u/Crafty-Bunch-2675

When I was younger and more naive about the world, The Pursuit of Happiness came out in theaters. It was advertised as this great story of following your dreams and never giving up.

Of course it also helped sell the idea, that the actual guy the movie was based on, also did some of the promo, selling a sanitized version of his rise to wealth.

But now that I am older and have experienced my own brushes with poverty... it made me realize: this guy is a total jerk.

(1) this is a married man with a wife and child to take care of, who keeps abandoning his financial responsibility to his family, to chase personal dreams.

(2) the movie itself showed in a flashback, that the family was actually doing OK, before Chris decided to invest all their money in the bone scanners.

(3) No matter how many times his wife reminds him that the bone scanners are not selling... Chris refuses to get a more stable job. This is not an 18 y/o with a dream. This is a grown man with a family to take care of.

(4) he is so single-minded in the Pursuit of his own goals...that he never really stops to acknowledge how much stress he is putting his wife through. Not once in the entire movie, did he ever try to show appreciation to his wife for holding down the fort, not once.

The movie tries so hard to make the wife look like a b! ... but in retrospect, her frustrations are totally justified.

Trust me, upon rewatching the movie, it becomes painfully obvious that the subject himself had a heavy hand in the script, to paint his wife as a villainess and make himself look like a blameless hero.

What's really funny is that, despite trying to make himself look like a hero, the movie still reveals how much of an a-hole he is to his loved ones, and from what I understand; there's even more negative stuff that he conveniently left out of the film.

In many fields of medicine, you often come across treatment protocols that say:

xyz treatment if the patient has a life expectancy of more than 5 years.

abc treatment if the patient has a life expectancy of less than 5 years.

But then nowhere in the textbook does it explain how you as the doctor are supposed to calculate the patient's life expectancy in the first place.

So many advanced diseases, have treatment protocols that show different recommendations based on life expectancy either above or below a certain threshold. e.g. "life expectancy above 10 years, do x, if life expectancy is less than 10 years, do y" ....and then they never explain how you're supposed to calculate the life expectancy.

urg!

Whenever I try looking it up online, I find so many mathematical formulas that it leaves me more confused than any closer to the answer.

The only thing I guess is... the more comorbid conditions the person has, the lower their life expectancy (shrugs)

Some days, the progressiveness of one's myopia feels more like a luck of the draw than any significant lifestyle change.

Take my profession. I have to spend several hours a day studying textbooks. So does everyone else in my class/profession. Yet some people have very mild myopia, others don't need glasses at all. We all read the same heavy textbooks.

Now let's take the common advice of spend less time on screens

How is any average income or poor person supposed to spend less time using screens, when screen-use is integrated into every aspect of life, from childhood all the way until adulthood.

Screens are fully integrated into school-life.. and unless you were gifted with sporting talent.. then you simply MUST study hard at school to get a job.

Most jobs require lots of daily reading and computer work.

The folks I know who don't use glasses, haven't made any herculean efforts to avoid phone use. They don't live in the forest. They don't live without technology. They use screens just as much as we myopes do. They play videogames too. They binge watch Netflix too. They just have good eyesight genes, so it doesn't hurt them as much.

Its like... how can I put it...

All the digital age has done is basically made life harder for those of us with a genetic tendency towards myopia.

I look back at my childhood, and ...short of being born rich, so that I didn't have to study so much, or being a sports prodegy...I can't think of any lifestyle change I could have realistically made to slow down my myopia progression.

There's no amount of diet and exercise I could have done to prevent this.

How could I have spent less time reading/on screens and still have passed school and got a job?

TLDR: It feels like, in this digital age: those of us with vulnerable genetics are basically screwed ans will get high myopia no matter what... and those without those bad genes... will only get mild myopia at most, without any significant change to their lifestyle.

I wish I had better eyesight genes. I wish the artificial eyes like Batou from ghost in the shell, existed, and that I could afford it. lol. Sigh... end of rant.

