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USAA uses lube and cuddles after the fucking!
No where near what I'd need to replace her.
Actually, she cannot be replaced. The Precious was special and irreplaceable.
The Rust Monster was likewise special and was never replaced...
She might be supplanted, but will never be gone from my heart.
Looks like BATFE is going to legislate by regulatory fiat previously OK pistol braces into short barrel rifles in August.
I think we need to have some honesty about pistol braces.
The ATF is correctly interpreting their usage here.
How many times have you seen someone using their brace like a stock?
How many times have you seen someone using the brace to fire one handed?
So far I've seen the former a lot and the latter not at all.
Welcome to loophole 101!
A loophole that we wouldn't even be concerned about had we just said, way back when, that a "pistol" made from a rifle was a still a rifle, send in your $200.
The fucking headaches from people making rifle action pistols sure was worth it!
Like making all kinds of rifle ammo unimportable because it's armor piercing pistol ammo now.
Well, this ruling will be screwing the few people who needed that brace to fire a pistol, but...
PS: Making that stockless SBR legally a pistol is also taking advantage of a loophole.
I'm still of the opinion that we should be trying to repeal the NFA and putting far more restrictions, with teeth, on the executive branch doing legislation via regulation. Lawsuits more along the lines of, "the executive has no granted power to..."
Especially since what the law says about an FFL selling me a gun is very simple and someone can be charged for filling out the 4473 wrong as if they were breaking that law when they're not prohibited from owning a gun.
A long while ago when GM introduced the Atlas engine series I speculated that the new DOHC 24-valve inline 6 would be a really good swap into any of the numerous vehicles from the 40's and 50's that came with the old Straight-Six!
It'd be a significant upgrade in power over the 216 cu in mill. The 1947 motor made 83 hp @ 3,200 and 168 ft-lb @ 1,100. A 2006+ LL8 makes 291 hp @ 6000 / 277 ft-lb @ 4800. Hmmmmm, better upgrade the brakes...
I love the 47-49 Chevy Fleetmasters too.
Plunk in a 6-speed auto and it might even get good mileage. The Trailblazer with a 4L60E got 14/20 in the 2009 model year. God awful, but a much heavier vehicle, 4,356 lb. vs the Fleetmaster's 3,350.
The Lovely Harvey, being a former CNA explains that means no lifting of more than five pounds and several other things.
On the 1,000 mg of ibuprofen and 750 mg of methocarbamol every four hours, I'm sore but not in agonizing pain. I've got no energy and everything takes longer, but I'm doing well...
Intellectually I know not to push the limits hard. Those ribs are not knit and can break out of the cartilage holding them in place and puncture something.
Emotionally, however, I'm rearing to go!
It got rammed home tonight when I needed Harvey to move the pot from the sink to the stove for me.
My five pound limit covers the potatoes, but not the pot or the water.
It was good, though, to get to cook again.
The first three days were "do nothing but exist" by doctor's orders.
It's been nice to get out the house the past couple of days, even if I have to do everything at 1/4 speed.
Making potato soup, because it's the first real cold day and we make either chili or tater soup on those days, took way too long and far too much energy.
But I managed to make it and it came out GREAT!
My mom's recipe is near fool proof too.
Dice 5 lb. of potato into random sized chunks.
Chop a good sized onion.
Place in a stock pot.
Just barely cover the potatoes with water.
Boil until tender. I like to give it an aggressive stir just before they get tender to knock apart the smaller chunks to thicken the liquid.
Reduce heat to low.
Toss in two sticks of butter and 32 oz of Half-n-Half.
Salt and pepper to taste.
This is a base for anything you'd like to add too! I often add chicken and corn.
The more I look at the FNHP22 the less I give a fuck.
FN, what do I get for my $1,300 that I don't get from a $600 (or less) M&P 9?
I don't think a metal frame and hammer is worth $700+. Do you?
By the way, everyone pining for a redo of the S&W 3rd Gen pistols should pay attention to this thing's price point.
What happens if the S&W CSX turns out to wildly popular and they scale it up to service pistol dimensions?
S&W isn't going to have that $1,300 price point scaling up a pistol with an MSRP of $610. It might even get cheaper with more space to put components than the micro gun it presently is. Or be the same price, the M&P line is pretty consistently priced regardless of caliber or scale.
I just dunno what FN be smokin' here.
I can't even say I'd be saving money on magazines by buying one because it's pretty clear it doesn't take high-power mags.
