"Okay," Sookie called out. "That's a wrap!"
A ragged cheer went up from the cast and crew. Deacon walked around, clapping his hands and cheering loudly, making sure everyone else was cheering, too. Sookie walked over to her chair and sank into it, her feet throbbing in time to the cheering people around her. She smiled at anyone who caught her eye and just relaxed.
This was the end of a grueling, forty-five day shooting schedule that had been supposed to be ten hour days, but had ended up being more like thirteen to eighteen hour days for her. They weren't done filming the season. Far from it, in fact. But these were the worst shots, and the cast and crew involved had all agreed to push through hard until it was done. After this, they had about two more months of shooting on a more normal schedule, and then editing could begin.
Deacon, despite his enthusiasm for the end of the push, had not had to attend most of the shots they got, and had instead, been spending 'quality' time with a couple of local groupies and the White Lady. Sookie didn't begrudge him this, of course. She worried a little about the amount of booger sugar going up his nose at times, but his agent had repeatedly assured her that he was using far more often during shoots than during his off time.
Besides, it was only fitting that the star of the show should enjoy the fruits of his fame. Sookie herself had picked up a bisexual couple a week or two ago, when they had a shoot end 'early' (at nine PM) and the next's day's shoot wasn't scheduled to begin until eight AM. She had left set almost immediately and headed to a local gay bar, where someone had recognized her from her OnlyFans days and insisted upon introducing his boyfriend.
She sighed, remembering the sensation of two well-endowed men thrusting into her, and how she'd simply melted when the one behind her leaned forward and around to kiss the other. Bi men were soooo hawt...
She promised herself she'd try to find another bisexual 'gay' couple, now that she had the time.
Deacon had finally got everyone sufficiently enthusiastic -which was a credit to his charisma, really, as everybody was exhausted- and came over to sit next to her in his own chair.
"I am so ready for a couple weeks off," he said.
"It's one week," Sookie reminded him. "And then you need to be ready for the fight scenes. Have you been working with your choreographer?"
"I haven't really had the time..." Deacon whined, causing Sookie to sigh.
"Deek," she said, sitting up in her chair and turning to face him. "You haven't needed to be on set for the past two weeks. You've been coming to, in your own words, 'help keep morale up'. And while I do appreciate your efforts in that regards, it is far more important for you to be ready to shoot your fight scenes in a week. I'm serious here. You need to get with your choreographer and get your moves nailed down tight. We don't have time to push those shoots back any further."
Deacon held up his hands in surrender. "I'll be down at the dojo tomorrow, I swear."
"Tomorrow morning," Sookie insisted.
"Tomorrow morning," Deacon agreed. "In fact, I'm going to get the playbook and go over it tonight, to try to get a head start."
Sookie smiled and patted him on the knee as she rose. She didn't want to be here anymore. The PAs and crew could finish cleaning everything up so the teardown crews could get started tomorrow.
She found her personal assistant and instructed her to make sure everyone knew to do their own breakdowns, then left. Filming on set had certain advantages, including the fact that she was within walking distance of her hotel.
The security guard that Julie had insisted she maintain since that incident a few years ago with the psycho stan peeled herself off the wall she'd been holding up and fell into step behind her. Sookie wouldn't have minded so much, except Julie had carefully picked married, monogamous men and women to fill her security schedule with, to avoid any 'conflicts of interest'.
This gal, Linda Gottlieb, was probably the worst of all. She had a girlfriend and a boyfriend, and yet refused to sleep with anyone else. On top of that, she was as slender as Sookie, flat chested (which Sookie found to be a major turn on) and hard as a rock, with veiny arms and shoulders and even a few visible on her belly.
Sookie was a woman of many tastes, but skinny girls with visible veins and no tits were one of her more notable favorites, and so Linda's categorical refusal to so much as let Sookie slip a hand down her pants was grating.
Linda wasn't wearing a uniform. She wore a tight tank top and a loose flannel with the sleeves rolled up and the front unbuttoned over a pair of blue jeans and hiking boots. Sookie knew she had a gun on her somewhere, but couldn't speculate as to where.
Well, that's not true. Sookie imagined the handle sticking of her ass, riding up between the cheeks of that ass that all flat-chested women seemed to have that was categorically unfair to better-if-still-modestly endowed women like Sookie. She slowed down to get a peek at it.
"Looking at my ass again?" Linda asked.
"Yes," Sookie said. "I was wondering if you keep your gun there. The handle could fit between those cheeks and nobody would be the wiser."
Linda laughed and lifted her flannel to show a handgun tucked into her belt on her hip. "Sorry to disappoint," she said. "But I kinda need to keep it where I could easily get at it."
Sookie sighed, her pleasant illusion ruined.
They turned left out of the studio gates and walked up the road. Despite the presence of the studio, this was kind of a rough area, so Sookie appreciated having some security as she made the walk. Not that she couldn't handle herself, but she'd learned the hard way that being taken by surprise left her as vulnerable as anyone.
They hadn't gotten more than a half a block before a ragged looking man approached them, reeking of booze and shit. His clothes were filthy and torn and he had a scraggly beard that ranged from a centimeter to three inches long, seemingly at random.
"Spare a dollar?" he asked.
"No," Linda said, stepping forward to catch his attention so Sookie could slip past.
"S'just a dollar, lady. I'll lick your pussy for it!" The man leered at Linda, who didn't blink or flinch, but rather gave him a hard shove back.
"Don't you fucking crowd me, talking shit like that," she said menacingly, taking another step forward to keep him off balance.
"Be respectful," she added with force. The man looked like he wanted to argue, but something in the way she looked or held herself made it clear to him that Linda was not to be trifled with. He stepped back until his back was to the wall of the building behind him and watched as Linda turned and caught back up to Sookie, who was watching the whole thing over her shoulder.
"Fucking Dykes!" the man shouted. "Suck my dick!"
"You'd think that at least one of them would figure out that being aggressive like that doesn't work," Sookie mused.
"It doesn't work on you or me, but that's because we know we could take his head off if he tried to get violent," Linda said. "Most women aren't fighters. They'll give him cash just to get him to stop harassing them."
"Fair enough," Sookie said.
This was a common occurrence. Almost every time Sookie walked to her hotel, at least one homeless person would try to panhandle her. Sometimes, if she had any cash, she'd give them some. Once in a blue moon, one would engender enough sympathy for a good payout, a hundred bucks or so. But most of the time, they struck her as entitled ruffians, living on the street thanks to their own bad decisions and trying to get by on other people's labor.
She knew that was an old-fashioned mindset. She knew a lot of these people would, if they got clean of whatever they were using, sort out their lives and take care of business. She knew that the DCM Group even had a charitable arm who straight up gave condos and large sums of money to many homeless people, who immediately used that gift to get back on their feet. She knew the stats, too.
But this particular area seemed to attract the sort of homeless people whom right-wing motards used as an archetype for all homeless people. Twice, someone from the crew had been assaulted, causing Sookie to declare that she and the stunt coordinator were the only ones allowed to walk to and from the studio.
"I wonder if they're actually even homeless," Linda said, her thoughts echoing Sookie's.
"Me too," Sookie said. "I mean, it's a very poor neighborhood, adjacent to a place where very wealthy people work. There's no rule that says you have to be homeless to panhandle."
Linda nodded. Sookie wondered idly if she'd been following her own logic, or seeking out a belief that made her feel better about judging the people here. She wasn't sure which, really.
The area they moved through got progressively nicer as they continued. They turned the last corner, with three blocks still to go when Sookie saw the next one.
This one was older. he only had about a week's worth of beard on his face, though Sookie could see that it was mostly gray. He wore similar clothes to the other one, the once-vibrant colors having long since faded towards a muted gray tone. His clothes, however, looked cleaner and the holes had all been neatly stitched. As they drew close, Sookie could read his sign.
Please help Leave a dollar or take a resume Will work for food
Sure enough, he had a stack of resumes weighted down with a rock next to him. Sookie stopped, intrigued and bent down to retrieve one. She handed the man a folded ten dollar bill at the same time. A reward for creativity in his panhandling, she thought.
She looked at it. The man had a pair of enlistments in the Marine Corps at the top of his work experience. It was back in the early 2000s, and it mentioned Helmand Province, which Sookie recalled had been at the center of a lot of the fighting in Afghanistan.
The next few lines were security companies, starting with a high-end competitor to the Group, and then a long sequence of construction and day-labor work, ending on his current work, which was "Self Employed - Private Investigations". Below that, he had a string of qualifications, including armed security, close protection and bail enforcement.
"This is actually quite a good resume," Sookie told him. She glanced up at the top to get his name, Richard Nixon.
"Richard Nixon?" Sookie asked. "Like the president?"
Richard nodded. "I'll work," he said hopefully. "I can swing a hammer and do plumbing. I'll do a full day's work for lunch and dinner, or a hundred bucks, whichever you prefer."
Sookie handed the resume to Linda, who looked down at it.
"Ain't much different than mine," she said. "Oorah."
"Oorah," Richard muttered back, seemingly on pure instinct.
"So why are you out here, Richard?" Sookie asked. "Your resume says you're self-employed as a private eye."
Richard shrugged. Sookie noted the redness and swelling of his nose. "Work's been scarce," he said. "Been getting fewer jobs for the last few years. Fewer jobs means less money, less money means losing my office, not being able to afford nice clothes, which leads to fewer jobs."
Sookie looked a question at Linda, who shrugged. "We're always looking for investigators. It can be hard to recruit former cops, and those we do are often old enough not to stay on for more than a few years before retiring."
Sookie smiled and nodded, turning back to Richard. "You want an interview?"
"Hell yeah," he said with some enthusiasm. "As long as they don't mind me looking a little rough around the edges."
"Where do you live?" Sookie asked. Richard gestured around. "Lost my apartment last month," he said. Sookie pursed her lips and then nodded and held out a hand to him.
"Come on, Richard. I'm Sookie, and this is Linda. I'll make you a deal. I'll get you a nice outfit to wear and arrange an interview at the LA office tomorrow. I'll put you up on my couch for the night, too. That way, you can shower and shave and look presentable for it. What do you think?"
Richard took her hand and let her help him up. "Are you serious?" he asked. Sookie nodded.
"Holy crap, thank you, lady. Sookie, I mean. Thank you." His eyes began to get watery. "I don't... I don't even know what to say. That would be amazing."
Sookie smiled, her heart wrenching for the guy. She knew he had a drinking problem, but she also remembered all those people the Group's charities helped. Get someone on their feet, and there was a good chance they'd stay there.
"Do you have stuff to get?"
"I uh... I have a storage shed. It's paid up through the end of the year," he said. "My stuff is safe there, I just need to go get my toiletries."
"Don't worry about that," Sookie said, stepping to the edge of the sidewalk and waiting for the traffic to clear enough to cross the road. "We can stop by a drug store, too."
----
Sookie and Linda took Richard shopping and got him everything he needed. Which wasn't much, really. Sookie had a spare toothbrush, razors, shaving cream and cologne at her hotel room. It was all stuff she kept on hand to be the best slut she could be, and make her dishes du jour feel welcome. They bought him deodorant and an electric beard trimmer, and decided to take a pit stop at a hair and nails salon next to the pharmacy.
The girls there had cooed and gooed over Sookie and Linda helping this man out, and refused to accept any money for the trim he got. Unfortunately, they weren't set up to shave a man (all of the other clients inside were women), but Richard protested that he was perfectly capable of shaving himself, so it all worked out.
The next stop was, at Sookie's insistence, one of the ultra-high-end men's clothing stores near her hotel. Linda had protested that simply taking a car to Walmart would be good enough, but Sookie would have none of that.
"Linda, it's been over six years since I've seen a person in Walmart that I'd be willing to give a handy to. It's been even longer since I've seen any clothing there that looked like it didn't come from Walmart, especially the suits. We're not going to Walmart."
As a result, Richard got fitted for a custom-tailored suit and outfitted with a tie that was a pleasant, deep blue, bespeckled with tiny, gold-embroidered Marine Corps logos. He seemed pleased with it, and had to keep wiping his eyes as he repeatedly and profusely thanked her.
When all was done, they finally went to the hotel. Sookie had a full suite on the top floor. It wasn't the biggest suite, but it was close, with two spare bedrooms, a living room and a full kitchen, in addition to a balcony that afforded her a great view of the city (so long as the smog wasn't too bad) and a private elevator to the rooftop pool.
Linda took her usual spot at the door to await her relief for the evening while Sookie showed Richard the large bathroom and made sure he had everything he needed. While he showered and shaved, she decided to review the script.
She walked over to the safe in the living room and carefully punched in her combination on the keypad.
The scripts for The Legend of Jimmy were like solid gold. Every studio out there wanted to get their hands on one, to steal ideas from. Every fan wanted to get one, just for the thrill of knowing what was going to happen next. During the second season's filming, they'd had multiple scripts stolen and leaked, and Sookie had learned to crack down on that. As a result, she was the only one who ever had a full set of scripts for any given season. She kept them safely under lock and key at all times.
She pulled out her working copy, which was different from the 'archive' copy she also kept in the safe. The working copy had all of her handwritten notes on it. She closed the safe back up and locked it, then sat down at the table and flipped open to the scenes they would be filming after the break. Using a red pen, she made notes for herself, things to remember during shooting, like camera angles and notes on the VFX.
She heard the shower turn off, but she was engrossed in her work when the door opened.
"Thanks again," Richard said, causing her to look up. He had a towel around his waist, but Sookie noted that he had a lean torso, with some muscle still there, despite a rough life. Clean shaven now, he looked much better. He'd never get a gig as a model, but he was handsome enough in his own way. Sookie smiled at him.
"You don't have to keep thanking me," she said. "I'm happy to help."
She closed her script and stood, walking it over to the safe. Obscuring her hands with her body, she punched in the code again and placed the script inside. She hadn't yet closed the door when she heard Richard mutter "Oh shit."
She turned to look and froze. He'd turned back towards the bathroom, and then dropped his towel by accident. He was currently in the process of picking it up, affording Sookie a great view of his ass and what might well have been considered a third leg hanging from between the other two.
It came almost to his knees.
A flush of heat went through her, washing away all thoughts of largess and generosity, and kindling a very selfish desire. She heard the spattering on the hardwood floor where she crouched as her usual over-the-top wetness kicked into high gear and soaked through her pants in seconds. She could feel herself throbbing as she eyed Richard's enormous member.
Her disguise slipped and the horns erupted from her head, her tail curled up painfully inside her pants and her skin turned red, with large patches of scales. Operating purely on instinct, she magicked up a veil of mundanity. She didn't want Richard to freak out, and this would keep him from registering her appearance as anything out of the ordinary.
He retrieved his towel and made to wrap it back around his waist, but Sookie shot to her feet and spun, already ripping her shirt off.
"Wait," she said. Richard froze, then turned to look at her over one shoulder. She tossed her shirt on the couch and peeled off her pants. She wasn't wearing any underwear or bra, of course. She never did.
"I just thought of a way you could thank me," she purred, taking a languid step forward. Richard reacted immediately to the sight of her naked, turning, his hog's leg stiffening and rising from its vertical hang slightly.
"Are you, uh... I mean... I'm not..." Richard stammered. Sookie stepped closer to him and put her hands on his shoulder, then ran them down his chest.
"I am damn sure I want to do this, if that's what you're asking," she said, her hands reaching lower as she stepped close enough to press her breasts into his ribs. She took hold of him and felt him grow almost immediately rock hard as he gasped.
"Wow," he said. "This is... This is like something from a porno with a bad script..." he said.
"Uh huh," Sookie said. "And we're about to do the fun parts of it." She pressed her lips into his, and then squealed in delight as he grabbed her by the ass and hoisted her up.
"Where?" he asked into her mouth.
"Pussy, mouth and ass," she replied. She felt the heat rush through his cheeks.
"I meant where in this room," he said.
"I don't fucking care," Sookie responded, lining his huge cock up with her most convenient hole and squirming down onto it with a loud gasp.
"In the bedroom!" Linda shouted. "Please, for the love of god, in the bedroom!"
----
Sookie awoke the next morning and rolled over to see if Richard was up for a little wake-and-shake. Her hands slapped the empty bed and she pouted.
"Richard?" she called, a wonderful aroma meeting her nose as she did. "Are you making coffee already? I'll fall in love with you, or deepthroat you, your choice, if you are!"
He didn't answer.
She opened her eyes and saw that his new suit was missing. An empty hanger was hooked to the coathanger next to the closet. She climbed out of bed, frowning, and walked out into the living room.
It was empty. She could smell the coffee even stronger, and she walked into the kitchen to find the coffee pot full and a business card sitting next to it. She picked it up and peered at it with sleep-bleary eyes.
"Eric Stephens, Private Investigations, Corporate Espionage, Bail Bonds, Security Consultation," she read out loud. There was a QR code on it, so she picked up her phone from where it had been flung to the floor last night and scanned it. While the page loaded, she glanced in the bathroom to see Richard's old clothes still piled there.
She glanced at her phone to see a very clean-shaven and well-dressed Richard smiling at the camera at the top of a very tastefully designed web page. She scrolled through it for a moment, confused. This was clearly him, but why had he given her a fake name? She supposed he could have had this nice website built back when he was still working enough to afford it, but... It seemed off. It didn't fit. Sookie didn't get it.
That was, until she looked to her own pile of clothes by the safe and saw the door still hanging open. With a gasp, she rushed over only to find the safe empty. Both of her scripts were gone!
"Shit!" she shouted.
The door opened and a large, muscular man dressed like a lawyer rushed in, a gun in hand.
"Miss Ohma, is everything all right?" he asked after scanning the room and peering through the open doors.
"No," Sookie wailed. "I just got my scripts stolen!"
"The gentleman who left this morning?" her guard asked. She nodded. "I'm so sorry, Miss Ohma. I would have stopped him if I knew."
"No, you did fine," Sookie said as her eyes filled with frustrated tears. "You're used to men heading out in the morning. Usually they do it after I wake up and we can get another good fuck in, but still... You didn't do anything wrong."
"He left a note," the guard said. "I saw it taped to the inside of the door." Sookie looked over and saw a folded piece of paper taped there. She stalked over and ripped it down, sniffling angrily and wiping at her eyes to read it.

