Before You Notice

In the comments I mention the '73 Charger my dad and friends turned into a race car.

It had a Hemi in it.

A REAL Hemi.  Kieth Black Hemi.  Not a Hemi™.

How does this happen?  The '73 didn't come with a Hemi.

You are correct, Troubleshooter!

But the K-Member out of a '71 fit.  I won't say bolted right in because I wasn't there and didn't help put it in.  But I remember Dad explaining it to someone else.

Why was I driving?

Because my dad and his three buddies forgot they were fat old men when they had the roll cage built and my skinny teenage ass could actually get into the seat wearing the safety gear.

I Wonder If He's Surprised

"Hey, I need a favor, and FUCK YOU!" is an interesting bargaining position.

Wow.

I Feel A Bit Better

I'm watching Dave Freiburger's channel and his working on a '72 Roadrunner.

He's had the car almost two years and he's mentioned the punctuated equilibrium of working on it.

Do something.

Sit for months.

Do next thing.

Sit for a year.

Later.  Rinse.  Repeat.

My project is flying along like it's blasting across the alkali flats in a jet-powered, monkey-navigated...

You get the point.

Not Necessarily True Anymore

In the way back...

Engines were severely choked by the intake and exhausts the OEM's put on them.

A different air cleaner and headers could free up some noticeable horsepower.

That's not as true as it used to be.

Getting more efficient means the intakes and exhaust flow very well now.

They will handle anything the stock motor can put out and putting on better stuff doesn't actually free anything up.

If you're adding a lot of power, of course, you will need more flow capacity, but you're just not going to see the boost that doing it used to do.

Headers perked up the 305 in my '79 Camaro noticeably.  A whole second in the 1/4 mile.  A 4-barrel woke up it even further.  But it was just a 305...

A bigger motor with 45 more cubes did MUCH more.

But I've watched people with much newer cars put serious money into exhausts and intakes and seen the before and after dyno runs.  10 horsepower, tops.  The good news is they have the flow capacity to double the output, but rarely do they even put a new cam in...

The only reason I'm looking at exhaust for The Beast is acoustically cosmetic.  I don't want the Cadillac quiet exhaust on my hot-rod.  The police might need silence to creep up on a suspect.  I don't.

Definitely MUCH Better

Marv bought a K&N air filter for his PPV, almost nearly the same day he ordered an over-the-radiator-cold-air-intake.

Since the OTR intake doesn't use the stock filter, he passed it onto me.

You can really feel the difference in power.

If you wish hard enough.

Breathing better is never a bad thing, but the performance gains are overblown by the companies selling them.

K&N has been good kit for me before.

I am certain I am getting the full "up to 20hp" gain.

Parts

Someone on the Facebook group for my car found a '12 Caprice in one of the local salvage yards.

Marv and I descended like locusts on it.

I got the steering wheel clock spring, all four door latches and both passenger side door seals.

Marv got a steering wheel, dash trim and a rear molding.

Just For The Record

There is only one Highlander movie.  No sequels, prequels or television series.

There are only two Alien movies.

There are only two Terminator movies.

For some stupid reason, Star Trek movies only have even numbers.  Nobody knows why.

Let Us Thank Goldie Hawn

It would appear that Kurt Russel was originally cast as Connor MacLeod.

Goldie talked him out of it to "star" in "Big Trouble In Little China."

I cannot imagine BTILC without Mr Russel.

There Can Be Only One

They appear to be poised to remake Highlander.

Henry Cavill is a decent choice for Connor MacLeod.

There's two big problems.

Freddy Mercury be dead.

Who the fuck can top Clancy Brown for the Kurgan?

And Another Thing

While $10k might be a fair price for those gaming tables after materials, equipment and labor are accounted for...

Who the heck is the market for them?

The people who are complaining that $300 for the newest release of the three core books for D&D definitely don't have five figures to drop on a table that isn't readily adaptable to other uses.

Of course, there appears to be a cadre of gamers who've casually dropped $5k on a 3D printer to make miniatures and scenery for their dungeon...

Make Sure It Means What You Say

YouTube keeps giving me an ad for a delivered meal service that offers "restaurant quality meals."

Denny's is a restaurant.

McDonald's is a restaurant.

