#because it was in the gmail of my school account that got shut down the day i graduated and even tho i shared it to my other account

[itstimeforstarwars]

The struggle about posting stories that I KNOW are going to be zero-note wonders is that I have to finish them before I post them. I have to rely on myself to enjoy them enough to finish them, both because I will not be getting feedback from readers saying 'wow I'm so excited about this!!' but also my brain will interpret a lack of positive attention as people hating it instead of as a reasonable lack of interest due to writing about unpopular characters or writing in a dead fandom. This is one of the fun tricks you learn when you've been writing for over a decade.

[quijotesca]

I have an ancient gmail account that's a Swahili word because it was the name of my old Lion King fan character. I have to keep tabs on it because a lot of Africans see fit to attach it to their accounts. I get a lot of messages about phone and cable bills. I am constantly floored by the types of businesses that'll let you attach any ol' email address to an account with no verification whatsoever. I get a lot of messages about phone and cable bills. For a while, I was getting messages from a bank in Kenya because it was attached to a private school's account.

The worst by far was Paypal. I got messages welcoming me to Xoom and Paypal that I never responded to. I contacted Paypal about this and was informed that said address was attached to so many fucking accounts that I shouldn't attach it to my own account. They shut down those accounts, and I assumed that would also shut down the Xoom account, but I was wrong. So for months after shutting down the Paypal account, I was still getting messages about someone sending payments. One message even included a fucking street address! Paypal customer service tried to convince me that it was phishing because there was no evidence of these messages on their servers (since it was actually coming from a Xoom account). This was despite the fact that when I forwarded one of the messages, I was told that I got it because "I sent a payment," suggesting it was a legit message and not phishing. I finally figured it out when I got a message from Xoom announcing policy changes.

I already fucking hated Paypal, but fucking hell, that was a security nightmare.

[samjgrasso]

Status Update: Austin Protesters and Medics Injured by Austin Police Department

On May 30 and May 31, Austin Police Department shot near-lethal munitions of blunt impact bullets called “rubber bullets” and  pellet balls encased in small bags known as “bean bag rounds” at protesters during a demonstration. Austin’s protests were a part of the nationwide revolts against police, state violence, and the carceral state. 

As a result, police near-fatally injured two people by shooting them in the head, one a teenager and the other 20 years old, and injured several other people. More information on the number of people injured in Austin’s protests, from the Intercept, emphasis mine:

Over the first four days of protests in the city, paramedics responded to 53 calls for medical help. Twenty-nine of those required transportation to a hospital; of those injuries, 11 were believed to have been caused by beanbag rounds. Many were life-threatening, the city’s Emergency Medical Services chief told the city council.

Following APD’s violence against protesters, Police Chief Brian Manley said APD would stop firing less lethal projectiles into crowds, but would still use them in other instances. Manley’s restrictions are meaningless, however, as at least one of Austin police’s victims wasn’t in a crowd during the protests, and was in an open field by himself when they shot him.

According to the Austin Monitor, five officers have been put on paid leave while APD investigates certain incidents:

Nicholas Gebhart, 7.5 years with APD

Kyu An, 3.5 years with APD

Kyle Felton, 1 year with APD

Derrick Lehman, 10 years with APD

John Siegel, 3.5 years with APD

It’s been nearly 40 days since May 31. Many of the people who Austin police injured are still in recovery. Here are the latest updates on some of the people who APD attacked, and where they or their family is collecting donations for their recovery. 

I wasn’t able to find updates or social media posts for several people, but please email me at samjgrasso at gmail dot com if you have an update you’d like to share, or would like to add someone to this collection of updates.

Justin Howell

Screenshot via the Battalion

Justin Howell is a 20-year-old Texas State student who APD shot in the head with a pellet ball-filled ammunition at close range. His older brother Joshua, a graduate student at Texas A&M University, has been speaking for their family and writing about Justin’s experience for the university’s newspaper. In Joshua’s first article, he wrote, “He has a fractured skull. He has brain damage. Doctors anticipate that when he wakes up, he will have difficulty telling his left from his right.”

On June 23, Joshua wrote that Justin spent three weeks in the ICU following the APD’s attack, and was sedated for two-and-a-half weeks of that time because of his brain injury, which doctors confirmed was caused by the impact of the ammunition. He wrote that Justin still eats through a feeding tube, and that he recently transferred to a “long-term rehabilitation facility” for intensive neurological, physical and occupational therapy.

The GoFundMe page collecting donations for Justin is still active, and has accumulated $213,269 in donations so far.

Levi Ayala

Screenshot via Texas Monthly

Levi Ayala is a 16-year-old student at KIPP Austin Brave High School. He had gone to the protest on May 31 to watch it when, and was standing by himself when Austin police shot him in the head with a bean bag round. 

According to Texas Monthly, the munition fractured Ayala’s skull and required a seven hour surgery, during which doctors removed the bullet, stopped the bleeding, and grafted skin onto the entrance wound. At a virtual city council meeting, Levi’s brother Edwin cried that the bullet damaged his prefrontal cortex and left him in immense pain. Edwin said at the time that Levi wouldn’t have permanent brain damage.

Levi left the hospital within the week, still in pain, including whiplash from being hit so hard. He’ll require various forms of physical and mental therapies over the next few months.

The GoFundMe page collecting donations for Levi has been turned off for new donations, and accumulated $221,213 in donations.

Anthony Evans 

Screenshot via GoFundMe

Anthony Evans is 26 years old. He was protesting with his twin brother Arthur when Austin police shot him in the face with a bean bag round. 

