Unwilling Suspension Of Disbelief

Because I'm a gamer and because I have Amazon Prime, I get the animated productions from Critical Role.

The most recent outing, "The Mighty Nein," has messed with my suspension of disbelief with a musical number.

In a burlesque style strip club they played a speakeasy jazz number.

Nothing about the way it's been presented lead me to expect music or technology past the 13th century.

I sometimes wonder if most fantasy worlds can best be explained by the Aladdin theory that it's set after an apocalypse that dimly remembers the world before, but not very accurately.

Missing Wonder Nines

The OG Wonder Nines™, in roughly chronological order, are the H&K VP70, S&W 59, CZ CZ75, Star M28, H&K P7M13 and Beretta 92.

This is if you accept:

"Wondernine: A term coined by gunwriter Robert T. Shimek to denote the modern breed of 9mm Parabellum auto pistols of recent design, usually featuring high magazine capacity and a double-action trigger mechanism or other modern ignition system (e.g., the squeeze-cocker of the Heckler & Kock P7 series or the Safe Action of the Glock)." 

J. Libourel

I've argued that the hoary old Browning Grand Puissance should be included despite the lack of a double action.

I further define the OG's as pre-Glock, so vaguely 1980 for the cutoff.  Yes, I know the Glock P.80 didn't enter service until 1982, but that 80 stands for 1980! 

I don't really think of the H&K P7M13 when I think of wonder nine, but Shimek included it.

I'm missing examples of the VP70, CZ 75, P7M13 and Star M28.

I don't have the first three because they're expensive as fuck compared to other guns.  The Star is a bit obscure but I've seen one for sale on Gunbroker every time I've looked.

CZ thinks they are H&K with regards to pricing; though prices appear to have come down a lot lately.

The VP70 and P7M13 are actual H&Ks in addition to being collectibles.

I've fired them all though.

I like the CZ quite a bit, but I appear to be immune to the Kool-Aid.  My ham-fists aren't precise enough to grab the narrow slide sometimes and the disassembly is archaic.

The VP70 is just plain unpleasant to shoot because of that trigger.  I remember seeing a lot of them in Polizei holsters in and around Stuttgart.

The P7M13 is goofy.  I found it tiring because I over-gripped the stapler-gun safety.  I wasn't given enough rounds to get the front blazing hot.

The Star I got to shoot had a bad extractor and didn't run well, but it was comfortable and the bullets went where they were told.  It's got the same narrow slide problem I have with the CZ.

Broken Fixed Broken (Updated)

Even though I'm not an accredited expert in the eyes of Steve Jackson Games, I was once dismissed as a hobbyist, I do know a thing or two about guns.

What exactly is a hobbyist?

They're the experts in a topic who don't make a career out of it and educate themselves on their own dimes.

I've been calculating various rounds with GURPS: Gun Stats and this book has been found wanting.

Sad trombone.

The first, gigantic, problem is that .30 Caliber M1903 ball out performs .30 Caliber M2 ball.  It's like it was stupid for everyone to change over to spitzer rounds.

But spitzer rounds carry more energy farther than round-nose bullets.  The 1/2D numbers generated are backwards of reality.

This fails the reality check. 

Then I calculated a few pistol rounds.

9mm came out almost the same as published materials.  .40 S&W was a bit worse than published and a bit better than my house rule...  But .45 ACP was as good as the legends!

Way more range and +2 to the damage.

The old numbers were 2d+2 pi for 9mm and 2d pi+ for .45 ACP.  This gives them almost identical damage to tissue (avg. 9 points vs 10) and reflects that 9mm is slightly better at punching things like car doors.

New numbers has .45 at 2d+2 pi+, so it will now punch car doors the same and do more damage in tissue (avg. 9 points vs 13).

This fails the reality check.

I missed something.

First, I had the wrong bullet diameter, copy paste error.

The ranges are calculated differently if the muzzle velocity is under 1,000 feet per second.

Now the damage is 2d+1 pi+ and that changes the average damages to 9 for 9mm and 11 for .45.  .45 is slightly worse at car doors again!

While it seems to do fine with pistols, this book does NOT GURPS! 

Poof It Was Gone

 

I was out at the rumored $2,600 price point.

I don't think it's really an unreasonable price for a gun with so many unique and bespoke parts.

$3,300 is more than I want to spend on one.

BUT!

The entire production run sold out in less than an hour.

That speaks to an unsatisfied demand.

All of those expensive, bespoke parts get cheaper if you make a lot more of them and get the price down.

I am not sure what the number of people who want such a rifle are, but I was tempted at $2,600 and out at $3,300.  It'd have been a done deal at $2,200!

I am, also, not sure of what kind of margins are built into the production of this rifle.

Economies of scale can make a lower margin pay more than a higher margin in increased sales. 

It's A System

I got GURPS: Gun Stats in January, I didn't do much with it except notice that the formulas don't recreate the, already, published stats for the M1 Garand.

An M1, in GURPS: High Tech, does 7d+1 pi out to 1,100/4,500, as does the Winchester Model 70.

So, armed with real world numbers for Cartridge, .30 caliber, M2 Ball, I dutifully plugged information into the formula and got:

7d+1 pi (so far so good) out to 890/3,700 (whups).

So I did .270 Winchester, which, according to Pulp Guns Vol. 2 stats for the Winchester Model 54, should do 7d pi out to 900/3,600.

The formula says: 7d+1 pi to 1,150/4,800.

Then I remembered that M2 ball's pressure curve is atypical of .30-06 and plugged in the numbers for Remington 150gr Core-Lokt.

7d+1 pi out to 1,020/4,300.  That's a lot closer to the published stats than what using the M2 ball figures gets you.

So I moved on to the AR.

An M16A1 (High Tech) firing M193 ball gets 5d pi; 500/3,200.  Gun Stats calculates it as 5d pi; 440/3,100.  Close.

An XM177E2 (SEALs in Vietnam) firing M193 gets 4d+1 pi; 420/2,700.  Gun Stats calculates it as 4d+1 pi; 370/2,600.  Also close.

An M16A2 (High Tech) firing M855 ball gets 5d; 800/3,500.  Gun Stats gives 5d pi; 460/3,200.

An M4 (High Tech) firing M855 ball gets 4d+2 pi; 750/2,900.  Gun Stats gives 4d+2 pi; 430/3,000.

So far the damages have been about right, but ranges differ greatly from published weapons.

But what really clonked me was calculating .30-40 Krag.

Adventure guns says the M1892 rifle does 6d+1 pi; 1,000/3,900.  Gun Stats says 6d pi; 1,030/4,300.  A round nose 220gr bullet at 2,000 fps outdistances a 152gr spitzer at 2,800 fps.  Also notice, except for the damage, that it calculates nearly the same ranges as a modern .30-06 load!

Spain's 173gr 7x57mm loading comes to 6d+1 pi to 1,190/5,000 so the Spanish Hornet still outranges the boys on Kettle Hill.

.30 Carbine takes a big hit, going from 4d+1 pi; 330/2,100 to 4d pi-; 290/3,200.

Which brings us to the Big Huge Question™:  With the disparity between published and calculated stats: do you use the calculated stats for unpublished weapons alongside the published weapons, or do you recalculate ALL the published ones?

Especially considering that the Douglas Cole calculations and Vehicles for 3rd Edition come much closer to the published stats. 

Cheap

The video in the previous post alludes to something about weapon quality.

It's even mentioned in the Basic Set on p. 274 under Melee Weapon Quality.

"The mass-produced swords issued to ordinary soldiers are often of cheap quality."

This is going to be most of the swords we encounter made in a certain range of dates. 

