OK NOW

 NOW you can decorate for Thanksgiving.

You may not decorate for Christmas yet.

Precision

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

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

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

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

Happy Halloween!

Halloween is our Christmas!

Diesel Mode

Crank up the speakers to hear her motor.

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

 

Reminiscent

This image of Mist:

Reminds me of this award winning picture from National Geographic:

It probably shouldn't, but...

Mist In Our Midst

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Lifers Done Fucked Up

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

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

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

I wonder if my ponderings had effect.

Spicy Diesel

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

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

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

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

Under Pressure

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Our Milton Refugee

We have an outdoor kitten.

Meet "Stripey the FEMA Kitty."

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

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

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

Shadow is VERY interested in the interloper.

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

We Only SAY We Hate Each Other

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

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

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

Taco Bell In Moscow

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

 

Got some altitude there!

Fat Amy Works

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

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

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

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

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

Not mentioned.

That's odd.

Because It Kinda Does

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

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

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

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

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

But wait!  There's more!

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

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

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

There we go!

6.5 Grendel now GURPS!

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

Alternate Range

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

No Shit There I Was

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

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

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

They weren't feeding correctly.

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

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

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

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

How they show damage works the same way.

MSR v SAR

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

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

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

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

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

Both terms are appropriate for the guns.

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

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

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

Mutter Mutter Mutter

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

Dur moment.

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

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

Lesson learned.

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

Second.

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

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

Rat fuck son of a bitch is what they are.

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

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

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

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

Third.

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

Three days of it behaving!  Eyes crossed!

Voting

Got our sample ballots today.

Seven choices for President.

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

I've only heard of two of each.

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

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

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

State Of The Alternates

Has it been a year already?

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

6.8 SPC

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

6.5 Grendel

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

.300 Blackout

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

22 ARC

2 loadings from 1 manufacturer.  2 coming soon.

6mm ARC

4 loadings from 1 manufacturer.  4 available. 

Update:

.30 AR

1 loading from 1 manufacturer.  1 temporarily unavailable.

6.8x43mm Surprise

Will it GURPS?

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

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

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

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

6" of wood is DR 6*

1.57" of concrete is DR 12*

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

I'm ignoring the water test.

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

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

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

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

I'd say it almost GURPS.

35% Raises

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

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

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

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

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

And people are actually surprised when quality drops.

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

Survival Is Inefficient

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

I wonder if the math is different now.

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

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

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

An America is $3.4b.  A Ford is $13b.

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

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

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

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

Ch Ch Ch Changes

Technomancer's Merlin-1 is an alternate history.

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

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

Merlin-4?

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

And it's a small change.

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

Funny New Guys

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The cat is a mountain lion or puma.

The coyote is what it seems.

The fox is a gray fox.

Hawks are likely red tail hawks.

Snakes are diamond back rattlers.

Spiders are red-leg tarantulas. 

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

Humans aren't furry.

Vietnam is wet and muddy.

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

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

I've considered a spider.

Because They're The Canaries In The Coal Mine

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

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

The Holocaust is a great example.

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

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

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

Not that I expect them to manage the task.

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

Analysis True

They're BAAAAAAAACK

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

US19 was choked with them today.

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

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

Someones Clearance Needs Revoked

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

I remember when leaking classified materials was a crime.

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

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

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

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

Obligatory

Today is 10-22, so we post the obligatory 10-22.

You've Got Your French In My German

I don't know where I came up with "hue and drang" but it appears that I'm combining stock phrases.

The hue comes from hue and cry.

The drang comes from sturm und drang.

I went looking for the etymology of hue and drang and discovered that it's found only on an obscure blog originating from Florida.

In other words, ME.

They're not even remotely related phrases in meaning!

The thing is, I am pretty sure I'm repeating someone else who said it enough for it to stick in my memory and become part of my vernacular.

Arthritis

Did some saber drills today.

My wrist hurts.

No surprise.  I'm old and arthritic.

A familiar burn is in my forearm.  Exercise is good, right?

Two Weeks

It seems strange that after four eight solid years of the press shitting on Trump that we're just two weeks from four more years of the press shitting on Trump.

It doesn't even matter if he's president-elect on November 6, 2024.

After all the sturm und drang about Trump for the past eight years, I am perfectly willing to accept literally Hitler just to get them to shut up.

I'm a party member, after all, and we get sent to the camps last.

A Quibble

In The Three Musketeers Planchet is not a squire.

Planchet is a lackey.

Despite the modern usage of the term as a toady, in the 1600's it's an honorable profession.

The amusing thing is that this came up during gaming once.

A player was looking for a way to make his character fit in and I suggested the job of lackey.

He initially balked, but I got to explain that it was much sought after position.

A noble gentleman without a lackey is less than whole.

Batman and valet are equivalent.

5.56 For Home Defence And General Looter Repellent

There's been a flurry of YouTube vids that have been suggested for my perusal about what is the best 5.56x45mm for home defense.

