Holy shit, never, ever try and play with a bi/lesbian couple if you're a straight guy lol.
This was ages ago. Back in the eighties still, if only barely.
I met a girl. We became friends. She got flirty, and I returned it. Now, she was honest pretty early on, once we both realized there was some sexual energy there. She told me she was with someone, and that the someone was also a girl.
I figured that was it. End of story, right?
Nope, the girl is bi, though her partner wasn't exactly into non monogamy. But we were first, and was cool with it not going anywhere.
So, we hang out. Turns out her partner is pretty damn cool. Butch as hell, but not prone to the machismo you sometimes run into. Which, the partner ended up being trans, but back then that wasn't a thing in anyone's awareness. At the time, she was a butch lesbian.
Anyway, ignoring that, we all get along well, so I become their beard. When they needed a guy to "date" to keep their family off their backs, or whatever, I would step in. Went to prom with the partner even.
Turns out, we all got along well enough that the partner was willing to open things up and see if a guy in the bedroom could satisfy the bi girl, without bothering the partner. And, I was the one they both trusted. So, it happened.
I guess the easiest way to cover it is to say that there's only so many things you can do when one person out of the three simply can not handle contact with a penis, and is also not willing to have anyone go down on them. It meant there was always someone left out. I mean, we tried. But it amounted to taking turns, and the partner couldn't really handle watching.
We ended up trying what I've seen called a Roman chair, and that kinda worked okay, but it was so damn awkward with me and the partner kind of looking at each other as the bi girl was between us. Like, if we'd been able to touch each other, maybe the awkward would have been gone, but we tried kissing and it was a hard no for the partner, and not fun for me. Any kind of gentle shoulder touching was out too.
We could hug each other with clothes on, even give pecks on the cheek when we'd say goodbye after hanging out, but with the clothes off, neither of us was down for much in the way of contact. I would have been fine with casual touch, maybe some hugging, or even a high five lol. But I didn't want to grope him (fuck it, the dude transitioned, and trying to not call him him is annoying, even though this was ages ago), no matter how nice his tits and ass were. It just felt wrong to grope my buddy. And I had zero interest in his vag, which was still more interest than he had in it.
So me and him were just each in a hole (him via strap on) kind of wanting the whole thing to be over lol. The girl had some fun, but after I had to admit there was no way in hell I could come, she started feeling awkward too lol. Like, there I am in her ass, doing my best to stay hard so she can have this experience, and her partner is just going through the motions for the same reason, and once she realized that, she felt weird as hell.
Tbh, I've never liked threesomes. We tried a couple of other times, and it was better than that one, if only by virtue of knowing what was absolutely not worth trying. But even with other people over the years, they all end up disappointing unless it's two people taking care of one, without trying to mix things up.
But holy shit, that first one was just horrible lol. I've seen guys talk about the fantasy of being with that kind of couple, and I can't help but laugh. The chances of a lesbian being all chill with a guy in the situation are pretty damn low. And there's no such thing as good sex when one out of three people would rather it not be happening the way it is.
Which, gods damn, my buddy there tried so hard to do what he thought was right by his girlfriend. Later on, he tried to be open for some contact with me, even tried going down on me. Neither of us could handle that lol. I couldn't stay hard, and he couldn't do more than take in just the tip for a second. It was kinda hilarious after the fact. We still joke about it.
He couldn't handle either of us going down on him. We didn't have a word for it then, but the dysphoria was just too powerful. It wasn't about me being a guy, it was him being so out of connection with his genitals because they were the wrong genitals that any contact was just pure distress. Even hands were too much.
We only tried a few times as a threesome before calling it a failed experiment. Then a couple of times with just me and the girl, with him having done some preliminaries and then just watching. That was almost as awkward for me because it felt like him being left out was wrong, and it didn't work well for either of them.
But none of the other fails were as bad as the first lol. I'd call it a clusterfuck if any of the fucking had been worthy of the word.
There's a handful, yeah. Some folks are prolific posters. Others just have altered text I'm their name, which makes it stand out enough to recall easily.
But generally, it takes extended interactions to remember a user name for long.
Plenty. Music and books in particular. I'm usually behind on making legit buys, but I treat piracy partially like a library where I can try before I buy.
That isn't saying I buy everything I pirate, I don't. But if I like it enough to keep the files, I'll wait until I find a good sale and eventually get a legit copy in some format.
I also do it in reverse, where I'll buy something, but pirate a digital copy when it's more convenient. That's typically for paper books and music on vinyl. Sometimes I'll even pirate a copy of a CD if I'm not up to dealing with the ripping (disability means I don't always have stamina for everything, so stuff like ripping a cd is low priority).
See, that's the kind of idiot that makes gun ownership look bad.
They're tools, not a fetish item. You start being an idiot and trying to make a "state rifle" at all, and you undermine every attempt to actually maintain the right to defense via firearms.
I very much enjoyed enterprise at the time, despite the horrible theme song and the flaws in writing that spotted most episodes.
Now, part of that is being a huge Bakula fan. I love the way he throws himself into roles. I think though, had there been another age actor in the role I still would have enjoyed the show.