I Still Haven't Come Up With A Solution (Updated)

Back when I was talking about "tailor's swords" I was referencing this video:

Lots of swords are less than ideal for fighting, and many serve social functions or as badges of rank.

The thing about several examples in this video is they are not poorly made with regards to strength or durability.  They are poorly made in that they are difficult to put to work.

They should get a skill penalty.

There's no methodology for that in the rules as written. 

Update: 

Daosus in the comments reminded me of the Poorly Balanced option on page 59 of Low Tech in the Weapons of Quality box.

But it's just a -1 to skill for a 60% price cut...  Actually a -0.6 cost factor, which is it's own little trial of remembering simple math.  You multiply the base cost of the weapon by 1+(add up all the cost factors) as explained on page 14 of Low Tech.

So a poorly balanced and elaborately decorated rapier with an open basket hilt...

$500 for the base rapier.
CF -0.6 for poorly balanced.
CF +4 for "presentation quality" decoration.
CF +0.25 for the basket hilt.

$500 x 1+(-0.6+4+0.25)
$500 x 1+(3.65)
$500 x 4.65
$2,325

This is surely a weapon that you wear to impress people and not one you use to impress an opponent in a fight.

The tailor's sword, I think, can be made with going poorly balanced (-0.6), cheap (-0.6), open frame basket hilt (0.25).  It's basically a short sword ($400) to start with...

Since the modifiers drop the price below 20% of the original price, it's 20%, or $80 for our tailor's sword.  If the tailor is being honest, and I get the impression that they weren't.  The tailor probably would have sold it for the full $500 that an open frame, good quality, short sword should cost.  Caveat Emptor, Bitches!

Teardrop

Lavender Linda and Dottie have exchanged forward assists.

Three-prong is in her future!

It makes me giggle that I'm combining modern and retro on Dottie like I am.

A flat-top, middy-gas, R605 with a forward assist.

It Must Be Seasonal

Sarah Hoyt is talking about libertarianism too.

Drinkin' Horn

A few years ago, Mr Fleetwood bought me a drinking horn.

It's cool as fuck, but unhandy.

That's because you can't set your drink down.

He apologized for the place he got them from for being out of stock on the stands.

I finally remembered to get a stand!

Awesome!

Kinda reminds me of Gerb...

More To Say Than A Comment Will Bear

Joe Huffman posted.

At issue is:

Once you hit about a 20-point IQ gap, communication starts to completely break down.

It’s not that the lower IQ person is “stupid” (although that can often be the case) or the higher one is arrogant, it’s that you’re literally operating on different systems.

A 20 point difference (roughly 1.3 standard deviations) means:

Vocabulary and abstraction levels diverge sharply. What feels like crystal clear logic to one side sounds like vague, pretentious word salad to the other. Jokes land flat. Metaphors get taken literally. Complex cause and effect chains get simplified into “this good, that bad.”

Different time horizons and pattern recognition. One person thinks in months or years and sees systems, the other is locked into days or immediate rewards. Trying to explain second order effects feels like speaking another language.

Also, processing speed and working memory gaps. The higher IQ person is already three steps ahead, getting impatient. The lower IQ person feels talked down to or overwhelmed.

Both walk away frustrated.

Both have wasted each others time.

Jøhnathan @Heavenly_Race_
Posted on X May 25, 2026

I have frequently been the person who's 20 to 30 points behind the person I've been talking to.  Marv's 152, for example.  The physics students who played in my Traveller campaign definitely had higher IQ's.  I dunno what FuzzyGeff or Technomad score, but I know it's higher than me.

I routinely tested around IQ 139, despite that being below the threshold for Mensa, I still passed their silly test.  I declined the membership because...  Have you been to a meeting?  It'd be faster to tattoo your score on your forehead so everyone can segregate properly and look down their noses appropriately.

I have noticed that I'm making connections that others do not see when figuring out something abstract and complex.

Because a draftsman is a translator between engineers and tradesmen, I learned to speak both languages.

And it's more of a dialect problem than a language problem.  Terminology not words.

But being smart doesn't give one the magic ability to suppress instant gratification.

Most of the smart people I know have poor savings skills.  But the ones who do have good skills in this regard have exceptionally good skills.

Many of us have extremely awkward social skills that have hampered conventional success.

Vocabulary is more a function of education than ability!  Those tradesmen include some VERY intelligent people who don't speak with a college vocabulary, but can understand and visualize what they're about to build and what they need to build it faster than I can.

Post Fodder From Arfcom

There's a thread asking if our adult gun purchases have exceeded our childhood expectations?

In a word, "Wildly."

I think I still own one of these guns.

 

Though if I traveled back in time and told Young Thag, "You will never own that Galil ARM, but it not bother you you don't."

Young Thag would not believe me.

Further, if I told him, "Your favorite rifle will be an AR-15," I think he would try and get the crazy old man talking to him committed.

That, of course, means I'm talking to the Thag who's just discovered role playing games and is slowly coming to the realization that you actually could just buy some of these guns.

Not all that long before that, despite my interests in military history and technology, he'd have been shocked that someone could amass such a collection.  Nobody NEEDS a gun, after all.

FuzzyGeff, talked me down.

Anachronism

Dottie is a contradiction in terms in a couple of ways, on purpose, because it amuses me.

I glanced over where she sits and saw the round forward assist button and thought, "with the retro furniture, should I get a tear-drop forward assist?"

That leads, inevitably, to:

The big question is which three-prong flash hider?

Even saying, "a retro one," results in, "which one?"

Duckbill?

OG 3-prong?

Wilson AccuTac?

The OG is cheapest.

All of them give a tuning fork tone when the action is operating.

I think the finish on the Wilson matches the barrel's finish best. 

Obstructive Facilitation

There's a ticket processor called EventBrite.

Nominally, they facilitate the purchase of a ticket for an event for small and local venues so that the small, local, venue doesn't have to deal with the headache themselves.

It's a win for everyone, in theory.

What's that line?

In theory, practice and theory are the same.  In practice they're not.

The first problem has been fee creep.  They, like TicketMaster, are asking for a larger and larger portion of the total price of the ticket.

Then their web page has become increasingly difficult to navigate.

This is to motivate you to download their app so they can better harvest your personal information to sell.

When every link to your tickets is interrupted with, "download the app!" and you never actually get to the ticket download...

Then, suddenly, it works fine.

I didn't do anything differently, it's like they give up and let it work like it's supposed to work after you do the loop a specific number of tries. 

Mods ≠ Value

Over and over I see someone who's heavily modified their car and think that just because they spent $15k on the mods, that means they've added $15k to the value of the car.

If the car is normally $10k, they want $25k for it.

That only works if the prospective buyer wanted that model car with those exact mods and the seller is the only one with this combination.

By this logic, I should add the price of every oil change to the value of the car.  I spent the money, right?

The $15k in equals $15k out also forgets something important, depreciation.  Everything loses value when you break the seal on the box.

If that really bugs you, I suggest a different hobby from hot rodding.

Hot Rods are a money sink.  You just don't break even unless you got lucky and your make and model becomes the hot collectible.

If you are lucky and owned the thing before it became the new hotness, you stand to make money, or at least not have lost money due to inflation; and what you've done to the car won't matter.

Wait, I'm making my point again...  Your mods don't affect the value.

The condition, year, make and model determine the value; in many cases the mods reduce the value.

Another interesting thing here with people trying to recoup their mod expenditures is the number of folks who have very recently completed the mod.

That's worrisome to me.

It makes me wonder about the value of the mod in the first place.

