Ogre Or Bolo

The first cybertank is in prototype.

The question is: Will it follow Kieth Laumer or Steve Jackson in its vision.

Sinking Feeling

Thanks to glacial rebound, my home is sinking into the ocean.

At a rate of about 0.6mm per year.

I'd better start shopping for a house farther from the water soon.

The water will be up to the front yard in just 9,144 years!

Duncan v Bonta Take Like Five

Last time i mentioned it.

It would appear that Judge Benitez has ruled, again, that banning magazines by capacity is unconstitutional.

He had to rule again, because it got tossed back down because of Bruen.

Well.

Here we are.

Looks like a 10-day stay to let California make their near certain appeal to the ruling.

If I recall correctly, the path will then be a 3-judge panel of the 9th Circuit then an appeal to an en banc hearing of the 9th then to the US Supreme Court.

Again, I think...

It took about three years for that to wend its way up to USSC last time, I wonder if it will be quicker this time because it was a remand.

OR

California's gun grabbers will take the loss and limit the "damage" to just California, because a ruling from the 9th that agrees with Benitez's ruling means the whole 9th Circuit loses their magazine bans, meaning Hawaii, Oregon and Washington.

OR

They press this all the way to the Supremes again and... we add California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, DC, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, and Vermont's magazine bans to the burn barrel.

I think I need some popcorn!

Stone Age

Something of an update.

Sabers and... is still progressing.

I'm just so dang buried in world building that I'm not to the point of outlines or plotting, though I do have some good characters.

Trying to get Sioux culture right is vexing, because there's been some sanitizing over the years.

They've got some skeletons in their closets and some activists should really stop casting aspersions at the evol whyte mahn.

Slavery, misogyny and (possibly) cannibalism.

But no matter, my Sioux don't have to be the real, historical, Sioux any more than my 77th Cavalry is a real, historical, unit.  (Hint, it's not)

But what hit home in my research is the American Indian is a TL0 culture.

They have access to TL5 technology, but they cannot make any of it.

The Googoo are also a TL0 culture without that access to high-tech.

I think the distinction I'm going to hang on the GooGoo is they're going to be, effectively, at TL0+1 society because they don't have a myth-parallel hanging over their heads forcing their society from changing thanks to ready access to magic.

Magic SHOULD change society markedly, but the myth-parallel keeps history on track without significant changes to the outcomes.

Like Kennedy still getting killed despite having an active missile-shield in place.

For the Sabers and... universe, the myth-parallel is intact until the mass emigration through the gates to Maka Tanka.

Read The Disclaimer

If your on-topic, non-offensive comment isn't getting posted and says, "this comment removed by a blog administrator," you forgot something.

Something that's in the sidebar.

Read the instructions.

It pains me to keep reminding people.

But just in case you're new here, I spell out my commenting policy over in the disclaimer.

My Own Form Of Snobbery

Yesterday, at the range, a light bulb went on.

We were shooting at 7 yards on the 25 yard range.

There were several people with AR's shooting at the 10 yard line.

I see this a lot and didn't really make note of it.

What I noticed was that I never see these people on the 100 yard range.

Ever.

While I'll use the shorter ranges for zeroing, I always hit the longer range to confirm them.  Most of the time I have to make adjustments to the zero too.

I feel the same way about never shooting a rifle past pistol ranges as I do about taking a ranged weapon into melee combat.

You're doing it wrong.

Even better, when your groups at 100 yards start shrinking, you really feel like you did something!

I will admit, though, there's a liberal application of glass between me and the target most of the time now.  Getting old ain't for sissies.

Gone Shootin'

The daughter of a friend is into guns in a big way.

She's just learning, but has the eager support of us all.

Especially her grandpa.

Sold her this fine, 1947 made, 1911 he's owned for... as long as anyone can remember.

It was nearly bound up from old, solidified lubricants.

So I gave it a detail strip.

It's been a while since I'd had a 1911 apart that far and I, of course, got the sear spring in all wrong.

I did that the very first time I detail stripped one in the Army too, and I had supervision for that!

I got it unfucked, but it's frustrating when you do that with both the sear and disconnect springs UNDER the parts they're supposed to be on top of.

I still don't know how I did it, but...

Proof I got it back together properly.

Decline To Renew

Got a letter from my house insurer saying they weren't going to renew our policy because we'd failed to respond.

"Respond to what?"  I wondered.

It must have been among the dozens of "don't forget we're here for you" letters they spammed out right after Ian and Nicole.

Called my agent and it's they want us to get an inspection to make sure our roof will last another 5 years.

That will be awkward.  We're still making repairs from Nicole because we can't find a contractor who will show up thanks to rampant new-construction in the area.

We've stabilized the front flashing that was damaged and were planning on putting up new wood as soon as it fails to hit 90 by noon.

I'm not too bad at carpentry.

That'd Be Sweet

John Lott speculated that Hunter Biden's defense to the gun charges will be that background checks are unconstitutional.

It'll strange to be rooting for a Biden to win.

On The Mind

There's a bit of confusion out there about the Galil and it's identical cousin the R4.

The ARM is the "basic" rifle with a bipod and a bayonet lug.  The loaded 35 round magazine is 1.8 lb., the 50 rounder 2.3 lb.

That gives us an 18.1" barreled gun in 5.56 that weighs 11.3 lb. loaded with 35-rounds.

The AR is almost identical.  The wire-cutting bipod and the folding carry handle are deleted, but the 18.1" barrel is retained.

This is a 10.4 lb. rifle loaded with 35-rounds.  It's the "police and support" version.

The SAR is the short barreled version of the AR with no bayonet lug.  Vehicle crews, staff and specialty troops get this one.

This is a 13.1" barreled rifle weighing 10 lb. with 35-rounds.

The Vektor made guns are:

The R4 is the same* as the ARM.  The R5 is the same* as the SAR.

*- Yes, there are differences, but the basic configurations is what we're on about here.

Yes, the Galil is very heavy for what you get.

As It Turns Out

Now that I've done some wrenching on both my Australian Caprice and Canadian Equinoxes, I have to retract something I said earlier.

It is not NEW cars that are difficult to work on.

It was a 6th Generation Corvette that was hard to work on.

I am led to believe that the 7th Gen makes The Precious seem easy and the 8th Gen is figuratively sealed up to keep the home mechanic out.

The alternator/ac belt on the Equinox wasn't hard at all.

The belt that only ran the AC on The Precious took three times longer and involved a great deal of cussing.

The way the radiator had to come out still pisses me off.

I am coming to the idea that the Corvette engineers over thought things to the point that they created problems they didn't need to create without noticing.

Teacher Salary

Our local teachers are fomenting for more pay, again.

One of them posted what our county spends compared to neighboring counties, trying to show they deserve more.

My first thought was, "well then move to where they're paying more."

My second thought, though was under the heading of "per student spending."

My county spends $22,000 a year per student.

Classes are limited to 30 students per room.

$660,000 per classroom per year.

Teachers get $48,225 to $75,000 a year.

Assuming the top pay grade...

WHERE THE FUCK IS THE OTHER $585,000 GOING?  I think we're getting ripped the fuck off here.

First, it shouldn't cost more than half a million bucks to educate 30 kids.

Especially since we're spending more than half a million per classroom and failing to educate them in stuff they're going to need when they're turned loose on the world.

Time to write the congress creatures again.

Where's The Belt

The Lovely Harvey sent me a picture of her dash with the battery light on.

Gee, wouldn't it be nice to have a voltage gauge?

She got it home just as the battery lost its last erg.

It's a good thing the water pump isn't driven by the serpentine belt, because it was MIA.

No apparent damage from its departure from the car, thankfully.

Putting the new belt on is awkward, but not overly difficult.

I have a bit of a leak at the crank seal I need to keep an eye on too.

Drink From Your Own Skull!

With high-resolution medical imaging and 3D printing, there's no reason but cost to have a skull mug made from a scan of your own noggin.

Considering how often we're our own worst enemy, it'd still be drinking from the skill of an enemy!

It's All Relative

Accelerating at 4g for a day gets to about 1% the speed of light.

That got me to wondering if I should be accounting for time dilation.