Anthony told KVUE that he underwent two surgeries across three days, and would have his jaw wired shut for the following six weeks. Doctors also surgically implanted a titanium plate into his jaw. He said he was jogging away from police when he was shot in the cheek. 

Anthony also told Now This that his phone was dead and he didn’t know what to do, so he walked the 8 miles to his home. Three miles in, he asked some police in a car stopped at a sign for help because he was injured, and they said they couldn’t help him and needed to go shut down the protest near the highway. Doctors determined Anthony had three different injuries in his mouth.

Arthur posted on Facebook saying that they’re collecting donations for his medical bills via Arthur’s CashApp and Venmo accounts.

The GoFundMe page collecting donations for Anthony is still active, and has accumulated $41,535 in donations so far.

Bomani Ray Barton

Screenshot via bomaniraybarton/instagram

Bomani Ray Barton is a 23-year-old musician. He was protesting on May 30 when, after following APD’s orders to back up, Austin police shot him three times, in the face, arm and hip with rubber bullets, another near-lethal ammunition. According to the GoFundMe page raising his medical funds, surgeons wired Bomani’s jaw shut after his mouth was ripped and his teeth were knocked out, and his jaw was fractured. Bomani said on his Instagram that his jaw will be wired for 6 to 8 weeks.

"The shots felt like blunt force swings of a bat impacting my body," Bomani told Austin Chronicle. "It didn't hurt as bad as the swelling and the sleepless nights though. The struggle of this financial and legal [fight] outweighs the pain of the shots."

On July 8, Bomani can be seen playing alongside Haris Qureshi and Kydd Jones for Jones’ set for Blues on the Screen, a virtual event to be screened on Fox 7 Austin and played on 97.1FM Austin City Limits Radio, curated by musician Jackie Venson.

The GoFundMe page collecting donations for Bomani is still active, and has accumulated $21,635 in donations so far. He’s also taking donations on his CashApp.

Saraneka “Nemo” Martin

Screenshot via Fox 7 Austin/Facebook

Saraneka “Nemo” Martin is a 24-year-old pregnant Black mother with two children who was protesting with her husband when APD shot her in the stomach twice and the back, and the back of her head with bean bag munitions, then brutally dragged her onto the ground. Following the attack, Saraneka was described as sore, “barely walking,” and “pretty rattled.”

On Twitter, Saraneka created an account following the protest to identify herself, and shared graphic photos and videos of the welts left behind by the rubber bullets. At a June 12 press conference, Saraneka said her health was “day by day at this point,” and that her pregnancy is still seven weeks along but that doesn’t confirm there won’t be complications later on. She also said the bean bag munition shot at her head had been embedded in her wig and took days to remove, and she was using a cane as a result of her injuries.

The GoFundMe page collecting donations for Saraneka is still active, and has accumulated $32,275 in donations so far.

Nikki Underwood

Screenshot via RatBath/YouTube

Nikki Underwood is a musician who was protesting the police when APD shot her from about 10 feet away, shooting down at her. The bean bag ammunition required surgery to be removed from the side of her chest. (You may have seen a photo circulating of the munition, bloody, in the palm of a gloved hand — this was a munition removed from Nikki’s body.) On a video in her GoFundMe, Nikki said she was released from the ER following her surgery and asked that people continue to donate, as she didn’t know what was next for her. 

The GoFundMe page collecting donations for Nikki is still active, and has accumulated $12,225 in donations so far.

Maredith Drake

Screenshot via GoFundMe

Maredith Drake was a medic volunteer with Austin Street Medics during the protests. While she and other volunteers attempted to carry an injured Justin Howell to APD headquarters, Austin police shot at them. Meredith, who held up and crossed her hands to indicate that she was coming for medical attention, was hit in the hands by a bean bag munition. 

A GoFundMe page created for Maredith says her husband recently lost his job and that she couldn’t move her hands to perform household or work duties. On June 9, she posted that her left hand needed surgery, and that it’d be permanently damaged without it. 

I’d also like to point out that Maredith has posted on Facebook and told press several times that she thinks her story isn’t important and that they should be focusing on the stories of people of color. 

The GoFundMe page collecting donations for Maredith is still active, and has accumulated $10,986 in donations so far.

Steve Arawn 

Screenshot via GoFundMe

Steve Arawn is a 43-year-old volunteer medic who was part of the Austin Street Medics team assisting injured protesters, and was helping a woman who had been shot when Austin Police shot him in the arm with a bean bag munition. 

On YouTube on June 8, Steve thanked the donors to his GoFundMe, and required an MRI for his injuries — his fingers felt sensitive and painful when he put pressure on them, or straightened out his arm. On June 15, Steve still didn’t have information about his condition but was still in constant pain, but the findings of the MRI got him referred to a hand specialist.

His GoFundMe page describes him as a gig worker, and on Facebook he’s asking for opportunities to work that don’t require him to use his dominant hand while healing. On Facebook he recently posted an update describing his hand as having experienced nerve damage.

The GoFundMe page collecting donations for Steve is still active, and has accumulated $2,991 in donations so far.

[prorevenge]

Don't like the person I picked to take my place once I graduate? Say goodbye to your funding too, then.

This story is from a while ago but the final part of the revenge just took place last week, so I thought I'd post. TLDR at the bottom.

So back when I was in highschool, I was not really a kid who participated in a lot of extracurricular activities. Most sports and clubs in my school didn't interest me, but during my sophomore year, an older friend of mine created a club called the Literature Magazine Club. It wasn't very complex, just a magazine we'd publish every year with a lot of poems, stories, and sometimes artwork, and I was a part of it. I'm not much of a writer, so I wasn't super involved until the club rolled out something completely new; a "Food and a Show" event for the students.

