throwaway74829

You would fall into the "of the world" camp. There are others, a relative minority but prevalent everywhere, that don't want to be a part of this, nor want their children involved. You will likely never interact with them, and their thoughts and feelings will never reach you -- but that doesn't mean their worlds are inane (or rather, more inane than any other).

The deterioration of quality within the "elite universities" is self-evident if one goes by more nuanced measure than "how high up the industrial and political ladder" its graduates reach. What the contrary is, is a matter of values that I will not be elaborating upon (this conversation has become tiring).

What a vulgar rendition: "little nothing no-name universities."

There's more to a college than how much money it's going to make you throughout your entire life. In the case of St Lawrence and Adrian: this is where you send your children to if you don't want them to end up "of the world." They're small campuses, in controlled environments, with people from similar backgrounds (i.e. long-time upper middle class, no intentions of "moving up" or down). $40-50k a year for a couple of years is absolutely nothing if you want to make certain your offspring don't end up silly (and if you're of that notion, you surely can cover the cost).

For Landmark, it's obvious from a cursory glance of their info that this is a "special case," and different from the rest: it's a college tailored towards those with learning disabilities. Whether or not this justifies the costs is another matter, but it cannot be seriously lumped in as a regular college for comparison.

T1 is more marketing than substance. Most of the "Ivy League"s have fallen off since coming into public consciousness, and being flooded by people other than those that once brought it a good name. Even the "grinder schools" (e.g. CMU, MIT, etc.) are following in similar fashion (again, appearance over substance). Will they expose you to a wide range of people that may end up being useful towards some end in the future? Yes, but it's obscene to even think such a thought.

None of that is culture -- unless you apply it in a shallow way.

The South is a cultural wasteland. The only thing it has going for it are its manners.

"America" is in the unique position of having no culture -- barring "make money" -- to assimilate to. This obviously leads to much greater ease of assimilation for immigrants; you don't even need to speak English. If you can achieve an upper middle class income, you have assimilated and are thus dubbed "American."

In Europe, it's much different. There's no "short cut" to being accepted in your host society; and I very much doubt anyone really assimilates into a European culture if they're not born within. There's a depth to it that is impossible to grasp unless you've been submerged in it for the entirety of your life.

You will never be a German. Should you decide to change your mind, and make the decision to move to and have children there -- then perhaps they will end up being German; but that path is closed to the individual you.

Accepting people is a long process when your standards are high; and short when low. Letting people come and go as they please does not make for a very stable society, filled with the types of persons that are beneficial to the whole.

On such polarizing topics, there is no neutral. Both sides will detest you for not being on their's.

Logic won't win you any friends; and it certainly won't change anyone's feelings.

As trite as my post is: I don't see the merit in yours.

Full disclosure: I don't work with C++ anymore.

You don't have to keep up with all the stuff it adds. If you actually need a certain thing C++ has added -- that you're unaware of -- you'll naturally find it when you go looking for it.

Otherwise, it's best to just stick with the feature-set that you know. KISS/YAGNI/if it ain't broke, don't fix it (but if it is broke, find a better way). Et other cliches.

Tolerance is tiresome. Putting up with nonsense, and being impelled to consume metaphorical shit, is vulgar to the soul.

In art, the nonsense is the lack of honesty. Inauthenticity brought forth and exhibited for all of us to see. People without a shred of depth having the obnoxiousness to put something out that appears to be more than it is. The hubris.

Each passing day, I understand the wisdom of the French and their intolerance more.

How would that stoke the egos of all godless psycopaths?

A spiritual one -- its causes numerous.

Though it would be invigorating to have a word for the whole thing. Maybe the Germans have something for us?

A provocative and astute diatribe.

My question for you: why humor this absurdity?

I'm of mind that the whole thing should be thrown out.

How low tutelage has fallen.

Once the noblest of duties; now...

You've put to words an intuition I've always had, but been unable to verbalize: it irritates me when someone converses with the intent to reach some end... or just enters a conversation with some notion or emotion that they're holding tight onto, and will not waver no matter what.

Worse are those people with canned lines and vocal inflections... the same ones on repeat over and over again; like they've built up a toolbox of sound bites to navigate them through all of life. It's unbelievably grating to hear.

It feels vulgar... to make one's presence and desires so known and obvious... instead of having a conversation for its own sake... for the sake of amusement or personal expression...

It's as if they're treating socialization as a constant string of business deals to be navigated... gross.

I dislike the spirit of "/r/AmITheAsshole." I don't think I can put it into apt words, but it may go something like: "does this really matter?" and "must this really be exhibited for all to see?" and "who cares who the asshole is?"

I think you're getting a lot of "Yes, but"s that go on to completely disagree with the spirit of your post -- something I see annoyingly often... as if people are constantly piggybacking off what others are saying to say their own piece... (ha! I'm no different).

I would like to add something original instead: the act of selling out, and shifting one's focus towards money is an irreversible change in one's soul. I can feel it in myself, and I can plainly see it in others. It deadens the spirit, if only ever so slightly; but what is lost here is lost for good. And the more time is spent in that headspace, the more likely it is one will never be able to leave it.

