Willingly

I've finally managed to switch my digital life away from willingly handing over data to big tech. I've written this partly as a celebration & partly to inspire others who may on the same journey.

EDIT: fixed formatting

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PERSONAL

Email - previously Gmail, now ProtonMail. I downloaded all my Gmails but didn't bother importing them to ProtonMail as I rarely use personal email anyway & have little reason to go back through them

Browser - Firefox with all recommended extensions from privacytools.io. Also learning about & getting more comfortable with using Tor for general usage

Phone - I purchased an e.foundation phone (https://e.foundation/) which is essentially a degoogled android. I bought it pre-flashed but you are able to flash a lot of Android phones with their software completely free if you choose. I'm extremely happy with it. I have an old iPhone that I use for things like Zoom calls or other apps like food delivery on Gojek where needed.

Messaging - Signal - this directly replaces Whatsapp. I still have Whatsapp currently but have convinced all my family to switch to Signal & many of my friends too. I currently run Whatsapp in Shelter, which sandboxes it from the rest of the apps on my phone. Also keeping an eye on services like https://element.io/. Plan to delete whatsapp soon & will ask friends to just SMS me if they are not on Signal.

2FA - previously Authy, now Aegis which is open-source and you can backup an ecnrypted file that will let you install all your codes on another device. I read that as Authy is linked to your phone number, it's potentially weak in the event of a sim swap attack?

Cloud storage - I've been using Sync.com for a long time but have recently moved to Tresorit for zero-knowledge cloud storage for two reasons - the Sync.com interface is difficult to use if you want to roll-back deleted files & they have no Linux app. Tresorit UX much better & Linux app is nice.

Note taking & syncing - from Google Keep to Standard Notes. Still getting a feel for it but syncs across devices and so far so good.

Maps - I use OpenStreetMaps which is nowhere close to Google Maps in functionality, but if I'm lost it does the job of helping me orientate, and if I really need Google Maps for som

Stop sleeping around if you are worried about your kids future. Whether you are in the slums of Mumbai, or in a tiny apartment in new York, blaming the government for all the problems is nonsensical. Yes, they contribute. Yes. Governments should help their people who exist. But the entire thing can all be fixed if you decide not to have the baby.

You started it all. I don't feel sorry when people scream at the rich elite and ask then why the government is paying them to raise their own kids. I find it childish when people maon about racism being the reason why their kid in a homogenous neighbourhood is selling drugs.

Not only did you choose to give birth at the wrong time, but you also didn't consider if you would have time to educate your kid about how not to be an idiot.

I guess many of us have gifted the party with something that in hindsight was way too powerful and throws the party balance off in a bad way. So we want to remove that item from play but do it in a way that's not abrasive.

Here's a simple tip: have the item turn out to be the key to something the party really wants/needs to do. Either literally or figuratively.

The Mantle of the Seven Priests is a symbol of unity between nations. Giving it for the Queen to wear would almost certainly make the treaty become a reality. The Necklace of the Red Dragon has uniquely shaped scale-like beads on it. The shapes just so happen to match the carvings on the side of the Forge of Dawn, which has been sitting dormant for centuries.

Or the inverse: the item is even more useful to the bad guys than the party.

The Ceremonial Dagger of Soul Binding turns out be the object the devils use to track the party. Oh and also using it sends all the souls to the hells to be turned into new devils.

Either way you do it, remember the players should be willingly letting go of the magnificent item they found. They are making a heroic sacrifice. Or if not, they now fully understand that there will be consequences.

EDIT: Thank you people for all the support and comments so far! I really didn't expect this. Just to reiterate on some aspects I feel I might've been too ambiguous on:

• I think the party should still get a good run with the item first. Once the initial honey-moon phase is over, they are much more likely to want to give it up.
• The trade should never be a road block, like in a video game. The whole point of this advice is that the players are given a chance to let go of the item in a way that makes sense in the fiction. They are not forced to do it, they are allowed to.
• This should only be done in case of emergency. An emergency being that the people at the table are not having as much fun as they used to. A magic item that makes one PC a demigod while others are just your average adventurers is one to do that.

I have posted several stories about my mother behaving like crap towards my relationship and my girlfriend (Eva). Today, this has definitely ended in my and Eva's favour. My mother won't bother us anymore.

My mother is a very rude, insensitive, arrogant, obtuse, openly islamophobic and xenophobic person. She never liked Eva, nor (initially) the idea of me dating at all, but it reached new heights, when we moved in together, moreover into the house she thought, she would inherit one day. It is my grandparent's old house and they couldn't take care of it anymore, so they moved out.