I found a table showing the X axis as a percentage of the speed of light labeled in tenths with 1.0 at the far right.

That had a sharp curve for the time dilation in the Y axis and 10x dilation at the upper right corner...

"Holy BLEEP!" I says.

Then I realized.

1.0 is 100%...

There's hardly any time dilation at 1% the speed of light.

According to that graph, even 90% the speed of light is around 2x dilation.

It's not near the issue science fiction led me to think it was with anything close to a plausibly realistic engine.

Unrealistic engines almost always come with a faster than light drive that takes the worries about relativity off the table.

Edit to add:

That graph I referenced should not be taken to mean that there's "only" 10x time dilation at the speed of light.  That line is near vertical there and isn't quite at c.  The closer you get to c, the more dilation you get, forever.

Sippin' Fuel

The two Size A engines on the Assault Scout appear to pull 4g for two days just by devouring one10cm diameter sphere of U238 apiece.

That's a total of 20kg of Uranium.

That's not much.

And it's JUST Uranium consumed from what I can fathom from the rules.

That description conforms to the fission fragment drive from Vehicles Expansion 1.

But those drives are not lightweight at all.

The engines in Star Frontiers are as realistic as the Epstien drives from The Expanse.

And The Expanse has fusion...

Star Frontiers FTL

Star Frontiers has a near instantaneous FTL drive.

You spend three to fifteen seconds in "the void" once you've accelerated to 1% light speed.

Like so many other games, I don't think they did the math very well.

The assault scout's atomic engines can accelerate at 4g.

It only takes 21ish hours to get to 1% C...  So basically two days to make a jump.

Ion drives accelerate at 1g.  So, about a week.

Chemical drives also get 1g, but don't have enough fuel to get get to speed.

The system is not detailed very well.

I am considering doing some conversions to GURPS: Vehicles.

An interesting thing about Star Frontiers that didn't stick right away back in 9th Grade...

No fusion.

The atomic drives are explicitly fission using uranium or plutonium as fuel.  No mention of reaction mass.

Ion and chemical drives are using hydrogen.  Ion engines use the hydrogen as reaction mass, chemical drives also have oxygen tankage.

It will be interesting if I can recreate the game's performance numbers using hard-science assumptions.

The wee little engines on that assault scout hold enough fuel for three jumps.  So I only need to figure out about a week's worth of thrust total...  Wait...  That's a LOT of reaction mass with an atomic engine.

Gonna be fun?

Update:

Using hard science numbers for the drives, I can't even get 1% of a G for the 42 hours needed to get to 1% C and back down to system speed for a jump.

It's the reaction mass.

The Assault Scout is supposed to be in the neighborhood of 9,000 cubic-feet.  I can't pare that down hardly at all.  Staying within the size constraints I can get 2 to 2.5 G for 15 minutes.

The equations, they be HARD.

Ahsoka

The new Star Wars show has the bad guys using a thousand year old map to find the location of a person missing just a few years.

They need the old map to input data into their modern navigation computer.

It really felt like, "Boy!  Hand me my Antikythera mechanism, I need to program the Garmin to get to the store!"

Success

Here's Sol through a DIY solar filter!  Very cropped.

Compared to my store-bought filter.  I think I got a better focus with the store-bought one.

Because It's Always GURPS

An 18.5" barreled Galil ARM and 35 rounds will do 49.56 points per lb. with ball ammo.

This compares with 30 rounds from a 14.5" AR with 57.14 points per lb.

An M16A4 with optics and light pulls 47.66 points per lb.!  It's more likely to hit though.

The similarly configured Tantal will get 53.33 points per lb.

Because You NEED One

James River Armory makes a clone of the Galil made from South African R4 parts kits called the Gallant.

You get your choice of wood or plastic handguards and if you have a bayonet lug or not.

What you don't, normally, get is a bipod.

The Galil ARM came with a bipod.  The AR and SAR did not.

The front sight that comes with is from an ARM, so it will accept a bipod.

The bipod on the Galil is singularly useless as these things go.

The length of the legs is predicated to allow the 50-round magazine to clear the ground.

If you're shooting level, you're WAY above the ground.

If you're hunkered down trying not to get your ass shot, the muzzle is aimed at Mars.  This is sub-optimal.

What the bipod does really well, is pose the rifle for pictures really well!

That alone justifies getting a bipod for your ARM clone.

The same thing is true of the clamp-on bipod for the Tantal.

Both Atlantic Firearms and Classic Firearms have Gallants for sale for about $1,000±$50 for the bayonet lug and/or wooden handguards.

If you've got the scratch, you should get one.  And a bipod for pictures.

Not Devers

My old T2K stuff calls the M3 Bradley the M3 Devers.

I remember that was the plan and the guys at 1/4 Cav kept correcting the guys from 1/16 Inf about their new tracks being Devers and not Bradley's.

Whelp, turns out the grunts won another one over the scouts.

The M3 is officially the M3 Bradley, not the M3 Devers.

I'd not bothered to recheck that in decades.

 

DIY Solar Filters

You start with this film.

You cut it into circles.

You put the circle between two UV filters. 

You fail the first time when you forgot your fingers leave prints.

You fail the second time when you find that holding the thin and fragile film while cutting with scissors ruins the film.

You fail the third time when you realize that your Exact-O blade is dull.

You succeed the next three times for 2x 58mm and 1x 67mm filters!

Laying on the floor of the garage aiming at the LED tri-light.

I'll check them against the sun for artifacts tomorrow.

This film is incredibly fragile compared to the stuff I used before that makes an orange sun.

This stuff is supposed to give a white disk, but...

Sun with finger prints and damage from holding while cutting with scissors.

Fingers crossed the three that look good with the LED lamp look good with the sun.

22 Years

22 years ago, this very moment, hijacked American Airlines Flight 11 was piloted by terrorists into the North tower of the World Trade Center in New York City.

To this day I do not think we've gotten our pound of flesh back for this.

I can think of a couple three places to pop nukes should something like this ever happen again.

In Point Of Fact

No, you did not "do it in a small town."

You did it in your normal habitat, a large, Democrat controlled, city.

Chicago is hardly a small town.

If They Really Used It

The Army has decided against the M1A2 SEPv4 and is going with the M1E3...

Just us T2K geeks bothered to learn the numbering system and it's been bugging me for years that the military doesn't bother with it.

Shit like the X-35A becoming the F-35A.  Should have been F-24A.

The X and F number series aren't the same and shouldn't interchange like that.

B-21 should be B-3A.

But they're touting the use of E3 as a return to the old way of doing it.

And showing they STILL don't understand.

Post MacNamara A is accepted, E is experimental.

Pre-MacNamara A is main variation, E is sub-variation.

Using the post system the M1E3 would be developmental and when accepted and type classified, it changes to M1A3.  Wanna bet they don't?

And it really should be XM1E3 if you really use the system properly, because it's a substantial revision.

The WW2 system would have the SEPv's rolled into E numbers.  M1A2 SEPv1 would be M1A2E1, SEPv2 would be M1A2E2 and so on.

Observed Phenomenon

The drive to The Lego Store yesterday reminded me of something I've been watching for a while.

People will routinely drive 10 over on the 6-lane 45 limit road.

When the speed limit goes up to 55... they can't get past 50.

But will punch it to five over for the short 60 mph section.

Then keep going 60 when it drops back to 50 for a few miles and drop to 50 when it returns to 55.

I don't get it.

What Did He Mean "Slow Of Mind?"

A long, long time ago, I can still remember...

We were on the top level of the Memorial Union parking ramp bullshitting after the end of a marathon gaming session.

For some reason, "How hard would it be to shoot the cross across the street?" came up.

I said it'd be easy.

Others disagreed.

A roving Karen with an ounce of authority told us we couldn't be loitering up there before we could really debate the question and it was forgotten until now.

It's a 50m shot.

So, yes.  It is an easy shot with a rifle.

Moderately difficult with a pistol.

This Came Up

Scientist altered their paper to make sure it would be published.

That's not how science and scientific publications are supposed to work.

If you are altering your work to conform to the bias of the publication, you have compromised your principles and all of your work is now suspect.

