It Breaks Down

When I was researching a couple of military campaigns for use in GURPS I was struck by how long it would take to get fire or air support.

Minutes.

In a game that is famous for resolving combat in seconds.

I think that says a lot that, in the real world, that real troops in contact were able to fight for five to twenty minutes waiting for support to arrive.  Sometimes even more minutes while the aviators got themselves aligned with the situation.

I think I know how to make it work, but it will impact the player's expectations about modern combat.

I bumped into it before when trying to explain that the 3e rules let far too many hits happen unless you tossed in some of the, unpopular, optional rules.

They'd become accustomed to the world acting like a shooting range and the bad-guys being the paper targets.

Extending the ranges that contact begins at would go a long ways towards making the entire battle last longer in game time rather than table time.

I see running it in combat turns in small spurts to simulate the pulse of the battle.

I don't see a chance to test my idea any time soon, but...

Wanna Don't Wanna

My tank of deal with it energy is a bit low.

I have my choice of three events that friends have invited me to and it means choosing between friends and...

I'm feeling all or nothing about it.

First event will be, essentially, hanging out by myself because those friends are super social and will be flitting around like butterflies chatting with everyone else the whole time because this socialization shit is easy for them.

Second event is a bit of a haul and although I've been invited, I'm an outsider to this group now.  I put myself there, and it's been difficult to summon the energy to get back inside.

Third is a celebration of a business friends put back together after a partnership exploded.  It's got much the same trouble as the first event for me.

Normally things don't line up like this and two of the friend groups attend the same event and that means not either being alone or feeling like I'm intruding.

And I can never quite shake the feeling that I'm intruding and unwelcome.

That follows naturally from watching group after group continuing on as if I'd never existed when I depart.

You want to really feel like you don't matter?  Check up on a social group you left behind and see if they were more than mildly affected.

Better not.  You may discover that they were relieved and happy you finally stopped showing up.

At least I know I did one thing good for them.

Fuck You Bob

The Florida Sheriff's Association owns the Florida Senate.

They don't like us unwashed citizens carrying guns, and therefore nothing ever comes to a vote.

The sheriff to the south says, "[I am a] staunch opponent of open carry. We don’t need open carry in Florida."

Yet he and his deputies open carry.

It's not open carry he opposes, it's US doing it.

Fuck you Bob.

Also, The Florida Sheriff's Association claims 73,566 members against 22,537,160 citizens.

0.327% of the population is dictating what the other 99.673% gets to do.

That smacks me wrong.

Our new senate president, Ben Albritton, says, "“Let me be clear about this: I’ve supported law enforcement my entire life. It’s the way I was raised. And I’ve been super consistent as a legislator to support law enforcement in Florida, and I encourage you to check that record. And I stand with them today in opposition.  They oppose it. And I trust my law enforcement officials. And that’s where I stand.”

Fuck the voters as long as the Kings Men are happy.

I'm getting sick of this state of affairs.

AN-94

I love how the internet keeps expanding our knowledge of obscure firearms.

Part One:

I'll add part two when they post it.

"Substantial" Financial Compensation

Because I actually hit the FCC "report this caller" web page, a while ago I got a letter and an email from a law firm suing a robocaller.

I gave my assent to join the class by checking the box and returning their self-addressed stamped envelope.

Then I promptly forgot about it after joking about where I'd spend the whole dollar I'd get from the, estimated, $100 per member.

Today I got a check for just over $50.

This breaks the record for class settlements for me.  The previous record holder was Remington and the $20 I got because of something about 870 shotgun barrels.  I got that check because excluding myself from the class was not an insignificant effort.  I spent it on a hat from Remington that I have since lost.

Scared Them Off

The people I was exchanging emails with from Operation Blazing Sword have gone silent.

This has happened before.

I sometimes suspect that once they learn that I am not actually gay they decide they'd rather not learn about guns.

I've fired off a, "hey, you still interested?" message.  If I don't get a reply...

I'll Let Krusty Take This One

Have you seen the new Jaguar ad?

Here it is:

 Krusty says it best:

All I can think is, "Do you still sell cars?"

Compliance

It just occurred to me that if SJGames isn't going to do more GURPS and Steve is someone I don't want to have any of my filthy, deplorable, garbage lucre:

My rules interpretations and house rules are now the official rules.

I'm the only person I am in contact with who games who even tries to do GURPS anymore.

Pathfinder is what the group who discovered they were happy to be rid of me is playing now.

So if they were to allow me to come back in some form, they'd be playing my interpretation of GURPS because I'd be the GM and my word would be law.

All things considered, I am not even certain that GURPS would be better than Pathfinder for traditional fantasy settings.

I trend to non-traditional stuff, so...

Hell, from what I've read of the newer versions of AD&D, I'd pick 2nd edition.  It's stripped down AD&D and if I'm going simple, I'm gonna go all the way.

SJGames, in the process of abandoning GURPS resurrected The Fantasy Trip.  If they wanted my filthy, deplorable, garbage lucre it's just $35 to get the rules in pdf form.  I remember playing Melee back in the day.  Pity.

Put The KoolAid Down

I went looking for GURPS 5e rumors and encountered several links to this from just before election day.

Steve.

Remember when you got raided by the Secret Service?  I recall you being displeased by that.

What you are advocating for is a more powerful Secret Service and a weaker court to extricate you from your alleged criminal activities.

Yes you are.

I'm posting his tirade below in case he decides to memory hole it:

Dunno Why

I keep goofing around with GURPS shit and I never get to play.

If I am very lucky, I get one or two sessions when FuzzyGeff makes his annual pilgrimage to Florida to visit Marv and I.

I loved tabletop role playing games once.

It was my main social activity at one time.

Now?

I do some reality checks and make characters that will never be played.

I polish the cannonball of converting Twilight: 2000 to GURPS 4e.

And...?

It's a little depressing.

Especially when I learn how woke and TDS the people who make and sell the games I still love are.

Last Time This Happened We Got A New Edition

According to the Tech Level and Starting Wealth timeline in GURPS: Basic Set (Characters) 4e on p.27 in 2004:

TL9 begins in 2025.

That moves us from the digital age to the microtech age.

I'm not seeing it.

Back in 1996 and 3eR TL7 (modern) ran from 1951 to 2000 and TL 8 (Spacefaring) ran from 2001 to 2050.

I've heard rumors that GURPS 5e is under consideration.  It might even find a footing with Wizards of the Coast being so entirely too woke now.

SJGames is pretty woke too, so...  Steve's post about Roe v Wade made me stop looking to see what's new at SJGames.  I expressed my concerns back then too.  Might not be a viable alternative.

Especially since 5th editions are often massive clusterfucks.  Both Hero and Traveller have massive tomes of dross masquerading as their 5th editions.

In Traveller's case, so much so that Mongoose made what is effectively a LBB 2e that's far better than the game that Marc W Miller published.

Cleanish Bill Of Health

I'm not a prisoner, I'm a free cat!

Mist had her follow-up appointment today.

Her ear infection is all better!

It's confirmed that she's deaf.  The vet says that this will not bother her much as she's already very visual to compensate.