The place the food inspector shut down last week was a restaurant.

Exactly which level of quality am I being promised here?

I'm No Carpenter

I'm not a carpenter, but I am pretty sure I can learn how and get tools to become one for less than the TEN THOUSAND DOLLARS that this company is asking for their wares.

Gods bless them if they're making money and thriving, but I don't think I even have the space for the little table, let alone the $12,500 monster at the top end of their range.

Likewise, while I'm no electrician, I know that stringing that thing for lights and running power to each seat is not rocket science.

Beep Beep Beep Beep

Doing the backups that I neglect too often.

Booting to the Mac side reminds me there's two other locations that I keep them in, so making more than one copy makes me feel better.

And Potatoes

Ever want a baked potato and toss some steaks in the cart because every meal needs a side dish?

But I'm A Ne'er Do Well

I am at a loss to figure out five tasks I accomplished last week...

Hmmmm...

I fixed the thermostat.

I found out how much filler was in a Shell Mk.1 for a QF 20-pounder Mk.1.

I installed a battery in DerpyPuter and tested it.

I put a sheet of Lexan™ over The Lovely Harvey's cross display.

I cleared a terabyte of useless dross from the NAS!

I did manage to do five things! 

I'm as good as a federal employee!

And it wasn't even too hard to come up with a list of tasks.

I'm gonna bet that some of them won't manage it.

 

I Guess We'll See How It Goes

I am uncertain that having the same person be the director of both the FBI and BATFE is a good idea.

My objections are pretty nebulous, but I cannot help but think they are separate organizations for a reason and separate orgs need separate leadership.

I've been wrong before.  I could be wrong now and worrying about nothing.

I hope so.

Speaking Of Banned Books

I'm watching "The Order" and they mention "The Turner Diaries" many times.

I've heard of this book many times.

I've seen it for sale at a couple of gun shows.  You know the guy who has all the Nazi memorabilia?  Yeah, that guy sells them.

Being a curious monkey, I wondered if it counted as a banned book and how easy it was to lay hands on a copy.

Amazon does not carry it.

Books-A-Million does.

Interestingly, if you can read German, Amazon will sell you a copy of Mein Kampf.  Well, they'll sell it to you even if you can't...

Every title that the liberal types say was banned by Florida's so called, "Don't say gay," law is readily available on Amazon.

So much for being banned.

Not that I want to actually own anything on that list, or a copy of The Turner Diaries.

But it's interesting to see what is banned vs what is not available.

And I Will Take It

Dream Giveaways is giving away a pair of Challengers.

The old one is a 1970 R/T 440-Six Pack Trak-Pack.  Update, it's a 440 not a 400.  Typo.

390 hp, 490 ft-lb.

3,700 rpm on the interstate where it will get, perhaps, 9 miles per gallon.

With the 18 gallon tank that means a 162 mile range.

Because of the 4.10 rear gear, it's barely going to get past 100 before it runs out of revs.

It's astonishing how far technology has come.

The Beast makes almost as much power, gets more than double the mileage and has a top speed just past 150.  Same 0-60 time.  With a superbike's worth of engine missing (7.2 v 6.0 liters).

The Dodge is just two tenths faster in the 1/4-mile.  13.6@101 vs 13.8@101. 

Did I mention the weight difference?  The Challenger is 3,671 lb., The Beast is 4,162 lb.  Technology is amazing!

A lot of it has to do with the gearing in the transmission.  Even with the 2.92 diff, the Caprice has more than a 13:1 final ratio in first, compared to just 10:1 on the Challenger, AND the torque multiplication from the converter inherent in a slushbox.

But the old Challenger definitely has more style.

Where Did It All Come From

OK, I do know where it all came from, but I didn't realize I'd accumulated so much.

We deleted about a terabyte of movies off the NAS tonight.

Lots of watched once with no rewatch potential and no need to retain the local copy.

Favoring It Doesn't Work

On average, my right leg hurts worse than my left despite the damage being similar bilaterally.

According to the doc, the bones are healed well, but neuropathy doesn't care.

But, the primitive portion of my brain still programs a limp to favor the right leg because it hurts.

That causes me to over stress my left hip.

Now the real pain can begin!

It was very difficult getting up and out the door today because my hip was saying, "Fuck you!"