That you'd have to make such a compromise means that peer reviewed publication is now a useless benchmark.

Quoting something from one of these publications has the same scientific merit as quoting my high school year-book.

Wait What?

I support gun safety but there is no such thing as a state public health emergency exception to the U.S. Constitution. https://t.co/6GfbOZLc7g

 — David Hogg \uD83D\uDFE7 (@davidhogg111) September 9, 2023

Fucker is getting dangerously close to taking a red pill here.

Hot Rodders Are The Original Recyclers

Something that often bothers me is the institutional disregard for hot-rodders.

The pollution and emissions cost of a new car is a lot more than updating and upgrading an old one.

An upgraded and updated car will be far cleaner than its original form.

But...

There's no incentives to make these upgrades and updates.

If anything, there's barriers to modernizing old cars.

There should be incentives to encourage people to drop modern, cleaner, more efficient engines and drivetrains into old cars.

There is nothing.

Why?

Well, the obvious answer is the people pushing for fewer emissions don't really believe in what they are pushing.

Is it really cynical of me to think they're a bunch of lying cunts?

She Didn't Even Notice

This was Harvey's second trip to the range with the "large" grip on her 2.0 Compact.

No malfunctions.

No pain.

Better grouping.

I think I will not mention it and let her keep going being happy.

Gavin?

The ubiquitous M113 had a name besides one-one-three?

Gavin?

After James M Gavin?

I did not hear that once in three years of service in an armor regiment and decades of T2K research and model building.

Now it's here and there on the internet.

I don't think it's real.

Sproing Successes

The small story is the new springs in the P220 have greatly improved the slide's movement and four magazines of 230gr .45 confirmed it is reliable for all time.

The real success is The Lovely Harvey finally busting the plateau and getting hits on the centerline!

It's an eye and glasses issue.  If we stuff an earplug under the bridge of her glasses so she can use the reading portion of her bifocals without tilting her head all the way back...  She shoots point of aim.

She ditched her glasses altogether for safety glasses and still shot center.

Her distance prescription makes everything worse.

We also played with the settings of my phone's camera:

I think she's got pretty good form.

She's also reporting no pain from shooting this time.  That's also a first.  It means that the slow process of her shoulder healing is moving along nicely.

Discouragement

I was reading a PJMedia article about how much your car spies on you and wondered if the reluctance of insurance companies to cover former police vehicles has anything to do with the lack of the gear used to spy on the car.

The Beast has no OnStar, for example.

Despite being irritatingly controlled by the BCM, there aren't really any systems on the thing that weren't in my 1991 Biscayne*.

This lack of nannyware might be something to think about.

I'll have to ask some friends with pre-electronics cars if they're having any trouble finding insurance.  A '72 Chevelle sure as fuck won't have any of that crap on it.

*The Biscayne started as a Caprice Classic, but I stripped out so much of the luxury appointments that I jokingly said that I was making a Biscayne cop car out of it... the title stuck.

Modified

I just went car insurance shopping.

USAA is still the price to beat, despite the 33% increase from last period on top of the 43% increase from the period before.

$660 a month is what we were going to have to pay.

I nuked $160 of it (eliminating the increase) by changing from "stacked" to "unstacked" coverage for the uninsured motorist portion!

The insurance agent at AAA suggested that after we found out they won't write coverage for The Beast.

A different agent says that 8 of her 11 companies, likewise, will not write for The Beast.

Why?

"Modifications"

What modifications?

I have 12 different answers.

All of them clearly decided by people who don't know fuck-all about cars.

Among my favorites:  The police modify the car to go faster.

No.  No they do not.  They like their warranty as much as the next guy.

The addition and removal of police equipment compromising the car in some way is phrased several different ways.  With no procedure to prove that nothing was compromised.

This is especially galling, because I know a lot about the car.

They were imported as ready-built cop cars.  Provision was made for adding police equipment without compromising the car's safety, performance or handling.  Those same provisions allow for its safe removal as well.

I dunno if this is true for Ford or Dodge or other GM cars, but it is true of the Caprice PPV.

Plus, I still think that my massive brake upgrade should be worth some discount.  I can stop with Corvettes, despite outmassing them by half a ton!

Paranoid Conspiracy

Now that we know that Liberty had a back-door code built into every electronic lock.

I wonder, now, if such codes have ever been used to plant evidence in a "locked" safe using clandestine means.

I'm more and more concerned that I'm not paranoid enough.

Lies Upon Lies

I've been reading other people commenting on Liberty Safe giving the FBI an access code to enter a suspect's gun-safe.

What makes this interesting is the numerous people who said that Liberty told them to call a locksmith to drill the safe when they forgot the combination they'd changed from the factory default.

Essentially, Liberty retained a combination to get into your safe they would not share with you or a locksmith.  But will share with law enforcement.

Most people are incensed by the cooperation with law enforcement.

What gets me is the existence of that code.  And Liberty telling customers that they needed to call a locksmith instead of giving them the code...

I'm guessing it's the same code for every lock they sell.

That sure compromises the security of your retail security cabinet, don't it?

Further reading tells me that Liberty is getting familiar with Jim Zumbo and Barbara Streisand.

This is because people are looking into what else Liberty gets up to and donating to Democrats appears to be something they do.

Good job!

CMP M1911 Round 4

The CMP has announced that the fourth round of M1911 sales is now open.

What's new is people who want a second one can submit a packet this time.

I am strong.

I can resist.

A Modest Proposal

I note that most (perhaps all) congresscreatures accumulate wealth far in excess of their salaries.

I'm not going to begrudge them their graft.

But it seems that the graft is sufficient to replace their salaries and extensive benefits.

So lets cut their salary and benefits and make them live on the graft.

Listen to me.

"Make them" like it's going to be a burden to go without...

I Recommend GURPS Space

Astronomers have some compelling models which suggest a ninth tenth goddammit (fuck you Neil!) planet out there in the Kuiper Belt.

Aside: The current definition of "planet" that excludes Pluto exists primarily to keep the numbers down so that it can be taught simply to children.  It also fails since Jupiter doesn't appear to have cleared its orbit as required (because it's got extensive collections of stuff in its Grecian and Trojan points).

The articles talking about it keep saying "earth-like".

Nothing out at 500 AU is "earth-like". <-  Assuming the New York Post got the distance the scientists talked about correct.  500 AU is more Oort Cloud than Kuiper Belt...

1.5-3 times the size of Earth, itself, isn't very earth-like either.

The descriptor you're looking for is "rocky planet."

Mercury, Venus, Earth, and Mars and Pluto are rocky planets.

I get the impression that all the inner planets are "earth-like" by the definition of The NY Post.

Fascinating

I'm in the process of changing primary doctors at the VA.

My current doc has not been very good.

Starting with when I put The Precious into a tree and culminating with her refusal to sign my handicapped parking permit, I decided that she wasn't doing a good job for me.

I have an appointment with the new doc next week, setting that appointment canceled two appointments with the old doc last month.

She called me personally today to talk about the parking permit.

Bitch, you are fired.  Do you want an exit interview or something?

I tell you, after she failed to make the accident follow-up in a timely manner she's damn lucky that Harvey didn't go down there and blow her ear drums out dressing her down.

The call was odd, I think.

It felt like a call from someone who's been told by her supervisor that if she loses one more customer she's fired.

Knowing how close to a sinecure the VA doctor job is...  That says something.

She was very focused on the parking permit and I kept telling her that it was just the final straw.

Like three loops of her offering to sign it now and me trying to explain what "last straw" means.

When I told her it started with her failure to get me a follow-up for the car accident, she asked, "when was your accident?"

So I replied, "see?  You don't even know.  You didn't even pull my file before calling to familiarize yourself with your patient.  That's why we're done here."

Not Old West

The vid of Santa Fe No. 3751 and some of the Big Boy from Union Pacific No. X4014 reminded me that many of these steam locomotives are not as old as lots of people think they are.

Diesel didn't really take over until the 1960's.  Diesel-Electric, to be precise.

No. 3751 was made in 1927 by Baldwin Locomotive Works.

