#AWS Bill Reduction

[goognu1]

5 ways How to reduce your AWS Bill

Goognu, a trusted provider of AWS Cloud consulting services, understands the importance of cost optimization in cloud environments. We recognize that managing your AWS bill effectively can significantly impact your organization's financial health. That's why we've compiled five key strategies to help you reduce your AWS bill and maximize your cost-efficiency. Read this blog to know more

[sirfrogsworth]

Denying a 25 year old bodily autonomy is not the argument they think it is.

And are you *sure* that is the reason doctors don't perform surgeries on 25 year olds?

ARE YOU SURE?

Is it possible this is less about possible regret and more about doctors valuing women more as incubators than people?

If people in severe chronic pain cannot get this operation then the reasons seem a little more complicated than just "you may regret this later."

Also...

Transgender genital surgeries before the age of 18 are so rare you can count them on your fingers and toes. Probably just fingers. The ones I found were special cases that involved a court battle.

This notion that these surgeries are common and spontaneous is ridiculous.

As far as my research has shown, there are no doctors currently doing these surgeries in the US before 18. There are very few that will even do mastectomies that young. Some will do them at 17 before the person goes to college so they can be mostly healed by the time they start in a new environment. Even then, there are maybe 300-500 mastectomies performed on minors each year—the vast majority aged 17.

That is compared to thousands of implants and reductions for cis minors. And whether or not you think that is wrong too, there are no bills in Congress to ban these procedures. The president isn't mentioning them in speeches. No one cares about this except as a response to trans issues. "Well, that's awful too!" is pretty much the extent anti-trans people have ever thought about cosmetic surgeries on cis minors. It quickly leaves the brain and gets filled back in with keeping trans kids from using pronouns in school or peeing in the wrong spot.

It should also be noted that gender affirming surgeries have one of the lowest regret rates of any surgery. Lower than back surgery, knee surgery, prostate removal, breast reconstruction.

Current estimate is a 1% regret rate.

[centrally-unplanned]

A bonus pre-election thought as I post my way through this week: there is one strain of Trump supporter I will call the "policy gamble Republican". They think Trump is a moron and a shitheel, and generally do not think Kamala Harris is worse in any way on things like character - they know all those arguments are bullshit. Instead, they are just coolly looking at the expected policy outcomes for each and think it comes out Trump.

They focus on markets and tend to be libertarian types - oh sure Trump says that he will do the tariff thing, but he won't, Republicans will back him off that ledge. And meanwhile Harris will continue to double down on the nanny state, and do "price controls", woke DEI stuff, etc. "Given the exponential returns of long-run GDP growth a 1.3% reduction in GDP today is worth approximately 200,000 babies in 2100" type stuff; the kind of people who argue Bush was Good, Actually, because PEPFAR saved more lives than the Iraq War killed.

And I do get this argument, I am mocking them affectionately here - there is valuable policy analysis to be done like this, it isn't a crazy instinct. Obviously to me, my first objection is just "the 5% or higher chance of authoritarian backsliding is not worth any of that", and I think that does carry the day. But there is a second point, which is that they treat the election itself as bloodless vis a vis the wider political currents. That if the Republicans win or the Democrats win that means one of them is in charge, but it won't change the underlying parties and they repeat next year.

I think they don't realize they are making this assumption since when you spell it out like that it comes off as quite naive. When Trump won in 2016 it broke both political parties in the US - the Republican party spiraled into nativist, anti-trade platforms, while the Democrats fought a huge culture war over things like whether America was Irredeemably Racist or if economic populism would carry the day. And as much as people tend to forget it today, losing in 2020 - and Trump's behavior afterward - got quite close to breaking his hold on the party. Honestly he got absurdly lucky, with Biden being such a deeply unpopular president and his challengers coalescing around Ron DeSantis who turned out to be incredibly mid.

It isn't predictable or formulaic ofc, but all of this is to say that Trump winning is very likely to consolidate and expand his hold on the Republican Party, which if you are a libertarian-esque market type is an awful outcome for you. Trump actively endorses anti-market populists for down-ballot elections! The "Free Trade Center" isn't gonna hold forever in the face of someone who keeps winning. And meanwhile his defeat will likely have a positive impact on making the Republican party saner. He is certainly an electoral liability for the cause if you want it to be empowered!

So yeah, independent of any policy bills or actions, elections themselves are important events that shape political culture. I would value that over a good number of specific reforms of this or that market regulation in any EV calculation.

Not the Jones Act though. Fuck the Jones Act.

[justinspoliticalcorner]

