Urban Dictionary: accidental thumb

what does it mean when someone sends you a thumbs up on facebook

what does it mean when someone sends you a thumbs up on facebook - win

I study forbidden and 'cursed' media (Part 1): Money for Nothing

Whenever anyone thinks of forbidden or ‘haunted’ media, they usually mean something like a video game that kills you, a tv commercial that creeps them out, or a movie whose production is met with misfortune at every turn. While those things certainly do exist, they overshadow bits of cursed media that I feel are more deserving of modern attention, since they act as both curiosities, and dangers. While we do have some that could be quantified as ‘supernatural’, a lot of it is fairly mundane-- like what I’m covering today.
Money for Nothing was a stunt-based game show that was intended to air in 1999; however, in the middle of filming the fourth of five episodes, the host (Who I’ll just call [Host]; I won’t name her, but she was a fairly prominent actress at the time) walked off the set, threatening to terminate her contract with the network if they ever tried to get her to appear on another program like it.
Officially, all tapes of the show were destroyed by order of the studio; however, in the course of my study, I have seen part of the first episode, the majority of the second, a series of stills from the third, and the final shots of the fourth episode that caused [Host] to walk off the set.
Up until November of last year, the fifth and final episode was thought to be completely lost.
The objective of Money for Nothing was simple, and summed up in its tag line: “Do you have what it takes… to do NOTHING?”. From what I’ve been able to research, it was based off of the principle of the ‘Quiet Game’, the ever-iconic pastime of harried mothers on road trips everywhere: how long can you go without doing anything? Adding to this was an element of chicken-- the first one to do something loses.
The set of Money for Nothing is a bizarre hybrid of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? with its moody lighting, darkness, and amphitheatre-like setup, and Double Dare, featuring several areas of modular (possibly retractable) flooring which could be used to set up the various equipment used in the stunts. From what I’ve been able to determine, the floor was fairly large-- over 600 square feet, with a very high ceiling in the studio. With some creative set design it could be used for conceivably anything.
As you may be able to guess from what I’ve said so far, Money for Nothing was a very strange show. Challenges consisted of trying to stay as still as possible while everything went wrong around you-- For instance, the surviving footage of episode 1 featured the segment ‘Stopping Cart’, where the contestants sat in the basket of standard supermarket shopping carts and rolled down a ramp that gradually got steeper, until it ended in a large pile of padded material. One of the contestants bailed from their cart less than halfway down the slope, losing the challenge. In documents related to the show, challenges like these were termed “Chicken Challenges”.
Other than Chicken Challenges, we had what was meant to be the main draw of the show: what these documents called the “Skin Crawling Challenges”. Here, contestants were expected to sit perfectly still and make as little noise as possible while various unpleasant things happened to them. Episode 2 featured three different Skin Crawling Challenges: the first one, “Hammock Panic'', featured a contestant laying in a hammock within a small wind tunnel, attempting to not fall out of it while moving as little as possible. Secondly, there was ‘Oh, Honey!’, where [Host] would drizzle honey on the contestant while buzzing sounds played, mimicking a swarm of bees; this seemed at least somewhat pleasant, due to the fact that the honey was clearly very warm if it could be drizzled so easily. Lastly, during the championship round, was the game ‘Arach your Brain’, where a contestant had their head placed in a box full of wolf spiders, which are harmless to humans-- terrifying, but harmless.
The three stills I have of Episode 3 are almost entirely unenlightening; when I got the first one, I swore the set was on fire, due to the sheer amount of smoke or gas in the frame. Upon further inspection, I saw three contestants sitting in lawn chairs, casually reading through magazines, while [Host] stood by in a prop gas mask. The second still almost looks like it’s from the set of The Wicker Man, with two contestants hanging upside-down from wooden scaffolding, clearly trying not to laugh from the headrush.
The last still from Episode 3 was likely not intended for broadcast; it shows one of the producers (who shall go unnamed) getting into an argument with a man who appears to be a crew member; both of them are covered in some form of white foamy fluid. An occupied stretcher is seen in the background. Since I first saw this photograph back in 2017, I wondered what was happening with it.
In November of last year, I started to get answers. A friend of mine got me into contact with one of the producers of Money for Nothing, and while he’s technically under an NDA, he’s breaking it for the sole reason that “You’re a bunch of nutjobs and nobody would believe you anyway”. Harsh, but fair.
The producer, who I’ll call [Riley], talked to me over a Zoom call from L.A. After I introduced myself, I asked him about the picture with the stretcher. He shrugs. “The challenge called for the contestant to hold a lit candle on their head. But they sneezed, and… look, they made it out alive.”
“So the white stuff is fire retardant? From an extinguisher?”
“Exactly.”
“There’s a lot for it for someone setting themselves on fire.”
“I never said they set themselves on fire.”
With that question filed away, I presented him what I had of Episode 4-- he asked how I got it, which was a fair question, considering the fact that the Network itself had lost the recording some time in 2001 or 2002.
There were three cameras that captured the last moments of [Host]’s tenure on Money for Nothing, and in summer of last year, I had tapes from two of them; the person who had the last tape was well known among our community of researchers, but refused to part with it for any amount of money. He was a massive fan of [Host], ran a fangroup for her on UseNet all the way back in the day, named his cat after her most well-known character-- and he has a restraining order from her framed on the wall in his ‘office’.
Now, I have to admit something. In the field of research I carry out, there tend to be more B&E’s than Ph. D’s. Sometimes you’ll get lucky and find something on eBay or at an estate sale or in a library, where you can essentially scoop it up and research it at will; this wasn’t one of those cases. I wanted to see what was on that tape, so…
My original plan was to break into the house and copy the tape with some equipment I had-- something a friend of mine frankensteined out of a tape player and one of my old laptops. It’s meant to convert tapes to a digital format quickly enough that you can be in and out in five minutes, ten tops. It’s portable, if not particularly light, and you don’t really leave any evidence.
So, when he left for work, I waited ten minutes, then went through the back door. From there, I made my way to his office on the second floor-- in addition to the restraining order (which he had posted on Facebook as a point of pride) he had posters, action figures, photos [Host] did from Playboy, and a signed photograph of him and [Host], where she is clearly screaming on the inside. He wasn’t cliche enough of a stalker to have a carefully curated shrine; it was all on a series of bookshelves. And on one of them, sandwiched between several volumes of TV shows [Host] had been in, was a single black plastic tape case, with the words ‘$.F.N. 1999 Last Apperance[sic]” written on it.
Only one problem: the case it was in was too small to be a VHS tape. I realized that I was dealing with a Betamax tape. I had a VHS-to-Digital setup, and Betamax-to-Digital conversion required an entire room’s worth of specialized equipment-- equipment that I had access to through the research group, granted, but I was going to have to physically take the tape out of the house.
That was the first snag I ran into. The second was physical; I felt it catch on something as I tried to pull the case off the shelf, and heard something go click. There was a cable tied to the Betamax case, into some mechanism behind the bookshelf that I didn’t see, but I knew that if I pulled the case off the shelf completely, something bad would happen, and I didn’t see if there was a way to deactivate it; judging by the fact that I hadn’t seen a Betamax player anywhere in the house, he probably didn’t actually watch it. He’d set this up specifically to get someone who was after this tape.
So, keeping the case perfectly still on the shelf, I took out my box cutter and began the arduous process of dissecting the case. This case was made of a solid, if cheap, plastic, and it was more likely to shatter and leave plastic shards than it was to just cut; I couldn’t risk that. I’d given the owner a fake name and was wearing gloves, so if he didn’t know the tape was gone for at least a week, I could make myself scarce. But if he found a shard of the black plastic I was trying to saw my way through… well, the good news is that we have a couple of lawyers in the community.
After ten minutes, I managed to get through the seam linking the front cover of the tape and the spine. I dug my fingers into the sharp plastic, and began peeling it off-- and was immediately met by a strange sight. The tape was in there, all right, but immediately in front of it was a plastic bag filled with some sort of liquid. There was a bare wire inside of the liquid, a battery on the inside of the front cover, and I could smell alcohol-- a booby trap to destroy the tape? Why go through all that trouble? And why keep a Betamax tape if you didn’t even have a Betamax player?
My heart stopped as I heard a car pull up outside; he wasn’t supposed to be back from work for another six hours. The tripwire must have been some kind of alarm system, maybe set up to send a text to him if it was tripped. I pulled aside the makeshift firebomb, prayed I wouldn’t set anything off, and grabbed the tape, intact. A door downstairs slammed open, and I heard him enter the house, heading straight for the room I was in.
I knocked the bookshelf down so it landed in front of the door, and dashed across the office to a window. It was on the second floor, but outside of it was a bare trellis that had to have come with the house, as the rest of the garden was equally dead. It made for a good ladder.
I was about halfway down when I heard the door burst open, despite the bookshelf in front of it. I thought for sure that he was going to come to the window and start either throwing things down at me or shooting at me, but instead I heard him fall to the floor and start crying, saying that something was ‘ruined’ and that he could ‘never fix it’.
I didn’t stay for long after that. I ran out of his backyard and to my car parked three blocks away. Didn’t see any police presence until I was at a diner about two miles away from his house, on IRC with my friend who has the Betamax-to-Digital setup.
-------
“Hell of a story,” [Riley] admitted once I got done telling it. “Been over twenty years since I saw this. Let’s see if it’s as fucked as I remember.”
Episode 4 is… uncomfortable to sit through. Thanks to the tape I procured, what we have of Episode 4 consists of fifteen minutes of footage-- three of [Host], talking with the crew to the incident, seven with her actually presenting the stunt, and five minutes of the aftermath.
The stunt that caused [Host] to walk off the show was called ‘Raindrops on Noses’. It was the only stunt on the show that used restraints; I’ve yet to find any documentation pertaining as to why, but the contestants were strapped into a set of reclining chairs. Above their heads, a prop in the shape of a large raincloud would drip water onto their faces, drop by drop. The chairs had buttons on them that would release the restraints and light up a sign indicating they forfeited.
The first three minutes of the tape consist of [Host] having a conversation with one of the producers; it’s indistinct, and the words ‘disgruntled employee’, ‘fired’, and ‘call security’ can be made out.. [Host] looks exasperated, like she clearly doesn’t want to be here; she’s rubbing her hands together when she clearly just wants to wipe all of her makeup onto her shirt and start screaming. It’s something you see a lot of when you study media like this; when they think the cameras aren’t rolling, people become giant balls of stress. Part of me thinks that they were trying to record a blooper reel, considering that she drops her American accent at one point and says something along the lines of ‘buncha horseshite’.
Then, the lights come back up. There are cheers from the audience as the host escorts the two contestants-- who I’ll call [Carter] and [Etta]-- to the chairs. She explains the challenge to them, and the mechanics of it, demonstrating the button they need to push to be released from the restraints. Then, when she’s sure the contestants are in the positions, she says “Are you ready to Earn… MONEY FOR NOTHING?”. The audience cheers, and the challenge starts.
There’s a lot of droning, moody music here. Upon five different viewings, I think that it’s just to cover up the snoring of the audience.
“The show was bullshit,” [Riley] admits, lighting up a cigarette. “Nobody wanted to watch people just sit around and do nothing. The shopping cart ride was an example of a good stunt-- people were expected to just sit around and not bail out, kind of a weird expression of machismo. But this rain challenge? We were having people sit and watch contestants get wet for three to six minutes.” He rubs his face. “One of the production assistants, he came to us with an idea-- make the droplets fall randomly. He read somewhere that it can drive people mad.”
“...isn’t that basically Chinese Water torture?”
“I didn’t know that until later but… yeah.”
Since this episode was never aired, all the sound here is diegetic and unedited; the video was cobbled together by my friend from three different tapes. While the motion of these cameras tries to convey some kind of grand event, it’s clear that this should not have been on television in the first place; the first time I saw this, I was nearly falling asleep.
The challenge should have ended quickly-- [Carter] starts tapping at his release button while the [Host] is in the middle of commentating and cheering them on. His restraints don’t open-- bear in mind that this is the same chair [Host] had pressed the release on two minutes earlier to demonstrate its mechanism. The alarm to show that he’s forfeited doesn’t even light up. He keeps pressing it, and [Host] doesn’t seem to notice.
[Etta] takes a bit longer to crack; at the five-minute mark, she presses her button, and it works. As [Host] gets up to thank her for playing and congratulate [Carter], she notices something is wrong with him. The camera closest to him zooms in on his hand. It's been trying to press the button for the last three minutes; the plastic on the button is broken, and there are several cuts on his hand from him desperately trying to press at the shards that remain. He’s clearly sobbing and writhing in his restraints, saying ‘Please, please, oh god please, let me out please, let me out, let me out’. There appears to be smoke coming from his forehead, and I hear a sizzling sound, before the camera cuts.
The only camera to remain un-cut is the one positioned where [Host] would be sitting. [Etta] is pulled out of her chair and taken off-stage. The audience looked on, confused, some wondering if they should call 9-1-1. The audio feed is overtaken by [Carter]’s sobbing as he begs to be let out of the chair. A member of the crew yells to get the water shut off, and eventually resorts to breaking the apparatus dispensing it.
[Carter] is cut free of his restraints and layed on the ground. He is crying. [Host], showing some modicum of tact, goes directly in front of the camera, where she has an argument with her producer, again dropping her accent. Despite the hushed voices, the audio is fairly clear; a transcript is below, with “H” for [Host]t and “P” for the producer.
H: Are you fucking insane?
P: Look, this show is fucking boring. It was a bad idea to begin with, but something like this could get us into syndication. We just needed to bring a little more excitement--
H: Excitement? If people want excitement, they can watch me poke through someone’s guts on Sunday night. What-- what just happened here is fucking torture! I won’t have it! The gas was bad enough, but this?!
P: Look, it was a mistake. We’ll scrap this episode, give them both compensation. They signed waivers--
H: Fuck you. I’m calling my agent. Anyone who wants me to stay here can kiss my--
At this point, a member of the crew enters the shot and shuts off the camera.
“What’s this about the gas?”
[Riley] shakes his head. “The guy in the chair was part of a stunt earlier in the program where he sat in a room full of smoke. It wasn’t even smoke, it was a stupid fog machine. He had some residue on him, but… I’ve never seen it react like that with water.”
“And… it was water in there?”
“...maybe. The cloud prop-- literally just a showerhead-- vanished before we could get the police to look at it.”
It’s here that I started asking about Episode 5.
“So, after [Host] walked off the set… we still had a contract with the network to fulfill. They asked for five episodes, and if their Queen of the Small Screen wanted off the show, they weren't going to say ‘no’.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “So, I make a few phone calls. My dad worked on [Sitcom] in the 80’s, you ever heard of it?”
“Yeah.” [Sitcom] isn’t the actual title, obviously, but ‘cursed sitcoms’ are a specialty of one of my friends. I might ask her if she has any ideas for a post like this.
“We managed to get [Actress]. She played the mom on the show, but was almost entirely forgotten by ‘99. She got to relaunch her career, we got a new host. Win-Win.” He chews his lip. “It… it’ll be easier to show you what happened than tell you.”
My eyes go wide. “You have footage?”
“Kinda. It’s only one angle of the set, and a wide one at that. But… it captures most of the action." He sighed. “Your email is XXXXX@gmail?”
“Yeah.”
Ten minutes later, I’m watching the clip. It’s six minutes long, and most of the dialog is indistinct. And… look, in the course of my research, I’ve seen stuff that makes ‘National Anthem’ from Black Mirror look like Peppa Pig. And I need to say that this… this was rough.
The last recorded challenge of Money for Nothing begins with the contestant being placed into a clear, plexiglass box. He stands completely still as [Actress] walks around him; I can make out the words ‘little furry friends’ and ‘maybe you’ll come out the big cheese!’. Then, she looks out at the audience, and says “Ladies and Gentlemen, welcome to the [inaudible]ack!”
The floor around the man opens up, and a swarm of what I assume are brown rats comes flowing out, gathering around his feet. Credit where it’s due, he stands completely still-- for a while, anyway. Once they start clawing at his clothing, he gets shaky, and by the time one climbs onto his chest, he collapses-- fainted, by the look of his body language.
I hear a tone over the audio; the Zoom call has been continuing this whole time, and [Riley] must see my confusion. “Get to the rats?”
I pause the playback. “Yeah. What’s that sound?”
“It was meant to be a rodent deterrent. Something to make them go back below the stage once the stunt was done. It was never tested. Just…” He looks like he’s turning green. “Keep watching.”
I unpause the video. The tone plays, but the rats remain in the box, crawling over the body of the fallen man. [Actress] is looking at the producers in confusion, and gets up to approach the box. She recoils as the tone sounds again, and I see it-- the rats are swarming over where the man fell. I know where this is going.
There’s panic in the audience. Staff is starting to have them evacuate. [Actress] tries opening up the box, but is stopped by someone on the set-- they get into a fight, with her gesticulating at the swarm of rats. The bottom of the box begins to fill with a visible layer of red liquid. Someone come over with a fire extinguisher to try to break open the glass; [Actress] tries to stop them, but it’s too late.
The box doesn’t shatter as much as it tips; apparently it was never well-secured to begin with. Rats and blood flow out from beneath the box as it falls over, and everyone who hasn’t already evacuated the set does so. The rats abandon a bloody mass that I’m thankful I don’t get to see clearly-- there doesn’t seem to be much skin left, and barely any muscle. All there is are bloody bones covered in the barest fibers of flesh.
“Fucking god.” I swallow.
“It gets worse,” Riley assures me. “Keep watching.”
So, I do. Two minutes after everyone leaves. a figure emerges from the audience section, dropping down opposite the camera. They’re hard to make out, even though the entire set is lit from below; they don’t seem to have any distinct features, barring what seems to be a white T-Shirt with what looks like a broad “V” on it.
Then, the lights go out entirely, leaving the set in darkness.
“What the hell?”
“Rat chewed through a cable. Keep watching.”
I do. I hear footsteps approach the camera. The emergency lights show a shadowy form come up to the camera; his body obscures the lens. He picks up the apparatus and wheels it over what I assume is the center of the room, aiming the lens downwards. This whole time, I’m expecting his face to pop into frame, but instead I hear footsteps walking away.
I check the timestamp; there are maybe ten minutes left in the recording. I only have to wait for five of them, though. I hear voices and see the beams of flashlights briefly illuminate the… the…
When they’re scavenging a corpse, animals normally go for the softest parts of the body first-- the eyes, the lips, the ears. So no, I can’t explain why the head of the contestant that the rats had eaten was untouched. I can’t explain why his eyes seemed to open in response to the flashlights. And I hope to god that his mouth wasn’t actually opening to call for help when I shut off the recording.
I close the window and begin saving the file to a thumb drive. “What the fuck was that?”
“That’s what the LAPD has been trying to figure out for over twenty years.” [Riley] lights another cigarette. “We’re fairly confident someone sabotaged the production, between the incident with the Raindrops stunt, and this one, which… god, I think they called it ‘Rat Pack’.” He shakes his head. “Production was scrapped, tapes were burned, and any props that weren’t essential to the investigation were mothballed or destroyed. That footage you saw is supposed to exist only in evidence lockup, and nowhere else.”
“How’d you get it?”
“It’s Hollywood. Do the math.”
The video finishes saving. I delete the email off of my computer. “Were there any other acts of sabotage at the studio around this time?”
“Surge of crank calls made to [Crime Show] right after this happened. Beyond that, nothing.”
“What about at other studios?”
“Wouldn’t know.” He blows on the cigarette. “Would you?”
I frown. “I’ll have to look into it. Now, how much do I owe y--”
He shakes his head. “Kid. I’m loaded. I could pay for my grandkids’ dog’s retirement. I just… needed to get this off my chest.” He’s pensive for a moment. “There is one thing.”
“What?”
“You do this all the time, basically? Look up creepy media, TV shows and that?”
“I mean, I have a job, but yeah...”
“If you ever find anything related to a show or movie that involves an actress named ‘Zelda Plunick’, you call me.”
WIth that, he terminated the call. I haven’t been in contact with him since; despite searching with the help of other people involved in the forbidden media crowd, the name ‘Zelda Plunick’(sp?) hasn’t come up yet.
------
The deaths and injuries caused by Money for Nothing seem to have largely been swept under the rug. [Carter], the contestant from Episode 4, declined a request for an interview, as did all other living contestants I could find, and I’m not about to bug [Host] or [Actress].
The video of Episode 5 has been analyzed by some other people in my community-- they’ve tried fiddling with the colors on the video, but that can only do so much. We’ve determined that the figure is tall, but not anomalously so; maybe 6’4”, and is likely male.
Like [Riley] said, he did break an NDA on this. He’s apparently wealthy enough to settle out-of-court, and I’ve heard nothing from entertainment news about a big honking lawsuit, so I’m assuming he’s going to be fine up until the second I post this.
I normally keep this kind of analysis and history to our own little group. But something happened a few days back that got me spooked enough that I decided to post this out into the broader world.
The USB drive I had the video stored on went missing around the start of the year; it was already uploaded to others in the channel, so I didn’t really need to keep it. But I came home two days ago, and found it sitting on the desk where I do the majority of my work.
In addition to the audio file, there was a photograph on it. A man in my room, standing in front of my webcam, his head out of frame. He is wearing a white T-Shirt with what I now recognize as a set of TV ‘bunny ear’ antennas on the front-- the same shirt that was in the recording from Episode 5 of Money for Nothing.
-------
That’s all I have for today. Should this not get taken down by whatever NDA the Network suits have on [Riley], I’ll be back with a first-hand experience-- my time watching one of the great lost gimmick films of the 1960s, Laurence Forrest’s The Maddening Quiet.
submitted by CursedMediaStudent to nosleep [link] [comments]