I wanted to learn a Michael Jackson song, and surprise, surprise,

"Sorry, this artist has told us we can't show this tab.Help us change their mind!
Tell us why you want to learn this song or why it is important to you, and we will share these directly with the artist or their representative.
Your words and your story can make a difference."

I don't get it. If the tabs are unofficial interpretations BY FANS. And its just showing you how to play the song... how is that copyrighted? Shouldn't that fall under fair use?

How do artists benefit from preventing fans from learning their songs ?

And in the case of Michael Jackson, the artist is already dead, anyway. What gives ?

There's a typo in the title. Sorry. Its supposed to say "motivational stuff"

I know there is so much talkin about bad role models out there. People on blogs that encourage "bad behavior" but then there's Arnold.

I have had certan struggles in life, and when I feel down I sometimes search for motivational videos online.

I landed on a few of Arnold's motivational speeches and it just... resonated with me. I still have many of those saved as a personal playlist on YT.

Even if I am not personally into body building, I still watch the Arnold classic sometimes just to hear Arnold speak. There's something so inspiring in the light you see in all the younger body builder's eyes, whenever Arnold walks into the room.

Then, it was only a few weeks ago, when hit with...a different life challenge, I came across his actual newsletter.

I don't know how exactly to express it in words... but reading Arnold's words and listening to his motivational speeches... has helped me out of so many... tough spots.

Many celebrities give the occasional pep-talk; but for Arnold in particular, it just seems like... he genuinely enjoys motivating people. It's like a whole vocation for him.

It's not just body building, he just... generally does this motivational thing all the time. And it really helps, in all aspects of life.

I don't know where he gets that inspiration to keep motivating people to do their best... but... its appreciated.

The next line isn't meant to offend any non-religious person, so please just take it as a general "good vybes" statement.

God bless Arnold. I think he is doing the Lord's work, the way he keeps trying to spread positvity.

I would encourage any young man going through struggle... start listening to Arnold Schwarzenegger.

For the 100th time, some well meaning colleage asked why didn't you and your wife have children just after the marriage, didn't you guys go on a honeymoon?

Yes. I know. Sex-Ed classes in high school teach us that if you look at someone hard enough they will get pregnant.

We know for most people, conception is as easy as having a one night stand.

Like, thanks for questioning my bedroom life; but FYI, yes we do the tango like any other married couple.

But, conception... just hasn't happened for us. Ok.

WE WISH CONCEPTION WERE THAT EASY FOR US!

Like it's hard enough for a couple to be dealing with fertility issues... but the random speculation that we aren't doing it enough or that there may be some impotence involved is so insulting!

Remember how in season 3, half of the season is spent with the whole team trying to pressure Aang into taking out the FireLord permanently ? How much this conflicted with Aang's own pacificist Airbender teachings ?

I think the Aang vs Azula fight from s2 can be very effectively used in that dialog when the time comes.

In the live-action Netflix series, we get a scene that is very, very reminiscent of the original Cartoon's finale. We have Aang in full Avatar state, towering over Azula, with projectiles aimed at her head.... and then he lets her go. As a direct result of that hesitation, Azula shoots him, the battle is lost, and they have to flee the city.

In season 3, that can be directly called back in the dialog, when they are getting ready to fight the firelord.

In the original cartoon, when they were practising for the final battle, with the melon puppet, I remember Sokka getting impatient with Aang's hesitance: until he walks up and dismembers the puppet (off-screen of course) to show aang what's expected of his duty.

That line of dialog can easily be updated for the live action by having Sokka say : don't hesitate, like you did with Azula in Ba Sing Se.

I'm actually really hoping that somewhere in season 3 they use a line like that.

TLDR: I think that the change they made, instead of having Azula, shoot Aang from a distance, whilst he was distracted as in the original cartoon; and instead on the Netflix show: having her shoot Aang point blank, because he hesitated to kill her, was an improvement to the story and they should capitalize on it, in the season 3 dialog.