Putting a lot more weight on the cane let it get back to a semblance of normalcy.

Still hurts, but it's a dull roar now.

Bonus TMI fact!

When my hip is out of place like this, sitting on a barstool cuts off blood to my nuts and left leg!  The tingly effect of "foot's asleep" in your junk is an oddly painful thing.

206

The United States has owned Florida for 206 204 years today!

The Adam-Onis treaty was signed today in 1819 and became effective two years later with Florida on the US side of the US-Spanish border.

 

Oh Arfcom...

Originally Posted By SuperSixOne:
8% per year isn't 35% over 5 years. That's not how math works.

But it is.

I'll grant, it's not quite 35%, it's very close.

0.92^5 is 65.91% or a 34.09% total reduction.

Do it another way...

8% reduction in the first year is 92%

8% the second year is 84.64%

8% the third year is 77.87%

8% the fourth year is 71.64%

8% in the fifth year brings us to 65.91%!

It's pretty simple math.

One Hour Forty Minutes

Crispy IV the hoary old Lenovo T420S running Ubuntu on an SSD gets one hour forty minutes on a charge with light surfing.

The battery dies with 5% showing, so some training might be in order.

I'm not unhappy with this performance, truth be told.  The 420S is distinct from the more workman 420 in its smaller, lighter chassis and smaller battery.  It's intended to be more portable and compromises are part of that.

Doing good for a machine made 14 years ago.

Three Hours Fifty Minutes

DerpyPuter gets three hours and fifty minutes of generic surfing on the new battery before it died.

Doing the full recharge with the laptop off now.

I'm fairly impressed, actually.

I could prolly stretch more time out of it by changing from balanced to power saver too.

Handy Trumps Handsome Again

The Lovely Harvey collects crosses.

 One of her displays is frequently disturbed by Beeper.

All it needed was some plexiglass fitted to the box to keep her from dislodging the crosses.

I found some Lexan™ at Home Depot and cut it to fit.

Simple job, as it turned out, because my tin snips cut it readily.

I am struck, again, at how something simple for me is magnified by the happiness from the wife.

And happy wife, happy life!

Digital Changed Everything

I have very few photos from before I got a digital camera.

Film cost money.

Getting film developed cost money.

Developed pictures take up space.

Not knowing if your picture had come out until it was back from the lab was discouraging and the learning curve was a kinda steep.

Starting in 2000 with a Kodak DC3200 digital camera, all that started to change.

We could see if we'd gotten the shot right away on the teeny little screen on the back.

Then we got cell phones that were as good or better than that bulky Kodak.

Now I have pictures of everything.

For the cost of a few electrons.

It means we can afford to "waste" shots.  To play with settings on the "real" camera just to see what they do.  Play that Marv did with film!  He's been a great advisor!

My cell phone is as good a camera as I need for most things.

It doesn't change that I want a "pro" camera.  Real cameras with huge sensors are fun!

Quality glass does show up when you zoom in.

I only wish that I'd been aware that the M series cameras from Canon were going to be abandoned just after I committed.

Unplugged

DerpyPuter, the $1 laptop ($48 when you add the keyboard and battery), is now operating without a tether!

The battery finally arrived from China.

I'm doing the recommended run it all the way out process now.

I can't think of a better way to get that done than to use the computer as normal.

Not That Impressive

Guns.com says there are over 30-million ARs and AKs in circulation.

The problem is that is only like fifteen of us gun owners judging from the pictures on forums...

Crank It Up

Put on the headphones.

Crank up the volume.

Best transition is at 0:47.

Juxtaposition

Three thousand quatloos to the person, in the comments, who can tell me how "Hold My Hand" by Lady Gaga and "Everything" by Alanis Morissette are related.

Google will not help you.

Two And A Half Pounds

The Shell Mk.1 for the QF 20-pdr Mk.1 has 2.5 lb. (TNT equivalent) of explosive filler.

Nominally a 50-50 RDX/BWX mix.  BWX is beeswax; it's to 'desensitize' the shell to keep it from going boom when you don't want it to.  RDX/BWX is also known as Composition A-3 and has a REF value of 1.7.  That means the filling is actually just 1.5 lb.

That will give 6dx3[3d] cr ex.