[SND-RAY] A good idea that's starting to look like a scam.

I had the misfortune of backing this campaign based on a video featured on the campaign's page in which several individuals are shown reacting to a prototype version of the product. The video strongly implied that the team had already developed a functional prototype and were ready to begin production. However, since then the project has been delayed multiple times. In their most recent update (in which they announced yet another two-month delay) the excuse they gave was that the sound quality was lacking and they needed more time to improve the frequency response, which implies that they are still in the prototyping phase and nowhere near ready to begin production.
It has now been over a month since they gave us that update, with no further news with regards to how they are progressing. I am starting to think that the video they posted might have been faked to trick unsuspecting people into backing them, or worse, that the whole project is a scam. Digging a little bit deeper, it turns out that the company's facebook page is being managed by someone in Poland and it's "headquarters" is located in an empty building in Cheyenne, Wyoming, despite the fact that they claim to be based in San Diego. A quick search of the website for the California Secretary of State reveals that there is no SND-Ray Labs, Inc. registered in the state of California. The company was supposedly founded by a man named Jack Adrian, but his name is nowhere to be found on any of the official documents. It appears that the company's only registered employee is someone named Xi Li.
Literally the best-case scenario at this point is that they lied about having a functional prototype, but based on the above information I'm starting to think it's an outright scam.
UPDATE:
I managed to get in touch with a representative for EXP Realty in Cheyenne, WY, (the company which leases the office space where SND Ray Labs, Inc. is supposedly based) and got the contact info for the secretary of the office building at the address in question. She told me that the company never showed up to do business or provided them with a valid forwarding address, and thus EXP Realty was forced to resign as their registered agent.
So basically, the company is currently unregistered and may not actually exist anymore, if it ever did to begin with.
UPDATE #2:
The company that filmed the commercial of the alleged SND-Ray prototype seems to have scrubbed all references to the SND-Ray brand from their website (link removed to avoid implying any association between the advertising company and the potential scammers), although a quick glance at the source code for the page reveals several instances of the term "SND-Ray" are still present. I find this suspicious and will attempt to contact them for more info.
UPDATE #3:
According to the company that made the advert, SND-Ray did in fact send them a working pair of bone conducting glasses, but they may have been slightly different from the one's shown in the diagrams on the campaign page. They reason they removed the SND-Ray name from their website was because they were asked to do so by the company.
It's possible that I'm wrong about this whole thing and the company does (or at least did) exist and was not a scam. It's also possible that I'm not wrong, and that the glasses they provided to the advertising company were a pair of generic smart frames with the SND-Ray logo airbrushed on the side. I honestly do hope that i am wrong, but their refusal to post pictures/videos of their development process, infrequent updates, and overall lack of transparency don't leave me very optimistic...
UPDATE #4:
In the time since i originally created this post, the status of SND-Ray Labs, Inc. has officially been changed from "Active" to "Administratively Dissolved" on the Wyoming Secretary of State website.
UPDATE #5:
I've been exchanging emails with the person who directed the video that SND-Ray featured on their Indiegogo page, and he shared an interesting tidbit of information with me that he said i could quote him on:
"We almost didn't get our final payment [for producing the SND-Ray video] but were smart enough to watermark our video for the final transfer because we felt something might be off. It took them months to come back with final payment but it did clear in the end."
He also had this to say regarding these generic smart glasses from AliExpress:
"I'm not sure what the company is promising as a final product but the link looks like it could be similar to the glasses we shot...Actually looking deeper into the Aliexpress link, the buttons and tint of the lenses are nearly identical. Just FYI but still can't say for sure."
UPDATE #6:
It seems that i am no longer able to leave comments on the campaign's Indiegogo page. Instead i just get a message saying "You must be a backer to comment." (EDIT: Apparently this might be due to the fact that i requested a chargeback from my credit card company.)
I am, however, still able to leave replies on my previous comments, so i have done so in order to direct people seeking to open a chargeback case with their bank/credit institution to this reddit post. If any other backers are reading this, i implore you to leave a comment on the Indiegogo page doing the same. Get the word out to the other backers that this is very likely a scam.
UPDATE #7:
I created a graphic using images from AliExpress and the SND-Ray campaign page showing numerous suspicious similarities between the two products.
UPDATE #8:
Just finished filing reports with both ic3.gov and ftc.gov against SND-Ray Labs, Inc. I highly encourage other backers to do the same.
UPDATE #9:
All of my comments on the Indiegogo campaign page pointing out the company's suspicious behavior have been removed. It looks like they might be trying to cover their tracks...
UPDATE #10:
The campaign has changed the location listed on its Indiegogo page from San Diego, California to Frankfurt am Main, Germany. If anyone here can read German, i would be very interested to know if SND-Ray Labs, Inc. is actually legally registered to do business there.
UPDATE #11:
They have posted an updated on the campaign page saying that they are now planning to ship in May. The reason they gave for the additional delay was a very generic "we need more time to improve sound quality and reliability" excuse. They also tried to clarify why they claimed to be based in San Diego despite that clearly being a lie by saying that's where their "marketing agency" is based. No comment was given as to why their company's status was changed to "Administratively Dissolved."
In my opinion, this is all just damage control at this point.
UPDATE #12:
Someone else left a comment earlier today telling people to do a search for this reddit post (he didn't even link to it or anything, just said to "check reddit"), and his comment has already been removed. It definitely seems like i am on to something here and the company is just trying to do damage control to sell as many perks as they can before the truth comes out.
Oh yeah, did i mention that they're still selling perks? For an extra $45 you can pre-order a leather charging case for your hypothetical smart glasses that don't actually exist...
UPDATE #13:
In addition to changing their location from San Diego, California to Frankfurt am Main, Germany, it seems that SND-Ray have stealthily edited the "Story" section of their campaign page. The changes are subtle, but significant, and include the following:
UPDATE #14:
A quick search of the German Company Register within the date range of 2015–Present shows that no company matching the description of SND-Ray has operated anywhere in Germany during that time period.
UPDATE #15:
They are now claiming that they are incorporated in England and can be found by searching for "SND" in the UK Companies House Register. However, this search yields over 150 results, none of which seem to match the description of SND-Ray. Curiously, they have failed to specify the specific name that their business is incorporated under, almost as if they don't want people searching for it...
UPDATE #16:
After scrolling through a few pages i finally managed to find them. Unsurprisingly, there is a big red message on the page stating that the documents they are required to submit are overdue. Also interested is the fact that the company is listed as being either mostly or entirely owned by SND-Ray Labs, Inc. of Cheyenne Wyoming, a company which i have previously proven does not actually exist.
Additionally, the most recent document in the company's filing history has its description listed as "First Gazette notice for compulsory strike-off." Here is what that means according to this website:
A Gazette notice will declare that the company will be struck off Companies House and cease to legally exist. The strike off notice will give you three months until the company is removed from the register as a result of failure to file company accounts or non-payment of tax.
No wonder they didn't want to directly post the link to their company's registration page...
Also of note is the fact that the one actual human who's name is listed on the company's registration page, a person calling himself "Nils Lind," seems to have misspelt his own mailing address. The registration page has his street listed as "Grobe Seestrabe," but a quick google search reveals that the actual name of the street is "Große Seestraße." Since the letter "ß" in the German alphabet is equivalent to a double S, the correct spelling of the street name using the english alphabet would be "Grosse Seestrasse." You would think that this is information which a person who actually lives in Germany would likely be aware of, which gives me reason to suspect that it might be a fake address. (If there are any Germans here, please let me know whether i got this part correct or if i am completely wrong.)
Furthermore, the building at the address listed appears to be a medium-size apartment building with what looks like 8 mail slots next to the door, and given that they didn't specify a unit number, i don't see how any mail sent to that address could possibly end up in the correct mailbox...
(Side note: This "Nils" person also appears to be the individual sending emails out to backers asking them to purchase additional perks. It is my opinion that Nils, whoever he is, is likely the only "employee" of SND-Ray Labs and is therefore the person behind this entire scam.)
UPDATE #17:
I have attempted to contact the German authorities in order to explain the situation and ask that they investigate the address in question. While i suspect that no individual by the name of Nils Lind resides at said address, i hope that one of the agencies i reached out to will be able to find out for sure.
UPDATE #18:
They have changed their company's registered address to a large office building called Aldgate Tower located at 35 Whitechapel High St, London. However, they don't seem to have provided either a floor or suite number indicating where in the building there office is located. I will attempt to investigate further. In addition, the proposal to strike them off of the Companies House register still remains active as apparently they still haven't submitted the proper documentation.
UPDATE #19:
It's starting to look like 35 Whitechapel High Street is not actually an address that exists. Google Maps says that Aldgate Tower is the building that is located at that address, but according to the building's service desk their address is actually located on the intersecting Leman Street.
If anyone here happens to live in London, would you mind putting that address into your GPS and seeing where it takes you?
I'm also considering getting in touch with London's black cab service and asking them if that address exists, as i believe that London taxi drivers are still required to memorize the address of every building in the city.
UPDATE #20:
Aldgate Tower says that they don't seem to have a company called SND Labs based in their building, but there is a company called WeWork that provides office space for other businesses and has 35 Whitechapel High Street listed as their address. I am currently attempting to get in touch with them to see if they have any info on SND Labs.
UPDATE #21:
I just received an email from the Frankfurt am Main police department stating that nobody by the name of Nils Lind resides at the address in question.
UPDATE #22:
I just heard back from WeWork, the leasing company to which the address 35 Whitechapel High Street is registered. They say that they do not have a company under the name of SND Labs in their database. It's looking more and more likely that SND-Ray used a false address when they filed with the UK Companies House.
UPDATE #23:
It has just occurred to me that i may have misinterpreted the scammer's intentions. It's possible that his plan is to send backers pairs of the generic AliExpress bluetooth glasses that were featured in the promotional video and claim that any differences to the product that was advertised are simply due to some sort of production-related difficulty, all while pocketing the money he made from selling add-ons such as Rx lenses and charging cases that he never actually intended to produce. If this turns out to be true, i urge backers to not be fooled by the charade, as a scam that involves repackaging an existing product is still a scam nonetheless.
UPDATE #24:
Another backer sent me a "production" photo that SND-Ray shared with him. It's literally just a picture of the generic AliExpress glasses with a USB cable plugged into them.
UPDATE #25:
SND-Ray posted a 7 second, 240p video which they claim shows the glasses being produced and stress tested. I'm no expert, but to me it looks like a CNC drilling machine with a part from a completely different pair of glasses placed underneath it.
UPDATE #26:
SND-Ray has updated the fake address that they registered with the UK Companies House. Unfortunately, the new address appears to belong to a shady company called Kemp House which specializes in providing London-based forwarding addresses to offshore businesses.
submitted by android927 to shittykickstarters [link] [comments]

