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[Skyrunner]

hehe, I feel like I wasted the better part of my day :/

[Pnx]

Nope, all the good feels I had are all gone today.
I hate myself, ugh.

[Lagslayer]

While I understand the frustration, I also believe that if someone isn't properly prepared to defend a controversial position, then everyone is better off for their silence.  It's how I generally conduct myself, and I don't think it's too much to ask of anyone else.  Stating something that you know others are going to disagree with and then denying them the ability to disagree is basically saying that you're the only person allowed to have an opinion.  Sure, maybe sometimes there's value in having some space where people of like mind can blow off steam, so long as they're not living all their lives in an echo chamber... but don't make use of space that you share with others that disagree with you for that purpose.  That's simply an invasion.  An attempt to dominate that space for your own purposes.

The above is not directed at anyone here.  Just sharing in inEQUALITY's little rant.

To continue with what Salmy said: If you haven't put the thought into your opinions and decide to blather it all over a place non-like-minded people, don't be surprised if they decide to force some thought on you. :I

It isn't that I don't put a lot of thought into how I describe my position. It usually comes down to them going "too long, didn't listen", and just cherry picking whatever bits they happened to catch.

And if I shorten it to "I am X in many ways, but Y and Z are a bit different", then I am forever labeled as a hardline X. And most people aren't willing to sit down and talk about it for the next couple of hours for me to clarify that I am not what they thought I was.

And while I understand most people don't have time for this sort of thing, it makes it difficult to nigh impossible for anyone to take a new idea/opinion seriously.

[SalmonGod]

While I understand the frustration, I also believe that if someone isn't properly prepared to defend a controversial position, then everyone is better off for their silence.  It's how I generally conduct myself, and I don't think it's too much to ask of anyone else.  Stating something that you know others are going to disagree with and then denying them the ability to disagree is basically saying that you're the only person allowed to have an opinion.  Sure, maybe sometimes there's value in having some space where people of like mind can blow off steam, so long as they're not living all their lives in an echo chamber... but don't make use of space that you share with others that disagree with you for that purpose.  That's simply an invasion.  An attempt to dominate that space for your own purposes.

The above is not directed at anyone here.  Just sharing in inEQUALITY's little rant.

To continue with what Salmy said: If you haven't put the thought into your opinions and decide to blather it all over a place non-like-minded people, don't be surprised if they decide to force some thought on you. :I

It isn't that I don't put a lot of thought into how I describe my position. It usually comes down to them going "too long, didn't listen", and just cherry picking whatever bits they happened to catch.

And if I shorten it to "I am X in many ways, but Y and Z are a bit different", then I am forever labeled as a hardline X. And most people aren't willing to sit down and talk about it for the next couple of hours for me to clarify that I am not what they thought I was.

And while I understand most people don't have time for this sort of thing, it makes it difficult to nigh impossible for anyone to take a new idea/opinion seriously.

I can sympathize with that.  It drives me crazy, too, how people who disagree with you will actively filter your words for anything they can construe as negative.  Then they'll focus on that bit and pretend all the context you provided doesn't exist.

[Helgoland]

Meh, that's often justified - falsification just needs one example, after all. It just gets annoying when they ignore the reasons that their propesed counter-example scenario can't happen...

[scrdest]

I'm sitting with a bunch of papers in my hand, and I feel the circles under my eyes getting darker.

I have a test tomorrow, plus another one on Friday. The former demands me to learn an absurd number of chemical reactions, along with the colours, flame coloration, etc., of all the goddamn positive ions. The reactions use fucking ridiculous reagents and/or result in absurdly complex salts as well. (Zn|Co)[Hg(SCN)4] for instance.

I've been studying the damn thing for over a month, but by now what I memorized about the higher groups pushed what I memorized but the lower ones out of memory. Now I'm trying to push everything back into my head, but that's just too big a volume of UTTERLY FUCKING POINTLESS data to memorize.

I'm fairly certain that I'm going to forget everything about those in under a month since the test anyway, and at this point I'm just giving up and starting to cram whatever won't fall out of my head by tomorrow noon.

And after the test, I will go home, and START STUDYING FOR THE VERY NEXT BLOODY TEST. WHICH IS ALSO CHEMISTRY, ALBEIT ORGANIC, AND WHICH I DON'T NEED EITHER. FML.

[Solifuge]

Worried about my family. Grandma and Grandpa are driving alone to the UP for another funeral for one of my grand-uncles, and I worry about them being safe; my Grandmother's vision and memory are not what they used to be, and my grandpa is already in the late stages of dementia. My other grandmother just had her 4th surgery on her legs and hips... and had my father not been there to correct them, the surgeons would have started operating on the wrong side too. She seems like she's close to giving up, and cracks "jokes" about why they won't just let her die already. My mother's pretty much never going to be on the liver donor list, and those years of alcoholism are continuing to take their toll on her... sometimes she does better, but lately she's been doing steadily worse. And my father had a birthday yesterday, and didn't answer any calls. Apparently he was sitting awake in the dark in his living room at 1am... I'm worried about depression. And he recently had a health scare too, with potentially lethal blood pressure levels.

