Somehow This Is Racism And Sexism

I'm a proponent of equal rights.

I have discovered that this makes me either racist, sexist, or both, depending on whom I'm talking to.

Why?

Because I'm talking about actually equal footing.

Not leveraging gender or race to get an advantage.

Not reversing the sexism and racism of the past.

Want the better job?  Get the education and training to land it.

Want that promotion?  Work hard, work well.

There's lots of specific examples that end up hurting women and minorities in the work place.

Things that make hiring them a negative for a place hoping to make a profit.

Remember, a job exists as a side effect of a successful business.  The benefit of the employee is a secondary reason the job exists.

Employees who disappear for months at a time and cannot be replaced are a detriment.

Unqualified employees a drain on the qualified ones at best. 

The soft bigotry of low expectations is rampant because we're not treating people as equals. 

Shiny Let's

I'm reading an article about how a Japanese city council member is advocating that no social support go to non-citizens in his city.  Regardless of their legal status to be in that city.

That sort of article always gives me "King for a Day" ideas...

America is a lot more complicated than Japan for immigration, granted.

We have some solvable problems, though.

An issue that a lot of people have is the large number of foreign nationals on our various welfare programs.

A significant number of those people are here because they have a relative who is legally here and working.  H1B gateway to bringing in the entire extended family. 

A small change would fix some of it.

Just make the people brought in under the family reunification portion of the statute ineligible for all the programs they're currently abusing.

YOU need your family here?  Fine, YOU support them.

I know this method works because we've done it before.

We used to pay $x per child to American Indians living on the reservation.  Said Indians started having large families until it was getting to be a budget problem for the agencies tasked with administering the reservations.  So a two-child limit was imposed on the payment.  Suddenly, it was rare to see a third child...  Notice that nothing banned them from having more than two kids, just that there was no stipend for #3.

I also don't have a problem taxing into oblivion foreign nationals living here.

You cannot be a second class citizen until you are actually a citizen.

I want strong incentives for people to become Americans once they land here and to just as strongly encourage those who cannot to leave. 

Do You Own It?

If you can't run it offline, you don't own a copy.

If the failure of someone else's computer takes it offline, you're renting it.

A good sized chunk of the nation got an object lesson in this today! 

Second Class Citizenship

There are fucking metal detectors to go into the Florida Aquarium in Tampa.

Because someone might hijack the aquarium and force the fish to swim to Cuba?

I am increasingly sick of the proliferation of gun-free victim zones.

It's especially galling that they were giving free admission for Veteran's day.

I have yet to reconcile that I can be trusted to carry gun virtually any place but somehow it's more dangerous to have legal conceal carry in aquariums, museums, amusement parks and convention centers.

Trust me, I am WAY more angry at the people in Target or Wal Mart than I am at anyone at the zoo!

But nobody gets shot, despite that, because irritating me is not something that rises to the level of requiring a lethal response.

I might sigh.

I might grumble.

I might complain.

I might rant.

But I am not shooting my fellow customers unless I'm shooting back.

That's the deal we make when we carry.

I keep seeing the justification that this is for the "safety" of everyone so that they can "feel safe."

I'd rather be safe than feel safe.

There's a lot of people in Florida alone that felt safe right up to the moment they were killed.  Too many died because they had been deprived of the means to defend themselves.

Gun owners are, indeed, still the new CENSORED of society. 

Why We Fight

 

Veteran's Day

Today is Veteran's Day!

It is not Memorial Day, even if it is Remembrance Day in the rest of the English speaking world.  Easy to get them confused.

It it not Armed Forces Day.

Today is for those living people who no longer serve.

Not those still in service.

Not those who've gone ahead of us down that last path.

Those groups have their own days.

So take your favorite veteran to a movie, buy them a meal, get them a drink, get them laid, say, "thank you," like you mean it!

Go with them to the places where they get free grub and pay full price and thank the restaurant for doing it. 

Dammit

Stacy Keach has passed on.

I lost track of the number roles he played that I enjoyed.

Mike Hammer and Papa Titus loom largest. 

It is of note that I have no idea what his politics were.  That's so refreshing! 

Happy Birthday Jarheads!

Even though the modern form of the Marines is actually from July 11, 1798, we celebrate their birthday from today in 1775.

Happy Birthday to the Men's Department of the Navy. 

I Have To Say That I Agree

I Have Not Betrayed His Teachings

David Freiburger has a saying, "Don't get it right, just get it running."

The idea is that a running car is one you will drive and if you're driving it, you will be motivated to work on it until it is right.

The AC fix is a running example of "getting it right."

I hope he forgives me doing so on my mobility blob®.

A 2012 Caprice PPV is too new for his tastes... 

Update:

I just realized that I kept it running for a year and a half without fixing the AC and, thus, followed his philosophy.  A running car with a problem gets you motivated to fix on it.

I remember The Biscayne SS being relegated to it's spot and decaying away because I didn't feel like working on it when I had The Precious to drive.

Menagerie Restored!

The Beast has a collection of beasts!  With the windows down, they'd fly around and there was a distinct chance of losing one overboard.

With the AC fixed, it shouldn't be a problem now.

I am a whimsical creature!

Y+ 37

Thirty seven years ago the Berlin Wall came down.

So did I.

This is also the anniversary of me jumping, not to the back deck as planned, but into a ditch next to the tank.  Or it might be tomorrow.

We were awake and over-alert for too many hours and I had a bit of trauma going on, so I don't remember the exact day.

Hell, I didn't remember it was associated with the Berlin Wall for years. 

Happy Birthday

Happy Heavenly Birthday to our dear, departed, Neptunus Lex.

I will drink my toast later this evening. 

Political Violence

I've been observing for a while.

One side is using violence.

The recent report that Dave Chappelle is pleased that Charlie Kirk was murdered made me think of something.

We don't don't say, "boo," to Muslims because they've a propensity to be violent.  They, also, tend to get their way.

The left is screaming about using more violence against the right.

They're missing something very critical.

What happens when The Right notices that violence works better than obeying those silly laws and cultural norms?

What happens when the right begins to murder right back?

It's called civil war.  Sometimes revolution.

It's rarely fun and rarely comes out how anyone wanted it to. 

A Reminder

If you're trying to comment anonymously, you must sign your comment.

If you don't sign it, I don't publish it.

Someone or several someones are making good comments that are getting flushed for a lack of attribution. 

Gaming With Scientists And Engineers

I ran a, successful, Twilight: 2000 converted to GURPS campaign for several years.

I lived in Ames, Iowa and we played at the Memorial Union on Iowa State University.

The player pool was full of STEM students.

That means they're familiar with the metric system.

Twilight: 2000 is in metric because the US military uses the metric system.

GURPS does not use the metric system.

The "conflict" doesn't really come up very often.

T2K uses real world items that we could get real world weights for, so the kg vs lb thing was nullified. 

Ranged combat in GURPS is given in yards, not meters.

The problem happens when I, keeping in the style of the setting, said that a target was X meters away and then using that same number on the range chart in yards.

I had two players doing the math on their calculators and demanding that since I said 100m, we should use the range band for 109.3613 yards.

That changes the range penalty from -10 to -11, so it was screwing them.

It was a little squabble, but it was persistent.

I think it was the first time I invoked the concept that π = 3.00 in GURPS, therefore 1m = 1 yard and 1 lb. = 0.500kg.

It's strange how that made the engineers happy, but the scientists still chaffed.