 Dear Sookie, Last night was probably the best night I've had in my life. It's certainly the best night I can remember. If you ever want to do it again, just let me know. I left you a card by the coffee machine, and there's a full pot for you, as well. If you don't ever want to see me again, well, I guess I understand. I'm sorry to have left the way I did, but I'm a man of my word, and my client was willing to pay a lot of money for that script. I hope this doesn't hurt you too much. For what it's worth, I'm sorry if I upset you. Wishing you all the best, Eric 

Sookie crumbled up the paper and angrily threw it across the room.
"Motherfucker!" she shouted. The guard winced, but said nothing.
"He scammed me," Sookie said. "Got a nice new suit out of me, seduced me with that redwood growing between his legs and then ran off with my fucking scripts!"
She let her claws form and dug them into her thighs, carving bloody furrows that healed almost as fast as she made them. The guard started and rushed over.
"Ma'am, please," he said. "I'm not supposed to let you hurt yourself."
Sookie let him pull her hands up to her chest. She leaned into him for a moment. "You're married, aren't you?" she said.
"Uh, no," he said. Sookie turned her head to regard him. She didn't recognize him. "What's your name?"
"Devin, Ma'am," he said. "Devin Iglesias. This is my first shift on your detail."
"Who put you on this shift?"
"Uhh, Missus Williams. She said I'd enjoy this detail, and I agreed. I'm a huge fan of your show, Miss Ohma."
"Are you gay?" Sookie asked. Devin blinked. "Uh, no, Ma'am."
Sookie smiled. "I need you to do two things," she said.
"The second, and most important thing, I need you to call the office and ask for any information they have on a private investigator named Eric Stephens who works out of LA."
Devin nodded. "Yes, ma'am. And the first thing?"
Sookie smiled wider. "I need you to find out the real reason why Inanna thought you'd enjoy this posting."

I manage a SmartStyle in Oregon. I've been here for 5 1/2 years, nearly 4 of which have been as manager. I've devoted my entire stylist career to this job, got the ratings from 2 stars to 4 stars within my time as management. I developed carpal tunnel by age 23 and continued to work even when it wasn't in my best interest. I've given up my free time, my life for this company because I loved what I do and the company I worked for.
And I just got word, from the Walmart store manager, not within my company, that my salon that I've poured my life into is closing and vacating the space by June 1st. That's 6 days away, and my company hasn't told me. I heard it from someone else.
I am so angry. I've had a gut feeling this would happen for the last couple months so I have a plan in place already and I will go fully independent as a stylist from here. I know it'll be better for me in the long run, but I am still angry.
Edit: the reddit mobile app isn't showing me comments so to answer a question on confirmation: I was shown the email detailing the date and process of my leaving, and he forwarded the email to me. I forwarded the email to my district leader who says she hasn't heard anything. But the email was directly to the Walmart Store Manager and is pretty thorough.
2nd edit: it still isn't showing comments but I can read the first portion of them from my notifications. I'll keep checking back and hopefully I can answer any questions directly later today.
3rd edit to update: my DL went to my RD who went to the franchise COO and NONE OF THEM KNOW ANYTHING and it's on the parent company but no one can get ahold of them until Tuesday after Memorial Day. So my job is up in the air until then I guess. I have a plan but I'm still kinda freaking out. I think it's worse to have us all in the dark versus just hearing straight up if I have a job after the 1st.

Got married to my best friend over the weekend! And I was miserable the entire time! I think to an outside perspective it went off without any major bumps, but it was the most stressful and expensive day of my life and I have a lot of disappointments. Here’s what I wish I had done differently.
Had a makeup trial:
My MUA was incredible, but I don’t wear makeup ordinarily and I panicked when I saw myself in the mirror. She was so nice and redid my eyes and reapplied my individual lashes, but I didn’t budget enough time for it and I we ran late for first looks and subsequently my entire wedding ran behind schedule. The $90 I tried to save by skipping a trial was not worth it.
Illness contingency plan:
This may sound nuts, but I really wish I had planned ahead and had preemptively booked one of those anti nausea IV bags for the morning of my wedding. I hadn’t been hydrating enough the week before, and I had a few cocktails at my welcome party. I might have been ok if the day of my wedding didn’t end up hitting a high of 92F. I ended up with heat exhaustion, couldn’t keep any food down, and my husband ate at the sweet heart completely alone while I laid down in a backroom chugging electrolytes and Zofran. Even if you remember to stay hydrated, or don’t drink alcohol, you could still wind up with food poisoning the morning of. Hell, even if you wake up feeling good the IV bag will just make you feel better. Get the bag!! This honestly ended up being my biggest regret, I was too sick to enjoy my wedding at all.
Edit: I forgot the funniest part of this. So we had hired a great 8 piece Latin band for the reception. My husband and I tried to spend as much time as possible on the dance floor to lure people out despite the heat. By the end of the I night, when the dance floor finally filled up, I was so exhausted it looks like I’m doing the monster mash in all the vids
Spent more time planning the ceremony:
I spent a lot of time planning the wedding I’ve always wanted to be invited to, not participate in. So I spent a lot of time on the music and decor and food and drinks ( that I ended up too sick to eat) and completely shelved the ceremony until the last minute. As a result there was a lot of confusion, even with a coordinator. I was planning on working out the kinks during our rehearsal walkthrough, but our venue moved up the time and I wasn’t able to go because I had a prepaid salon appointment. I wish I had taken more time with my coordinator to come up with a script with detailed stage directions as plan B. And I wish my photographer had been there so we could have selected shots.
Make a Devil wears Prada type file of names and general info about my guests:
I had a small wedding, but a lot of the guests were distant relations or friends of my parents or husband that I hadn’t met before or seen in years. When I tried to make the rounds greeting guests during the cocktail hour, I stuck my foot in my mouth a couple of times mixing up names and faces. I wish I had made a little Amanda Miranda Priestly dossier of the guests and what I should remember about them ( names, kids names, occupations, where they live, etc.) and memorized it before hand.
Set aside a time to interact with everyone and let your photographer know to get candids of you talking with them:
This probably goes without saying for most people, but do try to talk with everyone at your wedding. I missed quite a few people because I was absent for so much of my reception, and the photographer was off taking pics of the dance floor when I did manage to talk to a few of them. I really regret not having a lot of pictures of me with my friends.
Set up a social schedule: Me and my husband haven’t been to a lot of weddings before and so we didn’t really realize how little time the bride and groom have to spend with their friends. For instance, we didn’t have bridal parties but I still hired a MUA for my mom and sister, so we got to spend some time hanging out while getting our hair done. My poor husband spent that time helping the coordinator load up the flowers and liquor and then got ready all alone 😭. We both regret not thinking to invite his friends over to hang out with him during that time.
It IS going to rain!!! Have a plan for it that will look good and not bankrupt you:
I got married in my dream venue and planned every detail of my wedding (dress, invites, flowers, cake) around it. The only issue: it’s an outdoor venue. And tents are ugly and surprisingly expensive. I had my fingers crossed until the day before the wedding, when the probability of rain hit 80%. The tents ended up costing more than the venue and they were complete eyesores. I regret not spending more time trying to find a better looking rain solution, and budgeting for it better.
Not leaving for the honeymoon the morning after:
We got married in a different city and had originally planned on staying at the venue overnight after the wedding. But our budget took such a hit on the tents that we just ended up crashing at the same rental as my family. On top of that we got bumped from our return flight so we had to hang out around their airbnb for a couple more days . I really could have used some time to decompress and I wish I had left my family with memories of me being cheerful and looking great, instead of grumpily moping on the couch in a grubby tee.
Telling coordinator to keep an eye out for family hijinks:
My SIL is a narcissist that loves negative attention. My coordinator had asked me about problem relatives before hand, but I had underestimated how bizarre my SILs behavior was going to be. She brought her (poorly behaved) dog to the ceremony after explicitly being told not to, and then tried to sneak him back in. My FIL went to take the dog back to their hotel and never came back, missing the entire reception.
Have a wedding favor, just so your mom won’t make some surprise ones:
My mom kept mentioning wedding favors, but it wasn’t in our budget and I haven’t seen a wedding favor that didn’t end up in the trash. My mom was undeterred and decided to surprise us with cookies as a favor, which might have been cute except she also decided to surprise the caterers and coordinator! She starting pushing cocktail tables together and spreading a bunch of greasy boxes and bags across them. To top it off, she had gone to Walmart and printed off hundreds of candid iPhone pics she has taken of my husband and I frowning and chewing over the years, and stuffed them in each bag!
In hindsight I’m sure it’ll be hilarious, but I’m a designer and I spent so much effort on all the aesthetics of my wedding. I made my own letterpress invites! I Pantone swatched the linens to match the trim of the venue! I spent 2 weeks searching for a rare anthurium!
And all my friends and family left my wedding with oily photo print outs of me picking my teeth at the Olive Garden 10 years ago 😭😂
Sooo, tell your mom you’re doing favors lol
Now on to what I did right:
Did my own flowers: I got them from a local farm and they were so much fresher than any I’ve seen from a florist, and I managed to make 6 bouquets and 15 centerpieces for about $400 the morning of. Your mileage may vary in this one but it was my favorite part of the wedding prep.
Hired a coordinator: A good coordinator is worth their weight in gold!! She kept me hydrated, pointed out errant dress straps to the photograph, and wrangled the tents for me last minute. I feel bad because I think I hired her when she was just starting out on her own and was lowballing herself, and my wedding ended up being such a pain.
TLDR; if it can go wrong it will go so plan ahead, and enlist professional help wherever possible (except for flowers 💐)

Never been, can anyone please share their experience there? I don’t want cheese grater files. I am leery of tub liners because some places do not disinfect 100% in between clients if they use those. I don’t really get out there often to go poke around.

