and we had well over a thousand pounds of cargo between all our skis, luggage, supplies, passengers, and (cute) dog.
Quite simply, I checked and there was no EV on the market that was even capable of handling our payload capacity at the time. So before it even got off the ground, the idea of getting an EV was off the table.
And that was before everything else that disqualified them. Our new condo we had just bought had outdoor parking spots with no electrical source anywhere near them, nor any public or private chargers. So, installing a charger would have required digging up the parking lot and running heavy wiring all the way to our meter on the other side of the building. The mere thought made my wallet significantly lighter. And then, there was the potential cost of an EV. The only EV that came anywhere close to offering what we needed was a Tesla Model X, which started north of six figures. Once again, this was out of the question.
So we went to the Ford dealership, found a Ford Explorer we liked for about half that, which could handle a lot more cargo, has a much longer range, and required no charging infrastructure. It was one of the easiest decisions we’d ever made.
At no point did buying an EV made economical or practical sense. Since then, a few more EVs have entered the market, and I frequently reconsider my purchase decision. The calculus still has not changed. I don’t see it changing any time soon.
Yet federal and state governments seem hell-bent on, pardon me, shoving electric vehicles down our collective throats over the next decade or so.
Now, the average American only travels a short distance every day. So for many of them, EVs work in theory. But that discounts so many people who travel long distances, regularly go on road trips like we did, live in rural areas, or need to tow or haul heavier things. This is a rather large percentage of the population, even if only on occasion.
While the EV is a more advanced product in many ways compared to an ICE vehicle, it is not all-encompassing as many would like us to believe. It also fails against ICE in many categories. Additionally, until physics is reinvented, it will continue to fail for the foreseeable future. It’s unrealistic to think that every car and truck in America can be made electric. It simply won’t work. Not to mention the fact that they are more expensive! The parts and raw materials are more complex. And, as demand goes up, the cost of the raw materials will increase as well. The price of many EVs has, in fact, been increasing, not decreasing. This is the opposite of what would be needed to get mass adoption.
Suffice it to say, for these reasons alone, EVs have a long way to go before mass adoption.
And then there are the other issues, including a long litany of problems.
First of all, where are we going to get the power to charge all of these cars? It’s well-known that our power generation system and grid is already in terrible shape. Just look at how much difficulty we’re having at keeping houses powered in Texas and California. Now, you’re saying you want to dump all this added demand onto an already-stressed system?
A study showed that preparing California’s distribution assets and power grid for EVs and electric heaters would cost about $50 billion by 2035. Now, guess who’s going to pay for that? The people of California, via higher electric bills, will. That doesn’t sound pleasant or desirable.
And that’s just one state…out of 50.
We are nowhere near ready if 2035 is the goal. And neither are the cars.
Then comes this brilliant WSJ article. Remember how Toyota led the environmental car charge with hybrids? Well, it turns out they don’t buy into the electric car goals, and they’re getting slammed for it.
Except, well, Toyota has a point. Let’s examine it.
A Toyota memo to auto dealers in April explained the challenges to full electrification. For instance, “most public chargers can take anywhere from 8-30 hours to charge. To meet the federal [zero-emissions vehicle] sales targets, 1.2M public chargers are needed by 2030. That amounts to approximately 400 new chargers per day.” The U.S. isn’t close to meeting that goal.
That’s a really good point. If you’ve noticed, the Federal government loves mandating things without any basis in the reality of how anyone is actually supposed to meet said goal. This is a perfect example. And Toyota is calling out BS for being complete BS. The US absolutely cannot meet its federally mandated goals it has pushed upon automakers, at their expense, for electric vehicles. Building 400 chargers a day? Who is paying for that? How are you going to obtain permits for them that fast in this modern environment? According to EVAdoption, we added 4,200 chargers in all of 2022. That’s 11 per day…not 400.
Houston, we have a problem.
Unless we all want to sit for eight hours waiting for a charger, this alone makes mass adoption of EVs completely unrealistic. Just DOA.
And then, there’s the raw materials that make up EV batteries. It’s an extremely inefficient use of materials currently to make one EV, and the environmental disasters that are these mines is a topic EV lovers love to ignore.
Well, Toyota has a few things to say about that too:
Toyota also noted that “more than 300 new lithium, cobalt, nickel and graphite mines are needed to meet the expected battery demand by 2035,” and they could take decades to develop. “The amount of raw materials in one long-range battery electric vehicle could instead be used to make 6 plug-in hybrid electric vehicles or 90 hybrid electric vehicles.”
And here’s the real kicker: modern plug-in and regular hybrid electric vehicles are so efficient compared to EVs that they have nearly the same reduction in CO2 emissions. Furthermore, they are significantly cheaper and a dramatically better and less wasteful use of finite raw materials.
So, let’s just all agree that Toyota has a point.
On the greater scale, mass EV adoption has a lot of problems yet to be solved. Government so frequently likes to think it can wave a magic wand through legislation and change the world via fiat. Unfortunately, that’s not how the world works.
I would love to see mass EV adoption but I want to see it by making EVs the better choice for consumers. Until that day, I just don’t see it happening.