What finally got them to stop grumbling over it was to hand them my hoary old SMART book and show them the section on range estimation.  It's not what you call, "highly precise," which means that, "the target is 100m away," suddenly means 80 to 120m away and 100 yards fits in that range, so they finally accepted when I gave a range penalty lower than they calculated. 

I just realized that this NEVER came up in any of my conversions of Traveller to GURPS.  Traveller is even more metric than T2k! 

Monkey See

Back when I did my map-light mod I focused on the mechanical process of getting the right wires in the right position on the new connector.

Recently, the driver's map-light would stick in the on position.  Most of the time, the switch would eventually shut it off, but the other day...  Nope.

I had to unscrew the bulb.

I thought, "no biggie, I don't really use that one anyway."

There I sat until Marv started his own map-light mod and, unlike me, he's looking at WHY it works instead of just HOW it works.

He noted that there's a lot of voltage sensing circuitry in there and I remembered that the passenger side was stuck in the on position when I first did this mod!

So I put an incandescent in the driver's side and the switch appears to do what it's supposed to do again!

I'm not going to declare it fixed because it would work fine for decently long periods of time when I checked to see if it would stick. 

I Know I'm Sick Of It

While I did vote party-line, I remain unhappy about it.

They ask what we want and resolutely do what they were planning on doing to do before asking.

My vote is essentially picking which party is going to ignore what I want.

I don't know why I should be happy with that.

I definitely agree with the philosophy that the government needs to be small enough that it doesn't matter if an idiot gets elected to run it.  This is government smaller than that required to not matter if the malicious get elected.

I am increasingly convinced that there be no laws regarding the safety of devices and let Darwin loose upon the unwary. 

It Needed To Get Done

You can spend all your time making money
You can spend all your love making time*

I am a believer in comparative advantage.

That's where, despite knowing how to do something and doing it yourself is cheaper than hiring someone, the opportunity cost of doing it is higher than hiring someone to do it.

In other words, you make more while someone else does it than it costs to pay them.

The AC project really did save money, even if you count buying some of the parts twice.

I bought the parts to rebuild the HVAC box for $170.

I bought a new HVAC box for $815.

I bought another $150 in sundries.  I don't count buying tools because they're reusable.

$1,145 is still less than $3,000.

I spent almost 50 hours doing the job.

To make spending $3,000 on the job with the parts I bought worth it, I need to make more than $37.10 an hour, or $77,168 a year.  I do not make, and have never made, that much a year.

So it's worth my time to do this job because it doesn't cost me more than my time is worth. 

*"I hate the Eagles man!" J. Lebowski

Strange

I've been working steady on The Beast for three weeks and, while I was tired, I wasn't sore.

TODAY, now that I'm done, my leg muscles are sore.

Go figure. 

Make Note

With El Niño going on the local weatherman was asked when we'd be seeing some cooler weather.

I realized that now that my AC is fixed, we're pretty much guaranteed snow. 

A Red Letter Day In The History Of Science

Today, 71 years ago, a prominent inventor from California was inspired to create the flux-capacitor.

This simple device is what makes time travel possible.

Sadly, Infinity Unlimited snipped this branch from our timeline.

The Brown Timeline got time machines, dehydrated pizza, and flying cars.

Our timeline got iPhones and 9/11. 

CHARGE!

Added 17ish ounces of R134a to The Beast.

Temperature at the vent and the pressures on the gauges are close enough to what the book says I'm going to say I did that part right.

That's with the temp to 'C', fan on max and recirculate set to 'off'.  Got the required 52°F at the vent in idle.

Took it for a drive with the climate controls set to 'auto' and 67° dialed in.

I did not die in the 82°F, 86% humidity drive around the area.

Vent temps were a bit lower driving around...

I am very hopeful that it stays fixed! 

Cat Fight

Shadow is getting braver.

Beeper is not less aggressive towards her.

What this means is Shadow is more willing to be in the same space as Beeper, which has increased the frequency of conflicts.

The increased bravery, however, has resulted in more draws for Shadow rather than constant losses.

Only took her three years... 

Style Guide

Drier = less moist.

Dryer = thing that makes something less moist.

I have used both spellings incorrectly frequently. 

Almost Got Away With It

You can get the cap off the filter / dryer capsule without taking the condenser out of the car.

You cannot get the old bag of desiccant out because you can't get the angle to get a grip on it.

Happily, the condenser isn't THAT hard to get out.

I have the car completely buttoned up now.  New seals on the condenser.

15 ml of PAG oil added to the condenser to replace what was soaked into the old desiccant.

30 ml of oil added to the LP line to replace the oil lost with the old evaporator.

30 in hg has been pulled and is currently holding. (fingers crossed).

Tomorrow we see if it will take r134a and if the compressor survived a year of not being used. 

RIP RKB

Robert K Brown, of Soldier of Fortune Magazine fame, apparently shuffled off the mortal coil back in August, but his wife waited until what would have been his 94th birthday to let the world know.

I was a subscriber of SoF for a while.

I think the reason I dropped my subscription is a common one.  IYKYK. 

Falling In Love Again

Things that have been getting progressively fixed and upgraded on The Beast are really paying off.

My Lords she's smooth and surefooted now.

I am not sure how I will act with working AC, but I am poised to start the last step there. 

I Have Exercised My Solemn Franchise

If you don't vote you don't really have a right complain about the outcome because what you chose was, "let someone else decide."

Elections go to the people who show up.

Don't like the candidates?  Did you vote in the primaries?

Lots of you didn't because something like 2% of the eligible voters where I live voted in the primaries.

Again, if you don't show up and have your vote counted, how will anything ever change to your liking? 

Is That Really News?

One of the news reports about the Palm Beach Learjet crash made a point to tell us that one of the passengers was wealthy.

Um...

Us poors don't charter Learjets.

That's wealthy people stuff.

File under "duh!" 

Found The Nut

The missing windshield wiper nut was located sitting on top of the washer tank just behind the bumper.

It'd ridden there for two test drives and a trip to the shop to get the alignment. 

Weiẞe Rose

I try to avoid Dancing Monkeys frothing at the mouth about politics because, invariably, the ones who do so are dumb as posts.

Today's example is Wil Wheaton, a known Dancing Monkey.

Wil is best known for playing a deeply unpopular character on Star Trek: Next Generation and a version of himself on The Big Bang Theory.

And for being an insufferable ass about politics.

Wil recently ranted, "Stephen Miller, on behalf of Star Trek, and everyone who knew and loved [Patrick Stewart], keep my Captain's name out of your fucking Nazi mouth.  He despised you, and everything you stand for."

Interesting that you're the official spokesman for the show now, Wil.  Did you ask Bill Shatner?  Does Paramount know?

But, let's address AGAIN the Nazi accusation that idiot leftists and Trump Derangement Syndrome sufferers keep making.

Wil, you would not be able to level this accusation at a real, dyed in the wool, National Socialist.

Well, not for very long.

Actual, real, literal, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei types would just pick you up off the street and have you executed by guillotine.  The White Rose Society was far milder in their opposition to Hitler than you are about Trump.  Just sayin'.

In short, Wil, you have no fucking clue about what you're talking about with regards to Nazis, so I will just have to assume that you have no clue as to the mind of Sir Patrick Stewart.

So, Dancing Monkey, I stopped paying the grinder a long time ago, you can shut up and slink off to wherever failed actors go.  Yes, I will have fries with my order.

