Let me just say that this is confusing considering the number of teams involved and probably too early but im gonna write the tiebreaks.
With around 9-10 games left, i will include teams from 4th seed (2.5 games ahead of us) all the way to 12th (0.5 games behind us).
1) Suns: are 2.5 games ahead of us and have a 2-1 lead in h2h but if we win the match later on we'll be tied and it'll depend on conference. Suns are 24-19 and we are 21-24. So unlikely but its possible.
2) Clippers: 2.5 games behind and we dont have the tiebreaks.
3) Warriors: 1.5 games ahead of us and we have the tiebreaks.
4) Timberwolves: 0.5 games behind and we dont have the tiebreaks
5) Mavs: tied and we dont have the tiebreaks
6) Pelicans: tied and we have the tiebreaks
7) OKC: tied and 1-1 on h2h so tomorrow's game will decide tiebreaks
8) Utah: 0.5 behind us and 0-2 in h2h. We need to win our next 2 h2h games then it'll depend on conference. Utah are 22-23 and we are 21-24.

We are Azure Infinitum
Visit us at: (https://www.azureinfinitum.com/)
You may have seen us in the Aether data center's party finder during our weekly events, or may have seen our recruitment shouts around the realm in-game in Midgardsormr, but there just isn't enough space in those places to really explain everything wonderful about what our Free Company and community is.
Azure Infinitum is an LGBTQ+ friendly community, and welcomes players of all experience level, play style, and availability. We're a warm home with a balance of online players, weekly optional activities, and flexible ranks from our membership, to our support & leadership categories. We have a 24/7 Support Team, a Councilship that governs each tier, seasonal events of our own, and many resources between the games we support and online services.
Who We Are
We are an established 9-year old community who's home is in Midgardsormr Server of Final Fantasy XIV. We are a structured, well-rounded, welcoming, friendly, and organized community that hosts daily events (check out our calendar: https://azureinfinitum.com/events/ ) that provide opportunity for members to excel. We work to provide an arena and opportunities to establish strong bonds and camaraderie between our members. As a community we are driven, we carry each other forward, and we are proud.
Our Name & Philosophy
Learn more about our global community here: (https://www.azureinfinitum.com/aboutus/)
Learn more about our FFXIV Free Company here: (https://www.azureinfinitum.com/ourffxivfc/)
Azure Infinitum means "Azure/Blue Infinity or Infinite Blue/Azure" and there is some mythos behind the name that stems from our guild-wide philosophy of kindness, freedom, vigilance, diversity and activity. We promote positive fellowship among members in an organized guild, with our sights open to our unending endless skies, full of possibility and success together.
Our motto is "As Free As The Azure Sky!" which stuck well when our FC was restructured from an old guild in 2014 as Azure was founded, and it was first shouted as we looked out at a clear blue sky above. has continued to be our electric victory as we continue to snowball in success and activity, our members soaring high through the Azure Sky, flying together!
Ranks
Click here to learn more about our community ranks: (https://www.azureinfinitum.com/ranks/)
Our community has an organized ranking structure beginning with Members who comprise the majority of the roster. Scouts are our support team of Members who've stepped up to more officially support the FC, some work on obtaining a future leadership rank. Lieutenants and Officers comprise the proud Azure Council, a diverse group of players of different specialties and services to the FC, making up lower and higher tier leadership, seeing over the Scouts and the FC weekly events, aside from being admins. The FC Infinitum Master oversees all and leads the Azure Council and the company forward while always keeping the heart and vision of the community alive and in sight. Currently we are re-assessing ranks in the free company, giving more support permissions and duties to our Scouts, while the current council operates as a small team of Lieutenants lead by the FC Master.
Everyone Welcome and Who Fits Best
We have an open door policy. Whether you're casual, a returning player, a veteran, or a newbie, we have a vast array of players in our member roster. Our weekly schedule is organized and provides an array of activity for players of most levels, however we like to ask players who're pretty new or under the level cap, to be extra vocal about their needs while they're still unable to attend some daily events or higher level content that most of our weekly lineup focuses on. We want everyone to have as much fun as possible and have the most success. We find that most players enjoy Azure Infinitum, many have stated that they subscribed to FFXIV much longer than they ever would have imagined after they have been around in our community, as they've gotten involved and experienced all that we offer.
Our FC keeps a daily schedule (see here: https://www.azureinfinitum.com/events/) of events that are hosted by permitted Scouts and Council ranks, these range from 8-man and 24-man raids and map parties, to WT journal groups and trial clear parties or farms, and more- and attending anything isn't mandatory at all here. We're happy to have you, and its up to our members how much they'd like to get involved. Attendance is optional! There's never any stress to attend FC functions.
Savage Raiding Statement
We find that some hardcore raiders looking for free companies just to join their statics who don't already have one, might not fit well if savage raiding is their only or greatest focus, because traditionally Azure does not have a Savage Static, but focuses more on allowing members to organize their own groups and also provides resources to do so. Despite not supporting an official static for the FC, we hope that hardcore raiders enjoy the wealth of our community's wealth of harmony and overall fun, and that everyone may take initiative to seek out or build a raiding static within our community if they are interested, as opposed to missing out on experiencing Azure. Depending on the content season, we may have an Unofficial static lead by a leader, and routinely offer limited time Savage-learning events that may run for a number of months.
Rules and No Drama Policy
Please take a moment to look over our Rules Page at (https://www.azureinfinitum.com/rules/), we find that rude individuals and people who create drama are the outsiders here that don't fit well. We know its a big page, so at least visit the General Rules section before joining.
Recruitment Care & Activity
People of Azure Infinitum are often if not always good natured players who found their way to our community looking for a place with structure, friendliness, organization, and great activity, or they've been scouted during recruitment drives and have been well screened. Its a place where one can be social and attend everything, or relax in the background and enjoy the services and facilities of being in an active, organized, and friendly FC. We actively recruit periodically to assist with upkeep of community activity levels, and to meet new comrades. A community that closes recruitment can be doomed to stagnation. Its normal for a community to have an inner core of die hards who log in daily regardless of content releases, and also have an outer core of individuals that range from those with less availability to those who check in during Patches. This is why we take extra care in keeping the fresh blood flowing into Azure, cautious recruitment, and support our active model by always staying welcoming and sometimes running recruitment campaigns and other services. Like this ad!
Handling Online Drama
Because we keep a no-drama policy and have a strong communication network, it is leadership's ultimate priority to handle any issues that may come up as soon as possible, and most people appreciate our problem solving which has inspired many other communities. Between our Support & Leadership ranks, we use a number of report and resource channels to handle situations, and perform problem solving protocols & tactics to fairly address issues as possible. Drama is inevitable at some point for any online community, so its important to have a large and strong list of moderators (currently around 60!) and a council of leaders (15+) to quickly handle any problems. Luckily, we don't have a lot of drama, but we're always very well equipped and very prepared. Our community has been commended by game staff in the past for our methods, and we have worked with the FFXIV Special Task Force to ensure as much safety to our community as achievable. It should be stressed that it is up to our membership to report to GM's in-game, and to Azure Leadership should any issues or concerns come up. Its also highly recommended that our members appropriately document evidence that can be used to help us assess situations and make proper decisions. Documenation such as screenshots of harassment is a great example! Our members online safety is greatly important to us and is a number one concern of our leadership team. Our Rules Page at: (https://www.azureinfinitum.com/rules/) describes a bit more in Chapter 3, including other entries on avoiding/ignoring trolls, playing while intoxicated, depression, and more.
Our Philosophy
We believe in our community and its people, how far we can go, how much we can do for each other, being an experienced community who's core values are positive fellowship, formation of bonds, and indomitable unity.
Azure Infinitum tightly grasps success and masters a casual and lucrative weekly play schedule while inspiring motivation and providing avenues for further success, friendships, and camaraderie among all who freely fly together among our Azure skies.
Founding on the principles of intricately forging a generally drama-free experience with keen leadership and a zealous and mighty membership, Azure has striven to guide and support many hundreds of players through every era of Final Fantasy XIV.
With an illustrious history, company lore, impressive statistics, and a model that is adaptable and blessed with innovative ability, Azure Infinitum claims a dominant presence of excellence and player growth that is possible in our community and extended services.
Estate Organization
We have the entire set-up at our estate, from gardens for members and Krakka Root production (free for members' chocobos), to our stables, nicely uniform clean lawn with hangout spots that are popular, with crafting stations, all available NPCs for simple mats and repairs, cut-scene viewer, toybox, triple-triad board, a fully operational and geared fleet of airships and subs, and our Azure Infinitum Assembly Chamber on the top floor for our meetings where announcements are made at our Grand Assemblies. Check it out if you like at Mist Ward 7 Plot 1.
We also have an organized form of gathering for weekly events in the yard, places to relax, food that is always available on tables at our Cellar, and hold a lot of special events and social games at our Hall. We're also conveniently located next to a Market Board and a Retainer Bell outside of our estate.
Communication and Extended Azure Services
We have multiple services of which none are mandatory, but we provide being (azureinfinitum.com) where our Forums, Event Calendar, News, Company Meeting Summaries, Seasonal Merch Giveaways, Contests, Rules Page, and more take place and can be found. We also have a popular and active Discord Server.
We also have a Facebook Group, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Steam Group, (Look us up! Or visit: (https://www.azureinfinitum.com/socialmedia/) and Linkshells like our Infinitum Alliance LS for contact and aid from our allies if needed, our Azure Hunters LS for Hunters, and our Azure Industry LS which connects our members to our inner crafting/gathering community for newbies to pros.
Also worthy of mention is our big Company Meetings in-game, known as Azure Infinitum Grand Assemblies. Even though we have several avenues that keep people connected, our live assemblies gather the FC in unity where announcements are made first, and all proposals, ideas, and more, can be decided together live with the Azure Council present.
This network ensures a lot of information and communication gets around and has been exceedingly useful to us.
More On Events
One part of our reputation that often precedes us is our event crafting and hosting.
First, let me make sure its clear that attendance is never mandatory, but those who can make use, when possible, of what we provide each day, benefit from our events each week.
Since our beginning, traditions like our Thursday Treasure Thursdays events have run each week. Our weekly line-up presently begins on Tuesdays post-weekly reset, and consists of Raid Tuesdays, Wondrous Wednesdays (WT Journal Parties, often doubles as Trial Clears and Pony Drops), Treasure Thursdays (Endwalker's timeworn maps with groups of 8 doing up to 3 rounds of maps allowing for up to 24 maps ran), 24-Man Tuesdays (full pre-formed Azure 24-member alliances are made and raids are cleared, will be returning upon the release of EW's 24-man), Super Azure Slayer Sunday (our weekly meetup to do all sorts of PVP content be it Rival Wings or Frontline), and Monstrous Mondays (helps clear the current and previous patch extreme trials).
Special, Seasonal, and Quarterly Events
More info here: (https://www.azureinfinitum.com/azureday/)See the latest event news & more at: (https://www.azureinfinitum.com/news/)
We also have what we call Special and Quarterly Events. These types of events are Weekend-Long-Events that usually consist of a theme or celebratory social events we craft. During these events we hold big Riddle Races, Costume/Glamour shows and contests, 3-Story Mansion Maze Races, Speedrun Dungeon Races, Hide and Seek games, Custom Quest Events, Discord events like Cards Against Humanity nights, Comedy events, PVP Tournament Circuits, and more.
Our Special and Quarterly events are Azure Day Weekend (Takes place 3 times a year across a weekend, celebrates the FC), Azure Summer Festival (3-days at the end of August in partnership with Child's Play, raises money for children in long-term care, anniversary of historic FC event called the Lunar Rebellion), Anniversary Azure Day (a big weekend event in November that celebrates our Founding), Azure Day Saint's Wake (celebrates Halloween/All Saint's Wake), Azure Starlight Day (celebrating Starlight Day/Christmas/December Holiday Season), Azure Grand Melee and Duel Tournaments (PVP Circuit series crowning our PVP Champions) and more.
Azure Day Weekends
If you've been around our server you may have heard of our Azure Day Weekends. Our Azure Days take place quarterly as mentioned just above, with four evolved editions called Azure Summer Festival, Azure Day Saint's Wake, Azure Starlight Day, and Anniversary Azure Day. With Azure Day Weekends and related events traditionally occuring quarterly our members are always excited to see the next big weekend of crazy and fun social games, and our showering of the free company in gil and prizes galore. We go all out when we celebrate the free company, and Azure Days are another way we find for leadership to give back to the community. 2023 and beyond is now host to additional seasonal Azure Day events!
We're always giving our members a chance to have fun, win big, and make some great memories in the in-game family we've become. Something fun is always on the horizon in Azure.
Community
I almost can't stress enough how friendly our community is. We have a vast variety of members from hardcore gatherers and crafters, social butterflies, chill veterans, experienced raiders, level grinders, support teams, PVP aficionados, mechanic specialists, and mentors. We're also very friendly to all casual players as well and we keep an open door so long as recruits are always aware that we have a no-drama tolerance here.
​Evolution into a Gaming Clan & Network
Plans are in the works and foundations are being laid that is slowly turning our community into a larger gaming network, with our first established Azure Wing with regular occurring activity being founded in Monster Hunter World, this has led to a successful Destiny 2 clan and more. Becoming a member of our Discord and/or Free Company now means access to things like our huge discord, Azure Wing membership in other games, and being able to join in on any of our other activities in the general community. Azure Network as its being called at the moment, is growing with an all-new website and community features for playing together across Final Fantasy XIV and to Azure Skies beyond!
Activity
We rank high as one of the top FC's in Worldwide Activity on lodestone, and have for a long time. Most of our players are divided between the US East and West Coasts, members in East and West Canada, and a few outside the US or in EU or Aus zones. Because we do have an activity policy (mentioned below) we keep a standard flow of people, and have crowds in the early morning, late morning, early afternoon, afternoon, evening, and late night crowds.
Elitism isn't our style. Our community boasts a broad range of characters, great personalities, the proud, and also some silly goofs. But elitism isn't welcome, no matter how successful we are or how large we grow. We're always welcoming towards fresh faces interested in joining our guild, and the in-game activity ranges between 30-60+ online at once during prime time hours, sometimes around 70+ on patch days, and usually always with half the roster logging in throughout a 24 hour period, and around 15-30+ during the night.
Activity Policy
We ask that our members do not go missing without logging in for more than 60 days straight. If we hear word from someone or have some kind of decent excuse, we place our members on our On Vacation rank, which lasts presently until 90 days have passed. Exceptions are made for military deployments, hospital stays, financial issues, disability/health related issues, moving, or other reasons that might fall on a case-by-case basis.
All members not heard from in 60 days (roughly 2 months) or currently 90 days (roughly 3 months) are discharged. We allow 3 joins to Azure Infinitum in total, but exceptions can be made due to reasons listed above. If removed for inactivity, or you've left our FC for another reason and haven't already joined 3 times, you're always welcome back, but please remember, we are not a revolving door.
Keeping our roster full of members who have been online and presently play the game actively ensures an active environment for our players who play often. It also keeps our credits and clerical processes balanced across our network, and allows space for new faces to join our big happy in-game family of comrades.
How to Join
Quick Instructions here for joinin us in FFXIV & more: (https://www.azureinfinitum.com/howtojoinazure/)
If you are interested in joining our Azure Infinitum free company, please register an application at our site and/or FC in-game. You can also seek any of our Scouts, Lieutenants, Officers, or the Master of Azure Infinitum in-game and ask for an invite. You can find their names on the roster page at our website.
If you read everything on this page, you are awesome, and you should let anyone you talk to who recruits you know that you read everything on this page which will greatly expedite your invitation to join.
If you have any questions whatsoever feel free to send a /tell in-game to me or any of our Scouts or Lieutenants listed on our official roster here: https://na.finalfantasyxiv.com/lodestone/freecompany/9232519973597911137/membe
You can also message us at our FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/AzureInfinitum
Discord here: https://discord.gg/azureinfinitum
Twitter: https://twitter.com/azureinfinitum
Insta: https://www.instagram.com/azure_infinitum/
Main Site: https://www.azureinfinitum.com/