Did it make the car miserable to drive?  Did it crater the mileage?  Is it now unreliable?  Did it break something you only notice after owning for a while? 

Opening Beer With A Knife

Harvey found a vid where someone, effortlessly, opens a beer with a butter knife.

They tap the neck twice, then the body twice then sweep off the cap.

Sensing bullshit, we gave it the ol' college try.

The taps do nothing.

Any motion that brushes the cap will just knock the bottle over.

HOWEVER!

I remembered how to open champagne bottle with a saber and the same technique works with a beer and a butter knife.

It is also, like a saber with champagne, impervious to being filmed.

I opened three bottles of champagne with a saber at a wedding, with a wedding photographer trying to capture it, and he didn't manage to catch the moment even once!

The same thing happened with Harvey trying to video it.  As soon as she hit stop, with me flailing away, I hit the sweet spot and off the top of the bottle flew!

True Crime

The Lovely Harvey reads true crime stories.

We're watching "Once Upon A Time In Hollywood," which includes a fictionalized version of the Sharon Tate murder.

Fictionalized in the respect that Sharon Tate is not murdered.

Oh, spoiler alert for a seven year old movie, I guess.

She's already spotted that it's not going exactly to the facts in how far along Ms Tate was in her pregnancy.

Wait until she gets to the end!

Another Fee?

I've noticed "shipping protection" on several online orders lately.

I'm all fee'd up with them.

It, apparently, is extra insurance past the normal protection we've had since it was 6-8 weeks for shipping.

What has been a little hard to determine is exactly what it's insuring that wasn't covered already.

Porch pirates?

Dunno.

Just getting sick of a $5 charge on a $20 item in addition to taxes and shipping.

Dunno What Grade

A YouTuber I follow for Holden content, CommodoreMan, just mentioned paying 2.89AUD for a liter of gas.

That translates to $7.889 per gallon here in the US.  I'm rounding the 3rd digit to 9/10 of a cent because all US gas is PRICE + 9/10¢.

The cheapest average price that Petrolmate has for gasoline in Australia is $4.999 per gallon for E10.

I am a bit jealous that 91 octane is considered regular there, but it's $5.329 per gallon.  I think this also explains why the owner's manual for the 14-17 Caprice changes the recommended octane to 91 from 87 in the 11-13's.  A couple years of seeing what mild knock was doing to maintenance sheets prolly pushed the change.

The Beast, an immigrant from Australia, has been eating 93 octane Premium lately.  Current price is $5.079 (1.86AUD per liter) at the nearest Exxon.  Premium is 95 octane in Oz and it's averaging $5.759.

87 octane at that same station is running $4.279 per gallon; 1.57AUD per liter. 

The real surprise in Aussie gas prices on Petrolmate is E85.  The low price is 99.9c/l, with an average of 244.6c/l.  Those translate to $2.729 per gallon low price and $6.669 for the average.

The local RaceTrac has E85 for $3.769 per gallon (138.3c/l).

I wonder at that price range, anyone on the other side of the planet have any insight? 

History of Dottie

Dottie has seen almost as many changes as Kaylee.

Dottie's name derives from a line in the movie, "Armageddon". The amateur astronomer who discovers the planet killing asteroid wants to be able to name it after his wife, Dottie, because she's a life sucking bitch from which there is no escape.

Dottie is a "franken AR", her parts are from everywhere. The lower is Spike's Tactical, the lower parts kit is CMMG. The upper is a mid-length Dissipator upper from Palmetto State Armory.  Handguards are Brownell's Retro.  Optic is a Vortex SPARC AR.

A Bit Late I'm Afraid

I used to have a '79 Camaro Berlinetta.

It was extensively modified and I had to give it up because I couldn't get body parts.

The white on the ground in Iowa in the winter isn't snow, it's salt. 

This was back in 1995 or so.

Today, Facebook is aggressively advertising that just about every part for a 2nd gen Camaro is available now.

To the point that I don't think you need suffer with a single genuine GM part.

Thirty years too late, I'm afraid. 

Fat Ass

Way back when...

I was 156 lb.

This was when I could run, bike and walk without a limp.

Today I am 275 lb.

I can get the -3 points for being Fat in GURPS.

Joy.

This is the second time I've been this big.

Right after getting out of the Army I ballooned up to 300 lb.

I had kept eating like I was doing PT every morning, but wasn't because I could barely walk.

I reduced my intake and got down to 200 lb. and stayed there for years.

Sadly, my metabolism has slowed again and I gained a great deal back.

I am at a loss as to how to address it within the confines of being crippled. 

Oversight

 While the MBUS3 sights were functional, I didn't really like how they looked on Dottie.

I was resigned to putting up with function over form until I noticed that the American Defense mount puts the Sparc so high that don't have a co-witness and can readily see over the top of the rear sight to aim with the red-dot.

So I put the fixed A2 stub rear sight back on.  Arguably, it's more functional than the Magpul sight because it has a dial for range.

As I was putting the camera away, this angle caught my fancy for how it caught the red of the lens coating.

Zap!

The heating element in the oven decided to arc and die.

Happily, we noticed one spot glowing yellow when the rest of it was orange and ordered a replacement element a few weeks ago.

This is the third such element we've gone through.

The quality of replacements just isn't as good as the original, sadly.

The Chinese made items we can get from Amazon last about five years. 

I noticed that I might have mounted the previous one a bit low, there's a lot of space in the slots, and that might have affected longevity. 

For The Fallen

 

 

With proud thanksgiving, a mother for her children, England mourns for her dead across the sea.
Flesh of her flesh they were, spirit of her spirit,
Fallen in the cause of the free.


Solemn the drums thrill; Death august and royal
Sings sorrow up into immortal spheres,
There is music in the midst of desolation
And a glory that shines upon our tears.


They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eye, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted;
They fell with their faces to the foe.


They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.


They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam.


But where our desires are and our hopes profound,
Felt as a well-spring that is hidden from sight,
To the innermost heart of their own land they are known
As the stars are known to the Night;


As the stars that shall be bright when we are dust,
Moving in marches upon the heavenly plain;
As the stars that are starry in the time of our darkness,

To the end, to the end, they remain.

-- Laurence Binyon

Today is not about sales. It is not about summer starting. It is not about grandma.

It's is about those who served and have passed beyond the veil.

I want them all back.

To:

Bernie Canniff (Korea, in a car club together).

Carol LeFon aka Neptunus Lex (patiently explained both real world and flight sim military aviation to this tanker).

Davy McGuire (COB USS Whale, originally a friend of my Dad's, later me).

Fred Gabow (we served together, his wife hired someone to murder him).

Jerry Pournelle (you do read, don't you? Willing to be wrong and listened to my correction!).

Kevin O'Brian aka Hognose (our beloved Weaponsman).

Paul Harrell (he taught me a couple things about guns and how to reply to dicks).

Rabbi (Uncle Ben, another friend of Dad who got me a ride in an F-14A).

 

Rich (brother of my Father in law).

Robert (uncle by marriage to Mom's sister).

Standing Bear aka William Dawkins (WW2 and Korea, who taught me gaming).

The world is better that you were in it and worse that you have left.

Incomplete

I just realized that I don't have a single AR in the whole house that was a whole AR from the factory.

All of them are made from parts.

Same for the AK's too. 

That's very different from all the other guns.

Part of the driving force was that I was into retro AR's and you couldn't buy complete guns back then.  Now the vintage parts I got for cheap are no longer cheap.  M16A1 parts kits are downright expensive now.  Repop is finally available and reasonably affordable.

Some of the ARs are just me marching to the beat of a different drum.  Queue Linda Ronstadt...

