Smashing The Box

Crispy IV is the result of an older hard drive starting to fail.

For me, that brings not importing problems from the older machine by copy-pasting it and installing everything from base principles.

That means that years of accumulated gurfle are discarded and some things need recreated.

Today's struggle was fonts.

I use a couple that aren't normally included with Ubuntu and I needed to remember how I'd gotten them installed when I first installed 20.04.

I managed to figure it out, but I'm not certain I did it the same way with 24.04 as I did back then.

Who knows?

Next mission is to figure out how to get the keyboard shortcuts for things like "Ö".  Again, I remember it being simple, but I also remember FuzzyGeff hand holding me through it.

I Will Concede

 I will concede that the United States stole all of the lands formerly owned by the American Indian...

If...

IF...

IF! 

If the people accusing the US of the theft concede that it's a fait accompli and the US now owns the land by right of conquest.

That right of conquest, by the way, is why you acquire a big military and glare across your borders at the neighbors.

It's also why you take great pains to intertwine your economy with the neighbors so that conquering them is more harmful to your interests than helpful.

But, if you lose the war, you've LOST the war.

The losers don't get to dictate the terms.

Fixing The Settings

 This is a test!

Isn't she cute, though?

Cheap Isn't So Bad

Cheap melee weapons have been part of GURPS since the beginning.

They're 40% the price of the good quality default, but they're more likely to break...

I just watched a video talking about iron vs bronze weapons and remembered that bronze is treated as if it were cheap when used against iron or steel weapons.

The video didn't seem to think it made much difference for composition with iron vs bronze, so I looked up the GURPS rules.

B376 says you only check for breakage if you try to parry a weapon that's three times heavier than yours.

So a short sword against a short sword isn't going to show a difference when parrying, like his demo, but unlike the "demonstration" from the film.  A short sword against a broadsword, on the other hand...

Weapon quality isn't even mentioned with regards to striking at and breaking cheap weapons, at least that I could find readily.

Blazing Sword

I've offered to teach basic firearms skills to the LGBT crowd via Operation Blazing Sword since its inception.

My fifth and sixth pupils have made contact.

I have found that doing this has been divisive with some people, particularly since there's a faction of people where being communist agitators is their real motive and LGBT is a convenient cover to deflect criticism of their activities.

The, typical, idiots on the pro-gun side go for the bait and attack the LGBT shell and tend to neglect condemning the commie shit.

I have to admit, these groups are playing the pro-gun idiots brilliantly.

They're getting screenshots of them being intolerant bigots, when they really aren't... but they got pissed off and rose to the bait.

The internet is forever.

Still Relevant

Saturday I brushed against greatness!

The comic shop in the strip mall where JT and I had lunch had a special guest!

Robbie Rist!

I know!  Me too!

Well, actually...

I recognized Cousin Oliver from The Brady Bunch on the sheet the barker was handing out, but none of the other roles he's played.

I looked into the antechamber they'd tucked him into, for better to control the traffic and to make sure we'd paid for the autograph session...  But I did wave at him and said "hi!"  He, likewise, waved back and said, "Hello."

That was all the handlers would let us do, but I get that he's appearing to make some extra money.  It's cool.

A neat thing was a couple of teenagers came in while we were looking at comics and they were STOKED to meet him!  He's done a lot of voice acting and he portrayed their absolute favorite character, judging by how excited they were.  I'm guessing it's his role voicing Choji Akimichi in the Naruto series.

Great for him to still be relevant to new fans after 52 years of acting!

Mist Update

Mist has an ear infection.

Last Wednesday we noticed she was walking around like she was drunk.  Literally falling down drunk looking.

We looked up a couple of causes and, of the three most likely, only an ear infection was life threatening.

The other two would be conditions she'd just have to live with for the rest of her life, but neither would shorten it nor really cause her any suffering beyond it being harder for her to get around.

So we took her to the vet and they diagnosed an ear infection.

She HATES the drops, but doesn't mind the liquid antibiotic we put on her food twice a day.

Two days into the course of her meds, she's got her balance back and is scampering all over the table.  The floor is still lava to her, but she's playing with toys, exploring and chasing her tail vigorously.  She still holds her head cocked to the side of the bad ear, but that might clear up as the infection clears.

She's steadily putting on weight too, up to 1 lb. 15 oz. now.

She is a totally binary creature.  She's either 100% up or 100% down...

She's been having peaceful interactions with Shadow too.

I'm Sure It's A Coincidence

Notice the states which don't make you prove you're an eligible voter are also the bluest states?

h/t Marv for the screen pic.

Armor Of Proof

I did a post saying that for your armor to be "proof" against an Elizabethan musket you needed to protect against the average hit from 4d+2 pi++.  That's 16 points of raw damage.

But "armor of proof" isn't supposed to protect you from a musket.

