#THERE'S ACTUAL ORGS THAT NEED YOUR ASSISTANCE

[knaveofmogadore]

Anera is an org that's currently assembling and donating menstrual hygiene kits in Gaza via UNICEF and on the ground volunteers. They're up to 20 thousand kits, but could do more. Their biggest road blocks are that aid shipments get stalled at the border for weeks at a time, and that people in Gaza don't have guaranteed access to hygiene facilities. They have verified financial records and proof of assistance going back to 1972

They could use a little help right now, they're low on supplies. Donation link at the top of the article

[why-animals-do-the-thing]

If you don’t mind sharing, since you don’t work for a zoo what is your job situation like? Making a living while working at a definitely zoo seems tricky. Is your main income zoology/animal related or is that more of a side thing?

Sincerely,

- a curious zoology student

I have a (mostly) unrelated jobjob - I’ve never actually been affiliated with a single facility, unless you count college internships before I started this blog. I freelance, working as a science media fact-checker and taking paid research contracts occasionally. I do work on a lot of animal / biology related fact-check content, but it’s not my entire scope of work. I also have the privilege of having family assistance, as I have chronic health issues that interfere with the normative 9-5 grind.

Everything I do in terms of blog writing/research, zoo industry research and publication, and photography is unpaid and pretty much a hobby at this point.

Prior to the pandemic I was trying to find funding for the intra-industry research and public-facing outreach I was doing, but there was never any money for it. (The industry is very used to expecting labor from young women for free. There was and is a lot of interest in the work I do, but the number of people/orgs that have ever provided compensation or financial support is in the single digits). The pandemic actually gave me the chance to pivot to focusing on professional fact-checking.

The only funding I get for any of this work is through a somewhat defunct Patreon I set up years ago when I was trying to make this blog / scicomm a full time gig. I’m terrible at updating it, and I’m conflicted enough about that to have been considering deleting it entirely. (For those of you who have stuck it out despite the radio silence, you’re incredible. You’ve facilitated the donation of my time to write a really cool paper with a zoo disaster response org, which will hopefully get through peer review soon).

To make something like this blog and everything else I do in the field actually financially sustainable, I’d need to fundraise and market more. The thing about a fact-checking career, though, is that it’s reinforced the need to make sure everything I write/say publicly is completely and 100% correct - because that level of rigor is what supports my professional reputation! Which means I’m slow to produce research and reticent to talk about it before it’s finished. My work comes out all the better for it, but it doesn’t fit into a content model that produces revenue.

So yeah, all of this is a side thing that I fit in around my paid work and my health. Because sometimes I just need to go see a tiger and smell an elephant, y’know?

[doberbutts]

Hi, I've been following for a while and have seen a lot of your posts that mention systemic barriers that transmascs face, among them being blocked from reproductive health care due to their documentation being filed as male. This concerned me a lot, so when I spoke to someone at my trans healthcare clinic recently to obtain assistance with legal name & gender change, I brought it up as a reason I was considering a change from F to N instead of F to M.

The case worker I spoke to told me that for pretty much all the major insurance companies now, the systems have been updated with codes to allow providers to flag a patient's file as essentially "this person has a uterus and needs associated care." Which enables them to access the reproductive care they need regardless of their gender marker. He specifically said that there can be cases of human obstruction, where the insurance representative/their manager decides to cause problems and block access, but the electronic system itself is no longer a barrier.

Further, for incidents where it's a person being bigoted, there are legal protections (on the federal level, according to my case worker) that allow the clinic to essentially threaten the insurance company into behaving itself, using the assistance of local legal aid orgs.

Obviously in certain states those legal protections may be compromised, and if someone doesn't have access to a clinic that will go to bat for them OR the legal aid needed to follow through, that would still be a barrier. But it's not absolute in all places.

So since it was a concern for me in my transition decision making, I figure it could be for someone else too - and I wanted to ask if you could possibly post this so other people could see it. That way, if someone else has seen those posts about reproductive healthcare access, they don't assume that they would be barred from legal transition on that basis. I don't want to undermine the completely valid points of the original posts with a "WELL ACTUALLY this doesn't happen everywhere" reply, and I also feel it's important for other transmascs seeking legal transition to have access to the same information I do - knowledge is power. My own blog has negligible reach, or I would simply post this myself.

If you don't feel comfortable with that, though, I completely understand. Thank you for your time.

See, you say that, but then when talking to my endo about this exact topic, she told me she had a couple people (both MtF and FtM) who were stuck in this exact legal and insurance loophole. I am in a sanctuary state going to one of the best gender clinics within my sanctuary state. So... no, I really don't trust it.

[knightobreath]

Want to help in the war against youtube's anti-adblock?

Well, you can!

Below is copy pasted directly from this comment by uBlock Origin dev u/eipi1_0:

"Actually I personally have never considered the anti-adblock "game" is a winning game for uBO. Websites are always the active ones because they are the ones who deliver the contents to users. uBO is just an extension, it cannot change websites' owners anti-user behaviors.

The only ones that can/should affect the websites are the users. Everyone can let the websites know that their actions are doing harm to the users by giving feedbacks/criticisms to them.

For example, in YouTube case, everyone can write feedbacks/criticisms directly to them that they are violating severely the ethics principle written by World Wide Web Consortium:

2.12 People should be able to render web content as they want People must be able to change web pages according to their needs. For example, people should be able to install style sheets, assistive browser extensions, and blockers of unwanted content or scripts or auto-played videos. We will build features and write specifications that respect peoples' agency, and will create user agents to represent those preferences on the web user's behalf.

in which they are a member of: https://www.w3.org/membership/list/?initial=g&ecosystem=

Google's mission is to organize the world’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.

Criticize them how the ads affect badly to the users. Ask them if they really respect Web Standards or not, and forcing users to not able to block malicious connections is totally unethical.

More people/users unite to oppose corporations, the better. Don't just rely on a tool and let companies control what should be run on your own device.

How to send feedbacks on youtube page: https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/4347644 (click on profile picture -> Send feedback)"

[boxoftheskyking]

So you might want to buy a house

DISCLAIMER: all of this is based on my own experience, and I am in no way a real estate professional. This is just some stuff that I’ve learned and some steps that I wish I’d known more about in advance, in hopes that it might be helpful for some people. I might get some terminology wrong, or make mistakes, but hopefully the general info is at least kind of helpful

ABOUT ME: because real estate stuff is specific. I am 33, single, employed, and live in a city in Minnesota, USA. This is my first home purchase, so most of this is specific to being a first-time buyer. I’ve been renting in this area for 15 years. I closed on my house in August 2023.

NOTE: The real estate market is super weird, and varies hugely from region to region, neighborhood to neighborhood, and week to week. What shook out for me will not be what shakes out for you.

This is SO LONG, so it’s under a cut, and I hope you will take it with the good faith in was intended!

Where do I start?

So you want to get started but want to talk things over first. This is a good idea! Even if you have friends and family who have bought before, it’s nice to talk to official type people where you can ask any and every question and know they’ve heard way dumber questions than you could ever come up with over the course of their career.

Employee Assistance Program -If you work a job that has benefits, you might have what’s called an Employee Assistance Program (EAP). Some companies get it along with their health insurance as kind of a bundle, but a lot of people don’t talk about it or know about it. -EAPs are all different, they’re basically a resource hub that you might have access to if your employer covers it. Some things they offer are limited therapy/counseling sessions (usually around a specific need like a breakup/death/life transition), consultation about adoption, personal financial advising, and consultation on housing and buying property. -I used my EAP to find a bunch of organizations that work to support first-time home buyers. The one I went with, NeighborWorks Home Partners, is specific to my area, but there were other options listed. -I didn’t actually talk to anyone related to the EAP, I just logged in to a site that had a bunch of links. But I could have talked to someone if I wanted -If you work a job and have benefits like health insurance, retirement, dental, etc it’s worth asking whoever does your benefits (and HR person, general manager, office manager, etc) if there is an EAP. Again, a lot of people don’t really talk about it.

Homebuyer Education -There’s a bunch of different organizations that provide homebuyer education. I didn’t know many of the details about homebuying, and it’s super confusing and anxiety-inducing, so I found it helpful -There’s a few ways to do this—I did both a one-on-one consultation and an online class -The one-on-one consultation was free from the org I chose. We talked on Zoom and went over monthly budgets (which I didn’t really need to do, I make budgets for a living lolllll), a soft credit pull (will talk more about this below) and talk about what goes into a credit score, and all the different expenses that go into a house and what that might look like. At the end of the day, it gave me the first sense of what my budget for a house might be.  -They did a soft credit pull (see below), which gave me a sense of my credit. It was more accurate than a thing like Credit Karma or my bank. -One note about the consultation - my down payment assistance program (will talk more about this later) required me to redo it, because I did it over a year before closing. So depending on your programs you might need to pay attention to the timeline. I also got a certificate saying I did it that I submitted to my assistance program. (Redoing it meant like a 10 minute call where the guy just helped talk me through my closing documents) -It cost me $75 to take an online class that took a few hours. It was in 8 parts and included watching some videos, reading some short articles, and then taking quizzes. You had to get 80% right to pass, and you can redo it if you need to. It went over most of the things to know and had links to read more. I also got a certificate for that to submit, and it didn’t matter how much time had passed for my assistance program. 

Credit -I’m not going to explain everything about credit, because it is complicated -A soft credit pull is when they check the three major credit reporting agencies to get a general sense of your score. It’s not 100% accurate. -A hard credit pull is what lenders will do when you actually go in for a preapproval (more below). It will be the most accurate. A hard credit pull will have an affect on your credit score, so if you’re ever doing something that involves a hard credit pull, it’s best to do all of that within a month so that it only really hits once. -There are 3 credit reporting agencies, and your score will be different from each one. Why? no idea. They all have a different maximum number that your score can be. Why? again, no idea. It’s around 850 though. -Generally things get easier to do if your score is above 680ish. It’s not like you can’t get a house with a lower score, but sometimes there are other hoops to jump through. -I’m not very useful when it comes to buying a house with low credit, but I bet there are people who are!  -You build credit by owing money and paying it regularly. It’s annoying and dumb, but it’s the way it is. Paying rent on time builds your credit, having a credit card that you pay off every month builds credit, paying utility bills that are in your name builds credit. (Note: This stuff has to be in your name for it to count, so if you pay your roommate every month for the electric bill and it’s in their name, it won’t count. So if you’re in that situation, you may want to put something in your name like a card to build your score). Paying off a car or phone or student loan also helps. -I have really good credit, and I’m neither rich nor special. I just set everything to autopay, including my credit card bill. I use my credit card for most things that I just shop for in the world like groceries, etc, and then I have all my bills autopay from my checking account. How did people do this shit before autopay? I have no idea.