They're mostly focused on how the very affordable M855 isn't really all that good for social use.

It always mentions that M193 isn't ideal either.

I feel like I need to remind some of these pundits that 55gr M193 has killed more people than every other version of 5.56x45mm combined.

Both rounds work at social distances.  Even a barrel so short you have to call your AR a pistol or pay for a stamp will with either at the ranges you're going to see inside your house.

The main problem with SS109 and M855 rounds is indifferent quality control and the steel portion of the round not being precisely located inside the jacket.  That affects accuracy.

Many range forbid M855 rounds because they tend to chew up the back-stop or are a spark and fire hazard.

That sucks because it's affordable.

I prefer 69gr Sierra Match King for social purposes.

I would not, however, feel unarmed if I had to resort to one of the 1:12 twist retro guns firing M193.

PS: If one of the aforementioned looters makes me use my heavier-than-an-FAL M16A4 clone to repel them, they are going to die.  Even if I have to beat them to death with a flip-flop.  Gods I dislike that thing.  Even if it IS an accurate rifle, it's too gorram heavy.

Fair Weather Fans

It's no secret that I'm a Hockey fan.

The local team is having a bad couple games.

This had led to cries for the coach and goalie to be fired by people that I don't consider fans.

Players have bad days.

Coaches have bad days.

Teams have bad runs.

It's the nature of sports.

NIMBY

We have a "low barrier" homeless shelter near here.

It's on the grounds of a defunct assisted care living facility.

It's a bunch of one-room mini-houses and what I'd call FEMA trailers.

Joy.

What low barrier means is homeless people who are ineligible for normal shelters because of their criminal and/or drug histories.

It has a decidedly temporary appearance, and I hope that it is.

The people it's intended for are NOT good neighbors.

I am not sure if it's a coincidence, or not, that we had someone riding our doorbell at 0430 this morning.

That stopped when both Harvey and I lit up the window in the front door with our weapon lights.

I don't want that to become a regular occurrence.  Someone is liable to get shot.

Life Support

The AC was cycling off and on last night on The Beast.

Plenty cold, but at the desired temperature, it was alternating warm and cold.  Full cold would stay cold.

With the over computerized climate control system, that's a symptom of being a little low on Freon R134a.

So I hooked up my gauges and put my thermometer in the vent.

Running about 50psi low on the high side, 25psi low on the low side and 8 degrees warm at the vent.

So I added a little R134a and now the pressures and temperature are perfect!

I wonder how much this would have cost to take to a shop.

She Handles

We've a local road that's good and twisty.

I've long been the kind of hot-rodder that builds the car to handle rather than for the 1/4 mile.

Although all I've done handling wise to The Beast is fix the suspension, it's shown itself to be wonderfully sure footed.

The gigantic Brembo brakes from the previous owner's mods are a bonus to handling too.

Tonight I left a C6 Z06 in the dust on this twisty road.

He's a friend and he doesn't DO twisty roads from what I've seen.  He's modded his Vette to be very quick in a straight line and ignores the handling potential.

It means that I can get ahead and stay ahead despite fewer horses and more mass.

Once I'd gotten back on normal roads and set the cruise to 5 over, it took him 6 miles to catch up.

Bwahahahahaha!

For Entertainment Purposes Only?

Colion Noir tries to put a game face on it and insist on complete coverage.

But Donald really did say that guns are for entertainment purposes when he mentions the more important reasons.

Ooops.  That's a soundbite that we're going to be hearing a lot.

The thing is, he didn't really answer the question.

Explain his policies to the parents of the victims of school shootings.

I can explain it.

The reason your kids are dead is because people like the questioner demanded that schools be gun free victim zones where the criminal could shoot as many children as he wanted while the police impotently stand a safe distance away, in effect facilitating the murders.

That millions of Americans own guns that are identical to these murderous criminals is irrelevant to school shootings.  Millions of Americans don't shoot anyone every day.

Yes, I am getting fucking cold blooded about this.

It comes from being continually blamed for the failings of others.

High Middle And Low

Fantasy role-playing often has trouble with feudalism.

The games were written by egalitarian informed authors for an egalitarian audience.

Fantasy is right in the name of the genre.

Traveller is where I first noticed some of what I later learned.

Nobles in a feudal society can mete out justice without consulting a higher authority.  All the way up to and including the death penalty.

Only under very specific circumstances will their decision even be questioned, let alone challenged.  Judge, jury and executioner is the noble who can give justice high and low.

You get a lot for a simple dice roll in Traveller.  Your points can go a long way in GURPS, depending on if the GM has considered something I pondered a while ago.

The implications always hit me when watching The Four Musketeers when Athos, as the Comte de la Fere, sentences Milady to death without a trial.  He's empowered by his title to do so.

It's not really so clear cut in real life, there are, of course, rules for when a count can sentence someone to death.  Milady de Winter is a very clear cut case of someone, whom once caught by someone with the powers to do so, can be executed without trial because she's had her trial and condemnation years ago.

