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How do you respond to violence?

Personally, I maintain a philosophy of pacifism that is deeply rooted in my faith. I'm not to interested in discussing my feelings, though I will if anyone really cares. I'm really interested in your answers to these questions: 1. How would you respond to violence personally? 2. Would you participate in a war? 3. Would you ever kill someone? 4. How does Christianity influence your answers?

Dragonman in Colorado (What do you guys think?)

Dragonman is a purveyor of guns in Colorado Springs. I live in Colorado. I haven't been to the guy's place but the cheesiness of his website and videos turn me off although I can sort of see how he is just having fun. I was wondering what you guys think.

Can Reddit give me nightmares?

So here's the thing - I haven't been genuinely scared in years. Not for lack of trying, (I've read creepypasta, I have a bad diet, I've visited the "spooky sites") but I can't honestly remember a time where I've woken up from a bad dream. Keep in mind, here, I'm talking about an atmosphere of fear, rather than a body shock or some startling movement; I'm looking for fear that makes me worry about what's in the shadows in my room. I don't mind being linked to videos, so long as they're hosted on youtube and aren't overly long (I have a download limit) and I don't mind text of any reasonable length: something below ten minutes of video or a short story's worth of words. Do you think you can do it?

Anyone want to give some good 'finding a job' tips to a soon-to-be-minted CS degree holder?

I'm approaching the end of my junior year of college. I already have a really nice job with serious responsibilities that is completely unrelated to software engineering. Should I try really hard to get an internship for the summer and abandon my job, or is intern experience irrelevant? Does anyone have any links to good resume writing for software engineers? Should I find an open source project and start contributing immediately? How does the job market look for those starting out? I have met a couple young software engineers and they seem to be doing OK, at least compared to a finance friend who is working at Walmart =( I attend a very good school and will most likely end with 3.2-3.5 GPA and a second degree in Latin.

I found a job posting online for my current position. Any advice on how to handle this?

A little background: In November I was hired into a non-management position at a salary about 5k less than I had been making at the job I got laid off from in September. The plan was for me to work with the current manager for 2 or 3 months after which she would leave the position to go back to school and I would be promoted to manager. I've actually got several years more experience than her so this seemed fine. I took the job. One day after I was hired she announced she would be leaving the company in 2 weeks. Instead of 3 months to train I had 2 weeks during the busiest time of the year for the company. The transition was a little rough but over the past month I've slowly been bringing some order to a system that was completely chaotic. Very few employees had been trained properly, equipment was all out of calibration, documents had errors in them, etc. I haven't been given any negative feedback on my job so far. In fact, on Friday they assigned 2 additional employees to work for me (so now I'm managing 9 people.) Furthermore we haven't had any major disasters that could be considered my fault. Today I discover a job posting advertising my exact title at my current company. It's a small company entering our slowest time of the year, business-wise and there's no room for two managers with my title. I conclude that they're going to try to replace me with someone with more experience who will work for the same non-competitive wage (20k under the industry average for the position.) The owner is kind of a prick and this is PRECISELY the kind of thing I would expect him to do. He finds excuses to fire pregnant women so he doesn't have to pay their health insurance during their leave. The company's main production location has so many OHSA violations that it would be a 6-figure fine if it ever got inspected. I can't decide if I should just flat-out ask the owner of the company why the position was posted or if I should just wait it out and see what they do.

Have you ever pondered if Obama's whole being a Christian thing is a big political charade?

I mean most highly educated academics tend to be either agnostic or atheists, and he is one of them. If you read his books you'll learn that he only embraced Christianity through the United Church (the most liberal church) in his early thirties, before then he was an agnostic. I've always thought that the whole Christianity thing was a political move on his part. I certainly don't blame him, seeing that most americans would never vote for someone who describes himself as an atheist or an agnostic. But is something that has always been in my mind. Any thoughts? Edit1: I submitted my question on the askreddit subreddit in order to get a broader audience and thus broaden the discussion. Edit2: I know its not that much proof on my contention that most highly educated academics are either agnostic of atheist but this graph seems to somewhat back up my claim. (Thanks to thesteeeve for the link)

Grammy's: Please remember that no one in the entire world has 3d glasses at home

The entire Michael Jackson tribute performance was unwatchable because of this ridiculousness. I don't even like Michael Jackson, but the idea that you would make your international broadcast so exclusive to such a small number of people seems disgraceful.

KOTH Week 2 Match: LYON vs Team KoolAid

Clicky! I took a demo of the match on Sunday if anyone would like to view. If you played in this match and have a demo as well, please post too. This was easily one of my favorite matches I've played in a long time. Final score was a 2:2 tie. Very exciting. The order went: L-KA-KA-L This is only from my perspective, no third person...sowwy =\ (Match starts a few minutes into video)

Just wanted to share my foster puppy. I got pics!

1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. His name is Bean, he is mostly Italian Greyhound, and he is wonderful. Still being housebroken, but otherwise a dream. So cute, such a snuggly lapdog.

I've got movie block...any suggestions?

Dear fellow redditors, I'm bored witless and I'd like to watch a good flick tonight, but no clue what. Do you have a favorite movie or have you seen anything worth watching lately? Add: Sweet, thanks for all the suggestions. Think I'm going to start with Pandorum.

What is the saddest song you have ever heard?

Trying to create an apocalyptically depressing, be-all-end-all mix of sad songs - hit me with some suggestions.

Can someone help me find a code for an image gallery to use in this situation?

I want the image to change when you click the number or the next button. Is there a simplle CSS or HTML code for this?

Free Will Suggested Readings

The free will debate has been subtly raging in the background of my life since the summer, and I've finally decided I should look into it. Any suggestions on where I should start first? Preferably books. I started on wiki, but I'm really looking for one solid long ass book that spares no details. If that's too much to ask then I suppose I can settle for a quick intro type book. (: Either way hope you guys can help! EDIT: This can be a free will debate as well I guess.

Anybody else find it hard to open a game after they buy it?

I don't know if I'm weird or what, but every time I get a new game I ponder for a while before opening it (unless it's something I've been really anticipating). Sometimes I'll be nervous that it won't be worth the money and I won't be able to return it after I open it for something better, or if I'm pretty sure I'm going to like it I might hesitate because I know how much time I'm going to waste for the next couple of weeks. Right now I'm staring at Mass Effect 2, concerned I'm going to disregard anything I need to do and just vid for a week straight. I obviously play on consoles, but if I used a computer I'm sure I would stare at the Steam website for hours before deciding to buy anything. Anybody else have this problem?

Something you might not know about steam, that could save you some frustration in the future.

