achad.net

You’re taking me to the dream place — a place I’ve been so many times before, but not like this. This isn’t right, you’re pushing me in and it’s not the same dream. Swirling, falling, pushing, clawing, biting, wretching, forcing. I’m not ready but I go anyway. I fight it but I go anyway. It doesn’t fit but you put it in anyway.

Pain and more pushing, and eyes so wide. Are you even the same person? You’re different inside. . .

Trickery of the highest order. I’ll make it stop if you sell yourself to me, you say. And then I do, and then you start again.

We can do this the hard way, or we can do this the harder way. I’m just making it harder, you say. Stop fighting, you say.

I can see the whole thing ahead of me. A place I don’t want to go, and I’m not as strong as you, and you make me go there anyway. I can see every step along the path, and you’re dragging me, and my chest is covered in blood, and the chains bruise my wrists.

How can you do this to someone you love? How can you still tell me you love me after all this?

Did you have fun, you ask. I die a little at your heartlessness. Fun? I ask. You’ve forever stolen that word from my vocabulary. Every time I think about tonight I’ll cringe. You’ve taken my life away. And I’m not just being melodramatic.

How can you do this to someone you say you love? Love for a human is different than the bond of possessing an object. But you’ve made me an object. And you’ve broken me.

But there is light in the distance. A great distance to be sure, but not so much time-wise. Love is the law, but not a law like the one you’ve broken. Love is a law like gravity, and that means you can’t break it. Love is there or not-there, and it is There. And There is where I’ll be, starting to pick up the pieces you’ve severed from me.

How can you do something like that to someone you say you love? How can you laugh while you do it?

Facebook's New Layout (Click to Enlarge)

Pictured above is a screenshot of Facebook’s new layout, with private information blocked out in red and numbered locations for reference. Apparently, not all users have been transitioned to the new layout just yet. Those who have are almost unanimously disappointed with the changes. Here is a brief rundown of the reasons I dislike this new layout. Each number below corresponds to a circled number in the graphic above, where applicable.

1. The “Top News” section is selected by default, instead of “Most Recent.” As far as I’m aware, this is unchangeable. “Most Recent” would allow me to see posts in the order they were made, similar to a news feed. This is the Facebook experience I am used to, and having “Top News” as a default changes the site experience in a way I do not like.
2. Bookmarks have been removed from the bar at the bottom. Most of the time I spend on Facebook is spent playing Mobsters 2, World War, or Medical Mayhem. Having quick access to these applications, especially in the case of emergency events that arise in the game, is vital. The new layout forces me to take an extra step to access these applications.
3. The search bar is hideous. It looks disproportionately long compared to other elements in the page, and despite the fact that the page is divided into a (sort of) three column layout, it still appears to be placed in a haphazard fashion. It looked much better in the right column of the page and with a shorter width.
4. Links at the top are inconsistent. Some are graphics, some are links. . .and it’s generally confusing. Additionally, AJAX code at the top apparently isn’t functioning properly. When I receive a friend request, a badge will appear on the appropriate icon with a number “1.” After accepting the request, the number doesn’t go away until I click the menu again, click accept again, and receive an error message saying that I’m already friends with the person in question.

   The placement of the links at the top is unintuitive. I feel like “Home Profile Account” should be on the very left as they seem like important administrative functions. Ideally, these would also be made into graphics and grouped with the other three buttons.

5. There is no directly accessible logout link! Instead, I have to click into a menu and log out from there. This is annoying and, in my opinion, constitutes poor interface design.
6. The new layout doesn’t always load, for whatever reason. Sometimes I get a blank page with just the template and have to refresh.

I believe there were more, but I can’t think of the rest at this time. Even besides the specific points I’ve outlined, I think the aesthetic is just generally unappealing. Perhaps Facebook should consider an advanced option in which users can upload their own CSS stylesheets and customize the layout for themselves. This could even open up a market for companies or individuals to sell custom stylesheets to Facebook users (or provide them for free and profit from advertising revenue).

What do you think of the new layout?

Today marks my ninth day clean from a two year opiate addiction. For two years of my life, I’ve been spending extraordinary amounts of time in the bathroom, extraordinary amounts of money on just one thing, and much more time counting, adding, calculating, waiting. Will I have enough to get me through until my next paycheck? Will I have to borrow money? How much is left in this bag? When did I take my last dose? If I take more now will I run out and get sick? Suddenly, I don’t have to worry about these things any more. It’s an incredible relief to not have to live your life around doses of a chemical. For once, I can tell which feelings are natural to who I am, and which were caused by the chemicals I was taking. I’m actually very grateful, because if it weren’t for a legal herb called kratom, I would have never been able to come off my 240 mg/day oxycodone habit. In spite of my success, however, the battle is not yet over.

For one, although my regular withdrawal symptoms have ended, I am now facing what is known as post-acute withdrawal. That is, I have intense periods of restlessness that come and go throughout the day, bad muscle aches that come and go, and intense cravings that come and go. The restlessness, to me, is the worst of all. I feel like I can’t focus on anything.

General knowledge has it that addiction is a chronic neurological disease, and that the addict needs to develop a recovery regimen after quitting his or her drug of choice. It is almost always believed or at least implied that recovery is a life-long process. Thus, a non-active addict is always a “recovering” addict, and never a “recovered” or “ex”-addict. Continue Reading »

Despite afflicting over 1% of the population — that is, 3,000,000 Americans and 50,000,000 people worldwide — epilepsy is still relatively unknown to the average person. When most people think of epilepsy, they think of a person flailing around on the ground involuntarily. This type of seizure, known as a “tonic clonic” or “grand mal” seizure, is one form that epilepsy can take, however it does not represent the majority of what epileptics go through.