But in gaming...

A GM will have to spend a lot of time and effort figuring out the checks and balances of the society they've created and communicating it to the players.

I've played in several worlds where I understood the feudal power structure better than my GM and where they ended up deferring to MY judgement about it when they should have been telling be how their world differed from medieval France.

Beautiful Mess

The new, French, version of The Three Musketeers is beautifully shot, wonderfully acted, gorgeous camera work.

And it's a jumbled mess.

The divide the party and hopping back and forth needs more connecting tissue.

I found myself constantly focusing on remembering who is who and where they are and not paying attention to the closed-captions and having to rewind sections.

Reading a movie sucks, but this one is worse.

Worth the slog, but not twice.

Never mind the costuming and weaponry are about 100 years more recent than the setting...

Traveller vs Ogre

I've had a vision, in my head that an Ogre cybertank was the ultimate, invincible armored vehicle.

Without nukes they cannot penetrate the armor of a Third Imperium grav tank.

The fusion gun of the grav tank needs a lucky hit to penetrate the frontal armor of an Ogre mkVI, but it can.

If the Imperium uses proper combined arms tactics, and the Imperial Army normally does, then the most effective weapons the Ogre have will be nullified.

A battlefield nuclear damper field will put a... um... damper on the effectiveness of the normal nuclear projectiles from the primary and secondary guns.  Even without this protection, the VRF gauss gun on point defense mode is prolly sufficient to keep nukes from being effective.  The point defense X-Ray laser is even better at the job.

We'll just ignore the meson gunned artillery units that even the thickest bi-phased carbide armor can't stop.  A perfectly intact Ogre without a mark on it and no brain...

This assumes the Imperium wishes to land troops.

They could drop things from orbit.

Lots of rocks out there to drop from orbit.

The Emperor doesn't LIKE dangerously radioactive glass balls in Their Imperium.

Dangerously radioactive glass balls don't pay much in the way of taxes and are hardly a reward when you create a new noble and grant them a fief.

Again?

The Army is looking to find a replacement for the venerable Chinook.

Does SIG make helicopters?

They've been trying to replace the CH-47 since I was in the Army.  It never ends well.

Should Have Kept His Head Down

Apparently a criminal who hacked the Securities and Exchange Commission's X account got hissef caught by searching for, "How Can I Know for Sure If I Am Being Investigated by the FBI?"

Ooops.

It probably wasn't the Google search that got him.  They prolly were on to him and we know about the search from their monitoring.

A rare case of the FBI doing what we think we're paying them to do!

I Have A Better Plan

Failed Presidential Candidate John "Three Purple Hearts" Kerry considers the 1st Amendment a problem in combating "disinformation."

First off, WOW!

Saying the quiet part out loud that loudly is amazing.

Remember when Democrats were the staunch defenders of the 1st Amendment and the Republicans were the theocratic censors?

Me too.

But I have a 1st Amendment friendly solution to "disinformation."

Critical thinking.

I know we don't teach that in school anymore because people who are even passable with critical thinking are difficult to dupe.

Our current form of government simply cannot have a population that's difficult to dupe!

I'd love to see our public schools teach the Three R's for the first few years, with rigid pass-fail no-advancement grading; then progress to teaching personal finance, critical thinking and civics.

You want all that squishy, touchy-feely social studies crap: Go to college and pay for it yourself.

The public teat should only be dispensing useful citizens.

Beeep Weeeeet Booop Weet

I wonder how many times R2-D2 tried to warn people that Darth Vader was actually Anakin Skywalker before just giving up because only C-3P0 could translate and Threepio kept getting his memory wiped.

Why Do We Do It

It's been a topic of much conversation lately why do we Floridians live in a state that keeps getting hit with hurricanes?

That's why!

A perfect day.

We get a lot of them, actually.  Starting about this time of year and running into late spring, Florida has gorgeous weather.

In my 27 years of living here we've only had three storms that were noteworthy; here on the Sun Coast.  The typical named storm isn't as bad as a line of thunderstorms in the Midwest.  The Midwest gets one of those, at least, once a week.  Most of the named storms that hit Florida aren't above Cat 1, and people don't realize just how localized the damage is from bigger storms.

Ian devastated where it hit.  We didn't even lose power.  Milton was bad in Sarasota, but not so much here a mere 60 miles away.  Helene was far worse for North Carolina than here, despite being much further inland than I am!

In those same 27 years, the Midwest has gotten 27 winters.  The fun parts of winter are far exceeded by the bad parts and I am sick of the bad parts.  Yet I still own an ice scraper for my car...

Bleeding Hearts And Artists

I, sometimes, wonder if the accusations of fascism towards Starship Troopers is the thundering realization on the accuser's part that they would be excluded from citizenship.

Not many veterans in the Hollywoodland landscape or press rooms.

WE wouldn't get to vote or have any direct say in how the government was run?  But we're the highly educated (HA!  Not actors!) elite!  Any system that keeps US from being an actual elite must be fascist!