My mother hates her for several reasons. Eva is of foreign descent and her mother is a Muslim immigrant in this country and she is very straightforward about what she thinks about something/someone. She also has a skin condition and commits a serious crime because of it - vitiligo and being happy and proud of herself for it (rightfully, her with vitiligo over without it all the time)

While this might come of as flaunting it, Eva is easily the most beautiful, most amazing and kindest person I have ever met and I love her more than anything and anyone else. I don't even know if I even deserve her.

Anyway, ever since my mother somehow came to terms with me dating, she was commenting all the time about how "I deserve better", how "she is not the right one for me", how "She's with me only because I'm the only one desperate enough to like her" and how "we'll break up anyway as teenage love doesn't last"

Well... that was more than 2 years ago...and it doesn't seem like it's anywhere near ending...

One time, she berated me for breaking my wrist, when I took the shortest route to provide first aid to Eva, now not to brag, but basically saving her life, after some accident when we were out in a forest together (I won't specify neither the accident or injuries for the sake of privacy, though it wasn't good, at all) and then called me a drama queen when the accident actually traumatised me...

Another problem with my mother came almost 1 year ago. She was becoming a couch potato, I had an insane workload on my back, she didn't do anything to help, but always complained about me being lazy when I found the free time to spend time with Eva or just play some games. This has led me to the thought of moving out.

Further on, all the way until last week, is documented by several stories I've written about her in the past months.

In short: insulting Eva, always bitching, dropping c

He was drafted by them in 2005, left to play in Spain until 2009, returned to them and played with them until 2015 when he was traded to Detroit, re-signed as a FA in 2018, and was ultimately traded last night to Sacramento. Will he return once again in 2021 or 2022? This seems to be unrequited love.

This has become a contrarian view here and while I understand the warrants side and the low risk, buying shares of a SPAC at NAV does not guarantee a good return any more than buying a SPAC above that which already has an acquiring company. These days, SPACs with good acquiring companies will not be trading in the low teens anymore. The October days are finished. If all these SPACs go back down to trading in the low teens I will eat my words but while Nikola took SPACs briefly down with their reputation the market is realizing many great companies are coming public through them and there’s no reason not to invest in them pre-merger. The market is getting much faster at seeing these vehicles and who they’re bringing public.

Personally I rolled over my profits from SBE and PIC into STPK and TPGY both of which are trading over $20. There were other plays lower but I never base my investment decisions on what price a stock is currently trading at. I think these are great companies in high growth industries that will benefit hugely from the decarbonization of the economy.

Investing in the management of SPACs is great but so is investing in great companies. Don’t pass on a SPAC because it’s “too high” if someone on here told you that playing close to NAV is the only way to do this. You’ll be missing out on amazing returns if you are only trading these in the teens. Multiple companies in this space will be above $50 a few months from now.

If a player or NPC wants to willingly drop their guard, is there a RAW way to do so? My train of thought was imagining a drunken fist NPC who willingly took the first hit or two in order to drop the guards of the players, only to suddenly be really hard to hit.

You are born free.

The land is all owned.

You're expected to pay someone else for shelter while not being given the means to build your own on a suitable plot of land.

No one questions this. Rent is just a factored "cost" of living. Why should i have to pay a portion of my income to someone else when i cant buy my own land because of the "market" put in place by, wait for it, landowners...

This includes being able to tutor her and/or give her answers in class. Though you have to be very smart for her to take such a chance when there are more physically attractive alternatives.

I’ve been struggling with this question for the last week and I just need to get this out of my system.

My family had a small (12 person, whoops) gathering (socially distanced, of course) for Thanksgiving where my cousin (23M) and his fiancé (21F) announced they were trying for a baby. Everyone was over the moon and our generation is the youngest there is in the entire family. This announcement spurred a lot of conversation about me (22F) finding a man and having one of my own.

Now, my family knows I have literally no interest in children. Being the absolute youngest in the whole lot of us, I’ve never been around kids for any appreciable amount of time- hell, I’ve never even held a baby. I’ve never liked kids, I’ve never wanted kids; these are two well known things.

I then told them about how I actually have an appointment with an OB/GYN coming up... about getting my tubes tied. They thought I was joking and were laughing about it until they realize I was not joking and that I was completely serious.

I’ve always had reproductive issues (didn’t start my period until I was 16, almost 17 and even then it happened because it was induced by medication; I spent 5 years on birth control and didn’t have a period for the last 3 years of that time frame; I’ve recently gone off it and have now discovered I’m likely amenorrehic... again). While no doctor has floated the term “infertile” I don’t think I’m too far off from it, so getting my tubes tied... not a huge difference to me.

