​
I’m not going back anymore even if I wanted to because I had called her yesterday and asked if the break up was really definite because I was tired of the mind games she was playing with me and I bet she didn’t notice. I felt like the false hope that she kept putting out was driving me crazy. My emotions felt so bottled in all this time not being able to express myself around her snd the painful moments she did to me. She making making it more difficult and I was trying to talk to her calmly on the phone trying to tell her how much I had deeply loved and cared for her and did so much for her. She would basically accuse me of blaming it on her even though she never took the blame for anything and never accepted the truth for what it was and not even an apology. She was so cold and still was then hung up the phone on me. She blocked me right away but before she could block me I sent her this and she read it. “ If you have tried I would have truly seen it. If you would have been there for me at my lowest and when I needed you I would have seen it. If you would have truly loved me you wouldn’t hold back your love for me saying it and in actions the many times you did. You would have not thrown me out of your house every single time I wanted to fix something with you. You would truly engaged in the things I shown you and were important to me. Lastly you would have given me the security needed. No one who cares about someone should be walking on egg shells all the time if all they wanted was love and security. I know I want farther than you and loved you deeply because I cared deeply and had always been there for you. You manipulated my heart and you tore it. You got what you wanted for now. One day you’ll realize how much I did for you and sacrificed. You hurt me, my family, and my friends and I don’t ever want to see you again in my life especially how you took advantage of me for your own gain.” I felt so bad and remorseful for sending that but I feel all the emotional damage she had caused me and continued to do was so much I felt like I was going insane. She truly played with my heart and I feel it’s her loss completely for doing that. I remember when I saw the GoId moments before in her but I feel that was covered up by her true colors :( I guess that’s why I also feel so remorseful because I’m only seeing those good moments when in reality she did more bad to me than good. I just got so frustrated with her how terrible she treated me and mostly just swept it under the carpet blindly and pretended things were still normal 😭😭 I do hope I find some one better in the future who would treat me way better than she treated me. I feel I saved my future self further pain from her I couldn’t imagine accepting being friends with her, seeing her with another guy when I had treated her so well and did everything for her. As well as living with her and marrying her if we were still in the relationship together. Days later I felt so bad sending that message, because of my heart never wanting to hurt the girl i loved so much and always caring and loving her so deeply. The insanity of my emotions couldn't handle the emotional damage she had caused me in the relationship and where i wasn't able to stand up for my self. I waited a few days later giving her some space and i also was trying to see how i could reach her because I was blocked on everything. So my brother allowed me to send this message using his phone:
I want to say I'm deeply sorry, and I feel terrible to you the person I love and called my special person for these two good years. I reacted very immaturely the other day when we talked. I think I was so emotionally clouded that I couldn't think straight. I know you probably don't want to forgive me or talk to me again. I understand that. In truth I never want to burn the bridge I had with you. Even though I know we can't be lovers anymore. You know me where sometimes I over think things and do dumb things based in my emotions, something I know I need to work on. My deepest regret though is losing you who I loved so deeply. I want to love you as a friend and person that I cherished with all those amazing memories despite our challenges that made us split. I hope when you see this message you can unblock me and text or call me back. I just would like to have our numbers open so we can check on each other from time to time. I love you and care for so deeply, appreciate you, you were my first girlfriend who supported me in tough times and were there, I know we had challenging times and I accept we have to move away from each other romantically. I just would like to stay connected with you in some way.
​
A few days later she responds with this :
​
"Im really upset with what you said to me. I understand you have big emotions, but it doesn’t mean I will let myself be talked that way. Only for you to reflect and say sorry days later (Even though i genuinely went out of my way to say sorry) it’s just not fair. I’m going to keep you blocked for awhile because that’s the only way I can keep my boundary. I don’t know what the future holds, but I wish you nothing but the best."
​
i'm sorry for the long passage. I am guessing in the near future she's going to try and comeback eventually? and if she doesn't I hope you can see how much I deeply loved her and fought for her to show her how much i cared for her and our relationship despite the trauma she caused on me and how one sided she made it. Maybe its the best she let me go, could have it been a favor for me?
If anyone could help me sort this out? I feel so sad especially how much I cared for her, she was my first girlfriend.
Thoughts?

​
I’m not going back anymore even if I wanted to because I had called her yesterday and asked if the break up was really definite because I was tired of the mind games she was playing with me and I bet she didn’t notice. I felt like the false hope that she kept putting out was driving me crazy. My emotions felt so bottled in all this time not being able to express myself around her snd the painful moments she did to me. She making making it more difficult and I was trying to talk to her calmly on the phone trying to tell her how much I had deeply loved and cared for her and did so much for her. She would basically accuse me of blaming it on her even though she never took the blame for anything and never accepted the truth for what it was and not even an apology. She was so cold and still was then hung up the phone on me. She blocked me right away but before she could block me I sent her this and she read it. “ If you have tried I would have truly seen it. If you would have been there for me at my lowest and when I needed you I would have seen it. If you would have truly loved me you wouldn’t hold back your love for me saying it and in actions the many times you did. You would have not thrown me out of your house every single time I wanted to fix something with you. You would truly engaged in the things I shown you and were important to me. Lastly you would have given me the security needed. No one who cares about someone should be walking on egg shells all the time if all they wanted was love and security. I know I want farther than you and loved you deeply because I cared deeply and had always been there for you. You manipulated my heart and you tore it. You got what you wanted for now. One day you’ll realize how much I did for you and sacrificed. You hurt me, my family, and my friends and I don’t ever want to see you again in my life especially how you took advantage of me for your own gain.” I felt so bad and remorseful for sending that but I feel all the emotional damage she had caused me and continued to do was so much I felt like I was going insane. She truly played with my heart and I feel it’s her loss completely for doing that. I remember when I saw the GoId moments before in her but I feel that was covered up by her true colors :( I guess that’s why I also feel so remorseful because I’m only seeing those good moments when in reality she did more bad to me than good. I just got so frustrated with her how terrible she treated me and mostly just swept it under the carpet blindly and pretended things were still normal 😭😭 I do hope I find some one better in the future who would treat me way better than she treated me. I feel I saved my future self further pain from her I couldn’t imagine accepting being friends with her, seeing her with another guy when I had treated her so well and did everything for her. As well as living with her and marrying her if we were still in the relationship together. Days later I felt so bad sending that message, because of my heart never wanting to hurt the girl i loved so much and always caring and loving her so deeply. The insanity of my emotions couldn't handle the emotional damage she had caused me in the relationship and where i wasn't able to stand up for my self. I waited a few days later giving her some space and i also was trying to see how i could reach her because I was blocked on everything. So my brother allowed me to send this message using his phone:
I want to say I'm deeply sorry, and I feel terrible to you the person I love and called my special person for these two good years. I reacted very immaturely the other day when we talked. I think I was so emotionally clouded that I couldn't think straight. I know you probably don't want to forgive me or talk to me again. I understand that. In truth I never want to burn the bridge I had with you. Even though I know we can't be lovers anymore. You know me where sometimes I over think things and do dumb things based in my emotions, something I know I need to work on. My deepest regret though is losing you who I loved so deeply. I want to love you as a friend and person that I cherished with all those amazing memories despite our challenges that made us split. I hope when you see this message you can unblock me and text or call me back. I just would like to have our numbers open so we can check on each other from time to time. I love you and care for so deeply, appreciate you, you were my first girlfriend who supported me in tough times and were there, I know we had challenging times and I accept we have to move away from each other romantically. I just would like to stay connected with you in some way.
​
A few days later she responds with this :
​
"Im really upset with what you said to me. I understand you have big emotions, but it doesn’t mean I will let myself be talked that way. Only for you to reflect and say sorry days later (Even though i genuinely went out of my way to say sorry) it’s just not fair. I’m going to keep you blocked for awhile because that’s the only way I can keep my boundary. I don’t know what the future holds, but I wish you nothing but the best."
​
i'm sorry for the long passage. I am guessing in the near future she's going to try and comeback eventually? and if she doesn't I hope you can see how much I deeply loved her and fought for her to show her how much i cared for her and our relationship despite the trauma she caused on me and how one sided she made it. Maybe its the best she let me go, could have it been a favor for me?
If anyone could help me sort this out? I feel so sad especially how much I cared for her, she was my first girlfriend.
Thoughts?

Because lately, I'm seeing people claiming that we're all going to die within this decade:

Experts are warning AI could lead to human extinction. Are we taking it seriously enough?
Human extinction.
Think about that for a second. Really think about it. The erasure of the human race from planet Earth.
That is what top industry leaders are frantically sounding the alarm about. These technologists and academics keep smashing the red panic button, doing everything they can to warn about the potential dangers artificial intelligence poses to the very existence of civilization.
On Tuesday, hundreds of top AI scientists, researchers, and others — including OpenAI chief executive Sam Altman and Google DeepMind chief executive Demis Hassabis — again voiced deep concern for the future of humanity, signing a one-sentence open letter to the public that aimed to put the risks the rapidly advancing technology carries with it in unmistakable terms.
“Mitigating the risk of extinction from AI should be a global priority alongside other societal-scale risks such as pandemics and nuclear war,” said the letter, signed by many of the industry’s most respected figures.
It doesn’t get more straightforward and urgent than that. These industry leaders are quite literally warning that the impending AI revolution should be taken as seriously as the threat of nuclear war. They are pleading for policymakers to erect some guardrails and establish baseline regulations to defang the primitive technology before it is too late.
Dan Hendrycks, the executive director of the Center for AI Safety, called the situation “reminiscent of atomic scientists issuing warnings about the very technologies they’ve created. As Robert Oppenheimer noted, ‘We knew the world would not be the same.’”
“There are many ‘important and urgent risks from AI,’ not just the risk of extinction; for example, systemic bias, misinformation, malicious use, cyberattacks, and weaponization,” Hendrycks continued. “These are all important risks that need to be addressed.”
And yet, it seems that the dire message these experts are desperately trying to send the public isn’t cutting through the noise of everyday life. AI experts might be sounding the alarm, but the level of trepidation — and in some cases sheer terror — they harbor about the technology is not being echoed with similar urgency by the news media to the masses.
Instead, broadly speaking, news organizations treated Tuesday’s letter — like all of the other warnings we have seen in recent months — as just another headline, mixed in with a garden variety of stories. Some major news organizations didn’t even feature an article about the chilling warning on their website’s homepages.
To some extent, it feels eerily reminiscent of the early days of the pandemic, before the widespread panic and the shutdowns and the overloaded emergency rooms. Newsrooms kept an eye on the rising threat that the virus posed, publishing stories about it slowly spreading across the world. But by the time the serious nature of the virus was fully recognized and fused into the very essence in which it was covered, it had already effectively upended the world.
History risks repeating itself with AI, with even higher stakes. Yes, news organizations are covering the developing technology. But there has been a considerable lack of urgency surrounding the issue given the open possibility of planetary peril.
Perhaps that is because it can be difficult to come to terms with the notion that a Hollywood-style science fiction apocalypse can become reality, that advancing computer technology might reach escape velocity and decimate humans from existence. It is, however, precisely what the world’s most leading experts are warning could happen.
It is much easier to avoid uncomfortable realities, pushing them from the forefront into the background and hoping that issues simply resolve themselves with time. But often they don’t — and it seems unlikely that the growing concerns pertaining to AI will resolve themselves. In fact, it’s far more likely that with the breakneck pace in which the technology is developing, the concerns will actually become more apparent with time.
As Cynthia Rudin, a computer science professor and AI researcher at Duke University, told CNN on Tuesday: “Do we really need more evidence that AI’s negative impact could be as big as nuclear war?”