Even I would be excluded from the franchise, I took a medical before my term was completed.  I think, though, that if my vote was on the line I would have demanded alternate service for that last year (as is my right under the system shown).

I don't let it worry me.

I am constantly amused and worried that the things that are often cited in Starship Troopers as being fascist are present in our current mode of government, and the critic cannot see what they're doing.

So much for highly educated.

"Like most intellectuals, he's intensely stupid." -- Marquise de Merteuil

Stupid Idea

I am fascinated with the idea of an overhead cam, underhead valve engine.

And I don't know why!

Such an engine would suck.

It's still an interesting engineering exercise though.

ONE MORE TIME!

In my never ending quest to explain that the government in Starship Troopers isn't any more fascist than our very own...

Fascism is:

Any program for setting up a centralized autocratic national regime with severely nationalistic policies, exercising regimentation of industry, commerce, and finance, rigid censorship and forcible suppression of opposition.

First!  It's not an autocracy.  It's a representative democracy with a different eligibility requirements for both the candidates and the voters.  Not enough information is given in the text to determine how centralized government power is, but we can infer that it's not too different from 1959 USA.

No evidence is given showing that the federation is any more (or less) nationalistic than 1959 USA.

We have Juan Rico's own father as an example that the regimentation of industry, commerce and finance are decidedly not following fascism.

Emilio isn't a citizen.  He cannot vote.  He's, therefore, not a Party member.  Yet he owns a company that manufactures something.  He mentions, in passing, that his business is not on a war footing in a way that says that it's his decision.  He makes his own arrangements to leave the business to Juan should he not survive his eventual decision to join the Army; he even got to choose his own caretaker while he was away.

Free speech is mentioned in little different terms than we would in regards to censorship.

By the standards of the people attributing fascism to Starship Troopers, Stripes is also fascist!

Racism

The TLDW on this is the perpetrator blames the victims and police because they were racists.

Never mind the lengthy criminal histories of the siblings and extensive history of speeding, reckless driving and street racing.

The lack of remorse is a direct result of the race card working too well for too long.

There are racists in this case, and it's not the dead white people.

Scam

I've been reading in several places that the tank exchange places only give you 15lb in a 20lb tank of propane.

The local Home Depot wants $23 for an exchange and 3.6 gallons.

The local U-Haul sold me 4.5 gallons (18.5 lb.) for less than $17.

Because It Never Ends

It just hit me that we're three weeks from Election Day.

Almost snuck up on me.

Considering that it's been full campaign for...

For fuck's sake they've been in campaign mode since W was elected.

We used to get a couple of years off after every presidential election and the mid-presidential term House elections barely made the news.

Now it's all in all the time.

I want my peaceable years back.

Double Hurricane Reset

Going a couple days without the internet had the effect of making me remember there's lots of entertainment that doesn't involve being connected to it.

Despite using a computer to play the music, I've been sitting here doing pretty much what I was doing 40 years ago...

Listening to a playlist and reading a book.

The main difference is not having to have pre-made the mix-tape first.

Which means I need to actually get up, walk across the room, and remember what I wanted to blog about...

I find I've got a lot less material to blog when I'm not ramming my head against THE STUPID like I would be if I was scouring the intertubes.

Kinda relaxing.

Cover And Merge

Someone named Sable did a metalized version of "Just Dance" by Lady Gaga.

Someone else blended them together.

I rather like the result.

But They're Colonists Too

All the American Indian can say over us White people is they got here first.

They colonized the Americas from Asia over the Bering Land Bridge back before SUV's raised the sea level and made it the Aleutian Islands.

Humans are not indigenous to the Americas.  We did not evolve here.

Another thought about European colonization of The New World:

If it had not been for at least three back-to-back plagues (only one is European in origin) the Indians we're so concerned about today would not have existed.  They're the remnants of the survivors of those plagues.

Even more: Had it not been for Spaniards losing some horses, the plains Indian would never have risen to be what they were when French trappers and Voyageurs wandered into the area.

I doubt the horseless Indians of the vacant plains would have done any better than their Eastern relatives did against Western expansion.

I wonder, though, if the Aztecs would have collapsed on their own, or expanded North.

Prolly collapsed, they don't appear to have really recovered from the pre-European plagues.

Cahokia, for example, didn't survive to see the European diseases.  Their society collapsing is why the plains were vacant for the tribes which became the horse-based culture of the Plains Indian to occupy.

The Cahokia and similar societies are also, probably, why bison were so damn plentiful.  Like most agrarian cultures took a bat to the predator populations, leaving a relatively safe place for bison to breed.

Rowing My Own Or Not

Checking my records...  (read remembering).

I have had very few manual cars in my inventory.

I learned to drive on Mom's '76 Vega wagon.  5-speed manual.

The '73 Passat had a 4-speed manual.

The '83 Lynx had a 3-speed auto, first car with a locking torque converter!

Both Camaros rocked a TH-350, 3-speed auto.