I am 25 years old, make $122,000, live in New York, NY and work as a product manager.

Section 0: Background
Hi everyone! I’m trying to tailor this a bit more to reflect the UK Money Diary style where I give context on the week before and reflect on it after. I also added in some of the questions from the recent thread about what Refinery29 should ask diarists (see here).
I wrote this the week of Thanksgiving; my partner and I stayed in NYC instead of going home to either of our parents’ homes. We wear masks and stay socially distant when we leave the house. I’m thankful that we live close to a park and live on a block where we know and enjoy talking to our neighbors.
This was a relatively normal week for us during a pandemic, save for me spending a bit more than normal and it being Thanksgiving. We’ve both lived in the city since college and have so-so relationships with our families, so we didn’t leave for “home” when the pandemic hit.
I also just named my boyfriend instead of giving him an initial. He’s the only person I actually saw this week, but the initials always throw me off when I read these.
What do money and success mean to you? What are your end goals?
It helps me to see money as a tool. I never resonate with people who say “money doesn’t buy happiness” because to a certain degree, it does. Money enables me to live the life I want.
I’m pursuing FIRE (financial independence, retire early) and hope to be financially independent (able to live off my investments) by my early 30s. To do so, I save 60%+ of my income per month. I want this because working for 40 years isn’t sustainable for me—I have a very cushy tech job and still get anxiety and rage about waking up every morning to work, the rat race, and being paid inequitably to male peers. I’d like to give myself the option to leave this world as soon as possible.
As an alternative, I could see myself successful if I open a product consultancy, where I advise early-stage startups on product management, what to build for their MVP, and product-market fit. I’m really interested in tech ethics and the questionable practices in venture capital, so I’d love to be in a place where I could be picky about what clients I take and help truly mission-driven businesses thrive. I could see this also working as a small business incubator—why not apply what works in startups to small businesses?
I don’t yet have a firm picture of what I’d like my life to look like when I retire. I’m interested in spending a lot of time reading, traveling to new places for extended periods of time, and potentially writing a book. I get extremely interested in niche topics. Right now if I had to guess, I’d be writing a book about the ways multi-level marketing companies (MLMs) manipulate women.
Are you a spender or a saver?
Definitely a saver. My partner is more of a spender, and we’ve influenced each other well. Seeing him spend money on himself for video games helps me realize I can spend more money on myself for things I just want (see my big purchase for myself this week).
In turn, seeing me save a lot of money has motivated him to up his 401k contribution and overall savings. He’s also interested in FIRE, although I’d say my timeline is more aggressive.
If you could go back in time, what's the one piece of financial advice you would give to your past self?
Learn about investing, look up the terms you don’t know, and start doing it as soon as possible. Ask questions to people you know or on the internet.
On to the diary!
​
Section One: Assets and Debt
Investment Balance
$131,175
Equity if you're a homeowner
N/A, I rent in a HCOL city. No plans to own anytime soon
Savings account balance
$10,270
Checking account balance
$3,433 in checking account for bills
$2,518 in checking account for rent
Credit card debt
N/A. There’s $1,348 currently on my credit cards, but I pay them all off in full each month. My parents signed me up for a credit card as soon as I was old enough and taught me about how important it was to pay in full. In fact, I think this was so hammered into my brain that doing anything other than that each month was never an option. Because of this, I’ve always thought of credit cards as similar to debit cards—only spend money you have.
Student loan debt (for what degree)
I was fortunate to go to college on a full scholarship, including living expenses. I studied psychology and sociology, and I graduated without any student loan debt.
​
Section Two: Income
Main Job Monthly Take Home: $6,570/month
I maxed out my 401k early this year, so for 8 months I was contributing $2,500/month out of my paychecks. That ended in September, so it changed my monthly take-home from about $4,650 to $6,570/month.
Deductions:
Income Progression
I don’t have any other sources of income outside my main job. My partner makes a similar amount to me—about $117,000/year with bonus.
​
Section Three: Expenses
I live with my partner and we don’t have combined finances, but split many expenses 50/50. We use Splitwise to log transactions. He’s more laid-back about being paid back, but I’m much more “I don’t want to owe anyone anything, and I don’t want anyone to owe me anything” (I know, rigid, but I’m working on it!).
Splitwise is nice because it’d be ridiculous to Venmo request each other for a $4 coffee, but we can see how expenses are adding up. If someone has racked up a few hundred dollars of spending for both of us, the other person will cover our expenses for awhile. It works for us!
Rent
$2,200 for a 2 bed, 1 bath apartment in Brooklyn. We split rent 50/50.
Renters insurance
About $7/month for my portion. This covers all our possessions plus my boyfriend’s watches. He pays 75% of it because half of the monthly cost comes from the extra watch overage.
Savings contribution
I try to have about $10,000 sitting in my savings account at any given time, because it makes me feel safe in case of an emergency. I also like the freedom it enables, in case I wanted to leave my job and take a significant amount of time off. This is already at the $10k I want, so I don’t contribute to it monthly.
Investment contribution
It varies but on average I contribute $2,500/month to my brokerage account and Roth IRA (combined).
Donations
I try to donate about $200/month, but it’s pretty sporadic. This month I donated to the Yellowhammer Fund and Northwest Abortion Access Fund. One of my major goals for 2021 is to step up my donations and create an actual strategy around them, potentially involving a donor-advised fund.
Gas/electric
Our gas is $20-25/month and electric is $50/month. I pay gas and Will pays electric, both go in Splitwise. About $37/month total for me.
Wifi
Our wifi is $60/month, which goes into Splitwise—I pay $30/month.
Cellphone
I’m still on my parents’ phone plan—sheesh! This is convincing me that I should Venmo them for it each month.
Subscriptions
I pay for Hulu with ads, $5.99/month. My boyfriend pays for Netflix and we share a Spotify family plan with a couple of his friends, which I chip in $4/month for.
I also pay for the budgeting software YNAB (You Need a Budget) which is $84/year. I only pay it once a year in September.
Medical
I recently had to go to the emergency room for an overnight stay and follow up with some specialists. (I’m okay!) Because of that whole shindig I’m expecting to max out my deductible (and potentially my out-of-pocket-max) right at the end of the year. This will be about $4,000, but none of the claims have come through yet so I’m not sure of the exact total. I have a category in my budget for my deductible, and the rest will come out of my emergency fund.
Physical therapy
This month I’m starting pelvic floor physical therapy for dyspareunia (pain with intercourse).
I’d tried everything the internet suggested (“just relaaaaaax”) before getting the courage to find a new ob-gyn and ask her about it. She had some recommendations, but ultimately physical therapy was the “last resort” option that I’m now exploring.
My new physical therapist comes highly recommended but is out of network with insurance. Each session is $250, and I’ll go once every 2-3 weeks for the next few months as part of treatment. If you’ve worked through this problem (or are experiencing it now!) I’d love to hear your experience.
​
Section Four: Additional Questions
Was there an expectation for you to attend higher education? Did you participate in any form of higher education? If yes, how did you pay for it?
Absolutely. My dad was the first in his family to attend college and my parents made pretty calculated decisions about where they would live so I could go to the absolute best public school possible. Over 90% of students at my high school attend a 4-year college, and we start talking about it freshman year. To say college was encouraged in my environment is an understatement.
Growing up, what kind of conversations did you have about money? Did your parent/guardian(s) educate you about finances?
My dad has worked in finance since I was about 10. He’s always been really knowledgeable about both higher-level economic concepts and the minutiae of personal finance. My family is frugal, too: we clipped coupons and got clothes on super-sale at Kohl’s and Goodwill. I know there was a period of time when he became self-employed and money got very tight for a few years, but the bulk of those worries were largely kept from me.
Did you worry about money growing up?
Yes. While we were comfortable, we lived in such an affluent place that our family was in “the middle class” of the town and it made me worry more about money than I probably needed to. Think The Stepford Wives for context.
At what age did you become financially responsible for yourself and do you have a financial safety net?
In college, I became maybe 80% financially independent as I had a scholarship and worked part-time during school and over the summer, but I was still on their insurance.
I remember being frustrated in college because even though I knew I was extremely privileged, my friends in college had their parents pay their summer apartment rent and gave them an “allowance” of spending money, and I was “limited” by the options I could afford with the job I had. My dad told me at the time, “This is frustrating but it’s preparing you for actually having to live off the money you make in the near future.” (Great, great advice Dad.)
I’m technically still financially dependent on my parents for my cell phone bill, but otherwise I pay for everything: rent, insurance, utilities, food, therapy, and all wants in the form of clothing, workout classes, etc. I could ask my parents for money if I absolutely needed to, but would use it as a last resort.
Do you or have you ever received passive or inherited income? If yes, please explain.
I have an account (mentioned above) that a family friend who’s a hedge fund manager, well, manages. I believe the initial deposit was $1000 over 10 years ago, but that money wasn’t mine either, it’s all a gift. It’s not very liquid—it’d take me several months (and some very good reasoning) to get any of that money withdrawn, since it’s supposed to be for “the future” (which I guess I could argue is now?).
I might receive a small amount of money when my grandmother passes, but it’d probably be around $1-2k, if at all.
​
Day 1 Wednesday, November 25, 2020
8:30am Wake up and shower, take my vitamin C gummies, then make coffee. I wasn’t much of a daily coffee drinker until my offices had it for free, and now I’m definitely addicted. I don’t really care if the coffee is shitty or not, I just put some milk in it and it’s great. Right now I’m trying to drink half or three-quarter cups so I can attempt to pull back my addiction a bit. I log onto work at 9am.
11:30am Eat leftovers from last night for lunch—quesadilla + Spanish rice. There’s an incredible Mexican restaurant by us, and now I am ruined for the tacos, quesadillas and nachos from any other place.
12:30pm Will picks me up in the U-Haul. We’re driving about 20 min away to pick up a butcher block desk he bought off Craigslist, which ends up being from a small office that’s downsizing. The desk is $150 which he pays for. We love the office’s style (and the owner is super nice!) and walk around while he shows us what else he’s trying to get rid of.
We end up buying an extra-large ZZ plant and two side tables from him for an extra $120, way less than we would have paid for the quality elsewhere. My half will be $60, and I’ll split the U-Haul too, $44.51. $82.26
2:45pm That ended up taking a lot longer than we expected! We get back and unload the van, then I bring stuff inside while Will returns the van to the U-Haul location. I jump back onto work—so much for a slow afternoon before Thanksgiving. AWS is down, which powers a lot of our engineering work (and a lot of the internet!) so a lot of our teams are basically twiddling their thumbs. We chat about how to message the outage to customers.
5:45pm Will starts making dinner (braised chicken and veggies) and I sit down to read with a strawberry Chobani, but I end up just reading Reddit and searching for new podcasts to listen to.
7:45pm Dinner was great! Now…ice cream.
9:43pm I remember that my mom sent me ideas for her and my dad’s Christmas presents, so I order on Etsy and Amazon. My dad gets a mug with an Ernest Hemingway quote (“write drunk, edit sober”) ($21.54) and a book on writing ($16.63), and my mom gets this food warming tote contraption she wanted ($43.52). We’ve been paring down Christmases over the years—this year I asked for the Europe version of Ticket to Ride. $81.69
11:15pm I finish up the first episode of Real Housewives of Salt Lake City with some white cheddar Cheez-Its to snack on. After, I start on the dishes from dinner. I listen to the Product Market Misfits podcast while I do dishes—the episode with Kristen Anderson from Catch is great, highly recommend if you’re tired of just hearing stories about stereotypical Silicon Valley tech companies.
Day 1 Total: $166.69
Day 2 Thursday, November 26, 2020
10am Wake up super late since I stayed up scrolling on my phone too late last night. We make coffee and set out for a long walk around 11:15am.
12:05pm At the end of our walk, we swing by our local liquor store and buy 4 bottles of wine (red, white, rose, champagne). Will pays, total is $63.15 for everything. We haven’t had wine in the apartment for ages and I’m excited to have some stocked up. $31.57
12:30pm Get back from the walk, shower, then turn on football. I actually don’t really care about any NFL teams (I like college football a lot more), but it’s such calming background noise for me that I find myself looking for games when I have downtime. We also recently found out that Will’s friends’ dog only has a few months to live, so we order some jerky treats and a squeaky toy for him. $14.07
2:30pm We head out to the restaurant we’re going to for Thanksgiving lunch, a local place a short walk from our apartment. They’re doing a prix fixe menu of the classics—turkey, mashed potatoes, stuffing, green beans, and a phenomenal tarte Tatin with ice cream for dessert.
We eat outside under heat lamps. It’s super cozy. With our bottle of wine and tip the total is $208 (I try to tip over and above the norm because it’s a pandemic and Thanksgiving). My half will be $104.
5:53pm Get back from the restaurant. We have a ton of leftovers which is awesome (I think it’s excessive frugality, but I almost expect to stretch takeout or restaurant meals into two meals). Exchange some texts with my friends about their socially-distant Thanksgiving celebrations.
I turn on the Washington vs. Cowboys game right at the halftime show, which is Kane Brown with the Dallas Cowboys Cheerleaders. They’re all wearing masks (except for Kane) and it’s so odd to see them dancing in masks. I mean, I’m glad they’re wearing them, but it just seems like we could have gone without the halftime show this year.
9:21pm I order contacts from Contacts Direct. I got a new prescription but didn’t have a great experience with the eye doctor, so I’m hesitant about this order—only ordered one box of 90 lenses for each eye instead of a year’s worth of lenses. I’ve been getting headaches pretty frequently, so I’m hoping getting a new pair of glasses and alternating those (instead of wearing my contacts for 16 hours a day, every day) will help. $29.98 after insurance benefits
Day 2 Total: $179.62