https://www.cnn.com/2023/05/30/media/artificial-intelligence-warning-reliable-sources/index.html#:~:text=%E2%80%9CThere%20are%20many%20'important%20and,that%20need%20to%20be%20addressed.%E2%80%9D

Pausing AI Developments Isn't Enough. We Need to Shut it All Down
BY ELIEZER YUDKOWSKY MARCH 29, 2023 6:01 PM EDT
Yudkowsky is a decision theorist from the U.S. and leads research at the Machine Intelligence Research Institute. He's been working on aligning Artificial General Intelligence since 2001 and is widely regarded as a founder of the field.
An open letter published today calls for “all AI labs to immediately pause for at least 6 months the training of AI systems more powerful than GPT-4.”
This 6-month moratorium would be better than no moratorium. I have respect for everyone who stepped up and signed it. It’s an improvement on the margin.
I refrained from signing because I think the letter is understating the seriousness of the situation and asking for too little to solve it.
The key issue is not “human-competitive” intelligence (as the open letter puts it); it’s what happens after AI gets to smarter-than-human intelligence. Key thresholds there may not be obvious, we definitely can’t calculate in advance what happens when, and it currently seems imaginable that a research lab would cross critical lines without noticing.
Many researchers steeped in these issues, including myself, expect that the most likely result of building a superhumanly smart AI, under anything remotely like the current circumstances, is that literally everyone on Earth will die. Not as in “maybe possibly some remote chance,” but as in “that is the obvious thing that would happen.” It’s not that you can’t, in principle, survive creating something much smarter than you; it’s that it would require precision and preparation and new scientific insights, and probably not having AI systems composed of giant inscrutable arrays of fractional numbers.
Without that precision and preparation, the most likely outcome is AI that does not do what we want, and does not care for us nor for sentient life in general. That kind of caring is something that could in principle be imbued into an AI but we are not ready and do not currently know how.
Absent that caring, we get “the AI does not love you, nor does it hate you, and you are made of atoms it can use for something else.”
The likely result of humanity facing down an opposed superhuman intelligence is a total loss. Valid metaphors include “a 10-year-old trying to play chess against Stockfish 15”, “the 11th century trying to fight the 21st century,” and “Australopithecus trying to fight Homo sapiens“.
To visualize a hostile superhuman AI, don’t imagine a lifeless book-smart thinker dwelling inside the internet and sending ill-intentioned emails. Visualize an entire alien civilization, thinking at millions of times human speeds, initially confined to computers—in a world of creatures that are, from its perspective, very stupid and very slow. A sufficiently intelligent AI won’t stay confined to computers for long. In today’s world you can email DNA strings to laboratories that will produce proteins on demand, allowing an AI initially confined to the internet to build artificial life forms or bootstrap straight to postbiological molecular manufacturing.
If somebody builds a too-powerful AI, under present conditions, I expect that every single member of the human species and all biological life on Earth dies shortly thereafter.
There’s no proposed plan for how we could do any such thing and survive. OpenAI’s openly declared intention is to make some future AI do our AI alignment homework. Just hearing that this is the plan ought to be enough to get any sensible person to panic. The other leading AI lab, DeepMind, has no plan at all.
An aside: None of this danger depends on whether or not AIs are or can be conscious; it’s intrinsic to the notion of powerful cognitive systems that optimize hard and calculate outputs that meet sufficiently complicated outcome criteria. With that said, I’d be remiss in my moral duties as a human if I didn’t also mention that we have no idea how to determine whether AI systems are aware of themselves—since we have no idea how to decode anything that goes on in the giant inscrutable arrays—and therefore we may at some point inadvertently create digital minds which are truly conscious and ought to have rights and shouldn’t be owned.
The rule that most people aware of these issues would have endorsed 50 years earlier, was that if an AI system can speak fluently and says it’s self-aware and demands human rights, that ought to be a hard stop on people just casually owning that AI and using it past that point. We already blew past that old line in the sand. And that was probably correct; I agree that current AIs are probably just imitating talk of self-awareness from their training data. But I mark that, with how little insight we have into these systems’ internals, we do not actually know.
If that’s our state of ignorance for GPT-4, and GPT-5 is the same size of giant capability step as from GPT-3 to GPT-4, I think we’ll no longer be able to justifiably say “probably not self-aware” if we let people make GPT-5s. It’ll just be “I don’t know; nobody knows.” If you can’t be sure whether you’re creating a self-aware AI, this is alarming not just because of the moral implications of the “self-aware” part, but because being unsure means you have no idea what you are doing and that is dangerous and you should stop.
On Feb. 7, Satya Nadella, CEO of Microsoft, publicly gloated that the new Bing would make Google “come out and show that they can dance.” “I want people to know that we made them dance,” he said.
This is not how the CEO of Microsoft talks in a sane world. It shows an overwhelming gap between how seriously we are taking the problem, and how seriously we needed to take the problem starting 30 years ago.
We are not going to bridge that gap in six months.
It took more than 60 years between when the notion of Artificial Intelligence was first proposed and studied, and for us to reach today’s capabilities. Solving safety of superhuman intelligence—not perfect safety, safety in the sense of “not killing literally everyone”—could very reasonably take at least half that long. And the thing about trying this with superhuman intelligence is that if you get that wrong on the first try, you do not get to learn from your mistakes, because you are dead. Humanity does not learn from the mistake and dust itself off and try again, as in other challenges we’ve overcome in our history, because we are all gone.
Trying to get anything right on the first really critical try is an extraordinary ask, in science and in engineering. We are not coming in with anything like the approach that would be required to do it successfully. If we held anything in the nascent field of Artificial General Intelligence to the lesser standards of engineering rigor that apply to a bridge meant to carry a couple of thousand cars, the entire field would be shut down tomorrow.
We are not prepared. We are not on course to be prepared in any reasonable time window. There is no plan. Progress in AI capabilities is running vastly, vastly ahead of progress in AI alignment or even progress in understanding what the hell is going on inside those systems. If we actually do this, we are all going to die.
Many researchers working on these systems think that we’re plunging toward a catastrophe, with more of them daring to say it in private than in public; but they think that they can’t unilaterally stop the forward plunge, that others will go on even if they personally quit their jobs. And so they all think they might as well keep going. This is a stupid state of affairs, and an undignified way for Earth to die, and the rest of humanity ought to step in at this point and help the industry solve its collective action problem.
Some of my friends have recently reported to me that when people outside the AI industry hear about extinction risk from Artificial General Intelligence for the first time, their reaction is “maybe we should not build AGI, then.”
Hearing this gave me a tiny flash of hope, because it’s a simpler, more sensible, and frankly saner reaction than I’ve been hearing over the last 20 years of trying to get anyone in the industry to take things seriously. Anyone talking that sanely deserves to hear how bad the situation actually is, and not be told that a six-month moratorium is going to fix it.
On March 16, my partner sent me this email. (She later gave me permission to excerpt it here.)
“Nina lost a tooth! In the usual way that children do, not out of carelessness! Seeing GPT4 blow away those standardized tests on the same day that Nina hit a childhood milestone brought an emotional surge that swept me off my feet for a minute. It’s all going too fast. I worry that sharing this will heighten your own grief, but I’d rather be known to you than for each of us to suffer alone.”
When the insider conversation is about the grief of seeing your daughter lose her first tooth, and thinking she’s not going to get a chance to grow up, I believe we are past the point of playing political chess about a six-month moratorium.
If there was a plan for Earth to survive, if only we passed a six-month moratorium, I would back that plan. There isn’t any such plan.
Here’s what would actually need to be done:
The moratorium on new large training runs needs to be indefinite and worldwide. There can be no exceptions, including for governments or militaries. If the policy starts with the U.S., then China needs to see that the U.S. is not seeking an advantage but rather trying to prevent a horrifically dangerous technology which can have no true owner and which will kill everyone in the U.S. and in China and on Earth. If I had infinite freedom to write laws, I might carve out a single exception for AIs being trained solely to solve problems in biology and biotechnology, not trained on text from the internet, and not to the level where they start talking or planning; but if that was remotely complicating the issue I would immediately jettison that proposal and say to just shut it all down.
Shut down all the large GPU clusters (the large computer farms where the most powerful AIs are refined). Shut down all the large training runs. Put a ceiling on how much computing power anyone is allowed to use in training an AI system, and move it downward over the coming years to compensate for more efficient training algorithms. No exceptions for governments and militaries. Make immediate multinational agreements to prevent the prohibited activities from moving elsewhere. Track all GPUs sold. If intelligence says that a country outside the agreement is building a GPU cluster, be less scared of a shooting conflict between nations than of the moratorium being violated; be willing to destroy a rogue datacenter by airstrike.
Frame nothing as a conflict between national interests, have it clear that anyone talking of arms races is a fool. That we all live or die as one, in this, is not a policy but a fact of nature. Make it explicit in international diplomacy that preventing AI extinction scenarios is considered a priority above preventing a full nuclear exchange, and that allied nuclear countries are willing to run some risk of nuclear exchange if that’s what it takes to reduce the risk of large AI training runs.
That’s the kind of policy change that would cause my partner and I to hold each other, and say to each other that a miracle happened, and now there’s a chance that maybe Nina will live. The sane people hearing about this for the first time and sensibly saying “maybe we should not” deserve to hear, honestly, what it would take to have that happen. And when your policy ask is that large, the only way it goes through is if policymakers realize that if they conduct business as usual, and do what’s politically easy, that means their own kids are going to die too.
Shut it all down.
We are not ready. We are not on track to be significantly readier in the foreseeable future. If we go ahead on this everyone will die, including children who did not choose this and did not do anything wrong.
Shut it down.