There's a couple times prior that I really modded a gun.  My dalliance with Mini-14's is a great example.

I guess if the gun makers would just make the gun I want instead of doing what they're doing instead I'd buy complete guns. 

Going With Pictures

In this thread, there are pictures of the arched backstrap for the model 59 and x59 guns.

Installed on a 459:

This is what the packaging looked like, way back when S&W still marketed them:

I wish they hadn't cut off the part number...
 

You're Going To Have To Be More Specific Drew

Drew Carey says Angelenos shouldn't vote for Spencer Pratt because he's a "serial scammer."

He doesn't, however, say how that distinguishes Mr Pratt from the other candidates. 

I guess he tried by saying, "I understand being angry/unsatisfied, but at least get behind someone competent and not some serial scammer without a soul or moral compass."

Again, how is Mr Pratt different from the other candidates? 

Indy

For the first time in years I both remembered that the Indy 500 was on and was able to watch it.

Lots of memberberries with this, even though I don't recognize but three names (and those are kids and grandkids!). 

Too Simple

There's a couple data points for libertardians that need to be pointed out repeatedly.

First, and largest, libertarian is too simple to have never been tried even before someone coined the term.

Where is this vast, successful, society living in accordance with the non-aggression principle?  Did you realize that a feudal system can be created within the libertarian framework?

The next largest problem is actually the same problem that socialism has; it doesn't scale.

At the monkey level both socialism and libertarianism work.  Once you don't know everyone personally, they fall apart.

I mean, if it's so obviously easy and simple, why isn't the Free State Project a shining beacon of freedom and liberty?

I, too, want to live in utopia.  Sadly, it doesn't exist and cannot be created.

The best we can hope for is maximizing liberty and pushing for the ideal can get us more of it; but way too many libertardians are absolutists.

When you go "all-or-nothing" you get nothing.  Every.  Single.  Time.

PS: For the Rands:  You really want me to respect you?  Stop running as Republicans. 

Flotation

Another thing that seemed counter intuitive in GURPS is flotation devices.

SEALs in Vietnam lists a buoyant load-bearing coat that gives 29 lb. of positive buoyancy.

They don't give a reference to how that works.

It turns out to be simple.  It just subtracts 29 lb. from the weight of the stuff you are carrying for the purposes of determining encumbrance.

Because your penalty to your swimming roll is equal to twice the movement penalty, 29 lb. can help a lot. 

Straight Forward But Still Confused Me

In GURPS, subsonic ammunition and suppressors are rated with a negative number to indicate how much quieter they are from normal shooting.

For example, subsonic ammo is a, "-2 to hearing."

The explanation for how hearing stuff is on page 358 of the Basic Set and 158 of High Tech, with gun specific sounds in High Tech.

Things are expressed in range steps based on the kind of sound, like a "light pistol".  Every time the range is doubled, -1 to hear; every time the range is halved, +1 to hear. 

The example is a Walther PPK, a light pistol.  At 256 yards, you make a hearing roll to hear the shot at +0.  With subsonic ammo you'd roll at -2.

At 7 yards, though, you are five "steps" closer so a +5 to hear the gunshot, +3 to hear a subsonic bullet.

Since they also give the decibel value for the sounds, you can also figure out how good your suppressor is in GURPS terms from the dB reduction.

A rifle, like an M16A1, is shown as 150 dB.  If I put my HEL E4A, TL7 detachable baffle suppressor on it, that'd reduce it to 124 dB, which is a two step reduction in sound pressure, thus a Hearing -2 value!  SCIENCE!  A more modern suppressor would drop it to 110 dB and get a -4 to hearing.

The +0 range for a rifle is 512 yards, so +2 at 100 yards and +5 at 10 yards.

The average person has a hearing roll of 10, so they only notice a +0 hearing roll half the time.  At +2 they hear it 74.1% of the time.  At +5 they hear it 95.4% of the time.

Is suppressing a rifle worth it?

In the M16A1 and HEL E4A example, the -2 means the average person will hear the shot at 512 yards 25.9% or the time, half the time at 100 yards and 83.8% of the time at 10 yards.  It's not insignificant.

A better suppressor changes the percentages to 9.3% at 512 yards, 25.9% at 100 yards and 62.5% at 10 yards. 

Don't forget the list of modifiers on High Tech p.158!  They can matter a lot. 

 

Why? Are They Broken?

A paean to the silliness of bayonets:

It's an interesting rant and I don't have a real objection to what he's saying.

I have bayonets for two reasons.

First is because of historical accuracy and having a complete set of kit for the gun.

Second is because they banned bayonet lugs from 1994 to 2004.

I have bayonet lugs on guns that cannot mount a bayonet!

'Tain't enough barrel there for a conventional M16 series bayonet. 

The title refers to the order, "Fix bayonets!" 

This Is Odd

Here I was, smug in my ignorance...

I supported renaming the USS Harvey Milk because I'd thought that Milk was just a politician from San Francisco.  A politician who was really only noteworthy for being murdered.

It turns out that he was a lieutenant junior grade and was forced to accept an other than honorable discharge in lieu of court martial for being gay.

In the Navy.

I KNOW!

Kidding aside, being gay ain't criminal nor a reason for discharge anymore.

For a lot of people, someone being gay isn't even considered bad.

Maybe there should be a ship named after Milk because of all the prejudice and injustice done to gay people who served.  Many did from the closet and did so honorably and the bigots never knew they were there.

Ten Million

Sometime on the 20th this blog got to ten million views.

Wow. 

Mr Elusive

We moved the feeder to keep the squirrels off and hoped our resident cardinal would come investigate.

The whole family came!

Apologies for the artifacts from shooting with my phone from behind both a screen and chicken wire from the porch.

The cardinals are VERY skittish, but they are definitely eyeing the feeder and thinking about getting closer to the monkey cage and the collection of cats.

There was a third one I didn't manage to get a picture of, but I think we have Mom, Dad and Son in the area until Dad drives Son off.

This May Be Your Only Chance!

Palmetto State Armory, doing business as Harrington & Richardson, has teamed up with DSA to produce a limited run of T48 FALs.

So, at 4:30 PM EDT, Friday, May 29, 2026 you can begin stabbing "add to cart" and attempting to enter your card information and check out before supplies are exhausted.

No price has been announced, but $2,600 is the rumor.

I have already made my case with Harvey about buying one:

1. It's really cool. 
2. It's really expensive.
3. We REALLY don't need it. 
4. It's objectively not as good as the FAL we already have. 

Did not dissuade her in the slightest.

She even consulted the Magic 8-Ball® which replied, "No." 

Shootin'

Took the 915 to the range with both it's new curved grips and refreshed magazines.

It shoots.

I am not unhappy with my group with it.

Harvey tried it out and discovered she likes a dot on the front sight and no dots in the rear.  We can change her M&P over to that.

We tried her out on all four backstraps and she's changed from the L to the S.  We originally used the larger grip when she was recovering from her shoulder surgery to compensate for some grip strength issues and numbness.

The S is working better for her now and shooting induced numbness appears to be reduced.  Win!

I'm working with her on stance and she needs a wider one than feels natural for her.  I remember going through this myself.  The immediate improvement in her group after she took a wider stance was worth it.

We talked about the differences in stance between archery and throwing darts, which she is more familiar with. 

No Show

Harvey and I attempted to go to a car show about 45 minutes away.

While it was a pleasant drive, the show was a no show.

The food trucks had arrived, but at 5:20 pm of a 4-8pm car show...  Yeah.

But we got a good drive out of it.