As President Joe Biden (D) wraps up his term today, his four years in office had successes and blunders. I was proud to have voted for this man in the 2020 general and the 2024 primaries. Regardless of where he ends up on the Presidential rankings, he was still a better President than his predecessor or successor. His successes were the fact he led the US out of the COVID pandemic, defended Ukraine from Russian aggression, secured infrastructure investments, got COVID-19 vaccines out to the American people, signed the Inflation Reduction Act, signed the CHIPS Act, signed the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, signed the American Rescue Plan, delivered a 3rd round of stimulus checks, put Ketanji Brown Jackson on SCOTUS, appointed a record number of judges, signing the PACT Act, expanded food assistance benefits, expanded the child tax credit that lasted for 6 months (and should have lasted longer if it weren’t for the Sinema-Manchin duo), joined striking UAW workers on the picket line by becoming the first sitting President to do so, signed the Respect For Marriage Act into law to protect against a potential Obergefell overturn, made Juneteenth a federal holiday, signed the Emmitt Till Anti-Lynching Act that makes lynching a federal hate crime, got the US out of Afghanistan (though the handling of it can be debated), got Sweden and Finland to join NATO, blocked Nippon Steel from buying US Steel, managed to get a ceasefire deal done (though it came too late), brought home Brittney Griner, Paul Whelan, and Evan Gershkovich from Russian prison in prisoner swaps, tried to solve the student loan debt crisis (although the right-wing activist judges keep denying him that), and signing a bill that makes the bald eagle America’s official bird. His failures were his constant enabling of Israel’s genocide of Gaza, signing a bill banning TikTok in which SCOTUS upheld in TikTok v. Garland, signing the 2025 NDAA that banned trans children of military soldiers on Tricare from getting gender-affirming care, failure to get voting rights and Roe codified into law (though Sinema and Manchin are to blame here), and perceptions of chaos at the US/Mexico Border which he tried to solve with a bipartisan border security bill that Trump complained and forced the GOP to scuttle it. During his tenure in office, like Barack Obama-- who he served under during his time as VP-- Biden was subjected to partisan faux investigations by House Republicans. On June 27th, 2024, the debate between him and former insurrection-inciting felon “President” Donald Trump (R) revealed what a lot of Americans knew about Biden: his decline in cognitive ability and why running for a 2nd term was a colossal mistake. That awful debate performance led to him ending his re-election bid on July 21st after weeks of hemming and hawing. As a result of Biden calling it quits in the race, Vice President Kamala Harris (D) moved up to the lead spot on the ticket. Harris later picked Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) to her running mate. On November 5th/6th, 2024, the Harris/Walz ticket lost to the Trump/Vance ticket in the election, and the Democratic ticket not only lost the Electoral College vote but also the popular vote for the first time since 2004. The result left the question of whether aspects of Biden’s legacy will hold up better or worse in the long run.  There were lots of reasons why the Harris/Walz ticket list, and the key reasons for that are as follows (and some of these were out of the control of the candidate):

Right-wing disinformation and misinformation being amplified on social media, such as the infamous Springfield pet-eating hoax and paranoia-induced QAnon/Pizzagate-tinged conspiracy theories about Hurricanes Helene and Milton, Lahaina wildfires, East Palestine train derailment, LGBTQ+/transgender issues (such as pushing the false “social contagion” myth, baselessly comparing gender-affirming care to “mutilation”, and comparing LGBTQ+ community members to “pedophiles” and “groomers”), COVID-19 (especially the promotion of discredited treatments such as ivermectin), and vaccines.

Normalization of anti-vaccine and anti-expertise sentiments.

Biden’s continued enabling of Israel’s genocide of Gaza.

Biden signing a bill banning TikTok, which ended up being costly to Democratic chances among young Americans.

Worldwide anti-incumbent backlash.

President Biden’s low job approval ratings, especially in the 2nd half of his term.

Inflation rate during most of Biden’s Presidency.

House mortgages and grocery prices rising in recent years.

The fact that a sizable amount of Americans were afraid of a woman leading the country, and a Black/South Asian biracial one at that.

Right-leaning and right-adjacent podcasts such as Joe Rogan, Theo Von, Nelk Boys, Shawn Ryan, and Charlie Kirk-- especially those geared to young males-- helped normalized Trump and his misogynistic ways to that crowd.

Right-leaning posts/videos getting more traction than left-leaning or neutral posts/videos on social media outlets, especially on Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly Twitter), and YouTube. This is despite the overheated claims of “censorship” of conservative content on social media.

In shortened form: conspiracy theories, Gaza genocide, disinformation and misinformation, TikTok ban bill, anti-incumbent sentiment, right-wing content dominating social media, President Biden’s low job approval ratings, and inflation were the key drivers for the 2024 losses for the Democrats. As for Harris, I really don’t blame her for the loss very much considering the circumstances that she was thrown in, as I believe that President Biden, cost of living increases, and worldwide anti-incumbent sentiments were the main reasons for her loss. Harris replacing Biden as the Dem nominee helped save the Democratic Party in the medium-to-long term, as she fought Trump to an almost draw in the Electoral College and Popular Vote, got the House to a manageable distance for the Democrats to retake in the 2026 midterms, and got the Senate to a doable chance to flip within the next two election cycles. Imagine if Biden was our nominee in 2024 instead? The Democrats would have fared far worse at the polls, causing them to lose even more states such as New Jersey, Maine’s two statewide ECVs, Nebraska-02, Virginia, New Hampshire, Minnesota, and New Mexico, and potentially put safe states like Illinois, Oregon, Colorado, Rhode Island, and New York in peril. They would have lost 15-30 more House seats and 5-7 more Senate seats, which would have quashed any chance of getting a majority for at least the rest of the decade.

Here is my take on Joe Biden's four years of being the President of the USA: President Biden had his successes and failures.

Key successes: - funding Ukraine. - got the US out of the COVID pandemic. - got COVID vaccines and boosters out to millions of Americans. - set a record on judicial confirmations. - made Juneteenth a federal holiday. - the first sitting president to join a strike.

Key failures: - enabling Israel's genocide of Gaza - signing the bill that got TikTok banned. - perception of chaos. - declining cognitive abilities.

See Also:

The JGibson Report: Joe Biden's four years as President: The good and the bad

[tomorrowusa]

Right now is the time to get involved in the defeat of America's most dangerous enemy since the Cold War.

The traditional election season, starting on Labor Day, is a thing of the distant political past. And considering the magnitude of the threat to democracy, even waiting for the end of the primary season may be too late.

The worst president in our history is, arguably, stronger within the leadership ranks of the Republican Party than he has ever been. He is now the most dangerous presidential candidate in U.S. history. As a consequence, the great question before the rest of us is whether enough of us are ready to do whatever is necessary to defeat this threat as we have all those that have come before. Sadly, there is reason to believe that this time we may not meet the challenge. Right now, Donald Trump is one of two people who could be our next president. The race, at the moment, between him and President Joe Biden, is too close to call.