https://time.com/6266923/ai-eliezer-yudkowsky-open-letter-not-enough/

I fully expect to die in the AI apocalypse in 5-10 years, and I'll be surprised by happy if I don't.

https://old.reddit.com/Futurology/comments/134g9zp/one_of_the_creators_of_chatgpt_said_that_the/jifgp46/?context=3

People are going to say no because it would be inconvenient, but I don't see what's stopping AI from ending all life in the next couple of years. Alignment is an unsolved problem, and an unaligned AI will most likely try to kill anything it sees as a threat to its mission.

https://old.reddit.com/artificial/comments/13xsbnt/is_ai_going_to_cause_the_complete_extinction_of/jmjzpmo/?context=3

Yes, AI will probably cause human extinction in the next decade. Paul Christiano, former senior employee of OpenAI, said that there is 20% chance that AI causes human extinction. Eliezer Yudkowsky, major contributor to AI safety and development, thinks it is 99%.

https://old.reddit.com/artificial/comments/13xsbnt/is_ai_going_to_cause_the_complete_extinction_of/jms84rb/

I am trying actually! I organized a picket outside OpenAI's HQ in May, before the Extinction statement.
You can search Eliezer Yudkowsky podcasts on youtube, or his blog. The podcast i recommend is Bankless one.
He says that our death is the most likely outcome from AI, and is now living off his life, like it is his last years.

https://old.reddit.com/artificial/comments/13xsbnt/is_ai_going_to_cause_the_complete_extinction_of/jmsqj28/
Based on these, it seems like we're far more likely to go completely extinct than we did before with AI, COVID-19, nuclear weapons, and so on. None of those existed during Medieval Era, so maybe we should've never left that era.
Thoughts on these?

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https://youtu.be/WzJ9g07I4aU

Hello! Without any radioactive rocks, or even seen a radon detector or having held a dosimeter, I have a water problem.
Imagine a carpark, with increased water ingress due to rising seas. Would the wicking effect through slabs to moisten tiles or cement walls carry or concentrate any alpha or beta particle emitters, or create a gamma ray emission source?
It’s curious to me as I read about radon in basements occasionally. We don’t have them due to the high water table. Yet I wonder if I was to sleep at floor level on an poorly sealed cement slab, on earth at ground level, would there be a gradual increase in the radioactivity of the slab as moisture evaporates and water passes up though it over time?
It’s perhaps only an issue if the ground has any radioactive rocks, and that is where I could lend your assistance.
Have any of you collected mildly radioactive soils or sands or rocks or ore, that can be used under a typical house slab, to see if there is any water such as salty or mineralised or otherwise of a particular pH, that can result in movement and accumulation of the more active isotopes to human contact places such as floors or walls?
Would there be any collections of core samples that may be able to be homogenised and compressed to make suitable for capillary tests under conditions of a rising water table? And lastly, could radon accumulate in a closed up space that has a badly sealed evaporation layer
This is the AI explanation of the effect I am curious about, given I have no radioactivity detection equipment. Specifically relating to water migration over time.
My human Q: “What is it called when water migrates up through dirt and through a cement slab or through grout around tiles?”
AIGPT3.5 A: “The process you're describing is called capillary action or wicking. This is the movement of water through porous materials, such as dirt, cement, or grout, due to the forces of cohesion, adhesion, and surface tension. Capillary action can cause water to move upwards against gravity, leading to undesired moisture in structures and surfaces like cement slabs or tile grout.”
Here’s another related question:
“Thank you, tell me about cement slab capillaries barriers. The seal that prevents water migration through a slab into a house. What’s it called? What type of materials is it commonly made of in Australia? What is it made of in America? Is it typical two put blocks and bricks on the slab, and if they are showing moisture, would it be easy to avoid that if they were placed on a moisture barrier? “
And the Ai answer.
“A capillary barrier, or capillary break, is used to prevent water migration through a slab into a house. In both Australia and the United States, this barrier layer is commonly called a vapor barrier or moisture barrier. This barrier is crucial in reducing the risk of moisture-related issues such as mold, mildew, and damage to the structure or its contents.
In Australia, vapor barriers are often made from plastic materials like polyethylene, which is a flexible, durable, water-resistant film. Similarly, in the United States, polyethylene sheeting or other vapor retarder materials are used for this purpose. The barriers can vary in thickness (typically between 4-10 mils) based on local building codes, climate, and moisture conditions.
It is typical to place blocks and bricks on concrete slabs in construction, providing a solid foundation for the structure. If there is moisture on these blocks or bricks, it could indicate a failure of the vapor barrier or issues with the site drainage. To avoid such problems, it's crucial to ensure that the vapor barrier is correctly installed beneath the slab during construction. This typically includes properly sealing the barrier, overlapping the edges, and ensuring that the barrier extends to the foundation walls or perimeter of the slab.
Furthermore, it is crucial to provide adequate site drainage and slope away from the building to reduce the risk of water accumulating beneath or around the foundation. By properly installing a moisture barrier and ensuring appropriate site conditions, it is possible to reduce the risk of moisture damage in the building's blocks and bricks.”

I've kept my 1851 Navy loaded before. being smaller and easier to carry than either of my ARs or my little .22 I've taken it out into the woods in case I ran into something. But I always had a cylinder unloaded. Recently, however, a friend of mine did a "stress test" on my caps. They dropped the hammer from half cock, let the hammer rest on a capped nipple, and smacked the hammer with their hand. none of the caps went off.
Secondly, we took a cap by itself and placed it on the wooden table. We smacked caps with a mallet and mashed them with the butt of a knife. The results were the caps being crushed without going off or embedding themselves into the wood of the table.
Lastly, my friend ( I was unwilling to partake) griped my revolver by the barrel and hit the table with the grip of the gun and then proceeded to holster it and intentionally fall down to show the gun wouldn't go off just because I stumble sometimes.
I use a covered holster to protect the gun from moisture and for retention whenever I find myself at a weird angle.
I've carried the gun around before but I always kept the cylinder under the hammer unloaded and have avoided much of the more unstable areas where I've found myself slipping and falling before.
Based on this "stress test" I want to try using the safety pins on the cylinder and having a sixth shot. Do you feel this is a sound course of action and/or have any advice?