Basically, I'm afraid I'm going to start losing my closest family members, and soon.

[scrdest]

I always hated tests once I got out of GCSE.

Learning things in school is fine, I found it interesting. But once it came to tests, it left 'remember these interesting facts!' and turned into 'REMEMBER THIS WORD FOR WORD AND MEMORISE THESE EQUATIONS! I KNOW THEY'RE USELESS AND BORING, BUT YOU MUST DO SO!'

Yeah, that's why if someone was to try and turn me away from any given subject, he should subject me to formal education about it. Tests can kill your enjoyment of any subject.

History? REMEMBER THE TEN OTHERWISE MEANINGLESS DIGITS THAT DESCRIBE WHEN THAT EVEN WE DIDN'T TELL YOU MUCH ABOUT HAPPENED!

Literature? AND NOW LET'S BE CREATIVE: WRITE YOUR INTERPRETATION OF THAT TEXT, PROVIDED IT'S EXACTLY WHAT I HAVE IN MIND. OTHERWISE, YOU GET AN F!

Chemistry? WELL, NOW MEMORIZE TEN THOUSAND PROPERTIES OF SOMETHING, WHICH WON'T BE OF ANY USE TO YOU, EVEN IF YOU WERE STRANDED WITH A FUCKTON OF LAB EQUIPMENT! THEN WRITE DOWN THE EQUATIONS!

Physics? WHO CARES ABOUT THE COOL STUFF WE USE IT FOR, EQUATIONS AHOY!

[Helgoland]

Okay, in history and literature I understand, but chemistry and physics - come on, physics - without equations? That's like claiming you understand quantum physics when really just know about Schrödinger's cat; in other words, utterly ridiculous. In chemistry, that's less true, but still to some degree - and AFAIK the 'cool stuff' is mostly in the engineering department

On a somewhat different note:

*Helgoland covers Solifuge in earwax

Just like the peoples do! Right?

[Pnx]

Worried about my family. Grandma and Grandpa are driving alone to the UP for another funeral for one of my grand-uncles, and I worry about them being safe; my Grandmother's vision and memory are not what they used to be, and my grandpa is already in the late stages of dementia. My other grandmother just had her 4th surgery on her legs and hips... and had my father not been there to correct them, the surgeons would have started operating on the wrong side too. She seems like she's close to giving up, and cracks "jokes" about why they won't just let her die already. My mother's pretty much never going to be on the liver donor list, and those years of alcoholism are continuing to take their toll on her... sometimes she does better, but lately she's been doing steadily worse. And my father had a birthday yesterday, and didn't answer any calls. Apparently he was sitting awake in the dark in his living room at 1am... I'm worried about depression. And he recently had a health scare too, with potentially lethal blood pressure levels.

Basically, I'm afraid I'm going to start losing my closest family members, and soon.

Yeesh... yeah, I know this feeling. Both my parents are in bad health, and I regularly have nightmares about it...

*hugs*

[scrdest]

Okay, in history and literature I understand, but chemistry and physics - come on, physics - without equations? That's like claiming you understand quantum physics when really just know about Schrödinger's cat; in other words, utterly ridiculous. In chemistry, that's less true, but still to some degree - and AFAIK the 'cool stuff' is mostly in the engineering department

On a somewhat different note:

*Helgoland covers Solifuge in earwax

Just like the peoples do! Right?

Claiming you understand quantum physics is utterly ridiculous in itself, even if you studied it your whole life.

You can teach people physics without using equations. Or rather, I should say, without focusing on the equations. Physics is, after all, a language used to describe the world. You can tell someone how you can exploit how pressure works to lift things without immediately demanding he calculates exactly how many millimeters you can lift something by using X amount of force. Sure, once you do that, you can show people how to use the equations to find out.

Equations are useful, but they are abstractions. And abstractions that are perceived as disconnected from reality are discarded.

And chemical equations (as in, for reactions, the substance X + substance Y yields substance Z, not physical equations used in chemistry) aren't of much use except for determining the stechiometric relations; on their own they tell you nothing about whether the reaction takes place, how it takes place, how the actual compound is shaped even.

[Hanslanda]

I have a date tomorrow.

Aaaand got stood up.

[Loud Whispers]

EARWAX BATTLE!

Why have you needed to use these words. These two words, compounded together. Just no. Keep your bodily humours inside your orifices and call an armistice for your horrific attack of asphyxiation. My mind can only picture so much, and I must now stare at a blank wall for 40 days and 40 nights to forget such a thing.

[Descan]

I have a date tomorrow.

Aaaand got stood up.

I'd never stand you up, Hanspanda.

[Mephansteras]

Spend almost 4 hours last night attempting to get some work done after I got home. Network issues and server problems prevented it. Now I'm looking at working again tonight on the same task. Except at least this time I might be able to actually get stuff done.