The people with their heads up their ass over Biden's age are either hypocrites or dissemblers. On Inauguration Day 2025, Donald Trump will be 95.66% of Joe Biden's age. And Trump will also be older in January of 2025 than Biden was upon assuming office in 2021. Biden may have a lifelong stutter but he is still grounded in reality in a way the narcissistic nepo baby Donald Trump never was.

Joe Biden by any objective metric has been one of the most successful presidents in modern U.S. history. He has led the creation of more major legislative initiatives benefiting the American people than any president in 60 years. He oversaw the creation of more than 14 million jobs during his first three years in office. He has brought down inflation and reduced the prices of vital medicines to affordable levels. He has restored American leadership worldwide, expanded our vital alliances like NATO, and stood up to our enemies. All presidents face challenges and make missteps. But it is hard to deny that in the wake of the U.S. economic recovery, the passage of the American Rescue Plan, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, the CHIPs and Science Act, and the Inflation Reduction Act, the expansion of NATO, and the creation of new Indo-Pacific alliances, Biden’s record is formidable. That a president with this record is in a horse race with a candidate who is a menace to the country, who led an insurrection, who is a pathological liar whom courts have found to be a fraud and a rapist, and who has no real ideas, no credible policy proposals, no record of actually ever achieving anything for the American people is chilling.

In normal times, over 40% of US voters would NOT pick a notorious sex offender for president. But these are not normal times.

You would have thought that the sight of mobs carrying Trump flags and weapons and chanting for the death of Vice President Mike Pence on January 6, 2021, would have been alarm enough. You would have thought the same of Trump’s Access Hollywood tape, in which he confessed his impulse to abuse women. You would have thought the two dozen women who accused him of abuse would have had that effect. Even if none of those things were quite warning enough, you would have thought the findings in the E. Jean Carroll case would have been enough. After all, respected federal judge Lew Kaplan wrote, “The fact that Mr. Trump sexually abused—indeed, raped—Ms. Carroll has been conclusively established and is binding in this case.” It should have been enough. But so far, it has not been.

And who would have thought that the party of Ronald Reagan is now led by a stooge of the Evil Empire?

You would have thought that Trump reaching out on national television to our Russian adversaries for aid during the 2016 campaign would have been enough. You would have thought the conclusive findings of every major U.S. intelligence agency that Russia sought to aid Trump’s campaign would have been enough. You would have thought that Robert Mueller’s finding 10 instances of possible obstruction of justice by Trump would have been enough. You would have thought Trump kowtowing to Vladimir Putin and taking his word over that of our intelligence and law enforcement communities would have been enough. You would have thought his illegally withholding aid to Ukraine to seek dirt on Joe Biden would have been enough. You would have thought his impeachment for that would have been enough.

Are you willing to spend more time and money than in previous election cycles to end a major threat to Western democracy and to undermine homegrown fascism for at least the rest of this decade?

So, ask yourself, is that enough to make you do more than you have done? Is that enough to commit for the next 10 months to do more than you have ever done during an election year? To give more? To canvas more? To spread the word more? To help get voters to the polls? To ensure every member of your family, your friends, your co-workers do the same? The stakes are too high to do less than everything you can.

I rarely quote Margaret Thatcher and would probably disagree with at least 90% of her views. But she did know something about winning elections and combating the USSR. If she was good for just one thing, it's for this observation in a speech made in her retirement.

[N]o battles are ever finally won; you have to go on winning them by example and by being prepared to defend your way of life against those who would attack it.

If we learn just one thing from the Trump threat, it's that we can never rest on our past laurels. A slacker democracy is one which will not outlast a determined demagogue.

Civic involvement by pro-democracy citizens is absolutely necessary to maintain freedom.

[projecthipster]

Lost in Translation (2003)

"Couple of things. Taking a break from my wife, forgetting my son's birthday. And, uh, getting paid two million dollars to endorse a whiskey when I could be doing a play somewhere. But the good news is, the whiskey works.”

Quick, name the most hipster country!

The Netherlands, I heard someone say in the back row. For the bike infrastructure and urbanism. Very true, very good. Anyone else? The United States, a multifold country full of division no doubt, but also home to the very cities that originated the hipster. Quite fair. Denmark? Inventors of hygge? France, especially Paris? Why not.

There was a time we might have said Japan, and that time was 2003.

Here’s my theory. After WWII, both “The West” (a nebulous concept at best) and Japan both had to rebuild. North America chose economic force, industrialization, conformity, nose-to-the-grindstone work ethic, suburbanism, the detached house, the car, the white picket fence. Japan chose economic force, conformity, nose-to-the-grindstone work ethic, urbanism, the apartment, the high-speed train, the neon sign. In other words, enough similarity to work together economically while also dangling enough of a hook of alternative placemaking to temptingly make it look like an alternative to the mainstream. I think that might be why Murakami became popular with hipsters. I’ve talked about Murakami way back at the start of Project Hipster, before I was adding playlists and holding myself to a thousand-word minimum, and I will write about him again, in time. Over the 21st century so far I think the knowledge of Japan’s pretty oppressively conformist work culture has spread and killed that fetishistic fascination a bit. I mean, Japan’s still cool, I’d love to visit, but there’s definitely less of a “we ought to follow these Exotic Foreign Ways” than there was when we still called anime “Japanimation,” and when Sophia Copolla could make a movie just about sad white people hanging out in Tokyo.