No. X4014 was made in 1941 by the American Locomotive Company.

People have an image of steam being long gone by the time WW2 started.

The oldest engines running in the US are younger than the "Old West."

Hard to find one that's older than the 1920's that still hauls anything.

The older ones are narrow gauge.

Steam At Speed

Nice to see one hauling ass as designed.

Will A Senegal Millionaire Be Like a Zimbabwean Trillioniare

Akon invites every black person in America to move to Senegal to become millionaires!

"No please, dont'." W. Wonka.

 

I'm a trillionaire in Zimbabwe...

Is a millionaire in Senegal better?  Worse?

It'd be hilarious to watch this fall apart if a significant number of the black people who are the source of so much of our crime rate were to move there.

A win for America!  We lose those criminals and we get to watch the disaster from afar.

Except For I Said That Before

If they'd signed it, there'd be a comment about how the Republicans need to fall in line and do what Trump tells them.

Did I mention that he's actively pissing those people off, so why should they fall in line?

I'm pretty sure I did.

I also mentioned that it's a team sport, and he's often stating that he's not on a team with his actions.

Notice the title of my post?  "Ventura Effect"

After Jesse "The Body" Ventura.  Former governor of Minnesota.

He wasn't a member of either party.

He didn't accomplish anything because he was damn good at rallying both sides to oppose him.

Sometimes just for spite.

Trump is about to achieve Grand Master in getting the side he needs to support him to oppose him out of spite because "fuck that guy."

He's not helping our cause in any meaningful way with his antics.

Nor are his supporters who're mistaken about where the pressure to change things is coming from.

Ventura Effect

Watching Donald shitting on Governor DeSantis has me thinking:

He should probably not be pissing off the people he has to have working with him if he's reelected.

Mr Trump is not a team player and doesn't understand two basic things about politics or how he was elected.

First is he thinks he's the leader of this movement.  That's provably incorrect.  He's the choice when the establishment Republicans were being rejected by the movement.  He was handy at the time.

Second politics is most certainly a team sport, and the president needs congress to support their agenda to properly implement it.  Executive orders only go so far.

He seems to be going out of his way to make sure that he's going to be opposed by Republican politicritters if he's reelected.

Not a good plan.

Don't get me wrong, he's far better than Hillary or Brandon would have been or have been.

If he's the candidate, I'll likely vote for him because he's got that "Not Joe Biden" box checked.

I'm not sure he's the candidate I want, though.

He's too damn good at pissing off everyone to the point nobody wants to work with him.  See point number two.

That fucks us because there's a lot he wants to do that is great for us.

It's a totally different topic that the congresscreatures are perfectly willing to fuck all of us just to fuck over Trump for pissing them off by being the dick he is.

This is yet another place that shouldn't be a zero sum game, but it is.

Inversion

While marveling about my past few cars getting high miles without effort...

And mentioning that it was unheard of that American cars could do that...

I forgot something.

There was once a time when if you had a BMW or Mercedes Benz, you could count on hundreds of thousands of miles trouble free if you just did basic routine maintenance.

Now, try to find a Beemer that doesn't rack up catastrophic repair bills once the warranty expires.

Go on, I'll wait.

Damn short list, ain't it?

BMW has over-complicated basic, routine, maintenance to the point where it's included in the purchase price and warranty.  That complication means that you get ass-raped once that service plan expires with the warranty.

Of all the brands, they appear to have embraced the "elegant" solution of burying wear items under many layers of other assemblies to the point that it's simply not cost effective to repair them.

But But But

 Gee, looks like it was the sun all along!

Living next to a main sequence variable means you have to deal with the variability of the thing.

It's something I've been saying for a long time.

Always remember that there's no "science" in Intergovermental Panel on Climate Change.

The IPCC, by the way, comes to us by the same organization that puts Saudi Arabia on a panel for women's rights and listens it Iran about LGBT rights.

Just sayin'.

Considering how much of the IPCC stuff benefits government at the expense of liberty...

That the government funded science supports more government should not be surprising.

That there are still scientists doing SCIENCE is.

Punctuation Matters

There's a difference between:

We will not comply again.

AND

We will not comply, again.

The person who didn't notice the comma got a good head of steam going condemning the original poster before people pointed it out.

But, just in case you're in possession of a sheepskin from a midwest high school (like me)...

The first is saying that they complied once and won't be complying this time.  The second is say they didn't comply the first time and would not comply the next time either.

I won't even condemn the a person in the first case.

There were a lot of unknowns at the time and most people don't know much about the topic.

I credit the internet for getting the knowledge out and raising mistrust of institutions who've been actively working against our interests for decades.

I really feel like we on the cusp of something.

Especially when Harvey's liberal co-workers are complaining about Brandon as loud as anyone on my side of the aisle.  The only thing they got that they wanted from him is that Joe Biden is not, in fact, Donald Trump.

I can't even get mad at them for that.  George W Bush was not Al "Ozone" Gore.  George W Bush was not John Kerry.  John McCain was not Barack Obama, nor was Mitten "I did Obamacare first" Romney.  Donald Trump was not Hillary Clinton.

I get voting against someone rather than for someone.  I've literally been doing it for decades.

Still, everyone who's a graduated of the Ivy League and jealously guarding the levers of power is missing that Donald is a symptom of unrest, not the cause.

They're also missing that what they're doing the the January 6th protesters is not deterring a repeat.  It's informing them that, next time, bring guns and to not hesitate to shoot.

These are facts on the ground that need to be accounted for going forward that are being actively denied.

I can easily see if Biden gets reelected that the hotter heads will say, "well, that's it then..." then raising the black flag and start slitting throats in the most literal sense.

Rollin'

One reason I love modern cars is the ease with which they rack up the miles.

150k was unheard of not that long ago.  Astonishing in a car that wasn't Japanese.

The Beast reminds me of the departed Flossie in lots of ways.  It's like a giant, overpowered, Civic!

I admit that I've been doing a lot of parts replacement since I got it, but not major mechanical.

Perverse Pride

I am kind of proud that I did not buy an overpriced knickknack from two YouTubers to be entered to win something they were giving away.

While I will not win a Toyota or an FG.42... I would not have won if I'd spent the money.

VICTORY!

Dammit

A small, local brewer, just up and died on us today.

Ed Schultz of Krazy Eddie's Garage will be sorely missed.

He reminded me a lot of my bro, Ray.

I cannot claim to have been his friend, but his departure is affecting people who are my friends.

It is a sad day.

Near Thing

The opening assist (don't call it a switchblade) on my beloved Kershaw Cyclone decided to stop working last night.

The mode of failure was the same as when Marvyn's decided to die, so I was worried.

Today I took it apart and gave it a thorough cleaning.

Had two frustrations putting it back together.

First, I couldn't remember how the assist spring went into the knife because it fell out while separating the halves and I didn't see where it'd come from.

Someone on YouTube had a video that solved that one.

Second, I dropped the smaller blade bushing into the field of debris at the foot of my work bench.  UGH!  I should really sweep up more than once a year.

So I vacuumed up the debris and took it out to the sawhorses and spread it out to find the little thing.  Huzzah!

Once reassembled, the opening assist appears to be functioning correctly again.

Dunno for how long, but it's working for now.

I dread the day it quits for good, but it will still be a fine knife; it will just open conventionally.

I Wonder

I wonder if the cheeseburgers are living up to expectations for Jimmy Buffet.

I'm young enough that there was ALWAYS Jimmy Buffet and it seems strange that there is none now.

Better

 Replaced the swaybar end links on The Beast.

The first thing that hit me was that it was much easier than the same operation on The Precious (RIP).  The Australians apparently considered the idea that someone would be working on it someday.

I took a road trip to meet a friend yesterday and the persistent vibration in the wheel since I first got the car from that same friend is nearly gone.

The ride was smooth and relaxing for the first time since I got her.

I think I still need front struts, but it's bearable now.

Next, there's been water in the rear driver's side footwell after a hard rain.

New window fuzzy seals installed!

I hope that fixes it.  I especially hope the passenger side doesn't start leaking because that part is unobtanium.

I'm getting very close to getting the car fully fixed so I can start making mods instead of repairs!