I'm the friend that gives everyone nicknames, whether family, comrades, chicks. I will call you a nickname that you dont even know you have and sometimes it sticks. Heres a few of my favorite nicknames for the boys!!
#1 Magikelle, its soooo simple and a play on the word Magical, and we all can agree that our Point Gawd is Magikelle with the ball in his hand and even more so on the defensive end. I posted this for the first time Media Day when he was speaking with Florida Sports News and they let the players view the live stream as they were being interviewed, when she showed him the comments he saw Magikelle and was like " I like that, you see that one right there I like that" Check the tape
#2 MOD, The minister of the Defense is still an insane nickname for JI, he will be back Maning one of the back up big spots next year.
#3 Prototype P v.5 Every time I get cooking with P on 2k or he gets it going in a game, I call him Prototype P, They compared the kid to LBJ and Melo lmao only word that describes Paolo to me and thats "prototype" he is built for this.
#4 Boogie(Franzchise) x Moe Swag SUPER SWAGNER BROS
#5 CloseEmOut Cole aka The C.E.O As we saw tonight, Cole Anthony is a huge piece to this puzzle and when he gets it rolling in the 4th my entire household is screaming CLOSE EM OUT COLE!!!!!
#6 Chum Buck3t (Sticky Fingers Okeke) man house I miss getting hype for my man Chum, #FREECHUM
Just a few of my PERSONAL favorites, What do you like to call the guys when they get rolling or what Ideas do you all have for some cool nicknames!!! Great Win boys enjoy some Pizza, and see yall next episode of The New Adventures of Magikelle and The Magic Kingdom vs Nets.