Im going to try to make this short, I meet my ex about 4 years ago we worked together for about a year before we started dating, (we dated for 3 years) right off the bat I felt something was not right about our relationship, like the vibe was off ? But i ignored it because i really liked him. I wasn't feeling like a girlfriend to him like I should have been, and when I would try to express my feelings he would get pissy about it, looking back very childish. Now I'm not saying he wasn't nice to me becausehe was for the most part, Or if I asked him for something that I absolutely needed he would have gotten it for me. But we also worked together and I'm aware that's a lot time together and for him that was "our time together" he didn't want to do anything after work, ever, absolutely nothing, just the weekends if his son was away for one of those days because he wanted laid, He didn't want to come over & watch a movie or come over for dinner because he always said he needed to go home to his son and help him with homework, but honestly half the time it was always done because his grandparents would him, or just be with his son in general or helping other people with lawns when it was nice out & I have 2 daughters so I'm well aware children come first, but there was absolutely no balance between his son or me when it came to my ex, we didn't even do anything on our anniversaries because we worked, or he would ALWAYS use the excuse of I was always working, even if I was working there was absolutely no creativity on his end when i got off work when he had his days off, like I did for him when I was off.
We lived separate for about a year and a half and we decided to move in together thinking that would have made a difference and I left my job to save our relationship and started a new one. But moving in did absolutely the opposite, I felt more like a roommate than anything else, we still didn't do anything together with kids or alone, once in while we would watch a movie because he wanted laid and honestly half the time I wouldn't give to him because I was beginning to be very unattracted to him because I was starting to feel like crap when I was around him. When we first moved in together i tried if I was off to clean the house (because it needed clean and honestly no one cared how they lived which was highly gross to me) cook dinner for him and the kids, but when I worked I didn't ever come home to anything but him and his son screaming at each other playing video games or my boyfriend in bed because he worked early shift, I usually worked 10am-6pm or sometimes morning shift, After awhile I started feeling things were REALLY off and my trust was starting to faid very quickly and yes i tried to talk to him like a adult and he said he had nothing to hide, I dropped it, even though my gut was saying otherwise because i wasn't being treated like a girlfriend that i deserved to be. Well about 2 months later his phone kept ringing and ringing and ringing and just kept going off so yes I picked up & the call was his mother off a new number I felt bad but then his notifications went off right before I put it down, emails for pornhub, and other porn sites, his search history was absolutely NOTHING but that, he had abulms in his gallery of our co workers in the facility that we both worked at, he had been following 100+ females on very social media page he had included those co-workers, and loving every females photos online (i didnt have to go threw his phone for that part, I seen that before) and even trying to hook up with a few, but none of them budged or really replied as I gathered, at that point I was completely done because that's beyond creepy to me and im well aware boys will be boys but thats extreme to me, I told him that i wanted to leave him and he made me feel bad for wanting to leave him, and he told me that it wasn't going to happen again and he would delete everything. I didn't believe him and sounds shitty but I also needed a place for my 2 daughters to live until I could find something else and (believe me i was trying to get out as fast as I could) so I lied & said "okay", I felt like I was being used because he just wanted to tile of having a girlfriend and absolutely not putting in any effort towards me and just wanting laid & I felt absolutely fucking stupid to let him and I feel for the words with no actions.
A couple months later I ended up putting in a offer to a house and got it. In that time of me getting my house and getting my ducks in row to leave him, and i didnt tell him yet that's when he really started to try to work things out and started to want to take me places, cook for me have alone time with me and even bought me a ring, I didn't except it because why would i ? And he didnt understand why i didn't want it, at this point I was with him for 3 years, I was completely over it, I was over everything. I wasn't asking him to give me the world I was just asking to be treated like a girlfriend! Having those images in my head told me everything about him, and me not feeling loved or cared for like I should have been i told I was moving and I told him I was done and explained why and that was more than a fight and he told me it was just an excuse to leave him and all I did was work, I moved out the next day while he was at work.
Two months later now, he's been sending me apologie letters to my house, texting & calling my phone from differnt numbers and even to my mom, he's even sent me 2 gifts to my house thinking thats going to get me back, but at the same time ive heard hes trying to move on & heard hes with someone but its a fake profile? I told him I would press charges if it doesn't stop, part of me in a way I feel bad for leaving him the way I did and kindof wanted to be acquaintances with him and then part of doesn't, I don't know if it's even worth feeling this way and if I did the right thing.