Her cocked head and slightly wobbly gait are likely from an illness her mother was carrying while she was in the womb.  Again, this shouldn't bother her much and she will adapt.

We can spend a shit-ton of money to find out exactly why she's got that cocked head, but it won't cure it so we're opting to skip it.

Nothing about being deaf or having this mild neuro problem really affects how happy and full her life will be.

Just to prove that point, she spent the entire day chasing, first, Shadow and, then, Beeper.

There was much scampering and everyone involved seemed to be having fun.

If only Beeper and Shadow could interact so.  They still hate each other for no apparent reason.

Are You A Space Fan?

Pretty neat stuff.

Things I Learned Today

Australia has alps.

I learned this because a trivia list about Australia mentioned that the Australian Alps get more snow than the Swiss Alps.

The image that we get of Australia here in the USA is not a place that has green growing things or snow.

I blame Hollyweird.

Distribution

Technology does not advance evenly.

For example: Afghanistan lacks almost all of the infrastructure we take for granted in the US and their manufacturing base is, maybe, GURPS TL4.  TL5 tops.

Yet TL8 electronics abound.

This made me rethink a lot of things in a Traveller campaign.  The TL3 non-industrial agricultural world with a feudal government is going to have state of the art consumer goods because some free-trader is going stop off and trade a load of the stuff in exchange for whatever the they can get.

Free traders are experts at arbitrage.

A non-industrial agricultural world might (almost certainly) have the wealth to purchase modern farming equipment even if they cannot be manufactured or serviced with local know-how.  The Imperial equivalent to Allis-Chalmers will also send teams of people to do that service post-sale for a fee.  It might even be appealing to these people to live in a pastoral, low pressure, low-tech environment between jobs.  They won't really be giving up much in comforts, consumer stuff is widely available!

Compact, self-contained, fusion generators are going to be prime trade-goods.

I don't think there's a good real-world model for the kind of trade that operates on the fringes and free-traders serve.

It also hits me that someone from that TL3 world, as a citizen of the Imperium, has the right to enlist in the Imperial military.  That heavily implies that the Imperial military has a remedial program that brings these volunteers up to speed on modern technology.

Linothorax

YouTube disagrees with GURPS.

It happens.

I've watched several videos where cloth and linen armor does better than expected.

There's a bit of an explanation in an optional rule...  I'll get to that.

But one claim that comes up, over and over, is that the linothorax was lighter than a similar level of protection from bronze.

In GURPS a linothorax is either reinforced medium layered cloth, DR 3 with DR 4 vs cutting; G$437.50, 25 lb. or reinforced heavy layered cloth, DR 4 with DR 5 vs cutting; G$750, 35 lb.

DR 4 bronze is medium segmented plate for G$3,600, 24 lb.  Very similar in protection and weight with the medium reinforced cloth!

DR 3 bronze light plate is G$4,000, 8 lb.  No bonus against cutting, but MUCH lighter than reinforced medium cloth.

DR 6 bronze medium plate for G$10,000, 20 lb.  Lighter and better protection than reinforced heavy cloth.

Linothorax is much CHEAPER than bronze armor and probably a lot more comfortable.

Now, that optional rule:  On Low Tech p.102 under Blunt Trauma and Edged Weapons you need to get a hit that punches more than twice the DR to get the bonus from cutting weapons.

So reinforced medium cloth would need a hit of 9 or better to cause actual cutting damage.  A hit of 5-8 is just crushing; it will also fail to reach the skin so no effects from poison and the like.

This optional rule helps explain why cloth armors are performing better in youtube tests than we expected.

DR 2 light layered cloth prevents a cut from up to 4 points of damage, even if the wearer took 2 points of crushing damage from it.  The testing media almost never has a way to measure the impact under the armor and would rule that a no-penetration hit is complete protection.

A ST 12 person swinging a short-sword will do 1d+2 cutting damage and that averages 5 points of damage, so most of the time they're penetrating the light layered cloth and getting the cutting bonus and doing 4 points of damage.  That same hit against reinforced medium cloth will just get one point of crushing damage through (and be ruled as didn't hurt on YouTube).

He's Right You Know

Silicon Graybeard pointed out that the goal isn't delegislation, but deregulation.

There's a lot of stuff going on that's black letter law and most of that is working for us, because we get to vote on the cocksuckers that pass law.

Regulation, on the other hand, is created and implemented by people we never get a voice in whether they are hired or fired.

Nuking nearly all the regulations and retaining the laws, in most cases, leaves us a best case scenario.  In the places where it doesn't there's an opportunity for a congresscreature to make law to address the lack created by killing a good regulation.  Odds are they'd have the backing of the populace.

Deregulation, also, has a much smaller and much slower effect on all the jobs that exist because you need specialists to navigate the minefield of regulation.

Utopia Means Nowhere

You can't make utopia because it cannot be made.

Impossible.

Socialists don't understand this while they also fail to account for human nature.

Libertarians don't understand this while they also fail to account for human nature.

They just head opposite directions in misunderstanding people and allow evils of similar stature.

It was L. Niel Smith's rants about anarchy that convinced me that the libertarians were off the reservation and never coming back.  They were a stopped clock that used the fact that they were right twice a day to pitch that they were never wrong.

There was one group in America that had figured out human nature.

The Founding Fathers.

Ever notice they didn't do democracy?  They did a republic.

They didn't seek unfettered liberty in what they'd done.  They sought to maximize liberty, knowing that it needed some restriction to truly flourish.  The tree of liberty needs to be pruned carefully, as it were.

Without such care, it kills itself.

This is why libertarians and globalists don't understand tariffs.

The lowest price is meaningless to a consumer who doesn't have a job.

International Socialism, Libertarianism, and Globalism all reject the nation-state model.

Yet the nation-state is the only proven model running.  Yes, it's the worst way to do things; except for all the others.  Just like republican government.

You Need Congress To Cooperate

Deleting entire cabinet agencies might be a worthy goal, but...

You need Congress to play ball and the margins don't support that mandate.

Especially when you consider the reality of making thousands of normal citizens unemployed from their decidedly non-government jobs.

Those folks are going to be on the phone to their congress creatures.

Making government smaller is never as simple as it seems.

I, for one, am getting fed up with unintended consequences from do-gooders who don't really understand the problem.

Killing a government department might do good, but doing it all at once will produced a kick-back that guarantees that department will be back with gusto.

Never mind that doing it all at once would be throwing the baby out with the bathwater.

Libertarians and globalists are really bad at people.

Complications

The TV aerial is up.

It's not, yet, connected to any TV.

The coax cable we'd intended to use turns out to be the feed for the Wi-Fi router.

So we need to run a second coax cable down to the living room TV, and we're hoping we can utilize the existing cable in the bedroom.

Cultural TL

I've been thinking about the Tollense valley battle of late.

It really looks like a native TL0 area had some imported TL1 weapons, but that's not what stands out.

TL0 is stone age.

Cavemen.

American Indians.

My research into Neanderthals and the Sioux put some blinders on with regards to another aspect implicated in Tollense.

Culture.

It appears that the culture of the area was more similar to what would later be called Gauls.

More emphasis on agriculture and domesticated animals than the two stone-age cultures I've been dealing with.