So today I was going through mass effect 1, having a good old time, when suddenly the game crashed. Further investigation showed that it crashed upon attempting to load a new section of the game. I went and looked online for the map file to replace my corrupted one, but I couldn't find any and resigned myself to redownloading and reinstalling the game. However, I discovered an option under game properties called "Verify integrity of local cache." Upon running that option, steam checked out my installed game files, reported that it had found six corrupt files, and automatically downloaded those six files. It took maybe 5 minutes, and my game was up and running once more. So yea, if anyone ever runs into a persistent crash on a steam game, check that option out before reinstalling.

Tire / rim sizing question

A friend loaned me his uber-expensive road bike, on the condition that I tune it up and replace the tires. It's been sitting for years and the tires currently on it are shot, the rubber is rotting and weather-checked, the tubes won't hold air. I figured I'd get a head start on the tune-up by replacing the tires myself, but the new tires I bought don't fit. Clearly there's something about bicycle tire sizing that I don't get. The rims are Mavic MA-40's. The original tires are Continentals, marked C132, 700 x 23C (23-022). I bought a pair of Specialized all-condition tires, also size 700 x 23C (23-022). And the new tires don't fit. I can get them almost all the way on, but seating the last few inches of the bead is impossible- it is nearly an inch below the edge of the rim, and no matter how hard I push on it I can't lever it up over the rim. Honestly, I'm afraid to try in case it damages the rim. Is there another component to the tire size that I missed? Besides the numbers marked on the rim is there also something else I need to identify with respect to the tire / rim size?

So I have my college radio show tonight. Any suggestions?

Tonight, I have my radio show for our college station (KSCL 91.3 in Shreveport, LA). The only rules I must follow are no serious cursing (everything except ass, damn, and bitch) and nothing mainstream, so basically if it's on any other station, then it's a no go. The idea is to give the listeners something they aren't used to. But I'm sure that won't be a problem for the unique tastes of the reddit community. I can stream or download just about anything under the sun so feel free to get obscure!

r/gaming - Has anyone used a Dingoo a320?

I am looking for opinions on a Dingoo a320]( I believe it is the same as the rebranded [ThinkGeek Retro Game Emulator just cheaper.

What is the craziest fact you know that most people won't know?

The word "POSH" stands for "Port Out, Starboard Home". It was printed on wealthy passengers tickets who wanted the most desirable cabins on the shady side of the cruise ship.

Anybody here that can play by ear?

I'm awful at picking out notes in songs, but if there's anybody here who's any good at it, I could use some help. I'm trying to learn the Koffin Kats song "Above Me, Beyond You" off the album Drunk In The Daylight. Specifically, the bass parts. If anybody can help, I'd greatly appreciate it.

Installing Ubuntu using Virtualbox onto a USB flashdisk as a physical drive formatted to ext4. Hour and a half later, progress at 62%.

The host computer is running Vista on a Core 2 Duo 2.5Ghz with 2gb RAM. Haven't had any problems with running virtual machines on Virtualbox before. The flashdisk was previously used as a Readyboost device for about a month. Extremely frustrating. Hopefully it will finish by the time i get up tomorrow :[ edit: It's now been stuck at 94% for the past 40 minutes. Before it would at least advance a percent or two every couple minutes, now I'm worried it's stuck like this forever..

Anyone use their iPhone as a mouse?

Hello everyone, I got to my hotel earlier in nyc and took out my laptop, only to find that I forgot to bring my wireless mouse from home. I *hate* using the touchpad. Does anyone use their iPhone as a mouse? And by mouse, I mean you put your iPhone on the desk next to your computer, and move it around ... like a mouse. After some cursory googling I haven't found any app like that yet, just things that allow you to use the iphone touch screen as a touchpad (no), or something called "air mouse" which you apparently use as an air mouse (no) -- anyone know of an app for this?

I was watching Ghost in the Shell episodes 16-18 on the day Sallinger died.

I didn't even realize that they were referencing him constantly until the mentioned him in episode 20. did anyone else not notice that at first?

Shameless plea for help with Integration by Partial Fractions

So, I'm not sure how kosher it is to ask for help with homework, but I need some help. So here it goes.... Integrate: ʃ2dx/(x^2(x^2-1)) Step A: 2/x^2(x^2-1) = A/x + B/x^2 + C/(x+1) + D/(x-1) Step B: 2=Ax(x^2-1) + B(x^2-1) + Cx^2(x-1) + Dx^2(x+1) Step C: 2 = x^3(A+C+D) + x^2(B-C+D) - Ax -B So for the system: A+C+D = 0 B-C+D = 0 -A = 0 B = 2 My solution process to this system: 2-C+D=0 C+D=2 C=2/D 2 - 2/D + D = 0 D^2 + 2D - 2 =0 D= (-2 +- 12^1/2)/2 D= (3^1/2 - 1), -(3^1/2 - 1) So, I think my solutions are: A = 0 B = 2 C = 1-(3^1/2) D = (3^1/2)-1 Before I go further, does this seem right to anyone else? Typically this textbook doesn't leave us with square root numerators this early in the homework assignment.

IETester. Test IE versions in a stand alone browser

For those of you who have not seen this, IETester is a stand alone browser that renders different versions of Internet Explorer for compatability testing. They just released an alpha version, so check it out and see if it helps you!

Reddit, what are salaries like for HS Chemistry teachers?

I am a chemistry major thinking about education as a possible career. I am curious to know what salaries are like. (US-either NY or CA)

So ClimateSkeptics, where is the discussion?

As a newish participant of the ClimeateSkeptics subreddit, I can't help but observe that this thread is mostly comprised of links/submissions but woefully absent of any comments/discussions regarding such links. Is everyone simply over-awed by the submissions or merely sheep-like following along? Where is the discussion and debate?

Steam game trade/giveaway thread!

Thought I would create a thread for people who have extra copies of steam games who would like to trade for other games, or give them away. Personally, I'm looking for a copy of AvP Classic 2000, and have a HL2 copy to give out.

Boiling on electric burners (sloooow)

I re-started homebrewing in December (after a 2-year hiatus). My apartment has an electric stove, and the burners are fairly small. The biggest problem I'm having is that I can barely bring the liquid to a boil, even when I cover the pot. Once I get it to a rolling boil it's okay, but getting the wort up to temperature takes 2-3 hours. Any ideas for dealing with this? Should I just use less liquid? (currently boiling 3 gallons, then adding water up to 5 gallons) Or is there another trick that might save me some time?

Reddit: Now that I am a certified college dropout, WHAT DO I DO?

So, halfway through my third year at school i get kicked out due to grades. I would be starting a new semester tomorrow, but instead i'm at my house wondering what the hell to do now. I don't think i could stand a customer service job. WHAT DO I DO?

