30 January 2025

Ignurt

Still not coming across a simple, easy to game, break down of a Vietnam infantry platoon's deployment after contact.

It's frustrating because the organization charts I've found put the machine guns in a different squad from the riflemen and I am not sure how much the the squads keep to themselves or even how or if they are kept apart from one another.

It matters because the players should be a group that socializes together.

If they're all one big platoon and the squads are notional, then mox nix.

I was in tanks.  Our platoons are tiny, manpower wise, compared to infantry.

Our "squad" is a single tank and crew.  I know we hung out as a platoon not as segregated crews.

Is it the same for the grunts?

My main source for questions like this doesn't reply any more...  Hope he's OK.

Speaking Of De Oppressah

Trump, apparently, is the harbinger of LGBT genocide.

I keep hearing it repeated uncritically and something stands out:

If there was much, if any, violence against LGBT people the press would be all over it.

We know this because they were all over the fake violence against them.

It's like when they drop reporting of a mass shooting because the perpetrator wasn't a straight white dude.

I have also noticed that there's a massive misunderstanding about why people are upset about children being introduced to sexualization at young ages.

It's being ignored that these parents are objecting to teaching kids about straight sex so young as well.

I've done something that I don't think some of the LGBT side has done.  Looked at some of the so-called banned books.

Aside: If they were banned why were they so easy to find and read?  Being able to make a display in your book store with rainbow colored lettering saying "BANNED BOOKS" means they are not actually banned.

Age restricted is the phrase you're looking for here.

Several of the banned books I've looked through are porn.  Some as low level as a tawdry romance novel.  Some with graphic, but cartoon, illustrations.

Some are simply inserting same sex relationships.

But the LGBT side went to the mat to keep the porn.  Demanded that they be made available to children who aren't going to understand what they're looking at and didn't bat an eye about equivalent straight-sex materials being banned from school libraries.

They don't even try to advocate that ALL positions be taught, just theirs.

That alone raises my generally pro-LGBT ire.

It is often forgotten that knowledge is built from small parts eventually assembled into a whole.

I've tackled the task of explaining history to fairly young people in the course of gaming because I often do alternate histories.  The first presentation of history must be simplified, and sanitized.  More detail (and nuance) gets added later as they can begin to understand it.

And some things they just aren't going to grasp no matter how simple, because they don't know what they don't know.

Sex is even worse than history.

And the same because if you start their education with bias and lies, they end up being biased.

And THAT is why the parents are up in arms.

And we don't believe the innocence of the teachers because we watched them lie to our kids during the Wu Ping Cough lock-downs.

I've Noticed Something

I've a few liberal acquaintances who are extremely pro-choice.

The reversal of Roe v Wade has them really pissed off.

They all have something in common.

Stable marriage and no kids.

Something else in common:  When I ask how did they manage to stay married so long without having kids, they don't mention getting abortions.

So I then ask, "why can't everyone use your methods to avoid having unwanted kids?"

That's when I get yelled at.

It always puzzles me, because they know I'm not exactly a staunch supporter of the pro-life side.

29 January 2025

Parts Is Parts

Thanks to feline assistance the "?" on DerpyPuter (a System 76 Gazelle (gaze10) aka Clevo W650RZ) is no longer attached.

The little tabs on the key are broken and no longer hold onto the cradle.

Parts for this computer are a little thin on the ground, but I found a whole new (US layout) keyboard from Poland for about $30.

It will be here this month, I am assured.

I found a different company that will sell a new key and cradle for $18 shipped.

If the Polish board don't work, I will try that.

Today I removed the board and put it back in to prove the guide I'd found was correct.

It was!

I had a moment of panic because I had a spare screw at the end.

Nothing I did, one of the fan mounting screws must have been loose.  "Spare" screw returned to its hole.

Perspective

My tiny little house was $70k in 2004 when we started our mortgage.

I think of it as a $70k house.

That means when we get a bill for near $6k for things like the duct work, I see it as a 8.5% the value of the house and balk at it not adding value commensurately.

But it's NOT a $70k house any more.

Zillow thinks it's $174k now.

The county is taxing us as if it's worth $152.5k

So the ducts were closer to 4%.  That fits into "maintenance" rather than "modification" in my brain.

It's strange to be tossing these big numbers around.

Oh, the new ducts do seem to be doing their job.  There's that!

Fall By Wire

I noticed something in this vid of the F-35A crash in Alaska:

The control surfaces are not moving.  Even if the pilot ejects, the flight control computer will still try to keep flying and those surfaces should have been moving all about in the attempt.

But they're fixed here.

Next year when the report comes out, I think we're going to hear about a flight control failure.

Adulting

I am not following today's leg of Sick Week because I am standing by to translate for the inlaws to the tech from our ISP.

Their internet has become unreliable and I am sick of talking to the drone in India and going through her slow paced troubleshooting script.

Absolutely fed up.

And even if you tried all that before you called, you have to do it again at 1/3 speed with them on the phone.

What's the definition of insanity again?

The worst part is we've been here before with them.

It's the ONT.

The internet at my house did the exact same thing two years ago and after repeated calls they gave up and finally sent out a tech who got it fixed in about an hour.

This time I went off on the drone and told her to send the damn tech and she was, "we need to do some troubleshooting..."  To which I screamed, "NO!  We did that yesterday to get 16 hours of restored service, your tech can troubleshoot to his heart's content when they get here!"

28 January 2025

Round Fivish

The CMP just announced that it's resuming 1911 sales.

The round four people will be taken care of in the order of their randomly generated number.

Then the remaining pistols will be sold on a first come, first served basis.

$1,300 for Service Grade

$1,200 for Field Grade

$1,100 for Rack Grade

$1,150 for Range Grade

They're up a bit since round one.

Power Tour

My body is ready!

Pretty short tour, 567 miles.  Except for the drives to and from the start and finish points 2,700 miles round trip.

I wanna, very badly.

27 January 2025

K2 Magazines

I've been looking around and, near as I can tell, Korea is still using the old gray body magazine we had so many troubles with.

That makes me remember that when I first got into AR's, I had a bunch of black-follower M16 magazines that worked just fine in the DR-200, but discovered would not feed the last three rounds in Kaylee.

We found this was consistent.  Magazines that didn't work in an AR still worked fine in the Daewoo.

I wonder why.

26 January 2025

Counterintuitive

I have a suggestion for the DoD with regards to acquisitions.

Every program must have two different designs that get made.

It seems wasteful, two programs MUST be more expensive than just one, right?

Well, it's how we used to do it.

It keeps both parties honest about what things cost, in general, and if one program turns into a money sink you can dump it for the one still running.  This was the most common outcome.

"But didn't we do that with the Little Crappy Littoral Combat Ship?" I can hear you ask.

It's the exception that proves the rule.

If neither contractor can make it work then the problem is the specification, not the design.

Sometimes you get two excellent items that compliment each other and dispersed production as a bonus.

T2K Nostalgia Intensifies


 I have always thought that bullpup guns looked neat.

The Royal Army's L85 has always tugged at my imagination.

Pity that the actual gun is kind of a dog and for reasons beyond the configuration.

George Bush Sr kept a semi-auto version from being imported and lots of us sighed in relief when the stories about build quality and reliability started pouring in.

