29 March 2024

Found A Reference!

Back when, I was talking about punching the belly of a National Socialist (never forget they were socialists!) panzer with .50 BMG ammo and I couldn't find the reference for belt composition.

I was watching a YouTube vid talking about what Masters of the Air gets right and what they get wrong and they show a table with the ammo loadouts!

USAAF fighters early on carried 4 AP, 1 Tracer.  That mix was changed to 2 AP, 2 API, 1 tracer (also called 2-n-1) until October 1943.  From then to the end of the war it was 100% API.

28 March 2024

There's A Process

Something I'm a bit sick of is how many rights issues become suicide pacts if taken to a lawyer's logical conclusion but are glaringly not that way from most normal people's perspective.

It's by far most common with libertarians than liberals, though there are plenty there too.

The inherent rights argument and illegal aliens is something that's got a lot of national and societal suicide built into it.

If anyone who manages to claw their way over the imaginary line that's our border has all the same rights as a naturally born citizen; then what distinguishes the citizen from anyone else?

Since these rights are inherent...

Somehow, I don't think that's what the founders were meaning, but they didn't leave us much in the way of notes.

On one hand, the US has survived mass, unchecked, immigrations more than once.

On the other hand, those immigrants were treated brutally, one might even say in a racist manner, until they assimilated into American culture.

On the gripping hand, they WANTED to be Americans.  While they loved their mother countries, they also saw that it was better here.

The melting pot is a crucible.

E Pluribus Unum is an apt motto.

Coming here to become an American is good, you can totally keep your motherland's customs and stuff as long as they're secondary to being American.

Italians did it.

Irish did it (TWICE!).

Cubans do it.  There's some VERY American Cubans living just a couple miles away from me, in fact.

Chinese did it.

Not insubstantial numbers of Indians are doing it.

Former slaves had done it, until it was undone by Mr Great Society.

It's not complicated.

But they have to want to, and there needs to be some pressure to cause those who don't to not want to remain.

It's Dusty In Here

One of my relatives has posted a bunch of home movies to YouTube.

It's very strange to see my mom as a young women.

I never knew her as this woman because she was Mom.

Technological Mix

I just learned about the Tollense Valley Battle.

What's interesting to me is the evidence of bronze and flint weapons at the battle.

Right at the cusp betwixt TL0 and TL1.

Rights

Been watching lawyers debate whether illegal aliens have rights.

The obvious answer is, yes they do.

The more subtle answer is, until they broke the law.

Even more subtle is the question of if we can just start shooting them without regard to whatever rights they might have had before they broke the law without convicting them of it?

That whole innocent until proven guilty thing makes me think that we accord anyone we suspect of being here illegally all of the rights a citizen or legal alien has right up until they're convicted.

After all, if they're innocent of being an illegal alien, they've never broken the law and therefore didn't surrender their rights when they crossed the frontier.

Something I do want to see more of from the government is sending the convicts back to where they came from even if the crime of being here is merely a misdemeanor.

The problem would solve itself if a couple of, small, things were done.

First:  Make proving your legal status a prerequisite for receiving any and all government aid.  I had to provide such proof to get Real ID to keep my driver's license and carry permit.  To demand less of non-citizens seems unequal protection under the law.

Second:  Tax remittances at an extortionate rate.  They've no real rights, and it's nothing that citizens are doing...  Bonus, this will also discourage things like H1B visa seekers form hitting our shores and displacing citizens for the same job.

That's really it.  Stop crime from paying and criminals tend to stop.  It's an age old solution.

Putting a fine on businesses who have employees who cannot prove they are here legally also works.  We will then find out if there really are jobs Americans won't do or if they're just unwelcome to apply as long as there's a supply of illegals to do them.

27 March 2024

Challenge

If you're a stupid enough fuck on Facebook to call me ignorant, then read all of these posts.

Then cut your dick off with a pencil so it hurts more and you stop contaminating the world with your, sure to be, just as stupid fuck progeny.

Leave your balls.  That way you still get horny, but won't be able to do anything about it.

Too harsh?

Well, I am sick of the sanctimonious bullshit from people who wouldn't walk an inch in my shoes, let alone a mile.

When you're done lecturing me on student loans, be sure to tell me about what a lucky deal I got from the VA.

There's Such A Thing?