Dear /r/Pets, looking for help diagnosing a sick kitty.

Don't worry. I'm not crowdsourcing in place of actual medical care. I'm calling to make an appointment with the vet in the morning. I did want to impose on the expertise of cat owners out there, however. I have a sneezing kitty, who is constantly licking his lips and has a watery discharge coming from one eye. I'm guessing URI. Are these common for cats in winter? Are there preventative measures I can take in the future? Thanks.

DAE get goose bumps from wooden popsicle sticks?

I even get it when I think about it. I Get it from other things as well, but the dry timber is the weird one..

So, Reddit - post your experiences with dead bodies.

I'll start. I worked for a social service agency. I worked with adults with developmental disabilities. I checked on one young woman who wouldn't answer her door. I let myself in (I had keys) and her TV was on but she was "asleep". I went to shake her awake but she was stiff as a board. I went into panic mode, checked her pulse, and she was cold as ice. I called 911, called my bosses, and was cool as a cucumber all night long, reaching over her corpse for her id, sitting at the edge of her bed as if nothing was wrong, working with the coroner. Then I went home and fell apart. It lasted several weeks and still is a very sad story in my life. That night, however, it was as if it were an average occurrence.

Hey /r/science, I have a question on magnetism.

There are two assumptions that I am making about the nature of magnetism when I went through this thought process. **1.** Magnetic fields propagate at or less than the speed of light. **2.** Magnetic interactions between objects are actually interactions between the magnetic fields of the objects which transfer that effect to the object producing it. Suppose you have two magnets, and one is an electromagnet that can be turned on and off. They are separated and linked together by some distance within the range of their magnetic fields and are oriented to repel one another. Now, suppose a large burst of energy is inputed into the electromagnet to produce an extremely short lasting magnetic field. The two magnetic fields repel one another, but when the electromagnet is turned off, its field would still exist for a very short time. Now my question is, would the other magnet continue to repel this short lasting field after the electromagnet is turned off and give the apparatus a slight burst of movement? I am by no means an expert on magnetism, but I found it an interesting thought experiment.

Reddit, how should I style my growing hair?

im in the process of growing it out, and it's gotten to the point where im unable to not style it without looking like a fool (kind of resembles a coconut helmet when its down). i usually do a fauxhawk, but its gotten too long for that already, too. im sure a lot of you redditors has grown your hair out, how did you style it?

I'm thinking about doing my first road race this year, any insight would be appreciated.

I've done a couple of mtb races, and I'm a middle/low of the pack in the cat2 single speed category. Just want to get an idea of what to expect, and what's expected of me. Also should I start off as a cat 5 if I have some racing experience, albeit mtb racing?

Cheap and effective 2D CAD software for Habitat for Humanity

I work for Habitat for Humanity as an Americorps down in Louisiana. We have an architecture firm that does our blueprints and they're fairly decent. The problem is, they charge $125/hr for any work, and we can't justify that cost just to create a bunch of as-builts. Right now, the way we keep track of changes is to print off an extra copy of the official prints and change dimensions with a pen. I have familiarity with various CAD programs including AutoCAD, and we're looking for something cheap and effective to deploy on a computer in the office, or my own laptop. I'm already on payroll and would be doing much of it in my spare time, so the cost of my time to learn a new system is negligible. AutoCAD would be fantastic if it didn't cost so damn much. Really all we need is something on which we can draw in 2d and make measurements in American units (feet and inches.) Can anyone recommend an effective, worthwhile system that can do decent 2D work? It doesn't even have to be able to read the AutoCAD files from our architect, I can manually recreate them. Anything between free and $80 would be nice. Google's Sketch-Up is about the quality and level of control we need, except that is a 3D program. Not flashy or powerful but simple, quick, and effective. I've tried QCAD but it doesn't look like they've updated anything in a year an half, except their book. TurboCAD has a cheap option, but I don't want to shell out cash without trying it. DoubleCAD I'm using as a demo now, but its almost impossible to get online help about it, and I don't know what features I'll lose when the 30 day trial expires and I have to use their free version. Thanks DIYers. Edit: I have access to Windows XP, OSX 10.4, and Ubuntu, so platform isn't a real issue.

Trouble making gains in bouldering.

I have been climbing on and off for the last 3 years and at least twice a week for the past 7 months. I started top roping and worked my way up to about 5.10-5.11 (working a few 12's). My partners and I switched from our top rope gym to a bouldering gym. The bouldering gym completely knocked me down a step or two. I can finish all the beginner's routes except on the steepest walls (completely inverted transitioning to 45-vertical). I am working on those and just need to piece them together. My question is, how do I go from these *easy* routes to the harder sloper routes. Crimpers I can do alright but it seems like bouldering focuses more on slopers. I can't even start to hold onto some of these holds. I admit that I need to loose some weight I am up to about 210-215 but what else can I do. Any suggestion on exercises, stretches would be great. I know that form and balance play an important part in a lot of these routes, how do you learn what works? (Just watching others?) Is there a technique for holding holds on 45 degree and higher overhangs? I am starting to get very bad callouses that rip off while I am climbing. I never had that happen with crimpy top rope routes. Is this part of joy of climbing or am I doing something wrong?

A desperate plea for wise council (Garage Band crash)

Greetings, lovelies- I will spare you the myriad reasons why the song I lost is important...suffice it to say that far more weeks than I care to consider are at risk of being wasted and far more is at stake that I think I am even capable of considering without growing a bit faint if I cannot get back what I have lost. Short story: I was working on my laptop off of my external drive. The USB cord connecting the two was kicked loose. Garage Band quits unexpectedly. Upon reopening, my song is back to its infantile form...a stage it was at months ago. Disaster. Tears. Short explanation of actions already taken: I downloaded Data Rescue 3 and ran a deep search on both drives. I recovered a trillion unlabeled aif's, AIFF's and the like, though none that I have opened are from my song so far (300 down, 999,999,999,700 to go) and my beloved .band file is nowhere to be found. Is all hope lost? I know all too well the importance of backing up files, making it endlessly more painful that this happened right as the apex of my harddrive space crisis was upon me. I tend to drag the session onto the desktop of my laptop whenever I am working on it, that being the reason I Deep Scanned my laptop's harddrive as well...but I'm working with something like 25KB free these days. Thank you, dearest music makers, for listening to my long-winded, panicked begging. If anyone can help, I know it's you.

Reddit, help me make a funny.

