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So many of the stats of published guns in GURPS don't match what Gun Stats generates that I am tempted to do the slog and make Gun Stats compatible versions of all of them.
Especially in light of finding that shotgun pellets do more damage when calculated by themselves as opposed to calculating a group in a shotshell.
What else do I have to do?
In the quote in this post it says that you can stuff 8x 8-round Garand clips into an M1956 universal ammunition small arms pouch.
Confirmed!
ወዳጆች፣ በእርግጥም ዛሬ "እንደ ባህር ላይ ዘራፊ (ፓይሬት) የመናገር ቀን" ነው!
ነገር ግን፣ እውነተኛዎቹ የባህር ላይ ዘራፊዎች "እንደ ባህር ላይ ዘራፊ የመናገር ቀን" በሚያዘው መልኩ አይናገሩም ነበር።
ያ አነጋገር፣ ለዲዝኒው "Treasure Island" (የሀብት ደሴት) ፊልም ባደረገው ትወና ላይ ልዩ ድምቀት ለመፍጠር የወሰነው ተዋናይ ሮበርት ኒውተን የፈጠረው ነበር።
ይሁን እንጂ፣ የኢትዮጵያ ባህር ላይ ዘራፊዎች የሚናገሩት በዚህ መልኩ ነው!
Harvey's preferred AR is Kevina.
She's had zero problems shooting it.
Which is why Cheyenne biting her was a surprise!
Remember when I mentioned that the M1956 pouch was not produced in large numbers?
The wide world of reproduction has got you covered!
Prolly more repops made than the real thing.
Harvey took Cheyenne, the Platoon carbine, to the range to prove that she could!
We paid extra attention to getting the stock in her shoulder pocket and making sure she had it pulled hard into her.
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| 25 yards with irons. |
She says it still hurts, but not a horrid stabbing pain; more like someone yelling, "slug-bug!" then wailing one on you.
So I had her try Dottie!
That went a lot better!
 |
| 25 yards with Vortex Spitfire AR |
Dottie is heavier (8.8 lb.) than Cheyenne (6.8 lb.) and has an A1 stock vs a metal carbine stock. More mass over more surface area means less "impact" on the shoulder.
I did some shooting with Dottie too, but at 100 yards.
I, uh, well...
I'm out of practice. Still this is a much smaller group than my last outing. 4" at widest if you ignore that flier over his left shoulder.
I knew I was getting that flier when I pulled the trigger too.
Still, Mr Bones is having a bad day. So is zombie Todd, come to think on it.
We've decided that Magpul makes a much better stock than Colt did in 1969 and that while she loves the Retro gun she's made, she's fine admiring how it looks rather than shooting it.
I don't take my Retro guns out much either, come to think on it.
"We easily gained access to the device because it lacked viable encryption. We have corrected that oversight!"
I was reading about how someone stole a Flock camera and managed to download much of the data onboard.
They mentioned a lot of the data was still encrypted and they couldn't access it.
But what I wondered about is if someone could steal the camera and change things so it reported healthy and happy to the mothership, but was actually not doing a gorram thing.
Then I wondered if this same someone could encrypt what they'd done so fully so as to force Flock to buy new hardware to fix it.
"Pitting together charismatic stars in an underpowered caper, Guy Ritchie's In the Grey is a slick action vehicle whose lack of fresh ideas ultimately put its entertainment value in the red."
-- Consensus at Rotten Tomatoes.
Rotten Tomatoes says 52% for critics and 82% for people.
I generally like Guy Ritchie as a director and enjoy his films.
This was no exception.
The plot is laughably thin. They telegraph what's going to happen so even the most dense viewer will see it coming.
I have seen this movie before. Dozens of times.
I don't care. I liked this movie when they did it in the 1980's. I liked this movie when they did it in the 1990's. I liked this movie when they did it in the 2000's. I liked this movie when they did it in the 2010's.
The picture Marv was calling, "camera camera camera!" for:
Honestly, we don't see a gator every day.
One of our friends who lives near where this was taking says its name is Henry.
By-The-Basic-Book and High Tech, a 2-3/4" 12ga 00 Buck round flings 9 round lead balls doing 1d+1 pi each out to 40/800.
Looking up a typical loading I get 9 lead balls at 1,325 feet per second and Gun Stats calculating a "shotshell" gets 1d pi each out to 40/800.
So far so good, just a little less damage.
Fire a single .33 caliber ball at 1,325 fps from a smoothbore and you get 2d pi out to 60/700.
