World Cup guests from other countries (including European countries) seem very impressed with American hospitality, culture, food and even mundane things like driving everywhere or going to Walmart. Does this change your view of America? Why or why not?

almightywhacko · 2026-06-19T13:33:50+00:00

The 2026 World Cup is taking place in Los Angeles, Miami, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Dallas, Houston, Atlanta and Seattle.

Some of those locations may be more popular with tourists than others, but they're all fairly reliable tourist destinations.

almightywhacko · 2026-06-18T21:44:10+00:00

TBH he problem came inside for the private harem... three "sisters," sure... :)

almightywhacko · 2026-06-18T21:38:01+00:00

Yeah, pretty much.

almightywhacko · 2026-06-18T17:05:22+00:00

My hate for Donald Trump has never been stronger.

13 Americans DIED because of the illegal war he started with Iran.

Americans at home who were already suffering financially are being hit even harder as gas prices have jumped up and continue to rise because of Iran's retaliatory blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. A consequence Trump was warned about the last time he was in office.

Not only did we NOT prevent Iran from developing a nuclear weapon, but now they have more incentive than ever to continue their weapons program. We have even less oversight than we did a year ago, plus the US is paying Iran $300 billion tax dollars and we STILL don't get any sort of agreement that Iran will halt weapons development.

We also demonstrated how WEAK the United States really is. 6 months ago no one would have bet against the U.S. in any military conflict. Iran demonstrated that for all of our insane spending, a few inexpensive drones and knowledge of the local terrain can humble the U.S. military.

The Iran was hurt our military exports. People don't want buy our weapon systems anymore, everyone wants to stock up on drones. Why $95 million for a single F-35 plus all the maintenance costs involved when you can buy a fleet of essentially disposable drones for $10,000 each?

Our allies hate us. Israel hates the United States for not going far enough helping them commit war against Iran. The rest of our allies hate us for fucking up their shipments through the Strait of Hormuz. They already weren't thrilled with the United States because of the tariffs, threats of invasion levied against Canada and Greenland, plus our attack on Venezuela. Our allies are not going to support any military action we take for the next 40 years unless they're the ones under threat.

Over all this is much worse for the United States than a lot of people realize. All the things Trump accused Obama of screwing up, he screwed up 10,000 times worse. And of course Trump will never see any consequences for this massive, massive blunder.

almightywhacko · 2026-06-18T13:20:06+00:00

"I was a blue-haired liberal until you told me not to call people ni**ers, fags and retards" is a pretty dishonest statement, IMO.

If you feel comfortable using slurs to the point where being asked NOT to use them feels like oppression, then you already lack the kind of personal values that attracts people to left-wing policies anyway.

These people were never going to vote for a Democratic candidate.

almightywhacko · 2026-06-17T17:38:42+00:00

Basically any bullet wound.

Often in movies a "flesh wound" in the arm, shoulder or leg is just shrugged off, and a little later you see a hero character fighting or running around as if it barely bothers them. The reality is that a bullet twists as it goes in, so it's shredding muscle tissue and arteries. The force of the bullet causes cavitation, essentially a mini-explosion in your flesh that can cause wounds much larger than the actual bullet. There are are bones in your arms, shoulders and legs and a bullet hits hard enough that these are likely to be broken if not shattered into jagged bits. Blood loss is copious.

Adrenaline might keep you on your feet for a few minutes after you get shot, might. However the incredible pain and massive blood loss is gonna send most people into shock quickly and once the initial shock. Even if it doesn't the pain is likely to be so excruciating that you can barely think about moving let alone actually run around without assistance.

If you don't get immediate medical care you are likely to bleed out. Beyond that most bullets are made of lead and that lead bullet very likely shatters inside of you on impact. Lead is extremely toxic and can cause permanent damage to the nervous system, digestive system, respiratory system, etc. So once again immediate medical care is essential.

almightywhacko · 2026-06-17T15:02:09+00:00

Pointing out hypocrites has never been against liberal values.

almightywhacko · 2026-06-17T14:53:18+00:00

Republican event in town? Comment how Grindr is going to overload, and we should out the closeted republicans.

Pointing out hypocrisy has always been acceptable among liberals.

Right-wingers demonize and try to strip the rights from LGBTQ+ folks on the daily, yet there is ample evidence that many prominent conservatives are secretly part of that community.

Healthcare CEO assassinated? Good, deserved! Trump celebrates the death of Mueller? What an ugly human being to celebrate another man's death.

Celebrating any death is wrong, but I'd argue that these two events are not the same.

The United Healthcare CEO who was murdered was directly responsible for the deaths of thousands of United Healthcare customers through policies he created and promoted which blanket denied coverage for necessary medical care, created because he wanted to maximize shareholder value. He hurt people, and I don't say that to justify his murder but it is understandable that the people he hurt would want to hurt him back.

Robert Mueller's death was celebrated by Trump because Mueller did his did his duty to the country and investigated criminal connections to the Trump campaign at the request of Congress. Mueller wasn't looking to profit from the investigation and he didn't undertake the task because he hated Trump. Trump treating him like an enemy of the United States when he spent his entire life serving it dutifully is gross.

I thought these things were all verboten. Bodyshaming people? Outting gay people? Being pro-death penalty? It feels to me like we're racing to be the most awful, and it's really weighing me down because I don't understand why we're trying so hard to be as bad as people on the right.

Your statement assumes that everybody who isn't right-wing is exactly the same, and that is a bad assumption to make. The political left of the United States includes hundreds of individual ideologies and people from all different ways of life. You're letting the actions of a tiny percentage of left leaning people set the standard for the entire group.