Okay, so that’s reductive. And so was everything I wrote about America and Japan up there. Because if anticapitalist hipsters were fetishing Japan, at the same time, the Reaganite yuppies of America in the late century were chasing the economic powerhouse of Japan, and obviously hipsters ought to be against that. Can two dichotomies exist in an opposing dichotomy? What is that, a tetrachotomy? Or I guess it’s just the contradictory complexity of reality.

Case in point: Lost in Translation starts with a long, long shot of Scarlett Johansson’s butt. At first analysis we’d think, “ah, the males are gazing.” But of course the director is a woman, Sofia Coppola, of that first family of film that gave the world Megalopolis. Is she just trying to ape her male contemporaries? Or is this irony of the school of making the viewer look too long at what they think they want, making it painfully awkward and forcing us to question it? I can accept that. Johansson’s character is, throughout the movie, trying to break out of a sort of trophy-wife passive role. It’s a very passive movie in general, though, in a Japanese sort of way, so the breakout is subtle.

After the butt, as the shoegazey driving sound of Death in Vegas’s “Girls” comes in, we’re introduced to Bill Murray’s already sort of haggard face against a taxi window, playing Bob Harris, though at first he’s just eyes gazing wearily but in awe at the neon bombast of a Tokyo street. We mostly follow Bob for a while, a washed-out American movie star shooting whisky commercials abroad. Here we feel the gaze of the camera again, with uncomfortably– or perhaps comically– long scenes of Murray having to pose with a whisky glass according to convoluted but largely unclear instructions, the nuance of direction lost in transl… hey, that’s the name of the movie! His wife is practically estranged back home, faxing (faxing!) him for his opinions on ikea shelves. He wanders the hotel, looking out over the city lights, in slow, methodical moments. It’s all very Murakami again, down to the whisky and the enigmatic red-haired woman crooning “Scarborough Fair” in the rooftop bar. A lot of the miscommunication is funny, but more in a solemnly wry sort of way. The first time I watched Lost in Translation, Netflix listed it as a comedy, and I don’t think that’s quite right. But it’s not quite wrong. Murray does have his trademark moments of physical comedy, like getting stuck on an elliptical, but Ghostbusters this is not. Even that elliptical moment occurs in a wide and lingering shot of Bob exercising alone in front of windows looking out over the city, and there’s a touch of tragicomedy to it.

Meanwhile, fellow sad white wayfarer Charlotte (Johansson) wanders Tokyo, pulled between the solitude of tradition and the shallow showbiz self-help world of her kinda shitty music photographer husband (wait, hang on, is that the CEO from Avatar?)

He’s in a midlife crisis. She’s in a quarterlife. They meet in that rooftop bar, over those whiskeys, with that singer, looking over those lights, and the worlds collide. You’d think it’d be a romance from here on out, and it kind of is, but kind of not really. The age gap might be weird but it’s mostly just friendly and doesn’t go that far, though they flirt with the expectations. It’s more about connection among those alienated from the consuming international consumerist culture that surrounds them, and what’s more hipster than that?

Oh, yeah, and all this time they are both still married. There’s this godawful tweet that keeps resurfacing in ever-more-compressed screenshots like a sewer backup, that all adult literature is about sad people having affairs. Mostly that’s just utterly wrong. Sometimes it is true (I’m going to write about The Unbearable Lightness of Being soon enough here and you’d better believe it’s true in that case.) Here it almost is true. But even so, what does that structure of forbidden connection say about people? What’s in the details? It’s all in the details. And here, the slow, atmospheric, naturally neon-lit details, washed in a dream-pop soundscape, make the movie. I’m more fond of it now that I’ve written about it. That does seem to happen.

I give this hipster movie four rooftop whiskeys out of five.

Project Hipster is a futile and disorganized attempt to dive into the world of things that the internet has at some point claimed "are hipster," mostly through ListChallenges search results.

This review comes from the eighteenth list, Google's Ultimate List of Films For Hipsters.

Up next: a fairly short and easy book that I made myself struggle with for a particular linguistic reason.

Stay deck. Domo arigato.

[nitro-nova]

So it's the final day of the year.

2024 was a rather clutch year, for me, all things considered. I was much more able to manage my depressive bouts even better than in 2023, and certainly in 2022. New challenges emerged as a result of some major and positive life changes.

I'm more subscribed to the idea of "theming" my years, rather than trying to do a resolution. This year, I want to try to work on this one thing that has always held me back - pessimism. I had planned for the worst, and never planned for rewards. It tends to backfire, and that meant a general reduction in my ability to celebrate.

I uh, know what's coming in 2025. I know it's awful. It's still going to be the year with the theme of "Planning for Optimism." I need to see the life of making memories and progress, and abandon the life of mitigating damages.

Will I succeed? I don't know. That's why it's a theme and not a resolution. I want to be happier, I want a healthier body, and I want to spend more time making games and less time with maladaptive daydreaming or downward spirals or panicking about bills. Less fretting and zoning out, more time planning and executing.

It requires more diligence and volition. It's a challenge, and it's work. I want to make myself happier, and to keep myself alive.

Goodbye, 2024. You were rough, but you pulled off the boost in stability I needed, in the end. I will do what I can to make the best of it.