GoFundMe

I am thinking of setting up a GoFundMe to repair our storm damage.

$20 seems a worthy goal.

Let Us Give Thanks

I attribute our light weather from Hurricane Idalia to Marv's offering to The Cantore.

He completed the ritual that repelled the harbinger of bad weather, protecting the entire neighborhood!

Fashion Victim

Since my go "bag" is a plate carrier...

When its time to repel looters I will be wearing body armor.

It seems sensible to wear the PASGT helmet I snagged too.

BUT!

The plate carrier is coyote brown.

The PASGT helmet has a woodland cover.

How gauche!

At this point I am wondering if I should even bother getting the kilt out for storms.

Might as well just wear short-shorts and a wife-beater like all the neighbors.

We're Still Here

No damage to report except the data feed wire for our Halloween/Christmas LED strips came unanchored from the brittle plastic clips.

USCG HH-60 traffic to the east is near constant.  I'll add a pic if I can snag a good shot.  They're not hovering, passing by in both directions.

My favorite brewery made it, they're already on Facebook saying they're opening early.

Still have to check the Waffle House to properly assess the damage.

I'm For Bed

I went out back to sniff the air and there were stars in the sky instead of unbroken overcast.

Despite reports of 61 mph gusts, I'm seeing breezy.

So Far So Good

We got some rain.

It's breezy, not windy.

We got a lot less wind than we were expecting and it was mostly from a direction that has a good break for my house provided by houses at a higher elevation than me.

When the wind shifts to the "bad" direction, Idalia will be weaker and farther away.

Knock on wood, the power has been steady.  That makes sense because they were JUST out here for a fallen tree and they took chainsaws to a lot of other threatening wood when they were fixing the downed line.

Looks like it's going to be serious up north and possibly a Cat 4!

Fingers crossed for them.

Looter Repellant Standing By

 

Fresh batteries, water in the canteen.  Lots of dust and cat hair removed (but not near all of it).

Ready for the worst case scenario.

A scenario which is increasingly unlikely as the storm goes past.

What's that line?  Better to have it and not need it...

Under The Edge

 

No wind here yet, but this is the edge of the cloud band from Idalia.

It's presently projected to go North of my location and we're not expected to get much from it.

It'll be windy and rainy and we might lose power, but we're kinda ready for that.

PS: Thanks to all the off-topic comments wishing me luck for this storm!  Even if I did delete them for being off-topic!  I didn't really give you a place to make such wishes, so consider this post your chance!

THANKS!

Intended Role

Dialing the way-back machine here.

Tinkering with my P220 makes me wonder about the pistol market back before you could get a CCW for the asking most places.

I remember most guns being full-size service pistols.

That you couldn't carry or hunt with.

Do you remember the gunwriters being shocked at how small a Glock 19 was back then?

I do.

Hacksaw Ridge Korea

 

Captain Glover is using an M1 carbine with adjustable rear sight and bayonet lug.

During the battle for Okinawa in early 1945.

While the sight and lug were type classified by the time this battle took place, hardly any were in the hands of the troops until well after the war ended.

Gun nerd shit like this is what I live for.

Singapore

My little corner of the blogosphere is popular in Singapore with people using mobile Safari from an Android phone.

I suspect that there's not any real readers there.

Shines The Name

I've encountered this a couple of times.

I cannot read Medal of Honor citations.

They have too much dust on them.

The Important Preps

 

Meanwhile, at Marv's...

No reason to take chances!

...Or Flight

Fluids checked in all three vehicles just in case we need to flee the wrath of Vidalia Onion hurricane Idalia.

Tires checked to have the proper pounds per square inch.

Basic checks that I do every few weeks anyways.

Something new is The Beast takes Dextron VI transmission fluid for its power steering system.

I wonder if it works as brake fluid too!

New Code Word

Is Caribbean Festival a new code phrase the press uses for gatherings of certain criminal elements of society who happen to have a certain complexion because they don't want to sound racist when making simple reporting of fact?

Also, I thought that Massachusetts had stricter gun laws than this; which I was assured would keep things like this from happening.

RIP Ms Sorkin

Arleen Sorkin, the original voice of Harley Quinn, has passed on.

She made a role so iconic for a TV show that they retconned the character to the comics.

Punctuated Equilibrium

The media finally has an actual racist who killed more than one person.  In Florida no less!

Be still their beating hearts!

How many years have they been hunting this unicorn?

I'm going to guess the racist's manifesto will be published toot-sweet while we keep waiting on the Nashville shooter's.

Nope no bias there...

We're All Gonna Die!!!!

Quick!  Buy milk, bread and eggs!

Looks like there's a hurricane brewing down by the Yucatan.

Early assessment is a strong tropical storm to a weak Cat 1 landing a bit North to a lot North of here.

Two A Week

 We have an alcohol czar?

Two drinks a week?

Canada did this too, a while back.

This is from the same bunch of ninnies who demanded all kinds of bullshit about Wu Ping Cough too.

I think I shall ignore them, since they're proven to be wrong about every time they speak.

Something Of An Endorsement

Vivek Ramaswamy is taking hits from both sides.

Both sides sure seem to be worried about him.

I tend to like candidates that worry the Uniparty like this.

I don't know fuck all about him, but he's pissing off people I enjoy seeing pissed off.

What Exactly Were Those Points?

 NBC accuses Republican candidate of issuing Neo-Nazi talking points.

How did they miss that he's a full blooded Aryan in their accusation?

But what I want to know is what, exactly, did he say that's a Neo-Nazi talking point?

I'm not going to say I don't trust the media's opinion of what a Neo-Nazi talking point is...  Nope, not going to SAY it.

It's just that they lie so often that my Murray Gell Mann amnesia is fully suppressed.

In particular, they lie about people being racist, sexist and bigoted quite often, and most frequently in deliberately misquoting stuff which is not racist, sexist or bigoted in context.

Notice the lack of both a quote and context in their accusation?

That's one of their tells that they're lying.

So What?

The county south of here started a program of giving free bus rides between downtown St Petersburg to St Petersburg Beach last October.

Ostensibly, it was to provide cheap transportation for the guesstimated 40k low income workers along the routes to get to work.

What it's become is a rolling homeless shelter.

Enough of the homeless are staying at the beach end overnight that Pinellas County's Sheriff is spending $10k a week policing them up.

That's a big enough dent in their budget they're delivering ultimatums to the bus agency to start charging fares to cut down on the homeless migrations.

Egalitarian and equity gets mentioned over and over about charging a fare.

My favorite objection to charging a fare is how this will "disproportionately" affect the homeless who a.) don't have any money and b.) since the fares are electronically collected they have no means to pay even if they had the money.

I kinda think that was the point the sheriff was after.  Charging a fare keeps them off the busses and off the beach when its closed.

Last Chance

Last chance?  Maybe.

CMP announced that Round 3 is ending.

If you want a genuine M1911A1 you have to have your packet postmarked August 25, 2023.

Might be hard to get all the required stuff together on such short notice if you don't already have it.

They Used To Better About This

There was once a time when GM would just keep a part in stock, on a shelf, until the damn thing sold.

They created an impressive network that cross-referenced who had what where and deftly arranged for the part to be whisked to the buyer.

Now they can't even figure out if they have a part in stock, or not.

If they say "discontinued" it's certain it's gone.

But too many discontinued parts are listed as "in stock" and you don't get to find that out until they cancel your order a week later.

Traffic Laws? This Is A TANK!

This reminds me of one time we were coming back from the rail-head.

There was a red-light camera at one of the intersections and the entire column blew right through it.

We had Polizei blocking intersections, so we weren't supposed to stop.

The camera, likewise, wasn't supposed to be active.

But it was.

Even so, someone should have made note of the time and date and seen the Polizei in the photos.

Something should have kept them from mailing our CO about 40 citations for running the light.

The pictures of my platoon's tanks running the light were still on the bulletin board when I left.

It's All Perfectly Simple

Push me too far and we'll start in on pre-decimalization British money!

Same Or Different

There's a YouTube armor-historian pissing match going on about tank-engines.

Specifically, did the T-14 Armata use the engine out of a WW2 era German tank?