Patrick Stewart, also a known Dancing Monkey, did express some socialist politics, but never did so in an abrasive, hateful way.  His public expression was that he disagreed, not despised, with policies.

But it matters not one whit because MISTER Stewart was a foreigner poking his nose into American politics.  Particularly gun control.

That's something I despise with a vengeance and it makes me miss him less.

And, AGAIN I emphasize the sozialistische part of Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei.

Socialist in English.

Let's see, Wil, who's more like Hitler than Trump.  You're a socialist, Hitler was a socialist.  You're a member of a trade union, "Arbeiterpartei" can be translated as "union" and Hitler was a member of a union...

Stewart, the same is true.

In truth, you Dancing Monkeys are better Nazis than anyone else I can name. 

Dead Pics

I've been finding posts with dead pictures in them.

In nearly every case it's a an unresponsive link to Flickr to a full size image.

No problems when I've linked to the 1024x768 version of an image.

So I've been fixing them as I find them.

It's a bit tedious. 

Interesting Doc

 

That they were open minded about it says a lot about how the tone has shifted over the years.

Nine Years One Month

I just noticed that I we went right past the 9th anniversary of the Mandalay Bay Hotel shooting in Las Vegas without 24-7 rending of garments and gnashing of teeth.

That change is significant!

Used to be the anniversaries of these things were reported breathlessly. 

FFS

I stopped watching his channel a while ago, but I don't think a national from a nation that LITERALLY made quarantine facilities concentration camps to house the people who refused the COVID vaccine has a lot of room to be critical about the level of freedom in America.

How's the freedom to own a gun going on down under?  Or to mod your car?  I feel a lot freer than you...

There's no truly FREE nation.

The tyranny of a million tiny regulatory cuts bleeds a lot of liberty away in every Western nation. 

But the entire point of the video is "Empire is BAD, America has become an Empire, therefore America is BAD."

You want to explain how your quarantine facilities were different from concentration camps?  Tough shit, Hitler was EVIL, Hitler made concentration camps, therefore YOU are EVIL for making concentration camps!  And I know this line of reasoning because you made the exact same argument about the internment camps the US put up for Japanese-American citizens. 

The last video I bothered watching he mentioned his school of thought for how to do history and I don't think that's a good method of doing it.  Ethno-History seems to be a means of applying guilt to a society with modern filters instead of the lenses used by the people of the time.

It's a lot like blaming a 5 year old for things as if they were an senior citizen.

Something else you need to understand about Americans, Mate:  "Shiny, let's be bad guys."  It's a cultural trait that if we keep being treated as if we're guilty, when we're innocent, to say, "fuck it, let's crime!"

Are you certain that after decades of the world accusing us of shit we weren't up to that you're not just seeing us saying "fuck it"? 

PS: I loathe to call any form of quarantine facility or internment camp a concentration camp because the National Socialists "feature" of gas chambers and crematoria is absent in Australian and American iterations of the idea.

PPS: This is a half-cocked rant about a particular YouTuber and not a well researched document on all of Australia.  Apologies to my readers Down-Under who feel they got tarred by the same brush. 

Lost And Found

There were four things missing when I did inventory after buttoning The Beast back up.

1. The cute little sweatshirt cover for the shifter.

2. My 4-jet lighter.

3. A baggie of heat-shrink tubing.

4. One nut for the windshield wipers.

We searched the entire garage and the car like three times to no avail.

Today we renewed the search.

The cute little sweatshirt was found in the glove box.

The lighter was found on top of the medicine cabinet in the garage bathroom.

The baggie of heat shrink tubing was found where it belonged, just hidden from view by something put back in that bin in the wrong order.

The nut is still missing!  It's been replaced by a Nyloc nut.

We're blaming the Spirit of Nana, the ashes of a dear friend that are being stored at our house. 

Record Low

This year we only had 35 kids stop by for Halloween.

We prepare for 90+.

Bummed. 

It was a rainy off and on and that never helps.

We're seeing more kids during the day than in the past few years, so we figure sooner or later they're going to dress up and get a toy.  We don't give out candy because we can't have in the house with The Boy. 

Five Wheel Alignment

The new wheel was a bit cocked when I got The Beast back on the road.

Simple fix, get an alignment and they center the wheel for you!

So I called the local Mutual of Omaha's Tire Kingdom and asked for an appointment.

"We have an opening in about an hour and then next Wednesday..." says the guy.

So I took the first option and had lunch with my buddies while I waited.

All four tires and the steering wheel are in agreement!

This is actually the first time the steering wheel wasn't just a little crooked, the G8 wheel was just worse for some reason.  Others who've done the G8 wheel have mentioned it. 

HA HA

 

Dang Technology

Without warning, or apparent reason, the TV's can no longer see my media server.

The computers can see it just fine, so we can use them to play stuff on the TV if we want, it's just irritating to have to. 

Some People Shouldn't Teach

I am a strong proponent of women learning to shoot and reject, strenuously, the "old boys club" model of shooting ranges.

That said, there's a long list of boyfriends who have no business trying to teach anyone how to shoot, let alone someone they love.

Today we witnessed yet another gym rat doing a really bad job of "teaching" his girlfriend to shoot.

And by "teaching" I mean that he handed her a gun, pointed her vaguely down range and started recording with his phone.

After the third round hit the ceiling, the range officer came over and had harsh words with them.

Harvey reported that it was the second such intervention she witnessed since we'd arrived.

I'm honestly shocked that they weren't asked to leave. 

It Is Halloween Eve After All

Took my hoary old M&P 9 to the range and did some Mozambique drills.

I traditionally don't shoot this pistol well.  I've gotten better, somehow...

Harvey is hitting her groove with the Equalizer.

Ayup

 

This is so very true.

Ignoring The Service Manual

If you follow the service manual for the 2012 Chevrolet Caprice PPV 6.0, to connect the parking brake equalizer to the cables running to the rear wheels; you need to drop the exhaust and drive shaft.

OR

You can crawl underneath the car and just reach up past the pipes and shaft and reconnect them. 

Working The Problem

A Correction

I posted about Minnesota's changes to their classic car registration and mentioned some steep prices...  In this post.

I said:

Betcha that there's a lot of shitboxes that are 2006 and older that have a "Collector's Vehicle, collector plate" who are doing it to avoid the 10% of original MSRP plus 1.575% of current value.

For reference a '69 Chevelle's MSRP is in the $2,600 ballpark.  Current value is VERY subjective, so let's say $50k because that's what Autotempest says.  So $1,047.50 a year to register your '69 Chevelle in Minnesota.  That's steep.

A 2006 Toyota Corolla ran $14,725 sticker price and is worth $6,500 today.  $1,574.88 a year.

See the incentive to call your shitbox a collector car?

 But I made an important error.

The percentage value of your car is only on a car that's 10 years or newer.  It was also $10 plus a percentage not 10% of MSRP plus a percentage of current value.

The classic car we're talking about gets a $30 flat fee, plus $8 renewal fee, plus $2.25 technology fee, plus $15.50 or $13.50 for plates depending on if you want one or two and some counties add up to $20 for "wheelage".

$53.75 to $75.75 a year depending on how many plates and what county you live in.

The lifetime classic plate fee of $178.50 is a bargain!

My underlying conclusion that there's people with 20 year old cars who've gotten the classic plate to avoid the annual headache and costs is still valid, just not so strikingly so.