​
Day 3 Friday, November 27
8:56am Wake up super last minute, run to sign onto Slack and then start grinding coffee beans. I’m online and drinking a big mug of coffee by 9:10. (So much for half cups.)
10:45am Come up for air from work and grab the stuff to make a bagel. Everything bagels and plain cream cheese are my go-to combo.
12:03pm I grab a bag of clothes to drop off at the donation bin and a couple library books to return. The library is about a 25 minute walk so it’ll be a nice lunch break diversion.
12:56pm After the library I stop by the grocery store for some paper towels and sponges, since we’re almost out. Total is $22.62, my half is $11.31
1:09pm When I get home I jump back into work and put the USA vs. Netherlands game on my second monitor. By the 75th minute, the US is up by 2 goals so they start putting in some younger players—it’s fun to see Midge Purce and Sophia Smith play! I also throw some bagel bites in the oven for a quick snack and promise myself dinner will be healthier.
4:23pm I zone out of work and start playing Among Us. I end up playing for over two hours. We open a bottle of wine at some point and I get super tipsy.
6:50pm Turn on the tail end of the Notre Dame vs. UNC game. It turns into Jeopardy, which turns into Wheel of Fortune, which I’m not mad about. P isn’t as into the game shows and leaves to microwave a plate of leftovers from Thanksgiving dinner and play video games.
8:40pm Finally getting hungry after my bagel bites and Cheez-Its this afternoon and make a plate of Thanksgiving leftovers—turkey, mashed potatoes, green beans and cauliflower. Yum.
Will and I end up getting in a tiff about the mess in our apartment so we take a break, cool down and talk it through. I watch a couple episodes of Sister Wives and go to bed around 1:30am.
Day 3 Total: $11.31
​
Day 4 Saturday, November 28, 2020
10:05am I stayed up late (again) so it’s nice to sleep in. I play Among Us for awhile and have a couple rounds where I’m the impostor and get some great kills and wins. I run out into the living room and celebrate with Will. We laugh because it’s silly how much we love the games we play. Around 10:45 I start making coffee.
11am We desperately need new sheets because our fitted sheet has a huge hole at Will’s feet (and it’s growing). I search a women’s personal finance group I’m in on Facebook for recommendations and we end up buying a queen sheet set from Belk. Total was $100.71 with their sale. $50.35
1pm I was planning on returning a package to the post office today, but forget it closes at 1pm on Saturdays so I decide to run to Target instead. I have a lampshade to return and want to look for a shower caddy as well. I also have an old iPad to return, which Will tells me I can do at Best Buy. He finds an old iPod and flip phone I can take too.
Take the MTA there ($2.75 for a single fare). When I get there, it’s a madhouse and I remember that I have sillily (is this a word?) decided to come on the weekend of Black Friday. I stand in the returns line for about 15 minutes and get $10.89 back, but ditch the idea of trying to look for a shower caddy. The checkout line looks like 100 people long. -$8.14 because of return
Next I go to Best Buy, but who am I kidding—the line to get in the store is even longer than the Target checkout line. I walk back to the subway and get on to go home. $2.75
2:30pm Since Best Buy was a no go, I search for electronic recycling around me on the way home just to see where I could drop off the devices I have. Apparently there’s an EcoATM not too far from my subway stop. It’s more for selling devices, but if they can’t give you money for something, they’ll recycle it, which is exactly what I wanted. I put each of the pieces in the scanner, and end up getting a whopping $2 total (for Will’s old iPod). Still cool because I was just expecting to recycle it all. I’ll give Will the $2.
2:44pm There’s a Dunkin nearby so I pop in to grab a couple donuts ($2.90). There’s a woman outside asking for money, so I give her $5 cash. $7.90
3:00pm Last stop—our favorite deli is nearby and Will mentioned he wanted to get bacon there recently. I get a 1/2 lb and salivate on the way home. This is one of those things I won’t put in Splitwise because it’s small and because it’s fun to get for P as a tiny little present. $3.50
3:45pm Once I’m home I’m super hungry from only eating carbs all morning so I have a snack of carrots, hummus and some pepperoni. I head back out to drop off a bag of clothes and shoes at a drop box a few blocks away. The neighbors are outside at the park near our house so I stop and chat with them for a few minutes. Their kids are the cutest.
6:47pm For dinner I make a ham and cheese sandwich (panini style with rosemary butter) and more carrots and hummus. I put on another episode of Sister Wives. These people are so fascinating to me—first off, I think the husband is completely full of himself. But I’m also so curious about the wives. There are a lot of talking head testimonials where the parents explain that they’re “oppressed” because they’re different and want to go public so the world can see polygamy as a valid family style (I’m only on season 2).
I know they’re probably playing up the “we love our other sister wives and have so much fun together even without Kody” aspect because people expect sister wives to be catty and hate each other, but I can’t help but wonder why they need to be in plural marriage to get the same friendship they seem to value so much. I also doubt they’d extend the same grace and tolerance they want to people who are “different” because they’re LGBTQ, or “different” because they’re in an open relationship or marriage.
9:15pm I mix together oatmeal chocolate chip cookie batter and put some cookies in the oven. While I’m waiting, I browse Zocdoc for well-reviewed providers—I want to make a podiatrist appointment for a lingering toe issue and an audiologist appointment for a routine hearing screening. I got the idea to make these appointments since I’ll hit my out-of-pocket max with the hospital visit, making them free or very discounted. I make two appointments for next week.
I also lust over a Farm Rio puffer jacket that feels overpriced but I just love. Maybe I’ll buy it tomorrow since they’re having a 30% off sale.
Day 4 Total: $64.50
​
Day 5 Sunday, November 29
8:58am Wake up and switch between scrolling on Reddit and playing a few Among Us games. After a bit Will gets out of bed and makes coffee for us.
9:45am Will finishes the movie he started last night and we start on breakfast. We’re making the bacon I bought yesterday, breakfast potatoes with onions, and a fried egg for Will (I can’t stand the taste or smell).
11:00am Yum! Breakfast was great. I watch a couple episodes of Sister Wives and mull over buying that ridiculous but amazing puffer jacket from Farm Rio. I’ve still been thinking about it since last night and I might take the plunge.
1:25pm I get a jolt of motivation to work out and do a 20 minute Sydney Cummings video on Youtube. I heard about it from a recent Money Diary posted here! After it’s done I’m so, so tired. I stretch and unpause my episode of Sister Wives.
2:22pm I help Will move the butcher block slab for his desk out to our backyard. We live on the first floor of a single-family home that was converted into apartments, so we get the backyard too—it’s awesome to have outdoor space in the city. P works on sanding it and applying poly for the next couple hours.
5:07pm Will suggests pizza for dinner and I am always, always down for pizza. I order pickup from the spot down the street—one grandma, one cheese and 2 orders of garlic knots come to $38.60. We’ll have leftovers for tomorrow too. $19.30
5:50pm We pick up the pizza and dig in. While we’re eating we turn on the Chiefs vs. Buccaneers game; Will has a few players on his fantasy team in this game.
6:57pm I sign up to write letters to Georgia residents encouraging them to vote in the Senate runoff elections in January. This is through Vote Forward—I did 20 letters for the general election in November and want to participate again. I’ll print the letters at a local coffee shop since we don’t have a printer at home.
Will sends me this Reddit comment about campaign finance since we’ve been talking about it recently. I decide I’m convinced by the argument and set up a $5 monthly donation to Brand New Congress. $5
8:19pm After texting back and forth with my friend all day, I buy the puffer jacket—so excited. She encouraged me to get it and is pumped for me too. $228.64
I also notice my paycheck has started processing in my checking account (I get paid tomorrow), so I enter the amount in YNAB and budget it all. I earmark about $1500 to go into my brokerage account tomorrow. I won’t include it here as “spending” since it’s included in the overview section above.
Day 5 Total: $252.94
​
Day 6 Monday, November 30
8:43am Wake up and turn on my Slack. Will started the coffee process and I finish it up by pouring the water into our Chemex and letting it steep (I know there’s a coffee-centric word for this...).
8:56am I check my Citi card and my YouTube TV trial rolled over—I was going to cancel it this morning, which I thought was the last day. I email support to see if they’ll refund me, because (I promise I’m not just saying this!) I did have a pretty bad experience. The Roku app was glitchy for us every time we watched something. Maybe they’ll feel nice today! $64.99
9:35am After responding to a few work messages, I run out the door to the post office to avoid a long package line. I did the Warby Parker 5-day home try on and have to return my box of glasses today. I found a pair I really like and am excited to get in the habit of wearing glasses again, instead of just my contacts.
Thankfully the line is only a few people long. The employees are also super nice every time I go, so I try to be really pleasant too. The lines are usually long and I’ve seen more than one adult have a fit at this post office. It’s rainy today and I couldn’t find our umbrella, so my flimsy rain jacket gets pretty soaked through on the walk back.
11:35am My podiatrist appointment is supposed to be tomorrow morning, and they call me to tell me since I haven’t hit my deductible, I’ll have to pay out of pocket for the visit. I explain that I’m 100% going to hit my deductible, the claims from the hospital just haven’t processed yet. I ask her to bill my insurance first for the visit, then I can pay whatever ends up not being covered (if anything). She agrees!
Maybe this is standard, but I’ve never had it happen before—even if I haven’t hit my deductible, I’ve always been to offices that bill insurance first, then I pay the remaining balance.
1:05pm Lots of meetings today. I break for lunch and heat up the braised chicken with veggies. It’s definitely on its last good day, so I’m glad I used it up. Still yummy!
2:20pm Woohoo! Get an email that my YouTube TV charge was refunded. -$64.99
Will ran to Home Depot today to buy some tools for his desk and also got a shower curtain liner since ours is ripping. I go to put it up in the bathroom but my arms are so sore—like I got my flu shot type of sore.
5:05pm Sign off work after trying to wrangle a supremely frustrating SQL query. I don’t get it but figure I can ask our analyst team for help tomorrow. Will will have a late night working, so pizza and Sister Wives is in my near future.
While watching, I update YNAB to reflect the end-of-month balances for my investment accounts. I get a huge dopamine hit by seeing my net worth number go up. I’m also anticipating it going down a bit next month because of my medical bills, so I relish the moment.
8:09pm It suddenly dawns on me that my arms are sore because I worked out yesterday. It’s so rare now that I literally forget when I do it. Ha!
9:15pm We watch the Eagles vs. Seahawks game and I absentmindedly play Among Us. I end up getting ...bullied by a person playing it? They get mad that I figured out they were the imposter and start saying all these schoolyard-type digs throughout the next couple rounds, but level 100 of cruel.
I’m embarrassed by how sad it makes me but think maybe it’s a good thing I don’t immediately know what to say to bully people back. Such a weird experience. I end up going to bed around 11:30.
Day 6 Total: $0
​
Day 7 December 1, 2020
7:07am Wake up late for my alarm at 7. I’m up a lot earlier today because my podiatrist appointment is first thing. I get dressed in the dark, kiss P goodbye, grab my water bottle and run out the door to the subway by 7:30. $2.75
8:10am Get to my stop and swing by Starbucks before the appointment. I get a vanilla latte and the bacon cheddar and egg sandwich. Total is around $10 but I have a gift card loaded onto my Starbucks app.
My spending here went way down when I switched jobs to an office not close to a Starbucks, and then stopped going into an office at all.
8:30am My appointment goes great, if a little painful when she numbs my toe. I had to get an ingrown toenail removed. I danced ballet and pointe for years so I’m (unfortunately) used to them, but this one was terrible. The doctor and I bond over both being dancers with bad feet and they schedule me for a follow up two weeks out.
She actually says there’s been a rise in these procedures because people aren’t getting pedicures since the pandemic and aren’t cutting their toenails well! Wild.
I look silly on the subway in December wearing Birkenstocks and socks with a huge toe bandage. It looks like one of those cartoon characters who stubs their toe and it becomes 10x bigger than their other toes. $2.75
9:40am I get off at the stop before mine to stop at Rite Aid. I grab Neosporin, band-aids and epsom salt and check my notes for anything else she mentioned about caring for my toe. $12.97
10:00am When I get home, I hop into work and working with our engineers on a promotion for the New Year. I also catch up with Will since he stayed up late last night and I got up early for my appointment. He says he ended up staying up until 3:30am (!!) cleaning up his tools, working on his desk and putting up the shower curtain. I’m floored that he is functional right now after waking up at 8.
12:15pm Heat up the last of the pizza for lunch, along with hummus and carrots.
5:20pm Work is average-paced for the rest of the day. Not doing nothing, not totally over my head. Will puts in potatoes for baked potatoes to have later, which we’ll pair with a salad. We’re getting close to needing a grocery run again, so the meals are becoming more of a mishmash.
We listed a couple things on our local Buy Nothing group last week, so a woman comes by to pick up a wifi router we can’t use anymore. Would totally recommend looking up if there’s a group in your area—they’re usually on Facebook.
6:30pm After dinner I watch more Sister Wives and look up RIP Medical Debt, a nonprofit one of my friends shared for Giving Tuesday. They buy unpaid medical debt from collections, so $1 ends up paying off $100 of someone’s medical debt. I give $50 to the Arkansas campaign, which will clear $5,000 of medical debt.
As Will said earlier today, “medical billing in America is a racket” so I really hope this helps clear a burden from an individual or family. Doing this reminds me to check my insurance portal, which is steadily going up as each separate claim comes in. Ahhhh, modern healthcare! $51.49
At the end of each day please tally up your daily expenses. Then at the end of your diary please tally up all expenses in the following categories:
Total: $719.33
​
Reflection This week felt like a big spending week for me. I checked YNAB and since January, I’ve spent about $1600 per month, not including rent—so about $400/week. That’s why this week’s $719 feels so high!
Writing this diary helped me understand how many things I have going for me. I’ve recently been in a huge funk—about my health, my performance at work and my relationships with family, friends and P. Going to the hospital, needing physical therapy to have sex and being in a pandemic will do that to you.
I was able to zoom out a bit and understand how stable and gratifying my life is. That being said, I’m so glad this community exists. I really love it and learning about all your spending and saving habits. Thanks for being here and sharing :)
submitted by throwaway_md765951 to MoneyDiariesACTIVE [link] [comments]