Recently A Creator went viral sharing tips from Instagram on algorithm & Follower growth. She was in a creator meeting with IG representatives and from that, she shared the knowledge to her Tiktok.
And what Instagram told her was not valuable, and isn’t even practically.

Instagram will not push reels edited in Capcut & Tiktok Editor

This is the only tip from her video that actually makes sense because besides the original watermark of Tiktok & Capcut.
In free version of Capcut, there are rumours of an invisible watermark that helps algorithm differentiate between original content and Tiktok reshared content.
IG recommended in the past too. To edit videos within reels app for better reach.

Algorithm Favours Who Post Everyday

This is bull crap, obviously Instagram will say that in their creator meeting to influence creators to post everyday.
Listen an average Instagram user will end up consuming 100 different posts after liking your post. And they will forget about the post.
You can never be consistent enough because people are consuming more but businesses are creating less content. And both numbers can never match.
Don’t burnout from trying to post everyday. Try to create content that people remember, share personalised content focused on buyer personas.

Reels Algorithm Favours Videos with 9:16 Format

This is not only algorithm, you should utilise the full space a content format gives you to target your followers. And on reels try to utilise the whole 9:16 aspect ratio to make people feel engaged with your content.

Instagram Wants you to use 3-5 Hashtags

The issue here is studies show the difference that number of hashtags brings to your engagement rate is 1% increase or decrease in the rate. No matter you used 5 or 30 hashtags.
But the numbers lie too. The majority of Instagram users end up using same trendy hashtags within a niche. That don’t bring engagement due to heavy use.
Try to be niche specific with your hashtags to have more engagement & reach from each hashtag you include in post.

Optimise IG Caption for Search Visibility

It is always good to add relevant keywords to your Instagram captions but don’t stuff it for search Visibility.
Your Caption still plays a bigger role in making people connect. Don’t comprise that for search visibility as engagement from your old followers will bring you more growth.

Algorithm Favours Trending Sounds

This is a new growth hack famous as every Instagram guru is dancing & running their business by sharing trending sounds with people.
The impact of trending sounds earlier in 2022 was huge but since 2023 the impact has slow down. The creators are seeing trending audios don’t make a huge difference.
If you’re still interested, I can share places to find those audios.

Instagram wants 6 Stories a day

They want you to post 6 stories a day. I will say only one thing. Stories help you connect with your existing followers & you can do that with only a single story if you use storytelling or transparency with your audience.

Use More Interactive Story features

To keep their users engaged, IG wants you to use their AMA, Poll & Questions stickers as that will keep the users hooked to the platform.
This tip is actually good as you can see the followers that are engaging the most & find what they like and what they don’t. What works try to double down on it.

Engaging In Comments

Instagram told her to engage with comments just after posting the content. To increase the chances of you reaching more users.

Algorithm is Only 5% Job

Above was all Instagram told the creator to do if she wants to be more successful & grow.
Let me tell you algorithm is only 5% Of your Instagram strategy. You have better things to focus on like studying your audience, networking & better content strategy implementation & much more.
These will impact your growth more than just finding a hack to crack algorithm. Instagram is just a marketing channel, moderated by an algorithm. Trying to get pass moderator will not lead you to success. The strategy will help you!
P.S. For more valuable Instagram tips & news, You can subscribe here to receive social media updates & tips.

I've always considered myself as a straight male. I've had girlfriends in the past and still do enjoy being around a fine woman. Over the past year or so I've been having fantasies of being with a man (or multiple) in the bedroom, which I know is normal to explore even if they're just fantasies, but I've also been thinking about romantic relationships with men recently. It's only been in my own mind, I haven't acted on anything or told anyone about anything related to these fantasies. And though I wouldn't just walk up to a random man and ask him to go on a date, I'd consider accepting an invitation to one if I was interested in him. At this point I don't know who to talk to about this or how to get that conversation started or if I even want to talk about it with anyone. I know there are hotlines and therapists that I could go to but I've never been a therapy type of person. I've taken online tests about this and most of them say that I'm bisexual but I'm not putting all of my faith in some random test that takes 5 minutes to fill out. Having a label for my sexuality has never been the most important thing to me but it would be nice to know what I am so I can truly understand it. (Don't feel pressured to comment I was just doing this to vent)

[Complex Numbers]
In this problem set we know the value of z is 1 + i.
I am having difficulty understanding what answer format is desired here.
Do i include the imaginary numbers in my answer or do i exclude all imaginary numbers.
My two answers so far are:
(i^2 +1) (i^2 -4i + 5)
​
and
​
(z^2 -2z + 2) (z^2 -6z + 10)
​
I have been trying out different variations and videos for the past few hours but what I primarily don't understand is the phrasing.
I want to do the question myself but am wondering if I am way off base with my current answers or if its on the right track. Complex numbers has been very confusing so far.

Well to be short, last 5 icon pack sbcs I did was muller(which is shit now)zanetti Socrates koeman and owen.The past 2 months I was ending up elite and between rank 4-5 on fut champs.only good thing I packed was Lucio from the last hero sbc.my team has been the same the last 2 months and I can’t pack anything worth tradable or even usuable untradeable.Should I just switch accounts and start from zero?(also the past 2 weeks because of work I barely play and I just do the required wins for rivals so I don’t have much time to grind either)

Worst breakup i've ever been through.
Things were going swimmingly only till a couple weeks ago, the first thing that triggered me to start getting devalued was when one of her girlfriends was sleeping over at her place and sent a text message to me at 2am in the morning saying "we're about to cum/f*** together hope your jealous" with a picture of her on my spouses bed, I was triggered and explained this was inappropriate the next day. She made me grovel down for an apology saying I was overreacting, an apology I regret.
Since then she distanced herself more and more, icy cold stares, snide comments at me, I started asking her " do you resent me, if so ill give you space" very calmly and she would blow up at me saying that she's explained herself over and over. Anytime I'd bring up an issue she would say "your giving me anxiety" "projecting" "pathological" "guilt tripping" and give me silent treatment for most of the day.
Fast forward to last week...... we are in the car and she's asking for a guys number that I know for pot. She has been smoking an insane amount recently and has a history of psychosis, I thought I did the right thing by saying "no, I can't enable you, your smoking way too much" she blew up at me and said "im sick of men trying to control me, f*** off" so I left the car as she blew up. Sent a text message to me "figure your own shit out if you want to be in my life" I didn't reply to for 5 hours because I was composing myself, and consequently that day she blocked me. I called her dad to ask if she's okay, turns out she's in hospital with psychosis. I feel responsible for triggering her to be honest... and I have alot of guilt of the situation as I was being intermittently lovebombed when she needed something and devalued over the past few weeks. I assume she went through a collapse because she couldn't control me anymore and I wasn't being obedient, my heart breaks for her because even though she does have NPD she possesses alot of admirable qualities, hence I Love her. Her last message to me was "if I see you on the street, don't come up to me unless I ask" and now is in hospital. Not sure if i'll ever see her again, it's been extremely traumatic as I feel like I could have done something more, or differently for this not to happen. Anyway thanks for reading.

Hey all, this has been my recent home for the past few weeks since I was broken up with about a week ago from my 4 year relationship.
Hearing stories of hope, hate, love.... stories of moving on and mourning has really helped me process what's going on.
During the start of our break up, she blocked me on all of her social medias, phone number as well as having her family block my number too. She is having some personal issues, when they first arose i didn't really help physically, emotionally or financially. I was a dick.
Realising this i tried to win her back. Texts, calls, letters, trying to arrange visits.
I did this daily, sometimes even calling her *67 just so i could hear her voice. I resorted to messaging on whatever access i still had... Whatsapp, Soundcloud and email... pathetic hey.
Ranging from the "Im Sorry", "Please" to "How are things going? I've been etc etc" with no reply.
Until she threatened to put a restraining order for contacting her so much 2 days ago.
So it really just hit me, i am a fucking douchebag.. if i really loved her i would give her space
So.
Ive been 2 days into no contact since, i dont think it'll ever get easier but im ready to move on... i have since gained financial stability, created a routine to get healthier. I know it takes time, im working on it.
I've stopped drinking, sadly I have picked up smoking again though, didnt think i would but here i am rolling cigarette after cigarette.
I feel like im just ranting at this point, it feels nice to. I dont have many friends, if any that i can talk to these things about maturely.. i guess i just like speaking into an empty void, thats what i did by messaging her.. knowing she would read these things and not message back... casuing her to spiral worse and delay her healing.
My question is...
Why do i feel better after she threatened to put a restraining order on me? Is this narcissistic ?
Why do i feel like there could still be a chance? Knowing this, am i healing? Where am i at?
​
Dont worry, i wont be contacting her again. But i really hope she reaches out one day
thanks for listening guys

