I've seen plenty of people who think they could take hard, addictive drugs and not get addicted, or that the addiction would be a small price to pay for the highs of the drug. Plenty of people have far too much self confidence for their small understanding of the situation. It's why drugs like heroin are still around; if everyone intrinsically understood that they're not worth it, they'd have disappeared a long time ago.

My wife and I usually plan big vacations about a year in advance so that we can follow flight prices and whatnot to get a good deal. We also book a few days at a cabin for our anniversary every year, so we just book the next year's reservation while we're there, since reservations can fill up even several months in advance.

Only planning a week in advance seems stressful to me - we planned a last-minute (for us) road trip vacation earlier this month for the long 4th of July weekend, and it was tough to find cheap places to stay that weren't super grungy.

Yeah, that's part of the reason why I just dealt with the pain whenever I was prescribed stuff like Vicodin. I don't want to risk it at all.

The Best Ways to Stand Up to your Bully

1. Just give him your lunch money. It is one of the easiest ways to stand up to your bully.

If you've got cleaned, cooked seafood that smells like fish shit, you're at a shitty restaurant. My only takeaway from this is that we should really see if we can make terrestrial insects taste as delicious as we make aquatic insects taste.

Makes sense. I've always been disappointed that instead of using better processing power to make bigger, more complex games, we used it to make the same games with more complex animations and details. I don't want a game that only differs from its predecessors through use of graphical upgrades like individual blades of grass swaying in the wind, or the character starting to sweat in relation to their exertion; I want games with PS1-PS2 graphics and animation quality, but with complex gameplay that the consoles of that era could only dream of being able to handle.

I want to tell people this sometimes, but I figure they'll just think I'm mansplaining mansplaining.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again: when a company does something that shows it doesn’t have its customers’ best interests in mind, it's imperative that it be immediately and wholly abandoned.

Companies have long since learned that we'll ignore major red flags for the sake of convenience, and at this point they're not even trying to hide the flags - they're proudly flying them and laughing as we continue to give them business.

Stupid cosmetic designs have been an issue for a long time. There was a theater fire in Chicago in the early 1900's where a bunch of people died because they couldn't figure out how to use the fancy door handles while panicking and being crushed by everyone trying to get out. That's the reason why exit doors on buildings with a high occupancy are now required to swing out, and have those pushbar locks that allow the door to open even if you're just falling on it.

If it's possible that someone will need to use something while panicking, it needs to be as simple, intuitive, and failproof as possible

Efficient workers get more work if you're in the office. I work from home, and that allows me to work efficiently until my work is done, set up scheduled emails to go out at the time I would've otherwise been done, then do what I want until then.

I think the biggest issue is that we don't know what to do when we're mad anymore. People think that being mad is all you need - that if you say you're mad, things will change. I often see people get pissed about something, then calm down and move on, as if they somehow achieved something with their anger alone.

I'm hoping that there's some pressure going on under the surface, and people will eventually reach a point where enough anger has built up that they can't take it anymore and they really take action, but from what I've seen, people are so against the concept of acting upon angry feelings that I worry they'll just hold it in until they die.

I had this issue with my last address, so when I moved to my current house and started seeing mail for the previous owner as well as what I assume to be the owner before him, I immediately wrote 'No longer at this address, return to sender" on all mail that wasn't for me - even spam mail - and made a support ticket on the USPS website. I felt like it was a bit overkill, but I did stop seeing mail for other people pretty quickly.

Dunno how quick Royal Mail would be comparatively, but maybe they'd be just as effective as USPS was for me.

You can never be sure on the Internet. Plus, I know there are people who think like this; my mom did something similar to my dad when I was a kid. When they were first dating she told him she didn't want to be tied down, a sentiment that he thought was long over by the time they got married. Much to his surprise, she was angry that he wasn't more accepting when he caught her cheating. Decades later, she still claims that she was entirely justified, and that my dad is an asshole for getting angry at her.

It's the year 1.7×10^106^. The heat death of the universe is imminent. Still listening to this banger. Modern music sucks - I was born in the wrong generation. Like if you agree.

Best I can do is whooping cough.

I remember when the first wave of stimulus checks went out and a bunch of car dealerships suddenly raised the price on their cars by $1000. UBI would be great, but if we don't reign in the corporate-apologist economy first, every product will suddenly be more expensive so they can bleed people of that extra money.

I honestly can't tell if sending this to my wife would go over very well or very poorly.

I wasted my entire life being kind to people

Sorry, bud - kind people don't say that. Yes, I've been walked all over by assholes, and I've been taken advantage of more times than I can count. I've been bullied and abused because of my body, and I've been made to feel like I don't deserve to share the same planet with some people, but I've also met some amazing people who accept me and love me.

The whole point of being kind is to be vulnerable, and to help people earnestly and without judgement. Why would I give a shit that some asshole got a leg up because of my effort, or felt bigger by making me feel smaller? If I help 100 jerks and one good person, at the end of the day, I helped a good person, and that makes my whole day, regardless of anything else. That's how you find the good people in the world, and build your social circle with people who care for you.

The issue with the high-paying medical profession is that it attracts 2 kinds of people: nice people who want to do good and help people, and self-centered people who want to feel powerful and in-control while making a bunch of money. The latter are the reason for shit like this. I'd bet that she doesn't care about children at all, and just wants to feel powerful, while raking in the cash from rich people looking to use her license to validate their terrible behavior.