Still, nothing about putting restrictions on where or when you can drive a car so registered makes the sky fall. 

Oh, the cost to register a new car is fucking extortionate!

Replace the $30 with $10 + 1.25% of the base value of the car.  That's $12.50 per thousand dollars your cars original MSRP.  $413.18 for a 2027 Equinox in Hennepin County.  Every year.  For ten years!

Captured!

 As The Lovely Harvey was doing her morning routine, she spotted our "guest" sniffing around the garage bathroom.

She says it walked rather than ran away and she managed to get it under an unused cat-food storage container.

 The poison in the bait we used is bromethalin from Victor.

Our guest is showing clear signs of nuero problems and the picture above is the best it's looked since capture.

It's not responding at all to light and has started chewing on itself.

Other evidence of it eating the poison is the bright green turd half out its butt.

I hate this.

I don't shirk from killing vermin, it's necessary, but I'm an animal lover and I hate that I have to do it.  If it'd stayed outside, I wouldn't have had to.

Circle of life and all. 

To Be Fair

While I do rant about how hard it is to work on modern cars, I will, grudgingly, admit that they're far more reliable and dependable than their ancient counterparts.

100k miles was a real accomplishment for a '70's car; now it's routine.

That's not even accounting for the plethora of features that are standard today that were expensive and rare options back when.

When was the last time you cranked a window?

I can recall when a mirror on the passenger door was uncommon and forget about adjusting it from the driver's seat.

Air conditioning was once uncommon, now it's standard.

Power... everything!  It's now standard.  Even my seats with a manual front and back slider have powered lumbar, tilt and angle.

Remember when a manual transmission was called standard?  It's not even offered for most cars now. 

While I, sometimes, yearn for the clarity and simplicity of the older cars...  If I were to own one it'd get a lot of electronic gadgetry added.  Multiport sequential fuel injection makes an engine so much more livable.

Overdrive transmissions let driving the car be more affordable. 

Be Seated

Replaced the rear seat back with one from a wrecked 2008 Pontiac G8.  Harvey was instrumental in her assistance!

What you get with a G8 seat instead of a Caprice PPV is an armrest...

...and a pass-through to the trunk with a little table and cup holders.

The little blue beast sits in there just great!

I also confirmed that the wire I ran makes the overhead console's buttons illuminate.

The little light in the middle is supposed to light up the cup holders in a Holden VE Commodore.

Confirmation

Took the old HVAC box apart:

This was my original plan back in April last year.  Remove the box, replace the evaporator and heater core, seal it back up, put back in the car.

Well, I bought the parts to do it; but got scared of the idea that the windshield had to come out and dragged my feet until the complete assembly became available as new-old-stock.

With the parts in hand and stalling putting the car in the air to get the parking brake fixed...

Now Marv and I have a spare HVAC assembly!

Getting apart let me get a look at the old evaporator with a black light.

Yup, that's evidence of a leak.

Putting My Finger On My Irritation

The main issue of how too many modern cars are put together in terms of working on them is this removal of several assemblies to access the broken part means that you're taking the chance of breaking them on the way in and the way out.

Some parts rarely break and you can nest them deeply.

But when it's a component that MUST be replaced every time a seal is broken, you don't make that part hard to get to if you're an engineer worth their salt.

Case in point is having to get the condenser out to replace the desiccant pack.

You have to break three seals to remove it and this introduces the risk of these seals leaking after reassembly.  Now you have three places to look for the leak instead of one.

Then there's the massive proliferation of single use fasteners.

What a racket.

Make it so you have to remove, at least, two unrelated assemblies to access pieces that you KNOW are going to wear out then require the customer to purchase all new fasteners.

Never mind that a lot of those "single use" fasteners were specifically designed to be reused.

Prevailing torque nuts were designed to address two issues of the old Nyloc nuts.  First was nylon melting in high temperatures.  Second was a used Nyloc is no better than a normal nut for locking once it's been removed.

Prevailing torque was designed to be reused.

As the male fastener reaches the deformed section it stretches the threads of the nut elastically back into a circle. This action increases the friction between the nut and the fastener greatly and creates the locking action. Due to the elastic nature of the deformation the nuts can be reused indefinitely.

But GM says to toss them every time.

Almost as if they developed a procedure for lock nuts based on the Nyloc and never amended it for prevailing torque...

In one aspect, it makes some sense, the mechanic doesn't know how many times the nut has been removed, so it's safest to replace it.

But if you're going to treat every locking nut as if it were a Nyloc...  Why not just use Nyloc?

Which brings me around to an elephant in the room.

The engineers the automakers are hiring.

A lot of modern cars are packaged more and more in an aviation style, with an aviation attitude towards fasteners.

Aviation is the coolest kind of engineering, after all. 

Aviation style decisions made by the least experienced engineers without moderation from more experienced engineers.

Where did the experienced engineers go?

Well, they keep getting fired laid-off when the assembly line apes threaten to strike and the automaker has to cut payroll to accommodate the union's plan.

I sometimes wonder how many of those senior automotive engineers went into robotics just to strike a blow at the UAW. 

It's Just Irritating

The filter-dryer is a tube welded to the passenger side of the condenser.

You just have to unscrew the cap on the tube to remove the old desiccant and install the new.

It would be simple if they'd put the cap facing up.

It's not.

It's facing down and there's no access down there.

So you unbolt the top radiator mounts.

Raise the car and remove the splash guard.

Disconnect the power steering cooler, that for some unfathomable reason runs through the bottom of the condenser.

Disconnect the suction tube, replace seals, cover openings.

Lower the car.

Tilt the radiator back and disconnect the other line, replace seals, cover openings.

Unbolt the condenser from the radiator.

Lift it out.

NOW you can unscrew the cap on the dryer tube and replace the desiccant!

This would piss me off a lot less if I hadn't watched a couple dozen videos where the cap faces up and it's a three minute job. 

All of this leads me to believe that I will definitely have to drop the entire cat-back exhaust and the drive shaft to get at the fucking parking brake cable.  Never mind that it shouldn't have been possible to unplug that cable from the equalizer from the inside of the car.

Almost Close Enough To Taste It

It's back together!

No warning lights!

It's still holding 30 inches of vacuum!

The new box did it's own self check and all the doors appear to be doing what they're supposed to do.

The test drive, however, was not without incident.

I manged to disconnect the parking brake cable somewhere under the car when I removed the parking brake cable.  I need to put it in the air and see if I can get to it without dropping the entire underside.

The AC still needs a new desiccant bag, some fresh PAG and a charge of r143a.

Tomorrow might be a busy, but fruitful, day.  Or it could be massively frustrating.

We'll see!

At Least It Was Done Legally

Today is the 107th anniversary of the Volstead Act, which kicked off Prohibition.

It is notable that the government of 1919 recognized that you needed a constitutional amendment before you started banning things.

Sadly, this recognition was lost some place in the Franklyn Roosevelt administration. 

One More Reason To Fear

Last night we tried to light a happy little fire in our fire pit and it just would not catch.

Harvey was looking at the put at one, forlorn, little red ember and being all sad because she wanted a happy little fire.

So I says, "use your Firestarter powers!"

She holds her fingers to her temples and does the concentrate face and...

The forlorn little red ember bursts into open flame and we, suddenly, have a happy little fire! 

I hope she doesn't use her powers for evil. 

National Black Cat Day!

Here's Bear in his natural habitat!