*I am terrible at thinking of punchlines, so help a brother out* So there's three Americans. They are on the plane ride home from a vacation in England, complaining about service they got in various pubs they visited. The first American says "I went up to the bartender and I asked him for some chips, and the fucker gave me french fries!" The second American says "That's nothing. I asked a waiter if they had any chocolate, and he says he'd get me some biscuits. I didn't want any fuckin' biscuits, I wanted chocolate." The third American says "I came prepared knowing the British use some different terminology. I asked around for a fag, and eventually I got one." The first American asks him "Oh, really? How are British cigarettes anyways?" The third American replies "..." *I'm sure it could be improved in so many ways. I'm sure you can figure out where the punchline is going, but I can't figure out the wording that is snappy and not so drawn out. Any suggestions?*

How big is your porn folder, Reddit?

Mine : It would probably be a few gigs larger if I downloaded the favorited videos from Spankwire, but I'm saving that for a very very rainy day.

If you pointed a 150mw laser into a photo radar camera, would it disable it?

Let say you were 1000 meters away and pointed this hand held laser into a photo radar camera. Would it disable the camera? Permanently?

I don't want to see any [10]'s on here.

[10] is the maximum bakedness, at that altitude computer skills become very fuzzy. If your sober enough to use the computer then your not high enough to call yourself a [10].

Call for debugging articles

Hey folks, Well, I asked for ideas, and you all responded. Let me say that you all have some very sophisticated topics you would like to have covered. I've got a lot of work to do in order to be able to cover all of these topics. The number 1 topic by far was debugging tools. To be honest, I currently don't use anything more sophisticated than units test, println & a REPL. I'm working on getting a monad or two up my sleeve. Still, my stuff is primitive. Which is where you all come in. Some of you here are debugging geniuses. You know every tool out there, and how to integrate it with Clojure in ways none of us are dreaming of yet. Please, write about your techniques. Post the links here. Don't worry about everything being 100% correct. Just get the ideas out there. Lend a hand. Show us what you've got :) Sean

Hey reddit, any ideas for valentines day?

So I have a girlfriend and we have only been dating for a month now. I met her this summer and we have been very close ever since. We are almost the same from music to humor. We both really like each other and spend lots of time together. I'm going to take her for dinner most likely but any other ideas that would be helpful for me? thanks reddit.

Looking for a good fantasy movie...

Hey guys, Went and finally saw Avatar the other night. The fantasy setting was absolutely amazing. The only thing I can compare it to in terms of fantasy immersion was Lord of the Rings. What other movies are set in some imaginary land and manage to immerse you in their world?

Who else here was "spiritual, but not religious" before accepting atheism, rather than coming from wither a religious or secular background?

*either, not wither Prior to atheism, I believed in a god that was simply a benign creator who loved us, yet had no dogma or bias about our lives. It simply observed and furthermore, rather than being separate from us, it literally was us experiencing all that we experience through us and as us. Therefore, any cruelty or kindness was done by itself, to and as itself, under the self-imposed illusion of not knowing it's true nature. That sustained me for a long time, as most arguments from atheists against god focus on the Christian/Judaic/Muslim versions of god, and the kind of god I believed in was protected from 99% of those arguments because there was nothing dogmatic or anti-scientific about it to argue against. Along with this, however, I bought into a lot of new age woo woo stuff like various kinds of divination, psuedoscience, reincarnation, astrology, dowsing, crop circles, homeopathy, and a vast laundry list of unfounded claptrap. Once I started taking an interest in science, and found most of those "accessory" beliefs debunked, I had to take it one step further and apply the same rigorous protocol to my belief in "Spirit", as I called my version of god. I came to the conclusion that, in the end, since this being I believed in was not judgmental and there was no heaven or hell to go to, then it didn't really matter if I believed or not. After all, if I was wrong, this being wouldn't have minded anyway. I didn't have to deal with the fear of pissing it off or being punished. So, I had to take the most honest stance I could: there is no evidence for this being, therefore, nothing to support a belief in it. I now lack a belief in this being, which makes me an atheist. If I do end up surviving my death, perhaps I will recognize it as this being experiencing through me what it's like to lack such a belief, then fine. But, since there is no evidence, the only honest stance is "I don't know, but I certainly don't see any evidence to support it." Did anyone else go through a similar journey to atheism, rather than the usual "I broke away from religion" or "I was always of this mindset"? tl;dr - Came to atheism through a different route than many people, curious who else was in a similar boat.

I want to buy the reddit alien thumb drive...

but it's only 4GB, I can't even put a DVD ISO on it. Come on, Reddit. Make a 32GB version please.

What is good advice for adult children of alcoholics in getting help.

Ok so I am mainly looking for advice on dealing with emotional/ personality issues that stem from growing up in an alcoholic / neglectful household. I recognize that my life is a disaster right now and would like to take steps to change it. That being said I am pretty terrified of the next step. I am kind of turned off by groups like Al-anon mainly for the vague religious/spiritual connotations (I am an atheist). Basically I have found most of the groups that deal with this sort of thing are of the 12 step variety and I just can't take it seriously. I don't know... maybe I should but it's a superficial turnoff that I would like to avoid. Has anyone had luck with these groups? I guess I would like to talk about this sort of stuff with other people but also am terrified. Has anyone had much success in reading books that deal with this issue? There is an adult-children subreddit but it's somewhat dead. Thanks in advance, any sort of advice / experience would be appreciated.

Hey Reddit, what's the best decision you ever made?

I picked up "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and haven't stopped reading ever since.

Willpower issues with weightloss....

**tldr** Been losing weight for months, have lost all willpower and started overeating last couple of weeks. Am soliciting advice/comments/motivation **Full Version** Well I've been on a calorie deficit for months and have lost most of the fat that I wanted to. I was within 6 pounds of my goal weight. Now I'm within twenty. I'm young and I exercise, and I'm 100% confident that the weight will come back off as quick as just put it on, but as I'm sure some of you have dealt with before I've hit a vicious cycle: overeat -> gain weight -> feel sorry for self -> comfort self with food. Rinse and repeat. For some reason I've lost the willpower that's been with me pretty much without fail ever since I made the decision to seriously focus on getting in shape, a good few months ago now. So I'm doing okay, this is just a minor road bump, but it's no fun. Those of you who have been here before, commiserate with me and offer me advice! =P Thanks for reading, reddit.

(potential spoilers) Have you beat mass effect 2 yet? Whats the saved games time say?

I just beat Mass Effect 2 on Saturday and im kinda disappointed. The ending was great but i thought there was going to be more. Somebody said "40 hours for the main quest" i did 25 hours on normal and did pretty much every quest. I imported my character for a second run through on Insanity. So have you liked the game so far?

Have you ever wondered if Obama's whole being a Christian thing is a big political charade?