Specifically the SLA-16.

The 12N360 in the Armata is an X-engine configuration too.

The supposition LazerPig makes is that the 12N360 12-cylinder is a modified A-83-3A engine which was developed from captured 16-cylinder SLA-16 engines.

I think there's a case to be made. 

He's also on record saying that the V-12 engine the Russians have been using in their tanks is a derivation of the original V-2-34 from the T-34.  He's on firm ground here.

Nicholas "The Chieftan" Moran has snarked asking if the Continental AV-1790-5B from the M-47 is the same as the AVDS-1790-9AR in the Merkava III?

Well, Nick, yes; and no, not really.

Just as the small block from a 1955 Chevy is the same as the small-block in a 2002 Express.

The newer engines are evolved from the originals even if very few parts exchange. 

Just like the V-2-34 and V-92SF.

Complications

From my time working as a drafter/designer at a vending machine manufacturer, I know from sheet metal.

I'm presently enjoying someone explaining to me how difficult an AR-18 is to make and therefore the TRW Low Maintenance Rifle will also be difficult to make.

Actually...

The AR-18 is "difficult" to make because it's a fairly complicated design.  Much simpler than the Stoner 63, but still fairly complicated.

Even so, once you've got your dies, fixtures and jigs; not a difficult thing to manufacture.  Design and set-up is expensive and difficult, manufacturing is fairly cheap and easy if you can commit to volume and the machinery that allows it.  Small runs can't so they're much more expensive and labor intensive.

The TRW LMR isn't complex like that.  It's MUCH simpler.

Possibly it can be made from tube-stock.

But it's been fun letting this "expert" lecture me on stuff he's clearly never done.

Another Empty Threat

"The sequel won't be completed if you don't demand the studios cave to our demands!"

Actors, writers, studios; we're already used to the series we're enjoying being cancelled before it reaches a conclusion.

We're also getting accustomed to the series end being clumsily truncated to an unsatisfactory ending.

Never mind the tendency of padding the run time of what we do get to delay coming to the logical conclusion of the series.  When you combine that with a truncated conclusion all you can do is think of all the time they wasted on side quests and stories.

So it's not a threat to the consumer.

In fact, in many cases, we're waiting for an entire series to play and conclude before even starting it.

I Expected Defenestration

 Wagner chief on passenger manifest of plane crash.  No survivors.

 

Area Effect

My post speculating that the fine and punishment for owning an illegal machine gun is almost cheaper than the punishment of owning one legitimately has some interesting comments.

Something that comes up a lot about machine guns is people lamenting their lack of accuracy.

I think this stems from a misunderstanding of what a machine gun is for.

Despite firing bullets, they're not, primarily, point effect weapons.

A rifle is a point effect weapon.

Machine guns are area effect weapons.

This requires more dispersion between shots than a rifle so that the beaten zone is big enough to fix the bad guys in place with their heads down while the maneuver portion of the unit moves up on them.

Any hits that occur during this are bonuses.

The Army confuses the matter by putting scopes on some of their MGs.

The Marines REALLY confuse the matter by issuing a rifle, including a scope, as an LMG. 

None of this is clarified by the legal definition of machine gun, which doesn't match the military definition at all.

An Uzi isn't a machine gun to an Army, but it is to ATF.

An M16 is a rifle to the Army, but a machine gun to the ATF.

What's The Fine For An Illegal MG Again

 Morphy's has a transferable M249 up for auction.

Opening bid is $300,000.

Expected price is $600,000 to $1,000,000.

I can't help but think there's perverse incentives happening because of this.

The $250k max fine is still under the minimum bid... then there's the (up to) 10 year sentence.

First felony is free, they say.

When I speculate about this, I often wonder just how many unregistered machine guns are out there.

Not terribly long ago a search warrant for a completely unrelated to guns search found dozens of MG's at some guy's house.  And the evidence he was guilty of the crime they got the warrant for, but still.

He lived in the middle of nowhere and until the warrant, nobody appeared to be the wiser he was making MG's and shooting them on his property.

I want to say he was making M1919's, but I could be remembering wrong.

I've never been the target market for a machine gun.

I can barely afford to feed the semi-autos.

A giggle switch would lead to living in the dark.

Under a bridge.

In a refrigerator box.

With no guns at all.

Divorced.

And that's doing it by obeying the law!

If I was doing it illegally I'd have to hope the cops were faster than Harvey and got me into the police car before she cut my throat.

Yeah We Hate Them Too

We have politicritters that are going along with policy ideas from other states we don't care for in our own states.

Their going along with it doesn't change the state of origin of those idiotic policies and three states are the main source of these idiotic policies.

California, Massachusetts and New York.

California, in particular, leads the pack in shit that is imposed on the rest of the nation whether they like it or not.

But don't be acting sanctimonious that our politicritters went along with it.  We're primarying those pricks every election cycle.

That they've been reelected is more a function of the lesser of two evils than wanting them in office.

To cite the idea that amnesty is something idiot RINOS came up with and are pushing actively for means that you need to get out more.  The idiot RINOS are going along with the stupidity, we don't like it, but they aren't the originators of the dumbass idea.

That'd be California, again.

Especially bad that to accuse our RINO of leading the charge when Florida is at the forefront of stopping illegal immigration.

I don't see Governor Newsome suing the Feds to close the border or doing fuck all to ease the problem.

The comment that triggered this post was your third strike, Aesop.  Complain about me at your blog, again, but don't bother commenting here.

Well

I keep trying to say that this is my soapbox and not yours, but some of you can't learn.

Dammit!

Some of you have your own blogs to preach from, so it won't be a huge loss not being able to comment here.

But what a fucking morass to wade through.

No Frogs?

Considering I had to look for pictures after not finding them on the front pages of the news sites...

The "devastation" from Hilary is not as devastating as the predictions, uh, predicted.

Flooding is no joke, but it doesn't appear to be near as bad as New Orleans or Pine Island.

So:

Either the destruction isn't as bad as predicted...

OR

They're actively covering how bad it is.

It's sad that I even consider the latter, but they're such frequent liars...

Strike that!  I was looking at the news web pages.

But they post their videos to YouTube.

It's bad.

It remains to be seen, "How bad?"

Then the question will become, if the eco-freaks weren't so active, would it have been as bad?

Rain Of Frogs Coming

 California got an earthquake as the storm arrived.

Just a 5.1, but damn!

This is starting to read like The Bible.

Yul Brenner could not be reached for comment.

Because It's An Older Version

After successfully figuring out how to change the firing pin spring on the P220 by myself...

I went looking for "how-to" vids.

I'd known that SIG had changed from a sheet-metal slide to a milled slide at some point, but I didn't internalize the information until I watched a couple of videos explaining how to get the firing pin out of a milled slide.

Banned

 

Not a very effective ban if they're for sale in the open.

But the point they're attempting to make is these books have been removed from some audiences for various reasons at various times.

If you'd like an example of an actual banned book:  Go to Germany with copy of "Mein Kampf," and wave it under a cop's nose.

I remember the debate about AAFES selling it in on-post bookstores and how it was banned for reals in Germany.  The books were sold with a warning that you shouldn't take them off-post because even the status of forces agreement wouldn't protect you from prosecution.

I Seem To Recall

A while back when Florida was dealing with hurricane damage, there were some people in California running at the mouth about how they shouldn't have to pay for some other state's natural disasters.

I wonder if they will drown in the coming rains.

I'm willing to bet that there will be Floridians among those helping.

I am equally certain that there were Californian linemen here in Florida restoring power after Irma.

Sproing

I've felt that the recoil spring on the P220 was getting weak for a while.

The slide was getting sluggish after just a few magazines.

Since SIG's are known for consuming such springs, I ordered a replacement 18 lb. spring.

Wolff calls it a reduced power spring, but I found that the stock spring could be 15 lb. or 24 lb. from the factory.  With older German guns coming with the 15.

The new spring is noticeably longer than the older one.

The slide feels snappier with the new spring installed.

Included in the kit was this, smaller, spring.

What could this be for?  I wondered.

Well, reading the instructions informed me that it's a firing pin spring.