I've reverted a post to draft because it doesn't say what I wanted to say the way I want to.
It's being worked on rather than being memory holed.
Thank you for flying McThag Air.
JT's slicer program will tell you how much filament you need to complete the print.
Setting it to 100% infill, we can use that amount as a proxy for the volume of the print.
My model of the Lighting class comes to 361g of filament. The Akkigish class comes to 349g.
My model will be losing a bit of filament as I get more greebel done too.
My main worry was that I'd made an error because the Lightning seems so much bigger than the Akkigish.
Rashomon did it first and best, and this is medieval French Rashomon.
Pacing is off.
When the pacing is off and you show the same story three times from each main character's perspective, it becomes jarring and I felt like I was gutting it out rather than watching it.
Something odd, I've seen about other people talking about it.
We get the Sir Jean de Carrouges perspective first, then Jaques Le Gris, then Marguerite de Carrouges stories.
Everyone spots how the first two are skewed in favor of the men, and assumes that the third telling is the truth.
Um...
Her story is JUST as skewed as the men's, and that's kind of the point of the way it's told.
What actually happened is not presented.
The other thing that sticks out is armor actually doing what armor is supposed to do.
In far too many stories you wonder why anyone ever bothered to wear the heavy shit for all the good it did them when the fight started.
While I am sitting here recovering from my injuries...
Willard has been in constant contact, which has been great! He even dropped off a couple of books and a donation.
I run out of energy very quickly. I viscerally understand why the sore area is called your core. You can't move anything without using some part of it.
Marv has been a mensch. He even ran me to Target to get some Legos after we'd just been to Target for him to get some stuff. He's also done some lifting duties.
JT has stopped by and lent a hand with the lifting, including disposal of our very worn out king-size bed to make room for a recliner I can actually get in and out of.
FuzzyGeff and Software Janitor lead the pack in donations using the donate button.
We're still not certain how much the medical bills will be, but optimism presently reigns.
The car was, SURPRISE, totaled. We have an offer from USAA on the web site, but the adjuster said to wait for her to call before doing anything with it. It is, of course, not near enough to replace The Precious.
Even paying for the replacement assistance would fall short of replacement.
Thanks for all the comments and well wishes! They do brighten my day.
I'm sore.
No doubt about it.
When the doc told me I'd broken bones, I didn't believe him because, surely, that would hurt at least as bad as my legs. Right?
My shins still hurt worse than my ribs when I'm positioned neutrally.
I can move so my ribs and sternum hurt way worse, but it's easy to avoid.
Thanks to everyone who stopped in to wish me well!
I'm lubing up to be fucked by USAA now...
My buddy, Ray, despite the tox report his dingbat ex-wife breathlessly shared... (she didn't know how to read it).
Did not die from an accidental overdose.
We have the coroner's report now.
Ray had Wu Ping Cough and was both obese and had high blood pressure. Dangerous co-morbidities.
I feel somewhat better that he didn't accidentally kill himself with pills.
He'd only started getting his weight under control to try to keep the cellulitus to a dull roar when it all went wrong.
An ignoble end.
Yes, I am kinda lucky to be all here.
Especially so since for three years the airbags were disabled because the driver's seat wiring was fucked up. I'd only gotten that repaired in April last year.
That airbag saved my life. I don't think the seatbelt alone would have.
It's a testimony about how much safer cars are now than years past.
The Lovely Harvey is presently having nightmares from October 1987 when a friend of hers was killed in an accident. Her 1975 Chevy Nova looks the same as my car from the firewall forward. Where they differ is the crease in the passenger compartment that shortened her car almost two feet and let the steering column crush her chest. My passenger compartment is intact.
Last night I managed to put The Precious into a tree.
The tree lived, The Precious died.
Typical cold tires, too much application of go-pedal, the pilot-induced-oscillations until BAM!
Can't even blame the other guy.
I am skinned up, broke my sternum and two ribs.
Pics later.
I feel lucky to be alive, but with life comes pain and I'm in a lot of it. So I'm going to not sit at the desk typing for a bit.
That donate button over there -->
Please hit it. The VA is my provider and this might get expensive.
Over and over I read book and film reviewers describing "Starship Troopers" as advocating Fascism.
It often inspires me to re-read it.
The society described in "Starship Troopers" is not a description of a Fascist state.
What these reviewers keep forgetting is we have historical examples of Fascist states and things mentioned in "Starship Troopers" are not allowed in Fascism.