Trans temp peaked at 93°C (199.4°F) in stop and go traffic getting to the Suncoast Parkway.  That plummeted to 76°C (168.8°F) when it got into lock up at 70 mph.

In stop and go traffic on the way home, it barely broke 90°C. 

Upgrade

Did you know they made arched grips for 3rd gen S&W autos?

I do now!

Model 915 before:

Model 915 after:

I have long thought that the 59, x59 and 59xx series of guns needed an arched grip, and I was blissfully unaware that you could fix the 59xx guns!

Allegedly, there's a replacement, arched, backstrap for the 59 and x59 guns, but I have only seen a couple pictures, never the part for sale.

Sproing

Magazine springs are wear items.

Check every once and while if they've shrunk.

The top magazine is brand new.  The bottom one isn't.  I think it's an early 80's version of the 59xx series magazine.

The top spring is from an early 59xx 15 rounder.  The bottom spring is the same too short spring as the first pic.

Unloading the magazine with the shortest spring had a couple of moments where the follower wasn't following.

It was time to replace them.

Worth Your Time

If you're like me and Libertarian adjacent, this article is well worth your time.

It's long.  It might set you off a bit.

Gut it out. 

It codifies why the hair on the back of my neck rises when either of the Pauls spoke.  It identifies the wrongness.

Read the whole thing. 

All Lubed Up

Today was lubrication day for Alice and The Beast.

Both also got a new rubber gasket on the drain plugs.

The Beast's was very flat and showing signs of seepage. 

Update:  Today is a sad day.  My grease gun has given up the ghost.  Only had it 30 years.  Sadly, there don't appear to be repair kits for them anymore thanks to Chinese manufacturing making a complete replacement cheaper. 

Temps

The other day I had transmission temps between 82°C (179.6°F) and 79°C (174.2°F).

Yesterday, Marv's 2011 PPV was running temps around 59°C (138.2°F).

Several sites say the ideal temp range is 175°F (79.4°C) to 200°F (93.3°C). 

Looking around I discovered that the 2011 doesn't have the "thermal bypass" block like the 2012+ does.  This is a thermostat that controls when fluid is allowed into the transmission cooler.

The day was hotter and it wasn't raining when I made my measurements.

40 Years Of FOPA

40 years, yesterday, the Firearms Owners Protection Act went into effect.

Overall, a net positive, but the ban on new machine guns is still a thorn.

A few states reversed some of the gains, but most of us got freer. 

Self Correcting?

Tradition, Florida, has banned firearms from all the common areas.

Because it's, technically, private property, they can do that.

They're not a city, they're a planned community and their little ban is just an HOA rule.  If they were an incorporated entity, they would be forbidden to make that rule. 

However, he local popo has, publicly, stated that they don't enforce HOA rules, just state law.  This leaves them without a ready means to stop people from carrying in the common areas.

So, who's going to bell the cat?

A person who is against guns is going to tell someone with a gun to stop?

I think my reply would be along the lines of, "make me," because other people with guns aren't coming to stop me.

Living in the Wild West™ of unincorporated county has its drawbacks sometimes, but at least we don't have an HOA.

HOA's are run by the people who don't have anything else to do but run the HOA.  It's their life.  They are also the most busybody Karens you can imagine.  The only counter is to dedicate your life to the HOA, get elected and do nothing but run the HOA...

Normal people don't like that or seek it, so the Karens always end up in charge.

But bullshit like this almost always leads to the normal people staging a coup and reversing the stupid rule that pissed them off and normality is restored until Karen returns to power. 

1488? REALLY?!?

Is the inbred group of voters at WorldCon culturally appropriating Nazis with this 1488 shit?

 I've noticed that I have not read a Hugo award winner in a very long time.

I was half paying attention during the Sad Puppies and Rabid Puppies era and noticed that the point of the Hugo stopped being excellence in story telling but excellence in checking the progressive, minority, disability, LGBTQ boxes by the author regardless of the quality of the work.

Especially when there were Sad Puppy supporters saying things like, "I despise the author personally, but they wrote a really good story and should get your nomination and vote." 

I stopped reading at least one webcomic over the Hugo controversies.

Something this video made me notice is how similar the language is of the WorldCon nominating committee and Steve Jackson Games discussing inclusion with the upcoming GURPS 4eR.

Which makes me want to ask Sean Punch, "Are you actively happy with the Hugo Award?"

I think the answer matters because when we filter based on the attributes of the author and not the quality of the work, we will not be getting the highest quality work. 

Interesting

This is nothing I had not read about before, but it's a nice concise summary.

 

Lock Block

Ever see a scene so clearly it's like you were there and be utterly unable to phrase it even crayon sketch level in text?

I am there with a scene from my Sabers story.

Some dates have changed from the original outline, the triggering event happens later and the expedition through the spook hole happens more immediately after.  I am thinking of it being just before the events that triggered the Wounded Knee massacre.

The scene in question is the opening of the story.

Indians are shuffling in a big circle doing a ghost dance and are being watched by the local agent, who is worried about the Army coming to force them to stop.

He is relieved that it appears to be breaking up on its own over the course of the night as he is hearing fewer and fewer voices, so he goes to bed.

In the morning, there are no Indians.  Just a worn circle in the dirt and snow.

Dead Beer Brands

With the death of Schlitz I am thinking of other brands that have disappeared.

I remember my dad being a fan of Olympia.

Schmidt (imported from St Paul!) was popular among the bikers when we lived in the Twin Cities.

What other beer brands do you remember? 

Slogging

Moving files from the NAS to the expanded storage on DerpyPuter is a matter of wait.

I am finding a couple of files that don't exist on the NAS, but do exist on Crispy.

I must have moved rather than copied at least one time.

Ooops! 

Mox Nix

Politicians want credit for passing the same bill that gets passed every year. 

What this does, and has done, for as long as I can remember is tie the increases to veteran's compensation to the same percentage increase as Social Security.

If they wanna impress me, pass a law that doubles the compensation and make it law that it increases thereafter at 1.5x the percentage of SS.

More Space

DerpyPuter has shed the 500gb drive that came with her and now has a 1tb drive that used to house Win7 on Crispy I.

Special thanks to JT for figuring out a configuration issue.

Happy dance to go from 321 to 821 free gigs of space. 

Slushbox Baby

Got the deep transmission pan mod done on The Beast.  My buddy, JT's place of work has a lift and he generously allowed me to use it.

New pan on the left.  Just a bit of a difference.

It really doesn't affect the ground clearance at all:

The fill procedure is idiotic because they don't give you a dipstick.  So you take a pump and fill it through the hole that should have, and is in fact designed to have, a dipstick in it.

Actually, you overfill it.

Then you get the trans up to temperature by alternating between reverse and drive 15 seconds at a time.  Then you crawl under the car and remove what looks like a drain plug.  It isn't.  Inside the pan is a tube that is level with the top of the correct fluid level and when it stops pouring out the hole with the engine running and trans at temperature, you're good.

I'm good!

It got to a peak of 82°C (179.6°F) on the way home and averaged 79°C (174.2°F).  I'm happy with these temps in 86°F (30°C) high humidity weather.  I can't find where I wrote down what I was getting for temps last year when I took the time to log them.

The old fluid was a bit on the brown side, but still letting light pass through it.  No burnt smells.  A "normal" amount of stuff stuck to the pan magnet for 168k miles.

I suspect that the fluid has been changed before.  It looked too good for 168k miles and a cop car. 

Fine By Me

If you want to make cultural appropriation illegal, then you are going to have to stop appropriating MY culture, Ms Osei-Tutu.

I see you're in Miami.  You will have to give up air conditioning.  Your use of it is appropriating the works of European-American culture.

