Defining dignity isn't the problem. The problem is making so many people adopt the value despite their own highly-complex lives that leave little desire for pain and discomfort. It takes a certain amount of wisdom to share good with others regardless of one's own suffering.

The problem is making people see value in that.

...I wanted to change the community tag of this post to #commentshitshow, but Hubski hubski.com/r'd on me, and now I can't change anything. mk

I know there's been studies linking social media and depression

I did a project for my Psychology course in the uni, a translation of a study. The point of study was that there are two ways in which people compare themselves to others: upward (when you look up to someone and feel sorry for not having it just as good) and downward (when you look down and someone and pity them for not having it as you good as you do). It's especially prominent in social media.

Upward comparison leads to narcissism and self-centeredness. Downward comparison leads to decreased self-esteem and is a contributing factor towards depression.

Job prospects and having hope in the future are an issue too I'm sure

I can only speak for my country, but it seems like it's a problem present in both Russia and the US, to varying degrees. Here, most people insist that you need "the paper" (a uni or similar higher ed diploma) to get a job. Most people study just to get it, regardless of the degree or the university, because they believe it allows them the promised prospects.

Government jobs necessitate it, which is understandable, but there are plenty of jobs where skill is all you need yet where "the paper" is a requirement. Translation, for example: if you possess a decent level of the language, it's easy to see what is a good translation and what is not.

I don't have a clue whether it's as bad as people say it is. I've only ever been in semi-official positions: car wash, construction; neither asked me for the diploma. "Get to work". "Yes, sir".

My sister's first degree is in beer brewing. Her mother insisted she get "the paper", and my sister still had no specialty job; closest she got to beer was bartending. Her second is in legal; she had a migration service job for a while, then moved on to court office. She's been trying to get the education she wanted - social work - for a few years now, and every time there's a bump on the road - and she can't enter the uni that year. She's 33.

Our Economics 101 teacher, much as I dislike her, made a good point when she said that higher education gets devalued through the increase in student influx. When everyone needs a degree even to mop the floors (which a cliche people use when describing the situation), you get overcrowded classes, a ton of students who don't give a crap about the field and, therefore, more work for the same small staff of teachers. Her point was that, with more students who get into higher ed because they "have to", there are fewer genuine specialists ready to work in the field, and in an already-oversaturated job market, it can only lead to people working somewhere other than their field of expertise.

BSc as of yesterday and, hopefully, BSc² on Friday.

Holy shit, dude! Congratulations!!

Cyberpunk 2020 that I'll be GMing and the continuation of 'no casters allowed' D&D campaign prepared by the abovementioned friend.

I'm jealous.

Surviving... decently well. Trying hard to escape into my hobby projects. Wish I could do those for a living right about now.

Doing anything better would require radically changing my daily regimen, habits and attitudes. Flipping the script. It's hard. It's scary. It needs to be done.

If you don't hear from me for a while, it's because I'm busy. If you see a lot of posts from me, it's because I'm really working.

EDIT: Actually, there is something I wanted to tell people:

Dota 2 is making me a worse person.

You subscribe to the standards of the group you spend a lot of time with. The Dota community, immature that it often is, made me less respectful and less patient. It offers quick rewards and barely any punishment for claiming to having slept with someone's mother (whether they're allies or enemies).

If I were to tell you the kinds of things I hear every day while playing, even your ears would fold onto themselves. This isn't a good environment for mindfulness and the better side of humanity. Neither Dota 2 nor its community foster or encourage virtues. It takes effort to power through the vile and the infuriating to get to something productive.

I used to think I was growing thicker skin because of the exposure. I think I did grow some: out-of-the-blue insults usually invoke laughter rather than dysphoria. Now, I also think it pushes me towards my worse, viler instincts.

I enjoy the game. I like the gameplay and I know it pretty well. Motivation plus experience equals a flow-like process of gaming. I wonder if there's a better way to enjoy it and to encourage communication and teamplay.

Glad you're making the move. I think that's the only thing to do once you know you can't move further without breaking something. Then again, I'm not to say (see above).

In other news, Bethesda is teasing some new Fallout thing...

There's a teaser out.

We are not amused.

Send photos and snacks.

and also a "thinnest fat man" descriptor.

Unrelated, but - did I hear your disliking social sciences? Why, if so?

The more I hear about it, the more I come to the conclusion that there's no coherent, objective "you". What seems most obvious to us a unit of human soul is, in fact, a series of ever-changing patterns. You're not the person you were five years ago; not the person you were even an hour ago.

And yet, "you" isn't entirely plastic as such a view would suggest. We can't will a 180 from an introvert to an extrovert, or from conservative to liberal. We can come close to embodying those ideas but will never be comfortable with being them as much as "native-born" such people are.

From what I gather, the answer to the nature of "you" lives in the crossing of genetic characteristics (what is entirely innate to us) and the patterns we've absorbed throughout our lives (what is learned into us).

It's a damn shame, playing Walter White when you aren't smart enough.

mk: I have no idea where the extra height comes from.

Looked through the page with Google Developer thing: none of the elements increase height but <body> itself, for no apparent reason. Might be due to the <iframe>, but that would be your guess.

Also, I'm stealing the tip of increasing font weight on lower-width devices.

Already down 10 lbs in a couple weeks.

Bloody hell, man. Good job!

...boy howdy.

has to type ~400 symbols

discovers that pressing a key does the trick quickly

Oh, this is eas--

new window pops up, says "Choose the pre-determined option and press one of two labelled buttons"

Oh, ok--

another window pops up, says "Write ~400 symbols for a co-worker's e-mail"

Crap--

another windows pops up, says "Choose the pre-deter--

closes tab

Okay. Not doing this again.