Mortgage vs. Rent -The benefit of paying a mortgage vs rent is that you’re building equity if you pay into a mortgage. This is a surprise tool that will help you later. Which means that if you are in a situation where you need money, you can borrow from what you’ve paid into your mortgage. So like if you get very sick or have a kid going to school or want to throw a big party, you could get a loan based on your equity -Equity is confusing, don’t ask me about it -For me, I pay a bit more per month than I did in rent at my last place. BUT mostly that’s because I’d been living in the same place for many years and my rent hadn’t gone up that much. One of the first things I did when considering buying is look at how much it would cost to rent a house like the kind I would want to buy. And those rents are over what I ended up paying monthly to my mortgage. -Keep in mind that you will be taking on some extra expenses that you don’t have as a renter (like maintenance, repairs, etc). Note: if you’re buying a condo, that’s different. I don’t know shit about that. -So for me, paying my landlord every month for him to occasionally (half-assedly) fix stuff (on his schedule, where he decides who to hire or how to do the work, where he is a stranger in my space for the duration) was not as appealing as me paying the bank every month so I can have some equity  -The first 6 months of owning a house feels like hemorrhaging money out of every orifice, but the majority of these expenses are one-time or rarely-reoccurring things. But I didn’t quite prepare for this the way I wish I had, so when you’re thinking about building your savings to buy a house, you’ll want to consider things like furniture, small repairs, pest control, duct cleaning, gutter cleaning, many many visits to a hardware store, realizing some of your stuff doesn’t fit the way it did in the old place and you have to get new things.... etc. 

The Money Stuff

Lenders -It might be appealing to start by looking at properties, but especially in a hot market that’s not what you want to do first -The first thing to do is to look at lenders! Lenders are basically the institutions that give you the loan to buy your house, and the ones you will be paying monthly for the 30 years of your loan (or until you sell) (or die I guess) -I talked to like 13 lenders, because I love an excuse not to move forward on scary things, so I just do research and research and research until I run out of steam. So i don’t necessarily recommend doing that. But you definitely want to talk to at least a few. -Lenders can be banks (like Bank of American, US Bank, Wells Fargo, etc), credit unions (like Affinity, RCU, etc), or smaller mortgage companies. -You can also talk to mortgage brokers, which are companies that have agreements with different banks or companies and can shop around on your behalf. -I got my list of people to talk to from: my consultation (above), friends who had bought/were buying, friends who like their bank/credit unions for other things -You’ll have a specific person you’re working with, so who that person is matters. -Things you’ll want to ask about 1. How is their communication? How big is your team? If you see a house on a Saturday and they need offers by Sunday afternoon, how likely is it that they will get your preapproval letter ready in time?  2. Are they good at explaining things to you? Do they work with first-time homebuyers a lot? Do you feel dumb talking to them? Are they mortgage nerds and genuinely seem like they care about finding you good deals and cool programs? 3. What are their interest rates at the moment? Know that this will change between now and the time you have the option to lock in, so don’t put too too much weight on this 4. Most importantly: What assistance programs do they have access to? Everyone has different ones, which we’ll talk about below. Don’t assume that because a bank is huge that they have a ton of assistance. Some small places have really great programs. Likewise, some of the banks that are more well-known for big ticket mortgages (like Jumbo loans for mansions, etc) actually have crazy good programs for low-income and first-time home buyers, because they need to show that they also work for the little guy -I ended up going with a small local mortgage company because they had a kickass program ($10,000 in down payment assistance that is forgivable in 5 years. So as long as I don’t sell my house in 5 years, I don’t have to pay that back). -You may be tempted to solely base your decision on who to get a mortgage from on the politics of the lending institution. This is a lovely instinct. HOWEVER, your mortgage can be sold to anyone at any time. Within a month of moving in, my mortgage was sold to Freddie Mac. I still pay the credit union that is the servicer of my loan, but it all goes back to the big guy in the end. So basically you have no control of where your money ends up. (or maybe you do somehow, ask someone else about that) -At the end of the day, you should apply to like 2-4 different lenders. Once you fill out your application, they’ll do a hard credit pull and look at all your income, bank accounts, etc, and they’ll pre-approve you for a certain amount of money. -This is really where you’ll get your house-hunting budget. There can be a pretty big range in what you’re approved for! One lender approved me for $220K (”maybe $225K” they said). Another approved me for $280K. You’ll want to pick a lender based on all the above information, along with the amount you’re approved for. Being approved for $280K doesn’t mean that’s what you should spend (you can, but I don’t recommend it), but it does mean that your budget can be more like $250K, compared for $225K. You’ll want to look around at your area to see what’s reasonable for you.

Downpayment Assistance -for a lot of first-time buyers, the downpayment (and closing costs) is the thing that’s standing between you and being a homeowner. So that’s what a lot of organizations focus on -The more you put down (i.e. pay right off the bat), the lower your loan will be, and therefore the less your monthly payment will be. So it’s worth it to try and pay down as much as possible -(Likewise, if you buy and house and then get a windfall and are like What do I do with all this cash, paying down your mortgage will save you money) -This is because you pay MORE in interest than you pay for your house, so the less your loan is, the less you’re paying in interest. If you find a way to pay off your loan early, you end up paying less interest! And you win against the bank! If you get a raise and are able to put even like an extra $100 towards your mortgage each month, that can cut years off your loan and build your equity more quickly, thereby cutting down on the interest you end up paying. So unlike paying more money to a landlord who will eat it with a spoon, maybe more in your mortgage early is helpful for you. -Lots of downpayment assistance (hereinafter DPA) is stackable! So you can qualify for multiple programs and use them all -Many have an income requirement (for one of mine, I need to make 80% of the median income in my area or less). -Many are location specific. Some of those you can look up in advance and try to focus on properties in those areas. Some are super super specific, like this block only, or these specific addresses. That’s true for one of my programs—whenever I was considering making an offer on a house, I’d email my lender and she’d tell me if that specific address counts for the assistance program -At the end of the day, I got $30K in assistance. $10K of that is forgivable in 5 years (so I don’t have to pay it back unless I sell in that time). The other $20K is from two separate no-interest loans. This means that if I sell the house, I have to pay back that amount. Ideally by that time I’ll have enough equity in my house that will cover that. -Interest rates are super high right now, so if you’re buying now you want to think about refinancing. Refinancing is basically when you negotiate a new deal with your lender. There are fees and things (I’ve never done it so IDK), but the benefit of doing that is getting a lower interest rate. So my rate is 6.25%, and in 5 years if the rate goes down to like 2.3% I may want to refinance so I’ll be paying less in interest over the course of my loan. -If you’re getting DPA that’s a loan, you will want to ask what happens when you refinance. They’ll probably tell you either you have to pay it back when you refinance (so don’t get stuck in that situation if you don’t have that $$$ on hand) or they’ll say it’ll be subordinated -this took me like weeks to get a straight answer on wtf is subordination. Basically, you pay your loans off in order, right, so you pay your mortgage and then after that you pay off your DPA loans. So if you refinance, then your mortgage ends up being “newer” I guess. So in order to put the mortgage back “on top” of the pile to pay off, so to speak, you pay that (and it’s interest) first, the DPA loans get shoved down underneath the mortgage on the list. 

Interest Rates -You can’t control interest rates. Honestly markets are so volatile and the world is so close to ending, I would say it’s not worth waiting for them to go down. Maybe they will, maybe they won’t. No one fuckin knows -So many global, political, circumstantial things affect these, and who knows what might happen. My friends happened to be closing during the time the debt ceiling almost freaked out, which was outside of their control, so they got screwed with a super high rate.  -After you get an offer accepted and you’re working on setting up your loan, you’ll usually get the offer to “lock in” an interest rate. Basically, if you have reason to believe rates will go down before you close, don’t do it. if you think they’ll go up, then do it. Who fuckin knows. I did it bc I didn’t think it was likely stuff would go down. And I haven’t looked it up bc if they did I don’t want to know -There are more complicated things you can do with interest rates, like “floating down” and APRs and other shit. Don’t ask me about them, I do not know.

Looking for houses

Realtors -Who your realtor is MATTERS y’all. Here is what a realtor will do: 1. Give you access to a Super Awesome online listing of properties (much better than Zillow! Updates constantly). They will set your search filters based on what you specifically want and your specific budget. That includes size, amenities, location, school district, garage, yard, etc etc 2. Arrange showings for you. Sometimes you might want to go to open houses, but you don’t have to wait for those to see a house. You tell your realtor what you’re interested in and they can set up a time for just you and them to see the place 3. Access houses with funky lil lockboxes. Heist teams should include realtors—I’ve seen my guy get into the weirdest of devices in no time 4. Recommend places to you 5. Talk on your behalf with the seller’s agents or the sellers themselves 6. Take you all the way through your offers, acceptance, all the way to closing (basically, most of the rest of this post) -I am really lucky that a friend of mine is one of the best realtors in town (in my humble opinon). It really worked out for me, because when it came to negotiating price and terms with sellers and their agents, people already respected him and his expertise because he was a known fixture in the field. I’m not saying that an early-career or unknown realtor is bad, but reputation can do a lot of heavy lifting for you (as you’ll see later) -My realtor, S, is not only a friend, but also someone who has owned, rented, built, remodeled, bought, and sold everything from high rise condos to alpaca farms to tiny houses built in shipping containers. That experience was super useful to me for a few reasons: 1. He was very very good at looking at a roof, foundation, or basement, and saying “absolutely not, this is a mess” —I could only rarely see what he was talking about because I know nothing 2. If I looked at a space and said “what if I wanted to add a shower there?” or “could I make this basement area a bedroom?” S was able to pretty accurately estimate what that would cost. So that became part of the math as we looked at places, which was really useful and saved me so much time doing research on my own 3. He’s a queer artist who grew up in a nontraditional family and has lived many fascinating and non-standard lives. I only mention this because when I wanted to talk about my future and what my home could look like, I didn’t have to worry about S making assumptions about what “family” consists of or what my “role” would be. And as a single woman who is looking to adopt, that really meant a lot to me! -(side note if you’re in the Twin Cities and want S’s info, hit me up) -The most important thing about working with S, for me, is that he never made me feel foolish. I gradually got really good at talking about and looking at houses, but even when I asked questions that were obviously, or made incorrect assumptions, he never treated me like I should have known the answers, or like the process was supposed to be easy. And the guy genuinely loves houses!

What to Look For -You’ll want to find a house that fits what you want your life to be, not necessarily what it is at this moment. So think about what you want your day to day to be like. Will you be working from home at all? Do you have or want kids or pets? Do you want to be a person who hosts out of town guests? Do you want to have band practice at your place? Do you want to host D&D? Large holiday meals? Do you want to garden? Grill? Have a firepit? Do you have a car, or do you think you will? Do you have physical access needs based on your body, like particular types of doorways, floors, stairs, size of spaces, etc.? Are there furniture pieces that are important to you that you want to plan around? (For me, I have an electric piano, and placing that was super important).