Best get used to walking too.  Cars, trains, buses, trucks and planes are all Western Civilization inventions.

Don't use the sidewalks or streets.  Concrete and asphalt are European and American, respectively.

The University you teach at is a product of Western Civilization and allowing you to have a prominent place in such an institution is also a Western Civ idea.

How about voting?  You're not only a woman, but a minority.  Where else, but by appropriating American culture could you have done that?

How about being a person instead of property?

But, let's not even go there.

Cultures in contact adopt what they like from each other.

Always have, and they always will.

Things get changed and relabeled constantly.

It's not a sign of disrespect.  It's not bigoted.

It just is.

It's stupid to try and stop it, and fruitless. 

We're Out Of Beer

The tagline was, "When you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer."

Pabst has decided to stop brewing Schlitz, bringing a 177 year old brand name to an end. 

This is kind of a bummer for me, it was one of my favorite American style beers, you just never saw it in the stores down here in Florida and I once found some in Iowa on a visit.

Amusingly, based on the tag line, I kept the last bottle from that Iowa visit, so I'd never run out of beer.  It's, at least, 8-years old.  I'm afraid to open the bottle now. 

Food Truck Idea

The truck or the tow vehicle has to be a hearse.

The food will consist entirely of upper midwest casseroles normally made when someone dies.

Not sure what to call it yet. 

Dallas? DALLAS?

The best bagel is made in Dallas, Texas by Starship Bagel.

In before Texans claim bagels were invented in Texas and never had cream cheese schmear. 

Rolling Resistance

Prior to getting the new tires, The Beast was getting 16.5 mpg in town, on average.

This week's mileage is running right about 19 mpg.

I can't help but think that's because tires that are actually ROUND resist rolling less than tires that are ovoid.

I don't think I'm driving any differently.

Sort of related:

I went on a quest to find some of the Grillo's and Pabst Pickle beer.

The web site said in stock half an hour from here, so I fired up The Beast and headed out.

It was a perfect drive.  Almost no traffic, hit all the lights green, Sirius was playing good music, perfect temperature to run with the windows down and cruise... 

Son Of A...

Ha!  I finally bought a gun without borrowing money from someone!

Didn't you use a credit card?

FUCK! 

Just For The Record

Whomever thought that, "As long as the grass grows and the water flows," meant forever was a fool.

Because in the land in question, the grass stops growing and the water stops flowing every winter.

Sometimes you can tell which side had legal representation by the contract's terms. 

180 Years

It has been 180 years since the USA last declared war on Mexico.

Not the last time we've fought, but it was the last time war were declared.

It took about two years for it resolve. 

Offended For Them Because They Won't Be Offended For Themselves

Something I accidentally hit while looking for other stuff about The Sioux.

American Indians volunteer for the military in fairly high numbers compared to their population.

They've done so since the beginning of the nation, as a matter of fact.

Strange they're fine with joining forces with the people who genocided them into non-existence...  Except for that whole thing that there are actually more Indians now than when Columbus landed.

The thing I keep hitting, over and over, is most Native Americans are of the philosophy of, "we fought, we lost, we got over it and moved on," and it's a small minority who keep stirring shit back up.

Turns out race baiting isn't just for African American grifters!

Grifting comes in all colors!

Plus you never hear about the people who just shrugged and joined American society and live productive, happy, lives.  Happy productive people don't make the news or garner any graft.  You need angry, unhappy, people for that.

Every race can produce some of those. 

Turns out that most American Indians aren't sitting around feeling either offended or sorry for themselves.

While they might be as proud of being Cheyenne as I am of being Scots-Italian, it's not their primary allegiance.

PS: My Blackfoot wife is not pinin' for The Rez; she's an example of a happy, productive, citizen. 

Checking The Math

Using this inflation calculator to check the picture found here. 

 The calculator says there was 483.1% inflation, that means a 1975 dollar is $5.83 in 2024.

$39,300 house should become $239,144.57.
$14,100 income should become $82,212.17.
$0.59 gas should become $3.44.
$1,500 college tuition should become $9,057.31
$3,800 new car should become $22,156.47
$150 rent should become $874.60.
$2.10 minimum wage should become $12.24
$0.28 loaf of bread should become $1.63
$1.55 movie ticket should become $9.04

Gee, you'd think the calculator might not be calibrated correctly.  At least for those specific things.

A 23" Zenith TV was $420 in 1975.  It should cost $2,599.78 today.  They actually cost $99.
A Colt Gov't model was $175.50.  It should cost $1,086.34 today, but actually comes in at $970.99. 

Inflation is not even across all things, but calculators try to make it so. 

The invisible hand does not care if something is relatively more or less valuable compared to 50 years ago.

I remember $70 Mosin-Nagant 91/30's around 2004.  Inflation says that should only be $123.41, they're selling in the mid $400's now. 

Feeding The Wildlife

My mom loved cardinals more than any other bird.

She set out feeders to attract them so she could watch them more often.

My area has a resident cardinal who has a sixth sense about cameras.

I am determined to get a good photo, but he's very camera shy.

My best pic so far.

So we set out a feeder.

Little did we know we'd set out a squirrel feeder.

My grampa, famously, hated tree-rats, and some of that has rubbed off on me in how I talk about them, but I don't really mind squirrels that mind their own business.

It was also kinda fun watching them do their gymnastics to get at the feeder.

But it wasn't for them, and they're keeping the birds away, so we moved it to a spot that forces them to break cover longer than they're comfortable doing.

Now we see them returning to the place where the feeder used to be and looking confused.  We're almost feeling sorry enough to get then their own feeder. 

That's Better

I have severely edited my post berating Mikey for being illiterate.

It was childish and not up to my internal standards.

The replacement language says the exact same thing in a more adult tone.

I will try to explain the comment policy again...

You get to comment at my sufferance.

If I will not suffer you to comment, you don't get to comment.

Ending your commenting privilege doesn't mean I am afraid of your argument, it's means I'm sick of hearing from you.

Nothing about me allowing comments give you a right to express yourself here.

For the most part, if you remember to sign your comment, it's getting posted.

It actually takes some work to get me to give up and start moderating someone.

Filtering out the sealions makes my life easier and happier. 

Oh, and once I've decided to ban you, you're done.  No matter how reasonable and polite you are when you've forgotten about what you did to get banned. 

I Hope He's Wrong But Fear He's Right

 

But he's dead on about investment places ruining a brand.

True Cowardice (Rephrased)

True cowards shit on other people's blog without having their own to be shit upon.

You got banned for not being able to follow the posting rules, Mikey.

I'm not afraid of you, I'm sick of you.

And I know you can't read.

If you'd been able to read, you could still comment.

You'd have known I'd be mocking you for being unable to read. 

Tschüß! 

PS: Because I control if you get to reply, I get the last word. 

Americans Really Will Use Anything To Avoid Using The Metric System

An incredible 64 million cubic metres of rock – the equivalent of 24 Great Pyramids - splashed into the water below.

Hey There

It just hit me that Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is set in the same time frame as the English Civil War.

How about that?

Kinda cements the idea that adding some blackpowder guns doesn't wreck the fantasy world feel too much.

It also underscores how little you really need to do to make WFRP work under GURPS, if you're motivated and not easily distracted.

Which, I'm sorry to say, I am unmotivated and easily distracted.

In a nutshell, 95% is already done.

If you wanna preserve the distinction between mage and cleric, you need a couple of GURPS: Dungeon Fantasy supplements.

All that's left is a couple of the world specific races and I've been plugging away at them.

It's slow work because WFRP is not well grounded in reality and that means converting stats is an irritating slog. 

