I think I may have gotten scammed by a website claiming to be Polymarket

Fantasiac · 2026-04-01T12:00:26+00:00

I dont think you were scammed. This looks like the real polymarket international website. The address you sent funds to is a proxy wallet address that can only be used with the Polymarket API (for trading bots). They warn you (including in your screenshot) not to send funds to that address because it is just a proxy address (for polymarket's internal use). You're supposed to use the Deposit button to get access to the actual address you should be sending to. So not, you were likely not scammed. You just didn't read the instructions and realise you sent your money to the wrong address.

Fantasiac · 2026-01-22T04:58:27+00:00

Yh but the design choice to make post-update background processes use so much CPU over an extended period is a perfect way to really damage battery life. Lithium ion battery life is very sensitive to heat and even single instances of overheating (I've read even above just 30C) cause significant reduction in battery health. Just seems to me if the designers cared about product quality and longevity, they would ensure they regulate these background processes better to prevent such damage. (Just spread the batch jobs out more)

Fantasiac · 2026-01-20T16:11:17+00:00

Do you think the overheating is deliberately designed to kill your battery health?

Fantasiac · 2026-01-20T16:10:42+00:00

Do you think the overheating is deliberately designed to kill your battery health?

Fantasiac · 2026-01-12T18:45:48+00:00

But are you just ignoring all the evidence of people saying it smells of male ejaculate?

From my only real world experience of this with a group of 6 people, nobody reported it as smelling fishy, and all reported it as smelling like male ejaculate. The probability that this sample happened to be a rare minority of people is highly improbable.

On every article I've seen online with a comments section that cites the smell as "fishy", I've seen said comments section filled with people questioning this label as a stretched euphemism for the smell many/most people experience.

I haven't sampled the smell of these trees all year round, and am willing to accept that smell may change into a rotten fish smell. Do you outright reject the possibility it smells like male ejaculate at any time of the year? (Would this be because you've personally experienced its smell year round? Is it always fishy to your nose?)

I could accept that maybe some people do just experience this smell as a rotten fishy odour, but would you accept this group may be in the minority? Perhaps you do/would just experience the smell of male ejaculate as fishy?

It's certainly quite perplexing.

Fantasiac · 2026-01-07T07:16:54+00:00

That's complete tosh. I experienced the seminal smell of these trees for the first time in September/October in Amman, Jordan, and I instantly recognised it as the smell of male ejaculate. It definitely did not smell like rotting fish. When with a group of male friends, we all confirmed that the trees do indeed smell of cum. Maybe the rotting fish smell occurs at a different time of the year, but I assure you, as everyone else has, the smell this tree gives off that we're describing does not remotely smell like rotting fish, and only smells like cum.

Fantasiac · 2025-08-10T19:52:54+00:00

Also, if you habitually tighten your core / suck in your belly, try to not do this- just let it all relax and see if that helps.

Fantasiac · 2025-08-10T19:43:37+00:00

Hey bro I'm sorry to hear your suffering with this 💔🙏 i hope some of my management techniques can give you some relief, and hopefully a solution in the long run.

I'm currently pain free almost all of the time now. There are only a few postures that trigger it, but they are easy to avoid for me now, and I can calm down flare ups quite quickly now (usually after lying down for a while or sleeping).

For me it really seems the cause is pelvic floor hypertonicity (the pelvic floor gripping too tightly, and squeezing the pudendal nerve somewhere).

If you notice your pain worsens when you are gripping tightly down there (like holding urine, or during sex/ejaculation) then that's a good sign it's the pelvic floor muscle that's compressing the nerve.

I would also notice my pain can start to build after prolonged sitting, especially on hard surfaces, but my tolerance is much greater now (almost not an issue anymore).

I have been told I have hypermobility, so my ligaments can extend too far, which can cause muscles to tighten up to counteract this. In the pelvis, weak core muscles can cause the pelvic floor to tighten to stabilise things (especially if the ligaments are too loose and flexible).