The '86 Civic had a 4-speed manual.

The Biscayne had a TH-700R4 as a Caprice Classic and then a 4L60E later on.  Both 4-speed automatics.

The Precious had a 6-speed manual.

The Beast has a 6-speed automatic 6L80.

The Civic needed different gears than what it had.  I always wanted one between 2nd and 3rd.

Now that I'm old, I'm starting to appreciate the lack of pain from my left hip and knee in stop-and-go traffic.

I'm no good at being a car snob.

Better Make A FEMA Claim

Upon further review, we did not emerge from Hurricane Helene completely unscathed.

One of the downspouts failed, allowing the gutter to spew straight down.

We put a garbage can under it and it filled in about ten minutes from Milton.

I dropped the princely sum of $25 for a new section of spout and some straps to secure it to the wall.

As a bonus, it's finally being directed away from the patio instead onto it.  We should have fixed that years ago.

Build Sheet

We once sat down and figured out, exactly, what day in 1978 that Christine was destroyed.

It gave us no end of amusement to discover that was also the same day my 1979 Camaro Berlinetta was made.

I will be damned if I can remember that date, but it was funny at the time because The Silver Bullet definitely had a personality and she DEFINITELY hated Aunt The Bat (my girl friend at the time).

Ironically I sold her to Bat's boyfriend who let her languish.

I doubt he was aware of all the mods done to the suspension, and I hope he had to replace the brake pads on the rear.

Remember, I'd put a Jag XJ rear end under there...  I did not consider maintaining those inboard brakes when we did it.  I don't know if the calipers and pads were accessible without taking the entire thing back out.

After After Action

We're all put back together after Milton at Casa de McThag.

We even got our Halloween decorations up!

I felt bad that across the street is without power still while we have our garish lights on...

That bad feeling evaporated when several of our neighbors in the darkened section stopped by to tell us how relieved they were that we'd gotten our stuff out.

It turns out we're a local attraction that they look forward to seeing each year!

I am happy to be part of the healing with our display of normalcy.

Fucking Milton!

Because of the hurricane I missed Dead Che Day!

A victory for everyone everywhere!

57 years of being a good commie.

Yamaguchi Day

We've all thought about it.

 This one act probably kept Japan from going Socialist.

65 Years Of Sea Levels Rising

 

The angle is 90 degrees off from one shot to the other, but...  I ain't seein' no massive increase in sea level.

Are you?

Even better, the 2024 imagery shows that Bush Key has reemerged from the briny depths...

Checking stuff independently is how we counter the narrative.

Neither Is Front Page

The US just had two landfalls of some pretty massive hurricanes and neither is still on the front page of any, national, news site I've checked.

MSN was the only one that had any hurricane stories on the front page, but those disappeared when I shut off the location filter.  Isn't that odd?

I remember hearing about fucking Katrina for months.

Helene is already history and Milton a memory?

We're still digging out around here and, "Meh?"

Now The Floods

Most of the rain fell on places upstream from us, and it's flowing, or should I say overflowing, the river a couple miles from here.

It's crested already.

The roads that are closed every time it gets to this stage of flooding are closed.

We're well away from the flood area and not worried at all.

Prep Fail

I'm working on a GURPS character.

I forgot to copy the spreadsheet I'm using to the laptop from the NAS before we shut things down to save load on the UPS prior to the storm.

DOH!

If you're going to fail at a prep, forgetting an entertainment item is what you should forget.

On the plus side, I've learned how to silence the alarm on a Cyberpower UPS telling me that the power is off (I fucking know, you stupid machine) and all of the instructions for an Amazon Basics UPS call for more than one button or are just wrong about a double tap of the ONLY button does the trick.

We Have POWER!

We had a generator this time, so the return of the mains was a smaller thing than it might have been.

In fact, I was eating a waffle that The Lovely Harvey had just made... with an electric waffle iron, when the power returned.

Being the cynical Floridians we are, we waited nearly 20 minutes after the power came back before we shut the gennie down and plugged our stuff back into the wall.

Adding to the preparedness:  The in-laws have a generator now!  It was hard to find gas for it, but Home Depot had generators for sale and my father-in-law pounced on it.

He'd been borrowing Marvyn's spare Honda generator to that point and it felt nice to end that imposition.

He got to enjoy his new generator a whole hour before the mains were restored...

The new talismans list is to have ice in every cooler and a generator at every home.

Marv has two Hondas.  We have our Champion.  In-Laws have a... forgot the brand.

We're ready!

After Action Report

We've survived!

Power is still out, the trees the crew from Texas half assed cleared for Helene finished the job they'd started. 

The roof looks fine.  No leaks. 

The cute Halloween flags we hung on the fence gates provided enough wind resistance for then to force the latches. 

All in all, we came out fine.

Generator is making coffee and charging batteries as I swipe.  Cell phone connectivity only.

Is Same

Looking back at past and current hot-rods...