Sometimes an ending can make or break a movie. But for me the ending of this movie actually brought it up a few points.

That ending was so satisfying, in a way that I haven't felt in a long while

SPOILER. It's been a while since I have seen a movie where the scheming villain gets their comeuppance in such a satisfying way, much less in a horror !

The true villain of this movie, isn't the innocent possessed girl, or the Demon itself. No. The real villain is the woman who kidnapped the girl in the first place.

I was so disappointed when the cop accidentally shot the suspect in the house. It didn't seem like justice, considering the level of crime she commited.

But oh boy, do they get back at her in the end !

The father is such a boss for the takedown at the end !

The father absorbs the Demon from the daughter, let's his wife perform the mummification ritual on him... and then the family brings the Demon straight back to the woman who kidnapped their daughter in the first place, and the father regurgitates the Demon right back to the woman who cursed his family.

Like a boss!

That was such a boss move !! 🙌🙌🙌🙌.

This woman kidnapped their innocent daughter, just to pass on her family curse to an innocent child.

I know horror movies often just end in sad misery or a cheesy to be continued but it's not often that a horror ends with such a satisfying takedown.

My parents are very sick. In fact, my remaining living parent is sick from a disease that's common to my own specialty.

This isn't a pity party.

I try to find the positive in things. I think it makes me more empathetic.

However, as you all know... sometimes in grief, people lash out with the you doctors and nurses have no idea what we are going through and don't care

Whenever that happens... I can usually defend my nurses by giving the family member a nice 5 min recap about what I've had to do for my sick parent with the same disease as the current admitted patient , in the past few days, it usually gets the offended party to calm down.

Yes. Doctors and nurses do understand what you are going through. We have sick family to take care of too. Sometimes our sick family has the exact same condition as yours. So we do, in fact, get it. We know the pain too.

My laptop is a Lenovo IdeaPad 3. It is about 5 years old now. The summer weather is extremely hot, but I always have it on with an under fan, plus a normal desk fan blowing on it.

Over the last week, due to frequent power outages in my apartment building, I have begun carrying my laptop to work more often to charge it and use it to study etc... my backpack has a built in padded laptop compartment, and I never carry the laptop switched on.

Yet this problem began a few days after. Does carrying a laptop around, damage it, even if it's off and in a padded bag ?

Should I just refrain from moving it, from now on ?

Right now, it took 5 restarts to get it back to normal.

What should I do to troubleshoot, now that it's on and displaying properly?

If it's one thing I really wish Facebook would fix, with all their billions, is how hard it is to share links to a specific Facebook post.

I would say, about 50% of the time I try to share a marketplace item listing to someone else or vice versa, it doesn't work.

E.g. let's say there's a "used car" themed Marketplace group. Someone tries to send me a link for a specific car up for sale. I can clearly see the thumbnail of the specific post...but when I click it...I instead get redirected to the front page of the group, and I then have to scroll, to look for the item. Often times, I can never even find the item on a manual search.

Same thing has happened to me too. I could be looking at an item, send the link to someone else...but when they open it... same thing... they get taken to the group's front page instead.

This happens even if I have already joined the group and I'm a participating member.

The cartoon had the burden of having to with-hold details about the Fire Nation First Family and what Firelord Ozai looked and sound like, because he was supposed to be revealed as the big bad at the end of the show.

The live-action, however, is unburdened by that, and I just love how they use this as an opportunity to flesh out the character of Ozai and, by extension, the whole First Family.

I feel like Ozai is a much better villain here because of the amount of screentime and characterization he is given from the very start of the show.

I like how, instead of just being cruel for cruel sake, the writers make sure to show flashbacks that show Ozai explaining in his own words why he is so tough on Zuko.

In Ozai's mind, he only knows one way to show strength and leadership, and since Zuko is his first born, he is trying to "toughen" Zuko up for the role of future Firelord The flashbacks show Ozai and Ursa going back and forth several times about competing parenting styles. Ursa thinks Ozai is being too strict, and Ozai thinks Ursa is making Zuko too soft.

