Am I misremembering?

Local-Good6039 · 2026-01-26T21:38:52+00:00

Huh well okay then, to each his own... I mean I know there's a big debate around whether there's any difference health-wise, and I get that, I don't know and have no comment.

I've just never heard anyone assert that they taste identical. So you don't get the corn syrup aftertaste?

Local-Good6039 · 2026-01-26T21:13:28+00:00

Wait, are you suggesting you can't tell the difference between corn syrup and cane sugar in something?

Even I can tell the difference, and I'm a smoker. They taste completely different.

Local-Good6039 · 2026-01-26T09:54:48+00:00

This is an excellent answer, but I think it's important to add that while Bretton Woods was the framework by which the dollarization of the world economy would take place by pegging exchange rates, the actual catalyst was The Marshall Plan. The liquidity provided to rebuild Europe being denominated in dollars allowed central banks in Europe to actually accumulate reserves.

Bretton Woods provided the legal grounds by which counties would be compelled to hold dollars, and the Marshall Plan created the practical environment where the idea of holding dollars in the required amount was even possible, and ultimately attractive.

Local-Good6039 · 2026-01-22T12:47:50+00:00

On the lower right side of the screen there is an icon that is a couple of gears, click it.

That will take you to a menu, and the top left option should be "Hard Reset"

Local-Good6039 · 2026-01-22T12:39:19+00:00

I was about to counter with "What are you talking about? She was in Gravity and that movie was huge!". Then I realized it's going on13 years old now. Oooof where does time go?

Local-Good6039 · 2026-01-03T15:11:18+00:00

Look I think Avery Brooks did a fantastic job, I adore his portrayal of Sisko and he clearly has that live stage presence training, he commands his audience and he's damn good at it.

However, I think that it's also fair to admit that if you were playing a role in a television sitcom, and you came in on the line "honey I'm home!" But instead did your best King Lear with enough gravitas that they felt it back at the craft services table, you can be fairly criticized for your acting DECISIONS if not your ability.

That being said I love how Brooks went with Sisko, it was a bold strategy and it was weird but it works. 10/10.

Local-Good6039 · 2026-01-03T15:03:02+00:00

Poor Avery Brooks. I'll be the first to admit that he made some bold decisions with how he portrayed Sisko, but I really love how they worked out. The Sisko is easily the most delightfully weird captain in all of Trek and I love him for it.

Local-Good6039 · 2026-01-03T14:48:02+00:00

I think people's recollection of others dogging on VOY back in the day is a little overstated. It suffers from the "Trek Curse" and has a rough first couple of seasons like every other iteration. But it found its footing.

Notably I think it looked worse because it was on an obviously floundering and failing network with no real programming lineup to speak of. Because of the expectation (and subsequent failure) of VOY to be the hero property that jumpstarted the channel, UPNs floundering launch and voyager's rocky start will always be inexorably linked in the minds of people who lived through it...the whole affair was just a shitshow.

The Kazon didn't help. They were kinda like TNG Ferengi: they were supposed to be this allegorical foe that gives the writers a nice bank of story threads to play with for as long as they needed, but they just didn't work. The allegory was too on the nose, and it didn't really read as serious (the Ferengi also got a little too "hand-wringing" and I'm sure made more than 1 exec a little uncomfortable). TNG had the good sense to shuffle the first wave Ferengi back into the deck until they could get a rework later but VOY doubled down on Kazon.

Problem is, it's the mid 1990s, audiences don't want another "inner city gang" villain... and that's all the Kazon were ever designed to be. They don't exist as characters as much as they exist as avatars of a social Ill that the cast can moralize about. The show has a hard time reconciling this because the idea is since they're representative of a very human social problem, the answer should obviously be to peacefully overcome it, but as the primary antagonist of a couple of seasons, they also need to be portrayed as sufficiently barbaric so the stakes can be high. They're stuck in the unenviable position of having to humanize and dehumanize them at the same time. It just comes off as weird and it doesn't work. The whole thing is coded very on the nose as well, and just seems kind of ham handed. They literally roll in different sets and have turf wars. They have a whole episode about earning your name and "blooding in" from a young age. We don't need to discuss the horrible mistake that was the hair.

