Brickbuild vs Anti-Lego

An anti-Lego is a genuine Lego that cannot be used as anything but what it is.

There's a lot of them, mostly animals.

The tauntaun from The Empire Strikes Back is a good example of an animal that comes both ways.

The dewback might be a better example because they made two anti-Lego attempts.

I will concede that the first attempt is a repurposed elephant body with a new head.

The brickbuilds I call my ChibiLego Star Wars critters.  They've never made an anti-Lego bantha, but they do have a ChibiLego one.  They need to make an anti-Lego one.  They have a great model for one in one of the Lego video games.

Barf

Shadow barfed up a black shoelace.

That's better than it getting tangled in her guts.

Now that the relief has faded a little...

Where the fuck did a black shoelace come from?

None of the shoes with such laces are missing any.

Damn cat is miracleing stuff into existence to endanger herself.

Stealth Works

I would credit the Hamas leader being killed to Israel using the F-35I, but I can remember them using F-16's with impunity in Syria despite a heavy integrated air defense system.

Israel has good electronic warfare stuff.

Global Warming!

I have found clear evidence of global warming!

It is about 3°C warmer today than it was in 536AD.

How did that happen?

Wikipedia has an article on it.

In a nutshell, it was volcanoes.  Ash and clouds from the ejected gasses blocked sunlight and that had a major cooling effect.

I know we like to blame mankind for climate change and the weather, but...

PS: This is also a stellar example of how colder weather is far worse than warmer.  Warmer, in general means more agriculture and bigger yields and less famine.  Famine marches hand in hand with the cold.

Life Is Just A Fantasy

I came up with a solid one-shot fantasy scenario the last time I was in Iowa.

One of the player's utter inability to get past a simple security measure at the city gates derailed the entire thing, so it never got played to completion.

That means I can still use it!

When FuzzyGeff next visits, I could dump him into it again with JT and Marv!

I've had fantasy on the mind lately with the new edition of AD&D coming out and the many gamer youtubers talking about it.

Not that I'm getting a new version of AD&D to play a fantasy setting.

I'm invested in GURPS and I'll stick with it.

Something I really like to do, if I had time and sufficient players, is to run the full ATDGQ series of modules from AD&D with GURPS.

They'd start at T1 - The Village of Hommlet with 150 point characters and we'd go from there and see if they survive to Q1 - Queen of the Demonweb Pits.

The whole series is;

T1 - The Village of Hommlet

T2 - Nulb and the Ruins

T3 - Dungeons of Elemental Evil

T4 - Nodes of Elemental Evil

A0 - Danger at Darkshelf Quarry

A1 - Slave Pits of the Undercity

A2 - Secret of the Slavers' Stockade

A3 - Assault on the Aerie of the Slave Lords

A4 - In the Dungeons of the Slave Lords

G1 - Steading of the Hill Giant Chief

G2 - The Glacial Rift of the Frost Giant Jarl

G3 - Hall of the Fire Giant King

D1 - Descent Into the Depths of the Earth

D2 - Shrine of the Kuo-Toa

D3 - Vault of the Drow

Q1 - Queen of the Demonweb Pits

UPDATE: Order fixed based on Wikipedia information that I looked up because Beans caught them out of order.

Since GURPS is capable of handling all the standard Fantasy tropes, I'd only have to make a couple of monsters and, maybe, translate a spell or three.  Simple.

Simpler than converting Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay.  WFRP doesn't really need translating.  It just needs stats for some monsters and let the rules changes be changed and don't chase parity of effect with them.  Remember, you're changing rule systems for a reason!

Did You Know

I've been comparing what I can easily get from a Duck-Duck-Go search between the AIM-54C and the AIM-174B.

The AIM-174B is bigger and heavier than a Phoenix.

Millenium 7* History Tech has a speculative analysis of the newer missile giving it an ultimate max range of 364 miles.  That's more than triple the old Phoenix.

Color me impressed.

1854

S&W is entering the lever gun market.

Sure looks like a Marlin from here.

None of the articles I've seen, so far, talk about how the action works, so I'm going with, "looks like a Marlin, works like a Marlin," until proven otherwise.

Copying a Marlin is not a bad plan.  They're good guns.

Not Really How To

I've watched several "how-to" videos that skip steps.

Important steps.

Steps that I clicked on the video to learn how to do.

Dammit.

Good thing I'm mechanically inclined.

Overthinking It

I remounted the front speakers in The Beast.

Previously I'd mounted the spacer directly to the sheet metal of the door.

Today I mounted the spacer to the plastic basket the old speakers were mounted to.

The overthinking reason was the gaping hole in the plastic moisture barrier.in front of the speaker.  A hole that is nicely plugged by the basket.

I would probably have done this from the get go, but a lack of 1-1/2" long #10 sheet metal screws prevented it.  A trip to Lowe's solved the lack of screws.

An unexpected benefit of using the baskets is they change the aim of the speaker just a little bit and I can actually hear the slight difference.

The rear speaker holes are sealed by the spacers, so I might not go back in and put the baskets there.  Or I might.  Depends on how ambitious I get.  It's simple now that I have the right length screws.

So Very Brave

Looking at all the LGBTQ+ alterations of Christian themes in the 2024 Summer Olympic games and all I can think is, "Yes, yes, you're so very brave.  Now do Islam."

I fucking dare you, you fucking cowards.

But you know who will put up with your shit, and it's not Islam, is it?

Twice

I just replaced Moxie's left front brake hose.

Last year I did the right front.

I've never had a car that had more than one brake hose pull the "I'm a check valve!" trick before.

