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Gemini really IS supposed to be pronounced Jimminy.
That's the proper Greek pronunciation.
It's not Jim-In-Eye.
I was twitching every time I heard Amy Shira Teitel saying it and thinking she got it wrong and it turns out that she had it right. And she was just saying it the same way that NASA had been saying it since the beginning of the program.
"The registered owner of the weapon was unable to be contacted..."
What registered owner?
Florida doesn't have gun registration.
Or does it?
That's worrisome every time the press makes mention of it.
There's a thread on Arfcom talking about how much ammo soldiers in Vietnam carried.
A lot is the answer.
"That can't be true, not for a normal infantryman!"
"I have a picture of me somewhere around here..."
Pic shows them carrying the near 500 rounds they claimed.
And here I am, remembering I chastised my players in Twilight: 2000 for carrying all the ammo the encumbrance system would let them as being unrealistic.
Who knew? Not me!
Reading about the period more let me realize that the troops believed in two things.
1. MORE DAKKA!
and
2. There is no such thing as overkill. Only 'open fire' and 'reload.'
I've become more concerned with how they carry all that than IF they carried all that.
Some methods take longer to access than others and that matters in GURPS.
There's a misapprehension on the part of some readers that I'm doing this for them.
That is incorrect.
My ramblings are for me.
That you might enjoy them is a coincidence and secondary to the purpose of this place.
With that in mind, you are not a critic or a reviewer of my babbling here.
You are free to start your own blog and critique me to your heart's content.
Don't expect me to show up and read it.
Your critiques are for YOU, not ME and I wouldn't dare to interrupt.
KTHANX
First off... It was hyperbole and a joke.
I keep forgetting how stupid some of my readers are.
The joke was to yank the chains of the bigots.
Apparently, the bigots are smarter than a fair number of you because they had the good sense to not open their pie-holes.
They, unlike you, did not remove all doubt.
What makes the snarky joke is that the Jews are not actually in charge of the place despite the constant screeching of the Antisemites.
But missing the joke and then inserting different group for "The Jews!" didn't make you look clever. It made you look stupid.
I regret not publishing the comment now. Though, so many of you missed the joke it's better if it's deleted. Some of you did better than others, I will admit, but...
Y'all are some dumbasses.
Fucking stupid.
Without redeeming features.
Mouth breathing morons.
I look upon thee and despair!
I weep that you might have reproduced and passed this ailment down to your children.
But I do get some satisfaction from deleting the comments and reporting them as abuse to Blogger, you moral degenerates.
So, go away, don't come back and eat a bag of dicks while you do.
Got Dissapator Dottie and Lavender Linda zeroed today.
12 round confirmation of the zero at a mere 25 yards. I'm reasonably happy with it considering how bad my eyes are and Dottie only has irons.
Linda was a bit more aggravating. Got the irons dialed in, then matched the red-dot with the irons and the red dot shot 2" left of the irons. Must be a goofy affect of the carry handle mount impinging on the sight picture or using both eyes with the red dot or something.
Dialed the red dot so it hit then confirmed the irons still worked.
Odd. Never had this happen before.
Linda is going to get zeroed again, because she's obviously got a canted front sight, and I remember having to take extra care mounting the barrel last time, that I didn't remember to do this time when I was playing musical barrel swaps for pictures of various dissipator combinations.
Marv went to the adjacent range and zeroed his Kel Tec .410. It really hated one brand of ammo, Best Performance Shotshell. You know it's good when they don't even have a web page!
This is required watching for OG Twilight: 2000 fans!
Well worth the more than an hour.
In addition to Singapore pouring on the hits, Vietnam has joined the ranks of readers.
I guess they don't know they play the bad-guys in two of my GURPS campaigns.
If you remember this post I wondered if the M1956 small arms, universal, pouch could carry 40mm grenades and, if so, how many.
I bought a book! Vietnam War US and Allied Combat Equipment.