I mean most highly educated academics tend to be either agnostic or atheists, and he is one of them. If you read his books you'll learn that he only embraced Christianity through the United Church (the most liberal church) in his early thirties, before then he was an agnostic. I've always thought that the whole Christianity thing was a political move on his part. I certainly don't blame him, seeing that most americans would never vote for someone who describes himself as an atheist or an agnostic. But is something that has always been in my mind. Any thoughts? Edit1: I know its not that much proof on my contention that most highly educated academics are either agnostic of atheist but this graph seems to back up my claim. (Thanks to thesteeeve for the link)

If you were an alien scientist observing human progression in technology, how would you explain the last century, especially in terms of space exploration?

Obviously there is more about us that a potential alien scientist might find interesting than just space exploration, but when you think about how things have gone, how must that look to an outside observer who is likely unaware of likely strange, human issues like politics and our crazy economy? If it were me, I would say that human either have a low attention span or they aren't actually as intelligent as some of their technology makes them out to be.

IAE outraged that Taylor Swift won album of the year?

She won over Black Eyed Peas, Lady Gaga, and Beyonce. This is completely ridiculous.

I'm having pain during sex. Please help!

Whenever anything is happening like even something little like a finger it hurts like poking a scab, best way to describe the pain.It has stopped me from doing stuff. It's been going on for at least 2 1/2 years and I'm scared to go to the doctor for fear of what it could be. Is this something normal when beginning to have sex and will pass or should I go to the doctor? I thought it might be psychological at first, but it hasn't really died down even though I'm comfortable with my boyfriend. Any ideas what could cause this?

What do you like in portfolio sites?

Hi there, I just registered a new domain to show off my photography instead of just using my flickr]( or having [a subdomain on my current site. Nothing is built yet and I'd like your input. I am not a graphic designer and am just learning php, but know html and some css. My husband is a programmer and has offered to help out, but he's not a designer either. I'm planning on building this myself and getting help when I'm stuck from my DH. I want to build something clean, fairly simple, and manageable. I want to be able to show off various styles of photography - photojournalism, portrait, events, nature, etc. * What do you like in a portfolio site? * Should I use flash or just html and/or php? * I would like it to be easily updatable - what are your thoughts on wordpress? * This tool]( built by [danwin looks cool, but it's flash - thoughts? * Thanks!

Looking for sites for audio steaming.

I'm looking for sites where I can up load audio tracks for people to steam but not download. Does anyone know some good recommendation preferably free sites?

can't write to partition table (trying to install slackware from a DVD)

(posted this to various slackware forums but I still haven't found a solution) I am currently running Linux Mint 8 on a Thinkpad T60p and I decided to free up 20 GB for Slackware. Used GParted to unallocate the space. I was able to install Slackware with VirtualBox with my Linux Mint host and I was able to follow through with a full installation without any problems. However when I tried to install it on a real partition with a DVD I got the below notification: "You will not be able to write the partition table. Note: Sector size is 2048 (not 512) Device contains neither a valid DOS partition table, nor Sun, SGI or OSF disklabel. Building a new disklabel with disk identifier 0xf4252222. Changes will remain in memory only, until you decide to write them. After that, of course, the previous content won't be recoverable. Warning: Invalid flag 0x0000 of partition table will be corrected by (w)rite" If you know what I am missing I would appreciate a push in the right direction.

Mass Effect 2 on 360 won't import my ME1 character, even though I beat it. Anybody else with this problem? Any solutions?

A little back story - My old 'box got banned so I'm playing on a new console, but I copied all the saves over to the new 360 with a memory card. It says that it can't see any characters in the import menu. Also, I mailed ME1 to my brother so he could play through it before he gets started on ME2. Am I out of luck? I want my old actions to be intact. I killed Wrex for questioning orders, killed the bug with acid because it was a bug, killed that one chick (for getting all lippy), and killed the council and took over the galaxy. What is the default character like? I suspect he's going to be a pussy.

I have attended a Burning Man-style event (Burning Flipside, specifically) AMA!

So I figure there are probably a good number of burners on reddit, but there's probably a lot more non-burners. For those of you that don't know what a burn is, here]( is a link to the article on the actual Burning Man event, and [here is info on Burning Flipside, specifically. For those of you that have mice that are allergic to links, I would sum up a burn as a temporary community in the middle nowhere, based on free expression. We build an entire society, with an effigy at the center of it. And everyone basically does their own thing, often involving themselves in theme camps. (One of my favorites is "The Purple Taco" camp that always serves tacos at noon.) On the last night, we burn the effigy. Then, on the last day, we completely erase our society from existence and go on our way. The motto is "leave no trace." Burns are a lifechanging experience, beyond a doubt. So if anyone is curious, or has been thinking about going to one themselves, feel free to AMA! *edit* Downvoted to zero? =\ Just wanted to share an experience with people, sorry if that's somehow offensive to you.

i need help regarding torrents(details inside)

I'm running Snow Leopard, I am somewhat of a torrent newcomer. I wanted to download and use The Rosetta Stone. How do i make it work? All this talk about cracks and ISO(wtf does this mean?" is making me dizzy. i was wondering if someone could explain how to do it in common speech step by step, any help would be appreciated.

What are you drinking right now?

Death in the Afternoon! Supposedly invented by Ernest Hemingway, and rather tasty so far...

Trying to get google calendar to sync with the iPhone, not much luck. Help?

Hey guys, just got my iPhone 3Gs, must say am pretty happy so far. Plan to jailbreak it later this week. Anyway, I sync'd up google calendar as per instructions from google, and it worked, except the only calendar that is on my iPhone is the one that is named by my email address. I have several calendars within my google calendar, for organization purposes. For example, I keep really important things on my komali...@gmail.com calendar, then I have my "english reading assignments" calendar, "math homework", etc. None of my extra calendars transferred over. How can I get these things on my iPhone, save from just making all my stuff under komali...@gmail calendar? If I'm not explaining myself very well, here's a picture to help illustrate my point:

IAMA Pro basketball player.

I'm not answering any questions that can be used to identify me because doing this violates my contract. I will tell you that I come from the US, I was projected to be drafted (2nd round) but went undrafted and signed overseas.

Expansion of a gas down an infinitely long tube, while continuous energy is added at one end. Help?