Moxie has done it with both fronts now.

Happily, all the things I need to reach are right there and accessible.  It took, maybe, an hour.

I wanted to get the brakes good and hot to make sure the dragging was the line and not the caliper; so, of course, I cannot hit a red light to save my life on a road that's normally stop and go 24/7.

So I just extended the drive until I knew it was hot.

All appears to be better!

Our Democracy

To be technical, the USA is not a democracy.  It's a representative republic with a democratic form of elections.

But "our democracy" isn't referring to democracy; it's referring to "we're not getting our way anymore!"

"This decision today has continued the court’s attack in recent years on a wide range of long-established legal principles in our nation, from gutting voting rights and civil rights to taking away a woman’s right to choose, to today’s decision that undermines the rule of law of this nation," Biden said.

Long standing?  Roe v Wade happened when I was five.

I've yet to hear a conservative advocate for preventing someone from voting.  Gutting voting rights appears to be code for preventing fraud.

Undermining the rule of law because they said Trump had immunity for official acts?  You'd better hope that's true, Joe, because I think you're going to come to count on it in a few months.

But let's go back to "long standing".  Bruen is informing us that we have to go a lot further than living memory to establish long standing.

Much of what is dear to a Democrat only dates to FDR, and the Supreme Court was poised to nuke nearly all of it back then, when they caved to the threat of packing the court.

Unconstitutional laws are unconstitutional from the moment they are enacted and do not become more constitutional with the passage of time.  The present court is simply undoing the injustice long standing.

Being forced to abide by the limits of the Constitution is something both sides are terrified of.

It's something I eagerly wish to see tried.

Reconsidering

I used to think that one should never attribute to malice that which is explained by stupidity.

I am coming to think that anything which is sufficiently explained by malice needn't be examined for stupidity.

It hardly matters which causes things, but you're better prepared to deal with it if you act like it was malicious rather than stupid.

Bluetooth

The Beast's radio has Bluetooth.

That means I can stream tunes from my phone!

I did so for the first time tonight with the new speakers.  The first time with MY music instead of whatever was on the radio.

Yes.  The new speakers are a big improvement.

I also did a full volume check.  As expected, the radio cannot overpower the speakers.  It's plenty loud.

Don't Vote The Election Is Just Going To Be Stolen Anyway

While this has been put forward as a reason for Republicans to stay home, I disagree.

The Party has things covered, Comrade.

No need to face the weather and vote for Kamala yourself.

Stay home.

Stay warm.

Everything is fine.

That's Gotta Be A Record

I've been reading Joel Rosenberg's "Guardians of the Flame" series since it first came out in 1983.

I'd missed "The Road Home" (1995) when it was published and have only purchased and read it recently.

However, I did purchase the next book, "Not Exactly the Three Musketeers," in 2000 when it hit the shelves in paperback.

I just finished reading it for the first time last night.

It took me almost 30 years to get around to reading the last book in the series with the original cast and I owned the next book in the setting for almost 25 years before reading it!

Wow.  Just wow.

GM Never Stop Being You

 

These four speakers are identical.

Holden assigned each one a different part number based on where it will be mounted in the car.

Is it any wonder they went bankrupt?

Of note: the paper speakers from GM are 4Ω, 20w.  That's probably peak wattage too.  They were replaced by 4Ω, 540w peak, 180w RMS.

Holden did not brag about the power of their stereo in their sales literature.

So You've Woken Up Undead

In the GURPS: Technomancer setting, being a lich or vampire means you're legally dead.

You don't have niceties like rights.

I don't have a lot of sympathy for a lich, you can't accidentally become one of those.  It's a choice and it comes with doing some nasty things to remain unalive.

But vampirism is a contagious disease.  A vampire could be the victim.

Legally, a murder victim.  "The victim testifies that..."

And once you've fully cooperated with the prosecution to convict destroy the vampire who created you; you get destroyed as well.

That led to some mind games.

If you wake up a vampire, you don't want to die (again?).  But you're not a bad person.

Can you run a moral vampire?

There's no dodging the human blood thing in this setting.  You need to get your sustenance from a sentient host.

There's nothing that says you need to drain someone completely.

But the contagion is carried by the vampire's saliva.  So to keep from infecting your supplier, you'd need to extract the blood mechanically.  It's not defined in the rules or the setting if this is OK.  The GM would have to decide how the Uncontrollable Appetite works.  The vampire might have to take the blood directly for it to sate them.

That'd make it nearly impossible to a moral vampire, because every meal leads to the chance of "birthing" another vampire.

But the survival instinct is strong...

Let There Be Tunes

Old, paper, speakers out:

New, polypropylene cone material and nitrile butadiene rubber surrounds with a silk tweeter, speakers in!

Loaded up The Lovely Harvey and The Boy for a test drive and they report a big difference in the sound.

"Coooool!" quote The Boy.

I think the adding a speaker to the center channel makes the most difference.

They're Democrats They Will Find A Way

FEC is looking hard at the $96 million the Biden campaign has on hand and if it can be moved over to Harris.

First glance says, "no," but we're talking about Democrats.

First glance says that just $2,000 can be moved directly to Harris' campaign and the remainder can be donated to the DNC, where it will be used just like it was hers.

That's Where You Get The Bad Guys For Your Story

This isn't just about bad guys.

A world where you can put your adult mind in a child's body is going to have a different kind of porn and kinks than our own.

If I was GM'ing, they'd be the creeper bad guys the players were trying to stop.

Let them decide if they're doing it for moral or legal reasons.