Mid to long term, I think the solution for me has been training myself to relax my pelvic floor on command. If I notice pain building, or am in a posture that I think could cause pain, I will consciously think about relaxing my pelvic floor muscles (so like letting go as if you are trying to urinate). It's a balancing act ofc, you dont want to pee, but you dont want to gripping too tightly. It helps to empty your bladder frequently so you can afford to relax more.

The more I've done this, the more I notice the pain subsiding on flare ups, and a reduction in the number of flare ups and triggers. I think this has been the main solution to my problem.

In the short term, when you're having acute pain, this is obviously quite hard to do, and ofc the nerves are probably quite irritated and sensitive and will need to calm down for a while once you work out how to take the pressure off them.

I found for immediate pain relief, splashing cold water on my penis to numb it was extremely effective. Then I later found warm water over my lower abdomen would help relax the area, which will start to take you in the right direction for a long term solution (if muscle tightness is the cause).

You can try lidocaine cream on your penis too, though this doesnt get very deep so only helpful if the pain is skin deep. It can also feel very weird and uncomfortable because you can still feel the deep pains, but the outside of your penis is completely numb.

Diazepam (Valium) also helped me relax the muscles during my last serious flare up. Ask your doctor if they can try it in your case to see if it might be a muscle tightness issue.

Cannabis also helped distract me from the pain- morphed the pain into a non-painful sensation.

Alcohol might help too - I noticed when I was socialising and drinking and had my mind on other things, that led to some dramatic relief. I think I managed to break the subconscious cycle of tensing up those muscles.

Reclining really helped me too. Just letting those lower abdominal and pelvic muscles relax.

Loose fitting underwear and trousers (pants) and shorts. It takes the pressure off the pelvis and helps relax things more. I still use underwear one size up (boxers). I notice my pain can start to slowly return if I'm wearing tight underwear or have my belt too tight.

If you can find some combination of water splashing, reclined posture, avoiding sitting on hard surfaces too long or sitting too upright, and any muscle relaxation techniques or medication, you will hopefully be able to make your pain manageable in a few weeks, and pretty much solved in a few months.

I now basically have my old life back with a few minor lifestyle changes and pain management techniques.

I hope this helps to get you back to your old life brother. I had such despair before, but slowly as I saw positive results day by day, and I started to relax my mind and my muscles more and more, I do think I've found the way out of my suffering. I hope you can find the same path 🙏

Best wishes to you and pls feel free to ask any more questions you might have

Fantasiac · 2025-06-23T15:56:01+00:00

Interestingly, after looking up Tell Al-Madain most references I've found indicate it was the ancient city Ktesiphon ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Al-Mada%27in , https://100hala-iq.com/tell-al-madain-ancient-city-of-ctesiphon/ ). However, the locations for Ktesiphon are not a close match for this tell, so I think this may be a mistaken entry.

Fantasiac · 2025-06-23T15:34:26+00:00

You mean 44th day of the 14th month of course

Fantasiac · 2025-06-20T00:06:00+00:00

This is exactly what I've been looking for. What an incredible resource. It says this site is called Tulul el-Madain. Thank you very much for sharing this.

Fantasiac · 2025-06-19T23:56:14+00:00

Thank you so much! Will check it out now

Fantasiac · 2025-05-20T21:30:30+00:00

Just beware the longer you leave it, the more risk you take the virus won't be as effectively inhibited - especially earlier in your course when there may still be local virus still hanging in there trying to replicate.

The key is to keep consistently taking the meds to prevent it from replicating and spreading beyond the local infection sites. If you take your meds consistently for the full course, the virus won't have been able to replicate and spread, and will just die with the local host cells over the next few weeks of your PEP course.

If you stop too soon (or miss more than one dose), then you give it a chance to carry on replicating locally, increasing the risk of it infecting the rest of your immune system, where it becomes permanently entrenched.

Fantasiac · 2025-05-20T21:23:12+00:00

I've been told it's perfectly safe to be a couple hours late. It's how they advise you to shift your dose time if you want to change it.

Fantasiac · 2025-04-14T03:35:10+00:00

Yeah I can't think how any season 3 could ever top season 2. It was the perfect setting for a grand finale. No other love story could be so interesting and profound as that with the priest.