-I’m a single person, and I want to adopt a kid, and I know I’ll need a roommate in order to afford my mortgage. So it was vital for me to find a house that either had 3 bedrooms, or had 2 bedrooms and a 3rd could be easily finished/added. it was also important that my roommate would have their own private space that was decent size for me to charge rent -Think about all year round. I live in Minnesota, and you better believe snow was top of mind at every house. As a renter, my landlord was supposed to deal, with anything over 3 inches (did he always? of course not). Now it’s my responsibility. What kind of trees are around? Do you have big storms? You need to pay attention to big branches and power lines. Is it getting super hot where you live? You probably want to prioritize central air, or shade.

-On the topic of central air - It’s pricey to add it to a house that doesn’t have forced air heat, because you have to add all the ductwork. If that’s the case and you don’t have that $$$, you can either go with window units or something called a mini-split. It’s basically mini air conditioners that heat floors separately, but have a better range than a window unit. -Does the house have a yard you want to deal with? How about a sidewalk you have to shovel (woe unto you in corner lots) -How does bussing work for the schools in your area, if that matters to you? -Some houses will be empty. Empty rooms look smaller than rooms that have shit in them -Some will be staged. People who stage houses don’t fill them with STUFF, so you’ll notice few bookcases, coatracks, etc. Think about the stuff you have, not the stuff they put in the house. -You will be AMAZED at how some people live. Seriously. Some people have a giant ass oak tree literally leaning on their roof and just deal with it. Some people have 3 bedroom houses, and the only bathroom is only accessible by going through one of the bedrooms. Some people have their fridge down a flight of stairs from the kitchen. Some people have their laundry in the basement, but the only access to the basement is through an outside door. In some climates that’s fine, but I live in fucking Minnesota -I had the instinct when I started looking that I needed to be entirely open to everything, and not be too picky. After about two weeks of looking (and S had me going to like 4-9 showings a day some days), I got real picky real fast. This was helpful for S and helpful for me, so we weren’t wasting time on houses that weren’t contenders. I learned that the houses’ feelings did not get hurt by me not wanting to buy them -Likewise, I started out being entirely open about where I wanted to live. Anywhere in the Cities or near suburbs, I said. But then I went to see houses in these places and realized I did not want to drive that far to work, or that the only way to access places was by the highway, so if it shuts down or there’s a bad snowstorm, I’m stuck. -To that end, i found it really helpful to make myself a Google map (you can make some and save them) of where I go. I included work, church, my bandmates houses, bars I like to go to, and my friends’ houses. Then whenever I was considering a house I’d plunk it on the map and see how it lined up with the realities of my life. -We’ll talk about offers in a sec, but remember that people can technically list their house for whatever number they want. So it’ll be up to you and your realtor to decide what’s fair. I mention this here, because a house may be listed way cheaper than others on your list—there’s likely a reason for that, but if it looks promising, give it a try! It could be that the reason it’s listed low doesn’t matter to you (i.e. it’s next to an annoying business that you don’t mind, or doesn’t have a garage but you don’t have a car, or the other houses int he neighborhood have yards and this doesn’t). Or it could be the seller needs to move it FAST and you can take advantage of their situation. -If you’re a handy person, a cheaper house might be a great option if fixing it up to be what you want is affordable for you. (Again, this is where a realtor like S can be super helpful to come up with those costs). For me, I didn’t want to do jack shit to the house, and I knew I’d be paying for that. (not that I don’t have a whole spreadsheet of eventual projects....but that’s invevitable) -Likewise, it can be helpful to set your filters to include houses a bit above your budget. Some people list their houses WAY higher than they should, so if you see a property that’s been on the market for a while (when I was looking the market was hothothot, so “a while” could mean anything over a week/10 days. In a slower market, you’ll want to look at those that have been listed for 30+ days), it might be worth checking out and then offering low. Chances are the seller will need to reduce the price anyway if they’re not getting any bites, and you could get a good deal by jumping in before they do that. -IDK where else to put this, but measure the garage. I didn’t, and I discovered like a month ago that my car (a little compact Toyota) is too long for my damn garage. It’s not that I wouldn’t have bought the house because of that, but I could have included it in some negotiations.

Offers -So you found a house you like! Now the scary part. 

-You’ll get a sense of the market from your realtor, and they can usually advise you about how quickly you need to move on a potential offer. Sometimes a seller will give a deadline themselves: they call this “best and highest.” So they’ll say “we’re hearing offers at 3pm tomorrow” or “we’re asking for best and highest on Monday.” Generally that’s the cutoff for receiving viable offers. -In the market when I was buying, it was pretty common for houses to sell for 20-40K over the asking price. Again, some houses would be listed too high or too low, as I mentioned before, but on average that’s what I was working with. There were also a TON of offers on all the properties I liked. The lowest number of offers on a house I tried to get was 5, the highest was 19. That is kind of insane. In a slower market, when you’re not competing with that many people, you can offer closer to the asking price (or some people just say “asking” as in “20 over asking”) -The first thing I did when I decided to put in an offer, was to talk to my realtor so he could start getting the paperwork together. You can’t just email the seller and say “i want your house,” there are legal documents that have to be drawn up to make it a binding agreement if it’s accepted. -My folks bought their house without a realtor and did all the negotiating, etc, themselves, but they still needed a realtor friend to do the paperwork for them. If you go that route, you can probably do more informal offers, but IDK how that works. -The next thing I did was contact my lender for the following things: 1. I gave them the address and asked “Does this fall within certain DPAs?” 2. I asked them to run some numbers for me. Usually it was a version of: “What would my monthly payment be if I offered $240K and put down $5K in earnest money, and if I had $20K of downpayment assistance? How about if I offered $245K or $250K? What if I only put down $2500?” This helped me figure out what kind of offer I could reasonably make, and what it would actually cost me monthly if I got the house. 3. Then, when I decided what I wanted to offer, I would ask for a preapproval letter that includes the address of the property, basically saying “hey we’re a lender and we will give Jay a loan of $XX to buy this house, pinky promise” -I copied S on all my communications with the lender, so he knew what I was considering and he could give advice -(sometimes I saw a house on Friday and had to make an offer by noon on Saturday, leading to me trying to call my lender at 9am on a Saturday morning, which sucked. This is why knowing who’s on your lender’s team and how to contact them matters) -There’s no hard and fast way to decide on a good offer, because you won’t know how many you’re competing against. Sometimes your realtor might be able to chat with the sellers agent and find out how many people saw the property, if they have a sense of how popular it is, but sometimes you want. You want to be able to afford it, but also not go so low that you won’t even be considered. -Usually, your realtor will ask you to write a love letter to the house to include in the offer. “Dear seller, I love your house because of blah blah blah, I can see myself doing blah blah blah, specifics specifics.” Do these matter? I don’t feel like they do but whatever. Make a template and update it for each offer. -One thing to note about this is that you DO NOT want to give information about yourself regarding your status in a protected class (i.e. “we’re a young queer couple; I’m a neurodivergent person; I’m an immigrant/veteran/belong to X racial group”). It might seem like that would be helpful in certain areas, but sellers aren’t legally allowed to pick a buyer based on those things, so it ends up working against you.  You can talk about what you do as a job or as a hobby, if you’re an artist, if you’re a parent, if you have pets, if you know who else will be living int he house with you, etc. You can hint at things. But S was very clear with me about keeping it pretty general and about the house. -Once you’ve decided on the $$$ you’re offering, you need to decide if there’s anything else to add to “sweeten the pot.” For some people, that’s saying “my timeline is totally flexible, so if you need to close in a month that’s fine, and if you need to close in 4 months that’s fine.” A lot of people choose to waive inspections. -OHHHHHH Ye olde inspection. Dear God. -The inspection is basically a thing where you hire a professional to look at the house before you officially seal the deal, and they tell you if there are things you need to be concerned about. So if the inspector comes in and says “yeah this roof is going to cave in in a year,” you can use that in your negotiation and say “look, I’m going to lower my offer by $15K, because I will need a new roof in a year.” then it’s up to the seller to decide if they want to agree to that, or if they want to try again to find a buyer who hopefully would not get an inspection. -to “waive an inspection” means that you’re agreeing to skip this step -OK so my instinct was always “I will NEVER waive the inspection,” and a lot of people feel that way. HOWEVER, I did not get certain houses because the people who did offered exactly what I did and waived the inspection. There was a buyer who had made SEVENTEEN OFFERS and beat me out on a house, and they got that house after SEVENTEEN OTHER TRIES because they waived an inspection. -I did get an inspection with my house, which was lucky and also thanks to S being a great negotiator. -I waived it on one of my offers -I would say I’d be comfortable waiving an inspection if: 1. You or your realtor knows shit about buildings, codes, etc. S knew a lot, so was able to look at things like furnaces, windows, basement beams, foundations, etc etc. 2. The important parts of the house are easily visible. Usually this means an unfinished basement. if the basement is finished, you probably can’t see all the structural things you’d need to 3. You’re already planning to do a bunch of work on a house, so you’re offering a lower bid and budgeting to do renovations anyway -At the end of the day, it’s your call. More about inspections below. -Most people who buy houses have mortgages, meaning that they can’t just drop $250K on a house. However, some people got it like that, so they make what is called a cash offer. Cash offers will win out every time, because they are usually higher, are easier for the sellers, and will often waive inspections. Depending on your region and your budget, you may or may not see this. I got screwed SO MANY TIMES and so did my friends, by all-cash, no inspection offers. The majority of these are from people who are buying properties to rent out or Airbnb - they won’t live there so they don’t really care if it’s solid, and my budget range seemed to be about where rich people who don’t want to flip a house felt comfortable buying. It was annoying. -but hey if you got it like that, go for it. -Once you have all the terms of your offer figured out, your realtor will send you the official offer paperwork that you’ll sign (prob. digitally). Then they’ll send it over to the seller and be in charge of all that communication. If the seller comes back with a counter, or with questions, your realtor will bring that to you. They may advise you, but at the end of the day it is up to you what you’ll offer and what you’ll accept.

You got accepted!

-Holy cats, they said yes to your offer and your terms! This is a huge moment to celebrate! I cried! And obsessively looked at pictures of the house over and over -The seller may come back to you with some proposed adjustments. In my case they wanted to round the selling price up by $1K, which I agreed to. (IDK why they cared, but in the grand scheme that was fine). They also wanted to change some of the verbiage in the offer that didn’t actually affect anything. -The first thing you’ll need to do is put down the earnest money. That is usually held in a trust or something similar until closing. But basically, if you said you’d put down $5K of your own money in the offer, you have to prove you have it right away. So don’t offer to put down earnest money that you don’t have! -The higher this number, the more appealing your offer generally is -There are a lot of things that will need to wait until you close, so this period of time feels really weird -You’ll have a purchase agreement (along with any addendums or changes) that basically says “I’m Jay and I offer $XX, the seller agreed to the price and the terms, we’ll see how it goes from here and if it all goes well, this deal will go through” -I’m gonna say it now, don’t ask me about escrow. Escrow is basically like an account where money lives between you and the bank. You pay extra into this account so that if something happens and you can’t pay what you agreed, the bank still gets the money for a certain period of time. or something like that, I don’t know, it gives me a headache. I’m sure other people understand it better.