Even If

I was reading about how Senator Kelly spewed the contents of a classified briefing in public (are charges coming?) about how shallow our stockpile of precision munitions is getting.

Need I remind everyone that the dumb munitions still work fine if you're willing to have a larger circle of destruction surrounding the target?

One of the main drivers of precision munitions is to get stand off distance to keep our own people safe from the enemy's defenses.

If the enemy has no defenses to speak of a WW2 bomber could do the mission. 

English Civil War

Nothing in current events, mind, but I just watched the old classic Richard Harris movie, "Cromwell."

I am thinking that I like the look of the period for a Fantasy campaign.

Solid early TL4 so all the "shouldn't exist at TL3" armor and weapons problems won't exist.

I like it.

The 17th century is, potentially, more fun than the 10th or 11th where most people envision Fantasy taking place.

What A Difference

Got the agitator dogs replaced in the Kenmore today.

What a difference!

The Boy's bed linens actually smell clean now.

I rewashed a load of my own clothes and the water was very gray during agitation.

I think it's safe to say that the washer ain't been washin' very well for a while.  I have no idea how long the dogs were not ratcheting.

Also the new clutch lets the drum really spin, so the clothes are coming out drier before they go into the dryer.

Control The Words Control The Dialog

There's a list of words that you cannot say on YouTube if you want to keep your channel monetized.

There's also a list of words that let you wink wink, nudge nudge, understand what word they'd meant to use.

Like unalived instead of kill.

Yahtzee for Nazi.

Etc.

By going along with the ban, you are going along with whatever messaging the people in charge of the purse strings wish you to portray.

I don't know a way around it except to be funded outside of YouTube and using their platform despite it.

But that leads to your channel being buried and not seen by new eyes... 

Clutches And Dogs

The washing machine was making a screeching noise in spin cycle.

No es bueno.

We hired the local appliance place to come diagnose and repair it.

It was very close to the same price as getting a different washer, but we LIKE our old Kenmore direct drive.

They're serviceable.

Repairable.

Nigh immortal.

The part that needed replaced was the clutch for the drum.

The repair guy mentioned our agitator dogs were out too, cheap fix and simple to perform.  He even said, "I can see your tool box, you can do this!"

That made me feel good.

He might even have seen me changing the hatch struts on Alice too. 

What Happened To The Furor?

I remember when the CMP announced the prices for the M1911's all the sturm und drang over the sales.

I was among the early doubters, in fact.

Since then there have been at least four lotteries for whom got a pistol and that's moved on to direct sales of what's left.

And the furor is gone.

Not even sour grapes griping about missing out.

While the lotteries were running, I only recall a couple of people who didn't like what they'd gotten. 

I've seen pics of some very nice guns on various forums. 

Symptom Not Cause

IN spooked them. They thought they had Trump and MAGA contained. They thought they could ignore Trump. They thought that MAGA was weakened, split, and easily put back in the corner. They believed the fake polls. They figured their podcast bros caused more than enough…

— unseen1 (@unseen1_unseen) May 7, 2026

I keep telling the few liberal friends I still have the Trump, and MAGA, is a symptom not the cause of what's going on.

It doesn't end when he leaves office.

It started back when the TEA in Tea Party meant "taxed enough already" and before the media convinced everyone TEA meant KKK.

The media that did that no longer has that kind of power.  Especially with the SLPC involved in wire fraud charges.

Buckle up, Buttercup! 

Pessimistic Me?

Too many MAGA people moan about what they are not seeing done while ignoring the incredible wealth of good news in their midst.

I’ll give you just one example.

Did you know that the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division has created a “Second Amendment Section,” designed to protect the…

— Cynical Publius (@CynicalPublius) May 6, 2026

Yes, it's good news that the DOJ is suing over an AWB.

But we can also see that Duncan v Bonta is not moving and it's been sitting there for...

Nine years since the initial, favorable, ruling.

Three years since the 9th Circus Circuit issued the unfavorable ruling saying the law could proceed and be enforced.

Waiting on the Supreme Court.

Again.

Still.

It took our side two years to file for certiorari, FFS!

So, good on the DOJ for suing Denver.  Should have the injustice removed in about ten years...  Assuming that the succeeding administrations and their DOJ keep the case going.

That's why we're pessimists!  They can't do a decade's worth of litigation in the two years remaining. 

Artificial Handicaps, Mozambique Drills, GURPS And You

What we've done by buying and using the 75% IDPA targets at seven yards is to simulate shooting at ten yards.

7 yards is -3 to hit.  10 yards is -4, so we've been giving ourselves a -1 penalty at the range vs "real life".

In the above photo, going for the Mozambique Drill, it's -3 for the vitals and -7 for the skull.  How to GURPS it is on page 15-16 of Tactical Shooting.

In total:

Vitals: -4 for range, -3 for location,+1 for all-out-attack (determined), +1 for no risk to self, +1 for no risk to others, +3 for well lit range, +3 for known distance.  +2 to hit vitals.

Skull: -4 for range, -7 for location,+1 for all-out-attack (determined), +1 for no risk to self, +1 for no risk to others, +3 for well lit range, +3 for known distance.  -2 to hit vitals.

If you're patting yourself on the back for how well you do on the range, notice the +8 for being at the nice, safe, comfortable firing range.

I've calculated my Guns/TL8 (Pistol) at 15 before, so I'd need a 17 or less to hit with one round at the vitals, 15 or less to hit with both in round 1.  Then I'd need a 15 or less to hit the skull in round 2.

I am definitely not running at the pace that requires using the Rapid Strike version of the drill!

In the real world, I'd need a 9 to land one shot and a 7 to land both in the vitals.  Rolling a 10 or 8 means hitting the torso instead.  To hit the skull in the next round I'd need to roll a 5 or less.  I don't feel super confident of that head shot.  Rolling a 6 means hitting the torso instead. 

In the real world I'd prolly not be ready to shoot until the person attacking me was a lot closer than 10 yards, more like three...  So -1 for range instead of -4 and then 12 for the vitals, 10 for both rounds (13 and 11 get the torso) then 8 or less for the skull shot.

Probably more doable. 

Also Today

Cinco de Mosin!

And Another Thing

If you're blaming me for someone else being a racist because I look like that racist...

You're a racist too.

Wasn't me, didn't do it.

Blaming the group for individual crimes is the core of bigotry.

It's a seductive trap and easy to fall into.

Interestingly, noticing that groups of people have something in common is not racist or sexist if the observation happens to be true.

You wouldn't be able to recognize them as a group otherwise.

And sometimes the differences between groups are insurmountable and they should live with some space between them.  But not as often as many bigots would have you believe. 

May The Fourth Be With You

Because today is May the Fourth Be With You and tomorrow is Cinco De Mayo...

I give you Obi Juan Kenobi!

Not A Comment On The Metric System

I object to the Universal Metric Cartridge Naming System because there are too many duplicates, not because it uses metric.

Using inches would have the same problems.

8x50mmR would still need to have "Lebel" or "Siamese" after 0.321x1.98"-R.

For the record, we went to the moon using the metric system.  Look it up.

Gauges and instruments were labeled in Imperial because of familiarity to the operators, but the math was done in metric. 

Hitting The Wall

Actually, hitting the paper.

Harvey has hit the proverbial wall in becoming a better pistol shot.

She is also frustrated by me being so much better than her in a casually effortless way.

I don't even think I'm that good, I'm OK.

And it took many long years to get to it.

She was very depressed and down on herself so I said, "let's sit here on the stools behind the range on the other side of the glass."

We sat for a while watching the other people shoot and I say, "you're already better than half the people here."