In the real world, the tech level doesn't just change one night.  Some things advance faster than others and wool is a TL0 fabric.  Lacking domesticated sheep, the Sioux never developed wool clothing.  Prehistoric Germany did.

It's really made me want to make a TL0+1 fantasy setting where the native TL is 0 but TL 1 equipment is available at double price.

Stone Knives And Bearskins

We are embarking on putting up a broadcast television aerial.

Turns out there's lots still being transmitted over the air and the inlaws want to watch it.

They cut the cord and find they miss a couple of shows from the "local programming" section of cable.

All Cats All The Time

Mist had a rough morning yesterday.  After a night blasting out both ends, she looked like she'd slipped back to as bad as when we took her to the vet on the 7th.  We cleaned a bunch of gunk out of her ears and have been making sure the ear drops are going in, rather than AT her ear canal.

It seems to have a had a positive effect and she flat REFUSED to be contained in the carrier for the evening.  She might be deaf, but she can meow and howl.  So she spent the night on a nest of blankets in one of the stools at the dining room table.

As you can see, she's still looking contented at being distributed to our door.

We have no footage of her and Shadow tearing around the house playing because they're moving too fast.

Beeper, on the other hand, has no idea what to do about an intruder that's not intimidated by her in the slightest.  I think it scares her a little.

But she will allow herself to be consoled and chill between my legs on the recliner when I read.

Bear just hides in the linen closet.  He's like The Dude.  He abides.

Machines To Make The Machines

There was an old BBC show called "Connections" and it was fascinating.

They'd tell you how two, seemingly, unrelated items or events led from one to another with lots of steps in between.

It really colored how I looked at technology and it's why I notice some things that some people don't or I question things that others don't examine.

Today's connection:  Are the meson gun and nuke damper related?

Yes.

It's explicitly stated in GURPS: Traveller.

It isn't in LBB Traveller, but I'd speculated that they had to be related because the meson gun is keeping the mesons from decaying until they're at the desired distance; and that implies we're manipulating shit like a nuke damper does.

Smush Smush Boom

The Traveller nuclear damper works by weakening the strong nuclear force and causing the nuclei of the warhead to, kinda, fall apart at a molecular level.

It stops fission from the shed of neutrons, that prevents the chain reaction.

It stops fusion by keeping the two hydrogen nuclei from sticking together well enough to form a helium atom and that prevents the release of energy normally associated with it.

In a real world nuke, that'd keep it from working because all of our fusion weapons use a fission explosion to get the heat/pressure up far enough to force the fusion reaction.

In Traveller, many warheads dispense with the fission stage and use the insanely miraculous gravity manipulation technology to say to two H atoms, "now kiss!"

Under a damper, they bump into each other and...

Well the grav pinch is still happening, but where's the kaboom?

Since the grav pinch is designed to happen once and briefly, I speculate that you end up with a warhead with dead capacitors and burned out grav plates with a capsule of tritium in the center.

Iowa You're In Iowa

"On a long lonesome highway, East of Omaha," is in Iowa.

Probably Iowa Route 92.

Though, Bob Seger said it was in Dubuque, that's on US20.

Inefficient By Design

Considering that the US government is designed for grid-lock, making it efficient is probably unconstitutional.

Something you can say about actual fascism is that it's efficient.  Tyrannies do trend that way.

One of the warts of liberty is inefficiency in government, but letting the invisible hand loose to find what efficiency the people want for themselves.

I am holding my breath here.

Exciting And New

The sharp eyed might notice that I changed the font at the top of the page and the post titles.

I'm whimsical that way.

Every time I make a font choice I am reminded of a couple of acquaintances who were VERY judgemental about fonts.

Papyrus and Comic Sans drove them absolutely insane for no reason that I could ever discern.  But I think those people were hipsters and secretly wanted to use them, but they were popular and therefore beyond the pale.

Can't do anything that everyone else does... unless it's toe the liberal line in a college town.

Ever notice that about hipsters?  They're joiners, but they're hypocrites about it.

May Contain What?

Costco is recalling, and destroying, 79,000 pounds of butter because someone forgot to mention that butter might contain milk on the label.

MIGHT?

Bear in mind that the ingredients list says "cream," already.

This is why we're fucked.

The morons with food allergies can't fucking read and need to be told, special, that something made with something they're allergic to is something they're allergic to.

I say this as someone with a food allergy!

I'm allergic to mushrooms.  I've made it MY job to find out what has mushrooms in it and avoid those things.  I read the ingredients, I know the fungus byproduct names.

It's my ass on the line.

But for fuck's sake.

Butter is dairy.  If you have a fucking milk allergy, you're allergic to dairy!

DON'T BUY BUTTER REGARDLESS OF THE SAFETY WARNING!!! 

We need to restore some common fucking sense to food and cut off the FDA's nuts.

Smashing The Box

Crispy IV is the result of an older hard drive starting to fail.

For me, that brings not importing problems from the older machine by copy-pasting it and installing everything from base principles.

That means that years of accumulated gurfle are discarded and some things need recreated.

Today's struggle was fonts.

I use a couple that aren't normally included with Ubuntu and I needed to remember how I'd gotten them installed when I first installed 20.04.

I managed to figure it out, but I'm not certain I did it the same way with 24.04 as I did back then.

Who knows?

Next mission is to figure out how to get the keyboard shortcuts for things like "Ö".  Again, I remember it being simple, but I also remember FuzzyGeff hand holding me through it.

I Will Concede

 I will concede that the United States stole all of the lands formerly owned by the American Indian...

If...

IF...

IF! 

If the people accusing the US of the theft concede that it's a fait accompli and the US now owns the land by right of conquest.

That right of conquest, by the way, is why you acquire a big military and glare across your borders at the neighbors.

It's also why you take great pains to intertwine your economy with the neighbors so that conquering them is more harmful to your interests than helpful.

But, if you lose the war, you've LOST the war.

The losers don't get to dictate the terms.

Fixing The Settings

 This is a test!

Isn't she cute, though?

Cheap Isn't So Bad

Cheap melee weapons have been part of GURPS since the beginning.

They're 40% the price of the good quality default, but they're more likely to break...

I just watched a video talking about iron vs bronze weapons and remembered that bronze is treated as if it were cheap when used against iron or steel weapons.

The video didn't seem to think it made much difference for composition with iron vs bronze, so I looked up the GURPS rules.

B376 says you only check for breakage if you try to parry a weapon that's three times heavier than yours.

So a short sword against a short sword isn't going to show a difference when parrying, like his demo, but unlike the "demonstration" from the film.  A short sword against a broadsword, on the other hand...

Weapon quality isn't even mentioned with regards to striking at and breaking cheap weapons, at least that I could find readily.

Blazing Sword

I've offered to teach basic firearms skills to the LGBT crowd via Operation Blazing Sword since its inception.

My fifth and sixth pupils have made contact.

I have found that doing this has been divisive with some people, particularly since there's a faction of people where being communist agitators is their real motive and LGBT is a convenient cover to deflect criticism of their activities.

The, typical, idiots on the pro-gun side go for the bait and attack the LGBT shell and tend to neglect condemning the commie shit.

