Throw Me A Bone

Mild paraphrasing going on.

Me:  How much for the thing.

Them: $50.  Local pickup only.

Me: Monday and Thursday work for me!

Them: I'm free all day Monday.

Me: I can be there around noon, where do you want to meet?

Ten minutes later:

Me:  I can be there at noon, I need an address to tell the GPS.

Sixteen hours later:

Me: If you insist on local pickup, you have to tell me where to go.

Them: I don't appreciate your nasty tone.  I'm busy.  I work a lot.  Monday was the only break I've had in a long time.

Me: You ghosted me for 16 hours and didn't reply until I hurt your feelings.  And you still haven't told me where to meet you.  I don't think you're selling the thing.

Them: It's still for sale, Thursday is good.

What would you tell them?  I'm thinking of telling him I'm on the way to his house Thursday morning and giving updates on where I am for three hours then going silent right about when I should be arriving.

I have no idea where he lives, so telling him I'm on my way to his place might be hilarious.

Where The BLEEP Is The Roasting Pan?

Publix had a stupid good price on a standing rib roast so we got a small one.  Stupid good is still not cheap.

My original plan was to cut it into steaks, but then I remembered that you can do one these up like a prime rib.

If you can find your roasting pan.

Our roasting pan is gone.  Harvey remembers loaning it out and if it's who we think it is, we don't want it back!  Ick.

But any cookie sheet with a rack can be a roasting pan, we have those.

Crisis averted.

Prime rib for Christmas day dinner!

Never Remind The Customer You Hate Them

I've given up on another webcomic.

The author just couldn't not keep their political opinion to themselves.

I'm willing to read stuff by authors I disagree with, but this time they bloviated on how happy they were that they changed a character to no longer be a cop.

The reason for the thrill was that they wouldn't have to show in their comic that not all cops are bastards.

That would have been unthinkable!

You see cops are the symbol of a government that oppresses us all.  Minorities the most.

I don't think this fuck would know oppression if it threw him off a rooftop.  He moved to Canada for Christ's sake!

Disconnect

I've been friends with several Vietnam veterans.

To a man they've said that they didn't hold anything against the Black soldiers they served with.

Combat does have an equalizing agency that many other endeavors lack.

One even stated that his racist shit he'd gotten from his dad evaporated when he was under fire and everyone was doing their job regardless of the racial or social starting points.

But it's a matter of historical fact that racism was part of the Vietnam experience for Black troops.

It makes me wonder if the problem was REMF motherfuckers rather than the people actually going to the field.

Funny New Guys has me looking at it and it seems like Black troops caught more and harder punishments than White troops and that the people being anal about making sure punishment was meted out weren't the same people walking the bush.

I'm reading and learning.

Let's Hear From The Local Monotheists

Realizing that I had not yet purchased the annual eggnog and we didn't have Christmas morning simmanin rolls, I trekked to the store.

I stopped and got gas at the station across the street from the grocery and got to listen to the preacher on a speaker on the corner.

Santa.

Is.

A.

Lie!

Great message for the impending day of your God's big day.

But Santa is part of Christian mythology.  He's derived from St Nicholas.  He's the embodiment of Christian charity.

But he's a lie.

The preacher also told me that when presented a choice between right and wrong, I always choose the wrong.

Setting up my rifle and popping his, insulting and offensive, loud mouth in the forehead is wrong.

I chose to do the right thing!  I "shall not killed" my ass off today!

Who's wrong now, Bitch!

PS: I probably shouldn't be associating these loud mouths with normal Christians, there's prolly only a tangential relationship to mainstream Christian theology.

And Yet...

I am laughing my ass off at the people doing Margaret Atwood cosplay and being in abject terror that Donald will go full Handmaid's Tale here when this sort of thing is happening in the real world.

This wouldn't be happening in Afghanistan if Mumbles hadn't pulled out of the place.

Ironically, the people most likely to be there defending these women's rights would have been the first people the cosplayers blame for trying to impose a gynophobic theocracy on them.

Never mind that if they tried their protesting in a place that's really doing what they're scared of, they'd be killed.

Cue the "What about Islam Dancers!"

Race Day

Hung out at Lead Foot City hanging with the guy I bought The Beast from (and sold The Biscayne SS to).  He made three runs in my old car.  He's making it into an Olds sedan.

It's an 1/8th mile track, so things ran slower than I'm accustomed at a drag strip.

We spent over two hours waiting on them cleaning up after a Mustang who should have lifted and coasted when he broke loose.

Short Day

It is the winter solstice!

There's 10 hours and 21 minutes of daylight today.  The least daylight of the entire year.

If we were still on daylight savings time there would be 10 hours and 21 minutes of daylight!  But the solstice would be at 5:20am instead of 4:20...

How About A Budget?

One of the House's responsibilities is to pass a budget.

It's something those insider trading fattened and tax finished hyenas have not managed to do, at least on time, in over four decades.

It's almost literally "you had ONE job!"

They're required by the constitution to do it and they fail, repeatedly.

Don't even get me started on the Senate passing budgets and sending them to the House...  That's backwards.  The budget is supposed to originate in the House and the Senate is supposed to just give an up or down vote.

Look it up!

Not Gimp Compatible

An anonymous comment states, "One other drawback to air/rail/bus is the last 5 mile issue. They all get you from station to station. But how do you get from that station to your final destination?" 

You hoof it!

What if you can't hoof?

Fuck you!  (also bake the cake and eat your bugs bigot!) <-- implied but never stated out loud. 

PS: Anon commenter, sign it next time.

Owning The Night

Chimera in Vietnam probably got a good reputation with their comrades once they put the racism aside.

Every Chimera has some sort of vision advantage.

Spiders have Night-Vision 6.

Coyotes have Night-Vision 5 and long-range Discriminatory Smell.

Cats have Night-Vision 9 and Parabolic Hearing.

Hawks have Acute Vision 4.

Snakes have Thermal Infrared Vision.

Foxes have Night-Vision 5, Discriminatory Smell and Parabolic Hearing.

All that conspires to make them better at spotting ambushes and/or working in the dark.

No wonder the 101st Spellborne was so effective.

No Half Measures

Funny New Guys is set in 1967.

That means that there are no halfling Chimera in the Army.

Chimera were born spontaneously to people born in the manafall beginning in 1945.

Halflings are born from a human and a chimera.

The oldest Chimera is 22.  That puts the oldest possible halfling at well under the 18 years of age the military demands.  That oldest possible also means some very young parents as well.  Laws were probably broken young...

IYKYK

Summoned, I come.

In Valen's name, I take the place that has been prepared for me.

I am Grey.

I stand between the candle and the star.

We are Grey.

We stand between the darkness and the light.

C-

Thanks to then Governor, now Senator, Rick "I suck cock by choice" Scott and the so called "republican" supermajority in the Florida legislature: Florida rates a C- from the Giffords Law Center.

Fucking turncoat pricks.

Worse, their successors must be proud of this rating because they adamantly refuse to consider undoing the fuckery.

A special thanks to the Florida Sheriff's Association.

Sense Of Entitlement

Something that finally clicked about something...

The disconnect that considers veteran's benefits as no different from welfare entitlements (hint they are both entitlement programs) is the same disconnect as the difference between a wall running the entire inter-German border and a wall between the US and Mexico.

Why.

The wall in Germany was to keep people IN.  The wall on the southern border is to keep people OUT.

Veterans are one of the very few groups that gave something to get their benefits rather than failing to launch.  The promised benefits are an enticement to get young people to sign up; part of the deal.  They are, on the whole, none too generous either.

I am at a loss to see what so many people living on welfare have given to the nation and thus, fail to see what it owes them.

I'm compassionate, I'd support some programs, but many fewer than what we have running today.  I'd put more conditions and restrictions on the recipients than now as well.

What worries me most about thinking of Welfare and VA Bennies as one and the same is the tendency to cut them together when government starts talking about being efficient and cutting costs.

Shitting on veterans is traditional in DC, after all.