It's to protect you from the opposing cavalry whom will be using pistols.

A pistol of this period is a wheellock doing 2d-1 pi+ or a petronel doing 2d+2 pi+.  That's 6 and 9 respectively.

That's a much easier target goal to hit achieve.

More importantly, DR 6 is affordably available for the average adventurer and demi-lancer.

Just Me I Am Sure

How many times did you look at Ben Shapiro and wonder who did such a bad job on his hair before you realized he's wearing a yarmulke?

Veteran's Day

Today, in the USA, it's Veteran's Day.

A day set aside for those who went in and came out.

It seems odd to have to say it, but today is not for the fallen in the USA; that's Memorial Day.

It isn't for those whom are still serving; that's Armed Forces Day.

If you know a vet, buy them a beer, take them out to dinner, get them laid.

Remind them of all the freebies available!

When you hit the places giving out freebies, be gracious and buy something that's got big margins (like a beer) because it wasn't so long ago that nobody but us and the post office remembered Veteran's Day at all.

Plus!  Tip the wait staff like you'd paid for the meal, not on just the cost of the beer.

Also, let the stolen valor people go.  This is the only validation they're getting in their pathetic lives, can you think of a harsher punishment than letting be what they are?  Don't save them!

To The C8 Vette Owner

When I tromped it to get around traffic that was going 5 under behind you, signaled then changed lanes in front of you...

YOU created the dangerous situation by stomping it from 5 under to faster than me as I was changing lanes.

You made you mad, not me.

When you blasted around me on the right then tried to take my front bumper off by snapping back into my lane you created a second dangerous situation.

You, also, almost wiped out and created a third dangerous situation when you didn't stop your lateral motion and put two wheels in the grass.

Interestingly, if you'd been going the fucking speed limit rather than leading a parade, I'd have not passed you.  Heck, I wouldn't even have gotten back into your (our?) lane if I had not been overtaking someone going ten under in the right lane.

You're Welcome For My Service!

The American Legion has put out their list of places offering deals to Veterans tomorrow.

Please, if you take advantage of one of these deals, make a point to visit at least two more times when they aren't to show you appreciated it.

They don't have to do anything on Veteran's Day, be gracious in return.

Make Safe

Something you cannot get from SIG is a P320 Pro-Carry with a safety.

Turns out, it's something you can make, and Marv did so!

First you take the gun completely apart!

Well, first you get the kit.

Then you watch the videos.

THEN you take it all apart!

Then you follow the instructions that you saw in the video and cut a kidney shaped hole in the frame of the pistol using the provided jigs and cutters.

This is what allows you to insert the safety into the gun and it's cleverly designed to compress the spring detent as you move it up into its final position.

Then you put the gun back together!

Now you cut slots in your grip to let the safety stick out the side of the gun.

You can just barely see the outline of where Wilson would have put an insert into the mold to keep the slot from being filled with plastic.  It's even more prominent in an OE SIG grip.

Because the jig fits a bit loose on the Wilson grip, you start small and work your way out, doing lots of test fits.

Almost there...

Viola!

...And done!

It wasn't even me this time!  This was a Marv project.

Happy Birthday Lex

We still miss you!

Guinness for STRENGTH, Jameson for COURAGE.

What's Keeping Arizona?

I think the people in charge of stealing Arizona for Harris are stuck in an error loop where they're trying to figure out how many fake votes they need to add to make Maricopa county's results miraculously give 44 electoral votes for Arizona instead of 11.

Journalism, Poly-Sci and Woman's and Minorities Studies majors don't typically do well with math, so they can't see that you cannot get there from here.

We engineering types are, generally, contemptuous of such innumeracy.

They're the product of the education system they wanted, so I don't offer any sympathy either.

What A Difference A Day Makes

Before The Election

After the Election

I think it's safe to say the pollsters were wrong, again.

Translucent Technological Terror

The window in the side of the magazine wasn't silly enough!

Magpul has released the TMAG!

 

Just under $30 shipped from Midway.

17.3 oz. loaded with 30-rounds of 5.56x45mm Winchester Match 69gr Matchking HPBT.

Unlike a conventional GenM3, it did not come with a dust cover.  It will accept one, however.

The white spring loop lines up with numbers on the side of the magazine telling you how many rounds you have left.

Why would you need the spring loop to tell how many rounds are left in a clear magazine?

Because some of them will be hidden by the magazine well!

How it compares to a PMAG30 GenM3 window.

Same overall length.  Same spring and follower.  Same baseplate.  Same 1.1 lb.; well, almost the same:  TMAG is 17.3 oz, PMAG is 17.8 oz.  Both round to 1.1 lb.

The PMAG has a rough texture and ribs for gripping.

The TMAG is smooth.  It's a completely different tactile experience.