Essentially, on the last Friday of every month, the club would reserve a big empty study room for a few hours or so and set up a place for students to come during their studyhalls. Inside would be food, refreshments, and student performers. For only three dollars, students could eat some sugary food and watch other students sing or recite (usually bad) poetry. It wasn't grand or anything, but it was a better place to be than in a silent studyhall, trust me.

From the start, my club organizer (lets call her Mrs.F) made me in charge of a lot of different things, mainly because I was the one if the few in the club willing to talk in front of large crowds and to people I didn't know. I was the one who got in touch with performers who signed up, organized meetings before the actual event, ran the twitter page, created flyers, tickets, you name it. But the most important thing I did was set up all the tech stuff and be the MC. No body else wanted to go up and introduce people, so I did! For two more years up until my senior year, when the chaos started.

In that time, I became very good at running the entire thing by myself. However, as a senior, I now had to train someone else to take my spot. At the next meeting I was approached by a junior who showed a lot of passion about the position, so I picked her. I figured that since she was the only one that had the guts to actually talk to me about it in person when I put out a call for try-outs, she'd do well! That month, I began to teach her what I did. By the next show, she was MC while I just ran the tech stuff, and things seemed to be going well. Seemed.

Apparently, Mrs.F was NOT happy with my choice. Everyone knew Mrs.F had a thing about picking favorites, and often enough positions in the clubs she ran were promised to people before try-outs were even available. (She ran the newspaper club the same way.) I didn't think this would effect me since Mrs.F really didn't involve herself in the event unless she needed to, but I was wrong.

It wasn't until near the end of the year that she broke the news that my chosen back-up would not be the MC after I left, but instead this sophomore who she apparently recruited from one of her classes. She was a very nice girl, but she could barely speak above a whisper, wasn't very good at confrontation (something you need to work with performers). Most importantly, SHE WASN'T EVEN IN THE CLUB UNTIL THAT POINT. Mrs.F though it would be a great idea to give her this major position because she wrote great poetry in her English class. I totally understood where Mrs.F was coming from, but my replacement was already trained at this point, and there was no way I was going to have her pick trained by the time I graduated. When I brought that up, Mrs.F got angry at me. She told me she ran this club, and that means she runs the event too.

So, I took her word for it. If she want's her and her charge to run the place, so be it.

Being a senior, I was 100% ready to just fling myself from the hell that was my high-school, so I didn't care too much about staying on good terms with teachers, but around this time I also ran into a bunch of medical and mental health issues as well. I had a thousand different medical professionals telling me to chill out and start doing less until I could (both physically and emotionally) take on more stress. I emailed teachers telling them what was going on, had to resign from my job, etc. But the one person I did not tell was Mrs.F. I dropped out of the club with NO warning whatsoever, and while I felt kind of bad for leaving my friends in such a way, the reward was so much more satisfying.

A week away from the last Food and Show event of the year, I had performers emailing me asking to be in it, parents offering donations of food for the students, etc. I simply gave them a copy-paste email saying "I don't run this, please contact Mrs.F for details."

Oh, the email I got just two days from the last event was gold. I no longer have it since my highschool gmail account has since been shut down, but it was something like this:

"Hi Skyoctorock. I haven't seen you at mandatory meetings recently and we've been having a hard time getting in contact with the tech people to deliver the necessary equipment, collecting performers, and printing tickets. Can you do this? Thanks."

I didn't reply. The day of the event, I stayed home from school to avoid being roped in last minute (because I knew Mrs.F can and would call me down from my study hall to chew me out.) When I came in the next day, a friend of mine who was also involved in the event came to me and asked me where I had been. I told her I was sick, and she said:

"The whole thing bombed! We couldn't get the music running and had to end the show early!"

The satisfaction was AMAZING knowing it had gone up in flames. Apparently, my backup wasn't there to help (since she thought she didn't need to be there) and Mrs.F chosen MC knew fuck-all about running the set (I taught her how to pick performers and how to advertise, but I never got the chance to teach her about the tech stuff involved.) The show ran very badly, so a lot of people took the food offered to them and left halfway through. I did get chewed out later in the day in front of Mrs.F's class, but I didn't get punished any further, thankfully. I think she may have been trying to publicly embarrass me in front of her students, but it didn't work. I could care less about looking like an embarrassment, I was never going to see these kids again after I graduated.

However, that's not where this revenge ends. It had unknown consequences that I just found out about.

The money made from the event was apparently one of the two main sources of funding. After I graduated, the whole "Food and A Show" thing had a really hard time continuing. A friend who hasn't graduated yet told me they eventually had to stop the event (Mrs.F says temporarily, but we all know she's probably not gonna bring that shit back) because they didn't know how to/no one was willing to find a workaround. The club itself still runs, but the quality of the magazine they produce has gone down considerably. They're running out of other sources of income fast, and I got to see the call for donations for the club made by the local newspaper in my area earlier this month.

TLDR: Teacher tries to replace my already-trained replacement with her own near the end of the school year, refuses to compromise, and ends up losing a portion of funding as a result.

(source) story by (/u/skyoctorock)

[andrewdburton]

Three Months of Slacking

Unsuccessfully but Refreshingly trying to climb the local waterfall

“MMM, are you still alive?” – somebody on Twitter

Holy Shit! I just realized that the last time I wrote a blog post for you was on April 18th, and now it’s late July. That’s an entire quarter of a year that I have let this wonderful, golden field of interesting opportunities and people sit untended.

 How could Mr. Money Mustache, a reliable stalwart of bossy financial advice since 2011 and usually good for at least one post per month, have drifted so far from his original dedication? It’s a question that earnest fans have been asking, and that I have even started asking myself.