It Really Ties The Room Together

The Beast is in an advanced state of reassembly!

The eagle eyed might notice that the steering wheel is different from when I started.

This wheel is from a 2009 Pontiac G8.  Since the G8 and Caprice PPV are from the same generation of Holden, it's a plug and play.

The big difference is the G8 wheel is leather wrapped instead of injection molded plastic over a foam core.  That foam degrades and the plastic starts to get loose...  Ask Marv how we know.

I did it more for the preference of a leather wheel than degradation on my old wheel.

As Required

Comparing the service manual for The Beast with my manual for the Biscayne SS;

A recurring phrase, paraphrased,  in the 2012 'M' manual is to disconnect, remove and relocate the wiring as required.

This led to several instances of the part I was removing being at the extreme limit of a wire while I figured out which of 45 connector latches GM used this time.

The 1991 'B' manual has a picture and a list and locations of which connectors have to be disconnected to get the part loose.

This is despite the 1991 manual being a single volume and the 2012 being three. 

Feeling Alright

Something I hear over and over about getting old is to get off your but and get moving around.

Well, working on the car is definitely getting me moving around.

Because I am taking my time and staying organized, even bagging and labeling the fasteners between steps, I am doing a lot of schlepping back and forth from the car to the bench.

Getting my steps in!

Something that's surprised me is that I am not near so ravenously hungry as when I just sit about.

One full meal and a snack is enough.

I kinda hope that this shows on the scale. 

 

The Camera You Have On You

I dearly love my Canon M50, but...

I find that I'm using my phone to take pictures more often than not because I have it with me.

That makes me so very sad.

I like cameras that are JUST cameras.

They're becoming specialist gear and that kind of thing gets expensive FAST. 

That Will Learn Me

Harvey, via my ebay account, ordered a Pontiac G8 back seat for The Beast because it's got a fold-down arm-rest and a pass-through to the trunk.

She ordered it on the 20th with 4-day shipping.

You might notice today is the 26th.

No seat.

If I'd checked, and read, my emails from ebay I'd have caught the message from the seller asking me to call.

Something this size needs to be shipped to a freight center and they needed my OK to do so.

I gave the OK.

Gotta drive down to Tampa to get it, but mox nix.

 

Going Back Together

Parking brake pedal.

Brake pedal.

Steering column.

All have been returned to their start locations.

Gave Myself A Song Virus

With the brake pedals removed, Saga's song "On the Loose" got stuck in my head.

So I am sharing!

 

Steak

My father in law bought a big package of steaks for a good deal at Sam's Club.

He offered us 4 of the 6 in the package if I'd grill them for him and my mother in law.

Because they keep an odd schedule, "dinner" for them is lunch for us.

So I grilled steaks for lunch.

Good call!

I am sated. 

RIP Officer Bester

Walter Koenig has passed the veil at the rip old age of 90.

While I liked Chekov, his performance as Alfred Bester in Babylon 5 was his defining role to me. 

Or Perhaps It Did

Marv's gauges are long in the tooth.  He bought them used and he's had them for over ten years.

Even so, using them incorrectly is a poor mechanic blaming his tools!

I had the valves in the wrong position and my massive leak was the line going to the vacuum pump!

Before Marv told me about my operator error, I'd ordered a new set of gauges.

Those arrived from Amazon this morning and I put them on the car and gave it 30 minutes of suction.

Closed the valves, correctly this time, and waited an hour.

That's what we wanted to see!

Happy dance! 

Well That Didn't Work

Tried to draw a vacuum on the HVAC system because the evaporator is connected at this point of the reassembly.

No joy.

It went from -32 psi to -20 while I attempted to distract myself with a trip to the brewery, or about 30 minutes.

That means I didn't diagnose the leak correctly and have wasted a week of my time replacing a part that was, likely, just fine.

And I still have a week of work ahead of me to get it put back together to a drivable state.

And I don't want to.

I am just entirely discouraged by this adventure and I just want someone to come take the hulk away and never wrench again.

I will get over this, but right now...

I am pinning a LOT of hope on Marv's gauges being the source of the leak, not my repair.  We're pretty sure I didn't operate them correctly for the second draw down.

On the plus side, I got two of the three wiring projects I wanted to do done. 

The real trick will be to shut off my mind sufficiently to stop brooding on it until tomorrow when I can work on it. 

Zoo Boo

 

Last night we did the Zoo Tampa at Lowery Park's Creatures of the Night Halloween thing.

We bought memberships for the zoo and that has paid for itself already in free parking, admission and discounts!

Harvey and I get free admission until Dec 31, 2027 and we each get a plus one too.

It supports the zoo and helps the animals.

They are also super good with kids like The Boy.

Actual Florida animals!

 

 

Wiring Day

Today is remembering where the under-dash harness went.

Today is fixing the wire from the driver's window switch to the port rear window.

Today is adding an illumination lead to the overhead console. 

The Vote Was Actually The Small Problem

68 year old immigrant voted in 2024 and is being prosecuted for it.

First off, I didn't give their headline for this. 

Secondly, he's been here for 30+ years and is only now getting around to applying for citizenship?

An application that is being derailed by his criminal act of illegally voting.

This is something that's been bothering me for a long time.

We shouldn't be giving visas for people to stay longer than a vacation.

If you want to live here, you have to become one of us.

Assimilate to our culture and get that citizenship or go the fuck back home.

Because it's clear when they dither for decades about it, they don't really consider America to be their home.

"Oh, but McThag, he HAS assimilated!"

Then what the fuck was he waiting on?

And, while we're fixing our visa system...  I think that any place hiring any kind of H1 visa should have to show there were zero applications from citizens before they can spend the $150k application fee per H1 visa then the $250k fee for bringing over a foreign worker.  I might even assign a "stop the exploitation of foreign labor" fee of $250k a year to keep that worker.

I mean if there REALLY aren't any Americans qualified for the work and it HAS to be done, this is a pittance, no? 

I would further say that the H1 visa should only be good for the job they were imported for, not just ANY job.  This loophole is really the biggest part of the problem. 

Past The Tipping Point

Parts are going back into The Beast!

Huzzah!

Too Big An Ask

The woman suing Torchy's for $250k...

First off, finding that tooth is kinda proof that it's really beef.

Secondly you were not actually harmed.

You found something icky, true, but you weren't hurt.

Now, some stout fines are in order for both Torchy's and their meat supplier.

This sort of thing shouldn't make it into the customer's meal. 

Ruger Day

 

All Ruger, all .22LR brace on 10/22!

RIP Viper

Tom Skerritt, a steady and reliable dancing monkey, has shuffled off the mortal coil.

I can't think of a truly bad performance. 

Success!

Got the dash tie-bar out!

The way is now clear to remove the heater box!

The worrisome bolt that the service manual says you need the windshield out of the way to remove the tie-bar...

Turned out to be a non-issue.  It pulls up far enough to clear the tab it screws into.

I had been informed that it either wasn't going to be an issue, or I'd have to be cutting them down.

It turned out to be no issue!  Thank the Gods!

The service manual also forgot the three screws down by the brake booster that needed to come out.  I was very vexed about that because I'd removed everything it'd said to remove, and then some, already!

Addendums Provisos And Quid Pro Quos

The service manual has been an unalloyed boon in the process of taking the car apart.

But it's got blind spots you can ram the Death Star through!

"Remove and move wiring harness as necessary..."  Means YOU figured it out because we can't be arsed to tell you what harnesses run where.