Hi all,
I booked a Venue from a Hyundai showroom few days back. The insurance cost I was told is 50k, now the salesman said that it can be reduced later on but that was just verbal confirmation. I just wanted to confirm if the cost of the insurance and the total price in general is still up for discussion and if I can still ask for a discount if/when they call me for final payment.
Thanks in advance.

Couple of items I'm selling today - as always:

• Only Paypal FnF accepted at this time
• All cards with prices listed below are firm (i.e. there's no need to make an offer since the price is what it is)
• If you grab an item with shipping included, I will dock shipping costs from any additional cards you purchase if shipping is included in price ($1 for PWE, $4 for BMWT)
• Feel free to make offers on any of the non-priced cards. For general guidance, individual singles are 10% off TCGPlayer of Ebay listings, if you get more, it could go up to 20%
• Shipping will be $4 BMWT, $1 PWE extra, PWE can hold at max 3 cards and I will not ship anything more than $30 in PWE
• All closeups of priced singles are available in Imgur, check there
• First come first serve, if you don't respond within an hour and half, I will move on to the next person

Available Items here: https://imgur.com/a/KQONB5i
Closeups: https://imgur.com/a/LW7Usma
Defective Cards: https://imgur.com/a/WhlD0QO
​
Item Prices:
Celebi V - 27 PWE
Arceus V - 30 PWE
Inteleon VMax - 25 PWE
Mewtwo GX Rainbow - 55 BMWT
Sylveon V - 53 BMWT
Umbreon GX Shiny - 98 BMWT
Charizard Vmax Rainbow - 165 BMWT
Galarian Moltres V - 117 BMWT
Latias/Latios Traditional Chinese Alt - 275 BMWT
​
Sylveon GX Shiny (slight top left corner defect) - 58 BMWT
Glaceon GX Shiny (imprint) - 14 PWE
Hex Maniac (general wear) - 65 BMWT
​
Slabs:
Pika V Full Art - 20 BMWT
Shiny Charmeleon (x2) - 20 BMWT
Shiny Eevee - 20 BMWT
Shiny Jirachi - 15 BMWT
Shiny Ray (2) - 35 BMWT
Cynthia Full Art - 85 BMWT
Pikachu CHR - 50 BMWT
Rainbow Blastoise - 70 BMWT
Rainbow Latias/Latios - 45 BMWT
Rainbow Lopunny/Jigglypuff - 25 BMWT
Rainbow Marshadow/Machamp - 25 BMWT
Gold Lucario/Melmetal - 95 BMWT

