I love coffee and most of the time just make espresso at home using our favourite coffee shops beans.
But sometimes I’m feeling lazy about breakfast and I can order a breakfast sandwich and a flat white from one of the 5 Starbucks within 5 minutes of my house and it’s always the same and it’s always decent.
It might be a nostalgia thing but I think you can like good coffee and still drink Starbucks. No need to be that guy who only drinks craft triple hopped IPAs and turns his nose up at a bud light.
They are better still than any of the fast food chains. Most of the time we go to the coffee shop at the golf course a minute away that has a great breakfast sandwich and okay coffee but sometimes I actually crave Starbucks
You really misread what I wrote. I’m not saying you have to go to a bougie hipster spot, I just said Starbucks has tricked people into believing burned acrid roasting is good coffee. Dunkin, Pete’s, many fast food places all make better coffee.
My fridge is filled with High Life that I’ve been drinking for 20 years, High noon, and then a bunch local craft across styles. I hate gatekeepers. But Starbucks just isn’t good.
The one thing that I will say in Starbucks defense is that their Americano is by far my favorite that I have ever had. I’ve yet to find a local shop that has espresso that has any flavor or doesn’t taste bland/watered down compared to Starbucks. That could also be related to the relatively low number of local shops too.
I’m not usually one to yuck yums, but Starbucks gets me fired up, so here we go:
Starbucks stinks in absolutely every aspect of their existence.
The simple Egg McMuffin smokes every single one of Starbucks’ food offerings.
They overroast the shit out of their coffee because they (and their customers) value consistency over quality.
Howard Schultz is a scumbag. He couldn’t grift the great city of Seattle out of money for a new stadium, so he sold the Sonics which lead to them moving to OKC.
Don’t let the decor fool you, Starbucks is fast food.
My favorite Howard Schultz story was from a long piece on ESPN after he sold the team, when everyone was airing out what a loser he was. He gave all the Seattle Storm players (who may have been coming off a title at the time), gift cards to Starbucks for $5. At the time Starbucks had a policy you could not put less than $10 on a gift card, which means he had to enact a special loophole as the owner just to be that cheap.
Yeah, Starbucks is fast food, but what’s wrong with consistency?? Also, in a true serious question here, how are people able to tell a coffee is over roasted or not? I’ve personally never drank much of their drip coffee and drastically prefer their espresso drinks (reference my Americano comments above).
Since, apparently, the sidewinder missile is the military’s preferred weapon for dealing with these balloons, I googled the cost of one.
$439,000.
I feel like there should be a cheaper alternative.
Also, there’s been some trouble recovering all the pieces of the balloon that was obliterated over Myrtle Beach. I’m fairly certain a simple puncture would’ve caused the balloon and its components to return to Earth mostly intact.
Again, we’re back to the sidewinder missiles.
It’s a cliche for a reason.
When the only tool you have is a sidewinder missile, everything looks like a spy balloon.
I’m not the most expert in air to air combat or collateral damage mitigation, however this is what I do know from being a nerd.
You also need to keep in mind that these are small, extremely slow targets, and that actually makes them more difficult to hit for a fast moving jet. They’re also at high altitudes which why the F22 is being used. It has the highest service ceiling in the US inventory. It’s hard to fly high and slow and still be able to turn and look at the objects. The F22 is definitely the best option.
You basically have 4 options to shoot something down in todays USAF , Navy, and Army arsenals:
The AMRAAM. A long range, radar guided air-to-air missile, that is the size of a telephone pole. Exact range is classified but the latest model probably goes somewhere between 80-100 miles. Would it hit the target? Absolutely. Does it cost a million dollars a piece? You betcha. It’s way overkill for this target.
The AIM-9x sidewinder. Highly upgraded short range air-to air missile (probably less than 10 miles), heat-seeking missile. Highly maneuverable missile. It’s meant for dogfighting/within-visual-range fighting. It’s probably the best missile of its type in the world. Costs about 450k as previously mentioned.
Surface to Air missiles. They can definitely hit the targets but really make for a poor option in this mission. They’re expensive for one, this is actually a shortcoming in the US arsenal. If we get into a situation of defending Taiwan, our expense anti-air systems will be depleted quickly. The major problem with the SAMs though is that they can’t visually confirm the target. You have no idea what you’re shooting at. This is how rogue factions end up shooting down civilian airliners. Bad option all around for the spy balloon mission.
Good ole fashioned bullets. Cheap, but not super accurate. You need an extremely skilled and probably lucky pilot to make this work. As mentioned at the top of this post, the balloons are barely moving at high altitude. It’s like trying to shoot a can on a post from a moving car at 40mph but you can’t turn or slow down. Also you have the hazard of large, stray bullets flying for dozens of miles to God knows where. And then there’s the issue of the balloon actually coming down. Testing has shown that bullet punctures don’t actually bring these balloons down quickly. They end up having very slow leaks and can take a long time to finally come down.
So when you factor in all of these things, the sidewinder is probably the best option. It’s not a great answer, but it’s the best one. This is also a general macro strategy of China, build a whole of things cheaper than the US. We like to build Cadillacs, they like to steal Cadillac tech and put it in a Dodge Dart.
Disclaimer: I’m just a dork that reads a lot. Anyone with actual expertise feel free to correct me.
Caveat caveat caveat: not a military guy, don’t play one on television
For Air to Air missiles, there is not. At least with those that are currently deployed.
If you feel they shouldn’t cost that much to produce, I don’t have a good response to that. I don’t think either of us have an appreciation for the cost of the materials or engineering that goes into making one of them.
As of this afternoon, they’ve completed their mission
Officials said the U.S. believes that Navy, Coast Guard and FBI personnel collected all of the balloon debris off the ocean floor, which included key equipment from the payload that could reveal what information it was able to monitor and collect.