What they should have done is put a big plug on each end and have the harness come out with the tie-bar.

I know they can because there's such a big plug under the passenger side kick panel that you have to unplug and feed through a hole in the tie-bar and flop it all the way to the driver's side.

Where the driver's side of the harness disappears into the kick panel you don't need to separate it from the tie-bar because they ran it behind it not through it. 

I've also been clipping a lot of the abandoned in place upfitter wiring. 

I'm Having A Week

Went to pick up a patty melt for Harvey.

Tripped on the damn curb of the restaurant and skinned my damn knee like a five year old!

Second time in three days I feel like a fool. 

Nothing Can Stop Me Now!

Because I don't have ANY brakes!

Or at least I don't have any brake pedals.

Savage And Wesson?

Looks like S&W just bought Savage Arms.

I happen to like my Savage rifles, I sure hope this doesn't fuck up their secret sauce.

 There's a very vocal cadre out there wanting the Model 99 back.  I wonder if this is their moment!

Progressing

Got the dash part of the dash out!

The garage is getting full, though.

I hope to attack the cross-body brace tomorrow.

Working On The Car All Day*

I have begun to dismantle the interior of The Beast to swap the HVAC box and, hopefully, restore air conditioning!

This is the result of four hours of work:

I'm about half done with the take-apart portion of the event.  Taking it slow, taking it easy.

Odd, not being in a rush about it is making it less stressful.

There is a funny moment, though.

I needed to remove the shift knob.

The shift lever needs to be in L to get at the screw that holds it on.

No problem, thinks I!

I'd disconnected the battery, but there's a way to get it out of park without the batt.

There isn't a way to get it back into park if you've removed the trigger on the front of the knob to access the screw that you find you can't find.  (Once the knob is removed you can press the center of the shifter shaft down and get it into park.)

This would not be a problem if the emergency brake actually held the car OR if I'd remembered to put chocks down.

So I am sitting here, in gear, holding the brake to keep the car from rolling into the street...

So I scream for Harvey.

She can't hear me because The Boy is "singing" in the back and she's got her work headphones on.

Worse, she thinks what she can hear is The Boy's "singing."

Eventually I get her and two of the neighbors to come help and Harvey gets the wheels chocked.

As a matter of fact, that IS my petard, why do you ask?

*Sung to the tune of "Waiting on the Bus All Day" by ZZ Top. 

Wildly Optimistic

Twilight: 2000 was written in a time where we thought the Soviet Union was at least as strong and capable as we were.

It was first published in 1984.

In 1984 we didn't know what we know now.

T2K has since become an alternate history and the "what if" being presented is, "What if the USSR was really as good as the US Army Green Book said it was?"

Their equipment has parity with ours.

Their tactics are as effective as ours.

Their logistics system is as efficient as ours. 

Their economy is, at least, as good as ours.

They have numbers and a shorter supply line.

It's actually kind of amazing that NATO fights them to a draw by July 2000.

Among the things we have to accept as givens in this alternate history is the Soviet ICBMs being both reliable and accurate enough to hit the 78 targets shown on the map in the previous post.

The USA Hit List from Challenge issue 27 lists the total megatonnage dropped on a spot, my little experiment with Nukemap shows a single hit with that value centered on the thing most likely being aimed at.

Cape Kennedy, for example, in Urban Guerilla:

[R]eceived the attentions of a 10 warhead MIRV'd (one-megaton total) device. Unlike the other strikes, this was a series of pin-point attacks upon the launch sites themselves. The resulting blasts vaporized nine of the 11 launchpads and the vehicle assembly building.

That's to get enough spread to get all of the launch sites, which a single 1 mt ground burst wouldn't.

 I centered the 1mt ground burst on the vehicle assembly building.  You'll note that most of Cape Canaveral AFB is well clear of the blast effects.

As far as accuracy goes, the 500 kt missile aimed at Mayport:

Mayport Naval Station in Jacksonville suffered a near miss that landed in the sea just offshore. The resulting nuclear-induced tidal wave and wide-spread radioactive seawater contamination were dreadful and deadly. Millions died, both in the wave surge and in the subsequent legacy of nuclear poisoning, disease, starvation, and chaos that followed.

A problem with the Challenge article is it lacks details given in the modules.

The hit list is also hampered with a lack of information about which warheads the Soviets were using.  The KSC strike matches a sub-launched R-39 pretty well.

Of note, the Soviet Union had thousands of warheads and just over 100 are fired at the US and Canada.  Likewise, the US response was very restrained.

There were more nuclear strikes in Germany and Poland than in all of the US and Canada.  Seems to me that these nations might be a bit bitter about that once the war fizzles out and notes can be compared.

We know from the game 2300: AD, set in the same setting 300 years later, that the world does recover, for the most part, by 2020. 

Kaboom!

There's a web page called Nukemap.

You move ground zero where you want it, select a warhead or yield and see the rings of destruction!

So I took the USA hit list from Challenge Magazine issue 27 and did all the targets.

Basically it's all the refineries and select military targets.

Here's MacDill and it's 1mt airburst hit:

It's bad to be in the orange.

The small orange circle is the fireball radius (0.66mi).
The orange-gray circle is the 5psi line for moderate blast damage (4.37mi).
The larger orange circle is the thermal radiation radius for 3rd degree burns (7.57mi).
The big gray circle is the 1psi line for light blast damage (12.3mi).

I am well clear of it!

Security Classifications Are Strange

 

I can, practically, get scalable drawings of the entire W54 SADM nuke.

I can't get the weight of the explosive filler in a 40mm thermobaric round.

BLINK BLINK 

Oops

I just noticed something.

I'd made a "what if" version of myself from Twilight: 2000 on the assumption that I was in Florida.

A fair assumption since I came down here in late September 1997.

What I'd forgotten was I'd driven back to Iowa to get my stuff and was at my mom's in Ames for Thanksgiving that year.

I'd have been in Ames for the general nuclear exchange.

It's my party and I can change it if I want to...  In the T2K universe I got my stuff earlier and was here for Thanksgiving.

I like the Dunedin militia version of the character better.

What it raises is the question of where was FuzzyGeff when the bombs fell.  If we time it right, he's down here helping me move for Thanksgiving.  It hardly matters, I suppose.  Without his medication, asthma prolly gets him before anything else. 

"Don't You Wish We Had Some Grenades?" J. Cobb

I have broken tradition.

I have equipped my T2K NPCs with a selection of hand grenades.

Grenades are simply something that we always overlooked when running games set where you could have some.

Often the game rules made them a pain to employ.

They're a little awkward in GURPS because the fuse time is multiple turns in most cases.

I don't recall if any of the players took any, but since they skimped on body armor, I suspect they don't have any encumbrance left. 

Different Words Is A Clue

I don't think many politicians understand what "affordable" means.

It means that I have enough money to afford it.

It can mean that it costs less or that I have more money.

Too often, having more money has come with the cost climbing to meet the raise, or surpassing it.

Affordable doesn't mean that I want someone else to pay for it.

Affordable doesn't mean that I don't want the person selling it to not make a profit.

But I keep seeing a strong correlation between how tightly something is regulated and how expensive it is, along with a strong correlation between whether most people pay for it out of pocket or if an insurance company typically pays.  There is also a strong relationship between government supplying the money for a good and the prices spiraling out of control.

Combine any or all of these things and it's logarithmic and/or exponentially more expensive.