Planes Trains And Automobiles

I am inundated on Facebook with suggestions about people touting the virtues of rail transportation and the lack of it in the US compared to Europe.

So I did some research.

It costs about $300 on a low-cost carrier to get from Tampa to Los Angeles and takes about 5 hours.

AmTrak will run about the same price and will take four days.  You spend as much time in Chicago changing trains as you would in the cattle car with wings.

When it takes ten times as long to get there, it needs to either be cheaper or a lot more comfortable.

The AmTrak seat looks a little more comfortable, but not a LOT more.

And that is why we don't have a lot of passenger rail in the USA.  Simple economics.

Rail is cheaper than trucks and trucks are cheaper than air for cargo...  This is because of the relative speed of the methods.

Rail not being cheaper than air is primarily because the passenger trains don't own a foot of track outside a couple commuter routes.  The freight carriers own the track and their stock takes priority over the AmTrak trains.

For the record:

It'd take me three days to drive it and more than $350 in gas to get to LA from here.  Plus two places to sleep.  Taking my car is a LOT more comfortable and fun than either a plane or train.  Plus, no TSA in my car.

Cheaper

The fly-away cost of an F-35A is now cheaper than an electric school bus!

But the price per charging station funded through NEVI and CFI is just, barely, less than $11.9 million!

Progression

I didn't get a good pic of it the day it arrived with the bull barrel and giant quad-rails.

AR-10ish clone we dubbed M1956A2.

This was the configuration before the BRN-10 came along.

Then I changed the furniture to Magpul and detached the detachable carry handle for a fixed rear sight.

The fixed rear sight was dropped for a MBUS Gen 3 when I played around with putting a Primary Arms SLx 5 scope on it.

That scope belongs to my 6.8 gun, Olive, so...

I suppose that I should take it out and zero it now that I've replaced the sights and scope at least twice, huh?  7.62 NATO is spendy.

Axial Tilt

Since this is a popular question in the comments.

Why yes, when it gets cooler north of the equator, it gets warmer south of the equator; and vice versa.

Swapping about every six months.

This is because Earth is tilted on her axis and one hemisphere will get more sun than the other when it's tilted at the sun instead of away.

It also gets cooler the farther from the equator and further from sea-level you go.

Now you can stop asking because I've answered.

If you're wondering where your comment went, 25 people asking the same thing in three posts makes me think "bot" and not "actual person" especially when there's no profile associated with the login.

Idle Hands

I decided to clean off the top of my gun safe.

I bumped into a never mounted Leupold Rifleman 3-9x40mm still in its box.

I have an AR-10 here that needs a scope...  I have a mount for a 1" tube leftover from the Olga build.

This story starts writing itself, don't it?

Pretty fetching, ain't she?

11.6 lb. as shown.

You Know What Officer You're Right

Your job SHOULD be easy.

Yet...  There's that 4th Amendment in the way.  There's that 5th Amendment in the way.  There's that 6th Amendment in the way.  There's that 8th Amendment in the way.

Four amendments that are there, pretty much, solely to keep government from speedily and easily arresting, convicting and incarcerating us.

All of the Bill of Rights are about making the job of government harder because the liberty of the citizenry was thought to be more important than efficient government.

So, actually, Mr Spokesman of the Large Police Organization:  You are wrong.

Your job is supposed to be difficult.

You are supposed to work for it.  Earn it.

DEAL WITH IT.

Liberty does not come without warts, but you're supposed to exist in a world where us normal folk are in charge and giving you duties we want performed.  You're not supposed to be dictating terms to us and suborning our elected officials against us.

We'll, eventually, get those turncoats gone.

Then where will you be?

Can I quote someone whom you should be familiar with and emulating?

"[T]he power of the police to fulfil their functions and duties is dependent on public approval of their existence, actions and behaviour, and on their ability to secure and maintain public respect."

-R. Peel.

Learn it, love it, live it, Officer.

Still World Building

A wrinkle that's getting hard to deal with is Homo Neanderthalensis never developing ranged weapons past the occasional thrown spear.  From the pattern of bone breaks in several skeletons, "stab and hang on," appears to be the main tactic with a spear.

A developing hypothesis to their disappearance is from a rapid cooling period where the forests they dominated disappeared and their normal ambush hunting wasn't viable due to the lack of suitable cover.

Homo Sapiens thrived because of ranged weapons like the bow and arrow and atlatl.  They didn't need as much cover because we could shoot from outside the prey's alert distances.

The Homo Sapiens hunting style was also more wolf-like.  Persistence hunting is also better suited to open terrain.

But how does this affect Sabers and Sorcerers?

I've set it in an alternate Great Plains.  The very terrain that might have killed off historical Goo Goo!

I might have to do some rethinking of my bad-guys.

E Tu Australia

 

Again.

Your "searing" temperatures must be warmer than I set my air conditioner to be considered "hot".

I was just reading that Sydney had a high of 77° F and there was much ado about how hot that was.

Darwin and Port Hedlund are getting up there to some real heat at nearly 90° F, but that's just normal Florida heat.

But just the interior and the northern cities seem to be actually hot.  The middle of Australia is kinda known for being warmer than the rest because it's got unique weather patterns.  It's fascinating reading for someone from the midwest.  To me, "entire nation" means that, well, the entire nation should be having some damn heat and it looks like a normal distribution to me.

And are we going to ignore the elephant in the room or talk about how comfortable Tasmania is when "Entire Nation" is gripped by a heatwave?  That just makes me wonder how fucking cold that place is normally when flannel shirt weather is a heatwave.

By the way, it's summer in the down under, so summer weather and temperatures are to be expected.

Dear PETA

The stickers on the packages of meat are amusing, but...

That steak did not come from a cow named "Bella".

If that steer had a name at all, it was the number on their ear-tag.

But even that's irrelevant!

There are certainly steaks out there from cows with names.

My sister's 4H project was such a beast.  That bovine had a name, though I cannot recall it, and its destiny was to be processed into tasty hunks.

Whether she got a prize was based on the auction price of the steer and the quality of the meat from the slaughtering shortly following the auction.

There was no misconception about the destiny of the animal.

The same for the turkey I raised.

Ogie had a date with the Thanksgiving dinner table and my giving him a name didn't change that.

These critters are NOT pets!

I don't see a lot of PETA people with farm animals as pets, to be honest.

That cow was sold at auction, why didn't you go save Bella?  They don't care what you do with it after you buy it.  They assume you're going to be making beef, but you could have yourself a 1,500 lb. lap cow.

Great Fun!

Amazon Prime has a new Christmas Movie, Red One.

It's great fun!

Shut off your brain and eat your popcorn and sit back and enjoy it.

It's a bit corny and cliched, but Christmas movies are supposed to be!

TWO Dead

TWO dead.  Not three.

Don't count the scumbag among the victims.

Two victims and the scumbag are dead.

Stupid Copy Pasta

This is a test to see if the copy-paste of the previous post broke the default font of a typed in post.

Well OK Then

Dozens of luxury condos, hotels in Miami sinking at ‘unexpected’ rates, new study reveals...

Takeaway quote though:

Experts called the study a “game changer” that raises a host of questions about development on vulnerable barrier islands. For starters, experts said, this could be a sign that rising sea levels, caused by the continued emission of greenhouse gases, is accelerating the erosion of the limestone on which South Florida is built.

EVERYTHING is globull warmering. 

Except for the complete lack of measurable sea level rise.

Barrier islands are sand bars.  We didn't use to care about erosion on them and they did what the name said:  They were a barrier to the waves and protected the mainland.  It was only after we started building on them and oceanfront property going stratospheric in value we started noticing how they would be eroded by the water.

I'm willing to bet that building tall buildings on sand is a bad plan regardless of sea level.

PS: They mention that the measured sinkage is within the expectations of the engineers who designed the buildings.

Go Go Gun Free Zone!

Another school shooting.

Wisconsin has gun free schools.

In before finding out that the student was on the police's radar and/or some liberal victim class.  I only speculate on the victim class because it's a Christian school.

