Forum Activity for @totheankles

Giant Nest'o'Hair

Dread Maintenance

What I do is I just pull them apart from the tips. From the roots doesn't work for me, but maybe it does for others. Just too painful.After I separate them there's usually a part near the scalp that doesn't separate because you can't pull it far enough apart (due to it being connected to your head and all). Some connections between the dreads survive and these cling to the scalp and cause the whole birds nest thing. It's very hard to do this yourself, so I ask a friend or my mom to separate and make sure there's no connections near the scalp left.

Giant Nest'o'Hair

Dread Maintenance

I also started with sorta long hair, and I had the same problem. I think it has to do with how your hair naturally falls, not a length specific thing since I've always had issues with that part to get it under control even when it was short.First off, you separate too often. I did that too in the beginning after not separating for a few weeks (beaver tail...). After that I freaked out and removed all knots and then separated daily for awhile and it was going nowhere. The hair needs to be able to form dreads, by separating too often you're destroying knots and the hair stays in that beginning dread phase of knotting and tangling rather then forming actual dreads. At a certain point I didn't separate for awhile and a beaver tail formed really bad, after some painful separation I had well formed dreads at the back of my head.Also, when you separate you need to make sure you don't shift the knots to the roots. New hairs get tangled up in there too and that forms the bird nest. I pretty much handled it by having someone else do a very good detanging and separation session every week, making sure no knots stay on the scalp (I mean hairs being pulled horizontally over the scalp, specifically). At a certain point the dreads decided to "hold" and not get up in each others business. For much of the time I had a massive dread form there and eventually I separated it (painful!) and I had pretty thin dreads again, and the birds nest tangling stuff completely stopped.Now it is actually a problem for me because I want to get the dreads to congo but most of them refuse to. Some congo's form solidly over a week, I tried to get some to form over 4 months and then I thought they were solid and pulled on it and found out they were connected by a single hair and completely separate otherwise.

Election poll....

General Talk

What the hell? Where did you pull that from? First I get accused of trolling and offending people, then I'm suddenly all pro Romney and now I hate...no scratch that... have a VERY DEEP hatred of Americans?!As far "brainwashedness" goes you're all doing surprisingly fine. Western Europe (except Greece, which is why the whole country is basicly protesting and on strike) is populated by obedient slaves. The fact that Ron Paul caused a whole internet revolution is proof that you're all quite far away from living the socialist "dream" (more like a nightmare). In the Netherlands (and most of western europe) they don't want to hear it if it isn't nationalism or socialism.Yea, I'm sort of "lovingly spoiled" here. Mainly because I'm working with the system, because we have no Capital Gains Tax (You know, the tax that mainly hits EVIL *pinky* republicans like Romney?). If you have a 9 to 5 here life isn't that rosy because you have to support all the leeches, and it's going to get a whole lot less rosy in the next decade or so. Wages are rapidly falling, taxes and prices along with it are rapidly rising.You don't get pushed down. You know what being pushed down is? Finding oil, buying an oil company and then getting thrown in jail and having your company taken over by a corrupt government: THAT is being pushed down. The only thing I have seen here is complaining and shifting of responsibility. With such a mindset you cannot go anywhere except poverty. Someone else being born into a ridiculously wealthy family with an obscene inheritance does not, in any way, affect your current or your future situation. They don't know you, they don't care and they're way too busy banging hot golddiggers on their yachts to worry about keeping you poor.I don't know anything about privatized schools. I didn't even finish what Americans would call "high school". They were too busy branding me as retarded to teach me anything. Luckily, all you need in this world is raw intelligence and common sense, rather then a degree. I checked what if would cost to go to university at one point, I think it was like 15-20k/year.

Election poll....