The '76 Camaro Type LT, affectionately known as "The Rust Monster" came to me with 235/60R14 tires.

The Beast has 235/50R18 tires.

That tickles me that they both have the same treadwidth; but are very different tires.

The Camaro's tires were 25.1" in diameter and needed 804 revolutions per mile.

The Beast's tires are 27.3" in diameter and need 740 revolutions per mile.

Too Soon?

I hear that the disaster response in North Carolina has been bungled so badly that even the dead aren't voting Democrat now.

Glad It's Not Me Sad It's Them?

Go hit someone else!

Ooooooh!  I hope they're OK.

Sitting here worrying about the people whom are getting the direct hit from my hoping that the storm wouldn't hit ME head on where I am...

Florida is strange that way.

Home And Looter Defence

Brenda and Valentine are the hurricane defense pair.

Brenda is handier, but Valentine has that extra couple feet per second and 5x magnification.

One is better at looters, the other better in the immediate AO.

I'm set for what comes, even if it's not as bad as originally feared in my AO.

Of course, if REAL looting happens, if I can see it, I can pretty much hit it.

Peace be upon Jack O'Connor.

A Talisman

In addition to me getting ice this time, Marv has made a plate of cookies.

It's worked before...

Optimism Increasing

At this moment, I am outside the cone of uncertainty!  Just barely.

With the track 36 miles farther north, peak gusts were expected to just get to 62 miles an hour, which we've survived before.

Still might be hard on trees and power lines, but I am thinking we're prepared for that.

Bonus!  We're expecting overnight lows in the high 60's afterwards.  That will make not having power a lot more survivable.

Confusing Guidance

Erin contacted me and wondered how to calculate her Droyne sport's mass.

The various sources mostly agree on the height range, but the definitive source for mass is GURPS: Traveller Alien Races 3 which does a good job of giving the height and weight, in 3e terms, for the standard sized Droyne.

The problem is the sport caste and warrior caste are bigger.

Sports are 50% taller.  Warriors are twice as tall.

I did some back of the napkin calculations and, assuming a constant form factor, got her a weight for her character.

4'-10" and 97.5 lb. (1.5m and 44.2 kg) using the stuff from 3e.

4e is not quite the same in the build chart.

Interstellar Wars says a Nugiiri (what the Vilani called the Droyne down rimward near Sol before everyone realized that all those enclaves of gray, bug-eyed sophonts were actually the same race, Droyne) should be 50% the height of a person, but using the ST 7 line ends up with characters who are too short for the racial range.

So I cheated.  They are 50% the average height for their ST+3!  That puts the height and weight in the correct ranges when you apply the skinny modifier.

Huzzah!  Solved for all time!

Well South

 

If this track holds it's as good as the news can get with this storm.  It keeps the surge out of the mouth of Tampa Bay.

It's bad news for people that have had too much of it lately, especially the Port Charlotte area.

Oddly, being on the North side of this storm is going to be worse for the winds thanks to the expected wrap around of shear and dry air causing disorganization to the South side of the storm.

We've been ordered to evacuate.  But to where?  With what?

I hate to break it to the local authorities, but we don't have the means to live anywhere but where we live.  We don't have the funds to plan a vacation let alone take an unplanned one!

But I know something the local disaster officials don't seem to.  The lay of the land.

We're not in a flood zone.  Our worry is wind.  We're not looking to get wind worse than Irma, which we survived just fine here, so...

The evacuation zones in Florida are clearly broken.  There's people who need to get out because of storm surge.  There's people who don't and they're both in zone A.

There's been ample evidence that the state and counties are not following their own rules for defining the zones thanks to regulatory capture from the insurance industry.

These zones have become politically defined not practically.

So people who SHOULD evacuate don't because they can see someone in the same zone who will be OK not evacuating.

They Come And Go

I once had three .45 ACP handguns...

Not anymore!  I sold the M&P 45C.

Now I just have, uh, three .45 ACP handguns.

Something's off about my math...

Cash Purchase

The place that I saw the .300 Savage, Shooter's World in Tampa, is teh suxxor for privacy.

I don't shop there very often.

They want your ID and phone number to make ANY purchase.  Regardless of how you pay.  And they are entering your info into their computer.

I don't know if they're actively sharing the data, but I've noticed that data collected is data shared by hook or crook.

There's so many places that, even if they ask for ID for ammo, are just glancing at your birthday and not entering anything on the computer.  Then they happily take cash.

Embrace The Suck

When you can't avoid the suck, embrace it.

Pretty sure this is gonna suck.

Putting It Out There

Saturday, Shooter's World in Tampa had several boxes of .300 Savage.

I, manfully, resisted and did not buy any.

I got some 5.56 ammo instead.

Slightly Better Track For Me

Going far enough south of me that our level of preparedness will suffice.

The problem is the spaghetti models are all over the place.

Eyes crossed.

It's Just Evacuation Once Again Running Away With Me

When we bought this place, we were Evacuation Zone C.  The border with B ran down the middle of my street.