The most ludicrously long-winded, comprehensive comparison between the Google Pixel 4a 5G and LG G8X you will ever see.

Brevity is not my strong suit. No one is going to read this whole thing, but as long as one person reads at least one section of this, I'll be happy. Feel free to skip ahead to a section you specifically want to read a comparison about, if you don't want to read the whole thing. I recommend the Performance and Gaming sections.
Firstly, here is a Dropbox folder of photos, screenshots, gameplay footage, (no camera videos yet) for the things I will be referring to.
Secondly, I am no phone reviewer. I buy phones once every 3-4 years, until this time where I jumped the gun to switch to a Pixel, so I have only used 5 phones in my life (mostly midrange) and don't have too much to compare to.
Thirdly, this is long enough to have an outline, so feel free to jump to read something that interests you if you don't want to read the whole thing:
  1. Introduction
  2. Dimensions
  3. Haptics
  4. Display
  5. Fingerprint sensor
  6. Speakers
  7. Microphone
  8. Battery
  9. General software and features
  10. Default Launcher
  11. Always On Display
  12. Performance
  13. Gaming
  14. Camera
  15. Dual Screen
  16. Conclusion
  17. tl;dr
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Introduction

Hi /GooglePixel I picked up a LG G8X as about 4 months ago when my Moto Z Play died on me, and the LG G8X seemed to have everything I wanted in a phone at the great price of $500 CAD (at the time – the phone’s even cheaper now!). Snapdragon 855, 4000 mAh battery with positive battery reviews, AMOLED display, wide angle camera, 128gb storage + expandable, headphone jack, front-facing fingerprint scanner (in this case, in-screen). I also could have bought a separate dual screen if I wanted.
Unfortunately, after having used it for 4 months, I started feeling wary of the phone. I wasn’t sure if I was imagining it or not, but I felt the performance felt faster than the MZP definitely, but not… remarkably faster than this 4 year old midrange phone with a Snapdragon 625? The phone was heavier than I’d like and was actually straining my wrist with prolonged usage (weak wrists I guess), the standby time at my home was draining about 2%/hour, recently opened apps and websites seemed to require refreshes frequently, and most frustratingly of all, the “previous app” gesture was completely busted to the point I just use the Recent Apps page to go to my previously used apps.
For Boxing Week in Canada, lots of carriers had the Pixel 4a 5G for $260. This is the phone I would have bought if it had been out when my MZP died, so I decided to pick it up. If I didn’t like it, I’d have 15 days to return it. If I did like it more than the LG G8X, I’d try to sell my LG G8X. My fears were that the Pixel would have worse performance with its midrange SD765 (especially compared to the LG G8X's SD 855, 2019's fastest Android processor), possibly worse battery, I’d miss the expandable storage, and most importantly… that I wouldn’t be able to sell the LG G8X at a reasonable price to recoup the costs.
So here is an ludicrously in-depth, very long-winded comparison between the two phones, based on my personal experiences with them. Keep in mind the LG G8X is a 4 month old phone so in some ways may have deteriorated in terms of performance and battery. I guess you could say it’s a bit unfair to compare a brand new days-old phone with a 4 month old phone, but I guess it could also be said that it’s a bit unfair to compare a SD 855 phone with a SD 765 phone. That being said, I haven’t noticed an appreciable decline in performance or battery on the LG.
So, which came out on top? (Spoiler: surprisingly, despite its “worse specs” on paper, the Pixel won out in nearly every regard, completely creamed the LG in memory management, is basically the same in terms of app and website opening speeds, even games better.)
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Dimensions

Perhaps a dumb reason, but one of the main reasons I was thinking of switching away from the LG G8X is the weight. I didn’t realize how much of a difference 27g would make, but my wrist gets tired using the LG G8X after a while, whereas my wrist does not with the Pixel nearly as much. In terms of the length and width, though the LG is bigger, it doesn’t feel much bigger to use (outside of the weight).
Some people like huge phones, and good for them! For me, the Pixel’s lighter profile wins out by far.
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Hardware

Power buttons for both phones are on the right side. Pixel has volume also on the right, which makes taking screenshots a pain. LG has the volume buttons on the left, much more convenient for screenshots. LG also has a useful Google Assistant physical button on the right below the volume buttons, which is not remappable. Pixel has a matte plastic back with a camera bump, the LG G8X has a glass back that is completely flush with the camera. In theory this sounds nice for the LG G8X, but I suspect the glass contributes to the weight of the phone. This is an incredibly slippery phone! The weight of the charging cord is often enough to pull this slippery guy off a tabletop. Can be solved with a case.
LG wins here. The glass feels more premium, and the buttons are a lot nicer. The flush nature of the device is really nice.
---

Haptics

Not something I care too much about honestly. I had read some review somewhere saying the LG haptics were bad, but I didn’t mind it at all at the time. Similar to the MZP. Now that I have the Pixel though, I think I see what they mean. The LG feels …tinnier? than the Pixel. The first time I received a notification on the Pixel I almost jumped out of my seat at how full and robust the vibration was.
Pixel wins here, I think. Maybe. But I don’t really care much for haptics so it’s a non-issue for me.
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Display

LG G8X has a slightly bigger screen at 6.4” vs 6.2”. In practice I can’t really tell the difference. In terms of image quality, I am no expert at distinguishing this. Pixel appears a bit brighter than the LG G8X at max brightness. Pixel appears a bit darker than the LG G8X at minimum brightness. Honestly not a huge difference either way. At low brightness, the LG has a bit of a “black smear” effect that I notice while scrolling that isn’t as evident on the Pixel. Colours, I don’t know. Reds and whites look more natural on the Pixel otherwise hard for me to tell much of a difference. However, LG gives you a lot of flexibility in playing around with the colours of the display and stuff and I’m sure you could get it to look the way you want. The Pixel only offers 3 colour options. Finally, the status bar on the Pixel is HUGE and feels like they could’ve saved a lot of space if they cut it down. Thus for many apps the LG G8X feels significantly more spacious because of the status bar – the Pixel’s status bar is, from what I can visually estimate, literally twice as tall as the LG’s. Auto brightness: LG G8X is way better. Smooth gradation, whereas Pixel is abrupt.
Overall I think the Pixel is maybe a tad nicer on default settings, but I’ll give it to LG G8X for the flexibility with adjusting the screen colours however you want, as well as the extra real estate afforded by the much smaller status bar (and of course bigger screen).
---

Fingerprint sensor

LG G8X fingerprint is frustratingly inaccurate. I am only successfully like 60-70% of the time with my thumbs. Sometimes it’s fantastic, other times I cannot get it to work 5 times in a row and I need to enter the passcode manually. I can’t seem to recreate the conditions where it doesn’t work. That being said, I really like having front-facing fingerprint scanners: my phone is often sitting on my desk, and it’s really nice to be able to check things on my phone without having to lift up the phone or entering a passcode. Also, when my phone is on my desk, I unlock my phone with my index finger which is a lot more accurate than when I use my thumb, I guess because the index finger has such a smaller surface area. Thus that frustration with inaccuracy isn’t as big of an issue when my phone is on my desk, but it’s still generally much slower than a regular fingerprint reader.
The Pixel fingerprint reader on the other hand works ridiculously well (maybe because of the index finger thing? Though my old thumb Moto Z Play was also a lot quicker and more reliable than the LG G8X), and is much quicker in recognizing the fingerprint. There is also a “Swipe down on fingerprint reader” gesture to bring down notification panel. I constantly get false positives when I accidentally rest my finger on the sensor, so I’ve turned it off. The fingerprint reader is incredibly shallow to the point where I sometimes don’t know where it is because it’s hard to feel. As a result, sometimes I need to search for it a bit, and other times I accidentally turn it on without even noticing that I activated the fingerprint sensor. Both problems could be solved with a case (which I don’t have yet)
Overall it’s a tossup for me. I like the reliability and speed of the Pixel’s, but I like the front-facing sensor on the LG for when I have the phone laying on my desk (which is a lot of the time).
---

Speakers

I can’t tell. They both sound different. The max volumes are very similar in volume. The Pixel has a much quieter, almost imperceptible min volume. The Pixel 4a 5G sounds more… spacious? Maybe echoey. The LG G8X’s speakers sound more… precise? There is an obvious difference in the two sounds, which sounds “better” might be an obvious difference to others but I can’t tell. I have to assume that the LG G8X’s headphone jack audio is much better than the Pixels with the HI-Fi Quad DAC thing, but I don’t have any high end headphones so I can’t test it really. The LG G8X has some fancy “DTS:X 3D Surround” effects, which all sound terrible always, so I never leave them on. LG G8X has an equalizer, Pixel does not. Audio for both come out of the bottom right “speaker grille” and the earpiece speaker grille. For both phone the bottom speaker is louder than the earpiece, but the Pixel’s speakers are closer in volume than the LG G8X’s: block the bottom speaker, and the audio is greatly diminished.
I think the LG wins this one with the audio options and flexibility? There’s probably something fundamentally different between the speakers on the two phones but I really I can’t tell which I prefer. People had a lot of complaints about the Pixel 5 speakers, I have no clue if the 4a 5G have the same problems.
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Microphone

Take a listen for yourself. I read a very relevant CBC report with both phones about 15 cm away from my face. I also recorded my laptop playing some music, about 30cm away from the phones. I think the Pixel maybe takes in more sound, but as a result also has more background noise than the LG. On the contrary the LG sounds tinnier to me.
Overall I still think I like the Pixel better, but again take a listen yourself!
---

Battery

The Pixel has a 3800 mAh battery, the LG has a 4000 mAh battery. That being said, there are obviously many other factors contributing to battery life (processor, cell signal, etc). If I just use both phones nonstop, they both have great SOT. Both get about 8-9 hours for me of SOT uninterrupted. It’s the standby time that the Pixel excels at though. Overnight drain is <1%/h on the Pixel whereas it’s about 1.5% on my LG. Standby drain while out and about is about 1%/h on the Pixel whereas it’s about 2%/h on the LG. It’s unfortunately the standby drain that turns the LG G8X from a true 2 day phone to a not-quite-fully-2 day phone. (Also keep in mind cell signal plays a big role in battery drain – the signal in my area isn’t super great. I’m sure the drain for others isn’t as bad as the 2%/h I’m experiencing, but you might live in an area with better reception!)
Both phones have great battery life. I will give this one to the 4a 5G for the great standby time. I’ve included screenshots of my (very phone heavy) holiday break battery life, as per Accubattery. I may continue to add Pixel battery life screenshots as the days go by.
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General software and special features