Mentality

For the director of the ATF I would prefer no prior experience in law enforcement.

The natural inclination of cops, and former cops, seems to be to better enforce the laws and not to reject enforcing laws which are unconstitutional.

Why does this concern me?

Because cops always enforce unconstitutional laws.

I personally know cops who agree with me on every point of gun control; but have arrested people for breaking laws they say are unconstitutional.

And they wonder why they don't get invited to parties any more...

It's simply a mindset that's incompatible with the idea of ordered liberty when they get put in charge.  Whether it's a small town department or a large federal agency; they take the cop outlook into the job.

What's needed for us pro-liberty, pro-gun, people is someone who is suspicious of law enforcement and the insidious encroachments against freedom their organization has made and can make.

In short, no a cop.

Perhaps best would be someone who is doing business as an SOT who has a clear idea about what would have made doing that easier if only they were in charge.

If You Want A Premium Price...

 That's the dash from The Beast, notice the lack of warning lights.

I've lost track of the number of sellers who are showing the check engine, stability control and TPMS lights lit then asking big bucks for the car.

Fine, you dropped significant coin on the supercharger.  Apparently you didn't do it right because the computer is saying something isn't in spec.

Tire pressure sensors aren't THAT expensive.

Traction control issues are.  Since that little display in the center isn't also showing either of the sport modes, that means something is broken.

Everything wrong with your car is something the buyer has to address and it means you can't charge the same price as a fully sorted car.

Kicking Him While He's Down

FuzzyGeff does not wrench.

There's no shame in that.  I don't program computers, he does.

But he just mentioned having to have the motor mounts changed on his car.

This is a time when I wish he was local, because that's not a hard job at all.

We'd have it knocked out in time to get dinner.

The thing that really hurts is that it's less than $100 in parts.

Same same for the exhaust he mentioned.

$300 in parts if we order from Rock Auto.

But he's not local.  And it hurts me that I cannot help. 

For the record:  I charge my choice of beverage while I'm working, tools that I don't already own and dinner once I'm done.  FOR FRIENDS ONLY!

If you, generously, offer more than that I will accept.

Some brands, however, will require more.  Mitsubishi and Korean stuff will need financial contributions because they just do things strange.

This Guy Is On My Frequency

I ranted about a lot of what he's talking about when I was working on The Precious.

Fraud?

A few years ago I stumbled across this neat little vid.

The other day I found this:

Follow up:

He mentions a couple of times that a 426 Hemi Challenger was a 14 second car.

The Beast is a 14 second car!

Technology, sometimes, rocks!

Making A Fire Control Module

The fire control module for the SIG 320 is deceptively simple.

I suspect that lots of people are going to learn that forming sheet metal isn't as easy as they think it is.

I learned a lot about it designing vending machines and their attendant little parts.

Tolerance stacking is not your friend and there are many forms that you can't make by simple bending.

If you want to give it a shot with a simpler exercise: Make a magazine.

It's just a rectangular tube, easy peasy!

What will be real fun is for someone to make a modular fire control unit that can be made from sheet stock from Home Depot and that little finger brake that Harbor Freight sells.

The Ghost Gun people gonna have a heart attack!

Not A Glock

OK, Ruger, Magpul, you have my attention with the RXM.

Picture from: https://grabagun.com/media/catalog/product/R/u/Ruger-RXM-19401-736676194018.jpg

A gen3 Glock 19 without the finger grooves?

Kinda want.

This also marks the moment that I've forgiven Ruger the company for the sins for Bill Ruger and his son.

At The Vet

Mist is doing great!  Especially for a FEMA Kitty.

No worms.

No FIV.

No Kitty-Leukemia.

Her head tilt is better.  Vet says that she, possibly, will grow out of it because she's not showing some of the secondary signs of some of the causes for it.  This might just be lingering effects of the severe ear infection we had treated when she first exited the cat distribution system.

She got round two of three for her shots.

She does NOT like going to the vet and will accept me as a substitute for Harvey to protect her.

What About The Children

The NFL is saying that they had a 20,000% increase in unauthorized drone flights over football stadiums and that it's only a matter of time before death and destruction ensues.

They demand that something be done.

I agree.

Ban football! The stadiums and their attendant games are clearly attractive nuisances to drone operators.

If it only saves one life...

Courage

Watching a vid about the Conqueror heavy tank.

You have to admire the British for being brave enough to have several electrically powered essential systems on their tanks.

Yes, those systems work as well as anything Lucas put in anything else.

Probably Nothing

Willard has gone dark.

His phone's battery died, so he cannot call.

I have spare batteries for a phone he once owned, but I don't know if they're for the phone he presently has.

He lives inside a gated community that keeps me from just swinging by to drop off the batteries.

We have his daughter's phone number and we've left messages for her to relay to him, but no replies from Willard.

Either she's not relaying, or he's not wanting to reply or...

He's not been commenting here lately either.

That makes me worry his computer has taken a dump.

Again, I can't just swing by and check.

I'm a worrier, so this worries me.

I Like This Mode

Nope, no Tropical Weather to see here.

Michael Mann failed to get his predicted number of storms too.  I've lost track of the number of predictions he's made where he's been flat wrong.

I can't figure out why he's still considered credible.

Has he ever predicted something that happened?

I'm The Wrong Market

For some reason the Daniel Defense H9 reinvention of the Hudson H9 has been in my mind lately.

It occurs to me, again, that it's $1,300 asking price ($1,000 from several vendors) is out of line.

It's a heavy, bulky striker fired pistol for just 15 rounds in the magazine.

Because of that capacity, it's not competing with full size pistols; it's competing with compacts like the Glock 19 and M&P 9 Compact.

Guns that are an easy $600 cheaper and, based on reviews, perform just as well.

Even the M&P metal isn't $1,300 MSRP; it's $900 ($800 retail).  $400 (or $200 retail) cheaper and it's smaller in every dimension and lighter with two more shots.

Hot Rod Philosophy

I've been watching a lot of David Freiburger on YouTube lately and I am struck by his very pragmatic approach to getting things done.

Special alumimun wrenches for tightening AN fittings?  Nope, normal wrenches.

Spend days on a side quest to make the part he's working on emaculate?  Nope, mask and rattle can after a quick spray of soap and water.

But he also still makes sure the job is getting done right when it matters.  If the goal is to make it run and live, but not to make it pretty, he dispenses with the pretty.  We've seen him make pretty stuff, he knows how.

Broke Three

 Mist has broken three pounds!  She is 3 lb. 2.5 oz.

Does she work for the Alliance or The Empire?

She's tracking very similarly to Shadow's weight a year ago, but she's much skinnier...  That means she's bigger.

Beeper is most affected because Mist doesn't back down like Shadow.

Butthurt Dem Signs On To Be RINO

Susan L Valdes has changed parties from Democrat to Republican.

I think I agree with the assessment that she's butthurt and not actually reconsidering her political feelings:

Valdes started her political career in 2016 when she won a seat on the Hillsborough County school board.

Valdes was elected unopposed on 6 November 2018 from the platform of the Democratic Party.

In 2020 and 2022, her Democratic Party primary was cancelled and she advanced to the general election without contest. Each time, she won reelection by a margin of over 5%.

On December 9, 2024, Valdes switched to the Republican party, which came only days after failing to become chair of the Hillsborough County Democratic Party.

Luis Valdez - Gunowners of America - Florida

Got skipped for a plum position and changed parties.    

This is a "Fuck all y'all I can be a RINO among RINOs as easily as I can be a Dem!"

And the idiot Republicans are bragging about it.

I'm more inclined to say, "don't want you, don't need you, we've enough RINO already."

Case 40mm M118

Thanks to various sites hosting pdf versions of all manner of ordnance manuals, I know the expected muzzle velocity of many rounds.

I know the total weight of the round.

I know the weight of the propellant used.

I don't know the weight of the projectile, and I need that for the GURPS damage calculations.

But if you subtract the weight of the case and the weight of the propellant...  You are left with the weight of the projectile!