Next steps

Inspection -If you included an inspection in your offer/purchase agreement, you’ll want to set that up within a few days. (Don’t worry about booking “last minute,” inspectors pretty much always work on that kind of schedule. Very few people are booking inspectors weeks in advance. This was something I felt bad about, but it’s okay)

-Inspections are pricey, and usually have different packages that include different things. I chose to do the sewer scope bc I had a friend who found some crazy sewer issues and I didn’t want to deal with it. Your realtor can probably give you advice on what you might need. -Inspector look at a lot of things: all your systems (like heating, cooling, pipes, electricity, etc),  your windows, roof, foundation, gutters, attics, floors, plumping, appliances, etc. -They do NOT open walls/ceilings/floors, etc. So if it’s not visible, they won’t be able to report on it.  -They’ll send you a big ol’ report, and if you can be there with them they’ll do a walk through with you to talk over big issues. Your realtor should come to that as well, as they might have good questions. -After you have the information, you have to decide if there are any big issues that need to be addressed. The inspector will flag things that are a problem legally, but it’s up to you how much you care about them. Some will be easy fixes. Others might be deal breakers that mean you decide to walk away from the property entirely. Most things will be in the middle.  -Note that some things are legally “issues” but practically may not matter. There are certain outlets on the outside of my house that aren’t right, but I don’t intend to use them much and if it turns out I need to, it’s not that expensive to switch them out. My basement stairs are an absolutely death trap, but my laundry is upstairs and so i dont really need to use them much. I could spend like $4K to replace them, but I don’t care at this point, and it’s not a big issue for me. But legally they are terrible. -Some things may be an absolute problem that the seller needs to deal with before you’ll agree to by the house. -You and your realtor will come up with a list of things you want to tell the seller to fix before closing. They might fight you on some of them, and again that’s why the realtor being a good negotiator matters. -Generally, you want to ask for fixes on the important things, without asking for every little thing, so the seller doesn’t decide you’re too much trouble and they could probably back out and get a better offer that wouldn’t cost them as much in repairs. -for me, the garage door was busted so they defnitely needed to fix that. There was a pipe that was put in wrong that was a quick fix. And there were birds in the attic, so they needed to clear those out and go through and block up all the entry points in the room. All of these requests were reasonable, and the sellers agreed to them. -At this point, it’s up to you if you want to pay for a re-inspection (i.e. the inspector coming back to verify that they did all the work they were supposed to). I didn’t—instead I had them give me all the receipts from the work that was done along with photos and video of the work. That way if something is a problem in the future, I can contact the companies that did the work and take advantage of warranties, etc.

Home Service Warranty -Speaking of warranties! There’s a thing called a Home Service Warranty that you’ll need to decide on. Mine is through American Home Shield. Basically this is a warranty that covers things in your house. There are different levels of coverage, so some just cover the big things like windows/roof/furnace/water heater/etc. As you upgrade, it’ll include things like stoves, fridges, dishwashers, etc. -If you’re getting your own warranty, you basically pay a certain amount per month for the coverage. Then if any of the covered things break down, it get’s fixed for free (plus a small service charge. For me that’s $125). So if your inspector tells you “hey, you’ve got about a year left on this water heater” or “the furnace has some issues that might come up in a few years” you could save a BUNCH of money by having this coverage. -My realtor got this warranty included in my purchase agreement, so the seller is actually paying for a. year of my coverage at he upgraded level. This is SICK AS HELL and not every realtor will think of it—definitely mention it to yours. I didn’t even think of it as an option. Basically what this means is that if any of my stuff breaks this first year, I can get it replaced for very cheap AND I don’t even have to pay the monthly coverage fee. -When I moved in, my shower was broken. I tried to fix it, but the called AHS and I only paid $125 for a plumber to come look at it, order parts (which would have been pricey since my house is pretty old), and fix it for me. I hate my fridge, so I have a goal to break it this year so I can get a new one for free.

Appraisal -Okay, so you got the seller to agree to your fixes, everything is moving apace. It is time for the GOD DAMN APPRAISAL -(for many people, the appraisal is fine and is not GOD DAMN anything. For me, it was a nightmare and I didn’t sleep for like 2 weeks) -Okay so what is an appraisal. Basically, the seller said “my house is worth $XX” you said “I’ll pay $XX for it.” Your lender said “we’ll give Jay a loan for $XX.” But now someone else has to look at the house and determine if it’s a fair price for the house. This is what really determines the loan you’ll get (this is also why what you’ve gotten so far is a pre-approval. They’ve basically said “you’re capable of paying back a loan of $XX, but we need an outside agency to determine if this house is worth is”) -The appraiser will look at the house, inspection reports, and other sales of similar houses in your area. Ideally, this helps them determine if the price you and the seller have agreed on is in line with what is reasonable. -Banks are not going to give you a $400K loan on a potting shed in a ditch -It’s all complicated and this is where a lot of shit in the Housing Crisis came from -Basically, you want the appraisal to come at or higher than your purchase price. (if it comes in higher, do a little dance bc you got a deal) -If it comes in lower, you can be in trouble. That’s what happened to me. -A note about rules & regs - lenders cannot talk directly to appraisers. This is because of the housing crisis and all the shady backroom deals that were happening (i.e. if you appraise this house at this price, we’ll give you Mr. Appraiser Guy some kickbacks from the extra money we’re making in mortgage interest or whatever). In practical terms, this means it takes FOREVER to get messages to all the parties involved.  -If the appraisal comes in low, you can ask for a reappraisal. It’s up to the appraiser if they agree. There are rules about this. -What Happened To Me: OK so my house is in a historically Black and immigrant neighborhood (read, historically redlined). This means a lot of the properties here are undervalued based on other locations. In a hot market, even undervalued properties can go up in price in a big way. In a slow market, that doesn’t happen so much. My appraiser only wanted to pull comps (meaning comparable sales of similar houses in the same area) in my exact neighborhood. However, there hadn’t been any sales of similar size/age/etc houses in my exact neighborhood since last winter. Guess what the market is like in the winter in Minnesota! Fucking SLOW boy. So these comps were coming in like $20K lower than my agreed price. So my realtor and lender took a look and said “look, if we widen out a little bit to these nearby neighborhoods, we can see all these more recent sales that are closer to our price.” It took two weeks of back and forth to get the appraiser to agree to add some of these comps to the appraisal. He was really reluctant to look outside my immediate area, because my neighborhood is of “lower value” than the surrounding areas. Structural racism, baby. Not against me, but against my neighbors and everyone who’s lived in this area for the past 150 years. Hooray. Finally, I got a re-appraisal that was $8K lower than my purchase price. So I was in a pickle. I had an agreement with the seller saying I’ll pay $XX, while the bank is now saying “we’ll only give you a loan for $XX-minus-$8K.” So either I need to come up with $8K MORE of a down payment in earnest money, or I need the purchase price to go down. Or i need to find more assistance. HERE IS WHERE HAVING S MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE. He went to the seller and basically used his status and significant experience to say “Look, you can either agree to lower the purchase price by $8K, or we all walk away. If we walk away, this means you have to re-list the house, wait for more offers. And then even if you get an offer as good as or better than Jay’s, that person will still need to go through the appraisal process. So...  you’ll probably be right back here. The only chance you have of skipping appraisal is if someone comes in with a cash offer, meaning they won’t need a loan and no bank is involved. But for a lot of the reasons the appraisal is low, those types of buyers (who often want rentals/vacation rental properties) ain’t looking to buy in this neighborhood.”

(or that’s what I imagine he said. It was probably smarter)

ANYWAY, all that to say a MIRACLE occurred, and the seller agreed to lower the purchase price of the house by $8K. I can tell you the whole story of how I found out over a drink sometime, but let me tell you I wepttttttt

-Anyhow, once the appraisal is good and you’re pretty sure the deal is going through, you gotta get insurance. call a bunch of places, figure out what coverage you need, see if it’s cheaper or easier to put car/life/etc in the same place. You have to have insurance if you have a home loan - basically the bank owns the house, so it’s in their interest to have it covered in case of disaster.

Closing

-I’m going to be quick on this, because it’s super technical and I only kind of understand it. -Closing is basically the day where you sign all the paperwork, after which the house is yours! Then you can start moving, renovating, decorating, whatever you want. -One of the things that’s part of closing is the Title and Title Insurance. Basically, you need to pay to have the paper that says you own the house, and then you have to pay for insurance on that piece of paper. Why. IDK.  -At this point there’s so many random fees and charges, I just kind of looked at the totals and made sure nothing was way out of range of what I expected.  -A few days before closing, you should have the following: 1. receipts/evidence from any fixes made to the house or a re-inspection report 2. Closing disclosures, which basically means any information that’s attatched to the deed for the home. This can include unpaid property taxes, any weird liens on the property, any easement agreements with neighbors you should know about, etc. 3. All the paperwork you will sign! -It is in your best interest to read ALL OF IT if you can. (the title person was surprised I’d read mine, which I found super worrying lol) -If you are buying a house by yourself, you will not BELIEVE how many times you will read “Jay, A SINGLE PERSON, is buying a house ALONE AND BY THEMSELF, as a SINGLE UNMARRIED ALONE PERSON” Very judgy. What are you, my grandma? -One thing about disclosures—it’s up to your title company to do research on weird shit that might be attached to your property. You can technically choose your title company, but I wouldn’t not recommend looking for the cheapest option if the company doesn’t have much of a track record. I had an issue come up with a payment the seller owed that was delayed, and my title company had to be the one that caught that. My friend and his husband got in trouble because some seller 5 years ago didn’t pay property taxes, and so the IRS came for THEM. The title company should have caught that before they closed and had it dealt with. They won’t end up paying it, but it’s a huge pain and they have to argue with the IRS which is never fun. -On closing day, you’ll do a final walk through with your realtor. This is your last chance to bring up any issues! You DEFINITELY want to do this walk through. If the seller left the door unlocked and an entire family has taken up residence in the living room, you need to know! If the contractor they hired to fix the plumbing knocked a new whole in the wall, you need to know! Don’t expect that the seller will tell you about any new issues that they caused. -This is your last chance to say “Hey, there’s a new major issue that wasn’t reporting, i ain’t signing shit until we re-negotiate” -If you find yourself in this situation (hopefully you won’t!) PLEASE don’t be afraid to say something! Don’t worry about how much time and money has already been put into it, or about calling out a seller who is acting in bad faith or fucked somethign up. This is your house! It matters! And your realtor should have your back. -But most of the time, the final walk through is fine! Then you go somewhere to sign all the paperwork. If you’re like me and have 3 different types of DPA, it will be two giant folders worth of paperwork.  -Once you sign the paperwork with the Title Company, they’ll put the paperwork through. After that happens, the bank should transfer the whole ass agreed amount to the seller. Also, if your DPA is in the form of other smaller loans from other sources, those should be paying to the seller at the same time. -in MY case, one of my DPAs took 3 hours to process for some reason, so I had the most anti-climactic closing ever. I signed everything, waited for an hour and a half, and then they were like “you can go, we’ll email you when you officially own the house” So I just awkwardly hung around and ate pancakes until I got the email. -Let’s say you have a relative who wants to help you out with your downpayment (Yay! Every little bit counts!) Or let’s say you’re living with someone who doesn’t want the house to be in their name, but they want to contribute to these initial costs. You’ll want to talk to your lender about this as soon as you know about it. There is special paperwork for “gifts” that basically let’s it go directly to you downpayment but it doesn’t count towards your income. So if Grandma Bob says “I got $10K for you” and you just deposit the check in your account and plan to pay $10K more in earnest money, that will suddenly look like you have $10K more money to your name, so might change how your loan and DPA shake out. But if you get Grandma Bob to sign a particular document and give you a certified check, you can just give that right to the Title person and it goes right to making your downpayment bigger, therefore making your loan smaller! Thanks Grandma Bob! -”Cash to close” is essentially what you are paying at closing via all sources. So that’s your downpayment (including all assistance) any gifts, your earnest money, etc. Sometimes you have additional closing costs. They may be covered by DPA, or you may be on the hook to write an additional check. You’ll know this in advance. -Hey, check it out, you own a house now! -(keep all your paperwork0 -They’ll give you a document you have the file with the city called Homestead filing, basically telling the city that you own a house and you live there.