Imagine an infinitely long tube that starts out at vacuum pressure. Now imagine at one end of the tube, a set amount of energy is continuously added (in the form of molecules, some number of Joules/second). The gas would expand away from the start and down the tube. The pressure would always be highest near the injection point. As time passes the pressure down the tube would increase because energy is constantly being added to the system, but it would always be higher at the injection point. I'm looking for an equation that would show the average velocity down the tube for a set of molecules at a time 't', at a distance down the tube 'x'. It'd start at 0 speed, but because of the high pressure near the injection point and the low pressure at the other end of the tube, would accelerate continuously. Feel free to pick any arbitrary tube diameter or energy injection rate. Also assume the tube is a closed system and doesn't leak heat or anything. From thinking about it, I think there'd be some energy injection rate and tube diameter relationship (and possibly also time from t=0) where the gas wouldn't be able to expand fast enough to compensate, so the pressure would just continue to build and build at the injection point. Gas injected later would encounter more resistance to expand because there would be gas already present, so the pressure gradient wouldn't be as steep. I'm kind of lost on where to begin math-wise.

What attracts the more active, street-preacher Christian is not so much objective understanding of truth and wisdom in the Bible, but rather an identification of the subject with the authority of Jesus

...I say this because there is a striking similarity in the observation of a street-preacher and Jesus. The active preacher has very similar features to Jesus; they assume some connection with a higher truth or knowledge as expressed by their "messianic-complex," and they feel called to alert people to their "naivety." This is also almost identical to people outside the realm of religion. Another example would be conspiracy theorists, the recent "birthers," or the typical, pretentious college freshman philosophy major. I remember my freshman english professor saying the same thing about his students' papers. They would all start their papers as if they were the first ones who set their eyes upon the monumental amount if information comprising history, like the world was according to them. It is worth wondering whether this type of self-granting pomp is a universal feature in people until they learn their lesson in humbleness or until they learn that they are in fact NOT the center of the world. Also, what are the motives? I think this tends to be an occurrence in younger people, but in all fairness, there are certainly many examples of the opposite.

Poll: Predictions aside, who actually has a technologically illiterate older relative who wants to buy an ipad? What's their reaction when you tell them about it?

Internet consensus phase 1: the ipad is an oversized, underpowered iphone Internet consensus phase 2: Sure, *you* don't want one, and neither do I. but apple isn't thinking about you. This is for your mom who can't use a regular computer. The problem with theory 2 is that its been made by people who, by and large, do not actually plan to buy an ipad themselves, making their opinion a matter of punditry. Until the grandmas of the world raise their voices, we really don't have a way of knowing if its a reasonable prediction. So let's do a poll: what do your own elder relatives say about it? Are they interested? In the case of my own parents, they are both tech illiterate and would rather not be bothered with big, complex computer decisions. But for them, the path of least resistance is not to buy an ipad. For them, the simplest solution is just go to a store and buy a full sized computer for the same price with windows on it, and make do with what they've always known. The very people in my life least happy about complicated computers are the very people least likely to buy an apple gadget, regardless of how good it is. How do your elderly relatives feel about it? Have they thought about it?

Hi /r/pets. I need help deciding on which dog breed I should adopt.

I currently have a 4 year old male boxer. He is great with other animals and I've decided I want to get another dog. I think I would like to have another short-haired dog or one that doesn't shed much. I"ve been considering an english bulldog but I also like labradoodles. I have a low fenced in back yard so I need a breed that doesn't climb or jump fences. Any recommendations reddit?

Reddit, can you help me identify this song?

I have no idea who the artist is. All I know is that it sounded like an oldie from the 1950s or 60s. The song's main riff used "Westminster Quarters" with a strong backbeat. I've checked the Wikipedia entry on Westminster Quarters, but it's not any of the songs listed. I know it's not much... but any ideas? **EDIT: It took me almost a year but I finally figured out it was "Ding Dong, Ding Dong" by George Harrison.**

Why is it always Kirk vs. Picard for top Captain? Janeway, Archer, and Sisko had excellent qualities as well.

I've been watching a lot of DS9, Enterprise, and Voyager recently and think that in some ways their Captains are superior to Kirk and Picard. Keep in mind that Picard will probably always be my favourite Captain. However Janeway was able to hold together a crew of half Maquis, half Starfleet through some really rough times and across many years with the odds stacked greatly against them. Sisko had to juggle being the Emissary to the worm hole aliens, but also as Captain of DS9 and the Defiant and a leader in the Dominion War. That fella had a tough job. Same goes for Archer. He was the first out in space dealing with new alien species (Earth? Never heard of it). He also didn't have the Prime Directive or any other set rules to follow. Archer had to fly by the seat of his pants and hope that everything turned out ok. He also had to deal with the Xindi terrorists in the only way he knew how. Why does the battle for best Captain always come down to Kirk or Picard? There were excellent Captains of other ships dealing with worse problems. Does anyone think that Kirk or Picard would be able to lose half their crew, being lost 80+ years away from home and kill the Borg on the way? Discuss, please. This subreddit needs some discussion and love.

They are and have been little more than filler and bar background music to me...Great talent but..whatever............

.....If Steven Tyler is replaced not only will I never buy another Aerosmith CD...I will NEVER EVER give so much as another penny to a musical artist. I don't give a shit who you are or what you play. Stand up for this artist and founding member of a VERY historic band....did I mention I like Depeche Mode...Fuck A-smith and their tunes as far as I go...heh...walk THIS way, fags.... ...but right is right.....Steven Tyler fronts the band, Glimmer Twin 2 plays guitar and the rest of you cling and pretend to matter while Steve and Joe give you the career you had....Who the fuck even plays bass for them.......and who gives a shit??? Oh...and let's not even touch on his hot daughter.....as far as I am concerned he can be the lead singer of anything he wants and she can have my lunch money. And yes...I screamed FAGS at the TV when they did the Superbowl show a few years ago...and yes I gave them the finger for getting involved with Wayne and Garth... I guess what I am saying is that right is right...whether u like it or not. Who's idea was this....ths guy who came with with the new season of Scrubs?

Can reddit help me to identify this condition?

I have a friend whose father always needs to know my friend's current location. My friend will receive calls from his father every 2-3 hours. His father wouldn't allow him to go out (even to work) after 9 PM. His father will follow my friend to the workplace secretly sometimes. My friend works as a mechanic so he needs to go to his customers' place to repair something. Somehow his father just wants him to come back. His father is jobless and my friend is the breadwinner in the family. Can reddit help me to identify this condition and if possible suggest some approaches that my friend can take. EDIT : According to reddit, this is over-protective parent. So any suggestion for this condition? My friend is 23 years-old. Addendum : Seems like reddit thinks that my friend needs to have a good talk with his dad instead of letting it happen again and again. I will let my friend know what reddit suggests.

I cranked out an awesome game in 48 hours for the Global Game Jam! Did anyone else participate?

The global game jam went down this past weekend and my studio hosted a location down near Phoenix, AZ. In 48 hours I got about 6 hours of sleep, and the result was a game called **depict1**. Download it! (6 megs) More about it For anyone out there that game jammed this weekend, what were your results?