I needed to find the weight of the case for a 40x46mm grenade.

I remembered that FuzzyGeff has such a case that he's had for as long as I've known him.  He can tell us how he came to own it if he'd like to comment.

What he could do was weight it!

1.6 oz. or 48g on his scale.

I can now calculate what a 40mm HE round does to its victim inside the arming distance.

0.503 lb. (3,521gr)  total weight.

0.1 lb. (700gr) is the case.  (Can you believe I actually used a calculator to go from oz to lb?)

330mg (5.1gr) is the powder.

That leaves 2,820.993gr (0.403 lb.) for the projectile!  (I'd guessed about 2,800gr earlier!)

250 fps is the muzzle velocity.

1d+2 using Douglas Cole's interior and terminal ballistics spreadsheet.  Just like it was with 2,800gr...  At least I know for certain now!

I decided to go with crushing damage because of the big frontal area and low velocity.  Other rounds get double knockback, so I did that too.  It seemed wrong for it to do pi++.

1d+2 cr dkb.

That will do an average of 5 rolled and 5 inflicted.

For the record a 90mph fast ball is a 73.66mm, 2,242 gr projectile at 132 fps. 

1d-2 cr dkb.

A 90 mph baseball does an average of 1 rolled and 1 inflicted.

Captain Tuttle

Ed B made a really clever reference to MASH in comments to the Anderson zombie post.

Kudos!

I've tossed things like that at the players a time or two, just to see who got it.

Captain Parmenter was commanding a troop of cavalry that encountered the players in an Old West campaign once.  They didn't even notice.

They ran into Captain (acting Major) William Martin of the Royal Marines in one Modred campaign.  Two people commented on that one.  Best comment, "Oh fuck!  We're mincemeat!"  <-- They got extra eeps.

Blackbeard slipped right by them by calling him "Old Bill Thatch".

Thag Not See Crash

There were lots of people showing the ADS-B track of an Il-76 that, maybe, had Assad on board.

It did a u-turn and then dumped altitude.

I think a lot of people forgot the Candid is a military transport.  The crew was, likewise, Syrian military.

To me that track looked like a drop in altitude to get below radar and shutting the ADS-B off to prevent being tracked and shot down when they then cut Northwest to escape nape of the earth style.

Reviving An Old Term

I see that we're blowing shit up in Syria.

With Grampa BUFF.

Arclight, bitches.

Steel Folding Chairs

In the way back...

The person I learned TTRPGing from was Standing Bear.

Bear was a veteran of WW2 and Korea.

He told us a tale of how folding chairs would disappear and how they played a shell game during inspections to fool the inspector into counting enough chairs that none appeared to be missing.

Fast forward to my own service.

The IG is going from building to building and I'm carrying, at least, six folding chairs from one place to another more than once...

"Holy shit!  I'm in Bear's story!" I was thinking at the time.

Bear laughed when I shared that and we got to share a "veteran moment".

Fast forward again, and Willard and I are comparing notes and HE has the exact same story about the chairs!

Which brings me to reading an article about how the Pentagon is having trouble doing audits and accounting for everything and then reading speculation about what the DOGE twins might do...

Considering that the Army alone appears to have lost more steel folding chairs than were ever made; and paid to replace them...  The numbers will never add up.

Before Nguyen There Was Anderson

The free form role playing that lead to the zombification of VC sapper Nguyen started with:

PFC "F": We have latrine duty.

PFC "M":  We're covered.

PFC "F": How are we covered?  I don't need another article 15.

PFC "M": Remember Anderson?

PFC "F": (guardedly) Yes...  Wait, didn't he get killed in that mortar attack?

PFC "M": He did.  And that's why he's pulling latrine duty for us!

PFC "F": You didn't!

PFC "M": I did!

PFC "F": That was wrong!  I should turn you in!

PFC "M": Didn't he owe you money?

PFC "F": I hope Sarge doesn't find out.

PFC "M": I don't think he's paying much attention.  I heard him mentioning to the LT that he was impressed at how hard Anderson has been working lately.  He'll prolly get the first posthumous ArCom.  Besides, Jackson wants to borrow him tomorrow for HIS turn at the burn barrel.

PFC "F": We're either going to get busted or promoted, aren't we?

A Day Which Lives In Infamy

83 years ago, this moment, the first wave of Imperial Japanese Navy bombers began their attack on Pearl Harbor and awakened a sleeping giant.

Less than four years later, and two applications of canned sunshine, they unconditionally surrendered on the deck of USS Missouri in Tokyo Bay.

Appropriately, Missouri is currently berthed next to USS Arizona today.

Yamamoto predicted the outcome.

Your Own Personal Nguyen

Funny New Guys lets one delve into some really creepy aspects of magery, magic and war.

Not least of which is the Zombie spell.  For a mere 8 FP and a minute of casting, plus a "relatively complete dead body," you can make yourself your own necromantic slave.

Learned some necromancy before dropping out of college and getting drafted?

Sick of digging latrines and sick of burning shit with diesel?

Wasn't there a dead VC sapper in the wire last night?

Private, your problems are OVER!

Until you get caught with your rotting pal who's... well, not very fun to be with or around.

It's Vietnam and it's HOT.  Your VC ditch digger is rotting!

Once the flesh falls from his bones, he will stop stinking and still be a useful skeleton, but until then...

No matter, have Nguyen stand on top of a handy ant hill until those, industrious, little insects pick him clean.  Better have him make a chicken wire enclosure to keep the birds off him, though, as they tend to dismember bodies while they snack.

But the entire platoon is going to be in on helping you violate the laws of modern warfare concerning the desecration of enemy bodies when they discover just how HANDY such a thing is for avoiding tedious manual labor.

Denying Our Troops Life-Saving Gear

In GURPS Magic there is a spell called Missile Shield.

It costs 7 fatigue to get started and 3 per minute after the first minute to keep going.

If you're not keeping track of fatigue, your average person has 10 and casting that spell is a hit to their available fatigue, but not crippling.

The problem is if you're humping the bush in Vietnam with medium encumbrance and it takes 4 FP an hour to march along.

The fire fight starts two hours in and you use a ring enchanted with Missile Shield to cast it and...  You're now on the verge of collapse with -5 FP.  See Basic Set p.426 for why this is VERY BAD.

Such a ring is 400 energy to make and that's a mere $150,000 if cast traditionally with "slow and sure" means and $20,000 if enchanted industrially.  With a starting wealth of  $15,000 and not enough demand to start an industrial production line...  It's probably not going to come up in play.

But something that will is a healing potion.

Chiron is the healing elixir.  Mass produced it will run a whopping $51.75 per dose.  That might seem a lot but it will heal 1d HP worth of damage per application; that's the same as 1 to 6 days of total rest and recuperation!  20 minutes of First Aid/TL7 will restore 1d-1 HP.  The standard issue field dressing has a dose of ointment form built right in!

Can you imagine how the media would be harping on things if the troops didn't get issued such a field dressing?  The medic will also be carrying a supply of Chiron too; in both powder and liquid forms.

There was sure to be a, sad faced, Walter Cronkite wondering why we couldn't spin up the production line for those rings.  60-Minutes has not yet aired...

M1952A Vest

In 1967 the issue fragmentation body armor vest was the M1952A.

In GURPS terms it's 8.5 lb., $400 and gives DR 4/2*.  The higher DR is vs pi and cut, lower against all other types.  The * means it's flexible armor.

The later M1969 vest is almost identical in GURPS terms.

Familiarity

The timeframe that Funny New Guys is set is 1967.

That sets some important points for weaponry.

It means all the "work" I did looking up Blooper stuff is still relevant and the more familiar M203 won't be on the scene yet.  The XM148 has started field trials.

It also amends my list of available rounds:

See High Tech p.143 and p.145 and SEALs in Vietnam p.33 for stats.

M381 HE (1967) - 3 yard min distance. 32g Comp-B. 0.503 lb.

