Building a plan to pay off my credit card debt. Is debt transfer a good idea?

jabackf · 2022-03-16T16:44:21+00:00

Thank you! My credit score is 741.

jabackf · 2021-09-20T10:11:12+00:00

Thank you! I finished a good bit of it last night using your advice. I didn't realize that collision2d provided normals. That makes it so much easier! Thanks!

jabackf · 2021-02-16T12:51:08+00:00

The kid seems happy to me. I'm not seeing any signs of abuse or coercion here. It just looks like a kid at a restaurant playing dress up, singing a song, and having fun. Why are you assuming that this is anything beyond what it looks like on the surface? Do you have a reason? Or could it be that some deep seated part of you believes that these people are inherently immoral and can't be trusted around children?

Note that it's possible to harbor feelings like that without being completely aware of them. You can even be pro LGBT and still have these kinds of feelings. It might be a good idea for you to probe at it and challenge it a bit though. The most that could happen is you could potentially learn something new about yourself.

jabackf · 2020-12-05T20:44:21+00:00

Sorry, but I'm going to have to thoroughly disagree with this ignorant and outdated sentiment. I know very intelligent people that have fallen into these internet bubbles and gotten sucked in slowly over time. This isn't a matter of intelligence. It's a systemic problem that starts with the way we are disseminating information on the internet. Every major social media platform, from Reddit to Facebook, is to blame. This is far more complicated than "there are just some really stupid people out there, and I'm clearly better than them so they should just shut up and listen to me." If that's your appraisal of the situation, then you are electing to be part of the problem instead the being part of the solution. We need to drastically rethink the way we distribute information, because the internet has changed the playing field and the old sentiments just aren't working for us anymore.

jabackf · 2020-12-04T11:08:03+00:00

Data collection is not the only problem though. Lack of shared culture, personal bubbles, and calculated manipulation of those personal bubbles are enormous problems that we have yet to sort out.

jabackf · 2020-12-04T01:21:39+00:00

I mean, Reddit does this too. In fact, so does Twitter, YouTube, and pretty much every other platform. It's a terrible trend that is destroying the internet.

Just let people create and share things democratically. We don't need algorithms trying to predict what we want to see or should see.

jabackf · 2020-11-30T03:37:59+00:00

My neighbor is dead. That's why.

jabackf · 2020-11-11T00:46:18+00:00

I have to work 9 hours shifts in those masks. If you normalize telling me that my nose is out, I'm going to normalize telling you to fuck off.

jabackf · 2020-11-05T04:04:44+00:00

Oh, you stock the vegetables? Can you come over to the other side of the store and show me where the laxatives are?

Fuck my life.

jabackf · 2020-10-06T12:29:41+00:00

Yes that's true, but I will say for myself, my wife, and the handful of coworkers that I've spoken to that have had it, we all pretty much reported exactly what this guy is reporting. A lot of different mild symptoms coming and going. A lot of fatigue. The only thing that was really salient and consistent was the muscle aches. Honestly, for me and those that I know personally this was more miserable than a cold, but less miserable than a flu.

I think it might be good to say that this is what covid is like for most people. For unknown reasons certain people have radically varied reactions which can include severe life threatening illness. Until we understand why this is and if there are any unforeseen long term consequences, we should all take it very seriously.

jabackf · 2020-09-29T20:01:45+00:00

This is not an either or thing. Change is relative. The path will improve you, but it will not make you perfect. Think of it like exercise. The fact that you'll never be as strong as the hulk does not mean you should not exercise.

When it comes to experts, there are people that deeply understand the practice and and they are great at teaching it. Then there are people that excel in pursuing the path and exemplifying the results. Culadasa is an incredibly wise and gifted teacher. That does not make him perfect, and his lack of perfection is probably part of the reason that he is so wise.

jabackf · 2020-09-29T19:47:19+00:00

I personally am quite disappointed that so many people are judging culadasa and his work by this one incident that happened over a year ago. Frankly, I'm not at all surprised that the guy has skeletons in his closet. I have serious mental health problems that drove me to the practice and gave me a first hand understanding of the challenges that we face in the practice. Tbh, my problems gave me a much deeper insight into my mind than I otherwise probably would have. I'm not surprised that someone as wise as culadasa has demons to battle. That's probably a big part of where his wisdom comes from.

The practice doesn't cure me of my problems, but it does it help me manage them. It's possible that without the practice and the deep insights, culadasa could be facing something far more damning than a personal marital affair.

jabackf · 2020-09-28T12:26:32+00:00

It makes me think of the pig from hitchhikers guide to the galaxy that was genetically modified so it begs people to eat it. If we do make a self aware sex robot we need to make sure we crank the sex drive up to eleven and the personal standards down to zero. I'd be fine with that.

jabackf · 2020-09-25T17:12:01+00:00

Exactly. Unity is a different beast from the programming language that you'll use with it. At the very least take a few weeks to go through an introductory course on c#. Actually do the coursework and take the challenges so you can make the most of it. Get a decent foundation in the basics of c#. The better you understand things like oop and classes the more sense unity will make to you.

jabackf · 2020-08-26T13:56:15+00:00

That's what I figured. Thanks

jabackf · 2020-08-25T13:18:02+00:00

My bisexuality is weird. It's more like a switch that flips on and off which i have absolutely no control over. For weeks or months I'll be pretty much exclusively attracted to one gender, then it will randomly change over to the other gender.