Mostly just going to list features here, bear with me. Pixel has the huge advantage of having day 1 Android updates for 3 years. LG G8X has maybe 1 update left in it, if at all? Both phones have double tap to wake. LG has double tap the status bar to sleep, which is very nice. Pixel has call screening with the phone, Now Playing song recognition. Notifications are basically identical. LG G8X technically has a 1 handed/Reachability mode, but it has worked a grand total of 2 times for me despite trying it countless times. Would have been nice. The Pixel’s “Recent apps” screen has a Screenshot button and a Select (text) option. I don’t find the screenshot button very useful at all as I can just take a screenshot with the (admittedly uncomfortable) Power button + Volume Down combo. Select text I have not used yet but I could see being useful. The LG has an, in my opinion, much more useful set of frequently used icons on the bottom. Not customizable, but pretty true to what I use frequently. I use the feature very often. In addition to split screen apps, LG also gives you the option for a “pop up window”, Windows style, that you can drag around the screen, which could be useful for multitasking I guess but I’m still not sure in what use cases you’d have multiple windows-style windows open (they don’t work on the dual screen).
LG apps
LG has a bunch of bloatware that I never use and I disabled right away. I haven’t tested out the Whale browser at all. LG has its own LG Health app which I did not check out. It has an FM Radio which could be useful. There is a screenshot tool/app which could be useful, but I just use the regular screenshot shortcut. (Speaking about screenshots: Android 11 brought with it screenshots that are instantly taken as soon as you press Power + volume down, which is fantastic on the Pixel. On the LG, you still have to hold the buttons for a second or two. That being said, it is very annoying taking screenshots on the Pixel due to the volume and power buttons being on the same side. Android 11 also removed the ability to take a screenshot by holding the power button, which could have been great.) LG also has a pretty robust “HD Audio Recorder” app with lots of flexibility, but doesn’t do the transcribing that the Google audio recorder does (Which you can download though to the LG via apk). LG G8X has 2 apps you can assign to each bottom corner of the lock screen, which is where I put my GCam. Both phones have double tap power button to turn on camera shortcuts. LG also has a “Context Awareness” feature, which lets you adjust your sound profile, Bluetooth, wifi settings automatically based on your location. Also lets you find your parking spot. Neat in theory, but I didn’t use it much for concerns about battery drain (did not test to see if it really drained much). LG has a “Floating bar” you can turn on, which is a little tab which gives you shortcuts to apps that you can set, audio controls, screen capture, quick contacts. I could see this being really useful! I didn’t realize til just now writing this that we could set our own apps though, so I haven’t tested it to see if I’d actually use it. Finally, the G8X has a desktop mode, which I unfortunately don’t have access to. I can imagine this being useful in certain situations.
LG's previous app gesture
One big complaint that I have a big reason I was tempted to ditch the LG. The “previous app” gesture is completely busted on the LG. I won’t talk about it much here as I’ve already documented it elsewhere. In short, it’s completely unreliable and only works the way you’d expect it to work like 30% of the time. It is infuriating and makes me want to chuck out the windows at times. I’ve stopped using the gesture entirely and just open the Recent Tabs instead, which over time adds up a decent amount of time. The Pixel has no such problem. Generally the LG is also buggier than the Pixel, with jankier animations, turning off out of nowhere, sometimes getting stuck on the Recent Apps screen, completely going unresponsive at times – the latter three problems being quite rare, but they’ve happened.
Pixel power menus
Emergency info, power off, restart, Google Pay, Google Home devices. No longer has screenshot. LG power menu: Power off, power off and restart. Pixel definitely wins here.
Volume menus
Pixel has media volume slider, notifications toggle, Live Transcribe, and a shortcut to an audio settings overlay. LG has a context-sensitive volume slider (media volume slider when there’s audio playing, call volume during a call, notification volume otherwise), and a drop-down menu for individually controlling the different types of volumes. If you don’t want a context-sensitive slider, you can also set it to by default open just the one type. Pixel wins here for me: though the context sensitive slider can be useful, Live Transcribe is a pretty neat feature. Pixel also lets me control both notifications (Toggle) and media volume slider within one tap, whereas the LG only lets me change (in one tap) whichever context sensitive option is available at the time, otherwise I’d have to open the menu.
Overall, LG has a lot of features crammed in, but I rarely if ever use any of them. They are functionally bloatware for me. LG does have some genuinely useful software quirks like double tap status bar to sleep, the Floating Bar (I guess), and the lock screen shortcuts, but I have never been so aggravated with a phone before in my life with the previous app gesture and other bugs that I have to give Google the win here. (Also, reliable frequent software updates, less bloatware, and other useful features like Call Screening, Live Transcribe, Now Playing). The caveat is I haven’t used the Pixel long enough to see the bugs present in the Pixel.
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Default launchers

Google uses the Pixel Launcher. Very minimal flexibility, but it is pretty slick to use with great animations. Google search bar on the bottom, At A Glance (temperature, date, calendar events) at the top, Google feed to the left. You can’t adjust icon packs or grid size. App drawer showing frequently used apps at the top, and the rest of the apps in alphabetical order in a scrolling pile/list. LG has their own launcher with more flexibility (screen swipe effect, icon shape, grid size, option for left swipe to be Google feed or LG’s whatever feed). Unfortunately LG’s app drawer is truly horrendous, a horizontally moving multipaged mess that doesn’t automatically sort (if you add an app, you need to manually sort alphabetically to get them all alphabetical again). I never know which page I am on (there is an indicator at the bottom, but still) and thus it takes me far longer than it should to find an app I’m looking for. Just give me a scrolly bar!
Either way, both launchers aren’t great (except for animations -they’re both slick) and you should really use some 3rd party launcher instead. I use Microsoft Launcher personally, which has some janky animations but lots of great functionality. Nova of course is another popular option with even more customization.
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Always On Display

Pixel Always On Display displays 5 notification icons, time, date, weather, battery. No customization. LG G8X lets you customize the home screen quite a bit (you can add your own images, change aspects of the format, displays time, date, battery but only displays 3 notification icons. Has quick icons you can swipe to access to eg. turn on flashlight, change songs, etc. The Pixel’s is dimmer than the LG’s, which I think I prefer. The LG’s is very bright at night when I’m trying to sleep. Finally, picking up the Pixel will wake it up and bring it to the lock screen. Picking up the LG does nothing.
Kind of a toss up. At first I was leaning toward the LG for its flexibility, but the Pixel’s 5 notification icons are frankly more useful to me. I also like the dimmer AOD of the Pixel. If you’ve got the Dual Screen, you’re almost never even going to see the AOD on the LG.
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Performance

Okay, so I realize that “opening apps and web pages in quick succession” is not something anyone ever does in real life. That being said, I think there is a little bit of merit to it.
Another reason I was thinking of switching away from the LG G8X was that this supposedly high end Snapdragon 855 didn’t feel nearly as quick or snappy as I thought it would. A definite improvement from my Moto Z Play, but also not quite the blazing fast speed I was expecting? So I did a ridiculously unscientific speed test between the two. Keep in mind the following caveats:
- MY LG G8X is 4 months old
- LG G8X has 111gb used of 128gb, Pixel has 75.14gb used of 128gb.
- Apps are close to parity but not quite
- I love reading about tech, but have not myself owned too many products. I am not a professional reviewer by any means, and have never really owned any high end phones (I had an iPhone 4 when it came out, the next “highest end” phone I’ve owned would be this LG G8X). So eg. with displays, I’m not the best at judging.
- I only got the dual screen a day before I got the Pixel, so most of my LG G8X impressions are from Dual Screen use. I’ve also used the Dual Screen for a bit since getting it, so I do have thoughts in its own section.
- I did comparisons in two different scenarios: 1st scenario, both phones were restarted, full battery. 2nd run, both phones had been on and used over a period of about 48 hours without turning them off. LG G8X was at 70% and Pixel was at 100%. Pixel was used generally much more than the LG phone was all day. The reason for doing it both after a fresh restart and after a few days on is that I had noticed that my LG seemed to perform worse after several days, and seemed to be better after a fresh restart.
1st run
With both phones freshly restarted and at the same battery percentage, geeeeeeeeeeeeeenerally the LG G8X was faster at opening apps than the Pixel. But honestly not as frequently as I was expecting. The LG G8X was generally able to open more intensive apps a bit faster than the Pixel. I’ve attached the “stats” here. In short, the LG was able to open 12 apps less than half a second faster than the Pixel, whereas the Pixel was able to open 9 apps less than half a second faster than the LG. The LG was able to open 8 apps more than half a second faster than the Pixel, and the Pixel was able to open 6 apps more than half a second faster than the LG. The phones opened 7 websites equally quickly. In terms of websites, the LG was able to open 23 websites faster than the Pixel, and the Pixel was able to open 9 websites slightly faster than the LG. They opened 3 websites at the same speed.
The most egregious thing here was the Pixel completely smoked the LG in terms of keeping app and websites in memory. It wasn’t even remotely close. Even before I got the Pixel I had noticed my LG seemed to be dropping apps quickly, but it wasn’t clear how quick it was until I directly compared these two phones. On my first run, after loading tons of Chrome tabs, both phones had to reload 80 days (the most recent app). After that, the LG continued to consistently reload apps, whereas the Pixel was able to load at least 7 apps without having to reload before I stopped testing.
2nd run
At this point I had both phones on for about 48 hours and had used my Pixel for about 3 hours that day (then charged to 100%) and then used my LG for about 2 hours right before testing it (battery about 70% when I started testing). I cleared all the apps from memory. I have no clue if the battery difference contributed or what, but the results completely flipped around, and quite dramatically. The Pixel was able to open apps slightly faster by <0.5s than the LG with 38 apps. The LG was slightly faster by >0.5s than the Pixel with 10 apps. The Pixel was noticeably >0.5s faster than the LG with 8 apps, and the LG was noticeably faster >0.5s than the Pixel with 6 apps. They were equally fast at opening 17 apps.
Really striking results. I rarely turn off my phone, which is maybe why I’ve been feeling my LG gets sluggish pretty easily? Clear something about keeping the LG on for periods of time causes… stuff… to build up, and the Pixel completely smoked the LG in terms of app opening on the second run. That being said, the <0.5s speed advantages really are quite miniscule, could very much be due to margin of error from my tapping, and of course there are always a million variables impacting how quickly an app opens up. But still, the Pixel is no slouch with its SD 765.
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Gaming

I also ran the Dolphin emulator on The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker and Fire Emblem: Path of Radiance. Both phones performed equally well, hitting 29-30 fps for Wind Waker and 59-60fps for Fire Emblem consistently. Genshin Impact ran a bit smoother on the LG than the LG (and the default setting for LG was “Medium” graphics, while for the Pixel was “Low”.) Both phones had lots of frame drops. I’ve included some screen recordings of Genshin Impact, both ran at medium settings, as well as the Dolphin games at default settings, using each respective phone’s default screen recorders. I’m not sure why the LG recording is such miserable quality (and muted), they both visually looked the same while actually playing the game. Similarly, I have no clue why the Pixel recording made the voices all echoey, they sound fine normally. Similarly, with the Dolphin emulator, normally Wind Waker is able to hold 29-30 pretty well, I suspect also running the screen recorder simultaneously caused it to drop frames. I repeated the Dolphin emulation after resetting the phone, and I still got frame rate drops. But uh, yeah, the Pixel also held its framerate better with the screen recorder than the LG did (normally they’re both good at holding the framerate).
Using Dolphin to emulate Xenoblade was a completely different story. Through the opening sequence, both phones (and my laptop) hiccupped at the same places. That being said, outside of those hiccup spots in cutscenes (and one area with a larger concentration of enemies), the Pixel 4a 5G was mostly able to maintain 30fps. Exploring Colony 9 was a smooth 30fps throughout the city. The LG G8X hiccupped in those cutscenes, but in other places where the Pixel was 30fps, the LG G8X was chugging along at 15-25fps. Most notably this occurred while exploring Colony 9. I have no clue what’s going on here, I didn’t actually expect the Pixel to perform so well here, or the LG G8X to perform so poorly. I tried walking around Colony 9 again when my phone cooled down a bit and it performed better, but quickly tanked back down to ~20fps within 15 seconds. I suspect LG throttles its phone pretty hard?
Overall, shockingly, I have to give the Pixel the win here. It’s no comparison. You can check out the gameplay vids yourself. I don’t know if I have a lemon of an LG G8X or what. If anyone else is able to emulate Xenoblade on their LG G8X, let me know how it performs for you. Is my phone a lemon? Or did LG just optimize their phone extremely poorly? (ALSO Apologies for the terrible resolution for the LG recorder, I didn’t realize you could change the resolution to full HD til my rerecording after the phone had cooled down).
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Camera

I thought the LG’s camera was fantastic coming from the Moto Z Play. Then I got the Pixel! GCam does help, but unfortunately you can’t set it to the double-tap-power button shortcut. The LG camera app does have some merits (lots of flexibility in image settings if you have the time to tweak settings to take a photo), but for a quick point and shoot it just doesn’t compare to the Pixel a lot of the time. That being said, I feel the LG actually sometimes takes more accurate photos? If I take a photo of something drab and dull, the LG captures it pretty accurately, whereas the Pixel takes a far nicer looking photo but doesn’t look like the drab reality. The Pixel though also takes much nicer, realistic photos of nice vibrant things, whereas the LG’s photos look more washed out. For day shots, or shots facing light, the… dynamic range? Is that what it’s called? For the Pixel is far better than the Pixel. The LG will blow out eg. the details in clouds (ie. Clouds will just appear white and uniform), while the Pixel will preserve the detail and colour of the clouds. For night shots, the LG actually takes better non-Night mode night shots than the Pixel. But the Pixel’s Night Mode absolutely smokes LG’s Night Mode, no questions asked. LG with GCam’s Night Sight helps a lot though. The LG’s selfie camera focuses off into the distance instead of your face so is functionally useless. Finally, I don’t take videos so won’t really comment on it. LG’s wide camera is a lot wider than the Pixel’s, which is a plus for LG.
Overall, the Pixel has a better camera but the LG isn’t too shabby, and sometimes takes nicer shots than the Pixel. Non-Night mode shots are actually better on the LG, but usually Pixel’s night mode turns out better looking. I’ll let the photos do the talking, where I have comparison shots between the LG (with the LG cam as well as the GCam), vs. the Pixel. I’m a lot more interested in shots with challenging lighting, thus the weird dark shots. Unfortunately the weather isn’t great here so no nice outdoor shots. Also unfortunately I have now noticed that a lot of them are blurrier than I’d like – I am too lazy to change them now! I may add more photos to the albums later.
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Dual screen

