title
stringlengths 20
312
| body
stringlengths 100
40k
| score
int64 3
14.8k
| answers
list |
|---|---|---|---|
Hey reddit, I would like to start a reddit racing team. | I purchased an f1 car. And would like to race it is the EuroBOSS Series
http://www.euroboss.com
Can someone help me put some reddit logos on it
http://i.imgur.com/jYP0o.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/RdpDm.jpg
I am probably go to need some sponsorship. I would like to know it you would will to donate to that?
More pics
http://i.imgur.com/JQ5lf.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/ikPn6.jpg
It's the Lucky Strike Honda (Jenson Button car) The look alike decals are for tracks that don't allow cigarette advertising.
I was also trying to think of a name.
Force alien? It's like force India http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Force_India | 5 | [
{
"body": "Anyone who thinks they can drive the car better watch [this Top Gear episode](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EGUZJVY-sHo) before they get all full of themselves :)",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "That is awesome, and a Reddit sponsorship would be even better.\nhow much money would it take to have my very very very small brand's decal on it?",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "If you're driving it in competition, I'm pretty sure you'll have to ask Conde Nast about putting the Reddit logo on it. ",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Would you consider helping fulfill a fellow redditor's biggest dream of letting him drive an F1 car?",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Reddit, yesterday I smoked 3 joints on 3 continents in 1 day. If someone else hasn't equaled or beaten that, I'm going to go ahead and declare myself a champion. | Joint 1: 10:30 am. Hashish joint in Cairo before flight.
Joint 2: 8:30 pm. Spliff in Istanbul (Asian side)
Joint 3: 9:45 pm. Spliff in Istanbul (European side)
Anyone else got a country/city/continent record?
EDIT: To answer the questions, I live in Istanbul. Had the weed here, bought some in Cairo. Here is a pic of my plane ticket for confirmation. Haters, stop fronting. I defy you to front.
http://imgur.com/swKPw | 282 | [
{
"body": "Nice, I have done 11 bong hits in the same room since getting up an hour ago. I am wearing the same PJ pants as two days ago and haven't shaved in days. I have lived off nothing but frozen meals and sweet tarts for three days. If you are claiming to be the champion pot-head I want in on the competition. :-) \n\nNo , really great job!!!",
"score": 149
},
{
"body": "Judges? Sorry, Istanbul doesn't count, since both sides of the city are on the same tectonic plate. We would have accepted anywhere east of Suez though. (aww)",
"score": 84
},
{
"body": "I live in Iceland which lays on the tectonic plates of Europe and North America - I'm going to blaze up while driving repeatedly from one side to the other, thanks for the inspiration :)",
"score": 16
},
{
"body": "I smoke 3 joints in the morning, I smoke three joints at night. I smoke 3 joints on planet earth, it makes me feel alright.",
"score": 13
},
{
"body": "I bought dope from 4 stores on four different blocks of the same street in 40 minutes.\n\nOh Reseda Blvd. How I love thee.\n\nFor those in different states take the google streetview ride down reseda blvd in the San Fernando Valley CA. Count how many green crosses you see on signs there, every one of them is a store :) I think there is like 30 to 40 in a 8 mile stretch. \n\nTherefore I declare the SF valley the winnar.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "I once did 8 marijuana civil disobedience public smoke-outs in 10 days, in 3 cities in 2 states. When a friend was arrested (day 8?) a joint was lit in the police station. Great fucking times. 3 continents in a day though, nice.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "The bowl I am most proud of was at 14,100 feet on a mountain summit that I had just climbed. Nothing like celebrating that feeling of accomplishment with a bowl.\n\nBut I'd like to go even higher (haha) someday.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I don't know if this beats it: on June 6, 2006 I rolled 66.6 grams into 6 joints and smoked them (with a help from four good friends) in almost exactly 66 minutes.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
What would the universe look like if there was a God? | I have said many times:
1: The universe looks exactly the way we would expect it to look assuming there is no God.
2: We know enough now that if there was a God, we would **already** have proof of his existence.
Years ago, I read something that went into some serious detail about how the nature of the universe would be fundamentally different if there was in fact a God responsible for it's creation. Unfortunately, now I can't remember any of the specifics, and I can't find the work anymore.
So, from a scientific viewpoint, how would our universe be different if it actually WAS created by God? (If you are going to assume a specific deity, please identify it.)
(Also, if you happen to know of any work like I mentioned, please link. I'd love to read it again.)
EDIT 1: Earth at the center of the universe.
| 14 | [
{
"body": "To play devil's advocate, I suspect that that would depend heavily on the motivations for such a god to create the universe. If this universe is created to provide a Sims-like sandbox to play in, then there really is no distinct form that you would expect. It is entirely possible that such a god would have many different universes \"at play\" with different properties.\n\nThe Christian God is ludicrously implausible, but given the alleged teachings of Christianity, one would assume that Jehovah would create a universe with earth at its center at the very least.",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "**Benevolent God** A worldwide utopia in which everyone is well-fed, peaceful, and has no trouble getting laid. This god does not require worship from his creation.\n\n**Malevolent God** A gigantic lake of fire in which we are eternally tortured but never die.\n\n**Incompetent God, AKA Omnipotent child playing in a sandbox** The world as it is.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "If there were a god (and I'm referring to the Judeo-Christian one), there would be no devil because it is impossible to oppose a supreme, perfect being. Therefore, if there is no devil, no snake would have tempted Adam and Eve. We would all be in the Garden of Eden, running around naked, eating free food, no death, no pain, no unfair distribution of resources, no poverty, no suffering, no conflicts, no wars, etc. \n\nHuman beings wouldn't need to explore their surroundings to survive, so we wouldn't have curiosity and we wouldn't be able to wonder at the beauty of it all.\n\nBasically, we would be god's hamsters with shit-for-brains, unknowingly trapped in his cage forever. ",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "\"Devil's\" advocate here:\n\n> 1: The universe looks exactly the way we would expect it to look assuming there is no God.\n\nAssuming a \"hidden god\", what sort of universe can you imagine in which it wouldn't be possible to say that? Once you concede the possibility that God either doesn't want to be obvious or what's to be completely hidden, isn't it possible to cognize any universe as naturalistic?\n\n>2: We know enough now that if there was a God, we would already have proof of his existence.\n\nWhat do we know that *ought* to make it possible to prove God's existence?\n\n> Years ago, I read something that went into some serious detail about how the nature of the universe would be fundamentally different if there was in fact a God responsible for it's creation.\n\nThe interesting thing about accounts like that is that they always involve theology. In other words, you can't really talk about what they universe would look like if there were gods without speculating about what those gods must be like.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "The reason why Galileo's studies were so damning to the Church was that the Aristotelian cosmology was an excellent fit to Christian mythology and ideology. The universe was small, clockwork orderly, and centered on whole point of creation, man. \n\nEverything else aside, Joseph Smith, incorporating what he knew at the time, had a pretty clever mythology/cosmology to rectify this (as well as other traditional creationist failures). The universe evolved over time, righteous men who followed the rules could become gods of their own planets, just as the God of Earth became the God of Earth. \n\nPS: If we work backwards, we could also say that \"a god\" created this universe, but either man isn't very special, or he is sorta special, but it took God a rather shotgun approach to man's creation. As in, shake the test tube and wait for the intelligent things to form, somewhere. Then God says, \"Hey clever monkeys, I'm God!\" soon after, obviously, God got bored. ",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Reddit, what are some universal truths that you have learned throughout life? | Let's try to avoid famous quotes that are too abstract to use in day to day life.
Think of things that you've either learned the hard way or your parents taught you early on, i.e. buying stock, traveling, dating, getting/staying married, making (a lot of) money, conflict resolution, finding a job, establishing a career, being healthy, winning/losing, fighting, dealing with the law, war (the real kind), etc.
Here's mine, with some explanation:
Your education means dick if you haven't decided what you want to do. Our workforce rewards specialists (experts in one field). In a tough a economy you will always have a job. As you understand your trade more and more, you will eventually have the ability to shift gears and start a business which focuses on your specialty.
I've seen a lot of people get their degree, take a step into the real world and say, "now what?". The school system has been guiding them for so long while giving no real direction other than "more school", they hadn't the slightest clue what to do with their lives. Living at home with parents or not being completely financially independent also didn't help.
So here's my truth:
Always know where you stand. If you feel you don't have a place, make one for yourself.
| 32 | [
{
"body": "Always be nice to the receptionist. She (or he) can be the most important person in the company to you.",
"score": 57
},
{
"body": "In almost all situations, it is better to listen than to speak. \"I speak my mind\" people will be well served to pay attention to this. I'm not advocating being a pushover by any means. Just don't be the know it all and will tell you about it guy. Everybody hates that guy.",
"score": 34
},
{
"body": "1. People, for the most part, don't give a shit about how your hair looks, the kind of clothes you wear, the music you listen to, or the car you drive. Everyone else is just like you; they're more concerned about themselves. There's nothing wrong with taking pride in your appearance, but don't go through life constantly worrying about what everyone thinks of you.\r\n\r\n2. Listen to the elderly. Seriously. Sit down and really listen. You'll have made their day by doing so, and at the very least you'll learn something.\r\n\r\n3. Chivalry is not dead. Open doors for women, stand when they enter a room, take their coats, look them in the eyes, smile. You don't need to be at their every beckon call, but be a gentleman when the opportunity presents itself.\r\n\r\nEDIT:\r\n\r\n#4. Even grammar/spelling nazis are not immune to grammar or spelling mistakes. ",
"score": 23
},
{
"body": "Never make absolute statements of certainty. Exceptions will break you. And the gods of Karma are always listening.",
"score": 19
},
{
"body": "The vast majority of people on the planet are not smart, wise, or logical.\n\nSometimes, these people have found a way to be above you in the social hierarchy.\n\nLearn to live with it.",
"score": 18
},
{
"body": "If you can tightrope a curb - do it. \nIf you can hopscotch past broken pavement - do it. \nIf you can wrestle your kids and chase your dog down to get the tennis ball back - do it. \nIf you can jump up and tag a high lintel in your house - do it. \nIf you can stand up from a sitting position on the floor w/out looking like a flailing tortoise - keep doing it. \n \nThere will come a time when a sedentary lifestyle, age, or bone spurs will make you wish you could do those things you once took for granted, again.",
"score": 13
},
{
"body": "*\"If it's worth the effort to acquire in the first place, it's worth fighting for.\"*\r\n\r\nThis is true of many things, but I've ascribed it largely to my marriage. In the same vein, indolence and apathy are the bane of such worthy things.",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "time continues to give us opportunities to fix, to heal, to improve ourselves and our situation. losing sight of the length of the road we all have ahead causes us to lose hope and perspective.",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "Have a few years of sport fucking before you settle down in to a serious relationship. \n\nAlways ask for forgiveness, never permission. \n\nNo matter what a woman says, she wants you to act like a man.",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "Buy experiences with your money, not things.\r\n\r\nWalk away from the people who hurt you, even when you love them.\r\n\r\nTake care of those less fortunate than you.\r\n\r\n",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "1. all people are stupid. we are by default born stupid. without understanding this no man can make progress. people who think they are smart will remain naive and ignorant until accepting this fact.\n\n2. the girls are better than boys, boys are better than girls argument does not work. the bottom line is whether boy or girl, we are all human. as i said above, as humans we are inherently flawed, and are all universally guilty of a great deal of evil and wrongdoing to one another. tl;dr boys don't suck, girls don't suck, people suck. ",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "stop thinking about things, people or situations that make you unhappy, it'll just lead to negative thoughts and digging a hole of unhappiness. choose joy.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
When should I stop sleeping with my teddy bear? Is there even such a time? | Okay, so I'm a 25 year old woman who is fiercely independent and empowered and all that... But I still sleep with the teddy bear that my dad gave me when I was two years old. He has been a great source of comfort to me my entire life and it feels *wrong* to sleep without him around me somewhere.
I always assumed that at some point, he'd just naturally find his way onto a shelf or into a drawer, once I outgrew him. But I'm 25 and I cannot for the life of me imagine parting with him, except to possibly pass him on to my child when/if I have any.
In the past, if someone else has been with me in my bed, he's sort of ended up smushed down the side of my bed, or hidden under covers, or acting as a sort of mini-pillow underneath other pillows. Somewhere unobtrusive and sort of hidden, so as to avoid comment.
He has been mentioned to past boyfriends. Some of them just shrug and don't care. Others have been mean and acted out grotty scenarios with him until I've snatched him back angrily. He's my fucking *teddy bear* and I get upset when he's not treated right. I know it's kind of juvenile but I love him. He's been pretty much a constant companion.
So what do I do, reddit? Am I supposed to put him on a shelf somewhere, where no one ever gives him cuddles? Or in a drawer where he can't breathe? (You see? I'm hardly rational about this.)
And if I do choose to keep him with me in my bed so I can have him close at night, how do I explain this to the new guy that I've just gotten involved with without him thinking that I'm some sort of nutter?
What did you guys do? Anyone else out there still sleep with their childhood toy/best friend? | 27 | [
{
"body": "After getting married and realizing that bed space was significantly more cramped, I put my stuffed llama on a shelf so he wouldn't get squashed. Picturing his little leg(s) sticking out under my husband, who has a tendency to steamroll, didn't sit right with me. I put other stuffed animals on the shelf with him, so he wouldn't be lonely. It's corny, but it makes me feel better.",
"score": 17
},
{
"body": "I have a green baby blanket that I was given in the hospital.\r\n\r\nI am 26 and still sleep with that shit.\r\nI wrap it around my head and cover my eyes with it.\r\nIf I go some place and don't have it with me (which is rare) I still have to use something to cover up my face (usually a teeshirt).\r\n\r\nBut I'd be lying if I said the comfort factor wasn't there either.\r\nIf I am upset or feeling ill I definitely reach for my blankey (sometimes even before my boyfriend).\r\n\r\nI will never give it up. I'll fist fight my (when I have them) children off of it if I have to.\r\n\r\nOver the years if I had someone staying in my bed, I usually introduced them to the blankey. Their reaction was paramount in their ability to be found in my bed again.\r\n\r\nMy boyfriend now is totally cool with it- although he has definitely pointed out how goofy I look when I am sleeping. :)\r\n\r\n\r\n",
"score": 13
},
{
"body": "I go through phases where I need a teddy/kitty/Bulbasaur to sleep with. I've never worried about what a boyfriend says 'cause it's all included when you get a package of crunchynoodles.",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "23/M/2.5foot tall teddybear named oscar. Oscar's a new teddy, but I do have a good collection of em.. will upload pic of oscar at request.",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "I slept with my stuffy elephant every night right up until I got a puppy and was worried she'd get chewed up. Now she is on the top shelf of my closet with some other stuffies for company, guarding the ashes of some special rats who passed on and were cremated.\n\nDon't worry about it. When you have a good reason to stop sleeping with the teddy, you'll stop. If that never happens, big deal. If the guy grumps about it, tell him that he only has to sleep with a girl who sleeps with a teddy bear, while you have to deal with his snoring and drooling, so he's got the better deal.",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "I used to sleep with my stuffed toy lamb all the time (till I was 18) but when I started sleeping at my BFs place then it didn't bother me because he was my teddy. I never thought about giving up my soft toy it just happened naturally\n\nWhen he came to sleep at mine there was a tatty old lamb under the pillow and I think I tried to hide it from him, he didn't think I was a nutter. He probably thought it was a little childish but he never said anything. \n\nJust do it gradually and try not to think about it too much. Don't let it worry you. Maybe if you keep him in your bedside cabinate that would be a good place to start (he will be able to breathe, promise)\n\nIt's funny because I stopped sleeping with my 'lambkin' almost 2 years ago and I found him in the drawer next to the bed only a couple of days ago, still at ragged as ever. It made me smile to see him and he didn't mind being in a drawer for the past 2 years. It probably helped to drown out our sex noises. ",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "I have a teddy bear and a blanket that I've had since birth. They were both sadly put away about 4 years ago when I got a puppy and she refused to leave them alone. I couldn't bear the thought of her chewing on him or using my blankie, so they went into a Rubbermaid tub under the bed. I was worried about them being able to \"breathe\", being lonely, etc. so all my stuffed animals went in. I check on them once a month or so and they are all doing fine, very comfy, cuddled together, safe from dust and gnawing little teeth. \n\nOn a side note, one summer when I was younger, my older cousins stole Bobby Bear, hung him by his neck from the ceiling, and wrote a suicide note for him, which they oh-so-kindly left on my pillow. They still talk about how hilarious it was... and Bobby and I still don't find it amusing. At all.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "I'm 22, live with my boyfriend & still regularly sleep with a stuffed animal. Usually this guy: http://www.facebook.com/home.php?filter=lf#/photo.php?pid=9611216&id=506135187\n\nI even bring him out to watch TV with me when I'm home alone/sick/etc. As long as you are happy & comfortable with the situation, there's no reason to give up your bear. \n\n",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "I find your story to be very touching, and it made me think of a stuffed Pink Panther that I loved very much as a child – something I had almost completely forgotten about until now. While I thought your case was very sentimental and girly, it made me wonder where my Pink Panther is, because I don't know. The idea that he might have lived alone in a cold cellar for more than 20 years gave me bad conscience. :( —XY",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "I am 22 and I still sleep with the teddy bear my parents gave me when I was little. I hug him and put him under my chin so it is actually fairly uncomfortable to sleep without him since I am used to sleeping in that position. I don't really know when I will stop sleeping with him, maybe if I get married. I too don't want him to get lonely. I think it is rather mean to make fun of something as sentimental as that.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "I still sleep with a stuffed animal - two actually. I have trouble falling asleep unless I'm in the position on my side hugging them. Sometimes I can replicate that with a small pillow but it's never the same. I was embarrassed in college but realized that a lot of my female friends had a stuffed animal that they kept. The first few times I had my boyfriend over I laid them down on the floor, but when I got more comfortable with him, I told him bluntly that Taffy and Blacky sleep with me and that he'll have to accept that. He makes fun of me a little but he doesn't care anymore. Sometimes he gets annoyed if they end up on his side of the bed but that's all. As long as you realize that it is just a teddy bear and that you could live without it, then I think it's fine that you just choose to live with him :)",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I still have a blanket- i lost my original baby blanket when i was in india about 15 years ago, and can't force myself to give up the replacement . so soft. I don't HAVE to have it to sleep anymore, but there's no way i'm getting rid. glad i'm not the only one :) (24 btw)",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "One teddy bear in a girls bed I wouldn't have a problem with, a collection of teddy bears I might find to be a source for humor. I actually still have my teddy hidden away in my room. I can't let him sleep in my bed cos I'd lose guy points but he is still around and I'm 27.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": ">So what do I do, reddit? Am I supposed to put him on a shelf somewhere, where no one ever gives him cuddles? Or in a drawer where he can't breathe?\n\nAwww. Heaven forfend, dear! You must do what you feel is right, and it seems to me that you're more worried about what others will think rather than feeling on a personal level that it's time to stop snugging your bear. To be honest, even if you never stop, I see nothing wrong with it. We all need little things to hold onto like that.\n\nWhen I was little I had a stuffed Babar the Elephant doll that was my favouritest thing in the whole world; I dunno what happened to him, though. :( These days my nighttime companion is Hello Kitty! An ex got her for me. While I don't sleep with her every single night there are times I just cuddle her and wake up with her still tucked under my arm. It's hard to describe why that produces an odd sense of pride, security, and happiness, but there you go. ::smiles::\n\nKeep sleeping with the teddy if you really want to! If I may ask, does he have a name? :) (I just call my kitty HK).",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Oh my! This has made me feel so much better :D I'm only 20 but literally as I write this I am sat snuggled up with my blanket :) I was given it the very day I was born and it hasn't left my side since, nearly literally. It's basically a rag now but I can barely stand when other people touch it or move it or just..don't treat it nicely. My past boyfriends have found it odd but I think kind of endearing how attached I am to it. It lives on my bed with me at all times :) I too thought I would grow out of it, I'm not *as* attached to it as I was (I can sleep at boyfriend's houses without it now) but I can't see myself getting rid of it any time soon.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I slept with my teddy bear until I was sixteen...then he got left behind at a vacation house, never to be seen again. I cried a little that night in bed. \n\nI'm pretty sure sleeping with a nostalgic item is juuuust fine, as long as you're capable of giving it up if you really had to. That is to say, sleeping with it because you want to, not because you HAVE to. \n\nI have a cousin who still takes her baby blanket, which she calls her \"nicey\", everywhere. One night, her sister's baby needed to go to bed but we couldn't find a blanket for him to sleep under (long story involving another vacation and a ransacked closet). After a fight, the baby got the nicey...until later that evening, when my cousin who is 18 years old snuck into the baby's room and stole the nicey back so she could go to sleep. Without bothering to replace it with anything. \n\nYeah. If you're 18 years old and stealing a blanket from a baby on a cold night, that's a pretty good indicator you've gone from \"winsome and nostalgic\" to \"batshit insane\". ",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": ">He has been mentioned to past boyfriends. Some of them just shrug and don't care. Others have been mean and acted out grotty scenarios with him until I've snatched him back angrily.\n\nIf I was your boyfriend I would think it was mighty cute. Teddy bears are awesome! I would bring mine for sleepovers so they could play.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I [xy,31] find it totally adorable and cute if a girl still is sleeping with a teddy bear or similar item from her childhood. \nIt never hurts to remind oneself and others of the amazement we once felt when looking out into this world as a child. Embrace your Teddy and your inner 5-year-old-self and don't think about the people who have lost contact with the wonders of youth. \nBe proud of yourself and him for keeping a little innocence.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
I'm in a class where Uncle Tom's Cabin is on the reading list. I just downloaded it to my Kindle... | And I had a serious Mindfuck where I realized that I was reading an Abolitionist story on a fucking electronic book. That was then followed up by the additional fact of : Book from 1850, Music from 1960...What an amazing and bizarre time we live in.
</ramble> | 3 | [
{
"body": "I once saw a police officer talking on his cell phone while riding his horse on a busy street. I don't know why but it amused me.",
"score": 4
}
]
|
I'm hopelessly blind.. | I've been seeing a girl (I'm a guy) for a while now, and we've gone out on a few 'dates' I suppose. We're both young.
I'm told I'm sweet, understanding, and I don't put any pressure on her whatsoever. We're very straightforward with each other and talk a lot of things out.
But sometimes we'll have a serious discussion and I simply can't see what is going on. Something quite important can be staring me in the face and I'm completely oblivious. I know this, so I ask a lot of questions to make sure I know what we're discussing, but during tense situations this obviously doesn't work.
I don't know if I've outlined it all properly, but how do I fix this? Its something I'm willing to work on because it seems to be one of the biggest problems I have. | 4 | [
{
"body": "Your description of your problem is very vague - maybe you could provide a concrete example of what you're talking about, to help illustrate.",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "It's alright to ask a lot of questions. I just wanted to say that up front.\n\nWhen I was reading your question I knew immediately that most people are not going to understand what the hell you even mean, but I understand completely. Also, I have ADD. Just want to throw that out there in case that's a possibility for you. \n\nFor me, communication in person can sometimes be a weird ball of confusion. I can speak without knowing clearly what I'm saying or am about to say. I can listen and hear but immediately forget what was just said. I can listen without even hearing. I can completely become lost if I forget to pay attention to what's going on. I guess I just think about other stuff while I'm in a conversation, and I get tripped up.\n\nSo I recommend you do a little reading about adult ADD and see if it describes you. If so, there's some literature out there that can help you find coping strategies.\n\nThe only other way I can relate to this is that once when I was on a particular antidepressant I was super-fogged up in the head like this. I actually had to stop taking it because it was making me so foggy.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I don't mean to be harsh, but is this basically saying, I don't pay complete attention when this girl is talking to me about very important things, and in fact am generally distracted, and yet am honestly surprised when I miss things and can't keep up?",
"score": 3
}
]
|
So Canada, who is gonna protest our gov't this weekend in your city? | There are protests planned for Saturday in a lot of Canadian cities. Who plans on attending?
I've never protested anything before, but I will attend this one because I think it's time we show Harper what he's been doing sucks. | 59 | [
{
"body": "Protests are an awesome place to meet girls and get free hot chocolate. Also, hippy activist girls are more likely to put out.",
"score": 13
},
{
"body": "[Here's the particulars for the Saskatoon rally](http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=255754784479). ",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "Yeah, the Toronto rally is a few blocks north east of where I work. I'll be going on my lunch (since it starts at 1pm) and I can enjoy a brisk walk through along with the herd of Torontians.\n\ni think tomstdenis is being facetious. Any change you want to see requires action and a bit of work, Canadians are typically a little too complacent with the most political protest they do is compose an email or if they're extremists, pen out a letter. My $0.02\n\n",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "Anyone know where we can find more information about various protests?\nI'd like to know whats happening in London On.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Calgary. Thinking about it. Am kinda skeptical with effectiveness of protests in general, but it can't hurt.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I'm going because I believe people should work for their salary. If their work is governance, then they should be governing.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "A list of cities and demos can be found [here](http://noprorogue.ca/)\n\nA poster I made can be downloaded [here](http://imgur.com/oIpce)",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Pick me!\nAnd I'm sitting in Poli Sci 101, talking about the conventions of Canadian government. Apparently, the only way to punish a break with convention (like Harper's) is through the voters. There's no legal recourse. Other than the voters telling him. So, you know... let's.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Picked up a copy of SMAC... WTF did my weekend go? | On Saturday, I found an old copy of Sid Meier's Alpha Centauri and thought, you know, what could it hurt?
I had plans, Sid Meier! I was PLANNING on
* going to work out (down 15 pounds since Nov 1, thank you)
* paying bills
* shopping for clothes, a thumbdrive, food
* calling my recent ex for a booty call (she *really* wants to get back together)
But instead, me and Provost Zakarov and Aki Zeta 5 kicked ass and dominated.
(And I got hit by the terranx.exe bug twice as well) | 31 | [
{
"body": "god I miss this game. I need to reinstall it. \n\ncan anyone tell me why we haven't gotten a sequel or update from Sid?",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "Anyone know if any awesome people have taken it upon themselves to create a SMAC mod for civ4? Having not played it before until recently, I found it hard to get the feel of the interface.",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "What I really want is a mod to combine all factions from the original and expansion into one massive game. ",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "Morgan Industries ftw. \n\nOnce my economy gets rolling, I can throw money at whatever I want until it dies. \n\nDoes anyone else kill Sister Miriam as soon as possible every game, just so you don't have to listen to her bullshit? ",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "Man it would rock if they updated this game. Oh well maybe I will find it in a bargain bin someplace with it's add on.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "I have yet to play another turn based strategy game that comes close to the awesomeness of SMAC. The completely different styles of play that you could do with all the different factions cannot be compared to what Civ3 and 4 have given us. \n\nThere was nothing cooler than playing the Gaians, building a few planet oriented secret projects, covering my entire territory with fungus, and unleashing my swarms on locus upon the free market economies. \n\n:-D",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "This is by far the best turn-based strategy game of all time, bar none. I have wasted (enriched?) hundreds of hours on this game since i was about 8.\n\nThe second the \"planet god\" thing was talked about in Avatar i immediately thought opf this game.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Parliament will fight - Andrew Coyne - Macleans.ca | "What’s at stake here is nothing less than our system of government"
http://www2.macleans.ca/2009/12/21/parliament-will-fight/1/
| 16 | [
{
"body": "You can't submit a link and a text together; it's either one or the other. In this case, your link didn't go through.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Is anyone else waiting for: "Child found alive and unscathed after being buried under rubble for 7 days". And then the waves of orgasms from the religious stating that it was a miracle from god! | I fucking hate it when they say shit like that. It just proves their ignorance.
Edit: I am also hinting that they seem to ignore the real reason that thousands upon thousands of people died. They may chalk it up to natural disaster (or satan) but fail to question if their god did this or could have stopped this. Do they honestly think that the dead deserved this? | 23 | [
{
"body": "People who believe in miracles are ALWAYS looking for anything they can interpret as a miracle. \r\n\r\nThey have this little space set aside in their minds for \"signs\" and anytime something looks like it might fit into that space, they cram it in there and since they were looking for a miracle and have decided that what they found was a miracle, they have a big ol' GOD-gasm. Then they interpret the magnitude of their own reaction to be proof that it was really a miracle because otherwise it wouldn't have affected them so strongly.\r\n\r\nRandi said it better...",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Could any of You suggest PnP mech-themed game? | Hi Reddit.
As in subject - can anyone suggest a pen-and-paper (i.e. not computer) mech-themed game? I googled the most famous ones like Battletech, Mechawarrior and Heavy Gear.
Obviously it would be great if it is freeware/opensource but any suggestion will do. It could be war-game, tactical game, board game, card game, even dice game would be nice. :)
PS. If I messed sth up with my submission sorry, point it to me and I'll fix it. | 3 | [
{
"body": "Ahh, Heavy Gear. Awesome game. \n\nTurns our Dream Pod 9 is still around. I might see if I can convince some friends to play.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
DAE actually kind of hate it when salespeople in stores try to help them? | When I walk in a store, the instant that I'm bombarded with "HI!WELCOMETOURSTOREMYNAMEISSTACYISTHEREANYTHINGICANHELPYOUWITH?!?!" I just want to snarl (preferrably in a deep and thunderous tone) "DO NOT SPEAK UNLESS SPOKEN TO!"
Instead I just kind of cringe and skulk off. I don't need help, I know what I look like, what I look good in, and what I'm looking for. Please leave me alone until further notice. | 605 | [
{
"body": "Unfortunately if they're not doing this, and you *need* assistance, they're nowhere to be found. I've been in places where you'll pass a uniformed employee who pretty much just smiles and says \"Let me know if I can help you with anything.\" I think that's the proper way to do it - short, sweet, non-intrusive.",
"score": 170
},
{
"body": "They work in a retail store. Trust me: they're bored as hell and conversations with customers are the only dynamic and potentially interesting thing they'll do all day. Just politely say that you're alright on your own, or, hell, humor them with a conversation. ",
"score": 66
},
{
"body": "Especially the ones who only know what they can read on the box, and wing the rest. \"yes, it's 12 megapixels so It's great for low light. Catches twice as much light as 6 megapixels.\".*\n\nwhy are YOU helping ME?\n\n*actual quote my girlfriend was told when she was shopping for a camera",
"score": 54
},
{
"body": "Not really. I understand it's their job. That's like getting pissed when a waiter comes to ask for your order too early.",
"score": 43
},
{
"body": "Here is my solution:\n\nWhenever I walk in to a store, I continue to wear my earbuds for some time. If an employee tries to approach me, I just politely nod and smile and keep on walking.\n\nI've been shopping disturbance free for some time now!",
"score": 23
},
{
"body": "Yes, I dislike it, but...\n\nWhat I hate more though is when you actually need help and ask for it and they act as if you're putting them out from their conversation with another member of staff.",
"score": 14
},
{
"body": "I hate it, but I can't blame them for it really. I'm certain that it's part of their job description and their boss wouldn't be happy if they didn't ask.",
"score": 12
},
{
"body": "So what's so hard about just saying 'no thank you' and accepting the fact that poor old Stacy is just trying to do her job?",
"score": 12
},
{
"body": "I sell wine for a living. Trust me: you don't have a clue what you want, and you *need* my help.\n\nAlso: \"speak when spoken to\"? You may have never worked retail, and may be surprised to learn this, but employees are mostly people too. Get off your high horse and treat your fellow man with some respect, you self-entitled, trust-funded, leeching prick.",
"score": 12
},
{
"body": "Having worked retail for a brief six months, I can tell you when they ask if they can help... they really mean \"I'm watching what you pick up, and making a mental note to see that you pay for it.\"",
"score": 11
},
{
"body": "i agree that it's obnoxious. i've worked at stores in the mall in which you're given \"greeter\" duty--you're expected to stand near the front of the store, fold things/straighten, and bombard people with greetings and questions about whether they need help. i HATED doing that. i'd always try to get away with saying \"hello\" to people, but then my manager would come by and tell me i needed to advise customers of our super sale on jeans, or whatever...ugh. ",
"score": 10
},
{
"body": "I work in retail and there is good reason to greet all the customers especially if the store sells and kind of electronics.\n\nTypes of Customers:\n\n*1. Customer knows exactly what they need and where it is, gets it and then leaves (great)\n\n*2. Customer seems knowledgable enough to find what they need... ie reddit user (just be available if they need any help)\n\n*3. Customer doesn't want help doesn't seem knowledgeable (watch them like a hawk, 10% chance of being shoplifter)\n\nOP would probably be a #2... and the initial greeting just to size them up; any additional conversation would be the required attempt to sell them insurance.",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "Having worked in retail, let me assure you that they are not doing it because they want to. Their managers are under the misguided impression that if an employee walks over and disturbs a customer's browsing by inquiring about whether or not they need help, they are showing in some way that we care and are providing good customer service.\n\nThe sad reality is that everyone hates it: the employee doesn't want to do it, the customer is annoyed, and the manager is still a fat, bald asshole with a stupid goatee.",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "Just say \"I'm fine, thanks\" and smile. Why would you hate something like this? I hate Glenn Beck, I don't hate bored people trying to be helpful.\n\n(To be fair, this used to _annoy_ me to, until I realized I was being bitter and reclusive for no reason)",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "The first \"May I help you?\" is tolerable.\n\nThe second \"Is there something specific I can help you find?\" makes me want to set them on fire.",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "These people have jobs, and rules to follow in order to keep them. If you don't like it, don't shop there.\n\nThe mistake people tend to make it to ask an employee for advice, when all they should be doing is asking where to find product X. If you have to ask them for advice on products, then you are uninformed, and are putting yourself at the mercy of the employee.\n\nI worked at a tiny, middle of nowhere Radio Shack for two years, and once in a while some dickhead would come in and give me shit for asking if he needed anything, but the fact of the matter was that my job was on the line.\n\nHaving said that, I have absolutely no problem pissing off a customer if all I've done is ask if they need any assistance finding anything. I'd rather piss them off than piss off a customer who needs assistance simply by ignoring them.\n\nThe fact is, most people do not have a problem with being greeted when entering a store. Suck it up, or stop shopping at stores for idiots, like Radio Shack has become for example. Can't handle talking to a human being for 0.2 seconds, up until you say \"I'm good, thanks\"? You're a douchebag. Buy your shit online.\n\nBy responding with irritation, all you are doing is making yourself the giant asshole, not the person who may or may not have even asked you more than \"help you find anything?\".",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "I kinda hate it (as a non-commissioned salesman) when I ask a customer politely if they need any help to be greeted by a snide remark or curt brushoff. \n\nThat being said I fucking loathe the swooping hordes of commissioned sales vultures in any such store I enter.",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "This was one of my problems with shopping in the USA when I first came from my home country.\n\nI don't mind a \"Hi, may I help you?\", but I was very surprised and didn't know what to answer the first times when entering a store sales people say: \"How has your day been today?\". Now I understand that it only means \"Hi, may I help you\", but I still prefer the direct question. Also, I was surprised the first times I was asked at the check out \"Did you find everything you were looking for?\". Of course, if I didn't, I would have asked.\n\nSo tourists, be advised that this is how thing are done in the USA :-)",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "Even worse are the ones that don't talk to you at all but just stare at you. Let me browse, I can feel your eyes on me! I just leave if I feel stared at. So many lost sales because you couldn't stop staring. Especially kiosks. You know, maybe I would have bought that Superman belt buckle but I can't look at the merchandise for more than 1.2 microseconds on my own, just leave me the fuck alone! You're 4 feet away, if I have a fucking question I'll ask!",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "Yes! I used to work at Best Buy and the managers were completely unreasonable. They'd have a checklist of things you were supposed to say in an interaction (a LONG list) and if they were around and had a clipboard, they were listening for them. \n\nAnyway, I had a situation where a guy came in the mobile electronics department where I worked. I remembered that he was there the day before, so I greeted him, somehow acknowledging that he was back again. He asks if I remembered him and I explained that yes, he had the 2000 Taurus, blah blah. He said he was going to buy the new wiring harness for his radio after all and go ahead and install it. I directed him to what he was looking for, he grabbed it and was on his way.\n\nTo make a long story short, my manager completely bitches me out for a huge list of things:\n* Didn't get his name\n* Didn't offer a performance service plan (impossible)\n* Didn't offer a credit card (a $20 item)\n* Didn't try to sell him related items\n\nHe wouldn't listen when I told him that yesterday I sold him a new radio and four new speakers (both pairs with installation and a service plan). I refused to give in to that crap, especially considering there was no commission.\n\n\n\n\n",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "As a retail manager at a fairly large chain, I can say that far more customers get pissed if they aren't greeted than if they are.\n\nYes, we have a greeter at the front. No, she is not pushy - a simply \"hi\", and \"Can we help you with anything? Not now? Well, just let us know.\" Customers who don't want help say so, or keep on walking. Far more stop and tell us what they want, and if they need help... and we're able to help them right away.\n\nFor every asshole like you - seriously, how hard is to to simply say \"No thanks, I'm good\" like everyone else - there are a dozen people who are glad to see an employee who actually wants to help them; and who are happier and spend more money because that simple greeting meant we knew exactly what they were looking for and how to get you the help you need. \n\nCustomer loyalty is huge, and being cheerful and greeting everyone drives that loyalty. It's no coincidence that my store is one of the friendliest in the company and also happens to have one of the most loyal customer bases.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "Hi, I work in retail. Please don't kill me.\n\nI will be honest, I prefer going out of my way to talk to customers. For me, it's choosing mental labor over physical labor. I'd rather help talk a customer through what they're trying to do than dust shelves, it's that simple.\n\nAlso, I prefer interacting with them like human beings rather than having customers snap their fingers at me and whistle as if I were fucking border collie. ",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "I once worked at a place where they enforced a rule to greet every customer in the store within 30 seconds. \r\n\r\nI don't like being bothered in stores either, but sometimes you have to realize that their bosses are making them greet you in order to keep a job that they need.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "It is a thing I absolutely despise, and as such, I do most of my shopping online now.\n\nHowever, I found that if you turned on the smarm and asked for their phone number in a suggestive but non threatening way (think Joey from Friends), they'd leave you alone.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "It really depends on the store. If you ever meet a really good salesman, who is knowledgeable, personable, and seems truly interested in the product, it is hard (at least for me) to not at least CONSIDER buying. That is why it is such a HUGE element of our economy.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "in german speaking europe there's an [electronics store chain](http://www.mediamarkt.de/) that tends to have the least qualified personnel in the whole world. one could easily pass as salesperson if one put on a red shirt and – without knowing anything special about anything of the stuff they sell in the stores – just read the technical details that are on the price tags to a customer and still be more competent than the people who work there. in fact, i know a guy who did this.\r\n\r\nsince i am an audio professional, have been a video professional and have been a computer geek since windows 3.11, i just KNOW that i know more about 80% of the stuff they sell than the 10-years-younger-than-me salesperson trying to convince me that there's no real difference between \"HD-READY\" and \"FULL HD\".\r\n\r\nonly when i don't know where exactly i can physically locate what i am searching for, i will approach a salesperson.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Personally I dislike that, but I can see why some people want it. Personally, I go to the store because there's something specific I need. I go in, I buy it, I go out. A lot of people seem to view it more as a social outing, or something fun to do. Just looking around for things to buy. It seems kind of odd, but who am I to tell people what they should enjoy. ",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "In all fairness when I was working as a salesperson, I hated helping people, so I guess it goes both ways.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Call me an asshole, but I used to drive to car lots, just to wait for car salesmen to walk and greet me. I'd wait for them to get fairly close, then I'd drive to the other end of the lot and wait til they'd get close so I could move to the other end. It was fun, but I was a dick.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Ugh, I hate this.\n\nI work retail, specifically in a music/movie section. I'm usually that customer that just wants to do her own thing when she shops and only asks for help when *absolutely desperate*. It sucks having to ask people if they need help with anything when you can sense they don't want you to, but your manager's glaring at you like you aren't doing your job.\n\nBut other things that frustrate me? When customers are rude about it, or get all high and mighty that I don't seem to think they can find what they want on their own. Our section has so many promotional displays that change *all the time* that just because you're looking for a comedy, doesn't mean it's going to be in the comedy section. It could be in any of 4 different spots. Guess who knows exactly where it is? Me. Thanks for blowing me off like I was a jerk for trying to help you.\n\nOh, reddit. Thanks for reminding me what I don't like about my job.\n\n",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "They always want to help you when you don't need it, but you can never find them when you do need help. I think they can smell the \"need-help\" and they ask people who don't need it just to look like they're doing something.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
I just watched Peter Jackson's "Dead Alive" for the first time this past weekend... | ...and it is incredible. I can't believe A) that it's taken me this long to watch it and B) the way the film tops itself over and over in the realm of gory invention and cheesy fun. It's also filmed surprisingly well. Strangely though, none of my friends seem to have seen it or even heard of it. Reddit, am I truly alone in liking this homemade little gorefest, or just alone amongst my friends? | 35 | [
{
"body": "Since you liked it, you may now call it Braindead since that's the films intended and actual name. \n\nAn no, you are not alone. Braindead is a classic.",
"score": 12
},
{
"body": "The custard scene is the only scene in a movie I have ever seen that made me wretch, I very nearly threw up. They also ran out of blood towards the end so they had to start watering it down. Its amazing, and seriously \"Bad Taste\" and \"Meet the Feebles\" are just pure genius. Watch all his stuff.",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "Have you seen his other pre-Hollywood titles \"Bad Taste\" and \"Meet the Feebles\" as well? Grotesque and gory!",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "Peter Jackson's movie \"King Kong\" pays a tribute to that movie. When they are on the boat below deck, there is a crate in the corner with the words \"Sumatran Rat Monkey\" written on it.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
AskReddit: Mandatory Pizza delivery charges, who gets that money? | Any pizza delivery drivers out there care to comment on this? I always tip graciously for good service. But I've noticed recently that Dominos charges a mandatory 1.99 for delivery. So here's my question, Who gets that 1.99? Is the company stiffing me, the driver, or both? | 7 | [
{
"body": "I worked as a pizza delivery driver 2 years ago. There was a 1.50 mandatory delivery charge that went directly to me for every delivery I made. Also, all tips were solely mine. The faster you went, the sooner you were back in the driver queue to deliver more.",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "I worked for Pizza Hut, Mr. Gatti's and Papa John's here in Texas over the last eight years and the majority of the delivery fee went to the company. Drivers got a flat rate per delivery, plus tip, for most corporate chain stores. This varies only with franchise operations where it is up to the owner.\r\n\r\nPizza Hut - .50/per\r\n\r\nPapa John's - $1/per\r\n\r\nMr. Gatti's - .50/per + $3 for \"out of area\" *more than 5miles from the store* ",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Best Budget Cookware? | My current non-stick cookware is starting to come apart, non-stick coating is flaking off and I really don't want any surprises in my food. I was looking at the [Cuisinart MultiClad Pro 12pc Set](http://www.amazon.com/Cuisinart-Multiclad-Stainless-Steel-12-Piece-Cookware/dp/B0007KQZWU) which has everything I need, for now anyways but I was wondering if anyone has an opinion on this particular set or any other suggestions in the $250-$350 range?