Emilio Rico, a non-voting resident, was a wealthy, landowning, successful, businessman.
In other words, not a member of the ruling class or party.
Lemme look for examples of such in, say, Mussolini's Italy... Um...
Lemme quote wikipedia, it might not be unimpeachable, but it's accessible to even a liberal arts major:
State permission was required for almost any business activity, such as expanding a factory, merging a business, or terminating an employee. All wages were set by the government, and a minimum wage was imposed in Italy. Restrictions on labor increased. While corporations still could earn profits, Italian Fascism supported criminalization of strikes by employees and lockouts by employers as illegal acts it deemed as prejudicial to the national community as a whole. Similar to the Bolsheviks in Soviet Russia, Mussolini nationalized all independent trade unions into one government-operated syndicate, the Confistrada, which would be the arbiter of all disputes between labor and management. The closed shop was mandated nationwide in virtually all careers, where unemployed Italians were required to join the Confistrada in order to secure employment.
Show me where "Starship Troopers" describes Rico the elder operating like that. Give the page number.
What I finally realized about them seeing the society that Juan Rico is from as being Fascist isn't that it's a Fascist society but that THEY, personally, would not be citizens or allowed to vote if they found themselves transported to that world.
Because they would never make the sacrifice of doing something dangerous to earn that right to vote and learn the value of putting society ahead of ones own selfish interests.
I think their viewpoint of the novel says more about them than the story.
His presence is still felt in firearms design to this very day.
Happy 167th Birthday John Moses Browning!
Being of Scots descent, and being something of a technological history buff...
I'm aware of how far behind England Scotland was before England invaded and Anglicized the norther half of the isle.
Once that colonization had occurred, Scots hit the ground running with industry, inventions, medicine, and science.
Scots were Irish as far as Americans were concerned when my, now English, ancestors hit the shore.
But it makes me aware that a people doesn't have to remain backward.
Mom's side of the family is Italian and hit America at the height of Italian and Catholic discrimination in the US.
Their eventual success and assimilation to American culture makes me aware that a people doesn't have to remain oppressed from being willfully different.
But, do lecture me on the historical oppression of your ancestors while you reject American culture and education to be the backwards other who can never succeed.
But aren't deployed in Africa...
Any insight, Mr Fleetwood?
So I'm sitting here, watching Meat Loaf's 1994 rendition of The Star Spangled Banner at the Baseball All Star Game and I realized...
If the military flyover would drop a MOAB on any modern NFL team, not a single person I knew of cared about would die.
In fact, the world might be measurably better off.
The reason I came to this realization was the camera wandering down the 1994 MLB All Stars and there was no kneeling or political statements.
The worst you can say about them is an appearance of eagerness to get past the ceremony and get to the game.
Watch for yourself:
And Meat did a fine job with the song. Not every celebrity, living or dead, can say as much.
I am reading about how we're evacuating non-essential personal from our embassies in Ukraine.
This keyholes with how non-essential workers were furloughed when the government "shuts down" when Congress fails in their primary duty of making and passing a budget.
Pray, tell me, if they're not essential; why are we wasting money on them in the first place?
Seems we can get a much smaller government by just letting these folks find honest work. They might even find employment doing what they were doing before, but now as a private citizen providing a service for a fee.
I'm in favor of finding out how much of our government we'd pay for if we had to pay for it individually.
Wanna bet we wouldn't pay for much at all?
The cyan lines will be changed to shallow grooves so the print looks more interesting.
Thank The Gods for the mirror tool!
UPDATE!:
Got the top surface plotted out, now I need to extrude it into the surface and subtract it from the solid to leave a groove the printer can see.
I can see what's going on because I made the model.
The one on the right is the rearranged version.
Upper and lower cargo and being able to isolate the passenger section makes more sense to me.
Never mind the original seems to have forgotten an airlock...
I did a comparison between the fusion plants in Traveller: Interstellar Wars and GURPS: Transhuman Space.
The Traveller plant gives 2.5 times the power for the same space in the ship.
I think I know why.
Traveller has miraculous gravitics.
They're using gravity manipulation to smush the fuel to a fusion state.
Transhuman is harder, crunchier, science fiction and is constrained by real world theory for the physics.
Kinda neat!
Something else I realized is that a Traveller plant requires tremendous power requirements at start-up to create the initial state.
Even FN!
Sort of.
