The reduced risk in STIs has been disproven, to my knowledge.

I’m there as well.

I used to get so excited about the newest technology and tech gadgets, but that excitement gradually waned until now, I find myself trying to make my older, unintrusive devices last as long as possible. If it needs an account or an internet connection to function, I’m simply not interested anymore.

I switched to Graphene OS recently, after I discovered that an iOS software update had added a “consent” option (default opted-in) for Siri to learn from my interactions with my apps, which you have to opt out of for each individual app. It’s ridiculous but I felt so betrayed by Apple. I opt out of everything and have never used Siri, and they still sneaked it in and opted me in.

I live in Europe so safety isn’t an issue, but I can’t use the simplest things anymore, like the post office app, and the govt auth app. It’s madness - these are govt services that require me to share my data with American tech companies. Wth?!

I won’t pretend to understand what it’s like living in the Middle East right now, but I can relate a little. My family still live in South Africa. Fortunately the current govt is too incompetent for privacy tools to be dangerous. That could change though, and then their white skins will make them vulnerable.

Anyway, just wanted to say you’re not alone. Stay safe.

No-one is saying that this particular request is intended to be shaming. The issue is that regardless of the intention, OP feels humiliated.

The question was

Why do paternity tests feel like such an inherent accusation of low character?

The answer is that instead of society normalising it as a rational request, it’s often used as a weapon against women. Sucks for both parties honestly. It would be better for everyone if a paternity test was a legal requirement to add a man to any birth certificate.

Not an exception for me, I definitely use different accents for adulting / adulteration and adult. Maybe that’s a British vs US English difference?

The primary accent for 2-syllable words that are used as both a noun and a verb depends on the part of speech. The noun places the primary accent on the 1st syllable, the verb on the 2nd syllable.

Examples:
The musician records a record.
The farmer produces produce.
You’re not permitted to fish without a permit.

Yes

In all seriousness, I think this is the right answer. Like anything in life, these words are tools, which some people use appropriately and others misuse to shut down a valid discussion.

UBS and Credit Suisse in Switzerland both. UBS required a bail out at the time.

Sadly that’s not true, apparently mosquitoes are very important to the ecosystem. Ze Frank did a True Facts episode on them.

I recently came across this 2023 Mozilla article on data privacy in cars and it’s horrendous. This was based in the US, so one would expect some differences in the EU to comply with GDPR, however who even thinks of asking about the data their car collects?

Suffice it to say, I’m rather hesitant currently to buy any data greedy product from a company headquartered outside Europe. It’s not entirely avoidable but with cars, we do have options, so please do ask lots of questions before making a choice.

I agree there are still technical challenges ahead, I’m just optimistic about innovation. There are a lot of companies investing heavily in this field, so there must be many technical experts who are similarly optimistic.

I’d also like to point out that current agricultural practices are heavily subsidised. Plus there are the unpaid environmental costs. If agricultural subsidies were no longer applied, and all businesses had to start paying an emissions tax, so that consumers paid the actual cost of farming meat, any financial comparison to cultured meat would look very different.

I don’t think it’s going to happen in the next 5 years, but 15 years from now? Maybe.

I believe cultured meat is the future.

I don’t mind the plant-based substitutes and eat them occasionally, but:

1. I don’t like that they’ve named them meat-related names (I have the same issue with plant “milk”). This marketing strategy causes an expectation of flavour and texture that disappoints people and puts them off. If the product is good enough, give it its own niche, like tofu.
2. Part of the reason vegan / vegetarian diets are healthy is because the food is largely unprocessed, whereas many of these products are highly processed. I’d rather just eat actual vegetables.

Cultured meat has real potential to replace farmed meat because it can provide things no plant-based alternative can, while removing many of the disadvantages of animal farming:

• The taste and texture should eventually be identical to farmed meat.
• It’s kinder to animals than farming - not vegan, but not cruel, no-one dies, and far fewer animals are needed.
• It’s better for the environment in many ways: less emissions than animal farming, less land required than both animal and plant-based farms, can be produced close to urban centres so less transport should be required.
• It can be fed to pets that are obligate carnivores, like cats. I will never put my dog on a vegan diet but I am following the UK company Meatly, that is specialising in cultured meat for pet food, with interest.

