I think you overestimate how willing people are to read very long articles without a great reason to think it’ll be worth their time at the beginning. You have three meaty paragraphs before you even start what seems to be the article proper, and then that’s a summary of an abstract idea. Something this long needs to start with an awesome story.
Kingoftheinternet
So you’re hoping people will read two other long articles so they know that this long article will be worth their time?
St. John’s Wort is relatively cheap, and according to the science I recall reading, is about as effective as prescription antidepressants. If you consider yourself mentally healthy otherwise, psychedelics may help too; they did for me, anyway, and there’s at least a few studies that indicate psychedelics can improve mood and outlook in the long-term. (Edit 2: Don’t just take psychedelics on my word alone. Read trip reports on Erowid, don’t trip if you’re not in a good mood, don’t trip if you’re going to be responsible for anyone or anything for the rest of the day, don’t trip without a trip sitter until you have some experience, don’t trip if you don’t like the shirt you’re wearing, etc. etc.)
If you don’t have any close friends or significant others, fixing that should be your long-term priority. Since you’re here, I’ll make the bold guess that you’re smarter than most of your peers and relatively introverted, which can be a challenging combination for forming meaningful relationships if your high school is anything like mine was. Still, you’re a social creature. Figure out when and where the smart people at your school congregate, and try to get in on that.
Edit 1: People don’t seem to like my advice. I’d greatly appreciate it if someone explained what they find objectionable in this post.
Yes, the key word was “close” friends. Having someone you care about who you can share just about anything with has no substitute. Introversion isn’t the same as shyness; it has to do with what what type and amount of social interaction you enjoy, not what you’re able to do. The fact that you have lots of people you’d call friends, but don’t feel completely fulfilled by their friendship and want something deeper and more personal, leads me to believe you’re more introverted than you think.
Indoor rock climbing, mechanical keyboards, vacationing in Brazil, Lisp programming, and varieties of apples come to mind.
Willpower depletion seems to depend (at least to some extent) on whether you believe willpower is a finite resource or not. What that means for people who are aware of that fact, I haven’t the slightest idea, but it’s probably like what happens to people who have a thorough understanding of the placebo effect and are aware they may be experiencing it.
I don’t think anyone would object if you gave us links and studies to follow up on...
If you read in a reputable-looking book that your willpower is depletable, and you hadn’t heard any good evidence to the contrary before, you might end up believing that. That’s what happened to me for the span of a couple of years, in fact.
Do you think pledging public radio is the right thing to do for you/public radio listeners/everyone? I can’t really tell. If any of those, can you explain what you mean by that without the word “right” or other closely related words?
Just today, there was a post at Coding Horror, which was itself a follow up to another excellent post, about whether or not learning a programming language is a good use of your time. I think you should read those before you get too invested in the idea of teaching yourself how to program.
Competitive weightlifting! Finite element analysis! Arguing with creationists on Reddit for four hours a day!
Behold, rational wart removal
I linked to the post itself because more than one of the comments were about using “rational” in the titles of posts, and I also thought the content of the post was relevant to understanding that discussion.
That’s the kindest interpretation you could think of? I’m a bit bothered that I have to specify I wasn’t trying to be a dick in this specific situation. No, I wasn’t trying to be mean to you. It looked like you wanted to see situations similar to yours, so I showed you the first one to came to mind (which of course was the most extreme one), and I assumed you wouldn’t think I was implying they were equal.
I am no less confused about your position than I was before.
How do you like to find art? I have trouble finding things that I like enough to put on my wall.
Spotify has no radio functionality on Android devices for some ungodly reason. It’s a shame, because they have the best radio of any streaming music service I’ve yet to try (it gives me better recommendations than even Pandora). I think Spotify Premium is worth it despite that, but some may not.
Edit August 9 2012: Spotify for Android now has the same radio as its mobile and PC varieties.
For something with “hacking” in the name, lacking a numpad, arrow keys, and home/end/etc. is conspicuous. I use those very often in my nerdly pursuits.
I’m quite fond of my Das Keyboard.
Mine made me learn where all the wacky symbols used in programming languages are, like {. If there’s a key on your keyboard that you didn’t learn when you first learned to touch type, but you now use, a blank keyboard will force you to learn to type it without looking at your keyboard.
The showing off is probably more important though.
A friend of mine goes to The North American Institute of Medical Herbalism. Today, she and her classmates tried five different “flower essences” (made in basically the same way as homeopathic medicine) and talked about their reactions in what was described as a double-blind trial. Naturally, they all experienced very similar and significant effects from each essence. It’s too bad they can’t get anyone to thoroughly document these double-blind trials they keep running on energy medicine!