The “universal” in the designation indicated that it held 2x M14 rifle 20-rd magazines, 4x M16 rifle 20-rd magazines, 4x M2 carbine 30-rd magazines, a bandoleer of 6x 8-rd M1 rifle clips, 8x M1 clips without bandoleer, 2x BAR or Australian L1A1 rifle 20-rd magazines (tight fit), 24x 12-gauge shotgun shells, 3x 40mm grenades (two nose down, one horizontally on top), or 3x hand grenades internally. M16 magazines were too short to conveniently withdraw, so soldiers inserted a field dressing or folded sock underneath to raise them. Some pouches were too tight and held only three magazines.
That's interesting stuff. Exactly the kind of trivia I love for gaming.
$10,800, 4.9 lb., 2xXS/350 hrs.
What that all means...
If you're not aiming (GURPS aim maneuver, not just looking down the sights) and can see the targeting laser dot, you get a +1 to your skill.
If you do aim, you get the Acc bonus of the weapon and up to +3 from the magnification (but you have to aim for a second per plus) and the computer will give you an additional +3 to hit.
Telescopic sights light gathering ability cancels -1 in darkness penalties and the illuminated reticle cancels an additional -2.
The compass tells you what direction you're pointing.
This is a reminder to myself that I want to take a picture of each step in the process of taking the dash apart to replace the evaporator.
I think I will help people following in my footsteps.
I just bumped into Castles and Crusades.
It was a AD&D 3e rule set adaptation of the OG AD&D.
It's an "Old School Revival" game that's trying to get the feel of the old game with the newer, better, rules.
The current edition is "reforged" to escape the Open Gaming License and Wizards of the Coast's idiocy.
I am curious.
Mr Willard to the white courtesy phone.
Mr Willard to the white courtesy phone.
Mr Willard to the white courtesy phone.
I wanna talk to you about the XM7 Boondoggle, among other things.
The speaker covers that don't cover speakers in the corners of the dash need to be removed. Those covers are for a sound system that wasn't available in the USA and used components with the tweeter in the corner of the dash and a woofer in the door.
To get the driver's a-pillar cover off I need to remove my spotlight.
https://taskandpurpose.com/news/army-xm7-rifle-round-capacity/
The gravel bellies are still out there and still saying that having more capacity encourages troops to waste ammunition.
For fuck's sake they've been making this argument since the trapdoor was adopted and it's never actually borne out in combat.
More dakka has always been a good thing.
There's no message from Steve Jackson Games being happy that the tariffs have crumbled and a massive trade deal with West Taiwan has been forged.
They were sure unhappy back at the beginning of April.
Seems to me that everything they complained about has been solved in about a month.
I guess they can only blame Trump, not give him credit.
Power Investiture is the religious equivalent to Magery in GURPS.
Sanctity is the religious equivalent to the mana level.
To make clerics all I need to do is make some tailored spell lists for the gods and define some of the self-imposed mental disadvantages required of the pact that's built into the power investiture.
Druids, being similar to clerics, make their pact with nature instead of a specific god and will have a different kind of sanctity.
Paladins and Rangers would have lower levels of power investiture and would follow much the same path. It becomes a character design and flavor decision.
I just need to sit down and do it.
I'm getting there.
Generic D&D doesn't even bother to define the gods or how they differ from one another or if it's monotheism or polytheism. OG AD&D seems like a monotheism; later settings have polytheistic pantheons. YMMV.
All of this applies to Warhammer FRP too.
Of note: The warlock from later versions of D&D appears to use a similar structure as the clerics, but with non-divine entities. Since it's access to arcane rather than divine power, they'd use Power Investiture and the mana level to do their thing.
One thing I've noticed is the spell lists have a lot of overlap in what they can do.
GURPS is not better than a role playing game specifically tailored for the setting.
It shouldn't be, anyway.
It's the embodiment of the original phrase, "a jack of all trades is master of none, but often times better than a master of one."
GURPS turned out to be better at Twilight: 2000 than the 1st or 2nd editions of those rules.
GURPS and Traveller work great! Enough that they even made two official versions of it.
GURPS is proving to be OK at fantasy settings, but it's not D&D.
I still want to do AD&D with GURPS just to prove it can be done, but it's significantly more effort than just playing the original game. Magic gives you wizards, but doesn't really give clerics, druids or illusionists. I'm on the path to making that work.