But the wants don't care about practicalities.  Do they?

25 January 2025

Pic From Daytona

 Going about 90 here and not catching up with Marv much...

Marv got his pics too, he cropped his down a bit.



24 January 2025

It's Important To Have Goals

It has been three years since I have driven a car into a tree.

Pyrates

Chugging away at George MacDonald Fraiser's Pyrates.

I am enjoying this so much more than the Flashman books I've attempted.

I knew he could write something I'd like!  Because I'd enjoyed "Quartered Safe Out Here."

But it was striking me as familiar...

Then it hit me!  Nick Pollotta used a style very similar to this in his Bureau 13 books.

It's fun.

DeDucted

Here's my old duct work.

Notice the smushed one?

New plenum boxes installed, new ducts, new distribution thingy.

Heat is on and we went from 68 to 70 in less than half an hour.  That took about an hour before.

Now that everything is properly sealed we notice a lack of sounds in the garage too.

This cannot help but help with the power bill now that we're not heating or cooling the attic any longer.

Next thing up there is to blow in some fresh insulation.

Not Wired For It

Winter things I notice in Florida that were invisible in Iowa like a fish doesn't notice the water.

Florida doesn't have coat hooks.  We so rarely need coats.

Hardly any place has a double door entrance to help keep the heat in.

This just doesn't come up very often here.

Pedant

A charging handle is something that charges the gun, and doesn't move except when being pulled by the operator.

If it moves with the action it is a bolt handle.

If you used the terms correctly you wouldn't have to mention if it reciprocates or not.

False Equivalence

Something I'm seeing from my LGBT friends is an increasing frenzy about how Trump's election will affect them.

The core of it is coming from the extreme end of their political spectrum and it stems from a false equivalence.

Refusal to advocate for something is not the same as suppressing it.

These people wouldn't know suppression if it bit them in their ass.

What they're complaining about, mostly, is they don't have the ear of the people in power any more and their demands will not be transmitted uncritically to the masses now.

Now they have to convince people on the merits of their arguments.

Which, I remind them, worked when the topics of right to exist at all and being able to marry.

I also point out that they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory by inviting groomers into the tent.  That mistake will be costing them for decades and it's going to have a negative affect on a lot of people who've no interest in distorting children.

Way too many groups do this.

They win their fight and then realize that the prestige, money and power that came along with leading the fight goes away with the fight.

So they start another one!

Mothers Against Drunk Driving is a great example as well.  They got enforcement up and enforcement based on a scientifically provable level of impairment from blood alcohol levels.  And it worked!  Rational people saw the increased enforcement and either stopped drinking before they got to 0.10 or didn't drive if they did.  After a, brief, spike in drunk driving arrests the cops found there was nobody to pull over.

Faced with the loss of power, they got the BAC reduced to 0.08 in most places.  0.08 is not impairing for nearly everyone.  A driver at this BAC isn't impaired and isn't a real danger (as long as they stay off their phone).  Now people are resentful of the enforcement because it's targeting people who aren't impaired...

OK

Florida's HVAC market is jacked compared to everywhere else that's reported in.

Yes, the prices are appalling.  Especially compared to places where AC is a luxury not life support.

The licensing requirements are steep.

The state and county regulations are numerous and hostile.

So my ducts will seem to be very expensive if you live in a more permissive location.

There's also the trust factor.  Do I trust the company that's doing the work?

In my case, yes.  They've dealt with me honestly in the past.

We've already experienced the shady side and we're willing to pay more for someone who will actually answer the phone when we need warranty work done.

We haven't even scratched what the federal environoweeny regs will be doing.

If you haven't had your HVAC done in the last few months and are expecting it to be like it was 10 years ago, be braced for a bit of a shock.  $2,000 systems are near $7,000 now because they can't just use refrigerants that work, they have to be under patent or they will destroy the ozone layer.

I'm still waiting on the explanation about how a heavier than air gas gets up to the ozone layer.  I'm also waiting for an explanation about how a gas that breaks down into harmless sub-components when exposed to sunlight survives the climb as well.

Freon just... can't do what the alarmists say it did.

Speaking of things with low probability:  How did all that CFC in North America not create an ozone hole at the North Pole?  Most stuff stays on its side of the equator and the southern hemisphere is way behind the northern for emissions.  Yet smoke stays up north, but CFCs damage the south?  Pull the other one, it has bells.

23 January 2025

I Feel Like An Adult

This has proven so very hard to phrase to my liking.

Our duct work needs replaced.  It's causing an excessive pressure differential and that will kill the AC system prematurely.  This is spending money to save money later.

We misunderstood that the tech told us last year and "$1,000 per vent" became "$1,000 for the whole job."

So we saved up that $1,000 and were shocked to learn that the job was really $1,250 per vent and $600 for a new plenum box for the air handler.

It needs done, and the company offered financing.

Being responsible all these years finally paid off with improved credit the other day and we were approved for the $4,600 balance.  I am as shocked as you are!

Harvey is handling the details.  She's the financial person here.

It's strange that we can do this now.  Like adults do things.  It's weird!

PS: This is a second attempt at what I was saying in the deleted "Clinched" post.

The JMB Collection

Braved the cold to show off the "Touched by JMB" collection.


L->R

Colt 1908 Pocket Hammerless (.380 ACP)
Colt 1908 Vest Pocket (.25 ACP)
FN 1905 Vest Pocket (.25ACP)
Colt Challenger (.22 LR)
Ithaca M1911A1 (.45 ACP)
Colt Gov't Model (.38 Super)
FN Hi-Power (9x19mm Parabellum)

Um Yeah

TikTok being cut off with just a few clicks of some buttons is proof why we should never go to full digital currency.

-The Roediger Report

Why Isn't This A National Holiday

Happy birthday to John Moses Browning!

I only own a couple examples of his work, but they're among my favorites.

 I'd not hesitate to buy more.

22 January 2025

Finish Line In Sight

My mortgage is now 21 years old!

I bought it a drink.

Since we've been adding a little principle every month for a while, our 30 year mortgage is prolly a 26.5 year.

Feels good to be getting there.

I Liked My DR200

I used to have a Daewoo DR200 which was a thumbhole stocked, semi-auto version of the K2.

I changed out the stock for one from ACE Ltd.  It was still fixed because AWB, and appears to be a surplus M249 stock adapted over to the DR200.

This gun never failed me.  It would even feed from worn out USGI black-follower magazines that wouldn't feed in an AR!

It departed the collection when a friend was willing to trade it for an exhaust system for The Biscayne SS and I was changing my 5.56 needs over to AR's.

A huge factor in being willing to let it go was a complete lack of spare parts.

I have a soft spot for the K2 and I'd be interested in seeing what SNT Motiv is going to be charging, especially since the tooling has to have been completely amortized since 1985.

I Knew It From Before

Some very smarter than me people have been doing some calculations on napkins and have noticed that there's not enough lithium and copper to make all the batteries and motors to make enough electric cars to replace all of the gas cars.

They report this as a problem.

The people advocating the mandates to change to EV's see this as a feature.

Mobility is a bug to them.  They want you where they can find you.

Ever notice that you can't anonymously charge your car?  Think about that "feature" for a while.