Thanks for the input everyone! I think I am going to head and do some in-store fondling of some of the cookware options suggested! | 7 | [
{
"body": "If you don't have a subscription to Cooks Illustrated online, get one now. They constantly test out cookware and kitchen implements to find the best. Le Creuset is generally regarded as the best you can buy but DAMN the stuff is expensive. IIRC, Chefs tested cookware and found as such, but the real surprise came in second: Walmart's own brand of cookware came in second. And it's CHEAP. I'll see if I can find the actual brand name and post it here. ",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "While not non-stick, we've had good luck with Emerilware. I typically don't have an issue with the lack of a non-stick surface.\n\nHowever, another alternative that worked out well for me is getting cast iron from auctions. I ended up with a Lodge brand dutch oven for about $20 and so far nothing has stuck to it. Granted, it's a bit hit or miss, but what the hey, if you get good stuff that way, why not.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
What's more incriminating? | What's more incriminating: Your wife finding porn in your history or Your wife finding nothing in your history? | 3 | [
{
"body": "If she finds nothing in your history, you can just tell her \"I thought it was slowing the computer down so I cleared it out.\"\n\nFeign computer illiteracy.",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "You have to hide the fact that you watch porn from your wife? Seriously?\r\n\r\nFirst of all why? Secondly, grow some balls man.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Use a different browser than your \"normal\" one when looking at questionable material, then when you clear it nobody is suspicious.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Does altruism exist? | I posted [this](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/aqvu4/why_does_everyone_brag_about_their_good_deeds/) last night, but found the question to be too specific.
What do you think? Are good deeds any lesser when bragged about, when the good deed-er seeks out praise? And, more broadly, does anyone ever do anything selflessly? This is bothering me, maybe because I was raised Catholic (and organized religion makes a big deal out of altruistic acts), yet I cannot think of any act which would be purely altruistic. Even the tiniest thing, like helping an elder cross the street, would make me smile. Did I help them to cross the street, in part, to make me feel better about myself? And is that selfish?
EDIT: Wow, great responses everyone. I will continue to ponder this for the rest of my days, though with a greater field of knowledge and ideas from which to confuse myself. I'm picking up *The Moral Animal* upon [topicproman's recommendation](http://www.reddit.com/r/philosophy/comments/ar2gc/does_altruism_exist/c0iyvex).
Ta-ta, it's almost 5 ;-) | 31 | [
{
"body": "The question boils down to semantics. If you define \"altruistic\" as \"completely selfless\", then only an unintentional act could be altruistic. But this clearly contradicts the intension of the concept of \"altruism\". We must conclude then that *complete* selflessness is not a requirement for altruism.\n\nIt seems to me that the beauty of altruism is that it inherently benefits both the giver and the receiver. That connection is one of the best qualities of humans.",
"score": 47
},
{
"body": "I think you misunderstand what altruism means. Just because a person's altruistic actions benefits themselves a little (like feeling good afterward), doesn't make it selfish. That \"feeling good afterward\" can be considered an unavoidable biological response. Nowhere in the definition of altruism does it imply that you can't *\"feel good\"* afterward.\n\nAll that matters for an action to qualify as altruism is what was going through your head **before** you did the action. What you experience or feel later in the future doesn't somehow travel back in time to rewrite your motives.",
"score": 13
},
{
"body": "i think there may be a problem here in that you seem to be defining *altruism* as *necessarily irrational,* by which i mean you seem to be assuming that in order for an act to qualify as altruism, there must necessarily be no good reason for the actor to do it. at the same time, this equation places a peace corps worker, who volunteers to do back-breaking labor to save starving people and refugees because they can't bear to sit idly by when so many are suffering, *exactly on par* with donald trump, who buys and sells real estate to make profits far beyond what he has any reason to accumulate.\n\nthere is nothing self-contradictory about this position, but it doesn't seem to get any work done toward understanding morality in anything like conventional terms. i think a better approach is to ask this question in terms of *character development* - namely, is it worth morally valuing personal character which *empathizes and identifies with* the needs of others such that the self is expanded and the boundary between \"what i want\" and \"what needs doing\" dissolves?",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "I was reading a few pages from a book by the Dalai Lama that my girlfriend has - about a week ago. \n\nThe Dalai Lama wrote that altruism is a goal but not an achievable one for most people. Some of the Buddhist principles set up inescapable conundrums for people, particularly regarding altruism.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "The real question is, \"Does causality exist?\"\r\n\r\nIf it does, then we must ask ourselves, \"Can we ever determine the cause of an action?\"\r\n\r\nIn my opinion, we will never truly know the cause of something, and therefore the existence of altruism cannot be known. What can be known however is the benefits to the giver and the receiver.\r\n\r\nIf you define the requisite benefits then perhaps you will have an answer to your question.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "[Psychological egoism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychological_egoism)\n\nMy understanding is that altruism is a natural quality innate in certain animals, but, insofar as humans are rational and conscious, they are egoists who do some charitable things.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "This can be answered by recognizing that altruism, like all other human traits, has developed over millions of years as a product of natural selection. The first thing to realize is that there is only one thing to consider from the perspective of selection: does the gene produce a product that makes it likely that gene will be passed on? So consider the genes responsible for the emotions that make humans prone to altruism. It is generally accepted by relevant experts that human altruism could be categorized by one of two types, and each performs its own function. First, there is familial altruism. This has an obvious purpose: your family members share your genes, so helping them survive and reproduce is analogous to you surviving and reproducing. The other, more relevant idea is participation in a system of mutual altruism. The essential idea here is that by helping others when you can, you create a system where help will be available to you when you need it. It is more beneficial to receive some food while starving that it is costly to give up a portion of your food when you’re doing ok. The system is therefore beneficial from a selection perspective. \nConclusion: Natural selection neatly explains human altruism. As a result, if altruism is defined as “doing something for others without an expected gain for yourself”, then no, there is no altruism. Any altruistic feelings you have are programmed into you because such feelings lead to actions which create a system which is beneficial to you. \n",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": ">Did I help them to cross the street, in part, to make me feel better about myself?\n\nI think it's unlikely that, when you saw this person in need, your immediate thoughts were \"Aha! A chance to bring about a positive change to my mental state.\" You were probably thinking more along the lines of \"Here is a person in need, I will see what I can do.\" It seems odd that someone would perform a good dead as a means to improving their own mental state. In particular, the good feeling that a person experiences when they perform a good deed is at least partially contingent on performing the deed for its own sake.\n\nI don't buy the argument that altruism is fundamentally selfish because there are underlying psychological or neurological reasons for altruistic behavior. This notion of \"selfishness\" simply isn't useful or intuitive.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "People who know me would say I was extremely altruistic. But the truth is I do the nice things I do out of feelings of guilt or for future gain. This doesn't mean I do nice things with any less heart or good intentions. \n\nSo everybody wins?",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Kant had an interesting suggestion. When we help others that we like, it's not really a morally admirable thing, but when we help people we despise (ie, when I donate money to help a children's charity, while hating children) I am doing a truly moral thing. The only problem with this that I see is that the wider ones circle of Morality, the less possible it is to be altruistic.\nAll of our emotions have their roots in natural selection, so ultimately there are few actions that historically have no way of benefiting our genes. That being said, is pure selfishness possible?",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I feel like this is an issue that semantics will suck meaning out of. Because one gets satisfaction from doing a good deed, it does not mean it is not altruistic. Also the meaning of the word, much like any characteristic, can be said to not truly exist because nobody can 'truly experience/do it.' Language is for utilization, people. The word I use for describing somebody doing a good deed with no intended benefit is altruism. The good feelings can be considered incidental. \n\nYeah, like dust4ngel said, the only sort of conclusion from the way you seem to be getting at altruism is that it is irrational, which doesn't give any reasonable definition to 'altruism' that would help us understand morality any better.\n\nAnyway, I think actively helping somebody actively to \"feel better about yourself,\" is actually more selfish than doing it out of concern or a belief of doing good towards others. It is selfish to brag because one gets the reward of acknowledgement and people thinking higher of him/her.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "There are endless numbers of studies in the field of Evolutionary Psychology claiming it, altruism, to exist. [Brent Simpson](http://brent.simpson.socialpsychology.org/) is an example of a researcher looking at altruism and self-interest.\n\nFrom what I've seen, altruism is a scientific fact rather than a philosophical question. It's just a matter of teasing out the specifics.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "tmoraca:\n\nWhat if you acted 100% altruistically and gave someone money to pay off a loan shark but instead they went and bought drugs on which they OD'ed.\n\n\nIn other words, I never understood this \"can you tell me one good deed that is not selfish?\" question. Knowing myself, I can say with 100% certainty, that yes I can. I have done completely altruistic deeds. I usually don't even bother feeling pleasure because of it, because I don't think it was such a big deal to begin with. \n\nAnd the example above. I think even if you know you are %100 altruistic, you don't even have control over whether the deed itself is ultimately going to have a good effect. I say.. Fuck it. Just do good.. or not. And if you do do good and if it feels good, fine. If not, don't do it again. Or do. :)",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Holodeck phaser practice game? | Hi all, does everyone remember the game they played on STTNG for target practice?
Does anyone know an episode which features it? I can't remember any off the top of my head, and I hope to use it as the basis for a simple video game.
Thanks! | 8 | [
{
"body": "Enterprise-D had a [phaser range](http://memory-alpha.org/en/wiki/Phaser_range), but I don't think it was a holodeck program. It's shown in \"A Matter Of Honor\" and \"Redemption\"",
"score": 4
}
]
|
Thinking about bartending class. Has anyone ever? | I'm in NYC. I'm 37, probably look a little younger, male, single (well, divorcing). Class looks like it would cost [$400](http://www.abcbartending.com), [$600](http://www.newyorkbartendingschool.com) or [$600](http://authenticbartending.com).
I probably could work in a bar after work a couple of times for the laughs, to generate funny stories about the time I used to be a bartender. Strictly weekends and would definitely not quit my day job.
Why? Because bartenders get laid and I'm not getting laid enough.
I'm also a little socially anxious and have never had a reason to put myself out there. I can fake it, but don't have what I consider to be enough practice. I feel like bartending is the perfect part-time job to get me out of my comfort zone.
What does the Voice Of Reddit say? | 3 | [
{
"body": "Seriously. I know a lot of people who have taken courses like those. I also know some bartenders. There is no overlap between those 2 groups.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "Get hired as a barback or even a busboy. Then once you start work and get to know the bartenders ask them if you can come in on your nights off and train to be a bartender. Worked for me.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Hey Ask Reddit: Is this normal after wisdom tooth removal? | So on Friday my girlfriend had all 4 wisdom teeth removed (all four were impacted). Today (Monday) none of the swelling has gone down, she can barely open her mouth, there is still a lot of pain, and this morning she woke up with a little bit of blood from her mouth on her pillow. Also, I don't know if this is related or not, but she has been complaining about her tongue being burnt since Saturday even though she has not had any hot food. Is all this normal and if it is, is there anything she should be doing to lessen the discomfort?
We called the dentist office but it is MLK day in the US so the office is closed.
The only medication she is taking is hydrocodone (Vicodin) for the pain.
***edit***- She also had amoxicillin (antibiotic) before the surgery. | 4 | [
{
"body": "She may need a \"Medrol Dose Pack.\" This is a steriod pill pack that will help with the inflammation and swelling. A bit of blood on the pillow is actually pretty normal. Put an old towel on her pillow. A broad spectrum antibiotic like Clindamycin would help if there is any infection. As far as the burnt sensation, the nerve on the lower may be inflammed. This is a side effect that is not uncommon with lower wisdom tooth extraction. It is sometimes remedied by using the medrol dose pack. Sometimes it will get better in a few days, sometimes it takes weeks or months. Very rarely it may never go away. On some patients, the anatomy of their mandibular and lingual nerves is just very close to their wisdom teeth. :( I suggest she go to the ER if she is in agony, or a dental urgent care today. If she can't, call the Dr. who did the extractions first thing tomorrow morning and get in for a post-operative evaluation. Best of luck!! ",
"score": 5
}
]
|
How would society be different if humans were a species that hibernated? | On cold mornings where I'm snuggled up next to my husband and just don't want to get out of my cozy soft nest, I would argue, pretty fucking awesome. | 6 | [
{
"body": "We would have to have a \"breeding season\" to impregnate women so the fetus could gestate during hibernation. Breeding season would be awesome. \n\nBonus: men could just sleep through the worst part of the pregnancy!",
"score": 8
},
{
"body": "I don't have a reference here, but recall reading that we actually pretty much did. A survey commisioned in Napoleonic France found that outside of the major cities, everyone pretty much snuggled up in Bed during the winter months, and only worked to keep the fire going and food in their bellies. From what I recall reading, only 200 odd yeas ago, things were very different, with people only working as much as they needed, and pulling stunts like that.\n\nEDIT: Reference: \"Economists and bureaucrats who ventured out into the countryside after the Revolution were horrified to find that the work force disappeared between fall and spring. The fields were deserted from Flanders to Provence. Villages and even small towns were silent, with barely a column of smoke to reveal a human presence. As soon as the weather turned cold, people all over France shut themselves away and practiced the forgotten art of doing nothing at all for months on end.\n\nIn the mountains, the tradition of seasonal sloth was ancient and pervasive. \"Seven months of winter, five months of hell,\" they said in the Alps. When the \"hell\" of unremitting toil was over, the human beings settled in with their cows and pigs. They lowered their metabolic rate to prevent hunger from exhausting supplies. If someone died during the seven months of winter, the corpse was stored on the roof under a blanket of snow until spring thawed the ground, allowing a grave to be dug and a priest to reach the village.\n\nThe same mass dormancy was practiced in other chilly parts. In 1900, The British Medical Journal reported that peasants of the Pskov region in northwestern Russia \"adopt the economical expedient\" of spending one-half of the year in sleep: \"At the first fall of snow the whole family gathers round the stove, lies down, ceases to wrestle with the problems of human existence, and quietly goes to sleep. Once a day every one wakes up to eat a piece of hard bread. . . . The members of the family take it in turn to watch and keep the fire alight. After six months of this reposeful existence the family wakes up, shakes itself\" and \"goes out to see if the grass is growing.\"\"\n\nSource: http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/25/opinion/25iht-edrobb.1.8468390.html",
"score": 6
}
]
|
AskReddit: Is it legal for your boss to take away hours you've worked, and not pay you for them? | Let's pretend you're a waiter, and you clock in and out every night. Your boss tells you, next time you forget to clock out, he's taking away the hours you worked that day.
Granted, we get paid in tips so taking our hours isn't a HUGE issue (monetarily), but it's the principal of the thing. He's convinced he is allowed to take hours from us, that we worked, and not pay us for them, because "he owns the restaurant".
I believe the law goes something like: you have to pay your employees for the hours they worked, no matter what.
Please reddit, set me straight so I can set him straight.
Edit/Update: I know I shouldn't have to ask and I knew I was correct, but I had to ask. He now thinks this will work. HE won't take away our hours, he'll have the POS system count our hours backwards for the day, that way "he" isn't doing it. I tried explaining the concept of him being responsible for his system operating correctly, but he doesn't believe that either. | 10 | [
{
"body": "Do you really need to ask this? Do you really think you can not get paid for work that you did due to your boss' whims?",
"score": 16
},
{
"body": "No, he cannot do this. File a complaint with your states workforce commission. You are owed backwages (at a minimum). ",
"score": 14
},
{
"body": "I believe (correct me if I'm wrong) that your server number would be on receipts proving you worked. He can fire you for not clocking out but he has to pay you and I'm fairly certain he knows the hours you were there. \n\nForgetting to clock out is fairly common.",
"score": 5
}
]
|
CNN: "Tuesday's quake has only strengthened the religious fervor many Haitians carry in their souls.
'A lot of people who never prayed or believed -- now they believe'" | So let me get this straight. Either intentionally or through neglect, your omnipotent deity just murdered 50,000+ of your fellow countrymen, destroyed much of your country's infrastructure dooming more to the same, and this takes you off the fence in the direction of faith?
"Religion is the only thing you can sell where the customers blame themselves for product failure." --unknown | 15 | [
{
"body": "To put it bluntly, the typical Haitian has very little in the way of education, and when something happens to people with little education and little or no critical thinking skills, they will tend to chalk that occurrence up to a supernatural cause.\n\nTLDR: Natural Disaster happens to people with little knowledge of science, and voila! God did it!",
"score": 3
}
]
|
American Redditors: What are you proud of about your culture? | It seems like people spend a lot of time talking about the negatives of American culture, of which there are many. But there are also many positives that make the USA distinct from other countries. What are some that you are particularly proud of?
I'll add my answer as a comment. | 18 | [
{
"body": "I'm an American who had lived abroad, and I have to say that I am proud of how open, friendly, kind, and helpful we are to total strangers, culturally. In a day to day interaction way, I mean. When I lived in London people would look at me like I was fucking insane if I spoke to them while waiting in line, on the bus, etc. As soon as they realized I was American it seemed I got a bit of a pass, but I had to remember to keep to myself. When I came back to the US I was almost freaked out by how open and talkative people were. Now I'm re-learning the joy of making a five-minute best friend in the checkout line at the supermarket - sometimes I really brightens my day to have a laugh with the lady behind me about the stupid tabloids, or get a compliment on my skirt. Hell, the other day some old dude told me how to cook Cornish game hen! \n\nAnyway, yeah. We're sweet people.",
"score": 45
},
{
"body": "One thing that I especially like is the lack of a defined center. America is a churning, fragmented place that still nonetheless manages to hold itself together, and that lends itself to a wonderful amount of cultural diversity. The only other country even remotely like it in this respect (at least, that I've spent time in) is India, and its a toss-up as to which one manages to be more disparate and yet functional at the same time.\n\nThe interesting upshot of this in America is that the cultural diversity is combined with a national ethos of being _different_ somehow. Whereas in East Asian cultures there is a certain comfort regressing toward the mean, and many European countries (particularly, in my experience, Scandinavia) there is a tendency towards seeking consensus, in America the culture points in the opposite direction. You _must_ be unique, you must rebel, you must be against things, you have to stand out somehow. You have to find something else in the culture to set yourself against, even to hate.\n\nI think this is missed by a lot of the European redditors who browse this site. Americans always have got to be rebelling against something else in America - that is part of how the country talks to itself. The apocalyptic portraits of American life in which the rational are set upon at all sides by malevolent Christians, cops and Palinites is just as much a gross exaggeration as the doom-stricken America painted by Rush Limbaugh in which Christmas is replaced by Lesbian Abortion Day. Indeed, in a peculiar way, for a certain segment of the population hating America is an essential part of what being an American is.\n\nThis constant turmoil is what keeps America interesting. There is very little in the way of a defined national creed or ethos to rally around, but rather the creed seems more to be simply setting oneself apart somehow. I've spoken to plenty of people who find this rather brutal, and there is something to that, but its also what ensures something is always going on. Even when it amounts to little more than a tawdry soap opera, there is always something to watch.",
"score": 39
},
{
"body": "I grew up in the US, but most of my family is in mainland Europe. Here's my (limited) observations.\r\nSome are serious... Many are not.\r\n\r\n1. Strangers start conversations with you. (Exceptions are New York City and Los Angeles). The mid-west is especially friendly. It's weird at first and then endearing after a while. You miss it when you travel.\r\n\r\n2. Large selection of beers at bars. Foreign and domestic. They pride themselves on variety.\r\n\r\n3. Multi-lingual. Despite the stereotype, Americans *do* speak a crapload of languages. However, most of them just happen to not be European languages. My local state car registry offers the information in Cambodian.\r\n\r\n4. Variety in sports. My friends and I enjoy watching Basketball, Baseball, Football (American), Hockey and Soccer. Most of my family in Europe watches only Football (Soccer). \r\n\r\n5. Gender equality in the workplace. Not perfect, but better than just about any other country I've seen. Count the number of female CEOs.\r\n\r\n6. People take risks in their lives. Our society encourages it. When you crash and burn, it's much easier to start anew.\r\n\r\n7. People admire those that earn their money rather than inherit it.\r\n\r\n8. Freedom of religion and freedom from religion. Try living in a country with a state religion and you'll notice the difference.\r\n\r\n9. A volunteer culture. Whether it be coaching kids sports or helping out in the classroom. It's amazing the number of unpaid volunteers in the community I grew up in. (Library, School, Sports)\r\n\r\n10. Our country is continually re-inventing itself. Change is a good thing.",
"score": 39
},
{
"body": "I'm proud of our music. Not so much the rap/hip-hop, although some of the more poetry-oriented stuff is really interesting. But I'm proud of our folk tradition, blues, jazz--nothing quite moves me like American music, or foreign music that has its roots in American tradition.",
"score": 25
},
{
"body": "I'm proud of our generosity. Americans get a lot of shit and are blamed for all that is wrong in the world but when a huge disaster happens; the support, compassion and generosity that is shown by the citizens is overwhelming. We have a lot of very helpful people who aren't interested in taking over countries and genuinely want to help their fellow man.",
"score": 22
},
{
"body": "Considering our relatively short existence, I think America has a pretty rich literary history with some talented authors. ",
"score": 20
},
{
"body": "As a culture -- and enshrined in our laws -- we are remarkably good about letting people get up, dust themselves off, and try again after failure. \n\nThis shows up in lots of ways, but one of the most visible (if not readily commented on) is our \"easy\" system of personal and corporate bankruptcy. It's certainly not painless, but it moves pretty quickly and lets people (and companies) start fresh with a lot less baggage than most other countries allow.\n\n[The Economist](http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=14391731&story_id=15211818) did a nice write-up on this recently.\n",
"score": 14
},
{
"body": "I would contend that there isn't a single \"culture\" in America, at least in the most traditional sense, but that there exists a single, unifying ideal: Democracy. Whether conscious of them or not, most Americans all share a respect for our liberty, independence, and freedoms.\n\nCulturally, I'm proud that my country is responsible for many of the uniquely American ideas, inventions, and pass-times, I enjoy:\nDungeons & Dragons, comics, American literature, science fiction, popular music, personal computers, the electric guitar, the modern automobile, coffee, hamburgers, pizza, television, and the internet.",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "[This](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/f4/1944_NormandyLST.jpg/791px-1944_NormandyLST.jpg). \r\nWhen the shit hits the fan, you know what country has your back.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "Irreverence.\n\n*Nothing* is *so* sacred as to go unquestioned or unchallenged. While this may at first seem like merely a profitable practice for the late night hosts or the stand up comedians, the real reason is that it is in our psyche to tear down *anything* that begins to get larger than life; laugh at it till it is not that intimidating or overwhelming - lest we may be tempted to follow it with eyes closed, mesmerized by it's power. A lot of evil in this world begins that way. And we do this equally well with grief as well. We can look it squarely in face, make jokes about it and cut it down to size, till it loses its power.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "Not so much Americans, but I'm fairly proud of the midwest. Particularly the northern parts. People here work very hard, don't complain about the cold (You can't really complain, it could be worse.) and always welcome you into their homes with open arms.\n\n\nI love it here and would never want to live anywhere else.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "As a European, here's my take:\nThe more I read American history the more I think, wow, Americans were real ass-holes in every act up until the 20th century, even the war of independence was an over-reaction, not to mention the whole slavery thing and the Indian removal act, I mean, my people were the subject of this kind of cruelty, not the creators (yes, I'm an eternally guilty Irishman here). \n\nHowever, (enough of the America bashing now) if we look to the past we find most of our ancestors were dicks, in many cases, more so than in America. But now to the present. It is a fact that America has been the dominant nation in the world which ultimately tried to make the world better, (with a few personal advantages on the side, but who can blame you). Just look at some of the older world powers, Britain, ass-holes, Napoleon's France, well meaning in some ways, but completely lost the run of themselves, the Mongols, total shit-heads, the Roman empire, cruel sons of bitches. So at the end of the day, although as a nation you're far from perfect, your the only nation not to be corrupted by absolute power, as a citizen of one of the minor nations of the world, I really owe you one. So hold your heads up high I say, be proud, not of your fore fathers, but of yourselves, because you wouldn't stand for anything less.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "While there is a lot in our country that we don't have to be proud of, we can be proud of our ability and initiative to send out help to countries in need during a crisis. Without us, relief efforts wouldn't be as great. \n\nI am also proud of how socially acceptable it is to say hi to people you don't know. Try this in Finland, it won't work.\n\nedit - It seems someone already beat me to the talking to strangers thing. At least I'm not alone.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "General sense of optimism\r\n\r\nLevel of cultural acceptance/tolerance\r\n\r\nDiversity of opinions, and dedication to the allowing people to express them.\r\n\r\nThese are some other aspects of our culture that I'm proud of but these are the ones I consider to be uniquely American. (I realize there are some crazy people that don't really exemplify my examples but the magority of the people I've met/know do)",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Charlie Kaufman, Lady GaGa, Bob Dylan, Joanna Newsom, Daniel Clowes, plus we've got some really great universities and medical schools. Also, hello? *Pixar*!\r\n\r\nabstract: the art",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "First Amendment. All other freedoms derive from it. \n\n\"Can-Do\" attitude found in many people. I was worried it was disappearing, but the appearance of Make Magazine, the interest in crafts, is bringing it back.\n\nThe largely classless society, the overall amicability of people.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I like the fact that its socially acceptable for people from any culture or ethniticy to live in the usa without it being any issue, no one thinks twice about it. \n\nBut if your american and go to another country, most of the time you stand out and are always labeled the \"foreigner\"\n\nWhen I went over seas to SE asia, its what I heard most, or was called. Example \" tell the foreigner to stand here\" ",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I wish this post would get more upvotes. Redditors are generally quick to point out the evils of America, but they often fail to recognize what a unique and beautiful place it is.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
IAmA son whose mother died after I had her respirator removed. AMA. | It occurred to me that not alot of people may have gone through what I went through, so I thought I could share my experience and help.
My mother ruptured a subarachnoid aneursym on December 8, 2008. Her express wishes were that her partner (my step-father, although they never married) be her health-care proxy. When she was taken to the ER he claimed he wasn't able to find the paperwork (we think he destroyed it) so the decisions for her care fell to me.
I never made a single decision without discussing it with him and my sister (she's 7 years older than me and lives in Missouri; I'm in New York) but I was still the one who, when it became apparent she wouldn't regain consciousness, signed her DNR order and told the doctors to remove her respirator. She lived for almost 2 days after she was extubated and died on December 18, 2008, with my wife and I at her side.
So, AMA.
EDIT: Thank you all for the questions and expressions of sympathy. I don't know how much I'll be looking at this post as the night progresses but I'll be checking it tomorrow, so feel free to post questions or to PM me if this post appears to die. | 25 | [
{
"body": "You're a good person for abiding by her wishes and not turning it into something selfish. Did you have any disagreements with her partner or your sister about what should be done?",
"score": 12
},
{
"body": "One other thing that makes this whole experience more surreal... several weeks before this happened my mother had to take her engagement ring to a local jewelry store to be repaired. She e-mailed my sister shortly after and gave her the name of the jewelry store, the address, phone number and directions on how to get there from her (my mother's) house. \n\nMy mother also had a talk with my brother-in-law about a year before this happened and told him that she wanted me to have her guns if something happened (her and my step-father hunted) and said that one of her guns he may want to keep. Sure enough, he asked me if he could have that one gun. He actually asked if he could buy it from me; I told him hell no and gave it to him. ",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "I was there for my boyfriend when he was in a similar situation a year ago. His mother had a heart attack and suffered severe brain damage from a lack of oxygen. He had to fight the hospital to enforce her wishes about DNR. It was a constant barrage of doctors and nurses trying to convince him to keep her on life support while also telling him she was basically a vegetable who would never recover. They wanted to keep her in the hospital indefinitely, hooked up to a respirator and feeding tube. \n\nWhat was your experience with the doctors treating your mother? Were they supportive of the decision?",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Got into a big argument, what to do next? | I got into a big fight with my girlfriend last night. I tend to get angry easily when we fight. The whole situation started over laundry. After things started heating up. I just sat there quietly. Then she said "why do you sound so annoyed?" I replied with "because you're bossing me around" At this time she got her things and left to the coffee house. At this time I made dinner and bought roses.
When she got back things got worse. She had made a list of things on her mind, and one of the items said she wanted to break up. I don't know how everything got so out of control. (And I feel like I don't have control of anything right now). I started feeling frustrated and I yelled at her. I started throwing and kicking some things around the house. I really scared her and she went off to stay at her cousin's. She's back now but she said she's tired and we'll talk about this later. I'm sorry I know I left a lot of stuff out.
How do I fix this? Have I gone too far? | 9 | [
{
"body": "bro... you got violent. you got violent before you exhausted all diplomatic means. you know what that makes you? that makes you the United States of America. no girl wants to date a fucking country.",
"score": 46
},
{
"body": "You went waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay too far. Throwing and kicking things is right on the cusp of abuse. You were right to cool down and try to slow things down after the initial fight, but when she came back with her list you should have listened and been ready to discuss. \n\nIt sucks to hear someone say they want to break up, and not knowing the situation super well she may have been saying it to provoke you. However, the correct way to handle this would have been to discuss why she wants to break up. Is it because of your anger issues? Can you guys work this out with couples counseling? Can you work out your own anger issues with personal counseling? These are what should have followed.\n\nI don't know if this is fixable. I suspect she wanted to talk about it later because she is now set on breaking up with you and wants to be able to move out without having to fear you exploding at her. What you did was way over the line.\n\nRegardless of what happens get to a shrink, reacting violently is NEVER ok.",
"score": 15
},
{
"body": "I would really talk to a therapist about your anger issues, regardless of what your girlfriend decides to do. It will continue to impair your relationships with those around you. ",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "You apologize for behaviour, and you find some way to manage your anger. Even if it means as something as formal anger management courses.\n\nShe might not want to come back. You aren't entitled to her as a girlfriend, so there's nothing you can do about that if she doesn't want to stay with you.\n\nGet some kind of therapy or something. Anger and violent reactions like that are used by people to re-establish control. You say you felt out of control -- well, yeah, you can't control her or the things she wants. Chances are there's a reason you're getting angry very easily. Figure it out before you get sent to jail for hitting your next girlfriend.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": ">She had made a list of things on her mind, and one of the items said she wanted to break up. I don't know how everything got so out of control.\n\nAn object in motion tends to stay in motion. While she was out she was not calming down but her mind was still going on the argument. Her girlfriends on the phone probably didn't help either. When I've seen it happen it goes on till it kills the relationship.\n",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "> I started throwing and kicking some things around the house.\n\nAHH! First off, you need to knock this shit off. Nothing says \"I have the potential to knock your teeth in\" than acting violently. \n\nNext off, you need to calm down. From the limited info, it sounds like you're in a relationship rut. Things were great for a while, and you've forgotten why you fell in love with each other to begin with. So little things (issues like laundry) become magnified because you haven't reminded each other *why* you love each other.\n\nI will leave you with the best advice I've ever gotten:\n\n\"No matter how much you're fighting. No matter how much you're in a rut. Do something nice for her. Go out of your way and do something that you feel that she doesn't even deserve. You both have walls up are defending them to the death. Send out an olive branch, and she will follow suit.\"",
"score": 3
}
]
|
What's your favorite smoothie recipe? | I have two favorites at the moment.