It wasn't great Trek. Probably the weakest of the older series, depending on tastes and criteria. Certainly wasn't up to TNG, TOS, or DS 9. I'd put it on par with Voyager, though it was both bad and good in different ways, with the lack of attention being paid to established Vulcan history in Enterprise tipping the scales to it being lesser than Voyager.
But I really liked that they tried to go back to the whole "wagon train in space" vibe. And the cast was great. Can't hold the iffy writing against the cast, and there were some great moments where the actors kept things from being worse just by virtue of how they carried their characters.
I don't rewatch any of the series as a binge though, so my opinion might change when the flaws are showing up in rapid succession compared to the original pace of watching week by week and over time. I know binge watching made me almost hate shows I used to like a good bit (like Bones as an example).
I can't compare anything to the newer shows since I've kinda stopped watching much in the way of "tv" the last few years, so I haven't caught any of the stuff that has been done in the last decade. Could be that one of the new shows would be worse, in comparison to the earlier shows, I dunno. Doesn't help that I despise the reboot movies, and the fact e that they happened kinda soured me on new Trek overall. The folks running things don't seem to be interested in the kind of shows that made me enjoy Trek in the first place, but that's second hand impression from seeing what people say online
It's a shame the r/sharpening community moved to discord for the most part.
That being said, the average person, with the average knife, only needs one stone in the 1k range. Anything else is personal preference, or window dressing.
The general consensus is to use what's called a "splash and go" stone. Shapton, particularly their "glass" stones, is one of the more popular brands. Water stones, as opposed to oil stones, tend to be a fairly gentle learning curve. You do eventually have to flatten them, which isn't difficult, but by the time that happens, you'll likely have picked up enough skill to have a better idea of what you'll want, so don't jump into that yet. No need to buy up all kinds of stuff to get started. Hell, it's better to only get one stone and nothing else to get started.
But avoid the double sided, at least for now. They can be a pain in the ass over time. Just get one good stone and practice as you use your knives.
Now, if the chipping is bad, you might need to find someone local that does hand sharpening to grind those out, but minor chips and dings come out fine over time. But never, ever machine grind a good knife, and definitely never trust anyone that claims you should let them do so unless you know for a fact they use a water cooled device. Seriously, just don't.
Grinding out heavy chips is a bit more difficult, so it takes more experience to do right on a good knife. You don't want that to be your first project. A cheap knife, that's fine, nobody really cares if they screw a cheap knife up while learning. But minor chips, say something under an 1/8 inch at the biggest, you just sharpen and let the chip get eaten away as you go. You waste more metal than necessary otherwise.
The exception to that is something that you'll be using for professional cooking. And it would need to be pretty fancy restaurant cooking at that, where perfect presentation is mandatory. Little chips won't show up in the results for a home cook. Being real, even fancy chefs usually can't see the difference, but they'll freak out despite that. Only time I've ever had a chip that small be a problem was doing food carving. And you ain't doing that with a bigger knife, it's kinda specialized.
One stone. Practice developing a burr on the blade, and removing that burr via the stone itself. That's it, that's the recipe to a very sharp knife. You don't need high grits, you don't need some kind of magic guide or whatever. Just your hands, one stone, and a knife.
You said exactly why in your post: "...our biological design..."
There's no such thing. We evolved. That means we're a mix of traits passed along over time by individuals that managed to live long enough to breed.
That's it. That's the whole explanation for any question about "why don't humans do x thing as part of our biology?"
Any given trait is all about lasting long enough to make babies. Once that occurs, all that's left is a general proclivity to ensuring the babies survive long enough to do the same. Regrowing teeth isn't part of that. It's a niche trait that isn't as useful as you'd think for humans. We don't need to gnaw at things, we don't need to crack bones with our mouths, nothing that would make a third set of teeth an advantage, or different teeth an advantage.
Teeth are not easily breakable. We actually can crack bone with our jaws and the teeth will usually survive if the bone isn't too thick; we just have better tools for that because way back when, the proto-humans that used tools had more babies that survived to make more babies. You have to abuse and/or neglect your teeth to break them for the vast majority. There are congenital issues where that isn't the case, but we've also bred ourselves into a social species that takes care of each other, so we aren't limited to a harsh, primitive survival level of things.
I really don't get why people think of teeth as fragile. They're incredibly durable for what we need them for, and require only minimal care to last well beyond breeding age. Even if you factor in modern diets being bad for teeth, regular care for them (brushing and flossing) can stave off those effects for decades. Go search up some of the dental research on old human bodies from archaeological sites. People survived very well with just one set of adult teeth.
And, some humans do have extras that can come in later in life, though it's very rare and comes with drawbacks (according to the last lady I dated that was an anthropologist anyway). Supposedly, having the extras actually weakens the regular adult teeth and makes them more prone to damage. There's always a tradeoff in things like this.
Dude, this is common fucking knowledge, and nobody cares.
It's one of those things where the very tankies you're talking about made it trivial for anyone not wanting to interact with them, their instance, or anyone in specific can just block whatever. And then there's the instances that defederate from .ml and/or grad, which is a decent amount of them.
They may be assholes (though they tend not to be in interpersonal ways, only in their political views), but they're assholes nobody has to interact with for very long.
