I'm 42 and plan on retiring around 65-ish. At the moment I still have 100% of my retirement funds invested in stock. I've been debating over the last couple years whether I should start shifting part of my money to something lower-risk, or wait another few years.
When would (or did) you start moving to a lower-risk allocation and why?
My daughters (11 and 12) just got back from Girl Scout camp. We were chatting about how camp went while eating dinner tonight and they had some questions because there were several trans kids at the camp. We answered them as best we could but talking with my wife later we both thought one thing they mentioned was kind of strange. Apparently there were both trans boys (AFAB) and trans girls (AMAB) at the camp.
At the end of the day I don't think it really matters as long as the kids are properly supervised. There are plenty of coed summer camps after all. But given how "girls only" Girl Scouts typically is, I thought it was kind of odd that they're judging trans kids by two different sets of standards on whether they can participate.
I'm not really sure where I'm going with this. I guess I just wanted another opinion from someone more into LGBT culture on if this is normal for Girl Scouts or if this particular camp is just extra inclusive I guess?
A group of scientists contact you with an offer. They have developed a technology that allows them to clone people and distribute that person's consciousness among the clones. The technology has been tested thoroughly and they're ready to go live with the first public demonstration. You meet a unique set of parameters that make you an ideal subject. They offer to perform the procedure on you for free and provide any followup care necessary. They provide whatever assurances you require that the procedure is safe and actually works. It's not some trick.
They have enough cloning vats to make up to 9 clones of you, so you could inhabit 10 bodies if you wanted. Your consciousness would be distributed throughout whatever number of bodies you chose. The clones aren't independent entities, your consciousness would be expanded to inhabit and control all of the bodies. Your ability to multitask and focus on multiple sets of senses at once would expand, though it will take you some time to adjust. Eventually you'll be able to use all of the bodies as easily as you use your hands and feet to do separate things.
Growing the clone bodies would take about a year and the clones would be the same age as you. The procedure to expand your consciousness to all of the bodies would take about a week and you would be in a medically induced coma for that time. Once you're inhabiting all the bodies, they estimate it will take you 3-6 months to adjust and have full use of all the bodies. The bodies will all age normally. When one dies, your consciousness will "shrink" to inhabit the remaining bodies, and when the last one dies, your consciousness dies too.
This is a one-time deal. Whatever number of bodies you pick is what you get until they all die. You can't get more clones created later on.
Do you agree to the procedure and if so how many bodies do you want to inhabit? And what do you do once you have multiple bodies to control?
I'm planning a vacation to Hawaii next summer. We'll be on the big island and Oahu for a week each.
I'm a certified diver but haven't been diving for a couple years so probably need a refresher course. My 12 year old daughter isn't certified but would like to do a discover scuba course.
Ideally I'd like to find a dive shop where she could do discover scuba and I could participate as a refresher at the same time (she isn't real comfortable with the idea of doing the discover scuba alone).
I'd also love any recommendations for cool dives to do in the area if I can break away from the family for a day or two to do a little diving.
Does anyone know of a decent place to launch little Estes model rockets near Commerce Township? My daughters girl scout troop is doing space stuff right now and the kids are interested in building them but we're not sure of a good place to launch them.
We're planning a family trip to Hawaii next summer. Wife and I and two tweens. We like beaches, snorkeling/scuba, hiking, and local food.
The plan is to go in June next year. We're planning 6 days on the big island (3 in Kona, 3 in Hilo) and 7 days on Oahu (all in Waikiki).
Major things we want to make sure to see/do are:
Obviously we don't have a detailed plan yet. I'm more looking for any advice on whether you'd do something else or if we're trying to pack too much in.
I fully admit that this is a petty first world problem. But it drives me crazy anyway.
When I order items online I frequently have a problem where I get a "your item has shipped" email along with a tracking number. Then I click on the tracking number and see a status similar to "A shipping label has been created. Your delivery date will be available when we receive your package."
First off, the language here isn't being used correctly. A package hasn't "shipped" when the shipping label has been created. It has "shipped" when the carrier has possession of the package. This is like saying "I have left for China" when all you've done is bought a plane ticket and you're still sitting at your house.
But more importantly, sending the email as soon as the label has been created doesn't provide any useful information to the buyer. I want to check my shipment because I want to know when it's going to be here. If it's too early in the process for me to know that, there's no need to inform me.
That said, maybe there's something I'm missing so I'd love for someone to change my view on why this is actually useful in some way.
A wealthy man wants to perform a social experiment. He offers to buy any vices from you. The rules are:
Do you agree to the deal? And if so which vice(s) do you give up?