I Happen To Know A Lawyer

I sent the contract from Tru Vet Solutions (TVS) to a friend who's a lawyer.

Harvey and my reading of it was pretty much spot on.

I am obligated to pay them if my disability is increased.  Even if the VA spontaneously ups it outside of any action TVS takes.

They are obligated to let me hire their in-house doctor that I am obligated to hire and obligated to pay.

That's it.

Seven pages of them telling me what I'm going to pay them and not a sentence of what they're going to be doing for the money.

Fred noticed that all of the paperwork and filing is still my job.  While having help getting the correct form and filling it out is handy, he says ANY lawyer can do that and there are numerous acredited, legitimate, law firms who specialize in doing that.  For relatively small fees no less!

No I will not be signing that contract and I would advise my fellow veterans to do likewise.

Filed under: If it sounds too good to be true...

21 January 2025

So Much For My Credit Rating

I don't have the budget for this, but the wants are VERY strong.  I'd tell people it was an M17.
 

That Sucks

The 1969 model garage door decided to bind up and that caused me to overload the garage door's motor repeatedly trying to troubleshoot the problem.

That followed Harvey repeatedly stabbing the button trying to get it to close this morning.

We released the smoke.

Ironic that:  It's a Genie door opener.

Genie still sells the motor, though they no longer sell their trademark screw drive openers.

Home Depot still carries their screw drive units.  Comparable in price to the motor for the dead one...

Couched Lance

Lances.

They do thr+3 imp damage.

A stout knight with a ST 12 will do 1d+2 imp.

That's just him stabbing with it.  This is all you can do with a heavy spear without stirrups.

If he has stirrups and can couch the lance he can then charge with his ST 24, Move 7 Warhorse he can get trucking at a move of 8.

Figuring out the damage for this is (Horse's ST)*(Move Last Turn)/100.  This is 24*8/100 or 1.92 dice.

Or, 2d.  Add the +3 as well for 3d-1 imp.

That looks better!

1d+2 will average a hit of 5 and will deal 10 to an unarmored opponent.

3d-1 will average a hit of 9 and will deal 18.

A Napoleonic or Uhlan lancer use a lighter, faster horse with ST 22 and Move 8.  22*9/100 or 1.98 or...  The same 3d-1 imp.

That assumes the horse is in no-encumbrance state.

The example armor for a 15th century German Ritter is wearing 46.7 lb of armor and the horse has 54 lb of barding.  Plus the 150 lb Ritter, 6 lb. lance and 30 lb. saddle.  That's a total of 286.7 lb. of gear.

A heavy warhorse has a basic lift of 115.  286.7 lb. of gear is 2.49x the basic lift putting us in medium encumbrance and that changes the move from 7 to 4.

Charging speed of 5 results in a straight 2d imp.  That's an average hit of 7 and 14 dealt.  Better than just poking at them, but...

A lancer is not carrying near the mass of armor!  The Uhlan lancer is lugging a lot of gear nonetheless.

273.6 lb of rider and gear on his horse's basic lift of 97 lb.; 2.82x or medium encumbrance which makes the horse's move 4.  Charging speed of 5 gives 2d-1 imp.  That's an average hit of 6 for 12 past the armor.

Car Salesmen

I hesitate to name them because they obviously employ lawyers...

I got approached by a company that purported to be able to increase my disability rating and had a 95% success rate.

The first warning was how insistent they were with emails to get the documents from the VA and relay them to them.

The second warning was their contract.  It's full of my obligations and very light on theirs.

The next warning is the same barrage of emails directing me to sign the contract they sent.

Then the phone is ringing out of my pocket and bongs from the texts are getting insistent.

NOW I have an email warning me that the contract they sent expires on the 23rd.

I'd been trying to research them from before I got the contract but the terms of the contract really got me plugging away with my google-fu.

They're a class of company that will give you some basic guidance in getting the paperwork in your hands and telling you how to fill in the boxes.

They put you in contact with their doctor and you get to pay that doctor!  What sports!  The $350 teaser for the medical phone consult invariably turns into a series of examinations that often go north of ten grand.

I don't go in for high pressure sales tactics.

Further, what they are doing is directing you to commit fraud if you will let them.  Ultimately it's YOU filling out the paperwork and attesting to the veracity of the claim.

No, I don't think I will sign that contract.

20 January 2025

The View From Two Cars Ahead

Adam, driving my old '91 Caprice with a '96 LT1 in it...



You're Not Allowed To Pass The Pace Car

Click to embiggen.


The pace car is supposed to keep us heathen hot-rodders from exceeding the mandated 55 mph speed limit for the event.

Yeah...

That pace car took off and C8 Z06's were struggling to catch the fucker!

Speaking of C8's...

I walked away from one and the person behind him was behind me once we entered the road course section.

The C8 in question with the SUV that eventually caught up with me marshalling in the back straight.

It's my understanding that a stock Caprice PPV should not be able to do such things.  The driver must have choked.

The road course is WAY more fun that doing laps of the NASCAR set up.


I have a bunch of stuffed animal "beasts" on the parcel shelf in The Beast, they were FLYING back and forth in the mirror and I was giggling about it.

Sport mode is excellent for this work and it's really good at predicting what gear I'm going to be wanting from how I'm stabbing, steering and braking.

There is no evidence that I got to 90 trying to catch up with Adam and Marv going through the start-finish line.

Pics coming as soon as the track gets them posted.

MLK Day

It's in January because Martin Luther King Jr was born in January.

But his birthday was the 15th.

I don't object to honoring the man, but if you're going to base it on his birthday, then HAVE it on his birthday!

"But then we don't get a three day weekend, and sometimes we don't get a day off at all!"

Yeah, suck it.

Because if the point is to honor him then it shouldn't just be because it's a three day weekend.

And it's JUST a three day weekend to most people meaning it's completely failed to do honor to Mr King.

This is why I argue with people who complain about where Independence Day and Veteran's Day fall.  Those dates are picked for a reason and reducing them to a three day weekend cheapens the honor.

Look how diluted Memorial Day is.

19 January 2025

Places That No Longer Exist For 600

The Biscayne SS was, originally, the chief of police of Carlisle, Iowa's car.

He got the department to get him a cushy Caprice Classic instead of a spartan 9C1.

Wright Chevrolet was the dealer the department bought the cars through, logically enough.

I stumbled across the badge I removed years ago.

There is no longer a Wright Chevrolet in Carlisle, Iowa.

There is no Chevy dealer at all in Carlisle, Iowa.

That is a bummer and I have the sads.

David Freiburger loves pictures of this kind of thing.  I think he mourns for the loss as well.


Bimmer

Thanks to a conversation with Technomad I am thinking about Motorad BMW.

The pictured R65 is not the bike the Bimmerkundt rode when I was, initially, on an AMF Sportster or VF500 Interceptor.

Post-service I was a Suzuki person on a GS500L.

I'm happy at the half-liter level.

I can almost see myself with an R65.

The Bimmerkundt rode something like an R90S or R100.  They shunned a simple, normal riding position bike like the R65.

Now, I wonder if such things are even remotely affordable.  Ebay don't seem to have any listings...

Affordable?

I guess "affordable" is, yet another word that means something different to a lawyer than humans.

