Beep Beep

 

I enabled the beep on lock feature with my OBDSync software today!

It's something I felt the car was missing for a long time and I'd gotten accustomed with from the Civic, The Precious, Moxie...

Next stop, remote start?  Handy in Florida's heat.

Dear ATF

Now that Chevron is repealed, what does the law say about that 4473?

Or "once a machine gun always a machine gun?"

Is "redesigned" still synonymous with "repurposed?"

Is 5.45mm now smaller than .22 caliber?

Green Scam

I noticed that The Beast has SPID code FE9 and Marv's has NE1.

These are the codes for the emissions.

FE9 is Federal emissions standards. 

NE1 is basically the Northeast states that have adopted California's emissions standards.

YF5 is actual California emissions standards.

So I tried looking up what parts were different to conform to the California but not California states.

It's not PPV specific, but it sums up what I found succinctly.

As noted, all Corvettes are mechanically the same and meet 50 state federal emissions from the factory. However, that is not good enough for a new car registration in California. It must be ordered to meet California emissions and reflect that on the RPO codes. While it is ridiculous and simply bureaucratic red tape, it is what it is.

If your car does not have YF5 you will have a long, up hill battle to register a new car in California. If it is a used car and has more than 7,500 miles on it, it can be registered but will have to pass a smog check.

Emission Ordering Options:

FE9 FEDERAL EMISSIONS. Use for ordering vehicles that will be registered in all states except California, Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island and Vermont.

YF5 CALIFORNIA EMISSIONS. Use for ordering vehicles that will be registered in California.

NE1 CT/MA/ME/NY/PA/RI/VT EMISSIONS. Use for ordering vehicles that will be registered in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Maine, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island or Vermont.

The decal that people are referring to in the above posts looks like the one pictured below. This is a NE1 decal used for cars to be registered in the New England states. Notice that it specifically states California compliance on it as the New England states have adopted California emissions.

Yes, you're reading that right.  There's no actual differences in emissions between a Federal standards car and a California car. 

What that means is CARB is setting the national standard!

That's bullshit!

Road Trip!

Drove down near Miami to let Marv join the PPV Cult

(One of us!  One of us!  One of us!  One of us!  One of us!)

It was my first time down Alligator Alley and the nav tab on my driver's information center even showed it!

The mission was successful and this lovely creature followed Marv home.

The Beast is a '12 Caprice PPV 9C1.  Marv's is an '11 Caprice PPV 9C3.

What that means is he has a less, um, industrial interior.  He has carpet instead of rubber flooring and his shifter is straight out of a civilian car.  There are several, small, detail differences between '11 and '12-'13 too.

Trip deets:

EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

I'm having trouble with watching "news" on YouTube.

I click on the video based on the headline.

By the time they get to talking about the headlined information, I've zoned out and completely miss what I'd clicked on the video to see.

Never mind that, at least, 1/3 of the video is embedded advertising.

Remember When

Way back when...

I had a Springfield Armory USGI M1911A1.

I toyed with replacing the locking mainspring housing with a genuine USGI one because they were cheap and available.

They were still widely available when I started looking for a serrated, arched in blue for my .38 Super.

I had to settle for the plastic Colt housing for a long time before I found EGW's offering with a lanyard ring.

In the mean time, the parkerized USGI mainspring housings have evaporated.

Willard and I prefer the arched housing.  Manufacturers and gunwriters prefered flat, checkered housings.

So you're left hunting for a replacement.

You can now get serrated or checkered in matte or polished, blued or stainless.  Sometimes even with a lanyard ring.

But parkerized?  Nope.

Even Gunbroker is devoid.

Speaking Of Shower Improvements

 

When a shower curtain becomes unserviceable, I put Harvey on the case.

My only requirement is they be "fun."

My shower is in the garage, so it's not like we're having high-society seeing it when they visit.

Luxury Appointments

The accumulation of hard water deposits finally killed my shower head.

So I decided to try something different.

This is an experiment to see if I like the "rainfall" style.  This is a high pressure variation of the idea.

I've never had a butt washer wand before.

$30 from Amazon.

They Should Teach That In School

There's two subjects that need to be mandatory in K-12 schooling.

And not just teaching it, but they need to be passed before the student advances a grade or graduates.