Guilty until proven innocent.

I watched this interview this morning. The thing that really made me cringe during the interview is that Gibbs is basically saying that this man will not receive a fair trial of any sort no matter where it takes place. Khlalid has already been determined guilty by the Executive branch which will now sway the decision of the judicial branch. Maybe I have missed something but aren’t the powers suppose to be separate. Khlalid might be guilty but the whole tone of Gibbs made my hair stand on end.

What made you lose faith in humanity? If you still have some, why?

For me it was the lack of support I received when my dad passed away. Never have I seen so little sympathy seen from the people I cared about. And now I'm considered a weirdo because of depression and panic disorder, when mostly what I need is some support.

Hi Reddit, what is the most devious or infuriating instance of griefing in an MMO you've experienced or inflicted?

* In WoW, before there were a lot of high levels on the server, maybe three weeks after the beta, my friend took his high level rogue, stalked this horde hunter, and would kill the hunter's pet only. The hunter ended up dual wielding to complete quests. Poor guy. * A friend of mine played UO where houses which were apparently an expensive thing to get. He would hold open houses under the pretense of selling his house and kill people once they entered the house. EDIT: Also, I remember that me and a friend infiltrated a fundamentalist christian WoW guild under the pretenses of being reformed Nigerian christians.

My computer won't boot with anything installed(CD drives, Modem, USB attachments). Help?

I got a Dell Deminsion 5150. I put 2 sticks of 512 Ram in it and a HDD. when I try putting the CD-ROM drives it wont boot up. It also refused to boot up when I hooked up my USB keyboard and mouse. So to get it up and running initially, I use my internal with an external IDE to usb Adapter kit and installed windows XP like that. It was up and running I got some of the programs intsalled. VLC, Firefox, Smart Defrag, etc. I didn't get the drivers installed yet but I don't think that is the problem. It won't boot up with ANYTHING installed or attached. the only thing that it will boot up with is the VGA and HDD, and RAM. I couldn't install the modem...yes I still have dial up but not by choice. So in conclusion WTF is wrong with my computer. The power supply is ok it has been tested. I am thinking it may be a motherboard issue which I hope it is not the issue. Someone just said I should flash the Bios page....Idk how to do that. never had to do it before. any tips?

Alright, someone has to have a better prank than this.

My friend is leaving her school and they have a study room, basically it's open to the opportunity for a well planned prank/defacing. The best idea I really could come up with is that everyone cuts off their pubes and puts them into a bowl. Then get glue and draw a big veiny dick on the window and proceed to throw the hair all over it.

Hey Reddit, can you recommend me some good metal bands?

I am not quite sure what sub-genre i am specifically talking about, but i recently got Mastodon's "Crack the Skye" and am really enjoying it. What are some other good bands and albums similar in style to them? Edit: this is really good you guys Thanks alot! I guess maybe i should tell a little more about myself, i have listened to metal before such as slayer, the fall of troy, Dethklok, angra, Metallica, symphony X, and some other stuff listed under "metal" in my music library. But this is still really useful, bands i am seeing echoed frequently are: Slayer, Baroness, Pantera, Gojira, opeth, Isis. and more obviously, and this is just based off of repetition. thanks for all the advice you guys. Also btw: i clicked on every link posted, so in retrospect, that was the best way to promote the band you like, even over the more thoughtful review - like posts...

My Girl Friend is a Female Cage Fighter, AH(er)A

My girl friend has been training to be a cage fighter for around a year and has fought in the cage once last September. She saw me do an AMA and thought it would be fun to do her own. Ask Her (almost) anything. [EDIT 1] Which Moderator should I send proof to? [EDIT 2] Bed time, we will resume in the morn. [EDIT 3] I am a girl.

The coolest game intro's you have seen.

I dont know why but Sword of the Stars: A murder of crows will always be one of my favorites :D.

So /r/ music, what do you guys think of the Grammys this year?

I think the Grammy's are losing touch with music more and more every year. They are increasingly losing sense of what entails "music" and just uses popularity charts for their decisions. I'm glad that Phoenix won something but I'm disappointed in their pseudo-snub of Lady GaGa, who is easily the best songwriter in pop music and only won dance Grammy's I believe. What do you guys think?

Are stealth bombers viable mission ships or purely for 0.0/PvP?

I can currently fly the Nemesis and am on my way to learning Torpedos. I know bombs are far too expensive unless you really need them, but would using this ship for missions be viable? Does it make sense? Is it risking way too much? I guess its silly to do anything solo missioning in a ship that's meant to be cloaked. Am I missing something?

Obviously I don't think you guys are this stupid.

But this guy is either a bot itself or a hacked accout: >[Mr.] SilverMaster proud to give you a game at DOT t35 DOT com The chat invite came via the Aussie Reddit group obviously, if anyone knows the guy, let him know if he doesn't already.

I'm thinking of having a minor in mathematics. What do you think?

My major is business, I probably will minor in Accounting. However, I think it would be good for me to major in math. I've always been good at it, and I'm taking my first calculus class and I find it genuinely interesting. What do you think?

Hey Reddit, I Just Got A New Puppy. What Should I Name Her?

The name has to be approved my my nine-year-old brother because it's technically "his" dog, but I'd love to hear some suggestions. Here is a picture of her. Name away, Reddit!

What's the highest you've ever gotten?

I took half a hit of some weed I can't completely remember the name of... I think it may have had chem e as part of it, but I didn't realize how strong it was and ended up flipping out for the next several hours. I literally felt like the music in the background was apart of me and had to keep reminding myself where I was, also keep in mind this was only like a $3 hit. Craziest fuckin experience of my life. On another note, anybody know some good sites to identify types of strains? Crazy experience as it was, I do not want to go through that again.

Can someone clearly and concisely explain time dilation?

I'm just looking for a basic, cocktail-party explanation. I've read a lot about it, and i can rattle off the effects of time dilation (slowing clocks, twin paradox, etc.), but i just can't seem to wrap my head around the *why*. Google isn't cutting it. Anyone? EDIT: Thanks for the great replies thus far. Definitely a bit clearer now. I would like to qualify "cocktail-party explanation," as some people don't seem to take kindly to the term. So, let's imagine it's a cocktail party full of nerds, capable of understanding physics, but without having taken a physics or math course in quite a long time.

Hi redditfitness! How does one get good at sports?