Hey there 😄
I'm a 26 year old brit who's currently living in the North-East in England, in a town called Middlesbrough, not the most enchanting place but it'll certainly do 😂 I'm currently on reddit hoping to make some friends to chat to on a regular basis, or even game with, which would be very welcome too :')
As stated above I'm somewhat of a gamer, my favourite genre is RPGs, but I'll try any game at least once. So if you've got any recommendations please do tell me! 😄 I'm currently in the black hole that is Skyrim with mods, so I'll probably be out in a few months :')
I'm an easy going person with a good sense of humour. But when needed I can be a shoulder for you to lean on and I'll happily listen if you need a vent or advice, I'll certainly do my best to help, I don't ghost people.
Outside of gaming, I really love animals and plants, and will happily sit and talk about them. I have 2 pet birds who I adore. But I adore all animals so please do send photos of yours 👀
I'm also somewhat of a technology geek. I absolutely love learning about machines, how they work, what they do etc. I built my own PC and love tinkering and upgrading, although my bank account doesn't 😭
I'm on here looking to make some friends to chat to, and maybe even play games with! I'm a very open minded person, and will happily talk to anyone, even if their beliefs don't align with my own. I love to learn new things and I'm always up for a conversation, however random it may be.
I am extremely LGBT+ friendly as I'm gay myself. I'm very accepting of people and don't judge.
I'm also autistic and have ADHD so if I'm a little bad at making long conversations to begin with, please bare with me, I promise I'm trying! (I also apologise for my randomness 😭)
I have discord and the normal socials so I'm more than happy to move over to there once we've spoke on here a little. 😄
Thanks for reading, and I hope to hear from you soon!
I'm happy with anyone messaging me, I'm a good listener, so please do reach out, regardless of gendeage/location/etc 😄 I don't ghost anyone. I'll always respond. Hoping to make a few good friends who I can chat to and game with often. As I'm from the UK, my time is GMT so if I don't reply quick, assume i'm likely asleep xD
I'll happily send a selfie if that's important to you!

Good afternoon everyone,
A few items up for grab:
AsRock X670E Pro RS: BNIB, never installed. Still ziptied to the shipping foam: $220 Shipped
Western Digital Black XN850X 4TB NVMe: Still box. Never installed. $265 Shipped
If you want both items, we can try to work a bundle deal.
Please let me know if you have any questions or would like additional photos.
Images and Verification

I feel like it’s one thing to protest for two days. But something like this could be maintained for much longer. And gets right down to the heart of the matter.
I think it would actually not last as long…. because then Reddit would be afraid of that movement spreading, having even more users download it, then actually prefer it, and feel adversely affected by this policy.
Or, I think the Apollo app should become a paid app. I mean, I know not everyone is in a position to spend, what, 10 bucks a month on an app, but I feel like most of us can. And the additional income could be used for Apollo to develop its own social media platform. So that the next time Reddit tries to price out their competition we just switch over to that.
I guess my way of thinking is, protests are cute, but like, we’re honestly no less complicit than Reddit is, if we don’t actually vote with our feet.
I also think there should be an indefinite no gold movement too, until this is fixed. We should be against receiving it and buying it. And we should boycott any company that advertises on Reddit during this protest. So that any company advertising on Reddit would view it as a cost rather than a potential benefit. That…I mean that would really stir shit up.
I guess what Im saying is…I feel like this whole protest is going to amount to nothing, if we don’t take measures that are more…I mean right now Reddit’s basically thinking okay big whoop gotta survive this for two days. And I think we really need to do better than that.

I am needing to go 250 miles. Uber pricing say from point A to point B is 251.00 which seems awful cheap. After tip I think I will be around $300. I have several questions. Does Uber even travel that far or is it when I attempt to book it that app will say no. Do drivers typically drive that far? And so it takes almost 4 hours for me to drive there which means it would take driver 4 hours back. That is like 8.5 hours of the drivers time. It does not seem worthwhile for a driver on a price per hour to accept. Pretty sure Uber gets a good portion of that. If I drive my F-150 there it usually cost me a little over 100 dollars. Although I have not done it since gas has went up. Do drivers know destination when they pick up. Last thing I want is stuck in a Uber with a mad driver for 4 hours.