The first is civics.  Civics isn't even difficult, but the reason it's not taught is so the politicians can lead voters by the nose and convince them that it's not the citizens who're supposed to be running the show and not the government.

The second is basic finance.

That will also mean teaching them old fashioned math again too.

If every student entering college already had a 200 level understanding of personal finance, the student loan process would not catch so many unawares.

Plus, we could definitely state that the student understood what they were signing by pointing to their passing grade in high-school.

I'm even of the opinion that K-12 students have to show strong competency in the Three-R's BEFORE we teach them anything else.

Another thing that'd be great to see taught is critical thinking.  But no government run entity wants their subjects knowing that!

Let The Hate Flow Through You

I applied for and received a discharge of my student loan.

Contrary to the conservative narrative it was not a Biden policy initiative that granted the discharge.

It's a long running program for the victims of school based fraud to not be held accountable for the crimes of the institution.

A Reagan era program.

If your school was shut down by the Department of Education for cause, then you're eligible to have your loans discharged too.  You might even get back what you've already paid if you meet certain other requirements that I don't.

I'd paid a pittance to keep the loan out of delinquency; so this doesn't help the day to day finances much, but I do hope that the sudden shift in my debt to income ratio will cause my credit score to improve enough to make insurance cheaper.

Comment moderation is on full steam because people hate that these programs exist.

Tell your congress creatures, not me.

A-B-O-R-TION In The Summer Sun

The Dems are pulling out all the stops to scare teh wimmins about abortion bans if Trump is elected.

In lots of places, it's now much harder to get one.  Even a couple of near complete bans.

In other places it's just as easy as it ever was.

How did this happen?

When the Supreme Court nuked Roe v Wade they booted it back to the states to decide for themselves and they have been.

Democracy in action!

Actual democracy, not "Our Democracy," as the Democrats define it.

I don't see Trump toeing the religious fundamental line that is the underlying fuel for banning abortions.

It should also be noted, for Republican run states that have made it a lot harder, abortion bans aren't near as important or popular as you might think.  Likewise, abortion isn't as popular as Democrats think.

But the narrative being spun by the Democrats is effective and sways voters.

Neither side is all that interested in the middle ground that most people are thinking when they think about when an abortion should be legal.

This large group doesn't have a voice, and they're noticing.

Could lead to some interesting politics.

The Party

Something that the AD&D rules did well that GURPS never did at all was clearly define the roles for the party.

A dungeon crawl needed a cleric, fighter, magic-user and a thief.

Skipping one left a huge gap in capabilities and made everything far more difficult in a dungeon crawl.

If one recognizes the need for these roles to be filled, you can certainly make a GURPS character to fill them.

For some reason, getting the players to actually do it is like herding cats.  Being unconstrained by the rules to conform to the class norms tends to lead to characters that can do a little of each of the four required roles without being good enough at any of them to be of much use.

Jack of all trades master of none.

This problem comes up less in GURPS when the setting defines the roles; and aren't fantasy.

Space settings have no problem with one person being captain, navigator, security, gunner... etc.  Except the ship's engineer.  For some reason anyone who makes the engineer will play once and never bless the table again.

Military settings only have trouble with the officers and NCO's needing to spend points on rank and the associated skills.

Steampunk, Cliffhangers, Pirates... no problems with roles.

Fantasy where they need to emulate the D&D template... Chaos.

Even in throw-together multi-dimensional nexus worlds there's no problem with getting them to specialize.

It's a mystery.

It's Over For Another Year

If the hometown team didn't make it, we're willing to accept the other team in the state did.

Congratulations to the Florida Panthers and winning their very first Stanley Cup!

Rooting for the natural rivals to the hometown team is hard for lots of people.

Especially with uneven officiating and the Panthers being a rather dirty team using that lopsided application of the rules to eliminate the hometown team.

Still...

It wasn't the fucking Stars.  I ain't got a lot of forgiveness for how that team came about.

Then Do It

Marv has caught the PPV bug from me.

We went an looked at a 2011 example today and the dealer was asking $10,300 and would come down to $10,000.

We started detailing all the little flaws and Marv offered $8,500.

They countered that they could fix those flaws and get $14k.

At this point I feigned a need to return home and since I was Marv's ride, he needed to come with.

I had two things to offer.  First was a different 9C3 for what he offered that just needs a back seat.