I'd never taken the firing pin block out before, so this was a fun new thing!

Simple and easy and I didn't even have to hit YouTube to figure it out.

Huzzah!

Also About The Ruger Standard

I decided it was time to clean the Ruger.

.22LR is extra dirty, and we had some malfunctions that were clearly from dirt.

The Ruger .22 handguns are legendary in being a pain in the ass to get back together, so people are reluctant to take them apart to clean.

I'm pretty deft at reassembly, so that doesn't dissuade me.

I'm lazy.

Plus, the thing runs fine when it's totally filthy.

So we have been.

Well, there's a limit and we hit it today.

And the powder residue gets EVERYWHERE inside the thing.

It's clean now, but I might wanna rethink my cleaning schedule just to make the job a bit easier.

Grouping

The Lovely Harvey made a huge leap in progress shooting today.

She's been firing 6-9" to the left at 7 yards pretty consistently for a while.

It's been frustrating for her, to put it mildly.

Today I drew a picture of her sights and asked her if that was what she saw, emphasizing getting the front sight centered in the rear sight groove.

She looked down her sights and drew two blurry blobs for the rear sight and a gigantic white dot for the front.

AHA!

So I had her take a shooting stance and looked at her eye-line.

She was looking right through the line where her bifocals took over.

Having done this myself a couple of times, I totally understood.

So she moved her head to put the reading part on the sights of the old Ruger Standard and suddenly she's shooting center!

We can fix this next time she gets glasses.  I know what to ask for.

We also changed out her grip panel on her M&P 2.0 9 Compact from the small to the large.  She'd been complaining that she couldn't feel her grip, and the larger panel gives her feedback.  This allowed her to loosen the death-grip a little and that improved her groups a ton.

Speaking of that 66 year old pistol...

I shot a thumb sized 9-round group with it today.  Harvey is jealous, but she hasn't been shooting regular for the past 35 years either.

I also did some drills with the Glock 45.  Harvey was about to ask me what was wrong when she saw I was doing Mozambique drills.  My groups open up a bit changing point of aim like that.  Still enough to get the task completed, but bigger than just focusing on one spot.

I can get faster and tighter, I am sure.

I'm not to the point of trying dot-torture, yet.

Still 15 Years Away

A small subplot of Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps is funding fusion research.

They mention that it's been five years away for 40 years.

I giggled.

Something I noticed about the film and the movie it's a sequel to.

Wall Street aged well; sequel didn't.

I don't know why I was surprised by that.

Hurricane Hilary

It's off the West coast of Mexico right now and it's a monster.

Looks to be hitting Southern California as a tropical storm in a few days.

The first tropical anything to hit Southern California since 1939.

I have to wonder...

Are hurricanes known to cause cancer in California according to prop 65?

The More I See

The more bad Star Trek and botched Star Wars I see...

The more I want to cajole my local resources and get back to playing Traveller.

I can't really do worse.

Star Wars and Foundation have been very pretty, but not well made.

I REALLY can't do worse.

National Rum Day

Siesta Key "Traveling Barrel Series" Batch #4.  Aged in a beer barrel.

Wait

I was going to post a long, kind of researched, rebuttal.

Then I realized that I don't care that much.

I said what needed to be said and I don't need to do a research project to shut up a commenter who will never accept they're wrong anyways.

At least not accept that they're wrong in  the way I'm trying to explain.

Because they think they're right for different reasons, they're not going to comprehend the explanation.

Remember Water Vapor Kicks Carbon Dioxide's Ass

Tonga eruption increased the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere by 5%.

h/t Instapundit

That was almost a year ago that article was quietly published.

That one eruption did more in a week than we do in decades.

But we need to change how we behave because...  It will prevent plate tectonics? 

This comes to me just after I discover that a Nobel Prize winning physicist and a climatologist state that, "the man-made climate crisis is manufactured."

You Can Tell She's Not Mexican

 Some Ozzie Gint Hates America

She's sick of seeing the American flag everywhere while she's here in America.

First, if you don't like it, go home.

Second, I just FUCKING LOVE it when some fucking foreigner comes here to tell me what I'm doing wrong couched in the phrase, "nobody else does it."

Go back home, Bitch.  Stay there.

You have mistaken our leaving the door open as an invitation.

Just To Prove A Point

GURPS is nigh universally compatible with any other game system with a minor amount of tweaking.

I have a recurring urge to get a party together, starting with 150 point fantasy characters and...

Run the VAST ATDGQ series of AD&D modules.

• A 0-4 Against the Slave Lords
• T 1-4 Temple of Elemental Evil
• G 1-3 Against the Giants
• D 1-3 Descent Into the Depths of the Earth and Vault of the Drow
• Q 1 Queen of the Demonweb Pit

This is not a weekend's worth of playing.  This is a long campaign.

I'd need six to eight dedicated players to commit for as long as it takes.

With Zoom and such, it appears that it's possible to actually get a remote group together in real time.

It's an interesting idea.

That's Handy

Marv has added a SIG Romeo-1 Pro to his P320.

 

The weight of the optic is almost identical to the mass of the plate he had to remove from the top of the slide to uncover the mounting screws.

That means that adding an optic doesn't change the weight of the gun!

Excellent!

He's yet to get it to the range to see if it helps his shooting.

How Long In Kalikams?

The thing with measurements always brings up something that I never actually implement.

The Aslan, Droyne, Hiver, K'Kree, Vargr, Zhodani, and hundreds of minor races aren't going to be using the metric system.  The Vilani probably didn't use it before the Terrans conquered them, but the Third  Imperium and Solomani both do now.

The Klingons, Romulans, K'zinti, Gorn, Vulcans, Orions, etc... won't have the metric system either, unless Earth forced it on them as part of joining the Federation.

They might have analogous systems, but the base measurements will not be the same unless by epic coincidence.

Traveller covered some of the differences in calendars and clocks.

Metric for an Aslan would be in base 8 if we assume everyone uses their manipulating digits for the base number for their math.

Hivers?  Hexapods with six fingers per "leg" but four of the "legs" are "just" legs one is for manipulation and the third for making little Hiver babies...  Base 6?  36?

The Vargr are so fractured that becoming Balkanized would be a massive increase in organization.

It's a headache I've chosen to just ignore.

The Vargr didn't give the mass of the object in kilograms.  I translated it to kilograms, just like I translated Gvegh to English.  Hell, I might have further translated it to pounds because we're playing GURPS.

Still Waiting On Midway

Lego managed to get their shipper to send me the replacement order in three days using the same shipper.

Midway is using the exact same method they used unsuccessfully before and gave a 10 day expectation on a part I've already waited two weeks for.

Thanks, Sport!  Don't upgrade the shipping for your fuck-up to get it to me faster.

Clogged

A certain amount of water will get inside your doors.

They put little holes in the bottom to let that water out.

If those holes get clogged, you get water where it shouldn't get.

I had water on the rear left footwell of The Beast.

I even tracked down a rear door seal to fix the problem.

Today, I got to look at the car when it was still raining.

It wasn't leaking around the door seal.

It was coming from the door panel.

I shook the door and heard sloshing.

So I stuck my fingers up under the wind seal and moved it away from the holes and got drainage.

Running my finger along the wind seal got a lot of organic gunk.

Now all the holes are cleared and I will check the other three doors tomorrow.

My Mower's Engine

While watching videos to confirm the oil change procedure for my mower is really "turn it upside down and dump it out the fill hole." I've noticed that the Bolens by MTD with the Briggs and Stratton 500E engine is freaking beloved.

To think, we got it because it was cheapest mower Lowe's carried back in the day.

Foot Pound

Something I will give the metric system all day.

They have different units for torque and pressure.  Newton-Metres and Pascals.

In standard they're both foot-pounds.

One place metric fails epically, though is weight.

We tend to think of mass being the same as weight, but it's not.

Its because we don't go where there isn't 1g pulling on us all the time.

1kg is 1kg at 0g, 1g and 10g.

1lb at 1g is 100lb at 10g and 0lb at 0g.

That's because weight is mass at a given acceleration.

But SI doesn't have a weight unit and Imperial doesn't have a real mass unit.

