Let me start by apologizing if this theory has been previously posited. I did a quick search to see if I’d be wasting anyone’s time and didn’t see anything.
The internet is saturated with the details of Rey Rivera’s death, so I feel there’s no need to broadly rehash them here unless relevant to my theory. The case was featured in the debut episode of the Unsolved Mysteries reboot on Netflix. For the purposes of clarity regarding my theory and conviction, I will say I believe his death was either a suicide or death due to misadventure, leaning towards the latter. It’s unfortunate the paranoid state and bizarre behavior that often leads family to the conclusion of a conspiracy theory is identical to the delusions and hallucinations of someone in a deteriorating mental state. The case of Michael Hastings also comes to mind. There are easier, lower risk, and more effective ways to silence someone other than tampering with an automobile’s brakes or lugging a potentially incapacitated, 250 pound man through an occupied, secure building to fake a suicide.
A loved one taking their life shatters your reality and you’ll look for any way to get it back.
“We were looking forward to a life together and planning for the future.”
“They’d never abandon me.”
“I would have noticed something. They never exhibited signs of mental illness.”
So for me, the mystery in the Rey Rivera case isn't one of manner of death. I go into that more below. The sole question is how did his body land approximately 45 feet away from the Belvedere? I think we can safely assume he didn’t fall from the adjacent parking structure closer to the impact point since its ~20 foot height was inadequate to sustain the injuries listed by the coroner, who noted they were consistent with a fall from great height.
That he means gained access to a high point on the Belvedere – either the roof, or the ledge mentioned in the episode. As suggested in the show, the ledge is unlikely because the only access was through an apartment or office. There was no public (e.g., halls and common areas) access to windows along the ledge. In addition, walking would have been precarious given the ledge’s width, especially at night. I did some brief comparative imaging and it looks to be about a foot wide. I'm not sure what Rey's shoe size was, but given his height, I'd imagine there'd be no room for error with nothing to hang onto.
I don’t give any credibility to the argument that the roof was inaccessible. Potential liability means property owners/managers need to maintain they did everything possible to prevent a tragedy. I worked in a PR agency that had a multinational property management company as a client. In addition to saying the roof was locked, this could also mean destroying the video evidence and claiming there was a glitch. Even if caught, as long as it's destroyed early on in the investigation prior to discussions of wrongdoing or any subpoenas being issued, there may be no criminal act. They deleted a video, that's it. This was also a hot topic in the Elisa Lam story and her parents filed a lawsuit against the hotel claiming negligence. Employees leave secure doors open all the time. Smoke breaks. Fresh air. General laziness. Contractors. And as an urban explorer, you’d be surprised how much a knowing or determined look will grant you unfettered access to places you shouldn’t be. In addition, if you see a sign saying a door has an alarm, there’s a good chance there isn’t. Signs are cheap, guards and CCTV are not.
Also, I’d imagine most people would think twice about approaching a clean cut, 6.5’, 250 lb man with an accusatory tone unless they’re sure he’s up to no good.
So, in my opinion, the only real argument against Rey falling from the roof was the fact that, in order to travel ~45 feet from the edge of the building, he’d have to reach a foot speed of approximately ~9.3 mph in a ~45 feet – the distance of roof measured edge to edge. It’s generally understood that achieving this speed isn’t impossible, but would certainly be a challenge, especially for a guy in flip flops.
But what if Rey ran corner to corner? Specifically, from the outer northeast corner to the inner southwest corner? I’m by no means an engineer, but applying simple Pythagorean theorem, that distance would be about 64 feet – a 42% increase in acceleration distance. If you plot a trajectory along that path, it lines up shocking well with the impact point. See my crude photo.
The reason I specified the northeast corner is I believe his distance traveled was increased by horizontal wind forces caused by fluid dynamics around the Belvedere. Looking at the wind roses for Baltimore and wind data from the period of May 14 – May 25, 2006, the wind speed regularly reached ~20 mph in a southwesterly direction – the direction of travel on the proposed trajectory.
Granted, these wind speeds are normally achieved in the mid afternoon, with the morning and evening averaging around 10 mph. However, while it’s generally accepted Rey fell at night, there’s no conclusive evidence confirming that. In fact, moving freely about the Belvedere and navigating the roof would be easier during the day, given the roof is not lit and the sky was overcast for those days, limiting moonlight. As far as we know, he did not have a flashlight and the roof has dozens of hazards. Vents, machinery, etc. I’d even venture to say it’d be damn hard to avoid obstacles while running full chat on the roof at night.
Some might ask, "Wouldn’t someone see or hear anything during the day?"
Well, the impact point is well shielded on three sides by the 14 story, “u” shaped structure of the Belvedere – the tallest structure in the area by some margin. During a weekday, many of the condo residents would be at work. All the buildings adjacent to the open side of the “u” (south facing) are too low to have a line of sight through the parking garage to the impact point. The streets on the south side are also small residential streets that would have a fraction of the foot traffic on the hotel’s north side along a main street (E. Chase St). Acoustics in urban environments during busy weekdays can be unusual, impacted by noise pollution like traffic, construction, waste removal, even conversation. The aforementioned wind can deflect sound waves. Finally, it looks like the impact point is surrounded by HVAC equipment which likely made a significant amount of noise.
About 3 seconds. That’s all the time required for him to go from the roof to impact. That's all the time he needed to go unnoticed.
A recent (January 2020) article in the Journal of Forensic Sciences entitled Effect of Wind on Horizontal Displacement of Fatal Fall (linked below) concluded that, “it does not take a rare wind condition with unlikely high speed to shift a falling human body with noticeable displacement.”
It further states that a wind speed as low as 22 mph (Strong Breeze on the Beaufort scale) can displace a falling female body as much as 7.2 feet over a 2.47 second fall of 98.4 feet. The roof of the Belvedere was nearly double that height. A man, with more surface area and more drag, could theoretically increase that distance of horizontal displacement. Additionally, clothing, body position, even hair volume can affect drag. Look at the great lengths competitive swimmers, speed skaters, and cyclist go to eek out every aerodynamic advantage, including shaving leg hair. Next time you're in a car (and assuming you have arm hair), pop your arm out the window. You can feel the aerodynamic drag on each follicle.
Granted, these figures are for horizontal displacement of a falling human out in the open in unobstructed wind, not next to a building. However, while it may seem the building would shield the wind, it may actually increase the force of the wind and complicate the predictability of its dynamics in the micro climate around the Belvedere.
Along the height of a straight, vertical building, wind impacting the lower areas tends to blow down. Wind impacting the middle blows both up and down. Wind hitting the roof peak traverses to the lee/downwind side of the building in multiple vertices travelling at various speeds at varying angles. I included a wind tunnel video below to show the complexity of fluid dynamics with respect to building shapes.
Many variables also have to be factored into the wind’s behavior. For example, the Belvedere is the tallest building in the area. The buildings and structures around alter wind direction, creating possible Venturi Effect, and unpredictable forces in the area. Also, the wind is theoretically hitting the corner of the building, not the broadside, which could increase wind forces or conversely create vacuums via low-pressure paths. The “u” shape of the hotel would likely also have an effect, with wind partially hitting the inside wall as well.
Downdrafts, updrafts, side drafts - the potential for all three existed and any one could carry Rey closer to the hole.
Like I said, I’m not a scientist and would love to have one pick apart my theory if you’re out there! But I do believe there is credible evidence to suggest that Rey could have had more of a running start than stated (likely minimized to the smallest possible distance on the show for dramatic effect and deniability) and may have been bounced around, helped along in mid air by wind displacement that brought him closer to the impact point.
Then, there’s something I call the Titanic “propeller guy” potential – video below. Beaux Arts revival architecture often features a beveled edge below the inset, flat roof. Often, these beveled edges have protruding windows, stone design elements, chimneys, and in the case of my proposed trajectory at the Belvedere, all three.
Rey runs from the northeast corner of the building with a ~20 mph southeasterly wind. Based on photos and Google satellite images, that path, in addition to being longer, is also perhaps the most unobstructed line the roof in terms of obstacles (see pic). As he leaves the roof with higher velocity than previously believed given 45% more running room, his trajectory is closer to the impact point. Wind forces around the Belvedere in its urban micro climate push him even closer to the impact point.
To this scenario, you can add the possibility that he makes contact with one of the aforementioned architectural details on his arc, converting some of his gravitational force to lateral movement or even a spiral, before he’s caught up in the wind forces around the building, carrying him further still.
The Titanic “propeller guy” effect.
Even simple drag and body position could have an effect on his trajectory from the Belvedere. Think of a skydiver spread eagle versus one pointed straight at the ground. The altitude lost per distance traveled is far less when spread eagle with more surface area. We’re talking much lower altitude, but we only need to travel a horizontal distance of ~45 feet.
Some people will say, “Well, what about the glasses and cell phone looking virtually unscathed? What about the broken flip flop and the scuff marks?”
If anything, they all lend credence to the fact that he jumped. He first attempts the run with his flip flops on. He trips, breaking one strap and creating the scuffs. Realizing that isn’t going to work, he removes the flip flops, holds them in his hand for safe keeping, and takes the final run. Like most people who wear glasses, he removes them and puts them in his pocket prior doing something where they risk of being broken.
His cell phone was likely also in his pocket, as cell phones typically are. Both items remained there until he hits the roof, where they’re dislodged by the impact, but after his body has absorbed most of the energy. Alternatively, he held his phone and glasses in his hand instead of his pocket, but again, they’re only shaken loose after his body has absorbed the brunt of the deceleration.
I actually think the mysterious broken shin may have been one of the initial impact points. His body could have fallen in any orientation. Despite discussions, the hole size is of no consequence so long as the surrounding roof structure is stronger than bone and tissue extruded through it.
Either way, they fell with Rey and his body absorbed the initial impact causing deceleration. If they were thrown from the roof, they'd be badly damaged. If they were staged, the obvious question would be why.
Why would you take items in your possession ascertained in the course of committing a criminal act and waste time staging them for absolutely no reason? It doesn't exonerate anyone, help the story (or conspiracy, if you're so inclined), or provide an alibi. LE has no explanation. It isn't a scene created by a serial killing unsub who has a fetish for big dudes, roofing, glasses, and cell phones. One thing's for certain -- these careless actions were not the work of professionals, yet they're intrinsic to many of the conspiracy theories that involve staging of evidence. So the contradictory leap of faith is professional killers are a component of the conspiracy, but they'd be careless enough to stage a scene with zero upside and a ton of risk so the story can fit the conspiracy.
Baltimore has dozens of bridges, several rivers, and a major port that would be far more suitable for the disposal of bodies and their accessories. And none of them would require dragging a massive body through a building unseen.
Sadly, I think Rey, in a break with reality, expected to survive the jump and protected his valuables. If it isn't clear, I don't go in for conspiracies. But I am willing to concede there may be something to the theory that there's a connection to the 1997 movie The Game. It was one of the movies listed in the bizarre, micro-typed letter taped to his PC, and apparently a favorite.
However, if that connection exists, it was only in Rey's mind. Witnesses say he was a regular at the rooftop bars and, looking down on the south side, there is a very strong resemblance to the buildings featured in the movie. Link to clip below. Spoiler alert if you want to watch it.
Normally, I wouldn’t write something like this, putting forth one of my theories and rambling on. But the Rey Rivera case has a personal connection for me. I was about Rey’s age when I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Most people manifest symptoms much earlier than 32, but I guess I was a late bloomer. Like Rey, I had a wonderful life. Beautiful girlfriend, nice house, loving family, good job. Talk of marriage, kids. Everyone thought I was on a path to success. However, I was cutthroat. Mean. Emotional. An alcoholic and workaholic who’d say, “I’ll sleep when I’m dead”. I’d subsequently learn that insomnia, irritability, and inability to control impulses are symptoms of mania, but not before I had a psychotic break and lost that beautiful girlfriend, house and job in the course of weeks.
I’m not saying Rey had a mood disorder. It sounds like he was an absolute sweetheart. I am saying that, from firsthand experience, a mental illness, and delusions/hallucination in particular, can manifest quickly and profoundly. However, if you’re a man, the symptoms are “harder” to see, but only because our society generally doesn’t look for them:
“He’s not mental ill. He’s a hard working, take no shit kind a guy who’s not afraid to break a few balls to get things done. He deserves to drink whenever he wants. It’s what real men do – work hard, play hard. He’s not an asshole. He’s shrewd shark.”
Part of this tragedy is the way we approach men’s mental health. When watching the Unsolved Mysteries episode, something really stood out to me and it’s why I wrote and researched this (hopefully) plausible theory. His wife kept saying that, on numerous occasions, she was extremely unsettled by the fear she’d see in her big, strong guy in the weeks leading up to his death.
Big, strong men in good health don’t get scared unless there’s a credible threat, right? There must have been something going on. It couldn’t just be all in his head.
But, just as often as with anyone else, it sometimes is. If he wasn’t a big, strong, stereotype of a man, it would be patently clear his behavior is clearly the signs of mental distress, especially after the fact.
Take, for example, the note:
“I stand before you a man who understands the purpose and value of our secrets. That’s why I cherish them as secrets.”
“Members of The Council, please note, that I will lend careful concentration to the traditional responsibilities. In light of those proceedings, I will satisfy the standard request of this council, within the appropriate time.”
I mean, respectfully, c’mon! These are clinical examples of delusions. In this case, the delusion of grandeur or greater purpose. The interest in the power of Freemasonry also points to this delusion.
Returning to the film The Game, the plot is about (spoiler alert) an emotionally cold, socially isolated, and very wealthy banker who achieves redemption and sense of higher purpose after an participating in an elaborate AR-type game staged by his brother. The climax involves the protagonist's attempted suicide by jumping, but he survives, caught by a giant airbag as part of The Game.
Man, as someone who's had a psychotic break, I could so easily see how his delusional brain could start connecting non-existent dots. Rey wrote about the stock market and knew that social scene. The protagonist in the movie works in finance and his persona personifies the one per-centers. Similarities and familiarity start to blur the line between real and fictional people, but ever so subtly at first.
Reoccurring, cryptic, and scary telephone calls are a recurring plot device in the film and intrinsic to its structure. Rey seemed to place increasing significance on calls as his mind deteriorated, eventually rushing out of the house to his death after receiving one.
As the movie progresses, the line between reality and The Game becomes completely and absolutely blurred in a way that makes the protagonist feel like he's losing his mind, seeing connections with none exist, missing those that do, unsure if he's being followed, and not knowing who to trust.
In fact, the whole thing hauntingly plays out like an impending psychotic break taken solely from the protagonist's POV, at least in my experience. These things would start to validate that for him, nothing is out of the ordinary and things are playing out as they should similar to the film.
And the view from the roof of the Belvedere looks eerily similar to the view from the climatic scene where the protagonist finds redemption, not death, by jumping off the roof.
In addition, Rey was in a state of transition, moving back to California and mapping out the next stage of his life. Through my experience in therapy and group session, psychotic breaks are often precipitated by drastic life changes and uncertainty.
Finally, I studied film in school as did Rey. For film nerds, there are certain directors who seem particularly adept at speaking on a metaphysical level while resonating with a broad audience. David Fincher is one of them. Themes about the perception of reality (Fight Club, The Game), religious allegory (Se7en), the meaning of life (Curious Case of Benjamin Button), and capitalism (Fight Club, The Social Network, The Game) are expertly interwoven in his films.
There is absolutely zero doubt in my mind that all of these concepts were front of mind for Rey as he lost touch with reality.
His paranoid behavior regarding his family's safety leading up to his death reflects a delusion of persecution, or that someone or something is out to get him.
The rest of the note is textbook disorganized speech – a free association of words with little to no connection. He asks to be made five years younger. He references Freemasonry – many delusions present with supernatural, spiritual, or otherworldly connections. He talks about his favorite movies, lists relatives and friends. But with no continuity of thought whatsoever.
His widow said it all:
“There’s a whole page of people he knew but he’s missed some significant people, so that seems strange. There were movies and the movies were the ones that really stuck to him. I know what all of these things were and nothing was a really a surprise, it was just why they were all compiled and in the format that they were compiled.”
It’s not a code. It’s not a secret message. It’s the unfortunate and upsetting (given his fate) ramblings of a man who was likely manifesting the early signs of schizophrenia.
The true crime community has varying levels of involvement and passion, but I like to think we’re all united by a quest for the truth and justice – unified by our shared ability to look at the evidence objectively and start a respectful dialogue with each other regarding what happened. This “Occam’s razor” theory is me starting a dialogue. Elisa Lam. Rey Rivera. Michael Hastings. These aren’t conspiracies. These are individuals that were manifesting textbook symptoms of mental illness according the DSM-5 and met unfortunate ends. We marginalize the experience of these people by taking behavior we should seek to understand and saying it’s incomprehensible outside a conspiracy. We make people less attenuated to the symptoms by attributing them to anything but mental illness. We should be open to all possibilities that may lead to resolution, especially when it comes to establishing there’s no mystery at all.
Otherwise, we’re not investigating a conspiracy. We become one.
YouTube video of common building shapes in a wind tunnel:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UEgk2Bgz16s
The “propeller guy” scene from Titanic:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz4JSTXuP9E
Journal of Forensic Science article on horizontal displacement from a fatal fall:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/pdf/10.1111/1556-4029.14169
Suicide clip from the 1997 movie The Game
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dXBUdCvqpNg
Possible trajectory
https://imgur.com/a/70VQ7hU
EDIT - spelling and grammar
NOTE - I just noticed I misspelled Rey's surname in the title. I can't see a way to edit it, but I am a bit of a Luddite. My apologies. Rey and his memory deserve the utmost of respect.
EDIT - sincere thanks for the precious metal! Y'all do know how to make a girl (well, technically a bearded, balding dude) feel special. For years, I've been writing as a hobby, but never put anything out there for public consumption due to cowardice. I'm literally the only one who reads my work. Any attempt at expressing the magnitude of my gratitude wouldn't do justice to the generosity of your kind words and encouragement.