I posted this long multi-comment thread on the megathread last Sunday, and several people suggested that I make it its own post, so here goes. Note this post is lightly edited from the original comment to improve readability and preserve some arguments made by another commenter in that thread without me having to do the hard work of editing the whole post to reflect their well-taken counterpoints. For those who read the original, it hasn't changed in any significant way except that one link. This post is largely my own analysis supported by links to a variety of credible sources.
Dr. Sovietlove; or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Bakhmut
Many people on the daily megathread or on Twitter have been arguing that holding out in Bakhmut has caused enormous and unsustainable Ukrainian losses which will compromise their future offensive potential, and/or that Soviet-style leadership is the only reason the Ukrainians have held on to Bakhmut for so long. Much like during the Battle of Severodonetsk, I think a lot of people are overreacting to events in the Donbas and that the Ukrainians might have a perfectly reasonable strategic justification for continuing to defend Bakhmut. I have a few hypotheses about the situation and put together some analysis and sources to support those conclusions below.
My hypotheses in brief:

1. Ukraine effectively has two armies, one post-Soviet and one NATO. UAF high commmand has recognized that they have to fight the Russians with an only partially modernized military which includes significant numbers of officers, soldiers, and equipment not suitable for NATO-style warfare. They recognize that you can't "beat a large Soviet army with a small one." They have therefore formulated a strategy to use the post-Soviet and NATO-style units where their particular strengths are most relevant, and are largely resourcing and employing them separately as a result.
2. The UAF is aggressively applying economy of force principles, which dictate that an army should devote the maximum amount of resources to their primary effort, while allocating the smallest amount possible to any secondary efforts. Thus, the Ukrainians are committing the fewest possible resources to holding the line of contact in the Donbas while reserving as much as possible for their primary effort, which is the coming counteroffensive.
3. Ukraine along with their allies and soft power proxies such as friendly journalists, whether knowingly or not, have been engaged in a disinformation campaign designed to lure Putin into committing the last of his mobilized reserves to an assault on Bakhmut in the last days of the mud season before the Ukrainian spring counteroffensive.

I'd like to emphasize that these are assessments backed by analysis and facts which you can check yourself below, but are definitely not by any means 100% certain.
Two Armies
The post-Soviet army can be characterized by its leadership, organization, and resources.

• Leaders tend to be older senior officers trained under Soviet regime pre-2014, although the culture also pervades lower ranks (although that is unsurprising given leadership influence). These officers are often difficult to retrain in the field, tend to punish rather than encourage junior officer initiative, and prefer top-down command-and-control style.
• These units include many irregular formations, e.g. TDF and National Guard. Of the regular army units in this mold, they tend to be those low on the priority list for upgrades, e.g. motorized brigades that haven't been uparmored to mech brigades yet, and/or ones with the largest proportion of Soviet-derived equipment.
• Many such units are organized as light infantry, typically either motorized or TD brigades, sometimes airmobile. So not much armor or IFVs, unlike what is seen with the regular army mech brigades. Instead they largely rely on many of the thousands of IMVs and APCs donated by western allies for some amount of armored mobility.
• Much less training than regular army in some cases. In the first few days of the war, many of these units were literally just the volunteers that showed up and were handed rifles with no questions asked.
• More conscripts and fewer volunteers being used to provide replacements for these units.
• Fewer professional military officers. Hence reports like this one about an officer seeing 100% turnover in his battalion until he was the only professional officer left.