And she is.

She's getting all her shots on paper.  Nearly all of them in the -1 ring of a 75% sized IDPA target at 7 yards.

With an epic flinch while she jerks the trigger no less!

She tends to string vertically with a low bias.

We're working on it.  But it doesn't help that she cannot feel her pinkie on her right hand and often cannot feel her ring finger thanks to something pinching in her right elbow.

Her eyes/glasses combination isn't helping.  Our last trip to the eye doctor did NOT get us glasses we're happy with at all. 

Mutter Mutter

Posting pics has, once again, become unreliable at Blogger.

If they'd just stop breaking the "Insert Image by URL" feature, I'd be fine.

Copy-pasting the image to the page as a work around started working erratically, and was making hot-links to the URL I wanted to insert anyway rather than actually dropping the image.  Those links die for some reason. 

Uploading the image to Blogger has never failed, but there's reasons to not use that; not least of which is the limited space provided.

I pay flickr for unlimited space, I'm not going to pay someone else too. 

Wait I've Heard This One Before

There's a video making the rounds of a Muslim woman complaining about the lack of Halal choices in Japan.

She, apparently, spent a month there and ended up eating...

Well the pics she posted looked yummy to me.

But Japan loves pork.

One would think you'd check that out before committing to a month there.

But I have seen this meme before there was a word, "meme."

The Ugly American.

You know the person, they go to a foreign and exotic land and demand that everything be made just like home for them.  It's an American stereotype.

So she went to Japan and is demanding they have Halal food at every eatery because SHE is there.

Yeah.

Well, I gotta love one response I found from someone in Japan, "So I can buta no shogayaki at every restaurant in Riyadh?"

I mean every place MUST conform to the ideals of their visitors, right?

I'm actually surprised there's been push back against her little rant.

The Case Against Universal Metric Cartridge Designation

The first example of how Universal Metric fails against simply naming the rounds is the number of 8x50mmR rounds where you end up naming them anyways.  Austrian, Lebel, Siamese...

But where it really rankles me is .22 Long and .22 Long Rifle.

UM is based on caliber x case length.

.22 Long and .22 Long Rifle are identical if you use UM.  5.6x16mmR.  This is because they use the exact same case.  .22LR uses a longer, heavier, bullet and more powder.  They're not the same.

Wrong Designation

While I was restricting myself to things that were plausible for Twilight, I'd missed that the hoary old M577 stopped being M577.

Neatly sidestepping becoming the Mobile Command Post of Theseus the M577A2 was extensively upgraded and modernized to become the M1068.

A similar upgrade makes the M577A3 into the M1068A3.

Still looks the same on the outside and you'd be forgiven if you mistook one for another.

The M1068 is due to be replaced by the Bradley based M1286.

I once had a player group in one of my first conversions of T2K to GURPS select the M577A1 CP because it had air conditioning. 

Just A Couple Years Late

Twilight: 2000 had a few variations of the M2 Bradley which were projected to enter service, but never did.

It was a logical progression that the Brad would be modified as the M113 had and would have as many specialized variants.

Well...  No.  Especially with the Berlin Wall falling and ruining the chances we'd have full on nuclear combat, toe to toe with the Ruskies.  It also makes T2K an alt-history instead of a speculative future.

Darn.

It does turn out that the M113 is obsolete and not viable for frontline operations any more and that we needed something to replace all of its numerous variations.

Which we started to do in 2018 with the Armored Multi-Purpose Vehicle program. 

T2K's M18 mortar carrier is the real world's M1287.

The world only took 32 years to catch up to a game... 

I'll Help!

There seems to be some confusion out there.

Here's a handy way of looking at things that will help.

If you do something because of race, it is racism.

If you increase the voting power of Black people because they are Black, you are doing a racist thing. 

If you increase the voting power of White people because they are White, you are doing a racist thing. 

If you increase the voting power of Asian people because they are Asian, you are doing a racist thing. 

If you increase the voting power of Hispanic people because they are Hispanic, you are doing a racist thing.

Update:* Swapping the races doesn't make it not racist.  If it's racist for White people to do it, it's racist for Black people to do it:  Regardless of how often or how long White people did it!  Two wrongs don't make a right. 

See how that works?

If the voting power of a given people is decreased because it increases the power of one political party over another it is not necessarily racist.

If the voting power of one political party is always increased when the voting power of a given race is increased it is racist.

If the voting power of a given race is disproportionate to their population, it is racist.

The majority will always have more voting power than the minority.  That there are more White people than Black people is incidental to argument. 

I hope this clear things up.  But it doesn't. 

Which brings us to Florida and how the new district map increases the power of Whitey™.

Florida was 51.5% White as of the 2020 census.  It was 14.5% Black and 26.5% Hispanic.

The distribution of race is not even in Florida.  There are no real concentrations of Black people where they're the majority unless you get really creative with drawing the lines and the map suddenly looks a lot like Illinois.  Essentially you'd have to pinpoint every Black person you can find, connect the dots and that's your district with a majority Black population.

This district will utterly disenfranchise anyone who is not Black and, historically, it was drawn across places that were, historically, majority Hispanic.  Oddly, never up along the Alabama border were it made more sense...

Yet, somehow, this increases White Power®?  Never mind there's a distinct population of "Black" people who'd say, "¡Soy cubano!"  Does moving the lines increase or decrease their voting power?

The final thought I leave you with: There is no way to draw the lines that is completely fair.  It is impossible.  The best you can do is to maximize fairness, but someone will always be left out. 

*Thanks SiGraybeard!

More Anarchotyranny

If you call the cops for the same thing too many times, you will be fined for it.

The most common version of this tale is a false alarm of your security system.

The cops come out when your alarm goes off, find nothing, and after a certain number of calls order you to fix your alarm or be fined.

So you call the alarm company and discover that there's nothing wrong with your system.

But the alarm keeps being triggered.

So the cops fine you.

This does not sit well with the average business owner at all.

What's happening?

The burglars know the police response time and how they operate.  They trigger the alarm and disappear.  They know that the most common end response of the business owner is to shut the alarm off rather than face the fine.

Then they can burgle at their own pace.

The crowning moment is when the place gets cleaned out and the owner calls the cops in the morning they say, "you should have had an alarm."  They will then proceed to do a cursory investigation and the crime will never be solved no matter how obvious it is to everyone in the neighborhood whom the criminals are.

Oh, and don't you dare figure out what the thieves are up to and sit inside your business waiting for them to break in.  There's no defending mere property allowed.

And THAT is how you end up with a law making it legal to shoot burglars.

And by the bye, if you don't make it legal to shoot burglars, you eventually get cops getting shot by citizens because the cops are only getting in the way of justice and things have progressed to the point where the only path to justice is unlawful.

Remember:  The deal is we give up the right to vendetta and The State catches and punishes criminals.  If The State reneges on this deal, we get our vendetta back.

We don't want our vendetta back.  It really is better if the professionals catch and punish criminals, it's one of the things that allows for a high-trust society. 

Still The Goldilocks

The center group is the M&P 2.0 9 Compact.  The other two groups are the Shield Plus.

I then decided to so some Mozambique drills with the Compact.

While I keep hearing about how great the Gen 6 Glocks are, they'd have to really be great to replace my Smith.

Mayday Mayday Mayday

 

Poproszę o przedmioty z byłego państwa komunistycznego – takie, których nie można było posiadać, gdy było ono jeszcze państwem komunistycznym – za 1000 dolarów.

Today is international fuck communism day.

The official food of today is "no food."

Half price helicopter rides if you show your Communist Party ID when checking in at the gate.