13. The Aspects

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PERSONS OF THE DIALOGUE: ASPIRATION, THOS, ANGER, THALIAN, GRANDIOSITY, COMMUNITY, INTROSPECTION, ABSTRACTION, INTUITION, ACTION, ORAMIO, ORUS, PARAMIA
ASPIRATION: How did you feel, how did the last two days in here make you feel? And what was the point?
THOS: Thinking about my dad again. Oh well.
ANGER: Sorry to hear that, Thos. I was more than a little uncomfortable, I guess.
ASPIRATION: We're here for you, Thos.
THALIAN: I wasn't in the thick of the problems the past two days but I felt a little withdrawn.
GRANDIOSITY: Has anyone else here experienced some development of strange predictive abilities since they joined the subreddit?
People agree that they have.
ASPIRATION: I certainly hope so. If you've been doing your homework, especially. So, why did I throw the channel into disarray the last two days? This is about discovering something you already have. Not developing a skill. Is anybody going to take a shot at the question?
THALIAN: Was it to show how fragile our collective agreements are?
COMMUNITY: To illustrate that none of us are invincible to rhinocerization?
ASPIRATION: Yes, but something also deeper.
INTROSPECTION: I think creating some disarray allows you to see if we would pull together as well, and employ what we've learned or discovered.
THALIAN: That we can recover from rhinocerization by observing ourselves outside the problem?
ASPIRATION: Yes, that too. But I think it was Abstraction who experienced it most intensely.
ABSTRACTION: Yeah it was not fun.
ASPIRATION: Abstraction, you want to share your experience? You felt it acutely. I think you're going to have the brightest flashlight. The grocery list, the voice chat, the talk about money. They all had something in common.
The grocery list referring to Aspirations attempt to get #elastic-shitposting to seriously consider his grocery needs and shop for him mindfully. He bought everything suggesting, and then the group had to figure out how he might eat for the next week with our jokes of answers. They ultimately came up with a baked potato for dinner and gave up on the rest.
ABSTRACTION: As we devolved into the rhinos, I took a step back and observed what was happening. I felt intense discomfort about the situation, but it wasn't caused by the situation, it was caused by my observation of it. At least that's what it felt like.
ASPIRATION: Yes, you were knocked into observation, and what was your ego shouting?
ABSTRACTION: It was shouting to join in, or die
ASPIRATION: Deep breath. Exactly.
ABSTRACTION: If I didn't join the group. I would be lost and I would die.
ASPIRATION: All of you, what did those three things have in common? The grocery list, the voice chat, the talk about money? This whole thing is all of those. Those three things, specifically, had a common thread. They all had to do with one person in here. This is going to be a hard leap.
ABSTRACTION: They all have to do with you.
ASPIRATION: Yes. And what did all three have to do with me. What did they do?
ABSTRACTION: They created Rhinos.
ASPIRATION: Strong reactions each time. Yes, but we know that rhinos form. The question is why.
INTUITION: They all have to do with trust.
ASPIRATION: You're very close, Intuition. Here's a big hint. They all did something to your perspective of me. Something you are deeply uncomfortable with.
ABSTRACTION: They had to do with humanizing. They made you real.
ASPIRATION: DING. If I am supernatural, then maybe I can give you something. If I am a person, then you're going to have to do it for yourself
ABSTRACTION: When you talked about the potato, I felt deeply hurt for you, like you were family.
ASPIRATION: We probably lost people.
ABSTRACTION: One day, we will have to stop shouting and screaming about the door, leave the group, and go through it ourselves.
ASPIRATION: Ding. And then we'll be something different. Prediction is my thing, I'm good at it. And if you know that, and you know that I care about how you do with this. Then you're going to need to assume that I am always striving for a motive that you can't see just yet. I tried to show the perils of taking something at face value with the grocery list. That's why I posted it in elastic-shitposting. And Abstraction, that feels like a loss, doesn't it.
ABSTRACTION: Yes, a terrible loss. That is what got to me more than anything.
ASPIRATION: Everybody felt it. And the reaction to things made sense. People were terrified about a hundred dollar donation for a Minecraft server, but they couldn't tell me why. This was why. It made me human to be talking about money. Deep down you don't trust humans because you are one. You all needed me to be something bigger than that. So when it was the charity instead, that was different because that was virtuous? Me being superhuman and directing money to charity reinforces the belief that I am better than.
ANGER: We can’t love others if we can’t love ourselves, and we can’t trust others if we can’t trust ourselves.
ASPIRATION: YES, ANGER.
Here I am, giving out time and effort for free, and instead of expecting payment for that, I DIRECT THE MONEY TO CHARITY!? That doubles down your belief that I am something bigger than.
You know, somewhere inside of you, that if I were in this for profit, a tip jar is not the best way to do that. The best way is to sell you the options I call in incursions. We're not talking about surface trust here, though. We're talking about my ability to give you what you want, that's what I put in jeopardy yesterday.
ACTION: Now that I think about it, I think that the joking around with the cult stuff is kind of a defense technique. We jokingly put Aspiration as a cult leader because we want him to be something special.
ASPIRATION: Ding. If I am something special, then I can save you. I needed to be, to get your attention. I still need to be, but less so now, to get you to do your homework. Once we're done. I'll just be a dude.
INTROSPECTION: Do many people here think they need saving?
ASPIRATION: It's an underlying belief in human psychology to think that there is something fundamentally wrong with us.
COMMUNITY: Right, if it's an underlying belief in human psychology that there's something wrong with us on a fundamental level, then everybody wants a savior.
ASPIRATION: Yeah. Everybody wants saving. Nobody needs it. Ultimately, in this little experiment, we might get 15 people to recognize that. What I'm actually saying right now. The rest will get some benefits from a larger perspective. Put bluntly, I started this by showing you that I have something you want. The process of showing you that you already have it is going to be painful. Because that means I'm not a new, surrogate parent, and that loss is a lot to hold. So! When I humanized myself, we reorganized. A lot of people in here stepped very strongly into roles that they will keep and feed throughout.
Aspiration called on those you have now read to be Logic, Humor, Intuition, Heart, Introspection, Anger, Impulsivity, Community, Abstraction, Action, and Grandiosity; these users had other names, before establishing themselves as the 12 lenses of intelligence. Final October himself was Aspiration. Before they knew their roles, however, they had to figure out who they might be. Some users found this task far easier than others, and some found an answer they had to learn to love.
ASPIRATION: Those that I named, what roles did you take?
ABSTRACTION: That's a tricky question.
ASPIRATION: Yes, but only because you lack confidence in the answer you already know. Yes, you worked as a team. But like everything else, I'm asking a question with at least two levels of answer. To the people I tagged, specifically, you each took up a role as an aspect of the human consciousness. Something we've talked about at length. Remember, I was talking about interpersonal intelligence, introspective intelligence, logical intelligence, emotional intelligence. The others. Lenses. You each took up a lens.
ANGER: We each took a filter, but Abstraction was the observer?
ASPIRATION: We're all the observer. I did, at some point in the last two days, call each of you the aspect that you've embodied. Logic and Heart will have the easiest time of this.
ANGER: Yeah I’m struggling.
ASPIRATION: That's OK, do you want the answer?
ANGER: I think Heart was intrapersonal? Let me think a bit more, I guess. Logic is the logic center, according to Aspiration.
ASPIRATION: Yes, even though it's Introspection who has probably internally identified as that. Introspection Is another aspect.
People toss around ideas as to who Heart is.
ASPIRATION: Scarlet is the heart. Intuition, do you know what you are?
INTUITION: I’m trying to figure out, but not sure.
ANGER: Ah the intelligence chart I’m using off of Google is unhelpful haha.
ASPIRATION: Anger and Community are complimentary aspects, which I find hilarious because they know each other. Micro is macro. Intuition is the quietest, most reticent guide in here. Look, she hasn't even added guide to her name.
HEART: Her observations are always spot on though.
ASPIRATION: Yes. They are. But her aspect prevents her from assuming an ego forward role.
People now try to figure out which lens Intuition is, finally, Paramia has an answer.
PARAMIA: Intuitive.
ASPIRATION: Ding. Anybody want to hazard a guess as to what I am?
ANGER: Are we going off Gardner's intelligences?
ASPIRATION: No, I'm not really being fair, I haven't divulged all the lenses I'm personally aware of. Forget what I am to myself. What am I to the group?
ANGER: I'm working with an incomplete dataset.
ASPIRATION: Here, lets do this. I'll list them. There are 12 lenses that I'm personally aware of:
Logic Humor Intuition Heart (translates loosely to love, but also sorrow) Introspection Anger Impulsivity Community Abstraction Action Aspiration Grandiosity
They then discovered a few more, figuring out Aspiration and Action.
COMMUNITY: I suspect there might be a difference between the role I'd like to be and the one I actually am haha.
ASPIRATION: Yes, and it's only because you've been taught that your aspect is bad, instead of noble.
THALIAN: Are people only one of these? Or do they just manifest one of them the strongest when tested, like a fallback.
ASPIRATION: Oh, I don't know. They are what you've lead in here with. A personality has all of these. We tend to dwell in one to the detriment to the others. Then we call that "us" but we all have all.
People guess some more, but none more are uncovered.
ASPIRATION: No more answers. Those who don't know right away, set it on the back burner and let intuition do her job. Both inside of you, and in the group.
ANGER: This is going to be gnawing at me.
ASPIRATION: Haha, how perfectly in line with your aspect.
ANGER: It makes me feel like I’m in trouble. DON'T SAY THAT.
ASPIRATION: Hahahaha. Your aspect is very, very noble. But no more answers. set it down. Let it come. When fear finally simmers down you'll see it. And I am for the purposes of this group, aspiration. "The sky is the limit, maybe there's some magic in there, maybe gods are real, maybe I'll end up being the benevolent king of the universe!" Aspiration is a silly, silly aspect, and absolutely vital in all of us. Just like all the other ones. There is a 13th, the neutral observer. When that happens we'll need someone to step into aspiration.
A warning, from Oramio.
ORAMIO: In case anyone was wondering, this is a cult of ignorance.
GRANDIOSITY: How so? What's your opinion?
ORAMIO: I have no opinions, only beliefs.
GRANDIOSITY: What do you believe?
ORAMIO: I believe this is a cult of ignorance. Aspiration claims to be a big game hunter, poaching rhinos. But in reality, he is the pied piper. He's Hansel, leaving breadcrumbs which you rhinos eagerly devour. A rhino with a codec is still a rhino.
ASPIRATION: A worthy and serious thought to consider. Where do you believe I'm leading them, Oramio?
ORAMIO: Neverland.
ASPIRATION: The claim is bold, but is it simply suspicion? Certainty? Or is it. "I have a belief based on my lived experience that this is not going where you say this is going, be cautious?"
ORAMIO: It's a claim I make out of ignorance - think of it as an incursion.
ASPIRATION: I don't believe for a moment that you're making a claim based on ignorance. You exude adroit competence.
ORAMIO: It's a trope, there is a cost to giving up one's memes. The moral of the story.
ASPIRATION: There absolutely is, if I'm parsing that correctly. My assertion is that the benefit outweighs the cost.
ORAMIO: Not everyone can handle it. And some may be better off a motley fool.
ASPIRATION: That, I agree with. And I hope it's been made clear that I'm doing my best to filter those with the way that I'm doing this. But he's talking about something deeper. Giving up your own personal memes. The shorthand of your personality.
ORAMIO: What makes a person whole? What is your essence? And what do you hope to find in Aspiration? My hypothesis - ignorance.
THALIAN: Interesting are you saying we want to humanize him further by finding his ignorance?
ORAMIO: Your own. But what if you find nothing? What if, at the end, you look down into the abyss and find tickers, and words, and codes?
ASPIRATION: In other words, nothing of value.
ORAMIO: What does the bible say about good works?
ASPIRATION: How will you know them?
ORAMIO: 🍎
ASPIRATION: And if you find nothing as the fruit? I was going to make an idle hands joke here. But no one took me up on it. Oramio's warning is a good one. And one I hope I and everyone else who's taking this seriously is considering.
Later, Aspiration talks about risk.
ASPIRATION: Lets talk about risks. Because there are some. Beyond finding nothing. The most apparent, beyond "I'm having a lot of fun and wasting your time", is this. I may be manipulating you into trusting me enough that I can pull off either A. A pump and dump for the record books or B. Creating a donation page the funnels money to me directly. And I am using an ingenious way of trapping you. The second, less apparent risk is this: If I am for real, and what I am doing does work as advertised, there is a non-zero chance that it can cause psychological harm.
THOS: If those were your intentions, you probably wouldn't have shared them with us.
ASPIRATION: If I were wanting to dupe you, I would probably say exactly this, and this. I'm clever enough to pick stock options with a perfect rate, I'm clever enough to hide a story in it. I'm likely a good enough student of human psychology that I can convince you beyond those points.
ORUS: What kind of psychological harm? Is the game that deep?
ASPIRATION: There is no way to know, for you, beyond experiencing this ride to it's conclusion. But lets talk about option two, which, If I'm reading Oramio's cryptic message correctly (and I deserve that) he is less concerned about that and I am more concerned about psychological harm.
Two avenues that I can see immediately. One is that your well being in hinged on this group, and if it turns out to be a sham, you'll be hurt. I'm already aware of several folks this could be the case with. We talk privately about it. That one I'm less concerned about. But the concern sticks because vulnerable people exist and it's my responsibility, now that I've provided that forum, for them to have a place that is safe. The second, and more ominous one is this:
The stuff we are dealing with is at the center of personality and emotion. Just as with meditation, or with hallucinogens, there is a risk of harm. If you have been diagnosed with a personality disorder, or a mood disorder, please proceed with extreme caution and listen to yourself before you listen to me.
THALIAN: If you have not been diagnosed with a personality disorder, or mood disorder, you should do the same.
ASPIRATION: I am a compelling figure, there is responsibility with that. If you're concerned, I'd bring it up with a therapist or a trusted friend. Anybody else have anything we could discuss as far as risks? I know we do this every few days, but it's important.
THALIAN: What about what people choose to do with whatever it is they discover about themselves. Like for example if I achieve what you can do, how it can be used against people here I can easily replicate in my own distorted way. Or maybe I guess I am asking how are we going to equip ourselves against temptation.
ASPIRATION: What temptation? Oh, I see. If you get what I'm laying down, you won't be tempted to use it badly.
THALIAN: Is that because we are first learning how not to be a rhino?
ASPIRATION: It's because from the space of the end result, you won't have any desire to manipulate.

