First off, no one got hurt, his car was fine, mine has a fucked up rear bumper, tail lights, and the trunk won't close on its own but its tied shut with paracord for now. He was actually really chill about it despite it being my fault since I was signalling one way but decided to turn the other way at the last second, which was dumb. I was pretty badly shaken up by it last night but after a bunch of emotional support phone calls, quite a bit of crying, and a good night's sleep I think I'm feeling okay.

In terms of the practical matters I think I've got the big picture down. I have the other guys number and the accident report thing the cop gave us and I've gotta get in contact with my insurance and go to an autobody shop to see what they can do.

I come to the nice people of the bearsite to see if anyone has pointers so I can avoid any newbie mistakes. Particularly I'm wary of being overcharged for services at repair shops but anything about navigating the aftermath of one of these things would be appreciated.

Being less of a car-centric burger has been one of my goals and I think this whole event might be a nice motivator to get to work on that.

ACLU Press Release

Article from Journalist Erin Reed

Article from Advocate.com

Basically, if you got a misgendered passport as a result of the executive order in January you can now get it changed. Additionally, if you need to get a new passport, update a currently held passport, replace a lost/stolen passport or renew a passport that will expire in less than one year you are allowed to receive one that reflects your gender identity.

This is an evolving situation and it may change in the near future. From the Erin Reed article:

"whether transgender people should submit a passport update request immediately depends on their risk tolerance and individual circumstances"

However this is from the ACLU's press release:

"We encourage all class members impacted by this policy to take advantage of this injunctive relief"

It is at times like this I am reminded of the advice given to me by a man at the passport helpline some time ago:

"We have no idea what is going to happen. Trust your gut and do what you think is right."

Timothee Chalamet was a surprisingly good Paul Atreides but WTF happened to Zendaya? She looked nothing like this in Spiderman. The end of the movie wrapped things up pretty good so is part 2 an adaptation of Dune Messiah or something?

Pic related.

Shoutout to Tervell for keeping this comm active. If it weren't for him this place would be SPARSE but instead we've got multiple posts a day of interesting gun pictures. He's pretty cool for doing that.

Thanks dude!

Pic unrelated, it's a Cuban soldier, the optic on the AKM is the domestically produced Visor Patria.

archive.ph Link

Wall Street Journal Article archive.ph link

Boeing has been awarded the contract for the NGAD program, and will produce the next generation of fighter jets used by the United States. The aircraft is said to be the first 6th generation fighter, said to employ novel technologies such as AI assistance. It will be part of a new "family of systems" that will include unmanned "loyal wingman" fighter aircraft . The designation F-47 appears to pay homage to Donald Trump, the 47th president.

The Wall Street Journal says that the price tag per aircraft will be "several hundred million each", for reference, the final cost per F-35 is around $80 million.

This feels like a story from The Onion ngl.

Audibly cackled when I saw this one today, it's got about 32 hours of relevance left lmao

Heya all,

As the title implies I recently switched from Concerta (27 mg) to Vyvanse (20 mg) because I had heard very wonderful things about the latter and upping my Concerta dosage wouldn't be ideal given my blood pressure. I'm about six days in to the swap and quite honestly I feel like shit. Like, obviously I'm experiencing withdrawal symptoms from a stimulant I took habitually for years but this still sucks. I'm curious to hear from others who have had the same experience, particularly about how long the adjustment period was.

I've recently adopted a vegetarian diet and have been enjoying vegan cooking. As much as online recipes are useful there's still nothing quite like a physical cookbook. I have a small collection of recipe books but most are very much centered on the use of animal products and so they are of fairly limited use to me now. I've been looking at the Food Not Bombs books as well as some of the America's Test Kitchen books but I'm curious as to what this community can recommend.

Edit: Thank you for all of the responses! I now have a lot to look into and I apologize for not really being able to respond to all of you individually.

This post is in two parts, a vent about frustrations, and then some questions I have.

The Vent, with dysphoria and transphobia under an additional spoiler.

I am completely mystified and utterly intimidated by the whole process of going to a stylist and getting a haircut. I would like to try something different from the style that I've been wearing for the past three years since I got out of the closet but every time I go I just wind up with the same thing but cleaned up a little. I find that I lack the knowledge to accurately communicate what I want, and because of this I don't feel comfortable attempting to micromanage someone who is doing something totally outside of my realm of expertise for me. Some of the online guides say that I can go to an experienced (translated: expensive) stylist and they can give me the guidance I'm looking for but that hasn't been the case, primarily due to a lack of assertiveness on my part.

spoiler CW: dysphoria, internalized transphobia The whole hair salon experience induces this greasy, dysphoric feeling from beginning to end. I'm feeling some of it right now, actually. The brainworms tell me that a real woman would already know all this stuff and that my discomfort and awkwardness just proves that my identity is somehow fake and my being in a traditionally feminine space is unwelcome and so on and so forth. I get it in my head that "This person is being nice enough to tolerate my presence and work on this part of my body, to be in any way demanding of this person would be asking for too much." These thoughts make the already confusing process all the more draining.

:::

These are my questions:

• Is there some kind of guide that explains the lingo and maybe even theory behind women's hairstyles?
• Does anyone else get really intimidated by this whole thing?
• How do I make going to the stylist fun?
• Any tips on procuring good reference pictures and inspiration?

I hope this ramble was okay, I have 0 clue what I'm doing. Thank you for your time and attention.

In a surprise move the Biden Campaign has announced that they will be abandoning Vice President Kamala Harris and replacing her with President Biden's legally embattled son, Hunter. During a noontime press release on Sunday Biden campaign manager Julie Chávez Rodriguez explained:

"Recent polling numbers suggested that we needed a course correction in order to win in the upcoming November election. Polls have found that Vice President Harris has been underperforming amongst potential voters and, quite frankly, she's cringe. We believe that Hunter will be key in courting the rich failson bloc that will be vital for success in the presidential race. Additionally, he is our only viable connection for a steady coke supply and we’re all jonesing for a hit right now. We are not taking questions at this time."

Kamala Harris was pressed for comment as she was leaving an ALDI supermarket in Fort Wayne Indiana. In response she laughed while she pointed to a shopping bag she was carrying and said "Jalapeños! For ninety nine cents! Can you believe it?" before ducking into a waiting limousine.

Hunter Biden remarked “Holy s--- I thought he was joking”