Oops.
The calculation for the single ball is closer to what the magazines writing about shotguns says about performance because they equated .36 cap and ball pistols to 000 Buck.
In response to the clip going around with the African lady saying 'WHAT WHITE CULTURE!?!'
— The McMullan (@TheMcMullan) September 15, 2026
Because I can explain it in more detail than anyone else... here are the main things that create western civilisation.
The principle, the law of nature that is an adaptation to and what…
Read the whole thing.
Facebook constantly suggests products I might want or need.
A repeat offender is 4Patriots.
They have a big battery with a solar panel they're selling.
"That'd be handy for hurricane season," I think.
Do you know how much one costs?
It's not on the main page for the item.
They tell me why such a thing would be handy. How much it can power and for how long. How fast the solar panels can recharge it.
But no price.
To approach the price I have to "Start My Order".
Now I know that it's $1,500.
But I would have preferred not to click the order link to see the price.
You might notice that the blog-roll sidebar on the right is not updating with the latest post from their respective authors.
This is a Blogger-wide problem.
When I replaced the battery on The Beast, I turned on "engineering mode" which has a readout for the battery voltage and charge percentage.
For three short trips the, brand new, AGM battery showed 69.8% charge and 15.0 to 15.2 volts.
That's a little alarming, but the G8 forums say it's not out of the realm of possibility.
Today, on the way to the VA, the voltage was a far more sane 14.0 to 14.5 volts and the charge percentage crept up from 70.4% to 92.4% by the time I got home.
On the trip to one of the local breweries, voltage was down to a comfortable 13.6 to 13.9 and was reading 96.4% when I pulled into the garage.
I am thinking I'm good.
What's interesting is the best that percentage ever showed with the old batt was 74% and that's damn close to the difference between the 660 cca Group 48 and the 880 cca Group 94R.
Looking back, I realize that I've been doing this for a while.
Even stranger is some of the people I fogged over, I had thought had bailed on me when it was me walking away from them.
I have long maintained that I'm not a very enthusiastic Republican.
The problem I have is that I am emphatically not a Democrat on so many issues.
Put another way, I have more in common with R than D.
That leads to holding my nose and voting the lesser evil and knowing that I am still getting evil at a slower pace.
The Republicans take this as a shining endorsement of the things I most disagree with them about, and I complain about that.
Democrats take it the same way.
They think my opposition to their candidate as wholehearted support of the Republican I helped elect. Like their candidate had nothing to do with it...
So I end up giving the Devil a favorable mention because Hitler invaded Hell.
This was especially so when W was president.
My liberal friends kept missing that Slick Willie only pissed me off on about three things. His swing to the center didn't offend me at all.
I do notice that if there's an (R) behind a candidate's name then things they do that someone with a (D) behind their name did, it's unconscionable.
All the example you need for this is all the anti-immigration statements that Democrats issued for decades.
Well, Mr Punch said he wanted me to look up words...
Today's word is "Gypsy," which the Roma people complain is an exonym for them.
And it is.
But it originates as slang for Egyptian.
It spreads as both a term describing anyone of a swarthy complexion and to people who are thieving by nature.
The thief part comes from it being ever so stylish to have Egyptian servants and associating servant with minor thievery from the estate.
Roma are dark skinned compared to most of Europe, so one can see where it jumped to them.
Roma have a reputation for being less than honest with outsiders and generally not respecting property rights of the people they live amongst.
But did that come before or after they became associated with the household staff stealing the silverware?
Remember, it's not slander if it's true.
So far the elimination of the word gypsy from the Basic Set has been justified on the grounds that the Roma don't like to be called that, not that the accusations don't have merit.
I find that telling.
But also, IF it is true. If it is not, then I'd be offended at being accused as well.
Western Civ DOES have a bad habit of falsely applying bad attributes to outsiders and has done it so often we're in a boy-who-cried-wolf situation when we find someone who actually HAS those bad attributes.
I think, though, that the way to deal with an exonym is to embrace it, not reject it. Kill its power to offend. I'm 1/2 Dago WOP. My grandfather on Mom's side experienced all that prejudice and bigotry, but here we are, not being offended by it because we decided that it had no power to hurt us.
Sticks and stones; you choose to be a victim of a slur or not.
For a recent example, look how conservatives embraced "deplorable."
Chink is a word to describe a gap in armor protection that dates back, at least, to the early 16th century.
It is also a word to describe a sharp, clear metallic sound, dating from the late 16th century.
It is ALSO a racial slur dating from the very beginning of the 20th century.