When you break out of any habit, it can be hard to get back into it: the psychological barriers start to stack up and the pressure rises and you find yourself waiting for more and more unattainably perfect conditions that, surprise surprise, never really come.

If it’s a workout habit that you have broken, you might tell yourself,

“Oh, I just need to get over this injury or this cold.. And then my Mom is visiting next week but after that I’ll be ready to get back to the gym.“

With my blog-writing hobby I make excuses like,

“Oh, now that it has been so long, I have to wait until I have something really interesting or worthwhile to say. And yeah okay, maybe I have a few articles like that in the drafts folder, but those ones take a lot of thinking and focus to write, so I’d better wait until I am feeling really smart and focused to crack into that subject.”

But in both cases, the correct solution is just to say,

“Fuck it. I am going to just do something towards my goal, no matter how tiny.”

To get back in shape, you just need to start with at least a few pushups, which you can do right now on the floor of your office or kitchen. To resurrect the MMM Blog, Mustache just has to type some shit into the computer, and heck, why not just an easy breezy article telling you about some of the interesting things I’ve been doing in lieu of blogging?

Some stories from a real life of early retirement, which may be more relevant than plain old financial analysis and reader case studies anyway. And once we’re all caught up in life, maybe it’ll be easier to keep in touch on a more regular basis henceforth.

So in fairly rapidfire format, here’s what I’ve been up to this spring and summer:

1) Renovating The Shit Out of Our New Two-House Compound

We found the previous shower had been leaking for years and creating the most interesting scene of decay. We tore out and rebuilt the whole area, and cut in a nice window for good measure.

You may recall that back in January, I teamed up with a friend to buy the house next door, with cash, at a below-market price. Once she moved in, we realized that it needed even more renovations than we originally planned. So I’ve had a joyful time tearing down walls, framing in new windows and doors, reworking the floorplan and changing the wall surfaces, as well as fixing the shoddy plumbing and electrical work that was found along the way.

On my own house right next door, I’ve been going just a bit wild with metalworking, making all sorts of fences and decks and even a “Juliet Balcony” which features a fireman pole allowing me to slide quickly down from my master bedroom to the ground where we have a shared hot tub between our properties – in case of Hot Tub Emergencies, of course.

Cutting a giant hole in the back of my house (in February!), adding a sliding door where there was previously only a silly little shitty window, then many fun, casual days of metalworking. The last pic is my side deck, which I built mostly out of wood but also features lots of metal and a fun little outdoor kitchen including coffee machine and induction cooktop!

2) Working on a Pretty Big Documentary Project

Hmmm.. something seems different about the HQ kitchen.

I have said for years that I would never do it, but somehow a very persuasive filmmaker who has made some documentaries that I really respect, roped me into helping out with a probably-pretty-big documentary.

I did a casting call in March and found a couple that I am now coaching and working with throughout 2021. The film company doesn’t want me to talk about it much until they are ready to announce it, but suffice it to say that it is taking a lot of my time and energy, which comes out of what would otherwise be my blog-writing time budget.

However, this is the good kind of hardship – forcing me to experience things I wouldn’t otherwise get to do, and the end result will be reaching a lot more people than I could by just writing on this website alone. My fingers are crossed that it will come out the way I hope!

3) Switching 120,000 Underserved MMM Email Subscribers over for Better Newsletters

Easier signups, and better eventual emails.

Since the beginning, I’ve mostly ignored the fact that I sorta have a list of email subscribers, with predictable lackluster results. People were able to subscribe and unsubscribe themselves automatically, and the only thing it got them was an automated mailing of any new blog articles on the day that I posted them. The emails were poorly formatted, people who had non-gmail addresses often had trouble subscribing, and many probably wondered why I couldn’t make it work better.

Thankfully, a mini-crisis happened that has forced me to do the work to solve this problem, at last: Google announced that they were shutting down the aging Feedburner email service, so all of the old-school bloggers like me who were still using it were forced to migrate to a more modern platform.

I did some research, and in the end I decided to go with a higher-end option called ConvertKit, which is one of the most popular email services. It can do a lot more cool stuff, and I have taken advantage of this to create an automated (and free of course) “MMM Boot Camp” email series that people can sign up for. 

It’s just a curated feed of some of my most useful articles (about 35 out of the 500), which automatically go out to people once per week until they have graduated, so you’d think it would be pretty easy for me to create this.

But as I read through my old stuff, of course I realized that much of it was crappy and outdated so I ended up partially rewriting every one of those 35 posts as I went through, which took some time. The good news is, the updated versions are here on the website as well, so the work should benefit anyone who happens to read them in the future.

4) Having lots of Fun Times (and Hard Times) In Real Life

Just another cool sunset/storm in my back yard, taken during the traditional Evening Walk.

I’ve had a series of wonderful visitors who came and stayed at my house, sometimes for a week or more. Friends and I have hosted some big events at the HQ Coworking space, which left me both energized and drained at the same time. Then I got Strep Throat in mid-July, which knocked me out for the count for a full week or more – even well after the antibiotics worked their magic, I have still been having some ups and downs with energy. 

And then of course there’s the heat – I am always more energetic in cool weather (The typical 50 degree sunny days of a Colorado winter are some of my favorite for outdoor work in t-shirt and jeans). So the summer season here is always a challenge for me, with an endless procession of cloudless 95 degree desert days making me resent the very Sun I normally worship so much. I’ve been taking refuge indoor more than I should, hiding in my air conditioned house and making excuses and accomplishing less because of it. At least this has led me to the keyboard today, to write this blog post.