Sprinkle in some union influence for the maximum price increases for minimum increase in value.

Just as macroeconomics can be summed up as, "Supply and demand, that's it!":  Eliminating the middle man is one of the surest ways to make the price of something go down. 

What Did He Mean Slow?

Reader Terrapod generously sent me a used laptop a while ago.

Today I finally got around to firing it up and finishing the installation that JT did for me when we put a 2tb drive into it.

I am posting from it now on Ubuntu 26.04.1!  I cannot post pics from a URL without manually entering the HTML on this machine either.

Thank you Terrapod!

It's got a cracked corner from when the people he bought it from dropped it, he warned me about this cosmetic damage.  I was VERY relieved to find that they had not epoxied in the screw that should be right about where the repair is. 

It appears to be running like it should.

JT named it Freebie when he installed the drive and OS.

I'm calling it TANSTAAFL. 

Let's Game It

There's a Hadji hiding behind a low, 30" thick, mud/brick wall.

That's DR 80* and proof against 5.56 from an M4.

So let's fire an M433 HEDP at him!  That's 5d(10) cr ex linked 5d[2d] cr ex.

The basic roll gives 17.5 on average against an adjusted DR 8, so 9 penetrates.  The linked explosion does 30 points for being in contact and fails to penetrate.

If we guessed correctly about where he was hiding behind the wall, that's a decent hit.  But it's -4 to hit him, so we probably won't.

But if we're using an XM1019 round, it does 8d(0.5) pi+ linked 4d[1d+2] cr ex.

It, emphatically, does not punch the wall, but since we can tell it to go boom behind the wall if we fire over it...  Let's set the range for the hex behind the wall and fire a yard above it.

Now the explosion that averages a roll of 14, which we divide by 3 because it went off a yard from our Hadji for 4 points of concussion.  The chance to hit for the fragments is 15 without a penalty for range and the average "to hit" roll of 10 gets us two fragment hits of 1d+2 cut each.  That's an average of 5 each which becomes 7 after penetrating his unarmored torso for a total of 14 from fragments and 18 overall.

So, the behind defilade air burst is a better attack than blasting through the wall!

Voting Not Voting

Got a text from a pollster asking whom I was voting for in Florida's 16th Congressional District.

Um...

Nobody.

Not because I am not voting, but because I don't live in the 16th. 

Good Guy With A Gun

A good guy with a gun got to the shooter in Bend, Oregon three minutes before the cops got there.

That's the part that needs to sink in.

It's been said before, "When seconds count, the cops are minutes away."

It was true when coined and remains true today.

Much emphasis is being put on the good Samaritan having a concealed carry license.

Like doing this good deed without one would make it wrong.

Of note:  Both the shooter and the good Samaritan were in violation of Oregon's gun-free school law.  The Bend-La Pine district has opted in to banning guns from school property.

I am glad our hero decided to break the law to save lives rather than give an interview saying, "I could have run in and stopped him, but it was illegal to have my gun in there and, as we all know, breaking the law is wrong." 

Lies!

Amazon Prime Video claims that they carry hockey games.

Not that I've been able to watch.

Tonight's game said it was a regional thing.

We get the home team's games over old fashioned broadcast, but it'd be nice to see what the rest of the league is up to.

But there's some secret to watching the other teams on Amazon that they are not helping me with figuring out.

I suspect it's the good old fashioned lock if you are outside the team's local region AND you are locked if you are inside the region and there's a non-Amazon method of watching the game. 

Roll Eyes

I do not understand GM's design philosophy that requires removing the exhaust to get the starter out.

I first encountered this with The Precious.

Marv is now fighting it with his '11 PPV.

While I broke a stud removing my cat-converters, at least my fasteners were removable.

The bolts on Marv's are welded to the flange!

I guess that helps with people trying to steal the cats, but it makes it a lot more irritating to get them out of the way.

But it shouldn't be necessary at all! 

I Love The Concept

Way back in the OICW days, the idea of a grenade that air-burst just past the barrier the bad guys were hiding behind had an instant appeal.

The problem with it is the interface.

The operator lases for range, adds or subtracts from that distance for the burst distance and then the computer in the sight tells the round when to go boom after firing.

That transmission was a problem for a long while, but it appears that the XM25 shows that it can be reliable.  The XM25 isn't, quite, ready for prime time and even with hand made rounds it had some issues.

But I see that we're pressing forward with the concept with Barrett taking over the design of the weapon.

TL9 stuff at TL8!  Or TL9 depending on which edition you're using. 

Sad Day

Last Saturday was The Precious' birthday.

She would have been 19 if I had not slammed her into that tree.

My only new car to date. 

Ruger Is Discontinuing A Bunch Of Models

The American Rifleman reports that Ruger is discontinuing the following:

Revolvers: LCR, SP101, GP100, Redhawk, Super Redhawk, Blackhawk, Super Blackhawk, Single-Series, Vaquero and Bearcat.

Semi-Auto Pistols: SR1911, PC Charger, LC Charger

Rifles: LC Carbine, PC Carbine, No. 1, 77-series, Hawkeye and Ruger Precision.

25x40 and 25x59mm

The 25x59mm XM1019 High-Explosive Air Burst round fired from a Barrett XM109 does 8d(0.5) pi+ linked 4d[1d+2] cr ex out to 950/3,400.  The XM307 will have the same range stats.

The XM1049 Armor Piercing (HEDP-AB in GURPS terms) does 4d(10) cr ex linked 4d+2[1d+1] cr ex out to 890/3,200.

The 25x40mm and the XM25 were supposed to use the same warheads as the longer cased rounds for the XM307, but both were cancelled.

The HEAB round does 4d(0.5) cr linked 4d[1d+2] cr ex out to 570/2,100.  The HEDP-AB does does 4d(10) cr ex linked 4d+2[1d+1] cr ex out to 530/1,900.

The XM25 is Acc 3; ST 12, Bulk -5, Rcl 4.

The XM109 is Acc 3; ST 14B; Bulk -7; Rcl 4.

The XM307 is Acc 3; ST 19M; Bulk -7; Rcl 4.

All three are equipped with Computer Sights (HT p. 157) without any night-vision capability.

Wildly Optimistic

Did the GURPS gun stats the 25x40mm and 25x59mm grenades.

That also meant generating stats for the XM25, XM109 and XM307.

The XM307, being the mounted gun meant digging into the stats more deeply because it can be broken down for "easy" carriage.

Repeated, over and over, is, "50 lb. for gun, mount and fire control."  Approximately 80 lb. with ammo.

So I started looking around for quotes on the individual parts and...

They kept saying the mount was 16 lb.

Photos clearly show the M205 tripod, which is 34 lb.

Then I remembered that that M205 is 16 lb. lighter than the M3 with T/E mechanism and realized someone had transposed weight savings for weight and the media and internet repeated that.

So I have, 30 for the gun, 6.5 for the fire-control/sight (w/o thermal), 34 for the mount and 11.8 lb for 31 rounds of ammo.

For a total of 82.3 lb!

Close enough!

All this for a discontinued weapon that might appear in a "what if" game.

I Had A Point

I think I might have misspoke in the comments about the utility of the Military Rank advantage in a Poland T2K campaign.

If a player had taken rank, they'd have NPCs associated with that rank under them because of the Duty disad everyone took with their MOS template. 