[skarsgardsnark]

Heyyyyyy

I watched Locked and I gave it 6.5 out of 10. Too gross for me. The things Bill did in that car... no too gross for me 🤢

But Bill was amazing in this. And I mean it. If you love plots full of redemption, reduction, love, hate, misery, revenge, bloody full of action, then go a head! This is for you!! Personally it was gross for me but I know you guys love bloody Bill. Ngl, this movie really showed me Bill is great at showing different emotions only thro his eyes! And Anthony... this man was soooooo fucking evil! It doesn't matter how awful Eddie is as a person, Anthony is the evil! Forget about Nosferatuz forget about any evil, any monster, any villain, noone is more evil than Anthony! One of his best roles so far! Lucky Bill got the chance to work with Anthony. I also had a meeting with David Yarovesky, the director, I listened to his speech at the theatre and honestly it burst me into tears, idk if it's cus of me being so sensitive or what but he was truly happy, by the bottom bottom bottom bottom of his heart that he could make this movie happen. Please if you don't even like this genre, just watch it for David, he truly deserves all the love and respect. The nicest person ever. So sweet and kind! Can't wait to meet him in NY again. Btw the premier is about to happen near Central Park, the place that The Crow premier was held at, it seems to be bigger than Boy Kills The World. I [think] Anthony will attend the premier but he won't do the Q/A. BTW it was a good experience. I'll probably give it a 10/10 for David and his kind heart and hard work also I love Anthony and Bill. Soooo yup 😄

Thanks for not including any spoilers in your review.

David seems like a fun and easy going so even if it doesn’t do good at the BO, I hope it does good with critics. The premier is getting closer and closer, on the 16th if I’m remembering correctly. Do you plan on asking him any questions at the Q&A?

[transmutationisms]

feel free not to answer this question, no worries if you can’t. but i thought id ask you because you have much more radical frameworks than reddit lol, i’m planning on seeking help with an ed that i have been and currently am engaging with, i’m actively engaging in unhealthy behaviors and i have no plans to stop honestly i just want to talk to someone as a step to getting closer to some form of recovery. how much can i honestly tell a licensed therapist (with ed experience) without being referred to an ed specialist or being institutionalized/put in different therapy/outpatient against my will? or basically how can i avoid anything happening besides like regular therapy sessions.. i don’t think i’m currently in any physical danger and i’m an adult, but i’m petrified of my parents (insurance providers) finding out about this and to have to go into like a specialized program would be awful for me. do you have any resources/advice/etc?

2 things:

1. you need to first determine what the laws are where you live. in some places it is possible to forcibly institutionalise an adult, sometimes with familial support and sometimes by clinician recommendation alone. you also want to check things like whether they can request a police 'wellness check' or whether they can put you on any type of temporary hold. any language in such laws about posing a danger to yourself basically means it's up to clinician judgment to decide what constitutes an actionable threat, so if you seek therapy in a jurisdiction with such laws, be careful and ask upfront in your very first session what the person's attitude is toward the use of such legal mechanisms. many clinicians still adhere to the guidance that harm reduction / non-recovery approaches to ED are only morally permissible in cases where a patient is over 30, has had AN for over a decade, and is medically stable. you may notice the first two criteria exclude many ED patients and the third involves clinician judgments. again you will want to ask upfront in your first session what any potential therapist thinks of treating an ED patient who is not prepared to seek full recovery right now. if a therapist is hesitant or weirded out by this, my advice is to dip.

2. regarding insurance and parents, this varies but where i live therapists have discretion when it comes to what they write on billing documents. for example it is fairly common practice to bill all insurance for "adjustment disorder" and then simply leave particularities between clinician and patient. what diagnosis your insurance company has on file simply depends on what your therapist writes down, so again, this would be something to ask about in your first session, keeping in mind this sort of paper protection only works so long as your therapist actually adheres to it. the other big caveat here is that your therapist's detailed notes on you are not legally protected in all cases. if things were to get legally ugly, for example if your parents found out about your ED and wanted to take medical charge of you in some way requiring court involvement, therapist notes absolutely could be discoverable and handed over. obviously i don't mean to scare you but you should be apprised of the situation.

again, check the laws in your jurisdiction, know what you're walking into, and keep in mind not all behaviours are equally likely to land you in hot water with a clinician (eg, many will respond more fearfully and forcefully to self-induced vomiting or laxative use, due to potential electrolyte issues, than they will to general self-starvation). best of luck to you <3

[prismatoxic]

looked at the notes on a political post bc I'm an idiot, so I'm ranting about US politics and anti-voters again

"if you vote for biden you don't care about the genocide in palestine" is such a wild take. like... I genuinely don't know what they think happens if we don't vote? if biden makes it to the presidential election, it's either him or the guy who will not only make the situation in palestine worse, but who will also strip rights from queer people, women, poc, and try to start a dictatorship.

like, are you voting in the primaries? are you trying to get a better dem representative on the ballot before november? or are you washing your hands of this situation, waiting for your Glorious Revolution?

these people so frequently not only have no idea what the biden administration has been doing, but will vehemently deny they've done anything without even looking into it. at this point I feel like the only thing I can assume about such people is that they're part of this year's psyop.

like your choices aren't "support palestine or don't". that is not what this election is about. your choices are between an administration that is funding israel but making progress on rights for oppressed classes, and an administration that will not only fund israel, but will enthusiastically support israel, strip queer people and poc and women of their rights, and actively move towards a dictatorship (project 2025). if you don't vote, the latter is that much more likely to win.

"biden supports the genocide!" sure, but trump will make it worse. he'll also reverse all the progress the biden admin has made (and they have made progress, you are being willfully ignorant) and try to make things harder for everyone who isn't a rich white cishet man. "if you vote biden, you don't care about palestine" falls apart when not voting for him will put palestine in more danger. it isn't all or nothing; it never has been.

people have said biden is using the only political move that is viable at this point, which is to fund israel in the hopes of gaining leverage to get them to stop. cutting russia off from the rest of the world made them self-sufficient and didn't stop what they were doing, after all; the other available options aren't better. idk how true that is, or what biden's plans are, but I do know politics fucking suck and there's only so much you can do about another country without starting a war. we do not want a war.

regardless, at the end of the day, not voting is performative at best and harmful at worst. none of these people have a plan; they'll just angrily post until the Glorious Revolution happens and the two-party system is toppled for good. or, y'know, they're just part of a psyop and they're eagerly hoping trump will win.