M406 HE (1967) - 15 yard min distance. 32g Comp-B. 0.503 lb.

M576 MP (Multi-Projectile) (1967) - No min distance. 20 #4 Buckshot pellets. 0.254 lb.

M585 White Star Flare (1967) - 330 yard min distance, 7 sec, 55,000 candela. 0.41 lb.

M651 Riot Control CS tear gas (1967) - 33 yard min distance, 6.5 yard sphere, 20 sec burn time. 0.45 lb.

M676 Yellow Smoke (1967) - 150 yd. min distance. 90 sec burn time. 0.48 lb.

M680 White Smoke (1967) - 150 yd. min distance. 90 sec burn time. 0.48 lb.

M682 Red Smoke (1967) - 150 yd. min distance. 90 sec burn time. 0.48 lb.

I should also note that the date I've shown is just the earliest reference I have for the round in question.  Some of them must pre-date that because the M79 is first fielded in 1961.

That makes my infantry weapons list:

M16A1 rifle (XM16E1?)
M60 machine gun
M79 grenade launcher
M1911A1 pistol (but I'm amused to change that to M4...)
M26 (lemon) and M33 (baseball) are the common fragmentation grenades.

Being Rich Is Nice

I wish I was rich enough to own a professional sportsball team.

Because once you're that rich, you no longer have to pay for things.

Like the building called a "stadium" for your team to play in.

You make the taxpayers from the location of your stadium pay to build it.

If they don't you find a different group of politicians to cave into your demands and have THEIR taxpayers build it.

The taxpayer is rewarded with increased spending on law enforcement to combat the increased crime during games and events at the stadium.

They are rewarded with increased traffic congestion from games and events at the stadium.

The promises of increased business and economic benefits are illusory.

They have never once panned out.

And I say this as a hockey fan and a fan of the Tampa Lightning.

But if the Bolts demanded a new stadium on my back, I'd be helping them pack for their new home someplace else.  If they wanted to move to my county, I'd be lighting a fire under my administrators to nuke the deal.

Coincidentally, Amalie Arena, home of The Bolts, isn't my taxpaying problem.  It's Hillsborough County's.  I don't live there.

I live close enough to get all the benefit I want and far enough away to escape the costs.  I feel so damn clever at this bit of happenstance.

I'm Not Cheering

The CEO of United Healthcare got gunned down in NYFC.

I am not celebrating, but I am also not very surprised.

After dealing with insurance companies with Harvey's shoulder and knee I'd be writing to the Coast Guard to report them drowning instead of calling 911.

I am dead certain there are people who are dead because of a slow response from their insurance company, or from a flat denial of a claim.

That's sure to create a population of very bitter folks and if that population grows large enough, it's bound to include people who will act on that bitterness violently and with finality.

And here we are.

PS: Name me a single industry that's made better by insurance paying most of the providers.

If This Were Us

If I got busted selling an NFA item without a Form 4, or selling a non-transferable NFA item to a normal person:  I'd be in jail!

But Bradley Wendt, police chief of Adair, Iowa, is not in jail.

Is he?

Hey!  WAIT!  He is!  Or will be once he loses his appeal.

But something he says worries me.

"If I'm guilty of this, every cop in the nation's going to jail."

Exactly how widespread is cops selling NFA stuff without the proper taxes and licenses?

And, honestly, how can we get more of it because, clearly, the sales aren't feeding crime beyond the malum prohibitum violation of the NFA.

The only reason I wouldn't be getting an M134 from the trunk of my local LEO's car is I can't afford the $6,000 a minute rate of fire.  But I'd damn sure like a couple lowers with giggle switches.

I think that this conviction and the statement of the former police chief are evidence enough to end the stupidity of the NFA and let us have our liberty back.

Quote Of The Day

Taken in its entirety from Task And Purpose:

Normally, Thanksgiving is synonymous with food, family, friends, and giving thanks. For @TheEconomist, Thanksgiving apparently means taking a turkey-sized dump on disabled veterans. The other day I had the unfortunate opportunity to read an unattributed article on The Economist titled, “American veterans now receive absurdly generous benefits” and it left me with a lot of thoughts. (You can read it for yourself here: https://econ.st/3D0Nk87, just be ready to sign up for a subscription.)

The piece on The Economist has no author and reads like it was poorly run through ChatGPT. And the title of the piece is insultingly stupid. The definition of absurd is “wildly unreasonable, illogical, or inappropriate.” I’d challenge the anonymous cowards at The Economist to illuminate us on which parts of veterans’ healthcare and benefits are inappropriate, illogical, or wildly unreasonable?

I am a disabled veteran. I had my right leg blown to pieces on September 4, 2006, in Fallujah, Iraq. Since that time, I have had to walk with an above the knee prosthetic and I have not had an easy day physically for as long as I can remember. Hey, The Economist, which portion of my healthcare or benefits are wildly unreasonable?

Service to our country can be an incredibly uplifting and positive experience for many who wore the uniform, but that service can also involve hazards. Some disabled veterans struggle physically or mentally with the effects of their service. Bullet wounds, Traumatic Brain Injuries, Post Traumatic Stress, and other effects of a service can sometimes cause chronic issues for veterans, and providing care and benefits for those issues is certainly not inappropriate or illogical.

While the AI assisted “journalists” at The Economist boldly chose not to put their name on this piece, they did attribute a quote to another non-expert in veteran benefits, Mark Duggan from Stanford University. Mark foolishly stated about VA Disability and Compensation, “Once you qualify you have an incentive not to get better.” An incentive not to get better?!?!? Hey Mark, any clue how I can get my right leg back? I’d gladly give back the money I’ve received so I can get up out of bed without the assistance of a wheelchair or a prosthetic.

The meandering poorly structured article in The Economist highlighted a lot of increased numbers and statistics, many of these figures quoted began back in 2001. It highlighted the increased number of veterans with high disability ratings beginning to increase in 2001. However, nowhere in the article does it state what else began back in 2001. These dopes conveniently left out the Global War on Terror that began in 2001 lasted for TWENTY YEARS! A full 20 years of the same all-volunteer force serving over and over, and over again in the same toxic hellholes fighting the same brutal terrorists. Gee, I wonder why today’s veterans are presenting with more chronic ailments than generations that came before us.

Ivy League elitists like Mark Duggan and the pretentious wankers at the Economist clearly didn’t bother to do much research on veteran disability or bother to speak to one of the millions of disabled veterans like me. We would have told these arrogant snobs that certain injuries and illnesses are with us for life, and no disability rating is worth the difficulties that come with some of the aftereffects of service.

The real cherry on top of this turd sundae was the lazy suggestion (possibly lifted from the fools at the @washingtonpost Editorial Board) that VA should means test veterans before receiving benefits. As in, if you make enough money after service, you won’t be taken care of for the costs of war. If The Economist had bothered to attribute a name to this drivel, I would ask that idiot, “how would you means test my inability to teach my son to ride a bike?” It’s a pretty routine joy that most parents get the privilege of taking part in. However, my prosthetic leg doesn’t really function in a way that allows normal bike riding. So that is a simple joy I won’t get. How exactly do buffoons like Mark Duggan and the dollar store journalists at The Economist suggest factoring in that loss?

The last paragraph of this loosely compiled puddle of garbage juice included the statement, “Reducing payments to former soldiers will never be popular, but it would be wise. America’s veteran obsession has gone too far.” — TOO FAR?!?!? Holy hell, this sounds like it was written by a jealous also-ran who every veteran has probably met. The guy or girl who “totally would’ve joined…but I didn’t because I would’ve told-off a Drill Instructor if they got in my face”. Losers…

In the future, if any major publication wants to embarrass themselves by anonymously taking shots at disabled veterans, I’d like to offer my services. I can start by helping you research this subject to learn about the actual effects of service-connected injuries and illness. I can also connect you with other disabled veterans so you can hear first-hand accounts of some of the difficulties veterans face. I could even help google image search pictures of actual veterans, instead of the stock photo of firefighters The Economist used at the top of its trash piece on veterans. Then finally, if you are still intent on disparaging disabled veterans, I can assist you in removing your head from your ass…free of charge.

