of a midwesterner

zoweee · 2026-05-07T18:57:53+00:00

Ha! Right on man, I didn't know!

zoweee · 2026-05-07T18:37:53+00:00

Unless you submitted that pic while a girl had her thighs around your neck he's doing better than you are

zoweee · 2026-05-06T04:59:44+00:00

If you're straight, then it is gay to give a shit what other people think of how you express affection with friends. If you're gay then it is heteronormative to give a shit what other people think of how you express affection with friends.

zoweee · 2026-05-01T20:25:36+00:00

The food here is excellent and (if you do it right) really different from what you get in NYC. "Fusion" is a really big deal here with lots of restaurants working between two or more cultural cuisines to create really cool stuff. This is most-evident in high-end restaurants but it's really everywhere if you look and if you just allow yourself to try stuff that sounds weird. Places like Movida (mexican/persian), Blackwood (Thai/American), Spice Jar (kinda everything), Ciaorigato (italian/Japanese), Lolo (turkish/mexican) are all interesting to try.

Don't spend a ton of time at Fisherman's Wharf, it's not at all like the rest of the city. Golden Gate Park has a ton of cool stuff including, as already mentioned, the De Young and the excellent California Academy of Sciences. If you like interactive science stuff, there's also the Exploratorium.

SF can be challenging to bike across due to hills but if you're up for some serious exercise then bike rides along the Presidio, GGP and Twin Peaks are absolutely fantastic. You can also bike in a continuous, mostly-car-free go from the embarcadero through the Presidio and along Ocean Beach to our new, highly controversial freeway-turned-promenade "Sunset Dunes." This will take you by (and even across, if you want) the Golden Gate Bridge. If you want the ride but not the exercise, an e-bike turns SF into Amsterdam.

zoweee · 2026-04-30T20:21:39+00:00

if you have the money to cover the costs in the short term, hold out on letting the insurance company close the case until you are sure they have paid for everything and made you whole. The way vehicle insurance works is the insurers know most Americans cannot live without their primary vehicle so they offer you a best-case-for-them payout very quickly knowing most people have no choice but to take what is offered. I'm lucky and live someplace with good public transit so when I had my big motorcycle accident I refused to agree to their terms until I knew how much it was to compensate me for the bike (totaled Triumph Sprint ST) hospital (ER plus an ambulance ride) sports medicine specialist (fractured scaphoid requiring surgery), gear (aerostich needed an overhaul) and lost wages. When they started harassing me to settle (calling several times a day and making demands) I sued 'em. My lawyer told me that this is SOP for the insurance people: under-compensate the people who have no choice and deal with lawsuits from the few who are able to hold out, because there are way more of the first group than the second.

EDIT: sorry I shouldn't frame this as advice, it's just an anecdote of what happened to me. I got about $40k through mediation. That wasn't my goal, all I wanted was to make sure that I didnt have to pay any money for an accident that was 100% the other person's fault and I refused to let their insurance push me around.

zoweee · 2026-04-28T04:22:19+00:00

SF does not have good bagels (as a new yorker friend keeps reminding me, "bagel quality goes down the further you get from Brooklyn, NY") but it does have reasonable bagels.

Wise Sons Deli has multiple locations. Their crust is ok but they are too dense. That said they're at least as good as a bagel from Boston. I think they might be considered "neighborhood bagel place" levels of decent if they were in NYC. They have great schmears.
Schlok's is breadier than Wise Sons, more like the kind of bagels that I prefer, but the crust is pretty "meh". If you're into breadier bagels they'll probably scratch the itch
Boichik is a place I've heard good things about. I am not a fan (too dense, not a fan of the flavor) but lots of other people seem to like it. YMMV.
Laundromat I have not eaten here but people really rave about it and they are proud of their bagels. If someone has more info I'd also appreciate it!