Finding that filler weight was surprisingly hard to find considering how widely used the QF-20 was.

I know this was driving you nuts too.

They Go Together

Everyday, in the news, is a story about some new tragedy and fentanyl.

There is no doubt, it's a dangerous drug.  It is lethal in astonishingly small amounts.

But where did it come from?

The war on drugs.

The war on drugs made making, shipping, and prescribing opioids more difficult.

This created an incentive to create synthetic versions of them so it would be easier to eliminate the natural sources of the drugs and the criminal side of opioid manufacture.

The war on drugs is good at stopping the vehicles bringing in large amounts of drugs.

When I was young and Nancy was telling me to, "just say no!" I remember stories of boats and planes getting nailed for being loaded with marijuana.  By the time I'd graduated high school, those boats and planes were carrying cocaine.

The cost/benefit analysis of smuggling mary-jane was upside down, but cocaine wasn't.  Heroin, same same.

The price of cocaine created a market for amphetamines, like meth.  Meth can be made domestically and cheaply.  And thanks to the war on drugs, we can't get cold medicine that works anymore.  Oh, and by making the chemicals that would make WW2 era amphetamines illegal; the modern version is both dangerous to make and more dangerous to the user.  Winning?

Marijuana is domestically grown, or smuggled differently, but it's still widely available on the illicit market even as it becomes legal.

But let's come back to the cost/benefit curve.

If you can get the same return on a suitcase full of fentanyl as a whole narco-sub full of cocaine; what are you going to smuggle in?

It seems strange, but legalizing heroin and cocaine would, basically, end much of the problems with fentanyl.

I'm not saying we wouldn't have problems, but we know how to deal with those already and they might be lesser problems than what we're heading into.

Never mind that study after study keeps finding that treatment works far better than incarceration for drug abusers. 

PS: Let is never forget that the government is in your bank account so that drug dealers can't use banks.  How many other privacy items are void because of the war on drugs?  How many innocent people are killed in no-knock searches?  To mirror the liberal side of things, "even one is too many!"

Heresy Or Sacrilege?

I have learned that Criterion makes, occasionally, M1 Garand barrels in .270 Winchester.

It's not a bolt in job because the chamber will need to be finish reamed for headspace.

As a devotee of Jack O'Connor, I am fascinated by the idea.

Plug And Play

For a change I thought it was getting a bit cold in here.

Odd.

Check the thermostat and it's set to 50!

The buttons don't work.

Dammit.

Remove the batteries for a second and the buttons started working again.

Tell Harvey.

Go to Liquid Garage for a beer and hockey.

Harvey texts, "It's gone to 50."

Dammit.

Head home and try changing the batteries.

No joy, no button function.

TO WAL MART!

The Honeywell thermostat that just died has a neat feature.  A universal base.  All of their newer stats use the same base and pin-out.  That means I don't have to rewire for the new unit.

In theory this is an upgrade that we can program for different times and days.  But we set it up just like the old one.  Maybe later.

The old one lasted for about six years.  Decent for us.

I Think I Know Some Of Them Though

 

These are the age ranges of everyone alive in the United States today according to the Social Security Administration.

While everyone is making note of the millions of people older than the oldest known person, and the record oldest person ever, someone else did the arithmetic and noticed that if you add them all up you have more people than the population of the US by quite a bit.

There's people who don't exist on this list by two methods and they are almost definitely collecting a Social Security check.

Stopping those payments should be uncontroversial.  Yet...

Weaponized Free Speech My Delicate Pink Sphincter

For anyone who thinks that free speech run amok is what caused National Socialist Germany to be evil needs to remember Weiße Rose (White Rose.)

The White Rose was a completely non-violent opposition group to the National Socialist German Worker's Party and its policies.

All they did was speak.

You know, attempt some free speech.

They got killed for it.

Not very weaponized if you can be executed by the state for saying it, huh?

Willkommen!

 Willkommen, Leser aus Deutschland und Australien... äh... Österreich!

Ihr habt in den letzten Wochen ziemlich viel im Blog geschrieben und ich kann mir nicht vorstellen, was ihr hier lest.

Just in case, though...

أهلاً بكم أيها القراء من ألمانيا والنمسا!