5) “Cutting the Pipe” at HQ and Installing a Giant Fancy Heat Pump system.

I had fun working alongside my co-owner Mr. 1500 for this work. Everything was easy about this install … except rebuilding some of the filthy century-old ductwork we found once we took out the old furnace.

Since I first bought the building in 2017, the MMM-HQ coworking space has been limping along with a clunky decades-old gas furnace, a gas water heater that was about 20 years overdue to spring a leak, no central air conditioning at all, and very high utility bills due to the way our local gas company charges commercial customers.

When you combine these irritants and contrast them with the fact that we happen to have a glorious solar electric array on the rooftop that makes a surplus of power, you can see why I would be itching to tear out all the gas appliances, cancel the service account permanently, and install all-electric replacements that are more efficient and will also save an estimated shit-ton of money each year.

I’ll save the full details of this for my very next blog article, but as a spoiler: we found and successfully installed a unit that should be able to cool and heat our building year-round, is very DIY-friendly, and cost only about $4000 to buy. It should prove to be a great annual return on investment, and I am excited to start installing these things on all of my properties and those of any friends who are doing upgrades.

And with that, I’d say we are all caught up.

In the comments: what have YOU been up to these past 3 months? And what subjects do you think we should be covering here on MMM in the next three?

from Finance https://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2021/07/25/three-months-of-slacking/ via http://www.rssmix.com/

[nataliedieckman-blog]

Internet “horror” story

This wasn’t the worst thing in the world, but it was still pretty bad. I had a yahoo email address from when I was in middle school/early high school. Senior year and when I started to apply to colleges, I made a new gmail address that was more professional, so I stopped checking my yahoo address. One day, I decided to check my old yahoo address. I somehow ended up in the sent mail and saw that a bunch of emails had been sent to random contacts telling them to click on a link. I obviously had not sent these emails and I realized that I had been hacked! I hoped that none of my contacts had actually clicked on the link, but the emails did look pretty untrustworthy to it’s safe to say they knew it was spam. I immediately shut down the account. I’m glad that that’s the worst thing that’s ever happened to me on the internet, but I know now to keep up with any current email addresses I have. I have also heard it can be smart to password protect your account with a phone number or alternate email address. I also will change my email passwords occasionally in order to protect against potential hackers. Also, if I sign into either of my gmail accounts on a different device (such as a friends laptop), I get an email on my regular device that says there has been a sign in from an unknown device. This is helpful because if I got that email and was unaware of another sign in, I would know something was wrong and could maybe prevent the hack.

[terpsichoreed]

OK I think I have recovered from being the training manual from all of my uncle’s tech devices while he was here last week.

He was convinced my computer was a touch screen

I tried for three hours to get him setup on facebook. It was all for nought because he got too bored.

He thought facebook has one sole purpose: you go to your high school class reunion page and view everyone’s pictures - a literal book of faces

He was convinced we were logged in to his facebook account (which he doesn’t have) and that we needed to change my picture to his picture

He kept trying to join his high school class page as me

Tried to plug USB cables into his iPad so he could use the printer. iPads don’t have USB input, which took him ten minutes to discover. This was at 1 AM and I was already in bed.

It took about two hours to explain that “press and hold” is not the same thing as “tap twice”

“It should know what I meant! It’s a smart device!”

Thought a twelve-year-old Geico commercial was the funniest thing ever and took an hour making all of us watch through various (unfunny) woodchuck videos until we found it

Refuses to learn how to text. “They’ll call me if it was actually important.”

Tried to MapQuest via the person’s last name instead of their address

He was convinced he could use Uber on an ancient flip phone that doesn’t have internet access

Couldn’t figure out how to forward an email on his gmail account, which he has had for probably 15 years

My mom mentioned “memes” and I quickly shut her down in order to avoid having to explain internet culture to her brother. I would still be explaining now (a week later) if I hadn’t shut her down.

“I can’t use this keyboard with my iPad. It’s supposed to be wireless and yet there’s this cable and it doesn’t fit.” “That’s for charging the keyboard. I’ll set up the wireless. Where are the instructions?” “The what?”

“Where is the power button?” To be fair, it was on the side, not the top/front. But to see it from my side, it had the usual power button symbol on it and all the devices he’s ever used have had power buttons on the side. But to be completely fair, he doesn’t ever hit the power button on his devices; he’ll only close the covers.

Googled YouTube, clicked it, and then used the Google search bar instead of the YouTube search, complained that YouTube had a new update he didn’t like

My mom is technologically illiterate and she had to show him how to use Google. Like he didn’t know how to search for anything. (A+ work, Ma)

"What is this charger for?” It’s a wireless device. Same reason your phone and iPad need charging.

Kept putting his iPad on airplane mode

“I want these people gone! It takes me forever to find my wife on here, scrolling through all these names. Who are these people?” Then you shouldn’t have imported all your Gmail contacts into Skype. It’s too late. You got yourself into this mess.

I got blamed for iPad dictation not recognizing names of pro athletes

There is a clear difference between asking harmless questions and being totally helpless. He doesn’t see that clear difference. Like when it was 1 AM and I had been working for several consecutive hours helping him with something. And I had to wake up less than five hours later.