One:
* one cup frozen blueberries
* one banana
* one cup green tea (or almond milk)
* one tsp flaxseed
* one tsp cinnamon
* one cup spinach (or kale)
Two:
* a bunch of strawberries (at least 10)
* one banana
* one cup vanilla soymilk (I'm moving off soy though, so I'm going to try it with tea or almond milk)
* one tbs maple syrup or brown sugar
| 22 | [
{
"body": "* half cup oatmeal (NOT steel-cut)\n* one cup soy/almond milk\n* half cup of: berries (all of them), bananas.\n\nBlend\n\nDrink\n\nThank me later. ",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Slightly less formal methods in software verification | The [doctoral thesis](http://www.cs.auckland.ac.nz/~pgut001/pubs/thesis.html) of Peter Gutmann contains a [critique](http://www.cypherpunks.to/~peter/04_verif_techniques.pdf) (pdf warning) of the state of the art in formal methods ca 2000. Additionally, he [describes the technique](http://www.cypherpunks.to/~peter/05_verif_implementation.pdf) (also pdf) that he used in developing the Cryptlib cryto kernel library. tldr, it boils down to a principled use of C's assert() to verify both the preconditions and postconditions of functions in C.
His technique is particularly interesting to me in that it seems like a nice bridge between current practice and the methods proposed by [Ynot](http://ynot.cs.harvard.edu/) and its Hoare Type Theory. If you write your code with precondition and postcondition annotations like this, then maybe your development environment will allow you to choose between verification by proof and verification by runtime assertions. | 8 | [
{
"body": "Nothing new. Bertand Meyer coined the term \"Design-by-contract\" in 1986 to cover pre-conditions, post-conditions and class invariants and more importantly to automatically verify them at runtime.\n\nAnd even though mainstream languages have only partly caught-up to the idea, things have moved forward since then. For example, property based testing allows you to define the properties your program should hold and generate the test cases automatically. This would be equivalent of generating the test cases from you assert statements which bridges the gap between formal specification and design even more. Also properties can be more expressive and less intrusive than assertion (as you don't need to sprinkle them all over your code).",
"score": 3
}
]
|
I'd like to accept credit cards at my new small business - does anyone have any advice on the best way to do this? | I'd like to have the ability to input an email address to possibly send an electronic receipt to the customer - but besides that I have no real requirements. | 9 | [
{
"body": "ProPay.com. They offer POS systems too. If you decide to go with PayPal, it's not a matter of whether you will be ripped off, but when.",
"score": 7
}
]
|
Hey guys - need some help - and there's a reward at the the end | One or two of you may have heard of my blog, forgottenbookmarks.com. I am trying to figure out the 5 or 10 best found items of the 400 or so. I decided not to ask my twitter or facebook audience, mainly because I thought reddit would take it seriously.
End game: I'll give away one signed copy of "Foucault's Pendulum." It's a first trade edition in very good condition:
http://imgur.com/B56uD
All you have to do to enter to win is tell me which posts you liked.
Actually, that's a bit too spammy. To enter, just comment in this thread. If you take the time to help me out - awesome. If not, that's cool. Reddit has given me a lot and never asked for anything.
Contest will be open until Wednesday at 3:00 PM EST, and I'll announce the winner 10 minutes later. I use the random.org list randomizer to pick the winners.
If you have any questions, ask away.
EDIT: A few have asked, so... the reason I'm doing this is because I am presenting a book proposal shortly, and was asked to show off 10 of the best items. You can't trust simple web stats for this kind of thing, so I thought I'd ask you guys. | 10 | [
{
"body": "* \"Feed Me\" found in Han Solo's Revenge (For the random-ness.)\r\n* \"Love and Marriage\". (Wow. Who the hell would use their marriage certificate as a bookmark? O.o)\r\n* \"Sketch of Moon at Night\" in the Tarzan book. (Very nice little sketch!)\r\n* \"The Garden\". (I've always been a sucker for old photos, and the fact that it was randomly found in an old book makes it even more interesting.)\r\n* \"Last Will & Testament\" (Wow. Just... wow. It was the author's inscription which really got me...)\r\n* \"Future Shock\" (Again with the old photos... mainly for the horse and buggy one.)\r\n* \"The Man's Best Friend.\" (Love the dog's expression...)\r\n* \"Arithmetic\"\r\n\r\nVery nice site, by the way! ",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "I wasn't aware of your blog, so thank you for bringing it to my attention. Seems really interesting. :D\n\nEDIT: My favorite so far is the note in Han Solo's Revenge. The magazine clipping of the \"Utica Jubilee Singers\" in the Anglo-Saxon Poetry book is pretty hilarious, as well. ",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Oh boy, cool blog you've got there; I wasn't familiar with it before today. \r\n\r\nSo far, my fave items are the \"Tundum - The Wonder of the Age\" advertisement, the \"Sensation brand hair net, made from natural medium brown human hair\" and the \"No Bones About It\" advertising card. I have a whole lot of your site to look through yet though.\r\n\r\n",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Does anyone read more than one book at a time? How do you do it? | Obviously I don't mean putting two books next to each other and reading them both at the exact same time :P
I ask this because I have a gigantic backlog of books I want to read, and my attention span is such that I can't stay engaged in any single piece of reading material for more than an hour without wanting to go read/do something else.
So, for those who read more than one book at a time, how do you do it? Do you read one fiction book and one non fiction book? Do you have one book at work and one book at home? | 7 | [
{
"body": "I like to hold one in each hand, alternating sentences between books. I finish them faster this way. I call it the 1, 2 technique. ",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Ive read multiple books since I learned to read. Because it's something Ive pretty much always done, I don't know of many tips or tricks. Hell, Im rereading the first book of a series at the same time Im reading the most recent. Hows THAT for confusing? \n Looking at other peoples posts, I agree with using different subject matter, I guess, though what I read tends to run a lot on the same line. Id also suggest picking different writing styles. \nedit: any --> many, since 'different writing styles' probably counts. \n",
"score": 3
}
]
|
A crazy redneck won't stop calling me because he thinks I'm harassing him with phone calls. Help! | Hey Reddit.
Yesterday I needed to reset my Verizon Blackberry Storm by removing and reinserting the battery. After the phone was finished booting up, I received a phone call from a "Private Number" (that is how it appeared on my caller ID). The man on the other end of the phone ended up being this crazy redneck who began screaming at me for harassing him with phone calls - presumably I was calling him and hanging up. I had done this 3 times in 10 minutes.
Obviously, I had NOT done this, because my phone was busy doing its thing. Anyway, after a brief verbal confrontation where I tried to convince the guy I hadn't called him on purpose, I hung up. We had another brief conversation where I asked him in no uncertain terms to stop calling, and hung up. He called a few more times and stopped.
Today I received another phone call and let it go to voicemail. This time it was a redneck woman, asking me "Do you know Jesus? The blood of Jesus is against you." Nice!
I'm not really sure what to do about this. On the one hand, if they're going to start leaving hilarious voicemails, I'm thinking about just letting it continue - that's great material. On the other, I'm not sure what to do if they keep harassing, as I don't have their number. I could call Verizon but I'm not sure what they can do for me.
I have no idea who these people are. I'm convinced they are not friends of mine pulling a prank.
I should also note that about a year ago, I was receiving a rash of phone calls from people in my area code, saying I was calling them when I was not. About 3 times this happened. All of those people were nice and believed me when I said I didn't call them and it was some snafu with the phone system. I haven't had a problem like that in nearly a year. | 6 | [
{
"body": "The... the blood of Jesus is... **gulp** against you?! RUUUUUUNNNNN sims5487, run for your very life!!1!\n\nAlternatively you could start a Twitter feed called stuffmyredneckstalkersays.",
"score": 13
},
{
"body": "It sounds like your phone could be ghost dialing. Verizon may be able to tell you if outbound calls happened while your phone was being reset, but they won't be able to give you the numbers dialed.\n\nVerizon should have an annoyance department that could open a ticket if you decide to pursue that direction. Or you could just post the messages online.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "I've had crazy people call me repeatedly. I just called up Verizon and told them to block the number he was calling from. They did it for me pretty easily.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
If you had free reign in the fortune cookie production facility what fortune cookie messages what would you write? | Keep in mind that you are limited to one side of the paper, the paper slip is roughly 59mm X 13mm aka 3 5/16 inches by ½ inch (I measured one just now) The messages also must be one sentence long. No Fortune Diatribes… sorry but someone has to impose some creative limits here…. We know how Redditors can be.
It can be inspirational, comical, suicide inducing, you name it, if it fits the size requirements it goes.
| 19 | [
{
"body": "I got a fortune cookie at a resteraunt in arkansas that read \"nuke the gay whales\". I kept it in my wallet until it fell apart because nobody ever believed me so i had to show them. should have framed it or something though lol. ",
"score": 21
},
{
"body": "I was going to stalk this thread all day and just post \"In bed\" after all of them. That would not be cool, though, that would be lame.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I'd ask reddit to help me run it. Of course, the first in the line would be \"Help! I'm trapped in a fortune cookie factory\" just as a homage to xkcd. \n\nThe rest, would be up to you.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
DAE have friends that have boundary issues? | I don't mean your aussie buddy who's getting deported, I mean people who forget that there is certain times to be besties, and certain times to just leave you the hell alone.
I shut off my cell phone and decided to get a nap in around noon yesterday. At about 3, a buddy of mine lets himself into my house (nobody else was home), comes up to my room, opens the door and wakes me up. Then proceeds to complain about how my cell phone was off. Seriously?
Anybody else have friends like this? | 18 | [
{
"body": "I have a house mate who is anal about tidiness, and thinks nothing of moving my shit all over the house, to satisfy the 'order' shit should be in in his mind. I routinely have to search for sunglasses, keys, books, shoes (ie, shit that normal people can cope with lying around). And then he goes and ignores his dogs piss all over the floor, expecting me to clean it up because he 'does all the other work' (ie rearranging shit that didn't need moving in the first place.) \r\n\r\nArgh. ",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "Not my friend, but my roommates friend. I get home one day and when I walk into my room I see this guy sitting at my desk, on my computer, eating the bag of chips that I had in my drawer, and drinking one of my beers.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "I would freak. No one likes the surprise visitor, who shows up in your room, while you're sleeping. This would scare the shit out of me!!! \r\n\r\nI would get your keys back from this person. \r\n\r\n",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "None of my friends understand the concept of knocking. Thus, they have walked in on me either having sex, or naked at least once.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Want to port your game to my large screen Android device? | I work at a startup called enTourage Systems. We are going to start shipping our new product we’re calling a “dualbook”, the eDGe, at the end of next month. We have lots of great productivity, document management and office related apps, but we’re lacking a few good games. Most android games that are out there right now are hardcoded for cell phone sized screens. We have a 10.1” LCD that is much more fun to play games on comparatively, but there just aren’t many games that work correctly with such a large screen.
What I’m looking for are android developers who are interested in porting their games to a larger screen size, potentially to ship with the product, for a premium.
Please shoot me a PM if you are interested and I will contact you.
EDIT: the resolution is 1024x600
tl;dr: we're looking for mature games to be ported to a new android device with the largest screen yet.
| 20 | [
{
"body": "What are the details on the screen? 10.1\" is probably not enough information for people to start porting.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "it would be really interesting if you could rotate both screens, use the bottom one as a full screen keyboard, and have the type appear on the top one",
"score": 3
}
]
|
So I told my mom I smoke. She is upset and believes that the herb "changes" people and is only used as an escape. | I explained to her I am very spiritual about the process, and that many religions such as Buddhism, Hinduism, Rastafari, and is some cases even Christianity utilizes cannabis.
I have had anxiety for a long time and she uses this as an arguement against me. She thinks the bud caused my anxiety, despite me having moderate to severe anxiety for much longer than I have been toking. That and the fact that toking has helped my anxiety, if anything.
She is pretty ignorant when it comes to these sorts of things... Despite me telling her all the facts, she still believes that I should not use it and that I am simply "self-medicating". My grades have gone up since I started smoking, as well as my happiness, but she still thinks it is evil. I told her that most drugs all have benefits, but stupid people and corruption have made them illegal. Then she got even more mad when I informed her of the therapeutic uses of MDMA and medicinal uses of opium in other countries.
I finally got fed up with her and said something I should not have said. I told her "Well I lost all respect for you anyway when I found out you joined a freaking cult."
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unification_Church
That was a mistake and she hasn't spoken to me since. She had her reasons for joining, and although I think it was pretty stupid of her, I know I don't completely understand why she joined.
Any advice? | 32 | [
{
"body": "I never saw what was so awesome about reality/sobriety that made escaping a bad thing. People take vacations all the time, submerge themselves in mind numbing television, religion, shit even work. It seems to me that the only thing that is not escaping would be wallowing in your problems all the time, sounds healthy...",
"score": 20
},
{
"body": "She's a member of the fucking Unification Church?\n\nHere's an idea. Have a sit down with her. State and agree upon the following:\n\n1. Neither of us agree with the other.\n2. We need to be courteous and respectful of each other as we are family, and the alternative is simply unworkable.\n3. We both hold prejudices against the other's chosen spiritual/mental outlet. These are unlikely to change.\n4. As such, the best approach is to have a \"don't ask, don't tell\" policy in place. Your mom doesn't ask you to join the church. You smoke your joints in the backyard when she goes to bed, and you're a fucking ninja about it.\n5. If a situation arises where one is forced to encounter the other's outlet (a church event, you forget weed on your nightstand) the appropriate response is disapproval and emphasis on the \"don't ask, don't tell\" policy, forgiveness, and moving forward to a workable day to day relationship.\n\nSome things are not going to work out. So just fucking avoid it.\n\nAnd if she's a bitch about it? Gloves off.\n\n>The researchers found that Unification Church members reported considerable drug use in pre-conversion days. Nearly one-fourth \"said that they had had serious drug problems in the past, and the portion who had ever used drugs of abuse was higher than for a comparable national sample [for example, use of hallucinogens was 45 percent versus 14 percent].\" \n\nhttp://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/longterm/cult/unification/religion.htm",
"score": 8
},
{
"body": "I agree that agreeing to disagree is the most agreeable. You might want to apologize for criticizing her religion, saying that you got a little defensive. \n\nPersonally, I just keep my folks out of the topic of *my* use, and gently correct them when they regurgitate dogma / propaganda. I try to empower them to do their own research to free themselves from the bondage of their prejudice. To me, it is a very personal issue that I keep the folks out of - like my sex life. If they asked me if I smoke, I'd just say, \"That's Illegal!\" and leave it at that.\n\nHere's my thoughts for the conventional Christian POV:\n\n1. God created cannabis. To deny this undermines the whole basis of the Christian faith. (The Devil is a destructive, entropic force, not a creative one. And to say that God had no idea that people would fall in love with cannabis denies God's omnipotence.)\n\n2. the ol' Genesis 1:29 argument: Then God said, \"Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is on the surface of all the earth, and every tree which has fruit yielding seed; it shall be food for you; (hempseed is a complete protein.)\n\n3. to rely on man-made pharmaceuticals denies that God has given us all that we need to enjoy life to its fullest. And it's putting faith in \"limited\" human knowledge rather than acknowledging God's gifts.\n\n4. Spinning in circles is the real gateway drug. Told my mom this other day. :^)",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "She's right. It DOES change people, and it IS an escape. If it changes you for the worse, and you spend all your time \"escaping\", then it's a problem.",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "agree to disagree...\n\nnot always the best option... but better than a never ending stand off\n\nsorry.. i'm a realist",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Man that sucks, but maybe with time she will realize that marijuana didn't turn you into an evilo drug addict things will start to improve. You should apologize to her even though you are 100% correct on all fronts. Life is short and she is your mom, good luck!",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Oh man. I'd get downvoted to hell for this in /r/marijuana, but I'm betting you Treeple will hear me out.\n\nYou say you've suffered from anxiety for a long time. So have I. When your mom says you're self-medicating, *she's right*. You're treating your anxiety with the best known treatment available to mankind. She clearly can't appreciate that, and going by the whole cult thing she's a long way from ever listening to sense on the subject.\n\nSo here's my two cents, for what it's worth. Don't try to sell her on marijuana or anything like that. She won't listen. All you can do here is try your best to be the bigger man, and knock the ball into her court. Write her a note. In it, say that you're sorry about how things went. Say you love her regardless of the differences between you, and you hope she feels the same. Don't belabour the point, don't ask her to do research, don't mention the Unification Church (wow, what a bunch of freaks!). Just tell her you love her, you're sorry that she's upset, and you're willing to talk anytime she's ready. \n\nAfter that, what happens happens. If she continues to ignore you, it's her issue and that really sucks - but it had to happen at some point. That's the worst-case scenario though. Most likely, she'll come to you eventually to make up. If/when that happens, don't mention *anything* about the argument. Just be glad you have your mom back.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Here come the downvotes, 3, 2, 1...\n\nWell, it does change people and it is used as an escape. Are you using it for spiritual reasons? Are you actually Christian? Are you Hindi? Are you a Buddhist? If not, then you shouldn't use those as reasons for smoking.\n\nUnder what circumstances do you smoke? To relax, right? To ... well, escape. You said you have anxiety. Everybody has anxiety. Therefore, you are using it to escape your anxiety. Maybe that's not such a bad thing, but your mother would still be right. But, if you ever wanted her to gain your trust on the subject, you probably should have told her that you smoke with friends. You do smoke with your friends, don't you? It's like drinking alone. It is *exactly* like drinking alone. Go ahead, everyone. \n\nDownvote me into oblivion. But, if you genuinely thing I'm wrong, then you'd damned better tell me why.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
who here is stuck at at work on MLK day? | argh! I don't know why we don't get it off. Banks are closes, half the businesses we do business are closed. Goverment offices are closed.
who here is stuck at work today? | 586 | [
{
"body": "I'm at home getting baked and listening to jazz and about to eat some fried chicken. Black history month, y'know.",
"score": 171
},
{
"body": "We don't take off for the minor holidays. At least the traffic is light and the phones aren't ringing. I use it as a chance to increase my karma.",
"score": 135
},
{
"body": "i'm at work. but it's a hospital, so....if we closed for holidays, that would kinda suck. for you guys.",
"score": 96
},
{
"body": "We had the option to either take the day off or get a floating holiday. My wife and kids are at home today, so of course I took the floating holiday option. >:o)",
"score": 68
},
{
"body": "Oh shit, is it Martin Luther King Day already? I haven't sent any of my Martin Luther King Day cards yet!",
"score": 33
},
{
"body": "I don't get another holiday until Memorial Day. It's kind of depressing. Thanksgiving, Black Friday, Christmas, New Year's, then BAM .... five month gap.\n\nOh well, at least I have a job.",
"score": 11
},
{
"body": "I'm a teller and my bank wasn't closed. We had the drive up open from 8 to 12 and we didn't get out of there til 12:30. Naturally, as everyone thinks banks are closed, it was fuckin dead the whole time and I spent most of my time on reddit...",
"score": 11
},
{
"body": "I'm at work. I'm feeling quite a bit of pain today, too. I rarely go out on the weekends, (kids) but I partied like a college girl this weekend. UGH! I wish I had off today! This is rough...",
"score": 8
},
{
"body": "The funny thing is that today is also my birthday and my vacation request was denied. It's like a double dose of denial. ",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "I am! ...but I'm in Canada. I went to school in the States, and always ended up being there for Canadian holidays, and here for the American ones. I missed two Thanksgivings a year!! I need to start upping my turkey intake immensely to make up for it.",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "To me, what is the point in having a national holiday if all businesses aren't closed? It should be mandatory that all non-critical businesses are closed. And for the ones that are critical (hospitals, etc.) their employees should get a floating holiday to use at a time of their choosing.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "I am and just learned that I have to lay off people that I care dearly about. This will be the third round of layoffs that I will be going through in three years and I feel like I am dying inside.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "I'm drunk at Upland Brewery. What is this work thing of which you speak? Is that anything like a Porter?",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "Who fucking cares? This belongs in the realm of questions like; \"Where did you take a shit on 9/11?\" or \"Things I ate yesterday.\" MLK day isn't a real holiday any fucking way. ",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "I am and it's basically pointless. Everyone of our customers are off today so there is literally nothing to do. I have done maybe 10 minutes worth of work today and the rest has been spent on reddit. I don't mind it though, if my boss wants to pay me to do nothing all day (while he took off himself), then by all means, do so. ",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "People who support society (read: me) had to work today, while thieves and crooks (banks and politicians) get the day off.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I'm a white guy. and, I was laid off at a company, that used the fact that it was black owned as a selling point, on MLK day this time last year.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I had to work. I really wanted to be at home with my family, opening up our MLK Day presents and singing MLK Day carols door-to-door, but it just wasn't in the cards.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Is there such a thing as "thinking too much" ? | People often tell me that I "think too much". When they say it, I kinda get offended. It's like they're implying that thinking a lot is a bad thing. Personally, I don't think you can think too much. What do other Redditors think about this? | 6 | [
{
"body": "Congratulations! You just learned that most people are lazy, and either stupid or too lazy to exercise the brain-power they have. Welcome to the realization that most people in this world undervalue cerebral use. From here its easy to deduce why the world is so fucked up.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "It really depends on the situation. It's very possible to *over*think a situation, and to thus fail to take appropriate action in a timely manner.\n\nSo if thinking is preventing you from doing, then you may be thinking too much. Unless the \"doing\" it's preventing you from doing is stupid shit that you shouldn't be doing in the first place, I guess.",
"score": 4
}
]
|
Rage and the Priest bubble | I've only recently started tanking full-time on my druid (been resto for a lonnnnggggg time), and I've noticed it's exceptionally harder in a 5-man when I have a priest as the healer. In order to generate rage you need to hit stuff and take damage (besides enrage omg). When a priest throws a bubble on me right as I'm pulling no rage gets generated from those first few hits b/c it's all being absorbed = no swipe/maul to generate threat. This makes the rest of the pull a PITA b/c by then everyone else has generated their own threat and I'm constantly trying to get mobs off of other ppl. Am I doing something wrong? I've never played a priest above lvl 30... how important is bubble in your rotation? Throw me a bone here... | 4 | [
{
"body": "1. It used to be the case that you generated no rage from damage taken while bubbled, but that's no longer true (as of 3.1, IIRC). I've noticed empirically that it does *reduce* the amount of rage gained, but some quick googling doesn't indicate that that's true, so I'm not sure which to believe\n2. Disc priests have a talent that grants *extra* rage/mana/runic power when the bubble is broken\n\nSee:\n\n* http://egotisticalpriest.com/2009/04/ten-reasons-to-use-power-word-shield/\n* http://www.wowwiki.com/Rapture\n\nPW:S is pretty central to Disc priests, I don't know where alienproxy gets the idea that they shouldn't be bubbling, maybe he hasn't played one",
"score": 11
},
{
"body": "You still gain rage while bubbled.\n\nhttp://www.wowwiki.com/Power_Word:_Shield\n\nI don't have another link for this, but I remember reading somewhere that rage is calculated and given as the damage is dealt, but before that damage is mitigated by the shield.",
"score": 4
}
]
|
How many of you have pedalboards? Post em! | [Here's Mine](http://i.imgur.com/udLZd.jpg)
Currently not on the board
* Boss GE-7
* Boss CE-5
* Lovepedal Kanji Eternity
| 14 | [
{
"body": "Don't have a camera, but my setup is Zvex Fuzz Factory - Radial Tonebone Classic - Modded Phase 90 (which according to my roommate sounds like \"A shitty saxophone mixed with a shitty kazoo\") - MicroPog - Modtone Aqua Chorus - Boss DD20. ",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Some great pedal combos here\n\nIm running a Boss RC-2 Loop station > Digitech Digiverb > Ibanez DE7 Delay > Proco Rat > Barber LTD Overdrive > Electro Harmonix Memory Man w/ Hazarai... Does the job for a decent shoegaze/post rock sound..",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Okay I can't stand reddit anymore. It's become a high-school playground full of smug retarded teenage nerds who think they're super smart because they double check their grammar. | The general atmosphere here has become unbearable. I quit.
I'm posting this to circlejerk because I know it'd get downvoted anywhere else.
Farewell reddit! | 27 | [
{
"body": "Reddit is basically just a forum now. I'm not saying that's a *bad* thing, just that it's not really a new aggregator anymore.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "[Upvoted for picture of a delicious shrimp in the comments](http://4pack.files.wordpress.com/2009/02/shrimp.jpg)",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Reddit homeowners/Realtors/mortgage people: anything I should know about buying a foreclosed house? | My wife and I want to buy our first home, and lots of properties out there are foreclosed properties. Should we avoid? If not, what should we know that is different than regular purchases?
| 4 | [
{
"body": "I bought a foreclosed home. \n\n1) Under bid. Reject counter offer. Under bid again. Saved me quite a bit. Put up 500-1,000 in earnest money to prove you are serious about buying.\n\n2) Figure out the repairs you need to do. Overestimate on the costs. Because they will be more expensive than you think.\n\n3) Obviously, you should get an inspection. \n\n4) Make sure you get the water turned on for the inspection or at least before you close. Mine didn't have any problems with the pipes, but 3 of my toilets needed to be repaired/replaced and that would've been caught in the inspection.\n\n5) All the other home buying advice you have gotten still applies, obviously. \n\nFinally, the most important piece of advice is: Look at 20+ homes in your price range. I looked at over 100 homes. I am VERY happy with my decision. If you buy the 1st or 2nd home you see, you are rushing into a decision that will impact your life every day for the next 3-5 years minimum. ",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Which television family would you join? | If you could join the family of a television show as though it were real life, which family would you join? Why? | 6 | [
{
"body": "Obviously the Simpsons. They have the most fun and suffer the fewest repercussions for their actions. Plus, I believe they get a hold of the best drugs. ",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "I would definitely become a Castle. Millionaire crimesolving author for a dad? The easy life, with a shot at early inheritance.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
What sort of place should I look to stay in in Tokyo? | I am a student with limited funds and don't really want to be spending much more than 60 000 yen a month but somewhere around there is fine. I would prefer a personal room and if sharing a guesthouse to be with English speakers. Please help me with suggestions! What sort of places are there for this? Does anyone have experience/recommendations?!
EDIT: Does anyone know if you can get the sort of thing the "dude from tokyo drift" ' s dad has??
EDIT MKII: what is the usual rough time of warning necessary before moving in? how short notice can you find a place?
EDIT again: whats Asakusa like as a location in terms of proximity to other places of interest? | 16 | [
{
"body": "use [gaijinpot.com](http://apartments.gaijinpot.com/index/index/lang/en)\n\nyou should definitely be able to find something on there- apartment or guest house. \n\nYou should be warned, though, that renting in tokyo is not like most other countries. you will be looking at some major up-front costs- key money, agent fees, and deposits add up pretty fast. you should expect to pay around 300000 yen for your first month if you are renting alone. There are also a lot of issues with landlords not renting to foreigners. Unlike the US, Japan permits discrimination with this sort of thing, and it is pretty rampant. \nAlso, it will be nearly impossible to rent an apartment without a guarantor. Typically an employer serves in this capacity, but if you are going to school, you might be able to arrange something through them. \n\nI'm not sure how long you plan on staying, but my recommendation based on your price range would be to find a shared house. Rooming isn't that popular in Tokyo, but it's starting to pick up. You should be able to find a decent place with other students, particularly in areas like Takadanobaba or Waseda. \n",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "I stayed at a Sakura House--the one in Sendagaya, probably the biggest gaijin house in all of Japan. It's a little pricey--60,000 will get you a shared room but for 70,000 or 75,000 (or more) you can get a private room. Expensive, but utilities (including internet!) are all included. If you room with someone it'll *probably* be with an English speaker, likely a native English speaker, but it's possible he/she can't speak English. Unlikely, though. You'll find lots of Americans, Brits, Aussies, French, Italians, Germans, Koreans, Chinese.\n\nA gaijin house is great for someone just starting out and if you don't know anyone. You can make tons of friends very quickly. The gaijin house life, though, can wear you down after a while. I got out after about 6 months.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "How long are you staying?? \n\nIf your staying 90 days or more I would recommend taking at look at [LeoPalace21](http://www.leopalace21.com/).. You can often find furnished 1k apartments w/ Internet for the 60k per month mark. They discount for longer stays provided you can pay upfront, and there's no security deposit or key money.. \n\n",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Has religion ever actually hurt you? | I've noticed Reddit has a lot of anti-religion views but why? Because they are wrong is not an answer. Let's hear some personal answers.
Edit 1: I am not trying to argue a case for either side's views. I just want to hear personal stories that have lead to your views.
Edit 2: It seems that after posting this question, I have been getting a lot of hate mail. I'd like to reiterate that this is just a question driven by curiosity. No one is trying to make you believe in a religion. The end.
Edit 3: Since so many people want to insist to me that being *wrong* is an answer I will clarify why I said that. It is because I want to hear *why* you feel that way. Just saying "it's wrong" isn't a thought provoking answer.