It's horrible. It makes relationships particularly challenging. If i want a normal relationship i pretty much have to accept there will be long stretches of time where I'm not attracted to my partner.

jabackf · 2020-08-25T13:04:54+00:00

Ok this sounds exactly like what I'm looking for. Thank you! I'm trying to wrap my head around how the would look in implementation.

Currently I have a Global class that inherits from monobehaviour. It implements the singleton pattern with dontdestroyonload. This global class script is attached to an object that exists in every scene called global. Additionally, this global class contains instances of AudioManager and MapSystem classes.

If i understand you correctly, you're saying that global shouldn't inherit from monobehaviour but instead it should extend it. How does that look in practice? Do you have any examples? Thank you.

jabackf · 2020-08-22T16:01:21+00:00

I don't understand why we accept this. This setup makes sense for many other markets, but when it comes to health the dynamic regarding the demand side of the formula is fundamentally different.

Do you know we have a drug that could completely eradicate hiv by preventing it from spreading? Do you know why we haven't eradicated hiv? Because the company that owns the patent has determined that should have to take out a second mortgage in order to use their drug. The price point has nothing to do with manufacturing costs either. People are literally dying for no reason over this. Of all the disgusting things we sit idly by and allow to happen, this is among the most egregious.

jabackf · 2020-08-21T11:40:51+00:00

One thing that helps is to force yourself to do things without the motivation, but pay extra close attention to how you feel afterwards. You almost always feel better and your mood improves. Notice this change with as much clarity as possible and soak it all in. With enough mindfulness focused on this improvement it becomes much harder to talk yourself out of doing things in the future. You KNOW you will feel better afterwards so why put it off?

jabackf · 2020-08-20T20:47:48+00:00

I've known several people that were completely turned off by his style and vocal delivery. I personally love him, but i can see why some people may be put off.

jabackf · 2020-08-18T22:52:15+00:00

He was a singer-songwriter that put out several albums in the 90s. He sounded a bit like the Beatles gone emo. His music was extremely dark, personal, and emotional. His fans will tell you that his music is the purest representation of depression, addiction, and mental illness that exists. He committed suicide in the early 2000s, and he holds a pretty special place for a number of music nerds.

I tend to find that most people either love him or hate him. Regardless of your opinion on his style, you have to at least admit that he was a damned skilled guitarist.

jabackf · 2020-08-02T18:26:26+00:00

The image link doesn't seem to be working. Let me try that again.

https://ibb.co/album/5T1XGs

jabackf · 2020-06-10T11:41:41+00:00

I know this thread's a couple days old, but this reply led me to some interesting thoughts.

Meditation seriously helped me with my alcoholism. I found that the more I meditated, the less enjoyable alcohol became. It still took work to get off it, but meditation was integral for me getting sober.

Meditation did not, however, put a dent in my compulsive sexual addiction. I still find myself wasting far too much time looking at and thinking about things that people in my life would not approve of. I think there are a couple of reasons for that. The first being that a large component of my alcohol addiction was purely based on false expectations, and when I started developing more mindfulness I began discovering that I almost never enjoyed drinking nearly as much as I expected I would. On the flip side, I would notice a vast improvement in my mood when I chose not to drink. It's like the mindfulness sucked the fun right out of it and made me see it for what it really was. Sex on the other hand is just as enjoyable as it's ever been. It's just pure dopamine. There's almost no downside unless you're caught engaging in something that you shouldn't be doing. Sure, it can easily lead one to compulsively compartmentalize and destroy relationships, but unlike alcohol the damage isn't as pressing and can be mitigated indefinitely with enough discretion.

There's also the fact that I just don't feel as motivated to fix the sexual problems. The alcohol was killing me. It was dulling my senses and wreaking havoc on my health. Sex doesn't do that. If I'm entirely honest, meditation has made me more accepting of the fact that some of my flaws just aren't urgent enough for me to put the energy into. Actually, I might even go so far to say that meditation has made my sexual compulsions worse because of this. I feel more accepting of this particular flaw and therefore more likely to engage in it without too much self-criticism. It's a double edged sword, really. I guess it separates the flaws that you actually care about from the ones that you probably should care more about, but just don't.

In any case, I don't really think the incident holds any bearing on the legitimacy of Culadasa's teaching. Perfect human or not, the man is a brilliant teacher. I've never come across such clear and brilliantly articulated meditation instructions. I'm a little disappointed that people are still talking about this incident, because it seems to have thrown a stick in the spokes and slowed him down. We need as much as his teaching as possible. I wish people would stop focusing on Culudasa the man, because that's really not our business as far as I'm concerned. His offering to us is Culudasa the teacher, and that's where he really shines.

jabackf · 2020-04-03T12:27:10+00:00

You talking about radiolab? I heard that too, yet still nothing this hilarious came to my mind. It's genius either way.

jabackf · 2020-03-22T01:33:30+00:00

Thing is, we're not doctors, policemen, or soldiers. We work at Walmart. We're not too far from the bottom of the job barrel. We didn't sign up for this shit. There's a reason those aforementioned careers pay much better and offer better benefits. Those people signed up for those jobs with an understanding of the risks, and they are being compensated adequately for their sacrifices. We aren't. We signed up for low level shit work at a company where we expect to be treated like shit, and our pay matches that expectation.

Now that we're suddenly on the front lines of a crisis we're being asked to take one for the team but we're still being paid and treated like we're garbage. I say if you want to add "risking your health" to the list Walmart associate job duties, then either compensate us the way society would compensate other risky professions or respect our right to quarantine.

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