As table setting, I haven’t listened to MBMBaM in three years, give-or-take, so I have no clue what the modren era (😎) of the show is like. However, I have been hate-listening to a movie podcast enough that I’ve actually turned a corner into liking it, so I feel spiritually ready for this. Plus I’m a little drunk, which has never been a bad decision for anybody ever.
0:00 - I’ve always kind of disliked the intro, especially the “cool baby” part, and sadly that has not changed with time.
0:20 - First time hearing the new theme song, which is fine if a little twee for my taste. I weirdly hate how they deliver the “1, 2, 3, 4” up top, but that’s just nitpicky. We can’t all be DeeDee Ramone, you know?
1:10 - Introductions. Travis introduces himself as “noted intellectual and middlest brother”, and Griffin just says “…And I’m Griffin… McElroy”. I didn’t laugh, but I did actually find that slightly funny, so I’m optimistic for how this goes.
1:35 - Justin has invented a new game that he wants to play called “Simply the Guests” where he tells them who guested on a celebrity’s podcast and they have to guess the celebrity. Travis points out that the title is a touching tribute (to Tina Turner, he clarifies a few seconds later) and there’s a bit where Justin and Griffin pretend not to know she died that Justin interrupts with a parody song. Is this too soon? I can’t tell, but I also only get my celebrity death news from Simpsons memes.
2:31 - I’ve had to pause and restart enough times that I’ve realized how shitty the web player is, since I have to click like three times before it registers as being on the page and actually trying to play instead of just highlighting the button, and if I try to click the 15 second rewind button it usually skips to the ~11 minute mark right above the button. However, I refuse to actually download the episode because if I do that, Jesse Thorne wins.
2:58 - Justin only has one round prepared, but expects it will take longer than they expect. Griffin rightly questions if it’s actually possible to play this game based on the information that will be provided. Travis says that sometimes when he comes up with a game, it’s like when you start off at level 1 fighting Sephiroth and die, but it just takes you to a cutscene and is all part of the game. I’m struggling to think of games he’s come up, which is maybe a metaphor for how I never finished FFVII. Justin says it should be easy if their heads are on a swivel, and 50-50 if they’re half paying attention.
4:30 - Justin is giving the guests in order as they’ve appeared: Billy Ray Cryrus, John Carter Cash, Billy Bush, Albert Pujols. Griffin laughs and makes a joke about how his head is on a swivel but it hurts, and I’m shocked and a little disappointed that it wasn’t a joke about how one of the greatest Cardinals of all time has a name that’s pronounced “Poo Holes”.
5:00 - The next guests listed Adam Carrolla, Clint Black, and Gary Busey. Travis incorrectly guesses Blake Shelton. Justin says Katie Couric was the next guess, and Griffin’s postulation of Kevin Sorbo is apparently pretty close.
6:10 - Dr. Drew is the next guest. Travis asks if they would be willing to guest, and Justin says he likes to think they’d have a nice long talk about it. Griffin guesses Randy Quaid. Justin neither confirms nor denies, but instead finishes listing the guests - Sharon Stone, Martin Short, Mike Lindell (the MyPillow CEO), Jim Brown, and Anthony Fauci. I actually kind of like this game, because what the fuck?
8:40 - Justin says he’ll give them an episode title for any celeb mentioned. Travis picks Sharon Stone, who covered “Pandemics, Social Justice Movements, and Animal Actors”. Griffin picks Pujols, who covers “Baseball, Downs Syndrome, and Living the American Dream”, and asked if there were other baseball players on the list.
10:05 - Justin admits he skipped Jimmy Morris because he didn’t know who that is. I didn’t either, but I have the power of Google and in the time it took him to explain why he was skipped, learned that he starting playing for Tampa Bay Devil Rays when he was 35 and The Rookie was based on him.
10:30 - Travis and Griffin discuss “Sorbo adjacent” celebrities and Justin scolds them for not talking to each other, saying that’s what a podcast is and that he’s trying to do a podcast. To paraphrase a joke from Jon Gabrus, it’s three straight white men talking, we already know it’s a podcast.
11:30 - Travis suggests Dennis Quaid, since he has a strong connection to baseball and Christ. Griffin agrees and Travis is in fact correct. Ironically, that means that Jimmy Morris was probably the most helpful clue, since Dennis Quaid starred in The Rookie. Justin offers a bonus for naming the show, and says it’s something with “Dennis”. Griffin accurately guesses “The Dennissance”.
13:45 - Justin mentions Morris was the titular rookie, and claims that people forget Dennis Quaid. They discuss the Quaid siblings a bit and advise Dennis to get back in the podcasting game.
15:15 - First question of the episode: “My boyfriend and I were looking for a bar before your Columbus TAZ show and walked by one that looked empty and not our vibe, but it had tinted windows so it was hard to tell. We walked to another bar and inside the door person flagged us down and said someone was looking for us. We were already inside this other bar when the woman who was working at the first bar said she saw us looking in and said “Please come into my bar - we have cheaper drinks. We were confused and startled and decided to stay at the bar we were already at, but we weren’t sure if we regretted it because this person went to the effort to chase us down half a block, cross a busy street, went through a revolving door to get to us. Also, the drinks at the bar were expensive. Should we have gone back to the other bar instead?” - Confused in Columbus. Not to brag, but I’ve been to a lot of bars in my lifetime and can say with some confidence this didn’t happen.
16:05 - They immediately answer that, no, they should not have gone back to the other bar. Travis accurately points out that weird pursuit aside, if they have that little business then 100% of the focus would be on them. Griffin thinks they would have had a tremendous amount of power and would get their drinks immediately, and the bartender might have cool stories. They discuss how bad the design of this bar is that it’s impossible to see inside, both because they crave attention and so that someone will notice in case they go missing.
18:45 - Travis says if he ran a restaurant across from another restaurant, he would go up to patrons at the competitor and try to lure them away. Apparently Tom Green did this with pizza delivery as a TV show, and Justin thinks he would have Shark Tank’d it if it was a viable option.
19:36 - Travis says Tom Green would’ve probably called it “Shart Tank”. I laughed out loud.
20:00 - Griffin says in Austin they basically have to have barkers for the various bars given the amount of competition for foot traffic and Justin thinks they should just go for hyper-local advertising.
21:00 - Travis offers Griffin an investment opportunity, claiming he needs angel investors. Justin is incensed that he isn’t offered the chance, and Griffin says it’s because he has no money but maybe his “crypto shit’s gonna pay off some day”. Justin says he doesn’t have “crypto shits unless I’ve been eating cryp-tacos” (Griffin pitches crypto-salsa) and that Superman hates cleaning up Krypto shits.
21:44 - Travis points out that Superman named his dog after a thing he hates. I swear this had to be a Seinfeld joke at some point, since the two things I know about Jerry Seinfeld are (a) he loves Superman and (b) he’s not funny. Actually, I know a third thing, which is that he dated a 17-year-old when he was 38. Anyway, fuck that guy.
21:50 - Travis pitches having a long stretch of connected bars by buying all the existing bars and knocking down the connecting walls. Griffin and Justin point out that’s essentially the Disneyland model, and Justin mentions the Goofy sour balls.
21:51 - I Googled “Goofy sour balls” and thankfully it was a real candy. Griffin indignantly says that they stopped making them and that “Goofy took his sour balls away”. Travis says “He washed them” and they ignore him. I laughed out loud again, man’s really winning me back. They continue on this riff, making more and worse versions of the same joke.
24:07 - Question 2: “I’m enrolled in summer college courses. In one of my classes, a guy in front of me likes to stretch backwards over his chair with his eyes closed. His head basically ends up right on my desk and he will breathe in my face. I’ve had to move my laptop to stop him from laying on it. Am I the weird one for staring at the guy as he disrupts all my belongings and my personal space? He does it more than five times a class. It’s very awkward and makes it hard to focus on the lecture. Should I say something? Help me brothers, how do I stop this stretching bandit from stealing my peace of mind?” - Cramped College Co-Ed in Canada.
24:57 - Justin has an immediate suggestion. I assume it’s the actual solution, which is to say something like an adult or just switch seats, but nope, it’s the old chestnut of put some jelly on it. Griffin suggests surprise massage. Travis clarifies that they’re definitely ignoring the “excuse me, could you not do that” option, which Griffin confirms because it’s not very funny. This takes me back to when I used to regularly listen, since part of the driving force for me stopping was the sheer number of questions that could be solved by two seconds of slightly awkward conversation. I totally get it, social anxiety is a bitch and I’ve absolutely been there, but the lack of funny kinda stems from the question. They all agree, and Travis suggests adding broken glass to the jelly.
26:57 - Griffins goes back to the massage suggestion, with “dual percussive massagers”. Justin suggests hovering over them and saying “There’s my sweet boy” and Travis suggests a “little kiss on the forehead” which, thankfully, they immediately shoot down. Still, I’m uncomfortable.
28:00 - Justin points out that, if someone actually followed the advice they give, the problem would be solved, it’s just a question of consequences. There’s some more discussion of the Quaids but my spirit is a little broken and I can’t bring myself to rewind to accurately transcribe any of it.
29:43 - Money Zone: Travis says, “Well Justin,” and Justin misidentifies him as Griffin. So far, hardest laugh of the episode. The ad is for Zocdoc, which Justin mispronounces a lot. I assume any service that advertises on a podcast is actually just a money laundering scheme, medical stuff doubly so, but it does remind me that MaxFun podcasts are the only ones where I can tell the ad copy was done in a single take with no edits. I admire it, in a way.
32:45 - A MaxFun ad for “Just the Zoo of Us”, which is apparently a podcast where they rate animals on their “effectiveness, ingenuity, and aesthetics”. It kind of worked on me, which is to say I’m debating the merits of getting a Zoobooks subscription as a childless woman approaching her thirties.
33:30 - A MaxFun ad for “Feeling Seen”, where the editor likes to play the game of taking a sip of coffee anytime the guest says how good a question is, how smart the host is, or cries unexpectedly. I cannot stress enough how much this makes me not want to listen. I don’t even have anything snide to say, I’m just genuinely put off by it.
34:19 - Griffin introduces the Wizard of the Cloud: How to “Talk Nerdy” to someone, which is meant to help you talk to the “cute nerd in your science class” by becoming more adorkable to them. Justin and Travis are disgusted by the word “adorkable”, which feels like a real split with their brand of appealing to mid-2010s Tumblr users.
36:00 - Travis points out that this article presupposes that nerdy people only want to be seduced with nerdy things, and will shun all other romance. The original pickup line is “Are you a carbon sample? Because I definitely want to date you. If you’ve seen The Big Bang Theory, you already know science and physics nerds are the best” Travis punches it up with “I’ve got a theory that we should Big Bang.” Currently he’s batting a thousand for me.
36:55 - Wikihow asks “Can math be sexy?” They talk about how sexy 8 is and Travis makes a 69 joke, so I retract my previous statement. There’s a gross astronomy-based pickup line saying “Do you mind if my comet enters your solar system” and “Hey, nice asteroids”. Mercifully, no “Can I touch Uranus?”
38:30 - More bad pickup lines, now about computers. Apparently “You’re hotter than the bottom of my laptop” is a good come-on. The video game lines are equally impressive, and Wikihow recommends that distracting gamers away from their games is easier said than done. These are more sexually charged than before, but no more clever.
43:30 - We’ve arrived at Star Wars. Wikihow says “Jedis are tough nuts to crack, so you may need to use the Force to woo them effectively.” It’s been a while, but I’m fairly certain Jedis aren’t allowed to fall in love and that’s kind of a whole thing with the prequel trilogy. Also, are we not doing phrasing anymore? Cuz Jesus, they should take a second pass at that.
43:46 - Wikihow suggests several “Yoda-approved pickup lines”, and they do some bad Yoda impressions like “pull down some trim, you will” and “wet, you will get”. This is apparently a thing they’ve done before called “Clipping Yoda”. Justin makes a “something something something, I thought they smelled bad on the outside” joke.]
46:08 - They discuss the very limited situations when the suggested “I find your lack of nudity disturbing” is acceptable, then move on to the Lord of the Rings lines which are equally questionable. Travis brings up the theory that Frodo doesn’t know Legolas’ name, and now I wanna rewatch LotR.
50:09 - Justin suggests coming up with their own lines, which results in “You make me feel like John Rhys-Davies in Sliders, cuz I wanna climb in those holes” and Griffin looking up “nerd movies”.
51:40 - Question 3: “My bank has been advertising a home ownership service to help folks buy and sell homes. I usually ignore them, but this time they’ve been offering a chance to win a flattop grill package with a $100 gift card to a very expensive butcher. I’ve been really wanting to get my dad a new grill. Brothers, I have no way of buying a house, let alone sell one. They’re contacting me, trying to help me buy a house. How do I explain to them I’m only entered to maybe win the grill and have no interest in the service?” From the Poor Hopeful in B (?).
53:00 - First of all. Second, they suggest the asker (a) admits they were only in it for the grill or (b) saying they have a budget of $750 for a furnished home. It devolves into a riff about Bobby Flay and pitches for “Flay Bobby Flay” and “Bob Bobby Flay” to see if he floats.
56:15 - Plugs for stuff and the end of the episode.
Closing Thoughts: I actually enjoyed that, although with a lot of stopping and starting to write this. Also anyone who likes Clipping Yoda may also like Action Boyz, because pedophile Yoda is a surprisingly rich vein to mine. I don’t think I’ll ever actually pick up listening again, since I have about 280 episodes of Off Book to get to first and this whole recap has made me really contemplate my mortality, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed it

SMAPI log

Hi,

I can't plant fruit trees in the greenhouse. There is a planting sound but the saplings won't appear on the ground and still in my inventory. Either vanilla or modded (tried multiple) greenhouses won't let me plant fruit trees. This is the error i get every time i try to plant them:

[game] An error occurred in the base update loop: InvalidCastException: Unable to cast object of type 'Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.Texture2D' to type 'System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2[System.Int32,System.String]'. at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentReader.InnerReadObject[T](T existingInstance) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentReader.ReadObject[T]() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentReader.ReadAsset[T]() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentManager.ReadAsset[T](String assetName, Action`1 recordDisposableObject) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentManager.Load[T](String assetName) at StardewModdingAPI.Framework.ContentManagers.GameContentManager.<>c__DisplayClass6_0`1.b__0() in SMAPI\Framework\ContentManagers\GameContentManager.cs:line 141 at StardewModdingAPI.Framework.Utilities.ContextHash`1.Track[TResult](T key, Func`1 action) in SMAPI\Framework\Utilities\ContextHash.cs:line 53 at StardewModdingAPI.Framework.ContentManagers.GameContentManager.LoadExact[T](IAssetName assetName, Boolean useCache) at StardewModdingAPI.Framework.ContentManagers.BaseContentManager.LoadLocalized[T](IAssetName assetName, LanguageCode language, Boolean useCache) in SMAPI\Framework\ContentManagers\BaseContentManager.cs:line 152 at StardewValley.TerrainFeatures.FruitTree.loadData(Int32 saplingIndex) at StardewValley.TerrainFeatures.FruitTree..ctor_PatchedBy(FruitTree this, Int32 saplingIndex) at StardewValley.Object.placementAction_PatchedBy(Object this, GameLocation location, Int32 x, Int32 y, Farmer who) at StardewValley.Utility.tryToPlaceItem(GameLocation location, Item item, Int32 x, Int32 y) at StardewValley.Game1.pressActionButton(KeyboardState currentKBState, MouseState currentMouseState, GamePadState currentPadState) at StardewValley.Game1.<>c__DisplayClass913_0.b__0() at MinecartPatcher.MCPModHooks.OnGame1_UpdateControlInput(KeyboardState& keyboardState, MouseState& mouseState, GamePadState& gamePadState, Action action) at StardewValley.Game1.UpdateControlInput(GameTime time) at StardewValley.Game1._update(GameTime gameTime) at StardewValley.Game1.Update(GameTime gameTime) at StardewModdingAPI.Framework.SCore.OnPlayerInstanceUpdating(SGame instance, GameTime gameTime, Action runUpdate) in SMAPI\Framework\SCore.cs:line 1117 [game] An error occurred in the base update loop: InvalidCastException: Unable to cast object of type 'Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.Texture2D' to type 'System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2[System.Int32,System.String]'. at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentReader.InnerReadObject[T](T existingInstance) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentReader.ReadObject[T]() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentReader.ReadAsset[T]() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentManager.ReadAsset[T](String assetName, Action`1 recordDisposableObject) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentManager.Load[T](String assetName) at StardewModdingAPI.Framework.ContentManagers.GameContentManager.<>c__DisplayClass6_0`1.b__0() in SMAPI\Framework\ContentManagers\GameContentManager.cs:line 141 at StardewModdingAPI.Framework.Utilities.ContextHash`1.Track[TResult](T key, Func`1 action) in SMAPI\Framework\Utilities\ContextHash.cs:line 53 at StardewModdingAPI.Framework.ContentManagers.GameContentManager.LoadExact[T](IAssetName assetName, Boolean useCache) at StardewModdingAPI.Framework.ContentManagers.BaseContentManager.LoadLocalized[T](IAssetName assetName, LanguageCode language, Boolean useCache) in SMAPI\Framework\ContentManagers\BaseContentManager.cs:line 152 at StardewValley.TerrainFeatures.FruitTree.loadData(Int32 saplingIndex) at StardewValley.TerrainFeatures.FruitTree..ctor_PatchedBy(FruitTree this, Int32 saplingIndex) at StardewValley.Object.placementAction_PatchedBy(Object this, GameLocation location, Int32 x, Int32 y, Farmer who) at StardewValley.Utility.tryToPlaceItem(GameLocation location, Item item, Int32 x, Int32 y) at StardewValley.Game1.pressActionButton(KeyboardState currentKBState, MouseState currentMouseState, GamePadState currentPadState) at StardewValley.Game1.<>c__DisplayClass913_0.b__0() at MinecartPatcher.MCPModHooks.OnGame1_UpdateControlInput(KeyboardState& keyboardState, MouseState& mouseState, GamePadState& gamePadState, Action action) at StardewValley.Game1.UpdateControlInput(GameTime time) at StardewValley.Game1._update(GameTime gameTime) at StardewValley.Game1.Update(GameTime gameTime) at StardewModdingAPI.Framework.SCore.OnPlayerInstanceUpdating(SGame instance, GameTime gameTime, Action runUpdate) in SMAPI\Framework\SCore.cs:line 1117 

​
Does anyone know what is the issue and how to fix it?

Our lawyer sent us this email. Me and my wife want to settle, but don't have the money they are asking for. Any advice. The initial amount was 115K, so this offer is way better than that.
"Dan received this letter yesterday from Insurance Company attorneys and asked me to forward it to you for your response. As you can see, they are offering to resolve this matter if you agree to pay them $15,000 in full and final satisfaction of the judgment and also agree to dismiss your current appeal. Dan and I believe they are nervous about the appeal, which explains their offer. Their other statements about the merits of your appeal are typical self-promotion and bluster.
Please let us know how or even if you would like us to respond to them. If you would like to have a conference call with us to discuss this further, please let me know a good day and time next week, or any other day the week thereafter, that works best for you two, and Dan and I will gladly discuss this in more detail with you and try to answer any questions you may have."
The way I see this we have three options.
Option 1: Pay the $15,000.00.
Unfortunately, we are currently unable to provide the sum of $15,000.00 to fulfill this payment. My wife's contract with the district has not been renewed, and she is presently without employment. Given our lack of immediate funds, it appears that this course of action is not feasible. How typical is it for them to consider a payment plan?
Option 2: Negotiate a Lower Amount.
a. Sending an offer to Insurance Company is a potential course of action. Currently, we have $7,500.00 in our bank account, and I am open to offering $5,000.00 to resolve this matter. However, it's uncertain whether insurance company may perceive this amount as offensive, despite it being a significant portion of our available funds, representing over 60%. If they are unresponsive to negotiation, my wife may be forced to declare bankruptcy. I would appreciate your opinion on whether it is advisable to extend our offer, considering the risk of exposing our desire to settle.
b. We have the option to wait for a potential subsequent offer. However, it's important to acknowledge that there is no assurance that another offer will be presented. Based on your experience, how frequently do subsequent offers arise after the initial one has been declined?
Option 3: Appeal
We strongly believe that the insurance company mishandled my wife's claim, resulting in genuine pain and suffering. However, since I lack knowledge in legal matters, I am unsure if we have a viable case. Continuing to keep the case open at this point is only causing more distress. Proceeding with the appeal is a gamble, and it does come with the risk of potential future liabilities if the outcome is unfavorable. I am uncertain of the level of conviction you and Dan have regarding the case, but we would seriously consider pursuing the appeal if we can limit our financial exposure to $15,000 and modify the contingency percentages to 20/80.
​
one again, looking for advice in negotiation.

Hello everyone!
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SMAPI log

Hi,

I can't plant fruit trees in the greenhouse. There is a planting sound but the saplings won't appear on the ground and still in my inventory. This is the error i get every time i try to plant them:

[game] An error occurred in the base update loop: InvalidCastException: Unable to cast object of type 'Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.Texture2D' to type 'System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2[System.Int32,System.String]'. at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentReader.InnerReadObject[T](T existingInstance) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentReader.ReadObject[T]() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentReader.ReadAsset[T]() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentManager.ReadAsset[T](String assetName, Action`1 recordDisposableObject) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentManager.Load[T](String assetName) at StardewModdingAPI.Framework.ContentManagers.GameContentManager.<>c__DisplayClass6_0`1.b__0() in SMAPI\Framework\ContentManagers\GameContentManager.cs:line 141 at StardewModdingAPI.Framework.Utilities.ContextHash`1.Track[TResult](T key, Func`1 action) in SMAPI\Framework\Utilities\ContextHash.cs:line 53 at StardewModdingAPI.Framework.ContentManagers.GameContentManager.LoadExact[T](IAssetName assetName, Boolean useCache) at StardewModdingAPI.Framework.ContentManagers.BaseContentManager.LoadLocalized[T](IAssetName assetName, LanguageCode language, Boolean useCache) in SMAPI\Framework\ContentManagers\BaseContentManager.cs:line 152 at StardewValley.TerrainFeatures.FruitTree.loadData(Int32 saplingIndex) at StardewValley.TerrainFeatures.FruitTree..ctor_PatchedBy(FruitTree this, Int32 saplingIndex) at StardewValley.Object.placementAction_PatchedBy(Object this, GameLocation location, Int32 x, Int32 y, Farmer who) at StardewValley.Utility.tryToPlaceItem(GameLocation location, Item item, Int32 x, Int32 y) at StardewValley.Game1.pressActionButton(KeyboardState currentKBState, MouseState currentMouseState, GamePadState currentPadState) at StardewValley.Game1.<>c__DisplayClass913_0.b__0() at MinecartPatcher.MCPModHooks.OnGame1_UpdateControlInput(KeyboardState& keyboardState, MouseState& mouseState, GamePadState& gamePadState, Action action) at StardewValley.Game1.UpdateControlInput(GameTime time) at StardewValley.Game1._update(GameTime gameTime) at StardewValley.Game1.Update(GameTime gameTime) at StardewModdingAPI.Framework.SCore.OnPlayerInstanceUpdating(SGame instance, GameTime gameTime, Action runUpdate) in SMAPI\Framework\SCore.cs:line 1117 [game] An error occurred in the base update loop: InvalidCastException: Unable to cast object of type 'Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Graphics.Texture2D' to type 'System.Collections.Generic.Dictionary`2[System.Int32,System.String]'. at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentReader.InnerReadObject[T](T existingInstance) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentReader.ReadObject[T]() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentReader.ReadAsset[T]() at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentManager.ReadAsset[T](String assetName, Action`1 recordDisposableObject) at Microsoft.Xna.Framework.Content.ContentManager.Load[T](String assetName) at StardewModdingAPI.Framework.ContentManagers.GameContentManager.<>c__DisplayClass6_0`1.b__0() in SMAPI\Framework\ContentManagers\GameContentManager.cs:line 141 at StardewModdingAPI.Framework.Utilities.ContextHash`1.Track[TResult](T key, Func`1 action) in SMAPI\Framework\Utilities\ContextHash.cs:line 53 at StardewModdingAPI.Framework.ContentManagers.GameContentManager.LoadExact[T](IAssetName assetName, Boolean useCache) at StardewModdingAPI.Framework.ContentManagers.BaseContentManager.LoadLocalized[T](IAssetName assetName, LanguageCode language, Boolean useCache) in SMAPI\Framework\ContentManagers\BaseContentManager.cs:line 152 at StardewValley.TerrainFeatures.FruitTree.loadData(Int32 saplingIndex) at StardewValley.TerrainFeatures.FruitTree..ctor_PatchedBy(FruitTree this, Int32 saplingIndex) at StardewValley.Object.placementAction_PatchedBy(Object this, GameLocation location, Int32 x, Int32 y, Farmer who) at StardewValley.Utility.tryToPlaceItem(GameLocation location, Item item, Int32 x, Int32 y) at StardewValley.Game1.pressActionButton(KeyboardState currentKBState, MouseState currentMouseState, GamePadState currentPadState) at StardewValley.Game1.<>c__DisplayClass913_0.b__0() at MinecartPatcher.MCPModHooks.OnGame1_UpdateControlInput(KeyboardState& keyboardState, MouseState& mouseState, GamePadState& gamePadState, Action action) at StardewValley.Game1.UpdateControlInput(GameTime time) at StardewValley.Game1._update(GameTime gameTime) at StardewValley.Game1.Update(GameTime gameTime) at StardewModdingAPI.Framework.SCore.OnPlayerInstanceUpdating(SGame instance, GameTime gameTime, Action runUpdate) in SMAPI\Framework\SCore.cs:line 1117 

Does anyone know what is the issue and how to fix it?