I never played sports growing up and it's very hard for me to develop muscle memory for anything. Actually, I lied. I was on a failing soccer team in middle school (we won 2 games the three years I was on it) and I was the WORST player on the team. In high school I took dance so I could get out of running the mile. Now whenever I watch people play sports at the park, they seem like theyre having a lot of fun, but I'm way too embarrassed to join if people ask me to. I took beginner classes in college for certain sports but the people in the classes were already athletic and picked it up much quicker than I could and I couldn't do the quick thinking at all. I don't know why the stereotype is that jocks are 'dumb' because sports seem to take an incredible amount of brain power. I know that there are success stories of fat people getting in shape by going to the gym--but what if I want to be *athletic* and be good at sports? What's a good sport to start with? Is there a way I could find other clumsy/awkwards like me who want to learn a sport together? I'm a 22yo female.

My xbox just red ringed for the 3rd time in 2 years, WHAT DID I DO TO DESERVE THIS!!!

Now another month+ of wasting my gamefly and netflix fees! Why is it not illegal for them to keep sending me another defective xbox!

I wonder if someone could explain to me why Christians became so indignant when Pat Robertson implied that the earthquake was divine doing for false religion. The Bible is absolutely full of quakes, floods, droughts, etc. to punish the non-believing. What Robertson said seems in line with the text.

Further, what did they think these things look like? You kill a city of people, it isn't pretty regardless of faith. Just wondering. Edit: I know that Robertson is not representative of all Christians and that most do not believe this. My only point is this: when your holy book is rife with similar experiences, one oughtn't be too surprised when a contemporary draws a similar conclusion and, in fact, he may be correct in doing so as the bible establishes the precedent for such theories.

Does anyone know how many attacks have been made against Indian people vs. other Australians in the past 12 months?

After the recent headline by a popular Indian newspaper ("Why the Aussies hate us") I was just wondering if this has been significantly blown out of proportion because of the amount of media attention certain assaults generate.

How can I change the levels of all computer sound output and not just iTunes?

I want to turn the bass up/down and so on, but for all sound output and not just iTunes(using equalizer). Is there any way to do so?

Hey reddit can you cheer me up? My best friend of 11 years hasn't contacted me in 2 weeks.

First of all I'm 19, and I've known him since 5th grade. I haven't spoken to him in 2 weeks but before that we texted daily or talked on the phone. Anyways, I'm not sure if he "broke it up" between us, but I can see why he would. I almost never leave my house unless I'm going to school, and I haven't hung out with him in months. Today Ive been trying to get a hold of him, texting him, and I even resorted to messaging him on facebook as he's almost always on. I keep having horrible thoughts like, what if he got in a terrible accident and his family doesn't know how to contact me. Or what if he just doesn't like me anymore and just broke up with me but decided not to tell me, so that I could figure it out on my own. Today I called his cellphone and some old man answered, I hung up and reassured myself that he had lost his phone, so I hang up, but then they call back and apparently I misdialed my uncle. I was reassured that he had lost his phone, but then suddenly proven wrong. So, I dial the right phone number and it goes straight to his leave me a message recording.. Can anyone please reassure me/ cheer me up? **EDIT: I've decided if we have a confrontation, and he tells me that we shouldn't be friends anymore. I'm gonna make one last joke, it's kind of an inside joke, but you see, in high school we used to hang out with a bunch of Mexican girls, and I decided one day that the group should have a name, so I came up with W.O.M.B (women of Mexican bitches).. Yeah the name isn't supposed to be super creative, but I couldn't think of a similar word for 'group'.. Anyways, if we stop being friends I'm gonna as for my 50 stock share that I invested into W.O.M.B...**

DAE think they could get away with murder?

I find myself in the situation of the teenagers in Murder by Numbers. I think that if I decided to kill somebody, I could actually get away with it. Now, hand to god, this is idle speculation brought on by that movie, but I find myself thinking what could(would?) go wrong. Am I alone in this?

How do you make pretty circles?

Whenever I see really cool mega constructions, one of the things I am most impressed by is the circular towers extending into the heavens. But whenever I try it, they always turn out kind of... oblong. I get by just fine with square towers and moats, but they just aren't as visually attractive. Is there some secret that I don't know, or is it just patience?

A question about boric acid and dissociation

I'm currently taking the first level of college chemistry, and while attempting to finish a lab report, I became ridiculously confused. The post laboratory questions include the statement that both H3PO4 and H3BO4 are polyprotic acids, and refer you to the textbook for information on how to write out the disassociation steps for each of them. The phosphoric acid (H3PO4) brought up no issues for me. However, I had read online that boric acid (H3PO4) did not dissociate in water. I looked up "boric acid" in the index of my textbook, and turned to a section on boron compounds. H3BO3 was mentioned, and refered to it as boric acid. The text explicitly stated that boric acid was not a polyprotic acid, but a monoprotic acid - instead of losing a hydrogen ion to create H30, H3BO3 accepted an OH ion from the water to create B(OH)4. I wasn't too worried at that point; though both H3BO3 and H3BO4 were referred to as boric acid, the formulas were different, so it seemed entirely possible that H3BO4 could dissociate in water though H3BO3 could not. But when I looked online, I couldn't find very much information on the difference between the two. I found H3BO3 being called orthoboric acid, but occasionally the formula for orthoboric acid was given as H3BO4. Though I couldn't find much mention of H3BO4, it was most often called perboric acid, which I couldn't find any useful information on. The easy thing to do would be to use the same dissociation steps for H3BO4 as I had for H3PO4 with every P replaced with a B, but since I know one form of boric acid is unique in that its formula resembles that of a polyprotic acid but actually is a monoprotic acid, I'm not sure if something strange would also be going on with H3PO4. ... I am so confused. Anyone?

Did anybody else get confusing feelings about Sigourney Weaver's avatar?

ok, maybe not "confusing", but it was definitely made to get a certain rise out of people. edit: no pun intended

Thoughts of suicide becoming ever more prevalent.

I've been moderately depressed for a long while now (probably 7-8 years). Normally it really isn't all too bad. But as of late my lows have become much more devastating and my highs less frequent to where I feel like I'm constantly fighting an uphill battle. I maintained a 4.0 for my first three and a half years of college but now I can barely even bring myself to open my textbook to do my homework. I've started questioning whether I actually care about anything. I can't really see myself enjoying the life I have planned for myself, or any other life for that matter. I've also started neglecting my health. Since last summer I had gotten incredibly healthy and lost somewhere around 80-85lbs of fat and put on a significant amount of muscle. But as of late I've returned to eating shitty food and making self-destructive choices. I've started playing around with doses of the different pharmaceuticals that I normally take without much concern to what I am probably doing to my body. Last night I consumed probably 5oz. of everclear and 75mg of ephedrine sulfate just to see what would happen. I've never done anything like that before...I don't know what the hell is going on with me.