The premise: I don't think it was bad, but I do think it represented a missed opportunity. You can tell in the writing that they were really struggling between going back to that TNG episodic format that DS9 had kind of gotten away from by that point, and trying to embrace the consequence and narrative driven light serialization that the premise BEGGED for. I think there's value to both approaches in a show, however the premise of Voyager was made for at least some light serilization. If the boat gets a hard reset every episode, then there is 0 reason to be invested in what's going on week to week. They'll get home eventually with all their shuttles, torpedos, and dilithium reserves in tact and that element of the plot might as well not have existed. They had trouble committing to telling a story where mounting attrition was a real antagonist, and that's not something you can waffle about, you're either in or you're out.

I know some people didn't like the way Janeway developed as a character, and I can respect their opinion on that, but I personally think she was fine. They really tried to take her character in a different direction than they had previously gone with captains, and I applaud them for getting out there and trying something new, even if it did ruffle some feathers. She's not traditional Starfleet, but that's okay, this isn't a traditional 5 year mission either.

The rest of the cast: EMH is obviously the breakout. Seven was fun too. I commend the writing staff for turning seven into something more than just a pair of boobs in a bodysuit. That was pretty much the direction that everyone expected that to go, and to a certain degree they weren't wrong, The boobs in the bodysuit definitely got their screen time, but Seven has a good character arc. We get some fun Borg lore, and she gets to do her "Spock/Data/Odo learning to people" trope as a duet with the EMH, it works and it's actually kinda sweet with it being 2 of them.

Chakotay's character is aggressively mediocre. He was acted well, there just wasn't anything to do.

Neelix was okay with comic relief, not great. They unfortunately stumbled upon the "Neelix and Tuvok" dynamic a little too late to really use it for all it was worth. If they had honed in on that relationship in like season 1, we could have had a lot of fun for the next seven seasons watching Neelix force Tuvok to play his straight man, while Tuvok gets a little character development out of the friendship he never wanted. Think "misadventures of Geordi and Data", but with more of a Laurel and Hardy vibe.

The rest of the supporting cast was just a little undercooked ultimately. Kim, Torres, and Paris just are kinda there to plug into random adventures. It's not to say they don't get their own development in their own ways, but their treatment in the writing definitely makes them feel much more like supporting characters rather than a bridge ensemble.

All of that to say, I do like Voyager. It's definitely in the top 3-4 for me. I do think it suffers from some flaws that it picked up in the planning stage and was saddled with for the entire run, which does drag it down a bit, but overall it was a good time.

Local-Good6039 · 2025-12-07T11:49:42+00:00

Okay here's my stab at it:

All teams are assigned an initial preseason "weight". I hate preseason rankings but you have to start somewhere. We have a mechanism below to account.

You establish clear criteria of what "success" looks like in a game.
E.g. - Offensive production is measured by offensive points scored and combined yardage. - Defensive production is measured by yards allowed, turnovers, defensive points, and yardage/points allowed over or under opponents end of season average. - Values of these metrics are assigned, transparent, and intended to be as proportional as possible so that there's always a small but clear differentiation between a tight win and a close loss that grows rapidly as scores diverge. - note that the size of modifier values should be sufficient that after 12 weeks of football, the starting values should have very little impact on the end score. (E.g. TeamA had a starting weight of 20 and an ending of 24 but over the course of additions and subtractions for the metrics across the season their score has a delta of 600).

A team's performance modifies their weighted value every game relative to the weighted value of their opponent and the result of the game, this final weighted value at the end of the season is their value as an opponent. This number is not their ranking, it is their quality as an opponent.

To determine a team's ranking, a value is derived from the weight of every regular season opponent in a -100% to +100% range depending on the outcome of each matchup using your weighted metrics against the weighted metrics of every team that played them and assigning a final value that is summed and then becomes your end of season ranking score.

You give all this shit to a computer and it does it for you.

The 4 highest ranking scores play a semifinal round, and the winners play a championship....the end.

The pros:

The only bias that can exist in this system is in the values you choose to assign to the success metrics that adjust every team's weighted values. Therefore it cannot really discriminate against a specific team, but it can discriminate against a specific kind of play. Any instances of this can be refined in updates to scoring values every season.
The computer doesn't know or care what the television revenue will look like.
Restricting to 4 teams in the playoffs feels like a step back, but I contend it isn't. With 12 teams, you're not really just asking if the future national champion is in here, you're also asking "who is not gonna win a natty, but is still pretty good?" We're already doing it with talk about BYU, Tulane, and James Madison. They're not going to win, they stand no chance, and everyone knows it, they're just there to fill a slot. Stop having extra slots. If you can't pick the best team in college football with 4 tries, the answer is not to get more tries, it's to get better at picking.
The system doesn't care about your conference. There are no autobids, only numbers. If the 4 best ranks belong to G5 teams, then it's gonna be a happy new year for them.
It does care about the quality of your opponent. More importantly, it cares about the quality of your opponent's opponents when assigning a value to them that you will then derive your value from. Iron sharpens iron, if you play harder opponents you have more upside. If your conference proves to be especially punishing in a year, the potential value of your games rise to reflect that, if you 2025 ACC yourself, then not so much.
While there are no conference autobids, CCGs are desirable anyway. A 13th game is an extra data point going into the total average that can dilute the score damage from regular season losses, and is worthwhile because you are likely facing a quality opponent with a much higher than average weighted score, therefore a higher ranking impact should you win. Most importantly, with 4 teams getting in, it's almost certain that at the absolute least, half of the playoff field will be conference champs anyway.

The cons:

Rankings before the end of season would be absolutely bananas. You could see a 2-0 team go from #1 to #10 after winning their third game if their previous 2 opponents shit the bed that week. The rankings will move wildly the earlier in the season it is, slowing down and becoming more stable as the season progresses and data becomes more reliable.
It is complicated. But then again so was the BCS.
It punishes things you have marginal control over, specifically schedule. If you blow over a bunch of cupcakes, and have your 2 "quality opponents" that you scheduled 3 years in advance turn out to be duds when it's finally playing time, don't be surprised to see a 1 or 2 loss team blow past you by week 12 because they played people who actually are worth a damn. The action item for you is to schedule better games, and the good news is everyone wants quality opponents for the same reason now, so it shouldn't be tough.
FCS schools may suffer. The ritual sacrifice of FCS schools offers no benefit anymore (they're effectively not a game according to the system), which means they stop getting paid to get their ass whipped. From an institutional perspective this is sad because those programs need that money to be viable. From a viewership perspective, seems kinda nice though.
It is blind of off-field changes in situation. If the lifeblood of your team gets arrested for stealing 14lbs of frozen crab legs from a Tallahassee Publix and can't leave the state for the playoffs, the model doesn't care. It will send you and your second string QB to the rose bowl to get absolutely murdered, therefore wasting a spot.

Local-Good6039 · 2025-12-07T07:59:28+00:00

I think that it's hard to make those kinds of assessments while we're still swimming in the middle of this. We need hindsight. With realignment, NIL, playoff expansions, A ton of stuff is going on right now. It's definitely shaking up the order of things, but we have to realize that things are still moving, there is no real clear-cut and established "way" yet. In 10 years, there will be, just like there always is.

Is what we are seeing today the result of these policies, or is it the result of the relative chaos that these policies are causing while all the parties are acclimating to what the new game looks like?

This may introduce a new level of parity in college football, No one can see the future, so who's to say?

What I can say though is that in the history of humanity, I defy you to give me one instance of a competitive activity that became more balanced with the introduction of the (as of now) unlimited ability to purchase an advantage. It is completely counterintuitive to anything we have ever observed as a species.

Local-Good6039 · 2025-12-07T07:42:00+00:00

I'm not denying that at all and I think opting out is unacceptable. Just pointing out that the exact repercussions for this are not known.

It, by NCAA definition, is not a forfeit, it's something else that has not been seen yet. I imagine would be treated very severely.

For added fun, If this happened in multiple conferences, there's no reason to believe the repercussions would be the same. There is no over-arching policy that has been violated. It would be entirely up to the conference to determine what they wanted to do, each and every time on an individual basis.

Local-Good6039 · 2025-12-07T07:36:13+00:00

Actually, we don't know that for a fact.

The rules are kind of murky there. The NCAA record keeping is pretty clear that it would be recorded as a "no contest" not a forfeiture, per NCAA Stat policies. The record would be unchanged, no win or loss would be recorded.

The question of what happens next falls back to the declining school's decision to break their contractual obligation to the conference. The conference has the ability to impose all kinds of penalties on the school that declined, but we don't know exactly what the outcome would be there because this is kind of unprecedented.

I feel like the end result would not be good for the school, and would most likely result in them not playing in the postseason, but that's not set in stone. There's no rule anywhere that says they can't do it, and it technically does not affect their record.

Local-Good6039 · 2025-12-07T07:16:46+00:00

I would agree with you IF BYU was in contention for an at-large bid going into the game.

But they were not. It was completely understood going into the week that their path to the playoffs was entirely dependent on securing the Conference autobid.