Second was, it would cost us a lot more than $4,000 to fix all the flaws;  Tell them you'll take it at $14k if they fix everything we find wrong.  I'll bet they balk.

He's still on the hunt.

Oh No! Anyway...

Local rapper Julio Foolio was murdered in Tampa.

Apparently he was a member of a gang and they are at war with another gang.

It's a statistic, not a tragedy.

It is statistically unlikely that his killer looked much different from him.  Well, aside from the hair.

It wasn't a cop that killed him.

It wasn't a member of the KKK.

It was another black man.

Yet, we're going to be hearing about disarming everyone with a gun who wasn't there and didn't do it; aren't we?

That Kind Of Fan

I'm drinking blue milk and eating light-side Oreo cookies and I still won't watch The Acolyte.

Fight me, Disney.

One D&D

6th Edition is going to be called One D&D?

I guess 7th will be D&D 360.

8th will be D&D Series X then 9th edition will be D&D Series S.

I have never been prouder of never playing past 2nd Edition and only reading 3-5 (in disbelief).

1939

The first commercially viable automatic transmission, the Hydra-Matic went on the market in 1939 in the Oldsmobile Series 60.

The first torque converter Dynaflow went out the door in a Buick in 1949.

The well loved Powerglide was introduced to Chevys in 1950.

So, yes, Anonymous Commenter, there were automatic transmissions in 1958 and they were available for the Stovebolt Six powered Biscayne.  For extra money.

But an auto got you a wide brake pedal instead of square brake and similar clutch pedals.

Yelling At The Screen

And neither team is mine...

The Florida Panthers have gone from a 3-0 lead in the series to a 3-3 tie that will get settled on Monday night.

The Edmonton Oilers have done themselves well recovering from that deficit.

It's odd that I'm cheering the Panthers on when I'm a Lightning fan...

Disappointed Not Surprised

US v Rahimi came to the conclusion that I expected.

The 2nd Amendment doesn't protect your right to a weapon if you're under a domestic violence restraining order.

I'm OK with the idea that dangerous people should be barred the possession of arms.

However, most domestic violence restraining orders are issued in a manner that doesn't encompass what the founders were thinking about when they were talking about due process.

Same goes for red flag laws.

Both are guilty until proven innocent punishments and are entirely too subject to malicious actors.

I think there's a 5th and 14th amendment case against the entire idea of restraining orders and red flag laws.

Much of the problem with them is the refusal of the person who called in the law to actually press charges on the person they called about.

Frustrated police and advocacy groups then came up with things to punish the accused that didn't need the victim's assent.  In some ways this is smart, many victims don't understand the end-game of letting the accused off the hook.

But smart and constitutional aren't always aligned.  There's a process to align them, but our representatives keep thinking they can pass law rather than amend.

Slammed

I love the look of a car that's lowered down to the deck.

But just for looking at.

Owning one and dealing with it isn't for me.

The Precious was quite low and it was getting old.  The air dam hit every small rise and the bottom of the nose showed the scars of steep driveways and tall speed bumps.

She wasn't even as low as many people take it.

The Beast could stand to be about an inch lower for looks.  The problem is finding springs that do that.

Stock G8 GXP springs do it, but nobody upgrading to coil-overs or a lowering kit seems to have saved theirs.

The 2-2.5" lowering for a G8 is 3.5-4" on my car.  Too low for the tires and wheels I have, and I'm not super wide on the tires.

I'm still researching.

Glaring Omission

Maybe I should say, "kids these days," too.

On page 38 of the June 2024 issue of Shooting Illustrated there's an article talking about guns that were, "released to much fanfare and market curiosity, only to crash and burn and end up in the dustbin of history."

It covers the Hudson H9, Remington R51 and CCF Raceframes.

There's nothing wrong with this list, except being at least one too short.

Where's the Colt 2000?

Virtually everything you could say about the R51 applies to the 2000.  Most especially the gunwriters getting examples that worked great and production models sucking harder than Kamala Harris vying for a promotion.

Perhaps the author is a little too young to remember?

I Am Not A Lawyer

I keep re-reading section 230 and I can't help but think we've already solved this problem; but lawyers broke the clear meaning and text of the law.

230 is supposed to hold the internet provider harmless from content published by their customers.

The way I read that is as long as you don't interfere with what the customer is publishing, you're a provider and not responsible for the content.