The Duncanites in Transhuman Space, particularly the Red faction would be where you'd go to participate or purchase such pornography and it's the obvious destination for someone looking to put a stop to it.

The sky is the limit on what kind of bot or bioroid you put a mind into.  Some places don't recognize you as a person anymore and there are varying degrees of rights a person who's moved their ghost has.

Furries are going to be actual furry creatures, not just suits.

But what's "fun" about talking about some of this technology are people who've already made a decision about their personal morality as if it was current rather than speculative tech.

Traveller, in the Interstellar Wars era, already has the medical technology for full, down to the genetic level, sex changes.  Gender dysphoria as a medical/psychological condition is fully treatable with a cure!  Multiple cures, actually.  The sex change makes the body match what the mind sees.  There's also stuff to make the mind see their body as it is.

There's folks who've made up their mind that one solution or the other is wrong and anyone seeking the wrong cure should be punished somehow.

In the game too.

Oh Ick

Something that occurs to me when I'm reading any of several science fiction settings, but in particular Ghost in the Shell and Transhuman Space, is the opportunity to change bodies.

There is no technological or physical limitation, most of the time, what form that new body takes.

Which makes me think there's going to be pedoroids.

A completely of-age ghost inside an undeniably child body.

There's some moral problems with this, of course, but does this society have enough of a problem with that to prohibit it?

There's some "libertarian" belter nations in Transhuman that would be fine with it.  After all, the person inside the toddler body is a fully informed adult.

And some of these artificial bodies are 100% biological.  That means fully informed adult in child body can do porn.  They can put that porn up for sale.  Possession of that porn isn't, technically, child-porn; but, also, it most certainly is.

Will it be illegal in your setting?

Ofharvey Serves

Honey do project:  Hang new curtain rods.

Mission accomplished!

Cookin'

The Lovely Harvey gave me a block of instruction on how to make tenderloins.

First, you gotta tenderize the pork-loin.

Then you grind down an entire box of crackers to a coarse meal.  I used a plastic mixing bowl as a mortar and a soup bowl as a pestle.  It works faster than lots of methods, but it's still tedious.

Dredge the meat in beaten egg then shake in a bag of cracker meal.

Give it a swim in boiling peanut oil and...

Iowa delicacy!  Comfort food level 10.

Schrodinger's President

There is a house in Delaware that might, or might not, house a living US President.

It cannot be determined until someone opens the house to make observations.

200 Watts!

I have added a speaker to the center of the dash in The Beast!

The Aussie radio has been set up for it since the day I bought it, I was just dragging my feet getting one in there.  The default Australian setup is a center speaker in the dash, tweeters in the outside corners of the dash and a speaker in each door.  The front doors and tweeters are driven by the same channels.  There was an option for rear deck subwoofers.

I'm going with a coaxial in the center dash and coaxials in all four doors.

There were no wires from the connector to the speaker, so I had to buy the terminals for the connector and run wires from the box to the speaker hole.

That means removing the passenger shin-airbag and glove box.  I'm getting better at it, but still needed to look up where the last two of seven screws holding the box in were.

The Lovely Harvey says she can hear a big difference.  To my bad ears, it's simply noticeable.

But noticeable in a good way.

It's a 200w, and 70w RMS.  Being run by a 30w radio.  The radio that came with the car was just 15w, so there's that!  The door speakers will be 540w/180w RMS).

The NVX brand NSP speakers are well liked by the Caprice PPV community, and the Aussie silverbox will never overpower them.

Speakers for the doors finally came off back-order and should be here Friday.

Preference Falsification

Borepatch is calling it a "preference cascade" but that term is a blurring of information cascade and preference falsification.

They're really intertwined concepts.

I've been hoping for whatever we're going to call it to hurry up and happen already.

I think we came tantalizingly close with the Tea Party, but we fucked up and let it be mainstreamed by the same people who were the other side of the coin of those we wanted removed from meddling with our lives.

I don't think we're vulnerable to that this time around.

I don't think he's wrong either.

Something shifted.  It's almost palpable.

It Never Ends

Moxie has decided that she needs both front brake lines to match.

The passenger side got replaced a while ago.

The driver's side announced it was done today.

The things I do to keep the unrivaled power of that flat-plane crank and all wheel drive.

But Can I?

They say to never interrupt your enemy when they are making a mistake.

They say to not stop your enemies from destroying themselves.

They are silent on popping popcorn.

I need a ruling here.

Say Hi To Dianne In Hell

Sheila Jackson Lee is dead.

Good.

Supply And Demand That's It

The Beast is a relatively rare car.

The parts supply comes from just as rare a car that didn't make it this far.

There are a few people who have the means to purchase several parts cars and are selling those parts.

They're being accused of being scalpers.

Nope.  Just businessmen.

They are also being acclaimed as being helpers.

Nope.  Just businessmen.

They're not really part of the community of enthusiasts keeping these things running.  Essential, but at an overlap of the Venn diagram rather than being within it.

The truth that I keep having to explain, over and over, is something is only worth what someone will pay for it.

It comes up when someone doesn't want to pay what everyone else is paying for something.

It comes up when someone is upset that nobody wants to pay what they're asking for something.

There's a lot of butt-hurt out there.

Suitable For Home Defense

Brenda with the D-60.  10.2 lb. as shown.

D-60 Deets

I took apart the D-60 to see the guts!

Simple to take apart and put back together.  It needs periodic cleaning.

I also timed loading the thing.

With strippers and an UpLULA: 3 minutes 33 seconds.

With loose rounds and an UpLULA: 2 minutes 22 seconds.

With loose rounds only: 4 minutes 55 seconds and a VERY sore thumb.