General Talk

220 is already crazy for an electric bill, 600 is just...I don't even know what to say about that. For a wasteful 3 person dutch family living in a big house with 3 TV's/Computers, dishwasher, leaving light on way too much and heating + open windows they might need 200 euro's/month. Now I don't even worry about my electricity bill and I pay like 50 euro's/month.I even looked up some statistics because your prices were so outrageous, I was thinking I might be an anomaly or something. Over 2011 the average dutch household paid 166 euro's/month in electricity/heating. These are people that have multiple TV's and computers in a cold country. We have many "environmental" taxes on heating and electricity, so I don't see how it could possibly be cheaper then in the USA.Rent is just expensive here, 600 minimum. I've seen some single rooms being rented off (often with stupid demands like "females only" and "no pets"; women seem to think all men are dogs, and they hate dogs) for 500/month. There's a big difference here between living in the central part of Amsterdam and further away. Most big cities here have 2 bedroom appartments for 700-800/month. If you go live in the smaller cities you often pay only 600-700, which is easily shared with another person for an effective rent of 300-350. If you share a home with 4 people, then how on earth do you manage to pay 800/month? That's like a 4k/month rent.The idea that "everyone can have a cosy home to call his own" is impossible to realize. Everyone needs housing, demand drives prices up. In the Netherlands subsidized housing drives the price up even more, along with the fact that you don't have to work if you act like you can't so alot of people try to move here, driving housing prices up even more. Very few people below the age of 30 have a home, most of them rent a room or share and they have no trouble spending money on junk they don't need like beer. 1 guy I remember in particular (the dude was more frugal then me lol) had saved like 25k once he finished school. Most people have that much debt here from education.The western world is just too used to living in luxury. Since the whole Euro thing Eastern Europeans (Polish, etc) have come here to live and work. Many of them rent overpriced appartments from private owners since they are refused for any normal rentals so 5-6 of them have to live in a 2 bedroom appartment. Those people are having a blast and are drinking cheap beer while talking and argueing when off from work. I should learn Polish because maybe they're just complaining to each other about how hard life is. It doesn't appear like that from their demeanor but hey you never know.And mainstream artists making millions is just supply/demand. Nobody is forcing anyone to buy CD's or to tune in to the radio/MTV. If everyone was like me and never put that shit on (Only honest metal and underground hip hop here...) they wouldn't make a penny. Who cares? It doesn't affect you. On the other hand, taxation does affect you.Acting like I'm being outrageous and would hate you for voting Obama is just silly. I don't even live there, and you could vote whatever you want using whatever messed up feminist theories to justify it even if I did because I have been argueing from the beginning that it doesn't matter who you vote. They're both the bad kind of politicians, and Ron Paul is out of the running. Once prices go up along with taxation you will find someone to blame (evil republicans not letting Obama fix things, Lady gaga stealing your lunch or the rich in general), while when there truly is something that could've been done to possibly fix it, all the poor Americans just sat at home saying to themselves "Wow, I got to pay for my own stuff? This Ron Paul dude is crazy, I'm voting Obama because he will give me free shit and tax the rich".It is impossible due to the very nature of taxes, 1/3 of European wages is paid in taxes to make sure the other 2/3s continue to pay their taxes. The extra taxes are costs included in the prices of services and goods, driving them up. In the end you have less purchasing power, due to 1/3 of the population leeching off the rest.And abortions up to term are beyond fucked up. There's some limit here, I'm not sure exactly how far along but it's way lower then in the USA. I've seen some pretty horrifying things on documentaries about abortions in the USA, like tiny decapitated baby corpses.

Election poll....

General Talk

You can twist and turn about it, but if your income is inadequate you need to cut costs or find more income. "Can't do it" is just throwing your hands in the air and giving up.I do know that 220/month for an electric bill is retardedly high. So is 800 for rent and water. Rent is usually very high, which is why finding someone to share living space with is often the only solution.

Election poll....

General Talk

Can't live off $7,25/hour? I have to dispute that. At fulltime, 40 hours per week that would be $1160+/month. I lived off roughly 900 euro's for years, and saving 3k/year (although part of that was bonus money). I had less purchasing power (Most things here are more expensive then in the USA, especially food and housing) and I was managing just fine.You seem to think people should pay more wage then the workers can demand. The world doesn't run on charity. Someone is evil for not paying more then the nominal price? Would you buy my silver at $40/oz? You know, cause it would be evil to pay me the nominal price for silver? It's the same with labour. Everyone wants to get things at minimal cost.If someone is not being paid sufficiently for their labour then they can choose not to do that work. If they want to form unions then there is no one preventing that. The conflicts with unions arise when unionized workers want to prevent non-unionized workers from taking their jobs (often at the threat of violence), or when they want to enforce union policies on all workers. This is exactly what happens in Europe, leading to higher wages but higher unemployment.Like with all enforced government "power to the people" interventions, this distorts the free market and leads to a situation of "haves" and "have-nots". Just like in Europe there's people with cheap housing that do not have to work, while the rest has to work 40 hours a week on minimum wage in smaller housing while having much less purchasing power. This is true oppression and unfairness, where people are not recieving money and benefits based on skill but purely because they were the quickest to find the unemployment line. And just like that there's also people in Europe getting paid far more then they are worth, all at the expense of others that are unemployed due to all jobs being locked up with inefficient overpaid workers that the employers are stuck with. It's also because of unions that older employees in the Netherlands are no longer being offered any jobs once their employers do manage to fire them or the company they work for goes bankrupt. The unionized salaries are far higher for older employees and this gives them a disadvantage, they are unable to negotiate a lower salary because it's illegal to pay less then the unionized wage.Does this sound right to you?And I'm not really anything. I think libertarian principles are logically and ethically correct. Therefore a government abusing it's might in order to force people to pay taxes is unethical and as such all government sponsored services are unethical.But in my arguement I haven't used ethics as my main arguement since I realize most people can't seem to understand that taxes are theft. The whole point is that collecting taxes incurs costs due people not wanting to pay them voluntarily. These costs are permanently lost wealth. Then there's the abuse of power and corruption through indirect democracy, because arbitrarily giving one person power over others inevitably leads to abuse and corruption eventually.And finally there's many situations in which the free market has proven to find ways to provide higher quality products at a cheaper cost whereas public services have only found ways how to keep the prices rising and the quality dropping.
updated by @totheankles: 07/28/15 12:57:02PM

Election poll....