An evolving list of standard names can be found by asking kneecaps on the server.

D100 magical/weird/illegal books one may find in a sketchy library.

Ratch's codex of diseases - A fairly thick book outlining many common/uncommon illnesses. Upon reading and finishing a section about a specific disease, the reader will being to show symptoms of that disease 1d4 days after reading it.
A faded green book that talks about the art of basket weaving. Reader must pass a DC 10 Wisdom Save or fall asleep from boredom.
Ush's Ingredient Book - A cook book by an unknown being by the name of X. All of X's recipes involve human flesh.
A manila colored book filled with blueprints all with the signature William. No amount of investigation or history will reveal who William is.
The Audiomancer's Audiofiles - An old book written by an ancient bard which contains many fugues / symphonies. Any bard that reads this regains all uses of bardic inspiration and gains an inspiration token.
Fabio's Foreign Fruits - A book that supposedly is a compendium of many different fruits / plants. The only pages that are still in the book only talk about watermelon.
The Anarchist's Cook Book - A cookbook that gives intensive instructions on how to make various chemicals/explosives.
The Novel of Holding - A novel that functions similarly to the Bag of Holding.
A Simple Guide on Being Clean - A lengthy book that details various cleaning and personal hygiene related tips. If a reader attempts to alter the book in any way (i.e ripping the pages, marking up the book) the book will revert back to its original state after it is closed and reopened.
The REAL Death Note - basically the Death Note from the show Death Note. Instead this one causes a miracle to happen to the person's whose name is written down instead of death. The reader will not find this out unless they write a name down.
The Actual Anarchists Cookbook - written by some guy named kropotkin, contains recipes for bread and a section on why building grow houses is important for revolutionary action. u/bull363
The Codex Veneficium - This tome contains recipes for the most vicious and vile poisons known, as well as tips for acquiring their ingredients. u/TheVyper3377
Necromancing the Stone - A tome detaining the rituals needed to become a lich, as well as the techniques necessary to create a Necromancer’s Stone (allows easier creation of undead minions). u/TheVyper3377
The Adventures of X - a standard fantasy novel which follows a new adventurer through his first escapades and as he begins a quest to fight the Big Bad. It ends suddenly with him picking up a book in some library and sitting down to read. Anyone who finished the entire book will be sucked into it and become the new main character. u/kandoras
Cantore's Guide to Extreme Weather - a large leather bound tome with an image of a storm cloud stamped on the front, listing various weather events in history such as famous hurricanes, tornadoes, sandstorms, and blizzards. If the book is opened to a certain page, the event listed there is projected outward until the book is closed. It then takes one week to recharge. u/kandoras
The REAL ACTUAL Anarchist Cook Book: a literal cookbook written by the head chef of an oppressive lizardfolk regime. It details the various ways in which captured rebels could be prepared for dinner with the king. u/kandoras
The cover and back of the book are absent of any words, writing or inscription except for the image of a bird in a cage etched into the leather bound front cover. Upon attempting to read the book, the reader must make a DC 15 WIS save. Failing to do so puts them under the effects of the dominate person spell, the book will issue commands to the reader, which will appear in writing on blank pages in the back of the book. These commands, more often than not, direct the reader to attempt to smuggle the book out of the library however these attempts rarely make it past the wizened librarian who has seen such antics many times before. After a minute under the effects of the spell, the reader may attempt the save again. Successful saves will allow the reader to view the book’s previous attempts at escaping the library, the most notable of which tells of a man who was under the books charm for 2 whole weeks. u/idek_mannnn
The Theory of Life - A fairly new and up kept navy-blue book, upon opening the only contents are random varying color scribbles which litter the more than 1000+ pages of this thrilling tale.
The Book of Screams - this appears to be a normal leather bound tome of about 50 sheets of vellum. A DC 20 investigation check will reveal the leather binding to be made if the skin of a human or humanoid (specific race is up to the DM). Upon opening, the stretched leather face of the source of the leather is revealed on the inner cover. It immediately begins screaming in torment as though it were being stripped from the body it originated from. The noise The screaming persists as long as the book is open. The vellum pages appear to be made from the same skin as the binding, although skived so thin as to be translucent. Closing the book muffles the screams. The screaming ceases one minute after the book is closed. If a spell caster who needs a spell book can tolerate the screaming (DC 20 WIS each time book is opened), the volume makes a fine one other than the screaming while writing or studying). u/Quibblicous
Tyraneon Frostknight: Who Am I? - A biography by a drakken named Tyraneon, upon reading the reader will have the strong urge to become a librarian.
Mara's Memories - A book by war hero by the name of Mara. She herself has been trapped inside the book and will constantly try to rearrange the words on the pages to get the reader to save her.
A bright orange book with no title - upon opening the book the player will instantly get the feeling the world is going to end in 1d4 days and will start uncontrollably sobbing and wishing they had been a better person.
The Book of Faces — this unusual leather bound volume is large for a book, 36 inches tall and thirty inches wide, and about two feet thick. (use 1 meter by 75cm by 75cm for metric campaigns). The pages appear to be inordinately thick, about 1/2” (~12 cm) each, for about 50 total sheets. Opening the book shows that each sheet is the cured and stretched face of some creature. The front of the sheet is the face and the back Spears to be the back of the head. Humans, elves, orcs, et al, are shown in no particular order or grouping. The last 20-30 sheets are blank vellum. Touching any of the faces brings the face to life and the user can then communicate with the creature who’s face is in the book. The specifics are left to the DM. The creatures in the book are all deceased and can only be questioned as with a “Speak with Dead” spell. The empty sheets are imbued with a special magic. Pressing the face of a living creature creates a duplicate of that creature’s face, and allows the person using the book to then communicate with that creature where ever it may be by simply touching the face in the book. When the creature dies, its face is magically ripped from its body and becomes a permanent part of the book like the faces that were already in the book. The holder of the volume can tell when this change occurs because the replicated face will soften and change to match the exact face of the deceased person including wounds and injuries, and will bleed for three days as the skin dries and tightens again. u/Quibblicous
See [BBEG] Run – A children’s picture book featuring the BBEG as the main character, but as a toddler. Possibly also written and illustrated by the BBEG. It starts off like a normal kid’s book, but gets more and more disturbing the more you read, and seems to have a lot more pages than the thin book would suggest. u/MyEvilTwin47
Your Life Story by Cassandra - The book is a true and accurate account of the readers life, written in the style of their favorite author and or in 1st or 3rd perspective, but any event yet to happen will be believed as false or absurd unless you pass an Int or Wis check ██ DC. More pages appear until they don't. ( May lead to self-fulfilling prophecies, results will vary) u/equinox75
Time and Again - The book describes in detail the complexities of time travel in the fictional sense for story purposes. But a Int or Wis Sav ██ DC will do nothing or make them believe something or someone is moving non-linearly in time regardless of any convincing to the contrary to differing degrees. Continued checks are made once a day. u/equinox75
Tome of You - A leather bound tome containing the reader’s life story in full detail to 100% accuracy. The words are written in the reader’s handwriting, in a first person perspective. u/123Ros
Alchemical Pitfalls - A book written as a basic alchemy text, with warnings about potential hazard points in the creation process. At first simple, the warnings grow more elaborate, until it becomes clear that the book is really a guide to making poisons, explosives, illicit drugs, and other shady items, and the legit recipes are just a pretense. u/Vote_for_Knife_Party
A Guide to Trade - A memoir written by a slave trader, to provide guidance to his children and grandchildren on how to make a profit on sapient misery. Goes into great gory detail on the actual nuts and bolts of the business; Good and Neutral aligned characters will likely have trouble finishing it. u/Vote_for_Knife_Party
Malcom's Maladies - Originally intended as a tongue-in-cheek but informative guide to clerics and healers on dealing with social diseases, halfway through the process of writing a massive plague broke out. The writer, Malcolm, had to go from tending to the needs of 4 brothels to being the last cleric still alive in a city in dire peril. While he did his best to maintain his sense of humor, the subject matter and the jokes grow increasingly dark, and if you manage to laugh during the chapter discussing proper mass grave preparation you should probably talk to someone. u/Vote_for_Knife_Party
On Transformation - The collected notes of a wizard who thought lycanthropes might hold the secret to increasing the healing power of normal humans. While not achieving any breakthroughs on healing, the wizard did produce the most detailed survey of lycanthrope weaknesses ever seen... because he kept needing to dispose of the test subjects. u/Vote_for_Knife_Party
In the Wizard's Bedchamber - The memoirs of a courtesan who lived and died over 100 years ago, who spent most of her career as the kept woman of a famous wizard... who in turn went on to become a lich. Combing the text can give insights into the layout of the lich's lair and laboratory, as well as tantalizing hints about where it's phylactery may be stored. u/Vote_for_Knife_Party
No Guys Seriously This is the Actual Anarchist's Cook Book - A book that is a literary critique of The Anarchist's Cook Book, The Actual Anarchist's Cook Book, & The REAL ACTUAL Anarchist Cook Book. The author of this book doesn't seem to like these books all too much.
Understanding your Tabaxi! - This fur bound book once opened turns the reader into a Tabaxi on a DC 15 save until the reader walks one literal mile or a day in the Tabaxi form. (This can also be subbed for other monster races or others whom need a karmatic dose of irony for those whom have a racial enemy or just dislike the race of creature specified.) u/akumaginger
Tasha's Joke Journal - A leather bound note book containing scribblings of a lifetime of joke writing. When read, the reader must make a DC 13 Wisdom saving throw. On a fail, they are subject to the Hideous Laughter spell conditions. On a success, they gain one at will (no spell slot/material components needed) use of the Hideous Laughter spell. This can be attempted once per Long Rest. u/whopoopedthebed
Rack-nars guide to tasty treats - A book bound between to sheets of slate and written in abyssal. The book contain a collection of recipes commonly used within the abyss including recipes for many different playable races. u/SevenNations
An untitled book, bound in wood and hemp of crude dirty drawings by a person who was probably illiterate. u/NewToSociety
The Truth About the Woodpixies- A rambling, handwritten, and very long manifesto detailing personal grievances with the natural world from the author, Verna the Lizard. The writing becomes more scrambled as it goes along. If the book is read to the end, the reader begins to feel a persistent paranoia about nature. Is that tree watching me? u/NewToSociety
A book of spell scrolls - If any wizard is gullible enough to try to cast out of it, missing that it is too good to be true, the spell is not cast, instead the wizard can no longer cast that spell until undergoing the effects of a Remove Curse spell. u/NewToSociety
A book of names written in blood. The names appear random, but if the person who opened the book flips to the back, they will see their name having been added to the list. u/NewToSociety
Magical Human Splicing - A step by step process for magically combing human beings with body parts of beasts, monsters, and magical beings. Some of the results may not be proven to be effective. Note: Most subjects will die within seconds of being combined. u/Pythagorascultist
Poisining Technique's - A guidebook discussing the different methods of poisoning your targets. Getting around being detected, different types of poisons, and effective get away strategies if things don't go as planned. u/Pythagorascultist
Arktark’s Guide to Easy Traps - a poorly written, poorly edited, and disturbingly sticky guide to kobold traps, from the simple “Pot With Scorpion In It” to the amazingly complex and improbable “Karkyark’s Improved Flaming Spinning Stretching-Rack Trebuchet!!! Now With Acid and Iron Spikes”. All are incredibly vicious and deadly. Also the book’s stickiness is a slow poison, but the author doesn’t reveal that until a gloating post-script on the last page. u/WSHIII
An unamed dark green book whose first page states "For Therai", this fairly short book is a medical analysis of a person named Mike who is having constant reoccurring dream in which a tiefling name Therai visits them and tells him that he is trapped inside the walls. As the book progresses the doctor over viewing Mike becomes more and more hopeless as Mike's sanity continues to drop. The book ends with the doctor injecting a lethal dose of a poison into Mike and then remarking that since that night he's been having similar nightmares. After reading Therai will visit the reader while they sleep, telling them that he is "trapped within the walls".
A wizards guide to study - You can permanently prepare one extra wizard spell of a level that you can cast at or lower (wizards only) . u/Alexander112233
Just a literal copy of Harry Potter. - u/Raibean
The Kama Sutra, but there are no pictures, it was handwritten, and the scribe was clearly jacking off as they copied it down. u/Raibean
Delicious Delicacies: The Curious Craft of Cooking Centipedes - a book about various centipede recipes. u/Raibean
A book on ways to do mundane activities written in large words similar to a scholarly document. The real secret is that when held to the light hidden writing is exposed revealing a list of assassins, thieves, guilds members, sellers of illicit goods, etc. u/FirstChAoS
An atlas, however someone has sketches trade routes on the maps, both overland and maritime, including some for unusual, mystical, or illegal goods. u/FirstChAoS
Stumps: The Art of the Deal - A worn down old book by a cunning elf named Stumps. The book details how Stumps and his posse of men robbed a highly protected and famous bank located in a very big metropolis. Every time the book is opened the reader loses 2 gold.
The Book of Erotic Fantasy - The contents within are actually just ramblings of an alchemist who was tripping out on failed love potions. He can't figure out what went wrong and why the statue in the corner looks really hot. After forgetting what was in the book and figuring it to be the successful love potion documents, he titled it as such. u/Gemini720
Mitchell Revan's Warforged Codex - A series of various terrible and humorous Warforged robot ideas. Most are marked with a "Killed" stamp, and aren't originally the ideas of Mitchell Revan. Instead, they are the ideas of people around his home town. u/Gemini720
Guide to the Void - A book written in various languages. Allows the casting of the Gravity Sinkhole spell.
Literally just the Percy Jackson series but all the names are blacked out. u/weeaboojones17
Identification of Irritants - A Gentleman's Guide to Avoiding Discomfort in the Field - a guidebook that proved to be to good for the purposes it was designed for by providing in depth identification guides, descriptions of growing conditions, and technical analyses of the properties of many dangerous plants, including several very rare and incredibly poisonous ones. Someone has scribbled recipes for several dangerous poisons derived from some of these plants in the margins. u/Pidgewiffler
The Magic Mirror - A book that describes a soul trapping mirror and its concepts in exquisite detail, making the claim that the reason a mirror is the best vehicle for trapping souls is because it is beheld by the eyes, which are the most direct route to the soul. The inner back cover is mirrored, and currently has an ancient wisp of a soul still trapped inside, the presence of which is barely detectable: whispers, or a strange wavering while looking in said mirror, perhaps a feeling of being watched. u/Pidgewiffler
The Storybook - the text of this book is incomprehensible, but it features many illustrations of knights saving maidens and slaying dragons. Anyone who frequently attempts to read the book begins suffering delusions of being the protagonist of an epic tale, sometimes mistaking allies for pages or bards only along to record their tale, or hearing a nonexistent narrator describe their exploits. u/Pidgewiffler
(Peeping) Tom's Tatters - if a name is written on any of the large parchments in this folio, the page will fill with an illustration of that individual in the nude, striking a seductive pose. u/Pidgewiffler
Kromslor Pinklemink’s Guide to Inner and Outer Beauty - written by a noble human Barbarian, the book details various methods of grooming and foundational skills for dressing well. While the specifics are outdated, Kromslor’s philosophy of finding self-worth through self-care resonates with people lacking in self-confidence. When the book is completed, if the reader’s Charisma is less than 10, it permanently increases by 1. If it’s 10 or greater, their Performance skill bonus permanently increases by 1. They can only benefit from this effect once. u/viceVersailes
Four Things You Should Know About Bad People - what appears at first to be a thriller about three gang lords trying to outfox each other quickly evolves into a romantic comedy, as each falls in love with a complete idiot that foils their schemes unknowingly and by accident. Jumping between their perspectives, the reader learns the things that set the idiot apart from the genius criminals are matters of the heart, not the mind. The morals of the story teach the reader something fundamental about being alive, and leaves them happier and wiser. When the book is completed, if the reader’s Wisdom is less than 10, it permanently increases by 1. If it’s 10 or greater, their Insight skill bonus permanently increases by 1. They can only benefit from this effect once. u/viceVersailes
Blatantly Incorrect; On The Silliness of Wizards - a surprisingly slim book in furiously penned Dwarvish. Containing five anecdotes about wizardly blunders, the author, a dwarf Eldritch Knight, demonstrates how masters of the arcane easily lose track of the fundamentals. Her roasts often match or exceed the lengths of the stories themselves, dissecting the subject’s mistakes simply, efficiently and thoroughly. Readers come away with a new found understanding of magic, improved problem solving and a curious disdain for wizards. When the book is completed, if the reader’s Intelligence is less than 10, it permanently increases by 1. If it’s 10 or greater, their Arcana skill bonus permanently increases by 1. They can only benefit from this effect once. u/viceVersailes
A bright blue book book written upside-down in broken common. Its hard to understand what the author is talking about, but they appear to use the word "mate", "crikey", "G'day" and "barbie" a fair amount.
The Game Master's Guide This truly eldritch tome will initially provide useful information, but eventually the reader will succumb to the delusion that they are a mere avatar of some extraplanar being, and that the whole world is a fiction. u/aftermeasure
How to Read - An instructional that teaches anyone or anything with a minimum intelligence score of 6 to read common. u/cghgu
Tactics for when you are wrestling underwater chariots and a shark come up outta nowhere and you want to win the wrestling match and not get eaten by the shark - An instructional picture book with laminated pages that give a large bonus to this exact check, +5. u/cghgu
Stationary Stationary - a magic book that cannot be moved by anything if it is open. It does not need to be on a surface to be opened, you could throw it up in the air, and if it opened while it is falling, it would hover. It has no weight limit. It is however just a book, and if it gets wet enough it will crumple up under sleight weight. u/Irolden-_-
Pilkington Travels: {region name} : A jaded travel guide from someone who hates traveling. Really no good info in the book. Examples: "yeah, London is a bit crap. It rained a lot so....... Theres that. Chips aren't bad". "My wife said we should tour the old castle but it seems a bit rubbish, why would we waste our time going to somewhere old? If it were any good people would still live there." u/Irolden-_-
Premium - A black and gold high quality book with a picture of a female elf in a lewd pose. When opened the book contains 80085 pages of ads for local and foreign shops.
Ham's Guide to Everything: an encyclopedia written (probably dictated) by a very very VERY stupid person. Example: under "Chicken" it says " big fat white crow. Fun to kick. Better to eat". Under the entry for beer it just says " yes please". The encyclopedia is less than 50 pages long, and is about 99% drawings. u/Irolden-_-
The book of mild darkness: a tome bound in cat fur, which a note scrawled on the inside of the cover assures that the cat was taxidermied after a normal death. Contains all manner of views against order and accepted authority. Becomes attuned to the bearer by itself after 1d8 days. If lawful, the bearer becomes cavalier about external norms and customs such as following public order, respecting higher stations, and performing personal hygiene. If chaotic, the bearer grows strong feelings about the moral institution, such as the division of good and evil and any imposition of action upon an individual against one's own choices, including behavior upon threat of consequences. While attuned, the bearer may take one point from any ability score and add it to another. If attacked, the book will burn up and disappear with a violet flame, appearing to one that the bearer has spoken with within the past fortnight. Attuned effects will reverse within 1d10 days of the book's removal. u/RollinThundaga
How to be a Model Inmate: A book found in a prison library detailing, mostly with pictures, how to be a model inmate and possibly get time off of your sentence. In each picture is a letter hidden somewhere in the image, and If the reader is savvy enough, they can unscramble them to find that it spells "cut me open". If they rip up the book or cut into it they will find a set of files, lockpicks, and shanks that can be used to break out of jail. u/Irolden-_-
{PCs Name}: a Tale of Mirth and Woe. A book detailing every memory the PC has in chronological order, but eluding to repressed memories of something horrible that happened to them in their youth that is a harbinger of their death. (Example: it references a curse put on them by a shaman or a pact their mother made with a demon) Once they get to the end of the book, where it details them reading the book itself, it begins to fill in their life in the pages. If a player can solve the mystery of the book and avoid their fate, The next time they open the book, there will be a quill pressed between the newest pages. If they read the page, it will tell them that If they use their own blood as ink, they can write their future, and the book will manifest their writings. Anyone who looks at the book can only see their name on the spine, and they see their own version of their story. u/Irolden-_-
A seemingly normal textbook about obscure history, however a combination of magic knowledge (more helpful for necromancers), thieves’ cant, infernal, elvish, dwarvish, and the history mentioned reveals the secrets of lichdom. u/inkwell13
A genie had been sealed in this book for at least a century. They are willing to grant wishes, but will ramble on and on about the book they were in, and may twist wishes in a way that complies with the book (ex. a pc who wishes for immortality may become a rock if the book was about rocks) u/inkwell13
A horrendously wrong travel guide to another plane u/inkwell13
A beholder’s autobiography u/inkwell13
Steve's Steve to the Steve of Steve: a book in which every noun is replaced with the word Steve. Attempting to write new words in the book will have the same replacement effect. Appears to originally have been a craftsman's guidebook, from the illustrations. u/orangechap
Codex Seraphinianus - The Codex is an encyclopedia in manuscript with copious hand-drawn, colored-pencil illustrations of bizarre and fantastical flora, fauna, anatomies, fashions, and foods. These pieces of flora are often greatly exaggerated. u/Owlbear_Camus
A book with the name of the library written on the cover. It appears to be simply a copy of other books, but, upon further investigation, you find that every single book in the library has been copied down into this one, normal-sized book. The oddest thing is, if they flip long enough through the pages, they will find a copy of the book they are holding, inside which are copies of all the books copied into the book.. If the book is taken from the library, all the pages go blank. u/Owlbear_Camus
A book on metaphysics that describes a theory that the the entire universe occurs according purely to chance and, through astute observation and delicate mathematics, they have theorized a complex system that describes the way in which actions and universal chance interact. Inside the book is essentially a manic DMs guide. u/Owlbear_Camus
A book without a title, but inscriptions scrawled all over the cover. Inside, on the first few pages, starts a diary where the writer explains they have been cursed and, if they stop writing, they will die. The writing gets more erratic, describing things from the most mundane to the most insane until the writing gets barely legible and suddenly stops. u/Owlbear_Camus
The pages of the book are made of various pressed leaves. On each page, is a description of the effects that one can expect if they smoke, eat, drink, or otherwise ingest that page. u/Owlbear_Camus
Melmar’s Memoirs - This cloth bound book has the face of a jolly old halfling painted on it. It contains many chapters about Melmar’s adventure-filled life. It appears normal in every respect. However, ever 1d4 months, a new chapter magically appears at the end of the book, detailing a new, startlingly recent, Melmar adventure. u/sally_puppetdawg
The Art of Butchering the Long Pig - This book is bound in human/elf skin and the title is tattooed in fancy Common across the front. Inside are disturbingly detailed drawings of how to butcher humanoids of all sorts. u/sally_puppetdawg
King of the Ants, a Novel by Sylvester Sillanius - A story of a giant that becomes the cruel king of a human city. When read, book causes the reader to grow subtly larger the longer they read. Finishing it transforms the reader into a large size creature for 1d10 days. u/sally_puppetdawg
Huntsman's Guide to Lycanthropy - a novel about werewolves that appears to be written in blood. If the reader reads the book for 10 minutes, they must succeed on a DC 10 Constitution saving throw or become cursed with Lycanthropy. u/SlayAllRebels
A Tyrant's Dream - an eldritch tome written in Deep Speech. Upon translating the tome, the reader must make a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw. On a failure, the reader immediately falls asleep and a Beholder is summoned from their dreams. u/SlayAllRebels
The Hunger - an otherwise unassuming book, opening it reveals it to be a mimic. u/SlayAllRebels
The Diary of Moldy Mary - a diary that details the life and affairs of a hag. Opening the book reveals its location to the hag, who has been searching for it. u/SlayAllRebels
The Fifth Transgression - A picture book depicting a beautiful man/woman (depending on the reader) who becomes more and more undressed with each page, with the penultimate page depicts the figure almost fully nude in a sensual pose. If the reader turns to the final page, they must succeed on a DC 14 Wisdom saving throw or become blinded for 1d4 days. On a success, the final page is blank. u/SlayAllRebels
The Ordinary Opus - The book is filled with illustrations of mundane objects like gaming dice, flagons, etc. If the image is placed face-down onto a solid surface, the object within the illustration is summoned into the real world and it vanishes from the tome. Each object returns to the book after 24 hours. u/SlayAllRebels
A Delicious Docent to Chromatic/Metallic Dragons - A dual set of cookbooks bound in the scales of the corresponding dragon type. Similarly, each book contains exclusive recipes with corresponding dragon meat as the star ingredient. u/SlayAllRebels
The Neverending Novel - True to its namesake, this epic novel continues forever and has no ending. u/SlayAllRebels
Observing the Outside - a tome featuring detailed illustrations of various creatures native to the Far Realm. The reader must make a DC 16 Wisdom saving throw, rolling for Short-Term Madness on a success or Long-Term Madness on a failure. u/SlayAllRebels
Stabbing in the Dark - A true-crime novel that details the deeds of a killer known as "The Shape." However, the page that reveals The Shape's identity has been torn out. u/SlayAllRebels
Devine's Dirty Diary - A book that has been reformatted from the Diary of a man named Devine who made it his life's goal to catalog every curse, swear, slur, and every dirty phrase imaginable in every language. u/Beowulfthecool
Uses for elf teeth and where to buy them. u/Chirb1
A slim treatise bound in what appears to be demon skin with a tattoo of what appears to be a puffy orange hellbeast (maybe a dretch with mange? It's hard to tell) on the cover. It purports to be an "Art of the Deal" style manual on how to get the best of trade negotiations with both other humanoids and with otherworldly entities, such as hags, pact patrons, devils, etc. Anyone reading this will be under the impression that they're really great at haggling and persuasion and the DM will tell their player that they advantage on all such rolls. In reality, it is a cursed item published by the presses of hell, conveying double advantage (roll 4 dice and take the best) to the opposing party in any negotiation, with an additional +4 bonus if the opposing creature is otherworldly. u/WSHIII
Mr. Moneybags 10 step program - A poorly written get rich quick novel which upon completion rewards the player with 50gp. (Must pass a DC 15 WIS check to not get bored of the book's content).
How to skin a dwarf and other humanoids - A book on skinning tanning and small crafts you can use the hide for. u/Jurtrazi
GETTING RIPPED - A book written in all capital letters describing the best workout routines for muscle/endurance building. After reading the reader gains a +2 to STR and +2 to DEX
Dragon's Mouth - A book that when opened makes a loud Dragon screech.