GURPS: Old West is vastly superior to TSR's old Boot Hill.
GURPS: Espionage works a lot better than TSR's Top Secret.
GURPS works well to replace just about any genre specific set of rules where those rules are poorly designed, like a lot of the games from the early 1980's.
What GURPS sucks at is attracting new players thanks to people who are terrified of math and the complexity inherent in a system that's trying to account for everything.
And it's much simpler than Hero Games attempt at the same thing. Or Chaosium.
I keep trying, and failing, to convince people.
I've noticed that once they're playing, it's the GM and the world that make or break the game, not the rules.
I posted that list of things I needed to do to get the evaporator out of The Beast to a Facebook group dedicated to the car, let me say that again A GROUP THAT'S SOLE PURPOSE IS TO TALK ABOUT THIS PARTICULAR MAKE AND MODEL CAR!
The only two comments were, "what was I talking about?" and after I explained that, "What book are you referring to?"
The comment here, "Why do you need to take off the windshield wipers?"
The comment on the blog, where nobody is expected to be a car person or know fuck all about the Holden WM Caprice is a more intelligent question than people on a dedicated car group!
For. Fuck's. Sake.
I am really expecting someone to ask, "When I remove this nut, what direction do I turn it?"
The utility of the specialized groups is almost non-existent any more.
Primarily it's people selling stuff. I'm about the only person trying to document what I'm doing with my car.
I decided to put all the steps in order. Most of them tell me to refer to another step first so I kept adding those to the list until I had them all.
Disconnect Aux Battery Negative Lead 2-9-703
Disconnect Primary Battery Negative Lead 2-9-702
Remove Windshield Wipers 1-4-269
Remove Lower Air Inlet Grill 1-4-268
Remove Upper Air Inlet Grill 1-4-267
Drain Cooling System 2-9-615
Remove A-Pillar Covers 1-2-76
Remove Center Vent 3-10-101
Remove Silver Spears 2-2-26
Remove Console Panel 2-2-57
Remove Shift Knob and Shifter Box
Remove I/P Center Trim 1-2-29
Remove I/P Upper Trim Panel 1-2-31
Remove I/P Center Air Outlet 3-10-100
Remove Radio/HVAC Controls 1-8-21
Remove R&L-Lower AirBag 3-12-97 and 3-12-96
Remove R-I/P Outer Trim Cover 1-2-32
Remove I/P Compartment 1-2-35
Remove I/P Lower Trim 1-2-25
Remove I/P Lower Extensions (L&R) 1-2-36 & 1-2-37
Remove Silver Box 1-8-19
Remove Console Side Covers 1-2-50 and 1-2-52
Remove I/P Lower Support 1-2-40
Remove I/P Center Support 1-2-39
Remove Air Bag 3-12-101
Remove Steering Wheel 3-14-51
Remove Steering Wheel Top & Bottom Cover 3-14-50
Remove Instrument Cluster Trim 1-2-33
Remove Instrument Cluster 1-8-43
Remove I/P Carrier 1-2-42
Remove I/P Pad 1-2-38
Ducts 3-10-102 and 3-10-104
Remove LH Floor Air Outlet 3-10-106
Remove Steering Column Assy 3-14-52
Remove Parking Brake Pedal 1-5-184
Remove Brake Pedal 1-5-141
Remove I/P Tie Bar (9C1) 1-2-43
Remove HVAC Module 3-10-74
Disassemble HVAC Module and Replace Evap & Heater Cores 3-10-84
Evaportator Core Replacement 3-10-84
I might be able to get away with leaving the steering wheel intact with air-bag and trim covers on and just lower the whole thing to the floor still attached to the knuckle.
Champions/Hero and GURPS are both point based systems.
A significant difference between them is how the point totals are calculated.
GURPS subtracts the disadvantages from the total. So if you spent 195 points on stats, advantages, perks and skills and -45 points in disadvantages and quirks, you would be a 150 point character. This is the standard 150/40/5 format.
A Hero character with the same points spent would be a 195 point character. The difference is disadvantages are added to the base point pool.
It took a bit too long for me to internalize the difference.
