u/RikkiLostMyNumber

Maybe we've just run the course here. We only became a superpower because of the conflicts of other nations. We used to have solid reasons to lend creedence to the idea of American exceptionalism. We surrendered that a long time ago.
Now, thanks to the dismantling of our education system, we have a country full of really stupid people. That in itself might be ok - other countries are full of shitheads, too - but ours are proud of it, and virulently anti-intellectual as well. They're not fit to do much of anything but fantasize and complain.
I just don't see it working out anymore. I don't think the US is worth a whole lot to rest of the world anymore. We're just bullies with bombs now.
Maybe it's just over.

I live in New England but haven't been to Burlington in about a decade. I remember really enjoying it. Lots of cool restaurants and bars, some cool bands in small clubs here and there. Just a neat vibe like a big college town.

Now I keep seeing references here and in other places about crime, homelessness, and other social problems plaguing the city and a decline overall. Is this true or exaggerated?

And, where is this happening? Is it blanket applied to the whole server or switched on and off per domain? The reason I ask is some pretty dinky, low-traffic sites are redirecting to the Cloudflare "network test" before refreshing to the index page of the site.
Or is this my ISP? So far, with one exception, I have not been blocked from seeing any sites, but I did get one message indicating "malicious bot activity on your (my) network) which doesn't seem possible to me.

Just kidding a bit, but that's exactly what I did today. Skipped breakfast, ate a late lunch of about 575 calories, then dinner four hours later which came in at about 800 calories, so I'm at 1375 out of my daily 1800 calorie intake goal.
I'm probably a little under that number, too, as I tend to overestimate just to be in the safe side.
Somehow this strikes me as a bad idea, although I'm pretty full and this will probably be all I eat today!

It's a three burner, it's six years old, I live by the ocean and the elements here just eat these things. It owes me nothing. One of the flavorizer bars (that's a really dumb name) completely rusted out, so I brushed the flakes away and used the burner anyway to make skewered steak tips tonight.
Best grill experience I've ever had with this thing. Way hotter, instant sear, WAY better control over heat. I understand that grease and whatever is going to drip onto the burner and all, but more importantly, what grill can I buy where I get this heat and control?

Wow. Great job. That's some pretty solid Trek. Allow me to praise before I nitpick.

1. The actor playing Admiral Reeger did a really outstanding job. A lot of ST "guest stars" are somewhat wooden.
2. I'm a big fan of the guy playing Kirk. I think he's doing a very good job interpreting the character and not just aping Shatner.
3. Another guest star doing a stellar job was the guy playing the head Andorian "profiteer." How this episode was blessed with two great guest stars was quite a stroke of luck.
4. I appreciate the banter between the Kirk boys, especially because as a guy who grew up watching TOS, Sam was shown to have died in a mid-tier episode with no speaking part, and was never mentioned again.
5. M'Benga is the stealthy character arc of the season here, and gets so little press about it.
6. Getting rid of the Vulcan ensign was a great move because that character had nothing to do and nowhere to go.

And because I apparently need to look a gift horse in the mouth -

1. I'm sort of mad at the writers in that they are capable of delivering such a great episode and instead have been goofing around with muppets, dreams, old movies, soap operas and the like.
2. Speaking of writers, I think the sub-plot in this one was originally written as a primary plot, and kinda got shoehorned in here. Weird, as this was a long episode.
3. The writers also recently watched "A Few Good Men."
4. This one is a little structurally fucked up, which is probably the result of item 2 above and an overly long denouement, but this show is 80% character driven anyway.
5. James T. Kirk doesn't cry.
6. I think the ST universe needs to lay off the idea of crazy, possessed, incompetent, and otherwise unhinged admirals. I don't know why this trope lives on. FWIW, the admirals on TOS, though rarely portrayed, were characterized as no-nonsense military career men.

I appreciate in advance any thoughts, contradictions, or mention of obvious stuff I missed.

I am in my 50s and perhaps it's just timing, but I sometimes feel like a lot of the bad stuff happening in the world today - environmental degradation, the rise of despotic governments, climate change, existential risks from AI, the resurgence of diseases previous thought eradicated - is just the theory and message of my childhood now coming in to practice. This was all predicted, consumed and understood by me from an early age, and first hand experience and data bear it all out.
It's like a story with a ton of foreshadowing coming unfolding in a rather obvious way. I know what happens, I read the book.
On the off chance this isn't a simulation tailored specifically to that consciousness which I call me - how do I know you, or anyone else, is real? How could I be convinced of that beyond a shadow of a doubt?

I'm looking at this as I just paid $6 for 3 oz. of diced pancetta. The deli didn't have any to slice fresh. This comes out to $32 a pound. This strikes me as nuts.
The recipe and method to do this appear very simple. Anyone done this at home? I suppose I could get 2-3 pounds of skinless pork belly at the butcher shop even if I have to order it.

It's old clothes not worth donating and a bunch of other worthless crap. No food or anything perishable. These are average kitchen trash bags. My bins are full until Friday.