All credit goes to the one and only u/BlueFishcakes, owner and creator of the SSB universe.
___________
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discord wiki part 1 part 13 part 15
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Mi'aera broke record after record. She had been talking to the xeno for hours now! What's more, Natalia was already practically her friend!
"I have a xeno friend! I'm progressive!" She couldn't get over her happiness.
The girls were already on first-name terms.
Natalia, or Natka, was very friendly. Even though she was a bit older than Mi (well, everyone was), Mi'aera felt like they were the same age. The optimism and openness of the human woman were a nice change, something the young militiawoman had been waiting for for a long time. And it was contagious.
"- So, Mi…" Natalia, driving the patrol car, spoke to Mi'aera, who was sitting next to her. Literally, a few minutes earlier, the girls had agreed to call each other by short names. "- I've never met Shil who doesn't have a surname, just a number."
Mi nodded.
"- Once upon a time, in the entire empire, only the nobles had surnames, over the generations, in most provinces, the commoners began to adopt the surnames of their lords or the nicknames of their occupations, and so on," she explained. Natka nodded her head.
"- Heh, it makes sense, on Earth it was basically the same, there were still some constructions on the principle of Son or Daughter of Somebody," the human added. This time, it was Mi who nodded.
"- Yes, it is common in many places."
"- But you only have a number?"
"- Yes," Mi admitted and continued: "- The noble families of the Palatinate are somehow not numerous, and their respectable names serve them well, there is no need to give names to millions of commoners."
Natka focused on the road and did not speak for a while.
"- Ok, not even any Daughter or Son of Somebody?" the human asked.
"- If someone has a known father or mother, that would be allowed. I grew up in an institution." Mi explained.
"- Oh! Mi, I'm sorry, I shouldn't delve so much into the subject," Natka said in a very apologetic tone. Mi'aera just smiled kindly.
"- No need to apologize, a large proportion of the population of the entire galaxy was born with some form of in vitro fertilization, at least once a race has acquired this technology. The Empire has been doing this for hundreds of years. After all, with such a small number of males, our population would be numerically impossible. In the Palatinate, every few years, based on the census, the government determines how many additional children are to be born. I had a good childhood, if that's what you're concerned about, I'm not an orphan." She replied with conviction.
Natka digested the information for some time.
"- It probably is just like you are saying..." Natka finally said, "- I have no reason to doubt the Empire," she confessed.
Mi nodded instinctively but hesitated and asked the human:
"- You're the coolest woman I've ever met on Earth, even the other Shils stationed here sometimes have a more ungrateful attitude towards our government," she confessed.
Natka smiled a little faintly.
"- I'm sure a lot of politicians are still corrupt, but that's, you know, life. I also think that the war that preceded Liberation could have been avoided and that most of the casualties were tragic and needless. But in the end, it wasn't human governments that ended famine on Earth, it wasn't human governments that ensured that every child had access to clean water or that people no longer died of cancer. The only things that matters "
Hearing these words, Mia shuddered.
"Die of cancer? Goddesses! Were they that backward?"
"- Look" Natka took one hand off the steering wheel and grabbed her phone out of the pocket, quickly scrolled her finger across the display to open the gallery, and then handed the device to Mi'aera.
The militiawoman looked at the photo. It was a selfie of the shill doctor embracing a much shorter, bald, and incredibly emaciated human male…
"- No…. wait…. impossible!"
It wasn't a male or a boy, it was Natka! incredibly thin, completely unrecognizable. And without any breasts… Mi'aera shifted her gaze to the human woman sitting next to her, whose cleavage was decent even by Shil standards. Natka, seeing where the militiawoman's eyes wandered, smiled.
"- Doctor Major Mile'ana Vespaena, she also helped me size the implants so that after the treatment I would look like a normal Imperial woman," the human explained.
Mi nodded. Natka was actually very proportional, her athletic figure was deceptively similar to Shil's, she was just much, much shorter.
"Like a little xeno sister," Mi thought.
"- Natka, you look really great now," Mi said honestly.
"- Thanks," Natalia replied, glancing briefly at her passenger.
"- Monsoon-B, the name of the drug that cured me, developed to fight cancer in human cells, developed at the Pharmaceutical Complex in Ghaab…"
"- Ghaabhush in east Ugrecnurc" Mi'aera uttered native words that her human friend found difficult.
"- In the Imperial fiefdom of the Palatinate," finished Natka, and she looked at her passenger again.
"- The war was still going on on Earth, and in your homeland, scientists had already thought about how to cure our diseases," Natalia spoke almost with tears in her eyes. Human women were terribly masculine, but Mi could not be angry with her companion. The woman went through hell that no modern inhabitant of the Empire should ever experience.
"Breast amputations?! Goddess! What a nightmare!"
Natka quickly turned her head away and focused on the road, apparently ashamed of her manly behavior.
"- It's a pity the Empire didn't send more personnel from your region to the Liberation of Earth, Mi," the human confessed. "- It would probably look completely different."
​
The Municipal Guard's working day was not fundamentally different from a typical militia shift. Mi and Natka caught several juvenile cyclists exceeding the speed limit. Mi'aera shuddered at how firm Natka could be with these cute, roguish boys. The pair also managed to catch one boy painting graffiti on the wall, no anti-government slogans, just some drawings.
"- So Natka, apparently you can help me with accommodation…" Mi started when they were both back in the car.
"- Yeah, sure, listen. I recently took out a mortgage on an apartment in a new district, you know, such an investment for the future. Everything in Shil style, but it's hard to find a good tenant…"
"- Well, my pay isn't that high either," remarked Mi.
"- Oh… I don't want to rob anyone, it's just that people are still quite wary, only men respond to my ad." confessed the human. Mi'aera froze.
"- You don't want to rent a room to a male?" She asked with undisguised surprise. Natka sighed.
"- You know... those guys who want to live in the Shil district... they're usually prostitutes. I don't want someone like that in my house, you understand?"
Mi was confused by the information. But couldn't deny her human friend's logic.
"Natka is so moral," she thought appreciatively.
"- Right, sure."
​
***
​
"- I don't even know your name," Gabriel said carefully as he lay beside Ysariah.
The woman turned her gaze on him and stretched, flexing her naked body.
"- Indeed," she said, but seeing some flustration on her lover's face, her hand quickly grabbed gently his cheek. Gabriel wanted to break free but stopped himself. Ysariah moved closer to the male and looked him tenderly in the eyes.
"- This knowledge has a price, Gabriel, are you willing to pay it?"
- I…"
"- You're afraid of me, aren't you?"
"- Yes," he answered honestly. The woman nodded.
"- But do you hate me?"
"I… I don't… I don't know, I don't think so… maybe a little?" The man spoke uncertainly.
"- You may call me Ysah," she said, stroking his cheek. The man bit his lip at her sudden response to his earlier inquiry.
"- It's a diminutive of Ysariah, isn't it?" he said finally. The woman smiled and nodded.
"When he's lying next to me on the bed like an offer, it's easy to forget he's an intelligent, educated person," she thought.
"- Yes, of course, Gabriel." She agreed. The man took a deep breath.
"- So... Ysariah... agent of the Interior? The secret agent?" he asked carefully.
The woman snorted a genuine laugh. Which made the man a bit uneasy.
"... But... you work for the government, right? Right?" he inquired with growing nervousness.
The woman stopped giggling and nodded.
"- Yes"
​
***
​
It's been a few weeks since the Imperial Envoy incident. The woman's family name was slowly disappearing from Imperial databases. The process will take years, but in the end, it will be as if her bloodline never existed. When Palatine destroyed her enemies, she made them disappear as if they had never been there.
Ancient bloodlines don't just vanish without a trace. But if you have enough money and determination, anything is possible.
However, both Palatine and her daughters knew that something like this would not go unnoticed by the throne. The ruler of the moon did not contemplate the possibility of the empress's reaction, she was waiting for it.
It didn't take long for an emissary of the sovereign, a prince of imperial blood, to arrive on the moon's surface. In the Palatinate, male nobles had no formal authority and were not recognized as emissaries. Of course, the capital knew about it, the choice was not accidental, the representative that the empress sent was not only a male but also one of her youngest relatives. The boy was short and frail, no more than eight standard years old. He would have been of legal age in the Palatinate, but not in the capital from which he came. So the empress sent a child to meet her vassal, and there was nothing the Palatine could do about it.
The Child lad strode proudly from his craft to the landing platform, accompanied by a great escort of capital dignitaries, where Palatine and her daughters, as well as local nobles, awaited him.
To all this, the young prince was dressed in a modern fashion, in a golden blouse revealing the navel. At the same time, he was wearing the insignia of a representative of the imperial family.
The custom commanded that Ysariah's mother and her daughters kneel before him, face down.
If he would wish it.
"- Aunt Aivui!" The young prince broke free from his retinue and unceremoniously threw himself on the Palatine's neck.
The moon lord caught him neatly, making the whole situation look completely natural.
Standing nearby with her sisters, Ysariah blinked. She had never in her life heard anyone refer to her mother as Aivui, not even her own partner Mo'othu allowed himself to use her diminutive name.
"- Prince Kri'jha." Palatine Aivuilpar Otharasoth replied warmly, setting the young man back to the ground. "- I'm honored that you remember me, the last time I saw you, you have bearly reaching your mother's waist, and now... by the goddess, you're a beautiful man."
"- Oh Aunt Aivui…" the boy waved his hand. "- stop it, please, otherwise I'm going to turn blue. How could I forget the godmother who gave me my own town on a tropical planet and a private yacht as a gift? I just got back from a party I had there!"
"- Well…I'm glad you like it, prince," Aivuilpar said modestly, to which the boy nodded and slowly began to survey his surroundings.
Ysariah kept her face neutral but remained attentive. Someone who could talk to her mother so casually had to be taken deadly seriously. The prince first greeted the Aivuilpar's firstborn, Ysariah's older sister, and only then focused on her.
"- Oh, isn't that the paragon knight herself?! Lady Ysariah of the house Otharasoth?"
"- My liege," Ysariah said, going down on one knee as her older sister had just done.
"- Oh..." the young prince covered his mouth in excitement. "- I must have watched the video a hundred times, you are so brave," he said, then looked at Aivuilpar "- Auntie! Your daughter is the hero of every gentleman-in-waiting. Anyway… we will discuss it later…"
"- We can discuss whatever you desire, my prince, over dinner," Aivuilpar suggested kindly. Kri'jha smiled.
"- Oh sure, Aunty, I hope, just please… I know the Palatinate is traditional and all that, but do you serve here any meatless courses…?
​
After a banquet in his honor, Kri'jha ordered his servant to fetch a small box. With the object, the young prince sat down in the Palatine's study, in her chair behind her desk, while the woman herself stood in front of him. Aivuilpar did not stand alone, Kri'jha demanded that Ysariah accompany her.
"- I will now convey to you our dear empress's wish," said the boy, who had been still acting like a spoiled urchin a moment ago.
Aivuilpar straightened up and craned her head up. Ysariah watched her mother prepare to take responsibility for her recent actions.
Kri'jha stared at his aunt but as he formed his mouth for words, he turned his gaze towards Ysariah.
"- Knight Ysariah of the house Otharasoth, your bravery has drawn the eyes of our gracious empress. It is her Imperial Majesty's desire, for you to carry her unspoken wishes. Deeds that can't be ordered or asked, not even spoken out loud. You have been called to be her Wishwraith." With that said, Kri'jha stood up and walked over to Ysariah with the box in his hands. The boy stood in front of a much larger woman than himself and opened the container, revealing its contents.
"- The Red Mark," whispered Ysariah's mother, glancing over her daughter's shoulder.
​
discord wiki part 1 part 13 part 15