Edit: I clarified the terms based on some questions.
I had a player ask if they could make a custom spell similar to Invisibility Purge that worked on all illusions. I have a few details to work out but I don't have a major problem with it, I'm just trying to figure out what level to make it.
I'm thinking 5th or 6th since it seems roughly on par with True Seeing and that's the level most classes get it at. Thought I'd get a second opinion though.
The Inglourious Basterds are magically transported to Camorr where they must try to con the Salvaras while dealing with the Gray King, The Falconer, The Spider, and the various members of Camorr's criminal underworld. They have access to Father Chains's "temple" and all of the equipment therein. They can speak Therin and have the same general knowledge of of the city and how it works as the Gentleman Bastards do, though not their specific skillsets.
The Gentleman Bastards are magically transported to occupied France in 1944 where they must try to assassinate Hitler and the German high command at the showing of Stolz der Nation while avoiding Hans Landa and the SS. They have access to the same gear and intel that the Basterds did, as well as the ability to speak English and German and the same general knowledge about the world and what's happening as the Basterds.
Which group is more successful?
Our family will be visiting Oahu next summer. We'll mostly be staying around Honolulu, but we'll probably want to do at least a couple of day trips elsewhere on the island. Will we need to plan those and rent a car ahead of time or will we be able to just walk into a car rental office whatever day we want to go and get a rental?
Is there any easy way to figure out what the unique spells for each class are? Spells that class has access to that no other class does?
My kids are 10 and 12 and this summer I gave them a couple of open-ended science challenges. They've had a ton of fun with it and are asking for more but I'm kind of drawing a blank on ideas. So I'm hoping to crowdsource some help.
The first challenge I gave them was to take a jar of dirty water and make it clear again. The second challenge was to start a fire without matches or a lighter.
I'm looking for ideas that force them to be creative and think through something rather than just do an experiment that's pre-planned for them.
We know from Battle Ground that both the Blackened Denarii and the Swords of the Cross are inhabited by angels. And we know from Grave Peril that given the right circumstances, the Swords can be destroyed. Not just broken but unmade, completely destroyed.
That, to me, hints at the fact that there's probably a way to destroy the Denarii as well. What do you think it would be?
My 11 year old daughter got invited to a theme park with a friend in a couple weeks. Neither my wife or I is going and the theme park is cash-free so we were discussing how she could buy food and souveniers while she's there. The friend's mom offered to pay and we'd just pay her back which is fine for this trip but I can foresee the same sort of thing being an issue in the future too.
How are other families handling this? Do your kids have a credit card? Debit card? Tap to pay on their phone? Something else?
We have a 10 month old lab. He's pretty well trained, we use an e-collar but rarely have to do any correction with it at this point.
He did some demand barking when we first got him but that got better as we started working more patience behaviors (place, sit, down, etc.). Since then he's been relatively quiet.
The last few weeks though he's been getting worse and worse with alert barking. It's to the point where he has a hair trigger and it's a couple dozen times a day now. Even a slight noise or sight of a person or another dog from outside will set him off.
We've had mixed success with trying to distract him with another command and then reward him but that's not working great, he usually goes right back to barking afterward. Correcting with the e-collar isn't really working any better.
It's becoming an issue because we both work from home so having a dog barking constantly isn't great. Short term I'm okay with just stopping the barking when it stops but longer term we'd like to work on not barking in the first place.
Any tips?
My younger daughter (10) has a friend with divorced parents. We've known the family for a few years and I've met mom and dad both multiple times. Dad seems a bit scatterbrained and I've heard some slightly concerning things about him since he got a new girlfriend (borderline neglect) but I've never gotten a creepy vibe from him.
My daughter went over to the dad's house to play with her friend today. My wife dropped her off, our older daughter went with them. I'm working from home but had a bunch of meetings.
When my wife and older daughter got back from dropping her off, my older daughter told me that the younger one had texted and said her friend wasn't there. I asked my wife what the hell she was talking about and my wife said "Yeah, I guess she wasn't there yet when I dropped _______ off but she's there now and they're playing together."
I immediately went over there and got my daughter and brought her home. I made up an excuse about a family emergency. My daughter was in tears because she didn't get to play with her friend and my wife was mad because she thought I was rude and totally overreacted.
In my mind him letting us drop our daughter off there and never mentioning that her friend wasn't there is inexcusable. There is zero reasonable explanation for it. Best case scenario he's just totally clueless and the possibilities get considerably worse from there.
I'm sure this is going to be discussed later tonight after the kids go to bed so I want a second opinion. Who's right? Did I overreact? How would you have handled this?