NOW WHAT?

-Now I’m done telling you things. Feel free to DM me if you want to talk more, but also talk to professionals in your region who know things. -I started writing this post before I closed in July 2023. It’s now mid-November, and I’ve been living here for 3 months. Here’s some stuff I’ve learned that might be helpful: 1. It’s good to know what kid of walls you have (drywall vs. plaster and lathe, etc) because that determines how you can hang things on them. Also if you have plaster walls, just get a cheap magnetic stud finder. The fancy electronic ones often don’t work 2. It’s good to have a drill. It just is. 3. If there’s a big project you need done (say your garage is too short for your goddamn car), you may qualify for a home improvement loan from the same kind of orgs that give DPA. I’m doing it just because I don’t want to drop $3K in one go. Technically I have 4 years to pay it off, but I’m going to make larger monthly payments and pay it offer quicker than that.  4. We can talk about contractors and permit and zoning all day. Suffice to say, it’s good to look up who to talk to at the city about construction permits, and they can be both incredibly confusing and very nice. Often at the same time. 5. If you’re gonna have a roommate or partner or non-child family member who is paying you monthly to help with the mortgage, DRAW UP A LEASE. You want shit in writing, and they have rights as tenants that need to be respected. Many a relationship has been saved by PUTTING SHIT IN WRITING. (there are templates you can find) 6. FEELINGS: People always tell you “You won’t know how you feel about X until you do it.” Getting a dog, moving away from your folks, living with a partner, whatever. I am here as an old man to tell you, they are right. I had no idea I would have such BIG FEELINGS about this lil old house. When I come home and my roommate has the lights on and it has a glow, I feel so much that sometimes I cry! Setting things up, making decisions about organization, learning how to be in my space, means so so much more to me now than it ever did when I was renting. The stress is greater, too, because I have to make all the decisions! It’s exhausting! But every day in my house I am so happy to be here, I’m so glad my other offers weren’t accepted, because this is the best of the houses I looked at. It is my 117 year old baby and I love it forever.

Also I never want to do this again lol I’ve decided to die here.

[dtfans-for-palestine]

How to donate to Gaza and which legit fundraisers to choose :

Remember show proof of donations and you can commissions the artists , writers , translators (Spanish, French) and editors of your liking in the threads/posts below ⚠️❗️❗️❗️

Additional post with where to donate ( family fundraisers, esims , org , ressources etc..)

Place and methods for donations (can be one made in the last three weeks/months) :

CARE FOR GAZA

@CareForGaza is a non profit organization that uses the donations to give coats, baby items, food packages, flour, and even cash to palestinian families in need or palestinian refugees.

To donate, go to their paypal

Log in, enter the amount and currency, pick how you want to pay, review your information and click send payment

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PIOUS PROJECT (For hygiene kits)

Founded by Fahim Aref, Pious Project's has the mission to empower everyone to make a difference--one good deed at a time. They have created a way to take part in global humanitarian, charitable projects, including donating and volunteering.

Their official website:

Currently, they are raising funds to donate hygiene kits to menstruating people in Gaza. The value of each one is $20, which contains sanitary pads, tissues, wipes, a hairbrush, toothpaste, toothbrush and other items.

How can I donate?

The following is the link that will take you directly to the page, once there you will click on the button that says "Donate."

Link: https://piousprojects.org/campaign/2712

If you are not logged in, it will ask you to create an account. You should receive an email welcoming you, as well as a direct link to the website.

The next thing that will appear are three options:

You can enter the amount you want to donate (USD), or instead, donate a specific amount to pay for from 1 to 50 entire kits. If you choose the second option, don't worry, each option tells you how many kits you are donating for!

The most important thing is to keep in mind that you will have the option to only donate once or monthly.

Finally, you will only have to fill out the details of your card or bank and that's it! You will have donated to the cause

In addition to the donation of hygiene kits, Pious Projects have many more causes, here we leave you the following:

FOOD

Food Baskets for Gaza

POINT OF CARE

Point Of Care Ultrasound for Gaza piousprojects.org/campaign/2172

FAMILY

Gaza Family Support piousprojects.org/campaign/608

You can also go on your own to the official website and check out the different causes they are donating to.

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SALAM ANIMAL CARE

Salam Animal Care is Abdallah's Twitter account. He is a man who rescues injured animals in Gaza and provides them with medical assistance. His @ is @RescueCare. To donate, you need to click on this link to go to his PayPal

Log in, enter the amount and currency, choose your preferred payment method, review your information, and click send payment.

Then just send us a screenshot that you actually made the donation!

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DIRECT AID TO GAZA

Direct aid for gaza

Account : https://x.com/GazaDirectAid?t=sWfYhS-uKaxETizI4Avpkw&s=09

Paypal : https://twitter.com/GazaDirectAid/status/1757813936940876185?t=2KqHPkJHcLGPYi9jOPoWZQ&s=19

Trust wallet : https://twitter.com/GazaDirectAid/status/1760456373173620981?t=68DI1E0Ko3HNxIJULn8wDA&s=19

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MEDICAL AID

Medical Aid for Palestine is a nonprofit organization that is located in the uk. their aid goes toward west bank, gaza, and lebanon. they help both palestinians living under occupation and those that have refuge status. they give medical, mental, and disability support

their twitter account also gives updates on attacks and deaths as a result of said attacks. @MedicalAidPal

To donate, you go to map.org.uk , select your currency and amount, and who you are giving your money as. then, select a title, fill out the contact and address information, and finally after doing that, you can fill out your card information and hit pay now.

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E SIMS

eSims for Gaza is an initiative led by @Mirna_elhelbawi, a writer who demonstrates solidarity with the cause and ensures that aid reaches those in need. Mirna's efforts keep doctors, journalists, and the entire population of Gaza connected with the world, preventing their silence

By donating to eSims for Gaza, you can comission our collaborators.

Visit their website: [gazaesims.com]

★ How to Donate? | Below 👇

To donate, you can use two apps: Simly and Airalo. Download either app.

Follow these tutorials for both:

1. Search for "Palestine."

2. Choose one of the available plans.

3. Click on "Buy Now."

4. Proceed to payment.

After purchasing your eSIM, DO NOT ACTIVATE IT. Once you complete the payment, you will receive a QR code in your email. We strongly urge you not to activate it, as the QR code received is the SIM card. Instead, take a screenshot of the QR code and send it to Gazaesims@gmail.com.

That's all it takes to donate. Then just send us a screenshot confirming that you've sent the QR to their email to commission us.

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OPERATION OLIVE BRANCH

They have links for several Gazan families in need of help, and even if you can’t donate, helping spread the word can go a long way 🍉

Any donations to the ressources and fundraisers and charity reunited by @operationolivebranch on Instagram and tiktok will count as well as payments for the commissions Just go through the ones in the doc below 👇 :

choose and donate to one and send us the proof to commission someone !

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EMERGENCY

Yasmeen Ouda is a Palestinian woman living in Canada who is seeking assistance to rescue her family from the genocide in Palestine and bring them safely to her residence in Canada.

Their twitter account is: @hosam_ouda

To donate, please visit their GoFundMe page:

Choose the amount you would like to donate, select the portion you will leave as a commission for the GoFundMe platform, pick your payment method,

fill in the necessary information, and finally, make your donation!

Afterward, please provide us with a screenshot confirming that you have indeed made your donation to be able to commission!

_____________________________

ALL DONATIONS TO CONGO AND SUDAN WILL ALSO COUNT AS WELL SO DON'T HESITATE TO DONATE THERE AND COMMISSION US IN EXCHANGE !!!!

[chronicallycouchbound]

Unhoused Solidarity In Action

This is a non-exhaustive list of resources you might have access to, or know of, that can be used to aid unhoused community members directly. Many of these focus on direct mutual aid as individuals but can be helpful to consider when in community organizing settings. - What do you (or someone you know) have access to, that you can provide to the community? - Can they be accessed, used, or provided: regularly, occasionally, only in emergencies, weekly, daily, sporadically, consistently, etc.? - Consider seasonal needs (winter coats don’t help us when it’s 90 degrees out!) - Remember to practice active, informed consent with individuals and ask if these would be helpful! Don’t take it personally if your offer isn’t helpful to someone, it might help someone else. - These should be realistic and not compromise your safety or well-being. Remember to prioritize safety over comfort.

Housing

- Consider your relationship with this person (generally, don’t offer complete strangers into your home)

- Location matters a lot. Unhoused people often need to be near “hubs”/cities, close to resources and systems of care.

- Some people can’t live in hotels, couch surf, or any of these options without losing their housing vouchers, and in some cases health insurance or other assistance programs. Legal definitions of homelessness (used by voucher programs) usually don’t include people living in hotels/motels, or couch surfing (including most of these options). Check with the individual to see if this might be helpful.

Extra bedrooms

Campers, trailers

Couches

Apartments

Land/yards to camp on, park at, etc.

Donate funds or points for a hotel room

Shelters

Floor space

Safe parking lots to sleep in your car in (sleeping in your car is considered legal homelessness in most places)

Time

- Emotional capacity and minimizing the risk of burnout are important here especially

Do outreach with a community org

File for grants

Provide education materials

Share knowledge regarding resources

Emotional support - build genuine connections with your local unhoused neighbors

Reach out to companies for donations

Create or add to lists of resources, open bathrooms, etc.

Transportation

- One of the biggest barriers to accessing existing resources is transportation (also mailing addresses, internet access, and active phone service)

Personal car, ride-sharing/carpooling

Bus tickets/passes

Old/not frequently used bikes

Taxi services/vouchers

Uber/Lift gift cards

Carpooling

Coordinate rides for people

Food

- A lot of unhoused people prefer “comfort foods” to “health foods” - Ask about dietary restrictions, the cooking ability of the unhoused person, the cooking equipment, etc. - Soft foods are frequently more accessible to us as dental issues are very common - 100$ in fast food is significantly less than 100$ in homemade food

Can cook hot meals

Can pay for meals

Knows someone (person, business) who can supply food

Inviting people over for a meal

Gifting food (be sure to be considerate of dietary restrictions, cooking ability, equipment needed to cook, etc.)