With what YouTube and others are doing with restrictions on publication, they're becoming editors and editors are part of publishing; so they have become liable through their actions.

Let's get this on!

Enforcing 230 like I've outlined would bring back a first amendment-like public square to the internet.

Within this framework one can even create space for content that children should not look at.

Negative Waves Have Prevailed

Donald Sutherland passed on.

88 is a good run.

Why Can't I Celebrate?

There's black people who're saying they don't want us white people celebrating Juneteenth.

Why can't we?

If I were bitter and cynical I'd say:

We did all the fucking work.

We won the war.  If we hadn't, the troops wouldn't have made it to the far reaches of Texas by June 19th, or any other day.  Freedom would never have come.

We passed three Constitutional amendments to make sure the victory stuck.

But I'm merely disappointed.

This is really OUR day to celebrate.

I want you to prosper with your freedom and be happy.

So stop looking for shit to be pissed about and get to prospering already.

Bleeding

Normally you work your way from the caliper farthest from the master cylinder to the nearest.

The Beast goes from farthest from the ABS module to nearest.

RR inner

RR outer

LF inner

LF outer

LR inner

LR outer

RF inner

RF outer

Probably because the Zeta platform is primarily right hand drive and the abs module was next to the master down-under.

Oh, and notice that inner and outer?  I've never had fixed calipers before.  Normal floating calipers just have one bleeder.

Up Up Down Down Up Up Down Down

Flushed out Marv's brake lines on his Impala SS the old fashioned way!

We'd have used the pressure bleeder that JT generously loaned us, but...

Round fitting on a rectangular brake reservoir.

So I did a leg work out and Marv opened and closed the bleeder screws repeatedly until the fluid changed from nasty to clear.

What started this was Marv swapping a new rear into the car and the rear brakes being completely dry from the transfer.

To completely flush the system takes just more than a quart of DOT 4.

He reports that the pedal feels much better than before.  We put our heads together and we think he last did this... many years ago.  Too long really.  It's something that's easy to forget to do.

I think I might just do it on my cars before we return the bleeder.  I think I have a round cap on my reservoirs.

Mercedes With A Temp Tag

There's been a murder near Tampa.

The deceased was driving a nearly new Mercedes.

I will speculate about motive.

Mercedes and New Tampa?

He was driving like an asshole and cut off the wrong person.

Don't make it right, but I can totally see it happening.

He Wanted It Known It Was His

 I bought this book as a group of six Andre Norton books.

I last read this book when I was in 9th grade, but that's not why I bothered posting about it.

Steve Wylie put his name in it in several places.

 

Steve made sure that, even if you ripped off the cover, there was still proof that it was HIS book.

Update:  Could it be THIS Steve Wylie?  That'd be kinda cool.

I Guess It Depends On How Observant Huh

The think that stood out to me about Chuck Schumer's little Father's Day grilling photo op wasn't the temperature of the meat, but the cheese on it.

I thought Chuck was Jewish.

I thought that Jews weren't supposed to mix meat and dairy.

Chuck doesn't strike me as being all that orthodox, so prolly OK for his sub-branch of his religion.

Still.

However

"Foreigners committed 77% of solved rape cases in Paris in 2023, according to data from the Paris Police."

-Visegrad 24 on X

The way this is phrased, though, it could just mean that foreigners are bad at not getting caught and the native French are.

That's not 77% of rapes, but 77% of SOLVED rapes.

Now I want to see how many unsolved rapes Paris has and what percentage of them this 77% solved fits into.

Age

How do you figure the age of your car?

By some metrics, the oldest car in my fleet is also the youngest.

Moxie has the fewest miles on her, but is the oldest by model year.

Which is more important?  Miles or years?

16 Years

It's been 16 years since I last spoke to my father.

He called to tell me that his mom, my grandma, had passed on.  A week after the funeral.

He did, however, let everyone in the family think that I'd refused to come.  That was nice.

Two years ago I did send him a birthday card for his 80th.

The ball really is in his court, but the pattern it's following is familiar.

Once he got a family with Wife #2, he didn't need family from Wife #1.

Reminding him we exist bugs him and pisses off Wife #2.

C'est la vie.

They've Never Driven It

Facebook Marketplace has the same search engine as Amazon for giving you results that are only tangentially related to what you're looking for.