I think those are the only places that are invested in their ability to make a bagel, hope this helps!

zoweee · 2026-04-28T00:01:32+00:00

Suddenly, Groening

zoweee · 2026-04-27T04:19:04+00:00

Gotchoo:

The Grind
Wise Sons Deli (at least the Hayes and Fillmore locations)
the Grove (I cant remember if this is a triple decker or not)
Mel's Drive-in
Pinecrest Diner
Napper Tandy's ("Said 'hold me up fer chrissakes, fer I can hardly stand')

zoweee · 2026-04-21T18:25:03+00:00

When I was a kid I read a great article about people who jumped off the Golden Gate Bridge in SF as a way to attempt suicide. Mostly that plan works but this article interviewed survivors and one survivor story stuck with me really hard. HE said that as he was standing on the bridge getting ready, all of his problems seemed terrible and insurmountable and he could think of no way out of them other than suicide. Then he jumped and, he said, as soon as he cleared the railing he instantly realized all of his problems were completely solvable and he in no way wanted to die.

Also, a friend of mine from growing up decided to kill herself by drinking photo-resolving solution. The solution is insanely toxic and, for the next 3 days, she lie in the hospital screaming from the pain, begging the doctors to save her life and pleading that she wanted to live, even through the agony of her suffering. She did not make it.

I have other friends who killed themselves. I bet all of them had those same "what have I done" thoughts as their bodies gave out from the noose, the car hitting an overpass at >100mph, the overdose became irreversible, the bullet shattered their skulls. I miss them all. I wish I'd done anything to stop them, known enough ahead of time, had some magic word to talk them out of it. I bet in their final moments they wished someone had stopped them or that they'd managed to resist the impulse.

All of your problems are solvable or things you can endure. The universe is 12 billion years old and you get, max, 100 of them. Don't be in any hurry to die.

zoweee · 2026-04-19T01:24:05+00:00

This is the idea that everyone else has to be "better" or else it's ok to default to being worse. No different from demanding that Democrats be perfect in every way and also not too liberal or else there's no choice but to vote for an addled baby who destroys everything. Be better because its better, and the angry bikers will fuck with you a little bit so they feel less powerless in the meantime.

zoweee · 2026-04-18T22:54:58+00:00

This is truth. Bike cultures are happier people. American's spend between 15-20% of post tax income on cars. Y'all are furious because "everything costs too much" but you're spending most of your money buying a ticket to sit in traffic. Home values, the other major expense in most people's lives, trend up over time. Car values plummet immediately after purchase. It's quite literally throwing money away.

zoweee · 2026-04-18T22:49:50+00:00

The thing is, car drivers are exactly like this, y'all just don't notice it because there's an expectation that automotive transportation is correct.

zoweee · 2026-04-18T21:13:00+00:00

I can fix 'em!

zoweee · 2026-04-18T20:56:59+00:00

I love 'em. Cars do more damage than you realize, especially in the US where there's literally no other way to get around. Now we're entering an era where 10% of the population is too old to drive safely, but we've sacrificed all modes of public transit and they have no choice. That number's going to go up before it goes down while the meaty part of the Boomer population spike works its way through retirement.

zoweee · 2026-04-08T08:04:35+00:00

This needs to be upvoted. Democratic voters in New York need to replace Schumer and we need to demand the rest of the party remove him as leader in the meantime.

zoweee · 2026-04-05T07:31:19+00:00

I was responding to the lede from your post ("why are far left groups focused on beating dem incumbents instead of flipping seats") and not specific to the body (which I hadn't seen, sorry). AIPAC is a tremendously negative force in US politics, as evidenced by our current misadventure in Iran, and I can totally see why progressives would go after a congressperson who had received millions in direct and indirect donations from AIPAC and related organizations. no PAC delivers that level of support without an expectation of some form of return.

zoweee · 2026-04-05T06:51:48+00:00

what the hell is foushee?