$1,800 for an "affordable" BUL Armory EDC 2011 pistol. <- YouTube link

This reminds me of when the hot rod magazines would say, "budget build" then drop $6k on a motor in the mid-90's.  That's $12,350 in today's money.

Budget.  Yes.  The Pentagon has a budget too.  I think I understand...

These words don't mean "costs less!"

$1,800 for a pistol they're still making?  With no historical provenance?

Is it better than a Glock 19?  More apt, is it better than a Glock 19 and 5,000 rounds of ammo?

Because after firing 5,000 rounds of ammo, I'm going to be pretty fucking good with that Glock.

Charity Road Trip!

 

Beeper has completed her inspection of the freshly washed Beast.

Everybody wave at Harvey!

I'm off to Daytona tomorrow to make a, slow, run of the road course.

License to Drive, $50 online or at the gate.  It's for charity, maybe you should swing by!  People bring their normal cars too.

Brandon Got His Gun

 

 

h/t FuzzyGeff

The Vette Gets 'Em Wet

$33k for an '87 Chevette 4-speed with 47 miles on the clock.

Plus the auction fees...  10% buyer premium, $300 for a bidder's ticket...

18 January 2025

The Difference Between Florida And California Car Culture

 



Magery Zero

I just noticed (after years of playing) that Magery 0 allows you to cast spells in a normal or low mana zone.

That's the important distinction from knowing a spell and not being a mage.

No magery at all means you need high mana or more to cast the spells you know.

I never knew I could learn so much in one day... Now! To retain it!

How Do They Keep It Classified

Technomancer says that invisibility is a classified spell.

Checking the spell charts says that ANY five light-dark college spells and blur are the prerequisites for invisibility.

That tells me that the keystone spell for figuring it out is blur, which isn't classified.

Which makes me think that lots of people have figured it out and it makes me wonder what lengths The Government™ will go to keep it secret.

Especially when there's one-college only mages in the light-dark college who have nothing else to do but tinker with the only college they can work with.

I wondered about it when FuzzyGeff noticed the TVTropes page mentioned invisibility was classified and we confirmed it by looking it up in the main book.

It's just an incredibly useful spell for combat and, seemingly, easy to discover that I speculated that some dude figures it out and gets support from his chain of command to cast it operationally.

Some dude would need a fairly big powerstone to do his squad and their carpet to come in and flank the NVA while the rest of the platoon distracts them.

Prolly Just Me

Nothing makes me really look into a published setting like finding there's a TVTropes page for it.

There's a LOT about Merlin that the GM will have to fill in for themselves and the players.

The further I get into it, the more convinced that my vignette about Rhodesia for this world fits in without making an alt.

I'd forgotten the Argentinean Nazis completely as a change from Homeline...

Tech Support For Septuagenarians

The internet went out at the inlaws.

Except for the two days that Harvey works from there, they don't use it for much.

But if Sling is down...

They might miss their shows!

It's funny because Marv and I set them up to get broadcast TV not all that long ago.

Amazing what becomes "essential" isn't it?

I got them to the point of, "nothing more to do without calling the ISP."

They did and immediately called Harvey saying tech support was speaking in tongues.

Knowing that it would be tongues to her too, I went over to talk to the tech for them.

It's frustrating when tech support runs you through ALL of the steps you'd already performed to determine that the problem might be with them.

A reset of the router and the ONT did the trick!

Next task is being available to help Willard get a new phone.

17 January 2025

Curiouser

1975 is not the manufacturing cut-off date for C&R firearms.

That's 11 years of production of the AR-15.

There's some thoroughly modern guns that are C&R now!

Several of my collection have made the transition!

What Marv Is Doing

It's the 25th annual Treasure Island Kite Festival!


RWR Delete

The mirror mount makes the radar detector vibrate in the corner of my eye and the misophonia picks it up.

The mass of the shaking detector also shakes the mirror.

I think I'll fall back a couple yards and punt.

Last Shots

Mist the Stripey FEMA kitty is now fully immunized!

She doesn't like the vet's office.

She dislikes it enough to hide behind me.

She's in perfect health except for being deaf.  The vet says she's got scarring on her eardrums and the deafness is probably from the ear infection she was rocking when we took her in.

She's a lucky kitty to have selected us!

16 January 2025

Broken Thy Name Is Government

I am trying to get my VA login changed so that I can actually access things.

Gods forbid they leave the system alone, but it was working so I guess it needed another coat of paint.

I made the account.  Easy.

Click verify...  Goes to a page, tells about the process and never starts.

Go to the VA medical side, use the login, it demands to verify...

Upload pictures of my driver's license about ten times.  No Bueno.

Suggests that I can do it in person at a post office.

Yes, I want to get up early and do that.

No life outside bankers hours for me!

Oh, and it's not something they can just DO.  You have to get a bar-code from the verification web page and they'll give you a time restriction to get to the post office.

Oh joy!

PS: I did finally get to the document that started this adventure!  Hurrah!  There's not a damn thing on it that needed to be encrypted so well.  Booooo!

Not That I Object

I've ranted on the combat wheelchair before...

But I need to make clear why.

It's not because I think the disabled should be denied mobility.

It's not because I think the disabled shouldn't be as mobile as any able bodied person.

It's because of the gross anachronism of it.  Such things didn't really exist until after WW1.  Yes, there are examples that qualify, here and there, going back centuries, but the form used in the mini didn't.

The modern wheelchair simply should not be invented in a fantasy setting.

Even so, being in a wheelchair would still preclude you from doing much adventuring, just like they're very limiting in normal, daily, activities today.

The combat wheelchair is a special effect.  Your character is not impeded in any way if you have your combat wheelchair.  You can go anywhere an able bodied person can go.  Up stairs, across a tight-wire, through a moat.  No limitation to movement.

That's better than modern chairs!

I've said bullshit and seen others do so.

The reply from the inventor is that magic is how it works to be better than a modern chair.

Fine.

But part of my rant is that the magic used to make that chair could also restore the crippled person to full function.  It could be used to prevent or reverse birth defects too!

Then there's The Gods.  Even if a magic user can't, The Gods can.

You don't need a wheelchair if you can walk.

Just A Little Short

Bob Uecker has left the chat.

Didn't quite make it to 100.

Story of his life...

Comics Bankrupt

THE distributor for comic books, Diamond, has declared bankruptcy.

That's a bummer because I have so many fond memories of comic books.

But I haven't actually bought a comic book for a very long time.

Just a graphic novel here and there.

I have, in my box, the start of several new titles.  Maybe 10 or 12 issues that just... stop.

I see books on the shelf that look interesting and see that we're on issue 150 and realize that I need 149 back issues so I put it back.

I've been burned on buying  based on the cover (and thanks to those baggies you can't look inside pre-purchase) and finding I didn't like the art inside or the story wasn't related to the cover.

It's the culmination of small things that led me to stop spending my hard earned on comic books.

It would appear that I am not the only person who'd gradually tapered off their purchases.

It makes me sad.

Especially with the gaming side of the comic shop being in upheaval as the companies who make the games seem determined to drive off over half of their customers by virtue signalling an ever more fractured side.

I really hope that both industries survive and recover, but they're going to have to do something they, presently, hate:  Return to mass appeal.