Which means you need some context when you say, "I'm targeting chinks in armor."
Is it an innocuous attempt at aiming for a gap in the protection, or a racist way of saying you're attacking the Chinese troops?
I remember this being an issue on a few fora.
Thankfully, the older word remains. Even in GURPS 4eR.
A long while ago I stated remembering that the Army kept us, arms and ammunition well separated unless we were actually on the range and going shooting.
I misremembered something.
The ammo racks of the tanks were loaded with war-shot ammo unless we were going to the range for gunnery. I also recall, now, removing all that ammo from the tank before going to Graf and experiencing my first round of being responsible in the paperwork for anything at all thanks to my minty new stripes on one of those trips.
Literally nothing but discipline keeping us from loading up an APFSDSDU round and picking a target.
Come to think on it, literally nothing but self control keeping us from firing up a tank and rolling out the gate with it too.
The Army did make us dismount all three machine guns and keep them in the arms room. Ammo for the MG's was kept in the bunkers a longish ways away.
Same same for our pistols and the tank's M16.
Florida is experiencing a bad drought.
It's either the worst in 15 years or the worst ever. Sources are stepping on each other.
I was trying to find a picture of a pet and ended up finding a picture of my, mostly dead, grass in my back yard from 2004.
I did a bit of Googling and found Florida was experiencing a drought in 2004.
My lawn looks better now than it did then, so my particular patch of grass is not seeing a worse drought than 22 years ago. It is clear, though, that we are still in drought conditions.
Five years ago my grass was LUSH!
That photo also proves that all we need is some rain and the grass will get lush again.
Until the next drought.
Tell me what you're going to say.
Say it.
Tell me what you just said.
That's normal, everyday, stuff we've seemed to have lost.
Yes, this is do as I say, not as I do because I'm not placing myself as someone who's trying to keep my readers informed.
But over and over the people who are trying to place themselves as information sources keep forgetting to tell me why they're explaining something for such a long time that I can't tell what their point is.
And if YouTube inserts an ad into your explanation before you reach that point, I'm stabbing the back button.
Let us also be honest.
The reason you're rambling like you are is to make the video long enough that the algorithm moves it up past the point where you get paid for putting it up there.
But cramming a few seconds of content into several minutes of video just means most of the video could be skipped and after a few of them, I know that's how you work and I will seek other sources for information on the topic.
Clues that your youtuber will waste your time:
Recites their resume and lists their awards at the beginning of every video.
Explains why you'd be watching a how-to video about how-to repair something.
Begins by answering a question not yet stated.
I was sitting here, being bummed, about friends that had left my life.
Abruptly from my perspective.
I realized that I am extremely happy they are gone because I remember the W. Bush years.
I don't think I'd have wanted to deal with them in the Trump era.
There's a thread on arfcom that's, no shit, debating which flip-up back-up-iron-sight is best.
Optics have gotten to the point that back-up irons are nugatory.
And I say that as a GM who really WANTS to fuck over a player counting on that optic!
We're to the point where the best BUIS is the one that weighs the least and takes up the least space.
All the rear sights put the same little hole in the same place it would be if the AR had a carry handle.
The front sights literally use an M16A2 front sight post and put it where it'd be if there was a normal front sight base.
Nugatory!
A case can be made for skipping them altogether.
I can't, quite, bring myself to skip having irons on a "fighting" rifle.
Lindsey Clancy is not a triple murderer.
She's a triple killer.
Murder is a legal term and she has not yet been convicted.
She has admitted, and so stipulated for the court, that she did kill her kids.
I remain hopeful she will get her comeuppances.
It wasn't a draw problem.
It was a dead battery.
New 94R/H7 (the correct battery) replaces the 48/H6 the previous owner had in it.
Can't bitch too loud, it ran for 4.5 years with me and about 2 with the previous owner.
Nine years ago we were digging out from Hurricane Irma.
This year we haven't even gotten much rain.
Dear Restaurant Chains;
I want to see what food you have on the menu without entering into the ordering section.
Especially since you lock the ordering section when you are closed most of the time.
Is it really so hard?
Local places manage to have their menus online, separate from the ordering system.
Thanks!
Even though it's been 25 years since 9/11 I am not done being angry about it.
I still feel that since it was done in the name of Islam that Islam should have done a lot more to show it didn't represent their feelings.
To the point that the next time someone does something in the name of Islam we just make Mecca the new land of the midnight sun with a Beatles soundtrack.