These units are generally not going to be as useful for offensives, but are certainly capable of holding a fortified defensive line, albeit likely at dreadfully high cost in some cases. Light infantry are surprisingly resilient to artillery fire when dug in properly, and so are an effective check against the (apparently declining) Russian artillery advantage. ATGMs and mines also make it possible for them to resist all but the most carefully coordinated combined arms assaults, which are a vanishingly rare occurence coming from the RuAF. And these units were relatively cheap to equip and quick to train. So they are well-suited for countering the three primary Russian numerical advantages in artillery, armor, and raw manpower, at least while fighting defensively in prepared positions.
On the other hand, their NATO-style forces are better suited for combined arms maneuver warfare and thus offensives. They emphasize distributed decision making, tactical flexibility, and robust communications between different units and levels of the command. That enables flexible coordination of multiple capabilities on the attack, such that defending against one capability makes defending against the others harder. e.g. suppressing entrenched infantry with artillery while mechanized units traverse open killing ground during an assault in order to bring their tank and IFV guns to bear on those infantry to suppress them after the artillery lets up. Ukraine is in the process of building out or deploying around 20-28 new brigades of this type. I feel a little bad sourcing to a comment from this megathread rather than a credible third-party source, but offogredux puts together truly excellent summaries of the current structure of Ukrainian forces, so why reinvent the wheel? Plus their information matches what I've seen elsewhere, including the less consolidated information available here on militaryland. Notably, some units are being built around smaller veteran battalion- or regiment-sized separate units that are upsized to brigades, while others are entirely new formations, but likely include substantial numbers of veteran leaders at all levels.
Ok, so where is this "NATO" army?
There are reports of extreme deficits of NATO-trained personnel at the front, which are typically presented as a sign of Ukrainian weakness (n.b., see below for more on why to treat any Ukrainian-sourced reports of Ukrainian weakness with a healthy dose of skepticism). Often sources attribute the deficit to high casualty rates among those personnel during the earlier stages of the war. Best estimates are that the Ukrainians have lost around 120k soldiers. They started the war with around 250k personnel, of whom perhaps 20k were US-trained veterans.
Since then, the UK, EU, and US have trained something like an additional 20k+ soldiers (possibly with some overlap with the other 20k, but likely insignificant numbers if so), with plans to expand training for tens of thousands of additional troops over the next year. So even if every single one of the pre-war NATO-trained personnel are casualties, the total number of NATO-trained personnel in the UAF has at worst remained constant, at best it has doubled, and in any case it will only continue to grow as the western training programs ramp up and the Ukrainians disseminate those skills by assigning NATO-trained personnel to their own training centers. (Note: when I first posted this, VigorousElk made an excellent counter-argument to this point here which is worth considering and I didn't want to cut out of the conversation by moving this to a text post. I don't think it undermines the overall thrust of the argument, though.)
However, the overall proportion of NATO-trained personnel in the UAF has almost certainly declined because mobilization has likely increased the total size of their forces by more than a factor of two, so the overall proprtion declined even if the total number of NATO-trained soldiers actually did double (which is very, very doubtful and the 40k number should be treated as an extremely loose upper bound). That proportion is probably even lower on the front lines if the UAF have allocated those soldiers to new unit formation and units held in reserve for the upcoming offensive. So even if the Ukrainians haven't experienced particularly high casualty rates among such soldiers, we should expect to see far fewer of them on the lines right now. Meaning we can't infer the execess casualty rate from the composition of front line units, as many commentators have, nor do we need a particularly high casualty rate to explain why there are so few of them at the front. Just the formation of so many new brigades must have sucked up all of the available experienced junior officers and NCOs, especially if the UAF are trying to concentrate NATO-trained personnel into specific units. Again that doesn't mean they haven't experienced high casualties, just that the issue probably isn't as bad as some of these articles have made out.
I suspect some of the authors of these articles have taken that position because of selection bias, e.g., Franz-Stefan Gad, who visited the front near Bakhmut with Michael Kofman recently. If you are only visiting the units that are intentionally being staffed with fewer NATO-trained personnel, you shouldn't be surprised to see fewer NATO-trained personnel. Their absence doesn't indicate permanent backsliding across the entire UAF, demonstrate the incompetence of the Ukrainians, nor prove that the Ukrainians have suffered anything near 100% casualties among their NATO-trained NCOs. Instead, it just reflects the relative prioritization of scarce resources by UAF command. In a recent War on the Rocks podcast episode, Kofman specifically pointed out that his visit (and by extension his companions' visits) did not involve any kind of general or systematic survey of the Ukrainian forces, and so any conclusions based on his observations should not be taken to be totally representative of what is happening across the entire UAF right now.
Cool. Where are the "Soviet" units then?
It helps to put yourself in Zaluzhny's shoes here. You have two big chunks of your armed forces that operate in very different ways and which are suitable for very different tasks. You are finding it difficult to encourage the newly mobilized senior officers to let go of their Soviet habits, but you also need them because there is no one else who is immediately prepared to lead newly mobilized formations. So you make the obvious, logical decision to use the Soviet-style mobilized commanders how and where you can best make use of them, while hopefully keeping their habits contained and isolated from your more professional units. The best place for those commanders in this war is probably on the defensive in the trenches, where rapid decision-making around complex maneuvers is less often necessary, light infantry can be effective at attriting enemy armored and maneuver forces, individual soldiers don't need as much training to be effective, combined arms operations are less frequent and more easily choreographed, the risk of catastrophic failure is less, and logistics are dramatically simpler than for an offensive force on the move with many vehicles requiring ammo, fuel, and maintenance.
The allocation of armored assets supports this conclusion. Per Oryx, Ukraine has received almost exactly the same number of Soviet-derived tanks from their western partners as they have lost so far in this war (488+ donated Soviet-variant tanks versus around 477 lost). Plus captured Russian equipment, they almost certainly have more armor available now than they did at the beginning of the war, not even taking into account the impending introduction of western tanks. Yet there are reports from the front lines that armor is relatively scarce and lightly used. It seems the UAF have combined multiple brigades into ad hoc corps or divisions along stretches of the line of contact (what Jomini calls a "defensive grouping") to fill in the gap left by the absence of real formations above brigade size in the Ukrainian ground forces TOE.
That grouping often consists of several lighter brigades holding the front line backed by a smaller number of more professionalized and/or heavily armored mech or armor brigades as the reserve. e.g., the UAF defensive grouping around Bakhmut in February, which consisted of two mech brigades backing two TDF brigades, one airmobile brigade, and one marine brigade, all equipped exclusively with Soviet-derived armor and IFVs, along with limited quantities of older western IMVs and APCs like the M113. So light infantry in the trenches, with armor in the rear to plug holes or provide indirect fire support. This approach allows the UAF to allocate the fewest number of regular mechanized and armored army units to the front, freeing up capacity for re-equiping and training for an offensive. It also puts the least amount of strain on their tank and IFV supplies, by making heaviest use of their soon-to-be legacy vehicles, which are also conveniently the ones more Soviet-minded commanders are most familiar with. Hence the relative dearth of armor at the front, even though we should expect more tanks and IFVs than were available at the beginning of the war. The reduced armor commitment comes at the expense of the light infantry in the trenches, who absorb Russian attacks without the benefit of enough tank or IFV support. Further evidence for the idea that lighter forces reliant more on IMVs/APCs form the bulk of forces around Bakhmut includes the UAF charging Russian lines riding M113s in the vicinty of Bakhmut literally yesterday. Which feels a bit like the modern equivalent to the apocryphal story about Polish cavalry charging tanks during WW2, but I guess they have to make do with the tools available.
Does the presence of Soviet-influenced commanders at the front indicate that the decision to hold Bakhmut was made by such officers blindly applying Soviet doctrine? I would argue probably not. Syrsky and Zaluzhny have long-established reputations as very much not that sort of officer, and both have reviewed and approved the decision to hold in Bakhmut. More importantly, and without relying on an appeal to their authority, there are sufficient strategic and operational justifications to continue the defense there, even if it is on less favorable terms than other defensive efforts across the front. Specifically, attriting Russian reserves to reduce their resistance to an offensive, much like what happened in Kharkiv last August.
If attriting Russian reserves is the goal, how can these conscript-heavy formations with Soviet-style leadership best do so?
Right now, Russia only has a single division held in reserve. That would be the 2nd Motorized Rifle Division, elements of which have likely been committed to combat already. This reserve exists to exploit any breakthroughs achieved by assaults on the Ukrainian defenses and to plug any holes in the Russian lines resulting from UAF attacks. If the reserve is depleted before the Ukrainian counter-offensive, the UAF will be able to achieve much more progress much more quickly. Once they breach the Russian lines, there is nothing to stop a penetration into operational depths. Even though the Russians have fortified extensive fallback positions on secondary lines throughout occupied Ukraine, they need reserves to hold those lines if the front lines are penetrated and the Russian units there are unable to withdraw to secondary positions in good order. Withdrawal under fire is a challenging task and one for which only the VDV has demonstrated any capacity on the Russian side. There is also no new wave of Russian mobilization yet to provide any further reserves any time in the near future. Thus, the more Russian reserves the UAF can burn through now, the better their chances on the offensive will be.
There's been a lot of talk about the loss ratio between the belligerents and how that ratio makes a retreat from Bakhmut likely necessary, but ultimately the loss ratio matters less than absolute numbers of Russian reserves attrited. Because the Russians are nearly out of reserves, a UAF attrition strategy may tip them into a full-on rout. If the Ukrainian leaders knew objectively they needed to inflict 1000 more casualties on the Russians to achieve victory, it would be worth losing many times as many Ukrainian soldiers to inflict those casualties. Achieving victory is often worth accepting unfavorable loss ratios, otherwise no one would ever go on the offensive. In any case, the friendly-to-enemy casualty ratios are still almost certainly in Ukraine's favor simply because they are defending, and there have been no serious reports at all that suggest any departure from that norm. So we aren't even talking about the Ukrainians suffering an unfavorable loss ratio at all, just a slightly less favorable one when compared to real ratios from different areas of the front or when compared to hypothesized loss ratios at proposed fallback defensive positions. Rob Lee and DefMon thus both make variations of the same error. They failed to compare the loss ratios around Bakhmut to the expected loss ratios for the offensive, because ultimately the Ukrainians face a choice between attriting the Russian reserves around Bakhmut now, or when they are on the offensive.
Why don't the Ukrainians retreat and get an even more favorable ratio in a better position?
First, because the Russian offensive will culminate in Bakhmut (or it already has) and the RuAF will likely enter an operational pause because of depleted offensive power. That pause will likely last longer than the Ukrainians plan to wait for their counterattack. Basically, only the possibility of victory in Bakhmut can induce the Russians to continue wasting their soldiers lives so recklessly before the spring. Second, because the current loss ratios are pretty well understood and relatively predictable, which is not necessarily true if they retreat. Retreating under fire is challenging even for elite units, and results are naturally unpredictable. Assessing the hypothetical defensibility of any fallback positions is also challenging, especially with sufficient accuracy to be able to meaningfully predict what kind of loss ratio improvements you might gain from repositioning. Third--and this reason is entirely hypothetical--it is possible that the Ukrainians have sufficient intelligence about Russian reserves to know exactly how long they need to hold out, and so perceive the hopefully quite proximate end to a battle that appears to us as outsiders as a limitless meatgrinder that will continue to waste Ukrainian lives indefinitely into the far future. Essentially, they know the price they are paying and what they are getting for it more precisely than we do.
In contrast, on the offensive, the UAF will likely experience a loss ratio that favors the Russians, even if the offensive is generally successful. The exchange in Bakhmut will be particularly favorable if they are able to trade less well-trained conscript formations for the few remaining high quality Russian formations such as Wagner's assault units and the remnants of the VDV. Notably the VDV played a critical role in holding the line in Kherson and delaying the UAF's offensive there until the successful Russian withdrawal across the Dnipro, and it seems reasonable that the Ukrainians don't want to see a repeat delay that may buy time for subsequent waves of Russian force generation. Bottom line, the Ukrainians need to fight these Russian reserves no matter what, and it will nearly always be more favorable to fight them on the defensive than offensive. The challenge with fighting them on the defensive is that the Russians need to agree to go on the offensive first, which means the Ukrainians need to fool the Russians into thinking an attack benefits their strategic objectives. Blessedly, the "we are lucky they are so fucking stupid" guy continues to be the reigning champ of summarizing this war in a single laconic sentence and the Russians have been willing to oblige the Ukrainians with attacks all throughout the mud season.
