u/j4c11

... that already figured out all the mysteries of the universe, I'd go chill by a black hole, where I could watch the rest of the universe "unfold" at high speed. The only interesting thing left would be the evolution of new species, but that takes a long time - it would be better to go spend your time next to the black hole and check back in a little while (which could be a long time in "normal" spacetime), and then see how the new species is doing.

This would also preclude that advanced civilization from communicating with "normal" spacetime using radio waves as they would get heavily shifted.

That's assuming an advanced alien civilization couldn't manipulate spacetime themselves to achieve the same time dilation effect without needing the black hole at all.

So really, considering we've only just recently obtained the technical capabilities, I think the Fermi Paradox is a timing issue. If they were just here yesterday (100+years for us) , we might not see them again until next week (700+ years for us) when they come check on us again.

As I've been going through this journey of weight loss and now maintenance, I find that sticking to a budget sometimes presents challenges. We often resolve these challenges by simply eliminating or greatly reducing certain foods from our diets, but I've always felt like there's room for optimization.

Today I'm going to share with you one such optimization that I've been working on for a while now - a CICO friendly cheesecake. Not a pretend cheesecake, not a cheesecake that you can only eat a sliver of, not a cheesecake that you have to "save calories for" all day - a cheesecake that is a real cheesecake, you can eat in generous portions - possibly multiple times a day depending on your calorie budget.

The first thing is, we need better cheese. Cream cheese is all fat, has very little protein, and really blows up the calories, making cheesecake untouchable on a calorie budget. So we're going to make it - and this is super easy.

• Gallon of ORGANIC SKIM milk, in a pot, warm up to about body temperature, add half a cup of greek yogurt , stir well and let it set overnight, covered. Depending on ambient temperature, it might take longer, but you should have basically yogurt.
• Turn on the burner under the pot , and let it heat up until the cultured milk curdles and curd settles at the bottom, and the yellow-green whey is mostly clear and not milky.
• Drain the curds and let drain for 45 minutes. It should be crumbly, and not wet.

We basically made farmers cheese. This in itself is a miracle food if you're calorie limited - 114 calories per 100 grams, 23g protein. Add some sour cream(or yogurt) and salt and you have cottage cheese. Stuff into 2 sheets of phyllo dough with egg and herbs for a savory version etc. 1 gallon yields 500g(just over 1 lb) of cheese, I would recommend making 2 gallon batches since it's a bit of a process over 24 hours. It holds in the fridge for weeks in a airtight container, and also full of probiotics.

Now, on to the cheesecake. We will use:

• 500g of our farmers cheese
• 1 block Philadelphia cream cheese, full fat
• 100g sugar
• 100g of Stevia sweetner , or any other sweetner you prefer that substitutes for sugar 1:1
• 3 eggs
• Half a cup of oikos triple zero vanilla yogurt
• Vanilla, lemon/lime zest etc. You flavor it how you want to make it
• 3 sheets of graham crackers, 1 tbs of butter, sweetner for the crust

The most important part - take the farmers cheese , and place it in a food processor or blender. It needs to be blended until smooth, just like the cream cheese. This may take 90-120 seconds, or longer depending on your machine, but the end result should be a smooth cream cheese. Proceed to make your cheesecake per your favorite recipe/process using an 8 inch springform pan and the ingredients above.

Resulting cheesecake tastes incredible, and comes out at 313 calories per generous slice (1/8th of the cake !), with 20g of protein, 25 g carbs, 14g fat . Further optimization would include removing the crust (which is fairly thin as is) and turning it into a basque cheesecake, which would drop calories to about 270 per slice, bringing this into protein bar levels of protein efficiency.

Hope this brings joy to at least one of you. I've been making it every weekend - yes I am maintaining and hitting all my macros while eating a whole cheesecake every week - and it's really been something that improved my quality of life and enjoyment of food in general.