I just picked this up a day before the Pixel came in. I was pretty excited for it because there are definitely times where I want to multitask, or where I’ve got split screen open trying to copy some text from what window to the other but the keyboard pops up and blocks my view.
Unfortunately, the dual screen implementation feels far more half-hearted than that of what I’m hearing about the Surface Duo. The two screens feel more like two separate machines with a tenuous link, than like two parts of the same unit. At the same time, the 2nd screen doesn’t have the same functionality as the main screen: you can’t split screen it, you can’t change the launcher, the home screen is not continuous at all with the main screen’s home screen, and when you throw one screen’s contents over to the other screen, it often feels like a mystery what will occupy the screen whose contents you just threw over to the other screen.
Using one screen as a keyboard for the other screen in theory sounds really neat, but it only works with the LG keyboard, which has an embarrassingly tiny dictionary with terrible autocorrect suggestions. Even when it works with the LG keyboard, when you tap in a text field on the top screen, the phone does this janky animation where the keyboard first shows up on the top screen before jumping down to the bottom screen. If you tap on a text field on the bottom screen, it won’t by default push the bottom screen contents up and open the keyboard on the bottom screen (which could be what some people want, I guess).
Very, very, very few apps make good use of the dual screens, even with the 3rd party Wide Mode app which forces any app into Wide Mode (which just turns apps into Tablet Mode rather than giving unique content to each screen). The LG Whale browser seems to be the best app to make use of the dual screen (you can open links in one screen on the other screen) – that being said, I’d much rather use other browsers. Chrome does a reasonable job, and you can open taps from one screen in the other screen. I can’t find a way to get Youtube to open a video on one screen and me scrolling through comments/searching through other videos on the other screen.
Overall something I really wish they would have incorporated was, say, opening a link in one app and the internet browser automatically opening in the other screen, or at least giving me the option to open in the other screen! Say, a friend sends me a link to a website and then I open the website in the opposite screen automatically and then continue talking to my friend on the first screen. Not a feature that is currently implemented.
The LG Gamepad mode seems like a great idea: the top screen acts as the screen, the bottom screen acts as the gamepad. Supposedly the games will detect it as a native gamepad. Unfortunately, it was not compatible with Stadia, Xbox GamePass Streaming, or Dolphin Emulator. It was compatible with Final Fantasy V and PPSSPP. Games like Genshin Impact, a game without controller support absolutely begging for it, work really well with it as you can also create a custom gamepad with buttons that correspond to tapping areas on the game screen. I was most looking forward to it working with Stadia, Gamepass and the emulators though (I don’t play too many native Android games) so I definitely am pretty bummed.
My biggest complaint though is there just simply is no easy way to type with the dual screen vertical. Though I’d like to make use of the dual screen features sometimes for the occasional time I want to multitask, I sadly discovered the few times I would use the dual screen to its potential does not warrant having the carry this colossal phone around with its incredibly uncomfortable typing position. The obvious solution would be to have a “wide mode” split keyboard, which actually does appear if you Wide Mode an app and then use the keyboard. But from what I can tell, there is no way to “wide mode” a keyboard when you’re using the dual screens as, well, dual screens. On single screen phones I usually type with two hands, whereas I can’t type with one hand on this phone because the keyboard only shows up on one screen, and the other screen is in the way. On this phone, the only way to type is to hold the phone with one hand, and use a finger on the other hand to peck at or swipe the keys.
Overall, I think I like a dual screen in theory, but LG didn’t execute it very well at all. Instead of feeling like an extension of the main screen, it feels like its entirely own entity and doesn’t always flow well with the main screen. The absolute paucity of apps making use of the dual screen to its full potential is unfortunate. The biggest culprit is that typing in dual screen vertical mode (The way I use it most frequently) is extremely uncomfortable. All these drawbacks don’t make keeping the dual screen on worthwhile, as someone who only occasionally requires the dual screen.
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Conclusion

If you’ve made it this far, thanks for reading! This wound up being nearly 7000 words… wasn’t expecting it to be, like, even a quarter that long. I'll be happy if even one person reads through 50% of this.
I think the Pixel demonstrates that spec sheets really are not everything. Either that, or I got a lemon of an LG G8X (not outside the realm of possibility). With the caveat of the LG having much more fuller storage and being used for 4 more months, despite the LG’s supposedly better chip, performance is objectively pretty similar between the two phones in terms of app opening and opening websites. The Pixel was actually beating out the LG pretty consistently after both phones were used for 48 hours. Both phones run Genshin Impact kind of miserably, and run Gamecube games on Dolphin without a hitch. The Pixel was significantly better than the LG in emulating the Wii. The Pixel consistently destroyed the LG in terms of memory management. The Pixel’s smaller battery capacity of 3800 mAh outlasted the LG’s 4000 mAh battery, even when the LG was brand new. The camera in the Pixel is far better than the LG. The software experience of the Pixel is smoother and less buggy (and certainly less frustrating). The fingerprint sensor is a tossup for me. The audio is maybe better in the LG, but I can’t really tell. Screens are similar. The LG does “feel” more premium, but I do prefer the lightness of the Pixel. The one definitely advantage the LG has over the Pixel is the expandable storage.
Needless to say, I think I am going to keep the Pixel. I didn’t want to leave the LG G8X community behind though without giving a good reason to do so, and I hope this 6000+ word document with accompanying Dropbox folder of photos, screenshots, and screen recordings explain why I did so, and also demonstrate that spec sheets aren’t everything. I’ll probably try to sell the LG G8X + Dual Screen, but taking a look at how long these phones stay on Facebook Marketplace/eBay, I’m not very hopeful I’ll be able to sell it at even a fraction of what I bought it for. Anyway, thanks for reading.
I spent way too much time on this.
Also I haven’t proofread this, so I’m sure there are mistakes abound.
Also I really need to get working on actually important stuff. Thanks for reading!
---

Much needed tl;dr (Which is still long):

- Spec sheets are not everything.
- Was getting tired of LG G8X's weight, previous app gesture being busted, standby drain, general glitchiness, slower performance than expected, so I picked up a Pixel 4a 5G.
- Did lots of tests which you can check out in the Dropbox
- I subjectively like Pixel's camera, speakers, microphone, default screen colour balance, software cleanliness better.
- Really surprisingly, my specific days-old Pixel 4a 5G outperforms my 4 month old LG G8X in app opening and website opening (unless I freshly restart both phones). REALLY surprisingly, my Pixel ran circles around the LG in Wii emulation, and was equally competent at Gamecube emulation and Genshin Impact
- I will be keeping the Pixel. I will try to sell the LG G8X but am not hopeful. I will miss LG G8X's expandable storage but not much else.
submitted by bad_buoys to GooglePixel [link] [comments]

Plagiarize my work and trash talk me? I will incinerate you.