They made it ambi and increased capacity to 17 rounds.
Sure didn't come down on the price from the old version...
While it's interesting, at that price point I'm prolly not going to be the one writing a review unless someone at FN reads this and says, "Hey, Thag, we sure wanna hear what you think about it and we're sending one to you."
Simians may also issue forth from my alimentary canal with great force, taking on a ballistic trajectory.
What I want to know, though, is magazine compatibility with the old guns.
I noticed that the cargo bay as shown was too small.
So I extended it forward a lot.
Then I started looking at the layout and thought, "this is not set up well at all."
So I started rearranging components.
This got especially drastic when I found that there's no place to put the power plant in engineering as shown on the rules-as-written deck plans.
Fine, you're gonna make me rearrange, then lets REARRANGE!
Passenger staterooms have been moved to the lower deck.
Some of the cargo has been moved to the upper deck and an air-raft sized deck elevator installed there.
Passenger country can be isolated from the rest of the ship.
Airlock and companionway have been added to the port side so the passengers don't have to walk through the cargo bay or engineering to get to their staterooms.
Best of all, it all fits properly in the 3D model I showed the other day! Huzzah!
I've been stabbing unsubscribe on a lot of YouTube channels I used to enjoy.
Repetitious and boring sums up most of them.
But a couple of car channels actively shying away from interesting projects to stay on the repetitious, boring and predictable formula was the last straw.
That thing right there that you're refusing to work on? I want to watch you work on that you talentless hack!
No, there is no schematic or manual for this. You can't plug it into a computer to diagnose it.
I thought you were a mechanic.
But you pale compared to the idiot who keeps bringing these projects to you.
And idiot is an act.
He's flipping these cars for a profit and making a big deal about how he paid so little to get the car and so much to fix it...
But he shows his house in the vids. He's not hurting.
But he's got the viewers hooked that he's going broke doing this.
If that were true, it would have ended a long while ago.
I can make my hull shape work with some small changes to the deck plans.
Two corridors outboard and forward of staterooms 13 and 16 are crawl-spaces; but that's OK because there's a corridor aft of these rooms that connects to the inboard ones.
The corridors that go around staterooms 3 and 4 lose a little bit of headroom forward and outboard, but that's mostly up above the drop ceiling.
The cargo bay gets expanded out to meet the hull in the aft portion and extended under the staterooms almost to under the bridge with a 9' ceiling.
Staterooms 13 and 16 lose some headroom in the head because of the angle of the hull.
I think that, if it were my design, I'd have made the Lightning a bit less, well, slab sided and flat.
I'm modeling it as the artwork in the book says to do it.
And I just noticed that the cargo hold, as shown in the deck plans is a mere 78.5 dTon when it's supposed to be 162 dTon.
I assumed a 9' ceiling and to make volume it needs a 20' ceiling. Or it needs to be twice as long as shown on the plans.
That means a substantial redesign of my model... Grumble!
I got the bridge windows and the refueling scoops on! Coming up with an aesthetically pleasing and not wildly out of scale set of windows was a pain in the ass!
Greebeling is no darn fun when the feature has to have some real function that's identifiable.
Don't have a stand yet, but I'm having fun with using it!
In this case Liquid Garage's Backfire, passion fruit habenero sour
JT printed the Lightning without any greebling so I can do some drawing on the plain part to plan the greebling.
Notice that it seems to dwarf the Type-R?
The differences in volume can be illusory. I think the Type-R should come in a bit larger than the Lightning by volume despite appearing smaller here.
Now that the ransom has been paid, the hostage has been returned.
I have my Shield Plus, she has hers.
All is once again well.
I feel better that she's now packing a gun that she can fully operate and the upgrade to 9x19mm from 9x17mm is a bonus.
JT got a good print of the Type-R Subsidized Merchant and we made our first run of an un-greebeled Lightning Frontier Merchant in 1/270 scale!
Uh... Isn't the Lightning a 400 dTon ship, like the Type-R?
This is what happens when you use a GURPS book for the dimensions where a hex is 1 yard across flats. So this was scaled in inches... The slicer defaults to millimeters.
A scaled up version is printing right now!
For just $1400 the plumber came (um, phrasing), snaked the shitter (PHRASING!), and grouted the base of the commode.
He said he felt something solid blocking things and knocked it down the drain.
It appears to flush fine now!
He didn't even take the crapper off the floor, so we're being optimistic about it.