I have to admit, these groups are playing the pro-gun idiots brilliantly.

They're getting screenshots of them being intolerant bigots, when they really aren't... but they got pissed off and rose to the bait.

The internet is forever.

Still Relevant

Saturday I brushed against greatness!

The comic shop in the strip mall where JT and I had lunch had a special guest!

Robbie Rist!

I know!  Me too!

Well, actually...

I recognized Cousin Oliver from The Brady Bunch on the sheet the barker was handing out, but none of the other roles he's played.

I looked into the antechamber they'd tucked him into, for better to control the traffic and to make sure we'd paid for the autograph session...  But I did wave at him and said "hi!"  He, likewise, waved back and said, "Hello."

That was all the handlers would let us do, but I get that he's appearing to make some extra money.  It's cool.

A neat thing was a couple of teenagers came in while we were looking at comics and they were STOKED to meet him!  He's done a lot of voice acting and he portrayed their absolute favorite character, judging by how excited they were.  I'm guessing it's his role voicing Choji Akimichi in the Naruto series.

Great for him to still be relevant to new fans after 52 years of acting!

Mist Update

Mist has an ear infection.

Last Wednesday we noticed she was walking around like she was drunk.  Literally falling down drunk looking.

We looked up a couple of causes and, of the three most likely, only an ear infection was life threatening.

The other two would be conditions she'd just have to live with for the rest of her life, but neither would shorten it nor really cause her any suffering beyond it being harder for her to get around.

So we took her to the vet and they diagnosed an ear infection.

She HATES the drops, but doesn't mind the liquid antibiotic we put on her food twice a day.

Two days into the course of her meds, she's got her balance back and is scampering all over the table.  The floor is still lava to her, but she's playing with toys, exploring and chasing her tail vigorously.  She still holds her head cocked to the side of the bad ear, but that might clear up as the infection clears.

She's steadily putting on weight too, up to 1 lb. 15 oz. now.

She is a totally binary creature.  She's either 100% up or 100% down...

She's been having peaceful interactions with Shadow too.

I'm Sure It's A Coincidence

Notice the states which don't make you prove you're an eligible voter are also the bluest states?

h/t Marv for the screen pic.

Armor Of Proof

I did a post saying that for your armor to be "proof" against an Elizabethan musket you needed to protect against the average hit from 4d+2 pi++.  That's 16 points of raw damage.

But "armor of proof" isn't supposed to protect you from a musket.

It's to protect you from the opposing cavalry whom will be using pistols.

A pistol of this period is a wheellock doing 2d-1 pi+ or a petronel doing 2d+2 pi+.  That's 6 and 9 respectively.

That's a much easier target goal to hit achieve.

More importantly, DR 6 is affordably available for the average adventurer and demi-lancer.

Just Me I Am Sure

How many times did you look at Ben Shapiro and wonder who did such a bad job on his hair before you realized he's wearing a yarmulke?

Veteran's Day

Today, in the USA, it's Veteran's Day.

A day set aside for those who went in and came out.

It seems odd to have to say it, but today is not for the fallen in the USA; that's Memorial Day.

It isn't for those whom are still serving; that's Armed Forces Day.

If you know a vet, buy them a beer, take them out to dinner, get them laid.

Remind them of all the freebies available!

When you hit the places giving out freebies, be gracious and buy something that's got big margins (like a beer) because it wasn't so long ago that nobody but us and the post office remembered Veteran's Day at all.

Plus!  Tip the wait staff like you'd paid for the meal, not on just the cost of the beer.

Also, let the stolen valor people go.  This is the only validation they're getting in their pathetic lives, can you think of a harsher punishment than letting be what they are?  Don't save them!

To The C8 Vette Owner

When I tromped it to get around traffic that was going 5 under behind you, signaled then changed lanes in front of you...

YOU created the dangerous situation by stomping it from 5 under to faster than me as I was changing lanes.

You made you mad, not me.

When you blasted around me on the right then tried to take my front bumper off by snapping back into my lane you created a second dangerous situation.

You, also, almost wiped out and created a third dangerous situation when you didn't stop your lateral motion and put two wheels in the grass.

Interestingly, if you'd been going the fucking speed limit rather than leading a parade, I'd have not passed you.  Heck, I wouldn't even have gotten back into your (our?) lane if I had not been overtaking someone going ten under in the right lane.

You're Welcome For My Service!

The American Legion has put out their list of places offering deals to Veterans tomorrow.

Please, if you take advantage of one of these deals, make a point to visit at least two more times when they aren't to show you appreciated it.

They don't have to do anything on Veteran's Day, be gracious in return.

Make Safe

Something you cannot get from SIG is a P320 Pro-Carry with a safety.

Turns out, it's something you can make, and Marv did so!

First you take the gun completely apart!

Well, first you get the kit.

Then you watch the videos.

THEN you take it all apart!

Then you follow the instructions that you saw in the video and cut a kidney shaped hole in the frame of the pistol using the provided jigs and cutters.

This is what allows you to insert the safety into the gun and it's cleverly designed to compress the spring detent as you move it up into its final position.

Then you put the gun back together!

Now you cut slots in your grip to let the safety stick out the side of the gun.

You can just barely see the outline of where Wilson would have put an insert into the mold to keep the slot from being filled with plastic.  It's even more prominent in an OE SIG grip.

Because the jig fits a bit loose on the Wilson grip, you start small and work your way out, doing lots of test fits.

Almost there...

Viola!

...And done!

It wasn't even me this time!  This was a Marv project.

Happy Birthday Lex

We still miss you!

Guinness for STRENGTH, Jameson for COURAGE.

What's Keeping Arizona?

I think the people in charge of stealing Arizona for Harris are stuck in an error loop where they're trying to figure out how many fake votes they need to add to make Maricopa county's results miraculously give 44 electoral votes for Arizona instead of 11.

Journalism, Poly-Sci and Woman's and Minorities Studies majors don't typically do well with math, so they can't see that you cannot get there from here.

We engineering types are, generally, contemptuous of such innumeracy.

They're the product of the education system they wanted, so I don't offer any sympathy either.

What A Difference A Day Makes

Before The Election

After the Election

I think it's safe to say the pollsters were wrong, again.

Translucent Technological Terror

The window in the side of the magazine wasn't silly enough!

Magpul has released the TMAG!

 

Just under $30 shipped from Midway.

17.3 oz. loaded with 30-rounds of 5.56x45mm Winchester Match 69gr Matchking HPBT.

Unlike a conventional GenM3, it did not come with a dust cover.  It will accept one, however.

The white spring loop lines up with numbers on the side of the magazine telling you how many rounds you have left.

Why would you need the spring loop to tell how many rounds are left in a clear magazine?

Because some of them will be hidden by the magazine well!

How it compares to a PMAG30 GenM3 window.

Same overall length.  Same spring and follower.  Same baseplate.  Same 1.1 lb.; well, almost the same:  TMAG is 17.3 oz, PMAG is 17.8 oz.  Both round to 1.1 lb.

The PMAG has a rough texture and ribs for gripping.

The TMAG is smooth.  It's a completely different tactile experience.