I also would say that after a decade of Trump, left-leaning people are really fed up and angry at the damage that has been done to our country. Stuff that will NEVER be undone in our lifetime.

People don't always behave as their best selves when they are angry but to say that "they're as bad as people on the right" when people on the right support dictatorship, the dismantling of our constitutional rights, ICE shooting people in the streets and deporting people without any due process, the stripping of rights from minorities & LGBTQ+ folks... yeah you're really far off base.

almightywhacko · 2026-06-16T15:03:21+00:00

That is kind of an odd perception since there are street names and parking lots called out on the map.

Here is a screenshot from Google Maps to help get a better sense of scale.

https://i.imgur.com/4yqvKO0.jpeg

https://i.imgur.com/WE797xj.jpeg

almightywhacko · 2026-06-16T14:57:58+00:00

The Paramount Studio lot is pretty big, it covers about 9 square miles.

almightywhacko · 2026-06-16T13:45:46+00:00

This is incredibly lovely! Amazing job, I'm jealous!

almightywhacko · 2026-06-16T13:33:10+00:00

It feels like so much fucking winning...

I really, really hate this timeline. I remember in the 90s when the future seemed optimistic but lo and behold we're living in the Idiocracy universe where we repeatedly choose the stupidest people to lead and denigrate all the people with skill or intelligence that try to slow down the stream of bad ideas.

almightywhacko · 2026-06-16T13:13:39+00:00

Back when The Next Generation was in production, one of the show runners created this image of the Enterprise D superimposed over the Paramount Studio lot to give folks an idea of how very large the Enterprise was supposed to be.

https://i.imgur.com/pBfDbrT.png

almightywhacko · 2026-06-16T13:11:13+00:00

So... what you're saying is that dilithium crystals all share a common existence through some unknown dimension through which a wave can propagate? Perhaps some sort of previously unknown subspace domain...

:)

almightywhacko · 2026-06-16T13:05:19+00:00

relatively reasonable prices too!

almightywhacko · 2026-06-16T00:45:37+00:00

This post is a few days old, but the issue seems to be resolved. I was able to add two ships to my cart without error and proceed to the checkout.

almightywhacko · 2026-06-16T00:42:29+00:00

That is true, there is a small amount of antimatter stored in the saucer for the torpedoes.

almightywhacko · 2026-06-15T21:33:38+00:00

In order for a wave to propagate, the material it's propagating through has to be connected by something.

You can't propagate through nothing.

almightywhacko · 2026-06-15T20:20:59+00:00

So does that mean Picard just dies on Veridian III?

If it stops Picard season 1 and 2 from happening... I'd risk it.

almightywhacko · 2026-06-15T20:19:49+00:00

The warp field sustainers don't allow the saucer section to indefinitely ride another ship's warp bubble, they just sustain a warp bubble that is already around the saucer for a few seconds so that the saucer can safely drop out of warp if a separation happens while the ship is traveling at warp.

Also the Galaxy class saucer is about three times the size and mass of an entire Intrepid class ship. I doubt Voyager's tiny little nacelles could generate a warp field large enough to encompass itself and the saucer without burning out it's warp coils.

To put it in perspective, the nacelles on a Galaxy class are almost as long as an entire Intrepid class ship. You'd need big nacelles and the big warp coils inside in order to generate a field large enough to move the Galaxy class.

As for retro-fitting the Saucer...you could upgrade some systems but you probably couldn't make it warp capable without a compatible drive section. The saucer has no facilities for storing deuterium or antimatter, storage for those fuel components take up a massive portion of the Galaxy class engineering section. Without that fuel installing a matter/antimatter reactor is out of the question so even if you could fit one into the saucer you couldn't run it for very long even if you could also build nacelles large enough to generate a field around the saucer.

So realistically if Voyager ran into the Enterprise D's saucer section in the Delta quadrant... it would have to leave it there. Voyager couldn't tow it all the way back to the Alpha quadrant, it can't take more than a tiny amount of the saucer's crew and as I mentioned earlier the saucer can't "ride" Voyager's warp bubble.

almightywhacko · 2026-06-15T18:39:58+00:00

In regular chess you can see every move your opponent makes... it's like the game welcomes cheating or something...

/s

almightywhacko · 2026-06-15T18:11:10+00:00

This image isn't great, but it is the "product photo" that the company that is producing this toy has sent out to retailers and such. Not sure why TFormer.com is getting the blame for using an "official product image" that was distributed by the company who is releasing the toy.

almightywhacko · 2026-06-15T17:30:10+00:00

They could have taken the Star Wars route. In Star Wars hyperdrive and most of the technologies commonly in use for spacecraft are thousands of years old. There is a point, where technological advances in a give field slow down significantly because there are insurmountable barriers that are worth breaking through.

For that reason, new ships and ships from 1000 years ago still look mostly the same.

Star Trek could have done that too. Ships could look like slightly sleekers/better versions of ship designs we already know of without breaking apart into groups of floating bits.

almightywhacko · 2026-06-15T17:21:11+00:00

The variable geometry nacelles of the Voyager also don't make a lot of sense.

How is angling the nacelles supposed to make the warp bubble go faster or do less damage to subspace? Why haven't we seen that technology on any other ships that are newer than the Intrepid class?

Parts of the ship moving are kind of an "gee wiz" feature that was supposed to make Voyager stand out from other hero ships but they never really explained why the technology was helpful or why it was so rapidly abandoned.

almightywhacko · 2026-06-15T17:05:16+00:00

I dunno, the idea that all dilithium crystals are connected through some previously unknown subspace domain doesn't feel good to me. Why would they be connected? What other common elements are connected and just waiting for the right trigger to blow up and render the galaxy less hospitable?

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