[deiupvote]

It's been a while since I've been able to update, I'm sorry if this post is as long as my prior one. Alot has happened in the last few months and I haven't been able to post information about it until now. It's nearly impossible to explain the situation without a long backstory so you'd have to have seen my prior post. I'll try to give a short summary here.https://ift.tt/2A6qbhq I spent almost 20 years living with my mother. I have 3 younger siblings. 16 of those years I suffered through abuse. Had her hold a knife to my neck, kicked me down the stairs frequently, beaten me with extension cords/bats/fists/chairs/belts/etc, beaten me unconscious & bloody countless times, verbally abusive aka telling me i was worthless and how she couldn't stand me or how I looked like my dad daily. I lost count of how many times I woke up to heavy closed fist punches to the face at like 3am on school days because the dishes weren't washed or I didn't fold her laundry or whatever and then being forced to do chores until I went to school. Teachers weren't helpful. Family turned a blind eye. My dad wasn't around. This wasn't once in a while. This was everyday. I didn't have much freedom as she rarely let me leave the house (Deadbolt lock on the front door and I wasnt allowed to have keys) or get a few hours of reprieve outside of school where I did horribly because the only thing I was interested in was people liking me instead of actual schoolwork. I've called the police on her a total about 2 times. She never got in trouble and the police generally believed her over me and she'd dismiss all my allegations. I was a really skinny kid, I was not a threat and I couldn't defend myself. Either way, I hated violence so I never raised a hand to her or took it out on anyone else. My only reprieve was all the ways I sabotaged her food, the satisfaction of making eye contact as she ate off of a spoon I rubbed between my buttcheeks or when she enjoyed a cup of my special home brew lipton tea. Lots of little malicious compliances which usually ended with punishment.It was just her and I (my older sister was taken away very early) until I hit my teens when my younger siblings were born (not all at the same time). She didn't beat them as bad and treated them fairly better. I was alone for most of it. I didn't really connect with them because they were always around her and I tried to minimize the time spent around my Mother when I hit my teens and after when I started having slightly more freedom. After abusing me for years then carrying on to abuse my siblings, lying to me about having a place to live if I went to college, countless other reasons, and her literally laughing at me when I told her I was homeless.. This is after I explained how it's been hard for me and how the abuse affected me. She's never owned up it. Never apologized. Nothing. I was done. I decided I was going to ruin her life. Regardless of whether it makes me a bad person or not. I had photos of my own bruises/cuts/etc saved from YEARS with my mother. My little sister sent me a few via social media. I compiled it all and went to CPS. They went with police to do a check and coincidentally got there while my mother was beating my sister. Cue an emergency removal and her losing her kids. I reached out to her job and made them aware she lied about her degree (I was the one who wrote all her resumes and etc). She lost her $75k+ salary job days later and got blacklisted. I even deleted every single gmail account and etc I made for her just because fuck her.But as this is an update and not a repost of how trash my past was, I'll try not to repeat myself too much.UpdateI'll give an update on me personally first. My camera was stolen and instead of trying to get another one, I decided to take a break from photography. I appreciate all of the support you guys gave me after my first post. It's been extremely hard, taking pictures was the only thing I really did that helped me feel okay but I'm learning to build resilience. In the mean time, I swallowed my pride and moved into a homeless shelter in my city specifically for people with jobs & a savings. I'll be able to continue saving while I work on bettering myself as a person. I created an action plan and mapped out all my goals and how I want to achieve them. Up until recently, I wasn't even planning on being alive. Sorry if that's too dark. I honestly always had these thoughts wishing my mother would have finished the job with me and made life easier. But as of late, I'm becoming more and more curious of what I'm capable of if I gave myself the chance. I've been able to visit my younger siblings and have gotten to know my little sister abit better because of the experience. I feel like a horrible person for admitting I still feel nothing for them or really anyone, but I won't let my feelings get in the way of the promise I made to myself or them. I've also only drank 3 times in the last 4 months compared to every other day in the past, which isn't great but its a change.My younger siblings are still with CPS but I can't go into detail. My mother was supposed to go to a hearing to get them back but things got complicated (important). My mothers best friend's son (who I've known 8yrs) does his best to relay all the shit my mother tells her while they talk on the phone all day. Things had gotten worse for her. She hasn't been keeping up with her mortgage payments. Her fiance, my youngest siblings dad, is no longer her fiance anymore and is trying to file for custody. I heard she was a wreck then went ghost but it didn't make me feel better. There weren't supposed to be any winners. Honestly, I wasn't even going to update. I initially just wanted to tell someone for once but one thing changed my mind. Something I was not expecting months after I set this all in motion. A phone call from my mother. In the past seeing her calls, even after movingg out, would set me on edge but that hasn't been the case lately. It was just another thing that happened. Just another event. Meaningless but at the same time... She always had my number but NEVER reached out. Even when things first started going to shit, I doubt she even gave me a second thought. But I'm sure you're all curious to know what was said.My mother is gone. A few weeks after my post, the state I'm in brought felony charges up against her. She left the country shortly after and went to her home country in South America. I have no idea how she was even allowed to leave but they didn't take her passport. She avoided specifics on that part. She mentioned staying with a family friend temporarily and tried to frame it as a short vacation. She didn't even start off with a hello, she started the conversation by ordering me to go somewhere quiet before launching into a sob story about how things have been going for her. This is after months of no contact. After laughing at me for being homeless and denying she ever abused me months ago. Just yammering away like it was nothing but I let her talk. It was surreal. I felt so cold just listening to her talk. It was like talking to a stranger. She mentions losing out on "so much money" and how she doesn't know how all it happened and then finally she hits the topic dujour.Cue her bringing up my little sister and the night of the emergency removal. She starts complaining about how she misses my little sister and brothers, mentions something about how it messes up tax season?, and then she had the audacity to start trying to convince me that I should go talk to the caseworkers for her to back up her claim that " she never abused them or me and I should know that..." She said that to me. After everything. Of all people. 9 minutes into the conversation. Like nothing ever happened. But it wasn't anything new. Of course I cut her off but at that point my mind was already made up. I asked her if she remembered when I used to make iced tea for her all those years. She was a little thrown off but said yes. I paused for a few seconds before slowly telling her in detail about all the ways i sabotaged her lipton iced tea. She tried interrupt me once but I didn't stop talking. I told her about how I'd always put too much sugar and she'd never taste it and keep drinking more which was why I always insisted. There was just silence on the phone but I know she was listening. I told her waiting until after dinner when I got home from school to shower so I could rub her spoons between my buttcheeks for maximum damage and how I'd mix it into her food to mask it. At this point I'm not even sure she's listening anymore but im still describing specific days I remember doing it that I know she would remember. She finally LOUDLY interrupts me screaming at me disgusting evil things. She cursed me the way she used to back in the days when shed be standing over me with an extension cord beating the skin off of me when I was younger. She's blaming me for ruining her life and how she wish she had a better child (All without knowing that I directly caused the destruction of her current life though she's speaking about the past). I just let her waste her breath. She couldn't touch me or my siblings. It only lasted a few seconds. Now I remember spending years daydreaming of all things I'd say to my mother if I had the chance but I just bottled it up with all my other baggage and kept trying to exist. A lot of people from my original post also gave me some ideas.When she finally shut her mouth I calmly told her "Look Mom, You don't know what abuse is and honestly its your own fucking fault this is all happening to you. Also, my bad for pissing in your iced tea." Then I just hung up the phone and blocked her number. That was the last day I drank. I haven't talked to her since. I'm not sure she's aware (or maybe she is) how bad of an idea it was to leave the country with all this going down, even if it was for a few weeks. At this point im done with her. I don't want an apology. I just want to move forward and be a better person. I know that's hard to believe after everything I just told you but it's the truth. I try my best to put as much positivity into the world and share it with the people around me as much as possible. But fuck her. I don't know if she knows it was me but I didn't tell her. I'm sure she can guess though if she really tried. Anyways.. That's my revenge. It's still actively fucking her life up but im not taking any active part in it. I wish it wasn't like this. I wish I had a real family that loved me and I knew how to love back the right way. I wish I had a real relationship with my mother and none of those things happened. I wish I could have turned out like one of the happy people in the world but I can spend spend all day wishing. Sorry for the super long post. This is my last update. Wish me luck next year.TL;DR - My mother abused me for most of my life. I had to drop out of college and support myself after she basically drove me to homelessness. She laughs at me about me being homeless and denies abuse. So I ruined her life by reporting the abuse my siblings and I dealt with resulting in an emergency removal by CPS & her getting criminal charges, exposing her lies to her job which she lost, putting her in a situation that ruined her engagement, and ultimately causing her to flee the country which might result in even worse charges if/when she comes back. via /r/ProRevenge

