if its rush hour on a highway, everyone is driving under the limit.

This might be true in a lot of places, but let me introduce a counterpoint: Los Angeles.

We invented freeways, and I’m convinced we’ve perfected shitty traffic. Get on the 405 anytime between 6a and 10p? Gridlock, everyone is going below the speed limit. Get on basically any of our other freeways at rush hour? Yeah, that’s going to be us doing our best impression of NASCAR, driving bumper to bumper at least 10 over the speed limit.

It’s so well known that it’s a meme at this point. Every holiday season there’s a bunch of posts on social media about visitors needing to get with the program. My favorite this year was the “stay the fuck away from the left lane” guy.

Is it safe? Probably not. Is it reality in LA? Absolutely.

I agree with this comment!

The best camera is the one you have, meaning that subjects or moments often pop up when you’re unprepared, and your phone camera is probably really good and always in your pocket. Take advantage of its availability!

I also agree on film cameras. Getting the film developed is kind of a pain, and doing it yourself is also quite involved. But shooting on film (slides) forced me to think more about composition, lighting, lens selection, and how I’d develop the resulting image.

I ended up with 3 lenses: a 50mm normal in f1.4, a 20mm wide in f2.8, and a 200mm macro in f4, all in prime. Sure these lenses are awesome (and relatively expensive) but unless you’re a pro they’re entirely unnecessary. They did however teach me about framing, perspective, light, and how optics change your image.

If I went about it again, I’d just take a few photography classes which focused on film (to develop good habits) and rent gear. Then use my phone camera or a cheap digi to have fun.

This is the first thing I thought of too, would be neat to shoot once, super impractical.

it’s not hard to make dishes modular

This is untrue. In many cooking styles using animal based stock as the entire foundation of the dish is completely normal. Subbing veggie stock isn’t always possible given the chef is going for a certain flavor profile. Veggie fond is not the same as animal fond, which also changes the flavor. Animal proteins denature differently, and some proteins are specifically used for their chemical and physical properties (think cream for a sauce, or eggs for a souffle).

While it is usually possible to sub vegan ingredients to approximate most of the effects of non-vegan ingredients, doing so entirely changes the flavor profile, presentation, and shopping list.

Can it be done? Absolutely. Is it as trivial as you make it out to be? Not even close.

I say this as a seasoned chef who has worked in commercial kitchens and cooks 3 meals a day at home from scratch. When I know I have guests coming over for a meal I attempt to accommodate for their dietary requirements (this doesn’t just apply to vegans), but it is rarely as easy as leaving one thing out. It usually means making two (or more) sets of completely separate mains and sides, which doubles the work and significantly increases the time spent.

I definitely agree with your main point.

I need a husband who isn’t dealing with emotional baggage

Good fucking luck, every human has emotional baggage. I think the point you ought to be making is you want someone who deals with their shit in a mature and healthy way.

who can be supportive for me

Don’t forget that relationships are a two way street, everyone needs support, some more than others

rejection has to be performed with male emotional fragility in mind.

Eh, not really. If we rule out physical violence (hopefully) you can reject folks however you want. If you’re a jerk, sometimes people will be mean back. Sometimes even if you’re nice people will be dicks. Stay safe, disregard what people say if you don’t care about them, and move on.

The rifle pictured is a FAMAS, and the bolt does not lock open after the last round.

Though you’re not totally wrong, fewer bangs than you expect on the last trigger pull is pretty easy to notice.

The 2026 2 MEAL ALL SEASON DINING - PRESTIGE ADD-ON at Six Flags near LA is $99 for a whole year, and includes 2 meals a day, which sounds bonkers.

I think you have to add it to an annual park pass, but that sounds like a great deal assuming you don’t mind eating park food.

That’s what we used emulsified sauces for (in addition to flavoring) when I was working in kitchens. Mayo for instance is a tasty sauce, but it’ll also prevent the bread from absorbing moisture from the other fillings.