I don't know what it is or how it works: I just notice it happens. Why does forsaking the more nuanced joys of life lead one to losing all nuance oneself?

Perhaps it's a comfort thing. Where you shed away all strong emotion in exchange for a consistent tranquility -- you also lose the very things that gave life depth. The opulence leads one's material needs to always being fulfilled, as if in a perfect bubble; where any sort of stimulus that could push one's emotions one way or the other are completely cut off.

And then once you start down this path... perhaps you become complacent. The bubble is comfortable, unvulgar, pleasant, unprovocative: why would you leave? All the things which spur one's emotions are quite the opposite. And it reinforces itself. The more you get a taste for this tranquility -- this unchanging homeostasis of comfort -- the more effort (consciously and unconsciously) you will put into maintaining it; and the more strongly its grip takes hold of you.

Until you lose all appetite for the things that enliven. You become boring, insular to life.

You would also burn a hole in your stomach if you took a 2-3g potassium pill(s).

For what it's worth: I've used "losalt" drinks for potassium-replenishment (especially during carbless diets), and it works well. Hard to overdose, because it will induce vomiting if you get reckless with the ratio of water to losalt.

Please speak for yourself. A comfortable cage does not inspire me to go above and beyond.

I very much doubt my "going the extra mile" will really affect anyone at all in any major way. It may make some made up numbers go up -- or down -- but realistically it will have no major effect on anyone at all, except myself (and negatively).

Whatever effect it elicits in another will be short-lived, and forgotten next quarter -- least of all recompensed sufficiently for the sacrifices made.

I can +1 this.

I can't add anything more besides: having more than a few sips with food is already too extreme for upper crust sensibilities.

Everything in moderation makes everything well tolerated.

I think it may be that some people have low environmental-sensation barriers.

For them, hearing "bus factor" may make it through the barrier and result in an involuntary creation of imagery in their head of someone getting gruesomely hit by a bus, and then the corresponding emotions they would feel (or simply just the emotions, without the imagery).

Having worked both "grueling" manual labor jobs and "stressful" white collar work: I would rather be an ape living in some rain-forest.

I don't want to have complex thought. I don't want to have to perform feats of self-flagellation everyday in order to survive. I don't want to be forced to spend the entirety of my very short life in relative isolation, making some other ape filthy rich so he can escape the absurdity and emptiness of existence.

Let me hunt for other small animals with my tribe -- and then spend the rest of my time loafing about. I don't feel like contorting my body and mind as a glorified circus animal in order to get that metaphorical bread.

It's absolutely lovely. The wealthier pockets remind of a less mountainy Switzerland.

Interested in any resources that you've found vital in your journey.

I'm angling to go deeper into the "Cleaner" path, and it's a very slow "figure it out as you go" experience.

Yes. Realistically, I could put in the extra effort to be mindful of how I handle the things I own -- but I simply don't care enough.

If you lend me a paperback book, it's likely going to be dog-eared and written inside with pen; and the covers will almost certainly have creases all over. In my view, paperback books are cheap, mass-produced disposable goods that were meant to be thoughtlessly handled (e.g. reading at the beach).

If you lend me a KNIPEX plier wrench, it's likely going to be used as a hammer, for when I'm simply too lazy to go get one. It will be left out in the rain, completely uncovered. Why? Because I simply do not care. If it becomes rusted or visibly broken, I will buy a replacement -- but I will not go out of my way to treat material, unthinking, unfeeling objects with any respect or dignity.

I consider the necessity of most physical things we own an annoyance; and the responsibility of caring for them a self-imposed burden I have no interest in carrying.

I don't see why it needs justification.

I want a book; I don't want to pay for it; so I pirate it.

And then I go about my day without ever thinking about it again.

Wrong.

Must you really be this blunt?

Fingerprints are unique in the technical sense (i.e. no one has the exact same set of fingerprints) -- but matching is a completely different issue.

I don't know how far forensic science has come since a decade ago when I learned some of it, but at that point they were running "feature matching" instead of full-fingerprint matching. In other words, they looked for aberrancies (e.g. "islands," "deltas," "bifurcations" etc. at specific spots), and then checked those against a finger-to-person database. Then a list of possible matches would be found, if they also contained some set amount of same features in the same places.

There are two main issues here.

First, while taking an optical scan can provide very high-resolution images of a fingerprint -- field data is never like that. Fingerprints that are collected usually are not uniform, and dependent on pressure applied by the finger(s) in question and the amount of oil left behind (which powder sticks to "reveal"). Because of this, you're never going to get a perfect fingerprint in the field. Some areas will be faint, misleadingly separated (and even have false artificial aberrancies not present on the original finger), or outright missing -- leading to less "features" to check against. Others will be completely "blotched" out by a high amount of oil, removing vital information.

Second, you will almost never get an exact match because of this -- you will be getting a list of possible matches. I can remember one notable case of a terrorist's prints being wrongly attributed to someone who could never have been at the scene, much less anywhere near the country -- but was still whisked away by (I believe?) Interpol. Forensic evidence is just a piece of numerous possible stories that can be spun up any which way. There's something to be said here about human biases, incentives, and so on -- but I think it's intuitive enough (and frankly, I don't want to write more).