It occurs to me, after seeing the combat wheelchair for a Pathfinder mini, that since GURPS has "no-legs" listed as a disadvantage it could not be written in the current political environment.  How dare you abilists declare that having no legs is a disadvantage!  Prepare the effigy of Steve Jackson for burning!

Comms Down

Good thing I got Willard's phone a new battery, installed it, charged it and prodded him into picking it up.

Because it still doesn't take calls.

Emails disappear into the void.

Messages left with the daughter don't appear to be relayed.

Can't get past the gate at the gated community.

I am thinking I am being told to leave someone the fuck alone.

Message received.  Dang it.

15 January 2025

Odd Overlap On The Venn Diagram

In pursuit of gaming stuff I do some odd searches.

Got a suggestion for "slowest way to kill yourself".

Turns out, just doing what you're doing right now is, in fact, the slowest way of killing yourself.

Death by time gets everyone.

Now I'm prolly going to get red flagged for being suicidal.

Officer, "He had a clock right there like was going to use it.  He also had a calendar app open on his phone, I think we know what his intentions were."

Now, try to sound sane explaining this idea to a psychologist.

OMG They Hate Facts

A person that I used to be meatspace friends with and now am just a Facebook acquaintance is who posted that forced sterilization meme.

I replied to that post.

WOW.

Reversing the bad law that was Roe vs Wade eliminated ALL of a woman's rights to reproduction.

I know this because they told me so.

So I listed a couple of exceptions.

Like:

A woman can rescind her coital consent after the fact and get the man charged with rape.

Despite abortions being much harder to get in some states, a man still cannot force a woman to get one; or prevent her from getting one any place it's legal.

A woman can still get an abortion legally in many states, even if they live in one where it's not legal.

If the woman decides to carry the child to term, she can still change her mind and abandon it at most any fire station with no questions asked or legal repercussions.  Even if the father is willing to take the child.

A woman who drops her child off at the fire station can do so against the wishes of the father.

A woman can demand the father pay child support for a child he does not want.  The government will enforce this demand.

A woman can demand the father pay child support for a child he does want and can prevent him from being a part of his child's life.  The government will enforce this demand.

So, I am confused here.  I see a lot of responsibility without rights here for the man.

I'm a firm believer that if you don't have any rights, you don't assume any responsibility.

Likewise, if you have all the rights, you have all of the responsibility.

Since it takes two to tango, the division of rights and responsibilities needs to be more equal.

Corvith

I've decided that the house-cat / raven version of a griffen I talked about here will be called a "corvith".

14 January 2025

RWR Install

Finally getting around to mounting a radar warning receiver in The Beast.

This is a Mirror Mount from Radar Mount.

I am not sure I like the placement, but I am sick of the detector dropping from the windshield when the suction cups let go.  The Precious had a mount that went into the passenger side sun visor's clip...  That let your passenger break off the latch for the detector.

This is clear of the visor's movement and allows access to all the buttons.

If this doesn't drive me insane, I'll wire it up in a couple days.

Reducto Meme

 This one is making the rounds again:

I am not even certain where I should start.

Wow The Hate

Jason Bulmahn, lead designer of Pathfinder objects to JD Vance owning and playing the game.

They say he should return his books.

Because Mr Vance is a fascist and they don't support fascism or something.

First off, I really wish the left would buy a fucking dictionary and read the definition of fascism.

I'll even be generous and use the online version of the dictionary:

  1. A system of government marked by centralization of authority under a dictator, a capitalist economy subject to stringent governmental controls, violent suppression of the opposition, and typically a policy of belligerent nationalism and racism.
  2. A political philosophy or movement based on or advocating such a system of government.
  3. Oppressive, dictatorial control.
  4. A political theory advocating an authoritarian hierarchical government; -- opposed to democracy and liberalism.
  5. An authoritarian system of government under absolute control of a single dictator, allowing no political opposition, forcibly suppressing dissent, and rigidly controlling most industrial and economic activities. Such regimes usually try to achieve popularity by a strongly nationalistic appeal, often mixed with racism.
  6. Specifically, the Fascist movement led by Benito Mussolini in Italy from 1922 to 1943.
  7. Broadly, a tendency toward or support of a strongly authoritarian or dictatorial control of government or other organizations; -- often used pejoratively in this sense.
  8. A political regime, having totalitarian aspirations, ideologically based on a relationship between business and the centralized government, business-and-government control of the market place, repression of criticism or opposition, a leader cult and exalting the state and/or religion above individual rights. Originally only applied (usually capitalized) to Benito Mussolini's Italy. 

I think they mean definition 4 and are also not using liberalism correctly. 

But I think liberals need to look HARD at this list of definitions and register that Trump might be the least fascist president we've had in decades because of his de-regulatory efforts.

A lot of that list fits the US government.  And it has fit since, at least, FDR.

Definition 8 in particular rings true during the Wuhan Flu "misinformation" era.

But the creator of Pathfinder was A-OK with all that!

So I ask, once again, who's really the fascist here?


13 January 2025

Reading vs Watching

It took me a minute to read this.

This video is 10 minutes long, says the same thing.

It's really made me realize that it might not be my attention span, but the way something is presented.

Because it doesn't take 10 minutes to say, by name, two cases had been denied cert at the Supreme Court.

But I sure know about the stuff those youtubers are shilling, don't I?

 

 

12 January 2025

Looty Shooty

Let's say anarchy has come to my neck of the woods.

There's looters in the streets and they're carrying torches and have lit some of the surviving structures on fire up the street.

That end of the neighborhood is 500 yards away.

Let's GURPS!

Let's start with the Savage 110 in .270.

I usually give myself a Guns/TL8 - Rifle skill of 14.

500 yards is a -14 to hit.

Not looking good...

Better take an all-out-attack (determined) +1.

Brace on the bipod +1

Aim for three seconds:  +6 for the acc of the rifle, +3 for the power of the scope and +2 for settling in.

13 or less to hit the torso.  10 for vitals, which, on average, I should should be able to hit.

Since all .270 ammo is some kind of soft or hollow point damage is 7d(0.5) pi+.

If our looter is wearing a shirt, then the (average) damage roll of 24 should get 23 to penetrate and do 69 points of damage.  Auto-death calling on line one.

It might be hard to justify popping a looter at 500 yards, though.

How about 300, like it'd be if they came from the other direction?

-13 for range, so still going to make the hit, on average.

However, I've often stated that one of the AR's is my go-to home defense and anti-looting rifle.

The M16A4 clone seems to match needs here.

Let's go with 200 yards for a -12 and a more legally defensible shot.

All out attack, +1; braced, +1, Acc +5, scope +2, 3 turns of aiming +2.

13 or less again!  I can still go for vitals.

5d pi with the ball ammo I have here.  Average roll of 17 does 51 points of damage and that will likely kill them with the 4 death rolls they've got coming.

Brenda has fewer bonuses.

All out attack, +1; braced, +1, Acc +5, scope +1, 3 turns of aiming +2.

12 or less for the torso; 9 for vitals.  Prolly miss the vitals by one and hit the torso anyways...

4d+2 pi does 16 raw on average which will do 16 to the target.  "Just" a consciousness roll.

Using the OTM rounds I have on hand changes the damage to 4d+2(0.5) pi+ and the damage that penetrates to 15 that is modified to 22.  One death roll.

