Conker1985

My fucking in-laws do this every year and I'm tired of it. My wife (the youngest of 4) has insisted for years we quit gift exchanges for the adults (5 married couples including her parents), and stick to the nephews and nieces (now totalling 6 between everyone). This year, her parents didn't want to, her oldest brother didn't want to, and she didn't want to. But, because the two kiss ass devout Catholic couples insisted (like they do every fucking year), we've all got to spend $50 on whoever's name we drew. It's so dumb. All of us are adults with kids. We don't need to buy shit for each other. It's just stuff I'll go buy for myself anyway. I don't see the goddamn point.

Fucking eh, this is me. I absolutely hate hearing loud bass. You can't escape it other than distance, and when it's your neighbor across the street or next door blasting their shitty music or TV through subs with concrete penetrating bass, it's awful. It's my biggest trigger, and something I've struggled with badly for many years now.

Just a month ago I finally worked up the nerve to tell my annoying neighbor across the street to turn his shit down at 10pm at night because I needed to get my kid to bed and can hear his shitty subs in my house even with windows closed. I cordially spoke to his wife (no issues), but the next day he was bitching to other people in the neighborhood that people were complaining about the music. Fuck him. I hate people who are so up their own assess that they can't fathom others don't take pleasure in listening to their music against their will. At least I haven't heard it since.

You hit the nail on the head. I feel the exact same way. Hell, I play drums as a hobby. I don't hate music. For years I kept my set at my office at a building downtown so as not to disturb my neighbors, because my first home didn't have a basement, and the houses were spaced really close together, and acoustic drums penetrate walls very easily.

Fast forward some years later and we buy our second home. We spent over 25k finishing our basement, and I paid extra to have my basement office soundproofed so that I could finally bring my kit home and not worry about bothering anyone.

So here I am, buried 8 feet underground, surrounded by concrete, drywall, insulation, and green glue, while that late 50's wannabe roughneck douchebag blares god awful country music out of his garage, with the doors open (which acts as a literal megaphone), using massive speakers and subs, so the entire street is subjected to the radio whenever he feels the need to garner attention. For the past year and a half it's stressed me out to the point where I looked forward to rainy/cold days and dreaded sunny/nice days because chances are he'd be out there acting like the douche who never grew up after high school (he's also very loud and yell-talks out in his front yard quite a bit, so he's definitely a little bit of everything you described). I've angrily stewed about it since we moved here, but had finally had enough last month. His wife was cool about it, but it was no surprise to me when he started bitching about us to other people in the neighborhood. I'll cry tears of joy when I wake up and see a 'for sale' sign across the street, and I wouldn't care if he had a stroke one day.

All I know is that the next house I'm done with neighborhoods and subdivisions. I'm tired of living in close proximity to people, because there's always one asshole neighbor who does this, and it's impossible to know until you've already bought a house and moved in, and at that point your stuck in that situation for years.

Hey Brian,

Just wanted to say hello. My wife and I watched you speak at Purdue University way back in 2014 when we first moved to the area after taking a position there. I've always enjoyed how you present incredibly complicated information and distill it down so that virtually anyone can grasp the basic concepts. My wife, going in with no prior knowledge to string theory or theoretical physics, really enjoyed the presentation as well.

Thanks for being such a great steward of science and physics. I'm still pretty terrible at math, but I'm always amazed at what can be accomplished with it.

My question is in regards to traveling across distant stars and galaxies. Are wormholes the only viable solution?

Very cool! One follow-up question. Is dark matter the key to achieving speeds approaching the speed of light? Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the problem traveling that fast the increase in mass, requiring more and more energy to continue going faster and/or maintain the same speed?