**Edit 4: This isn't a thread for you to say why you hate religion, this is a thread for people to share how they've been hurt by religion.** | 131 | [
{
"body": "I played little league til I was 15 years old. Every summer I would try out for \"All Stars\" but I never seemed to make the cut even though I was a great player. Before my coach moved to SLC, he had stopped by my house. He explained to my parents that I hadn't made the cut all those years because we wern't LDS. My mother was in complete shock. Coach then handed her the book of Mormon and told us to take care. I remember shedding many tears the first few times I didn't make the cut. I don't like to dwell about \"what could have been\" but it did change my outlook about religion and the politics involved. ",
"score": 213
},
{
"body": ">I've noticed Reddit has a lot of anti-religion views but why? Because they are wrong is not an answer.\n\nWhy is that not an answer? I can't be anti-stuff-that-is-wrong?\n\nBut if you want an answer other than that, how about these:\n\n* Children being raised to disbelieve anything that contradicts their mythology, despite evidence.\n\n* Children who die because the parents think that God will heal them, and so don't take them to a doctor.\n\n* The prevention of same-sex marriage, and the wholesale marginalization of gays, that people justify with quotes from their holy book.\n\n* Hatred of people who believe in the wrong mythology, to the point of murdering \"infidels\".\n\n* Convincing people that using condoms is \"sinful\", thus helping to perpetuate the AIDS epidemic in Africa.\n\n* Genital mutilation.\n\n* People trapped in loveless marriage because divorce isn't permitted.\n\n* Women stoned to death for infidelity.\n\nShall I go on? Now I don't doubt that many of these problems would exist even without religion. However, religion offers yet another pillar of support for these things, and its support is somehow deemed to transcend all logic and rational thought.\n\nIf people want to do the stuff I listed, let them justify it with reason, not with mythology.",
"score": 149
},
{
"body": "Religion tore my family apart. Something about burning in hell for eternity every Thanksgiving really sucks the life outta the room.\n\nAlso, religion has claimed a number of friends, who were otherwise cool people, but got a little too wrapped up in trying to save my lost soul.\n\nAlso, religion swooped in and cleaned my grandmother out just before she died. Preacher got a nice new car, and I got to pay for college.",
"score": 123
},
{
"body": "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USPS#Delivery_days\n\n>Until 1912, mail was delivered 7 days a week. As the postal service grew in popularity and usage in the 1800s, local religious leaders were noticing a decline in Sunday morning church attendance due to local post offices doubling as gathering places. These leaders appealed to the government to intervene and close post offices on Sundays. As a result of this intervention by the government, U.S. Mail (with the exception of Express Mail[77]) is not delivered on Sunday,\n\nFUCK YOU, YOU FUCKING FUCKERS",
"score": 121
},
{
"body": "I was raised Mormon, devoutly Mormon. When I was in college, (BYU, a mormon-run school, incidentally) I started to lose my faith. A year after graduating I told my family that I had left their church. Overnight, they went from being close to me, to wanting nothing to do with me. My mom used to email and call frequently, and always call on sundays. Overnight, she avoided contact with me altogether. Three years went by with minimal contact, but lots of denial on their part (\"We haven't changed, you're the one who has changed, we aren't avoiding you, you're the one who is avoiding us\" etc). As a college student several states away from home, it had always been the christmas holidays that I would come home to my family again. But when Christmas came around, they started dropping strong hints that I shouldn't show up, all the while denying that they were actually trying to keep me away. I took the hints and stayed away for 3 years, until finally I decided \"Screw it, I don't care if they want me there or not, I have little brothers who are forgetting who I am, I'm coming home for them whether my parents like it or not\" and I booked a flight home. This started a phase where we were distant but polite. Contact had been re-initiated, and everyone was polite, but although they would now tolerate my presence, they didn't want to know anything about me.\r\n\r\nFast forward two years (five years from when I left their church). My younger brother Michael has turned 18, and he has also started to have serious doubts about the mormon church. He's a very open/honest sort and made the mistake of openly questioning and openly discussing his doubts with our family. They are horrified, and they are convinced that the only way he would question their church is if me, the family black sheep, has been poisoning him with my evil influence.\r\n\r\nThe truth is, I had waited until he turned 18 to even be willing to have these conversations with him. But, of course, when he started to doubt and think about leaving the church on his own, of course he sought me out to talk about it, as I was the only one who wouldnt' judge him. Once he was 18, I listened to him, heard him out, and made it very clear that I would love and support him no matter what he decided, and that it was his decision to make. I was honest about what my thoughts are, but I never pushed him towards a specific decision.\r\n\r\nWell, my parents, panicking and overreacting from fear that they're gonna lose another kid from the church, they set out to do detective work. First, they somehow nabbed his password to his email account. I'm not sure if they used a keylogger or if Michael was just absentminded and left his gmail account logged in on the home computer. But they searched through all of our extensive, and of course searchable, saved logs of chats in Gmail chat, until they'd found enough \"damning evidence\" that I'd been poisoning his mind. And once they found the evidence they wanted (by reading private conversations between adults who did not consent to this intrusion), they then called me up and told me that I was banned from the family home.\r\n\r\nMichael, on the other hand, was welcomed home for christmas, and I hear that the whole family spent the whole christmas holiday trying their hardest to re-convert him. Also, when he kept mentioning my name and kept bringing it up that I should have been there, and how wrong it is to disown family like they did to me, my mom pulled him aside and told him that he had been \"invited\" home and if he wanted to be welcome home in the future then he needs to stop talking about me.\r\n\r\nSo yeah. I'm disowned, and apparently I am now the name which cannot be spoken, either. It's not that absolute - they're still doing their best to maintain appearances that they haven't truly cut me off - they sent me a christmas package full of thrift-store purchased gifts - but I haven't spoken to my mom in half a year.\r\n\r\ntl;dr - my family disowned me for leaving the mormon church, not just because I left, but because they are blaming me for my younger brother who also wants to leave",
"score": 95
},
{
"body": "My parents tithed 10% of their gross income every week for the last 18 years. I had no college fund and couldn't receive financial aide because they made too much money. Yes I did work and pay for college myself, but I'm still bitter that Jesus stole my college fund. ",
"score": 94
},
{
"body": "My dad was a volunteer firefighter when he was younger. He was raised extremely Jewish. He got called to the scene of a car accident where two young men had been pulled out of the car and were dying. A rabbi was called to the scene to say something for the Jewish kid. \n\nWhen he was done, my dad asked if he could say something, anything, for the other kid, who was Christian. The rabbi packed up his things after quickly telling my father, \"No, he's not Jewish.\" He said he lost his faith that day.\n\nWhen I was younger, he told me that I should find my own path.\n\n",
"score": 93
},
{
"body": "my grandmother wont speak to me bc her catholic religious views keep her from believing that my two kids aren't bastards and that i am a huge whore.\r\n\r\nand it hurts me bc i love her dearly.",
"score": 72
},
{
"body": "Galileo was sentenced to house arrest by the Church for the rest of his life for saying that Earth revolves around the Sun. That is all.",
"score": 56
},
{
"body": "my mother was killed by my stepfather (not asking for sympathy, just need to illustrate the severity of the situation) and i revealed to my dad a few months afterwards that i was atheist. i was raised catholic, so i knew it would be a hard thing to tell him. he looked at me shocked and said in a very condescending voice \"where do you think your mom went, then?\" that hurt a lot. i told him \"in the ocean where we scattered her ashes and everywhere in the world due to the water cycle.\"\n\nit hurts every time i reveal i'm an atheist and someone says \"i feel sorry for you.\"\n\n(imho) religion has hurt every person who believes it, every person who doesn't believe it, and the global society itself. it has damaged our ability to have personal thought without feeling judged, resulting in this overstimulating quest to be 'seen' as good, bad, pretty, successful, etc. it has slowed the progress of human evolution by stealing our attention away from reality. for so long man just accepted the idea of god(s) to answer all their unanswerable questions. bill maher made the most sense out of atheism (particularly as to why it's so astonishing so many people aren't), that it made sense back THEN to believe in god(s) because science wasn't really anything conclusive. but NOW, we have so much information that can EASILY win the religion debate, yet so many people still accept existence as a finger snap. religion has created barriers across the world because every community thinks their beliefs are the right ones. if all of them perceive themselves as being right, then all of them are wrong. again, imo.",
"score": 52
},
{
"body": "My boyfriend and I broke up after 5 years because of the screaming matches we would get into over religion. Actually, he would yell, I would try to calm him down. His religion taught him intolerance, and that the bible's word was right in the face of all contradiction. He wouldn't even try to listen to my point of view. The breakup was the hardest thing I've ever been through - I loved him so much. Thanks, Christianity, for brainwashing an amazing man and sending me into a year-long depression.",
"score": 40
},
{
"body": "Yeah, it has me:\n\nMy family was pretty poor growing up but we sort of made ends meet and all. My dad worked all day and my mom did the best she could to take care of me and my brother Craig.\n\nAnyway, I didn't have a lot of friends so I discovered the church and hung around those people for quite awhile. They were really nice to me and they taught me about faith but we would get into arguments about faith and God and when I got older they kind of got sick of me so I had to leave.\n\nIt was tough losing my friends all because of stupid disputes over religion. I really didn't know what to do - I felt abandoned. I mean, these were good people but they were so unyielding when it came to dealing with some different ideas. \n\nI kinda just was distant for about 10 years or so. I didn't have any close relationships and barely even remember that time in my life now.\n\nAnyway, when I was in my early 30's I got to do a bit of traveling around with some friends - nothing special, it was sort of like a Kerouac thing, but we had a good time and for the first time I felt really accepted by people my own age. Everyone was really open about new ideas and the discussions we had about religion were really positive. Even when we disagreed we would still be friends the next day . Even my buddy Tom who I think was a closet atheist was really cool and would ask some good questions.\n\nWell history likes to repeat itself and one night we were all having dinner and an all around good time and I started to not feel so good and went out back to get sick. As I was getting sick, I was fucking arrested because one of my \"friends\" turned me in.\n\nA few weeks later I was nailed to a cross.",
"score": 37
},
{
"body": "Pastor of my church told my sister (she was 11 or 12 at the time) that our grandfather was in hell because he didn't go to church. She was inconsolable when she came home. Somehow she took this experience and became a hard-core Christian, and I became, err, well, not.",
"score": 30
},
{
"body": "Recounting my own painful process of growing away from religion would be insultingly tame when compared to the **real** victims of religion.\n\nSo far we have heard about the fringe nutjobs (Westboro Baptist church, Pat Robertson, Mormonism), but I think the Catholics deserve a little attention.\n\nThe Catholic churchs *official fucking stance* is that condoms are bad (abstinence only). They preach this bullshit in Africa, taking advantage of the uneducated people there to spread their plague in the form of AIDs.\n\nThis policy is *truly* disgusting, and causes an untold, uncountable amount of deaths. Yet, representatives of the Church are unwilling to even address the topic.",
"score": 29
},
{
"body": "Yes; the Mormon religion has actually caused a good deal of negatives in my life. I was born into the religion, was baptized at age 8, and attended seminary classes up until I graduated high school. I started having second thoughts about the teachings around age 16. From ages 16-22 I had a very hard time being able to make decisions based on my own moral judgement without worrying about what repercussions my decisions would have in the afterlife (ie: what God would think, how God would judge). This, I feel, is probably the most crucial and most damaging part of the religion for me and my free-thinking mind. \n\nNow, I have better and more concrete morals based upon experiences in my life; not based upon the degree of a \"sin\". My mind is free to make decisions based upon what I know to be true in my heart and not what an organized way of thinking wants me to think. This might not sound like much, but it's like stepping out of the Matrix. It's sad to see that people are willing to give up this great gift of life to insure they live again. ",
"score": 28
},
{
"body": "my grandma wouldn't get cancer treatment because she was waiting for god to save her. she's the one that died, but it hurt our family emotionally.",
"score": 28
},
{
"body": "When I was 17 I had a Darwin fish giving it to a Jesus fish on my car. A bit crass, i admit, but i was younger. I came back to my car after shopping one afternoon to find someone had placed black electrical tape over it. Noted, I peeled it off and drove home. On the freeway I hear a *click* *click* *click* sound. Pull over and find they had driven a ~10in bolt through my right rear tire. I'm lucky it didn't cause my tire to explode on the damn freeway. \n\nTo answer your question, yes, my life and the lives of others on the road were threatened because I chose to express myself, however crudely.",
"score": 27
},
{
"body": "A bunch of harmless mumbo jumbo never hurt anyone. Let them be.\n\n[Oh](http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/oct/09/aids)\n\n\n[There](http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs241/en/)\n\n\n[Is](http://www.petertatchell.net/religion/2000.htm)\n\n\n[This](http://www.sullivan-county.com/identity/intol_right.htm)\n\n\n[Stuff](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stoning)\n\n",
"score": 27
},
{
"body": "I grew up in a Christian and conservative household, and I would argue that is has hurt me. As a child, I was EXTREMELY sheltered. I was homeschooled, all of the curriculum my parents used was bible based, and until I got to high school and my parents finally let me go to public school, I had absolutely no idea what sex even was. \n\nThe main long term affect it had on me, was a total and complete lack of social skills. I didn't have any friends that I was allowed to see outside of church, even. Because of my parent's religious beliefs I never learned how to make relationships with people. I've gotten better, but it's still a constant struggle.",
"score": 24
},
{
"body": "Hurt me physically? No. In pretty much every other way? Yes.\n\nMy parents converted to Jehovah's Witnesses when I was about 9 years old. Before then I was a happy, healthy child who was popular and participated in a lot of activities. Afterward I became an overweight, socially awkward, isolated, depressed child who was only allowed to participate in activities at church. My mother went in for gallbladder surgery and the doctor cut off her common bile duct and couldn't fix it. She went to Mayo Clinic for several months and the family went bankrupt from the medical bills. One of the Jehovah's Witnesses at my father's work swooped in when they were most vulnerable and turned their heads with love bombing and promises of a future paradise on earth.\n\nThe immediate change was drastic. No holidays, no birthdays, no worldly friends, limited contact with worldly extended family, no more sports or school clubs. Every day in school I had to prove how weird and strange I was by being the only kid to sit down during the pledge of allegiance. At first going to church seemed like a refuge because everyone was so nice and tried to include me in everything, as a new convert my family were special for a little while.\n\nAfter time the church started demanding more and more from us and giving less and less support and encouragement in return. My newness wore of and I was relegated to the other congregation rejects who weren't as popular because they didn't have fathers who were elders in the congregation. It turned out that the rejects were better than any of the other kids my age in the congregation but the feeling of being isolated in the midst of an already isolated group of people is too devastating for even good friends to ease.\n\nMy entire family is spending all their free time going to church, knocking on doors, going to conventions and other religious events. I was the only Jehovah's Witness in my class so you can imagine school was even less fun. Whenever I wasn't in school I was reading boring religious literature or sitting through three meetings a week listening to old men talk about my sinful nature or petrified going from door to door and hoping no one would answer.\n\nI finally realized what a crock of shit Jehovah's Witnesses were in my teens. For awhile I tried to be the best witness I could be but no matter how hard I tried it was never ever good enough to be accepted by anyone but the rejects. I even got baptized so I could pioneer during the summer. Then one of my best friends was raped and came to me for advice on what to do. I naively told her to go to her parents, tell the elders, go to the police and file a report. She followed my advice and the church shunned her. I sat outside the room where the elders were interrogating her, a teenage girl who had just been raped alone in a room full of old perverted men. Another brother reprimanded me for trying to be there for my friend and made me leave. I was pissed!\n\nUnfortunately being a teenager myself I had to stick around for awhile because my parents were still Jehovah's Witnesses. I went to meetings and did what I had to but my heart wasn't in it. Once I graduated high school I made up my mind to go to college and live on campus as a way to escape. Right before I left for college I was approached by elders in the congregation who tried to convince me college was a waste of time since armageddon was coming soon. I made up some bullshit excuse about how I wanted to learn art so I could illustrate the Watchtower. That shut them up and I went to college and never went to another fucking meeting.\n\nA few weeks into the first semester my mom showed up at my dorm. Apparently the elders had been checking up to see if I was going to the congregation near my college. It turned into a big blow out fight where I told her I wasn't going to be a Jehovah's Witness anymore. She told me the equivalent of \"if my daughter is going to hell then so am I\" except in witness jargon. Now that's a guilt trip! The rest of my family stopped going to meetings and left the religion but I flunked out of college that semester because I was too depressed to go to classes.\n\nI could probably tell even more horrific stories about my time as a Jehovah's Witness but this post is way too long already. Suffice it to say that religion drastically changed my life, and the lives of my friends and family, for the worse.",
"score": 24
},
{
"body": "When I was an altar boy, I followed the Catholic rule that one does not eat for a certain period before taking the Eucharist at Mass. I'm, unfortunately, hypoglycemic, and this led to a repeated pattern of me staggering off the altar into the sacristy to pass out due to low blood sugar.\n\nSmall example, but Christ's law doesn't care if you get a concussion on Church linoleum because you were trying to follow all the rules and serve the Lord. This is a quality of all Church doctrine -- even when it's not designed to harm you particularly, it certainly doesn't give a shit if it does. It's a law, not a person, and without people to revise it or mediate it, it can never be humane.",
"score": 20
},
{
"body": "Yes. [Once religion almost killed me.](http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/6fbt2/this_is_why_i_am_an_atheist_share_your_story/c03oqv0) And in that same Mormon troop, they once tried to faith heal a boy with a split skull until well after he was unconscious while I pleaded with the troop masters to take him to the ER so they could drill a hole in his skull and get air to the boy's brain. They did eventually, and the kid lived.\n\nI've had two LT girlfriends who I loved, dump me, in part hinting that my atheism was a major roadblock to marriage. I told them that if we had kids, they could take them to Church, but I wouldn't lie to them if they asked me why I didn't go. I've had girlfriends parents grill me, and I used to pretend I was agnostic to seem easier to convert. \n\nFriends and loved ones can't get married. I can't smoke pot occasionally. To have \"values\" in my culture means to believe a certain thing and occasionally apologize profusely. People in my culture live unsustainably, and believe that this world is shit while they wait for the next, while turning this one into shit. And my job is to do science in a culture suspicious of science, partly because it contradicts religious dogma.\n\nAnd yes, \"because religion is wrong\" is an answer. Unless you live in a world free of suffering, inequality, and problems, it's important to combat completely wrong and nonsensical explanations for the intractability of suffering, inequality and earthly problems. And its ridiculous to imply that we shouldn't be angry unless religion personally causes us suffering when it plainly causes others suffering on each corner of the globe. Such silly logic would dictate that we should only try to ease suffering when it is our own. ",
"score": 19
},
{
"body": "Religion hasn't hurt me in any way.\n\nOn the other hand, religious fundamentalism has hurt many people worldwide. I can't say I've personally been harmed, aside from having to look at fundie protesters when I walk with friends in the annual gay pride parade, but it saddens me that the rights of certain people are restricted because certain other people think God wants them to abuse His other creations. I don't really believe or not believe in a God or Gods, but I don't think any God worth believing in would make one set of people and then tell the other set to bully them mercilessly.",
"score": 17
},
{
"body": "1. Religion quite often uses shame and fear as tactics - which are harmful. \n2. If someone came up to you today and I spoke to God you would think they were nuts. So why do people still believe in prophets? The only difference between a *nut* and a *prophet* is the number of followers he can round up.",
"score": 17
},
{
"body": "Yes. My father is VERY evangelical christian. I was not allowed to play videogames, listen to music or even watch anything that was not about Jesus. According to him, anything that did not praise Jesus was against him. Anytime I was sick, cold, cough, flu, I was not \"sick\" in his eyes. I simply had demons inside of me that needed to be cast out. Telling a small child there are demons inside me was pretty traumatic. Especially since him holding my forehead and speaking in tounges followed. I would come home and find him sitting in the dark, \"speaking in tounges\" and it was very confusing to me. Needless to say his religiousness still effects me and my siblings to this day. Word of advice, don't scare you children into chrisitanity. My bedtime stories consisted of different apolcolyptic scenarios, including atomic bombs being dropped on us in the middle of the night, only to wake up burning in hellfire for all eternity because I didn't have jesus in my heart. Oh yeah, we also had church at home because my dad thought all the churches were wrong. Turns out he liked to make stuff up in the name of Jesus. Oh yeah, every birthday, christmas, holiday, etc.. what did I get? A fucking bible. Yeah, I didnt have a whole lot of friends growing up. ",
"score": 17
},
{
"body": "Got derided in front of the whole geology class because I thought the universe was billions of years old and not 6k as they interpreted it. Oh, and then they went on to laugh at me as I tried to explain how evolution works to a class of 13 year olds. Got hit with the \"so you think were apes or pondscum?\" At that time I really felt closer to the pond scum than the creatures made out of clay and spare ribs :/",
"score": 16
},
{
"body": "mother and father in-law donated 1500 $ per month to a mega church in the states, often they had no money for the basics. All 4 of thier children dropped out of school in high school to work minimum wage jobs and support the family.\r\n\r\nThey believed the church came first no matter what.",
"score": 14
},
{
"body": "Yes it has, but if it hadn't it's not the point. Sharks have never hurt me, does that mean there should be sharks everywhere?",
"score": 14
},
{
"body": "When I was twelve I received after-school detention for hugging my best female friend. The school had a no-tolerance policy for physical touching (It was a catholic school btw) and I didn't really think anything of it other than it was irritating that I was going to miss my bus. I was then grilled for 45 minutes by the vice principal on whether or not I had homosexual feelings. At the time, I was starting to realize that I actually liked both genders; I just figured everybody liked girls and then grew up to marry boys because that's how it worked. :( ",
"score": 13
},
{
"body": "When I was a kid, I heard several sermons about how if you don't talk to your friends about Jesus and they never get saved, then you'll be held responsible if they go to hell. The whole idea of my friends going to hell was bad enough, but the notion that God would ask me why I didn't care about them enough to get them saved was twisting the knife.\n\nThis was compounded in elementary school when my best friend would always change the subject any time I brought up religion. He wasn't religious and he didn't appreciate my preaching (which I completely understand now). It ripped me apart inside to have to choose between driving him farther away as a friend or feeling like I had failed him.\n\nI found that, as the years went on, I just stopped caring about making friends. Being put in that position tore me up too much. It just wasn't worth that. By high school, I was amicable with a lot of people, but I never really had any friends. Outside of school, I was by myself most of the time and it was damaging to my psyche. I became incredibly depressed all the time. I was always prone to depression as a kid, but the feeling of uselessness and isolation had grown exponentially. Eventually, I grew resentful of everyone and began to develop a disgust of almost everybody I saw.\n\nDropping religion with all the stigmas associated with it was the best thing that ever happened to me. It took a while to deal with all of the damage that I had done to myself emotionally, but the process made me much stronger and more appreciative of everything. Life and everyone I'm around have become more precious and wonderful than I could have imagined.",
"score": 13
},
{
"body": "Religion taught me to hate myself. Really think about how fucked up that is to do to someone and how much that takes away from their life.",
"score": 12
},
{
"body": "Lost friends growing up in semi-rural Texas because I was an outspoken atheist. Parents wouldn't let them associate with me.",
"score": 11
},
{
"body": "The worst event, there is a lot more....\n\nMy first day at catholic school, I was six, the nun who was the teacher forced me to write with my right hand, I'm left. They even put a washcloth on my left hand to prevent me writing with it. \n\nAnybody who knows kids will know how devastating this is, getting singled out as a weirdo and this on the first day, and this only because I'm born with a different working brain then most of the others. Religious people really know how to weed out everything what is not mainstream and different.\n\nAfter my parents complained she let me write left, but didn't grade my writing work, which was full streaks of blue, because I had to write like a right hander, with a filling pen, which dryed not fast enough, which made blue streaks all over my work. and always telling and showing it mockingly to the whole class...... every time. Giving me a low grade for it, but not to low for questions. \n\nI hate writing to this day, but the good thing is, I saw pretty fast the opportunities that new thing on the block would give me... The computer! So I had the first affordable come over from the UK (I'm Dutch), Had to assemble it, a ZX 80. A printer followed a year later. \n\nEdit: It took me till I was 35 to completely erase the devastation my catholic upbringing had on my life. This is a very long time especially if you condsider that I began to fight it openly from my 12th year on, clearly seeing that religion is all about power. ",
"score": 11
},
{
"body": "> I've noticed Reddit has a lot of anti-religion views but why?\n\nWhy? Let's look at just the last 20 years or so and just in America. The religious right took over the GOP around the early 1990's and put religious front and centre into politics, despite the constitutional separation of church and state. The idea of no religious test for an office is a joke now in most places. There is religious persecution in the military.\n\nThe religious right has gotten in the way of abortions, even killing abortion doctors and blowing some up. Then there is their oppression of homosexuals, sometimes beating and killing them, sometime just getting in the way of them getting married. There are similar attacks on atheists and denial of equal rights and access, people being fired from or denied jobs because of their lack of believing the \"right\" faith.\n\nThen there is getting in the way of science and education. There is the stem-cell issue. There is the active opposition to evolution being taught in schools. There is abstinence-only education.\n\nNot just to blame fundamentalist Christians, there was this thing called 9/11 and other terrorists acts killing thousands in the name of religion. and the resulting police-state tactics that are forced upon everyone to counter the threat of religious-driven people. There are the anti-heresy movements to \"protect\" religious beliefs from criticisms by denying free speech rights, as if people have some sort of right to *not* be offended, yet if the offensive speech is core to a religion, such speech gets hypocritically protected.\n\nThese are just things directly relevant to the U.S. in recent history. Much larger atrocities could fill many pages if we went back further or expanded geographically to include religious wars, oppressions, massacres, anit-condom spreading of disease, fights over power and \"sacred\" lands, and so on.\n\nDo you really need people to spell it out? Have you not paid attention to what is going on in the world or what has been for some time? \"Because they are wrong\" is certainly a valid answer, but I can understand why you want more of an explanation and I agree there is one. Certainly there are other things that the majority are demonstrably wrong about that receives less attention. I think the simplest way to put it is that if religious belief was something that people kept to themselves there wouldn't be a problem. \n\nIt is the public action that religious people do that creates the backlash. It has been said that atheism is to religion like *not* collecting stamps is to hobbies. You don't see a lot of aphilatelists actively opposing stamp collectors. But you can imagine the uproar if stamp-collecting worked its way into the public sphere in similar ways, if you had to demonstrate you were a collector to get voted in, if schools had to teach that the only acceptable hobby was stamp collecting, if aphilatelists were beaten and killed, and if a group of collectors who thought Jean de Sperati forgeries should be worth more than originals flew planes into buildings to scare and kill those who thought they should be worthless.\n\nThat is why there are anti-religious views in addition to simple lack of belief. Anti-religious views are largely limited to the degree to which religions stick their noses outside of their own personal space and affect the world around them, particularly those who believe different things or live in contradiction to how various religions teach.\n\nIf that isn't enough, I don't know what could clarify it more to you. I would think this would be obvious, but you never know what exposure people have or what blinders they live behind.",
"score": 11
},
{
"body": "I grew up in a secular family, but my uncle is a Christian. He married this cult like religious woman. They had been together for 50 years. About 10 years ago, he went bankrupt paying tithes for her church. He is a very rich man, and she had secretly been taking his saving and moving it into another bank account for jesus! They had to leave the giant farmhouse and acres of land he had built up for them.\n\nA few months back, she said that she was leaving him for *another woman* apparently this woman was a church goer, and a \"spiritual student\" of my ex aunt.\n\nLast month, she served the divorce papers to him on his birthday.\n\nThe leaving thing was (according to her) religiously motivated. Her christian cult is insane. Obviously, it was somewhat her fault as well. \n\nThe same woman looked at my grandfather straight in the eye on his deathbed and told him he was going to hell for not being Christian.\n\nThe *same* woman told my mom that my brother was a demon child for having autism, and that my mom was going to hell for wearing a miniskirt while pregnant. \n\n\n\nI also most a very large portion of my friends to a new age cult/religion. ",
"score": 10
},
{
"body": "Not directly, but the Catholic priest that baptized me when I was 8 went to jail for molesting a 14 year old boy. \n\nA priest at my Catholic high school was removed from teaching and defrocked after a victim came out stating he was molested in the 1980s. Kicker: All the students at the school knew about the incident at the time, but no action was made until the early 2000's. No one is certain about other potential victims.\n\nAnother teacher was fired for being violent when students would be \"disrespectful\" to his beliefs, including questioning them (most other teachers were rather cool about questioning beliefs). One student was shoved so hard into lockers that he got badly bruised, and his parents threatened to sue the school. The school fired him because they didn't want the liability, not because he was a dick.\n\nMy girlfriend has the classic \"ruler on the knuckles\" stories when she and other students would get confused on academic subject matter, not just disciplinary issues.\n\nThe effects of religion never directly hurt me, but other people around me. That's all I needed to give it up. 9/11 didn't help change my views much either. ",
"score": 10
},
{
"body": "Short version: I had an exorcism performed on me (agains't my will) when I was about 6 years old, it scared the crap out of me at the time. \r\n\r\nLong version: I was sick and my heart muscles were atrophying. The doctors said that I will most likely die so my mom decided to try everything she could to heal me. I don't remember all the crap she tried like holy water, etc. But eventually she hired some woman that came with a pendulum and started swinging it above me and said \"you see, it doesn't swing very wide, that means that his energy pathways are blocked\", I protested and told my mom that she was simply swinging it herself and lying and was quickly told to shut up and that she knows better. Anyway, to make the story shorter, (I'm skipping the part where the woman would cast spells on me behind my back as I was doing my homework) eventually they decided to exorcise the \"demons\" that were \"blocking my energy pathway\". Basically they moved all the furniture and put candles all around the room, stripped me naked, put me against the wall (face to the wall) and told me to not move, all while I told them that I didn't want to do all this (not being sure what they were doing since they didn't tell me what was going on), but it didn't matter. The woman began doing some kind of chant and moving a candle behind my back, *real* close to my skin, enough that I thought that I will get burned at any moment. They also threw holy water and holy oils on me while doing this. Anyway, after 15 min of this the woman used her magic pendulum to show to my mom that it's swinging more widely now and that it means that my \"energy pathways\" are open. Then she got payed. It's wasn't that horrible but when you're 6 years old and have no idea of what's going on, this kind of shit scares you. \r\n\r\nOh yeah, also I did get better some time after that, but to my mom it was because of the magic pendulum swinging and exorcism and obviously not because of the nurse that came every other day to give me shots of medicine in the ass for 3 months straight.\r\n\r\nAlso I *may* have developed arachnaphobia because of my mom's superstitions. When I was a little kid, she always told me that I can't kill spiders because \"A spider crawled on the forehead of jesus, and the roman soldiers thought that the spider was a nail, so they didn't put a nail through jesus' head since it already had a nail in it.\" (yeah, even as a kid I quickly realised the total stupidity of this), and if I did kill a spider, something \"bad\" would happen. So whenever I crossed a big or dangerous looking spider I felt helpless and had to avoid it instead of just killing it. When I was 7 years old I realised that her story is probably complete bullshit, but if I killed a spider she would freak the fuck out at me.\r\n\r\nStill I have nothing against religion in general, it gives moral/emotional support to people who without it would probably fall into depression. But I am completely against all religious institutions and people who don't keep their religion to themselves.",
"score": 10
},
{
"body": "This thread has a real problem with people using the word religion instead of specific religions. The idea of God has never killed anyone. Specific applications of that idea have.\n\nEDIT: the little league LDS story is a great example of a real answer to this question. ",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "As a teenager I worked a summer landscaping job with two other guys who were christian. When they learned I was an atheist, they spent the entire summer trying to get me fired and engaging in minor acts of cruelty. They dumped water on me, un-did worked I had done, \"accidentally\" left me at work sites, wrongly accused me of theft, etc. ",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "Religion has never hurt me. People have exploited religion to hurt me.\n\nGuns don't kill people, people do.",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "I once got \"jacked up\" in front of my school by a group of kids who thought I was \"worshipping the devil.\" Their reasoning? I was quiet and didn't try to fit in with them. ",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "I was raised in a cult that was an offshoot of 7th Day Adventism. It observed the Sabbath and OT festivals. This meant that... \n* Growing up I was a \"kike\" without being a Jew. \n* I was ostracized from peers because I couldn't participated in the class Halloween/Xmas parties or plays. \n* I couldn't go to birthday parties, friend's houses, watch TV, or play outside on Saturday. \n* Past the initial round of shots in the hospital I didn't receive **any** vaccines until a tetanus shot I paid myself age 15. \n* I continually had to defend my inherited belief system from adults/peers who thought my excused absences for religious observance was strange. \n* Our church taught isolation, so I hardly saw extended family and when I did I was mostly depressed because of some Calvinist mindset that they would all die in the ensuing apocalypse we were *sure* was coming and I couldn't do anything about it. \n\n\"Of course, that's a cult, though.\" \n\nNow that the cult has splintered and my family has mostly homogenized with fundie/evangelical movement I think its worse. The cult advocated for non-participation in \"the world.\" Now my family actively seeks to overturn progressive movements and keep gays (my friends) from marrying. They tout the FoxNews party line and are becoming Y.E.C. who reject higher education and pure research science. \n\nThey're all cults, its a matter of broader vs narrower social acceptance in the community. ",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "I feel confident that the number of people throughout history killed \"in the name of a god\" is far larger than I want to imagine. While I have not been directly influenced by something as horrible as a religious killing, every person on this earth has been indirectly influenced in some way. How many innovations and advancements in science, art and literature have been forgotten, delayed, or never even found because resources were being focused on exterminating other people? Sure, many great achievements have actually come from religious beliefs, but I feel that the benefits of religion are FAR outweighed by the detriments.",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "-Wasted my time\n\n-Terrified me when I was a child (Revelations was mandatory lecture in my salesian school)\n\nEither way my problem with religion is beyond those things.",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "I was raised by extremely religious parents who were very anti-gay. They told me that all gay people were mentally insane and physically diseased and that God hated them - AND that God didn't care when one committed suicide. \r\n\r\nI am gay and almost took my own life because of all that bullshit.",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "Yes. I was sacked from a company by the mental psycho christian directors (a family company) that found out I was gay.",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "It hurts me every Sunday morning: I have a raging hangover and want a Bloody Mary, but I can't get one because of dumbass religionists forcing their own drinking preferences on me.",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "I spent 2.5 yrs dating the girl of my dreams. This girls comes around only once in a lifetime. She moved across the country to attend the same school I did and be with me. We were in love and still are, if I may add. We would be married now if it weren't for christianity. Her sister told her not to marry someone like me. Her mom told her not to marry so one like me. I offered my complete support of her faith and acceptance but she couldn't see passed the fact that, in the end, I'm still going to hell. She didnt want me to attend chruch just to accompany her but she wanted me to do it for myself. It didn't affect us now, but it would affect our children and lead to imminent arguments in the future. I tried for her to live in ignorance of my rationalizations but I knew I couldn't do it for the rest of my life. I have to be me. We came to the realization that the sooner we move on the better it will be for both of us. We still see each other daily, laughing and enjoying each others company. We play, we eat, and sleep together and everytime I go to sleep I stare and think that this girl will never be mine. That I am lying in another mans spot. It's fills me with rage, saddness and a very deep hurt. So FUCK christianity for taking the girl I love away. It's going to take one hell of a girl to replace a spot I don't want replaced.",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "I'm a Christian minister. I've mentioned it before. And I can say without reservation that growing up Southern Baptist totally screwed me up. I'm recovering, but it's taking some serious therapy. And as a hospital chaplain, I meet people each and every day who live with shame which weighs them down, because they were raised Conservative Christian. I also meet psych patients who are sincerely harmed by the crazy fed them by some sects of Christianity. I can't speak for other religions. I can't even speak for my patients, but I can speak for myself. And yes, religion has done me harm. I became a minister to undo some of the harm that was done to me.",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "Many many years ago in London when I was in my late teens, I was kidnapped by a man who dabbled in the occult. When I woke up, I was laying flat on a stone slab in what looked to be an abandoned basement. There were several men in long robes standing around the altar. I realized that I was about to become the sacrifice in some sick, twisted ritual.\n\nLuckily a private investigator and his doctor friend rushed in and saved me at the last moment. I'm none the worse for wear and tear.",
"score": 8
},
{
"body": "http://www.sptimes.com/2005/05/29/Columns/The_Air_Force_Academy.shtml\n\nReligious discrimination in those who have a government-given privilege to inflict physical pain on their fellow Americans... yeah.",
"score": 8
},
{
"body": "My best friend married a woman who is a fundamentalist. They've been married for ten years now. One of the conditions of their union is that he participate and allow the children to be brainwashed from birth to her bizarre fundie beliefs.\n\nI see as a shadow of the man he was. Intellectually, he is revolted by this nonsense that he has to endure. But he loves his wife, and his wife loves jesus - so this is his life. I don't see him as a real man anymore, because he can't/won't tell her this is all bullshit. It's very sad.",
"score": 8
},
{
"body": "I was very interested in science when I was a kid. I asked the parents questions, but the answer was usually always something along the lines of \"god did it.\" and then explain the way it was written in the bible. While driving through the mountains one summer when I was ~8, I asked why there was still snow on top even in the summer. My father informed me it was because of the great flood. After that, I just gave up. ",
"score": 8
},
{
"body": "Emotionally yes. I was dating a really religious girl for a while, I even tried to change my thinking to get closer to her, going to church and whatever else. I actually counseled kids at the camp featured in Jesus Camp, not during the bat shit crazy camp though, luckily. Anyway, she dumped me after two years or so because she thought God didn't want it to be. ",
"score": 8
},
{
"body": "Nutty right-wing christian family. Two gay cousins who were disowned by their parents. One uncle who committed suicide. One uncle who molested his children. Manipulation of family members, judgment, criticism, criminal behavior, resentment, abuse, racism, hatred of anyone who is different. Hundreds of thousands $$ given to evangelical orgs over the decades. I got off easy, as I was simply ostracized for being a Librul. But my family was destroyed by rigid beliefs and a literal interpretation of the christian bible.\n\nI do not claim to understand it or explain it. But there IS some kind of link between extreme religiosity and aberrant behavior, esp. of a sexual nature. I lived in that world for 20 years, and the \"evangelical\" world is rife with Creeps.",
"score": 8
},
{
"body": "Christians bombing abortions clinics and children molested by Catholic priests... I've seen the effects of the former and have people close to me who have been personally effected by the latter.",
"score": 8
},
{
"body": "A not terribly close friend killed himself in high school because his church and religious family told him he was an abomination for being gay. He went to a pastor in crisis after being kicked out and was told he was a sinner. He hanged himself the next morning.",
"score": 8
},
{
"body": "When I was a teenager, my father died suddenly. \n\nThe preacher at the funeral made snarky comments insinuating my (nonreligious but not antireligious) father was going to hell. \n\nWe only decided to have the preacher because his sister felt it very important. We thought he would have a typical funeral service where he read the little paper about my father's life that we gave to him and then send him on along to the great whatever's next, but instead he decided to play the part of our own personal savior and used the shit out of the third conditional (\"if he had believed, he would be enjoying the fruits of eternal life\") and we just sat there, in shock of an unexpected death already, like WTF. This was before anyone said WTF though, so we didn't even have a decent acronym so just sat angrily in the pew until we could leave. \n\nAfter the *altar call*. Yes. There was a \"if there be one person whose heart has been called to Jesus this day, come forward and make your claim known\" shit going on. At a funeral. My dad's funeral. \n\nIt didn't make me look down on belief itself, only on that little stupid man. And my aunt, to some extent. It did make me question why I would associate myself with them, and my faith has gone through various forms from one side to another, to none to some, to none and some at the same time, over the years. All I know now is whatever I do end up believing, I'm not going to be on the same side as people like him, ever.",
"score": 8
},
{