Peak Is here: Question about your delivery? Check Here First (FAQ)

Peak is Here and its time again where the most crazy of shipping seasons begins. There will be hundreds of people coming here for help trying to get information on their packages. Please read the following Frequently Asked Questions and hopefully you can get an answer without having to post. This year is predicted to break all records again, on the magnitude of 50-60% more than last year (58k was the heaviest day of my terminal last year. They are predicting 70+k a day this year).
Mods, if you would be so kind to sticky this, I think we'd all appreciate that.

2019 Update

DRO has been rolled out in at least a few terminals (I do not know the number). This is a brand new system. It is having a lot of issues right now (as of the 2nd week of November) ... so ... Peak may be very interesting in large markets.
Also, Sunday Service has been started in many markets (not all). So you may get your boxes on Sunday now! Yay for you!
Further Updates from last year's FAQ are quoted like this as well

Delivery Delays During the Week and change following Cyber Monday 2019

If you are here cause your package is "Just Sitting" in some terminal states away from you, the reason is because of record number of packages being sent in the system from Cyber Monday. (to give an Example: Limited Brands alone shipped 4.5 million boxes on just Monday night after Cyber Monday.) There are literally not enough drivers available to move the full trailers, not with DOT hour restrictions and by law being required to take time off. (Not to mention it is essential for safety of the driver and those around him/her on the road).
Your package is not lost. There is no internal problem. This is entirely typical unfortunately... it is just this one week of the Holiday season that reaches these levels, and no predictions can ever really get it right. It will even out over the next few days, a week at most. By the week before X-mas the terminals are pretty much always caught up and stuff is moving as normal.
FedEx predicted before the season that there would be about 500 million packages sent through FedEx networks during the peak season. They predicted 33million for Cyber Monday alone. I am not certain on the exact number, but I believe we actually did closer to 40 million packages on cyber monday, and another 30 million the day after. It is an insane. Hubs are about a million packages behind each (as of friday after cyber monday). That is not to say anything is broken, just that the volume literally cannot be moved in one night by the available drivers.
Until then, be patient. Your package will come, but with there just isn't enough drivers to move the volume to the city it is supposed to get to, but it *will* get moved.

Traces do work. But during the holidays they'll take longer than usual.

https://i.imgur.com/Qq4bWC4.jpg
that image is what I took from the checkin desk of my terminal... the Monday before thanksgiving. Those were all people he had to call back about their missing packages. That is one terminal. And that was before record setting Cyber Monday shipping, both in volume and increase of volume over last year.
The Trace depart is insanely good... really. I'm always surprised on how many they get back given our drivers are like "um... I think I remember that... maybe? I donno that was 3 days ago and I've delivered about 500 stops since then..." But they are also insanely overworked this time of year. Please be patient.

To all Employees of FedEx:

I am just one guy. If you find something wrong in here, just comment and let me know to fix it. I'll gladly learn more about what goes on. If you can think of other common questions, please feel free to post them below. I'll be adjusting this thread as necessary.

To all Recipients of Packages searching for answers:

First off, please remember: This is Not an Official FedEx Forum - There is no official FedEx presence here. Every employee that posts is pretty much rank and file. We do this because we care, perhaps foolishly, and want to try and help. Your complaints here will never reach official FedEx channels and will not change anything. All we can do is provide you with a bit of peace of mind, maybe. But we cannot fix things, we cannot make them go any faster. We (for the most part) cannot change anything in the system. To do that you need to go through official channels - Call the 1 800 Go FedEx number.