It's neat seeing how the spring and shot column work.

Update: This is my 16,000th published post!  WOW.  I'm chatty.

Background

Every iteration of Crispy gets a new background image.

Currently it's:

Versions!

Crispy is my laptop.

Stage I was with Win7.

I've been running Ubuntu on it for a while.

Bionic Beaver lasted all of an hour while we discovered that its version of Thunderbird wasn't compatible with the configuration file from the one I had installed on Win7.

Focal Fossa (Stage II) ran for three years until I got fed up with the nagging to update to...

Jammy Jellyfish (Stage III) was running fine until something went wrong with the WD Green SSD I was using.

Today I replaced the hard drive with a WD Blue of the same capacity and am running...

Noble Numbat, aka Stage IV!

Running fine on a 2011 made Lenovo T420S.

Now With Video

I mentioned the M86 Pursuit Deterrent Munition almost two years ago.

Someone did a vid.

Google It's MY Blog

About once a month, Blogger will, helpfully, mark one of my replies to a comment as spam.

Even more puzzling is the comments it so marks are usually about a month old.

I dunno why it's doing it, I've never marked any of my replies as spam.

Unless it's learning it from other bloggers marking my comments as spam...

That's harder to check.  Especially since I tend to do a drive by in comment sections and never go back to see if anyone replied to me.

Not Since Cleaveland

President-Elect Trump has made history as only the second president to have a split term.

I see we have a narrow margin in the Senate.  Not filibuster proof by a long ways, but a lead.

Eyes crossed in the house races we get a majority there too.

Because it's easy to postulate two years of cleaning the swamp if both houses of Congress are red.

Ugh

I got it working and I wish I hadn't.

It's like watching the decline at Little Green Footballs.  Remember them?

Misha's gone.

From Hel's Heart

One of the county commissioners is running unopposed.

She was responsible for the irresponsible wave of construction without supporting infrastructure; like enough road to get all those people to and from their new residences.

So I wrote in Bill Gerber.

Yes, I know he's dead, but he's still more qualified for the position than Kathryn Starkey.

Yes, I know he was never a resident of Pasco County.  That's not always a problem for our commissioners...  Yeah, I know.

So, Gerber for Pasco County Commission!

Fake Steel

They're very expensive, but I love the idea.

Fake Steel.

I stole the video from their site, I hope they don't mind.

Lots of choices there, check it out.

Did My Civic Duty

 

Most crowded I've ever seen here in Florida.

I Think It's Official Updated

I do believe I outlasted Emperor Misha at The Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler.

The main site is dead and an alt site stopped updating in February.  It appears that Misha himself just quit caring and the people keeping it going for him couldn't get him to stir to get the access to make critical updates to the site.

Bummer.

It used to be a daily read.

UPDATE:

Because others can reach the site, and I was getting a solid ping return...

I tried to open it in a private window.  Viola!  It works again.

Odd that it don't in normal mode.

Good!

Donald Trump "targeted and minimized" Kolin Kaepernick.

I'm not even going to check to see if he did.  He probably didn't because there's lots of things disconnected from reality in Kaepernick's mind.

If Trump didn't, he should have!

If there was ever a dancing sportsball monkey that deserves it more, I cannot think of one.

It Is Deliberate

Did you know that Nazi is, period, derogatory, slang for NASDP?

Did you know that NASDP stands for Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei.  That is German for National Socialist German Worker's Party.

Because if you didn't know those three facts, you can be convinced that the Nazis are right wing.

That lets a parallel be drawn between any right wing idea and the evils of Nazi Germany.

That is on purpose.

Something else that gets blurred is the parallels between fascism and communism.  The break really is as simple as nationalism.  Fascists are nationalists.  Communists believe that the nation-state should be abolished and abandoned for international communism.

There are also strong parallels between labor unions and socialism.

History can be eye opening and terrifying.

One reason this ruse can be pulled is socialism is treated as a single political idea when it's really a family of them.

Communism and fascism are both socialist.  The Nazis were socialists.

Those three branches of socialism have murdered how many people to date?

That alone should disqualify their teachings and ideas.

The idea that we should all look out for each other gives of warm fuzzy feelings.

The problem is the implementation always leads to starvation and murder.

Socialism is a utopian scheme; as such it's impossible to achieve.

If it was possible, it would have happened and been a shining beacon to the rest of the world to emulate.

Hint: Shining beacons don't need walls to keep people in.  They need walls to keep people out.

Motivation

Years ago I started converting the GURPS: Traveller character templates from 3e to 4e.

I stopped somewhere in the middle of First In and never got back to it.

Tonight I summoned enough motivation to open the file and see where I'd left off, but not enough motivation to remember where I was at in the last template I was working on.

Maybe tomorrow.