I noticed that some time ago my apt upgrades started throwing error messages related to dkms packages. This became a problem recently because I wanted to use some dkms packages (not shown here).

Setting up system76-acpi-dkms (1.0.2~1678132042~22.04~ed01124) ... Removing old system76_acpi-1.0.2~1678132042~22.04~ed01124 DKMS files... Deleting module system76_acpi-1.0.2~1678132042~22.04~ed01124 completely from the DKMS tree. Loading new system76_acpi-1.0.2~1678132042~22.04~ed01124 DKMS files... Building for 6.2.6-76060206-generic Building initial module for 6.2.6-76060206-generic ERROR (dkms apport): kernel package linux-headers-6.2.6-76060206-generic is not supported Error! Bad return status for module build on kernel: 6.2.6-76060206-generic (x86_64) Consult /valib/dkms/system76_acpi/1.0.2~1678132042~22.04~ed01124/build/make.lo g for more information. dpkg: error processing package system76-acpi-dkms (--configure): installed system76-acpi-dkms package post-installation script subprocess return ed error exit status 10 

Reading the mentioned logfile reveals that gcc-12 is missing that would be needed to compile against my kernel version.

DKMS make.log for system76_acpi-1.0.2~1678132042~22.04~ed01124 for kernel 6.2.6-76060206-generic (x86_64) Sun Jun 4 08:03:23 AM CEST 2023 make: Entering directory '/ussrc/linux-headers-6.2.6-76060206-generic' warning: the compiler differs from the one used to build the kernel The kernel was built by: x86_64-linux-gnu-gcc-12 (Ubuntu 12.1.0-2ubuntu1~22.04) 12.1.0 You are using: CC [M] /valib/dkms/system76_acpi/1.0.2~1678132042~22.04~ed01124/build/system76_acpi.o /bin/sh: 1: gcc-12: not found 

But when I try to install gcc-12 it fails.

The following packages have unmet dependencies: gcc-12 : Depends: cpp-12 (= 12-20220319-1ubuntu1) but it is not going to be installed Depends: gcc-12-base (= 12-20220319-1ubuntu1) but 12.1.0-2ubuntu1~22.04 is to be installed Depends: libgcc-12-dev (= 12-20220319-1ubuntu1) but it is not going to be installed 

Digging a bit into it with aptitude and apt-policy I can see that

The following actions will resolve these dependencies: Downgrade the following packages: 1) gcc-12-base [12.1.0-2ubuntu1~22.04 (now) -> 12-20220319-1ubuntu1 (jammy)] 2) gcc-12-base:i386 [12.1.0-2ubuntu1~22.04 (now) -> 12-20220319-1ubuntu1 (jammy)] etc etc.... 

With apt policy I can see the available versions

[email protected]:~ $ apt policy gcc-12 gcc-12: Installed: (none) Candidate: 12-20220319-1ubuntu1 Version table: 12-20220319-1ubuntu1 500 500 http://apt.pop-os.org/ubuntu jammy/universe amd64 Packages [email protected]:~ $ apt policy gcc-12-base gcc-12-base: Installed: 12.1.0-2ubuntu1~22.04 Candidate: 12.1.0-2ubuntu1~22.04 Version table: *** 12.1.0-2ubuntu1~22.04 100 100 /valib/dpkg/status 12-20220319-1ubuntu1 500 500 http://apt.pop-os.org/ubuntu jammy/main amd64 Packages 

It seems to me there are different version numbers available for some packages but only one for other packages.
This is as far as I got, do you have any ideas how to continue troubleshooting this?

A coworker of mine recommended Perdido Street Station recently, and as the name China Mieville had come up related to other books and authors I've read and I was looking for something new, I thought I'd give it a try.
In this post, I'm going to try to organize my thoughts about why I hate this book and why it is objectively bad. Not in my opinion, not according to my tastes or preferences. Objectively bad. In the same way as the Holocaust was an objective tragedy.

1. Nonsensical world-building. China Mieville is often credited for building a believable, immersive, vivid or other such positively described world. I didn't believe that Bas Lag was, or could be, a "real" place for a second.
   
   1. Let's start with the main races. We have humans, bug-headed people, flying bird-headed people, cactus people, and frog people. All of these seem to fall into the Star Trek alien trope, where the body is basically humanoid, and only the head is different. This is not believable. Further, I never really got a sense that their cultures were so different. The bird people only got developed near the end of the book, and that was just enough to explain Yag's crime to the readers. One interaction with a group of city-dwelling bird people seems transposed from a British crime movie where the gang leader is reasserting authority of the group, in exactly the same way as a human would. I don't get any sense that they are a fully developed species with their own cultures and ways of thinking. Lin, a member of the bug-headed people, comes of as a typical female human character, despite coming from a species that seems to have collectivism built in to their society and their genes. The cactus people are never really explained at all. Like, do they use photosynthesis? Do they eat food? What's their culture? I just kept imagining people walking around cosplaying these different races but all being essentially humans.
   2. Word and concept choice. At one point, Mieville has a character use the word "capiche." Mind you, Italy does not exist in this world, nor does the Mafia, nor should an Italian American gangster word like "capiche." Similarly, he never says anything about God, Christianity, Judaism, etc, but he borrows the concept of "Hell" and "Hellkin." If there is a hell, there should be a heaven, right? And if heaven and hell exist, there's a god, right? These are simply thrown out there, and never elaborated on again. For money, he uses real world currency names, such as mark, shekel, and Guinea. These have no place in an imaginary world with no connection to our own.
   Isaac is a scientist, and while I don't think it is important to get science "right" in a work that is fictional and that is specifically NOT science fiction, the scientific concepts explained here don't make sense. It reminded me more of the characters in Frank Herbert's Destination: Void talking about transistors, circuits, blah-blah matrices, and yadda-yadda amplifiers. The blah-blah matrices and yadda-yadda amplifiers don't exist, and spending so much time on them didn't make any sense in a novel with so little action. Neither does the number of pages that Mieville devotes to explaining unified field theory add to my understanding or enjoyment of the novel. Nothing in the novel really hinges on this, and the fact that Torque seems to throw a wrench in this idea of having a unified field at all makes me more annoyed at spending time trying to understand what Isaac is getting on about. The idea of "crisis" and a "crisis engine" in particular seems like a scientifically illiterate person's interpretation of chaos and complexity theory. 3. "History." The way the "history" is presented here feels very much like it needs those scare quotes. Are these places and events actually relevant to the story? How much thought was put into them and their order? The way that so many are mentioned and then just forgotten really makes me wonder how seriously I should take them.
   

2.Poor word choices and sentence construction.

1. I've never read a book that made me want to take a shower before. When Mieville describes the city of New Crobuzon, he relies heavily on words with negative emotional valance and bodily fluid language. As a small set of examples, the air is almost always described as having a stench, reeking, being rank, putrid, noisome, being polluted, etc. Water is usually described as being fecal, mucal, fetid, rancid, oily, being polluted, etc. Buildings are moldy, desquamating, dirty. Factories don't emit or release smoke: they "retch" smog. Guns don't fire bullets or shoot bullets: they "vomit" bullets. A sack that is full is described as "bloated." A pile of electrical components is for some reason described as "vile." For 712 fucking pages! I don't have a problem with bodily fluids, and I don't mind when other writers describe a slum or paint a picture of a nasty scene. But in Perdido Street Station, there is no let up. I can't remember a single instance of something that was described in positive terms. Even the first time Isaac has sex with Lin, he is described as almost vomiting because her antennae were waving in such a disgusting fashion. And they went on to have a long term romance! Who almost vomits the first time they have sex with someone they love? Why describe it in this negative way? I don't understand the goal of using language in this way.
2. Related to the point above, the book is monotonous in how it describes the world. Everything is negative and dirty. For 712 pages.
3. Characterization is done in the typical spoon-fed fashion that seems to be popular in many genres of fiction nowadays. I'm thinking of one example in particular, so here it is.