It's neat seeing how the spring and shot column work.

Update: This is my 16,000th published post!  WOW.  I'm chatty.

Background

Every iteration of Crispy gets a new background image.

Currently it's:

Versions!

Crispy is my laptop.

Stage I was with Win7.

I've been running Ubuntu on it for a while.

Bionic Beaver lasted all of an hour while we discovered that its version of Thunderbird wasn't compatible with the configuration file from the one I had installed on Win7.

Focal Fossa (Stage II) ran for three years until I got fed up with the nagging to update to...

Jammy Jellyfish (Stage III) was running fine until something went wrong with the WD Green SSD I was using.

Today I replaced the hard drive with a WD Blue of the same capacity and am running...

Noble Numbat, aka Stage IV!

Running fine on a 2011 made Lenovo T420S.

Now With Video

I mentioned the M86 Pursuit Deterrent Munition almost two years ago.

Someone did a vid.

Google It's MY Blog

About once a month, Blogger will, helpfully, mark one of my replies to a comment as spam.

Even more puzzling is the comments it so marks are usually about a month old.

I dunno why it's doing it, I've never marked any of my replies as spam.

Unless it's learning it from other bloggers marking my comments as spam...

That's harder to check.  Especially since I tend to do a drive by in comment sections and never go back to see if anyone replied to me.

Not Since Cleaveland

President-Elect Trump has made history as only the second president to have a split term.

I see we have a narrow margin in the Senate.  Not filibuster proof by a long ways, but a lead.

Eyes crossed in the house races we get a majority there too.

Because it's easy to postulate two years of cleaning the swamp if both houses of Congress are red.

Ugh

I got it working and I wish I hadn't.

It's like watching the decline at Little Green Footballs.  Remember them?

Misha's gone.

From Hel's Heart

One of the county commissioners is running unopposed.

She was responsible for the irresponsible wave of construction without supporting infrastructure; like enough road to get all those people to and from their new residences.

So I wrote in Bill Gerber.

Yes, I know he's dead, but he's still more qualified for the position than Kathryn Starkey.

Yes, I know he was never a resident of Pasco County.  That's not always a problem for our commissioners...  Yeah, I know.

So, Gerber for Pasco County Commission!

Fake Steel

They're very expensive, but I love the idea.

Fake Steel.

I stole the video from their site, I hope they don't mind.

Lots of choices there, check it out.

Did My Civic Duty

 

Most crowded I've ever seen here in Florida.

I Think It's Official Updated

I do believe I outlasted Emperor Misha at The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler.

The main site is dead and an alt site stopped updating in February.  It appears that Misha himself just quit caring and the people keeping it going for him couldn't get him to stir to get the access to make critical updates to the site.

Bummer.

It used to be a daily read.

UPDATE:

Because others can reach the site, and I was getting a solid ping return...

I tried to open it in a private window.  Viola!  It works again.

Odd that it don't in normal mode.

Good!

Donald Trump "targeted and minimized" Kolin Kaepernick.

I'm not even going to check to see if he did.  He probably didn't because there's lots of things disconnected from reality in Kaepernick's mind.

If Trump didn't, he should have!

If there was ever a dancing sportsball monkey that deserves it more, I cannot think of one.

It Is Deliberate

Did you know that Nazi is, period, derogatory, slang for NASDP?

Did you know that NASDP stands for Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei.  That is German for National Socialist German Worker's Party.

Because if you didn't know those three facts, you can be convinced that the Nazis are right wing.

That lets a parallel be drawn between any right wing idea and the evils of Nazi Germany.

That is on purpose.

Something else that gets blurred is the parallels between fascism and communism.  The break really is as simple as nationalism.  Fascists are nationalists.  Communists believe that the nation-state should be abolished and abandoned for international communism.

There are also strong parallels between labor unions and socialism.

History can be eye opening and terrifying.

One reason this ruse can be pulled is socialism is treated as a single political idea when it's really a family of them.

Communism and fascism are both socialist.  The Nazis were socialists.

Those three branches of socialism have murdered how many people to date?

That alone should disqualify their teachings and ideas.

The idea that we should all look out for each other gives of warm fuzzy feelings.

The problem is the implementation always leads to starvation and murder.

Socialism is a utopian scheme; as such it's impossible to achieve.

If it was possible, it would have happened and been a shining beacon to the rest of the world to emulate.

Hint: Shining beacons don't need walls to keep people in.  They need walls to keep people out.

Motivation

Years ago I started converting the GURPS: Traveller character templates from 3e to 4e.

I stopped somewhere in the middle of First In and never got back to it.

Tonight I summoned enough motivation to open the file and see where I'd left off, but not enough motivation to remember where I was at in the last template I was working on.

Maybe tomorrow.

I Get This Joke

For near $40 a shirt, I am thinking the joke might be a bit too obscure.

Eight Years To Go

Florida to drown, women and minorities most affected.

I remember them talking about this back then.

FuzzyGeff and I debated it extensively, usually sparked by discussing the grain blight of the Car Wars universe.

I remember that they were saying that, if nothing was done immediately, then in 50 years Tallahassee would be ocean-front property and the entire Florida peninsula would be submerged.

Well, they didn't do anything immediately, and have hardly done anything since...

To get the effect they were talking about 42 years ago, we'd need some dramatic heating in the next couple of years and even the poles would be uninhabitable.

But that's not going to happen.  I think that serious scientists are aware of it too.

But it's not a question of science.  It's a matter of politics and rational thought has no place with politicians as long as irrational panic can get them votes and power.

PS: Notice it's Dan Rather?  I rather think his credibility is shot these days.

PPS: Maybe Dan hadn't gotten the word from his predecessor, Uncle Walt:

Everything Is Bad

I've often wondered why we target a certain percentage of inflation and think of it as normal and good.

The official goal is 2%, in case you're wondering.

The reason they are doing this is to prevent deflation.

Why is that?  If you ask most people they'd be happy with lower prices on goods.

The answer is historical.  The great depression had massive deflation as prices dropped to get any return on investment at all.  Because prices were falling, people deferred purchases, lowering demand in the face of sufficient supply and caused prices to fall further...  Until prices were well below costs and the company closed.

It's a vicious thing.

I am willing to bet that, if we looked into it, we'd find that people stopped buying goods they didn't NEED because they'd lost jobs and had reduced incomes from the recession that became the great depression.  Deflation USED to be how the economy righted itself in the face of recession.  For some reason (cough cough cough FDR) it failed that time.  One reason was how easy it was to obtain credit (credit is another word for debt in case you're not up to speed here) and deflation kills you if you owe.

Inflation causes people to defer a purchase when their wages stubbornly refuse to keep up with inflation.

You might notice a lack of LS3 cam in The Beast?  That's because we're buying groceries.  The cam purchase is deferred.

Explain again why deflation is bad?

Worse, we can tell that they're lying about it because of how selective they get when calculating inflation.  They don't count "volatile" goods like energy and food.

You know, the stuff that everyone HAS to buy and cannot readily be deferred.

Those goods are crushing us.

My, long held, theory is that inflation is good for people in debt.  Economists LOVE debt.

If we take the official inflation rate against my house payment...