Russian VIP transport tank seen in Ukraine.

That beats a stretch limo, I'd say.

Danger UXB

Watching the old BBC show "Danger UXB" from 1979.

It holds up very well.

I am once again reminded about booby traps and gaming.

Any sort of trap, really.

The Type 17 fuse on the Luftwaffe bombs is a great example.

It's a time delay fuse and the Germans used several anti-tamper devices to make sure it was difficult to disarm once it was dropped.

If I let the clock run out while the player's character is next to it, I'll get accused of not giving them a chance.

Same for if they pull the fuse and the anti-tamper goes off.

Especially since there's no way to tell, from the outside, if the clock is close to running out or to see the anti-tamper device.

An SC250 does 6dx35[6dx3] cr ex.  No bueno for standing next to when it goes all angry like.

NIMBY?

I'm reading about the massive negative effects of having a single port closed in the US will have on the economy and it makes me wonder why.

The obvious answer is that all US ports operate at 100% capacity all the time and there's no slack to allow for traffic from a closure to be rerouted.

If that's the answer, then I want to know why more capacity hasn't been added.

For some ports, like Tampa, there's infrastructure preventing the entrance of the large ships.  I'd love to see Skyway III built so that the really big ships could get in.

But lots of other places the reason is lack of political will to spend the money to expand capacity.

There's gobs of blame to spread around, but it's the usual suspects when it comes down to it.

Our national transportation infrastructure should not be so brittle that losing a single node causes collapse.  Inconvenience, sure, but not collapse.

It's especially galling in that I know we had plans for several of our ports to be hit with nukes and to be back into shipping armies and materiel to Europe mere days after the attack.

What the fuck happened?

Sadly, "the usual suspects" is the answer, yet again.

Forgot Where It Was

Rebuilding the Francis Scott Key bridge...

Living here in Florida we forget about government that doesn't just roll up its sleeves and get to work.

That there's places where the reality is what the press estimates for how long it will take to rebuild, if it ever happens at all.

Florida had a similar bridge disaster in 1980.

The current Sunshine Skyway bridge was built from 1983 to 1987 and the undamaged half of the old Skyway bridge was demolished in 1990.

Shipping traffic was restored before the end of 1980.

I am reminded about the estimates to restore a single tiny bridge after Hurricane Ian being in the ten year range.

That bridge had traffic on it in a couple of months.  What's keeping things from being fixed down there, now, is endless delays from insurance companies trying to avoid paying out.

I contrast that to Katrina...  It's my understanding there's still places around NOLA that are untouched since that day and unlikely to ever be fixed.

Sad.

Back to the FSK Bridge.

Did you know it was supposed to be a tunnel?

Did you know that this exact disaster was predicted before it was built?

Did you know, after the Skyway collapse, studies were done about putting in protective measures to prevent such a collapse?

Let's see what they do.

There's a part of me that thinks that America is still great and mere engineering problems are not problems to our indomitable spirit; get out of our way for a moment and watch us do grand things!

There's another part that just knows that getting in the way of American exceptionalism is the fucking goal of too many people.

26 March 2024

Don't Skip The Cheese



To use the entire can of soup, I made a double batch.

1 can of cream of (favorite)

1 can & 2 cups of water

Both flavor packets from two packs of Ramen

Boil

Add noodles, boil for three minutes.

Add a fistful of cheese.

NOM!

Just A Couple

 Back in 2012 I'd found that my little blog was banned in Iran.

Today I noticed, in addition to lots of hits from Hong Kong, I have 2 unique visitors from Iran.

Makes me wonder whom in Iran is reading the blog.

Hopefully someone without nefarious intent who is learning the finer points of Traveller and GURPS.

Surprised

 After the 1980 disaster of the Skyway bridge down here, I'd kind of assumed that everyone would add the underwater protections that were added to the new bridge to prevent a ship from hitting the pylon and collapsing the bridge.

You know what they say about assumptions...

The Francis Scott Key bridge clearly lacked the dolphins and barriers the Skyway has.

The new bridge will almost certainly have them, hindsight being damnedly clear.

Twofer

Today is National Medal of Honor Day and National Whiskey Day.

So you can have a shot of whisky and toast those who earned that itty bitty ribbon.

To My Eternal Shame

I forgot Earth Hour.