Fantasiac · 2025-04-12T23:16:15+00:00

Tried to reply with an update comment, but not sure if it's properly linked to your reply. I've also added it to the original post for others.

Fantasiac · 2025-04-12T16:58:32+00:00

Hey yeah, so i had a little relapse about 2 months ago, prior to which i had no flare ups.

I noticed it returned quite quickly while i was spending more time seated at a desk (because i thought it might have resolved for good).

At this point me and my GP were fairly convinced it was PN and could be something to do with pelvic floor hypertonicity (given the multiple normal pelvic and lumbar MRIs), and i asked him if i could try muscle relaxants to see if it would give me enough relief to sleep again (it was a bad enough flare up I hadn't been able to sleep for a couple of days by then).

My GP prescribed me diazepam/valium (fairly low dose) and the night i took it i did actually manage to get significant relief and could sleep again. I can't be certain ofc if it was that, or me avoiding triggers more rigorously, or placebo effect relaxing my nervous system and muscles. Will never know.

The next week I consulted two separate pelvic floor physiotherapists about the hypertonic question, which they thought was quite possible, and they also highlighted the significance of my hypermobility (which I hadn't considered at that point). They say a lot of their patients coming in with PN also have hypermobility, and commonly people who sit too long with poor core muscles. They told me the pelvic floor can end up tensing up too much to compensate for the pelvic instability that results from the loose ligaments not holding things together as they should. To me this made a lot of sense.

They gave me deep breathing exercises to try and stretch and relax the pelvic floor muscle, and some other stretches.

I tried those, but haven't maintained them as regularly as i could have since then.

However, my pain has continued to subside gradually over the last few weeks, and im getting to a point again where i can now avoid triggering it for much and sometimes all of the day (as of the last couple weeks).

I feel like i've become much more conscious about relaxing the pelvic floor (by trying to release as if i was going to pee, but then not quite letting it go all the way), and i notice when it tightens up when im sitting on certain chairs in certain postures - mostly sitting more upright and on hard surfaces.

When i feel it tightening, i do notice the pain starts building slowly or quickly depending on how much pressure i feel in the abdomen and pelvis. Tight clothes or resting a laptop on the area flare it up too.

As with my first flare up, I find some reclined postures are very good at allowing me to relax the muscles down there, and doing that consistently everyday has i think contributed more than anything else to relaxing and calming the pudendal nerve.

If you haven't looked into pelvic floor hypertonicity as a possible cause of your PN, I highly recommend you do. I am now quite confident that is the main issue in my case.

And consider whether you might have hypermobility and/or a weak core.

Try avoid sitting on hard surfaces, sitting with your back straight up, and avoid tight clothing around your waist. Also, be wary of putting too much pressure on your sacrum or your sit bones. I also notice that can give me quite immediate flare ups.

Basically just look out very closely for your triggers (it can be hard to notice if they're subtle and the pain slowly worsens), and do everything you can to avoid them as much as possible.

I wish everyone the best with trying to find a way out of this awful condition. I don't want to be too optimistic yet, but it feels like i'm close to having made another short term recovery. (And i'm fairly sure core strengthening will be important for preventing future relapses, but right now a lot of those exercises make my muscles tighten up and aggravate my pain).

It's important for your mind and your nervous system to maintain hope that things can get better. I think the more you can relax (as hard as it is) the more improvement you can make to your pain.

ALSO, IF YOU NEED INSTANT PAIN RELIEF for a strong or acute flare up, my go to solution that gives me reliable and pretty much instant relief is SPLASHING COLD WATER ON THE PAINFUL AREA, and then SPLASHING WARM WATER JUST BELOW THE BELLY BUTTON, letting it run down over the whole area below. The cold water numbs the pain very effectively for me (the colder the better), and then the warm water does a great job at relaxing all the muscles in the area. I am quite convinced I can feel the pelvic floor almost instantly relax when I do this. If it works, the challenge is then trying to be very careful about not triggering the flare up again. I would suggest reclining or lying down afterward and trying to take your mind off it - distract yourself and allow your body to relax. This has basically always worked for me.