"body": "I wrote a summary of my childhood experience with religion [here](http://www.reddit.com/r/atheism/comments/aovlm/scared_of_leaving_religion_scared_of_going_to_hell/c0inzjg).",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "Religions, in addition to other large, wealthy organizations with an agenda, are disproportionately represented by our government by means of well entrenched lobbying groups. Therefore they are a wrench in the machinery of our republic. This may be a bit of an abstract answer to the questions so I offer this personal anecdote.\n\nMy father was raped by his priest as a child and the City government was coerced not to press charges by the local diocese. A perfect example of how religion is a business not a set of beliefs and teachings. ",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "When I was young we did a lot of moving around because my parents thought that God was telling them to. The last time I remember counting how many schools I'd been to, the number was 11, but it's no-doubt more than that. This meant a lack of stability and structure. I don't have any \"childhood friends\" because I would only know people for about a year at a time before moving again. I became very apathetic about school, because I knew that any reputation I made there would just be lost when I moved, and I could just start over. I feel like I am kind of stuck in the cyclical lifestyle I had as a kid; jobs and friends last about 6 months before I get very anxious and have to try something new. Amongst all the busyness of my parents looking for new homes, jobs, schools, churches and lives, I don't think I got a lot of direction or attention. I don't remember ever being encouraged to go to college or university.\n\nAside from that, I consider it very harmful and cruel to brainwash a child, and rob them of their ability to be logical and rational by bombarding them with songs and picture books that tell them to worship some carpenter from 2000 years ago. Growing up, I was very superstitious, believing in ghosts and UFOs and conspiracy theories, which I can possibly thank for being raised to believe in belief.",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "Religion has held back mankind from all kinds of technological and social advances, because of its irrational core belief that knowledge is bad. So in that regard, yes - religion has hurt EVERYONE.",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "Religion has never directly hurt me. I don't dislike religion for the individual experiences that people take away from it, the deeply spiritual connections they might make with whatever being they choose to worship. I dislike the mob mentality of it: my side is right, yours isn't. It seems silly to me to dictate a belief to any other person, especially one which you can **not** prove. Now I'm speaking in generalities, but there is a lot of negative emotions in the world whose direct root is animosity over someone's (or some country's) religious beliefs. This hurts our world as a whole, therein, hurting me indirectly. ",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "1. The RC church sucked a lot of wealth out of my family in the past and that made us as children worse off.\n\n2. In a tribunal an employer claimed that I was not a Christian and therefore that I was a liar, and he got away with it. The head of the tribunal had the name Murphy, I'll leave you to join the dots.\n\n3. In the past, in another work type environment, I have been sidelined by a group of religious people because I prefer to keep my beliefs to myself.\n\nReligious people consistently project an \"us and them attitude\", forget the rhetoric if you aren't in their particular club you will be disadvantaged. Political zealots are just as bad.\n\n\n",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "Breaking out the old emo posting, semi-throwaway account again for this one. When I was in elementary school, I tried to commit suicide because I thought I had accidentally committed the unforgivable sin, which would condemn me to be an evil influence on other people no matter what I tried to do until I inevitably died and went to hell. I went to a preschool where for some reason the administrators told my mom that they thought I might be possessed by demons. Mom pulled me out of that preschool and sent me to another school, which was great until the principal of the school started informing me about facts like how a family without a father (e.g. my family) isn't a *real* family, going so far as to call social services on me for no apparent reason, and then when I cried about it telling me to \"shut up\" because I was \"just making everyone miserable.\" Additionally, my first girlfriend's parents forbade us to see each other because I was not a Mexican Catholic. So yeah. I have a beef with religion.",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "I can't tell you how much religion has hurt me and still does today. And I mean the ideas of religion, not just the people who happen to believe it behaving badly. If I were to list the ways I not only wouldn't know where to start, I feel like I'd have to write a fucking book. I know for a fact I'm not the only one, I've watched people around me suffer. I've read stories about people who suffered. People suffer because of religion. This is a fact. ",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "My french teacher told us that when he was a kid his best friend died of sepsis because his mom, being a Jehovah's Witness, would not allow a blood transfusion. Very sad story, changed the way I thought about how deep a person's loyalty goes to their beliefs.",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "No. I've had a few bad experiences from *religious people*, but then, I've had bad experiences at the hands of atheists too. I think human nature is to thank for that. Not religion or a lack thereof. ",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "I can think of ways that it negatively affected me:\n\n1. All those wasted hours attending church\n\n2. All those religion classes I took as a kid, where I could have been learning something useful\n\n3. The number of fights I got in because the public school kids loved to try to pick on the Catholic school kids\n",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "Have you ever hurt someone? \nDid your religious convictions have anything to do with this? \nDo you feel angry or upset that some people do not believe in the same things that you do?\n\nReligion, to me, is a manifestation of the fear of finality in death. For your \"soul\" to no longer exist is probably your greatest fear.\n",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "Yes. Religiously rooted views on sexuality have been direct factors in the lack of proper sex education in my country. This significantly increases my risk factor for STDs, limits my choice of sexual partners, drives up the cost of reproductive medicine, and so on. \n\nThe aftershocks of Prohibition lead to the formation of large, powerful organized criminal networks that persist in some forms today. Likewise, Prohibition was in many ways the template for the war on drugs, which wreaks harm on me through it's economic impact on my country, my civil rights, and so forth.\n\nThe War on Terror got started in 1848. Bear with me. The War on Terror is being fought by Islamic Mujahadeen. Who were equipped by American Christian Reaganites. Who were opposed to those godless commie pinkos. Who were opposed to the excesses of the Church. \n\nBasically, everything that happens anywhere is heavily influenced by Religion. The vast majority of Religions are premised on the exception of irrational or demonstrably untrue precepts. Basing your belief on things that aren't true or accurately reflective of reality limits your ability to control and understand reality.",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "george w bush was \"elected\" due to religion. the amount of harm done by his administration is well known.",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "I used to go to an Evangelical christian camp in Wisconsin. At the age of 12 I was taking classes on how to be a proper female and a good wife and mother. 12! \nWhen I was 10, They also showed us the scene from Titanic with all the frozen bodies and said thats what people were like without Jesus. Traumatizing for a ten-year-old. \nAround 11 or 12 they told us a story about a boy who was once a christian, but he gave up Jesus, and smoked pot with friends in a car. They all saw a girl walking, jumped out of the car put a bag over her head and took turns raping her. The ex-christian was the last to rape her, when he took the bag off her head he saw it was his sister. All because he abandoned Jesus. \n\nVery disturbing for a pre-teen, lemme tell ya. I still deal with guilt that camp instilled in me. ",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "I went from a private school to a ghetto school my 8th grade year. I prayed before eating lunch and got my ass kicked in the bathroom. There was a gang of hood rats that saw me as their personal piggy bank. I realized that god wasn't going to save me from the torment. I started getting mean quickly.\n\n\nFast forward 22 years. I'm pretty sure I lost my job primarily on the fact that I considered myself an atheist. I kept it to myself, but I was cornered by a bible beater and I just made her leave by asking the right questions.\n\nThe big one was \"how does one qualify 'good'? If I'm an atheist and I do what I feel is right and treat people with dignity and respect, but I expect nothing in return, does that make me better that a christian that does right based on a fear of hell and expectation of reward? ",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "Over 800 comments already, this one wont be seen...but I have to give it a go. I was at a Sunday evening Pentecostal church service when I was a kid (5ish). My parents were in the main sanctuary and we were all sent downstairs to play/pray/be brainwashed. Naturally, I rebelled and decided to run around the halls and eventually made my way back to the appropriate room. I don't remember the kid's name anymore, but some little ginger fellow decided it would be *hilarious* to slam the door just as I was running in. Next thing I know my forehead is cracked open, there is blood everywhere and many of us are screaming. I decided the best course of action was to weasel my way out and run back upstairs. I burst into the sanctuary screaming bloody murder whilst looking like I just had a part in the beginning of the apocalypse. I still have quite the scar above my eyebrow, but man is it worth it to know how alarmed those jesus freaks must have been for at least a few seconds.",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "Corporal punishment is endorsed by the church. My dad still tells stories about how the nuns at his school used to rap his knuckles with a ruler until they began to bleed, and the only reason they don't do it any more is because it's now against the law. That, and it just never felt right to me to believe that there is some all-seeing old man living in the sky who will send me to burn at the center of the earth for all eternity if I'm an evil person when I die.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "no, not really.\r\n\r\nOh, except that time that I picked the wrong religion and ended up getting cancer.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "My mother wanted to become a minister. My dad helped her through and paid for her education. She wasn't the same person after a year or two into getting her degree. They divorced a few months after she graduated. ",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "Because of some stupid religious law, I can't buy booze before noon on a Sunday. How does me getting drunk (or not even drinking, but just buying alcohol) on a Sunday affect anyone?",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "Oh my gosh, are you kidding me? I can't live my life in public until my parents die because they are both zealously Catholic. If they knew what I do behind closed doors, they would believe I am going to hell. I can't do that to them, so until they die, mum's the word. That basically means I can't live in the same state as my parents, or they would find out anyway. When people believe they have the power to predict what happens after you die based on your actions while you're alive, it makes them very irrational and ends up hurting your relationship with them because inevitably you aren't honest with them.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "It didn't hurt me, but it hurt a friend which hurt me by proxy.\n\nMy friend was beaten severely for being gay by her father. I actually witnessed it one day. Her father was beating the \"Devil\" out of her. It was the morning after we'd had a sleep over, she was about 13 and her father had found out about her homosexual tendencies by looking at what she'd been doing on the computer. He stormed in the room, grabbed her by the hair and throttled her. It left her with a split lip, and brow, along with a black eye. Then he dragged her and I to the church, where we were \"counseled\" by a pastor. My parents weren't religious so this pissed them off to no end. I wasn't allowed to see her after that, her father blamed my godlessness for her \"condition\".",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "I've never actually been harmed by the belief that the world is flat, yet I still think it is a ludicrous idea.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "When I was 12 or 13 and discovered er, em masterbation, I use to pray for forgiveness after I did it. For about a year I did this feeling guilty and misrable the entire time. **I felt like there was something wrong with me** and that I was \"sick\".\n\nWhy because this is what religion teaches people.\n\nIn reality there was nothing wrong with me. I was just a kid dicovering his body. I think back at those guilt ridden nights and it angers me.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "I was terrorized at a church summer camp into believing I was damned to hell because I couldn't feel Jesus inside of me. I spent years convinced I would burn for eternity.\r\n\r\nThat's a pretty fucked up thing to do to a kid.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "When I was younger and struggling with the concept of God (Southern Baptist). I asked a preacher how he knew God was real, his reply, \"Don't let Satan creep inside your head boy\" It rocked my world and I soon figured out that he didn't have anymore of a clue of what the fuck was going on than I did. It really strained my relationship with my parents especially my father. ",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "This will probably be lost in all the comments already in here, but anyway.\n\nMy mother and two of my sisters are hardcore Christians. I began attending church when I was about 15. My family was going through hard financial difficulties at the time. After a few months, due to the huge amount of shit they tell you, I just isolated myself from my old \"friends\". Since I didn't had that many friends at church either, I ended up alone. I didn't experience and I didn't do many things I've should have done during those years. I was never able to develop any useful social skills. To my family, being at home, alone, was better than being \"out there\" in the real world.\n\nFor a Christian, the real world is a lost world and everybody but them is going to hell.\n\nSo eventually my parents lost the house to the bank, even though my mother was on church twice a week, prayed all the time, and gave countless amounts of money to the church. I just said to myself \"fuck it, all that time in church, all that money, all those things that I have left behind, my old friends, my fucking sanity, and I didn't get shit at all in return.\" \n\nI stopped going to church, and I slowly stopped believing in whatever god there is. At this point, I don't care anymore.\n\nThe important part: I don't know to what extent I'm actually depressed. But I feel so guilty for leaving and ignoring people that were actually nice to me, people that probably knew me better than anyone else, just because they didn't think the way I did. I feel sad for all the fun I missed during those last years of high school.\n\nI feel like shit. I've tried to commit suicide in the past. I have no identity. I have no friends. I have no social skills whatsoever.When I was in high school I was so confused trying to manage the pressure of living in a secular world, while people in church kept telling you that everyone would go to hell except you. Because if you give them money, you'll be saved. Because if you believe in what they say, you'll be saved.\n\nI'm almost 21 know btw, so this all happened a few years ago. I still live with my parents, I have a job, I'm going to college, but I'm still hopelessly alone even when I'm around lots of people. It wasn't just religion, a bunch of things happened at the same time, but religion certainly didn't help at all, in fact it completely fucked me over.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "The only time I can think of where religion has \"hurt\" me was back in middle school. I went on an overnight bus trip when my good friend, who was Christian, invited me along. It turned out to be some kind of field trip with her church group to some auditorium where someone preached in front of a huge number of people from a lot of different places. After everyone finished praying (I took that time to look around at everyone awkwardly), some young girl (about my age at the time) in front of me turned around, asking if I want to be saved by Jesus. I gave her an unsure expression and said, \"No, not really.\" Thereafter, she turned to an older woman next to her and said quite loudly, \"That girl doesn't want to be saved!\" They both turned to glare at me for a second. Then the woman turned back around and said something along the lines of, \"Some people are just like that.\" When I look back at it now, I don't know why I was as offended as I was (I remember holding back tears after hearing her say that).",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "When I was getting confirmed about ten years ago, a process I was already dragging my heels about, the topic of children born of unwed parents came up during one of our CCD classes. The priest, who closely resembled friar Tuck, first called for us to pray for their souls, and then reminded us the carnal relations before marriage were sinful, and nothing could come of it but more sin. \n\nBeing adopted and knowing full well that my parents barely knew one another, let alone were married, I asked him what the implications were for me, seeing as I fit the \"sin category.\" He calmly informed me that I should pray for forgiveness for my \"sin\" of being born out of wedlock, and would still in all likely hood wind up in eternal hellfire. \n\nNeedless to say, I went apeshit. My best friend (militant atheist) and I got a king james bible, soaked it in gasoline, torched it, and sent the video to friar Tuck. ",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "[Here](http://www.jhuger.com/learn) is a good summary of US history with the church. This hurts me deeply as I'm an American. I have never found anything good the church has done for us.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "Personally I was only hurt in that I was not endowed with the ability to think critically. My parents were both very smart, and both studied scientific fields (engineering and anthropology), and they taught me well about science. \n\nHowever, church and Catholic school also taught me to accept a lot of things based on authority, so I believed a number of wrong things that uninformed teachers had taught me (i.e. homosexuality is wrong because no other animals in nature practice it). I never thought to question anything I was taught until college, and by the time I had figured it out I was already somewhat behind because I had not bothered to confirm things I was learning on my own.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "Seems to me that the problem is not religion itself, but religious people who caused some sort of harm to other people.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "> I've noticed Reddit has a lot of anti-religion views but why? Because they are wrong is not an answer.\n\nWhy is the fact that they are wrong not a perfectly good answer? I'm anti phlogiston theory, anti entrail reading, and anti geocentric models of the solar system because they are all factually wrong; why can't I be anti religion for the same reason?",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "Well, as much as I love my boyfriend, dealing with his parents in regards to religion is going to be as much fun as fucking an electrical outlet. They're Evangelicals whereas I'm an atheist. Already he has lied to his parents about my religion, and if we stay together and have kids, I'm going to have to fight his parents away from my children every Sunday. So, it hasn't hurt me yet, but I'm nervous about my future, this guy and my future children.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "Yes, religion hurt me. When I was 10 years old my parents found a private journal that I wrote in. They read it and discovered that I was gay. Instead of treating me like a human being, or their son or anything worthwhile - they contacted the pastor of their catholic church. He recommended \"Sexual Realignment Therapy\" that I was shuffled into for a year... by age 12 I was a complete basketcase - stifled in catholic school by an administration bent on protecting me from becoming a homosexual - the pastor, principal and my teachers actually colluded to continue the \"realignment therapy\" through my schooling. \n\nNow I'm pretty sure that all human beings hold the capacity to be evil. I hold anyone who devotes themselves to \"religious\" patriarchal hierarchies in extreme suspect - because worse than a career politician, sleazy television personality, even a law-breaking mobster - so called \"religious\" devotees exclude themselves from judgement while casting their ire upon the world. This is what keeps humanity from making the changes it needs too - this false exceptionalism, driven by religious indoctrination.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "Yes. Please see this [thread](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/ak0po/redditors_need_some_helpadvice_with_an_internal/)",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Actually, because they are wrong *is* an answer. However, I will oblige you and let you know how religion has actually hurt me.\r\n\r\nI believed a lie until I was 32 years old. That lie led me to curtail various segments of my education, and career. I also withdrew from many youthful activities and groups because they were deemed sinful by the culture that was lying to me. The church inserted itself into my private life, and I was burdened with guilt and anguish that was solely and entirely the confabulation of the Christian Church.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I've been hurt quite a bit. \n\nThere was a lot of information given to me over the years that I was told to reject and not think about (evolution is one example). I have since found out that my father has been spreading lies for years. Easily falsifiable lies that he insists are true.\n\nMy relationship with my father is tenuous at best, and my understanding of biology and many other fields of science are years behind what they should be.\n\nOn the surface this may not be a big deal to some people but I think this is very significant damage.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Every time I see those Christians with the \"your soldier son is in hell because God hates fags\" I do a heartfelt facepalm, which hurts.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Every time I read that animists prescribe infant rape to cure AIDS, I do a heartfelt facepalm, which hurts.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Every time I read that Muslim scholars prescribe 40 lashes for rape victims, I do a heartfelt facepalm, which hurts.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Far from it, in fact, when anyone has ever hurt me I've always felt welcome to help and just someone to unconditionally listen, without inserting God into the matter at all. Fact is that Priests and Nuns, unlike the stereotypes, are some of the nicest people you meet.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Indoctrinated at a young age. Ruined child hood by being sent to a twisted private christian school. Thoughts of death and hell occupied my mind daily, specially when I was really young and vulnerable. I was taught and believed all sorts of horrible things. The guilt of knowing that all those who didn't believe as my church did would spent an eternity in hell was a terrible guilt for a child to burden. Religion brain washed my parents and ruined what would have otherwise probably been a really great childhood.\n\nIf I do nothing more in this life, I hope to spend the rest of it slamming religion and religious adults every chance I get in hopes that even I can help break the cycle of ignorance and intolerance that religion spreads throughout humanity.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "This guy named Jesus punched me in the stomach--that hurt something fierce. Ever since then I've sworn a vendetta against the church.\n\n\nOh and Jesus Martinez, the rat bastard.\n",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I was raised in a Buddhist/Taoist family. I have seen some of my family members consulting spiritual mediums on how to heal their sickness, spending thousands of dollars on healing ceremonies while ignoring scientific medicine. Close friends have forsaken rational thinking for superstitions and thinking that their gods can save them if they only pray hard enough. I have also seen some of my cousins converting from one religion to another, and it drove their families apart. ",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Just because religion hasn't hurt someone personally is not grounds to accept it. Religion is way to flamboyant, in my opinion it needs to be more of a personal pursuit if your into it, as opposed to looking at everything as \"we are right, they are wrong\".",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "When I was in 6th grade, I was an altar server and our (Catholic) church got a new pastor. This guy's name was Father Jack, and he was easily the kindest, simplest man I'd ever met. Everybody around the parish loved him because he was the kind of guy who remembered everyone's names and always had a kind word. \n\nAfter a few months, however, he started finding out about the goings-on at the parish. We never had problems with child abuse, but there were several organizations associated with the church that were embezzling somewhere on the order of hundreds of thousands of dollars each. People from these groups were trying to extort him to keep his mouth shut and he ended up having a nervous breakdown. He gave up his pastorship and retired somewhere down south a broken man. \n\nThat was the first time I really saw what organized religion could do to a good person. \n\nEdit: Grammar.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "My ex wife is mormon. She spent Sundays at church rather than with me and her daughter. She paid 10% of her income to it, and when I lost my job, she still did. We were losing money every month paying for food. I left.\n",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "The problem is people use religion as an excuse for all sorts of wrongs. Has religion hurt me? No. Have actions done under the ruse of religion hurt me? Yes.\n\n I was brought up believing my dad wasn't a good role model because he didn't go to church (my dad is amazing). I had to tell a friend of mine that he was no longer allowed in the choir when we were 15 because he'd come out as gay (the director and pastor didn't have the balls). I was told I wouldn't have been raped and abused if I'd dated a nice Christian guy when I went to my church for help.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Here are some ways religion has hurt me or those I care about:\n\n1) my grandfather was Irish catholic. when he died, my grandma refused to have my mom baptized, so they buried him in a pauper's grave with no headstone as punishment and told the girls he would burn forever in hell\n\n2) my 2nd wife is Christian. she burned all of my baby photos and personal items because she was told by her minister that her husband should have no life before her (don't worry, we divorced in '03)\n\n3) the church down the street from me doesn't pay taxes to my town. it takes up more than 3 blocks of pristine real estate, blocks traffic three nights a week, and is an eye sore\n\nMaybe the last one is petty, but yeah I'd say religion has hurt me\n\n",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "No, but a friend of a friend killed himself after his family disowned him for being gay. The disowning part was due to their religious beliefs.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Of course religion has hurt me. My grandma asked me to go get her 1800's bible from downstairs. It's a big fucking book. So I grab it and as I'm walking back up the stairs, I lose my balance, drop the bible, and fall backwards. All I know is I blacked out, woke up with a gash in my forehead, (the stupid piece of fiction flipped down the stairs with me, and cracked me in the head), and that is the day I lost a little bit of my soul. And became an Atheist.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "\"Religion\" has never hurt anyone. Ever.\n\n\"Relgion\" is an abstract concept, it has never hurt anyone....at least not anymore than \"sadness\" or \"shoeburryness\" has ever hurt anyone.\n\nThe problem is PEOPLE.\n\nPeople might use \"religion\" to hurt themselves or one another, they might use it to help themselves or one another.\n\nThe same is true for \"science\", and if you think one is inherently more or less destructive than the other than you are a moron who doesn't really understand the world.\n\nPeople are always going to hurt, kill, and oppress each other; to blame it on \"Religion\" is breathtakingly simplistic.\n\n",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "the Philippine catholic church (CBCP) is hurting the entire country. They are against the reproductive health bill for \"moral reasons\". The government can not offer support for the RH program because of this. It's pissing me off. A 3rd world country needs the RH bill to counter population growth and I still can't believe they so backward-thinking.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "A friend of mine cut her head open after the Pastor at her church pushed her over during a blessing and nobody caught her. She received 26 stitches. ",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I went to a Christian (SDA) boarding academy for high school. My senior year I very nearly committed suicide because I had no one to talk tko about my best friend killing himself when I was 16, but I had plenty of people jumping down my throat for reading dirty stories. My relationship with my very conservative parents suffered because they thought I was drinking (which is against their religion) and having sex. I wasn't, but that didn't matter to them.\n\nAt 13 my mom had taken me out to a dinner to make me promise to remain a virgin until marriage. I lost the religious \"you'll go to hell\" aspect of it, but I did decide that I'd like to at least be in love when I lost my v-card. At 24 I was raped because I wouldn't give it up to the guy because I thought sex was too special.\n\nOnly after I took out my tongue ring (god forbid they find out my nipples were pierced) that things *started* getting back on track with my parents. My mom still tends to blame my rape on me because I was sleeping over at a guy's house.\n\nSo, yeah, I'd say religion has hurt me.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I grew up in a smothering cult-ish like branch of Protestantism that kept me from making friends with people of diverse backgrounds. We left the church when I was 12, but I still feel that it's a deficiency I'll never be able to make up. ",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "My first love.... So... 25 years ago, at the age of 17, I was absolutely smitten with a girl in my class. We were good friends, and things progressed to the point of us taking it to the next level. Her parents found out I wasn't catholic, and we were prevented from seeing each other. Fucking douches. ",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "My friends can't get married in my state. The state won't recognize their bond. How sad is that. I bet it hurts. Like not getting picked at all for dodgeball.\n\nI had a friend who, for 18 years of his life, assumed a god was watching his every move. He constrained his life to the bounds of his religious dogma, thus limiting his options. Now that he realizes this was bullshit he is just now beginning to explore options beyond his previous dogmatic constraints. At 21 years old. I'm really glad I had almost my entire life to think about these options and I still am not especially close to understanding my options. I can only wonder what kind of situation he is in.\n\nReligion made me the kid that wasn't religious. So ***it hasn't hurt me*** especially much. I'm sure I can link religion into some part of some cascade of causal events that led to some negative event, but that is silly. The harm that comes from religion is limited thought. Thanks to my lack of limitations in this department(the religious one specifically) I feel like any harm I receive from religion is my own misinterpretation of someone's actual intent. However, this does not mean religion isn't harming those still following it. I don't think it is helpful to tell someone, \"All you need to know on how to act is in this book/sermon/ritual/rulemanual/whatever.\" I think telling someone that their \"required understanding\" of the universe is finite is incredibly dangerous. The more information we understand, the more we can maneuver around that which causes us suffering.\n\n\nCan't buy booze on sunday, wtf? It is just another day. The fact that one in seven days isn't a booze purchasing day is simply arbitrary.\n\n*tl;dr Break down walls, don't build new ones OR prop up existing ones.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I have a degenerative eye disease. Somebody discovered a cure right before Bush took office, and then due to the stem cell band it was promptly frozen. It sat there for at least 8 years. I've heard the research may be resuming in the middle east, and I'm not sure about under Obama. Either way, that's at least 8 years of no research, if I go totally blind and have to wait an extra 8 years for the cure I'm blaming religion for it.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
How to handle non-slotted cable stops? | Just curious to see any suggestions on how best to handle [non-slotted cablestops](http://www.oldmountainbikes.com/bikes/pics/1R0087/PIC00017.JPG).
My hesitation with using them as shown in the picture is that the end of the housing could move around, rubbing on the stop and, well, just being loose. Is there a special housing ferrule one might use for this kind of stop? | 4 | [
{
"body": "I see what you're saying, but I have owned several bikes with stops like this and it's never been the slightest issue. The tension in the cable holds things pretty solidly. If I'm not mistaken, this stop is on your chainstay and holds the rear derailleur cable-- this design actually allows the housing to come out at the best angle for whatever position the derailleur is in. It's an intentional design.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Is there something you'd love to do, but are too afraid of failure? | I'd like to start my own company, and also write a novel.
But I'm afraid of having a failed business, and spending thousands of hours on something that's crappy and nobody will read. | 27 | [
{
"body": "I've gone skydiving, bungie jumping, rock climbing and street racing and I still can't work up the guts to ask this girl out...",
"score": 34
},
{
"body": "> ...also write a novel. But I'm afraid of ...spending thousands of hours on something that's crappy and nobody will read.\n\nListen; writing has nothing to do with the degree of fame that you will achieve with writing. Writing should be something that you are fully passionate about and would do anyway; even if it was never read or embraced by a single person. I spent 1 hour a day during the month of December and wrote an average of 1,666 words a day. By the end of the month I had written 50k words (166 pages in a novel; assuming an average of 300 words per page). I do not feel like that time was wasted, but I feel uplifted by the fact that I had a challenge in front of me and I conquered it. I still have about another 50k words to write until I think I am finished and then the editing starts. Yes; it is work...but it's something that I know I can do and something that I would love to fill my time with.\n\nGood writing doesn't happen in a day. Like most things in life it requires the writer to exercise their abilities. Start today. Write 1k words, tomorrow do the same. I know I am producing good writing when I am having fun doing it. Don't be concerned about failure or you will never succeed. There is a big group of people here on Reddit that I am sure would love to read a novel that came out by another Redditor. And if not; at least you conquered your fears. Good luck. :)\n\nEDIT: To answer your question: I would love to be in a theater production or an actor; but I am afraid that I'll walk on stage in my underwear...like that one dream I had...",
"score": 12
},
{
"body": "I want to get a farm. I want a small farm where I can grow enough food to live on and spend the rest of my time bumming around on various projects and screwball ideas. \n\n1. I dont know how to farm.\n2. I dont have enough money saved up to buy even undeveloped areable land\n\n\nSo those are two main stopping points so far. I am saving up money but the way the world is going I think our currency will hit the toilet way before I ever get my homestead purchased.",
"score": 10
},
{
"body": "I bet that there are people who are too afraid to admit that they are too afraid to try to write a book.",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "Listen: those thousands of hours are going to happen whether you write that book or not. If you write, then at the end of those 1000 hours, you wrote a book! If not, you just lost another 1000 hours to sleep and TV.",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "I'd love to create a computer programme. I have absolutely no coding ability I just think I could make an awesome interface.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Reddit, what is the best way for a self-taught programmer to evolve from being pretty good, to becoming a professional? | This question applies to programming in general, not any particular language, although I acknowledge that the path I personally take will probably be language specific in many ways.
I have been hacking around and coding small web projects for years now. My career focus has been Information Technology, but there was always a need to code things here and there. Custom reports/data mining, intranet apps, dynamic web sites, one-off business tools, etc. I have learned a lot over the years, and I am wondering what it would take for me to become a full-time, high quality coder. Obviously going to school would be a good answer, but I don't have time for it with my full time job, second part time job, and family responsibilities. I do have time to learn more about coding during my work day though, especially since my employer is pushing me more and more to make custom apps.
I know there are rules that I do not fully understand ranging from how to correctly case my code (what should be all lower, camel, etc) to more complex ideas and concepts that have to do with correct code architecture and making my own frameworks for apps. In short, if I wanted to tackle a larger project, I am not confident that I would be able to write it in such a way that it would be considered good, clean, elegant code and not end up being a mess later on as it grows.
The more I ask this question, the more it seems like I should just go out and find the info myself, but I have found that there are so many conflicting philosophies out there online, that I get rather confused and conflicted about which direction to take. Are there any self-made programmers out there that can offer advice for someone like me who is considering taking it to the next level? Are there any helpful books or websites that you would recommend? Any pearls of wisdom?
Thank you in advance!
Edit: Not really sure why people would be modding me down for asking for this help. Interesting. | 18 | [
{
"body": "I'm probably not a great programmer, but I have been doing it professionally since 2003 or so. I'm more or less a self taught programmer who forced myself to learn the skills to be valuable in the workplace. I have found that in the software world, much of the issues you have to deal with aren't programming related but rather people related.\r\n\r\nThe big leap between hobby programmer and professional programmer as I see it is dealing with clients shifting expectations of what they want the software to do. I would say 99% of projects I work on turn out to be nothing like what was originally scoped. The hard part in the professional world is trying to understand what the client needs regardless of what they say they want and managing the scheduling and pricing expectations that go along with it.\r\n\r\nYou'll find in the statement \"The first 90% of a project takes 90% of the time and the last 10% takes the other 90% of the time\" very true when trying to ship software.\r\n\r\nSo I would say the best way to make the leap from hobby programmer to professional programmer is to do projects for other people. Work on creating code that you can deliver in a finished state. You'll find the final details of a project are always tedious especially when you want to move on to something else.\r\n\r\nAlso remember, people will tell you there's good code and bad code, but in reality there is only code that ships and code that doesn't. In the sales world they call it the ABCs(always be closing). In the professional software world you need to always be shipping.",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "Do stuff at the edge of your comfort zone. Not too hard, or you'll fail before you even get started, and not too easy, or you won't actually learn anything. Don't be afraid to fail eventually; It's unavoidable.\n\nExpand your knowledge outside programming as well. You can't really understand good programming without understanding a lot of other things in life.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "Modding up because people need to hear this.\n\n\nfirst things first, humble thyself.\n\nThis is the problem with a lot of self taughts. They don't realize their code stinks as much as everybody else's. They don't immediately work well with others, and will quite often blow the interview because they talk down about a technology they don't like. On the first day, the see the DB Schema for the company and their brain breaks.\n\n2 - learn to read bad code, because it's all bad code. Anything you haven't written is going to look like garbage at first. You may have to refactor some stuff to make some sense out of it. Don't be afraid to ask questions from your team. The project only releases when the last of the code has been committed. Don't comment to often about the bad code, because a) nobody likes a whiner, they've seen it, they know it's bad, but it works. b) the person who wrote it may still be sitting next to you.\n\n3 - sometimes you must unlearn what you have learned. A lot of programming blogs and sites (php, looking at you) give you bad or old information. Hit the books instead. Anything by O'reily is a good start.\n\nLargely, it's people skills you are missing out on by being a self taught coder. It's like homeschooling. You may be damn smart, but it doesn't mean much if you can't humble yourself or work on a team.\n\npractice by contributing to a google code project. that's some pretty low hanging fruit.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "I'm a largely self-taught programmer myself. \"Professionally\" I've mostly programmed websites. I also studied AI/Cognitive Science (didn't graduate), which only occasionally involved programming.\n\nLearn languages that do things *way* different, like Prolog, Haskell, or Lisp (metaprogramming ftw!). This'll hopefully blow your mind and expand your thinking about programming. Learning about hardware and really low-level stuff like assembler should also prove enlightening, but I'm somewhat lacking in this area myself.\n\nLearn about best practices like [MVC](http://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model-view-controller-model), design patterns and whatnot. I found myself to be particularly underdeveloped in this area.\n\nLearn about computational complexity, [turing-completeness](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_completeness), and computability. \n\nAnd most of all, write a lot of code and make lots of mistakes. There's some pitfalls you can only learn from experience, especially in structuring larger projects.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "In my mind, the difference between a newbie and a pro is knwoing *why* best practices are best practices and *why* useful technologies/frameworks/designs are useful.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "A professional programmer is one who gets paid. \"Good\" to \"professional\" is not an evolutionary step. There are plenty (sadly) of professional programmers who are lousy.\r\n\r\nForget coding styles and camel-case. Most companies will have their own preferences and you will likely have to adopt them to some extent. For your own stuff you can pick something consistent and don't worry about it (although, for the love of God, please use complete words in function names. I don't care if it is OpenConnection, openConnection, or openconnection, but if it is opnction then I'm going to hate you forever. And if it's OpenConnection then it had better be CloseConnection. If it's closeconnection then you invite my wrath).\r\n\r\nHere's a good test to see if you actually have programming skills or are just a hack monkey. Find some reasonably interesting code you wrote two years ago. Yeah, go do that now; I'll wait. *taps fingers on table*\r\n\r\nGreat! Read it. Do you understand what the hell you were doing? Do you know why you broke it down in this way rather than that way? Can you even determine how you broke it down? Is there duplicated code? Unused code? Brittle code? Do you write comments? Were they even remotely helpful? If you understand your old code and there are no obvious problems then either it was a very, very simple piece of code or you are a frigging genius and I'd like a resume.\r\n\r\nProgramming is like every other worthwhile job: you solve problems. An painter solves the \"how can I paint this apple correctly\" problem. A writer solves the \"how can I get this dialogue to work\" problem. A salesperson solves the \"how can I get the customer to buy this\" problem. You solve the \"how can I make a piece of code do this\" problem. The first step of this has to be understanding the problem. It sounds stupid, but I've seen far too many programmers (including me, *cough*) dive in and start coding before they understand what they are going to do. Understand the problem, then write code. Except, don't write code yet. Design the solution. Sometimes the design is short and simple; sometimes it's more of an architectural problem, but either way you need to know how you are getting there. Describe the solution in terms of the major modules (or objects, or processes). What, briefly, do they do. How do they interact? Why this approach rather than that approach? Experimenting and revising is fine here. Then you can implement and, with a bit of luck, all of the hard decisions will have been made (it never works that way, but I live in hope).\r\n\r\nThere is no one way to write code (although there are wrong ways). TDD is not a silver bullet. Nor is Extreme Programming. Anyone who tells you that one of these is the only way to write code is either lying or stupid. Ignore them. Be *flexible* and be aware of what you are trying to do and know how you are going to get there and you should be well ahead of most people.\r\n\r\n(Edit: reddit doesn't like underscores. Who knew?)",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Why is compelling a suspect to give DNA not a violation of the fifth amendment? | I was watching one of the myriad "Law and Order" shows today, and wondered this. It seems like that would be forcing a person to "be a witness against himself."
Any legal experts? | 4 | [
{
"body": "I'm not a legal expert, but I think DNA samples are governed by \"search and seizure\" rather than considered testimony. If the fifth amendment were interpreted so broadly as to say that no person has to do anything that would potentially incriminate them, we wouldn't have search warrants because a person could simply object to the police searching their home as it might incriminate them. Being ordered to give a DNA sample is an order to comply with the seizure of evidence, not an order to testify against oneself.",
"score": 8
},
{
"body": "I Colorado, orders to produce physical evidence such as DNA samples, fingerprints, or even the likeness of one's face are called 'non-testimonial evidence'-and the 5th Amendement provides a protection against TESTIFYING against one's self. There's no testimony at issue in these cases, so, as others have pointed out, they become matters of search and seizure.\r\n\r\n",
"score": 3
}
]
|
DAE not care at all about award shows like the Golden Globe of the Academy Awards? | It just seems like a poor excuse for famous people to primp themselves so people can stare at them with envy to pad their egos. | 122 | [
{
"body": "I hate everything remotely mainstream even more than any of you, even before it was popular. Once I saw a TV in the window of a store and nearly vomited due to how pointless and mindless it was. Then I scoffed, muttered a witty saying about the ignorance of sheeple, tightened my burberry scarf, and went back to reading *Ulysses*.",
"score": 28
},
{
"body": "They're commercials. Who are these people that choose the winners? How do they decide? What makes them qualified? Why does the award mean anything? Look at the Spike Video Game Awards. They just propped up one year a few years ago and all of a sudden they matter. Why? Because TV says so. It doesn't make any sense if you think about it, but I can't help but think, so I don't watch.",
"score": 10
},
{
"body": "I really don't give a damn about award shows they mean nothing. However I do like all the screeners that come out ;)",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "Normally yes, but [this](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qbe2dtRt0Ik&) made it worth it. Ricky Gervais shitted on everyone.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Can any of you read books when you're high? | I generally can't, but I read a lot of bullshit on the internet when I am. I think it has to do with not being able to stay in that one world when I'm reading a book, since I adventure off into a bunch of ideas at nearly every sentence. I love watching movies while high, though, like it's the only way I'd really want to watch most movies. I can totally immerse myself into that world and it's always way more awesome. Thoughts? | 20 | [
{
"body": "I'm in a literature class, and my teacher, peering over my shoulder at my book, congratulated me for my \"insightful annotations.\" \n\nHalf of all the annotations in *Invisible Man* were my stoned self noting the most ridiculous statements and questions directly to the author, narrator, and reader. It's funny when you're constantly writing, \"And what does that mean???\" ",
"score": 12
},
{
"body": "One of the best things to do - you learn to concentrate with practice and then that concentration is applicable elsewhere. The following subjects work really well because they're deep enough to cover all your side thoughts, so you can wander for hours without ever leaving your field. Often I find myself asking a question right as the author is about to pose it to answer it, and then I mentally high-five myself.\n\nThe topics I'm referring to are higher math (abstract algebra, topology, theory of computation), philosophy (particularly epistemology or philosophy of science), and mythology (folk, classical, and analytical). They all fit together, and they also fit into everything nicely, so even if your mind wanders you can still be studying what you intended to study.\n\nMakes me wish I could go back to school for a math + classics + philosophy degree...",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "I have trouble reading real books high (I'm a big reader), but what I love to do is read classic children's books high, they're easy and often very trippy. My favorites are The Phantom Toolbooth and The Little Prince. Save the real literature for being sober. ",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "Only if I use a notecard to track the line I'm on, otherwise I'll occasionally start reading a line over and over without even realizing it.\n\nI've gone on for about 10 minutes before.",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "I study philosophy, and I can't do homework or read philosophy whilst baked, but I enjoy reading articles online as you say and also science fiction or literature. Anything with a plot to follow (rather than argument) I can generally manage.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "[4] All the time my friend. Some of my best memories however; involve going to logic class in the a.m., working out just after the sun passes noon, smoke two blunts on hi drive in the eve, and doing logic homework problems like no one's business. ",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "Sometimes when I'm heading to bed and I'm still high from earlier that evening I like to put on some chill tunes and read whatever book I'm into at the time. I usually don't last more than ten or so pages before falling asleep.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "I always got high and would read. Last thing I was reading while high was Through the Looking Glass and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "Whenever I read anything by Carl Sagan or Brian Greene whilst smoking, I find them in my dreams teaching me concepts from their book.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "Story from Yesterday:\nI eat 5 canna-cookies and smoke 4 bowls before heading to the airport. I am a medical patient and wont have access for 4 days unless I get desperate and just buy some where I am (Texas, not likely). So I get on the plane, get comfortable, open a new book and this is the fist sentence:\n\n>Half past a windless midnight, rain centered out of the gulf, across the shore and the levees: Parades of phantom horses striking hoof rhythms from roofs of tarpaper, tin, tile, shingles, slate, counting cadence along the avenues.\n\nNow that doesn't seem really complicated at all, today. But yesterday I read that about 6 times and I didn't know what the hell it was talking about. I generally enjoy a good read, but I may have to back off a little to really enjoy/understand it high.\n",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "I have the same problem, but I find that audio books are great when high. Whether for straight-up enjoyment (fiction) or even things like philosophy (I listened to Plato's Republic while chronned and killed my philo paper.)",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Sometimes. Sometimes. It takes me about 4x longer and the next day I won't have a clue what I had read.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "ya my mind wanders too much when reading for long periods when i'm baked.\n\naudiobooks are the key :)",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Hey, I'm in need of some college advice. | So I recently started college. I'm studying something that I generally enjoy, but so far I haven't been too big on my classes. I'm used to not loving school though (it's been a pastime of mine since fifth grade), so whatever. The much more important problem is that I don't know if I should be here at all. I have a job that I've been doing in my spare time for years now, and while I don't really feel like going into it for the sake of anonymity, it's my passion and it also happens to pay strangely well. Last year, working entirely in my spare time while I wasn't busy being a full time student, I made close to $30,000. I know I can make money doing it (significantly more if I was working full time), and I know that I love doing it. My current major is in a different field, because this job I have has really awful collegiate support. (And no, it's not dealing drugs or anything illegal. There just isn't really a good schooling system for it.)
My biggest fault has always been sticking with things: I get a job for a while, enjoy it at first, and very quickly grow tired of it. My biggest fear is that I'll finish college, go into this field I'm studying, and get sick of it after a year or two. Meanwhile, the job that I do now is something I've stuck to for around six or seven years already, and I only gain momentum as I continue.
But here's the real dilemma: It's been hardcoded into my brain that in America, you have to go to college to be a successful person and to be happy. My parents are positively convinced that if you don't go to college, you're more or less a spineless bum who is below everyone with a degree. This has rubbed off on me, and even though I pretty much know that it's incorrect and possibly a bit ignorant, it still drives my decision making. I don't want to leave because going to college is what's expected of me. Everyone that I explain this to says that given context, I probably shouldn't be here. The exception is my parents and myself. We feel like I should be here because it's modern America, and college is a necessity.