[starryloft]

Honestly, don't be a fucktard in life

Honestly, some people are amazing at twisting their words.

I used to group with this 2 friends of mine since year 1, let's name the one that's currently in my class as S and the one that's NOT in my class as W. With S, W and me, 2 other girls make up a clique.

I'm currently in my 3rd and last year of getting my diploma. I've always worked with S and W since year 1. So I have an understanding that S does work. Apparently, in this year 3, 1st semester, it wasn't so.

S, me and the 2 other girls from our class since year 1, formed a new clique. Obviously so because we are in the same class. WHILE W IS IN ANOTHER CLASS. NOTE THAT I STATE W IS IN ANOTHER CLASS.

S was nothing but an utter freeloader this entire semester. The group REPEATED tried to include her and asked her stuff. Her response? Nothing but half baked and vague answers. What's a normal person to do?

Moving on, the group wanted to meet to discuss about the assignments. ONCE AGAIN, TAKE NOTE THAT IT'S ASSIGNMENTS WITH AN S. So it's not only ONE assignment, it's MULTIPLE assignments. Since S has been giving vague and half baked answers all semester, and with multiple assignments due on the same day, I simply gave her a yes/no option. What I literally messaged her was, "S, are you coming to my house tmr? Yes or no lollll"

I honestly see no reason as to why she felt compelled to send the message, "I Skype you guys" to "I think I Skype you guys". I have no idea what difference the "I think" adds into the context, but if S really feels that she wants to, so be it.

Let's talk about the Skype call on the day that me and the other 2 girls met at my house. If you are wondering why of all places to meet, it would be my house, the reason is:

1. My house is the most convienent out of everyone

2. Everyone has been coming since year 1 (once again, this information is crucial)

3. No one else is willing to open their house

Anyways, me and the other 2 girls met in my house. We skyped the girl. We discussed about our assignments blah blah blah. After that, I was getting really annoyed because I started to think about how useless and incompetent she really has been for the whole semester. I simply asked her, "S, is there something going on in your life or something? Because the amount of work and quality of work you are putting in is kinda terrible". I cannot state right from the get go that it's utter trash. I was literally trying my best to sugar coat. This stupid S started saying how she had a mental breakdown, and took 2 days break. Okay, can.

The thing is, we allocated her to place photos into the site A WEEK AGO. We found her the pictures, and ALL SHE NEED TO DO WAS ADD IT IN. She took a whole week, TO ADD IN 2 PICTURES. Honestly, if this isn't what you call a fucktard, I have no idea what else to call her.

Let's change the assignment now shall we? Let's move on to assignment 2.

Assignment 2 is lesson planning. S literally did nothing for the ENTIRE assignment, and on the day of implementation, she fucked up. The whole group fucked up. Everyone fucked up. Me and the other 2 girls, got really mad and angst. We have our own personal lives to deal with, we spend the night doing all these assignments. And in the end, we need to get the same grade as S? Think about it, anyone with a sane mind will think that it's unfair.