But by "fool the Russians", I really mean fool Putin. He is micromanaging the war, even dictating decisions at the level of colonels or brigadiers such as when to commit reserves, and that likely includes the much more momentous decision to commit the very last of their available combat reserves. He has repeatedly pushed the RuAF to make objectively poor military decisions for political purposes, and he does not receive reliable information, because he has reduced his circle of confidants to only a couple of advisors who largely tell him what he wants to hear and he does little to gather his own independent information.
Putin is also a classic bully in the distinctive style of the KGB, as Yale professor of history Timothy Snyder describes in an interview here. Their method is always to look for an opponent's weaknesses, and then to ruthlessly expand and exploit those weaknesses. Probably worth mentioning that Timothy Snyder has met with and advised Zelensky directly, so his views aren't just an academic theory, they reflect and influence the views of the actual Ukrainian decisionmakers. Those decisionmakers clearly understand that Putin's instinct is to attack weakness with maximum force, and therefore carefully shape perceptions of Ukrainian weakness to mislead Putin into attacking the wrong targets. I mean, it's pretty widely accepted that the Ukrainains signal weakness intentionally when trying to attract western support, so why should it be surprising that they apply the same techniques to deceiving Putin?
And that is also another reason why the Ukrainians can't just throw their best troops into the battle. If there were no weakness around Bakhmut, the Russians would simply stop attacking with those critically valuable remaining high quality VDV formations.
What weaknesses should the Ukrainians use to mislead Putin?
Putin is not an idiot, so the UAF can't simply invent weaknesses out of thin air. Instead, they have to find ways to exaggerate some real weaknesses while downplaying others. In this case, I think they are combining their very real Soviet-hangover leadership weakness with their related difficulties around conscription to lure the Russians into attacking Bakhmut under unfavorable conditions. Specifically, I am referring to the stories around conscription problems which imply manpower deficits across the board for the UAF and stories suggesting the defense of Bakhmut will compromise future UAF counteroffensives. Playing up those particular weaknesses presents an ideal picture to appeal to Putin's prejudices and his desperation for a politically palatable conclusion to the hostilities. If you blame Soviet-style leadership, it makes the Ukrainians look dumb and incompetent for not retreating, and suggests they remain saddled by the same legacy that has so limited Russian military capabilities during this war, which plays to Putin's belief in Russian superiority. It also suggests to Putin that not only can he achieve the minimally viable political victory he so desperately needs by taking Bakhmut, he can also compromise the Ukrainian ability to conduct future counteroffensives with the very same blow, opening the way for a negotiated settlement that freezes the current lines (plus/minus changes around Bakhmut). It's really the best remaining even theoretically conceivable outcome for Putin, and many of the recent stories and leaks from Ukrainian-aligned media seem perfectly crafted to suggest continuing to attack Bakhmut could very well achieve that outcome. Suspiciously perfect, I would argue.
There have been few reports of widespread difficulty around draft dodging in Ukraine until quite recently, well into the battle for Bakhmut, when suddenly a flood of stories appeared in the media about people avoiding conscription and Ukrainian officials aggressively conscripting people against their will, e.g. from the Economist and Newsweek. Which struck me as odd, considering that the Ukrainians have more than a million reservists and earlier in the war had far more volunteers than capacity to train them for at least the first six months of the war. Even as recently as December, Zaluzhny said that the UAF does not have manpower issues so much as a need for armor and munitions. So where are the volunteers, why are the units around Bakhmut being reinforced with untrained conscripts, and why all the news stories about aggressive conscription? My hypothesis is that the volunteers are funneled into the more NATO-style units, most of which are currently in reserve or training behind the lines, while the Soviet-influenced commanders are given conscripts (at least as a preference if not as a hard rule) and are burning through them faster than other units, mostly in the Donbas meat grinders around Avdiivka and Bakhmut. The prioritization of allocating volunteers to the more NATO-oriented units makes a lot of sense in that context. Mission command requires motivation and self-direction, which you are more likely to find in volunteers. Conscripts can perform at wildly varying levels, and generally can't be relied on as much to take initiative, and so are a better fit for the top-down Soviet command style. This preference or bias could also come about naturally because of self-sorting, as more Soviet-style commanders may be more willing to take on reluctant conscripts than more NATO-oriented leaders, and older officers steeped in Soviet doctrine will have more relevant experience for leading formations with older Soviet kit.
If that's how recruits are being allocated, it explains some of the resistance to conscription, because conscripts are disproportionately funneled straight into the meat grinder by default. For example, the story that has made the rounds of a soldier who received only five days of training before being deployed to Bakhmut. That soldier's experience doesn't mean the regular army volunteer units are having difficulty filling out their TOE or training their soldiers, just that some of the units most reliant on conscripts are. Notably his formation was the 101st Brigade for the Protection of the General Staff, which may be just about the most irregular unit in the entire UAF command structure, outside whatever chaos-demon worship seems to be happening over in the Ministry of Interior. The 101st is actually directly part of the General Staff, rather than assigned to an operational command, unlike every single other combat unit in the regular army.
So I don't know that his experience can be considered particularly representative, although it very well might be for conscripts with the bad luck of ending up in a Soviet-style unit that also happens to be committed to intense combat operations. But that's not all the units by a long shot. It's likely that for every soldier like that around Bakhmut, there are multiple comparable conscripts assigned to relatively quiet or less intense AOs where they are given the opportunity to learn some basic military skills on the job from the more senior members of their unit. So this would actually be a good way to increase their training pipeline, if somehow they could both predict where attacks would come with 100% certainty to avoid allocating untrained conscripts there and yet still somehow need to maintain high force density throughout the front, which seem like mutually contradictory propositions. It's a morally questionable but potentially effective technique for growing the training pipeline if they allocate excess untrained conscripts evenly across the front without regard to the risk that they will be thrown into combat unprepared, which this story seems to suggest may be their practice. It would also be an excellent way to make use of excess conscripts who were recruited primarily to mislead Russia about the level of manpower issues the UAF are experiencing, too.
This strategy of allocating resources across units suggests losses around Bakhmut won't compromise any offensive, because the offensive units are drawing on entirely different recruitment streams, training resources, and equipment types than the defensive units are. The conscript-heavy formations on the frontline at this very moment are serving to absorb Russian attacks and burn through Russian reserves while the more professional units prepare for an offensive that has the potential to be decisive. If it seems unfair to give worse equipment to the people doing the harder fighting right now, just remember economy of force. Bakhmut is secondary to the offensive. In the longer term, the recruitment challenges won't matter as much once the current Russian reserves are exhausted because the meat grinder will be over, and the UAF will no longer need to feed it. By the time Russia can generate any further forces for their own offensives, the Ukrainians will be over the hump in terms of adopting western tanks, IFVs, and combined arms doctrine and will have slack to retrain the units currently holding the lines to meet the same standards.
But what about the spring offensive?
The only contrary evidence to that assessment are reports, usually sourced from anonymous US or NATO defense officials, that western officials are telling the UAF that defending Bakhmut may compromise their ability to conduct a spring counteroffensive. Which really makes no sense at all to me, based on what formations and equipment types are allocated to Bakhmut. The reports are anonymous and lack any supporting detail beyond the basic claim. As I described above, the units around Bakhmut aren't the kinds of units the Ukrainians are likely to use on an offensive in the near future. I therefore tend to dismiss those anonymous reports as leaks intended to spread disinformation, and in particular to invite the Russians to feel confident in committing their reserves to an attack on Bakhmut.
The Russians (and more to the point Putin) may conclude that it's worth burning through their reserves if doing so compromises the Ukrainian ability to counterattack, and these leaks seem suspiciously well designed to invite that conclusion. If the leaked reports about compromising the offensive were true, they probably would not have been leaked at all, because they reveal an actual Ukrainian weakness in a manner which does nothing to protect that weakness. Contrast that scenario to leaks about the dire need for more long range artillery from about a year ago. Russia could absolutely figure out that the Ukrainians needed better long range fires on its own, so the leaks didn't risk revealing new information, yet did actively invite a solution in the form of western donations. Whereas the leak about Bakhmut (if true) just airs Ukrainian dirty laundry, with no real hope of changing the Ukrainian decision or bringing in additional western support. Meaning, it would be a disloyal leak, of which we have not seen many if any from the US/NATO side during this war (potentially not including the general jockeying between the allies for position around major weapons contributions like tanks). Basically the leak was like saying, "Oh no, Putin, whatever you do please don't attack Bakhmut, anywhere but there!" Something tells me the Ukrainians aren't inclined to give Putin good advice about how to hurt them.
Playing the conscription issues up in the media only serves to draw Russian attention to that weakness, too. So why are the Ukrainians permitting these stories to leak, or at least not taking any measures to limit their impact on the information space? One such story was about a man with no hands being denied an exemption from conscription, despite having been classified officially as permanently disabled for his entire life. It is an insane and ridiculous story of bureaucratic incompetence, which if true I would have expected the Ukrainians to suppress during war time because it makes them look so incompetent (again, note how the whiff of corruption and incompetence appeals to Putin's preconceived notions about Ukrainians) and because it was limited enough in scope that it could have been kept away from western reporters (unlike something as pervasive as widespread resistance to conscription). Instead the story was almost actively promoted by UAF-friendly sources like the Economist, which I believe broke the story originally. The Economist is quite explicitly pro-Ukrainian and is also cozy enough with the Ukrainian leadership to have gotten exclusive in-depth interviews with Zelensky, Zaluzhny, Budanov, Syrsky, and others, some of which I even linked as sources above. So it is out of character for them to publish such a lurid anecdote of Ukrainian incompetence.
On the other hand, if the Ukrainians wanted to convince the Russians that they are having manpower issues, one of the easiest ways to do so would be to send out their recruiters and encourage them to employ excessive aggression. Then to leak, plant, falsify, or simply permit publication of stories about the absurd lengths those officials are going to conscript new troops. The Russians would then pick up on the stories and possibly inaccurately infer manpower deficits. Even if the Russian intelligence agencies interpret the stories differently, Putin is more likely to disregard them and rely on media reports than he would have been in past years, before the FSB's incredibly inaccurate pre-war assessments of Ukraine contributed to his decision to invade. It would not surprise me at all to learn that Putin regularly reviews Russia-related press clippings from the Economist to understand how critical issues are being presented in the western media, even if only as part of a larger security or political briefing packet. In fact it would surprise me if he doesn't review at least a sampling of stories from western media, likely heavily biased toward traditional print media with wide influence like the Economist. Which makes it a viable channel for shaping Putin's perceptions, and the man without hands seems like the perfect attention grabbing detail to make sure he sees that particular story.
So basically, propaganda cuts both ways. We are operating in an information space that is quite intentionally shaped by Ukraine, and so should be careful in our conclusions about what is happening beneath the fog of war. Although, I would suggest that it's probably a good starting assumption that the Ukrainian leaders have not become suddenly much less intelligent or less capable than they have been over the last year of this war. Which isn't to say they are perfect, or that we won't see them lose their edge over time. Just that a sudden, rapid, simultaneous decline in Zaluzhny's, Zelensky's, Syrsky's, Budanov's, and the rest of the Ukrainian leadership's intelligence, judgment, and ability would be extremely unlikely. Especially if that decline persisted for a long time, as the decision to hold Bakhmut has, with ample opportunity for correction based on the widespread alarm about UAF losses.