TL: DR at bottom
Hi everyone. I posted this story a while back but recently became privy to some vital information. What I learned, confirmed that I am neither crazy nor did I overreact when I roasted this beast into oblivion.
I previously wrote about this person here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
If you would like to have better context on what a horrible person she is, I suggest you read either any or all of the linked posts.
I had once referred to feckless waste of oxygen as “Karen,” but have since chosen “Molly” for her alias as its meaning is: unfortunate or ill-fated. If you choose to read this in its entirety, you will see that it makes perfect sense.
About this story: all names contained herein are fictitious hence the quotation marks around them.
Our cast includes:
Me: Writer, quirky creative movie geek
Molly: Thieving, entitled wannabe “actress” who is as talented as she is honest
Judy: My now-retired former mentor
Don: My graphic web designer friend and still photographer
Tom: Film producer
Jim: Film director
Lana: Actress, Tom and Jim's friend
Andrea: My caustic, yet lovable roommate.
Onto the story.
I was once a young, naive and perhaps a little too trusting aspiring writer. I met “Molly,” mid-forties, blonde, blue-eyed and Caucasian (relevant to the story), through, “Judy,” my mentor, when I was trying to get my first screenplay, a murder mystery, produced into a feature film. Being green, I had never worked in the business before and I trusted Judy implicitly. She was gold, a wonderful person and, as it would turn out, the polar opposite of Molly.
By the time I met Molly, a spoiled toddler trapped in a 40-something woman's body and self-proclaimed ‘20-year theatre veteran,’ my work had been copyrighted for six months (PSA: it's imperative to protect your creative property and me doing just that saved my butt). Judy had previously worked with Molly on a prior film and suggested her for a dayplayer role in my murder mystery. For those who don't know, a dayplayer is an actor with approximately half a dozen lines and can usually film their part in a day or less. I trusted Judy's judgment so I messaged Molly and sent her the entire script. My first mistake. PSA: Never send your entire script, only script sides (sample dialogue), and a bio/description of the character. You'll save yourself a lot of headaches, both physical and legal.
I ended up having several conversations with Molly. She seemed quite lovely. I will give her that she definitely had her phone etiquette down pat. Little did I know, she was just getting me to lower my walls before she went in for the kill. Molly had accepted the role in the tentative production and we talked virtually daily after that. She was quickly becoming one of my go-to confidants. My second mistake. As Molly and I grew closer, Judy and I grew further apart.
One day, Molly wrote and asked me if I needed my script proofread. I told her there was no such need for that as it was already copyright protected including any errors that might be present. This becomes relevant later. She practically begged me and claimed she ‘just wanted to help.’ I told her, if she took it upon herself to do that, she would not be paid as there was no money and her efforts were pointless. Her behavior struck me as odd. How this seemingly, strong and confident woman had bizarrely behaved like a child, begging her daddy for candy, didn't make any sense.
About a week had passed, Judy wrote me and asked if I was able to speak on the phone. I told her I was available and she called me. She greeted me and promptly got to the point. She inquired why Molly was now claiming she was the cowriter of my script. I was floored. I told her I didn't know what she was talking about. I thanked her, ended the call and immediately phoned Molly. Being continually unemployed, all Molly did was chain-smoke in her bathrobe and surf the net all day while her saintly husband worked a hard-labor job. She answered on the first ring. I asked if she knew anything about what Judy had told me. She paused before answering then tried to pass it off as ‘a misunderstanding.’ I decided to play my hand and bluff that other people had told me the same thing. Busted, she caved.
Molly: “Well, I did help you correct everything.”
Me: “Volunteering to copyedit my script does not make you the cowriter. You did a poor job, by the way. My work was already copyright protected in my name six months before I met you. This constitutes plagiarism.”
Molly: “No, it doesn't!“ She paused then, “What's plagiarism?”
I was dumbfounded. The fact that she denied being guilty of something without knowing the meaning of the word was perplexing.
Me: “Look it up. Delete your copy of the script right now. You will only get a new one when and if I choose to cast you.”
By the time I ended the call, it was obvious she was angry. Her pride had been wounded and I should have anticipated her retaliation. Again, hindsight.
The next time I was over at her house, I went on her computer when she wasn't looking. On a hunch, I checked her hard drive and there it was: my script. I deleted it. She later finagled a new copy from a well-meaning cast member and repeated the whole illegal rewrite. It was then that I found out, she was not only claiming to have written the entire script herself, but was also going to have the leading role. Both counts were easily debunked as:
  1. I had the copyright certificate to prove I was the sole writer
  2. The female lead is a 23-year-old woman of Puerto Rican descent (Molly is white, blonde-haired, blue eyed and, at the time, was in her mid-forties)
  3. Molly’s writing was absolutely terrible bordering on indecipherable.
The fact that she was insisting she’d written anything, other than a bad check or a grocery list, was laughable. Despite her claim of having a four-year college degree, she made countless careless, lazy mistakes, that to a casual observer, would suggest she dropped out while in elementary school.
Examples include everything ranging from: run-on sentences consisting of only lowercase letters, failure to capitalize proper nouns, using ‘and’ in the same sentence more than once, using commas as end punctuation, misspelling simple grade school-level words, mixing up her homonyms, using clumps of periods to break up her sentences, etc. All of which completely contradicted her claim that she had written a 100 plus page pristine screenplay. In addition to a highly-embellished typo-filled résumé, she tried passing off an overly filtered camera phone photo as a headshot and had no material for an acting demo reel. Anyone with ‘20 years in the business’ would have had all of these things and more. It should go without saying: if you can't prove something, do not put it on your résumé.
Thanks to the efforts of “Lana,” Molly had gotten into the good graces of, “Jim,” the noted award-winning director. Lana was the big-hearted other lead actress and his close friend. Molly had spun one of her infamous tales of woe i.e. poor me, my life sucks which led Lana to stick up and vouch for her. Molly's entitlement and complete lack of professionalism was duly noted by Jim. Despite her questionable spotty résumé, he only tolerated her for two reasons: she was the ‘writer’ and he felt professionally obligated to as a favor to Lana. I later came to learn, Jim was just biding his time until Molly either shaped up or until she failed her audition and he shipped her out. The role Molly wanted required a very strong actress which she was not. Failing her inevitable screen test, would have given Jim the grounds to have her replaced and, more accurately, fired. This wasn't his first rodeo.
In the meantime, Jim knew Lana could keep Molly in line. I don't fault Lana at all for buying into Molly's tall-tales, as she excelled at emotional manipulation and tugged at people's heart-strings to get her way. This, however, was the beginning of the end. Molly immediately threw her weight around like she was, in her words, ‘the second coming of Meryl Streep’ and ‘being the writer’ demanded a producer credit as well. Her narcissism had reached new heights. Think Faye Dunaway’s portrayal of Joan Crawford in Mommie Dearest and you'll get the idea. Unfortunately, for her, Jim was quickly losing his patience.
Upon learning that Molly was now claiming she wrote the entire script, I sought out Judy for advice. Regrettably, Judy hated conflict and had long-since grown tired of playing referee between me and Molly. She dropped out of the production. I was left to fend for myself. Retrospectively, I realize her exit caused me to have to put on my big boy pants and confront my dilemma. On one hand, I was this close to spear-heading my first feature film. I wasn't a greedy person. All I wanted was my writing credit and a walk-on role in it. On the other hand, the working script bore little to no resemblance to my original source material. It had practically been taken over by a talentless wannabe ‘produceactress’ whose stiff acting would have looked out of place in an adult film. It was clear, the costs of being associated with Molly far outweighed the next-to-nonexistent benefits. I was on the fence, but knew what I had to do. I was backed in to a corner and was about to break out my secret weapon: my copyright certificate.
It would later turn out, Judy was the first of several people to leave referring to Molly as ‘unprofessional,’ ‘a crazy bitch,’ ‘an amateur,’ ‘a pain in the butt’ and everything in between. I had heard whispers, but I wouldn't become aware of much of the internal conflict, with her as the cause, until after the fact. Molly, of course, always had an answer for everything, including why people kept dropping out i.e. schedule conflicts, production delays, etc. It all seemed feasible, because these things do happen in the film world. Then, one day, I got a message from, “Don,” the California-based graphic web designer, with a copy of the conceptual video done based on my screenplay. This was news to me. Lo and behold, guess who was in the leading role? If you guessed Molly, you get a cookie. The entire storyline had been completely changed. In the credits she was listed as the writer. My name was nowhere to be found.
Her excuse for why I was not in any way involved with the shoot for the promotional video? There was ‘no time’ to get me involved. My name being mistakenly absent from the credits? A clerical error she promised to have fixed (it never was). I brought up that, Don, had been flown in from across the country to be the still photographer, yet I, who lived less than 60 miles away from the filming location, was left out of the loop. She ignored my question and blew me off.
It felt like my soul had been crushed. My labor of love, my first screenplay had been absconded with by this...no-talent, phony! I was caught between tears and rage for a while. It was around the same time I decided to enact my revenge, that I received a panicked phone call from Molly. She had a habit of calling at the most inopportune times. I could have been on a date, sleeping, working, etc. This instance was no exception. After both my landline and cell phone rang multiple times, I finally picked up the landline from which I gave her an aggravated greeting.
The following conversation is mostly from memory and paraphrased as it was a long time ago:
Me [annoyed]: “What do you want?”
Molly: “No time (insert emotional rant as she beat around the bush in an attempt to justify her despicable, entitled behavior all the while maintaining she was just an innocent bystander yet acting guilty as sin).”
Me: “Who did you piss off this time?”
Silence.
Me: “You overstepped your bounds again.”
More silence.
It turns out Molly had tried to play the big boss and no one was having it. She copped an attitude with “Tom,” the producer, stating ‘her orders were the director's orders.’ Her power-play backfired when Tom called Jim to confirm. Jim saw red and had effectively went on strike with Tom following suit. Between Tom and Jim, they had a combined 60 years experience in the business whereas Molly had virtually none. I later learned, Lana apologized profusely for bringing Molly into the fold and had reluctantly played mediator between her two friends. She tried, in vain, to prevent Tom and Jim from quitting, but they had made up their minds. Neither of them wanted anything to do with Molly. The ultimatum was brought down: either Molly went or they went. Them leaving would have created a domino effect and led to the production being halted. That is why Molly was flipping out, not because she was about to be outed as the cause of the whole mess. By this point, I knew her too well and saw right through her drama queen antics.
Me: “What right did you think you had to do that, Molly? Keep in mind, I know more than you think I do. If you lie, I will know. ”
After a long pause she shakily answered.
Molly: “Because I'm the cowriter.”
Me: “No, you're not. I'm so sick of you saying that. It's not only untrue, it's fraud.”
Molly: “But I made changes to it.”
Me: “Unauthorized changes. You just admitted to plagiarism and copyright infringement. Can you bring forth documented proof that you were given permission from me to rewrite my entire script? You can't. What you did was highly unethical and illegal.”
Molly: “But...”
Me [raised voice]: “I'm speaking! You're listening. I'm not gonna keep going in circles with you on this. If I have to scan my copyright certificate and put it on the net for everyone to see, I will.”
Dead silence. I turned my printescanner on and scanned a blank document. It had the desired effect as she totally freaked out when she heard it. She was caught in her tangled web of deception and her brain was short circuiting as she kept trying to come up with convincing lies.
Me: “You did know my work was copyright protected, didn't you? If you did and I know you did, that doesn't just make you a criminal, it makes you a stupid criminal. You knowingly committed willful copyright infringement. I have a lawyer on retainer and the means to pursue a lawsuit. Believe me, when I tell you, I have more than enough solid evidence to prove my case if I choose to sue you.”
Molly: “Don't do that!”
Me [patronizing]: “You're right. I'm not gonna waste my time dragging you into court when the court of public opinion is so much more effective.”
Molly [stunned]: “What?”
Me: “I have a file ten inches thick: screenshots, text messages, e-mails, all detailing the subterfuge and dubious tactics you employed to try to screw me out of my creative property. I also have the plagiarized hard copies containing your distinctive moniker on the title page in place of my name. All have time stamps. Add all that to my original hard copy of my script and my copyright certificate? I swear, I'll crucify you. All people have to do is Google your name and they see you're full of it. Being a wannabe is one thing, but you'll never be able to shake the reputation of being labeled a liar and a thief. If this gets out, you'll be unemployable. It's not like people are beating down your door with job offers. Stick a fork in you. You're done.”
Dead silence.
Me: “What? No retort? No spin doctor explanation? Go on. Lie. It's what you do best. Of course, you could always shock the hell out of me and give the truth a whirl.”
Molly [meekly]: “I'm sorry.”
Me: “Why? Because you're wrong, because you're caught or because now everyone knows you for the scam artist that you are? Maybe all of the above. Either way, it's absolutely clear you have nothing even remotely resembling a conscience. Your pride and ego are too big to leave room for one.”
Molly: “I'm really am sorry.”
Me: “Ooh. Not yet, but you will be.”
Molly [horrified]: “What are you gonna do?”
Me: “‘What am I gonna do?’ What am I gonna do? Hmm. Well, for starters I'm going to use the ‘F’ word. Fired. You're fired.”
Molly: “You can't fire me! I...”
Me: “I'm speaking! I can do whatever I want. I own the copyright to (script name). I'll say it again in case you weren't listening. I own the rights to (script name).”
Molly: “I know.”
Me [yelling]: “Then why did you do it?! Did you honestly think you’d get away with trying to usurp my work and turn it in to your own little vanity project?“
Silence.
Me: “You know what? It doesn't matter anymore. Now, starting now, your name is off of this project. That's my call. The writing credit you think you deserve because you plagiarized my script? Gone. The leading role that you retooled to fit someone of your age and appearance? Gone. The producing credit you demanded you receive for illegally rewriting my script? Gone.”
Molly [fake crying]: “Why do you hate me?”
Me: “Spare me the crocodile tears. If you put the energy you wasted conning people in to actually going out on auditions and booking jobs, you’d be a working actress right now. Instead, you're a nobody that no one wants to work with, let alone be around. You're just a bored housewife chasing a pipe dream. Make no mistake. I'm not calling you a has-been. You're a never-was.”
Silence.
Me: “Seriously, how many people, have to go no-contact with you before you realize that you're the problem? Even your own daughter doesn't talk to you because you're a vile bitch and you can expect your son to do the same when he goes off to college. You're a compete failure as a professional, a horrible excuse for a human being and not worth any more of my time.”
Molly [no longer fake crying, pleading]: “You don't have to talk to me like that. I can change. I promise I can change.”
Me: “Cut the bullshit! Save your empty promises for someone who cares, because I have no more fucks left to give. You better hope Lana can do some fancy footwork and prevent Tom and Jim from quitting. I won't blame them if they do. They're professionals. They don't need to put up with this crap. You also seem to have forgotten, the entire cast and crew was recruited at their invitation. Once they abandon ship, word will spread like wildfire and everyone will mutiny. With them gone, I guarantee you everyone will walk off the set. If this whole thing ends up dead in the water, you can bet your butt, I'll make damn sure to point the finger at you as the reason why. If that happens, I swear on my father's grave, in every way that it matters I'll be done with you. Do you understand?”
Silence.
Me [shouting]: “Do you understand?!”
Molly: “Yes.”
Me: “You see, Molly, I haven't trusted you for quite some time. Now I just don't like you. Get a life. One that doesn't involve me.”
When I ended the call, I was raging hot. The entire conversation was cathartic and liberating. Unlike Molly, I keep promises. I sent all of my documented evidence to Don who then forwarded it to Jim, Tom and the other producers. One by one, all of them publicly quit. They made detailed posts on their Facebook pages. Molly wasn't called out by name specifically, but anyone remotely connected to the production knew the identity of the ‘unprofessional individual’ they alluded to.
The production ultimately ended up being canceled. It eventually came out that I was the only writer and the script presented to them was plagiarized by none other than Molly herself. Those who were unaware of the behind the scenes drama, started blowing up her social media demanding an explanation. Molly, who always had something to say and craved attention, had finally gotten her wish granted by karma. All eyes were on her, just not in the flattering way she wanted. It should come as no surprise, Molly offered up no satisfactory answers to any questions asked and took no responsibility for her monumental screw up. Unable to take the heat, she, in a demonstration of her trademark cowardice, tucked her tail between her legs and went off the grid. Even though, by then everyone knew of her dirty deeds, Molly never did admit she was the reason why everything went to hell in a handbasket. Shocker.
For several months after that, Molly left me alone. Considering she used to stalk me online, I find it amusing she didn't notice when I blocked her on all my social media. I changed cellphone providers shortly thereafter. I also made certain that she never got my new number. I kind of wish I could have seen the epic tantrum she, no doubt, threw when she realized I had gone no-contact with her.
About a month after purging the leech of a fake bitch, known as Molly, out of my life, I got a call on my landline from an unfamiliar number with an out of state area code. I didn't answer but, “Andrea,“ my roommate listened to the voicemail. It was Molly calling to inform me that Jim, the director, had passed away due to a heart attack. I didn't listen to the message. Andrea gave me the gist. Molly sounded panicked and, in her typical entitled fashion, turned the tragedy into a story about herself:
Molly: “Great. Now the movie's never going to get made.”
What a cold-hearted bitch. I was speechless. We were both stunned. Forget the fact that Jim's wife was now a widow or that his children were now fatherless or that his grandchildren would never know their grandfather. Her ego being stroked as a Grade B-movie actress was more important. Andrea deleted the message and I headed to work. Being that I was unable to block her number on the landline, Molly later made another attempt to get my attention with her histrionics. I was still at work when Andrea intercepted the call. A little fact about my roommate: she is a German-Jew native New Yorker with a very big mouth. She takes absolutely no crap and makes Judge Judy Sheindlin seem like a cream puff by comparison. You can just imagine how that entire call went.
Here's a snippet:
Andrea: “Molly, the man died. Does that mean anything to you, you selfish cunt?”
Upon being told off, Molly quickly tried to end the conversation but not before leaving a message to have me call her back.
Andrea: “Molly, OP blocked you on everything for reasons that are already well-known to you. Fuck. Off.”
After delivering that rebuke, which left Molly in tears, Andrea hung up. Needless to say, I never did return her call. When Andrea spilled the tea, of how she kicked Molly when she was down, I hugged her and bought her a bottle of her favorite sangria as a thank you.
It's been over six years. I haven't heard from Molly since and don't care to ever again. I'm finally starting to achieve my dreams. I recently produced and had a small role in my first short film for which I wrote the script. It was such a fulfilling and rewarding experience. The whole shoot was so overwhelming in a good way. Being a big softie, I did cry on set. I'm finally doing what I know I was born to do. In case you're wondering, yes. I still plan to produce my murder mystery without any involvement from Molly.
EDIT: For those of you who have been asking, I have since met a very talented director, who is as big of a movie geek as me, and is the complete antithesis to Molly. I don't leave a single exchange with him without feeling educated or inspired. He's a wonderful guy and he loves my murder mystery. Currently, there are plans to get it into development as soon as the coronavirus craziness dies down.
EDIT: UPDATE II: In having several in-depth conversations with Don, I learned of the catalyst that caused Tom and Jim to quit. Don is about six months younger than me and quite introverted. Molly had him under her thumb. So when she insisted that he write a letter to Tom ‘defending her honor,’ he did. What Molly didn't count on was Don being hip to her manipulative, schoolyard-bully ways: he covered his backside by copying both Lana and Jim in the e-mail as well. Naturally, being the oblivious waste of flesh that she is, Molly did not notice that her whiny, entitled rant (it was clear that they were her words, not Don’s) had been sent to the director himself. She realized she had screwed up when she received a scathing text/reply from Lana about the huge mess she had caused. This is what spurred Molly’s panicked phone call to me in which I introduced her to the concept of being murderedbywords.
EDIT: UPDATE. I reconnected with one of Molly's former friends, “Amelia,” with whom I was cordial during those days. Amelia had been friends with Molly for 10 years before cutting her off. After reuniting, my graphic web designer friend, “Don,” created a group chat between the three of us. Ever since then, Amelia has been spilling the tea left and right. It should be of no surprise whatsoever, that Molly has absolutely no performing background at all. Her flimsy claim of having ‘20 years experience in theater’ is just one of the many delusional figments of her diseased mind. It turns out, it was actually Amelia who was active in the local community theater scene. Naturally, Molly was insanely jealous of her so-called ‘best friend's’ talent and ambitious ways. Also, the cock and bull story about her being a former department store runway model when she lived up north is just that: bull. She's only 5’2”. Anyone who knows anything about fashion knows you have to be at least 5’7” to do runway. Amelia also confirmed that Molly has always been a lazy unproductive member of society and that her kids had it bad as long as she can remember. Amelia is delighted that Molly's now-grown children have escaped her clutches and have little to no-contact with their poor excuse for a mother. Upon learning that Molly's daughter doesn't let her see her only grandchild, Amelia laughed manically then said: “Karma's a bitch.” Amelia is also shocked that Molly and her husband are still together. She put it, and, I quote: “I'm surprised they haven't murdered each other yet.”
You may be wondering what led Amelia to go no-contact with Molly. If you read any of my other stories, it was similar instances of rampant entitled behavior. The last straw came when then-newlywed Amelia was expecting her first child. Being the attention whore that she is, Molly was extremely jealous that Amelia “never had time for her” anymore. She made some very cruel comments about Amelia's then-unborn son (she has a daughter now as well) and that pretty much ended their ten-year ‘friendship.’ Amelia said her stress level dropped by 99% ever since she blocked Molly out of every aspect of her life.
TL: DR: Narcissistic, wannabe “actress” tries to steal my script from me and produce it as her own little vanity project. I kept a detailed record of all her illegal, libelous, malicious deeds and turned everyone against her.
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what does it mean when someone sends you a thumbs up on facebook video

What Does Thumbs Up Mean? - YouTube How to Send a Private Message on Facebook - YouTube How to Respond to the Blue Thumbs Up Button on Facebook ... UPDATED: How to Send a Private Message on Facebook ... How to tell if a guy likes you?(through text) What does it mean when you get a Facebook Chat Thumbs Up - YKWPMO Thumbs up? WHAT DOES IT REALLY MEAN?! - YouTube What The Facebook Inbox Thumbs Up Really Means - YouTube facebook - what happens when you delete friend request ...

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What Does Thumbs Up Mean? - YouTube

For years the "Blue Thumbs Up" button has caused Facebook bot builders to scratch their heads in despair. The problem was that your Messenger bot couldn't re... UPDATED VIDEO for 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uv5IQSdQSqIIn this Video Tutorial I'll walk you through the steps to send a Private Message to someon... My thoughts on what is means to get a "Hi or "Hey" text. This is probably one of the most annoying texts you can receive ever! Ladies beware! Guys beware too! Up next How to tell if a guy likes you through his text messages 8 signs a guy likes you! ... The RULES of TEXTING someone you like - Duration: 2:47. SupDaily06 103,069 views. 2:47 . 21 Signs ... Must watch before you delete facebook friend request facebook - what happens when you delete friend requestTaylor Swift - Ready For It : https://youtu.be/lT... Mark zuckerburg told me to make this complicated now as a promoter of his name In this video, you'll learn How to send a private message, also known as a direct message on Facebook. It's been a long overdue video but I know it will answ... Kevin Willett says that emoji's and business do not mix. Kevin Willett is the Author of One Connection How you can grow your business (and change the world) ... Thumbs up? WHAT DOES IT REALLY MEAN?! - Duration: 1:53. LeJ3STER 260 views. 1:53. How to Respond to the Blue Thumbs Up Button on Facebook Messenger - Duration: 3:50. Chatfuel 7,681 views. 3:50 ... What The Facebook Inbox Thumbs Up Really Means. What The Facebook LIke button really means. Why i hate the thumbs up button in messenger***Follow Joe K *** V...

what does it mean when someone sends you a thumbs up on facebook

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