So, I tried to change the community tag to #sjw, but a 502 appeared, and now I can't change anything and the tag is still bullshit.

Fucking hell, this is beautiful! Nice work!

Please keep the neckbeard jokes to the minimum.

Plenty could be said about your disposition withour resorting to neckbeard jokes. >:)

I was then promptly told to "fuck off."

Aren't they lovely.

Shame you had to move. Remember our discussing using the phrase "I AM THE LAW!"? Now's a good time to use it. In the middle of the night. BAM! "We've had noise complaints".

Got 5.5 from the CFT exam

Fucking congratulations! You told me 5.5 is reserved for extraordinary achievements, so - fucking hell, nice work!

to grok

This is becoming a thing, isn't it? ref's gonna skin you alive.

Wouldn't recommend it as a first programming language

They say JavaScript should be your first programming language: it may not be up to the standards of stuffy uppity neckbeards, but it does the thing it set out to do with some passion behind it. In this regard, it's like Esperanto: studies show that learning Esperanto cuts the time you need to learn a real language by a lot (just Wikipedia "Esperanto" for sources).

As a person looking into converting my diet to a healthier one, I want to ask: why go paleo? What swung your vote?

I never liked Bootstrap for one particular reason:

'Cause once you have the theory of how the thing works

Everybody wants the next thing to be just like the first

via

Sure, it lets you build a website in a jiffy if you know how to use it - but it takes away the personal touch and the expression of the designer in a way that tends to hurt the overall impression from the page. It's the IKEA of furniture. We have a better saying for it over here: "дёшево и сердито". Means it's cheap but does the job well enough not to complain.

I write the CSS by hand every time. Not the least factor in this is that it's my pleasure, but it also allows me to give each web creation its own flavour and spirit. No two pages are similar unless they have to be. Most of the time, for both JS and CSS, I end up learning something new or refreshing the old material; must I say how good that is?

I also try to write a "Table of Contents" as soon as possible. Break the large piece into small steps.

This is something I tried this year with the papers and essays I had to write: make headings or comments as to what should be there. Worked quite well: even as I was stressing out about them, I was able to make good progress every time.

Thanks for sharing, either way.

Stop making excuses. Go to class every day. It's the easiest way to raise your grade, whatever bullshit excuse you make to not go is just a bullshit excuse.

You're right. This is what I've been doing all along. Making excuses for not working on what needs to be done, let alone something I'd enjoy doing. Thank you for pointing it out.

At some point, fear itself becomes more painful than the pain of doing the work.

There's something modern and digital-ish about you in those glasses.

Those look good on you, man. Stylish.

Too Many Zooz performing live in a subway station tunnel in New York. Just amazing, the sound they produce. It is somehow optimistic in how upbeat it is.

Laibach made in on my list after being mentioned on the Last Week Tonight show. Its Tanz mit Laibach was used as an election soundtrack somewhere, I believe.

There's no need for such pessimism. I know you've invested yourself and your resources quite a bit in the election. The fact that your investment didn't pay off as much as you - and many like you - hoped doesn't mean that the end is nigh.

America is clearly holding its own, both on governmental and citizen level, against this outside-inside assault. Just look at the people refusing to do the crazy president's bidding! It's astonishing just how organized in their discontent have come to be and how collected in their outpour of action. Separate persons and entire states are saying "No" to the narcissist-in-chief, and there seems to be no stopping to that.

I don't think the end of the US is anywhere near. This is definitely going to leave a scar, but scars remind us never to make the same mistake again. You guys surely will make it happen out there - and if you aren't impressed that a Russian is telling you that, I don't know how you ever will be.

Consider a blog. It's a lot less writing per unit of writing.

Tomorrow morning I will make origami and put it in a card because my daughter misses me.

I find gifting origami a very personal and profound experience: you're not only giving them a folded piece of paper - you're giving them a part of your soul. It took a few mistakes to understand this.

I hope your daughter appreciates the personal touch... even though I'm somehow sure she'd appreciate just about anything you give her just because you're her daddy and she - your little princess.

(is it pretentious or obnoxious of me to even talk about your daughter?)

I can't even begin to comprehend what you're going through. I can only somewhat empathize with how you feel right now.

But you're a Hubskier. So, the least I could say is - get well. You've been through a lot. I hope that the pendulum swings forth for you as much as it swung back.

I've noticed that there's a lot of destructive noise around places I most frequent; that, or I'm inclined to create the noise in my head as a result of the ritual about those places.

So...

Tomorrow, I'll be going dark for a week.

I'm going to limit my Internet usage to necessities (crucial communications, urgent activities) and reading the articles from the bookmarks.

I was going to use Twitter with the profound purpose of subscribing to at least one positive thought a day while dark, but registering to Twitter seems to be far more complicated than I remember. In particular, I was required to add my phone number to the account so that someone would call me - to verify it, I suppose? - which is not something I'm comfortable with.

I'll figure something out. Might put that GitHub free hosting to use. Or file an Instagram account: start making photos. I'm committing to the idea of one positive thought a day.

I'll post the results once I'm back.

In the meantime: have a good one.

I just wanna say that it's cool that you and your wife both are here.

Congratulations! x2

(those are great photographs. what camera did you use?)

Looks great.

Also, this might be the only side-independent way of portraying Earth's geography as a design element. Do a straight cylindrical projection, and it turns one-sided.