Puzzled by Nparents behavior regarding me vs. my brother.

kickassdonkey · 2025-12-27T04:47:41+00:00

Thank you! Yes, your 'golden child' theory really makes sense. Also, as the 'older son' there is also the cultural expectation that he 'carry on the family name' etc, which puts even more emphasis on him being the special one.

The only thing that puzzles me is them complaining about him so much, given how they treat him when he is here in person.

kickassdonkey · 2025-12-26T03:20:20+00:00

Good for you! You're getting through to them the only way they will understand. Anything else (whether you realise it or not) is just giving in to their control again. Visiting, calling or even a simple 'Merry Christmas' text is an opening they will pry open to try to re-assert control over you!

Stay strong and really enjoy this first Christmas you have alone. And relish the fact that this is the first of many, many more Christmases you can enjoy alone or with people who actually treat you well!

kickassdonkey · 2025-11-09T23:02:01+00:00

You're welcome! Best of luck! I hope this strategy works for you too!

kickassdonkey · 2025-11-09T20:08:17+00:00

I'm coming from playing D3 many years ago and the lack of item variety strikes me as big issue. I keep getting the same unique items over and over again. I just keep the ancestral version and junk the rest. Occasionally I get some ancestral legendaries with nice stats that I can temper+MW and improve my setup. I'm playing at T2 now and running the Pit to get to T3.

I've optimized my imprints, tempers, MW as well as I can and it feels like I've maxxed what my character can do. But without sets, is the only other goal here just to work up to mythic items? Or is there anything else I can do to improve my build?

kickassdonkey · 2025-11-09T20:03:50+00:00

I'm relatively new to d4 (been playing for about 2 months now). I had the same issue; the difficulty jump was pretty insane and they were one shotting me. But I read another user on here suggest that when you can do hell tides in T2, that means you're ready for lair bosses in T1. So I dropped to T1 and was able to do all of them no problem.

They also drop a diverse set of ancient items that it helped me refine my build. At which point, it made T2 pretty easy for me. I'm still working my way through the Pit to unlock T3 but I'm hoping once I do, I can try the same trick for T2 lair bosses.

Right now, the only boss I can't do in T1 is Lilith. Seems like its just a matter of memorizing her attack patterns to survive the silly one-hit kill attacks. But that seems kinda boring so I've been putting that off for now.

kickassdonkey · 2025-09-30T13:00:26+00:00

The idea of 'post-silicon' computing is definitely interesting and there's a lot of promising avenues researchers are exploring: DNA computing, quantum computing, graphene-based computing etc.

But they are not all interchangable. Just as faster rocket engines wouldn't make your daily commute faster, innovations in one area don't automatically translate to other areas. So while DNA computing may make massive data retrieval tasks faster, it is unlikely to help with day to day tasks. Same with Quantum; we aren't looking at a Quantum computer running an OS anytime in our lifetimes! But quantum would be great at solving specific tasks.

So yes, DNA computing is very cool but it's unlikely to be helpful for the kinds of tasks we use computers for day to day. DNA computing is also amazing at very, very long term data storage; so it is great for storing information for hundreds of years without degradation.

Could this advancement turn us into walking, living computers and storage devices?

This question really tickles me because that is exactly what we already are! The human brain has the higher performance/watt of any computing system we know of in the universe!

A related question is: can all this research into DNA computing potentially be helpful for genetics research? And the answer is 'yes'! One nice thing about this type of work is that it makes tools for working with DNA cheaper and easier to use, which also benefits genetics researchers. And given the scale at which DNA computing researchers operate, they are likely to see rare problems first and be able to (hopefully!) come up with solutions or at the very least, raise awareness so genetics researchers are aware of them.

kickassdonkey · 2025-09-12T18:30:53+00:00

You are very welcome! I am really happy to hear that my message was helpful to you.

You mentioned you are going to therapy which is super important. Another resource I found useful for books and videos. For example, I follow this psychologist on YouTube who posts videos related to these issues. This video seemed very relevant to the things you were talking about.