Patrick Murray, national legislative service director for the Veterans of Foreign Wars office in Washington, D.C.

I can't find a lot (or anything) to disagree with here.  Spending on veterans is among the first things DC nukes when they go towards balancing budgets.

I was there when Clinton was spending the peace dividend and noticing that a homeless people got better care from a for-profit hospital than a veteran got from the supposed-to-be-dedicated-to-them hospital.

I cannot help but wonder if there'd been proper care and therapy for my legs if I would be spared the constant pain from neuropathy. 

I'm sure that FuzzyGeff and Technomad can relate stories about how bad I was hurting and what a charming fellow it made me.

But too many people think that because veterans will stoically suffer that we SHOULD.

I won't even get into the weeds of talking about how the same people talking about cutting off support for veterans are the same assholes that tie the military's hands and prolong conflicts and assure there be no victory, lasting or fleeting.

In Honor Of The End Of Prohibition

Some bathtub gin!

Wetted For 91 Years

I almost missed end-of-Prohibition day!

Have a drink!

It's legal!

The "Benefits" Of Hearing Loss

A nice thing about losing a significant amount if hearing is losing the need to have a stereo past a certain point of fidelity and needing music past a certain bit rate.

Why pay for it if I can't hear it?

Since my hearing loss is focused on certain frequencies, I also don't need to waste money on subwoofers because I can hear bass quite well, thank you.

That sometimes makes me dial in the equalizer so that it sounds wrong to other people as I tune my experience to match my memories of a song before I murdered my ears.

I've also noticed that I am more sick of saying "What?" than people are of repeating themselves so I can understand (and they are VERY sick of it).  For many situations I just smile and nod until they quit talking than to bother to get them to say it so I can understand it.

Oddly, I can often pick out their voice better in a jumbled background than if it were merely quiet.

Not For Years

I feel like I should mention that I have not bought anything from iTunes for years.

Their store stops working when OS support ends.

So, when they stopped supporting my version of OSX, I stopped buying from them.

What I had used them for was to replace all the music I had on cassettes and CD's from the early '80's.

Napster facilitated my change from discrete physical media to using digital.

The music industry really should have realized that Napster was, effectively, a loss-leader that led many of us to be buying after trying.  It was handy for finding the correct version of the song I was wanting to buy.

They should also have noticed that a lot of the music people were "stealing" wasn't available for purchase because it was "out of print."  People wanted to buy it, but the music industry was refusing to sell it.  That did nobody any good.

Amazon has been just as convenient as iTunes for getting music, it's DRM free, and it works on all my devices.

Casette CD iTunes MP3

I'm getting a bit sick of rebuying my music.

For the most part, I had the problem solved with iTunes, but...

There's a few songs, here and there, that are in a format that can't be read by a device here and there.

Mutter mutter, grumble grumble.

The case in point is the stereo in The Beast cannot read m4a files, despite those files being DRM free from iTunes.

That means having to get new copies in mp3 that it can read so I can listen to them without fiddling with the phone and bluetooth.

The phone plays m4a files, but doesn't show the song on the screen.  If you can't see the song on the screen, you can't take a clever "Hulk In Tree!" pic.

Why no Hulk song?  Why Iron Man get song?

We take a series of "Hulk in the tree" pics every year, kinda like a fun, digital, advent calendar.

Where would you like to see Hulk?

Quicker

When looking up loads for the M79 I was struck that a shotgun is a higher velocity gun.

12ga is about 1350 feet per second with #4 buckshot.

The M576 round is a mere 885 fps with the same shot.

12ga is firing 24 pellets instead of 20 as well.

I can see the argument for using a shotgun instead of the blooper for close in work.

#4 buck was used extensively in Vietnam.

Why Can't We Get Along?

Because one side really believes this:

Exactly how many women have been arrested for having an abortion since Roe v Wade was overturned?

Exactly how many, of any kind, LGBTQ people have been jailed for simply being whom they are?

There's prolly something about illegal immigrants and racism in this "comic" too, but I am not liberal enough to parse the symbolism shown.

But the liberal side really does seem to think that with Trump back in office means tyranny and bigotry will reign.

Never mind the bigotry of showing a white man doing the oppressing in the illustration...

But it's OK to be bigoted against white men for... reasons... or something.

More Concerning

Past the cost of the new, flammable, refrigerants is the concerns about the leak detectors.

Having had to replace several, not very complicated, starter capacitors I am very concerned that the leak detector will fail and the failure mode is "I detect a leak!"

That will mean dragging the AC guys here with their leak detection stuff to confirm that there is no leak and no fire risk and then replace the sensor.

A new, hidden, cost!

It will only take a few laps of this sensor failing and there being nothing wrong besides the sensor before the do-it-yourselfer starts stocking the sensors, or wires around them.

Now we're going to see some flames!

Systems that cry wolf get ignored or bypassed.

If you don't believe me, just look into the window of a car in the other lane and notice how many are driving with amber and red warning lights on the dash.

Inside Minimum Distance

A 40x46mm round that hits someone inside it's arming distance will still do some damage.

1d+2(0.5) cr dkb (double knockback).  The unarmed slug of an M381 HE round will roll an average of 5.5.  That drops to 4 penetrating.  It also does 11 points of knockback and that will knock the average ST10 person back a yard.  Not a pleasant hit, but better than sucking up the 4d-1 [2d] cr ex of the round going off.

At 7 yards (with skill 11) we can expect to get 3 pellets of #4 buck from the M576 round that'd be 3x 1d-1(0.5) pi-.  Average of 7.5 points rolled, 4 penetrating and doing 2 points of damage.

But inside 3 yards:  You lose the bonus to hit from multi-projectile, but the damage swells to 7d(0.5) pi- and the target's DR is multiplied by 10 (plus the effects of the armor divisor).

That armor divisor also, normally, gives an unarmored target DR 1.  So it, too, swells to DR 10.

The average hit from "extremely close range" rolls 24.5.  That drops to 14 penetrating and doing 7 points of damage.

Not Quite As Bad

In 1972 the average price of regular gas was 36.9¢ per gallon.

With the 655.18% inflation since then, gas should be $2.789 per gallon.

Last time I filled it was $3.159.

Corrected for inflation, gas is about 13% more today than in 1972.

The $1.199 gas of 1991 should be $2.779 gas today.

But the $3.699 gas of 2012 should be $5.089 today, so something went right and gas prices broke from the rest of inflation.

Bloop

M79 ammo in Funny New Guys Vietnam.  Also for XM148 after 1965 and M203 after 1969.

See High Tech p.143 and p.145 and SEALs in Vietnam p.33 for stats.

M381 HE (1967) - 3 yard min distance.  32g Comp-B.  0.503 lb.

M406 HE (1967) - 15 yard min distance.  32g Comp-B.  0.503 lb.

M433 HEDP (1971) - 15 yard min distance.  45g Comp-A5.  0.507 lb.

M576 MP (Multi-Projectile) (1967) - No min distance.  20 #4 Buckshot pellets.  0.254 lb.

M583A1 White Parachute Star Flare (1972) - 600ft altitude, 40 sec, 90,000 candela.  0.49 lb.

M585 White Star Flare (1967) - 330 yard min distance, 7 sec, 55,000 candela.  0.41 lb.

M651 Riot Control CS tear gas (1967) - 33 yard min distance, 6.5 yard sphere, 20 sec burn time.  0.45 lb.

M661 Green Parachute Star Flare (1972) - 600ft altitude, 40 sec, 8,000 candela.  0.49 lb.

M662 Red Parachute Star Flare (1972) - 600ft altitude, 40 sec, 20,000 candela.  0.49 lb.

XM674 Riot Control CS tear gas (1968) - 33 yard min distance, 6 yard sphere, 36 sec burn time.  0.463 lb.

M676 Yellow Smoke (1967) - 150 yd. min distance.  90 sec burn time.  0.48 lb.