Have a community dunkin gift card

Make or add to a fruit tree map (fallingfruit.org, community gardens, federal university campuses)

Money

- Money should be freely given, with no strings attached - Ask what form works best for them— cash apps/virtual, physical cash, gift cards, quarters, etc.

It is best to provide cash donations directly to impacted individuals (or organizations) with no strings attached

Provide relevant, local chain store gift cards (Grocery stores, coffee shops, restaurants)

Coordinate fundraisers

Apply for grants

Supplies

- Ask individuals what they need most!

Purchase and donate supplies directly to individuals or organizations

Reach out to businesses

Donate old phones or computers

Add someone to your family phone plan

Donate professional clothes for interviews

Donate an outfit you would actually wear

Talents, Trades, Skills

Your hobbies might be helpful! Crochet is extremely trendy right now (easy to learn, you could make hats/scarves for community members)!

Professional ties/experience Examples: You’re a cosmetologist who can do free haircuts for an hour each week, or you’re a graphic designer who can create a website for an organization for free, or you’re a nurse who can provide wound care to encampments

Community gardens

Connect with and partner with non-profits or community-based organizations in your area (or help start one if there’s none!)

Allow people to use you as a reference for job interviews

Bathrooms

- Not just toilets, but showers and mirrors are important too

Ask businesses to pledge to have open, public, accessible, and free restrooms

Your personal restroom

Make a list of local public restrooms

Free gym memberships or add someone to a gym plan

Services

- In order to access most services, you need most, if not all, of the following: transportation, identification, important paperwork, printing/faxing access, mailing addresses, internet access, active phone service, free time during business hours, and emotional and mental ability (and capacity) to complete everything required (forms, applications, phone calls, interviews, annual reviews, verifications) in a timely manner (usually on a strict deadline)

Case management experience you can volunteer

Peer support for service navigation (great option for people with prior lived experience)

Advocacy within services

Offer to provide a P.O. box or use your address to receive mail

Housing skills

Allow someone to use your library card for books, computers, the internet, etc. (most libraries won’t allow unhoused people to get a library card)

Volunteer at a shelter

Allow someone to use your home wifi, printer, phone number, mailbox, email, etc.

Fundraising

- If you can’t donate your own personal funds, fundraising is a great way to help out

Community mutual aid asks (in person or online)

Art walks

Skate competition

Concerts

Tip jar

Gift basket raffle

Clothing and food drive

Game tourney

Live streams

Start a GoFundMe for individuals/orgs

I strongly encourage you to look over the matching slides I created for this workshop: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1VDngImsMByUFmKX611zAJ43a0UcYIfMBxrbh_g1IJvc/edit

As a disclaimer: I have been homeless/unhoused for over half of my life. My experiences of homelessness have included while being a infant, toddler, young child, preteen, teenager, and young adult. I am 24 years old. My most recent experience of being unhoused was last year, and I am currently precariously housed (meaning: at high risk of losing housing again). My experiences of homelessness have included sleeping outside in a tent, sleeping on park benches and under freeways, walking around all night to avoid hypothermia and freezing to death (something that has happened to several of my friends), couch surfing, sleeping in cars, squatting, sleeping in motels, living in a shelter, and institutionalized. I have been homeless with family a few times during early childhood and again when I was 15. All of my other experiences of homelessness have been on my own starting at age 9 or 10, and the last time I lived with a parent I was 16. I have been homeless in both rural and urban areas. I have been homeless in New England/Northeast United States as well as the Pacific Northwest.

In addition to this, I have many contributing factors to my experience, including being disabled, a person of color, trans, queer, a survivor of child abuse and CSA, being trafficked, and a drug user and a SWer, amongst other marginalized experiences.

That being said: my experience of being unhoused/homeless is not the universal experience. While I know many people of all different demographics who I’ve met on the streets, I cannot speak to every single person’s experiences. I especially cannot speak to experiences outside of the United States, aside from what I hear secondhand.

This is meant to serve as a general guide to accompany a workshop I created, and might not be helpful for everyone. If it’s not helpful, I hope it inspires others to offer creative solutions. I’m always working on expanding this list. Thank you for reading.

[sharkface-daydreams]

Hello, I am from Gaza, due to the shortage of medicine in Gaza, my mother who is a type 1 diabetic and was supposed to undergo urgent eye surgery, has not been able to get insulin or any medical care for the past three months. . Some members of my family fled to the southernmost part of Gaza (Rafah) in tents. But my parents and sisters have nowhere else to stay. They are forced to stay in the Nuseirat refugee camp, which has been bombed since the beginning of Christmas. "I am on my knees asking for your donations. Please help me. where you can.

Goal: $1700

Your blog is not even 19h old and I have seen these messages from all sorts of new spam blogs. I'm fucking tired.

I did a search and the profile image and the text is from Rawan AbuMahady's gofundme to help their family evacuate Gaza. I feel like if this was you, I would have been sent a link to the campaign instead of a scraped bit of the message.

If you seriously need help, please find someone in your area coordinating assistance or reach out to one of the orgs I will link. If you are a scammer, shame on you!!! Shame and shame and shame again, for using the plight of Palestinian people for your own gain!! You are disgusting and I hope no one comes to your aid in your darkest hour.

For anyone else reading this, >> HERE << is a masterpost of links to verified organizations and initiatives that will actually get help to people in Palestine, and I believe it includes the spreadsheet for assisting families trying to raise funds to flee. If not I will attempt to find it tomorrow, I think I used the last of my brain juice sourcing where this ask was scraped from.

[muji-boy]

lil update

hello everyone!

long time no see. almost a year, actually. a lot has changed since then!!

in true kai fashion i got really sick during my senior year and ended up in the hospital. but this was the time!!!! i finally got the medical care that i needed and it has changed my life.

i wrote my thesis and presented it at three conferences. no prize except the immense satisfaction that i beat the odds and did it!!!! and had fun! and my final semester ended with a really high 4.0 gpa which was something i felt i would never be capable of again.

i did not get accepted into any of the masters programs i applied for. i applied while in the hospital, one of my references ghosted me, it was all around a bad time. and of course when i didn't get in, it felt like the world was ending. i have made school my identity my entire life, so how would i function without it?

over the course of my degree i failed two courses. one of them i failed three times. i retook the one i had failed multiple times over the summer even though i obviously no longer needed it to convocate (it got cut from my program requirements). i finished with a 4.0 and that was enough to bring my cgpa up enough to apply to med school, my dream!!

i could not apply to med yet because i could not afford to. med school applications are so cost prohibitive and i did not qualify for assistance for the mcat fees yet. so realistically that puts me at least two years out from medical school. i look at it as an opportunity to work and gain insight into what i may get myself into.

so i started a full time job as a clinical research coordinator at a medical clinic. i'm still new but i'm learning so much and i'm so excited about everything!

in my free time i have also been super busy. i've been advocating for long term mental healthcare for quite a while, but a friend and i actually started our own nonprofit organization that runs peer support groups and stuff. i'm also on an advisory committee for a mental healthcare resource being constructed where i live. and i've been volunteering for other local orgs to give back when they've given me so much. on the flip side, i've been heavily involved in 2slgbtq activism as well!!! i have spoken at events and i created a whole project that has taken off. i am also on the wait list for my top surgery, and should have it within the year!

i'm going to start studying for the mcat pretty soon so i will likely pop back online then. i am currently enrolled in one first year sociology course as a study strategy (it is the only course i didn't take that is on the mcat). but studying for that has not been happening. i am so thankful i didn't get accepted to do a masters because i need this distance from school right now.

there is life outside of school. you will reach your goals.

happy fall everybody. :)

[pixiedoodlein]

Wellllll amazing babysitter was short-lived. Turned out to be kind of a psycho then went AWOL before I fired. Friend from the org I worked at when we first moved to the country just got fired (by the jerk who was our jerky boss, who then got fired for firing her) and is going to help me w/ the kiddos a bit. I love my new (not so new anymore, 2.5 mos) reentry/ comms job, work a ton (too much, should lower the bar, but it’s fun and I like it), and have a v full plate— returning to grad school to finally finish my MFA and it was a real cartwheel trying to schedule my 4 hours/month of (virtual) grad projects meetings. A will be working 24/7 til mid-Oct, some weeks somewhere a few hours away. M is coming back to home school (she tried the local little pub school last year, was adored for being the awesome smarty pants she is, decided it’s too easy/ too full of republicans, decided she was over it) + has forest school one day a week (half hour away) she needs to get taken to/ picked up from, zooms throughout the week (piano, Spanish, math) she may need adult assistance navigating and sometimes I have work zooms at the same exact moment. Little guy (who is almost 3, HOW) is starting a preschool coop 2.5 hours, 2x week he’ll also need to get taken to/ taken home from (also half hour away, thankful for the existence of the high-end hippie town to the west). Not sure how I’ll be in 50 places at once so my work friend having time/ desire to be our part-time caregiver/ lifesaver is incredibly helpful (plus I love her and love having her around; I didn’t love having the not-actually-awesome-AWOL-sitter around, I’m antisocial and don’t like having many around, etc).

This is a really boring update; everyone’s busy, blah blah blah. I used to use this space to process, share about deep shit, connect. When I first started posting here, after lurking a while, I was a (sorta, somewhat, at least by NYC standards) young (ish) single mom who’d been through the systems’ wringer, grappling with aftershocks of said systems involvement while living with the ongoing impacts of A’s, he was still in prison and we were kinda romantically back together but not always totally yet. It was enlightening and fascinating to me to be able to share experiences w/ other women, other moms, also in some way navigating the child welfare system, from different vantage points— foster parent, adoptive parent, professional in the field, foster parent and professional, etc. I went through the family court world and I went through the criminal court world but demographically I am not the typical person to be on the defendant side of those worlds; though I experienced and struggled with many of the things the “bios” experience and struggle with, demographically I was more like the foster moms in this online community. I’d read the foster mom perspectives— generally well-meaning, well-off, well-educated, cool liberal ladies— and sometimes I’d cringe at the lack of empathy for their foster kids’ moms & dads, the absence of acknowledgment of how horrendously horrible it is to have your beloved children snatched from you (even if you did something wrong), the occasional desire for kids not to go home, the wish for someone else’s baby to be their baby.

But because I connected with these humans in so many ways, related to and liked them, I was able to see and hear the different perspectives, which sometimes I agreed with and sometimes I didn’t, but it was a special and amazing thing to have this weird digital space where we came to be honest and vulnerable together. I hoped that by being honest and vulnerable too, I could also share a different perspective, like they’d entrusted me with their different perspectives, tell what it was like to be on the other side of the court room, articulate things that maybe the parents of the kids they were caring for might also be feeling but might not be able to, or have opportunity to, say, or might not be able to say the things that needed saying in a way that could be heard.