One hopes to never reality check this.

Did You Know?

Armalite was actively pitching the AR-18 to the US government at about the same time the paroxysms about the M14 program and the USAF adoption of the M16 were happening.

It, apparently, came >< that close to happening.

The Stoner 63 system was being troop and field tested in this same time frame.

The US Army was going to get a 5.56x45mm rifle; but which rifle was in play longer than I'd thought.

I Need To Install A Zipper

I am going to have to take the dash apart, again.

I need to remove and replace the stereo/HVAC faceplate because the knobs have failed.

I need to run power for a radar detector.

I need to find the dimmer wire so I can get the overhead console lights illuminated.

I want a warmer day than today, because it'd be better to have the car outside so I can open the doors all the way.

11 January 2025

I Did A Thing

I installed the RCA ports into my car's head unit and now we can plug The Boy's portable DVD player in and have the sound come out the car's speakers and not just the tinny things that are built into it.


He thinks that's pretty cool!



Badge Mod

The adhesive on my Caprice badge was losing the legs on the 'E' and one was already almost ripped off washing the car.

You can't easily get the stock badge anymore, but the Caprice V version is readily available.


The V, being the performance version of the Australian Caprice, gains at least 30 horsepower from the badge alone.


Dammit

Some pictures from the Pacific Palisades fire have been posted.

Burned and melted hot rods.

That hit me harder than I would have expected.

Especially after reading David Freiburger talking about how he's lived in the area his whole life and his reading about how California deserved it.

I replied to that thread telling him that we got the same shit after Helene and Milton and to keep his chin up.

I don't feel California had it coming any more than Sarasota or North Carolina did.

But there's definitely things California could have done that would have mitigated the fires, or even made them a non-event.

You have to cut fire breaks.

You have to make the roads that let people escape.

You have to maintain the infrastructure that keeps the hydrants flowing.

California failed to do that.

The people of California voted for the people who would neglect those things.

Did I say, "neglect?"

I meant to say actively destroyed and worked against policies that would have kept this from getting out of hand.

At one time California had the water thing figured out.

Environmentalists made sure that was undone.

Fire breaks are fundamental in keeping wildfires under control.

Environmentalists made sure none were cut.

Expanding roads to make sure gridlock doesn't trap people on the roads and prevent first responders from responding is part and parcel of an increasing population.

Environmentalists and NIMBYist combined to make sure roads weren't widened.

California voters didn't vote to stop or even slow environmentalists and have, thus, reaped the whirlwind.

Florida is about to enter its wildfire season.  Wanna bet we don't make the national news.  Again...

Wow

Some interesting changes have suddenly hoved into view here.

First was finally giving in and calling USAA's bluff about "you're pre-approved!"

Past experience has informed me that, no, I am not really approved and once I apply I will be declined.

Wrong.

They instantly approved me.  For a limit that seems outlandishly generous.

We're going to use it to buy gas and beer and pay it off every two weeks like we'd just bought beer and gas with cash.  That'll show 'em!

That made me realize that my credit rating must be better than I thought.

It turns out my bank will show me the Experian report.

727 is my credit rating.

It wasn't all that long ago it was 530.

Harvey checked hers and it's 680.  680 before her discharged loan hits her report.

Holy shit!

We're normal Americans again!

Next time we renew our insurance this will have a positive effect.  And this is the only reason we really care.

09 January 2025

Minimum Safe Distance

The official GURPS stats for the 40x46mmSR round shows 30 yards minimum range.

Real rounds DO have an arming distance.  It's a bit shorter than 30 yards.

M381 HE has an arming distance of JUST 3 yards.  The later M406 arms at 15 yards.

They both do 4d-1 [2d] cr ex.

The person standing in the hex with the boom takes the listed damage.

Everyone in dice x 2 yards away can take some too.  In this case, 8 yards.

So firing at minimum range of 3 yards with an M381 can be dangerous.

But you divide the damage by 3x the distance in yards, so...  Divide by 9 at minimum range.

Maximum damage from the blast is 23.  Dividing by 9 and rounding down does 2 to our grenadier.  On average, though, just a single point will come back.

Fragmentation goes out 5x dice yards.  In this case [2d] so out to 10 yards.  The "skill" of the fragments is 15 and normal speed/range penalties are applied for distance.  Fragmentation has an effective Rcl of 3.

3 yards is -1 for range for a "skill" of 14.  On average that will give two 2d cutting hits.

That's less good than the blast with an average of 21 points done after modifiers.  That will kill the average person.

He *IS* Literally Hitler After All

Trump should use the justification of the USA needing "living space" for annexation of Canada as its 51st+ state.

The jokes write themselves.

Update:



National Day Of Celebration More Like

They have declared today to be a national day of mourning for Jimmy Carter.

Fuck that!

To mourn, you have to miss the deceased.

I've been wanting this "person" to stop sucking my oxygen for decades.

Jimmah is the first president I had grievances with, and he was out of office before I even got to vote!

I learned about the depth of his failures later.

Then I learned that many of the failures weren't fails, but deliberate.

So I will heartily cheer his demise and my flag will remain at full mast.

08 January 2025

I Don't Want A Relationship

Getting the largest source of non-mortgage debt removed from my credit score last year should have had a positive effect on my credit score...

So I went to check.

Everyone wants a lot of information up front and once you provide it, they force you to make an account with them.

I'm not looking for a relationship, I just wanna fuck.

I get why they need to collect most of the information, but once they have it that should be enough to give me a result.

The way they're going about this reminds me of a lot of bait and switch free offers where it's easy to sign up, and nearly impossible to cancel and they have your payment information so you get to pay while you're trying to get it shut down.

The Long Slow Slog

It appears that the criminal enterprise that was Corinthian Colleges is finally being made to pay.

The Lovely Harvey got an email today about the discharge of her student loans due to the college's criminal malfeasance.

Discharge of loan.  Removal of it from her credit report.  Refund of any and all payments made.

Wowsers!

To be clear to the boomers who don't (won't?) understand; this is not related to the big student loan forgiveness that Biden was pushing.  This is normal for when a college defrauds its students, the hold up was how damn BIG the department of education let the situation get and how much Corinthians tried to get away with.

It's taken almost two decades to get justice out of this.

Maybe it will make my car insurance go down with a better credit rating coming.

Answered In The Source Material

I do like talking about the implications of the existence of magic since 1945, but much of the speculation is covered in the source material.

Steve Jackson Games will sell you a pdf of both GURPS: Technomancer and Technomancer: Funny New Guys which you can get up to speed on what's changed and what hasn't since the hellstorm started spinning in Trinity, New Mexico.

For the most part, nothing changed between Merlin and our timeline.

The US winning in Vietnam is a, noted, exception.

The implications of how we did that weren't fully explored or considered by the authors.

Further implications of what magic means to politics were also not explored.

I made the outline of some of those implications with regards to Rhodesia.

Let The Sound Take You Away

Funny New Guys stresses, despite not understanding post-MacNamara designations, the combat use of magic carpets.

A Huey can lug 12 troops over 150 miles at around 100 miles an hour.

A UZ-23 can haul 13 troops an unlimited distance, but the speed tops out at 34 miles an hour.

Something occurred to me about the situation.