Normally I have all the cars idling and every light on.

Sadly, I was just tooling around in my V-8 powered Beast while Harvey was home with just MOST of the lights on.

I will do better next year.

25 March 2024

Sigh

The Tuskegee Airmen have been the subject of several movies.

The 1995 version is one of the better ones.

I don't think they needed to be shoehorned into a movie about the 8th Air Force and 100th Bomb Group.

I Bought Their Car

 

My 2012 Caprice PPV, as a former police car, has a distinct lack of tracking and remote cut-offs.

God's forbid the King's Men be subjected to tracking via OnStar or XM Radio.

The gubmint is going to have to track me the old fashioned way!  By tracking my smart phone.

Go All In(sane)


Customizable!

4" wide, 3" long, 3" deep.

A momentary/off/momentary switch is available which would be dandy for the tap-up/tap-down command.

It's just appallingly expensive for a two-switch panel, but it's cool as all get-out.

24 March 2024

Shift Resistance

The $300 shift box and cupholder is just $100 if you skip the cupholders.

You get an on-off switch and two momentary switches.

If you had the 9C3 RPO, you wouldn't need this box because the shifter has it from the factory.

To the right of 'D' is a detent you can move the shifter into and that puts the trans in "sport mode".  Pushing the shifter forwards and back manually shifts the trans up and down...

No.  Not quite.

Pushing the shifter forward and back sends a request to the Body Control Module (BCM) to send a command to the Transmission Control Module (TCM) to shift up or down.

One pin from the BCM sends 12v up to the shifter and another receives a voltage signal back to a different pin.

13 to 11v and the TCM runs the transmission automatically.

3.1 to 2.7v and it's in sport/manual mode.

2.3 to 1.9v is a tap-up signal.

1.56 to 1.15v is a tap-down signal.

We've seen this paradigm of doing things before in how the cruise control operates.  Steering wheel controls as well.

Pushing the switch routes the current through a resistor and the voltage drop tells the controller what you asked for.

Marv's calculating the resistance values the box is probably using.

I would not be shocked to find that GM uses the same values on all of its cars.

The shift box taps into the 12v wire that's already on my BCM and adds a wire to an empty pin; plus a separate ground that's not present in the factory diagram.  The factory circuit grounds through a resistor in the BCM on the same pin the shift box is adding a wire to.

Because Harvey wants cupholders, we're going to end up with the $300 box.  But we're going to be measuring resistances and voltage drops when it gets here!

It's Odd

Whenever a bigot stops in and gets their comment wiped, I have a huge uptick in traffic from Aesop's place.

Because I don't recall Aesop being a bigot.

A tiresome jerk in my comment section, but not a bigot. 

Update:

I've checked Aesop's place to see what might be driving traffic.  It's nothing he's said about me.

I suspect that he's got some anti-Semitic bigots lurking there reading who can't stand the thought that Israel might win for real for a change.

Bigots Make Me Learn

I've got one for you.

Palestinians already control Israel.

I'm reading about the Mandate of Palestine and the partitioning plans.

"Palestinian Jew," and, "Palestinian Arab," keeps coming up.

Distinct from groups like Beersheba Bedouin, by the way.

Some Arab populations are called out separately; everyone else is called some kind of "Palestinian."

No side in this fight can claim the moral high ground from about 1937 on.

Not the Jews, not the Arabs, not Muslims, not The British Empire, and most especially not The UN.

Except for the several small Arab populations mentioned as distinct from Palestinian Arabs everyone involved wanted everyone else's land.

When partition started to look like a real thing, they started a civil war over it.

England, who had been saddled with the place since the Ottomans left wanted out and didn't particularly care how they left it once bombs and bullets started flying.

The outcome of that civil war is the establishment of Israel, just in case you're not following, by 1/3 of the Palestinian population which had won the right by force of arms.

All that follows is the refusal of the losers of that fight to accept the loss and the neighbors being upset about it because the new state has the wrong religion.

One can choose to nurse a grievance for generations, or accept things have changed.

There's a not insignificant Arab population in Israel that accepted it and are now citizens, with rights and everything.

Not Your Soapbox

Dear bigots:

You don't get to comment here.

Most especially you don't get to regurgitate propaganda as if it was historical fact.

Links to gab or X are not sources.