Permissions is the big one.

Second is potential for DDoS (either intentionally or unintentionally).

Third is possibility of "oopsies" via me intentionally or unintentionally including my passwords/sensitive info/what have you in the POST body. Now you have to add branch to look for and scrub sensitive info in your logger -- otherwise my PII has now been logged (and if I were a massive asshole looking for a quick payday, I could throw up a fuss).

It's fine in dev, but shouldn't be in prod. Too much liability.

The right picture offers a minor visual cue where you can see the post-it note mildly resisting peeling at the top edge.

If we look at the left picture, that cue is there, with an illusion of resistance on the left edge.

I think it was Mencken that most popularly called this sort of thing sophomoric, and chastised "schoolma'ams" trying to impart conscious thought and logic into the unthinking that don't much care for what it is they're doing (e.g. writing, composing music, etc.).

I think using "very lazy" is quite fine. If you're not just simply lazy, but much more so -- yet fall short of *exceptionally* lazy: you are very lazy.

The same with very tired. If I'm exhausted, I will simply use exhausted. But if I don't feel exhausted, but simply very tired, then I feel I would be acting "puerile"[0] in trying to exaggerate my emotions to be something more than they really are. If I am exhausted, then I feel that I urgently need rest immediately; and if I'm tired, then perhaps I could do with some rest, but it can always wait; but then if I'm very tired, perhaps it means I'm somewhere between urgently needing rest and within my ability to put off rest? Some sort of in-between state? But how can that be: needing now or not needing rest now is binary -- there isn't any notable in-between there, like the cliche of "you're either pregnant or not" (but perhaps that too breaks down depending on our exactness of the definition of "pregnant." Is pregnancy determined as the exact moment the egg is fertilized or only when a woman's urine, a short time later, contains an elevated level of hCG?). In that case, then we could do away with "very tired." And if for some normal reason another person were to have different personal definitions for what they feel is their "tired" and "exhausted," then this would be reopened again, and we'd have to start again into another discussion.

I cannot find a fitting end to this carb-fueled rant. I've become self-conscious of all of the "technique" English teachers beat into me, and I really don't like it, and don't want to keep on writing. Run-on sentences: "cannot ever ever use those." Transition words: "they must be used liberally." Punctuation: "there is an agreed upon set of rules on how and when they should and shan't be used." Passive vs. active voice, prepositional placement, cliches, etc. "If you don't follow these rules and techniques, then you are simply a fool! We will learn you write good! Mark Twain's stylistic choices be damned."

I find I cannot enjoy writing, when the spectres of pedagogues long past haunt me at every sentence; and I am spending more and more time having to unlearn what was taught to me in school.

[0] ;-)

Would you be able to write more about dopamine agonists "screw[ing] some things up about you semi-permanently?"

I was on them for RLS for a while. I had even started taking L-DOPA, when pramipexole/ropinirole/gabapentin/etc. were negatively affecting my quality of life. However, the L-DOPA triggered some very, in-hindsight but unfortunately never during, terrible personality changes. One of which decided that it was prudent to keep upping my L-DOPA dosage, become a severe poly-substance abuser, and all-around just make a huge mess of my life.

I may also be recovering from nerve damage in my legs and feet from this escapade (either from the L-DOPA causing oxidative damage/receptor over-excitement and death -- or from the litany of other substances). I may have also unknowingly "semi-permanently" down-regulated my AAAH (?) enzymes, leading to effects I cannot even imagine.

Having read about 1 to 2/3rds through most of Dostoyevsky's books: I really believe they're over-hyped.

Same with Pushkin, Tolstoy, Bulgakov, and so on -- with the only exception of Solzhenitsyn.

I think the difference is I'm Slavic, speak a few of the languages, and come from the cultures that succeeded those authors; so they read mostly as sentimental, overly-emotional, and superstitious, i.e. what I feel are the worst parts of the mythologized "Russian soul." Their works don't feel new, novel, and original: I've seen parts and pieces of it, reflections of its essence, expressed all over the average Slavic person.

Dostoevsky's genius lies in his deep understanding of human nature and of spelling out truths about it in ways that inspire reflection.

If you resonate with this statement, perhaps you should also watch Tarkovsky's The Mirror.

But for me, the only truth Dostoyevsky has shown me is that people are very flawed, are the source of all of their own problems, and that Fyodor was a deeply emotional person. But I am not, and I find his expression of those emotions to be grating.

I resonate more with the quotes in the Wikipedia article for Idyot:

However the chief criticism, among both reviewers and general readers, was in the "fantasticality" of the characters. The radical critic D.I. Minaev wrote: "People meet, fall in love, slap each other's face—and all at the author's first whim, without any artistic truth." V.P. Burenin, a liberal, described the novel's presentation of the younger generation as "the purest fruit of the writer's subjective fancy" and the novel as a whole as "a belletristic compilation, concocted from a multitude of absurd personages and events, without any concern for any kind of artistic objectivity."

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Idiot#Reception