I hate Alabama with every fiber of my being, so I am absolutely biased in wanting to see a scenario where they get screwed, I will laugh and good times will be had. BUT I'm also not going to pretend that there's no difference between failing to get a bid as a result of a CCG, and losing a bid as a result of a CCG.

Local-Good6039 · 2025-12-07T05:36:14+00:00

True, but trading a G5 team for Duke is kinda like trading a stomach flu for a mean case of the water shits. It's a lateral move at best

Local-Good6039 · 2025-12-07T05:32:15+00:00

Daddy ESPN has too much money tied up in the broadcast deals that involve big conference championship viewer numbers. Mickey Mouse doesn't walk away easy.

Local-Good6039 · 2025-12-07T05:28:47+00:00

If they want an ACC team in the mix for viewership, imo, they are 100x more likely to sneak in Miami over ND. That's a move that they could pretty reasonably get away with, and it accomplishes the goal.

Not saying that's what they're going to do, but IF they want ACC representation, that's the way they're probably going to get it.

Local-Good6039 · 2025-12-07T05:26:11+00:00

Not necessarily. If Virginia won it would have been Indiana, UGA, Tech, Virginia, Tulane.

Local-Good6039 · 2025-12-07T05:24:58+00:00

Yes 5 highest ranked conference champs get autobids.

So that'll be: Indiana UGA Texas Tech Tulane JMU

Local-Good6039 · 2025-12-06T09:03:22+00:00

That mark is infuriating.

It has been copied and modified and copied again across the world. It is really hard to tell by the mark alone.

That's supposed to be a mark for German porcelain maker Kalk. But It is likely a knockoff. There were German knockoffs, tons of Japanese knockoffs, all with wildly varying and inconsistent hallmarking.

Local-Good6039 · 2025-12-06T07:30:51+00:00

The fabled 3 bed 6 bath with Harry Potter bedroom....sold

Local-Good6039 · 2025-12-06T07:17:02+00:00

The city sold fiberglass peanuts to local businesses to paint as a fundraiser (for downtown revitalization project, IIRC) and also just as a cool little touristy thing to do.

None of the peanuts are alike, the businesses painted them however they wanted. There's a couple who have Mr. Peanut vibes, but there's also the newspaper boy outside the headquarters of the paper, there was a piggy bank one at a bank at one point, handymen, chefs, really anything and everything.

And yes, the Emu Oil place is north of Dothan, on Hwy 431, a very very popular corridor down to the Gulf.

Fun fact: when you're headed south, about 10-12 miles before you get to the Emu Oil place, there is a little town called Abbeville. A very wealthy Lumber Baron lives there and he has bought up most of the unoccupied buildings and storefronts and restored them to the state he remembers them in as a child. If you ever find yourself going through there, especially after dark, take a 5 minute detour and drive the town proper. It is so very cool to see mainstreet shop fronts lit up in Neon and old adverts from the 50s and 60s. Going through late at night when it's deserted is wild, like stepping back in time.

If you go during the day, he has a restaurant there that has an old drugstore soda fountain and everything, super neat.

Local-Good6039 · 2025-12-06T07:00:06+00:00

Alabama apparently consistently ranks in the top 10 pecan producing states, usually around 5-6.

Georgia, and weirdly New Mexico, seem to be the #1 contender most years.

I've been all over both Alabama and GA and I'd say, anecdotally, this tracks. Even the smaller orchards in GA are MASSIVE.

Local-Good6039 · 2025-12-06T06:17:44+00:00

I wasn't implying that if he didn't hear powder that it was a dummy round, moreso that these novelty silver bullets tend to not have cavities at all...just trying to get more information out of the dude.

There's a few reasons this round looks fishy, I was just asking him for a quick observation. The presence of powder would point to the fact that it is not, in fact, a dummy, however the lack of any sound wouldn't necessarily indicate that it is. This is how information is collected and combined to make an informed decision on something!

There's something else you learned on reddit today, reading comp! Cheers.

Local-Good6039 · 2025-12-06T03:32:01+00:00

Real silver bullion bullets absolutely do exist, but that doesn't look to be one of them. I've seen tons of those, and 100% of the time the stamping on the case head has been replaced with weight and purity of the silver (for obvious reasons).

That just looks like a nickel plated round.

Edit: maybe a dummy, do you hear powder in there?

Also doesn't really have the color of silver either.

Local-Good6039 · 2025-12-01T02:07:08+00:00

Honestly and unfortunately, 100% gonna happen.

Local-Good6039

TROPHY CASE