The truth is, epilepsy is not a single disorder; it is a category of seizure disorders which can take many different forms. It is very common for people with epilepsy to have seizures which are not noticeable to other people. Absence seizures, simple partial seizures, and complex partial seizures may all go unnoticed. A seizure may be as simple as smelling something that isn’t there or having some strange emotions. Partial seizures may cause hallucinatory experiences, loss of the ability to speak, inability to walk, complete loss of awareness, or simple loss of awareness of the world around the patient while a single, intense, and terrible emotion dominates the entire perception of this person. Imagine losing all of your senses and only perceiving intense fear for what feels like an eternity.

Although there are medications to treat epilepsy, 30% of epileptics will be unable to achieve seizure control with any form of treatment. Those who do manage to achieve control of their seizures are in for a lifetime of terrible medication side effects, including hair loss, sedation, inability to sleep, emotional outbursts, or any number of other things — depending of course on the medication or (unfortunately, very frequently required) combination thereof.
Continue Reading »

I am quite baffled lately by the number of individuals who claim to think in a rational manner, yet are not bothered by their severe cognitive dissonance.

Such individuals will make the claim that abortion is wrong on the grounds that life is sacred, and then turn around and support the death penalty. If the taking of anything resembling life (e.g. a fetus) in any case (e.g. the mother will die if it is not aborted) is wrong, then why is capital punishment okay?

This statement, in particular, troubled me:

Agreed…that is what is wrong with our legal system, we know they did it, just kill them already. Insane? who cares, they won’t be productive citizens anyway so why keep them alive in a prison for 40yrs?

Continue Reading »

As time goes on, it seems a number of people are finally conceding to the idea that gays should be allowed to have equal legal rights regarding partnerships as heterosexual couples. This is definitely a step forward from the (unfortunately, still prevalent) dark age idea that homosexual relationships simply do not work, are unnatural, or are damaging to families. It is argued that gays do not honour commitment in relationships, yet everywhere I look, I see gay couples who have been together 12, 20, 40 years. Sure, there are plenty of gays who have “one nighters” or short term relationships, but how is that *any* different in the heterosexual population? If the public perception indicates that gays do not have long-term relationships, it is only because that same public is hostile enough that it either drives apart those relationships or forces them out of the public view.

Even with the progress which has been made in this arena, we still have a number of bigots insisting that, even with full equal rights, we assign a name such as “domestic partnership” or something equally ridiculous to a legally-bound homosexual relationship. The argument is that marriage is a traditional institution between a man and a woman, and usually this argument is accompanied by a phrase such as: “. . .and I’ll be damned if these f**king neo-liberals corrupt the word to fit their agenda!”

These same bigots would likely have said, a number of years ago: “sure, women should have equal say in electing officials, but traditionally, voting is a relationship between a man and his government. When a woman does it, it needs to have a different name.”

I won’t even go into the fact that historically, marriage didn’t just refer to a union between a man and a woman, but that this union was also restricted to people of the same race, religion, and social class. I’m sure there is a “perfectly rational” justification why marriage between a same-sex couple is not okay, whereas marriage between a Buddhist and a Jew is, right?

A cursory glance at history will show that the policy of “separate but not equal” simply doesn’t work. Why are we treating marriage like it is a magical exception to this rule?

Decided to post a slightly edited version of something I posted on a forum a few months ago. . .

As some here might know, I was addicted to oxycodone for a while, and then switched to kratom when I became fed up with my oxy addiction. I started out taking Enhanced Bali every 4 hours and now only take it twice a day, 1/4 tsp each time. I’ve been off oxy and have been using kratom for three months now. Right now I’m doing the maintenance thing, but I’ll eventually get off completely when I’m ready. Some people say you’re never ready, but that’s also what they told me when I said I’d eventually be ready to quit my 30 mg per 3 hours habit of oxy.

I have a success story from this morning I’d like to share.
Continue Reading »

The new iPhone 3G S was released on Friday, and I was there near the front of the line to be among the first (several thousands of) people to get one. Prior to this, I had a really cheap Samsung flip-phone, and before that I had an LG version of the RAZR, on which I really loved the rotating camera — a feature that I haven’t seen since, unfortunately. That is to say, I have never had a particularly nice phone before, and because I’m going back to school for Computer Science in the fall, I figured a smartphone was just what I needed to help me stay on top of my game.
Continue Reading »

Thought I’d do a really quick analysis of this statement from Liber AL (III:30) as I always wondered about it. A quick Google search doesn’t pull up much that really describes “open brass work,” although I’m guessing it has to do with brass plating or something of the sort. We do have this interesting reference [source]:

In the middle was an altar, bearing a brass plate, upon which were engraved the letters, A. C. R. C; and the words, Hoc Universi Compendium vivus mihi Sepulchrum fec

. . .and of course Solomon’s Vessel of Brass.

So what is brass exactly? According to Wikipedia, “Brass is any alloy of copper and zinc; the proportions of zinc and copper can be varied to create a range of brasses with varying properties.”
Continue Reading »

Due to the great difficulty of finding an easy to understand guide to Thelema which does not bore its readers back to whence they came, I have written this. With all due respect to Thelema 101, which does a decent job, I hope that this is something that allows for comprehension even by someone with no prior background knowledge on the subject. This is meant to be *very* general and basic, hopefully not at the expense of too much accuracy.

What is Thelema? Continue Reading »