Then carpet bomb anyone who gets upset about it.
Because I am done.
I have noticed, however that much of the middle east has been a lot more taciturn about "Death to America" of late.
Even heard rumors that the current management of Saudi is a lot more moderate than their grandparents and there's a good chance that the Wahhabism wing will get a lot smaller.
One can hope.
To any and all Muslims in the US: Tomorrow is not your day, so lay the fuck low; we're still licking our wounds and you aren't going to talk us down next time.
Because I have been paying the same mortgage for 24 years, I am, apparently, "bad with money."
To be good with money I was supposed to refinance every time I could and chase an ever lower interest rate.
I do know that because I was ACTUALLY very bad with my money 24 years ago that I couldn't have gotten a better rate than the 7.375% I've been paying until just about a year ago.
I prolly ain't really great with my money, but I'm not over extended.
We're paying what we owe to whom we owe as agreed.
We're not sweating maximizing at the margins.
Of course, we regard our house as a box we keep ourselves in rather than an investment vehicle, which is also "bad with your money."
On the whole, I'd rather be happy.
Fighting the battle of the bulge and eatin' keto breads now.
Nature's Own actually tastes and feels like bread!
Harvey has been buying it for a while because of her diabetes, I've only recently started eating it too.
President Trump has offered the American people a bribe to vote for Republicans for Congress.
They take both houses, he vows to give all of us $5,000.
Yippie?
That's like $1.2 trillion bucks.
No way this massive cash distribution will, in any way, be inflationary...
Printer go brrrrrrrrrr, I guess because I'm pretty sure the gubmint ain't got no extra $1.2 trillion laying around while they deficit spend normally.
I generally like Trump, but shit like this ticks me off.
I'd much rather he vowed to get the government to spend $5,000 less for every adult.
That'd be some positive change that'd be a real benefit to everyone.
Digging into the, what seems to be excessive, draw of The Beast's electrical system.
It appears to have been a decision on the part of Holden or GM engineers that the body control module never quite goes to sleep.
It stays more awake than the Australian version of the car to make sure that essential police equipment gets a trickle of power and to decide how much.
This amounts to about 0.4 amps. Which is a lot for a car that's shut off.
The "problem" area is the extra fuse box under the driver's kick-panel. This is where the fuses for all the Americanizations live.
But, the GM engineers reason, cop cars are constantly in use, the extra draw just won't come up!
And knowing about the draw being normal means I need to start the damn thing at least once a week when the battery is connected or keep a charger on it.
PS: Don't feel too smug about your own car shutting further down than mine, OnStar is calling home every few hours and transmitting. The dear, departed, Precious would drain the battery sitting idle too.
Our lawn mower died. Rather, it will not start.
It doesn't seem to have compression.
It's about... um... 11 years old.
I think that's a good run.
I've been wrenching on it for the past five to avoid replacing it.
We replaced it with a Ryobi 40v 20" mower. Battery powered.
I kinda feel dirty, but it was still $100 cheaper than the equivalent gas model.
Something I can do with the battery powered model that I can't with a gas one is store it folded up and standing on its end. No gas to leak out while vertical.
I was surprise at how normal it sounds. Most of what I think of as lawnmower noise is apparently the blade spinning.
Did you know that if you don't start a 2012 Chevrolet Caprice PPV (6.0 L V-8) for three weeks, the sleeping electronics will drain the battery dead?
I know that now.
Luckily, I have an excellent battery charger.
All better now.
The car draws between 0.3 and 0.5 amps when it's sitting there waiting for you to come back.
It's the keyless entry system waiting for your signal, I am told.
And keeping a couple volatile memories alive for the clock and mileage calculator.
The Matrix is a system, Neo. That system is our enemy. But when you're inside, you look around, what do you see? Businessmen, teachers, lawyers, carpenters. The very minds of the people we are trying to save. But until we do, these people are still a part of that system and that makes them our enemy. You have to understand, most of these people are not ready to be unplugged. And many of them are so inured, so hopelessly dependent on the system, that they will fight to protect it.
--Morpheus The Matrix
GURPS: Basic Set 4th Edition Revised p. 518-519 says:
Loyalty
We offer no "loyalty table" for enslaved individuals; the GM must use common sense. The orcs' victims will escape or revolt at any opportunity, except for those too will-broken to make a move. The Janissary will shout, "Traitor!" and try to arrest anyone who attempts to "free" him.