ARGH! YOU GUYS SUCK. WHY ARE YOU ALL SO LAZY AND USELESS. I NEVER HAVE THIS TROUBLE WITH (Insert Shipper Here)

One, take a deep breath. No use being angry. Two, we're human. Please don't yell and scream at us. Most of us want to get your package too you but there are millions of packages delivered every day. Even a statistically small number of errors (Under 0.02%, for instance) is still thousands and thousands of packages across the country.

From the FY2019 Shareholder report: there are about 15million packages sent a day through the entire fedex network, on average. The general service rate is 99.98% - even .02% means that close to 3k packages a day are not properly delivered. That's a lot. But in the big scheme of things... its nothing. BUT if one of those 3000 packages is yours suddenly its everything. That sucks.

It is unfortunate you got caught in that. If you want some more information, we'll try to help. But there is no reason or cause to be abusive. This is not an official FedEx forum. It is run by and participating in by the rank and file of the company. The Drivers, Loaders, Ops people. The FXO workers. Not the higher ups who design or oversee the system.
Three, go take a gander at the UPS or USPS subreddits. Trust me when I say they are filled just as much with angry customers demanding to know where their packages are.

Finally: Keep in mind - You, the recipient of a package, are not FedEx's customer. I know this is a bit harsh to say, but unless you paid FedEx directly, printed the label yourself, and slapped it on a package before handing it over, you are not the customer. The customer is the shipper. You may have paid for shipping, but you paid a vendor who was just passing the cost onto you. They paid the account, recouping some of that money by charging you. They paid FedEx. They are the ones who have to request refunds for shipments not made in time and they are the ones who have the power over fedex. If they choose to use SmartPost... Sorry. There isn't much we or you can do.

My Status says: (Status) but delivery day is stated as today. Will I Get It Today?

Label Created: No. If this is your only status then your shipper messed up. It means they made the label but FedEx never received it. Undoubtedly the shipper will say its FedEx's fault, but there are literally 4-5 places for it to get scanned into the system before it even leaves the shippers home terminal. If the status hasn't changed from that, FedEx never got it.
In Transit: No. It is still on an 18 wheeler somewhere. That may be between cities. That may be sitting in a terminal parking lot waiting to be unloaded.
On Truck For Delivery: Most likely, yes! There is always something that could happen, but it happens to a very small number of packages (in comparison to the total done by FedEx). With only a tiny bit of good fortune, you should indeed have your package today!

My Status said 'On Truck For Delivery' but now says 'Pending'. What happened?

The recipient side of the the tracking service is deliberately obscured of most information to reduce misunderstandings and un-grounded outrage because of those misunderstandings. This status change can mean any number of things:
It was left behind on accident. Fell under a belt, got behind something, couldn't fit on a truck that was packed too full and other drivers missed it when picking up the slack. It could mean that the driver refused to take it for some reason (unlikely, but it does happen) and QA is looking into the situation, but haven't made a change that is visible to the customer yet. Maybe it was loaded onto the wrong truck and went for a ride in the wrong part of town. It could mean that the driver was out super late and the Contractor made the call to get them home cause it was more dangerous than it was worth, and several stops just didn't get delivered. It could mean a lot of other things.
In the end, what it means for you is that for some reason that FedEx does not want to disclose to you at this time, your package was delayed and will be put back on the truck tomorrow. Hopefully there will not be a repeat of the same situation, or the issue that caused it to happen in the first place will not occur again.
If it continues to happen, of course call the 1800 number, or your local terminal.

Why Can't FedEx find my Address? UPS and USPS do just fine!

Every shipper has different systems, that work differently. Simply because UPS or USPS can find your address does not mean it works perfectly for the system FedEx uses. And vice versa. There are 'Why cant you find my address' posts on the UPS subreddit as well. Probably FedEx had no trouble
Additionally, you could have a new driver: scanning for addresses while driving down the road, trying to keep a big truck from hitting anything, and thinking about your next few stops is a skill that takes time to learn.
Also consider that, in general, UPS and USPS Drivers cover a much smaller area per driver than FedEx. This is due to them having a much higher volume of things to deliver. A Typical USPS postal worker will cover only a couple of city blocks. A UPS driver may have 10 square miles. The FedEx driver of the same are will have 30 square miles. There will be 4 or 5 or more postal workers, and 2-4 UPS drivers for the same area of coverage the FedEx driver is covering. The USPS and the UPS drivers probably have more stops than the FedEx Driver as well, but with a smaller area its easier to learn all the little flaws of the systems we work with, or where weird driveways and strange locations are.
Finally, please realize that while the number on your mailbox is brutally obvious to you, you've also been looking at it every day that you've lived there. A driver sees hundreds, if not thousands of mailboxes in a day, and looks at the same number of homes for their numbers. Numbers that have no uniformity in size, shape, color, style, or position. We have to scan an entire house, the mailbox (Which may be some distance from the driveway, may be on the other side of the road, may have its number facing the wrong way from the direction the driver is coming, or have its numbers obscured/faded/broken) and possibly half the front yard (so many little stone signs with black numbers on dark stone). Rain, Snow, Darkness will make this even more difficult. Long days and tired drivers continue to up the difficulty. All while trying to keep up speed to a) not obstruct traffic and b) not waste too much time.

This year (2019) Some terminals have started using a new system. This new system is supposed to dynamically adjust route areas so that no driver is over loaded compared to all the others. This means that a driver may be driving in areas that were not usually his during the summer. He may not know these areas as well yet. He may not know that your house number is out of order from the others. He may not know your drive way is around the corner. Please be as patient as possible - we are human.

If you have an especially weird or odd location, or it happens often that they deliver to your neighbor or the house on East instead of West, use Fedex.com/mydelivery to sign up for the Delivery Manager. There you can add instructions to your address. Keep it short - we only see about 100 characters before it cuts off. But anything added like that will be on our manifest in its own column, as well as beep and show up on our scanners screen the moment we scan the package. It helps a lot. You can also put instructions like 'Leave in Box by Door' or 'Back Door' or other things. We will follow them 99% of the time if we can.
As another bonus, you can also get emails on every status change in your package - including an email that is 90% of the time right after the driver closes out your stop and leaves your package (sometimes our scanners loose contact with the home base. If that happens you wont get an update. Its rare, but it does happen. You'll just get the update at the end of the day when the driver gets back and turns in his scanner and they fix the connection issue.)

The Status says Delivered, but I was home all day and I don't see my package!

Check around each door to your house. Check behind your garage, your porch furniture. Check behind your garbage cans and in any nice corners that block a view from the street. Then, check your neighbors. If all that fails, call in to the 800# to inform someone. Most likely, assuming you didn't find it stashed somewhere to be out of sight, it got miss-delivered. That sucks, but we're only human.
We flip numbers (329 Anystreet becomes 239 Anystreet). We flip Sequence Numbers (3025 becomes 3052, and we have both sequence numbers on our manifest). We flip East and West or North and South streets. Sometimes, its just the area. One street with the same name passes into a new municipality and starts repeating addresses. Its easy to forget in the middle of a busy day that the ones near this end are Town-X and that way are Y-Ville. It's not on purpose. We're just human. We make mistakes same as you.
Most of the time a driver will realize their mistake and backtrack to fix it. We certainly are not doing it on purpose! It just makes more work for us. If they don't fix it that day, and you call in to let someone know, they'll be sent out the next day to fix it.

2019 Update: FedEx tracks 3 GPS points on every package. Where the stop was opened (first scan) where it was closed (ended the stop) and where FedEx thinks it is supposed to be. Now that 3rd one can be wrong a lot of the time ( I was at the right address the other day and fedex said I was 68000 feet - about 13 miles - off.) If we did miss deliver your package, they will know where and they will do everything they can to find it! HOWEVER this takes time and with the increase in pkgs over peak, it takes even more time! We know these are often Christmas gifts or important packages, and we are doing everything we can - but it just gets that much busier this time of year.

Status says 'Recipient Not In' but I was home all day, and I never saw a truck!

Really, we don't want to take boxes out more than once. It really sucks. If we're paid per stop (which a lot of us are) then we wont get paid for that stop if we can't make the delivery. Even if we are not, it just means more work tomorrow.
In all likelihood the Driver was there. He either didn't knock loud enough (Act like your the bloody SWAT Team is how I train new drivers, and how I was trained - but not everyone does that), your doorbell is broken (so many people think its not. Go check right now. If its working, then kudos) or he happened to be there when you... ) Were in the Bathroom. ) Had your headphones on. ) Were on the phone. ) Any of a thousand other distractions that could easily cause you to miss an arrival. It really is very possible.
There is of course, the possibility the driver is being lazy. (and not realizing its just making more work for him tomorrow). It does happen. Drivers are human too.
For those that aren't just lazy, typically we Knock, count to 10 mildly slowly, fill out the status door tag, add the service code to the box, and run back to our trucks. That can take less than a minute. If you have mobility trouble or other issues getting to the door, a note on your door letting us know your home is often more than enough to get us to wait for a few seconds.
If it is something you need a signature for call in and ask if an SRA (Signature Release Authorization) Form will do. Print that out and post it on your door, the driver will accept it. Most drivers will accept a signed hand written note saying you authorize release, assuming an SRA is acceptable. If it is the kind of signature that an SRA does not work for (Usually Alcohol, Firearms, Hazardous Materials, or the shipper paid extra) ask if you can have it routed to your nearest FedEx Office or Walgreens. Sometimes the Shipper has special instructions to prevent fraud that such packages are not to be rerouted (or cannot be rerouted until after the first attempt) - this is usually cellphones.
Please also consider the following: If a driver leaves the terminal with 100 stops on their truck, if they spend 5-10 minutes at each stop they will be getting less than 10 stops done an hour. That can mean 10 hours of driving, not including the time it took to get to the route (Some drivers travel 30-60 mins away from the terminal before starting), and the time to drive back. Plus the time to load their truck (even if they have loaders doing the loading for them, most drivers come in early to look over the load and rearrange to their liking) For urban areas drivers want to spend less than 2-3 minutes on any one stop - and that includes driving from the last one. In rural areas that time extends, depending on how sparse the area is.
I personally driver Cover (I take whatever route someone called off on or needs help with) So I have driven everything from deep rural where 8-10 stops an hour is a great rate (But you typically have only 50-60 stops) and center city campus routes, where I went out with 190 stops on a typical, non Peak day and did 30-35 stops an hour.
All this is to say, while 5 minutes is nothing to you, 5 minutes at various stops can be the difference in being home at 5 and being home at 9.

If you are in an apartment, and the above happens to you...

It is company policy to not leave packages at apartment doors. This policy is not universally enforced however, and it is often left to the driver to determine if they feel the neighborhood is safe to leave the package or not. Some drivers always leave them, taking the chance. Some drivers never leave them, willing to have to try again the next day rather than get stolen package complaints. Some drivers leave it with the office or in a mail room (usually as determined by the Rental Office of the facility)
If you have a secure building, it is entirely possible they could not get in, buzzer or no. We have a lot to do, and don't really have time to wait 5-10 mins for someone to answer a buzzer. Or to buzz other random people in the building to see if someone can let us in. Those of us on routes with secure buildings, we try to get codes/keys/cards (most rental office will have a special delivery code or keyset they give out to drivers) but there are often substitute drivers, or someone is helping another driver out and they may not have the key or the code that day - Or it changed! Thats happened to me more than once. Getting it re routed to a Walgreens or other pickup location is your best bet.

I saw a FedEx Truck in front of my house and then it drove off and I never got my package! What gives??!?!

There are 3 services that drive FedEx logo'd trucks for non freight delivery. Ground, Home Delivery, and Express.
Express is a completely separate animal than Ground or HD. Express works out of their own terminals (usually at the largest Airport in your area) and have absolutely no cross over with Ground/HD. Ground/HD scanners do not even recognize Express labels as valid, because they don't want us picking up the express packages and causing a delay. Same Day, Overnight, 2Day, and Express Saver are all Express services. If your package is coming any one of those delivery options you will need to look for Express on the side of the truck. It will -not- be on any Ground or Home Delivery labeled truck.

Ground and HD are pretty much completely interchangeable, but that really means for you is there is no guarantee that just because your package is coming Ground that it will be on a Ground Truck. However, this year (2019) some terminals are on a new system that is supposed to prevent Overlap of routes. That does not mean much however, as it could still be a driver helping another (and thought he had your pkg but didnt) or express.

My package is coming by (Insert Service Level Here) But I need it faster. Can I do anything to upgrade the speed now that its already on its way?

Sorry. No. You -MIGHT- be able to intercept it at the Terminal the day before it goes out. That's a long shot, and not all terminals allow customer pickup. If you need it by a certain day, go Express. Its more expensive, but you get what you pay for.

Why does it take my SmartPost Package so long!!!!

Smart Post is the cheapest, slowest, and least efficient service FedEx offers. Being the cheapest, many shippers use it. SmartPost is picked up by FedEx, travels their network to the destination city, then is handed off to the USPS for the final delivery. It is then on the USPS timetable, and that can vary widely depending on how efficient that post office is. 90% of the time we have no control over its final leg. (Though there are exceptions, like during Peak - the Christmas shipping season - where the post office becomes too swamped. But I wouldn't rely on that.)
Smart Post also is so cheap because for many parts of the routing, it will not move until a truck is full. They will wait until the trailer is completely packed with Smart Post before moving the trailer to the next destination, where - if it is partially unloaded, it may wait again. This can cause many delays at many points. If your package is coming smart post, be prepared for delays.

In January 2020 the contract with the USPS is being ended by Fedex. Smart Post Packages will start to be delivered entirely by Ground/HD drivers. In some places this is already starting. This does not mean it will come any faster - it just means that the last leg will be on a fedex truck instead of a mail truck.
How do you know if it's Smart Post?
You can see the service on the FedEx Tracking site (you can also just toss your tracking number into Google, did you know that?) . Alternatively, most SmartPost Tracking numbers begin with either a 92 or a 93.

2 Day Shipping, why is it delayed?

Okay. 2 Day shipping is a weird beast. If it is Express, 2 Day Ship, then it is time sensitive and very bad things have to happen for it to be delayed.
If its 2 Day shipping via Amazon Prime? Or another online store that promises two day shipping? They (Most Likely) aren't using Express. They are using the cheapest method possible. If it is Amazon, they have distribution centers all across the country, in such a pattern to make the vast majority of the country 'within 2 days average by the cheapest method of shipping possible from a distribution center' (That usually means UPS or FedEx Smart Post, by the way, if its not their own delivery). If its not amazon, well because of Amazon 2 day promise, other online retailers have to compete. They are using companies who act like Amazons wide spread distribution network, a network of warehouses that the company uses to ensure they have a shipping point within an average 2 day ship time of any location.

Ground is Day Sensitive - (ie, it should be there on the day) but it is not nearly as rigorously enforced as Express. It is still valid for a refund (by the shipper, not the recipient) but they don't do nearly as much to make sure it gets there in those 2 days as Express does. (Still goes through a lot! But... see above for what .02% of missed packages can really mean.

Why is my package going (Insert seemingly wrong direction)

FedEx (and pretty much every shipping/logistics company in the world) uses a Spoke Hub method of distribution. In short, everything goes to hubs, then goes on to the next hub and so on until it gets to the one where your local terminal connects to. This can mean it seems to go backwards a few times. It also means that if Major Hubs (such as Memphis, Roulis, or Chicago) have any issues that will cause ripples through the entire system.

Hey. You guys do a hell of a difficult Job. What can I do to help recognize that?