For some reason the strippers will stop with two rounds left and the ratchet won't drop the stack so you end up fiddling around and wasting seconds.

Standard 30-round PMAG Gen M3:

With strippers and an UpLULA: 20 seconds.

With loose rounds and an UpLULA: 1 minute 20 seconds.

With loose rounds only: 52 seconds.

Delousing

The cats have been given their wormers and a fresh application of flea stuff.

Linens is washed.

Surfaces are cleaned.

Fingers crossed.

Without A Thought In Its Pretty Little Brain

Despite being much larger than us, a T-Rex's brain is about the same size as ours. 

The average person takes the average 7.62 round to the CPU, we're dead right there.

10 HP, 24 points of damage to the skill, 22 penetrate and 88 points of damage is done for a clear auto-death.

But a Rex is a 53 HP monster.  The same 24 hit only gets 20 to penetrate and 80 points isn't even enough for a death roll!

I need to dig into the rules and find the disadvantage that makes them more vulnerable to a brain-hit because 80 points is enough to liquefy a brain this size.  They're not cetaceans with brains in proportion to their scale.  Or pachyderms.

Packing

I just noticed that I got my first Florida carry permit back in 2005.

Wow.

Turns out to have been a life changing thing.

Partying

The raison d'etre for political parties is to find, and nominate, a candidate who most represents your personal political views.

The theory being that a given party will consistently reflect the mores of the people who get together and support it.

I've seen a lot of commentary about changing from closed to open primaries to select candidates.

It's a double edged sword.

A closed primary means that only people who took the time to register as a member of that party can vote to choose a candidate.  It also means they give up the opportunity to chose a candidate from the another party.  Commitment.

An open primary lets anyone vote for any candidate.

In practice, open primaries have not gotten us better candidates, what they've done is eliminate decent candidates by supporting candidates who couldn't beat the other team.  The spoiler effect in full force.  It's a formalized version of how Bernie Sanders keeps getting elected.

You don't get the best conservative candidate by letting liberals choose who gets to be the conservative candidate.  You get the conservative least able to compete with the liberal candidate.

But none of this matters when we have the problem described in this video:

Note: The author of that vid has a solution (in a different video) he likes that I don't think will work better.  First past the post is the worst way of doing an election; except for all of the other ways.

Libertarians, take note, you need to take over a party to win and you need to take over one of the big two.  Socialists captured, gutted and killed the Democrat party; libertarians should do the same to the Republican party.

35 Miles Per Gallon

35 mpg now!

35 mpg tomorrow!

35 mpg forever!

(How's that for an inflammatory way to say it?)

Now that Chevron Deference is nuked, let's do the EPA.

Did you know that the fleet average fuel economy, as defined by law, is 35 miles per gallon for model years 2010 through 2020?

For 2021 through 2030 it's the maximum feasible fuel economy.

No definition beyond that.

So Biden's economy killing EPA standards have no definition in black letter law.

Without the power of Chevron, the lawyers for the automakers are going to have a field day saying that going past the current rating is infeasible.

Fingers crossed!

Parasites

Flea season is bad this year.

While our cats aren't outdoor kitties, they do have the, screened in, back porch.

It would appear that fleas can get through the screen.

With the fleas it seems came tapeworms.

Both are fairly easy to cure, but the double whammy sucks.

As does the scouring of the house and cleaning of the bedding all at once.

Good thing I fixed the washer, huh?

Quote

I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill them with a terrible resolve.

-DEI

I Should Whine Like A Bitch And Rage

On my mortgage, I paid Primary Mortgage Insurance until we'd paid 20% of the note.

That's because property values were pretty flat when we were doing it.

Turns out a lot of folks are getting their PMI nuked because they own a lot more of their property than they expected thanks to property values going up.

This is where I'm supposed to condemn the people who benefit from something I don't and paid for.

Nope.

I am happy for them to have gotten over.

PS:

In case you're curious how this works...

You borrowed on a $90k house that's now valued at $180k, you own 50%.

The Picture Is Coalescing

It's an interesting vid on what might have been going on.

 

 

Tiny Shift

I was a little too excited to change out my lug nuts, apparently.

I removed all five lugs from the wheel before installing the new ones with the car flat on the ground.

The cone seat of the lug doesn't have the ass to lift the car and recenter the wheel, which will shift a little even if you don't see or hear it.

So I jacked up each corner and removed and reinstalled the new lugs with the wheel off the ground this time.

The vibration from the slight off center is now gone and I'm back to the tiny vibration from two tires being a tiny amount out of round.

Axel F

We watched Axel F the other night.

We enjoyed it a lot.

It's nostalgia based, but the call backs were lots of fun and we enjoyed them immensely.

We missed Ronny Cox, but all the other regulars were there.

Dunno The ROE

That picture of the counter-sniper team is showing them looking at the shooter.

Apparently the crowd had been yelling for law enforcement to come look at the shooter they'd spotted getting into position.

A police officer might have climbed up the shooter's ladder and got a good look down a muzzle before he dropped back under cover and got on the radio.

That gave the counter sniper team his rough location and it appears that they were forced to wait until something happened to shoot.  Which is probably why the shooter got taken out so quickly.

But it makes you wonder why the Secret Service wasn't already tackling Mr Trump as soon as the word got out that someone very suspicious was on that roof.

Pictures

Blogger has changed the interface for inserting photos using a hotlink.  The trick for solving it for Firefox appears to be allowing Blogger and Google to run their cookies.
 

So you get a picture from Fort DeSoto and one of the 12" Seacoast Model 1890 M1 mortars.