(Even if its just a fantasy show, and in the context of "the villain," it's still a very realistic scene, and one could easily imagine such an argument happening in a normal household.)

To add to Ozai's frustration, the only child who is becoming "tough" is Azula, who in Ozai's own words is "a spare" and a constant reminder of his own betrayal of his older brother, Iroh.

They even had Ozai make a remark to Azula about "second borns" being stronger in the family.

He occasionally complements Azula, yes, but it's always with a hidden insult because seeing Azula outperform Zuko, probably makes Ozai feel guilty about how he gained the crown, himself.

Because on some level, Ozai knows that usurping his brother was wrong, and he doesn't want the embarrassment of the same scandal happening under his watch. After all, if his first-born son is beaten by his younger sister, Ozai probably thinks it will make himself look weak and ineffective as a father.

SPOILER:

Everyone who has watched the cartoon, and then s2 of the Tv show, knows that there is a scene where Toph is led astray from the group, with the promise of meeting her mother, and is captured.

For the purpose of not doxxing, I won't screenshot the exact post, but I came across this post where someone screenshot that particular scene and used it as a springboard to criticize the show's writing by claiming they couldn't understand how Toph was captured if she has earthbending and seismic sense.

Now, see here, this is an example of how the criticisms come across more like rage-bait than anything else. Because Toph is captured almost the exact same way in the original cartoon.

Twenty years ago, when I was a teenager, I understood perfectly how Toph was captured, because the promise of meeting her mother, was enough of a distraction to make her let her guard down, just long enough for the bounty hunters to spring their trap, before she could react.

Now in the TV, show, the writers made the trap even more obvious, by having the mother to show up in person as live bait, to spring the trap on Toph, they even added, a special tea to make it more obvious and critics are still claiming they don't understand how Toph was captured ?

This sort of criticism, is why Hollywood sometimes feel the need to have characters go on 4th-wall-breaking exposition dumps just to explain basic things to the audience.

How much more obvious were the writers supposed to make it? Were they supposed to have a narrator saying "Toph is so excited meet her mother, that she didn't notice the cage waiting for her"

Or maybe they should have have the camera zoom in on a sign saying "anesthesia" on the tea she drank?

Ok. End of my little rant.

Imagine one of those places you read about in the international news. I won't get more specific than that.

The harder I pray. The harder it gets to survive here. Lord I am so tired. I feel like the harder I pray, the more God decides you can take more

I am too tired, frustrated and hungry to pray tonight.

Please pray for me. Pray for us...that we may get some relief from this constant struggle.

The Lord says in so many ways to turn to him when we are at the end of our rope. But I don't see Him.

You know the kind. The social media personality who goes about provoking strangers on the streets and filming strangers' annoyed reactions.

They come in various forms and across political spectrums, some I may even agree with... but they all have the same self-righteous modus operandi of deliberately provoking strangers for a reaction to get a "gotcha moment."

Take for example, this latest stunt by Jake Lang going to the BET awards with brandishing a derrogatory sign about black parents.

Why would one do that? What purpose does that serve, other than to be annoying?

Same thing with the self appointed "police auditors" who go about harrassing police officers just to see if they can get an officer to make a mistake on camera.

Or an anti-Christian protest in the middle of a church during worship.

It doesn't matter the politics. They all have the same personality. They are like high school bullies who never grew up.

DISCLAIMER: What I am about to say here, is by no means an endorsement or encouragement to throw healthy living out the window. Listen to your doctor.

TRIGGER WARNING. I am about to talk about aging, sickness and the human condition. It might make some sad.

With that being said. Sometimes I think about the vast difference between Dick Van Dyke, and Bruce Willis in the last 5 years. One turned 100 recently, was seen dancing and exercising at age 99, and still able to speak lucidly at age 100. The other, in the past 5 years, has sharp neurological decline and is only in his early 70s.

I think about some elderly people I know personally, who I used to see outside exercising everyday, and still...died relatively young, in their early 70s.