The title is my question. I don't understand how so many people have a "omg rover takes 20%?!?" Moment, they're very transparent about this. They're also very transparent about taking a fee from the owner on top of taking 20% from sitters.
It is straight up STUPID to not ensure you know how the money works before working a job. Would you show up to do a shift at Starbucks, target, Walmart, a hair salon, anywhere without understanding how the pay works? The % of tax they take out?
Everytime I see a "whaaat 20%???" I want to ask if you're illiterate or just lazy. If you can't read well find a trusted friend to read it to you, there also plenty of apps that will read text out loud. If you're lazy find a new gig because lazy petsitters don't last long.
Downvote me, call me a dick, but you look absolutely foolish and stupid when you start working though rover with zero idea of how it actually works and then have the audacity to act like rover is scamming you. Rant over, thank you for attending.

Looking for budget product from drugstore or walmart. Want hair straight and sleek, no frizz. Naturally it's 2c curls. At the salon they use aveda smooth infusion, wayyy over my budget.

I just got my toes and nails done and I realized... I've gotten my nails done all across the country and I think ONE time ever it wasn't owned and staffed by Vietnamese immigrants/ second or third generation.
I understand how it makes monetary sense, it's a huge profit margin of a business and easy to get into without needing to communicate much if you don't speak English . But why is it seemingly solely people from Vietnam? I know it's Vietnam because I can recognize what the language looks like on the TV and random decorations.
Even when I visited my grandma she took me to her nail salon and told me about how the owner is from Vietnam and the staff used to work at the Walmart across the street until she saved up enough to lease the shop across the way and hire everyone who worked at the Walmart place for a higher wage. (Hell yes to that btw)

Hi, I would like some suggestions from hairdressers or anyone who has any useful suggestions. I have tried box dying my naturally dark brown hair(within the last month) ginger, it made my hair a dark reddish color which is pretty, but I want full-on ginger (I'll use a picture for reference but think Sadie Sink in the All too well music video). Going to a salon which be incredibly expensive and as a college student I just don't have that kind of money, so I want to bleach my hair at home then dye it ginger hair dye. Let me know what brands you would suggest, I would shop at target, walgreens, and maybe Walmart?

advice

hey guys. i'll make this quick.
hair type: EXTREMELY straight, thin-medium thickness, approximately 2ft long
hair style: wolf cut
request: i have sensory processing disorder and cannot handle products that make my hair crunchy, sticky, hard, whatever you wanna call it. i need advice for achieving those fluffy wolfcut curls with either products that don't do that, or methods that don't require products.
current tools: roundbrush, hair dryer, various brands of mousses, curl gel, and hairsprays (all products belonging to other family members; i can borrow some if we have any products you recommend)
budget: under $50 USD required; under $25 USD preferred
stores near me: walgreens, rite aid, fred meyers, walmart, target, safeway, and a couple salons

A little background : me and this girl will call her Monica have been friends for about a year. She’s a very lonely, socialization deprived Freshman. She lives in abusive household with just her father. Her mother passed away when she was just five. I am a junior in high school and go to public high school. She’s forced to do online school and only leaves her house once a week to go to music school on Wednesdays. Besides that she never leaves her house. The last time she left her house was spring break or about seven to 8 weeks ago from this post. She’s very mentally ill and unstable and met her current boyfriend who is five years older than her in a mental hospital after being bankeracted earlier this year. With all that being said, I can understand her a lot as I was in a somewhat similar situation, obviously very different but I understand what it’s like to go to online school and feel like the world hates you.
Anyway, I just don’t know if I should cut her off.
She’s very very manic and unstable. My only real connection/communication with her is through calls and voice memos text messages through Instagram. I really badly want to delete Instagram but part of me doesn’t for two factors one I run my works Instagram page and don’t know the login so if I were to log out, I don’t know if I’d be able to log back in. And two I’d have no way to talk to Monica yet Monica is very unstable with when she talks to people she’ll go to weeks without saying a word to me and I can finally say I cut her off and then she’ll come to me crying with some emergency in her life, I’ve offered to take Monica to places like Walmart or the gas station or to the nail salon (simple places) to try to get her out of the house and every single time we plan some thing and then that morning she tells me she can’t go because her dad won’t let her. part of me doesn’t know if it’s genuinely all her dad and she would leave if she could or if part of it is that she just doesn’t want to leave the house/ be with me. I’ve skipped school before to go help her and yet she’s cut me off. Part of me also feels like if I was a different person she would.
She previously called me her “best friend” or like the most important person in her life and that she couldn’t live without me and currently she has gone back-and-forth with that statement. I know it’s such a stupid petty thing to call somebody your “best friend”, but at the same time, it just shows me that she does not value our friendship in the same way she once did. it was really easy not to cut her off because I know I was her “best friend” and one of the only things holding her together but now it’s like I’m nothing special technique to her even though I’m probably one of the three people she’ll text in a day besides her dad. Yet, at the same time the people she claims are her new best friends. She hangs out with once or twice in person and talks them on the phone and those people forget about her almost instantaneously because she doesn’t go to public school. This makes her incredibly frustrated and angry running back to me, saying how she could never live without me the cycle only repeating. Anyway, this is very rambling but what I’m trying to get out is she goes from saying that I’m the most important person in her life saying that I’m just one of her basic friends that doesn’t matter, even though I do all of this for her.
I’m not gonna act like I don’t enjoy talking to Monica though it’s nice to have a someone in your life who you can text or call anytime about anything. I will literally go into the bathroom. Call her during school and tell her about my shitty day.
Another problem Monica has issues, incredibly drug addicted and alcoholic. I guess that’s probably not the right terminology, but she definitely abuses substance in any way that she can. I socially drink at parties and smoke the occasional weed about every two months at parties and what not and Monica is nowhere near that Monica has overdosed and then baker acted before like I previously said, and her father did not care and was super angry, leading her to be completely overdose on the floor for hours before her dad saw medical attention. Yet she uses this card all the time she threatens to overdose and take more drugs into commit suicide all the time and part of me thinks she just does it for the attention and I know that’s wrong to say, but this is about every three weeks thing she threatens to OD. Monica isn’t allowed to get a job and one time she spent over $600 on weed in one month. She’s asked me four times before if I could bring her alcohol so that she could drink alone by herself and I’ve completely shot that down and she got really mad at me for that.
Monica is also very delusional. She asked me to do these crazy outlandish plans with her and explain to her that we can’t do these things. it’s hard to explain but she has these ideas where she wants to like go to another state and do all these hard drugs and go to these like raves that are like 21+ and we’re still in high school and she gets mad at me for jotting them down. And simple stuff too she acts like she’s going to magically all of these random things and I’m a voice of reason with her and I’m genuinely the only voice of reason in her life and that makes her so mad but it’s like genuinely concerning.
Anyway, me and her are used to share this very large friend group like this past summer. We had this giant 20 person friend group that would go hang out with each other all the time. EVERY single one of these people have cut her off. For one reason or another they cut her off for all the things I just said above. But I just brush these things off and I say I know what it’s like to be in that situation and if I was her, I would want someone to stick by me.
I wouldn’t call Monica a great friend but I won’t call her a horrible one. I don’t even know if she was in public school If I’d still be her friend. I genuinely don’t know what to do because I feel bad. Monica annoys me sometimes so much, and she does not treat me with respect that I deserve, but I understand she’s in the situation where she doesn’t see the light of day and she doesn’t know anyone her own age. I’ve offered to go to the police to a guidance counselor to anyone with power to tell them about Monica’s living situation and she freaks out every time saying she does not want anything to happen to her or her family (her dad). I understand she does these things but it’s because of her living situation. What do I do.