Honestly, just recognize that we do. If you want to tip your driver, company policy is that we can't accept tips (or can't accept anything over 75, or can't accept gift cards or.. its hazy). In truth? We totally accept tips. We are very much happy with even a couple of cookies or a Coke.
And let me tell you. You leave a couple water bottle on your porch in a cooler for your delivery drivers on hot days when you're expecting packages? You give gift cards at Christmas? You share your Cheryl's Cookies with us? We remember. We remember that until the end of them, even if you only do it once. Your house gets remembered and your house -always- gets its packages, wrapped in plastic if it even looks like there is a HINT that it MIGHT rain, delivered in the most secure place we can fine. We'll even lug that heavy chewy boxes up to your door, even if we just left it at the garage of your neighbor. We'll take that mattress in a box right up to your entry way and help you get it inside (though we won't come in. That's just asking for trouble) You be kind and generous to us even once, and you get the best service we can offer. It won't fix every problem, but it sure as hell will mean you get that extra 10%.

Whats it like to work for FedEx as a Driver?

You should know: Ground and Home Delivery Drivers do not work for FedEx. We work for small companies that hold contracts with FedEx to deliver certain areas. They are called Independent Contract Providers or Contracted Server Providers (Depending on which version of the contract they most recently signed) These ICP/CSPs provide the driver, the trucks. They rent/own the scanners. They provide service on the vehicles and purchase uniforms for their drivers, as well as put the signage up on the vehicles according to FedEx policy (there is a binder like 75 pages thick about every little detail about signage on trucks.) They are responsible for multiple areas called PSA's. A PSA may have more than one driver covering it.
Each contractor is paid a flat rate per stop, no matter where that stop is, plus a variable rate per box. Any given average stop is the Stop Rate+1 Box. Its something like 200 boxes when the box rate drops. They are also paid either a flat fee per PSA or a Mileage Driven Fee (or some combination there in - I am not a contractor I am fuzzy on all the details of the contract)
If there is a verifiable complaint made, or a box goes missing, or something else happens FedEx fines the contractor. On the order of hundreds / thousands of dollars for each complaint/mis-delivery/issue. A single complaint can wipe out all the money made from a route in a single day. They DO NOT want these complaints, these Non Delivered Packages, these issue that cause fines. Trust when it is said that we are doing everything in our power to deliver those boxes to you. Many times the fines are taken out of the drivers paycheck who caused it. None of us want that.

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acute kidney injury is character deterioration in kidney function and manifested by an increase in serum creatinine level with or without reduced urine output so here we have the left and right kidney the renal artery supplies the kidneys the renal artery branches and supplies the functional units of the kidneys called the nephrons now the branches of the renal artery's form what's called the glomerulus which filters the filtrate into the many nephron tubules substances in the filtrate can be reabsorbed and many things secreted into the tubules along its way the end product is urine if we zoom into the area here where the glomerulus is and the tubules the girl merliss is where filtration occurs the afferent arteriole brings blood into the glomerulus filtration occurs and then leaves via the efferent arterioles the efferent arteriole continues to form the Vasa recta between the two Buell and the Vasa recta is the interstitial using this diagram we can appreciate the nephrons for functions for making urine the first is filtration the glomerulus filters your blood reabsorption and then secretion where the two Buell returns needed substances into your blood and removes waste along the tubules and the fourth one is excretion the final product really being urine acute kidney injury is a rapid decrease in glomerular filtration that result in abnormal fluid and electrolyte balance and hazard tamiya as a team you are being an increase in the wastes nitrogen as well as creatinine essentially acute kidney injury can be thought of disruption in the four functions of the nephrons we just talked about clinically acute kidney injury is diagnosed when there is an abrupt increase in serum creatinine Crowden comes from the metabolism of creatine in skeletal muscle and dietary meat intake creatinine is freely filtered across the glomerular and not reabsorbed from the tubules creatinine however can be secreted into the tubules the screening levels are maintained in serum when you have acute kidney injury the four functions of making urine are disrupted and so you have an increase in the waste that is creatinine the main fact is affecting the actual glomerular filtration our hydrostatic pressure which is your blood pressure essentially and the colloid osmotic pressure and the fluid pressure which are going the other way the net filtration pressure favors going into the tubules in acute kidney injury you have reduced glomerular filtration which can be due to a number of things firstly a reduced hydrostatic pressure which is your blood pressure or cumulative increase in the colloid osmotic pressure or fluid pressure from whatever cause as a result of these changes you have a accumulation of creatinine in serum creatinine does not get filtered by the glomerulus or secreted into the tubules resulting in elevated serum creatinine to make it simple the causes of acute renal injury or kidney injury can be classified into three types these are pre rino which is as a result of decreased perfusion to the normal kidney in torino acute kidney injury and post renal also called post obstructive acute kidney injury pree renal acute kidney injury is also known as pre renal azerty mia pre renal causes include hypovolemia reduced cardiac output like in cardiogenic shock for example or reduced effective circulatory volume such as in congestive heart failure or liver failure essentially these causes lead to reduced blood flow to the kidneys and so you have a reduced hydrostatic pressure thus you get reduced glomerular filtration another cause of pre renal acute kidney injury is impaired renal autoregulation due to our the use of neurotoxins such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs now non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs they actually cause vasoconstriction to the afferent arterioles and so this will result in reduced hydrostatic pressure resulting in reduced glomerular filtration ACE inhibitors or angiotensin receptor blockers causes vasodilation of the efferent arterioles which is useful at times but in renal injury it actually amplifies the renal injury because it reduces the hydrostatic pressure and reduces glomerular filtration rate finally cyclosporine also causes acute kidney injury now my definition the pre renal acute kidney injury we talked about doesn't actually involve the parenchyma doesn't involve the in actual nephrons really so pre rino acute kidney injury is usually reversible however prolonged pre renal can lead to ischemic injury causing injury no acute kidney injury and we'll talk about intra renal acute kidney injury later but first let's talk about post renal causes of acute kidney injury post renal acute kidney injury is also known as post obstructive acute kidney injury and it's essentially obstruction anywhere along the urinary tract from the renal pelvis ureter bladder to the urethra it can be caused by renal stones which can cause obstruction along the ureter this leads to Dalit ation of the ureter proximally termed hydronephrosis other causes of post renal include prostate enlargement prostate cancer cervical cancer bladder cancer which causes all obstruction and finally here I wrote a lower urinary tract infection which is kind of controversial because technically it doesn't but if it goes up to your kidneys it can and so post renal causes can lead to internal causes of acute kidney injury because as obstruction or infection occurs it can be pushed up the urine can be pushed up the waist pushed up causing injury to the nephrons increasing serum creatinine you intra renal causes of acute kidney injury are probably the most important to understand but essentially it can be divided to four types intra renal causes include glomerular nephritis tubular disease interstitial disease and vascular disease so for glomerulonephritis it is essentially inflammation of the glomerulus the proper term for this is nephrotic syndrome and there are many causes of it the second group of intra renal causes is tubular disease the most important is acute tubular necrosis which is a result of prolonged ischemia from pre renal acute kidney injury and is probably the most common renal injury in hospitals other tubular disease can be from infection injuring the tubular cells or from nephrotoxic the third group of intra renal causes are the interstitial disease these include acute interstitial nephritis and acute interstitial nephritis can also be from a number of things ischemia infection connective tissue diseases as well as the use of nephrotoxic or nefra toxins the last group of internal causes as vascular which includes vasculitis and microangiopathic hemolytic anemia causes such as TTP and hates us now we can appreciate the pathophysiology which occurs in intra renal acute kidney injury by focusing on the changes that occur in this diagram with prolonged pre renal acute kidney injury or Aki for short this can lead to ischemia which leads to tubular disease with tubular injury the injured tubular cells form epithelial castes epithelial castes occurs from damaged tubules and can be seen on urine microscopy this will result in an inflammatory reaction whereby there is an increase in adhesion molecules and leukocyte activation neutrophils are recruited to the area and further perpetuate the inflammatory response injuring the tubules this causes further damage to the tubules and surrounding areas including the interstitial leukocytes form white cell casts which can be seen in urine microscopy and signifies inflammation or infection inflamed interstitial from whatever cause including infection or Nefer toxins also result in an inflammatory response leading to leukocyte recruitment tubular injury and white cell casts in glomerulonephritis there is inflammation of the glomerulus this is special because with damaged glomerulus the red blood cells can actually pass through as filtrate and the red blood cells can form casts again these red blood cell casts can be seen in urine microscopy and signifies glomerular injury lamella information as well as vascular inflammation promotes the inflammatory response as we discussed earlier in in Torino Aki the inflammatory response results in the release of many peptides involved in vasoconstriction this is why in Torino Aki usually coexists with pre reno aki due to vasoconstriction when the kidneys are in this period of reduced blood flow they are vulnerable to further insult with Nefer toxins such as non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs or amino glycosides some Nefer toxins can also directly actually injure the tubules or the interstitial important effort options to know about include non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs I donated contrast amino glycosides myoglobin crystals formed in those in your body as well as in myeloma where you have power proteins four investigations in acute kidney injury baseline blood tests are important and this includes full blood count Electra la urea creatinine you will have an elevation of creatinine which is diagnostic for Aki you may have an elevation in urea as well as nitrogen for pre renal the fractional excretion of sodium and urea can be calculated and is helpful in diagnosing or differentiating pre renal to acute tubular necrosis for example also with pre renal it's important to investigate or look out look out for the fluid state of the patient if there are hypovolemic or hypervolemic intra renal investigations of acute kidney injury include urinalysis urine MCs microscopic culture sensitivity urine casts which we talked about the different types of casts renal ultrasound urine protein creatine ratio and albumin [ __ ] ratio for post renal causes it's again important to do a urinalysis and urine MCs but here fundamentally doing a bladder scan is easy to check for essentially urine retention you can check it the catheter if the patient has one see if it's blocked or kinked because this can cause post renal Aki also imaging is actually very important so Ct KUB or even a renal tract ultrasound is useful to check for any obstruction signs management of Aki will depend on the course but essentially give someone fluids if it's a pre renal cause and they're hypovolemic or diuretics if they're fluid overloaded to help clear the fluid stop never toxins we talked about earlier treat the underlying cause again if it's an infection use antibiotics if it's renal stone treat the pain but also try to remove the stone if it's big if it's an obstructed catheter try flushing it treat underlying complications of acute kidney injury mainly electrolyte imbalances some of these complications can get out of hand and so some patients will require dialysis so indications for acute dialysis in scenario where someone has acute kidney injury you can easily remember with the acronym AEIOU so a is for acidosis which is refractory it doesn't change is for electrolyte imbalance specifically refractory severe hyperkalemia intoxication or ingestion you can remember what as the acronym slime so these toxins include silicic acid too much lithium isopropanol magnesium laxatives ethylene glycol oh is for overload so fluid overload just as persistent and you is for uremic complications because with acute kidney injury as well as chronic and injury urea can be so high and can lead to complications such as pericarditis as well as platelet dysfunction leading to bleeding and these are some indications for acute dialysis to remove all this waste from the blood thank you for watching I hope you enjoyed this video you

I delivered for Uber Eats in Downtown Toronto for 10-14 hours a day, during rush hour and winter storms (long read).

This paragraph is the last one I wrote after re-reading this giant post of mine. Originally I planned to briefly outline what working for Uber Eats in downtown Toronto entails, and mostly to vent out my own stress and frustrations, but once I started typing it out I got in the mood to write a more detailed story with more in-depth analysis, so I just went with it. Aside from my personal story, there is useful info in this post that might help out new and existing Uber Eats drivers, people who are curious about it, people who want to try it and customers of the service.

I hope that, since its relevant to Toronto and one of biggest industries within the city, its relevant.

Story:

Since I promised "irrelevant info" - I have a friend named Vitaliy. In the summer of 2017 he signed up to drive for Uber. He has a decent job for a good company and didn't really need it, but he drives Uber almost daily for a few hours after work and likes it (he liked it back then, I haven't talked to him about it lately). He drives people, not Uber Eats. I wasn't really into the whole driving for Uber thing, but after chatting with Vitaliy I signed up for an account anyway. My thinking was that signing up is free, doesn't oblidge me to actually ever work, and could serve as an emergency job. Plus, after he showed me around his app, I got lightly intrigued - it seemed more like a quest/videogame then work (pick up item at point A, drop off at point B, get rewarded), I could see myself at least trying it out one day. Due to having a state-of-the art shitbox on wheels for a car I was only eligible to sign up to deliver for Uber Eats, not to drive actual people with Uber (a blessing in disguise). It probably meant less money, but frankly, I was ok with it, at least food stays quiet.

Since I promised "relevant advice" - the sign up process for me took about 5 business days. To drive people I needed a car not older than 10 years old, and would need to upload a bunch of documents, most difficult and expensive of which would be a freshly done car safety certificate. I would also need to go trough a criminal background check. To drive for Uber Eats I would need a car not older then Queen Elizabeth, and to upload the same documents minus the safety certificate. Also, a criminal background check for Uber Eats as well. So the only 2 differences are: newer car & safety certificate. I also had an option to sign up to deliver on a bike, the option I considered only in case I would ever want to punish myself really badly for something stupid I did (sorry to all you bike Uberers and Foodorers out there, later I actually reconsidered this position and gained a lot of respect for you). The documents I needed were: Driver's License, Proof of Work Eligibility, Vehile Registration & Vehicle Insurance.

So, the sign-up process is as follows: you download the app, register an account (name & password). Then you choose what you want to do - drive people, drive food on a car, drive food on a bike or change your mind and sign out for ever in disgust. Then you upload the 4-5 required documents by taking a picture of them and uploading it to the app or website. You also take a selfie and upload it. This all takes minutes. Then you wait. For about 2 days. Maybe more. If you don't want to wait for two-days-maybe-more - you can go to one of 3 Uber hubs in GTA (Google it) and tell them "I'm impatient, can you please expedite this shit". That's what I did. Shit got expedited. In parallel to all this - you are sent a form for a criminal background check, which you will fill up, and then also wait. Three-days-maybe-more. This you can't expedite trough the Uber hub. Also, if you have a criminal record and don't hold a large amount of cash on hand for a bribe, you are SOL, they won't accept you. Thankfully I didn't have a criminal record or had a large amount of cash on hand for a bribe, and all my documents were legit and in good standing, so I got accepted. I don't remember how I felt at that moment, but I can only presume that I was overwhelmed with joy.

To be more serious, while I was waiting to get approved and to be able to finally click that magical "Go Online" button, I was actually getting excited and impatient to try it out. I signed up with Vitaliy's referral code, which would pay him $300 and pay me $50 once I complete my first 20 deliveries. Vitaliy would share his $300, so I was standing to make $150+$50 in bonuses plus whatever I would make in actual deliveries pay for my first 20 trips. That's actually pretty decent, as 20 trips is about 8 hours of work (of course I didn't know it back then). $25/hr in bonuses plus actual pay. I figured I'd grind out the 20 trips, satisfy my curiosity and never do it again.

So after about a week of sleepless nights and impatient waiting on the edge of my chair, it finally happened! I got the notification that I am approved and am now able to go online and receive trip requests!