if you genuinely think trump will be no different from biden, you are yelling with your head buried in the sand. you are throwing your fellow oppressed people under the bus so you don't have to feel complicit with keeping the slightly less awful guy in charge. what's happening in palestine IS a genocide, and is IS abhorrent. but getting trump elected will only hurt palestinians more.

donate, buy esims, do your daily clicks, spread the word, and vote. and while you're at it, do some genuine research on american politics and the bills and laws the biden administration has passed. and perhaps also the things trump did while in office.

nothing is black and white, ESPECIALLY not politics. you have to pick the lesser of two evils in the name of harm reduction. things will not be rebuilt in a day; take whatever progress you can, rather than wait for it all to drop into your lap at once. that's just unrealistic.

you can care about palestine and oppressed americans at the same time. you can also worry about the damage a conservative presidency will do to other countries (as it always does). we cannot get everything we want out of this. we have to take whatever we can get, and reduce harm wherever we can, because the Glorious Revolution isn't coming.

[thepolyamorouspolymath]

ADD IT TO THE LIST OF THINGS JOE BIDEN HAS GOTTEN RIGHT!

Including but not limited to:

-steady jobs growth

-free vaccines

-student debt reduction (if less than we or he wanted)

-closing federal for profit prisons, and releasing or relocating prisons in under 2 years

- INFRASTRUCTURE for the first time since 1980

-Inflation reduction giving us the lowest Inflation in the Western World.

-partnering the Dept of Land Management with Native nations to be better stewards of public lands

-continuing to hold together aid for Ukraine to keep fighting and staying alive

-convincing China to open its strategic oil reserves to help Europe continue to support Ukraine, despite being tentative allies with Russia

-refusing new drilling permits for federal land bc despite the need for oil there were already 19k unused permits so he wasn't writing a blank ticket

-not once trying to interfere with his son's case in court or in Congress

-not once trying to interfere in the Jan 6 cases

-not once trying to interfere in Trump's cases... the DoJ is meant to be independent and he respects that and the rule of law even as he hates Trump and loves his son

- stimulus checks within the first 100 days to deliver a campaign promise abd bc it was needed.

-proactive partial payment of the child tax credit so parents got it as child care bills came instead of the end of the year (not sure why that program didn't become permanent)

Now, you can list things he's gotten wrong -- every President gets something wrong -- but anyone who says he hasn't done anything is simply wrong. He just hasn't played it to the press while doing it, bc a) he was busy actually governing and b) not making a thing about it meant the GOP didn't have to oppose it, and could quietly vote in support without voter pressure such as the 18 GOP senators who voted for infrastructure.

Otoh, ONE significant piece of legislation was passed while Trump was in office -- a fucking awful tax plan that wasn't even his, it was the congressional GOP tax plan. His policies were done by fiat -- executive order and rule changes bc even his own guys would support him with their words but not votes in Congress, and most of those fiat policies were struck down in court, most often by Republican judges.

 Our Nation has made tremendous progress in advancing the cause of equality for LGBTQI+ Americans, including in the military.  Despite their courage and great sacrifice, thousands of LGBTQI+ service members were forced out of the military because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.  Many of these patriotic Americans were subject to a court-martial.  While my Administration has taken meaningful action to remedy these problems, the impact of that historical injustice remains.  As Commander in Chief, I am committed to maintaining the finest fighting force in the world.  That means making sure that every member of our military feels safe and respected.

     Accordingly, acting pursuant to the grant of authority in Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution of the United States, I, Joseph R. Biden Jr., do hereby grant a full, complete, and unconditional pardon to persons convicted of unaggravated offenses based on consensual, private conduct with persons age 18 and older under former Article 125 of the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ), as previously codified at 10 U.S.C. 925, as well as attempts, conspiracies, and solicitations to commit such acts under Articles 80, 81, and 82, UCMJ, 10 U.S.C. 880, 881, 882.  This proclamation applies to convictions during the period from Article 125’s effective date of May 31, 1951, through the December 26, 2013, enactment of section 1707 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2014 (Public Law 113-66).

     The purpose of this proclamation is to pardon only offenses based on consensual, private conduct between individuals 18 and older that do not involve any aggravating factor, including:  

     (1)  conduct that would violate 10 U.S.C. 893a, prohibiting activities with military recruits or trainees by a person in a position of special trust;      (2)  conduct that was committed with an individual who was coerced or, because of status, might not have felt able to refuse consent;      (3)  conduct on the part of the applicant constituting fraternization under Article 134 of the UCMJ;      (4)  conduct committed with the spouse of another military member; or      (5)  any factors other than those listed above that were identified by the United States Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces in United States v. Marcum as being outside the scope of Lawrence v. Texas as applied in the military context, 60 M.J. 198, 207–08 (2004).

     The Military Departments (Army, Navy, or Air Force), or in the case of the Coast Guard, the Department of Homeland Security, in conjunction with the Department of Justice, shall provide information about and publicize application procedures for certificates of pardon.  An applicant for a certificate of pardon under this proclamation is to submit an application to the Military Department (Army, Navy, or Air Force) that conducted the court-martial or, in the case of a Coast Guard court-martial, to the Department of Homeland Security.  If the relevant Department determines that the applicant satisfies the criteria under this proclamation, following a review of relevant military justice records, the Department shall submit that determination to the Attorney General, acting through the Pardon Attorney, who shall then issue a certificate of pardon along with information on the process to apply for an upgrade of military discharge.  My Administration strongly encourages veterans who receive a certificate of pardon to apply for an upgrade of military discharge.  