Right after the class ended, we told S that we wanted to peer evaluate her. The only reason she could give us to convince us was, "I don't want to remod". WHO WANTS TO REMOD dumb shit. Our grades for the first assignment was pretty nasty, and we put in the effort to save our grades. What makes you think you can get a free ride from us? And further more, she even acknowledged that she contributed literally nothing for the assignment. I have the recording.

The only thing that's going on in her life is school. ONLY SCHOOL. Me and the 2 other girls has way more commitments than the other girl. I honestly have no idea what makes it so difficult for her to contribute to the assignment. Anyways, remember W? This is when she comes into the picture.

S started telling W that me and the 2 other girls wanted to peer evaluate her. So what did W do? Gossip and spread the word! People that we thought were friends with us since year 1, started messaging us - to guilt trip us for wanting to peer evaluate a friend.

Let's be honest, what's the definition of a friend? Apparently, S's definition of a friend is to freeload off them? I personally really feel like she needs to think back of her actions before claiming that she feels betrayed by us because she thought we were "friends". If a friend is one who freeloads for the entire semester and acts so self entitled, I do not need that friend. Heck, losing a friend isn't that hard for me. In fact, I lived my life solo for 5 whole years in my high school. It wasn't that hard. Moving on with the story...

Lets go back to the first assignment. Me and the 2 other girls spent the entire night completing the site for assignment 1. Damn, we didn't sleep the whole night. We literally did the damn site from 12pm to 5pm and 11pm to 9am. What did we get from it? S stirring shit up.

Me and the 2 other girls literally just submitted the assignment. I've been really stressed all semester. I've been vomiting real bad, like everyday. I've been sleeping at 3-4am for the past 1 month. I have really bad backache from my bad posture to complete my assignments. And my period never even came once during the entire semester (1 semester is roughly 14 weeks?)

Right after submitting, I ran to the toilet RIGHT AWAY to vomit. I was literally in the middle of vomiting, when my lecturer messaged me - saying that me and the 2 other girls needed to come down to the school to meet her. She stressed that it was urgent.

Mind you. We spent the whole night doing assignment. Heck, when we submitted the assignment, the sun had risen. We spent the whole night doing, we haven't even slept and we need to go to school???? ON A DAY THAT WE DON'T HAVE LESSONS?

Long story cut short, we went to meet the lecturers and we saw S acting all pitiful as always. I have to really acknowledge her ability to twist words and cry on cue.

The lecturer in charge of the assignment didn't really take sides, however our class advisor was clearly siding her and casually spitting her comments that no one really appreciated as me and one of the 2 other girls were saying. (Honestly, fuck our class advisor. You suck at your fucking job. You met us only once in the whole sem.) The other girl went to the hospital to get an IV drip, because she was feeling THAT SICK.

S said mainly:

1. Me and the 2 other girls do work late

2. She didn't have assess to the site

3. We didn't include her

Alright. Let's get a few facts straight with this fucktard.

1. We all have our personal schedules. Like I said earlier, we all have WAY MORE commitments than S - which only has school. We have school in the morning till afternoon. After that, we need to attend to our other commitments. And we have assignments due. Let's use our brains to think shall we? God gave us a brain for a reason after all. You have school from morning till late afternoon. From evening till night you are settling your other commitments. By logical thinking, when and what are you supposed to do to complete your assignments? Obvious answer: stay up till you complete your assignments! WOW THAT DIDNT USE MUCH BRAIN CELLS DID IT.

BUT WAIT, S DOESNT HAVE THE BRAIN CAPACITY TO THINK THAT FAR.

2. S CLEARLY HAD ASSESS TO THE SITE. The group created a group gmail account to assess the site. We had notified her that the site has been changed. By common sense, you should have been able to know that the site is still the same!

As long as you take the effort to simply log in, you would have been able to see the site! WELL, WASNT THAT SIMPLE.

3. We tried many ways to include her. I even played a fucking mobile game to talk to her. AND TALKED CRAP FOR 30 WHOLE MINUTES. JUST TO PROVIDE HER WITH AN OPPORTUNITY. I have mobile games. I hate it but I honestly had no idea how to talk to her. So I had to play it. The other 2 girls did try to include her too.

Every single time we tried, she would reject and brush off aside and say, "I'll Skype you guys"

Since we have gotten these 3 points clarified, let's move on to why the situation had escalated such that the lecturers demanded to see us.

First thing in the morning, S and her parents went to see the lecturers. S expertly twisted words and portrayed herself as the victim. And that wasn't all! S required MORE moral support!

So W brought down her group of friends to give her moral support. (Her group of friends are also the ones trying to guilt trip us) and God knows why this stupid dumb fuck, let's call her J is involved too. She has absolutely no connection to me and the 2 other girls. (Seriously, why are you joining side the fray for?)

Me and the 2 other girls talked about our point of view and shut S down for being such a fucktard. Apparently from what I heard, S's parents were very sad because the lecturer had said that it was S's fault. It was her personality fault for being timid and not courageous (I honestly have no idea who's timid and not courageous since she's able to twist stories and put so much MSG into her stories and tell so many people about it).

I don't feel guilty in the slightest really. I only feel bad for myself and the 2 other girls.

I feel bad for even allowing myself to know about S's very existence. Her very existence is a mistake and me knowing about her very existence is an error.

Honestly, fuck you S. (I hope that society trashes you so bad in life that you just fucking cry your guts out)

You have done nothing but made my anxiety hit the roof and made me bring out my bitch tactics. If I really want to, I can slowly fuck with you but your existence itself isn't that important to me. I'll let society deal with fucktards like you.