I'm talking about Mar-a-Lago face. Really obvious facial reconstructive surgery, it's not subtle and it's not meant to be. It's a group indicator signal.
Study about how primitive humans identified themselves. Not like they had business cards. No recording of anything at all, really. This is really old stuff, like before agriculture and all that mess.
You might be able to talk to a stranger. Might not. If you could, you could then figure out who each other was. Where each of you were from. You might both recall the same recent event. You could figure out whether to trust each other, but it was time consuming.
Not so with stuff like body modifications, scarification, tattoos, and body paints. That stuff indicates a lot of information. And if it doesn't, that's information, too. You're either in, out, or a threat.
So, these freaks I'm talking about. This surgery indicates a ton of stuff, most obviously either great wealth or aspirations of/attachment to the same. It's an in-group tattoo indicating membership - or desire for membership - in some profoundly anti-human, sociopathic club.

Looking at a human face rings bells all the way from your prefrontal cortex to your limbic system, a big zap that throws everything into overdrive until you figure out exactly who you're looking at. Trust that. You really should be scared of these scary-looking people.

I've now been to three different cities on the West Coast and their burger game is so far ahead of ours we may have been lapped.
We win on a lot of culinary fronts. Diverse populations and all that. Best pizza outside Naples. We know this and are rightly proud of it.
But I ate in three different burger places in CA in the last year and they are just way ahead of us. Even a place right on the water in Huntington Beach served up a fresh, delicious burger and fries with a drink for around $12.00.
Is this is a cultural thing? Do we care? Have I just missed some places? Would you be interested in an outstanding and affordable burger joint here in NE somewhere?

I have lost about 30 lbs in about four months by running a calorie deficit daily, and focusing on high fiber, high protein meals. It has been tolerable but it's getting old.
Now, doing the same thing I've been doing all along, my weight has been stuck at the same number for two weeks.
I don't think eating less is the best idea here, I'm already cutting it close running a 500 to 1,000 calorie per day deficit.
How does one get out of this? Or will time just fix it?

Last night, I made a meat loaf using a recipe I found online, followed it exactly, and it sucked. Just a frustrating waste of time and money.
Does anyone have a bulletproof meat loaf recipe they can share? As one might expect, this is for easy weeknight family dinners, using ground beef please. I am a reasonably able cook.
Thanks in advance!

We made a deal last week that if I sat through one episode of a documentary called "The Real Wolf of Wall Street" she would give ONE episode of ST a watch.
She has never seen it, thinks it's Star Wars. Episodes built on previous episodes or lore (not Lore) aren't going to be very helpful.
I have every ST episode ever on Paramount Plus.
What do you think? I really want her to like it!

I mean nothing. Booze, drugs, caffeine, medications, nothing. You wake up and don't even have a coffee. Are any of you living this way and if so is it as horrific as I imagine?

I quit drinking about 14 months ago after a 40-year career of "functional" alcoholism. I did very little in terms of recovery the first year at all, attended no meetings, sought no medical help. And so far that's worked out, and I'm not going to question that today.
Upon reflection though, I started to think about all the different substances to which I'm addicted. Nicotine, cannabis, caffeine, and arguably sugar as well. I ingest all these substances daily, so I started making a step-down plan to eliminate my dependency on them. This is not simple, especially since I already experience anhedonia most of the time.

So, does anyone here live a life free of these substances, and other ones of course? It seems to me that would be like living as an exposed nerve. After all these years - the majority of a human lifetime - of using and abusing these substances, I honestly can't imagine living without them.

Suppose I just drop something really heavy - and engine block comes to mind - with a length of chain and rode and float on top? Is that not just a very heavy anchor with a float?

For context, I grew a mustache this summer and I got a lot of complements on it. This made me realize the last compliment I received from any woman AT ALL was Christmas of 2022. My adult daughter told me, "you look nice."
I didn't realize it before this year - but I never get compliments from my wife. And I compliment her appearance fairly often.
I don't think I'm so gruesome that I should be completely alien to compliments - probably. Is this just a woman thing? My wife and I have a great relationship, and I wouldn't want to hurt he feelings by bringing this up.
M55, 6', slightly overweight, dress pretty well when appropriate., well groomed and fastidiously clean.

I make meatless bean "chili "sometimes. I added about a dozen dried Arbol peppers to one pound black beans. I rehydrated them, seeded them, and chopped them into thirds before I threw them in. There's also three jalapenos, a Poblano, and a green bell pepper along with garlic, chili powder, and cumin.
This may well be inedible. For some reason, I thought Arbols were more mild than a jalapeno (they are not).
Will this make me sick if I eat it? Assuming I can?

WTF did i just watch?

1. Holy guts and gore, Batman. Have we really seen this in ST before? Maybe in some newer series that I haven't scene, but yikes. ST was always pretty PG.

2. You may have noticed the merest, zephyr-like hint of something called "Section 12." JK, they dropped it at least five times. Are they setting up some TBD future series? Or is this already a thing in DSC, LD, etc? Because I would give an ST/X-Files mashup a shot.

3. I don't like unsolved ST mysteries much, the exception being that creepy space station that repaired the ship while it drained plasma or energy or whatever from all the kidnapped crewmen in ENT. That at least had a clear technology explanation. Whatever the f**k is going on aboard the Griffin clearly doesn't. And that reference to David Marcus' death in STIII really deepened the mystery, as well as bugging the shit out of me.

4. Is this experience meant to be the setup for the Spock we all know and love on TOS? If so, that' going to be awkward for the rest of the series.

5. How old is David Marcus meant to be? Wasn't Carol very recently pregnant? Did I miss a bunch of stuff?

6. More of an observation than a question, but I never thought Kirk and Uhura had any prior connection at all on TOS.

Anyhow, overall I think S4 is off to a great start. Questions and complaints aside, this was a pretty decent episode, and I really like E1.