     Although the pardon under this proclamation applies only to the convictions described above, there are other LGBTQI+ individuals who served our Nation and were convicted of other crimes because of their sexual orientation or gender identity.  It is the policy of my Administration to expeditiously consider and to make final pardon determinations with respect to such individuals.

     IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-sixth day of June, in the year of our Lord two thousand twenty-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and forty-eighth.                              JOSEPH R. BIDEN JR.

[ludoonline]

Cloud Cost Optimization: Smart Strategies to Reduce Spending Without Compromising Performance

As cloud adoption continues to grow, organizations are reaping the benefits of scalability, flexibility, and on-demand access to computing resources. However, with this growth comes a common challenge—escalating cloud costs. Businesses often find themselves over-provisioning resources, underutilizing services, or struggling with surprise billing, all of which directly impact the bottom line.

At Salzen Cloud, we help organizations implement cost optimization strategies that maintain performance while ensuring every dollar spent delivers value.

Why Cloud Costs Spiral Out of Control

Cloud platforms like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud offer hundreds of services with countless configuration options. Without clear cost management practices in place, it’s easy to:

Leave unused or idle resources running

Overestimate capacity needs

Use expensive storage tiers unnecessarily

Miss opportunities for reserved instances or discounts

As environments scale, so do the risks of waste—especially in multi-team or multi-cloud setups.

Principles of Effective Cloud Cost Optimization

To control and reduce cloud spending without affecting performance, organizations must follow three core principles:

Visibility – Know what you’re using, where, and how much it costs.

Accountability – Assign ownership of resources to teams or services.

Efficiency – Continuously improve resource usage, eliminate waste, and right-size deployments.

Proven Strategies for Cloud Cost Optimization

Here are key cost-saving tactics that Salzen Cloud helps clients adopt:

🔍 1. Enable Detailed Cost Monitoring and Alerts

Use tools like AWS Cost Explorer, Azure Cost Management, or third-party solutions like CloudHealth and Spot.io to track spending by service, team, or region. Set up alerts for budget thresholds to prevent surprise charges.

⚙️ 2. Right-Size Your Resources

Often, cloud instances are over-provisioned “just in case.” Regularly review and adjust virtual machines, storage sizes, and compute capacity based on actual utilization using built-in recommendations from your cloud provider.

🌐 3. Leverage Auto-Scaling and Spot Instances

Set up auto-scaling groups to automatically adjust resources based on traffic. For non-critical workloads, use spot or preemptible instances, which offer significant savings—up to 90%—compared to on-demand pricing.

💾 4. Optimize Storage Costs

Move infrequently accessed data to lower-cost storage tiers (e.g., S3 Glacier, Azure Cool Blob Storage). Delete outdated backups or unused volumes. Implement lifecycle policies to automate storage management.

📅 5. Use Reserved Instances and Savings Plans

For predictable workloads, commit to long-term usage through Reserved Instances (RIs) or Savings Plans to enjoy up to 75% cost reductions compared to on-demand pricing.

🧠 6. Implement FinOps Culture Across Teams

Cost optimization isn't just a task for IT—make it a shared responsibility. Adopt FinOps principles by encouraging collaboration between finance, engineering, and operations to make data-driven spending decisions.

🔁 7. Automate Cleanup of Unused Resources

Use scripts or policies to regularly clean up unused resources like:

Stale snapshots and old AMIs

Idle load balancers

Detached volumes

Unused IP addresses

Automation ensures you're not paying for resources you don’t use.

Salzen Cloud’s Approach to Cost Optimization

At Salzen Cloud, our experts help you take a strategic approach to cost control without sacrificing cloud capabilities. We offer:

Detailed cost audits and recommendations

Implementation of monitoring and auto-scaling tools

Infrastructure as Code (IaC) templates for consistent and efficient provisioning

Automation pipelines for cleanup and resource scheduling

Training and policy development to embed cost-awareness into your DevOps workflows

Final Thoughts

Cloud cost optimization is not a one-time event—it’s an ongoing process of visibility, accountability, and continuous improvement. With the right tools, strategies, and cultural mindset, your organization can maximize ROI while maintaining performance, reliability, and innovation.

Salzen Cloud empowers businesses to gain full control over their cloud expenses and grow with confidence. Ready to reduce costs without compromise? Let’s optimize your cloud together.

[ryanthedemiboy]

According to this Taylor Swift isn't even in the top 30 of celebrities https://thetab.com/uk/2024/02/08/these-celebs-had-the-top-private-jet-emissions-in-the-last-year-and-its-not-taylor-swift-351393

Top 10:

Celine Dion

Kylie Jenner

Tyler Perry

Steven Spielberg

Bill Gates

Beyoncée and Jay-Z

Elon Musk

Kim Kardashian

Travis Scott

And while some of these aren't surprising, are you going to tell me none of these celebrities have ever talked about trying to make a difference with climate change?

Or are you just looking for a reason to hate someone?

For reference, in 2022, she was the top spot. At least she was 8 months in, this doesn't go past August 2022. https://time.com/6208632/celebrities-climate-impact-private-jets-yachts/

By all means, call her out. But don't claim it's why she's awful, why she should die, etc., etc.

We have bigger fish to fry. However, if this is a hill you want to die on (which is a perfectly fine hill tbh), then start talking about other celebs who use a shitton of energy.

Here's a fancy pie chart from Our World in Data. According to this, aviation makes up less than 2%.

I'm assuming you also speak out against oil use and drilling, and coal use and mining, and many other types of mining, as well as support cheap public transport to get more cars off the roads.

As well as a reduction in plastics, of course.

*grabs both your hands in gesture of sincerity*

Don't let this die. Taylor Swift is the Pollution Queen now. We need meme edits with her photoshopped onto backgrounds of wildfire-ravaged landscapes and oil refineries chugging out black smoke.