Then I think back about all the happy-go-lucky interviews they do when someone famous lives very long. Just drink this healthy shake and run a mile everyday and you too can look like me when you reach 70

My own mom, used to recite passages from her childhood, exercised regularly and was an avid chess player. She learnt to play chess in her 50s ! All things they say are supposed to protect you from neurological decline.

Yet she still passed away at 67, bedridden and couldn't even say her own name. The way I saw my mother decline, just made everything I was taught about diet and exercise, all seem so pointless !

I can't help but bitterly think that, although the diet and exercise help...its mostly just good genes doing the heavy lifting. Some people get lucky. Some people don't.

This is something I literally just found on Reddit, searching for "free options similar to the (insert brand name) study app. I came across a subreddit that recommended it, and even though that post is 2 years old, the app/website is still functional and still free.

Its called FlowTunes.

I'm not affiliated to them in anyway. I'm just a guy in university, trying to study in a noisy environment, and looking for ways to maximize my studying time, and I don't have the budget for all these fancy subscriptions for study apps.

The easiest free option for background music of course, is to just search on youtube for something. But then sometimes, I get distracted by youtube videos and go off on a tangent. At least, this way, when I open the study app , I'm less likely to be distracted by an ad for some other type of entertainment content.

Maybe this is obvious. Maybe its already a known thing, and I am late to the party, but I just thought I would share it.

I am in my mid 30s. I want to get back into exercising. In my early 20s I used to gym regularly with some friends and even used to run marathons.

My exercise buddies introduced me to the concept of the runner's high , also called the exercise high. They made it sound like this great uplifting feeling of invincibility one gets after exercising. A feeling so powerful that it can even help with anxiety and depression.

Well I sure wish I could experience that. I have been chasing that feeling since my 20s. But no matter how long I have kept a good exercise streak going, I have never experienced it. I just feel tired and hungrier.

Unfortunately, this makes it harder for me to keep on exercising, because I get tired and frustrated when I don't get the "runner's high" that everyone keeps talking about.

Even when I search exercise forums, I see so many folks talk about the positive effects of exercise on mood. I know that there are scientific studies on this. I know that statistically it's supposed to be true.

But for some reason... I don't feel any significant change in my mood when I exercise.

How long is this supposed to take to kick in? A month of steady exercise? 3 months? 6 months ?

Is there anyone else like me who just doesn't experience the runner's high ? How do you motivate yourself to keep exercising without the runner's high ?

What else can I use to draw motivation ?

So, I started watching season 2. Aang is taller. His voice is deeper. And you know what? It's fine. It's live action, I never expected the real-life actor to remain looking like his 12 y/o self through months and years of filming. That is physically impossible. No matter how quickly they filmed, he would have always grown, and we would have always noticed.

This isn't a cartoon, where you can take a static character design and chose to keep it the same, conveniently kept static, despite the passage of time, in-universe.

E.g. in the 90s to the 2000s DC animated universe, Batman and Superman were drawn to look exactly the same, all the way through their animated series and into the Justice League and Justice League Unlimited cartoons. Even if, in the context of the show...that timeline covers decades. The only time Batman is drawn to look older, is for Batman Beyond, because the plot requires that he actually look his age.

But those are cartoons.

Live-action are real people. Real people age with time, and I wished fanbases would stop pressuring younger actors for committing the grave sin of going through puberty.

Everybody gets older.

I understand the excitement to see new movies. I understand the excitement of wanting to be first.

But I am someone who actually enjoys the cinema experience. A good movie with great visuals and sound design, is always better to experience in the Cinema.

Now, thanks to over-zealous hackers, Avatar fans have been robbed of this opportunity.

I know the Netflix show exists. But that is streaming. Its still like TV.

The animated movie was our one chance at proving that an avatar Cinematic movie was worth it. Now thanks to these hacks...we may never get a big budget Avatar Cinema experience again.

Way to go hackers! You just spoiled the movie for everyone.