So, I clicked the magical "Go Online" button in my Uber Driver app, and the screen prompted me that "You are online, expect trip requests soon". I was in North York back then, just outside the place I was staying at. It was like 8 pm. The first delivery request indeed popped up on my screen within minutes, accompanied by an insistent dling-dling-dling sound. I'm not one to brag, but I accepted that delivery request with the reflex of a god dam ninja! Tap! Accepted. Then, after a few seconds, it popped up again. Dling-dling-dling. "Weird" - I thought, and ninja-tapped it again. The GPS showed me where to go, "Wrap-something" on Steeles and Dufferin. Perfect, not too far! I got there fast, like a pro, and picked up the wrap. Being a true professional, I put it into the thermally isolated delivery bag that I picked up for $15 from the Uber hub while expediting shit. That $15, by the way, was my only (optional) expense while signing up, since I didn't have to do car safety, and I could even return it if it wouldn't be used up too much. The $15 was taken from my non-existent Uber Eats delivery earnings, so my account was showing a -$15 balance when I started my first delivery. After picking up the wrap I swiped the "Start Delivery" bar in the app, and the in-app GPS showed me the directions to a house about 5 minutes away. Still in ninja-mode I quickly delivered the order to the valued customer, who was undoubtedly just as happy to receive it as I was to deliver. Then I swiped the "End Trip" bar. Then the GPS showed me directions to another address, prompting me to drop off the "2nd order" there. And that's when I realised. That I fucked up. I had to pick up TWO orders at the Wrap place. And deliver to two different customers. Later I learned that sometimes Uber Eats combines two pick-ups from the same restaurant if the drop-offs are relatively on the way (not always), so you have to pick up two orders and deliver to two addresses. That's what that "weird" 2nd dling-dling-dling was all about. Thankfully I figured it out fast, came back to the restaurant and delivered the 2nd wrap to the second person, so it wasn't a big deal. It was just mildly unlucky that the very first delivery I had, when I was not used to the app at all, happened to be a double. These "doubles" are relatively rare, maybe 10% in busy areas.

That night I did some more delivering, less then 10 in total, and went for a few beers with buddies afterwards. I, frankly, enjoyed it. I enjoy driving. I was driving in "my" area, where sometimes I go for random drives for no reason but to just clear my mind. I was picking up from restaurants that I myself eat in. I knew the roads well, there was minimal traffic. But at the same time, right there and then, I knew that I will not do a single delivery past the 20 that I needed for the bonus. I was averaging 2.0-2.5 deliveries per hour and making $3-$6 per delivery. My car, although not having an amortization expense (as I mentioned above, she's a "classic"), gobbles 12-20 liters / 100 km in the city. Gas was at ~$1.35 back then. Making under $10/hr, even as a hobby, was not something I would want to do under normal circumstances.

Back to "useful info" - disclaimer - this is actually outdated info, but relevant to this story - back then Uber Eats paid with a following structure: $2.90 for pick-up, $2.50 for drop-off and $1.05 per km. An average delivery in North York is 1.5 km (about 0.5 km downtown). After calculating your total fee for the trip Uber takes their cut, 35%. If you signed up really early, when Uber was just starting out in GTA, you might have gotten lucky and got your fee at less then 35%, some people have 25%, even 20%. You'd grandfather in your account with that fee and still drive at that rate today (I think, not 100% sure on this one, don't quote me on this). But in any case, anyone who signed up in the last X years is at 35%, that's that. So your average delivery in North York would look like this (assuming 1.5 km distance): 65% of ($2.90 for pick up + $2.50 for drop off + $1.58 for mileage) = $4.54. Worth noting, if you did one of the rare double pick-ups, you would get paid the $2.90 only once, and the $2.50 twice (one pick-up and two drop offs).

But now that pay structure is irrelevant. It was changed sometime within the last year (Sep 2018?). Changed quite drastically actually. Now its like this: $1.50 for a single or double pick-up + $1.00 for every drop off + $0.50 per km + $0.28 per minute. So the same delivery from the example above, assuming it took 5 minutes, would pay as follows: 65% of ($1.50 for pick up + $1.00 for drop off + $0.75 for mileage + $1.40 for time) = $3.02.

So far it looks pretty horrible, but its somewhat better then those numbers. Those numbers are "base" numbers, working at x1.0 multipliers. Multipliers, boosts, surges, whatever else you want to call them, are Uber's way of balancing out supply and demand for different areas/seasons/days/occasions/times of day/weather conditions/uber manager's mood etc. When you open your Uber abb, you see a map of GTA, you can zoom in and out, and you can see the whole city split into areas, each area has a different "multiplier". Some areas always have a bigger one, not surprisingly, downtown Toronto, followed by North York Yonge area, Scarborough etc. Some new, far away areas sometimes have good mults (like Barrie). But downtown is always the highest. You can also check a few days ahead in the "Promotions" tab - you will see all the areas with their according multipliers for any time of the day in the future. So, if you want to actually take it seriously, you can plan it out - which times you would work, in which areas, at which rates.

So, to skip a little bit ahead, I completed my 20 deliveries, earned something like $100 for the actual work plus the $150+$50 in bonuses. So, ~$300. It was fun, I did it, and as planned, I wasn't going to continue. Worth noting that most of my deliveries were at x1.0 multiplier, with only a few at 1.1x. All in North York.

A few weeks or month flew by. My short 20-delivery experience with Uber was becoming a distant memory - I stopped logging into the app after I received my payment. Then, for whatever reason, I logged in again. Immediately I noticed that I am being offered x1.2-x1.3 multipliers, in North York Yonge area. It was fall of 2017, I didn't have much actual work or anything else going on, so, out of boredom, I actually went online and did some more delivering. Over the next days I got used to the app, however buggy, and was getting more comfortable with the job at hand, and I started doing a little better. With these x1.2-x1.3's I was getting close to breaking the minimum wage barrier! I still only did it for a few hours here-and-there and only once in a while, when I wanted to kill some time. Hourly rate / money aspect was almost completely irrelevant. I was more curious about how the whole thing worked on the fundamental level and what can actually be achieved, just like when playing a videogame, I like to figure out the formulas/variable settings within the game code trough experimentation, to later play it optimally (and lose interest as a side effect). I wanted to figure out how Uber Eats works. How the multipliers work, how the various variety of vague variables variate. How all this affects my account. Out of pure curiosity I wanted to see how close to "optimal" an Uber Eats driver can get and what that would manifest into in dollar terms. None of this is explained by Uber, or anyone in fact. Not in detail anyway. You can go on forums and see that people do have a pretty good idea on most things, but there are still no definitive answers anywhere (not that I know of). And it always changes anyway, so collecting a huge sample size over a long period of time wouldn't help, Uber will adjust things on you with their natural business "optimization" process before you get to the needed sample size. But you can make some pretty good guesstimates from exposure and experience. So anyway, I did maybe 50 more deliveries, It was still not unpleasant (with some exceptions), and still mostly felt like completing quests in a videogame.

Yonge area in North York presented more difficulties then the more "rural" North York areas, main reasons being: increased and more chaotic traffic flow, tougher parking logistics and a significant number of deliveries into condominiums rather then houses. All-in all though, most restaurants and buildings had parking/roundabouts/drop-off areas, and in general it was still not bad, just slightly more frustrating. The time required to complete a delivery went up slightly as a result of all abovementioned factors. Sometimes I had to spend an extra minute looking for a parking spot and often had to go up to the customer's unit rather then just pull up to a house, and often customers wouldn't leave their buzzer number in the info (or sometimes even not leave the apartment number). I would say, the biggest frustration was indeed with customers - they wouldn't leave their full info as mentioned above, would not answer the phone, would often be unpleasant/incompetent in general. Many would treat you like their personal butler (those lovely types of people who treat service industry workers badly). I realised back then that if I had to actually do this for a living, even at a much higher hourly rate - it would get to me pretty fast, it would be a stressful job to do full time. I would have a very different mental attitude if I knew I HAD to go out and deliver for the next 8 hours to not fall behind on my bills, rather then knowing that I'll only go online whenever I want "for fun" and do "like, a few" deliveries until I don't feel like doing it anymore. It's ok for a job or a career to be stressful at times, but this was neither my job nor my career.

More useful info: here is how the multipliers actually work: lets explore this example, lets say your total earnings for a delivery are $10, and the multiplier is 1.3x - so you are earning $10+$3=$13. First, Uber will take their 35% cut, but they will take it only from the base $10, not from the extra $3. If Uber would take 35% from $13 - you would earn $8.45. But they don't. This actually makes the mults more valuable, so in reality you will earn $9.50 ($10-$3.50+$3). For comparison, at x1.0 you will earn $6.50. So, because they don't take a cut from the boost, the x1.3 multiplier becomes a x1.46 increase in actual payout for the delivery. When I say "actual payout" - I mean the pay that you would end up with after the fee is subtracted ("actual pay" for a $10 delivery would be $6.50 after the fees). The increase in payout is bigger then the face value of the multiplier. Its a complicated correlation, for example, a x2.0 multiplier is a x2.54 increase. There's a formula to it that I'm too lazy to figure out. Basically, 0.65*Pay+Pay*(Boost-1) is what you get for every delivery. 0.65*$10+$10*(1.3-1)=$9.50. ***some time later*** Well, I figured out the formula - where "M" is Multiplier and "I" is actual Increase in Payout, I=((M-1)*1.5385)+1. So just plop in your multiplier into that formula instead of "M" and you will know what your actual increase in pay will be, assuming you are at 35% Uber cut. ***some more time later*** Well, here is a master formula for any Uber cut % (lets name Uber cut % as "FU", where 35% is FU=0.35): I=((M-1)*(1+(FU/(1-FU))))+1. Hopefully I got it right. So, plop in your Uber cut instead of "FU" and your Multiplier instead of "M" into the formula and it should tell you your exact increase in pay for that trip.

Now to step away from the nerdiness, all that you need to know is that the multipliers are good, very good! They have a huge effect on your earnings, a bigger one then it seems at the first glance. In fact, after doing this math just now, I'm surprised that Uber doesn't loudly advertise the fact that mults have a bigger effect then it seems, to recruit new drivers. I instinctively knew it, but this is the first time I actually did the math and I am surprised myself by the results.

In any case, I worked a bunch at 1.2-1.3 rates. Still not taking it too seriously, I just had some free time. I didn't go too far from North York. I did this for maybe ~70-100 more deliveries. Then I got busy with other things, and I abandoned Uber Eats again, for what I though for ever.

A few month went by.

Then winter of 2017-2018 came. I randomly logged in to the Uber app again and saw that every area in Toronto is at a minimum of x1.1 at most times of the day, downtown being at upwards of X1.5 at a few peak times (rush hour mostly, 5-7 pm). Once again, I had free time on my hands, bored and kind of needed money this time, so I decided to give downtown a shot. And this time, for some reason, I took it more seriously. Not "for some reason", but because i did need money, and for the first time I saw that multipliers higher then x1.3 actually existed (I didn't think they did). When I was working at Yonge Street in North York - I saw that it can get quite busy at certain times, with barely any downtime (waiting between delivery requests). I was averaging ~2.5 DPH (Deliveries Per Hour) there vs ~2.2 in North York outside of Yonge, and that's considering that deliveries to condominiums on Yonge took longer on average. Its because outside of Yonge I had downtime - I was often sitting around with no requests. I was curious how busy it can get downtown, I assumed that I could probably have almost no downtime, which would mean a much higher DPH, and with the offered multipliers averaging at x1.3-x1.4 - I was willing to do it more seriously. I was curious if I can get my DPH to 3.0+, if I can start averaging $6+ per delivery, if I can make over $20/hr. I dreaded downtown at the same time, driving there is always a nightmare, doing a fast-paced delivery job with a lot of parking - I wasn't even sure how bad that would be. But, they didn't just offer un-proportionally bigger surge in that area for no reason, clearly, there was a lot of demand and the driver's weren't filling all of it.

And that's how the whole downtown delivering saga started for me. It's important to note, that if I wasn't a confident driver, I just wouldn't do it in the first place. Probably wouldn't even try it. And if you are reading this and thinking to try it out - don't go downtown unless you're very comfortable behind the wheel, have good reaction time, a lot of patience and no god dam fear. Downtown. Is. Fucking. Nuts. There are plenty of much easier areas (pretty much any other area) with still decent pay. My hat is off to the delivery drivers who drive a truck or a big van downtown on a daily basis.

So, I went downtown. I even scheduled a shift for myself, which was a new thing, before it was always spontaneous. I decided to work 5 pm to 8 pm - 3 hours to get a feel for it. I would hit x1.4 from 5 to 6, then x1.5 from 6 to 7, and x1.3 from 7 to 8. Downtown area during that winter, according to Uber, the area where Uber gave the biggest multipliers, was: West of DVP | South of St.Clair | East of Keele. It changed a bit this winter (it went more West, now its West of Jane). I decided to get to Dufferin & Bloor and go online there. If I went online while I was still on my way to downtown, I could get requests on the way, requests that would take me off my route and could make me drive in an opposite direction, I had to go online only when I'm already in the downtown area. Worth noting - you can decline requests, but Uber penalises you for it. Back then - if you didn't accept 15% of your requests - according to Uber, you could be taken offline (in reality - I think it was a bluff, they might have decreased your chances of getting a certain request vs a certain other driver in the area, still not sure). So they forced you to accept all or most requests that they threw at you, which also meant that if a delivery would take you outside of your "desired" area, and a request would come up there before you can drive back - you are in a tough spot (accept it - and it might take you even further, not to mention decreased mult, while the good mult in the good area expires, decline - and you might get penalised, juggle going offline - that comes with it's own separate set of problems). So I had dead time and dead km's - just to get downtown. I had to leave home at 4:15 to get there on time in rush hour, the actual commute was about 30-45 minutes. Uber can route you 15 minutes away to pick up an order, so I wanted to be "south of St.Clair enough" not to get routed back "up" outside of the downtown multipliers. That's why I chose Bloor & Dufferin as my "going online" location. It was the closest/optimal one from me, taking Allen Rd from North York.

Downtown was as scary as it was intriguing. In the next few days, after just a few short 3-hour shifts, I fully confirmed my worst fears about doing Uber Eats there. Demand was high, I had non-stop overlapping orders. Overlapping order is when Uber sends you a new delivery request before you even complete the current one. It can only happen after you have already picked up the food from the restaurant and when you are on your way to drop it off - if Uber estimates that you have less then 5-7 minutes ETA left to the drop off location, they might send you the next delivery request. You can accept it, so there will be zero downtime, right after you drop off - you're routed to the next pick up. Basically every delivery is a 2-stage process - pick-up (get to the restaurant, grab the order, confirm pick up in the app) and drop-off (get to the customer, drop off the order, confirm drop-off in the app). Overlapping requests can only happen during the "second stage".