The $458.61 I've been paying on my mortgage every month was $458.61 when I started.  You need $765.49 today to match the buying power of $458.61 then.  Put the other way, our payment has fallen to the equivalent of $274.76 over the past 20 years.

Inflation is GREAT if you're in debt.  My loan is getting cheaper the longer inflation goes on.

What entity is in the most debt in America today?

Personally I'm good with 0% inflation.  I can afford what I have and knowing that it won't be getting more expensive to keep it on an unpredictable schedule would be GOOD for me, even with my meager debts.

Some deflation would also be good for me.  Especially if wages hold firm.

I think I know who benefits from the Fed's scheme, and it's not The People.

Dare I Say Superior?

How do I know that I am better than others?

Because when someone slings an insult at me because of my race, religion, sexual preference or gender I am expected to bear it.

I am held to a higher standard and I meet it.

I am better than they are by an objective standard that they established to show they were as good as I am... and they failed!

It's insane.

Milestones

Mist makes progress in the form of us noticing she's doing something normal and us realizing that she hadn't been doing it before.

That's how close to death's door she might have been.

Like holding her head up.

Like having the energy to clean herself.

Like being able to balance well enough to do a good job cleaning herself.

Like a good, full-body, stretch.

Like moving from the last place we set her down.

The day by day improvement is remarkable and I'm remarking on it!

She's still too skinny for my tastes, but she's eating.  She's also getting full and stopping.  I think she's starting to realize that she's not living meal to meal anymore.

I Have The Chain

Who has four horses to do the quartering?

Fucking scumbag.

People who torture animals should be likewise treated.

Cat Distribution System

 

Mist and Shadow are getting to know each other.

It's going smoothly.

What Was That Pop?

The Lovely Harvey had her knee fixed today.

After her shoulder replacement a couple years ago all I can think is:

They can build her better than she was. They have the technology. They have the capability. Better than she was before. Better... stronger... faster.

The procedure was textbook and she's home with it propped up.

Again With Feeling

17 year old suspect in custody after another mass shooting in Orlando.

Gee, Rick Scott's gun control law keeping people under 21 from buying guns is sure working! 

Never mind that you're not allowed to conceal carry until you're 21.

Never mind Orlando is most gun unfriendly locale in the whole state.

And, the suspect is exactly the demographic we've come to expect to be doing such things.

OK NOW

 NOW you can decorate for Thanksgiving.

You may not decorate for Christmas yet.

Precision

One item of precision that I'm not seeing much mention of is the alignment of the lugs on the Starship booster when the chopsticks grab it.

They are 180° apart and there's just two of them.

That means they have to be sticking out perpendicular to the chopstick arms when they move in to grab the booster.

Just a couple of degrees of roll on the part of the booster and it falls instead of getting grabbed.

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is our Christmas!

Diesel Mode

Crank up the speakers to hear her motor.

Here she is showing her first happy moment since we got her that didn't involve food!

 

Reminiscent

This image of Mist:

Reminds me of this award winning picture from National Geographic:

It probably shouldn't, but...

Mist In Our Midst

 

Little Mist alarmed us greatly today.  We have a planter table that she was collapsed in this morning and we were worried she was going to the Rainbow Bridge.

I already talked about capturing her to clean her eye out.  That did a lot of good, but she was shivering constantly.  Her ears were like ice.

So I snagged her again after we'd given her evening ration.  I put her on a scale and she's just 1 lb. 6.2 oz.  That's on the low end for a kitten her apparent age.  Her eyes have changed color, her ears are up and she's got her canines and incisors.  That's about 7 weeks!  She's 0.2 lb. underweight, that's a big deal at this age.

I think she wasn't getting enough food and shelter to regulate her body temperature.

We held her in our laps and she stopped shivering!  Lots of defensive purring, and eventually she started kneading.

While watching The Lightning TROUNCE the Avalanch I covered her up in a towel and she melted to sleep.

She's in a nice warm garage in a cat carrier at this moment.  We're keeping her isolated until we can get a vet to verify she's not carrying anything that will take out the other three.

The Lifers Done Fucked Up

The VA sent me a whole year's supply of my shoe inserts!

I'm supposed to get a new pair every four months, but it's been on me to remember and drive down to get them.

Last time I mentioned to the nice receptionist that it would be nice if they just mailed me a pair every four months instead of making me remember...

I wonder if my ponderings had effect.

Spicy Diesel

I captured Stripey the FEMA Kitty so we could clean up her eye a little bit.

She hissed and popped as I picked her (confirmed) up and purred like an idling Kenworth while we cleaned her face and paws.

She seemed contented to be held, but once I sat down and let her be on my belly, she sauntered back to the cover of the rims.

Hissing and popping resumed, but she was letting me pet her in her safe space.

Under Pressure

It turns out that Harvey's Equinox uses the exact same high-pressure port as The Beast.

This is good because her AC appeared to be leaking at the HP port as well and I'd ordered both the GM part and the Dorman.

The Dorman has a good old fashioned Schrader valve in it!  That one went into The Beast.  Genuine GM into her car.

Marv brought over his gauges and vacuum pump to facilitate the refilling with refrigerant.

Both cars got the pressures we were looking for and the temperatures desired.

Well, not desired.  I froze poor Marv's nipples off on the Equinox test drive and getting 43° air blasting on your chest is not pleasant.

The Beast can get to 43° too, but I also tested to make sure it'd hold the intended temperature using the 'auto' mode.

Our Milton Refugee

We have an outdoor kitten.

Meet "Stripey the FEMA Kitty."

She(?) is very spicy and doesn't tolerate being petted.  Yet.

We've got dry food out for her and do an evening ritual of feeding her some wet food.

Sometime today something happened and she spent a while with her left eye closed up.  She was fine in the morning and doing a pirate imitation at noon.  She's still squinting a bit with it.

Shadow is VERY interested in the interloper.

For reference, Shadow was the same size as Stripey when we brought her in, literally, last year...  On national Cat Day.

We Only SAY We Hate Each Other

If the ball had gone up when I was stationed in Germany, my tank platoon was assigned to a company of infantry in the 1ID(F).

We trained with them a lot and understood how we needed one another, especially in the urbanized environs of Germany.

We even loved the 113 with the big blade antenna and the Air Force dude sentenced to slum with us ground crawlers.

Taco Bell In Moscow

Russian Taco Bell is a much more frightening thing than Taco Bell here...

 

Got some altitude there!

Fat Amy Works

I would like to point out that the F-35I worked as advertised over Iran.

I had been, repeatedly, told that it was an expensive boondoggle that was no better (and likely worse) than an F-16C Block 50.

I can think of a couple nation's sphincters that should be clamping about now.

Related:  The F-35C is useless because using it from carriers in a marine environment is too harsh on the stealth coatings and they can't be maintained.

What about all those F-35B flying from short-deck carriers?

Not mentioned.

That's odd.

Because It Kinda Does

I've been considering the range stats I give to 6.5 Grendel and wondering if I should add the 10% fudge factor allowed in Vehicles for the range.

That would change it from 730/4,000 to 800/4,400 with a 16" barrel.