General Talk

It seems you don't understand capitalism either. The very point of capitalism is the investment of capital. Capital-ism. There is no capitalism without the investing of capital for returns.All the rich do is give some dude with a company a bag of money and in return for that they get a portion of future profits. Exactly where does this involve stepping on the poor?And despite that fact that they are "set for life" the children of the rich as a whole increase the capital passed down from their parents by the time they die. Only 1 bad apple in the chain of the family screws it over.And when someone invests capital, it's suddenly their fault that some people have drug addicts as parents and have to work minimum wage because they don't have the skills for higher paying jobs? Or because they went to a shitty public school? You realize the quality is so bad because it is "public", right? If you had a privatised school system the quality would go up, because it's working for the rich now isn't it?! Again, free shit is a fairy tale, including free school.And there was a chance to stop all the taxation and inefficient public services by voting Ron Paul. But all the poor are so mesmerized by Obama's promise of free shit (AKA: Bribing for votes) that they just dismissed him as a nutjob because he was telling the truth which is that there's no such thing as a government that gives things away for free.

Election poll....

General Talk

I'm not trolling, if I was I would make far more "republican" arguements. Why you are poor or why you are still poor is quite an important question. So you are poor because you were born poor? So all people that become rich or middle-class that were born poor are just lucky? It's just a random roll of the dice to decide who has money and who doesn't?So what if the rich pay the same percentage taxes as you? You think that suddenly you would pay less taxes? Clearly you do not understand how socialist states work. I happen to live in one. Something for nothing is an illusion, it's a fairy tale. If you start handing out free shit, people will start to abuse it. If expenses drop, or tax income is increased, government will simply find another way to waste money and the bill will be paid by you through price increases in goods or inflation if it isn't through direct taxing.Socialists don't understand that more goverment support leads to less wealth due to the costs involved in redistributing wealth. Less wealth is felt across the board. In most of Western Europe they have tax that progressively increases by income, and still there's a large amount of poverty and still it's someone elses fault (somehow the politicians that decide to increase poverty always escape blame). Even here in the Netherlands there are people that can't seem to make ends meet (And guess what: It's someone's fault and something needs to be done! Preferably by the government because we're all too damn busy to care). Where there is freedom, people will find a way to be poor. Giving poor people money doesn't work, it hasn't worked for Africa, it hasn't worked for Europe and it won't work for the USA either. It just attracts leeches like politicians ready to siphon off the wealth for their "services".Romney doesn't have to work minimum wage, because he has investment skills. I've read some research papers that dealt with the problem of rich people becoming richer and poor people becoming poorer. Children in rich families get taught how to save money, and children in poor families get taught how to spend money. For the richest, capital that is passed throughout the generations gets bigger and bigger. The poor are born with nothing and they die with nothing. Even poor that inherit money, or win a big prize in the lottery still die with nothing to pass onto their children, or atleast much less then they had.Life just isn't fair but the biggest factor is how you play the hand you're dealt. My parents literally have nothing. It wasn't really hard or anything to save some money despite a low income.

Election poll....

General Talk

As president he could have pardoned Mumia.Do you realize that he sent troops to Libya without the approval from Congress?It's not that he can't get anything done by bypassing Congress, it's that he does the wrong things.

Election poll....

General Talk

@Star Gryphon:If you thought I was trying to make you feel bad or whatever then you completed missed the point. And words being strung together is an unfortunate side effect of writing a sentence.You are blaming the "rich" for your problems, Romney is blaming you for society's problems. Neither is really fixing things now is it? That's because people are awfully skilled at playing the "blame game", but when it's time to change things for the better they suddenly aren't so vocal about their failure to do so.So you are poor. Why are you poor? What events led to you being poor? Did some rich guy come by your house and take all your money? It's all rhetorical, but I think it would help you more if you answered those questions for yourself rather then being worried about Romney or Obama. Neither of them is going to fix it. Obama promised "change". Maybe I'm missing the latest American revolution here in ole Europe, but the last time I checked people were still getting shot over chump change, Mumia was still in jail and the troops were still overseas.He's not a "good man". He's a politician. He's not "like you". He lives in a big white house and he can nuke Iran if he feels like it.@Baba:Yes, the only politician that wants to take young boys out of the desert and give them a future as something other then cannon fodder for jihadists is the crazy one. Holy crap, privatized roads? Can you imagine how low taxes would be? Can you imagine how well maintained those roads would be? That's just crazy, people would actually have to pay toll for using the road as opposed to having "the government" pay for it by extracting money from you at gunpoint and dubbing it "taxes" as opposed to robbery.How about...like...NOT using the roads if you disagree with the toll price? Y'know just throwing something out there? That would be... good for the environment?Screw the people getting blown up in the desert, we have an inefficient system of road management to support!