In light of the blackout coming up, I wanted to ask this in case the subreddit is gone longer than sooner.
I’ve been working on learning synthesis for a little while now and accumulated a number of soft synths for iOS (mostly on ipad). I really want to get some hardware synths but set a goal for myself that I need to know how to make any patch based on knowing how I want it to sound ahead of time before doing so (which has a double use since money is also tight). I don’t want to get a synth and then feel lost and end up just flipping through presets since writing music with it is the goal. I’m also working my way through syntorial.
In syntorial I am now hearing very small variations in sound that I was never really aware of before. It’s making me wonder for all of you experienced synth users, if you can say which have accurate sounds compared to hardware synths. My main interest is in analog.
I have been using Buttersynth since it came out, because it’s quality of sound was mentioned so often but it’s a little overwhelming. I’ve been working a lot with Moog Model 15 since it seems like a good way to get used to modular, and sounds good to me. The one I spent the most time with at first was SynthMaster One. I recently got Zeeon synth since I heard the filters are still the closest sounding to actual analog filters. There are others too (not just a few).
Each has their advantages, but the UIs are different enough that I feel like I should focus on one while working my way through syntorial. And that led me to wondering if any of these are closer to a legit analog synth compared to the others, since I want to get really good with one ui but also get used to hearing one sound in addition to the primer synth in the course.
I know different synths have different characters of sound so I’m not sure if there is an answer to this, but I’d appreciate any info or guidance since jumping from synth to synth at this point is costing me time I could be spending working through the course.

So I went into an aviator creation game, to try on new clothes & accessorises for my av. I discovered I could load anyone’s creations to try on their outfits. I could see what they’ve named the creation too & how much their whole outfit costs.
This has made me conscious about my creations now, as I had stupidly put my real name on one of them.
Just wanted to give a heads up or see what others thought. To me, I feel it’s a big invasion of privacy.

No matter which MOBA you pick up - Franco-type hero exists with almost similar toolkit. So let's compare.
​
​

Hero	Franco	Pudge	Blitzcrank	Grakk
Game	Mobile Legends: Bang Bang (MLBB)	Defense of the Ancients (DOTA)	League of Legends (LOL)	Arena of Valor (AoV)
Passive	When out of combat, gain movement speed, regen and damage increase on next skill.	Gains max hp and attack damage each time enemy heroes die near him.	Gains shield equal to max mana when below a certain hp %. Has cooldown.	Explodes outward when bursted, dealing AoE damage. Max HP increased with each kill or assist (up to a cap).
Hook	Only enemies and neutrals. Does not retrieve upon returning.	Can pull allies out of danger as well. Retrieves on return as well.	Only enemies and neutrals. Does not retrieve upon returning.	Only enemies and neutrals. Does not retrieve upon returning.
Alternate Ability	Moderate AoE damage in a small radius and brief slow.	Constant slow and damage to nearby enemies - costs hp instead of mana.	Moderate AoE Damage in a large radius, silence and eliminate shield. Deals interval damage to one unit.	Moderate AoE damage in a small radius and longer slow.
Second CC	Continuous damage and suppress for 1.8 seconds.	Continuous damage and suppress for 2.8 seconds.	Nuke damage and knock up for 1.0 second.	Continuous damage and AoE suppress (after short delay) for 3.0 seconds.
Additional Ability 1	-	Reduce incoming damage.	Increased movement speed and attack speed.	-
Additional Ability 2	-	Eat an ally (making them unable to be targeted or issue commands) and healing them.	-	-
Win Rate (Highest Rank)	48.79%	49.21%	50.74%	N/A
Pick Rate (Highest Rank)	2.96%	28.41%	8.46%	N/A
Ban Rate (Highest Rank)	3.81%	N/A	29.65%	N/A

Franco appears to be the weakest of his counterparts from other MOBAs, no?

The price of GDDR6 memory has continued to fall sharply - over recent financial quarters - due to an apparent decrease in demand for graphics cards. Supply shortages are also a thing of the past—industry experts think that manufacturers have been having an easier time acquiring components since late 2021, but that also means that the likes of NVIDIA and AMD have been paying less for VRAM packages. Graphics card enthusiasts will be questioning why these savings have not been passed on swiftly to the customer, as technology news outlets (this week) have been picking up on interesting data—it demonstrates that spot prices of GDDR6 have decreased to less than a quarter of their value from a year and a half ago. 3DCenter.org has presented a case example of 8 GB GDDR6 now costing $27 via the spot market (through DRAMeXchange's tracking system), although manufacturers will be paying less than that due to direct contract agreements with their favored memory chip makesupplier.