West was B, East was C.

At some point, the line got moved to my fence in the back yard.

This year, I note, the line is in the middle of the next street East of me.

Our elevation above mean sea level did not change.

What changed was the flooding the next street West would get.

That was caused by developers WAY upstream from me putting impermeable houses and streets and drainage systems in that fed into the waterway downstream from me.

Exacerbating the problem was neglect in clearing the channels in the rivers that we drained into in the next county over.

And the local drainage system assuming that nothing had changed since 1969 when my 'hood got built.

Since 2019, they've addressed and fixed all that.

But since we had flooding that got within X distance EVER, we're downgraded.

I don't think we're gonna evacuate.

This doesn't look to be carrying the surge needed to get to us.

I can tell because I have a topographic map!

The people who make the zone boundaries don't.

There's places in that C zone that are lower than me and more directly attached to a waterway that could get water to them.

Hunkered Down

Got gas in Moxie and The Beast.

Got all our gas cans filled with gas.

Got the shutters on.

Even have a deck of cards.

Got 8 books left in a series I'm reading.

Got everyone's meds except Harvey's weekly shot and we don't need it until Friday.

Hopefully the Legos I ordered will show up tomorrow so I have them to build if the power's off.

I Am In This Picture

And I don't like it!

At least they're showing it Cat 2 or less at landfall now.

A lot depends on a cold front coming down from up North.

If it makes it in time, it shoves it south of where I am.

If it doesn't make it all, we get the rough stuff.

New Information

A while ago I speculated about why the T-64, T-72, T-80 and T-90 would, routinely, have catastrophic ammunition fires.

The Cheiftan has a chat about that.

The ammo scattered about the turret and basket unprotected and among the crew would do it.

Sons Of Vandals

There might be a shit ton of overlap on the Venn diagram about how the outlaw biker clubs got started, but the film The Bikeriders remind Harvey and I far more of the Sons of Silence than The Vandals in how they got going.

The book is most definitely about The Vandals.

The film doesn't seem to be.

Slam Fire

This is really me writing it down so I can remember it later.

Normal rate of fire fore a pump shotgun in GURPS 4e is 2xn.

Guns like the Winchester 1897 and Model 12 don't have a trigger disconnector so they will fire just by pumping the action.

That's RoF 3xn.

It's in the description of the 1897 in High Tech 4e on page 105.

Magic

Just like you can't play a character who's smarter than yourself, you can't portray technology past your understanding.

I've watched a lot of ultra-tech space settings where the GM kept presenting problems that would be definitively solved by technology listed in the game.

One of the most famous fiction examples is how Star Trek conveniently forgets all the replicator and transporter accidents.

The two most important words in science are, "that's odd," and NCC-1701 sure found a lot of them.

Not least of which is a fountain of youth.

Since I played Traveller the most, it's where I see tech concept blind spots most often.

You don't even have to get to Traveller TL 14 to make some of the errors and I blame Hollywood.

If you encounter a back-pack nuke ticking away, how do you disarm it?

Hollywood tells you that you have to find the red wire.

I says light it up with your rifle.

The explosives surrounding the core might still explode, but they will do so asymmetrically and no fission boom.  If it's a fusion bomb, you've made sure it's not going to get fusing.  You're going to have a problem with explosively scattered fissile materials now, but not near as spread out as if you'd let it go high-order.

Starting about Traveller TL9, they don't even bother with the fissile materials!

Gravitic technology is sufficient that you use artificial gravity to collapse your fuel to fusion pressures.

The minimum size to do this gets smaller and smaller as tech advances and for a bomb or warhead, you are skipping the hardware that siphons off power from the unit, and keeps it from exploding.  Exploding is the point.

But it shouldn't make them less susceptible to being bashed on to the point they don't work anymore.

Getting something to fusion is difficult.  Slight asymmetries cause failures to go boom.

How did I conceptualize all this?  Having a high-school education and being resistant to math when you have a, no shit, doctor of astrophysics and two people who do calculus for fun in your gaming group means your assumptions about a tech WILL be challenged.

Physics is, regardless of how you achieve them.  Traveller technology is astonishing on many levels.

How the meson gun MUST work is a terrifying level of control over subatomic particles.

But back to the Traveller TL 12 equivalent to a backpack nuke.  It's going to need a powerpack (some sort of super-science insane rate of discharge capacitor) to fire off the gravitic node that collapses the fuel, holds it for a swish then lets it go.  Ripping that pack off the side of the node-core means no-boom.  It might discharge spectacularly, but it doesn't detonate.

Likewise, a couple light armor piercing explosive rounds into the node will keep it from forming a symmetrical wave-front and no boom.  It might not be a good idea to stand next to it as it collapses from it's brief attempt to be degenerate and then fly apart again when the powerpack tries to fire the node...  But it will be a much smaller explosion than firing correctly.

But the point is... it's easier to keep nukes from going off than to get them to go off.