They all got up in my business saying that there’s other forms of birth control and that I should go back on the pill. For clarification, they know I went off it only because my mother was diagnosed with estrogen receptive breast cancer and there is (some) evidence the pill can increase the risk for developing that type of cancer. I reiterated all of this to them.

They came back with getting sterilized is too big of a decision to make at my age because it’s permanent... but apparently having a child isn’t???

Like my cousin and his fiancé, who are around my age, aren’t making a life altering and permanent decision by having a child???

I just... I don’t... I don’t get it.

Edit: I would also like to say birth control is fantastic if you are ever planning on having children; I’m not gonna argue with that. But for me, someone who is adamant on not having kids, I don’t see the point in pumping my body full of hormones (that could increase the risk of cancer more than the increased

https://twitter.com/CrisLaderas/status/1328479931467182080?s=20

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This question doesn't even touch the "found" evidence like bones in a pile on top of the alleged burn location without any soil evidence to back that claim up, or electronics in a pile, located in a burn barrel that contained previously burned ash, or a key found under a lying explanation that's been refuted by evidence photos, or a license plate that's thrown into a clearly visible location that two officers with a huge conflict of interest searched a day before (but didn't find), or human bones found in the next door neighbors house as soon as the property is seized.

This question doesn't even touch on the lack of reports from the likes of Kelly Sippel, Jason Jost, et al regarding the human bones discover on the day Avery's arrest.

This question doesn't even touch on the Brendan Dassey paradox that introduces a conflicting narrative resulting in two trials putting forward a contradictory timeline.

This question doesn't even touch the witness intimidation involving multiple minors such as blaine Dassey and Kayla avery, or her recant of a made up statement that wet behind the ear investigators took at face value prior to interrogating the extremely suggestible Brendan Dassey without his mother present for a couple of the early interviews.

So, does it mean a fair trial if the prosecution presents a knowingly false narrative? Like, not even close?

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Hi. I've been into coldshowers for 2 years. When I started, I resisted the fear of cold water and went into the shower willingly. However, now I'm suffering from extreme rejection to feel my head clear and I only want to be deep into numbness, even though that pains me.

Any of you have felt that way? You know of something that may help me? The tricks that I've used at the start are no more useful. I've tried dancing as silly as possible, and that helped me, but I feel that I'm just distracting myself from the shower.

Right now, I'm writting this in front of the shower, about to go in. I've been wondering if I should not take a cold shower, but I feel very displeased to take a hot shower, because it makes me feel even dirtier.

I'm very confused, I feel that I forgot that the fear that I have for cold water is only my mind making up things. Also, I don't have any physical problems with being under cold water, as I've been into it for a long time.

Now I'm battling a mental fight and I want some advice in case I strayed out of the correct path, hurting myself mentally.

I'm also feeling weird because I'm searching for advice from Reddit. It's my first time using it. Thank you for reading this.

I (like an idiot) agreed to look after a friend’s youngish dog for a few days. In the span of these few days this is what I’ve had to endure:

1. having to be interrupted 4 times a day to take the dog out
2. 2 accidents indoors (in spite of the fact that I took the dog out 4 times a day)
3. waiting forever for it to piss/shit
4. having to caress poo through a thin plastic bag multiple times a day
5. incessant whining: whining because it can’t sniff something outside, whining because I put it in its crate for 5 minutes, whining because I am showering (even though it could still see me and wasn’t in its crate), whining because I am not playing with it, whining early morning because it has to piss RIGHT THE FUCK NOW OR ELSE
6. constant begging for attention, jumping on me while I’m trying to work
7. “zoomies” (god I hate this) all day long
8. running all over my couch
9. keeping me up throughout the first night
10. having to take it on 3 mile long walks just so I can have it sleep a bit longer
11. not being able to take a piss/shit myself without it ramming its nose into my crotch
12. constantly having to watch it in case it tries to piss in the house or chew something (it did both)
13. moving everything off the floor so it can’t get to it
14. having to feed it 3 times a day because if I just left a large bowl of food out it wouldn’t stop eating
15. having to play with it for hours on end
16. being bitten multiple times a day

All of this for what? Because it’s cute? For company? These people are delusional and must have absolutely nothing better to do with their lives. Looking after a child would be less work because at least you can teach a child the concept of “no”.