All in all, the number of these abandoned buildings is only set to increase. Thanks to a sticky combination of Japan’s property rights laws, lost or untraceable house owners, and economic and cultural barriers, even bulldozing the akiya can be incredibly difficult, and Japanese economic thinktank Nomura Research Institute estimates that a third of the nation’s houses will be uninhabited by 2038. https://www.iflscience.com/japan-s-spooky-witch-houses-what-s-behind-this-rapidly-growing-phenomenon-67678
Instead, attention is now turning to self-powering systems, such as those driven by the triboelectric effect—a form of static electricity. Not only does this generated electricity keep the device running, but its voltage can be used to signal the presence of a particular analyte. These devices are known as triboelectric nanosensors (TENS). So, Zong-Hong Lin and colleagues wanted to create a TENS that could accurately detect small amounts of mercury ions simply by touching a sample. https://nano-magazine.com/news/2023/2/23/this-new-sensor-can-detect-mercury-ions-with-just-a-tap
France, which hosted the historic 2015 Paris Climate Agreement meeting, and will soon co-host an international summit to help preserve the world’s three largest remaining rainforests, is seeking a European Union policy exemption that would allow for subsidies that could result in the clearcutting of thousands of hectares of intact, biodiverse Amazon rainforest for bioenergy production. https://news.mongabay.com/2023/02/france-seeks-eu-okay-to-fund-biomass-plants-burn-amazon-forest-to-power-spaceport/
"Our findings bust the myth of the Bight as an oligotrophic (deficiency of plant nutrients) ocean," says Associate Professor Kaempf, from Flinders University's College of Science and Engineering. "Instead, the findings point to a year-round supply of nutrients fueling the marine food web, most likely related to a high degree of nutrient recycling of the region." https://phys.org/news/2023-02-scientists-uncover-secrets-eastern-great.html
Fasting diets may increase the risk of cardiovascular disease and cancer, a new study has said.
Skipping breakfast may be bad for the immune system, making it more difficult for the body to fight off infection, research has revealed.
Researchers say the study, carried out in mice, is among the first to show that skipping meals triggers a response in the brain that negatively affects immune cells. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/fasting-diet-cancer-heart-skipping-meals-b2288359.html
“Our findings provide avenues to develop novel treatment strategies for managing glycemic traits in migraine and headache patients, particularly increasing fasting proinsulin level to protect against headache,” added Islam.
The study was published in journal Human Genetics. https://newatlas.com/medical/genetic-link-migraine-blood-suga
Legal Issues
North Carolina can’t ban undercover filming inside animal farms
The Fourth Circuit ruled that a North Carolina law aimed at ending undercover investigations violates the First Amendment https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2023/02/23/undercover-filming-ban-peta/
The researchers say they expect AR navigation to be the main application for this tech, where directions unfold right on your eyeball. Playing Pokemon Go was also cited as one potential use case. Even so, smart contacts still need to be deemed safe before any of this becomes a reality.
Smart contact lens with navigation function, made with 3D printer! https://www.theverge.com/2023/2/14/23599220/researchers-say-theyve-figured-out-how-to-3d-print-ar-contact-lenses
It can be difficult to determine whether cognitive decline in older adults is caused by vascular problems or dementia. New research has now identified a biomarker associated with the vascular causes of cognitive impairment that may assist with differentiating the two. https://newatlas.com/medical/biomarker-diagnose-cause-cognitive-decline/
Teens and young adults who reduced their social media use by 50% for just a few weeks saw significant improvement in how they felt about both their weight and their overall appearance compared with peers who maintained consistent levels of social media use, according to research published by the American Psychological Association. https://www.news-medical.net/news/20230223/Reducing-social-media-use-improves-appearance-and-weight-esteem-in-distressed-teens.aspx
Melba Roy Mouton was a pioneering mathematician at NASA in the 1960s and '70s. Mons Mouton (background) was recently named in her honor. (Image credit: NASA/Science Visualization Studio)
The International Astronomical Union (IAU) has named a 20,000-foot-tall (6,000 meters) mountain on the moon in honor of pioneering American mathematician Melba Roy Mouton. https://www.livescience.com/20000-foot-tall-mountain-on-the-moon-named-in-honor-of-trailblazing-computer-scientist-melba-roy-mouton
suggests that men who regularly lift heavy objects at work have higher sperm counts.
The study, published in Human Reproduction, is part of the Environment and Reproductive Health (EARTH) cohort, a clinical study that aims to explore how environmental chemicals and lifestyle choices affect reproductive health. https://hms.harvard.edu/news/physically-demanding-work-tied-higher-male-fertility
This study, the first of its kind involving citrus, lays the foundation for studying nutrient uptake differences among different rootstocks. Field validation is still required to strengthen the results because this was a potted hydroponic experiment. Nevertheless, the research team demonstrated that the rootstocks should be selected after considering the soil nutrient status and equally emphasizing the nutrient uptake potential and absorption efficiency of roots. https://phys.org/news/2023-02-nutrient-uptake-citrus-rootstock-affected.html
Rich Jerk Runs For President Because 'Woke Capitalism' Is Bad
Vivek Ramaswamy has become a darling of the right-wing war against environmental, social, and corporate governance investing. https://gizmodo.com/vivek-ramaswamy-president-campaign-esg-environment-1850151344
We were really happy to see increases in the abundance and number of bee species found over time," Levenson said. "It was also exciting to see how many species we documented, especially for studying one kind of habitat. This study was limited to agricultural areas but we still found nearly 130 bee species."
The study also showed, though, that the quality of flowers was a key driver of bee abundance and diversity, with areas of higher flower quality attracting more bees and more bee species. Poorly maintained areas with degraded flowers, weeds and grasses lagged behind in bee collection.
"North Carolina has 564 species of bees and they have very different life cycles from each other," https://phys.org/news/2023-02-effort-pollinators-successes-limitations.html
University of South Australia researchers are calling for exercise to be a mainstay approach for managing depression as a new study shows that physical activity is 1.5 times more effective than counseling or the leading medications.
Published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, the review is the most comprehensive to date, encompassing 97 reviews, 1,039 trials and 128,119 participants. https://medicalxpress.com/news/2023-02-effective-medicines-mental-health.html
Starting in the brain and extending to our organs, the vagus nerve helps communicate and maintain how the body functions, including heart rate, breathing and immune response. For the first time, researchers at The Feinstein Institutes for Medical Research are microscopically mapping more than 100,000 individual fibers that make up the vagus nerve to determine how they are anatomically connected and which bodily function it controls. Bioelectronic medicine scientists published their early mapping in the journal Brain Stimulation, along with a novel vagus nerve stimulator that can activate targeted fibers, https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20230224005280/en
Journalist Clones His Voice and Uses It to Break Into His Own Bank Account https://futurism.com/the-byte/journalist-clones-voice-break-into-bank
caused longer roots.
"Fine-tuning the dosage of the OPRIII genes can allow us to engineer root systems that are adapted to drought, to normal conditions, to different scenarios," Gabay said.
Knowing the right combination of genes means researchers can search for wheat varieties that have those natural variations and breed for release to growers planting in low-water environments. https://phys.org/news/2023-02-scientists-key-drought-resistant-wheat-longer.html
"Enninu, the White Thunderbird, is the oldest temple for which we have detailed inscriptions — an archaic plan carved into the statue of the king," Rey said. "We were able to test our theory by opening a series of excavation soundings and identifying, for example, the foundations of a temple gate exactly where we predicted the temple gate would be, according to the 4,000-year-old plan." https://www.livescience.com/4500-year-old-sumerian-temple-dedicated-to-mighty-thunder-god-discovered-in-iraq
In a recent study published in Foods, researchers used Mediterranean black chickpea flour in the form of a semi-liquid dough fermented with the bacteria Lactiplantibacillus plantarum to develop fortified semolina pasta with improved nutritional quality. https://www.news-medical.net/news/20230224/Study-suggests-fermentation-as-a-sustainable-and-easily-applicable-biotechnology-to-overcome-the-legume-flour-technological-and-sensory-drawbacks.aspx
China aims to launch nearly 13,000 satellites to ‘suppress’ Elon Musk’s Starlink, researchers say
The satellite constellation is likely to be launched quickly to prevent SpaceX from hogging ‘low-orbit resources’, according to PLA space scientists The project, code-named ‘GW’, would provide internet services and could be used to spy on rival networks and carry out anti-Starlink missions, paper says https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3211438/china-aims-launch-nearly-13000-satellites-suppress-elon-musks-starlink-researchers-say
Although doctors recommend low-salt diets for heart failure patients, a new study suggests that lowering it too much may be harmful
Those who had a target of less than 2.5 grams of salt a day were 80% more likely to die during the study than those whose target was 2.5 grams a day or higher
Experts say that while cutting out salt is still beneficial for heart patients, how much to cut out is up for debate https://consumer.healthday.com/heart-failure-2659448946.html
Study Says Playing an Instrument Lowers Blood Pressure & Relieves Stress
Belting out your favourite playlist has benefits too https://www.menshealth.com/uk/mental-strength/a43055372/music-lowers-blood-pressure-and-stress-levels/
The study showed that PFAS exposure had an effect on thyroid hormone function, which has a critical role in growth and metabolism. Because of this, changes in thyroid hormones play an important role in child development during puberty, which can have important effects on a range of diseases later in life, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and cancer. https://www.genengnews.com/topics/canceforever-chemicals-negatively-impact-key-biological-processes/
Researchers have published a method for 3D-printing an ink that contains calcium carbonate-producing bacteria. The 3D-printed mineralized bio-composite is unprecedentedly strong, light, and environmentally friendly, with a range of applications from art to biomedicine. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/02/230223132839.htm
This led them to identify the hip abductor muscle as key to improving functional mobility by working to strengthen it post amputation. This could be via targeted exercise activities, or through electrical stimulation, using techniques similar to those already employed for stroke patients. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/02/230221113037.htm
Since the insect’s accidental importation to Berks County in 2014, government alerts and vehicular quarantines have required businesses to document delivery routes and train employees to avoid shuttling the bugs, which are native to Asia, to new areas.
Private and commercial drivers are required to search for egg masses before trips in and out of lanternfly quarantine zones. Businesses that operate in or travel through the counties are required to obtain a spotted lanternfly permit.
While it has not been fully proven that spotted lanternflies pose a clear and present economic danger, government agriculture authorities in Washington, D.C., Harrisburg and other mid-Atlantic states give the same advice to anyone who sees one: Kill it. https://www.post-gazette.com/news/state/2023/02/25/lanternfly-quarantine-zone-expands-in-pennsylvania/stories/202302240109