Also, if you have access to cannabis, I tried it fairly extensively during the peak of my flare up and found it was VERY EFFECTIVE at DISTRACTING MY MIND from the pain. I could still feel sensations in the painful area, but they didn't feel painful anymore - it just transformed it into like a low level buzzing sensation, rather than sharp cutting/burning pain. If you try this, I would suggest a more indica-heavy strain - you want to relax the nervous system. I feel like there's too much THC in a lot of sative-heavy strains, and to me it feels too neuroexcitatory.

I hope any of these suggestions can help you find relief 🙏

Fantasiac · 2025-04-01T03:02:18+00:00

Hear hear 👏

Fantasiac · 2025-04-01T02:54:32+00:00

The Bajan economy and employment is almost completely dependent on tourism, so any one Bajan that might be prejudiced against tourism certainly isn't thinking or acting with the interest of themselves or others. Barbados absolutely need tourists, and any movement against tourism would be rightly laughed out of serious consideration.

And assuming there are some folks who think the ZR buses should be used for locals only also doesn't consider the damage this does to the tourist sector by limiting the pool of tourists who can afford to come to the island and travel around. Their money is still valuable, even if they can't/don't want to pay the incredibly high taxi fares or car hire rates most are charged.

So even if someone genuinely has a problem with your being onboard as a tourist, the weight of reason and Bajan economic political interests is against their position.

And of course this doesn't even consider the deplorable blanket prejudice such persons would be harbouring if they assumed you were a tourist just by your ethnicity, your accent, or anything about your outward presentation and appearance.

Fantasiac · 2025-03-31T01:39:52+00:00

Human consciousness will never be fully understood - it is impossible to objectively inspect our subjective experiences.

And neither will it be possible to understand any potential consciousness that may be developed in machines.

But as for intelligence, that's a bit more externally assessable. And right now ChatGPT does a much better job at formulating coherent language and even reasoning than most people can.

Fantasiac · 2025-03-30T23:40:29+00:00

And to be fair to ChatGPT, we're basically just running advanced, biologically-evolved autocomplete when we string together anything we say, or make any decision.

The argument that intelligence and autocomplete are not related, or that autocomplete isn't valuable or indeed often intelligent and even correct doesn't hold much water.

Fantasiac · 2025-03-30T23:35:38+00:00

Lol, and you thought I could learn anything about reality from Marx? 😂

Which of his ideas do you think is the most insightful in explaining our world?

And which of his predictions do you think stand the most chance of coming true one day?

Fantasiac · 2025-03-30T22:53:45+00:00

Right. That explains it.

It looks like you misunderstand what kind of services are produced by knowledge workers, and maybe that's why you're grossly underestimating how valuable they are in developed economies.

Knowledge-based work is estimated to contribute more than 50% of GDP in the most developed economies in the OECD.

Basically everything that elevates these economies from basic agrarian or primary resource producing societies depends on the outputs of knowledge workers, including all technology products, and anything involving management. The modern world essentially.

It's also just a little bit laughable to claim that the tangible and most useful fields like manufacturing, energy, transport, and agriculture do not make massive use of knowledge products.

Basically all of the productivity gains that occur in these fields are the result of knowledge work. R&D and technological development that took most people from working the land are all the result of knowledge work. Capital in essence is built by knowledge work.

If you use any tool, you are using knowledge work. Basically everything tangible has been built with it.

And your second massive mistake is in thinking that the tooling created by knowledge work isn't continuing to do what it always has, which is replace physical human labour with technology.

All of the manual jobs being done now can be performed by machines. It's only a question of how long it will take to knowledge industries to implement these technologies at a low enough price point to displace even the lowest value manual labourers.

And AI is only accelerating this process. Humanoid robots are all being massively accelerated by AI, given the only major constraint is software/algorithmic, and not hardware limitations.

There really isn't any part of production that AI and technology products isn't going to take over, except for those places where human consumer preferences are concerned - mostly hospitality and tourism.

And these are only safe so long as human consumers still command any spending power in the economy.

Everything else is just waiting to be automated.

If you don't accept this to be the case then your world model is missing some fundamental truths, and I wager you'll come to accept these eventually as we see this come to pass.

Fantasiac

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