Once cultured meat is a similar price to farmed meat, I believe the ethical and environmental advantages will give it the edge. Many people that will never go vegan or vegetarian will hopefully switch.

You feel sorry for insurance companies? Huh.

You don’t know what my scenario is. I didn’t say in this comment what I recommend, only that his advice is poor, which it is. This stuff is literally what I do for a living.

The payment period alone is not sufficient information, it also matters how old OP is and what their expected lifetime is. Plus how do you know the lumpsum was calculated correctly?

That’s such bs. You don’t know how old OP is so you don’t know her expected lifetime. You’re advising her to take on longevity risk, specifically the risk that she runs out of money when she’s old and probably unable to work.

Living off the lumpsum only works if her drawdown is 1% a year, not 1% a month.

There are a lot of questions that would influence my answer.

For example: Who did the calculation? Do you trust them to have calculated the lumpsum as a fair representation of the payments?

Who is carrying the death, disability and unemployment risk? In particular, if your ex-husband dies or becomes unable to work, who will continue to make the payments? What if he married in the meantime and his new wife fights the settlement due from his estate? (Happened to someone I know. She won eventually but had a very hard time for years until the money was released.)

How large an amount are we talking about? Can you survive on 1% of the amount per year? For example, if the lumpsum is USD 10m, then hire a wealth manager to invest it and have yourself paid 1% a year, in this case USD 100k a year, or USD 8.3k a month. The invested lumpsum will increase with inflation and so your 1% will also increase each year. This setup will allow you to live off the lumpsum indefinitely.

Based on the limited information you provided I assume the amount isn’t that big, in which case I would advise that the monthly amounts are paid via an annuity purchased in your name from a life insurance company.

This solution has a number of advantages:

1. The insurance company will calculate the lumpsum (which would be the price of the annuity)
2. You aren’t subject to any risk from your ex-husband’s life
3. If this is payable for life, the life insurance company takes on the risk that you become very old and run out of money.

You will have the risk that the insurer goes bankrupt but provided you select a reputable, well-funded company that’s been around a long time, the risk is relatively low - life insurance companies are heavily regulated. Also, you would get some money back from a bankruptcy. Many annuity products also pay back part of the annuity price if you die within the first few years, so in that case there should be something to inherit for anyone you leave behind.

Edit: I see from your comments that the payments are not meant for life but only a limited few years that will end before you reach retirement age. Is that correct?

If so, that raises new questions. Importantly, do you have any additional retirement savings or is this settlement meant to cover that? If you were married for 20 years you should be entitled to a portion of his retirement savings if you don’t have any of your own.

If this money includes your share of your retirement savings, then take the lumpsum and put the amount that represents your retirement money into a suitable (tax advantageous) retirement fund that you can not touch. At your age (nearing 40?) you should have saved up a sizeable retirement amount already, so that will easily be half the lumpsum I would assume. The actual numbers depends on all sorts of things I don’t know.

My qualifications are suited to helping you with calculations. If you are willing to give more personal information, pm me and I can give better, more tailored advice.

Spain?

India?

Some relevant comments from the developer on another forum from about a year ago, when they only had 10 apps:

Developer of Accrescent here. Yes, there are only a handful of apps available right now. The reason for this is that the recent focus hasn’t been directed on getting more apps in the store, but instead on internal changes to allow Accrescent to include more features and scale to more users. It will be able to include more apps once more of those changes are implemented.

Yes, we may take on some additional apps over time. This depends on how much the project can handle maintenance-wise and how willing those app developers are to deal with the early and changing nature of Accrescent. We’re not directly reaching out to any developers at this time, however.

So apparently it’s been a deliberate choice so far.

My understanding is that the whole point to trying to hire a full time developer is to be able to finally scale their services.