These opioids are mood-boosting, and can act as an antidepressant. They also make exercise a powerful tool for recovery from chronic pain (which is distinct from acute pain, which signals that there’s an injury). It allows us to tap into “our internal pain medicine,” said Akiko Okifuji, an anesthesiologist in the Division of Pain Medicine at the University of Utah. These effects go far beyond the euphoria you experience right when you get home from the gym. In the long term, exercise may even train your brain to send fewer pain signals. https://slate.com/technology/2023/02/exercise-chronic-pain-opioids-painkiller.html
The return of Flat Earth, the grandfather of conspiracy theories A new book argues Flat Earth beliefs provide a guide to conspiratorial thinking. https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/the-return-of-flat-earth-the-grandfather-of-conspiracy-theories/
A person in Charlotte County, Florida, was recently sickened by a single-celled organism that can cause a rare, "brain-eating infection," possibly as a result of rinsing their sinuses with unfiltered tap water, health officials reported (opens in new tab). No information was provided on the person's condition, but the infection is typically fatal.
The organism, an amoeba called Naegleria fowleri, typically lives in soil and warm fresh water and can sometimes grow in water tanks, heaters and pipes, https://www.livescience.com/brain-eating-amoeba-case-in-florida-potentially-tied-to-unfiltered-water-in-sinus-rinse
While some retailers like Walmart and eBay have committed to drop products that contain ejiao, edible items containing this ingredient are widely for sale on Amazon in spite of multiple petitions asking that it stop selling them. A legal complaint filed in California last week by the law firm Evans & Page on behalf of the Center for Contemporary Equine Studies, a nonprofit, claims Amazon’s continued sale of these donkey-based products is more than distasteful—it may be illegal. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2023/02/amazon-has-a-donkey-meat-problem/
How to Help People Break a Bad Habit (or Start a Good Habit)—Even if They Don’t Want To Whether someone needs to stop smoking, start an exercise routine, or get their kids to brush their teeth, BU professor and psychologist Belinda Borrelli helps motivate change https://www.bu.edu/articles/2023/how-to-help-people-break-bad-habits/
Every animal on Earth may house the molecular machinery to sense magnetic fields, even those organisms that don't navigate or migrate using this mysterious 'sixth sense'. https://www.sciencealert.com/all-living-cells-could-have-the-molecular-machinery-for-a-sixth-sense
Right now, 17 percent of the US is cropland while 51 percent is open and essentially unused. We have more open space in the US than the entire continent of Africa, only 3 percent of our land is urban, but you might not be aware of that because activists insist that urban blight is ruining the country.
It's not so, the only segment where land is disappearing is the one that environmentalists have been warring on for decades; farms. https://www.science20.com/hank_campbell/americas_next_challenge_may_be_not_enough_farmland_in_use-256481
Air conditioning tips to boost energy efficiency and cut your power bill https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-26/air-conditioning-how-to-improve-energy-efficiency-cut-power-bill/102005174
In the event you use bottled water as your primary source of drinking water, you should make an effort to minimise the shaking movements of the bottles and also unnecessarily opening and closing the bottle.
And... https://cosmosmagazine.com/news/microplastics-bottled-wate
Salon spoke to Dr. Nabhan about his research and his new book. In our interview, Nabhan explained, in layman's terms, exactly how glyphosate gets into the body and what it does there; and how it gets into the environment and where it goes once it rinses into the soil and water.
This interview has been condensed and edited for print. https://www.salon.com/2023/02/25/glyphosate-roundup-chadi-nabhan-interview/ .
Piggybacking on this last one... .
Gmo Roundup® kills gut bacteria. edited: this comment was hidden by the mods at Reddit science.
adoc18 http://www.mdpi.com/1099-4300/15/4/1416 .
[Now this comment/link was gilded (someone gave it gold) and also hidden an hour later by the moderation team at Reddit science. It was the answer to a question that remained interacted]. Its a bit in line with a previous comment in this thread about anti-nutrient. If You don't eat right, or don't process food properly (( ...might fatigue easily...) Etc ...etc etc). It's important information that shouldn't have been suppressed by the moderation team at Reddit corporate science...
. Deficiencies in iron, cobalt, molybdenum, copper and other rare metals associated with celiac disease can be attributed to glyphosate's ( Roundup ® ) strong ability to chelate these elements. ...that can be fully explained by the known effects of glyphosate on gut bacteria. Characteristics of celiac disease point to impairment in many cytochrome P450 enzymes, which are involved with detoxifying environmental toxins, activating vitamin D3, catabolizing vitamin A,..
...We conclude with a plea to governments to reconsider policies regarding the safety of glyphosate pesticide residues in foods. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/24678255 . The Monsanto Papers tell an alarming story of ghostwriting, scientific manipulation, collusion with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and previously undisclosed information about how the human body absorbs glyphosate. These documents, which Monsanto does not want you to see, provide a deeper understanding of the serious public health consequences surrounding Monsanto’s conduct in marketing Roundup. Law Firm link
https://www.wisnerbaum.com/toxic-tort-law/monsanto-roundup-lawsuit/monsanto-papers/
.
piggybackout .
“I’ve spent my life trying to do something about the terrible environmental destruction I saw, most of it done by industries with a lot of power,” Mr. Stone said in an interview with The Cobleskill Times-Journal in 2016. “I wasn’t popular, but I didn’t let that stop me.” https://www.nytimes.com/2023/02/26/science/ward-stone-dead.html
New York Times columnist Ross Douthat argues that the alarming trends in youth mental health pre-date the COVID-19 pandemic and can more usefully be blamed on the rise of social media. Social media not only contributed to a rise in social isolation, but worked poorly as a substitution for in-person interaction. https://theweek.com/health-and-wellness/1021275/the-youth-mental-health-crisis
What is Normal Blood Pressure? Less Than Half of Americans Know the Answer https://www.inverse.com/health/what-is-normal-blood-pressure
Since 2014, Elon Musk has promised the arrival of self-driving cars. But they are not here yet. So, with this in mind, what can drivers do?
First, they need to be aware that none of the vehicles on the market today are actually self-driving, regardless of how pricey or advanced they seem — vehicles still require active supervision from a human driver. https://theconversation.com/companies-oversell-the-self-driving-capabilities-of-their-cars-with-horrific-outcomes-200159
Cannabidiol (CBD) Supports the Honeybee Worker Organism by Activating the Antioxidant System https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36829838/
researchers compared queen banks stored in refrigerated units to those stored in the conventional way outdoors and an "unbanked" control group. They found that the queens stored at cooler temperatures had a higher survival rate and required less maintenance than those stored outdoors.
This study, and future potential refinement, could be another piece in the ultimate puzzle of reducing the loss of bee colonies each year, https://phys.org/news/2023-02-indoor-queen-banking-beekeepers-climate.html
Why Combat Veterans Are Turning to Oxygen Therapy for PTSD
The unapproved and, to some, unproven treatment is attracting many PTSD patients for whom other treatments have failed. https://undark.org/2023/02/27/why-combat-veterans-are-turning-to-oxygen-therapy/
But while it’s clear that swimming in outdoor waters carries different risks from swimming in a pool, the question of where’s safest to swim may not seem immediately obvious. So where’s cleanest for a dip: swimming pools, or rivers, lakes, canals and the sea? Let’s look at the evidence. https://theconversation.com/swimming-pools-v-wild-swimming-a-germs-expert-on-which-is-worse-199166
Air pollution is linked to more bone damage in postmenopausal women, new research shows
The lumbar spine is among the sites most at risk of this accelerated harm
Car and truck exhaust and emissions from electrical power generation plants are major sources of nitrogen oxides, the key culprit in this damage https://consumer.healthday.com/osteoporosis-2659452804.html
Air in Sweden's capital city has gotten cleaner over the years
The result: Spirometry tests show young people's lungs are functioning better
Researchers next want to investigate potential advantages of cleaner air for diseases like asthma, bronchitis and COPD https://consumer.healthday.com/air-pollution-2659453196.html
Team of scientists discovers more genetic disorders in Quebec's Saguenay region. "We really would like to … increase awareness in the medical community in our region and in Quebec as a whole because three other of the conditions may not be lethal, but have important medical surveillance and management implications as early as childhood," said Thomas.
Thomas said it important for these new diseases to be added to current testing programs to allow carrier couples to make informed decision-making. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/montreal/saguenay-genetic-discoveries-1.6760195
You Can Turn Your Backyard Into a Biodiversity Hotspot
New research shows that if done right, urban farms and gardens can support all kinds of species—for the good of people and the environment. https://www.wired.com/story/you-can-turn-your-backyard-into-a-biodiversity-hotspot/
This study was designed to identify specific fibers that might protect mice in two models of experimental colitis. The study also investigated the mechanism by which protective fibers might suppress inflammation.
Several fibers were tested, including inulin, cellulose, pectin, glucomannan and psyllium. The authors found psyllium has the unique ability to improve two chronic inflammatory states: metabolic syndrome and colitis. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/02/230223181810.htm
“Microsoft has released updates to address multiple vulnerabilities in Microsoft software,” it says. “An attacker can exploit some of these vulnerabilities to take control of an affected system.” A similar bulletin was released for Mozilla and Adobe.
CISA, which is operated by the Department of Homeland Security, said it advises users to review Microsoft’s February 2023 Security Update Guide and Deployment Information and “apply the necessary updates.” https://www.ntd.com/federal-agency-warns-millions-of-microsoft-users-to-update-settings_903903.html
......This link was added in the previous comment later on, so you might have missed it..... Law Firm link....... . The Monsanto Papers tell an alarming story of ghostwriting, scientific manipulation, collusion with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and previously undisclosed information about how the human body absorbs glyphosate. These documents, which Monsanto does not want you to see, provide a deeper understanding of the serious public health consequences surrounding Monsanto’s conduct in marketing Roundup. https://www.wisnerbaum.com/toxic-tort-law/monsanto-roundup-lawsuit/monsanto-papers/
Everglades restoration moves closer to reality with a crucial groundbreaking https://phys.org/news/2023-02-everglades-closer-reality-crucial-groundbreaking.html
A top U.S. cybersecurity official launched a warning shot at major technology companies, accusing them of "normalizing" the release of flawed and unsafe products while allowing the blame for safety issues, security breaches and cyberattacks to fall on their customers.
Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) Director Jen Easterly called Monday for new rules and legislation to hold technology and software companies accountable for selling products that she says are released despite known vulnerabilities https://www.voanews.com/a/us-cybersecurity-official-calls-out-tech-companies-for-unsafe-software-/6981416.html
Do you scrape the burnt bits off a piece of toast? Recent research suggests that might not be a bad idea…### https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230224-should-you-avoid-eating-burnt-food
Nanoscale plastic particles like those that permeate most food and water pass from pregnant rats to their unborn children and may impair fetal development, according to a Rutgers study that suggests the same process happens in humans. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/02/230227132529.htm