What keeps you from rolling up a carpet and tossing it into the Huey?

Get near the target, but far enough away that the distinctive sound of the rotors don't give the operation away and unroll the carpet next to the bird and have everyone step aboard.

It's similar to doing a parachute drop, really.

The carpets, while slower than helicopters, are silent in operation.

It could redefine vertical envelopment.

Then Why Mention It?

HMPV is spreading all around the world!

It cannot be told apart from the common cold and most people never know they had it.

The breathless reporting of, "there is no cure," is the height of why I despise the press.

The common cold has no cure either.

Every day flu has no cure, just a preventative.

This is a headline designed to scare people and it's exactly yelling, "fire!" into a crowded theater.

Platoon Organization 1967

I'm a tanker.  I don't know how the grunts organize themselves.

A late 80's tank company has 14 tanks in three platoons.  4 per platoon plus 2 for the CO and XO.

Plus a five-ton for supply and a couple of humvees.

Vietnam, if I am not mistaken, had 17 tank companies with 5 tanks per platoon.

I have no damn clue about how infantry companies or platoons are arranged, but I found this:

Airmobile Company Org

 

Things that I don't know (I'll bet Willard knows):

With everyone equipped with an M16, what makes the automatic rifleman different from a rifleman?

The movies (no shock) lie to us.

The M60 gunners and their assistant gunners appear to be in different squads from the rest of the platoon.

Are they assigned to a squad ad hoc or what?

I also wonder if the 90mm reckless rifles did much time in the bush in Vietnam.

07 January 2025

Let's Welcome DerpyPuter

DerpyPuter used to be one of FuzzyGeff's laptops.

He's upgraded at least once since he bought this one.

I got it for the princely sum of $1.

It's a Clevo W650RZ customized and sold by System 76 as a Gazelle G10 (or Gaze10).

Just a couple of years newer than the Lenovo T420s I had been using.  Better processors, for one.  Much better screen and wider keyboard with a num pad.

Of course, I need to start modding.

The battery is so dead you can't cast zombie on it.

A bit more RAM is always nice.

Definitely need to get a bigger SSD in there.

But it's happily running Ubuntu 24.04, just like Crispy IV is.

Also: Blogger is STILL fucked for linking pics.

If I Could Talk To The Animals

The Chimera in Technomancer can all speak with animals to one degree or another.

Here's a list.

The rules in The Basic Set don't say exactly how it works and there's no color notes in Technomancer or Funny New Guys.

The question is: Do I speak normally to the animal and they, magically, understand me and then when they reply I, magically, understand them?

OR 

Am I actually speaking their language?

If I am actually speaking some canine language then fox and coyote people can chat without other humans being able understand.

That's the special effect I like, so I think that's how my version of Merlin will be run.


All That Work

After making sure that everyone had a Funny New Guys character...

We didn't even manage to kill anyone we cared about in Interstellar Wars.

Despite the six year gap between sessions we managed to get it rolling and have a good time.

Got the plot advanced a little bit too.

Still more to do there as well.

Plans to continue fell through with conflicting obligations and the reality that playing until our normal quitting time meant a zombie FuzzyGeff for his trek back to Ioway.

Better he get a good night's sleep.

06 January 2025

Just A Reminder

A phobia is an irrational fear of something.

I used to be terrified of spiders.

It was irrational to be afraid a tiny arachnid that could do me no harm.

By this light, if you want to talk about Islamophobia, you're going to have to demonstrate how being worried about it is irrational.

Especially, now, when we just had an Islamist murder a bunch of people with a pick-up in New Orleans.

Being afraid that might happen to you isn't being irrationally afraid.  It's being prudent.

Never mind that they appear to LIKE it when people are afraid.  Terrorism doesn't work if people aren't.

Cries against Islamophobia aren't really against bigotry.  They're, for some reason, trying to prevent a justified backlash against terrorists and terrorism.

When Western Civ gets its jackboots on, it no longer cares about such polite constructs of worry about the people it's about to kill think about them.  It simply goes industrial murder for as long as it takes.

Sure, it feels guilty afterwards and the people who did it drink a lot and don't talk about it.

But it's done.  And done for the good of their civilization.  Their civilization that they chose over the intruding one that was trying to kill them.

Thus is always civilizational conflict.

How Are The Crowds?

Four years ago the media redefined "insurrection" like they do everything.

They redefined it down.

So I wonder how things are going at the capitol today while they count the electors.

Three people asking for directions might meet their watered down definition of armed insurrection now.

Ugly But Cuddly

The spider people from Technomancer are chimera of humans and Mexican red leg tarantulas.

Don't they look soft and cuddly like a stuffed animal?

Well, they're not.  They're bristly and the exoskeleton doesn't have much give.

A chimera is a mammal, not an arachnid.  They just LOOK like spiders.

They have bones.  They have skin.  They have fur.

They're actually cuddly!

If you can get past the whole ugly and general aversion to spiders most people run.

Also note:  The front legs are the arms on the human torso so the spider part only has six legs.  The human torso rises from the black area on the thorax of the spider part, the human genitalia being where the pedipalps are.  Clothing for these people must be interesting.


Airborne!

My little rule of thumb about spider and snake chimera's weight introduced a problem.

Spellborne troops are still paratroopers.

The max load for a T-10 parachute is 360 lb.

My spider is a svelte 320 lb. buck nekkid.

So he can jump in a 2.3 lb. uniform with a 12 lb. reserve chute and have 25.7 lb left over for gear.

If he were a normal human he'd have 185.7 lb. left over.

Traditionally the Army would declare these chimera unfit for airborne operations due to weight, but there's strong pressure from higher to fully integrate the services.

Chimera WILL be no different from other ethnic groups OR ELSE!  

And with a Secretary of Defense like MacNamara issuing such diktats, the Army figures out a way to make it work.  And they hate every moment because they're accommodating a very small percentage of the troops.

Happily, there's already a canopy in service they can use!

The G-14 has a max load of 500 lb.  They're going to have to make a spider and snake specific harness anyways, so a cargo chute might be easier to adapt.

That'd allow for 140.7 lb of gear with the larger 37 lb. reserve chute.  That's probably acceptable to the Army to get the politicians off their backs.

05 January 2025

Weight

Two of the chimera from Technomancer aren't bipedal.

The spider person is kinda a spider centaur like the D&D drider; with the waist of the human part attaching about where the eyes are on the red-leg tarantula they're based on.  It's a *BIG* tarantula.

The snake person is more like a naga.

The artwork shows some pretty substantial back ends on both of them.

That makes me think they're heavier than they would be if they were baseline H. Sapiens.

I've been rule-of-thumbing doubling the weights for both races over normal humans.

I might have to try dusting off my pencil and paper drawing skills.

PS: Despite appearances, the spider person is a mammal.  That means the spider part has a skeleton inside and the "exoskeleton" is just skin.

PPS: Snake people are mammals too.  Warm blooded and everything.

Gas Gas Gas

The M17 mask was issue in Vietnam.

Outside of a few photos in Hue, try finding anyone carrying or wearing one.  Even then, you're just as likely to be looking at the older M9.

I remember that one of the reasons they stressed we shave and keep our mustaches severely trimmed was to be able to seal a gas mask against our face.