But it appears to be latent in late June 2000 in Poland because the party is placed outside the command structure by the collapse of 5th ID at Kalisz.

Their rank and duty means they can be collected by another refugee of that battle and be commanded by them if they outrank the party.  Wanna bet they resent it if I do place them under such command?

This same rank could be used to collect other NPC's and command THEM... if anyone had bothered to take it. 

Now that I've written the introduction to the point I was going to make...

What was the point I was going to make again?

I've lost it.

I will point out that point based systems will always, seemingly, charge you for things you're not using at the same rate as if you were using them.

Wasted points until the circumstances they can be used in comes up.

As a GM who thinks he's dealing with enough just translating the setting from a 41 year old game to a 22 year old game...  I don't think I want to deal with charging for an advantage situationally.

Sure, military rank is not as useful in Poland as the players flee Kalisz, but it will have its value restored when they respond to Operation Omega. 

Concussive

File under "obvious when you think about it".

The suppressor on the M7 and XM8 is necessary because the insane chamber pressures and short barrels mean the muzzle blast is otherwise a health hazard.

Even with hearing protection, I am told. 

That's got me wondering just how high the pressure IS at a bare muzzle.

It also has me wondering just how quiet the weapon is, because the M7/XM8 advocates are quick to point out that an M4 is longer and heavier with a suppressor too.

But I know how much quieter an M4 is with the issue suppressor, it's nearly naked ear safe.  That's worth the extra length and mass.

If a suppressor is needed to bring it back to M16 bare muzzle sound pressures...  Couldn't we get the same thing from 5" more barrel and lower chamber pressures?

I ask because 6.8x51mm is emulating .270 Winchester in bullet weight and velocity; the big difference is pressure and barrel length.

.270 is using 24" of barrel, but far lower pressures.

It makes me wonder if my Savage is quieter than an XM8. 

It Hasn't Come Up Yet

I need to dig into my materials and figure out how MilGov and CivGov are handling gun control.

That also means deciding if The Brady Act and The Assault Weapons Ban were passed in the political climate of Twilight: 2000.

Would Bill Clinton have been elected if The Cold War had continued?

Would G. H. W. Bush have been re-elected?

Who would be elected in '96?

If Bush was re-elected, he's in lame-duck mode when he orders US troops across the inter-German border just days after election day 1996!

If it's a re-elected Clinton...  Oh Lordy.

Someone else entirely?  Ross Perot?  Oh, fucking, Lordy. 

Alternate histories are messy.

Though having Perot win in '92 has some appeal just for the amusement value and having someone else be the president-elect in November '96 when he sends in the troops really helps explain the CivGov/MilGov divide present in the game. 

Not A Fan

I've tried a couple of different fore-grips now.

The Magpul AFG and a vertical fore-grip on my M16A4 clone.

 I can't say I care for them all that much.

The AFG is in a box in the garage someplace.

The vertical grip is on Valentine, but that's because it's a clone not because I prefer it.

I think if I'd my druthers for setting her up for use I might just go T2K on her and put the A2 handguards back on.  It'd be lighter, but I'd lose my light.  I paid a lot for that light and I intend to use it!

I'm already farbing it up with the Primary Arms optic instead of the ACOG...

Still, the fore-grips don't seem to help me with shooting or maneuvering at all, and I tend to really try to cant the rifle off kilter with the vertical grip.  Never mind that I can't seem to find a position that lets me access the light's controls easily.

I paid a lot to upgrade that light, I intend to use it!  Did I mention that?  Wait, that's another farb!

There goes my GWOT reinactor street cred!

My T2K cred is doing OK. 

Rat Update

The blocks of poison are being eaten and the ones by the garbage can keep disappearing.

Not sure how long the poison takes to kill a rat, or how many are out there in the garage.

Prolly more than I'd like.

It's tempting to send everyone out someplace else and fire up the car in the garage for a few hours. 

Permanent Daylight Savings Time

Making daylight savings time permanent is not a great idea.

It was tried in 1974 and it didn't work out well come winter.

Children ended up dying trying to get to school in the dark.

People have been mentioning their kids are heading to school at 0600 already and that it's dark even in standard time. 

But why are children up so damned early?

In a word: busses.

The schools have staggered start times because there aren't enough busses to transport all of the students at the same time.

Thanks to decisions stemming from the Civil Rights Act, many students are not attending the school that's nearest their home.  Bussing is mandatory.

So you end up with three start times for the students and one group has to be first to go and you have to make sure the last group dismissed is home by supper.

That means you can only start classes earlier to create the stagger.

Which means one, bleary-eyed, group is going to school in the dark regardless of it's standard or daylight savings time.

The solution isn't moving the clock around.  It's to stop moving the kids around so much.

Return to the model where it's "The School" and not "the elementary school, the middle school and the high school."

If they're all going the same place, you can shove them onto one bus at the same time.

Returning to a model where you go to the school that's closest to your house also means fewer busses are needed.

Yes, I am aware of why we moved away from this model, but I think much of this is now obsolete. 

Can't Mary Sue

I redid several of my favorite T2K characters in GURPS and I can't introduce them as my Mary Sues because they all have rank.

The ranking PC in the party, so far, is a Specialist!

The "what if I'd never broken my legs and stayed in" literally Me is a sergeant 1st class.  "I'd" have been in the service for 13 years at that point.

My other favorite Mary Sue is 2nd Lieutenant Thomas MacTavish.  The party can't afford no NPC officers.  When I was running MacTavish, two of the players outranked him.

OG T2K made it easier than GURPS to be an officer because it didn't take from other things to be one.  In fact, it was a bonus in the OG rules. 

Hmmmmmm Beeeeeeeef

Reading this review of the World Without Cows documentary, I am reminded of something I witnessed.

The Iowa Cattlemen's Association dinner in Des Moines was being protested by PETA or some similar organization.

An attendee and his wife were walking past the protesters on their way inside when one of the protesters threw some kind of bright red liquid all over her fur coat.

The police were swift to get between the man and the protesters and he fumed for a moment, made sure no real harm was done to his wife and proceeded inside.

This is where I spotted something the cops missed.

The reason I was there was waiting in line to get into the gun show that was at the upper floor of the same venue as the dinner.

Mr Cattleman did not continue to the downstairs entrance, he went up the escalator to the gun show.

I leaned over the rope at the PETA folks and mentioned, "he's prolly buying something to shoot y'all."

They laughed, but the police overheard me and two of them detached to head upstairs.

THAT made the PETA folks stop laughing.

The cops taking it seriously, to them, meant what I said could be true.

Soon after the PETA people were moved to the other side of the street from the venue. 

Compiled

This is an interesting article that compiles a lot of what I'd been reading about 400 years of North American history and inter-civilizational conflict.

Worth your time, especially if it inspires you to read more about it! 

Some what's in it is why I've hit a writer's block about the Sioux, the 77th Cavalry expedition and the Goo-Goo. 

I Have A Suggestion

We should execute Hasan with Daisy Red-Riders.

I know that some folk say that a BB gun can't kill a condemned prisoner.

Impatient folk. 

Just Normal Guns Now

ATF says for short barrel rifles, short barrel shotguns, suppressors and any other weapons, at gun shops you fill out a 4473 and we can roll our own at will as long as our state laws are cool with that.

The further specify they aren't gonna bother trying to sort out who is actually a plaintiff here.  Past present and future members of two different gun orgs would be a nightmare to sort through.

I, for one, am not sick of winning yet.