I. Just. Don’t. Get. It. Absolute masochists these dog people.

/rant

Hagrid being present for Harry's 'death' really gets to me, in both the book and the film. The first person who Harry ever remembers caring for him. The person who had his whole life ruined by Tom Riddle before he even became Voldemort. A man who was friends with both Lily and James. The one who rescued Harry from the scene of Lily and James' murder (and spent 12 years believing that he had only just managed to rescue Harry from Sirius too). Hagrid was there for Harry as much as Harry was there for Hagrid over the course of 6 years. They had both been in hiding prior to the battle, not knowing if the other was alive.

And then he was tied up, helpless, watching as one of his best friends walked willingly to his death by the hand of the man who had already taken so many people from him. And there was nothing that he could do.

Currently spending my night watching live videos of Blackpink just to obsess over how beautiful and skinny they are. I'm more than aware of the effect it has on my already rampant self-hatred and depression, and deep down, I realise that's the exact reason why I do it. I want to feel as bad as I possibly can about myself. My subconscious aim is to put myself down even further, because for whatever godforsaken reason, it brings me some sort of sick, weird comfort.

Anyone relating at all?

I don't have a long, heartfelt, soulful essay about how much and why I appreciate each and every member of the cast, but I do. I don't want us to lose any of them, for any reason.

^(If there's someone on the cast you don't like, you can shut your face <3)

This is going to sound crazy but bear with me because I don’t have much time. I’ve used this app like three times in my life, and both times I was just checking spoilers for TV shows. I don’t know what this place is. It says this is where people can post real life experiences. Though this isn’t really an experience.

It’s happening right now, and I don’t know what to do. I don’t have a working phone. I have no way to contact anyone, so I’m going to pray to every god, real and fictional, that you guys can do something to help me. Okay, so I’ll start from the beginning. My name is Del, I’m twenty years old and my best friend has lost her mind. I’m also pretty sure the cast of my favourite show are sitting under her tree.

And I don’t know what to do. My hands are shaking like fucking crazy, and I feel sick to my stomach. It feels like I’m crying out to thin air, but I’ll do anything to get out of this mad house. Because everything is wrong!

I’ve tried numerous times to pinch myself. Surely this is a nightmare, right? This isn’t really happening.

Except I can’t wake up. Whatever I do, I can’t wake myself up.

Context. That’s what you want. I’m babbling, and I can’t help it.

First of all, I’m pretty sure I’ve been drugged.

So, if this makes absolutely no sense, then I’ve got an excuse. I should at least be alarmed by the fact that my best friend has roofied me, but I’m tired. I’m tired, and my tongue feels weird and strange.

Like I’m chewing on a cloud. I don’t think it’s enough to completely knock me out. At least I hope not.

I guess it’s a race against time. Me Vs the drugs in my system. The drugs that Belle has put in my hot chocolate. The hot chocolate topped with mini marshmallows and enough whipped cream to give make me lactose intolerant. It’s her mom’s recipe, I know it is. Just a sprinkle of peppermint for added pizzazz.

Belle has drugged me.

It’s Christmas, and I’m sitting in her childhood bedroom with a beaten up iPhone 5s, and my fingers feel like sausages. She’s locked the door. Of course she’s locked the goddamn door.

There’s just Pink.

Everything is pink, like we never grew up. Like she never passed the age of ten years old. Belle’s room is still princess themed after all these years. And it’s my new prison.

The room that is so familiar to me, reminding me of simpler times, is now a cage. I wonder where Belle is. Is she downstairs, playing with my so-called presents?

Kayla is still here; the stuffed unicorn I got her when

I’ve read a few posts on the subreddit where people say that after today’s stream, Techno doesn’t care about Tommy’s wellbeing and would turn Tommy in, but I do not think that this is the case. I believe Techno would NOT willingly betray Tommy at any point, UNLESS he has almost no choice and it is at his own expense.

Techno really doesn’t need Tommy, and Tommy has already been more against blowing up L’manburg. Yet, Techno gives him a home, gives him resources, and also gives him a Christmas gift. Techno, although he won’t admit it, cares for Tommy. He’s always protecting him and tries to help Tommy align with his own beliefs that he believes to be true.

I don’t think Techno would willingly give Tommy to Dream, because it doesn’t make sense for Techno to hand over Tommy after he’s already done so much for him and taken him in. The only way I could think of Techno betraying Tommy is in a situation where his own safety and life are at stake. Let’s say, if Dream gives Techno an ultimatum of coming to the prison or handing over Tommy, Techno could possibly hand him over to keep himself safe.