Funny New Guys raises a question.  Except for the spider and snake people, there's fur and feathers on their faces.  Never mind the shape of the skull and face differs from baseline H. Sapiens.

Considering how recent the decision to allow chimera into the Army was, it's doubtful new equipment to accommodate them has even started development.

But, back to the original point.

Soldiers ditch the masks as soon as they think they won't need them.  Bill Mauldin even made a comic about it!

"I see that E comp'ny got th' new style gas masks"
And so it goes...

Things That Existed But Never Did

Being the kind of geek I am, I put together Vietnam era web gear to go along with my retro M16 clone.

Looking into things, and picking a date for it, led to some interesting choices.

First, I am using an M1943 entrenching tool and not the M1951 as one might expect from a 1967 recreation.

The Army did develop, and purchase, some M1951 entrenching tools.  Production halted in 1953 until the supply of the M1943 model dropped below the needs of the Army...  In 1968 when the familiar tri-fold tool we still use replaced both the M1943 and M1951.

It was noted that the M1956 universal ammo carrier was too deep for M16 magazines, so a shorter version was developed.  Some may even have been issued before a nylon version with a plastic latch was developed.  You can't find an M1956 M16 pouch, but the M1967's are almost everywhere.


Even so, the M1967 kit was thin on the ground until late 1969.  By then 30-round M16 magazines were starting to show up, and that required yet another change to the magazine pouches.  Going from 80 72 rounds to 90 84 rounds per pouch.

They were still issuing that pouch when I was in the Army at the end of the Cold War.


04 January 2025

Let There Be (Map) Light

 The front dome light in The Beast has been insufficient for reading a book while waiting for someone at night since I bought it.

LED bulb was better, but not enough.

Pontiac G8's use the same domelight, as do Holden Commodores.

I snagged one from a Commodore.

I can't use the whole assembly because the microphone faces the passenger in my car and can't be moved to the other side like mine can (different housings).

Install required depinning a 4-pin molex connector and installing a 6-pin.

It's got one little glitch.

The passenger side light doesn't like LED bulbs.  JT thinks there's a resistance problem in the little board.  But Harvey and I agree that incandescent is better on that side because it is less dazzling for the driver if the passenger hits the button while driving.

I still have the original dome light position.




03 January 2025

Lurned

Today I found out that the M1956 Universal Small Arms Ammunition Pouch (2nd Pattern) is not a two-magazine pouch for 20-round 7.62 NATO mags.

It's supposed to accept THREE M14 magazines!

It's a tight fit, but you can also stuff three FAL magazines in one as well. 

 You can also get it to latch closed!


Being able to close it is handy for keeping the gunk out of your magazines.

These same pouches will hold 4 20-round M16 magazines; but you have to remember to put a first-aid dressing or a sock in the bottom to keep them accessible.

 


02 January 2025

Always Check Your References

The racial template for the spider chimera on page 30 of Pyramid vol 3, issue 115 is incorrect.

The bindings are both wrong and the extra arms are all fucked up, so the listed 30 points doesn't stand.

Corrected template below:

Chimera, Spider (Homo Sapiens Arachnae) (Pyramid 3/115 p.30)

44 Points

Attribute Modifiers:

Secondary Characteristic Modifiers: SM 0.

Advantages: Binding (Webbing) 15 (Accessibility, Target must be grappled, -20%; Engulfing +60%; Melee Attack, reach C, -30%; Sticky, +20%, Takes Recharge, 15 seconds, -20%) [7]*; Binding (Webbing) 10 (Rapid Fire 7, +70%; Retractable, +100%; Reduced Range, 1/10, -30%; Sticky, +20%; Takes Recharge, 15 seconds, -20%) [48]; Claws (Sharp Claws) [5]; Clinging [20]; Extra Arms 2 (Foot Manipulators, -5%; Accessibility, Extra arms only, Temp Disad, Ham Fisted, -5%) [18]; Extra Legs (Six Legs) [10]; Lifting ST 6 (Accessibility, only applies to lower “spider” body, -20%) [15]; Night Vision 6 [6]; Speak With Animals (Specialized, Spiders, -60%) [10]; Teeth (Fangs) [2]; Toxic Attack 1d (Poison, Cyclic, 1 hour interval, 5 cycles, +40%; Follow-Up, Bite, +0%; Resistible, HT-4, -10%) [6].

Perks: Climbing Line [1]†

Disadvantages: Appearance (Ugly to humans and other non-spider chimera) [-8]; Dependency (Mana, Constantly) [-25]; Lunacy [-10]; Social Stigma (Minority Group) [-10]; Vulnerability (Depleted Necronium or silver x3) [-30]; Weakness (Depleted Necronium or silver, 1d/minute) [-20].

Quirks: Bulky Frame [-1]‡

Features:

* Alternative Ability (x1/5 cost) to other binding advantage.

† As long as you have “shots” of the Binding advantage available, you can create a climbing line, allowing you to use the “rope up” or “rope down” options for climbing (p. B349)

‡ While spider people are technically SM 0, their large lower spider half means they find narrow spaces intended for upright humans awkward, imposing -1 to all tasks that involve fitting or squeezing into something.

Photo Test


 Oh, I got a new range bag for Christmas and Mist inspected it for me.

I wish hot linking photos would get predictable again.

4 lb. 1 oz.

Mist is growing like a weed!  4 lb. 1 oz. is just less than triple her weight when we brought her in.

The head tilt is still somewhat present, but only occasionally when she's not paying attention to keeping it level.  Reminds me of a lazy eye.

As long as she focuses on keeping her head level, she's fine.



TPK Possible

I've got my mission plan set for Interstellar Wars.

The party has ticked off a local Vilani noble family during the lead-up to the 4th Interstellar War.

Lots of interesting things can be done to the players when there's increase scrutiny about an obviously Terran ship that anomalously has impeccable documentation and licensing as a domestic Imperial free-trader.

Marv has assumed the role of the ships loadmaster, and he's a point of contact for Imperial officials who've been given tips about illegal activity on board.

This could lead to armed conflict and possible ship to ship combat.

Blowing up the ship ends the campaign pretty effectively.

If that happens, I'll fall back on Technomancer: Funny New Guys.  Got to get JT to make a character for that.  FuzzyGeff and Marv have theirs.

01 January 2025

Tech Level 9

According to GURPS: Basic Set (Vol 1) page 27:

It is now TL9.

We have entered into the "Microtech Age".

Adjust your character sheet accordingly.

PS: WHERE ARE THE FUCKING FLYING CARS!?!?

Gatorade And Ibruprofen Are What I Use

3,500 year old hangover cure from Baghdad...

Before Islam, apparently it was needed in Baghdad.

Looks good though.

You Probably Don't Hate Him Enough

Recap of how Jimmah killed Rhodesia in favor of communism and helped create Zimbabwe.

Hunted

It occurred to me that any fantasy adventuring party returning from a successful romp would be targeted by the local thief's guild.

The players wouldn't like it much being subjected to death poverty by a thousand cuts.

Something that's often overlooked is taxes.

Taxation was often very severe back in feudal times.

Annual ATF

Winchester Model 12 Heavy Duck.

Barriehaus Brewery Lousy Lager.

HC Cigars Series White Shadegrown.

Happy 2025!