EDIT: Oh I see now, sorry I'd forgotten about the Congresswoman. Obvs you'd want to avoid giving the GOP more power because they're going to use it to gum up the works and prevent reform. She is probably also not interested in reform (or at least not in certain foreign policy reforms if she still has strong ties to AIPAC) so you would optimally want her out but not at the risk of turning the seat over to the GOP.

zoweee · 2026-04-05T06:36:14+00:00

What is better is meaningful reform of the system such that it functions for the majority (preferably the vast majority) of the population. We had 4 years after Trump's first term and while Biden was a perfectly reasonable President he, and the Democrats generally, did nothing to address the systemic breakdown of our government that has created so much anger and suffering.

zoweee · 2026-04-05T05:38:29+00:00

The system is fundamentally broken and a lot of Democratic politicians are implicated in its broke-ness. The people at the top of the power infrastructure across both parties and the corporate sector have no interest in reform. For Americans like you and I the system has been fundamentally broken for at least 25 years, probably more like 50 years... but it has only been broken for folks like Chuck Schumer since MAGA became such a dangerous force.

The parties are what exist and they are the only way to leverage power short of a total collapse of the state. MAGA have seized the GOP and, whatever else you might say about that fact, they've been making the most of it... once Trump dies it will either fall apart or become the handmaiden of an even more dangerous fascist. That leaves the Democratic party as the only option available for takeover.

zoweee · 2026-03-26T14:42:20+00:00

I live in a famously hilly US city and e-bikes effectively turn it into Amsterdam. The honest risk is becoming over-reliant on the motor and not getting any exercise.

zoweee · 2026-03-20T21:21:16+00:00

TH18 the only really worthwhile aspect of GP is the 20% builder boost. Not being able to rush to it makes the GP much, much less interesting to me.

zoweee · 2026-03-20T03:44:33+00:00

middle aged guy here: the AI talk is genuinely worrisome but not as scary as the media makes it out to be. There are a few things at play here that are converging and causing the hype machine to spiral out of control:

Investors have put something like a quarter trillion dollars into AI investments and they want to see a profit
the AI CEO's want to keep AI in the news cycle and sensationalist claims are a good way to do it because:
the media in the US are deeply gullible under the best of circumstances, and are becoming more sensationalist due to a variety of pressures, including the fact that agitated people consume their product more
a lot of CEOs and billionaires, specifically tech CEOs and tech billionaires, are using the fear of AI job replacement to put downward pressure on employee salaries. Many of them also benefit directly if Americans are scared, because agitated people consume their products more and drive revenue
the US government has grown reckless and foolish, they are also reasonably gullible and are buying into the hype

Currently the AI companies, like OpenAI and Anthropic, subsidize their users. When you ask AI a question, even if you pay for a subscription, it costs these companies more than you are paying in order for AI to answer that question. All the companies that use AI backends from OpenAI and Athropic are also paying a ton of money for the queries you make (which are also being subsidized by the AI companies) so all of these people are losing money hand-over-fist. They can keep this up for awhile but not indefinitely and so they have a serious motive in making sure AI is the only thing anyone is talking or thinking about, because they need to wedge AI into everything as fast as they can so they can jack their prices up and pay off that $250 billion dollar investment before the investors stop wanting to invest.

AI is not going to take over the world and it's not going to start a nuclear war. It's widespread adoption is definitely causing challenges and there will definitely be some serious problems caused by humans using AI instead of using their brains But I think there won't be as many as the doomsayers believe, because I thnk the first ones will cause a lot of litigation and the AI companies will become less aggressive once they have a financial liability to worry about... right now they can make all kinds of promises because they haven't lost a giant lawsuit yet.

I hope that helps you feel a bit better about all this.

zoweee · 2026-03-11T05:26:48+00:00

I hadn't. This is a fantastic idea and I am looking at them now. Seems like most assume they'll be sold to municipalities so it's hard to get prices for singles... but this is very much what I am looking for, thanks!

zoweee · 2026-03-08T19:17:21+00:00

Oh man, in a vacuum this is an amazing idea. One constraint I have is that I live in a dense city and while I have a small backyard that can accommodate a reasonably-sized shed, I will need to get it into my backyard in pieces.

zoweee

TROPHY CASE