Doing research for Twilight: 2000 often means ignoring things that happened in the real world because they wouldn't have happened in the Twilight setting.
But most of the materials have the answers to the real world when I actually look at them.
Three things caused the Army to divest of the M1128 Stryker MGS.
First was the autoloader was problematic. With only 142 made, one could argue that it never really left the prototype stage. One could also argue that with more than 20 years of development, Teledyne should have been able to get it to work.
Second, unlike the other Stryker variants, the M1128 couldn't have the hull adapted to an angled floor because of the turret taking up floor space. This lack of protection against mines was considered a big deal.
Third, they expected the M10 Booker to be joining the light brigades and supplying the firepower the M1128 provided. Never mind that the M10 was nearly double the weight and larger than the MGS version. When the generals kept screaming it wasn't a light tank they were not lying.
Bonus! Firepower upgrades to other Stryker versions were, in theory, making a 105mm armed vehicle in the formation unnecessary. Time will tell.
I looked up at the vent in the ceiling and noticed how much dust had accumulated.
So I took it down and tried to brush off the dust.
No go.
Something waxy coated the whole thing.
Nicotine!
No shock, this house has had smokers in it since it was built in 1969.
Some Greased Lightning cleaner and a spritz from the hose and it's shockingly clean and silver now.
So I gave the other four vents the same treatment.
Dunno if that helped with the air flow, but they sure look better.
I am often astonished at how things can get dirty slowly enough to not be noticed as getting dirty until they're caked with crud. The blades on the ceiling fans are another place this happens.
If you're talking about feeding a 30 year old into a wood chipper for wanting it to be legal to have sex with a 16 year old...
AND
You have no problem with two sixteen year olds having sex...
You have not thought about your argument and seen the contradiction contained therein.
This is what happens when you let other people tell you what your morals should be.
Nothing in the above should be taken as the author endorsing having sex with 16 year olds. Though I bet you didn't get this far before you reacted... It's OK. Thinking about why you feel as you do is emotional.
The Ultimag 10R Pentagon magazine coupler.
I had never even heard of this thing until I saw one in a "junk on the bunk" picture spread from a drug bust.
Apparently it's to get around magazine size restrictions.
Oddly, our criminals were in Sarasota, Florida. Florida doesn't have magazine size restrictions.
80 years ago this very minute, the World War 2 ended in Europe.
Adolf, being dead more than a week before the war officially ended, could not be reached for comment about how his reich came a few years short of the thousand predicted.
Love him or hate him (and we hate him) Robert MacNamara's reasoning for making a coherent designation system for our weaponry was sound.
And we're not using it for aircraft anymore.
F-35 should have been F-24. With the F-35B becoming FV-24B.
B-21 should be B-3.
F-47 should be F-25.
Or the F-35 should be F-25 and F-47 should be F-26 because F/A-18E should have gotten a new number and be F-24A. But Congress is stupid.
And now...
OA-1K Skyraider II
It's not the attack version of the O-1. The O-1 was the Cessna Birddog.
It's not the observation version of the A-1 Skyraider.
But since the last version of the A-1 was the A-1J, if this WAS a version of the A-1 then K IS the next version designator.
But the OA-1K isn't a development of the Douglas AD. It's a development of the L3 Harris Air Tractor AT-802! The AT-802 is a further development of the plane that Dusty Crophopper was based on.
Since it's a totally different plane, it should be A-14A or OA-14A.
The M8 Buford started out as the FMC CCVL (Close Combat Vehicle, Light).
It beat the Cadillac Gage Stingray and Teledyne AGS (Armored Gun System).
The M8 program came out of several attempts to replace the Sheridan.
The first one that showed promise was the AAI Light Tank, which has several versions and names. HSTV-L (High Survivability Test Vehicle - Light) is the one most familiar to most people, but T2K players call it the LAV-75.
The XM4 program sought a 105mm armed light tank and that festered while Cadillac Gage, FMC and Teledyne figured out their proposals.
The Stingray made it to production, Thailand bought about 100.
Teledyne's AGS spawned the turret that ended up on the Stryker MGS.
I do wonder if the Teledyne turret on a Buford hull might not be the way to go.
But they never ask me.