Ideally, you separate the powerpack from the node without the pack discharging.  Demolitions, Engineer or Jack of All Trades skill should get you there.  Mechanical or Electronic should get a roll with penalties.

Dangerous, no skill required, methods are chancy, but are better than letting a nuke go off.

Old Grognard

I, jokingly, commented on a Traveller session that Erin participated that the Aslan player's pronunciation of Trokh (Aslan primary language) was atrocious.

I said he had an atrocious accent, riffing on the old meme of someone not being able to speak French well because of their accent.

It hits me that I've been doing Traveller a LOT longer than they have.

I knew it was Trokh without looking it up.  Just as I know the most common Vargr language is Gvegh.

I started in 1979 with little black books and kept up with it through MegaTraveller.

I translated both LBB Traveller and Megatraveller to GURPS 3e.

Then GURPS: Traveller.

Then translating that into 4e.

Then GURPS Traveller: Interstellar Wars.

I corresponded with Loren K Wiseman when he was still Traveller line editor at SJGames.

I have watched the setting develop from nothing to the crunchy mass today.

I have not done much with Mongoose's version of the rules.

But the setting remains the same.

It amuses me that the Aslan's player has no idea who I am or how long I've been at it when they replied.

But I'm only teasing.  It sounded like he's got the essence of being an Aslan male in command from listening to the session.

Tricking The Technology

The internet is the phone here.  That's true most everywhere now.

When the power goes out, the internet provider provided box has a battery to make sure we can still call out.

That battery lasts for days.

But the box kills the internet after 15 minutes.

So we have the battery box plugged into a battery backup to make it think the power is still on so we retain internet.

This is paired with UPS's on the routers.

We got almost 2 hours of internet with a dying UPS.

I'd like to upgrade that capability.  I'd love to get 24 hours of up time without touching the generator.

Historocity

The 2023 version of The Three Musketeers (Part 1, D'Artagnon) is set in 1625.

There sure are a lot of flintlocks in 1625 France.

Even worse than on a c1600 Dutch privateer trading vessel (cough cough Shogun).

The weaponry in this new version of Dumas' work is decidedly 18th century, and so is the costuming!

There are ample paintings of many of the historical figures to guide the filmmakers...  But, nah!

17th century costuming is... elaborate (and expensive).

Even so, they missed on how elaborate the 18th century stuff was as well.  The 1988 version of Dangerous Liaisons is an excellent example of getting the costuming right.

But no, let's have everyone dress like a commoner from a century too late.

When Richard Lester does a better job with weapons and costumes...

But with that out of the way, was it any good?

I cannot say if the new version is closer to the book or not; it's been too long since I've read it.

I will say it was a good version of the story.  I enjoyed it a lot.

Eva Green did well as Milady.  Francois Civil was a decent D'Artagnon and Vincent Cassel a solid Athos.  Aramis and Porthos are present, but not prominent.

I liked it, and look forward to seeing part 2.

Rebuilding

The tried and true APC BX1500G battery backup lasted for two hours when the power went out on Thursday.

It appeared to come back to life on Friday but, alas, on Sunday it shut off and displayed error code F02.

I cycled the power and it appeared fine until early this morning.

Same F02 code at 0330, 0430 and 0500.

Time for something different.

We've had the APC for years and years.  I've replaced the batteries three times, the first time in 2013!

Wal Mart opened at 0600, and I got a replacement.

So far, this is our only casualty from the storm.

Branch Color

According to this page, purple is fair game for the magic branch in 1899.

I had planned to have the magic branch be purple with silver piping.  But reconsidered.

The piping color is the color of the branch they're assigned to.

Purple with yellow (yellow orange if you wanna get technical) for cavalry.

Purple with white for infantry.

Purple with red for artillery.

Purple with cadet gray for commissary.

Purple with emerald green for hospital/medical.

Purple with crimson for ordnance.

Purple with buff for quartermaster.

Purple with black for signal corps.

Branch insignia are a lightning bolt crossed with a star tipped wand.

There are a bewildering array of non-commissioned officer ranks that appear to be outside the chain of command, like specialist or tech ranks.

Commissary sergeant is a thing.

There were still color sergeants in the US Army in 1899.

Step Into The Light Already

Today is Jimmy Carter's 100th birthday.

You can quit now, Jimmy.

What Good Has Come From Them

Extortion and greed are all I see when I hear "union" and I fail to see any benefit to having them around.

As a customer of the places they extort, all I see is increased cost and decreased quality.

USW 8888 got a large raise and a 5-year contract in 2022; now we're hearing that they didn't do a significant amount of welding correctly.

Who won there?

The people who unload the ships are on strike on the east coast.

Who, besides themselves, is this helping?

They want MORE and can extort the entire nation to get it.

They're fucking everyone else.

Then their leadership donates to the Dems and...

Just not seeing the upside to unions for anyone not actually in one.

Triple this for anyone in a public employee union like teachers and cops.  Nowhere is the corrosive effect of union membership more visible.