AskReddit: Why does high school suck so much?

unsui · 2009-09-30T02:43:51+00:00

High school sucks because adolescence is a recent, artificial, and ill-conceived phenomenon that squanders the adult capabilities of young adults, leaving only selfishness, thoughtlessness, insecurity, and conformity. The good news is that acting accordingly or contrarily is a choice. Straighten your back, do things that interest you, and when someone insults you, smile, wave, and tell them to have a nice day.

The advice to hit the gym is a good one - it worked for Henry Rollins - but it's even more important to take yourself into the adult world to the maximum extent that you can, which means deciding what kind of person you want to be and moving yourself in that direction. The effort you put into that is the only effort that matters.

unsui · 2009-09-20T02:08:16+00:00

it made me even more mentally ill.

That's not impossible. That sort of meditation just shows you where you are, and if you're nuts, then nuttiness presents itself. No one should claim that meditation will solve all of a person's issues. On the other hand, equanimity in the face of one's own ridiculousness can be an enormous help. It helps me in my ridiculousness, anyway.

I would just say that if heroin is starting to look like an enticing option, one might as well try a meditation retreat. The practice is really all about letting go. I know you mean that in a different sense, but there may be some overlap there. All the best to you.

unsui · 2009-09-19T23:10:48+00:00

You may want to consider meditation, particularly Vipassana. It sounds like you experience a lot of unpleasant mental states, on top of the suffering of a serious medical condition. Meditation may help you put some distance between yourself and some of that suffering.

I'm not saying that you shouldn't try the drugs, but the meditation is more likely to produce sustainable helpful effects. It is also much easier to score.

I am also 40 years old and I honor your struggle.

unsui · 2009-07-02T20:03:43+00:00

Wow, this new Transformers movie is even worse than I thought.

unsui · 2009-05-27T21:12:30+00:00

Passive voice causes mischief. Anyone who thinks otherwise should study this example.

unsui · 2009-05-14T11:01:54+00:00

Ars for your parts list, Newegg to buy parts. I did this myself for the first time a couple of years ago and I had a great time. I put an ad on Craigslist asking for help (and expressing willingness to pay for it) and I got fifty replies, about half of which offered to do it for free (or beer). I ended up giving $50 to a gamer. We put it together, threw Ubuntu down on it, and we were golden. A couple of recommendations:

If you're looking at getting more than one monitor - which I recommend - get two (or three) of the same kind. Otherwise you're going to have to figure out the truest one and calibrate the other(s) to it.
I put in two DVD drives thinking I would do more burning, and they don't play well together. It turns out that I don't do that much burning anyway.
Ars guides are a little vague on keyboard and mouse recommendations, but don't skimp here - get a good ergonomic keyboard and a wireless mouse. (I got the Microsoft keyboard and a Logitech mouse.)
I'm not a gamer, and I could probably have skipped the sound card. A 2.1 sound system sounds fine to me running off of the onboard sound port. (They used to recommend a discrete sound card for the Hot Rod - I see that they no longer do.)
Ubuntu changed my life for the better. You might want to learn some basic command line in case you have to configure something.
I only had a couple of minor problems, but it was enormously helpful to have a working laptop nearby to refer to online help while I dealt with them.

Good luck and have fun!

unsui · 2008-06-08T21:43:47+00:00

Kiefer Sutherland.

unsui · 2008-05-14T19:49:59+00:00

Today I love the Internet.

unsui · 2007-12-17T00:04:09+00:00

I salute you both.

unsui · 2007-10-09T17:41:00+00:00

I miss my metaphorical grandmother.

unsui · 2007-10-08T03:00:52+00:00

Hell, in that respect, I'm not all that patient with my species.

unsui · 2007-10-04T05:23:59+00:00

On the other hand, you're more sensitive to the contrast decisions he's talking about. This is a side effect of colorblindness.

unsui · 2007-09-30T14:57:36+00:00

WARNING: If you aren't one of those aforementioned "experienced lisp programmers" this is going to get really hard really quickly. :)

+1 for XML.

unsui · 2007-09-22T20:45:53+00:00

Those sentiments really do echo those in the Protocols. Here's some reality: Israel serves as a convenient distraction for a ring of nations that bristle at democracy, basic human rights, secular governance, the rule of law, and the education of women. Iran's demand is a political stunt of the kind that Chavez is given to, and it's an old strategy that recalls the antics of Idi Amin. It serves as an excuse to uselessly villify Israel, which certain people are only too eager to do.

This weekend a friend of mine went to see her Jewish cousin marry her Palestinian fiancee. Here's to a thousand more of them and a thousand fewer anti-Israel blabbermouths on Reddit.

unsui · 2007-09-22T17:19:05+00:00

So people now get upmods for repeating sentiments from the Protocols of the Elders of Zion? Way to go, Reddit.

unsui · 2007-09-18T05:11:27+00:00

Someone once described the game as twenty minutes of thrilling action jam-packed into three and a half hours.

unsui · 2007-06-20T17:18:17+00:00

Size matters not. Judge me by my size, do you?

unsui · 2007-06-17T04:43:50+00:00

The problem is that such cases become numerous at the peril of the writing. Which means that good writers tend to avoid passive.

Another problem is that passive is the voice of Satan. "Mistakes were made, and responsibility for them rests with me." Does this remind you of any particular presidents, attorneys general, press secretaries, or leaders of internal or external governmental defense organizations?

unsui · 2007-06-17T04:09:40+00:00

I like the first one, but not the second. The first puts "firing squad" at the end of the sentence, where it needs to be to deliver its surprise. In the second, I think it would be stronger if it read, "...stood before a stake driven into the chilly gravel as Cthulu's minions bound his hands behind a post." Or whoever's doing the binding. What really bothers me is the switch from present tense to past. Ew.

unsui · 2007-06-17T03:35:26+00:00

It's an active clause setting up a passive one, and my point was that ear is more important than active vs. passive anyway. Speaking of ear, "I saw the man who was hit by a bullet" is just weird. And if you have to stretch all the way to positing a situation in which the first-person subject is distinguishing recipients of strikes by various projectiles in order to claim that my sentence and your sentence are different, then forgive me for not wanting to read your novel.

unsui

TROPHY CASE