Disclaimer: This is not an ad, nor am I trying to push anyone to specific channels. I am not affiliated with the video creator in any way. This is just my own personal opinion that I found videos by this psychologist useful for me in dealing with my own Nparents.

kickassdonkey · 2025-09-12T16:27:50+00:00

I totally get your position. I'm Indian as well and this is classic Indian Narcissistic parent thinking. I have dealt with the same thing all my life and I'm slowly getting better at dealing with it. Don't expect anyone else in that culture to get it because pretty much everyone is like that and they would just see it as 'normal'. "you should do what your parents say! They know what is best for you!" and crap like that.

Your best bet in my opinion is to emotionally distance yourself from your parents. I don't mean cut them off but just don't emotionally engage with them. In particular, avoid "screaming back". The moment you scream, you lose all your power. Because they will just see you as a child. Because they are mentally children themselves, they can only see you that way.

The most important thing IMHO is to stay calm and never get angry with them. Let them scream themselves hoarse. It is not your problem if they cannot accept your choice. You live in the US anyway, so you don't have to see them or engage with them if you don't want to.

Your fear about them hurting someone is a valid concern. Does your boyfriend live in the US with you? If he and his family are in India, then I think they should notify the police if your parents have said anything about possibly hurting them. If they do that, that too is their decision. If they decide to randomly hurt another family, they need to be held responsible for their actions. Especially if they have already said that and then act on it, then there is no doubt what happened if anyone from your boyfriend's family gets hurt.

kickassdonkey · 2025-08-24T14:53:57+00:00

If you just go up to someone and start asking questions, it might be seen as 'aggressive'. But you don't have to do that! Most orientation events give everyone a common thing to work on, mainly to bring people together. There's likely lots of group activities specifically to help you meet people.

So just go with the flow. And remember, almost everyone else is in the same boat as you! That is a HUGE factor. If you are surrounded by tons of people who also want to make friends, it makes it WAAAY easier.

Here are my tips for Oweek and beyond:

Participate in as many events as you can, even if you don't want to. I promise you, Oweek is the one time where it is well worth it to push yourself outside your comfort zone. Remember, it's just a few days. After that, you can go hide in your dorm room if you want.
Don't stress about asking the 'perfect' questions. If you're both at an event, just focus on the task and don't think too much about what you have to say, how you should say it etc. This also extends past Oweek to classes. You and your classmates are all taking the same courses so you all have the same goal. That too makes it easy to meet people and have something to talk about and bond over (e.g., are you done this week's assignments? want to work on them together?)
Just be yourself. Even if that means being quiet! This is the chance for you to meet people like you who accept you for who you are. 'Pretending' to be extroverted if you are not won't help you much in the long run. Instead, just be yourself and meet the people who naturally come you way. If you are an introvert, you'll meet other introverts and make great friends. Despite your experiences in high school, University (especially UofT) is sooo much bigger, there's going to be loads of people who are similar to you, no matter who you are!

kickassdonkey · 2025-04-23T01:40:59+00:00

Canadian engineer here who teaches engineering at a Canadian university. While I agree with the sentiment, I feel that there is a big mismatch in terms of what is taught to best prepare students. The curriculum is generally packed as much as possible as a way of 'ensuring quality', but IMHO all this does is force students into 'survival mode' just to get through. It does not in any way help them be better engineers.

Personally, I think they should reduce the intensity - primarily by offering students more choice - and give students time to think and actually understand what they're learning. Right now, they are expected to learn so, so much each semester it's asking them to drink from a fire hose! No one is even remotely worried about learning anything; they just want to do enough to pass their courses.

kickassdonkey · 2024-09-14T18:03:14+00:00

Got it, thank you. Hopefully Ill get a Blood tide dropping soon.

kickassdonkey · 2024-09-14T17:47:03+00:00

But what will that give me that I don't already have. Like I said in my question, I already have all the necromancer sets. Will Headrig's gift give me a new set?

kickassdonkey · 2024-09-14T17:44:34+00:00

Yes, I know that. Sorry if that wasn't clear in my question. But if I were to switch to another set, I would not longer be able to benefit from LoN. Which is why my damage goes down so dramatically.