CA.
Got a new '23 Civic yesterday, after almost 2 years looking forward this card. I saw the car on a local dealership's website (listed value $30,225), got in touch with the Dealer and asked if the website listing were up-to-date, and Dealer said "Our website is pretty accurate as well". I passed by the dealership on my way home, 9pm, and to my surprise it was still open.
Long story short, dealer run my credit, came back with the numbers. APR was very good, but Total financed value was $37k (and that after a $8k trade-in), so I would be actually paying $45k for it. I asked why, Dealer gave me a paper barely descriptive:

• About $5k in taxes and processing
• $3,000 in a maintenance package
• $5,390 for pre-installed accessories
• $995 for GAP protection

First I asked what was GAP protection, he said "well, uhm, it's kinda complicated, but in short, I'd you Total your car, your insurance may not pay for it, and you lose your car and still have to pay for it. GAP protection prevents this". I didn't quite understand, but was too afraid to take it off and regret it in the future.
Then I asked about the accessories. He said they were pre-installed items that comes with their cars, I ask if he could take them out and he said "Not really, those are already present in the vehicle, I can't take them out". He kinda explained vaguely what they were, but mostly protective packages. A small sticker beside the Monroney Label descibred them as:

• $995 Clear Shield Package
• $1595 Theft Patrol
• $1295 Pro Pack
• $1495 Kornerstone Appearance Protection

10:30pm, at this point I was very frustrated with all the costs creeping up, and tired from working since 6am, I said to the Dealer I would go home and sleep on the number. He was hesitant and insisted "what's wrong? Can't I just get your business today?" And I started to think that if I came back today, the car could not be available anymore or I could not have the same financing offer after another hard credit pull.
I just wanted to get the car and go Home. Asked him to take away the $3k maintenance-whatever package so I could just close the deal and go home. He asked me "why?", I said I was not interested, and he went on to get his manager to "see what he could do for me".
Oh boy. I kid you not, his manager spent the next 75 minutes trying to convince me to take any Extra support package, because if I don't did it, I would be very regretful. I told he about 8 times that "I am not interested in this" and he always replied "but why? Tell me why? I'm trying to help you here and you don't tell me why". Then he would change the package and offer me again in a different Monthly price (which I could mot care less about it, I was only concerned on how much I would be owing to the bank). He finally gave up, and we carried on to sign the papers.
Past midnight, sleepy and with a huge headache, I signed everything, moved my stuff outta my trade-in to my new car, updated my insurance and drove home. Today em when I woke up I was reviewing all my documentation, when I realized 2 things:

1. I was not charged $30,225 for my car, but actually $32,045. I don't know why this happened, you can even go right now to their website and check (my car is still there, same VIN and everything), advertised price is $30,225.
   
2. Some of those "included accessories" that were "already pre-installed in the car" are actually described in the bill as Optional Services, that being $1,595 Theft Patrol and $1,495 Kornerstone AP. I don't know if that means that these are standalone services they were able to take it off as I requested, and refused, or if these are indeed included in the car and cannot be taken off.
   

I'm aware that since I already signed the papers yesterday, there isn't much that can be done now, but I would like to hear from you guys if this is common or I just have to accept my nativity and be punished for not triple-checking everything.
Thank you.
Ps: CA taxes were based on the Car + Accessories

Recently A Creator went viral sharing tips from Instagram on algorithm & Follower growth. She was in a creator meeting with IG representatives and from that, she shared the knowledge to her Tiktok.
And what Instagram told her was not valuable, and isn’t even practically.

Instagram will not push reels edited in Capcut & Tiktok Editor

This is the only tip from her video that actually makes sense because besides the original watermark of Tiktok & Capcut.
In free version of Capcut, there are rumours of an invisible watermark that helps algorithm differentiate between original content and Tiktok reshared content.
IG recommended in the past too. To edit videos within reels app for better reach.

Algorithm Favours Who Post Everyday

This is bull crap, obviously Instagram will say that in their creator meeting to influence creators to post everyday.
Listen an average Instagram user will end up consuming 100 different posts after liking your post. And they will forget about the post.
You can never be consistent enough because people are consuming more but businesses are creating less content. And both numbers can never match.
Don’t burnout from trying to post everyday. Try to create content that people remember, share personalised content focused on buyer personas.

Reels Algorithm Favours Videos with 9:16 Format

This is not only algorithm, you should utilise the full space a content format gives you to target your followers. And on reels try to utilise the whole 9:16 aspect ratio to make people feel engaged with your content.

Instagram Wants you to use 3-5 Hashtags

The issue here is studies show the difference that number of hashtags brings to your engagement rate is 1% increase or decrease in the rate. No matter you used 5 or 30 hashtags.
But the numbers lie too. The majority of Instagram users end up using same trendy hashtags within a niche. That don’t bring engagement due to heavy use.
Try to be niche specific with your hashtags to have more engagement & reach from each hashtag you include in post.

Optimise IG Caption for Search Visibility

It is always good to add relevant keywords to your Instagram captions but don’t stuff it for search Visibility.
Your Caption still plays a bigger role in making people connect. Don’t comprise that for search visibility as engagement from your old followers will bring you more growth.

Algorithm Favours Trending Sounds

This is a new growth hack famous as every Instagram guru is dancing & running their business by sharing trending sounds with people.
The impact of trending sounds earlier in 2022 was huge but since 2023 the impact has slow down. The creators are seeing trending audios don’t make a huge difference.
If you’re still interested, I can share places to find those audios.

Instagram wants 6 Stories a day

They want you to post 6 stories a day. I will say only one thing. Stories help you connect with your existing followers & you can do that with only a single story if you use storytelling or transparency with your audience.

Use More Interactive Story features

To keep their users engaged, IG wants you to use their AMA, Poll & Questions stickers as that will keep the users hooked to the platform.
This tip is actually good as you can see the followers that are engaging the most & find what they like and what they don’t. What works try to double down on it.

Engaging In Comments

Instagram told her to engage with comments just after posting the content. To increase the chances of you reaching more users.

Algorithm is Only 5% Job

Above was all Instagram told the creator to do if she wants to be more successful & grow.
Let me tell you algorithm is only 5% Of your Instagram strategy. You have better things to focus on like studying your audience, networking & better content strategy implementation & much more.
These will impact your growth more than just finding a hack to crack algorithm. Instagram is just a marketing channel, moderated by an algorithm. Trying to get pass moderator will not lead you to success. The strategy will help you!
P.S. For more valuable Instagram tips & news, You can subscribe here to receive social media updates & tips.

Wargaming, I personally believe you have misread your community entirely in the current proposed update and recent events. Not only are you going to drive out your free-to-play players who make up the bulk of the community, but also those spenders who have been on the fence about the direction the game has been going. The Object 283 fiasco even put some of your tank collectors on the fence.
What you are currently offering with WoT+ Subscriptions is a slap in the face to those like me who have 900+ days of premium remaining and over 90 tier 8 premium tanks who have been loyal to the game for a decade. You are telling us that spending thousands on your game is still not enough for you.
The proposed crew update is MASSIVE in terms of change and the advantages of having a full skilled crew are going to be much greater than they already are. In 10 years of playing this game I still do not have a naturally trained full skill crew. I play too many different tanks. I don't enjoy being locked into playing the same tank over and over.
Your changes to Airfield in the last update have been by far the worst map change the community has seen. The sneaky part of the north was made more sneaky, the ocean push which needed rework and balance to make viable for both sides wasn't even touched. I've met no one in-game that actually enjoys that map. With an echoing sentiment at the start of every battle of "worst map change ever" or "they made it worse."
The power creep on premium tanks has gotten absurdly out of hand. This is made blatantly obvious with the fact that you REWORKED AN ENTIRE TECH TREE because of the performance of the BZ-176 in a 2 week span. I want to play more than the top 5-10 performing premium tanks and feel like I was useful in battle.
​
The things I would like to see happen in the future of World of Tanks:

• All tanks need to be open to rebalancing changes. Especially Premium and Reward tanks. Make up for your mistakes of over-tuning tanks and doing nothing after they are added to the game.
• Have a single crew work for a single type of tank IE: German Heavies, Russian Heavies, etc. This is necessary to make the game fair for all to play rather than only the top 5% of players spending millions of free xp or crew books to have a viable crew. This will help the balance of the player base so that everyone is playing at least with even skilled crews and available equipment.
• If you are going to add WoT+ give the current premium bonuses to all players and give the premium players the WoT+ benefits. WoT+ should have been proposed as a replacement of the current system not another layer of pay-to-win.
• If you release a tank as part of a loot box or other RNG based system, you also need to release that tank as a standalone package.
• Add the gold back into the loot boxes. This reward allowed us to make ourselves believe we weren't getting completely scammed as we were getting at least something of value.
• Apply Map Blacklisting to ALL versions of a map. We shouldn't have to turn off Assault/encounter to not see a map that's on our black list. There is no way to blacklist those versions individually so blacklisting a map should apply to all versions of the map. If you allow us to blacklist each version individually then we need 1 (F2P), 2 (Premium) or 3 (WoT+) blacklist slots that can only be applied to each type for a total of 3, 6 or 9 blacklist slots.
• WG needs to look at the most blacklisted and make changes to those maps.
• Team match making needs to be balanced by players not by tanks. Winrate should be fair across both teams and is the only rating which accurate shows the skill level of a player. There are too many low rated reroll accounts in NA with poor ratings but 60+ winrates that would throw a rating system off.
• Tier lock players below a certain rating. Players need to learn the game before they move into the upper tiers. This change would also prevent botters from playing in upper tiers.
• Drowning must change. People use this to either save on repairs or avoid the anti-desertion system. The cost is players missing the opportunity to get their daily kill missions done or other missions. Drowning needs to give kill credit to the last player that damaged a tank, regardless of duration since the damage was done. Drowning also needs to apply the maximum repair cost and zero crew experience for the match... My original idea for this involved floaties and a flare being sent up so drowning was removed from the game entirely.
• Under no circumstances should tanks ever be nerfed because they are popular. When you have a tank that doesn't actually perform that well compared to others statistically, but is played more than others (because you put them in events such as battle passes and top of the tree back to back) and you nerf it because of that asinine logic, you alienate your players who don't understand your reasoning. That is because your reasoning is unreasonable.

With each action you've taken over the past few months or so, you've lost faith from this community. You've hurt the trust we have in you to continue to provide a game we find enjoyable. We want to continue to enjoy this game for years, but not if you keep ignoring the problems in the game and instead compound them. At this point in time, I just play to get my money's worth out of a purchase that wasn't all it measured up to be.

I've been on doordash for 4 years and it just consistently gets worse by the month. They ran a $3 peak pay for 6 hours last Saturday and I declined 10 orders. A few were close to accepting based on the distance but had I taken that $3 out of the equation, these would've been 2.25 low ball offers. I rejected a few of those on principle alone. Anyway, not only are the offers going down but the distance is going up. Doordash should really route these to the closest people. If another driver isn't within three or four miles, they should dump it. I'm getting offers like $7 for 17 MI. I had an $8.50.36 MI offer just tonight. you're telling me in the country's fourth largest city there's not a closer f****** driver than 36 mi away?
Life at Rock bottom as far as gate codes go. Before people blast me that I can make a list, a few things on that. First, is this something I should really need to do or should the customer enter the f****** gate code and/or apartment number in the app? Also, those change periodically and then I'm still ending up having to ask these idiots for their gate code. If there's no code and it's a remote that the customer has to do, would it be too much for them to respond to me?
I had one about an hour ago and asked the person if they were working in the leasing office tonight. I knew this office closed at 5:00 or 6:00 and it was like 9:30 when I asked him. I just wanted to make him look stupid. This guy didn't leave a goddamn apartment number or code
Over the past 6 months I have stopped asking at all on doordash. I have been to at least a minimum of 100 different apartment complexes in my city and I know God damn well which one of them have a remote entry the customer has to do.
So, since we're company owners, each and every one of us, I stopped asking for a code altogether about 6 months ago. If you don't include it, I will immediately leave at the leasing office. I don't even do the timer thing anymore, and I don't reach out to you. I just take a pic and go
My guess is it's the same people that order all the goddamn time and every driver has to ask them. You would think after three or four deliveries they would go in the application and fix it
GrubHub typically pays out a little bit more, so I'll put in a little more effort on that one, but not much more because I get paid regardless.
UE is the only one I make sure the people get their food. Even if I have to parachute into the complex. If it's a weekend I may take the L and move on, but I typically give customers a little more time.
the doordash app still sucks though so I don't see anything I just said happening anytime soon. It's going to catch up to these fuckers. The founders are already cashing in their stock options
I guess what I'm trying to get at is its well past time that when people are filling out their doordash profile, the software should recognize that's an apartment and force them to put an apartment number and gate code

Demographics

• Gender: Male
• Race/Ethnicity: White
• Residence: Florida
• Income Bracket: ~100k, idk exact number but a lot of
• Type of School: Very small catholic school with senior class size of ~100.
• Hook: None (except being deaf w implants, very rare?)

Intended Major(s): Astrophysics / Pure Physics (if school does not offer Astro)
Academics

• GPA (UW/W): 3.7UW4.2W
• Rank (or percentile): Not given by school
• # of Honors/AP/IB/Dual Enrollment/etc.: 11 APs
• Senior Year Course Load: AB, APES, AP Gov, AP Psych, AP Physics Mech. C, Religion Honors (required), Ceramics, DE Comp

Standardized Testing
List the highest scores earned and all scores that were reported.

• ACT: 34 (35E, 29M, 35R, 35S)
• AP/IB: common app bugged this section out on my application so it never submitted 😭

Extracurriculars/Activities
List all extracurricular involvements, including leadership roles, time commitments, major achievements, etc.

1. Thespians & Theatre for 5+ years, no major accomplishments except a lead role in junior year musical and participation in competitions.
2. Varsity swim for 3 years, quit senior year because I wasn't having fun with it anymore (deaf = hard to communicate)
3. Best Buddies chapter Secretary (go to a local school w those who have intellectual disabilities and be their friend for the day)
4. Environmental Club founder (senior year. looks bad to colleges but it's such a struggle getting clubs started at my school.. wanted to try earlier)
5. Voice lessons & Piano for 4 years consistently straight
6. Book club program where you read challenging books
7. Self-taught cooking, do it for other people & family :p
8. SGA (joined this year)

Also about ~80 hours of community service, very big at my school though.
Awards/Honors
List all awards and honors submitted on your application.

1. scholarship to my school for english excellence, only awarded to one junior per year. it's like 1000+ for senior year
2. scholarship for being top 5-3 on entrance exam, covers significant portion of my tuition
3. international thespians society (needed to put something here)
4. SNHS (ditto)
5. NEHS (ditto)

Letters of Recommendation
AP Physics Teacher: probably pretty good honestly. i haven't read it but he's known me for the entirety of my life, since my mom is a teacher at the school. i talk to him a lot and we have a good friendship, esp w outside interests, and i just love this man cause he makes taking physics incredibly fun. i'd say he's almost responsible for my dedicated interest in physics atp 😭
AP Bio Teacher: i love this woman so much. she's a newer teacher but i've known her since sophomore year when i took ap bio, she recommended me for questbridge prep scholars (didn't get in) and is also chaperoning my environmental club :) i'm sure her letter was great too!
Interviews
Stanford: 60 year old dude psych major. he was so nice though and we ended up having to check the time constantly because i was scared i'd go over and he was like "it's fine", but other than that he seemed genuinely interested in talking a lot and he even asked me questions about my disability, being deaf (he asked if the Sound of Metal was accurate.. which yeah) so i assume it was good. maybe i made a mistake in emphasizing to him i was really worried about financial aid though..
Essays
Common App: i spent quite a while on this essay. i wrote about the difference between my hearing and other people (22-122 channels of sound vs the normal 20k) and how i was able to accept this revelation and accept being deaf, growing as a part of it and appreciating myself even though i face a lot of struggles, moving past this idea that i wouldn't be more than my disability and defying it (theatre anyone?)
Stanny Supplements: i didn't really write about my accomplishments much, but i think they were fine (i don't cringe looking back at these essays), though my roommate essay was more about how being deaf would affect my roommate - me not hearing at night being a plus and a negative. i also wrote my excited ab learning essay on being able to learn more after 😭
Decisions (indicate ED/EA/REA/SCEA/RD)
Acceptances:

• UMiami EA (68k in aid)
• FSU (scholarship)
• USF RD
• UCF RD
• UoFA Rolling Admissions (merit aid)

Waitlists:

• UChicago RD

Rejections:

• CalTech RD (i know it was a complete reach but i had fun writing the essays)
• UF

Waiting on:

• GTech RD (tomorrow wtf)
• Stanford RD

Additional Information:
I'm completely deaf and have been for the entirety of my life because of a connexin 26 mutation passed on by my parents. I wear cochlear implants, and I've stated in additional information of my common app about how it affected me academically :p i function sort of normally but i have a lot of hearing issues in any convo that's 3+ people and there are minor things that happen all the time against me that frustrates me 😭