Sloped Roof?

You're really picking this excuse?

REALLY?

“That building in particular has a sloped roof at its highest point. And so, you know, there’s a safety factor that would be considered there that we wouldn’t want to put somebody up on a sloped roof,” 

-K. Cheatle

You mean like THIS sloped roof?

For fuck's sake.

No really.  FOR FUCK'S SAKE! 

It's not like that photo didn't get seen by nearly everyone who's heard about the shooting.

Mag List Availability

 Looks like I check every four years.

Amend2 30-round: Palmetto State Armory $10.99

ASC USGI Aluminum: GunMagWarehouse $12.99.

Brownells USGI Aluminum: Brownells $11.99.

C-Products Defense SS: Palmetto State Armory $14.99.
CAA MAG, CDMAG, MAG17: CAA Gear Up $9.00. <- Deeply discounted sold out in black.
Daniel Defense DD Magazine 32-round: Brownells $23.00.
D&H Tactical Aluminum: Bravo Company USA $12.95.
Elite Tactical Systems ETS Gen 2 30-round: GunMagWarehouse $13.49 with coupler, $8.99 without.
FAB Defense E-Lander:
FAB Defense Ultimag 30R: FAB Defense USA $19.99.
FN SCAR-16 magazine: Brownells $34.99.
Hera Arms H3 Gen 2: Midway $11.90.
Hexmag HX Series 2: Midway $11.99.
Hexmag HX CFC Series 2: Midway $15.99.
H&K High Reliability: GunMagWarehouse $51.99
H&K 5.56mm Polymer:
Lancer L5 AWM: Midway $16.99 for opaque $4.99 for smoke and $10.74 for clear. <- Big sale!
Magpul D-60 Drum: Midway $108.97.
Magpul PMAG M2 MOE: Midway $9.99.
Magpul PMAG Gen M3: Brownells $12.07.
Mission First Tactical MFT Standard Cap.: Palmetto State Armory $9.99.
Mission First Tactical MFT Extreme Duty Window: Palmetto State Armory $15.99.
MWG IK-510, IK-520:
Okay Surefeed:
Okay Surefeed E2:
ProMag PM-30 Roller-Mag: Palmetto State Armory $15.99.
SureFire MAG5-60 60-round:
Tango Down ARC 30-round:
Troy Battlemag: Midway $13.04
X-Products X-15 Drum:

 

That's surprising how many companies products are flat unavailable now.

Or is it?

It's a tight market.

I'll Just Say It

The sudden outpouring of "political violence has no place in our democracy" might just stem from the realization that at 130 yards the typical conservative American gun owner wouldn't have grazed an ear.

Remember, we were mocking the DC freeway shooter and the laughably short ranges.

Not that we're likely to do any assassinations.

We're not wired that way, and they kind of know that.

They're also aware of just how hard they're pressing and they're starting to realize that the Rheostat v Switch analogy is VERY apt.

D-60 Loading

Loading 60 rounds into a D-60 takes about 4 minutes using a StripLULA and loose rounds.  That includes taking pics.  I take about 2 minutes with stripper clips.  It's important to not force things and to make sure the little flapper is set to retain the last round of ten from the StripLULA.

It's a lot slower than loading a normal 30-rounder.

The D-60 is a windowed magazine.

From 10 to 39 rounds you see this:

From 40 to 59 rounds you see this:

With a full load of 60 you see this:

Unloading, using the StripLULA is easy.  There's surprisingly little pressure on the round and it slides right out.

I Think They Pop

The change from the factory lug nut to proper chrome plated is subtle, but significant.

Any car guy will spot it right away.

Google Broke It

Inserting pics into blogger just got more irritating.

They changed the interface for linking a url and it's broke in Firefox.

Works in Chromium.

Grrrrrrrr.

Lug Nut Day

Replaced the lug nuts on The Beast.

Before:

After:

Harvey says she can't tell the difference, but I can.

Taking Bets

Who wants to bet the shooter is aligned with Antifa or an adjacent organization that's been spewing hate the past 8+ years.

Think we can even get odds?

The media hid that it was a Bernie Bro as fast as they could at the Congressional Baseball Shooting; I expect more of the same.

Pipe In The Conservatory

Someone has already said that it was an AR.

I reiterate:  Wasn't me, didn't do it.

What makes me worry about this is when I was wanting to watch Air Force One land in Des Moines with President Clinton, I noticed all the likely places to be shooting at the president were already taken by the secret service.

That included all the good places to watch the plane land, so I didn't get to see it until after it was parked.

It really makes me wonder whom was the shooter, I haven't found any news about that yet.  I note that they're being reported as dead.  I'm going to assume their social media and any manifestos are long gone by this point.

Switched

New lid switch installed and the washer ran a full cycle without drama.

No leaks.

It's fixed!

Happy dance!

Better Eat Your Wheaties

Valentine is, officially, the heaviest AR that I, or anyone I know, owns.

As pictured, she is 13.6 lb.

Yeah, I don't wanna lug that very far.

What happened to the light, handy, M16A1 I remember?  It's 9.6 lb. with that D-60 in it.

Oddly this might be an excellent configuration for post-hurricane defense where social distances are extended a little bit.

Not my first choice for home defense because it's ungainly inside.

Update: Olga is only 11.7 lb. as shown (she'd be 13.4 lb. with a D-60):

 

I guess now is a good time to talk about the D-60.

It's 2.8 lb. for 60-rounds.  A normal PMAG GenM3 is 1.1 for 30 and 2.2 for 60.

The normal PMAGs package better for carry too.