This is .270 Win v .30-06 all over again with the rules favoring the bigger round.

6.5 really does hang onto velocity longer than 6.8; I've never disputed it.  My dispute was always that 6.8 was just as good where everyone but a sniper or long range target shooter would use it.

For humane hunting and combat, there's not a lot of difference between them.

But wait!  There's more!

6.8 really shouldn't have a longer 1/2D range...  What's missing from the equation?  I remembered something and went back to check.

While the 6.8 community had settled in hard for 16" (with midlength gas) as the "standard" barrel...  Most of the velocity numbers quoted by 6.5 advocates were for the 24" barrel.

That changes the damage to 6d+1 pi and the range to 870/4,400 without fudge factor.

There we go!

6.5 Grendel now GURPS!

It's also underscoring what lots of 6.8 people have been saying for a while, the Grendel folks (at least the furries) weren't comparing apples to apples.  In a couple of the proposed head to heads they wouldn't even concede to use the same LOWER...  Which shouldn't matter to comparing the two rounds.

Alternate Range

I did the GURPS math for the alternate rounds.  16" barrel unless otherwise specified.

5.56x45mm NATO is 4d+2 pi, 750/2,900

5.56x45mm 55gr, 1:12 (20" barrel) is 5d pi, 500/3,200

5.56x45mm NATO (20" barrel) is 5d pi, 800/3,500

.22 ARC (18" or 20" barrel) is 6d-1 pi, 600/3,600

6mm ARC is 5d+2 pi, 700/3,900

6.5 Grendel is 6d-1 pi, 800/4,400

6.8x43mm SPCII is 6d pi, 820/3,500

.300 AAC Blackout (supersonic) is 5d+1 pi, 500/3,000.

No Shit There I Was

There was once a time when I brought an AR to the range for a friend's family member to try out because Valentine matched the configuration their family member was most likely to encounter in the service.

They brought me ammo in their own magazines to use so I wouldn't have to use my stock up.  That was nice of them!  Extremely considerate, actually.

The problem, though, was them being fairly well used USGI aluminum mags.

They weren't feeding correctly.

Happily, I did have a PMAG in my range bag and I moved the ammo over to my magazine and the gun ran great thereafter.

I have not clucked about that until today.  My friend looks askance at plastic gun stuff and it rankles that PMAGs trend to being better than the old fashioned metal magazines.

That trend is in how they wear.  Brand new; there's hardly a difference.  But USGI aluminum magazines don't show that they're getting past their serviceable life and your first indication they're worn out is the sudden increase in the rate of malfunctions.

When a PMAG gives up the ghost you can see that it has.

How they show damage works the same way.

MSR v SAR

A couple lawyerly types are advocating we stop calling AR and AK style guns "modern sporting rifles" and start calling them "semi-automatic rifles."

They are aware that the MSR appellation is a response to the "no sporting purposes" line of bullshit from the anti-gunners.

But an AR and an AK are semi-automatic rifles.  No different except in appearance from a Mini-14.

Modern sporting rifle was coined to embrace the military appearance and show that they were still sporty.

Entire sports were invented just to have sports for them to be part of!

Both terms are appropriate for the guns.

Where I think their reasoning is sound, though, is most of these, recent, bans and attempts to ban are aimed at anything semi-automatic that can take a magazine bigger than 1/3 normal capacity (or less).

I don't care what we call them as long as we defeat the anti-gunners.

If calling them explosive feather dusters is the magic phrase, then grab your EFD and meet me at the two-gun match!

Mutter Mutter Mutter

First off...  I did it wrong when I added some R134a to The Beast.

Dur moment.

When you open the valve to the can, the low pressure gauge is going to surge upwards.  I panicked and closed the valve and looked at the pressure, then lather rinsed and repeated until it looked like I was getting what I wanted.

What I should have done was to open the valve and leave it open until the low pressure side came back down and read correctly.  This will also cause the high pressure side to read correctly instead ever so slightly low.

Lesson learned.

Because I'd not actually added any R134a, it wasn't keeping up on Friday when I went to get Harvey her tobacco and take Bubba to the used book store.

Second.

The HP port appeared to be leaking at the valve.  It's not a regular Schrader valve.  It's a plunger with a rubber bumper on top.  I took the rubber bumper out, thinking it was something that'd gotten into the port by mistake and the leaking appeared to have stopped with it removed.

What bean counting EPA sycophant at GM changed the HP port from the tried and true, easily servicible, Schrader valve to a completely different kind of plunger valve that needs the entire port replaced instead of just the Schrader?

Rat fuck son of a bitch is what they are.

Oh, and good luck finding that port without a lot of community knowledge.  GM doesn't admit that the port CAN be replaced without replacing the entire high-pressure line.

For the record it is GM p/n 52458184, ACDelco p/n 15-5438 and Dorman p/n 800-955.

The Dorman has a replaceable Schrader valve and the ACDelco is rumored to have one.

Almost every GM vehicle since the change to R134 uses this HP port.  You're welcome!

Third.

Once I'd removed that hunk of rubber and properly added Freon R134a, the AC appears to be working correctly.  Pressures were right.  Pressures changed with the RPM correctly.  Temperatures looked good both at idle and on the road and matched what the service manual says I should get in "manual" and automatic modes.

Three days of it behaving!  Eyes crossed!

Voting

Got our sample ballots today.

Seven choices for President.

Five choices for US Senator.  One of which is Rick "Lurch" Scott, known gun banner.

I've only heard of two of each.

Thanks to term limits I get to vote for a new state Representative.  Actually happy about that, the previous one voted for the Lurch Scott gun control package.

Mostly the same idiots from the same pool of families that have dominated county politics for decades for the county commission and school board slots.

Six constitutional amendment referendums.  Abortion and marijuana are the two hot-button ones.  Both sides are blatantly lying.  Happily, I can live with the status quo and can vote no to both without qualms.

State Of The Alternates

Has it been a year already?

The availability of 6.8 Remington SPC, 6.5 Grendel and .300 Blackout based on what Midway USA carries.  Plus the ARCs!

6.8 SPC

14 loadings from 6 manufacturers.  2 available, 4 out of stock - backorder OK, 3 temporarily unavailable, 3 out of stock - no backorder, and 2 unavailable - limited production.

6.5 Grendel

17 loadings from 7 manufacturers.  7 available, 3 out of stock - backorder OK, 2 Coming Soon, 2 temporarily unavailable, 1 out of stock - no backorder, and 2 unavailable - limited production.

.300 Blackout

69 loadings from 20 manufacturers.  42 available, 9 out of stock - backorder OK, 2 temporarily unavailable, 9 out of stock - no backorder, 4 unavailable - limited production, and 3 coming soon.

22 ARC

2 loadings from 1 manufacturer.  2 coming soon.

6mm ARC

4 loadings from 1 manufacturer.  4 available. 

Update:

.30 AR

1 loading from 1 manufacturer.  1 temporarily unavailable.

6.8x43mm Surprise

Will it GURPS?

The 75gr bullet from the 22 ARC at 2953.4 fps will do 6d-1 pi.  20 avg.

The 108gr bullet from the 6mm ARC at 2626.7 fps will do 6d pi.  21 avg.