A search for Caprice PPV yielded a hit on a 1958 Chevy Biscayne.

In decent shape with a bog standard 235 ci Stovebolt Six.

 

The ad said it had an automatic transmission.

The picture showed too many pedals for that.

 

I'm guessing that the three-on-the-tree is throwing them and they've never even started the motor.

Tree shifters look like column shifters to someone raised on automatics only.

It looked to be in decent shape for a good price.

Maybe Pepperidge Farms

Remember when June was Men's Mental Health Awareness Month?

Oh It Makes Sense Now

I was sitting here trying to figure out how being a nut case conspiracy theorist amounted to defamation.

Finally read up on Mr Jones' case.  Read up meaning skimming news stories without exulting headlines.

He probably would have been exonerated if he'd listened to what the court ordered him to do.

Yeah, you don't blow off the judge repeatedly and expect to win.

He basically handed the plaintiffs a win by default and it wasn't the overwhelmingly strong case they'd filed under.

I did not subscribe to his theories about Sandy Hook, but would never have sought to silence him.  That kind of shit is best actively ignored.

Now a different group of prick has money and they're wearing the skins of their dead children to advance an anti-gun agenda.

Yay!

Those assholes have been running so many ads I can't skip on YouTube that I'm to the point of replying to the screen, "Good!" when they say, "my beloved baby died at Sandy Hook."

I was sad for them until the blamed me for their tragic loss.

The murderer (who isn't me or someone I hired) could have killed everyone he killed with a Sharps falling-block with the time given him by the police response.

The same sort of response that allowed Parkland to proceed until that shooter decided they were thirsty and head for McDonald's for a shake.

The same sort of response that kept help from getting unto the Ft Lauderdale airport to stop that shooter.

The same sort of response that listened to children being murdered in Uvalde, Texas.

The same sort of response that let the murderer in the Pulse nightclub to run themselves dry.

Nashville PD has the right of it when it come to responding.

But you can't sue the cops.  Yet, you have to sue someone.

Alex Jones is primarily guilty of having deep pockets and being foolish enough to ignore the instructions coming from the bench.  But he didn't kill those kids.

Even if he claimed that those kids didn't die and it was all a conspiracy to promote gun control.

Which after seeing how many wacky conspiracy theories have turned out to be true in the wake of Wu Ping Cough, Russian disinformation and Schrodinger's laptop...  Saying that any shooting might be a false flag to get gun control rolling again doesn't sound unreasonable even if have have to swing Occam's Razor HARD at it.

But Not In Florida

Bump stocks are legal in Free America.

But not in Florida.  Florida has a law that says they're illegal passed under the "It's totally not gun control because we say that it's not gun control what did you mean RINO gun control law" passed in the wake of Parkland.

It's ammo that can be used to get rid of that stupid feel-good-do-nothing tranche of gun control signed by the lich who is now our junior senator.

Aside: Justice Sotomayor, what if it's a Goose?

Cool

Enlisted folks get a nearly 20% pay raise.

Great!  Now do disability rates.

You broke 'em, you bought 'em.  That was the deal.

Fascinating

How do you make an engine block from a block of aluminum?

You start with a block of aluminum and remove everything that doesn't contribute to a general sense of enginitity.

I Had A Theory

I was sitting here wondering why there's a hammer head on my warhammer.

Crushing damage in GURPS is objectively worse than impaling.

Especially when you give that impaling an armor divisor.

What's the purpose of that hammer head?

There's been some speculation that flanged maces were intended as weapon breakers.

Could that be the reason for the hammer face?

So I grabbed the GURPS books and went to see if it'd be effective.

Going against the typical arming sword broadsword...

It's -4 to hit that blade.

But let's say you hit.

A ST 12 warrior will do 2d cr with the hammer face.  2-12 points of damage  with an average of 7.

The sword has a DR of 6, HT and HP of 12.  Because it's treated as homogeneous, getting it down to 0 HP is enough to cause serious problems.  18 points to do it in one blow.

That's not going to happen unless a critical hit happens.

A flanged mace isn't really any better at this task...  It does 2d+1 cr.  3-13 points of damage with an average of 8.

It's probably too complicated for GURPS.  There's documented accounts of men breaking their sword over their thigh when they were surrendering.  The rules don't reflect this well.