Researchers have succeeded in producing very special catalysts, known as 'Lewis superacids', which can be used to break strong chemical bonds and speed up reactions. The production of these substances has, until now, proven extremely difficult. The chemists' discovery enables non-biodegradable fluorinated hydrocarbons, similar to Teflon, and possibly even climate-damaging greenhouse gases, such as sulphur hexafluoride, to be converted back into sustainable chemicals. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/02/230227132700.htm
Interestingly, these new measurements concur with their earlier findings, explains Heinemann: 'The cell must activate different biosynthetic pathways to produce amino acids or lipids. This produces changes in metabolite flows and that explains why we previously found metabolic oscillations during cell division.' However, this leaves the question as to how exactly this happens and why. 'At the moment, we can only speculate,' says Heinemann. 'One aspect is that if a cell simply grows, all building blocks are required at the same time. But during division, the situation is more complex. It might well be that the sequence of production can help the cell with division.'
Cancer and aging
Osmotic pressure could be the key to that. 'Think about blowing up a balloon. https://www.news-medical.net/news/20230227/Different-cellular-building-blocks-are-not-produced-at-the-same-time-research-shows.aspx
Results revealed that erythritol made platelets easier to activate and form a clot. Pre-clinical studies confirmed ingestion of erythritol heightened clot formation.
"Sweeteners like erythritol, have rapidly increased in popularity in recent years but there needs to be more in-depth research into their long-term effects," said senior author Stanley Hazen, M.D., Ph.D., chairman for the Department of Cardiovascular & Metabolic Sciences in Lerner Research Institute and co-section head of Preventive Cardiology at Cleveland Clinic. https://www.news-medical.net/news/20230227/Popular-artificial-sweetener-associated-with-elevated-risk-of-heart-attack-and-stroke-study-shows.aspx
Experts demand fire safety policy change over health impact of widely used flame retardants https://phys.org/news/2023-02-experts-demand-safety-policy-health.html
Ecological traits interact with landscape context to determine bees’ pesticide risk https://www.nature.com/articles/s41559-023-01990-5
Beset by bugs, shorn of around half of its staff and with an idiosyncratic new owner who is changing the rules on a whim, Twitter is turning from a must-use social-media platform into one that many people, including scientists, are becoming wary of.
A raft of other social-networking platforms are cropping up in its place, offering similar functionalities. Chief among them is Mastodon, an open-source alternative created by German software developer Eugen Rochko in 2016. https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-022-03668-7
"It's exciting because the question of how long whales have used this technique is key to understanding a range of behavioral and even evolutionary questions," says Sebo.
"Marine biologists had assumed there was no way of recovering this data but, using medieval manuscripts, we've been able to answer some of their questions."
The study was published in Marine Mammal Science. https://www.sciencealert.com/recently-discovered-whale-behavior-was-actually-documented-thousands-of-years-ago
The Food and Drug Administration official who allegedly had an inappropriately cozy relationship with the maker of the controversial Alzheimer's drug, Aduhelm, is stepping down from his role, effective immediately, according to numerous media reports.
Billy Dunn, head of the FDA's neuroscience office, has been with the agency for around 18 years, during which he was involved in several high-profile drug approvals. But he gained notoriety in the wake of the shocking 2021 approval of Aduhelm, a drug has not been shown to be effective against Alzheimer's and carries risks of serious brain swelling. https://arstechnica.com/science/2023/02/fda-official-behind-alzheimers-drug-scandal-steps-down/
Dried Lake Reveals New Statue on Easter Island
The stone monolith is one of the famous moai sculptures scattered across the landscape
“For the Rapa Nui people, it’s [a] very, very important discovery,” Salvador Atan Hito, vice president of the Ma’u Henua indigenous organization that oversees the site, told Good Morning America through a translator. “Because it’s here in the lake and nobody knows this exists—even the ancestors, our grandparents don’t know [about] that one.”
Easter Island https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/new-moai-statue-found-on-easter-island-180981717/
"The presence of prebiotic molecules on the asteroid surface despite its harsh environment caused by solar heating and ultraviolet irradiation, as well as cosmic-ray irradiation under high-vacuum conditions, suggests that the uppermost surface grains of Ryugu have the potential to protect organic molecules," study leader Hiroshi Naraoka (opens in new tab) of Kyushu University in Japan said in a statement (opens in new tab). That means that asteroids could potentially spread the building blocks of life throughout the solar system.
And according to a second study, also published in Science (opens in new tab), the organic materials on Ryugu may even predate the formation of the solar system itself, instead having formed in a primordial cloud of interstellar dust that eventually coalesced into Ryugu's parent body. In other words, many of the ingredients for life may be baked into the solar system from the very start. https://www.livescience.com/building-blocks-of-life-recovered-from-asteroid-ryugu-are-older-than-the-solar-system-itself
Published in the journal PNAS Nexus, the paper uses network science based on leaked documents to test the findings of an immersive sociological study of the offshore wealth managers who protect billionaires' fortunes.
The results show that sanctions targeting these experts would wreak far greater damage than sanctioning oligarchs one by one.
"Rather than playing whack-a-mole with each individual oligarch, you take out one wealth manager and you effectively take out several oligarchs in one fell swoop," said co-author Brooke Harrington, a professor of sociology at Dartmouth who initiated the study after spending a total of eight years training as a private wealth manager and traveling to tax havens to observe the craft in action.
The researchers mapped the connections between more than 1.9 million wealth managers and their clients from Russia, China, the United States, and Hong Kong, as well as the more than 3.2 million network ties linking them. https://phys.org/news/2023-02-wealth-cripple-russia-oligarchs.html
Researchers have determined that the naturally occurring dietary supplement, nicotinamide riboside (NR), can enter the brain. The finding is significant because it supports the idea that NR, upon reaching the brain, can alter the metabolism of relevant biological pathways involved in neurodegenerative diseases like Alzheimer's. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2023/02/230223181808.htm
Nicotinamide riboside (NR, SR647) is a pyridine-nucleoside and a form of vitamin B3. It functions as a precursor to nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide or NAD+[1] through a two-step and a three-step pathway.[2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicotinamide_riboside
The passage of time is not an illusion, it’s a fundamental aspect of reality, something that existed before even The Big Bang. By studying the nature of novelty, the life sciences could help us prove time fundamentalism, argues Lee Cronin.
I think that time is the most misunderstood aspect of reality. This is because physicists have concluded time is emergent and the universe somehow exists in a timeless state. https://iai.tv/articles/time-existed-before-the-big-bang-lee-cronin-auid-2402
Although doubts and caveats remain, Yonath’s and Tamura’s work seems to recapitulate a milestone on the road from primordial organic molecules to the ribosome used by the last common ancestor of all living things. This was no simple task: In Yonath’s group, the project was passed from researcher to researcher and took more than 15 years to succeed. The work has now opened the door for origin-of-life scientists to fill in further details. And others are looking at the protoribosome, or something like it, as a tool to create new kinds of biomolecule.
“This should be a starting point of many more fields of research,” https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-023-00574-4
Being overweight impacts your heart health in more ways than you might think. A new JACC review paper from Mayo Clinic outlines how obesity affects the common tests used to diagnose heart disease and impacts treatments. Cardiovascular disease is the leading cause of death in the U.S. and globally, yet it is largely preventable.
"Excess fat acts as a kind of filter and can skew test readings to under-or overdiagnosis," https://www.newswise.com/articles/obesity-makes-it-harder-to-diagnose-and-treat-heart-disease
That's botanical Latin, and its purpose is to help you confirm that the plant you bring home is what you intend to buy.
The common name—often a cutesy marketing moniker—can get you into trouble. That's because common names are just nicknames for plants. A single common name can be shared by many plants. And one plant can have many common names.
Confusion often ensues. https://phys.org/news/2023-02-gardeners-botanical-latin-language-worth.html
On the other end of the spectrum, a vegan diet was found to be the least impactful on climate, generating 0.7 kg of carbon dioxide per 1,000 calories consumed, less than a quarter of the impact of the keto diet. The vegan diet was followed by vegetarian and pescatarian diets in increasing impact.
The pescatarian diet scored highest on nutritional quality of the diets analyzed, with vegetarian and vegan diets following behind. https://scienceblog.com/536758/keto-paleo-bad-for-environment-not-great-nutritionally/
People who held vaccine-related or political misperceptions were more likely to get their news from friends and family, radio news, podcasts and Fox News.Vaccine-related and political misperceptions were strongly associated with low trust in government, science and medicine. They were also associated with high trust in Donald Trump and high levels of conspiratorial thinking.
"These findings are concerning to the extent that they may alter the preferences people have or the actions they take, such as getting vaccinated, voting, that contribute to the collective good," Druckman said.
"And while social scientists have identified many techniques to minimize misperceptions, technological and political realities make it difficult to keep pace with the spread of misinformation." https://phys.org/news/2023-03-survey-americans-uncertain-ability-false.html
It’s now been six months since the temporary pond was filled on our front lawn. We have one main pond which has silt, sediment, marginal plants, aquatic plants and fauna from our old wildlife pond. We also have two additional holding tanks filled with spare water from the old pond, which has all the beneficial micro-organisms needed for a healthy pond environment. We also have one more much smaller pond dedicated to our juvenile newt population, https://naturalhistorymuseum.blog/2023/03/01/success-from-our-temporary-pond-urban-nature-project/
"IRISS will soon join its counterparts Galileo and Copernicus and compliment [sic] them by providing sovereign, secure, resilient and cost-effective seamless communication services, with initial services by 2024 and full operational capacity by 2027," read a statement (opens in new tab) from the EU Commission's Directorate-General for Defence Industry and Space (DEFIS).
The constellation will be focused on government services, including defense applications, and will provide broadband connectivity to the whole of Europe, including current connectivity dead zones, as well as to the whole of Africa.
It will also build on developing European capabilities such as quantum encryption satellites and new disruptive technologies. It will leverage both major European space industry players and also startups. https://www.space.com/european-union-satellite-internet-constellation-iriss
Illegal, unreported, and unregulated (IUU) fishing costs coastal and island states between $26 billion and $50 billion annually. Ships involved in these operations often use clever tactics to hide their identity, making it difficult for regulators to monitor or address the problem.
Using machine learning techniques, researchers found that nearly 20% of high seas fishing is carried out by vessels that are not publicly authorized or regulated. This new approach to monitoring fleets was published in the journal Science Advances. https://eos.org/articles/machine-learning-helps-researchers-track-illegal-fishing