The 123gr bullet from the 6.5 Grendel at 2485.6 fps will do 6d pi.  21 avg.

The 120gr bullet from the 6.8 SPC at 2648.6 fps will do 6d+1 pi.  22 avg. <-- This is more than the normal 6d pi from a 16" barrel.

6" of wood is DR 6*

1.57" of concrete is DR 12*

The 1/2" mild steel plate backing the first two tests is DR 28.  None of them should penetrate the steel after the frangible materials.  All of them go through the wood.  All of them should exceed the HP of the concrete paver.

I'm ignoring the water test.

1/4" of mild steel is DR 14, they should all penetrate and they all do.

3/8" of mild steel is DR 21, 6.8 should penetrate and the others should not.  By ONE FREAKING POINT OF DAMAGE!!!  I guess this is what a single point of damage looks like.

I am not sure it really GURPS, but its a marginal case.  That 6.8 round went through with more than a point left over.  There's a ±10% fudge factor built into the rules that might help account for it.  Adding 10% to the 6d+1 brings us to 7d-1 and that averages 23 points of damage...  It still seems like it's carrying more through than 2 points.

It's not really a difference in bullet construction, they're all plastic tip rounds.  If anything the DR of everything should be doubled because they're all (0.5) pi+ rounds because expanding ammo!

I'd say it almost GURPS.

35% Raises

I did the math.  Harvey got a 17% increase in pay over the past four years.

I see that the IAMAW is demanding about twice that from Boeing over the next four years.

I will admit, they're demanding their pay keeps up with inflation and, unlike Harvey, can extort it from their employer.

But, over and over, with unions in manufacturing: their salary increase has to come from somewhere and it inevitably comes from the white collar side.

You know, the high salary, experienced, engineers; leaving cheaper and less experienced engineers to do the job.

And people are actually surprised when quality drops.

With Boeing, the IAMAW might be learning what Caterpillar workers did.  The minimum wage is $0 an hour when your company either dramatically contracts or goes under altogether.  Boeing appears to be aiming at the latter from a lack of wins lately.

Survival Is Inefficient

Reading this I am reminded of study after study talking about how big, nuclear carriers are more efficient than smaller ones.

Those studies are correct.  A big CVN like Ford is more efficient than resurrecting something like an SCB-125 Essex class.

The total number of aircraft carried is similar, but the super carriers carried larger and more capable planes.

Oriskany carried five squadrons of 12 planes each.  2x F-8 Crusader and 3x A-4 Skyhawk squadrons.

Forrestal carried five squadrons too.  2x F-4 Phantoms, 2x A-4 Skyhawk and 1x A-6 Intruder.  A lot more capable.

That's as close to apples and apples comparison as I can get with CV v CVL.

The modernized Essex boats were getting long in the tooth when the decision to go all CVN super carriers was made.  They were more expensive to operate than conventionally powered super carriers at the time.

I wonder if the math is different now.

Admitting we lose efficiency, but gain survivability with three lighter carriers with 2/3 the aircraft each as a Ford for the same shipbuilding cost might be worth it in a real fight.  If nothing else, the enemy has to get 3x as lucky to get rid of all the carriers.

Yes, I understand that 3 ships for only twice the planes is less efficient.  It's a given.

But I've always wondered if we took a Wasp or America class LHD/LHA and put an angled deck on it if we'd have a winner.

An America is $3.4b.  A Ford is $13b.

It's worth thinking about.  If they MUST be nuclear powered, steal the reactor from a Virginia class sub and get some benefit of standardization!  Don't forget you're going to need two...

What I am reminded of is an old GDW game set in Traveller: Trillion Credit Squadron.

What worked for me, over and over, was a larger fleet of mid-range ships over a small fleet of expensive ones.  It would often overcome a TL advantage from my opponent.

I am not reassured that China appears to be using my strategy...

Ch Ch Ch Changes

Technomancer's Merlin-1 is an alternate history.

It specifically states that unless they mention it, history runs as it did in our world.

I've made an alt of an alt...  Where the chimera veterans of Vietnam decide that, rather than return home to where they're subject to bigotry, they sign on in significant numbers to help keep the filthy Commies from taking over in Rhodesia.  They win here too.

Merlin-4?

It's my my world and I can change it if I want to...

And it's a small change.

In 1956 the United States Army adopts the S&W model 39 (X100 to get technical) as the Pistol, 9mm M4. 

Funny New Guys

GURPS came up with a world called Merlin.  It's the centerpiece of GURPS: Technomancer.

Technomancer was set in the same year it was published, 1998.

One divergence from our home timeline, in addition to magic coming from the Trinity Event, is the US winning the Vietnam war.

A small supplement for Merlin covering playing in 'Nam, Funny New Guys, came out in 2004 and is set in 1962 through 1975.

A staple, to me, of Technomancer was the chimera.  Partially human, partially animal to some degree.

Full chimara are more animal looking than human.  Half-chimera are more human with animal traits.

The animals listed are Cats, Coyote, Foxes, Hawks, Snakes, and Spiders.

The cat is a mountain lion or puma.

The coyote is what it seems.

The fox is a gray fox.

Hawks are likely red tail hawks.

Snakes are diamond back rattlers.

Spiders are red-leg tarantulas. 

You might notice that cats, coyotes, and foxes have fur.  Hawks have feathers.  Spiders are hairy.

Humans aren't furry.

Vietnam is wet and muddy.

Bare skin is unpleasant enough with mud and wet; but FUR?

I have made several full-snake chimera characters for this setting, but never a furry one.

I've considered a spider.

Because They're The Canaries In The Coal Mine

I've been asked why I'm so concerned about Jews and people hating on Jews when I am not, in fact, Jewish.

Because the people who hate and murder Jews have no compunctions about killing other groups.

The Holocaust is a great example.

Jews were the majority of the people killed in the death camps, but they were not the only people killed in the death camps.

In all likelihood, when the last Jew is up the chimney, the people who killed them will begin to look for others to keep the camps in business.

Radical Islam, for example, has a long list of non-Jews they wanna whack.  That list will not get shorter once they've done for Israel.

Not that I expect them to manage the task.

Of course, it sure looks like a large chunk of the Islamic world is fine with Israel ending the Iran problem, and if that takes the radical Islam problem with it...

Analysis True

They're BAAAAAAAACK

It would appear that the Snowbirds have returned to Florida early this year.

US19 was choked with them today.

It distresses me that I have to increase the level of driving aggression so that I can get to clear air and set the cruise at the speed limit.

It's that or suffer at ten under and try to interpret the random engagement of brake lights on the car in front of me with the New York/Virginia/Massachusetts plates.

Someones Clearance Needs Revoked

Apparently, Israel's entire battle plan with regards to Iran was leaked from the US.

I remember when leaking classified materials was a crime.

The problem I have about getting too upset about this is how often we used to catch Israel doing espionage here and against our interests.  Look it up!

I generally support their right to exist and I don't think that Iran having the detailed plans will help them much.

It's like Mike Tyson walking up to you and saying, "I am going to hit you in the face with my right fist."

There's fuck all you can do about it unless you are a heavyweight boxer in your own right.