Photo of smudgy black eye shadow? That's THE Taylor Swift-inspired look now, it represents fossil fuels.

We need parodies of Taylor Swift songs about pollution and killing polar bears.

Give her representatives a full-time job for the rest of their lives defending her from the phrase "Pollution Queen." Make this meme a the figurehead of an entire fleet of other celebrity-terrorizing memes.

"But this doesn't dismantle the system that—" Shut. Don't care. Isn't it great that such a huge portion of environmental damage is being done by human individuals with egos, whose feelings can be hurt when people are mean?

Money can save you from physical harm, but can it save you from looking ridiculous?

[enterprisereview]

How New Business Models are Disrupting the Industry – Telecom as a Service

The traditional models of the telecom industry date back over a hundred years, with ownership of infrastructure, long-term service contracts associated with that infrastructure, and centralized operations. All that is changing, however. New business models are disrupting the development, delivery, and consumption of telecom services. Perhaps the most telling is the Telecom as a Service (TaaS) model, in that it changes how companies within the telecoms sector operate and, indeed, interact with their customers. This model gives businesses flexibility and cost-effectiveness while keeping the customer at the forefront, and it raises many questions about the common dynamics of most industries. What is Telecom as a Service (TaaS)?

Telecom as a Service is a new service offering model which offers telecom services more scalably and agile than was traditionally envisioned. Replacing the classic fixed, long-term contracts customers are used to for specific service needs, TaaS represents an offering where businesses subscribe to telecom services in a much more modular and on-demand form. That would mean businesses would be allowed to use the same quality of communication infrastructure and services but without any front-end capital investment and long-term commitments typically involved. Better still, this system will place more control of the cost of services directly in the hands of large organizations. There is no upfront cost incurred by the company with infrastructure since services can be sourced from companies tailored to specific needs. For instance, a firm that experiences periodic hikes and dips in the usage of bandwidth can easily alter its service level monthly, paying only for the resources it would use.

This also helps the flexibility of customer care along with contract management. Toodles at not-so-flexible contracts with awful exit clauses. In a TaaS setting, contracts are rather shorter in size, and the providers offer well-designed platforms for account management, billing, and service levels. So this lends businesses more power as well as autonomy in their telecom dealings. Virtualization and Cloud Solutions

Virtualization stands as another much more significant technology backing Telecom as a Service. All of the older telecom models were basically based on physical infrastructure and networks. However, with virtualization, TaaS providers developed SDN and NFV, which are concepts that work in the direction of enabling internet-based delivery of telecom services rather than on physical hardware. Role of Artificial Intelligence and Automation

Another region where new business models are disorganizing the telecom industry includes related regions in terms of artificial intelligence and automation. These are introduced into the telecom services for efficiency, cost-effectiveness, and friendliness.

For example, with AI-based chatbots, virtual assistants are applied more and more to deal with all sorts of queries and requests regarding support from customers. Such systems can easily find and solve issues instantly; therefore, the scope of human agents to more complex issues is only limited. Network optimization using AI enables telcos to identify and solve any potential problems before these hit customers. On the other hand, automated tools offer faster service provisioning and real-time monitoring of network performance, reductions in the frequency of disruptions and faster resolutions within the businesses.

Read More: https://enterprisereview.com/how-new-business-models-are-disrupting-the-industry-telecom-as-a-service/

Source: https://enterprisereview.com/

NewBusinessModels #Telecom #GlobalMediaOrganization #Globalbusinesmagazine #BusinessEMagazine #BusinessMagazineGlobal #TopBusinessMagazine

[cloudnito]

Top Free Cloud Cost Management Software to Keep Your Spending in Check

Managing cloud expenses can be daunting, especially when budgets are tight. Fortunately, several free cloud cost management tools can help you keep your spending under control without breaking the bank. Here’s a roundup of the best free options available:

AWS Cost Explorer AWS Cost Explorer offers a range of cost management features at no additional cost. It provides detailed insights into your AWS usage and spending, allowing you to analyze cost trends and identify potential savings. With its user-friendly interface, you can quickly generate reports and set up custom filters to track your costs.

Azure Cost Management + Billing Azure’s native Cost Management + Billing tool is a robust solution for tracking and managing your Azure cloud expenses. It includes features like cost analysis, budget tracking, and spending recommendations. The tool’s comprehensive dashboard helps you monitor and optimize your Azure usage effectively.

Google Cloud Platform Cost Management Google Cloud Platform (GCP) offers cost management tools that are both powerful and free. The GCP Cost Management suite includes budget creation, cost forecasting, and detailed reporting features. It helps you understand your spending patterns and adjust your usage accordingly.

Cloudnito’s Free Cloud Cost Optimization Tool Cloudnito offers a free version of its cloud cost optimization tool, which includes essential features such as usage analytics and cost-saving recommendations. This tool helps you gain insights into your cloud expenditures and provides actionable advice to optimize costs.

CloudHealth by VMware Free Tier CloudHealth offers a free tier with basic cost management features, including cost visibility and reporting. While not as feature-rich as the premium version, it provides valuable insights into your cloud spending and helps you identify areas for cost reduction.

These free tools are excellent starting points for managing and optimizing your cloud expenses, providing valuable insights without the need for a significant investment.

[covalensedigitalsblog]

Singapore MVNO Sees Major Reduction in Recovery Time with Covalensedigital

Covalensedigital designed a solution architecture hosted on the AWS Cloud platform.

As part of this solution, we ensured the synchronization of charging data, achieving zero data loss while seamlessly integrating billing and pricing data into the database.

This setup provides a smooth monitoring experience and simplifies business operations through efficient deployments.