What's your take? | 4 | [
{
"body": "GET YOUR DEGREE.\n\nYou're not paying for an education, you're paying for a piece of paper. The odds that you'll enjoy or even work in the field that you study is slim to none, last I heard the average adult switches careers 6-7 times in their lifetime. That should tell you how meaningless your major actually is.\n\nIt's the degree that's worthwhile. In the more than likelyhood that you switch professions or even more likely that your profession becomes dated and non existent in 10-15 years, you'll need some kind of \"proof\" of your ability to learn and refocus yourself on a new trade i.e a degree.\n\nCan't stress it enough, college isn't about studying and preparing yourself for the one job you're going to be in for rest of your life. It's $80,000 being dumped into a piece of paper that simply keeps doors open in your future.",
"score": 6
}
]
|
I was laid off a month ago and my former employer never picked up the inventory I had on hand, do I own this stuff now? | I used to deliver medical equipment for in home use, I was laid off just over a month ago, my replacement came and picked up most of the inventory I had on hand but he left behind a few things (a hospital bed, a wheelchair, some other random things). I was told they would be back within a week to pick this stuff up but no one ever came or called and it has just been sitting in my garage for a month now. Is there some kind of law that makes these items mine if no one comes to claim them after a certain period of time or if I go ahead and sell/scrap them can I get in trouble with the law? | 7 | [
{
"body": "Technically, it's their property and you can't just get rid of it, but it isn't reasonable for them to force you to hold onto it indefinitely. That stuff can be expensive, though. If you want to be safe, call them up and remind them, then I'd recommend sending them a letter by registered mail (so you have proof that they received it) with a full inventory of the items they left behind saying that they have 30 days to come and pick up the rest of their stuff, or else you'll assume that they don't want it.",
"score": 8
},
{
"body": "There have been plenty of cases in law where people threw away items for ex-roomates, ex-girlfriends, etc. (or claimed that's what happened). The people were held liable for the value of the goods gone missing.\r\n\r\nIf you don't want to store these items indefinitely, then you want to notify the company in writing and have the letter delivered by registered mail. It would probably be reasonable to either:\r\n\r\na) tell them that a storage charge applies if they fail to collect the items within a given number of days OR\r\n\r\nb) warn them that the items will be discarded after a reasonable deadline has passed\r\n\r\nThey won't become legally yours to dispose of, if you don't remind them in writing. On the other hand, once you've made a reasonable effort and given a reasonable deadline, a judge wouldn't look sympathetically on a company or person who comes back much later and wonders what happened.",
"score": 8
}
]
|
Replace batteries with AC power adapter? Does such a gadget exist? | So I was recently given an FM transmitter for Christmas and unfortunately it runs on batteries, only batteries. I was wondering if a device/gadget existed that would allow me to plug in a "power-pack" of sorts that would then plug directly into the wall as I would like to transmit all day long.
Any suggestions?
Edit: I'm looking to "replace" 3 AAA batteries. | 5 | [
{
"body": "Yeah, it's called an AC to DC adapter, aka a walwart. In fact, you've probably got a pile of them in a closet or bin somewhere collecting dust.\n\nAssuming that the 3 AAA are in series, then you need one that is around 5 volts (each AAA is 1.5 v, so they total up to 4.5V). All you need to do is solder the two wire leads into the battery compartment contacts, ensuring that the polarity is correct.\n\nSeriously, this should take less than 5 minutes if you know what you are doing.",
"score": 8
},
{
"body": "Such a device certainly *has* existed, for at least a few decades no less. In the 80s, Radio Shack had a branded version for C-size batteries. The power adapter would plug into one of the batteries using what looked like the end cap for a 9-volt battery.\n\nI haven't seen any such thing recently, and never in any size other than C-cells, though.",
"score": 4
}
]
|
r/chess, what do these dollar signs mean? | this is from the chess tactics server. the computer comes out with these lines ending with $19 or $18 or some other such thing. are they some position evaluation notation that is understood by chessdom?
Crafty 19.19 3GHZ 5sec
1. Rxh4 Nf3+
({13:-1.85} 1. ... Nf3+ 2. Kg2 Nxh4+ 3. Kg3 Ng6 4. f4 Rd3+ 5. Kh2 exf4 6. Bxf4 Nc3 7. h4 Nxf4 8. Rxf4 Rd2+ 9. Kh3 Ne2 10. Rf5 Kh6 $19)
({12:+4.13} 1. ... e4 2. Rh5 Rxh5 3. gxh5 Nf3+ 4. Kg2 Nc5 5. Kg3 Nd3 6. Rd1 Nxc1 7. Rxc1 Kh6 8. Kf4 Nd2 $18) | 3 | [
{
"body": "The position evaluation is usually the +/- number such as \"-1.85\" after move one.\n\nMy speculation might be that since you said it's a tactics server, and the $ number is always at the end, it might be a \"Mate in $-amount-of-moves\" number.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Advice for career change | Background: I have a degree in computer science and a decade of experience working as a programmer. Recently I've fallen in love with the Russian language. I'm studying part time and have spent some time in Russia. This foray into language also got me interested in linguistics and I am *slowly* working my way through Contemporary Linguistics by O'Grady. I love the spoken sound of Russian and the chance to get my brain to think in a different way. I also love the window it gives me into another culture and the chance to interact with people. I find linguistics interesting as a way to formally define the constructs of a language, much in the same way that I've done when creating programming languages. Russian is my primary interest and the driving force in all of this. Linguistics is a secondary interest and something which might dovetail nicely with CS. I would be interesting in teaching (elementary or high school), interacting with people (perhaps some type of field research) or anything that involves using these new areas with CS.
My questions: What is the best way to get into these fields? If it's just a matter of going back to school, do special programs exist for career changers or must I start over at the undergrad level? What do you think about a dual major in linguistics and Russian? | 12 | [
{
"body": "May I suggest this program at University of Washington? http://compling.washington.edu/compling/\n\nIt's a Master's program that can be done in 1 year if you have extensive CS experience. It's also possible to do it fully online if you don't want to move.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "Have you looked into computational linguistics? It would seem to be exactly what you're looking for. There's probably significant overlap with the CS curriculum (though that probably depends on the school) and you could concentrate on Russian and handpick the linguistics courses.\n\nAnd if you don't mind me asking, what's so remarkable about Russian?",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Beautiful, sweet kitten found under my girlfriend's porch. Does someone in the Los Angeles area want a kitten? | (repost from r/cats for more exposure)
She's a calico, couldn't be more than 5 months old. I doubt she's spayed. She is not de-clawed. But she's very sociable. Most cats who have been on the streets are at least semi-fearful of people. This one will follow you everywhere! And she paws at the doors and windows anxious to be inside. This is a cat who is aching to be someone's pet.
[Here's a picture of her](http://imgur.com/wF0Eg). Sorry it looks terrible. Camera phone plus animal plus night equals super-blurry and unattractive.
If you can't take her in, please upvote so this gets some coverage.
Also, if you know of any **no-kill** shelters in the LA area, that info would be helpful too. My Google skills must be rusty because I'm not finding anything.
**UPDATE:** Looks like there are a few people who will be interested in the kitten. Reddit, problem is officially solved! Now I just have to figure out who will actually *get* the cat. | 201 | [
{
"body": "I read that as kitchen not kitten and I was pretty damn confused how your girlfriend didn't know about a secret kitchen under her porch.\n\nThen I opened the link and felt my IQ drop.",
"score": 55
},
{
"body": "I do know of a **no-kill shelter in LA**. It's called **[Friends of Animals Foundation](http://foala.org/)** (not the big corporate one) and it's run by an 80+ year-old woman and a few volunteers. It's pretty run-down, but they don't kill any animal that ever graces their doorstep. I was in LA at one point and while in a parking structure found a baby bird that someone had placed in a cardboard box (I think it fell from a beam where its nest was). This was the ONLY PLACE that would take it in and though they did not have a lot of space or resources, they took the birdy in and took care of it (I've found other injured birds and was unsuccessful in caring for them, so I leave it to the pros). \n\nWhen I went there, I remember seeing an injured dog that needed a lot of medication and was very old. Normally dogs like that would be put to sleep since no one would adopt them, but this place goes in the red to give medical treatment and keep their animals comfortable. An amazing place.\n\n**Here is their information:**\n\n2336 South Sepulveda Boulevard\nLos Angeles, CA 90064-1911\n(310) 479-5089\n\nThey didn't pick up the phone when I called and later told me that they screen all of their calls, so make sure you leave a voicemail if nobody picks up. They pick up while you are leaving the voicemail message (I think they get a lot of solicitors or something).\n\n",
"score": 13
},
{
"body": "Reminds me of a kitten I found a few years ago around Christmas. He was on an island in the parking lot, he looked awful, confused & obviously malnourished. We brought him home & nursed him to health. He never grew - I guess he was a runt, weighed about half a pound a year after we got him. This cat wasn't afraid of shit though. Tough little bastard. Eventually he got loose & I found him torn to pieces on the side of my house. I think my neighbors dog got to him. \n\nPoor guy. I miss ya, Tank.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "aww so cute looks almost exactally like my cat, sorry i cant help i would take her in a second but i live in Canada but i upvoted =)",
"score": 4
}
]
|
Anyone else love their kids but find raising them to be mostly hell? | I have a wonderful, healthy, amazing 4 year old girl. She's very bossy (normal for that age I am told). Playing with her is great. Everything else is beyond challenging. I spend 95% of my time so frustrated on the inside and cheerful and loving on the outside. Am I the only one?
When I see parents with many children, I have no idea how they do it. | 9 | [
{
"body": "Are you one of those no-spanking parents? There needs to be absolutely no question that you are in charge, of EVERYTHING.\n\nGive them options, to let them feel empowered, but make sure the options are options you choose, and they're not manipulating you.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "You aren't alone. I also have a 4 year old and I love her more than life but she has been driving me nuts lately! :) ",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "The worst part about this for me is that it exposes all of my various hypocrisy's and flaws. Children can suss you out in a second and over time they will find every single one of your flaws/weakpoints and try to exploit/emulate/revile it.\n\n",
"score": 3
}
]
|
DAE hate slow walkers? | Does anybody else absolutely hate slow walkers? I'm not often going anywhere in a hurry but when someone in front of me is walking slower then I am I am thrown into an absolute rage. It's not so bad when they are slow enough that you can pass them but sometimes you are in a crowded area and there is no way around them. | 271 | [
{
"body": "I get raged when they aren't aware of other people around them. If I'm walking slow I make sure I'm not in anyone's way. . . It's fucking rude. It's almost like those are the same kind of people who drive on the road like they are the only ones driving. I take pride in staying out of your way. I secretly get giddy when I see people use my same tactics; it makes me have a little faith in the world. ",
"score": 52
},
{
"body": "Uh, yeah. High school was the fucking worst. I'm sorry if this sounds racist, but it's meant not to be. All the fucking black kids at my school (not just the blacks, though; whites and asians too - but mostly the blacks) walked like they just shit their pants. Dragged their fucking feet, pants hanging to their knees, walking and talking like punks, because they feel so tough acting like retards. I'd be walking down the hall and I'd come up 'the Street' - a HUGE hallway that was the main one for our school. At one end, it seemed like 90% of the black kids hung there. If they weren't standing around collectively kissing their teeth, they were clogging the hall with their mummy-like walk. Grade 9 you're too scared to anything about it, but 4 years later in grade 12 you've had enough of that shit. Subsequently, a lot younger kids got pushed into lockers in those days.",
"score": 30
},
{
"body": "I honestly read that as wankers and was going to write a whole story about how much I detest slow wankers.\n\nSlow walkers I could take or leave, though.",
"score": 18
},
{
"body": "I have been saying for years that there should be a lane system in place on the pavements like they have on motorways. Slow lane nearest the shops for the browsers, middle lane for people who are bumbling about a bit, and the third faster lane for the people who just want to get where they are going.",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "The correct term is for these people is [\"meanderthals\"](http://www.reddit.com/r/AskReddit/comments/a3opw/what_subtle_thing_that_most_people_are_oblivious/c0fpcuo?context=2).",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "Does anybody else end up behind someone who is only walking slightly slower, so if you were to pass him/her, it would take several seconds of walking side-by-side, possibly blocking the other \"lane\" of oncoming traffic? Also, what if you determine that you'd both reach the destination at the same time, so you'd either have to cut in front to open the door or just stand there and stare as the other person opens it? What then??",
"score": 8
},
{
"body": "It's not so much the slowness that I mind as the complete obliviousness and inability to grasp that other people might like to go faster. If you're going to saunter around, at least be aware of your surroundings so you don't impede traffic. Assholes.",
"score": 8
},
{
"body": "What I hate most is a group of four people slowly walking together in a line taking up the entire width of the sidewalk like a blockade, seemingly oblivious to the fact that there are people behind them with their mindless chatter. ",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "I hate slow walkers who are just *slightly* slower than you. You want to pass them because they're slow, but if you try to pass them, there will be that long awkward \"walking beside you\" phase. Or you'll have to speedwalk for a while just to get out of their range.",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "When I first moved to Colorado from Massachusetts I was amazed at how slow everybody out here walked. Even to this day, nearly 2 decades later, I still walk substantially faster than most people around me. ",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "I'm a fast walker at heart, but I always try and walk slower. Unless I'm in a hurry to get somewhere, I consciously walk slower for a few reasons. \n\nFirst, what's the rush? Wherever I'm going will still be there if I walk half a pace slower. \n\nSecond, if you walk slower, you look more in control of what you're doing. In control = smoother = cooler. You're not letting the world dictate your movements, *you* are.\n\nThird, as cliche as it sounds, take time to stop and smell the roses (not literally). As you walk slower, take time to notice what's around you, and appreciate the hard work it took for things to get to where they are. If you're privileged enough that people walking slowly is one of the most infuriating things in your life, take a second to realize just how great your life is otherwise. Yeah, you need to get somewhere, but there's a lot to see between A and B. Enjoy it.\n\nOf course, if you're in a rush, and someone's being an inconsiderate, slow-walking asshole, fuck 'em. \n\nThen walk past them.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "Yes, goddammit, I always seem to get stuck behind some behemoth slug of a person in grocery store aisles. Here's a tip: if your ass takes up an entire aisle, it makes it impossible to pass you. Either get the fuck out of my way or reduce your width, I'm not waiting for your lardass to shovel 20 bags of Doritos into your cart.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Yeah this, and paradoxically people that hold the door when you are all the way on the other side, I'm not going to sprint to catch the door.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Makes Malls a nightmare, the slow walkers also cluster up into groups which makes it sometimes impossible to pass normally.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I HATE slow walkers. Especially in the airport. It always happens when you're running behind. It's usually a couple taking a leisurely stroll hand-in-hand stretching across the entire hallway. I just want to break through the middle of them.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I hate drifting walkers more than slow walkers. \n\nI don't mind going faster than a slow walker, but I'll rage if while I'm trying to go around, he manages to drift into my path and cuts me off.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I hate slow walkers, as does my girlfriend, who has developed what we have dubbed the \"City Walk\". I'm convinced she obtained this talent while attending school and working in NYC. She has this ability to pinpoint gaps between people when walking like she has some kind of radar, zipping through crowds of people, often dragging me in tow through the maze. She absolutely rages over slow walkers. It's hard sometimes to keep up with her though, she is small so she has no problem darting through crowds, but I'm a bit on the tall side and have a hard time getting through the clearings with as much ease. I wind up bumping into people who then give me dirty looks. ",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Any Boston area attorneys working on a worthy case and could use some volunteer help? | I graduated from law school last may. I've passed the NY Bar Exam. I need to do something with my time.
If you are fighting for a good cause and could use a hand, let me know. | 10 | [
{
"body": "There are lots of opportunities for pro bono work, no matter what state you're in, if that's the kind of thing you're looking for.\n\nI know it's hard to get a BigLaw job right now, but there's still lots of work for lawyers if you want it.\n\n(I'm a lawyer, but not anywhere near Boston)",
"score": 4
}
]
|
How does /r/fitness avoid muscle soreness after a workout? | Good old [wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed_onset_muscle_soreness).
The day after a work out I feel absolutely horrible. I'm not doing any strength training, just a short (40 min) run and some crunches/pushups. I stretch and also do a bit of Yoga before hand. I'm not using a protein shake or bar afterwards (or chowing down on a chicken breast) but I have protein during regular meals. I don't feel exhausted or sore while I'm exercising or right afterward. But for 2/3 days afterward I'll feel very sore in my back, arms, and legs, and I really don't feel like working through the pain. Did any one else feel this way when they first started getting into shape? Am I just being a big wuss?
Thanks | 13 | [
{
"body": "1. more water\n2. more protein\n3. more potassium (mmhhh yummy banana's)\n4. more milk\n5. alternate cold/hot/cold/hot in shower\n6. proper sleep\n\nYes you will still get sore, but the degree of soreness is what i would call more of an annoyance than pain. I following those steps my recovery times and soreness levels are dramatically less and noticeably so, as compared to the times when something comes up to prevent me from doing this cycle.",
"score": 11
},
{
"body": "Pain is weakness leaving the body. That is what I tell myself.\n\nNo really, I have been really sore and pretty much on the verge of falling asleep on my keyboard at work all day because I did two rowing races yesterday and I am unfit (although actually I should have learnt by now that you never stop hurting from rowing no matter how fit you are - you just get better times and more satisfaction for the pain!). I got to the point where I resorted to ibuprofen this afternoon.\n\nGenerally I find that from my usual training I feel less sore as I get fitter (only races break me). When I do hurt, a really hot bath and a massage help, although I am not sure whether they actually really make a difference or just distract me from the pain with a bit of pleasure!\n\ntl;dr: exercise hurts, pampering can distract",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "My first thought was, \"Huh? You want that.\" I strive for that sore feeling, that means you got a great workout and you're getting stronger. This is assuming you're getting sore in the muscles you worked out. If you have improper form say with squats and your lower back is hurting, you need to get proper form.\n\nNotice when you first start working out, you get sore but you also ramp up and start lifting more? Sore usually means you getting stronger. And the more you workout with the same routine, the less sore you feel. That is why I mix up my routine to get that sore feeling. Normally when doing chest I start out with flat bench but I wasn't getting the sore feeling. So recently I started out my chest routine with incline and it has been 2 days and my chest is still sore. This is my secret to going from skinny to big in record time. If you focus on being sore, you will make big gains. If you aren't sore, change it up until you're sore.\n\nAnd you shouldn't work out muscles that are sore, let them heal first.\n\nKeep up the good work, and no you're not being a wuss. ",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "two to three days of soreness after a typical run and some calisthenics seems a bit severe - are you getting eight hours of sleep a night? are you staying hydrated? is your nutrition up to par - lots of fruits and veggies, adequate protein?\n\nif there's nothing standing in the way of your body healing and you don't want to tough it out, you can try scaling back your workout and progressively working up in intensity over the coming weeks.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "here is everything you want to know about DOMS complete with references.\n\nhttp://www.ampedtraining.com/articles/doms-muscle-soreness/\n\n",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "Contrast showers. Shower normally, then turn it up as hot as you can stand. Wait about 15 seconds, then reach behind you and turn it all the way down. It'll SUCK, but leave it there for 5 seconds, then turn it back to crazy hot. Do that about three times. Works great for my back after deadlifts. ",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Yes, everyone feels like this, more or less. Muscle soreness is not a problem unless it is preventing you from doing the full range of the movement. Keep good form and ignore it. It will wear off in time.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
What are your worries? What are your hopes? | I've had beta access for a few days, but only just finally managed to get in yesterday. I put in a good several hours. Knocked out a few levels and a good number of missions. I'd like to entirely avoid discussion of bugs - they'll get sorted out eventually. I want to address the nitty gritty of the game itself.
I've come to the conclusion that the game is basically City of Heroes (another cryptic game), but set in space. It has the same game play experience. From level to level, there's no real perception of the difficulty changing. Weak story immersion. Tactics seem entirely unnecessary. I suspect end-game may be weak as well.
However, beta is capped at level 16, and we really don't know what comes next. Data miners haven't come out with any websites yet, and we're all basically in the dark. Lots of the more in-depth game play complaints could be addressed in future patches and expansions. I see so much possibility for this game, but I have a sneaky suspicion that it's going to be a game for the casual, younger crowd... with little to offer the more hardcore types looking for immersion on a more robust level.
| 7 | [
{
"body": "My main problem with this game is its heavy instancing. It is nothing like EVE with one single persistent world.\n\nThis sucks because when trying to contact your friends or fleet to join a game/battle/mission, you first have to connect to the correct instance (I'm not sure if this is automatic yet). And some of the instances are only 10 players big; it's not a very compelling MMO experience where hundreds of people can people in the same system.\n\nMy hope is they expand the instances and make it easy to find friends and fleet and join their missions.",
"score": 4
}
]
|
How can I open dialogue with someone while lap swimming? | Pretty specific I know.... during my usual lunch swim there was a really cute girl swimming in the lane next to me. Time to talk is very small when you're lap swimming. Have to basically be between sets (both of you). How the hell do you start a conversation with somebody in this situation? Should I just let it be since she's working out? What do I open with? All I could think of was to ask her if she was on the swim team (college pool) - both to start a convo and to gauge her age - but wasn't sure if that would be the right way to go or not. This could probably be extended to talking to a girl at the gym or whatever too, but at least at the gym there's more opportunity...
Tips? | 7 | [
{
"body": "> All I could think of was to ask her if she was on the swim team\n\nNot a bad start but be ready with some follow up questions. And perhaps something to initially break the ice like, \"Nice Breasts...troke.\" \n\nIf she seems annoyed that you're trying to start a conversation with her then at the very least you will know that she's not interested. I would wait a little longer in between sets for her to finish one and stop for a minute in the lane next to you. Sometimes people do not like to be bothered while working out, but if she likes you it won't bother her.\n\nBottom-line if she thinks you're cute she'll be happy you talked to her.",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "A little tip: Before you say anything, first say \"Hey.\" loud enough to get her attention. If you deliver some really clever opening line but she doesn't hear it you look bad.\n\nLines that work anywhere (after having said \"Hey.\"): \"Let me guess... You're [insert nationality].\" \"I like [insert clothing item]. What's the story behind it?\"",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "> Should I just let it be since she's working out?\n\nProbably, yes. Find her elsewhere to approach her. Most people hate being distracted while working out.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "Oh yeah, if you meet her somewhere other than the pool, you already have a conversation starter: \"Haven't I seen you at the pool before?\"",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I would just ask her if you can join her in her lane. That way when you take a break to drink water or wait the time between sets you can make small talk. If she seems interested ask her when shes done swimming to get a smoothie or something. ",
"score": 3
}
]
|
What earphones should I get? | I seem to go through earphones every 3-5 months. I don't know why, I take good care of them, keep them in their case, don't wrap them around my ipod, etc... I currently have the Skullcandy Smokin Ear buds, but they are crapping out on me with that "oh one bud is working and the other one works if I hold the wire like this" problem.
I liked the quality of the buds, but the durability is a fail. These are my 3rd pair (luckily I only had to pay for one pair because skullcandy has a good warranty program). I'm ordering another pair of them through the warranty program, but I'll only use those as my backup pair.
I have 75$ to spend on new earbuds (that includes shipping to the US). I need a pair that will last me a long time if I take care of it (which I will). Any suggestions? No more skullcandy please | 5 | [
{
"body": "[JBuds](http://www.amazon.com/Atomic-Earphones-Travel-Frustration-Free-Packaging/dp/B002RWJD7A/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1263842097&sr=8-2) are pretty great. I've had a [cheaper version](http://www.amazon.com/JBuds-Hi-Fi-Noise-Reducing-Buds-Black/dp/B000IG66VS/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1263842373&sr=8-3) of the ones in this link for about 2 years now. I originally got them b/c my ears are pretty small and normal ear buds really hurt to wear for extended periods of time. These JBuds are extremely comfortable and solid. The price is great too. ",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "Either the Sennheiser [CX-500](http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-CX-500-B-Headphone-Black/dp/B000WOGAJO/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1263842291&sr=8-8) or [CX-300](http://www.amazon.com/Sennheiser-CX300-B-Earbuds-Black/dp/B000E6G9RI/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=electronics&qid=1263842291&sr=8-1)",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Hey /r/LOST, in honor of the new season fast approaching I decided to try and make something. | Let me pretext this by saying I'm not a graphic designer and I've never used Inkscape before. I've also never made a logo for a reddit before. That being said, what do you guys think of this?
http://imgur.com/jIt69.png
If you don't dig it I understand. The dharma symbol didn't size down too well and having never used a vector imaging program before I had no idea how to get the text down right. That being said, if anyone wants the .svg and whatever stuff I used to try and improve you can get it from mediafire [here](http://www.mediafire.com/?mwer3ttmibz). | 82 | [
{
"body": "Yes! Well played. I don't even know if you need the \"REDDIT\" part (though, nicely done). It might be kind of cooler/more cryptic if it were just the Reddit Alien Dharma logo.\n\nSo would we deem this sub-reddit The Narwhal Station?",
"score": 11
},
{
"body": "I think people have been trying to change the logo of this subreddit for quite a while now, but can't because the lone moderator never signs on anymore. \n\nIt looks awesome though.",
"score": 8
},
{
"body": "I sent a message to hueypriest to see if he can make someone a mod for this subreddit. I'm gonna organize a nomination/vote thread for a new mod for the community if he says he can do it. \n\nEdit: I love the logo plytheman. Its awesomeness is what prompted me to message the admin to try and get it in place up there :)",
"score": 6
}
]
|
Reddit $1 Tournament Week | This week, by popular demand, we have four separate $1 tournaments.
Hopefully there's at least one that works for you.
The private tournament password for each is "reddit".
Full Tilt #7, Thursday 1/21 **$1+.50**
Noon Pacific / 3pm Eastern / 8pm London / 7am Sydney (Fri)
ID: 133838862
PokerStars #7, Friday 1/22 **$1+.10**
Midnight Pacific / 3am Eastern / 8am London / 7pm Sydney
ID: 233560959
Full Tilt #8, Saturday 1/23 **$1+.50**
11am Pacific / 2pm Eastern / 7pm London / 6am Sydney (Sun)
ID: 133838597
PokerStars #8, Sunday 1/24 **$1+.10**
4pm Pacific / 7pm Eastern / Midnight London / 11am Sydney (Monday)
ID: 233562058
Edit: updated Full Tilt IDs.
Edit 2: Noting the rake for each tournament. | 18 | [
{
"body": "sidebar is about to get very crowded...\n\nmaybe we should have a separate link there that lists the tourney schedule rather than having them all splayed out ",
"score": 6
}
]
|
Ask /r/Android: I put a swap partition on my G1's SD card. How do I know if it's actually being used? | I have the phone rooted, and I'm running CyanogenMod (currently 4.2.13, the latest). I have compcache enabled, and I am running all of my apps off the SD card. The card is a 16GB class 6, and I have it partitioned as follows:
* 1 GB ext3 (for apps)
* 90 MB linux swap
* Remainder as a vfat partition
I didn't notice any real change in performance or behavior after I created the swap partition, so I suspect that it isn't actually doing anything with it. How can I check this? | 11 | [
{
"body": "Not sure how \"patched\" the Android kernel is, but on a plain-ish Linux box:\n \n# cat /proc/swaps \nFilename Type Size Used Priority \n/dev/sda3 partition 10217332 0 -1",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "open terminal emulator, and type the command \"free\", then enter. If it the used column reads 0 then it's entirely possible you aren't pushing the devices memory much\n",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Looking for a trance song | I don't have any clue how to find this, Google doesn't exactly help with trance. Here's what I can tell you, it was a little popular over here maybe 4 or 5 years ago, the music video had some guy(or was it a girl?) being chased by secret agent type of men and I think they were holding a briefcase and they escaped on a boat or something. Here's what I can tell you for the beat (forgive me for resorting to type this):
didididididi (slight pause) bom bom
didididididi (slight pause) bom bom
didididididi dididididi dididi dididi (then it really speeds up here and gets kinda crazy)
not sure if that will help, but if any of you could help me name it, I'd be grateful.
Edit: it was sandstorm by darude, thanks everybody! wow, I'm amazed you got it from my super lame discription
Edit Edit: It was probably a remixed version of this song that I was remembering.
| 9 | [
{
"body": "If you enjoy trance then checkout:\n1. [Anjunabeats](http://www.anjunabeats.com/) they are a really good label and usually spot up and coming artists\n\n2. Bonus, they have a good pod cast and [weekly radio programme](http://www.aboveandbeyond.nu/radio/trance_around_the_world/) where you can listen on the web for free. Sweet\n\nIf anything, please give trance a chance!\n",
"score": 3
}
]
|
3.5 Beguiler Advice? | My group is starting a 3.5 campaign and I'm looking to roll Beguiler. The campaign will have a big roleplaying aspect to it, so the character doesn't need to be built solely around combat. The DM is pretty flexible about allowing most rule books to be used, so I have a lot to work with.
-What race would be the best choice? Grey Elf? A Gnome variant?
-Should I dip into anything? Mindbender?
-Are there any interesting/must have feats? I hear Jack of All Trades is useful. | 5 | [
{
"body": "you might want to reconsider reposting this question to the r/rpg subbreddit. I've had an awful time getting discussions started on the DandD subreddit there seems to be a lot of downvotters. NNTAWWT.\r\n\r\nIf I even knew what you were talking about I would offer something useful, but sadly I don't.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I love beguilers, consider a 1 level dip into Mindbender to delay the advanced learning... then get mindsight (feat)... later on concider shadow conj. to give yourself more versatility... Beguilers make great megalomaniacs (especially if you have telepathy from mindbender",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "First time i've seen a post about D&D pop up on my main page so i had to post. Alas, I wish i could offer advice about the beguiler. I'm assuming you already googled this but [here's an interesting post on wizards forum about the beguiler](http://community.wizards.com/go/thread/view/75882/19864626/Handbook_to_Building_a_Strong_Beguiler). ",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Why is education in the US so expensive? | As a student who has attended both private and public universities, and who will be attending medical school in the next couple of years, I can't help but notice how the costs are sky high and continuing to rise.
Public universities used to be inexpensive, but they're pretty much as expensive as private universities used to be, and now private universities seem to pretty much sport those from wealthy families or students willing to tack on exorbitant amounts of debt.
The outlook looks pretty dismal. According to the [AAMC](http://www.aamc.org/newsroom/reporter/dec08/graduates.htm), debt has steadily increased for the last 5 or 6 years for medical students. | 5 | [
{
"body": "There's already quite a bit of cynicism and raging against \"The Man\" in this thread, so I'll try to give a different perspective: Where I went to high school, there was a huge push to get nearly everyone into college. If this is common in other places, then the price increase is understandable: there are more people competing to get in, so schools are more free to raise prices as they see fit.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Dear Reddit, I need advice on the best way to start selling photographs. | My wife is a very good nature and landscape photographer and she has agreed that it would be great if we could start selling them as prints or postcards. If anyone on reddit has useful advice or knows of good websites we would be very appreciative. Thanks! | 17 | [
{
"body": "I think you'll find what you need here\nhttp://digital-photography-school.com/forum/earning-photography/\n\nHope it helps and my best wishes to you and your wife",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "Hey if she has a website i would HIGHLY suggest [fotomoto](http://www.fotomoto.com). I just put it into my site and it is really fantastic. They charge just what it takes to print the photo and a percentage (I think its 15% or 19% I can't remember). It implements really well into the site also, and they take care of printing, accounting, etc...if you wanna see how it works check out my site at [dave mangels photography](http://photo.davemangels.com). Also I am currently giving half of the profits from a purchase to the American Red Cross to donate for the Haitian Relief...so if you see anything you like please don't hesitate to buy one ;)...hope this helps",
"score": 3
}
]
|
My finest TF2 Moment | I kind of suck at TF2 so it was amazing that I pulled this stunt off just now. I was playing a game of KOTH Sawmill on the Reddit Midwest server. The game was at overtime with The other team's clock at zero. As I came up to the control point 4 reds were seconds away from capturing the point and winning the game. Four against one I managed to rocket blast them all with probably one second to spare. The last one almost got away. I held the point for about 12 more seconds unchallenged and we won the game. It may not be that impressive to some people but today is the proudest day in my Team Fortress career.
Edit: I meant Koth not Arena. | 45 | [
{
"body": "Part of the reason I posted this is to remind myself to brag about my mad skilz to my brother when he gets home.",
"score": 34
},
{
"body": "I had a good moment on KOTH_Sawmill a few days ago also as soldier.\n\nI poked my head over the edge from the RED side of the map to see two medics and one heavy in a tight ball capping the point. I shot a rocket down in the center of them to push them apart and line up one of the medics for a kill. Lo and behold the rocket is a critical. All three of them exploded into a fine mist of blood and guts. \n\nI still don't like random crits, its fun but feels cheap.",
"score": 20
},
{
"body": "Let me tell you how I got 10 backstabs within the span of 10 seconds. \n\nI was playing Blu on the final round of Dustbowl. We had gotten the first point with not much trouble, however the second point was proving to show some difficulty. So, I go Spy and manage to sneak my way to the side building that has the underground bunker. I pick a disguise and as I do so, I see a convoy of medics, heavies, and soldiers just rolling through the bottle neck.\n\nI can hear the crackle of waiting uber charges, and I take action.\n\nFirst, hiding in the rear were the medics - within moments I had backstabbed all of them. Then, came the handful of heavies who did not even notice their missing medics. After that, the soldiers who did not even notice their lack of back up.\n\nThe entire team was decimated.\n\nWe went on to capture the point within moments of my glorious spy raping.",
"score": 15
},
{
"body": "My favorite moment in TF2 came as a Sniper of all things. We were defending the very last point on Dustbowl, and I had my back to the wall behind the point. All talk was on, and I heard the other team say their Uber was ready, and time to go. A Heavy jumped off the little ledge and around the corner and I headshot him mid-air. The Medic popped his Uber a split second after but had no one to Uber. The chat erupted in to a bunch of \"OH NO WAY\"s and I was laughing my ass off. ",
"score": 8
},
{
"body": "6v6 granary as soldier\n\nwe had just capped 4th cp and their combo was pushing from behind or above to retake.\n\nI decided I had a shot at ninja'ing the last.\n\nI went out right door and did a double rocket jump (up and off the wall) to get to cp 1 really quickly. There I rocketed and shotguned a scout and shotgunned their demo to win the round.\n\nIt was fancy :D",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "My favorite activity as someone who frequently plays spy is to telefrag. The best thing (and it has happened twice now) is when I get a double telefrag. I sap the entrance and both engineers run up to it in a panic and unsap it. Both die from the telefrag and I easily destroy everything.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Can I Resolve the Stupidest Ongoing Fight in the Known Universe? | Dearest Reddit,
My live-in boyfriend and I only fight about one thing.
Cuddling.
Details: I like cuddling, but I don't like HIS idea/type of cuddling. My idea is something like me resting my head on his shoulder and my arm across his chest. His idea is his face up against my face and every inch of our bodies be touching. This makes me super claustrophobic. I really hate when our heads are together and he breaths directly into my face. He also wants us to cuddle and fall asleep and I cannot sleep in this position. Sometimes I really think that he likes squeezing me as hard as he can just to see me squirm but he then has a shit fit when I have a negative reaction when I see his oncoming death glomp.
All of our disagreements have been about cuddling and we can't come to a resolution or compromise. I say that I'll be more affectionate and he says that he'll smoother me less but it never happens.
We never fight about chores, cleaning, cooking, bills, sex or ANYTHING. We just can't get past this.
Halp I have a cling-on.
| 42 | [
{
"body": "Would you both be satisfied by spooning? He could get all the closeness he wants, and you'd have your front and face free.\n\nThat's the only solution (and a piss-poor one at that) I can think of. I know it worked for a partner and I where he wanted to cuddle while we fell asleep and I can only fall asleep when curled into the wall on my side.",
"score": 51
},
{
"body": "Man, I hate it when people breathe on my face. You need to let him know that he cuddles like a freak show, and it's not just you, that he will never find a girl out there who likes to be crushed while breathing his recycled air.",
"score": 37
},
{
"body": "Hai,\n\nWhen I first started dating my boyfriend, we had the exact same problem. I generally need my space and cannot fall asleep if someone is hugging me or restricting my motion in any way. Face-to-face cuddling and smothering literally make my skin crawl. He saw this as a lack of affection and he really, really wanted to hold me in ways that were very uncomfortable for me (he has a much higher tolerance for laying still for long stretches of time than I do.)\n\nCompromises that fixed it: \n\n1. Spooning\n2. Holding his hand really tightly as we were falling asleep.\n3. Doing a lot more affectionate things when we weren't in bed to give him his fill of physical affection during the day (hugging him tightly, nomming on his ears, you know, lots of intimate touches.)\n\nOne particular thing that got him to sympathize with my point of view was this: instead of getting exasperated when he tried to smother me in bed, I would be very apologetic. I told him that I felt terrible and that I really wished I could be the way he is, but that I just couldn't because I had an adverse physical reaction to that type of cuddling. This caused him to back off quite a bit. At the same time I made a lot of effort to be as cuddly as possible with him (like the hand-holding or spooning which also used to make me spaz out) and we ended up meeting in the middle. Of the bed. =)\n\nGood luck!",
"score": 21
},
{
"body": "lol, Man I needed a good laugh\n\nAsk one of his bigger buddies bear hug him breathless until he gets the clue.",
"score": 19
},
{
"body": "Are there any other situations or areas where his reaction to \"I am uncomfortable\" is *not* \"oh sorry, I'll stop\" and then he stops? If so, this is a boundary issue and you have bigger problems.\n\nAre you as direct as possible about your claustrophobia and how you can't sleep like that? When he smothers you, do you put up with it or push away/roll over?\n\nWhat I would do is: put up with it for a little bit (so that he gets his face time), then when it gets overpowering, say, \"Phew, I can't breathe\" and back away or roll over. Repeat once or twice, but if he gets too close another two or three times, I'd get up and go do something else, saying something like \"I can't breathe, I'm gonna get up.\" Might have to lay it out for him: \"I feel smothered when you get that close for too long. You're not stopping so I'm going to go do something else for a while.\"\n\nIf he doesn't stop after a while, you might have to sit him down and say, \"When you get that close, I can't breathe. I'm getting tired of going through this. You're being disrespectful of my boundaries. How can we fix this?\"\n\nYou can also find other ways to be affectionate when you're not cuddling. Let him know that his version of cuddling really bothers you but you'll do other things for him like a backrub or cooking a nice dinner or whatever to show your affection.",
"score": 10
},
{
"body": "Have him scootch down the bed so he has his face in your tits, belly, crotch, whatever. He can get close to these with minimal suffocation on your part. You can put your arm on him or rub his head. ",
"score": 10
},
{
"body": "Just so you know, this isn't \"the stupidest ongoing fight in the known universe\". People fight over much more stupid things.\n\nI don't have any useful advice, so I'll give you this instead: grow your fingernails out and sharpen them. Then when he starts to move in, just point your nails at his chest. He'll get the message, one way or another.",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": ">Halp I have a cling-on.\n\nYou know how a wad of toilet paper is like the Starship Enterprise don't you? They both circle Uranus looking for Klingons. ;)",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "Why do you think your fight is stupid? I think regarding it as stupid will make it more difficult to solve.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "Don't resolve it!\n\nSeriously- hear me out. You seem to have a theme that this is your \"one fight.\" Maybe it provides your relationship with a way to relieve tension. Maybe you're subconsciously less prone to engage in fights because you've got some inertia for your present dynamic. Who knows what'll happen if you solve this. I suggest you both stay stubborn.\n\nCongrats, you've got to have the best relationship on RA.",
"score": 4
}
]
|
Proposal for /r/trees artists: illustrate the Trees Highness Chart! | You can use the [original text as a guideline](http://www.reddit.com/r/trees/comments/affa2/0_rtrees_proposal_preface_every_post_and_comment/) but we'd all love to see your interpretations of each level.