23 March 2024

By Jingo

I am not against immigration, per se.

What I am against is being colonized.

America is a pretty cool place and has a culture.

A culture assembled from the parts and spare bits of the peoples who immigrated here over a couple hundred years; but a culture nonetheless!

What we're courting is being colonized by Mexico and South America because most of these immigrants come here and remain Mexican/South American.  They don't want to be US of Americans, they just want the benefits of being here without becoming part of us.  That includes a job they cannot get at home.

If we were forcing them to become Americans, there wouldn't be an objection from me.

The reason I don't want them to remain their nationality is, well, where they came from.

I don't want to live where they came from.

I don't want where I live to become where they're fleeing.

We're a couple of bad court decisions away from them being able vote for making here like there.

I object to that! 

And this is independent from the non-zero number of people who are coming here to do direct harm to the nation...

The Latin-Americans coming here for work and opportunity don't worry me near so much as the military age middle easterners we're encountering here and there.

Again, if they were coming here to become Americans, it wouldn't be a problem.

The problem is they're not.


Yet Another Reason

The number of reasons I want a time machine keeps growing.

I want to drag someone from 1816 to 1824 here to testify about the benefits of global warming.

1816 is also known as "The Year Without A Summer."

These years are definitely included in the "global warming" calculus, but the medieval warm period isn't.

If you're going to talk about climate you have to use all the data, not just the cherries.

Don't Really Care

Events in the late 18th century mean that I don't really care about what's going on with King Chuck's daughter-in-law.

I don't understand the obsession with the goings on with the relatives of the royal family of England when we kicked them to the curb 200 and some odd years ago.

I don't wish her ill, but I don't know why we should give a fuck.

22 March 2024

Murder Or Kidnapping

Finally getting around to really reading GURPS: Transhuman Space.

A chapter opening vignette talks about a suspect being found to have the mind of another person uploaded into them; thus making the mind found there guilty of murder.

The original person's mind being discarded during the upload.

If they'd downloaded that person's mind before uploading their own; would it just be kidnapping?

I can see why FuzzyGeff, a huge fan of this setting, never set to GM it.  There's a lot going on to account for.

Settings that have this much going on demand a certain level of commitment from the players to learn the setting and not to just sit back and take it in as the GM describes the events surrounding their characters.

That might work in a generic fantasy setting, it doesn't fly once the setting gets past a certain density.

It's the same barrier to entry that makes many Traveller campaigns go stillborn.

Beads

I always get an odd feeling when I see water beaded up on my car.

It means that the wax I applied is still working and the finish is protected.

This was not true of many of my cars over the years because appearance was tertiary, at best.

Now that I'm fully aware of what paint costs, I'm more proactive about putting a coat of wax on them.

That Means It's Working

Justice Jackson has noticed that the 1st Amendment hamstrings the government.

You'd think that she'd have tripped over that notion someplace between enrolling in law school and being appointed to the Supreme Court.

It's a forgotten notion in many circles, including conservatives.

The Constitution was supposed to be an empowering document for the Federal government, and if it's not mentioned therein, it was forbidden.

The Bill of Rights was supposed to be further restrictions on the Federal government.  Before anyone jumps the gun here, the 14th amendment was supposed to rein in the states and apply the Bill of Rights to them as well... fucking morons on SCOTUS is not a new thing as we can see in Slaughterhouse.

Power is addictive in a way that heroin can only dream of, so the idea of going around the restrictions really took hold hard.

We really need to be rolling back laws that were passed outside of living memory by the so-called greatest generation and heavily reinforced by the baby boomers.

They were voting in the scoundrels long before most of us were allowed anywhere near a voting booth.

21 March 2024

Outlawed

It is my position that illegal aliens and persons on expired visas are outlaws in the traditional English common law sense.

Outside the law and fair game to anyone who wishes to deal with it.

We accord them 4th and 5th amendment protections on the off chance that they prove to be legally present within our borders.

To do otherwise risks violating the rights of a citizen.

We do not do this because illegals actually have said rights and we should stop pretending they do.

The outlawed have no inherent rights.  Through their own actions they have surrendered them.

Update: Congress was wrong to make being an illegal alien so light a charge as misdemeanors and civil fines.

It's All About Perspective

Every dictator for life is a single term executive...