I did my own dip nails about 8 days ago, for the first time. I did a lot of research on mail prep, and thought my prep was sufficient. I have 2 kits: A Revel Nail system and then a cheap $15 KISS French dip kit that I grabbed at Walmart. I wanted to use the cheaper kit for my first application, as the Revel liquids cost more than the entire KISS kit.
The nails started breaking & popping off within 4-5 days, with some areas of the nail just crumbling away. I did apply tips as well, and I know they were well-fitted because I spent almost 4 days sizing them before I finally committed 😂
So, are all dip kits not created equal? Did they start falling off because of the cheaper kit? Or because of me? I just know that when I go to the salon and they use the professional dip systems, those babies stay on my nails for weeks! Lol

My beautiful girlfriend is in a position where she has to be in boy mode for work during the week. She really likes doing her nails on weekends but since she can only have them for a couple of days getting her nails done at a salon isn't really a good option. Does anyone have any suggestions for press on nails that come in larger sizes? I know the regular nails I get from like Walmart are almost too small for my hands and her nail beds are much wider than mine. Google searches haven't lead me to anything helpful. Ideally I'd like to find press on or ones that you just use nail glue on that are easy to remove.
I have been trying to learn to do acrylic and how to braid in weaves for her, but it's definitely going to be awhile before I am good enough at either of those, so that option is being explored.
Thanks so much for any help (:

Anyone know why not a single part time store will hire me? I’m currently 20 almost 21 and broke AF cuz no store will hire me. I applied to every store you can think off off the top of your minds Target, Walmart, Meijer, Menards, GameStop, Starbucks at 6 different locations, Smoothie King, Olive Garden, Portillos, Dog Walker, WashU car wash place, Apple, Best Buy, Microcenter Costco, Amazon, warehouse place, and still currently applying to more places as I write this. Only a few of these places brought me in for an interview and the places that did never send me a email or text message back saying I was hired or not for the job and that was months ago so I definitely didn’t get the job. The places that didn’t bring me to the interview stage told me I was deferred and didn’t get the job and they didn’t need me all those excuses bull shit!!! Like WTAF am I doing wrong here??? Every job I applied to I send in a resume to go along with my application and applied on the application perfectly and I even applied through indeed and linked in and still didn’t get a single job. The only place to ever hire me was Raging Waves when I was 16 for a seasonal summer job and I was in the food services cooking burgers, pop corn chicken, fries, etc… and that was it. I have a shit ton of food experience so all the food places I applied to I should have gotten doesn’t make any sense at all. After Raging Waves job was over I then worked at a hair Solon place as a salon assistant and both these places pay Jack shit $8.50 an hour and I need more money or I won’t be able to pay rent and gonna end up homeless and currently I’m negative in my bank account. I’m trying to make $18 an hour and I see all these young ass kids who are 16 making way more than me doesn’t make any sense at all when I’m perfectly qualified and much older a legit adult who can’t seem to get a single ass job. Ima bout to go to court cuz all these places I keep applying to keep discriminating against me like WTAF I just need money to live and survive to afford food and water GOD DAMIT FOR FUCK SAKES HIRE ME FOR GOD SAKES I’LL LITERALLY DO ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!

Anyone know why not a single part time store will hire me? I’m currently 20 almost 21 and broke AF cuz no store will hire me. I applied to every store you can think off off the top of your minds Target, Walmart, Meijer, Menards, GameStop, Starbucks at 6 different locations, Smoothie King, Olive Garden, Portillos, Dog Walker, WashU car wash place, Apple, Best Buy, Microcenter Costco, Amazon, warehouse place, and still currently applying to more places as I write this. Only a few of these places brought me in for an interview and the places that did never send me a email or text message back saying I was hired or not for the job and that was months ago so I definitely didn’t get the job. The places that didn’t bring me to the interview stage told me I was deferred and didn’t get the job and they didn’t need me all those excuses bull shit!!! Like WTAF am I doing wrong here??? Every job I applied to I send in a resume to go along with my application and applied on the application perfectly and I even applied through indeed and linked in and still didn’t get a single job. The only place to ever hire me was Raging Waves when I was 16 for a seasonal summer job and I was in the food services cooking burgers, pop corn chicken, fries, etc… and that was it. I have a shit ton of food experience so all the food places I applied to I should have gotten doesn’t make any sense at all. After Raging Waves job was over I then worked at a hair Solon place as a salon assistant and both these places pay Jack shit $8.50 an hour and I need more money or I won’t be able to pay rent and gonna end up homeless and currently I’m negative in my bank account. I’m trying to make $18 an hour and I see all these young ass kids who are 16 making way more than me doesn’t make any sense at all when I’m perfectly qualified and much older a legit adult who can’t seem to get a single ass job. Ima bout to go to court cuz all these places I keep applying to keep discriminating against me like WTAF I just need money to live and survive to afford food and water GOD DAMIT FOR FUCK SAKES HIRE ME FOR GOD SAKES I’LL LITERALLY DO ANYTHING!!!!!!!!!!