Microsoft was screwing over consumers before Google was even founded.

Republican voters will accept it wholeheartedly simply because a Republican suggested it. Then they'll view themselves as heroes who made a huge sacrifice for the good of the country when really none of this needed to happen and the country's just getting worse. Of course, when they actually get to retirement age they'll be confused and angry as to why THEY can't retire yet; after all, they're heroes!

Don't worry, I was also confused as to why she was wearing a towel in a high-tech laser science lab.

Yeah, but that difference is specifically rooted in sexism and misogyny. The very fact that we can all see the difference that isn't much of a difference shows that there's a divide that needs to be bridged. We only think women's nipples are inappropriate because we were taught to. Plenty of cultures around the world don't see breasts as inappropriate, and they're doing just fine.

It took me a few glances to realize that's not chewed gum stuck in the keyboard.

Yeah, people who have experienced it understand that you don't "try" gaslighting. People who do it are just constantly doing it, usually without even needing to try - it's just their natural state to counter the things other people say. It works not by making someone believe a lie, but by wearing them down slowly, showing such confidence in something that the victim sees as being so clearly incorrect that they can't help but think that maybe they're the problem.

Negative change worms it's way in through small defeats. The first DLC's were a small price for a lot of content, the first YouTube ads were only a single ad that was just a few seconds long, the first video game preorders came with amazing rewards, etc. When you allow for 2 seconds, then what's 3 seconds? What's 4, 5, 6? What's 30 seconds? What's 2 minutes? We've seen examples of this all throughout capitalism's history; to ignore them is, well, ignorant.

I'm not writing up anything. I clock in when my shift starts, I complete the work designated for me for that shift, send it out by the time it needs to be sent out, and clock out at the end of my shift.

She's my buttery snacc.

Whenever I hear the name Ariana Grande, I can't help but try to translate it to "Big Aryan." I know that's not a correct translation, but it's always what I picture in my head.

Wait, so Steam isn't even actually on the picture? I feel like they could've just circled any original logo and made the joke about that instead.

Bud, that link specifically lists nuclear energy as being sustainable and green. Did you not understand that, or were you just hoping nobody would actually click on the link?

If it comes down to it, I'll split the cost with you. If we can't get socialized medicine the way it's meant to be, we'll make it ourselves!

This is bad news all around. Self-pollination pretty much eliminates genetic variation from one generation to the next. Any species where organisms reproduce with themselves is at a significantly higher risk to succumb to a disease or parasite that is able to infect and wipe out the entire species.

The stripper's name? Albert Einstein.

Clearly you've given up hope, and need to reject the idea of other people people being happy, and surrounded by love in order to not feel like you made a mistake in doing so. Nobody's trying to kill me, nor are they trying to kill you - people are pretty good at that, as you pointed out; when they actually want to, they don't try to, they just do. I've gotten death threats before, and lo and behold they were just threats. Had anyone gotten a gun and actually came after me with it, I'd be dead. You would be too, if they were serious about their supposed effort to kill you.

I'm in a loving marriage, with friends and what's left of my family after I cut out the bad parts. They all support me and want me to be happy. We hang out and help one another, and it's been years since I even met someone who I remember treating me poorly, because once you have that support network you don't even care about those kinds of people. You end up just seeing them for what they are instead - just normal people who never learned to interact with others; pity them. You've still got a good chance to find your friend group. Don't throw that chance away by just assuming such lives don't exist - they absolutely do.

It should be pointed out that Israel is clearly NOT doing this in response to Oct 7th. Hamas was clearly responsible for Oct 7th, and Israel is clearly not attempting to retaliate against Hamas; bombing a building on the off chance that your enemy is within it isn't a counterattack, it's just terrorism, and repeating that action on the scale that Israel is repeating it is not a war, it's genocide.

Honestly, most of the people in places like that are people who already found their way out, and now just want to shoot the shit with other people who understand what they've been through. If I hadn't had my sister to talk to about our insane mom, it would have been a lot harder for both of us to move on from her and become healthy, well-rounded adults - I imagine internet communities like these are a good alternate resource for when people don't have real-life support from someone who understands what it's like. But yeah, when you've got a parent who thinks all of science is one big scam, you're never going to be able to see a legitimate therapist.

Toxicity isn't as simple as "toxic = toxic + toxic." While some byproducts of plastic breakdown are toxic, the bacteria are further dissolving those as well, going until they get glucose, as they wouldn't be able to eat it if that wasn't the end product. There are probably still some toxic byproducts that get excreted rather than broken down, but plastic breakdown already releases toxins under normal conditions, so that's already a problem we're going to have to tackle. If these bacteria can get past the first issue of breaking it down in the first place, then that's a net positive.

The issue with allowing it to simply crumble away is that the last people to die will be the ones exploiting the system, as they have the resources and the power to stay alive the longest. If you want the people who would rebuild society into one that is better than what we already have to still be around when all is said and done, we need to tear it down ourselves.

Exactly. If a small group of people are given UBI, then they just have more money, and stores want to profit from everyone, including the people who aren't getting more money. But if everyone gets UBI, then the stores are sure that their customers can afford higher prices, and our current government has shown that it doesn't care if prices are arbitrarily inflated. I'd love UBI, but it can't function alone without accompanying laws to prevent price hiking.