"Lin and Isaac snatched furtive nights together when they could. Isaac could tell that all was not well with her. Once, he sat her down and demanded that she tell him what was troubling her, why she had not entered the Shintacost Prize this year (something which had given her usual bitchery about the standard of the shortlist an added bitterness), what she was working on, and where. There was no sign of any artistic debris at all in any of her rooms. Lin had stroked his arm, clearly grateful for his concern. But she would tell him nothing. She said she was working on a piece of which she was tentatively very proud. She had found a space that she could not and did not want to talk about, in which she was producing a large piece that he mustn’t ask her about. It was not as if she had disappeared from the world. Once a fortnight, perhaps, she was back in one of the Salacus Fields bars, laughing with her friends, if with a little less vigour than she had two months ago.
She teased Isaac about his anger at Lucky Gazid, who had vanished, with suspiciously good timing. Isaac had told Lin about his inadvertent sampling of dreamshit, and had raged around looking to punish Gazid. Isaac had described the extraordinary grub which seemed to thrive on the drug. Lin had not seen the creature, had not been back to Brock Marsh since that forlorn day the previous month, but even allowing for a degree of exaggeration on Isaac’s part, the creature sounded extraordinary. Lin thought fondly of Isaac as she adeptly changed the subject. She asked him what nourishment he thought the caterpillar might gain from its peculiar food, and sat back as his face expanded with fascination and he would tell her enthusiastically that he did not know, but that these were a few of his ideas. She would ask him to try to explain to her about crisis energy, and whether he thought it would help Yagharek to fly, and he would talk animatedly, drawing her diagrams on slips of paper.
It was easy to work on him. Lin felt, sometimes, that Isaac knew he was being manipulated, that he felt guilty about the ease with which his worries for her were transformed. She sensed gratitude in his lurching changes of subject, along with contrition. He knew it was his role to be worried for her, given her melancholy, and he was, he truly was, but it was an effort, a duty, when most of his mind was crammed with crisis and grub food. She gave him permission not to worry, and he accepted it with thanks. Lin wanted to displace Isaac’s concerns for her, for a time. She could not afford for him to be curious. The more he knew, the more she was in danger. She did not know what powers her employer might possess: she doubted he was capable of telepathy, but she was risking nothing. She wanted to finish her piece, to take the money and to get away from Bonetown."

Let me remind you, this book is 712 pages long. He takes approximately two pages, from 208-209 in the Kindle edition, to detail all this information about the relationship between Isaac and Lin. This is just bad writing. Some of this could have been handled in short dialogues embedded in other scenes, and some of it should be left to the reader to piece together. This is an example of what Steven Erikson described as pablum in his post a few years ago about effective characterization.

1. Overly descriptive language.

The great cable slipped in spurts into the water by the riverwall. It plunged absolutely precipitately into the darkness, hitting the surface at 90 degrees."

(Perdido Street Station, p. 603)
Why, the fuck, does he describe the cable going into the water in such a redundant and repetitive way? This is not some pivotal event in the story. It is related to an important plan, but there is no need for the drama around this singular event. If I spent this many words talking about a character picking up a pencil, I had better have a real good reason for doing so. Mieville does this all the time. The above mentioned meetings with the Hellkin are another prime example. He spends pages describing the procedures for meeting them and the actual meeting, they add nothing to the story, AND they make his world seem poorly thought out. What did he gain by describing them? Hell if I know!

1. Plot Structure and Pacing
   
2. Stupid plot events. Mieville goes out of his way to show that the evil soul-eating moths are not damaged very much by regular physical attacks. And then, the first moth is killed by unceremoniously dropping a heavy weight on it, like something out of a Wile E. Coyote skit. Three of the remaining moths are killed using more appropriate means, but... Look, I know there were the infamous Milner experiments on rats where they'd press a button to get something like an orgasm, and once they could do this, they'd basically just press the button until they died. I don't know of any actual living organisms that will, for example, eat food so much that they physically explode, ignoring Monty Python sketches to the contrary. It's funny, but it doesn't seem like a realistic way to take out soul-eating creatures.
   

Another example is Jack Half-a-Prayer. He is mentioned maybe twice in the book, very obliquely, before suddenly near the climax he shows up and just starts helping the main characters out in the middle of a fire fight. If he had been foreshadowed more, if there were some stronger motivation than just "Oh my main characters are in a pinch! I know! I'll have so-and-so come!" I might have accepted this, but not the way it is done in the book.

1. Pacing. This book overstays its welcome. Mieville creates too many new ideas and just throws them out without exploring their implications, and moves on to the next, and the next, and the next. (Sinistrals and Dextrals, I'm looking at you! Does anyone even remember this from the book?) Then he spends 10 pages describing the fucking Hellkin, or 20 pages revealing that one of characters was a government spy. Or the passage above where he tries to do a novelized version of a relationship montage to show the development of Lin and Isaac's relationship over time. It is too scattered and too focused on the stupidest things at the same time. Why do we need a multi-page graphically detailed moth orgy? In a 712 page book that already has too many adjectives and adverbs? By the 300 page mark, I was regularly having to psych myself into going on to the next page.
   
2. Forgiveness.
   

One of my favorite fantasy series of all-time, The Malazan Book of the Fallen, takes empathy, compassion, and forgiveness as some of the major themes. I was at first shocked by how often the "evil villain" turned out to be someone with a tortured youth, tragic past, or some other circumstance that explained their behavior. And at the end of many of these tales, that dastardly sinner was taken off to be reformed, or taken under someone's wing to try and make up for the harm they'd caused. Yes, sometimes they were killed or maimed in gruesome fashion, but many had a chance to reform.
In contrast, in Perdido Street Station, it is revealed that Yagharek committed a serious crime among his people, for which he had his wings cut off without anesthesia. Isaac agrees to help him become able to fly anyway, and along the way we see Yagharek risk his life many times to protect this city that disgusts him (as evidenced by the large increase in those bodily fluid words during the Yagharek sections proceeding each part) and to protect his friends. Now, if we could get inside Yagharek's head during these moments, and see that he's thinking "Oh, this had so better be worth it! I really don't give a fuck about these people and I just wanna fly again." That would be one thing. Near the end, it is revealed that Yagharek basically committed the crime of rape (which is framed as second degree choice theft, choice theft being an interesting sounding cultural concept, but which actually makes no sense if you try to work out the implications of how a legal system based on it would work....). Isaac is asked not to build the promised wings for Yagharek, and he ends up abandoning him.
Now, look, I'm not condoning rape. I think it is a horrendous crime. As bad or worse than murder. People do horrible things. Sometimes with intention, sometimes in the heat of the moment. Of course, getting caught in the heat of the moment doesn't excuse the action. One of the problems is that Mieville doesn't reveal much about Yagharek's psychological state afterwards. We don't know, for example, if like Red's character in The Shawshank Redemption, he feels sorry for what he did as a hot-headed, stupid young man, and that every day he regrets what he did. I think a lot hinges on that. If Yagharek is really just looking for a way to void his punishment, Isaac is probably right to refuse him. If Yagharek regrets what he did, and wants to make up for it somehow, and needs something that will make his life worth continuing, Isaac probably should have helped him instead of being a closed-minded judgmental prick.
Given Yagharek's actions throughout the book, Isaac comes off as an asshole, and to the extent that his judgment matches Mieville's, so does Mieville.

1. "Political" Themes I see a lot of discussion about how Mieville is very political and how he's a communist / socialist, and wants to take down capitalism, etc, etc. I picked up on a lot of that in PSS, but I think Mieville handles these themes very poorly. As a better example of a deconstruction / take-down of capitalism, I'd again recommend The Malazan Book of the Fallen, specifically Midnight Tides and Reaper's Gale, both of which examine the problem in more creative and deeper ways than Mieville does in PSS.

So that's my hot take on Perdido Street Station. You're free to disagree, but I'm tired of hearing so many demonstrably untrue claims made about the quality of Mieville's writing, in particular his descriptions and his world building as seen in PSS. I know that PSS was his second book, and he might have matured a lot as a writer since then (the same coworker who recommended him said his style doesn't change much in later books, but I can't judge them myself). But 712 pages is more than enough in one lifetime for me.

I had posted this in relationships, but it got removed for asking for a moral judgement. Maybe this sub is better suited.
Long story short (but still pretty long) I (27F) may be living with two people that my best friend has negative feelings towards. One person I’m not to familiar with, she had a “thing” with but never dated - he stopped talking to her without rhyme or reason. The other I’ve known since I was 12 or 13 and is close with the first person - he yelled at her after she made a joke that made him uncomfortable and subsequently ended their friendship (based on how she responded) in not the most caring or kind way.
When I told her this, she told me that she was uncomfortable with it and that she felt “worthless, devalued, and like a punching bag” in our relationship and I’m “supposed to be her best friend”. The thing that got me most was her saying “I feel like saying anything won’t be taken seriously”.
Now, while we’re close, I don’t think I’m doing anything wrong. We aren’t required to have the same relationships with people just because she has negative or unresolved feelings towards them. If either of these people abused her in any way, I would definitely not even consider living with them, but that’s not what happened to my knowledge of either situation. One just ended, the other was a result of her own actions, as I got the same story from both people. Her saying that I wouldn’t be taking her feelings seriously doesn’t make sense because I have taken her feelings seriously to the point of detriment to myself in our 10 year relationship. It honestly feels like she is “white-womaning” her way into making me feel bad and accommodating her in the end.
Additionally, this friend has a history of trying to manage who I interact with based on her interactions with them. I get having bad feelings, but the way I see it those are between she and the other people and she and herself. Unless, like I said, they’ve been abusive in any way. And there are people I don’t interact with for this very reason.
This whole situation has really called to light some frustrations in our relationship that I’ve been avoiding for a while, mainly being that she doesn’t actually deal with her feelings, and just puts them in a box. I’m not sure I’m willing to put up with it anymore. I’m considering putting a pause to our friendship until she finds some professional help towards management of her emotions. I’ll always be there for her if she needs anything, but I can’t deal with the lack of dealing and expecting me to feel the same just because we’re friends.
WIBTA for either of these things? Living with these people against my friends wishes and telling her that I have to put a hold on the friendship until she finds therapy or something similar?