I Get This Joke

For near $40 a shirt, I am thinking the joke might be a bit too obscure.

Eight Years To Go

Florida to drown, women and minorities most affected.

I remember them talking about this back then.

FuzzyGeff and I debated it extensively, usually sparked by discussing the grain blight of the Car Wars universe.

I remember that they were saying that, if nothing was done immediately, then in 50 years Tallahassee would be ocean-front property and the entire Florida peninsula would be submerged.

Well, they didn't do anything immediately, and have hardly done anything since...

To get the effect they were talking about 42 years ago, we'd need some dramatic heating in the next couple of years and even the poles would be uninhabitable.

But that's not going to happen.  I think that serious scientists are aware of it too.

But it's not a question of science.  It's a matter of politics and rational thought has no place with politicians as long as irrational panic can get them votes and power.

PS: Notice it's Dan Rather?  I rather think his credibility is shot these days.

PPS: Maybe Dan hadn't gotten the word from his predecessor, Uncle Walt:

Everything Is Bad

I've often wondered why we target a certain percentage of inflation and think of it as normal and good.

The official goal is 2%, in case you're wondering.

The reason they are doing this is to prevent deflation.

Why is that?  If you ask most people they'd be happy with lower prices on goods.

The answer is historical.  The great depression had massive deflation as prices dropped to get any return on investment at all.  Because prices were falling, people deferred purchases, lowering demand in the face of sufficient supply and caused prices to fall further...  Until prices were well below costs and the company closed.

It's a vicious thing.

I am willing to bet that, if we looked into it, we'd find that people stopped buying goods they didn't NEED because they'd lost jobs and had reduced incomes from the recession that became the great depression.  Deflation USED to be how the economy righted itself in the face of recession.  For some reason (cough cough cough FDR) it failed that time.  One reason was how easy it was to obtain credit (credit is another word for debt in case you're not up to speed here) and deflation kills you if you owe.

Inflation causes people to defer a purchase when their wages stubbornly refuse to keep up with inflation.

You might notice a lack of LS3 cam in The Beast?  That's because we're buying groceries.  The cam purchase is deferred.

Explain again why deflation is bad?

Worse, we can tell that they're lying about it because of how selective they get when calculating inflation.  They don't count "volatile" goods like energy and food.

You know, the stuff that everyone HAS to buy and cannot readily be deferred.

Those goods are crushing us.

My, long held, theory is that inflation is good for people in debt.  Economists LOVE debt.

If we take the official inflation rate against my house payment...

The $458.61 I've been paying on my mortgage every month was $458.61 when I started.  You need $765.49 today to match the buying power of $458.61 then.  Put the other way, our payment has fallen to the equivalent of $274.76 over the past 20 years.

Inflation is GREAT if you're in debt.  My loan is getting cheaper the longer inflation goes on.

What entity is in the most debt in America today?

Personally I'm good with 0% inflation.  I can afford what I have and knowing that it won't be getting more expensive to keep it on an unpredictable schedule would be GOOD for me, even with my meager debts.

Some deflation would also be good for me.  Especially if wages hold firm.

I think I know who benefits from the Fed's scheme, and it's not The People.

Dare I Say Superior?

How do I know that I am better than others?

Because when someone slings an insult at me because of my race, religion, sexual preference or gender I am expected to bear it.

I am held to a higher standard and I meet it.

I am better than they are by an objective standard that they established to show they were as good as I am... and they failed!

It's insane.

Milestones

Mist makes progress in the form of us noticing she's doing something normal and us realizing that she hadn't been doing it before.

That's how close to death's door she might have been.

Like holding her head up.

Like having the energy to clean herself.

Like being able to balance well enough to do a good job cleaning herself.

Like a good, full-body, stretch.

Like moving from the last place we set her down.

The day by day improvement is remarkable and I'm remarking on it!

She's still too skinny for my tastes, but she's eating.  She's also getting full and stopping.  I think she's starting to realize that she's not living meal to meal anymore.

I Have The Chain

Who has four horses to do the quartering?

Fucking scumbag.

People who torture animals should be likewise treated.

Cat Distribution System

 

Mist and Shadow are getting to know each other.

It's going smoothly.

What Was That Pop?

The Lovely Harvey had her knee fixed today.

After her shoulder replacement a couple years ago all I can think is:

They can build her better than she was. They have the technology. They have the capability. Better than she was before. Better... stronger... faster.

The procedure was textbook and she's home with it propped up.

Again With Feeling

17 year old suspect in custody after another mass shooting in Orlando.

Gee, Rick Scott's gun control law keeping people under 21 from buying guns is sure working! 

Never mind that you're not allowed to conceal carry until you're 21.

Never mind Orlando is most gun unfriendly locale in the whole state.

And, the suspect is exactly the demographic we've come to expect to be doing such things.