Over the years my life has changed a lot; over the years everyone’s lives have changed a lot. While the trauma and PTSD of systemic involvement is still very real to me, I no longer relate in the way I once did to the role assigned to me during that involvement. Some of the people here I was so drawn to, so invested in, are no longer posting; most are no longer fostering; everyone has moved on in one way or another. Over the years I was so privileged to be granted a window into experiences, and to see perspectives shift— people here thinking deeply about the system, reevaluating their place in it, realizing that so many times so much pain could be avoided by just giving people money instead of the state spending tons of it tearing families apart to spend buckets more trying, supposedly and ineffectively, to velcro those same families back together via absurd hoops in a Kafka-esque vortex of a dysfunctional legal system, people here living through various versions of it with various details, and learning more and seeing more and sharing stories and heartbreaks here, grappling with big questions of equity and family and future here.

I firmly believe that the child welfare system is the most fucked up and flawed of all the fucked up flawed systems in this country. Even before defund the police, defund CPS. Abolish it, burn it down, build something vastly different, it inherently can’t and shouldn’t be salvaged. I believe it’s a system that causes massive amounts of very real trauma taking kids from parents to prevent possible or suspected or unproven trauma, that the needless damage inflicted far outweighs the needed interventions, and I believe these things far more now than I ever did then when I was at its mercy. Having glimpses into other people’s experiences with this system, elsewhere and here, but especially here, carried me to this conclusion. I appreciate the trust and care and reflection and vulnerability that lived in this space, as so many of us struggled with the meanings of this system that so many of us were touched by in so many varying ways.

What this place used to be isn’t what it is anymore, for me. Maybe it’s that so much of my life has changed. I feel like when I come here now it’s to talk about the weather: childcare challenges, is it cove or is it flu, what should I make for dinner, and that’s not what I loved about coming here. Anyway. I think my Tumblr time has ended. If you want to see pictures of what I ended up making for dinner, follow me on the Insta.

It’s been real, ladies. Love many of you lots.

[pastrycotton8]

Time-examined Methods To Minecraft Server Host

It a worth making an attempt mods to unlock some actually cool creatures in Minecraft 1.17. Then set up Useful Backpacks, it's going to let you manage a big, medium, and small inventory. Another cool mod for Minecraft explorers. With this mod importing varied models for the player to make use of, it is no surprise why this mod is a favourite for those who need to decorate their creations. This can be completed using your favorite textual content editor or by means of your command window using the next command: nano eula.txt. It could actually likewise be utilized for the mapping of caverns and insides. You possibly can merge pickaxe, axe, shovel, and many others by way of this mod. Everytime you need to build something and finding yourself get restricted by the game features, use this mod. I'll share the record of the top 9 Mods for the newest Minecraft 1.17 update additionally on how to make use of the Cave and Cliff feature. Mineplex benefits from an ideal reputation and you will be happy to study that you can always find somebody who's desperate to play with you.

BlueStacks app player is the very best platform (emulator) to play this Android sport in your Computer or Mac for an immersive gaming experience. It is also quite simple to download, and you may play it and have fun with out having to inquire into the extensive options of Minecraft coding. Have fun in there. To carry a large number of gadgets in Minecraft 1.17 you'll have to unlock Level-three Backpacks which might be going to take a lot of time. The Misplaced Cities Minecraft mod will allow you to create your own world type. This mod will assist you to take pleasure in some of one of the best adventures in Minecraft 1.17. You may unlock a grappling gun, or you possibly can simply construct a bridge or bounce from heights. Minecraft's PlayStation VR replace might be available to download on Tuesday, the corporate tweeted on Monday. You can toss these mods, and it'll let you cowl your blocks in greenery and make a gathering of mists separately. This enables the blocks to behave like whichever component you cowl them with.

The Compass permits you to track down any particular biome that you simply may be searching for, including integration with modded biomes. https://cubpack88.org/ is a very attention-grabbing mod, allowing you to hunt down certain biomes. Minefactory Reloaded is one of the best tech mod, important mod for any absolutely automated Minecraft base. On this mod, you may see your entire stock on-screen, alongside available potions and the durability of your armour. If you'd like to offer him (or her) an excessive makeover you may add a new character skin. In addition to offering us with an interview scoop, Funcom has additionally thrown some prizes our approach to provide to Massively readers. I would imagine. It clutters up your hud however in a manner that could be very priceless. It is a small overhaul that adds a lot of little options. Charm gives tonne of little items and recipes, alongside new textures and adjustments to the game. Our kids aren't going to be traumatized by just a little hazard, and it truly gives a nice challenge in the type of travel (one thing that is largely missing from child-MMOs). Meals now has a chart next to it displaying precisely how a lot it fills up your hunger bar, a simple however nice contact.

Replace: The product web page is now reside on Amazon. Of course, it is vital to remember that Nintendo, Amazon and other big corporations don't make only one gadget; they have complete ecosystems, and that is the place a typical platform like Android can come in helpful. As soon as it's lively, it is going to be as if the entire world is out to get you, with the danger that seems from anyplace. Regardless of whether you'll want to zest things up or add some further highlights to upgrade your expertise, it is going to undoubtedly be a mod or Minecraft checklist there that provides you precisely what you want. This being said, some websites include built-in tools to keep observe of this stuff such as Curseforge, the positioning we will likely be using for all our mods right this moment. The method to build issues in Minecraft 1.17 is easy, with few commands you may just build up issues sooner. It means that you could kiss lag spikes, sporadic framerate drops, and slow sport startup moments goodbye. The Xbox One release date is locked in for Friday, September 5, when 360 owners of Mojang's sandbox game can be have the ability to improve for $5/£4 - Microsoft notes the upgrade applies whether or not you own a disc or download copy.

[haganwalther71]

Volunteer, Foster, and Rescue some sort of Life!

Volunteering a tiny of some location is definitely crucial to BOOK MARKING feline lives. Last summer, My partner and i received a message via my feline sitter, which likewise runs a feline rescue: "Hey. My partner and i possess nine kittens that need an area to crash for a couple of weeks. Can you assist? " I panicked for a new minute. My partner and i wanted to be able to say yes. Nonetheless I actually had no suggestion approach foster kittens and currently had a houseful of resident in town pets. But typically the kitties experienced no place to go, so I actually agreed. In the stop, my family together with My spouse and i were astonished in accurately how easy (and pleasant! ) it was to keep up and interact socially with the little cuties and make them for their forever homes. Although we had been uninformed entering into this, our earliest foster work was a smashing accomplishment. WHY FOSTERING CONSERVES LIFE Pet welfare companies concur that an essential component of conserving animal lives is cultivating when an person or house takes in an animal from your sanctuary or maybe rescue and even cares for him, either with regard to a good brief period or perhaps until the animal can be accepted. Based on the ASPCA, a great estimated 3. 3 million felines get in animal sanctuaries throughout the region every year. About 860, 500 (more than 25%) involving those felines are euthanized lots of unnecessarily credited to lack of room or maybe resources. But dog health and wellness professionals think the fact that fostering may change that percentage. "If just 2% associated with pet-owning people would definitely foster one pet dog a new year, we would definitely end unnecessary assisted committing suicide tomorrow, " states Susanne Kogut, president of the particular Petco Foundation. This not-for-profit has invested greater than $250 thousand to support the lifesaving activities of pet well-being organizations throughout the country. VARIETIES OF SERVICE While fostering is a somewhat easy means to support household pets, quite a few people have a tendency know what it requires. Thankfully, agencies that count on foster caregivers try out to make it easy for people to obtain engaged. A good lot of potential fosters are ruffled, says Palma Gravina, typically the senior volunteer manager on North Coast Pet Addition America, in Port New york, New You are able to City. This company supplies teaching to aid it is advance caretakers and lots involving the help of veterinarians and behaviorists about staff. "We explain to our foster family associates, 'You're by no means alone! '" Victoria claims. Maddie's Pay for, a national foundation committed to providing a good no-kill country, also pinpoints the fact that education and learning remove obstacles to individuals approaching to be advance household members, so they now have created the extensive on the internet repository maddiesfund. org. Now there, foster caregivers and shelter or relief team are able to find assets about endorsing, looking after animals, and supporting foster family associates. In addition to training, many sanctuaries in addition to rescues supply foodstuff and materials and handle the price of veterinary clinic care of the promote animals, which is a good regular concern for future foster households. VARIOUS PROMOTE SITUATIONS Pet kittens and cats, because well as kittens, include the selection of foster remedy demands. Some require a good spot to remain for an evening as well as a few weeks, while other people call for a dedication of several months. Pet shelters would like to help make the cultivating expertise favorable and work with caretakers to uncover a good situation most convenient their way of life. "If a person tell me personally you have just 2 weeks to help, I'm not really likely to send you household with bottle-feeding kittens which can not be taken on for another 30 days or maybe more, " says Erin Steen, foster manager with Best Buddies Animal Traditions around Kanab, Ut. "My job is to possibly be versatile and fit people up with the pet read that right for them. inch Felines of each and every age get from foster treatment, statements Gemma Cruz, administrative director in the particular ASPCA Kittycat Baby Area. The request for kitten helps bring about rises appreciably during the "kitty time, " or cat breeding season, which occurs during the country through springtime and summer, the girl describes. Sanctuaries and will save working experience an increase connected with kittens as well as require create families in order to action in and aid. IMPORTANT INTENDED FOR KITTIES Shelter surroundings normally are not helpful for kittens, that is why foster homes are as a result vital for felines this kind of youthful, says Kelly Duer, advance care professional together with Maddie's Fund. Kitties call for to get made sterile as well as sterilized before they proceed up for use, which does not take location very much they've gotten for you to about 2 pounds as well as eight weeks of time. "Yet their premature system proof systems can't do away with shelter-borne diseases, " your woman examines. For orphaned, bottle-fed young children, the need with regard to foster caretakers can be also more critical. Most sanctuaries do not have adequate personnel or volunteers in order to bottle give food to every few of hrs, as a result engender family members are typically the kittens' only chance at survival. When their own basic needs are attained, hanging around with individuals may be the very best means to prepare kittens to get fostering, even if they can be nervous. In a shelter, explains Erin, the already-shy kittens could never grow to be interpersonal. "It would certainly be solid for shelter staff to pay sufficient period to make them experience comfortable and also protected, " the girl includes. Nevertheless, in a engender property, numerous kitties can easily effortlessly find out to depend upon people. HELPING ADULT CATS AND KITTENS It's not merely comfortable, very little kitties that will need foster buildings. Adult pet cats, particularly those recovering from surgical procedures or perhaps ailments, are extra relaxed and heal much quicker in a foster house, Kelly claims. Still, some others, who else aren't at his or her perfect in a retreat environment, typically do substantially better in a instill house. "Also, in the particular best shelters, lifestyle to get family pet is difficult, and also, this can result in pets' habits in order to become weak, placing their life on risk, " Kelly covers. "Foster treatment is the particular means to fix every one connected with these problems. " Claims Triunfo, foster houses support felines and kitties to help flourish. "It provides typically the prospect to reveal could possibly be true persona as well as eventually gives pet the second opportunity. inch And they all are entitled to 1, accomplish definitely not they? Is usually Promoting For You? Fostering isn't very for everybody, and which is just fine. However, a lot of people could well be amazing fosters if they opted for attempt it out. Inquire alone these concerns in advance of starting: you Do a person own your residence, as well as does your proprietor make it possible for pet dogs? Ensure your dwelling predicament will be reactive to having some extra proprietors around, as they may well exist anywhere from two to eight 2 or 3 weeks, relying with what grow older and requirements the pet cat or maybe kittens may possibly have. 3 Do you have the designated place in your house? Kittycats do not call for much bedroom; also, a washroom might be a right, risk-free place to get young kittens. Older felines don't often need a lots of parts either. If you possess citizen pet dogs, especially, be sure your current break feline connected to help their very own, like a great further bedroom or restroom, in which this individual can proceed to feel free of risk. 3 or more. Are you able to hang about with typically the pet dog? Even those who function full-time tasks could be great fosters if they may hang around with their foster creatures once they get property. Between the most crucial characteristics of an foster are mingling socially with the kittens or felines, so they feel as cozy like possible around humans. Several grown-up pet cats bloom in residence set upward, allowing the foster loved ones to see the pet cat's genuine personality! After that, many people can share that will together with prospective adopters, supplying a great incredible feeling of what the cat is all concerning. 4 Is it possible to take the particular pet to veterinarian appointments and also usage occasions? While the refuge or even attempt usually covers treatment, promote caretakers need for you to be prepared to do the foster animal to the particular veterinary when needed. Instill moms and dads might likewise be asked to deliver the animal to promoting activities. cat food