You can also buy about 8 normal PMAGs for the price of a single D-60.

Why would I want one past "it's neat!"?

If it's the initial magazine in the gun when the fight starts, you get to save some seconds reloading.  That's probably valuable.

Low-Speed High-Drag

When assessing the wisdom of going after someone who's low-speed and high-drag remember this:

The Warthog and BUFF are both such.

It's Genetic

I have the Scottish resistance to getting into fights.

The Italian reluctance to take the fight to blood.

And the Japanese delicacy about how to treat an opponent once the game is afoot.

Plan accordingly.

Can We Talk About Prosecutorial Incompetence Now

Or is it simple corruption?

Alec Baldwin walks because the prosecution suppressed evidence.

I'm no fan of his, but... Good!

When the government lies, the accused should walk even if caught red handed.

Justice should be an unimpeachable neutral party in every case.

The accused should be putting all the weight needed on the scales, no additional thumbs necessary.

It Never Ends

Mission:  Find out why the washing machine was pissing like a drunk racehorse.

My first theory was the spring that centered the drum was broken loose from the cabinet and the spout was dumping water outside the drum.

It was.

With Marv precariously balancing the thing, I drilled a new hole for the spring and that was that!

Nope.

The fill hose, a nylon thing looking like a giant flexie soda straw was split.

$5 got an upgraded rubber version.

All fixed!

Nope.

It filled just fine without leaking, but it wouldn't agitate.

Lid switch thinks it's open at all times.

New switch will be here tomorrow.

Splash Of Red

Marv has painted his calipers!

 

Colored calipers are a time honored hot-rodder tradition.

And if you have rims where they can be seen, a flash of color really sets off the car.

All Better

The locksmith got me into the car where I finished programming the RFA module and got all four of my fobs working.

Then I went a couple rounds figuring out why the remote start was not working and found that there's a setting in the dash to change under Security.

The results:

Keyfob Program

When you enable the remote start with OBDSynch, it resets all your keyfobs and the tire pressure system.

Two of my fobs will program through the normal procedure.  Two, including the new one with the remote start button, will not.  One of the two that isn't programming used to work.

There's a way to program them with the OBDSynch software, but I found that the module I'd just used to enable remote start was no longer accepting my purchase.

When I successfully programmed the first two fobs, it locked the doors.

When you close the door to get around it to log in to complain to the maker of the OBDSynch software...

When you had all the keys and fobs on the center console...

You are locked out of your car.

The sad thing is I'd read about people doing this.

I am now one of them.

AAA is on the case.

Wheels

Marv's new 9C3 has new shoes.

His are the other base Camaro wheel.

Like me, he got a scorching good deal.

While I'm giving him crap over how small his calipers are, the rotors on the front are the same diameter.

A splash of red paint will make those pop!

Mine, for comparison purposes:

 I need to get lug nuts more in keeping with the upgrade.

Know When To Eject

The guy I bought The Beast from is the same person whom I sold the Biscayne SS to.

From the litany of issues he's had since...

I got out from under that car just in time.

I feel bad for him, but I didn't misrepresent what he was getting and I've tried to help as much as I can with the "why did you do it this way?" questions from his mechanic.

BUT!

His current run of bad luck ain't my fault!

He replaced the drum brake rear axle for a disc brake unit and has had serial problems with the calipers falling off.

Last night his issue was the fourth of four tires of a particular brand blowing up.  I'd be looking at different brand and model tire after two of them bulged out.

Rebuttal

I don't think he's intending to rebut John Stossel directly, but this article does the job of explaining why tariffs aren't unalloyed badness.

The globalism that Stossel is championing is the same centralization process that Wilder Wealthy and Wise is talking about.

Watch the vid then read the article at the link.

Rig For Red

 

The Beast all cleaned up and shiny for the car club meeting!

She's a pretty nice ten-footer.

Blaming The Wrong Party

Another Boeing plane has lost a wheel on take-off.

The news is sure focusing on it being Boeing too.

The two incidents have something else in common: United Airlines.

I'm thinking it's more likely that UAL needs to have a lugnut-day than Boeing screwed up the design of the wheels.

Throw It Away?

Some egg product was mislabeled.  It contains dairy, but the label doesn't say so.

They say to throw it away.

I says to make note that it has dairy and use it.

If you don't have a dairy allergy, it's fine.

Throwing away perfectly good food because a small percentage of people can't eat it is fucking stupid.

Yes, that small percentage could have died if they'd gotten the mislabeled product; but for everyone else this is still perfectly edible.

Now that we're aware of the problem, we make sure that it doesn't go to the people who can't eat it and let those who can go ahead and scarf.

There has to be some needy person who could use it.

No I Think Not

MRS Biden will be in town today to convince us veterans that we need to vote for the only thing about her that matters: Keeping her husband in office so she retains access to the perks of being Mrs The President.

Nah.

I rather like my chances with the felon.

Having to deal with the VA for three years of COVID bullshit in a state that only did it for about five months guaranteed that I'd not be voting Biden.

We vets didn't get good care from the Wu Ping Cough era and I, for one, remember.

Lego Star Wars Bounty Hunters

Because my Kenner action figure collection was missing 4-LOM and Zuckuss I was thrilled when they became available in LEGO.

L->R Top row:

Dengar, Bossk, Zuckuss, 4-LOM, IG-88, Din Jarin (original) Din Djarin (beskar), Boba Fett (BoBF), IG-11.

L->R Bottom row:

Jango Fett, Boba Fett (AotC), Boba Fett (ESB), Cad Bane, Todo 360, Fennec Shand, spare Din Djarins from other points in the story.