لقد كنتم تتصفحون المدونة بشكل مكثف خلال الأسبوعين الماضيين ولا أستطيع أن أتخيل ما تقرأونه هنا.

and

Almanya ve Avusturya'dan gelen okuyuculara hoş geldiniz!

Son birkaç haftadır bloga oldukça yoğun bir şekilde girdiniz ve burada ne okuduğunuzu hayal bile edemiyorum.

I mean, it's a big assumption that it's Europeans who are visiting the blog, they're barely a majority in their own nations.

Copying Me

President Trump was not the first person to drive a "Beast" around Daytona International Speedway.

My The Beast has done it three times now!

I did it with far less fanfare, and no paying audience.

Realistic vs Real

For a long time I've aimed at a certain level of realism in my gaming.

It seems strange, considering the massive levels of absolutely unreality in many of them.

In the real world there is no provable magic, no half-animal people no gigantic tornado of eldritch energy in New Mexico or Antarctica and penguins show no affinity to Communism or malice towards mankind.

So, why, does it matter if PV2 Astaire from weapons squad hangs out with 2nd squad all the time?

Because when I make a change from the real world to a myth-parallel, I want the change to be because I made a decision.

Willard did convey that the squad composition shortly after Vietnam was officially what I had in this post; but it didn't always work like that.

The 1/17th and 2/75 had the same TOE except for the M113 tracks, and the fact that the Ragnars actually had warm bodies to fill all the slots.  Rifle platoon has four squads: three rifle squads, one weapons squad.  Weapons squad has three GPMG teams.  Mortars and Recoilless Rifles live in the Company Weapons Platoon and get assigned by the CO, or in some units the XO.

 

Deployed in the field:  In defense the guns are sited first, as determined by the terrain, then the rifle squads are deployed to protect the guns.  During movement the gun teams will usually be assigned to a rifle squad and come under the command of the rifle squad leader.  That frees up the weapons squad leader to either ride herd on any attached weapon system or become a defacto [3rd in command] for the platoon.  It's a good system, nice and flexible.

 

The flaw is that it's too easy to just assign a gun to each squad, and then leave them there.  People will tell you that makes the unit "balanced" but that's just an excuse.  Over time I personally came around to prefer an unbalanced platoon, but that's another, different rant.

 

In my entire time in the US Army I never saw anyone designated as an automatic rifleman except on old organizational charts.   Fact of the matter, the US Army usually used the M 60 as if it were a product improved BAR, with a single guy  carrying the thing and its basic load of ammunition.  The Ranger Battalions were the only unit I know of that had the people and resources to form machinegun teams and train them.

 

The received wisdom (from Vietnam) regarding the 90 mm was that they were pure hell with the "canister round"  which, in the '70s even the Rangers couldn't scare up from the supply system.

The airborne unit in my original post shows 2x M60 MG's and 2x M67 recoilless rifles in the weapons squad.  The diagram also dates from before we actually tried using helicopters in combat.  Moving the recoilless rifles to the company level, adding an MG and a dedicated mage might just be what the 101st does.

The 101st Spellborne isn't a prestige unit like the 75th Ranger Battalion, but it's very much in the spotlight.  It's using lots of new ideas and I'll have to decide if the higher powers want them to succeed or not.

If they want them to fail, then people and resources to form proper MG teams will be withheld.  If they want them to succeed, then those things will be available in abundance.

I did figure out what they meant by "Automatic Rifleman" in that diagram.  It dates from when the US service rifle was the M14 and its automatic rifle variant the M15.  When everyone has an M16, everyone can play automatic rifleman so the job is, effectively, eliminated.

Something I need to decide is where the guy who flies the magic carpet sits in this.  Is he assigned to the aircraft, platoon or an independent entity?  I'm leaning to making them a company level asset, like the mortars.

 

They Still Do That?

I was reading about President Trump being at the Daytona 500.

I was struck that I had not actually watched a NACSAR race in years and years.

Not since...  Why did I stop watching?

It was a stupid rule change.

I think it was the change to stop the races twice a race and the bullshit with the points to determine who gets the Winston Nextel Sprint Monster Energy NASCAR Cup.

Never mind there's nothing stock about a National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing car any more.

I understand what they were trying to do, but they did it in such a way as to alienate established fans.