M680 White Smoke (1967) - 150 yd. min distance.  90 sec burn time.  0.48 lb.

M682 Red Smoke (1967) - 150 yd. min distance.  90 sec burn time.  0.48 lb.

There's a husha bomb "silent" HE round running around with the SEALs and some flechette rounds circulating too.
 

I Beg Your Pardon

Hunter Biden has gotten a sweet deal of a pardon!

Do not despair!

Biden the Younger may no longer plead the 5th if someone makes him testify now.

Everything has a silver lining!

Not that I expect anyone to supoena him...

That's Not The Official Loadout

With the idea of press-ganging Marv into making a Funny New Guys character, I decided to look up the loadouts for the various weapons carried in Vietnam.

I found this guy.

What I'd found in my research into the web gear made me think that 9 20-round magazines were carried for the M16.

He's saying they lugged around 20.

He's also carrying 200 rounds of spare ammo on 10-round clips.

Plus 200 rounds for the M60.

I'd encountered the carrying ammo for the M60 before.

I'd made characters who lugged around ammo in their packs to reload magazines later, an idea that Willard dissuaded me of, but it persists.

But, he was there, I was not.

Now I'm trying to figure out HOW he carried 20 magazines.  1 goes in the gun.  A magazine pouch will hold 4 each.  An ammo bandolier has 7 pockets and each will carry one magazine.  Three pouches and a bandolier will do it.

That bandolier came from an ammo can and was packed with 14 10-round clips.

I wonder if he was really carrying 140 spare rounds instead of 200 in clips.

Also of interest is the grenadier carrying 25 40mm grenades.  The standard bandolier carries a whopping 6. A vest would tote 24.  There are many bags available to carry them around loose though.

Most photos of grenadiers in 'Nam I've found are wearing the same LBE as the other grunts, and that makes me think that some were carried in the standard ammo pouch; 2 easily, maybe 3 but you'd need a DX roll or a Fast-Draw -4 to get just one out without pulling all three out.

This dude can lug around 30 grenades with his vest and bandolier.

Running Out Of Time

In April, my "favorite" climate "scientist," Michael Mann, predicted 33.1 ± 5.8 named storms for the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season.

The total stands at 18.

We have just under six hours to get to the low end of 27.3 storms before hurricane season ends.

That's about a storm and a half per hour.

This prediction was roundly mocked by several of the local meteorologists too.  They were saying 16-20.

Weathermen 1.

Climate scientists 0.

Just For The Brahs Here

This is a, finely crafted, link that I guarangoddamtee to be good at the time of posting.

From the EPFUCKINGA.

Notice: "Starting as soon as January 1, 2025, restrictions will take effect on the use of higher-GWP HFCs in new 1) aerosols, 2) foams, and 3) refrigeration, air conditioning, and heat pump equipment."

The EPA is enforcing it as a hard deadline rather than a soft phase in.

100 Year Old Cars

Sound on!

Also, not a bad rendition of "Boulevard of Broken Dreams."

I Don't Remember Being Asked

On January 1st your air conditioner becomes obsolete.

Not by design.

Not because it doesn't work.

Not because a better system is supplanting it.

Because the government is mandating a change to a different refrigerant.

Again.

I am fascinated that with all the talk of democracy from some corners of politics they didn't even ask if I wanted the cost of a new system to triple.

They didn't even check to see if the average citizen could afford such a change.

I plan on writing my congress creatures about this passed-in-the-dead of night tree-hugger law.

Because we can still step back from the mandate, the companies are still allowed to make legacy components and refrigerants to get past existing warranties.

I don't think we will because the existing refrigerants are out of patent and the new stiff is still under one.

It's regulatory capture in the name of global warming.

Again.

Pics Working Again

 I didn't change anything, they just started working again.

Google is wonderfully inconsistent about how Blogger works.

I Admit I Wasn't Really Paying Attention

BUT!

I remember us pledging to defend Ukraine back when we encouraged them to give up their nukes.

I also recall that everything was going OK when the corrupt leader of the Ukraine was a Russian mouthpiece.

It also seems to me that we got involved with Ukrainian politics and got that corrupt mouthpiece replaced with a different corrupt politician who was more beholden to the Delaware Crime Family.

That appears to have triggered Russia a great deal and has led them to test the waters by annexing Crimea, waiting to see if the world would do anything, then going for the rest of the place.

That they did it when the Delaware Crime Family was in office was shitty timing for Russia.

No corrupt leader beholden to them in office, no carefully laundered foreign aid gets filtered back to "The Big Guy."

I think that is the crux of the matter.

Nothing I've read makes me think I want either side to win; but rather that it'd be best if they both, as nations, lost.

It'd really be best if it'd never started and all the innocent people caught up in it were spared.

But the innocent never do seem to avoid it, do they?

Just Fourteen ONLY Fourteen

When noticing that the average hit from a middling trained gunner only got 14 hits instead of the expected 28 when firing an M494 105mm APERS-T round at 50 yards with muzzle effect selected...

I have to also remember that the 3d cut per flechette will average 10 points raw damage each that becomes 15 once its through their uniform and that is 210 total points of damage.

The average 10 HP human is automatically dead after taking 60 total points of damage and cannot be resurrected past 110.

He's not less dead because he only took half the expected number of hits.

Prolly got a couple of his buddies too.

My Family Doesn't Talk To Me

If you were to observe my sister and my father, you would get the impression that she's the only child of his second marriage.

I don't exist to them.

My aunt has made mention of it several times.

It upsets her a lot more than me.

Willard Is A Draka!

Someone doctored this picture of Willard:

Into something from the SM Sterling Draka novels (Probably "Under the Yoke):

That's interesting!

Flechette Math

The M494 is a fletchette round that bursts like a shrapnel round making a cone of death.

A person's silhouette is approximately a square yard.

At 50 yards, with it set for muzzle effect, the cone of fletchettes has expanded to a circle of about 176.7 square yards.

So one would expect that person to absorb 1/177th of the 5,000 little bees.

That's around 28 fletchettes.

Many fewer than I expected!

Skill 11, 3-seconds of aiming.

That's a -8 to hit for range.

+11 for number of projectiles, +5 for Acc, +1 for Braced, +3 for the targeting computer.

23 or less to hit.

Average roll of 10 means that 14 hit.  Critical hit of 3 just gets 21.

About half of what you'd expect with the average roll.  75% with a critical hit.

GURPS doesn't simulate large numbers of projectiles well.

Ham And Turkey Day

It's the gut buster holiday, though we eat more on Christmas here.

The last three years we've pawned the cooking off on Bob Evans, and saved a little money and a LOT of time.

I'm thankful for the little stuff because the big stuff is, presently, handled.

Sadly.  There is no hockey.

Also:  So far I have not checked the mail box.  At some point I will forget, I am sure.

What About Flechettes?

Flechette rounds keep coming up in science fiction stuff, but they're an ammunition technology that keeps failing to live up to the hype.  At least in small arms.

Shortly after the introduction of the M79 grenade launcher, a round firing 45 of these teeny darts was fielded.

Notice the lack of even an XM number.

They didn't stabilize and would often hit sideways.  Their light weight meant that they barely raised a welt, let alone hurt anyone.

If they did land point first, they rarely did any substantial damage.

GURPS gives them 1d-3 pi-.  So whatever small amount penetrates gets halved!

The average hit will do a mere 0.25 points (min 1).  So you're going to need lots of hits for it to matter.

45 projectiles means you get a +6 to hit.

Using the same Skill 11 grenadier from last time...

At 20 yards they have a 11 to hit so, average 2 fletchettes scoring.  For 2 points of damage.

At 7 yards they tend to get 5 hits.  5 points of damage.

Not quite as good as a M576 buckshot round.

It's Liquid Bread It's Good For You

The history of beer!

I'll drink to that!

Beer is civilization and a polity that claims to be a civilization without beer is savages aping the forms of civilization.

Self Correcting

In the discussion about tariffs and Mexico, I am only seeing remittances being talked about in the comments sections.