Is It Time For You To Try A 20 Year Old TTRPG System?

Obviously, I say yes.  What are you waiting for?

Memba Dis

I am old enough to remember when 922(r) compliance was simply to use an American made receiver.

Inch pattern FAL kit?  American made with an Entrèprise receiver!

This was because ATF ruled that, since the registered component was the firearm, the origin of the receiver determined if the gun was domestic or imported.

With the proliferation of AK parts kits flooding the market, ATF promulgated the idea that, to be domestically made it had to have a certain percentage of US made parts, and just a majority of named components.  They made a list and you picked and chose from the list to make sure your parts kit was domestic enough to own.

The serialized part is the gun doesn't appear in law.

The list of components that count towards domesticity doesn't appear in law.

922(r) can be read to mean that you can't use ANY foreign made parts to make a gun that wouldn't be possible to import like that.

We're in an awkward place.

Because I Keep My Toe Dipped In The Hobby

Decent 7.5/10 rant.

Something Hasbro and a lot of pundits are forgetting is, unlike a video game, when the new version comes out it doesn't cripple or disable the previous version.

I can play 47 year old OG Little Black Book Traveller tomorrow.  It still works just like it did in 1977 despite there being four succeeding editions and versions by other companies.

Same same AD&D.

Even more fun, you don't even have to own the books right now!

DriveThruRPG has you covered!

The situation is somewhat underscored by my love of GURPS.  The 4th Edition I prefer came out in 2004.  There is no 5th edition.

The 3rd Edition (Revised) came out in 1994; and there is still a large community of people who've refused to move to 4e.

So many that Steve Jackson Games rebranded 3e(r) as GURPS Classic and they still publish nearly the entire 3e lineup in pdf format.

When my 47, 30 and 20 year old books still work; I don't need these companies to stay in business to play.

We should remind them of that.

Without Cheveron

922(r) compliance is going to get sporty.

The law says:

(r) It shall be unlawful for any person to assemble from imported parts any semiautomatic rifle or any shotgun which is identical to any rifle or shotgun prohibited from importation under section 925(d)(3) of this chapter as not being particularly suitable for or readily adaptable to sporting purposes except that this subsection shall not apply to—

(1) the assembly of any such rifle or shotgun for sale or distribution by a licensed manufacturer to the United States or any department or agency thereof or to any State or any department, agency, or political subdivision thereof; or

(2) the assembly of any such rifle or shotgun for the purposes of testing or experimentation authorized by the Attorney General.

 I don't see a list of parts or a minimum domestic content that changes it to American made instead of foreign made.

Asking For A Friend?

An estranged friend texted me asking for advice on what kind of ammo to buy.

I gave the advice and then asked their SO what had prompted the sudden interest in ammo.

She's worried about politics.

Fair enough, but knowing her, she's worried about people like me and not people like her.

We know about Antifa and BLM being violent and burning shit down.

Is there something similar on the right side of the aisle?

Even threats of doing violence?

Real threats, not the normal blowhard kooks.

That Will Be Strange

For the first time in over seventy years people will be able to vote for an individual presidential candidate for a third time.

The most people have, normally, gotten was twice.  Election and immediate reelection.

Candidates that lost, typically, do not run again regardless of it being their first try or failing to be reelected.

If Trump wins, he's going to be just the second person to win a non-consecutive term in the White House; after Grover Cleveland.

That's Not Good

CMP has suspended sales of M1911A1's and this appears to be why:

If you recently got a smoking deal on a USGI M1911A1...  You might wanna give them a call.

And, once again, stupid fucking law enforcement wonks:  You're looking for 98 specific stolen guns, serial numbers would go a long ways for someone who'd innocently bought one to get you closer to the thief.

And we know you know the serial numbers or you wouldn't know any were missing.

Lost On Me

I have significant hearing loss.

I have tinnitus.

I am upgrading the speakers in The Beast.

Despite my disabilities, I can hear the difference to a degree.  Cleaner sound is cleaner sound.

But something about this journey makes me laugh.

Videos of "how to" in my car with before and after results.

They do sound different.

Through my hearing loss.

Through my tinnitus.

Through the tinny little speakers on my laptop...

From the crappy little mic on their cell phone they're using to record the video for YouTube.

Through the sound compression from uploading to YouTube.

There's no way you're getting the full impression of what's changed, you just get that it sounds different.

I am not dissuaded.  The 3.5" coax speaker for the center channel should arrive today.

I'll order the other 4 in pairs here and there.  I'm in no rush.

99% Of Facebook Car Group "Help Needed" Posts

"My car is doing something.  What's wrong?"

Kids, we need more information than that.

Most of the groups I'm in are cars that have significant diagnostic ability and a cheap, simple, scan-tool will tell us what trouble codes the engine is throwing.

More expensive scanners will also tell us what's wrong in other systems too.

Without those codes on a fully computer managed engine, we cannot help you.

Thanks in advance.

Not An Official Act

The President is likely not immune if they have SEAL Team Six snuff the Supreme Court.

He's only immune while performing official acts.

Acts that are sanctioned by the Constitution.

Commentators are getting absolute and presumed immunity confused.

Presumed is used the same way as "presumed innocent" here.

Happy Independence Day!

I'm getting as sick of people saying, "Happy Fourth of July" as I am of "Happy Holidays!"

It's Independence Day.

Saying "Happy Fourth of July" is like saying "Happy Eleventh of November!" or "Happy First Monday in September!"

It's not the name of the Gorram holiday.

So, be a rebel, call it Independence Day.