GURPS: Basic Set 4th Edition, Vol. 2, Campaigns p. 518-519 says:
Loyalty of Slaves
Determine a slave’s loyalty per Loyalty of Hirelings (above). However, slaves are less predictable than hirelings. After determining the slave’s initial loyalty, roll 2d on the following table to determine a loyalty modifier:
- 2-7 – No modifier.
- 8 – He was enslaved for some crime, and resents it: -1 to loyalty.
- 9 – As above, but -2 to loyalty.
- 10 – His previous master was very cruel. If he is treated with kindness during the first week, apply +2 to loyalty; otherwise, no change.
- 11 – He has a fanatic hatred of slavery. If treated well, he may like his masters as people, but will still escape as soon as possible. If treated badly (or even “average” for a slave), his loyalty drops to 6.
- 12 – He has the Slave Mentality disadvantage (p. 154), and considers himself truly the property of his owner. His loyalty is automatically 20. You need never check loyalty; he will not demur, even if given orders that condemn him to death.
Make loyalty checks for slaves as for any other hirelings. Modify loyalty by +1 or +2 if they are in a situation where they have nowhere to run!
And I wonder why this change was made. Their whole point about the changes they make to slavery is about how it's dehumanizing and the players should be the heroes who oppose the very idea of it, but this is a table of very human responses to being enslaved in most places.
Making me work it out on my own as the GM does work, and I've been doing it that way since forever because I never looked for this table.
Still, how does this table convince someone that slavery is OK?
The old version says:
Legal Complications
When slave-holding PCs enter an area where slavery is illegal, they must either dispose of their slaves or pass them off as free servants.
Possible anti-slavery attitudes include: legal to own slaves, but not to buy or sell them locally; legal for non-citizens to own slaves while passing through, but illegal for permanent residents to own them; or illegal to own slaves at all.
A creative GM may impose other laws and customs regarding slavery. For instance, it might be legal to enslave members of some social groups or races, but not others. There might be ways for a slave to earn his freedom – some societies might even permit slaves to own property and buy their freedom.
Eliminating the players owning slaves meshes with the idea of them as the heroes, but the rest is decent, generic, campaign guidance.
The new version is much shorter.
Social Complications
No one from an even vaguely egalitarian society likes those who enslave others or profit from it; they will react at -1 or worse. Enslavers are usually overtly Callous (p. 125).
Where the practice is illegal, they have Social Stigma (Criminal Record) (p. 155), and are treated as if they had Sadism (p. 152) – even if they don’t. Exception: The masters of zombies, golems, IQ 3 tentacle beasts, and similar “pets” instead suffer the usual reaction penalties of necromancers or keepers of horrors, and may even inherit the creatures’ penalties!
I like this verbiage. Adding it to the original would have been better, I think, than dodging the idea that slaves can be broken to the point that they have come to completely accept their lot even if they aren't happy about it.
They say it's just a drill, but I've noticed a couple articles about the normal British citizenry being more effective about the incoming tide of immigrants.
I can't help but wonder if this is really a precursor to quelling an incipient rebellion.
But if it is a rebellion starting, I hope they feel free to use the words from our declaration of independence to list their grievances.
Something that comes up in discussions in fantasy worlds is if creatures like centaurs have the same dietary needs as horses, or if they get by on a normal human's diet.
Remembering that I live in the future, I googled how many calories a day do people and horses need.
A human female needs between 1,600 and 2,400 calories.
A human male needs between 2,000 and 3,000.
A horse needs 15,000 just to stand in it's stall and 25,000 to 33,000 if you put them to work.
Aside: Adventurers NEVER bring fodder for their horses. 25,000 calories of, dry, oats is 142 pounds of oats. 50 lb. of alfalfa also works.
Since the head on a centaur is a human head and that means human jaws and teeth, they're probably eating people-food.
25,000 calories of steak is 34.24 lb.! Almost 21 lb. of ground pork. It's almost 14 lb. of cheese. 324.2 lb. of lettuce. 240.4 lb. of carrots.
If centaurs only need a normal human diet and quantities, clearly something magical is going on with their metabolism.
If they need horse calories per day, there's a -20 point disadvantage Increased Consumption - 2 that fits the bill.
The Centaur template from Fantasy p.105 does not list this disadvantage, nor any limitations on going into low to no mana zones. The same for the template on p. 188 of Banestorm.
Odd, huh?
I was surprised that I owned two of the guns mentioned.
A Savage 99.
A Winchester Model 54.
My 54 is in the wrong caliber, it's in .30-06.
Both guns still shoot just fine.
They exceed both my eyes and my skills.