Edit: [0] | 38 | [
{
"body": "I like this! Maybe instead of working on a whole chart, people should pick a couple of the numbers and illustrate just those. Then we can collage our favourite individual illustrations into a community-designed chart!",
"score": 9
}
]
|
WATMM, can you tell me about vocals? | I've got an audition to be the vocalist for a funk band coming up, and I don't know the first thing about singing professionally. When I contacted the band I told them that I'm a guitarist, not a vocalist but I'm willing to put my best effort into singing for them. The band is called Mudbone Hustler, here's their [myspace page](http://www.myspace.com/mudbonehustlerband). One of the songs that I'll have to sing during the audition is "Big Daddy".
I have a good voice and it would be well suited for funk music, I just don't know how to consistently make it sound like I need it to. So my questions for all of you are: what kind of things should I keep in mind when learning to sing these songs? Are there any singing techniques that I should familiarize myself with? And what kind of general advice can you give me? Any help is greatly appreciated :)
Edit: Thanks for all the great advice so far! You guys are great. I'm off to get a haircut but I'll be back to read more comments soon.
Edit 2: Thanks for all the great feedback everyone! You all have been extremely helpful. | 6 | [
{
"body": " Although you didn't ask for this specifically you may find it useful, from the EQ end you should consider boosting *around* 200 Hz to 400 Hz to give them some warmth, 800Hz to 1KHz to thicken them, 6 KHz to make them \"pop\" a little in the mix, and 10 Khz to 17 Khz to give them a bit of an \"airy\" quality.",
"score": 6
}
]
|
Hey Reddit, nerds often have awesome ringtones. What's yours? | I'm using a Droid, so I made sure all my notifications are R2-D2 sounds. My ringtone is Never Gonna Give You Up.
What's yours? | 34 | [
{
"body": "Metal Gear Solid codec ringtone.\n\nIt sounds close enough to a \"normal\" ringtone to not get a second glance from people who aren't aware of what it is, but it gets a smile and a nod of recognition from those in the know.\n\n**Edit:** But I always have my phone on vibrate at work, simply because I refuse to add to the cacophony of ringtones.",
"score": 25
},
{
"body": "\"Beep beep boop bap beep boop!\" (Go go Power Rangers!)\n\nThe same sound that their watches made when Zordon would call them.",
"score": 21
},
{
"body": "MGS codec ring: it's a ring, but it's unique enough that I know it's my phone.\n\nText notification is \"HEY LISTEN\" from OoT, just because you can instantly pick out the Zelda fans around when I get a text by the flinches and death stares.",
"score": 11
},
{
"body": "[The A-team theme song](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wyz_2DEah4o)\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\nIt's so awesome when it rings, I feel like I am answering a call from someone in need of help.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "Ringtone = The Portal theme (Still Alive)\n\nMessage tone is GladOS \"...quit now and caaaake will be served immediately...\"\n\nEDIT: correct title for theme",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "I use a sample of [Peaches and Regalia](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=obIo19DI_kk). In this version it's the part from 1:32 until about 2:04 ",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "I can't claim this one for myself, but a friend of my brother has the sound of the TARDIS powering up. I had a good laugh when I heard that go off. It's weird and repetitive and so it makes a good tone.\n\nMy old ringtone was me clearly saying the word \"ring\" one time.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "My ringtone is the Terran theme.\n\nText messages are the stim pack \"tscht, awww yeah\"\n\nVoice mail is battlecruiser's \"Incoming transmission\"",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "[Close Encounters of the Third Kind](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tUcOaGawIW0) - it's quiet and subtle, and eminently suitable for when somebody is trying to contact you. \n\n\n",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "The ringtone from Crank. I don't have it on very often but when I do it always get a laugh. \n\nhttp://www.myxer.com/ringtone:46304/",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "When I get a text the sound of transformers transforming plays. Then I grab my phone and pop out the keypad to reply. It's pretty awesome. ",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "[Goodbye Horses by Q Lazzarus](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_DVS_303kQ#t=1m06s)\n\nMy text message is FF7 fanfare.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "My husband had this as his ringtone for quite awhile: http://www.weebls-stuff.com/songs/Amazing+Horse/",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Queen - Flash Gordon \n\nI forgot to turn it off during a meeting recently. A vendor was pitching Flash games for a Web site. My phone went off - FLASH!! AHHHHH!!!\n\nEverybody laughed. I was embarrassed. ",
"score": 3
}
]
|
First time kegging questions. (i know, again. Please forgive me) | So. I just finished a sanyo 4192 conversion. It came out totally great and i cant wait to start pulling some pints. However, being that this is my first time through, i have a couple worries/questions that i would love to hear some feedback on. I know some of these are common questions, but i am having trouble finding the answeres/reassurances to them.
1. Im going with the set and forget method of carbing the first couple of times, as not to risk additional issues. But everything i read specified that you would want to chill your kegs first. I hooked everything up at once, (including the final stages of the kegorator build) so i hooked up warm kegs in a warm fridge to pressure and then plugged in the fridge. Any issues with that?
2. When i checked on the co2 tank, the reading was much lower than when i put it in the fridge. Maybe a leak? Or does the air condense with the colder temps? RDWHAHB?
3. Any random advice?
Thanks guys | 7 | [
{
"body": "1. No real issues, except you should give it a blast at 30psi to seal the keg and make sure there aren't any leaks. The reason for cooling the kegs first is that cold beer absorbs more CO2 (see http://sdcollins.home.mindspring.com/ForceCarbonation.html ) but with the set-and-forget method will be able to deal with that as the beer cools.\n\n2. Dunno, I leave my CO2 tank outside the fridge.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
DAE like to stay to the end of the credits in the movie theatre? | >Fozzie: "Kermit? Does anyone ever actually read this stuff?"
>Kermit: "Sure. They all have families."
| 8 | [
{
"body": "I used to. Ticked off my GF something awful, until I found [this site](http://moviestinger.com/category/in-theaters/). It tells you whether there's anything after/during the credits. Pretty cool.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Why I won't be upvoting calls for donations (aside from Reddit). | I've been thinking this for a few days now -- but I'm seeing a lot of calls for donations to different charities and a lot of "buy this shirt/button/flag/book/magazine" and a portion of the proceeds will go to Haiti. (Or click this link, forward this email etc. etc.).
I'm very impressed with Direct Relief -- no administrative overhead, they're on foot, they're coordinating with organizations that already are very active and prolific. I'd rather organize to have as much money go there as it will have the biggest impact.
I'm not going to buy something -- I don't want a freakin' souvenir shirt/button/flag. I don't want to advertise my support on Facebook etc. I'd rather ALL my money go to the cause rather than cover the cost of the tshirt/printing/shipping whatever. I'm also not convinced that they're not profit making/good PR on some level.
This may not be a popular sentiment, but personally, I'd love to see if the focus on Reddit stayed with Direct Relief.
| 28 | [
{
"body": "This is an excellent point. Direct Relief was chosen because it is such a great organization. I feel that my money would be wasted by donating to another organization. Not the say that other organizations don't do good work, just that I KNOW how Direct Relief will be using my money.",
"score": 12
},
{
"body": "Some people prefer to get something in return for their donation. Perhaps to boast, perhaps to get something they can see.\n\nPersonally I prefer Direct Relief too, and don't want anything in return, but if someone wants to get something in return with another charity or they won't donate then that's the better option.",
"score": 4
}
]
|
Hey Frugal, I'm moving into my own place soon. Any tips for someone who is just getting started on their own? | I'm looking for advice on how to be frugal with anything associated with moving into a new apartment or moving out on my own.
I have the apartment already, cook/kitchenware that was graciously given to me as Christmas gifts, but will need furniture, a bed, and I-don't-know-what else. | 54 | [
{
"body": "Don't go nuts buying stuff. \n\n\nIt's easy to just run out and spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars when your moving into your own first place. I made the mistake going out and buying everything I thought I was supposed to have (especially in the kitchen and bathroom) only to realize that the majority of it is unnecessary. \n\n\nMove into your apartment and just live. Wait to buy the small things until the need for them actually arises. \n\n\nAs for the bigger stuff, you can't beat second hand furniture off Craigslist. Just don't ever, ever, buy anything that is remotely pricey second hand. You have no idea what kind of wear and tear these items have been under. A good rule of thumb is to figure that anything you buy second hand will last 1-2 years. If it lasts more, great. Just don't count on it. \n\n\nAside from that, make a budget and STICK TO IT. Many people, myself included, spent way too much on entertainment when they first lived on their own. Pay your bills first, then withdraw your fun money in cash. By doing that, you know exactly how much you have spent and have left. You'll spend your extra money much more wisely as you can see it, literally, trickle away. \n\n\nGood luck!",
"score": 39
},
{
"body": "1. Don't eat out. \n2. Don't use credit cards.\n3. Make a budget.\n4. Don't spend your last dime on anything other than something you'd die if you didn't have.\n5. Act as if you were going to be fired tomorrow, and plan accordingly.",
"score": 20
},
{
"body": "My first rule of moving: Unpack the fun stuff LAST. I find that if I unpack my computer or TV first, I'll never get anything else unpacked. Not sure if that qualifies as frugal advice, but there it is. ",
"score": 17
},
{
"body": "For tools and other items: Buy shit at estate sales(or garage sales) Dead dudes don't need their shit anymore so they liquidate all of their stuff for relatively cheap.",
"score": 15
},
{
"body": "When you finally get settled in start planning your meals by the week. If you aren't planned and don't do your own cooking the cost of food can easily go out of control. Cooking isn't hard. Learn how if you haven't already and keep yourself healthy with real food. Good luck!",
"score": 12
},
{
"body": "Learn to cook.\nNever pay full price for anything.\nStay out of debt.\nIntroduce yourself to your neighbors.",
"score": 11
},
{
"body": "Buy an electric blanket and a really thick comforter and a good coat. Wear it constantly and keep your heat on as low as it can go, just enough so your pipes don't freeze. You'll save hundreds a year this way in heating bills.",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "Salvation Army, Goodwill, Freecycle (on Yahoo groups), these are all your friends. You can get amazing deals on very basic items there. Also, another idea is to go to a reasonably priced store (Ikea, Target, Kmart) and do a wedding registry for things you need. Then, have a house warming party, and let people know that - rather than bring over a plant or a bottle of wine, if they could instead just get you something on the list that would be great. Have lots of cheap stuff, like cutlery, plates, dishes, towels, etc. And yeah, I know this would be tacky to TELL people, but if they ASK what they can bring, let them know this is there. Lots of my friends furnished their new apartments that way. \n\nAlso, encourage friends and family to \"clean out\" their own house and let you have the discards. Lots of people (me included) would use this as an excuse to get rid of perfectly good stuff so they can upgrade. A friend got my old blender that way (and I got a new one!). \n\nOh, also, IKEA has (or had, last I looked) a \"kitchen starter\" kit, that had a bunch of basics for the kitchen. It was pretty reasonable. ",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "Make a monthly budget. All of the expected costs (rent, cable, heat, etc), all of the not-quite-quantifiable stuff (groceries, gas money, beer, etc) listed in one place will give you a good idea of what you will have left over to spend/save on any non-essentials (more beer, etc). ",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "Store leftover food in good quality containers, label it clearly.\r\n \r\nBaking soda + vinegar will clean pretty much any surface.\r\n\r\nBaking soda will eat up odors. \r\n\r\nIf you can, grow as much of your food as possible- herbs, tomatoes, etc can all be grown on balconies and will taste a billion times better than store bought stuff. \r\n\r\nHave fun!\r\n\r\n",
"score": 8
},
{
"body": "[Plastic milkcrates](http://calgaryplastic.ca/milk%20crate.gif) are great for just about any kind of furniture you can think of. With some scrap boards you can make beds, bookshelves, tables and more. They are pretty easy to come by at thrift stores also grocery stores give them away pretty often.",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "Do you have a decent computer with a decent monitor?\n\nConsider going without a television, if you don't already have one. If you do, consider forgoing cable. Just get a nice internet connection and keep your cell phone. Don't go for a landline or a cable package. It'll save you progressively more and more money the longer you are living in your new apartment.\n\nGet your entertainment from your computer. Hulu, Netflix, TWiT and Rev3 all have great content that just require an internet connection. (And in the case of Netflix, 9.95 a month, which is a lot cheaper than an extra 60 - 100 a month for crap you'll never watch) On top of that there are a crapload of great podcasts out there.",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "A good trick, if the weather isn't horrible where you're at, is to go around during \"dump days\" and see if you can snag stuff that people leave for the trash haulers. I've found nice shelves and lamps just sitting out in front of people's homes next to trash bins.\n\nIf there's someone around, ask if you can take the stuff. If there's no one around, make sure you leave things tidy when you go. People generally don't mind if you take their trash, they mind if you leave the area a mess.\n\nAs for garage sales and flea markets, go during the tail end of things. People will want the stuff just _gone_ and will give it to you for less.\n\nNever buy a used mattress from someone you don't trust. Someone could have peed on it, it could be infested with bedbugs, someone could have had an orgy on the thing, you have no idea.\n\nIf you don't have enough cash for a good mattress right away, buy an airbed and save up for a good mattress. Better to wait a while as you save up than to get a crappy mattress. You spend a third of your life sleeping--get a good mattress. It's worth it.\n\nThrift store often have a furniture section--check around there for stuff. Ask friends and family if they've got anything around the house they don't want--hell, even ask co-workers if they know anyone who is getting rid of stuff. Giving it away is cheaper than paying the dump to take it. :)\n",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "I had to start all over again when I was 30 something but here is what I did.\n\n- Bought most of my kitchen supplies at the dollar and thrift stores. Still have most of it as I picked out all the high quality items. If I had to pick up junk I did it as a temporary necessity until I got the real thing or a better one at the thrift store.\n\n- I got my sofa practically new on Craigslist. It is ugly and cost $250 cash. Guess what it is the most comfortable couch I've ever owned and although it has an ugly pattern it still looks perfect in my living room. I bought it from a newly-wed couple who were moving. They had it in their front room as decoration (not their actual living area) and claimed maybe two people had ever sat in it. I believed them actually. It was from Pier 1 Imports and they were non smokers with no pets who lived in a rich suburb. They just wanted to get rid of it. I still own it six years later and will miss it if I ever have to part with it. :P\n\n- Find the Free-Cyle Network in your area. http://freecycle.org\n\n- This is a survial trick for when the power goes out but you can still use it. You are supposed to keep your freezer packed so that it keeps cold. I am one person and can only fill my freezer half full before I eat through everything. Get jugs of water and keep them in the freezer. Then you can keep your refrigerator turned down as well. Saves lots of energy.\n\n- More survival stuff: close the drapes at night it keeps in the heat. Congregate in one room. Shut all the doors in the least used rooms to save energy and keep the heat in one area. You can do it often if you're comfortable and keep your heat down low. It's what you do when your power goes out.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "\"Don't go nuts buying stuff.\"\n\nExcellent excellent advice.\n\nAlso nutritious foods can be cheap. Carrots, potatoes, beans, oatmeal, bananas. If you opt for a 99 cent fast food route, make sure your other meals are very low fat high fiber and that you do extra exercise that day. You don't need to have to start worrying about high blood pressure/cholesterol.\n\nGet a cheap new mattress and put it on the floor (pretend you're Japanese). If it's too hard buy a foam pad to lay over it.\nMichaels put their frames on sale all the time. Cut pictures out of art books that you got for free at a library sale and hang them. This is way more reflective of your taste than anything you can buy at the store (at 10 times the price).\n\n You'd be surprised how many people have stuff they want to get rid of but don't have a truck or need help or don't know what to do with it. Tell people your new to being on your own and ASK THEM if there's anything they won't be needing. This happened with a kid at work and he was inundated.\n",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "See if you can find a discount furniture mart. Also, the softer you can stand your mattress, the cheaper it'll be (to a point).",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Buy and cook in bulk - freeze in individual portions for later. Lasagna, chili, grilled chicken, soups, pasta sauce, et al. You can really stretch things out this way and having microwave-ready tasty food helps to keep you away from expensive fast-food habits.\n\n\nEat healthy and learn to cook healthy. One great trick to is to stock your kitchen with carrots, celery, apples and other fruit bought on sale. Don't buy chips, Oreos, soda and unhealthy snacks. Nothing at all. I remember being single and going to my fridge for a snack...seeing only healthy stuff...shutting the door in disgust and then coming back to eat the healthy food 45 minutes later due to hunger. It's a good way to save money and to eat right versus buying expensive and fattening snack foods.\n\n\nWhen I moved out, it was to a new city where I really didn't know anyone. My frugal choice was to not get cable TV and to only have a DVD player. Kind of a forced way for me to get out of the boring apartment and meet new people. ",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Oh, and invite a lot of ladies (or guys) over... depending on your preference/gender. You won't be single forever. Take advantage of it.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "PAY ATTENTION TO EVERY LITTLE THING YOUR POTENTIAL APARTMENT MANAGER AND APARTMENT HAS/SAYS/PROMISES. Get everything in writing, read over every sentence of that lease, and don't get oogly-eyed and miss the important stuff. Search for crime reports for the area you're going into, use apartmentratings.com and google to make sure you want to live there. Use googlemaps to plot out where you'll be going the most so you'll make a commute-friendly move. Get everything in writing! Inspect every square inch of the place and make sure you write every little ding on the apartment inspection. It's a good idea to invest in rugs in high-traffic areas so you won't lose your deposit over some spilled juice.\n\nIt's good to be mindful of what you are really using the most now (at least 2x a week), and keep a running list so you'll know what to do when the time comes. This is for expendables, bathroom and kitchen stuff.\n\nGoodwill is your friend as far as other cookware and dishes - there's a lot of really good stuff in there.\n\nFor a bed, all you need is a nice new futon or foam bed. I say new because you don't know what grandma or young Billy was doing in that bed. At Ikea I got a nice full sized foam mattress for about $300. You don't need a steel and diamond-encrusted mattress frame. It also came in a deceptively small box that was easy to move. \n\nYou can save a lot of space by learning to hang your clothes and get a small plastic set of drawers for... your drawers. And socks. \n\nSheets and blankets can be acquired on the cheap at secondhand stores, family members, friends, and on sale at department stores.\n\nYou don't need a flatscreen TV. I repeat, you don't need a flatscreen TV. I got mine for free off of craigslist, and there's plenty of slightly dinged up flatscreen TVs out there for $0.\n\nGet a cat if you're going to be alone. They make great company when all your friends flake out and your parents decide not to talk to you for some reason or another. Or if you can't afford your phone bill.......\n\nSpeaking of! Get cheap $20-30 internet, and then get Skype VoIP phone service. For $3/month you'll have telephone, internet, and with the internet you'll have nearly every movie you'll want to see available nearly instantly for free. \n\nMost of all, have fun! Your first place! It's not so hard, even if you're living off canned beans and rice (spaghetti on a fancy night!), you're living on your own. The American dream! Yeah! -high five-",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Should teachers be held to a different moral standard? | This was a question brought up in an education class of mine and I'm wondering how my own thoughts stack up with those of others. | 5 | [
{
"body": "Not necessarily. \r\n\r\nIn sort of the same way as politicians, sports figures, and celebrities (though in a vastly reduced way), teachers simply have their morals on display in a much more public manner than most of the rest of us. Even in public, most of us can do a pretty good job of concealing our inner moral selves.\r\n\r\nThe outrage we (sometimes) feel when any one of the above-mentioned group does something that goes contrary to cultural moral norms is, I think, rooted in the publicity of the thing (how widespread the knowledge of an act becomes) more than the thing itself. For we are all capable, generally, of doing the same or similar things.\r\n\r\nTeachers, though, are placed in authority over our children, and so become role models more than most other adults our kids will meet.\r\n\r\nPerhaps I'll change my answer of \"not necessarily\" to \"well, perhaps, but it's still the parents' ultimate responsibility to provide the moral compass.\"",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "When you choose to be a teacher you are choosing to be a role model. You have to be careful about how you behave and the things that you do in your life outside of school. \n\nFor example, when buying condoms or underwear...I always look over my shoulder in the store for students or parents....and I know this may seem goofy or like I am making a joke. But it is not a joke. You have to think about this crap. ",
"score": 3
}
]
|
For people trying to figure what a song is called | Sorry but this is more the UK heads - text 2580 and play the song down your phone. This is a service called Shazzam that I use quite a bit, esp in bars or shops with music playing. You'll get a text back telling you the name of the artist and the name of the song.
It doesn't always work, but you won't get charged if they don't figure it out. I think it's something like 25p a text if they do text back the name and artist.
Just thought I'd throw it out there! | 6 | [
{
"body": "I wish I'd hear DNB while in bars or shops, hah! All I get is Lady Gaga. Headphones while shopping is a must.",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "Yeah most times I use it for hip hop and things in shops and bars but It's worked a few times with D&B - just thought it might be worth a shot for people looking for the name of tunes and artists",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Dear 2X: How do you deal with other women in the workplace? | I work in a small office with primarily female colleagues. All of the woman have very strong personalities. There are moments of kindness, laughter, and support, but for the most part I find them all very annoying (and I've tried so very hard to only see the good). More often than not I fake my way through the day, trying to hide my true feelings and put on a happy face. I don't always succeed. Sometimes the issues are minor, like someone telling a boring story about their cousin's neighbour for the umpteenth time, and sometimes they're more serious. Just this afternoon I had an unpleasant confrontation due to a very obvious difference in workplace priorities.
My question is this: how do you 2Xers deal in similar situations? Do you grin and bear it? Do you stay true to your own personality, regardless of the outcome? Do you enter into conflicts unflinchingly or feel yourself back down timidly? Do you let it roll off your back or do you get out and find a new job?
I'd love to read your stories, be they inspiring, commiserating, or hilarious. Please share! | 6 | [
{
"body": "Working in a primarily male office can be just as frustrating. I think it's not a woman or a man problem, it's a homogeneity problem. Too little diversity in the workplace causes problems.\n\nWhen a coworker confronts you in a rude, intimidating way, it's usually best to smile and say, \"I can see you really care about this issue. Let's schedule a meeting to talk about it with our supervisors present.\" Not much help if the rude person *is* your supervisor, but random workplace bullies usually back down when faced with the prospect of being responsible for wasting two higher-ups' time over a stupid conflict.",
"score": 10
},
{
"body": "Hair pulling, face scratching, jello wrestling. You know, the usual. \n\nThese seem like issues you could potentially run into with men in the workplace as well--what makes them female-specific? As a rule of thumb, the best thing to do is find a place to work with a good, non-toxic environment; but if that's not an option, I think you should grin and bear it/avoid conflicts/let it roll off your back as much as possible. Pick your battles--stand your ground if something results in extra work being dumped on you, or someone taking credit for your work, or other shit like that, but I think it's really not worth stirring up bad blood over minor personality issues. You catch more flies with honey than with vinegar. And on the flip side, later on you might need something from one of the people you've been arguing with--very unpleasant to have to ask a favor in that situation. \n\nHow closely do you have to work with the annoying people? Can you adopt a head-down approach and keep your distance?",
"score": 10
},
{
"body": "I get along pretty well with most of my coworkers. The thing about them is I have two managers: one is a staunch republican who listens to Glenn Beck like he's the fucking messiah, and will launch long, opinionated tirades about the evils of socialism and the reasons why things are fucked up is because of the damn socialists and Obama and blah blah blah. He's my boss, so when he starts flapping, I just walk away. The *other* boss is a crazy liberal, and I mean *crazy* liberal, who thinks she's going to run for president and change the world. Could not be farther from the first guy. I'm amazed they can ever stand in the same room together.\n\nWhat really astounds me is the Republican dude, I mean, I work in foodservice, we're some of the poorest people in the country and I've never heard of someone so unsupported by the government being so strongly opposed to help. I guess maybe because he has a cushy manager job and enjoys benefits with his salary, I dunno. I can't imagine he makes much more than the servers do.\n\nedit: We're not some of the poorest people in the country. We do pretty well, actually, especially for a restaurant; we aren't overstaffed so we make a decent living. I have personally been far, far poorer than I am today, but it still confuses me how he can sit so close to the working-poor class and still think the way he does.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "For a long time now, I've worked with a very small group of people. At one time, there were four of us. Usually, though, it's three, and it's usually different people. \nHonestly, I suck it up. I'm the most introverted of the group(s) and I feel like fighting/arguing (especially with people you see everyday) is a waste of my time. I'm not good at it, anyway.\nDon't think I mean I won't stand up for myself if attacked, but I just don't add to the stupid conversations, the drama, the bullshit. I just let me mind wander a lot. Plus, the one time I put my own opinion out there, I got uhh not bitched at, but... I didn't win. The girl who disagreed with me, thank goodness, has been long gone. She was a big fan of bringing personal problems to work.\nI did used to work (and am going to soon be) in an environment with a lot more people, and I tend to just go with the flow there. I'm pretty chill, but drama stresses me out. I suppose that's why I tend to avoid getting involved. If I have problems of my own, I have outlets.\nArguing with friends is different, I think. :) You can fight with them because you can always take a break and make up later.\n",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Help! What would cause the same page with the same CSS loaded in the same browser to render differently based on which server it was on? | I'm designing a corporate intranet site in ASP.NET and have created a basic design using a master page and some CSS. When I run the development copy, it loads in IE8 (corporate mandate) and looks great.
When I copy the files over to our web server and load the same page in another tab of the same browser, a number of things render differently.
[Top is on the web server, bottom is local.](http://img339.imageshack.us/img339/3824/wtft.png)
Most importantly, the text "logo" gets chopped off, possibly as a result of a height tag. An unusable scrollbar area shows up on the right side of the page. And then there are a number of differences in padding and button sizes (you should be able to tell that they are shaped differently).
The only differences between these files are that one is on a web server and the other is being run from the Visual Studio IDE on my local computer. Does anyone know what could cause this and how to fix it?
EDIT: Rolf_Waffler provided the correct answer. It was the Compatibility View Settings in the browser that were set (by default) to display intranet sites in IE7 mode. I've decided to actually set my localhost to compatibility view as well, at least for so long as most of the users still have IE7. | 21 | [
{
"body": "Local pages and intranet sites run in IE7 mode by default. This is a backwards compatibility feature to make corporate intranet sites continue working. You can disable this feature from \"page -> compatibility view settings -> display intranet sites ...\" or you can use a meta tag to explicitly choose the version to use. The meta tag must appear before any external stylesheets or javascript.\r\n\r\n <meta http-equiv=\"X-UA-Compatible\" content=\"IE=7\">\r\n <meta http-equiv=\"X-UA-Compatible\" content=\"IE=8\">\r\n <meta http-equiv=\"X-UA-Compatible\" content=\"IE=Edge\"> (will use the latest engine in future releases of IE)",
"score": 36
},
{
"body": "Assuming nothing is cached in your browser, it's either different HTML, CSS, JS, or images. Seriously, something is different. It might be something you're not looking for, like a missing DOCTYPE triggering quirks mode. Run your files through a diff tool to narrow it down.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I am guessing quirks mode is being triggered due to the server sending the files with different content-type http headers.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Reddit, I have 6 free days on my hands with nothing to do before term starts again... | ...how should I spend them?
My last exam was today, and now I have 6 days before I have any real obligations with university. I don't want to just sleep the entire time as I plan on taking this time to collect my thoughts and better myself in any way possible, but I don't know where to start. I want to learn about myself and what I'm capable of, both socially and intellectually. What would you suggest I do? | 7 | [
{
"body": "go out and buy a very nice, compact notebook. go somewhere you find inspiring (woods, cafe, roof, whatever). spend the next 6 days figuring out what you really want in life and write it down. \n\nsave that notebook and look back at it whenever you're feeling philosophical or restless. add to it. check progress. make sure you're not compromising too much or losing sight of your goals. ",
"score": 8
},
{
"body": "blood bank, food bank, etc - see if some palces needs your help for a few days of volunteer work. Talk to the people where you volunteer as they may be diferent than you and you will learn something about you and them.",
"score": 5
}
]
|
I'm never voting for another candidate who professes a religious faith. | Here's two reasons why:
If you are religious, your first priority should be following God's word and God's law. Sorry. I don't want that. I want you to put the community you are representing ahead of all else. You may think that is exactly what you are doing by putting God's law first, but I don't so I'm not going to vote for you.
If I told you I heard voices telling me what to do, you would rightfully lock me up. Even if I said I was acting on intuition and hunches you might think I was crazy. However, if I told you God talked to me or that I was steered by God, you might forgive me for being religious. Well, I don't know how one would know the difference between madness and religious experience. So, why take the chance? I want a political leader who - if he/she starts hearing voices - recognizes they might be going nuts rather than thinking they have been chosen.
I understand that this leaves me with precious few choices, many of whom have their own problems, but nonetheless, I've made up my mind and encourage you all to follow.
| 6 | [
{
"body": "Good to know. I recorded your opinion in black sharpie onto a neon-orange post-it note that I affixed it to the frame of my monitor right next to the clock display. This way every time I need to lookup the time, I will be reminded of this nugget of wisdom and your caution.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": ">If you are religious, your first priority should be following God's word and God's law\n\nNot necessarily. Obama's Christian, but do you think he's following \"God's law\" when he sends 30,000 troops to the desert?",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "As long as the candidate knows the logic in:\n\nChurch<----------/ /---------->State,\n\nthey will still be in consideration.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "This is just dumb, no offence op. A person can be religious but not bring it to work. Also lack of religion does not mean the person will automatically be a better candidate. There are fuckwad religious people, and there are fuckwad atheists. Automatically excluding a group for their beliefs in their home, rather than their political goals is asinine. I think it is more crippling to not vote for any one, rather than what you view as the lesser evil.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "By proclaiming this, you will be denying yourself the chance to vote *against* some people with truly noxious belief systems.\n\nbeing or pretending to be Presbyterian (or something) on Sundays is pretty much critical to getting elected in most of the US today. I don't hold it against anyone.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Ask /r/sex: What do you think about facesitting? | I'm asking the question here instead of one of the more fetish/bdsm-oriented communities because I'm curious in particular about it as a position for cunnilingus rather than smothering/breathplay/non-sexual dominance.
Women on top: Is it comfortable? Do you find that it offers you any particular benefits that make it a go-to position more than just something that occasionally happens in the course of things? Does body image/weight/a "dominant" position turn you off from the idea?
Men/women underneath: Is this something you find particularly stimulating/frightening/exhilarating/humiliating? Is it a particular turn-off or turn-on, or just something that occasionally happens?
My experience (which doesn't appear to be nearly as broad as a lot of other redditors) has been that this is one of those things that shows up in porn much more than reality. | 57 | [
{
"body": "It's one of my all-time favorites, in reality and fantasy alike. With the view of her tits and face from below, and the ability to reach up to her tits while I munch away, as long as I can still breathe down there, it's... it's just awesome. The only way it could be better is if another gal were riding my cock cowgirl-style while she reaches around to fondle the one riding my face; that's pretty much my ideal threesome scenario, right there.",
"score": 72
},
{
"body": "I can't really relax enough to have an orgasm if I'm sitting on his face. I'm really weird about body positioning, though. If I get used to being in a certain position when I have an orgasm, it takes time and practice to have an orgasm in a different position. It's weird. ",
"score": 27
},
{
"body": "When I was really fucking trashed once I begged my sober girlfriend to sit on my face. I eventually convinced her too, and she awkwardly obliged. I then fell asleep. \n\n\nJesus christ thats awkward. ",
"score": 27
},
{
"body": "I prefer a girl sitting on my face to having her lying on her back, where no matter how I rearrange her legs I am craning my neck and stretching my jaw/tongue more than I like. Of course, when it's time to go down on someone, I'm happy with whatever makes them happy.",
"score": 24
},
{
"body": "[obligatory monty python reference](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CxVKtNkQAtw&feature=related). that is all.",
"score": 19
},
{
"body": "I don't like it.\n\nToo much fluids draining down my throat, and consequent gulping/swallowing.\n\nOur favorite is her on her elbows and knees and arching her back downward and me on my elbows and knees and lapping and sucking.",
"score": 8
},
{
"body": "Hate it. Absolutely hate it. I'm an average sized female and I feel like I'm suffocating him. I also can't get comfortable enough to enjoy it/shut my brain off. ",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "my understanding (as I am not a woman) is that it can be better just since it's easier to control the action. Not \"control\" in the fetish sense, though, just in the non-stigmatized dictionary sense -- simply easier to keep the action going in the right direction.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "With several of the other redditors this is my favorite way to please a woman because its all about her. I'm not a fan of anus on the nose because i find that it can stimulate the clitoris quite well. My ex would complain once i started to tire because the pain was outweighing the pleasure. Do its enough times and the legs become stronger and you can go for longer durations. ",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "My boyfriend loves when I do this to him as a top. I like both smothering and queening for the power-play involved but to be honest I'm rather repulsed by recieving oral so I save this for special occasions.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I've never done bdsm-style facesitting, but I've definitely had a girl sit on my face so I could eat her out before. Generally facing me so I don't have her asshole right in my face.\n\nI never thought it was that weird. If you want to give it a try, just throw her up there and go for it. (Or jump up there, I guess, if you're the girl.)",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I want this done to me. It sounds fun. I absolutely love giving oral, and being used as an object for pleasure is a huge turn-on for me. Like, huge.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Cierra Camelot - Liquidación del 50% | Triste día para los nerds porteños, cierra la comiquería más importante de Buenos Aires. Hasta el 30 de enero venden todo a 50% de descuento, así que quien siempre haya soñado con tener esa estatua de Darth Vader tamaño real en su casa, esta puede ser la oportunidad.
[Prueba](http://www.camelot-comics.com.ar/catalogo/catalog/shop/product_info.php?products_id=7762) | 7 | [
{
"body": "Yo me habia enterado, pero no sabia si vendian a las cosas de Star Wars tambien, sino si, ese darth vader venia para casa.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Techit: Know a lot about televisions? Feel like helping a stranger? If so, then click here. | Ok, I have a largish (to me) tax return coming this year. Some of it is going to savings, some to other things, but I have, lets say, $1500 left to spend. I want a new T.V. Also I want a surround sound system. I am looking for a T.V. mostly for my PS3, and movie watching. I am currently looking at these:
[T.V.](http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665746342)
[Surround Sound System](http://www.sonystyle.com/webapp/wcs/stores/servlet/ProductDisplay?catalogId=10551&storeId=10151&langId=-1&productId=8198552921665793616#)
Why those? I already own a PS3, and a Sony Bravia DVD player. I really *really* like the idea of Bravia link. I also have had great luck with Sony electronics in the past. After shipping these two would leave me enough room to pick up some HDMI cables, and a new TV stand. I am much interested in paying more for a quality T.V. I can keep for many years than getting the biggest one I can for the money. Also, my current apartment living room is laughably small and anything bigger would be ludicrous. I only sit about 6' from where the T.V. is.
Can anyone give me a good reason to go another direction? I've been researching this for about a month now, and these are what I have liked the most.
Thanks in advance for all the help, I always try to get as many opinions as possible before dropping this kind of $$$. | 4 | [
{
"body": "Buy HDMI cables from http://monoprice.com/ . They're ~$6 instead of $60, and the quality is excellent.",
"score": 7
}
]
|
I was a fairly heavy drug user, now clean. AMA! | I don't really have a big long story, I just figured I've been through a different experience then most and if anybody wants to ask me anything, feel free.
I'm a 20 year old male who has been a fairly heavy drug user since 16.
I have been doing coke pretty much daily from the time I was 16 until this last October, and in that time have heavily used (roughly in this order): MDMA, acid, weed, and opium, and have messed around with ketamine, mushrooms, 2CI, salvia, and I'm sure some others that have escaped me.
I have been clean since Halloween of this year.
AMA
EDIT: Thanks to all for the nice comments and questions. I started this just because I thought some may find it interesting or have questions, but the more I am thinking and talking about it, the more I want to stay clean. Thanks again. | 29 | [
{
"body": "What made you decide to quit? Was it some epiphany you had or a long term goal you decided to act on? ",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "What do you do with all the time you used to spend doing drugs? It seems to me that one of the challenges would be finding new things to fill your time with.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Going to Ibiza, suggestions please :D | My friends and I are planning a trip to Ibiza for our senior trip. We are all 18+ and there is going to be around 10-12 of us going (about 9 lads and 3 girls)
There are some things I was wondering if people could help us out on.