Two Years And Some Change

I wondered how long it would take before Glock switches would change the semi-auto pistols into readily restored machine guns.

Cam Edwards speculates too.

AR15 News mentions Mr Edwards article in the attached video.

Though I think that "restored" requires that it had to have once been made as a machine gun and isn't any more.  Without Chevron to let them lawyerize the word "restored" to mean "converted" we might just skate.

I think that "once a machine gun always a machine gun" is very vulnerable now since they pulled that right out of their asses.

It's Not LIKE They Cannot Read

They really can't read.

The Democrat floating the theory that the president could order a SEAL hit on the supreme court and be immune is missing something very important.

Impeachment.  Impeachment can carry more punishment than simply removing them from office.

Wiping out an entire branch of the government would seem to meet the "high crime" section of the prerequisites, no?

One might also hope for the SEAL team to say, "These are unlawful orders, aren't they?"

Even if El Presidente is immune from criminal proceedings for ordering a hit on SCOTUS, the SEAL team is not.

It's definitely a constitutional crisis level of speculation.

All of the above ignores an important factor.

If the president orders a hit on the supremes and it is carried out; immunity from prosecution is likely the least of their worries because it will be a signal that "it is on."

Break out the Hawaiian shirts and cue the "Boogaloo It Is" soundtrack.

Kitty Détente

Shadow does not flee at the mere sight of Beeper being carried past her now.

She did seek the place she sleeps as a shelter when Beeper was placed on the other side of a glass door, though.

Once she'd sheltered there, I opened the door and Beeper is roaming the house with all the doors open.

I expect some fur to still fly, but this is feeling more like normal kitty politics than the "You will DIE!" stuff we had for a while.

Beeper is very neurotic about Shadow.

We theorize that she was kicked out of her previous home because she couldn't adapt to a new pet and she's still carrying the trauma of being abandoned.

Bear?  The Bear abides.

When Beeper and Shadow get too serious, he will utter a growl that sounds like a GAU-8 and the girls STOP.

Bear does not want justice.  Bear wants peace.

The Plot Thickens

That air carried Standard SM-6 I mentioned a month ago?

It's got a designation.  AIM-174B.  That's an air-to-air missile.  The one pictured is inert, no warhead, no motor; you can tell from the blue bands.  I think this one is for separation testing.

The War Zone has a whole article on it.

Phoenix 2.0?

Primed

Stumbled across this link in a debate about .45-55 being a rimfire round.

The internal primer just makes them look like rimfire rounds.

But read that link, it's fascinating.

We Fear Change

Basic poverty keeps me from being an early adopter.

This has saved me from a thing or three.

Occasionally, I'm just late to the party.

I'd have bought a Colt 2000 or a Remington R51 the day they hit the shelves if I'd had any money at the time.

Happily...

Well, the gun rags are all a quiver about this new Rost Martin RM1C.

It's a plastic framed striker fired 9mm.

Again.

How many is it now?

It looks like a screaming deal with a sub-$500 MSRP.

But so's a S&W SD9 2.0, it's sub $400.

I'm jaded.

I've watched the new hotness come and go too many times.

I got a S&W M&P because they were the hotness, just in time for all the gunwriters to switch back to Glocks.

Nothing wrong with either.

There's prolly nothing wrong with the RM1C.

But I can also remember when the P320 was teh hawtness.  Then they started going off on their own.  Bet the Army is happy they skipped field trials, huh?

But I want this new gun to make it.  We need more successful American companies, not fewer.

We don't need American companies importing rebranded foreign guns neither.

Unnecessary Tech

I spent far too long trying to figure out why the shutter sound on my phone's camera wasn't working.

There's a switch for shutter sound that did nothing.

In the Multi-Volume tab there's a switch for "Auto-Mute" which "automatically mutes apps based on usage patterns."

What fucking usage pattern indicates that I want the shutter sound off when I have selected it to be on in the camera app?

I hate this trend of putting the settings for a single thing in 15 places.

Practical

Going from regulation to law is going to make some interesting practical changes.

The law says that the FFL cannot sell to a prohibited person.

The law says that a prohibited person cannot purchase or possess a firearm.

The law says that NICS has to be done 922(t).

The laws don't say what information has to be collected from the buyer.

The law would be satisfied with attesting that, "I am not a prohibited person," and submitting to NICS.

Here's where the wheels come off.

The law doesn't tell us how to tell one person from another when we submit to NICS.

Congress punted this to the regulatory agencies to figure out.

Now that punt is invalid.

They've got some work to do if they wanna keep their intrusive threads in the purchase of firearms.

Deregulated

With Chevron repealed and the wave of lawsuits coming...

It removes a lot of power from being concentrated in and around DC.

I wonder if this will cause the people snuggled up to the Federal teat to seek other centers of power.

It'd warm the cockles of my heart to see them get real jobs.

I'm Old Enough

I am old enough to remember the attacks against President Reagan because of his age and presumed mental decline.

Accusations that Nancy was really in charge.  Or VP Bush.

Where are these voices now concerning President Biden?  Where are the accusations against Jill?  Or Kamala?

I can see them here and there, but they're different voices.

They are not skits on Saturday Night Live.

They are not full page editorials in Newspapers.

They are not given significant air time on shows like 20/20 or 60 Minutes (are those shows even still on?).

Never mind that Ronnie's decline happened after he left office, it didn't happen noticeably while he was still president.

I had my doubts about Joe back in 2020, but footage of him talking then compared to now is stark.

A case could be made that the people putting him forward to run are committing abuse of the elderly and infirm.  A felony in Florida.

It staggers the mind.