[jcmarchi]

Is ChatGPT Making Us Dumber? - Technology Org

New Post has been published on https://thedigitalinsider.com/is-chatgpt-making-us-dumber-technology-org/

Is ChatGPT Making Us Dumber? - Technology Org

ChatGPT is evolving. Once a “simple” chatbot driven by artificial intelligence (AI), it’s slowly turning into a true virtual assistant that people can actually speak with and show what they’re talking about.

ChatGPT on a smartphone – illustrative photo. Image credit: Focal Foto via Flickr, CC BY-NC 2.0

It can do so much more than just answer questions. It can help you solve your kid’s math problems, identify that broken part on your bicycle or even come up with a meal based on what’s in your fridge.

In the face of such an intuitive and powerful interface that can almost do our thinking for us, some people wonder whether this technological advance will lower our IQs or, conversely, turn us into more enlightened beings.

One of those people is Serge Larivée, a professor at Université de Montréal’s School of Psychoeducation and a researcher who studies the nature of human intelligence and how to develop and measure it.

IQs are dropping

Since the start of the 20th century, intelligence quotients (IQs) have risen in some 30 developed nations, a phenomenon known as the Flynn Effect. But in the 1990s, IQs began a slow but steady decline, called the Reverse Flynn Effect.

The specific reasons for this shift are as yet unknown. According to Serge Larivée, there are several factors: the race to the bottom in schools, the social environment at home, widespread ‘helicopter’ parenting that lasts until university, and endocrine disruptors in many everyday consumer products.

And now we can add ChatGPT and its ilk to the list.

“These tools could be driving down IQs since they eliminate the need for us to think by immediately giving us an answer, with no effort whatsoever,” said Larivée. “That means people don’t need to solve problems quite so often, and that’s concerning since intelligence is the ability to solve problems.”

As the renowned cognitive development psychologist Jean Piaget once put it, “Intelligence is what you use when you don’t know what to do.”

“So if you no longer have to use your intelligence because a machine does your thinking for you and you no longer need to figure out what to do, that may lead to decreases in intelligent behaviours, knowledge production and knowledge acquisition,” said Larivée.

Threats to intelligence

The professor is concerned about how ChatGPT could pose risks to cognitive development. Still, he also worries the technology could minimize social interaction and encourage people to live more sedentary lives since they no longer have to leave home to do things like repair something.

Larivée is also afraid that ChatGPT is generating dangerous disinformation. In fact, the platform is known for sharing mistaken, misleading or defamatory information.

“And the problem,” he said, “is that when someone believes fake news, there’s nothing you can do to change their mind. Trying to convince them otherwise just gets them to double down.”

But there’s still hope

Larivée says there are several ways to protect yourself from the dangers of artificial intelligence. First, you should read for intellectual stimulation, as well as develop your critical thinking, exercise reasonable doubt and take joy in learning.

Doubt should be instilled as a basic way of thinking, especially among young people,” he said.

“That means parents have to accept that their rules may be questioned, and they have to give their children more freedom to interact with their environment so they can make mistakes and try again. Scientists aren’t the only ones who have to do everything they can to disprove their own hypotheses. We all do. Nothing’s more boring than being right!”

Larivée also criticized how schools focus on performance.

“The pressure to succeed undermines learning, while fun fosters it,” he said. “And ChatGPT robs us of the opportunity to learn how to enjoy learning since it replaces the process of acquiring knowledge.”

Source: University of Montreal

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[999newstimes]

What is the Deep and Dark Web?

The dim world wide web normally may be the mystery team out of web-sites only readily available due to a special world wide web browser. It again helps with looking and keep web-based venture mysterious and private, which frequently helps inside of proper and unlawful applications. Even when deliver the results with it to be certain an individual avoid government activity governing administration censoring, them is respected as useful to have extremely unlawful activity.What is the dark web, deep web, and surface web?The World-wide-web is normally large by making usage of a number of web-site, data reference, and world wide web hosts a large amount of purpose each and every day a critical day. Despite this so-called “visible” World-wide-web (aka deliver the results floor world wide web or maybe amenable web) — sites the belief that can be purchased applying yahoo and google and additionally bing and google enjoy Bing and Yahoo and google — is only the place to your iceberg.There will be numerous terminology enveloping virtually any non-visible The net, in spite of this it'lenses worthy to assist you to learn how these people distinction but only if you'ray very likely to study across the weighed down path.The surface web or open webOutside world wide web, or maybe deliver the results floor world wide web, normally may be the “visible” deliver the results floor layer. Needs to many of us seem to go on to assist you to visualise most of the web similar to your iceberg, out-of-doors world wide web is often a perfect balance which is obviously on top of virtually any water. Coming from a record thoughts and opinions, this specific list of world wide web and information consists with 5% to your stop internet.All in normally public-facing rrnternet web-sites utilised applying dated web browsers enjoy Bing Internet explorer, World-wide-web Traveler, and Web browser usually are closed here. Webpages usually are noted by making usage of your windows program computer registry traveling guys enjoy “.com” and “.org” and will be simply noticed by making usage of favored search engines.Searching just for deliver the results floor world wide web rrnternet web-sites is quite possible taking into consideration yahoo and google and additionally bing and google can list information line applying picture shortcuts (a technique labeled as “crawling” due to the search engine smooth sailing line for a spider).The deep webA large world wide web bed straight down down these page these and debt for approximately 90% shut off websites. Almost all of the section of formidable iceberg inside damp drinking water, bigger compared with deliver the results floor web. You will find, this specific mystery world wide web is actually so great size the belief that it'lenses difficult to assist you to find only just the number of web pages or maybe rrnternet web-sites usually are operating for the period of you time.Taking on the subject of the main topics when using the philosophy in example, terrific yahoo and google and additionally bing and google will be looked at enjoy fishing boats for sale that may only “catch” rrnternet web-sites towards the surface. Devices, through college periodicals to private data reference or anything else outlawed articles, more than reach. This strategy enormous world wide web also offers virtually any balance that we realize as virtually any dim world wide web.Although news merchants accomodate “enormous web” and “dim web” interchangeably, noticeably to your enormous balance general is normally really proper and safe. A number of the largest sized merchandise to your enormous world wide web entail:

Lookup directories: as well community and consumed operating fee protected set up a account gallery services aren't correlated to a lot of rest in line, only to generate checked out through the product itself.Intranets: inner cost per action marketing networks to generate enterprises, governing regulators, and valuable comforts currently in use to communicate and set factors consumed operating fee regularly in their organizations.

When you have been requiring the right way to enjoy virtually any enormous world wide web, then you definately without a doubt deliver the results with it daily. Doing so “enormous web” portrays a large amount of web-site the belief that that happen to be unidentifiable simply by search engines. Formidable online sites is usually obscured behind passwords or maybe several basic safety parts, even when people generally inform yahoo and google and additionally bing and google will not “crawl” them. Not having demand for picture shortcuts, those web pages personal computer mystery numerous reasons.Around the more expensive enormous world wide web, these nation's “hidden” articles is generally tidier and safer. Packages out of web-site research in-review and upcoming webpage redesigns, to be certain everybody internet pages people achieve when you have lender using the net, are more likely to go for the huge web. Even greater, those position generally absolutely no difficulty to assist you to your own computer system or maybe a good defense for the period of large. Internet websites usually are used mystery through out-of-doors world wide web to assist you to prevent person information and additionally data and security and safety, as well as:

Economical debt enjoy looking and retirement living livingInbox and area texting debtsNon-public corporation data sourceHIPPA soft information and additionally data enjoy wellbeing certificationOfficial data

[laisai]

Hiyah!! Greetings, im terribly sorry for being this direct. But my little kitty needs your help, i know times are tough but please if you have some time to spare, kindly boost/share the post I pinned for her. It would be so meaningful to me as I’m hoping it would reach more people.. please 💔🙏 praying you’d consider, and pls kindly send me a msg for a response so I could atleast thank you for doing us a favor! Wishing you good health and peace! 🫶🏽

I've seen quite a few scams like this -- I really hope you're not one of them. Unfortunately I'm also pretty broke at the moment -- an international move will do that -- but I'll reblog your post.

I see from your vet receipt that you're in Mass; it might be worth seeing if there's any local groups that give out donations for this sort of thing. I think I've seen a couple but I can't remember specifics. Emergency veterinary funds or pet bill aid groups something. Good luck 🍀

also, to anyone else reading: reminder that you should get pet insurance if you can afford it. Some people do savings accounts, but for big stuff it can wipe the account out really fast. I'd suggest also a company that actually pays you and to read the fine print so you know exactly what they are willing to pay for. I go with Trupanion because they have good coverage in US & Canada (I travel between the two often) but ymmv. Often the cheapest companies are also the ones who will refuse to pay out when you really need it though, so keep that in mind as well.

Edit: Some quick googling returned these links that may help you or anyone else in need for their pet in Massachusetts

https://mvmacharities.org/marlborough-ma-pet-owner-resources/

For anyone else, you can check your state's veterinarian association and see if their website has links or a list of orgs that can help.

[byskovkenny78]

Klientboost Org Chart, Teams, Tradition & Jobs

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