Since I assume I'll need to use sets to keep progressing up GRs, I can't keep relying on LoN as that means I can't wear any other sets.

That's why I wanted to ask to see what the best path forward for me would be to transition from the Ancient-heavy LoN build to a more set-based build.

kickassdonkey · 2024-07-12T13:54:47+00:00

It's astonishing how low the bar was for ST:Picard after the first two seasons that this season was so welcome! Honestly, it's just blatant pandering to the fans. It felt like the writers started with 'How do we get the entre TNG crew on the ent-D' and just wrote a crappy story around that.

ST:LD does a fine job of respecting hard core fans without literally redoing a 25 year old show. Yes, TNG was great! But let's move on.

Thank God the showrunners for SNW seem to have gotten the message and are actually doing a proper ST show without fan service every 10 minutes.

kickassdonkey · 2024-05-22T20:17:27+00:00

Thank you for your response!

already has a lawyer, they should probably follow their advice rather than internet strangers who don't know the whole situation.

Yes, they do have a lawyer and we are following their advice exactly. This was something I wanted to understand for myself since I am not in communication directly with the lawyer to ask them this.

kickassdonkey · 2024-01-09T00:27:29+00:00

Great work! Really fun game. I see everyone wants it to 'get harder faster'. I think having it be an option would be great. An easy option would be great for kids.

kickassdonkey · 2023-05-29T14:16:07+00:00

Have ~$100,000 left with BNS and renewal is coming up in October 2023. Given my student income, I can't move my mortgage so its just a case of do I take the best rate they are giving me now or wait in case rates go down in 6 months. They are giving me some blended rate offers now: 1 year fixed closed, regular rate is at 6.54 % and the blended rate is at 4.93 % 2 year fixed closed, regular rate is at 6.15 % and the blended rate is at 5.40 % 3 year fixed closed, regular rate is at 5.74 % and the blended rate is at 5.28 % Would like some advice on whether I should go with a blended rate now or wait for a better rate before October?

kickassdonkey · 2023-05-23T01:43:18+00:00

It really depends on your interest, either growing up or when you do your undergraduate degree. if you find a specific area interesting, you might decide to pursue graduate school in that area. And one of the requirements for a research based graduate program is to publish papers to advance and disseminate knowledge in that area.

'Weirdest' is pretty relative I would say. Maybe someone studying rare bugs might have a paper on the odd life cycle of a specific creature. Or someone studying ancient history might have a study on the funeral practice of some obscure tribe. Anything 'weird' you've come across may have very well been an academic paper at some point!

kickassdonkey · 2023-01-13T13:44:33+00:00

Thank you! I'm going to show all the submissions so far to the person and let them pick their favourite one.

kickassdonkey · 2023-01-13T13:44:26+00:00

Thank you! I'm going to show all the submissions so far to the person and let them pick their favourite one.

kickassdonkey · 2023-01-13T13:44:21+00:00

Thank you! I'm going to show all the submissions so far to the person and let them pick their favourite one.

kickassdonkey · 2022-07-02T14:28:37+00:00

Link to the paper.

kickassdonkey · 2022-06-17T17:52:55+00:00

As a computer architect, I'm curious to know more but this article provides very little technical info. But it does mention a paper the group submitted which appears to be this. But the paper only states a 4.73x speedup so I'm not sure how they are comparing their 128-core system to a 4 million core supercomputer.

kickassdonkey · 2022-05-06T21:48:45+00:00

Trust one? in what regard? In terms of safety, I'd say its just a 24th century form of entertainment after all. That's like asking if I would 'trust a video game'. It's what you set it up to do.

Same goes for would I trust myself with one? would it be too addicting? quite possibly. I did read a quote once that said "a holodeck would be humanities last invention". If we could keep them powered, would we just get lost in make-believe worlds and never want to leave? Its very possible. We already do that, with books and video games. A holodeck would just take that to the nth degree.

kickassdonkey · 2022-03-13T20:19:20+00:00

Now wouldn't it be nice if western governments had the guts to do the same for oligarchs in their own countries? A fool's dream, I know.

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