* Would you suggest renting a villa or a hotel
* What are the average costs of the drinks there? (beers etc...)
* When is the best time to go? (we finish school on june 26th I believe)
We have only started talking about it today so any suggestions and advice would be much appreciated. We would be traveling from Switzerland.
| 5 | [
{
"body": "Drink everyday, fuck, fight, die of alcohol poisoning, get raped while dead. *wow were going to Ibiza, wow, back to the island, dodododod, wow, were going to have a party, dodododo, wow, in the Mediterranean sea*",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "Rent a villa\n\nSee Tiesto\n\nPlaya den Bossa is full of Italians, but the beach is really nice\n\nSan Anonio town is where all the Brits stay, but there's a lot of bars around there too. I would recommend staying here. I didn't make it to the beach in the day time on this side of town.\n\nAnytime during the summer is the best time to go. Make sure you are there on a day that Tiesto plays (it was Mondays this past summer).\n\n\nDrinks are expensive, ESPECIALLY because they're in Euros. Be a professional, buy a bottle, and pre-game til near the point of near black out in the villa before you go out. X is extremely cheaper than alcohol, but really hard to get the real thing. It might be easier to get in San Antonio town. \n\nBring a testing kit to make sure you get real X, or bring your own\n\nYou might run into me there and not know it.",
"score": 5
}
]
|
What item of clothing, armour or full uniform do you wish you could get away with wearing in public? | Tell us about your get-up. It can be from fiction, from history or from other parts of the world. If it's from your imagination, I will ask for your drawing of it.
I would love to wear the Vulcan ceremonial robe that Spock always wore in the movies. If only it wouldn't get me beaten up or regularly harassed for wearing it, I would wear it around everywhere. Those robes look insanely comfortable. If you say it's because they look like pyjamas, you're probably right. Spock wears it in the first, third and fourth movies, and his half-brother Sybok wears it in the fifth.
**[Here is a picture Sybok wearing it.](http://allofvulcan.netfirms.com/images/Sybok.jpg)**
(As an alternate, I would like to have an **[Orkan uniform](http://www.flickr.com/photos/24041151@N03/2349999244/)**.) | 10 | [
{
"body": "If only [this](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Imperial_Stormtrooper_01.jpg) was socially acceptable.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Men of Reddit: How many of you shave your legs? | Yesterday I shaved my legs for the first time for no other reason than I never had before. But I might keep doing it because it feels great! | 10 | [
{
"body": "I don't shave but I do pluck each hair out individually with my manly pliers; groaning and weeping as I work my way higher. I do this twice a week just to keep me focused.",
"score": 15
},
{
"body": "Yeah I shaved my legs like two or three times before, but it was all for swimming. I dropped about four seconds in my fifty butterfly and eight in my hundred fly. If you couldn't guess, I'm pretty damn hairy. ",
"score": 10
},
{
"body": "I shaved my legs yesterday for the first time as well. I have no idea why I felt compelled to try it, and I'm not telling anyone. My jaw dropped when I saw the headline.",
"score": 6
}
]
|
So I had "small-penis-syndrome".. | I don't know if there's much to ask about it, but I wanted to write about to (reasons for that below) and this seemed the best subreddit.
So let's start at the beginning: I think I always was a little conscious about my size, which is somewhere between 13 and 14cm (about 5.2 inches).
I know what you're thinking: wtf? that's totally normal.
Yes it is and I also knew about the stats but the thing that made it bad was my first sexual encounter at 16. The horror-scenario for every guy. It was a thing that was about to turn into a relationship with a good connection, long talks and a fun time in general.
When I dropped my pants the first time though she just said "Oh.. you're too small; I'm sorry" and left.
I never felt so shitty in my life. Not only was I rejected by a girl I loved, but it was this very strong feeling of worthlessness.
The love I felt for instantly converted into hate so I didn't try to call or see her again. She didn't get into contact with me neither and because I live in a big town, I never saw her again.
This scarred me for quite a while and I still haven't it shaken completely. I'm moderately attractive and get along with girls well actually, because of that encounter though I would avoid anything that might lead to something sexually.
I rejected 3 girls that I liked much because of that. I'm pretty sure I drove one of them nuts with the constant push-pull thing I did with her. A factor also was, that they went to my school and the possibility that word got out about me having a small dick scared me shitless.
I even started sizing up women's hips. Big hips = larger vagina = not for me, I thought.. yeah I know.
I would mostly wallow myself in self-pity, measure my dick over and over. Read countless forums and discussions about penis-size.
100 comments saying that my size was fine or size doesn't matter would be destroyed by 1 saying something different. something like [that](http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-214529466059372151#29m).
I thought that most of them were "feel-good-lies" from girls who wouldn't want to hurt a small-dicked mans feelings and that my size may be inside the average, but then, I thought, the average was too small.
Deep down I became bitter towards woman in general. It wouldn't show on the outside of course, but I imagined scenarios were all men with penises below 6 inches would die and the women would cry about their lost sons and fathers (I know.. I know!)
The constant jokes and media-references did their part.. and that is the reason why I decided to share: I'm sure there are countless men and boys out there right now who suffer from what I've suffered.
Next to you make or hear a joke about small penises, think that most likely a guy will read it who has a small penis and it has the potential to mess up his world or reinforce an already existing dysmorphic disorder.
If you notice them, I sure as hell do, then you will see that they are everywhere. Hell, even people who are usually enraged about sexism, racism and other social standards will make a tiny-dick joke without shame.
I know, this stuff probably sounds crazy to you, but it was real to me.
Luckily, four years after this incident I tried it again. I fell in love heavily; so much that I overcame my fear. The first time wasn't great. I was a virgin, shy and scarred after all.. I was trembling actually. She sensed the obvious though and was incredibly supportive.
2 days later my world-view changed drastically when she actually had an orgasm.. with me!
Guess that's it mostly. | 309 | [
{
"body": "I'm *so* glad you conquered your non-existent challenge.\n\nMy penis is 2 inches long. Your little fucking schoolgirl phobia is my reality. In fact, the main reason that I never want to have kids is because I don't want to burden my son with the curse of having a tiny dick.\n\nSo, just imagine all of the fears and insecurity you felt for those years, and just extrapolate that to oh, say... an entire lifetime.\n\nYou should count your blessings that there was a light at the end of the (relatively short) tunnel for you.",
"score": 215
},
{
"body": "Get a ruler, cut off the first two inches. Next time a girl questions your penis size hwhip it out and show her while skillfully hiding the fact you have modified the ruler.\n\nLong dong silver here you cum.",
"score": 136
},
{
"body": "\nIt's interesting you ended up this way. One of my close friends has a 3 and a half inch dick and he is very proud of it. He learned at an early age that he could use it to make a character of himself. He's gotten laid a ton because of his reputation for actually having a small dick. \n\n\nI asked him once if tiny dick jokes bothered him. He says they used to, but he's come to embrace his size and use it to the fullest. \n\n\n\nIm glad you've realized that you actually have a normal size and have learned to accept yourself at the size you are :D",
"score": 110
},
{
"body": "She was 16 and had a lot of them to compare yours to or something? \n\nProbably a good thing it ended if that's the case.\n\nBut - it sounds like your inching closer to getting over it. (sorry, had to)",
"score": 79
},
{
"body": "To some women, penis size does matter, but it's a small percentage of women, and they're almost as a rule very superficial and boring.\r\n\r\nThere are women who can't take a big dick. I would say there are about as many women who like big ones as there are who hate big ones.\r\n\r\nThen there are most women: It doesn't matter so much to them. Sex is an experience that is greater than the size and shape of your genitals.\r\n\r\nThe reality of the obsession with penis size is this: Having a big dick is all about impressing straight men. Most women are not impressed, and an even greater percentage of women don't particularly care so long as it fits properly and stays hard long enough and often enough.\r\n\r\nPenis size is about impressing men, not women. Accept that and your life will be easier.",
"score": 75
},
{
"body": "Hey man,\n\nIn terms of dicksize, I'm probably just around slightly-above-average. My width is probably pretty decent, but I'm by no means stacked. Anyways, I was really good friends with this chick who was your stereotypical girly-girl size-queen type. She chased around football guys and just \"big\" guys in general. Mentioned to me multiple times that she would straight up have guys pull their pants down and check their size (according to her, anything less than 7.5 inches was no good -- I'm not that big, I'll tell ya right now) before she'd even think about hooking up with them.\n\nSo randomly one night, we hook up. I'm fucking nervous because I know about this girls \"preference.\" Long story short, she came (multiple times I guess) and told me it was some of the best sex she's ever had. It had nothing to do with size, I'll tell you right now. My step-brother has a fucking baby arm holding an apple down there so I know what's big and what isn't. \n\nIn fact apparently the sex was good enough for her to tell her roommate, who I banged like 3 days later. I don't want to come off bragging because really, big fucking deal. My point, however, is that its more about how you work it than what you've got packing down there -- of course there are some girls that just like the *idea* of fucking a guy with a horse cock -- what are you gonna do about it? Just move on.\n\nAnyways, glad to hear you got through your little tribulation -- it's really more about confidence than anything. Be happy with what you've got!\n\nedit: Speaking of that last statement -- there are guys who don't have a dick at all, who've lost it one way or another. Be thankful!",
"score": 69
},
{
"body": "I'll see your tiny dick and raise you an \"innie\". Yup, when I was a kid the bottom part of my foreskin grew back and welded itself onto the bottom of my head. The result of this is a constant pull on the head of my dick and now when I'm not hard, you guessed it, it sucks itself in like a turtle.\n\nIt's embarrassing and my confidence with women is lower then ever. The thing that sucks though is that my dick was never able to grow during puberty so now, as an adult, it's really small. So small that an irrational fear of not being able to, you know, \"enter\" a woman. \n\nIt sucks hardcore but I don't worry about it toouch because I know that if I did it would ruin me. \n\nThat's all",
"score": 53
},
{
"body": "This is pretty personal but I am saying it anyway. Many women, such as myself, prefer men with smaller/average size penises. It would be really painful for me to have sex with a man who was huge. Any girl that is a size queen must take a lot of dick because I couldn't handle it.\n\n",
"score": 50
},
{
"body": "Fuck that chick man, she probably had something worse going on for herself down there and didn't want to reveal it.",
"score": 43
},
{
"body": "Did you ever consider that maybe she just got nervous about having sex and just blurted out the first excuse that came to mind in order to bail out ? \n\nClearly she was being a \"mean girl\" so I would say it's quite likely that she was just putting you down to mask her own insecurities about having sex. \n\nDoes this help ? Thoughts ? ",
"score": 35
},
{
"body": "Mine is eight hundred miles long and two hundred and ten miles in diameter, but practically all of it is in the fourth dimension.",
"score": 31
},
{
"body": "Upvoted. A thousand times upvoted (figure of speech).\r\n\r\nI am 18, and suffering from the \"small-penis-syndrome\" OP is describing, but not for the same reasons (mostly because the lack of a father figure in my youth made me feel very insecure about various aspects of my virility, even if there is nothing to worry about).\r\n\r\nSo, OP, I know what you have gone through. Now, since you seem to have mostly overcome your insecurity, what advice could you give other people with this irrational fear of having a small penis?",
"score": 26
},
{
"body": "I somehow feel relieved that I'm not the only one that has gone trough this, I realized I was below average the first time I had sex, since all my friends were always talking about how much sex they were having,(*I now realized they were lying), I just wanted to lose my virginity so bad, that any girl would do, so opportunity showed up; This girl that was well known for getting around wanted to hang out with me and my friend, we went to her house her parents were working, I started making out with her, then she stopped and said if I wanted to \"we\" could have sex, I thought she meant the two of us, we went to her room and she told my friend to also come in, I guess the peer pressure of being a virgin in high school just made me say ok whatever, we'll take turns, my friend only had one condom, so she pulled a paper bag full of condoms, the ones you get from your free clinics, I grabbed a lifestyle I think it was medium, so I put it on, and when I go in , she didn't respond physically, or made any noise that she was enjoying it, also the condom keep slipping off,I finished and just walked out the room, my friend started right away, before I left I had to go back in the room to get my cellphone, she was moaning and pulling the sheets, didn't even grabbed my cellphone, I just left never been so depressed in my life; after that I haven't been able to have sex again, google the size ofthe condom thats like the smallest size they make, this made me so depressed that I started gaining weight because of it, eventually I started going to the gym and running, I'm not Brad Pitt good looking but now I'm fit and I really take care of myself physically , lost fat and gained a descent amount of muscle right now i weight 190 pounds I'm 5'7 and my BFP is 20%, I had girls and guys ask me out, give me their phone numbers and so on; but I have avoided any type of relation that would lead to sex for fear of being rejected, to the point where some of my friends and coworkers think I'm gay. \n\nP.S. this is the first time I talk about it or read about someone like me, I don't think that Ill meet somebody but at least I know that people have gone trough the same thing and seen the light at the end of the tunnel, I don't know you, but Im honestly happy for you.",
"score": 22
},
{
"body": "You should have watched Asian porn when you were going through all this. Just avoid the weird ones with tentacles and scat. ",
"score": 21
},
{
"body": "Ah, i see you also decided to go metric when measuring your unit. Telling people that my penis is 5.8 inches is just sad, but tell 'em you've got 15 centimeters down there and you're gonna get all sorts of reactions. This tends to not work well outside of the United States. \n",
"score": 20
},
{
"body": "Who cares if people make small dick jokes. You know what you can do with 5 in? Or 4?\n\nFor some reason I always have way more amazing, mind-blowing sex with a guy whose dick is on the smaller side than the bigger side. Like, so amazing I don't know why girls even like big dicks at this point. ",
"score": 20
},
{
"body": "I absolutely love sex. Love to deep throat, love cumming wildly all over a beautiful hard cock. Here's the thing: I have a shallow g-spot. I'm a girl that knows what she wants and it's not anything bigger than 6 inches. It goes right past my g-spot and what could have been a mind blowing experience is a waste of my time. between 5-6 inches, hell, between 4.5 to 6 inches and he's going to pound my g-spot just right sending gushing with orgasm after orgasm.\n\nAnd you cannot always tell by a guy's height or how he's built. Which makes things tricky. It's just not socially acceptable for a woman to advertise exactly what she wants or what she likes sexually. She's automatically a slut. I haven't been with tons of guys, and I am definitely not a slut, I've found my ways to weasel out the information I need. It sucks that a bratty immature little girl was able to fuck with you like that. I don't know where you are or how old you are now but trust me, there are plenty of women out there that know their bodies a whole hell of a lot better than she ever could have at her age and would be thrilled for a guy rockin what you've got.",
"score": 19
},
{
"body": "Typical, a 21 year old normal nice guy like me, still a virgin and never been approached or liked by a girl, meanwhile, this guy turns down 3 girls. FML guys, FML.",
"score": 17
},
{
"body": "5*.2*?? I always thought it was customary to round to the nearest half inch.\n\nI always joke that \"it's not small, it's cute!\" I have a normal cock but I am also capable of the most incredible shrinkage. I'm not sure how small other peoples' get when very cold or exercising, but sometimes it just blows me away. I often stand in the mirror after a romp in the snow and admire it for hours. It goes from an impressive war club to what appears to be an acorn glued to my pelvis in minutes.\n\nSeriously though, you should have responded to that girl with \"yea, your tits are small (and then rip into her for every other physical flaw she had) and made sure she was insecure and fucked up for several years, too.",
"score": 14
},
{
"body": "\"Women who talk about only taking big dicks don't realize that they're telling the world they have a gaping vagina.\"\r\n\r\n(girl)Friend of mine when we started talking about penises.\r\n\r\nTrue story.",
"score": 12
},
{
"body": ">The love I felt for instantly converted into hate so I didn't try to call or see her again.\n\nGood, cause she sounds pretty worthy of hate.\n\n>Hell, even people who are usually enraged about sexism, racism and other social standards will make a tiny-dick joke without shame.\n\nBingo, there's the key. You call a fat chick \"fat\" and everyone gets up in arms about it and talks about \"real women\" not being skinny models, but small dick jokes don't matter, nobody says a guy with a small dick is a \"real man\" (in fact, I have just decided that that should be the response when someone talks about \"real women\" as a euphemism for fat chicks). This is why I don't mind women making 75 cents on the dollar, they have a tremendously priveleged position in society in so many ways. I would prefer that priveleged position not exist and they make a dollar on the dollar, but that's how it is right now and people need to recognize it.\n\n>She sensed the obvious though and was incredibly supportive\n\nAnd to follow-up on my previous comment which *seems* misogynistic despite that it's arguing **for** equality...For the record, your first experience with the girl who got all uppity about your dick was probably not the average. Women are pretty good at the whole being supportive thing, or at least the ones who are worth a damn are. The other ones (like the one who started your image problems) you shouldn't be with anyway, leave them to their abusive one night stands, it's really no loss to you.",
"score": 11
},
{
"body": "There are compensations. I have always said that I am short, fat, bald, ugly and have a tiny penis. This means I never have to recycle. Fuck mother nature!",
"score": 11
},
{
"body": "This may sound a bit odd, but if you still feel you have confidence issues, create a throwaway account and post something on GoneWild.... \n\nThe community at GW seems to be incredibly supportive. It is a really odd dynamic compared to the rest of the hate-laden internet.",
"score": 10
},
{
"body": "actually, you're about the perfect size. In fact, my wife would gladly sacrifice a couple of inches of my length for more girth.\n\nHere's some perfect love making tips for the average, or less endowed man.\n\n1. Lots of foreplay. I prefer cunnilingus because it helps to get things nice and lubed down there. It also allows a visual and olfactory check to see if there's something not quite right, if you know what I mean.\n\n2. when the time comes for intercourse, follow these directions: A) assume the missionary position. B) lift up on your knees, grab her legs and place her feet on your shoulders. Her butt should now be on your knees and your penis should be banging the fuck out of her G-spot. She is guaranteed to climax with about 60 seconds of thrusting. C) (alternate method) grab her leg (either one) and place her knee in the crook of your elbow. Now you look like you are attempting to pin her to a wrestling mat :) Same scenario tho - you're smacking her G-spot and she will never, ever forget you or the world shattering orgasms.\n\nOnce I learned these techniques, I had two things occur: My sexual confidence increased, because I knew I could make a woman cum any time I wanted and my number of sexual encounters increased because of that confidence.\n\nAll in all, size really doesn't matter if you're anywhere close to normal. Girth is where it's at. If you're hung like a beer can, you'd have it made :)",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "In ancient Rome a huge penis was considered repulsive and grotesque. \n \nI present to you, [Priapus!](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Priapus)",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "At the nude beach near Miami (Haulover) you see dicks of all shapes and sizes. Some guys are out there proudly walking around with what looks like an inch and a half dick. It doesn't seem to bother them any.",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "I don't have any problems in the wang department myself, but I did want to share some info for the small guys. I went to an art school where most everyone was highly promiscuous. I was friends with this one really slutty girl (I never hit it, fyi). She had sex with a LOT of dudes. She ended up dating (and eventually marrying) this little guy (probably 5' 4\") who was well-known to have a tiny dick. I heard 4\" would have been generous. This girl--and a couple other sluts he slept with--claimed he was the best they ever had, by far. Apparently he had a lot of energy, stamina, and just really knew how to use the thing. I'm a bit on the hung side, and I must admit I felt a bit intimidated by this dude. Don't take it from me, take it from those totally slutty chicks: size really isn't everything.",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "I just wanted to put this out there, I have a 7 inch penis and sometimes I feel small or want to be bigger. Perhaps too much porn has warped my mind.",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "Average is small in America. Penises in American pornos have increased in professional productions. If you look at porn from anywhere else they are far less massive. Or even look at old American porn. It's just a plan to sell penis size increasing drugs. Pretty smart capitalism. Very often you'll find these grow your dick type banners flashing right next to a porn video.",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "Actually it isn't a small penis that makes women not want you. It is being too short. Try being 5' 4\" like myself and see how much action you get. I could have a 10 inch dick and it still won't make a difference.",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "i just want to say that all you outrageously hypocritical assholes sitting here talking about what a bitch the girl was and how micro-dick should love himself just how he is and blah-blah-blah are also the same superficial porn-obsessed fap-happy assholes rating all the girls on the internet on scales of 1 to 10 and totally promoting the shallow, perfect-looks obsessed culture you claim to be so oppressed and horrified by. listen, if you expect girls to accept your hairy ogre or skinny troll bodies with your tiny pathetic dicks flopping around, and love you anyway, disgusting flaws and all, then shut the fuck up about whose tits are too small or whose a 10 or which chick you'd bang and who's photoshopped, etc. you're so blind and hypocritical it's retarded.",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "You should pay another female to beat her up, that was uncalled for. You can bet she had it planned all along. No women says that to guy \n\nAs a guy I could never imagine myself saying to women \" no sorry your tits are too small, or your ass is too flat\" I just don't see it \n\nI feel any women that even brings up penis size is a selfish whore. ",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "I have a similar, but different problem... it's called Peyronie's disease, and it basically is curved penis. I'd say it curves to the left about 30 degrees half-way up.\r\n\r\n\r\nIt always bothered me, a lot. I even went to a doctor when I was 18, and he said \"don't worry, everyone is different, bla bla bla.\" It was no consolation at all.\r\n\r\n\r\nSo I was always ashamed and afraid to have sex because of what the girl might think when she saw how \"deformed\" I was. Eventually, after a night of drinking, I decided WTF and hooked up with someone I barely knew. And it went fine. She didn't even notice.\r\n\r\n\r\nShe eventually (years later) became my wife.\r\n\r\n\r\nI love my wife more than anything and I wouldn't change a thing, but I can't help but wonder what I was missing out on all that time that I was worried about the shape of my penis. So I guess I'm telling you to try not to end up like me. Get over it, get out there, and have fun while you can.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "I have the opposite problem. Every girl i've ever been with cant handle me in them. Hell, just last night when i was making love to my gf I made her cry! I guess i'll be playing the \"just the tip\" game the rest of my life =/",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "I was a sneaky guy and watched a lot of porn growing up. I always thought my penis was small and I am 7 inches. I was really self conscious about it. If it works and the other person likes it then you don't have to stress over it. Took me entirely too long to realize that.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "For all those people with crippling or potentially crippling insecurities: I want to tell you something. Get over yourself. You are bit the tallest, best looking, most well endowed, smartest, prettiest, ugliest, smallest, dumbest, weirdest, goofiest, or whatever. Someone is always uglier, or smaller, or dumber, or weirder or prettier, or taller, or whatever. (Not to mention have of these things are relative). \n\nSomewhere, somehow, 'average' has become a negative. But that's it, it is just an average. You can't be everything.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "This always makes me think about certain fates we all have in store for us due to biological predisposition.",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "I have never understood why guys wig so hard about small dick. I am going bald and would trade half my dick length to not lose my hair. It's not like every single person that ever sees you knows you have small dick. \n\nRight up until the point where you get naked you are just like everyone else.\n\nThat girl was a cow though I am pretty sure that girls getting dressed and leaving the bedroom just because of tiny dick are very much in the minority.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Okay. I'm not one for shameless plugs, but there was a 72 hour shootout contest (it was an Asian American filmmaker's collective, hence all the Asian players), and I made a [short (perhaps cheesy, with shitty sound at times) about this exact subject matter for my fellow brethren of the average variety.](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pvaij9puGI8) \n\nUpvote, downvote, whatever, but hey, this one's for you, average man.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "People don't understand why I get so worked up being a twenty year old virgin. They say that that's not that late, just like they say that a 5.2 inch penis isn't that short. But its the culture references, the constant jokes, movies like 40 year old virgin that get me, that make me feel really anxious. \n\nI never had a traumatic moment like you had with that girl, but I do think I understand where you're coming from, and how frustrating it can be for everyone to say that it's fine only to have it come crashing down by someone saying \"He's 17 and hasn't had sex yet?!\" (yes, I have heard this before). ",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I´m not big, pretty average I think. I´ve been with girls that I couldn´t get into without lube and very gentle pushing, generally taking a long time getting it in there. I´ve also been with girls where it was the \"hot dog down the hallway\" scenario. I think that this is seldom taken into account. Some girls could accommodate the hubble telescope down there, other have a hard time with a chopstick.. One can always find a match...",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Damn dude! 5.2 inches. I wish I was that big. I am *barely* just under 3.25 inches erect. That bitch that rejected you probably ended up with some idiot. I wouldn't worry.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "I've met two FTM transsexuals online. Both of them are pretty much on hormones only, so they're living as men, but have female plumbing intact. And they both get laid more often than I do. One's even in a long-term relationship that's lasted over ten years.\n\nAs a straight man in this modern world, I often wonder if having a penis at all, is actually a point against me.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Meh. Big penises are overrated. A lot of us ladies agree they hurt. \n\nMany women don't orgasm via penetration anyways.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Dear Reddit, I've grown tired of my current music collection. Help me find some new artists! | This is the kind of music I've been listening to lately:
Modest Mouse
Do Make Say Think
Dr. Dog
Air
Can you help me find some new bands to maybe listen to. I need your guys' help! | 11 | [
{
"body": "Go for popular music. If you download [this programme called \"Limewire\"](http://www.limewire.com/) and click on it, you'll see a bunch of files labeled \"totally rad hit\" or \"top jam 2005 of\". If you download and listen to the totally rad hit, women will see you as a totally rad guy. They'll want to have intercourse with you. ",
"score": 25
},
{
"body": "Cut your stomach open. Cut off your leg and remove the flesh. Use the femur and your own guts to make a musical instrument.",
"score": 11
},
{
"body": "Go to the Billboard.com Hot 100. This is a system that uses a complex formula to determine the songs that are currently the best available.",
"score": 7
},
{
"body": "Much like Ariel the Little Mermaid, you can assume ownership of other people's voices by cutting out their larynxes and eating them. Start on people who can't defend themselves easily but once you feel confident move on to people who's singing you enjoy. Why pay for music when you can sing it to yourself forever?",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "There's these awesome bands named Limp Bizkit and Linkin Park that are really fuckin' sweet. It's like they understand how I *feel*!",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Write an O(n^n) algorithm. | Today in the office my coworkers and I were talking about how to write an O(n^n) algorithm. It turned into a pretty decent debate around various ways to come up with such an algorithm. We never really decided that anyone came up with a true O(n^n) since we just don't have time to spend proving things like that right now. Anyway, thought I'd post this up to reddit. Can anyone come up with an O(n^n) algorithm that can't be reduced to something simpler?
*edit* It's been pointed out that I meant Ω(n^n) which I agree with. Sorry for the confusion. | 49 | [
{
"body": "Ω(n!) is almost equivalent to Ω(n^n) because of [Stirling's Approximation](http://mathworld.wolfram.com/StirlingsApproximation.html).\n\nAccording to Wikipedia, [the following algorithms are Ω(n!)](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_O_notation#Orders_of_common_functions):\n\n* Solving the traveling salesman problem via brute-force search\n\n* finding the determinant with expansion by minors.\n",
"score": 27
},
{
"body": "This easiest way to make an O(x^y) time algorithm is to build an x-way tree to depth y. In this case, you want an n-way tree to depth n.\n\n slow xs = loop (length xs)\n where loop 0 = [[]]\n loop n = [ x:as | x <- xs, as <- loop (n-1) ]\n\nI'm away from my compiler, so this hasn't been tested.",
"score": 12
},
{
"body": "Ugh!!! Keep in mind the difference between \"time complexity of a problem\" and \"time complexity of an algorithm\". \n\nThere surely is an algorithm for adding up two numbers that runs in Omega(n^n). For example, this one: \n\n addition(x, y)\n {\n int r;\n r = x + y; \n \n for i = 1 to r^r do\n {\n wait a little; \n }\n\n return r;\n }\n\nAnd you don't even have to prove anything. It is obvious that this algorithm runs in Omega(n^n). Its running time can be trivially reduced but that would lead to a different algorithm. \n\nThe time complexity of a **problem** is defined as the time complexity of the fastest algorithm that solves the problem. Clearly you mean \"Formulate an algorithmic problem that requires at least n^n time\". ",
"score": 11
},
{
"body": "Calculates n^n in O(n^n):\n\n int go(int n, int recurse) {\n if (recurse == 0)\n return 1;\n int ret = 0;\n for (int i = 0; i < n; ++i)\n ret += go(n, recurse-1);\n return ret;\n }\n\n*edit: Oh, I missed the part where it can't be reduced to something simpler. I figured this was too easy :)*\n",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "I think you probably want Θ(n^n), rather than Ω(n^n). Otherwise, any problem that is doubly exponential (Ω(2^(2^n))) will answer your query. I can think of one of these, though there are many more: quantifier elimination over the real numbers.\n\nAlso, as above, you're probably interested in a *problem that takes Θ(n^n) work*, rather than an *algorithm*, since algorithms can be altered to run a long time by just doing busy work.",
"score": 6
},
{
"body": "Repeatably selecting n characters out of a n-sized character set to form a string, and print out all the possible strings. Exactly O(n^n).",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "Writing O(n^n) is trivial (by being deliberately inefficient). But writing O(n^n) that can't be reduced to something simpler seems like a lot harder problem. I'm certainly not aware of any (common or useful ones) that are O(n^n). They just strike me as horribly inefficient. ",
"score": 4
},
{
"body": "This is actually kind of an interesting question if you modify it slightly. Specifically, if you're talking about a one-way function which has a brute force complexity of n^n, that could actually be very useful. \n\nFor example, RSA is probably a [one-way trapdoor function](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One-way_function). But, RSA isn't so great in some ways; with quantum computers it is no longer exponential to brute force at all. Even if it were, it is still only something < 2^n. Obviously, if we could design such a function that is harder to brute force, it would be useful (e.g., 2^(2^n))\n\n--\n\nI can't think of any practical algorithm that is O(n^n). Of course, you can make trivial algorithms (output a n^n times). I can't even think of anything from my crypto class that came close (I remember something to do with finite groups and vector spaces that was huge, something with the [index calculus](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Index_calculus_algorithm), but my notes from that class are on the porch where it is cold and I'm not getting them for you xD).\n\nOf course, if you want big numbers, you can always just use busy beaver turing machines; sigma(10) < 3 up up up 3, sigma(12) < 3 up up up up 3, see [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Busy_beaver) and [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Knuth_up-arrow_notation).",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "Generate the list of all n-tuples of n items from 1 to n. Like this:\n\n * 1: (1)\n * 2: (1,1) (1,2) (2,1) (2,2)\n * 3: (1,1,1) (1,1,2) (1,1,3) (1,2,1) (1,2,2) (1,2,3) (1,3,1) (1,3,2) (1,3,3) (2,1,1) (2,1,2) (2,1,3) (2,2,1) (2,2,2) (2,2,3) (2,3,1) (2,3,2) (2,3,3) (3,1,1) (3,1,2) (3,1,3) (3,2,1) (3,2,2) (3,2,3) (3,3,1) (3,3,2) (3,3,3)\n * 4: Not typing it, but there's 256 of 'em.\n\nEdited based on dmhouse's comment. Thanks!\n",
"score": 3
}
]
|
AskReddit: How did you choose your profession? | Note that by "profession" I mean... whatever it is that you do. You live in a cabin in the woods and visit Reddit only when the sun is bright enough to charge the solar cells feeding your laptop's battery? How did you get there?
I'm also not asking "what is your job," because often the two don't overlap -- when I was in college I worked in a pizza place, but that wasn't every what I'd consider my profession. And asking how I got there would be silly. I just answered a help wanted ad.
I'm not looking for advice on my own profession (I'm a software engineer in theory, in reality doing software testing), just interested in some of the ways people look at jobs.
I'll edit and add my own story later when I have more time, assuming that there's sufficient interest. Also, I didn't have time to go searching to see if this has been asked before, so I apologize for any duplication.
*Edit:* Just to be clear (I wrote this up quickly, so I understand if it's not completely coherent). Have you ever wondered about the person who engraves tombstones? I mean, there's obviously a demand for it, so someone is bound to do it. But did he or she work towards that goal? Or just kind of... find their way into the field and decide "yeah, this is good enough" or maybe "whoa, this is great!" You know? | 13 | [
{
"body": "I played \"musical majors' in college, and when it was time to graduate this is where I ended up sitting.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "I went to \"Summery Youth University\" in the last couple years of junior high and then also high school. Not sure if it is still operated here (in Edmonton, at the University of Alberta), but it's a two week session that runs in the summer, where the classes are taught by undergrads. It's not actual course work, of course, but demonstrates (ostensibly) what a given curriculum is all about in university. \r\n\r\nAfter a few years of that, and sampling as much as I could, I decided on engineering. I like the practical application of scientific theory, and engineering is a good outlet for that.",
"score": 3
},
{
"body": "My ex-wife said she wouldn't marry me unless I had a real job. Hindsight, just like my ex-wife, is a fucking bitch.",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Ask Reddit: 22 y/o female experiencing hair loss. Any advice on products or treatments that work? | A little about myself,
I am a 22 year old female with naturally thin and fine hair. I straightened my hair on a daily basis until I noticed my hair was falling out more than it should be (about 6-8 months ago). I have stopped straightening it since, and I have not coloured my hair in years.
I understand that on average woman lose approximately 100 strands of hair per day, but when in the shower I notice much more than that falling out. I wash my hair every other day or so because it is naturally very dry and I do not use products on it (I do however, blow dry it straight).
I use a medium priced shampoo (nothing fancy), and I was hoping someone maybe in the same situation as myself could recommend a product that works. I would rather get some advice from Reddit before spending a lot more money on hair products.
Any advice is greatly appreciated!! I really don't want to lose my hair!
Edit: Thanks everyone for all your suggestions!! I am going to see a doctor at the end of February. In the meantime, I am going to get some Biotin supplements and try not to stress out too much! | 20 | [
{
"body": "ok, so you sound a lot like me two years ago. i also have naturally thin and fine hair. the hair loss itself was something that my doctor related to a lack of iron in my diet so supplements may help you as well, but my best suggestion would be biotin. it's a vitamin that helps your hair thicken and grow faster, it's incredible. no joke, my hair has never been in better condition. ",
"score": 12
},
{
"body": "I have shampooed with a bad brand before and began losing a LOT of hair within days. Personally, if you've got dry hair and not a huge risk of dandruff, it may sound a bit yucky, but I'd first try only washing it with water for a good 2 weeks, or at least try switching brands again. If it's the brand of shampoo if you're using, that might be enough time to see a little bit of a noticable difference, but unfortunately, some women are just unlucky enough to have baldness problems like men do. :( I'd also recommend seeing a dermatologist, if you haven't already.",
"score": 5
},
{
"body": "Hair loss can be an indicator of a more serious illness: see a doctor.\n\nI had an aggressive Seborrheic dermatitis with hairloss in my early to mid twenties. I didn't have bald spots, I had a lot of very fine areas. It was so incredibly stressful - mostly because I was the only one who really noticed the difference. Long story short, I was sick, my hair grew back, but not because I was using the wrong shampoo.\n\n",
"score": 3
}
]
|
Is it all about the money? | I've known a girl for the past 6 years. For whatever reason, whenever one of us was single, the other wasn't. In 2007, she was married and divorced. I got out of my own engagement in early 2008. The timing wasn't right until last year.
I'm from a South Asian country, so the way we went about it was to discuss marriage. We had great talks on the phone, and I thought she would be the one for me. I even went down there with my mom to see if we could get together in that way (the families have to agree that a marriage can go forward). For whatever reason, she started acting very aloof and distant the second and third day we hung out.
When I talked to her later, she said that she didn't think we were compatible and that anyways, she wasn't into marriage and didn't think she believed in the institution anymore.
Well, last week, she sends out an e-mail blast saying that she got married to a guy in Dec. 2009. In talking with my cousin later, I find out that the guy is very wealthy and that she is now trying her hardest to get pregnant so that she can become a housewife.
I'm really disillusioned that she was a gold digger. Is that what it takes? Do I need to be wealthy before a woman will look at me or marry me? | 8 | [
{
"body": "1. You can't generalize all women.\n\n2. She's married so who gives a shit?\n\nedit: [You're dwelling on this way too hard amigo.](http://www.reddit.com/r/depression/comments/aouo5/i_thought_i_was_over_her_so_why_do_i_feel_this_way/)",
"score": 24
},
{
"body": "If your mothers are discussing whether to give their blessing to your marriage, you're not \"hanging out.\"",
"score": 9
},
{
"body": "I think if the marriage is going to be an arranged one, rather than a love match, then it is perfectly acceptable to expect to marry a rich man. If the love never comes, at least you'll have some compensation, no?\n\nOtherwise, I highly recommend you rent 500 Days of Summer. It is possible she's not a gold digger - you just weren't \"the one.\" That movie might make you feel better.",
"score": 8
},
{
"body": "You need to be wealthy to marry a vapid, gold diggin' ho-bag. There's no way around that. That's my advice if you were in the United States.\n\nI will confess that I am at a loss for giving advice for your culture's marriage practices. Unfortunately from what I've heard (through anthropology classes and random articles), money is a big deal in marriages like this. The woman's family wants her to have a rich man so that she will be happy. If you are poor (or not rich, even) and operating under this system, you will have trouble finding a wife. Her decision to marry is heavily dependent on her family's wishes.\n\nIf you're ready to deal with the consequences, I would suggest to buck the system a little and search for women who don't operate under your normal ways. Love each other first and accept each other's families second. \n\nI realize it's not the best advice for your culture, but when all else fails, try something new, right?",
"score": 4
}
]
|
Subsets and Splits
No community queries yet
The top public SQL queries from the community will appear here once available.