Taxing remittances at some insane amount, like 90%, removes a gigantic incentive for illegal aliens to be here in the first place.

It's also around $65 billion a year removed from the US economy and injected into Mexico's.

Mexico stands to lose far more than we will in a protracted trade war; especially if we figure out that despite the price of goods here going up from the tariffs, so do wages and wages earned here get spent here and that spreads out to other parts of the economy.

The current system of cartelization does get cheap goods, at the cost of domestic jobs and stagnant wages.  Goods NEED to get cheaper in this paradigm because wages are, defacto, falling as inflation eats them before they're even earned.

If were to two-prong our attack on fixing the economy we'd talk about how the NLRB is unconstitutional too.  Breaking the unions would go a long way towards making manufacturing affordable again.

I Don't Necessarily Trust Him

Mr Musk might not be the paragon of liberty many people are making him out to be.

Being a car guy, I noticed another side of him with Tesla.

If you buy the top of the line super duper Tesla, get bored with it and sell it to someone else; Tesla will audit the sale and decide if the next owner paid enough for all the features and if they decide they didn't:  They disable the features.

That's at least adjacent to "you will own nothing and like it" territory.

I have a hearty mistrust of places that rent you something under color of selling.

Tricking The System

 

 HA!  Thag know some basic HTML and I can trick it into showing me the picture without using their interface!

Take that Google!

 

 

#4 Buck

#4 Buck does 1d-1(0.5) pi- and gives 27 pellets in 12ga 2-3/4"  00 Buck does 1d pi and you get 9 pellets.  For the record, a .22LR from a pistol does 1d+1 pi-

Coincidentally, the M576 multi-purpose round for the 40mm grenade launcher also uses #4 buck, but just 20 pellets.  40x46mm is a much larger round than 12ga 2-3/4"!

Despite the low damage, it was, apparently, very popular with shotgunners in Vietnam.

The #4 gets a +5 to hit from one shot and +6 for two; 00 gets +2 for one shot and +4 for two due to the number of pellets flying.

More hits could mean more damage despite the halving of the damage after penetration.  For a single shot the same roll means 3 more pellets hit.

Range is kinda pathetic, so let's keep it to 20 yards, -6 to hit.

A skill 11 shooter will have a 7 chance to hit with a single round and 9 with the RoF of 2 of a pump shotgun shooting 00 buck.  On average, they're gonna miss with both.

The same shooter will have a 10 with a single round and 11 with two.  On average, they'll get one pellet to hit with one round and two with two.

Our grenadier gets a +4 to hit with his single M576 round and will likely be missing...

Hits do more damage than misses regardless.  (1 point or 3 points is more than zero).

If we let the enemy get much closer, like say, 7 yards... it's only -3 to hit.

That means rolls to hit of 10 and 12 for the 00 and the average roll will now land 1 or 3 hits.

#4 needs 13 and 14 to hit and will land 4 and 5 hits respectively.

40mm needs 12 so the average roll lands 3 hits.

00 buck will do (on average) 3.5 hits per round; so 3 or 10.

#4 buck will do (on average) 1.5 hits per round; so 6 or 7.

40mm does the same average damage so 4 points of damage from its three hits.

At longer ranges #4 is going to work better because you're going to be hitting more.

Blogger Is Being Strange Again

 

For some reason I can insert this picture of The Beast with my laptop and Ubuntu, but not my desktop and Win7.

Odd.

Two weeks ago, the opposite was true.

Update: Now that I have inserted this pic with the laptop, it will recognize it and let me insert it again from the desktop.  This appears to be true of any photo that has already been linked.

Don't See These Much Anymore

 

Nice VW Type 3 wagon cruised past while I had my camera out taking pics of The Beast.

Big Brake Blues

Big brakes and multi-piston calipers often come with copious amounts of brake dust.

Big brakes also mean you can't really reach between the spokes to get the inside of the rim clean.

But boy howdy do they look AWESOME when you clean them up.

That means taking the wheel off.

I decided that was too simple and rotated the tires too.

I should have taken a picture.  Maybe I will later and edit this post.

Now That Gun Control Is Solved Eh?

Canada has stupid knife laws too!

I Knew It Was Simple

Figured out how to make the bar at the top of the blog to remember I was logged in.

Gotta make an exception for the enhanced tracking.

 It fixes being able to insert photos from Flickr too!

That's Mist and Shadow pausing just before play resumes.

Educated Guess

I read this article and am immediately struck with a possible cause.

Almost all of the recalled foods are in sectors where the food is handled extensively by human hands and those hands are attached to "migrant" workers.

Also known as illegal aliens.

Hygiene is not the same with those south of the border as it is with us.

Can't even suggest that cleanliness standards aren't even being given lip service because the workers aren't from around here.

E-coli in lettuce?  Can't be from the workers shitting in the fields!

E-coli in hamburger?  Can't be from workers not washing their hands!

Can't suggest that the owners and operators of the places with the problem are complicit in the crime of illegally entering the country.

It makes one wonder why we have an FDA if they don't randomly and frequently inspect the places making our food.

Did they spend their entire budget on DEI and LGBT outreach?

No Reloads

Ever since I read "The Caine Mutiny" I've been off and on obsessed with the US 1,000 ton/4-piper/flush-deck destroyers.

Those are Caldwell, Clemson and Wickes classes.

I used to watch a lot of World of Warship videos and noticed that destroyers and torpedoes could be devastating.

In the game, the tubes reload and you can try over and over.

In the real world, even if you had spares in the hold, there's no means to reload them.

So a flush-deck gets 12 torpedo shots then it's a gunboat.

Then it needs to get to a dock or a destroyer tender to get reloaded.

This might not be true of every destroyer class, but it's common.

Honestly, it surprised me.

Dark Days

2024 sees the departure of the guys from Top Gear/Grand Tour and the demise of Roadkill.

It's a sad time to be a car guy.

Open Carry

I want my right to open carry back.

I am also unlikely to exercise that right.

There's lots of good reasons to keep it concealed and many reasons to not advertise that you're toting.

Those reasons are not the point.

I am being denied a right.

That alone would be enough, but the people who are politically powerful and denying my that right are dishonest about it.

The consistently fail to compellingly communicate why I shouldn't be able exercise my right.

They very rarely cite the reasons I alluded to above.

I reject, out of hand, "officer safety."  That bat has been used to beat me too many times.

Very often the spokesweasels for the police and their professional organizations bring forth the hoary old, "It will make our jobs harder."

So?

I think it's within a citizens rights to demand that their civil servants life be made more difficult.  Did you ever think of that, Sheriff?  That we WANT you to work harder for the vast sums of money that your agency consumes?

But does it really make their jobs harder?

I guess it would.  If open carry is legal, then they can't just arrest everyone without the Seal of the King* on their chest they see with a weapon.

Ever notice, while they are not citing the solid reasons to not open carry I allude to near the top of this rant, cops, deputies, chiefs, sheriffs, police unions and law enforcement organizations and lobbies never advocate for LEOs to stop open carrying?

Wearing of arms, historically, is a badge of rank.  A divider between the nobility and the commoner.

Well, Sheriff, there ain't no nobility in a Republic; or rather we're ALL noble because we're all sovereign.** 

This is all about political power and elitism.  If I can openly carry, then they aren't special.  They are not elevated above me.

The truth of the matter is they are beneath me.  They're supposed to be working for us not telling us what we can and cannot do.

*Badge
**Not to be confused with the Sovereign Citizen Movement

Fair Winds

Chuck Woolery has passed beyond.

He was pretty sharp for a game show host.

Kicking And Screaming

I have two votes for making some progress with the Traveller Interstellar Wars campaign we started, harrumph years ago.

JT is in.

FuzzyGeff is in.

Gotta get Marv roped in.  He's not a serious gamer, but he's been entertained so far with other adventures.

If I run out of material, I want them to make characters for Funny New Guys, which is set in Merlin/Technomancer's Vietnam war.

A military campaign with magic!