I don’t know why, I’m pretty sure hotdogs are more expensive per pound than ground beef at my local shop. 70/30 (which is fattier than I normally purchase) was $3/lb last time I was there, hotdogs are almost double that. Maybe that’s just a local thing?

I think this labelling is just marketing. Given the name of the product contains “hamburger” they can assume anyone buying it already knows they can add ground beef. I think they just added hotdogs to the label to give people ideas about other proteins they can use.

It’s been decades since I’ve eaten Hamburger Helper, but I recall liking it more with hotdogs.

For VIM development check out ctags (or LSP) with auto complete. It’s magic for large projects.

It’s a fiber supplement, helps stuff move along and kind of fends off hunger until lunch since I’m fasting (except for the protein powder) 18 hours every weekday.

Proton decay

Weekdays: 5g psyllium husk, 5g creatine, 30g whey protein, double Turkish coffee, 1 liter of water.

Weekends: 3 thick cut slices of bacon, small potato grated and fried into hash browns, 2 eggs sunny side up, pour over coffee, in addition to the weekday supplements.

My wife eats oatmeal or a French omelette during the week, which I make. And something more hearty on the weekend, depending on her workout schedule.

There are some of us who wake up early to work out and have breakfast with our significant others before work. You don’t have to be old to appreciate spending time together, or make room for it in your life.

My wife leaves for work at 7:30a, I’ve been up since 5:30a spending the morning with her. Sometimes those two hours are the highest quality time we’ll spend together all day, fewer distractions.

Buttons in cars are amazing, you can use them while keeping your eyes on the road.

Why not have both? I’ve lived in the western US my entire life, but I think pickled herring is delicious, and I made rillettes (which is like a pate) just the other day.

As a person of Pacific Islander descent, rice is awesome and goes with everything.

Also if you’re on a budget rice is a cheap way to fill your stomach.

Rich people aren’t even in the graphic, they’re way off the top of the scale. The top of this graph doesn’t even get you into the top 5% in my state.

You sound reasonable, and I don’t have all the information, but maybe I can play devil’s advocate.

Suppose your friend is actually a good dad, and is using his time without his kids around to catch up with his friends, listen to what’s topical in your life, and then do something other than talk about his kids?

This is a non-rhetorical good faith question: should kids be the sole focus of their parent’s lives once they have them?

I agree that kids need to be the top priority once people have them, no question there. But aren’t parents allowed to have lives of their own as well?

I don’t have kids and I’m at the age where most of my friends have them. The folks I knew whose only focus was on their kids gradually phased out of the group. Many of those people ended up divorced unfortunately. The parents I see regularly spend most of their time on their kids, but also have hobbies and interests outside of just kid stuff.

People who have their own lives in addition to being good parents seem to be happier and more well rounded. It also makes connecting with them easier for people without kids. I’m up to date on their kids, go to birthdays, and occasionally babysit. We have kid friendly dinners at each other’s homes, go camping with kids, etc… But we also go out once in awhile without them, catch games, play golf.

I feel like that’s healthier.

Exactly, thank you!

These two ideas are not mutually exclusive, do both. I train with my neighbors fairly regularly, at the range (including tactical training), hunting, fishing, navigation (land and ocean), first aid certifications, etc… We also work together to keep an eye on our neighborhood and on behalf of our other neighbors (early COVID times were absolutely wild here). I maintain a several HAM radios and a base station, and worked with some of my neighbors to help obtain their licenses. We all garden, cook, and do home repair and IT.

Unfortunately since we live near a major metro area when SHTF the best mid term plan is to bug out entirely, so we have updated plans for rendezvous and exfil to specific less populated areas. And as far as I know most households have bags ready to go.

I wouldn’t go as far as saying we’re preppers, we certainly don’t imagine ourselves that way. We just acknowledge that disasters happen and our society isn’t equipped to take care of an entire metropolis. We’re not under any illusions of being master survivors.

I feel like this is just common sense, not paranoia. In school we all had it drilled into our heads to keep extra water, preserved food, and bags ready in case of a major earthquake (common enough in our area). I don’t see why our planning isn’t just a natural extension of that kind of preparedness.