It makes space gaming fun.

Especially when you try to explain how contragravity reducing a ship's weight to zero doesn't reduce its mass to zero and that while, even though it's buoyant in the local atmosphere, it will not shoot up like a rocket because of inertia from its mass.

PS: I know that the Pascal is a unit derived from Nm over an area (1 metre squared).

Lest I Be Misunderstood

In the metric vs standard debate, my position is really "pick one and stick to it."

It's the zealots who piss me off.

All of the units were arbitrarily picked.

Literally pulled out of their creator's asses.

Metric tried to put a scientific veneer on it, but it's still picking a point from a pile of points and moving outward from there.

Both come from trying to systematize measurements and both come from the late 18th centuries.

Standard consolidated the weights and measures already in place which were related only in the names of the units.

Metric created new units.

But you zealots can stop fighting.

Of note: I notice a lot of pro-metric people still use the standard units here in America.  You'd think a true zealot would be using the metric system in every encounter to make their point.

I have also noticed that the metric system is almost always imposed on a people, they don't seem to adopt it on their own.  That it's being resisted so strongly in America is our inbred inborn resistance to such top-down impositions.

Why Two Flags

Here's a history lesson that FuzzyGeff reminded me of.

Everyone knows that the rainbow flag means LGB, right?

But, did you know the original symbolism?

The rainbow is all the colors.  ALL.

The rainbow flag was to represent everyone, all of us.

To show that there was a place for everyone, in a time when there wasn't a place for homosexuals.

So, if the rainbow flag included everyone, even the cis and straights, then why would someone need to make a new flag outside that inclusion to represent them?

The only thing I can think of is to exclude people not like themselves.

That, ironically, means excluding the boring same-sex relationships of the everyday homosexual because they're too much like the cis-normative oppressors!

Am I the only one getting that vibe from them?

Of course, I've been doing the straight but not narrow thing so long I remember when it was just LGB and those 'B's' were looked at more askance than us straights.

They're All Arbitrary

The more I encounter metric zealots, the more I want to start using rods and hogheads for calculating my mileage.

Metric is not inherently better than Standard with regards to its units.

Mass and volume being derived from the properties of water of unnatural purity at a temperature and pressure that doesn't commonly occur...

Just as arbitrary as where Standard numbers are derived from.

I won't even start on how the meter's, original, definition was pulled out of someone's ass.

Where metric supposedly shines is the easy conversion of units...  Except it's not a conversion.  It's the same units!

For mass you're using grams.  A kilogram isn't a different unit, it's just a notation for moving the decimal place.

It IS simple, but...

Well, did you really have any trouble learning 16 ounces to a pound?

Standard isn't really that bad, it's not hard to learn and once learned it's simple to use.

It's just not quite as simple as metric because it's based on a natural human tendency to use fractions.

Despite the ten fingers, we are geared to run on fractions, not decimals.

We'd probably be better off converting to base 12.

Neither system is difficult, really.  You just need to learn them.

I worry, though, that learning in metric prevents your brain from getting some essential exercise early on.  Nobody, as far as I know, has studied this.

Oh, one thing that is certain.  The United States used the metric system to get to the moon.  The displays were graduated standard for the crews because they didn't think in it.

I've used both in my daily life and got to the point of thinking in them with either.

It doesn't take too long to adjust from pints to 0.5 L beers (you get just a little more beer in a half liter, just sayin').

I've watched people estimate range with wild inaccuracy so many times that I don't think that anyone can put a claim in that yards or meters is superior once you get past about 100 of them.

The one place where I prefer one system over the other is temperature.

Celsius is just too coarse.

Oh, and for you kids scoring at home, Fahrenheit is also based on water's behavior.  Sea water.  The units were defined by guessing the average human body temperature was 90° and making the boiling point of (regular) water two body temperatures from regular water freezing...

Full Fuel Replacement

I wondered how old the gas in the mower's can was.

I could not remember when we'd last bought ethanol-free mower gas.

That's usually a good indicator that it's been more than a year.

So I dumped it into the "firepit" gas jug and headed to the local Wawa and got me two new gallons.

When I go home, I realized that the gas in the mower was from that same old batch...

So I dumped it out and it was piss yellow.

Fresh gas added to the mower, I decided to run it for a bit to make sure the old gas was moved out of the bowl and carb.

That "run it for a bit" turned out to be me mowing the back yard.

A regular shake-down test.

When I had it apart I also adjusted the magneto to have the correct spacing.

Now it doesn't bog down in the one section of thick grass that never dries!

It also no longer surges.

I'm very happy with this small accomplishment!

I Just Saved At Least $220

The 8-year old mower failed to start the other day a couple of months ago.

Figuring we got our money's worth, we shopped for a replacement.

$400+ for a new one.

Knowing they're not very complicated, but also, not knowing how to fix it, we took it to a repair place.

We figured that if it was fixable and cheaper than a new mower, we're money ahead.

They charged a $50 deposit to figure it out.

So we paid that $50 and they got back to us in a few days.  $250 to repair the fuel system.

That's when I said to Harvey, "The $300 to fix it gets a 90 day warranty, $400 gets two years."

That's when Marv reminded me, "these things aren't that complicated, why don't you figure it out?"

There's dozens of youtube vids on how to remove the carburetor.  Which, by the way, is the entire fuel system plus a tank and hose.

So I looked up what replacing the entire fuel system would cost.

$30 for a carb, air-filter, primer-bulb and associated gaskets.  And the wrong spark plug, but hey; the old plug still works.

I'll change the oil tomorrow.

Missed That One

Watching Forgotten Weapons and Ian taking his PM-63C to a back-up gun match...

I don't have that gun on my T2K conversion!

How did I miss that?

SIGH.

It's in there now!

There's a lot of nation specific guns, mostly Polish, that my GURPS conversion has that aren't in any other T2K version out there. 

Damn, but the PM-63 is light for an SMG.

It really is a heavy pistol with select-fire rather than being a real submachine gun.

How's That Strike Going?

Bad news for the actors, studios and writers:

I'm watching all kinds of old movies.

Amazon makes lots of stuff I'd missed in theaters or other home media available.

Such as Road to El Dorado.

It was a box office bomb and was out of the theaters long before I could arrange going to see it.

Since it was an unknown, I wasn't about to buy it on DVD...

Blockbuster went away before I could remember to rent it.

But here it is, a 23 year old movie on my computer.

I can keep this up for YEARS.

Can they?

Did You Ever Notice?

I noticed a while ago that the mouth of the M8 scabbard did not match the contour of any bayonet's cross-guard.

Why is it angled away from the guard?

To match the profile of the top side of the M3 fighting knife AND so you can hang it from either hip!

I'm the only one who wondered, aren't I?

Did Some Bitching

I sent Lego an email with my order number and the tracking number and showed the lack of movement for two weeks.

They sent a new tracking number which is showing movement in less than a day.

Midway says that if I don't have my spring in hand by the end of day on the 14th, let them know and they will let ship me another one for UPS to lose...

You Can See Where They Were Heading

Willard stopped by for coffee, bearing gifts!

Remembering a post from five years ago; he got me a genuine, imitation, West Taiwanese made M3 fighting knife!

Considering that a real one is minimum $120 on ebay, and can go over $1,500, we're happy to have the West Taiwanese model.

You can definitely see that the M7 is just an M3 with plastic grips and bayonet attachments.

0.5 lb. naked, 0.8 lb. with scabbard.  It's a good quality small knife in GURPS terms.

Being a whimsical fellow, he also brought a Cold Steel "Chaos"

1.1 lb. bare, 1.3 lb. with scabbard.  I'd call that a fine quality large knife / brass knuckles combo weapon.  It might even be a decent representation of a Traveller Marine "Blade."

By comparison, the M1918 trench knife is a fine quality small knife / brass knuckles combo.  It's 1.1 lb. drawn and unobtanium scabbarded.

Be careful with your 1918, after 105 years it's still sharp as fuck!

The cats assisted when I was trying to walk to the door and I just barely brushed the edge of the blade keeping my balance.  Better than falling on it or dropping it into my foot, I think.