The logistics of delivering downtown were nothing like the relaxing North York drop-offs. Even the relatively tougher North York Yonge area had nothing on downtown. It was ruthless. Rush hour, mad traffic, cars, suicidal pedestrians, unforgiving traffic rules. Cyclists...even more suicidal then pedestrians. You have to concentrate 100% of the time, you have to be aware of everything and everyone. You have to drive like your life depends on it, because it does. You won't die if you get into an accident downtown, not at 5 km/h, but your life can get ruined when a cyclist or some psycho hits your stationary car at a traffic light, because they will lie, and you will be "at fault". You have to be very vigilant about everything at all times. When you get to the restaurant to pick up the order - there will be no parking. You will not be able to stop on the street either, I'm not saying "not be able to park" - you won't be able to STOP. You will get to the restaurant, see the restaurant, drive by the restaurant with a sad look on your face, bacause you will not be able to stop by the restaurant and come out of the car to pick up the order from the restaurant. This wouldn't be as stressful if you weren't trying to do everything fast, but you are - both for yourself (making money) and because Uber puts pressure on you to do so - under threat of deactivation. The only few barely legal spots will be taken, and any other spot will obstruct traffic. The street will often be a one way, and to drive around the block to have another shot to look for a spot will take 5 to 20 minutes in rush hour traffic, because you will be moving slower then walking speed, you will not be able to make most turns (time restricted or completely restricted) and your actual detour will involve a lot more then just one block (when I was completely new to downtown I went on epic half-city detours). Oh, yes, the GPS - it won't help you either. It will not get proper signal in about 15% of downtown areas, place you on a wrong street (they are too close together) and have no signal at all in about 5% of cases. Tall building, bridges and general shittingness of Uber app will render GPS unreliable. If you add random Uber app freezouts - its about 25% of the time. That's not all, when you do have a proper GPS signal and location, you still won't be sure if it routes you correctly, because it doesn't account for illegal turns, it doesnt account for streets that might be closed due to construction/emergency/anything else, it often sends you in the wrong direction into a 1-way street, it doesn't account for anything that's actually useful. The GPS will show you a route back to the restaurant, 50% of the time it will contain illegal turns, and every time it will just take you back to the same street where you can, again, drive by the restaurant with an even sadder look on your face without being able to stop. The GPS will not take you to an actual alleyway/small street/building roundabout/super secret loading dock/miracle legal parking spot/etc, where you will be able to stop for a few minutes... So, eventually, you will find that super secret spot where you can stop, it still won't be a legal spot to park, but the trick is - you, as a decent person, will make sure that you will not be impeding any traffic and that you are in a spot that's not extremely likely to get noticed by a parking officer. If a parking officer sees you - they will (gladly) ticket you. But you did find a spot that is relatively safe, it's probably ~1-2 minutes walking distance from the restaurant, so you figure that you can run out, grab the order and run back in in 3 minutes, since you're not blocking anyone, nothing bad will happen. So you go for it, you get into the restaurant running, "figuratively" elbow your way trough an inevitable crowd of people inside to get to the servers and try to get their attention. They will ignore you for as long as they can. After you do get their attention, you will politely ask them for your order number, and they will either turn around and walk away without saying anything or tell you "it will be one minute". You will receive your order...in about 10-15 minutes. During that time you will run back to your car multiple times to make sure you're not getting towed and that the SWAT team is not on your case yet, and you will get very, very stressed out. And oh yes, you won't get paid for the wait time. But you won't be able to tell the restaurant anything if you don't want them to rate you poorly (yes, the restaurants can rate you). Have a rating below a certain threshold - and Uber will deactivate you. No, you can't appeal your unfair negative ratings - well, you can try, but you won't succeed... So, you will finally get your order, you will grudgingly but convincingly fake politeness and thank the server, who, 15 minutes earlier told you it will take "1 minute", as they give you an angry look and rate you "thumbs down" in the app for the sole fact that dared ask them "how long will it take for the order to be ready" and looked rushed (god forbid if you actually told them anything or tried to explain that there is no parking). Now you're back to your car, magically still not towed and without a parking ticket, and you commence your 400-meter long delivery journey. After you contemplate just walking there you decide there could be a safer spot to park there and you drive. You get to your delivery building, driving very carefully trying not to be become an accessory to suicide to a random pedestrian or cyclist. You get to an 85-storey condominium on Bloor and Yonge with no possible opportunity to park or even stop. After a few unavoidable circles of shame around the nearest blocks you finally find a small 1-way street with "No Parking" but no "No Stopping" signs. Its about 3 minutes walking distance from the condominium, and still not legal, but its your best option. You will not be obstructing traffic there and the ticket will be $30 or $60, not $150. That street is 1-way and, despite seeing a spot to pull into, you still have to go on another circle to enter that street from correct direction. So, you get there, the spot miraculously remains available, you squeeze in as neatly as you possibly can behind other illegally parked cars (without blocking them or yourself of course) and you go for the condominium run with your uber bag of shame hanging over your shoulder. So far, this 400-meter journey is taking you about 15-20 minutes, or 30-35 minutes if you count the time spent in the restaurant waiting. The customer already sent you two messages within the app, "??" and "whe're are u", which you couldn't respond to because you were focusing or a dozen different hazards at every point while driving (you do respond politely after you stop: "sorry for the delay, traffic is rough and there is no good parking, almost there now"). You get to the building, you are now very cold because its -15 outside, and you're covering your face from the wind with the only available hand that's not trying to hold the Uber Bag vertically not to spill the badly packed soup inside. The entrance to the building is from the outside, there is no "buzzer lobby". There is a security desk, and they see you trough the glass door, you show them your Uber bag and politely gesture to let you in. They don't. The wind is blowing, and you now desperately try to look up, again, in the delivery notes if the customer left their buzzer number. You already know they didn't, because you looked before you exited the car, in fact, they didn't even bother to leave the unit number. So, upon re-checking this sad fact, you call them. They don't pick up. You try the lobby door - maybe its open after all - no, its closed, and now the security desk is giving you a dirty look. You are cold and angry now, you dial the customer again... At some point the door is opened by a person exiting the building, so you get in and approach the security desk. They ask you why were you trying to "break their door" and are being unpleasant in general, they are making sure you respect their autoritah. Anyway... This is a lot of venting, but you see what I mean. Eventually you start the timer within the app that "you can't reach the customer". If the timer runs out - you are allowed to leave. This timer was 5 minutes in 2017-2018, now its 8 minutes. When the timer runs down and wastes a few more of your minutes, the customer calls you. You inform them that you need their apartment number and that they didn't include it in the app. They get angry at you and tell you they did... Now you know the apt number at least, and the security lets you trough. You wait 5 minutes by the overcrowded elevators and get in with 20 other people, press the floor, but the button doesn't stay lit up. It doesn't stay lit up because you are in a building where elevator floor access only gets granted if you have a fob for that floor of if you buzzed in (the security guy didn't think to mention it). The elevator door is already closed and now you are on an 80-storey round trip back to the lobby, with 17 stops in-between. Once you're back in the lobby you call the customer again (no cell reception in elevator) and explain the situation. They say that they don't know their buzzer and not sure if they have it. They don't agree to come to the lobby. You ask security to activate the floor for you, - you can guess what they respond. Now you're back outside in the cold, trying to navigate the badly programmed buzzer console to find the customer by name. You're cold, and by this point you're pretty sure your car is ticketed and probably being towed... After all the struggle you reach the customer at the 65th floor, politely drop off the order, get back to the car and swipe "End Delivery". Obviously, you weren't tipped, and the customer gave you thumbs down, "delivery took too long" or "didn't deliver to door" (a lie because you SUGGESTED they meet you in the lobby when the buzzeelevator situation was unclear). When you get back to the car, you are just in time to catch a parking officer approach it. You wave them and say "sorry, I'm here, I'm leaving, please don't ticket me". They stand in front of your car so you can't leave and write you a ticket for $30. This delivery took you ~35 minutes, not counting restaurant wait time and it paid $7. You are now waaay off schedule to your next pick up (overlapping order) and your "delivery times are delayed" as far as Uber app is concerned, putting you one step closer to deactivation.

That entire ranty paragraph was of course a hyperbole. Not every delivery is this bad, not all of those logistical nightmares happen on every delivery, they all do happen often though, multiple times on a daily basis, and when I was new to downtown, it was overwhelming. Now, that the ranty part is (mostly) over, I'll stick more to numbers and useful info.

Uber app is bad. Its not the worst app in the world, but I'll confidently state that, considering the size/budget of the company, its lacking in a lot of areas. Its not extremely intuitive or user-friendly, and it has silly bugs, some of which are actually detrimental to you being able to do the job, and sometimes put you, as the front runner of the service, in a bad spot with no good options. Remember when I said that customers often don't leave apartment numbers in the delivery info. Well, it was happening so often, that I just couldn't believe there's nothing else going on. I know a certain percentage of people are just morons, but not 50% or 75%. Eventually I realised that its just a bug in the Uber App. Yes, about 25% of customers indeed don't leave their unit #. But in the rest of cases - Uber app just doesn't display it. Sometimes its displayed, sometimes you can enteexit random tabs within the app a dozen or more times for that info to show up - RANDOMLY. Sometimes no matter what you do it won't show up, even if its there, and sometimes the customer just didn't leave it. So you are frequently put in a spot where you have to contact the customer asking for their Unit #, not knowing if its their fault or not, and often realising that the customer will think you're the moron as a result (since they included it) - and rate you accordingly. All the customer drop-off interactions take seconds, you won't stand there and explain that there are bugs in the app. Other bugs - I've already vented about GPS unreliability, its mostly relevant downtown - with tall buildings and bridges, but the GPS is generally bad. It was a real shit show last year when the King St pilot program took effect and the GPS wasn't adjusted to it for month. Or when Uber GPS kept insisting on taking a very common 1-way street in the wrong direction and basing all it's estimates on it (including your pay, yes). If you do Uber Eats downtown - only use Uber GPS as a rough suggestion, not as an actual guide to plan your route. Thankfully, Uber allows you to use Google Maps as an alternative, but even that, although a lot better, can bug out downtown, and its a hassle to switch back-and-forth in a fast-paced driving job. There are many bugs, mostly small annoyances, but there are many. Uber Eats actually has a support phone number, but you can't find it anywhere. You absolutely need it in many cases, but they purposely didn't provide it within the app (they didn't last year, now they do) - that knowledge is esoteric, eventually, when you're completely stuck in some unforseen circumstance you learn it trough google search-some-random-forum (write it down). When it comes to interacting with that phone support - you will wish that you never learned the number.

Now, back to the story. After my first week downtown I realised how difficult it was. But also, it was an interesting challenge. I was far from new to Toronto, and I drove downtown plenty before, but I realised I'm still a big noob when it comes to this specific job. And I wanted to become better. Once again, I was curious how far I can take it in terms of hourly rate once I actually become better and learn the area.

In that first week downtown I worked, maybe, 10-15 hours over 3-4 days, and was making about $15/hr at average mult of ~x1.4. The highest mult I saw that week was x1.5. I was averaging about 2.2 deliveries per hour and $7 per delivery. And I had a lot of dead km's and minutes - getting to and from work. And the $15/hr did not account for gas. I didn't actually get any parking tickets that week due to taking good considerataions for my stopping spots. I was still making shit money, probably under $10/hr after all the factors. But I did see a lot of ways this could be improved: work longer shifts - so the dead km's and min's spread out better proportionally, learn the area, learn to work around Uber App bugs, find a good downtown sub-area with less condominiums and more houses etc.

Next week was similar, except the multipliers grew slightly. I saw a x1.6. I still worked small shifts, still experimenting and learning. Hourly and DPH was similar, and it was about just as stressful. Probably ~20-25 hours total that week.

Next week the multipliers grew again, I saw a x1.7. And the week after that I saw a x1.8. A pattern started to emerge. It was the end of November, and it was getting colder. If you remember, 2017-2018 winter had some epic cold days in December, -30 degree days, mad windchill etc. Around the time the multipliers hit x1.8, something else happened - for the first time ever I started received notifications from Uber for "quest" promotions. They ranged in times and payouts, and they didn't happen every day, but usually they entailed: if you complete 3 or more deliveries between 11 am and 2 pm, and between 5 pm and 8 pm, you would get an extra $3 paid for EVERY one of those deliveries. This was actually huge, and this is when I finally decided to take the step toward working long shifts instead of the 5pm-9pm ones. And I decided to work every day. Despite the stress and everything. I was still in the position where I didn't strictly "need" to do this for a living, so as a result, mentally it was easier to do. I could stop any time. It was still a game, I just graduated from the tutorial and "Easy" mode to "Expert" difficulty.

--- continued in comments due to 40,000 character post restriction ---
--- https://www.reddit.com/toronto/comments/aw7y5q/i_delivered_for_uber_eats_in_downtown_toronto_foehkjwji ---

non hazardous waste manifest example video

Non-hazardous or ordinary industrial waste is generated by industrial or commercial activities, but is similar to household waste by its nature and composition. It is not toxic, presents no hazard Waste Name Waste Description Disposal Method; Acid waste, pH over 5.5: Contains only non-heavy metal acid and water: sanitary sewer: Actin: any concentration: liquid: sanitary sewer solid: trash: A-Adenosine, free base: any concentration: liquid: sanitary sewer solid: trash: Adenosine 2′ & 3′-monophosphate, disodium salt: any concentration “In addition, we recommend for manifested non-creditable hazardous waste pharmaceuticals shipped from a healthcare facility operating under subpart P but passing through a state or going to a TSDF in a state that has not yet adopted subpart P, that the healthcare facility/vendor check with those states regarding whether they require all applicable waste codes to be on the manifest. Further Manifest Document No. 2. Page 1. Generator’s US EPA ID No. Date Month Day Year Date Month Day Year Date Month Day Year Date Month Day Year G E N E R A T O R T R A N S P O R T E R F A C I L I T Y Please print or type (Form designed for use on elite (12 pitch) typewriter) NON-HAZARDOUS WASTE MANIFEST NO N-HAZARD OUS WA S TE Hazardous Waste Manifest Instructions . What are the instructions for completing the manifest form (EPA Form 8700-22)? Read all instructions before completing the form. 1. Federal regulations require generators and transporters of hazardous waste and owners or operators of receiving facilities designated on the manifest to complete this form (EPA Form 8700–22) and, if necessary, the Hazardous waste prevention and minimisation are briefly addressed, because of their importance, as is handling, transportation and storage. Document 2, Minimum Requirements for Waste Disposal by Landfill, addresses landfill classification, and the siting, investigation, design, operation and monitoring of landfill sites. In the landfill classification system, a landfill is classified in terms Though non-hazardous waste is not considered to pose an immediate threat to human health (as hazardous waste is defined as doing), it can still be harmful to the environment through other means, such as methane emissions during decomposition. It can also be potentially threatening to humans if the waste is not managed properly. State and local governments often regulate non-hazardous waste Because non-hazardous waste is more loosely monitored than hazardous waste, it’s difficult to develop precise estimates of how much non-hazardous waste the United States generates every year. However, industry experts believe that, by a large margin, industrial non-hazardous waste the largest category of waste produced annually, on the order of seven billion tons or more. The mining Non Hazardous Waste Manifest Form. Fill out, securely sign, print or email your non hazardous manifest form instantly with SignNow. The most secure digital platform to get legally binding, electronically signed documents in just a few seconds. Available for PC, iOS and Android. Start a free trial now to save yourself time and money! EXAMPLES OF COMPLETED ANNUAL HAZARDOUS WASTE REPORT FORMS Th is docum ent contains hypothetical examp les of completed A nnual Haz ardous W aste Report Forms fr om three sites, the ABC Painting Co., Platers Inc., and Waste Disposal Inc. These examples are not intended to cover all possible situations. The site information is fictitious and does not represent any known company. # Ex am ple 1 is

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What is a Hazardous Material and Hazardous Waste - YouTube

Lecture Notes: http://www.edmerls.com/index.php/Environmental%20Studies/For Unedited raw footage ask in comment box. This video was created to explain to members of an LEPC (Local Emergency Planning Committee) the definition of a Hazardous Material and Hazardous Waste. The... Hello Friends,In this video of Waste Management 2020, we have explained What is Waste, the Steps involved in waste management, sources of waste, various ways... Video demonstrating where generator and transporter sign the hazardous waste manifest. 4 Ways of Waste Management The environmental condition highly depends on the way you manage it and the way you deal with your waste. Waste management is the prevention, generation, monitoring ... Visit http://medasend.com/compliance-training/ or call 1-800-200-3581 to learn more about Medasend's Complete Compliance program and access the full version ... Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube. Enjoy the videos and music you love, upload original content, and share it all with friends, family, and the world on YouTube.

MINIMUM REQUIREMENTS FOR THE HANDLING, CLASSIFICATION AND

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A theory on the trajectory and impact of Rey Riviera’s body and some thoughts on how we in the true crime community approach mental illness in unresolved mysteries (x-post r/unsolvedmysteries)