If Techno chooses to keep Tommy safe and away from Dream and go to the prison, there could be an arc where Tommy is trying to break Techno out of the prison, which shows Tommy’s loyalty to Techno and that their relationship is more than just business. Or, if Techno hands him over, Tommy could feel betrayed by someone he trusted once again and fall back into Dream’s manipulation while Techno works on his plans of destroying L’manburg.

What do you think? Do you think this is a situation that could possibly happen? Do you think Techno would only willingly betray Tommy if given no choice, or do you think he’d give himself in to keep Tommy safe?

To clarify, my SIL is my husband’s brother’s wife. Let’s call her Manda. Manda and I both married our respective husbands around three years ago.

Manda and I are both really different - she is a strong, independent career woman who works really hard and is in a position where she is recognised at work for it. Frankly I admire her for this! However this means that she is always working hard and rarely able to help with chores. They hire help for this, so it's not like it's going unattended too.

My husband on the other hand makes enough such that I am able to work only about 30 hours a week and I am really grateful for this. In my spare time, I am more than happy to bake for the in laws/make lunch boxes for my husband/clean up the house. I think that both our choices are not wrong, and neither of us is better than the other for this.

Unfortunately our MIL doesn’t think this way. She doesn’t approve of Manda’s career choices and consistently compares us, to the point of embarrassing me too. She consistently makes snide remarks about Manda’s lack of care for her husband and that she would probably be a bad and absent mother.

Manda has recently reached out to me to request that I stop being such a housewife and doing subservient things for my husband, to stop making her look bad. She said that what I’m doing is setting back progress.

What should I do? It’s not my fault that our MIL compares us, and I have tried to speak up for Manda on multiple occasions already. I've asked my husband to speak to his brother about it, but his brother actually said he wishes Manda would be more like me and less focused on her work. Any advice would be greatly appreciated!!

So yeah, I am new here.

I bought a townhome close to where I work because it's a good job and I generally like the area... well, not the area I specifically moved into now, I guess.

Living in a neighborhood with a - nothing to scoff - at HOA due you would expect the people to be pretty tamed, and for the most part they are. But not my neighbors.

Compared to some of you they may not even compare, but having bass noise that isn't yours fill the home you just bought and are spending money on to fill out really sends a bad taste down my throat. You'd think it would be obvious not to use subwoofers in attached living.

The thought to myself that no matter what I do it is only a matter of time before I begin to hear the rhythmic *thud thud thud thud* of a subwoofer on the otherside of the wall. Be it working from home at 10am and I'm on a call, or be it 10pm and I'm downstairs trying to relax before bed. There's nothing that'll get my blood flowing more than the sound of those low frequencies filling the air at any possible moment.

It got to the point that I've been in contact with my neighbor's neighbor who just so happens to also have this issue that I have, albeit at a lesser degree since they don't share a wall with their bedroom. At the start of December I lost it and began send out 'Karen' emails and letters to the HOA and to this address I could find of the person that actually owns the house (yup, they're renters) and I had word back from the HOA that they'd contact the owners for me directly and I told them they could also share my own contact information. Nothing I could tell came of that except that the neighbors did quiet down to a reasonable level and I began to become... happier??? Shocker.

Until Dec 24, when I could feel them shaking my rooms. I went over to tell em off and to quiet down again. "Sorry, was it the new subwoofer." *NEW*? **NEW!!!** YES, it was the new subwoofer! I've just about had it.

Dec 26 rolls by and sure enough, the wife if playing music in their room upstairs. How did I know again? Well, I was downstairs cleaning when I did hear music and turned on my own to drown it out. Thing is, when I went upstairs to grab something I realized that it was coming from a wall up there and it was *deafening*. I doddled on if I should contact the neighbor's neighbor again and sure enough I did to let them know that I was just at the end of my rope and that I needed their help in telling them off.

My neighbor's neighbor an

In the LOTR trilogy a very important feature to the quest of destroying the ring is that everyone in middle earth is corrupted by it, and literally no one can not succumb to the ring especially when standing that close to mount Doom like Frodo was.

Gandalf, although he was the wisest maia in Valinor, knew that he couldn't take the ring because he would most likely be corrupted, too.

So basically no one in ME is capable of destroying the ring willingly, except maybe Tom Bombadil, but he would rather stay where he is.

However, could a Vala, or an elf from Valinor whose heart is pure, destroy the Ring?

Or is the Ring's power to seduce people so great, that it's only by pure chance that the ring was actually destroyed art the end of return of the king? The only reason for the destruction of the ring was gollum, but had he been killed, Frodo would've never casted the ring into the fire himself.