Too cheaply had

I noticed something when the cheaper digital cameras were starting to become the new thing to have among the proles, twenty years ago or so. The quality of photography, and my own as well, went to the shitter.

Then came the dreaded cell phone with the god-damned thing built right into it.

Can't stand the typical "smart phone," with their stupid fucking cameras that try to "think," for you, either.

Money quote;

"So it is with photography today. The camera can focus itself, choose the shutter speed and aperture, even do multiple exposures for high dynamic range. Today's photographer is commonly less capable than his equipment. The notion seems to be the digital camera is such a wonderfully advanced technological marvel it knows better than the user what the optimum result is. What a crock."

Except that for me, it's the other way around; the equipment, despite all of the bullshit "capabilities," is decidedly incapable, I find. Even following the fucking instructions, to a 'T,' in the dreaded manual reveals a byzantine process by which to instruct the fucking camera to focus (which it can't), on anything at all. Forget adjusting things like f-stops or bracketing or depth of field shots. It's quicker and easier on a manual focus film camera.

God-damned fucking "progress," my ass.

I suppose I'll have to look at the newer, and expensive, DSLR equipment that is out there.

Color me unsurprised

...that US CentCom is acting like a bunch of 15 year-old girls, and that it got hacked.

Automotive vignette No.5

1936 DKW (part of what would become Audi) K600 Zweisitzer.
Note the independent suspension with front-wheel drive.

 

"The Founders never could have conceived of such weapons"

Please, read this thoughtful missive by Billy Beck.

He makes it clear that the colonial revolutionaries were on the same footing, in technology, as the Redcoats, as far as personal weapons were concerned with era doctrine.

Let me, possibly, advance on this concept.

Not only did we, the Americans, have access to the most ubiquitous musket of the battlefield, the British Brown Bess, we had a decided advantage on that same front. 

Pay attention, I'll make this point in short order.

The irregulars of the time, that would be the colonials, the Americans, had access to, and used, the Pennsylvania rifle. This was a decidedly advanced technology, that was NOT in use by the standard armies of the day,  and definitely not the British, who were little more than a Roman Phalanx with their muskets, one line kneeling to shoot, the second, standing for cover and reloading, engaging at short distances at three to four rounds per minute. That was standard continental warfare, and the musket was the arm for the European armies to fight each other.

We had better, more up to date technology than our government, and USED IT TO DEFEAT THEM.

So, the next time some fool Libturd opens his stupid mouth, spouting deceptions and lies about how the Founders couldn't POSSIBLY have foreseen the advance of technology of firearms, that they couldn't have foreseen the fully automatic or self-loading rifle, or, hell, even the sealed metallic cartridge, please shove this point down their throat, good and hard.

Maybe they'll choke on it.

The Star Trek Replicator,

Coming soon to a starship kitchen countertop near you.

Check it;

"Scientists at a number of labs (including mine) are now working on the real thing, developing processes that can place individual atoms and molecules into whatever structure they want. Unlike 3-D printers today, these will be able to build complete functional systems at once, with no need for parts to be assembled. The aim is to not only produce the parts for a drone, for example, but build a complete vehicle that can fly right out of the printer,"

and

"Labs like mine are now developing 3-D assemblers (rather than printers) that can build structures in the same way as the ribosome. The assemblers will be able to both add and remove parts from a discrete set. One of the assemblers we are developing works with components that are a bit bigger than amino acids, cluster of atoms about ten nanometers long."

Sounds like we're going to be doing a different kind of TV dinner by the time I croak.

Link from Remus at The Woodpile Report.

Pass it around

An extremely good article about technology, and how it has evolved, and emancipated, nearly everyone it has ever touched.

See over at PopeHat's, courtesy of Sipsey Street.

Think.

Act.

Stupidity to the Nth

Not the story, per se, but the comments section.

People repeat something they hear that fits their narrative, and accept it as fact.

Can we please get the great purge under way, and soon?

Adding to the pile for the Moron

Posted, without comment.

More for the Moron

Pay close attention.

This whole bit about "safety," is a result of speculative building, which accounts for the vast majority of residential construction in this country. You're never going to change that, and if you want something that's going to work, you're going to have to pay for it. Stop the delusion that just because someone makes a claim, that it will work. Know, don't assume. If there is a domicile you are considering buying laying within in a region with certain risk factors, assume that it does not meet the requirements to resist failure, and have someone qualified in assessing such things do that for you. You may also need to do some type of retrofit, or outright demolition and a complete rebuild.

You don't have a fucking clue about what this is about, Joshie, so take whatever you think is your opinion, and cram it up your ass.

Fucking dolt.

It is out there

Proof of concept.

I need to just get my shit together on this and do it, consequences be damned.

Fucking morons at Autodesk

Whomever the stupid fuck was at Autodesk who thought it a good idea to marry the Layer Isolate command with the Lock Layer command within AutoCAD 2010, and switch the command structure to a variable between the two is a God-Damned Idiot.

I hope you die.

And soon.

Rethinking the solution

Some pretty good thoughts on the subject, and some equally good humor.

Seriously, a truly disposable gun does have a market, I think.

Laughing my ass off over here

Outrageous claims of how energy efficient LEED certified buildings are has long been a source of contempt for me.

I find it interesting that a real scientist, with relevant and pertinent knowledge, has been the one with the stones to drag this bullshit fraud out into the sunlight for its due cleansing.

I predict, however, that it's something that will be settled out of court, and that the USBGC will not have to admit any guilt, nor amend, in any meaningful way, their claims to their points-based rating system.

I'll admit it, I sincerely hope they burn over the whole debacle.

Going according to plan

Or not.

Get this bit;

"...the explosives detonated correctly, but an undetected crack on the south side of the tower pulled it in a different direction."

That begs the question of how anyone knew, after the fact, of this crack, but assuming for a moment that, say, good camera footage uncovered a fault in the stack upon detonation, it would go a long way toward proving that this sort of thing is still inexact enough to give professionals a fit.

I could mention, here, something about the Kool-Aid Truther crowd and the WTC collapse horseshit that those types would like to perpetuate as fact, but I'd be repeating myself.

Oh well. None so blind as those who refuse to see, I suppose.

"Fleet Grounded"

That's all I need to know about flying on that plane.

No thanks.

The A380 seems to have a few too many problems with it than I'd care to deal with as a passenger.

Billy Beck had a take on their fly-by-wire controls and what not from the Air France 447 flight from '09, that "quit flying," right over the Atlantic, all the while the pilots could do little more than attempt to reboot the computers so that they could actually fly the damned plane, instead of riding it straight down to the big blue.

Not sure how long it might be before the Airbus folks ever get the kinks worked out of that plane, but I'm betting that it's between too late and never.

Signs of the times

A word for those who care for such things.

I've been a gearhead since birth.

I can't ever remember not being interested in automobiles, their design, engineering and figuring out ways of making them go faster.

It should come as no surprise to anyone, then, that I do all of the preventative maintenance on the family vehicles, and almost all repairs, the few that ever crop up (knock on wood).

So changing the engine oil is something that I've come to do out of habit, and I do it religiously. When I bought the Subaru wagon, 5 years ago, I did a few cycles with a name branded conventional oil that I've used for longer than I can remember, and switched over to a full synthetic after I was convinced that the engine had its rings good and seated. There is probably more myth to that sequence and timing described than fact, but I've done enough reading and jawing with others I trust to not deviate from my way of thinking. I want it to survive for at least fifteen years, so that's why it's getting the royal treatment.

Synthetic oil is expensive. I've always known that and it became quite painful enough, thankyouverymuch, when my girlfriend (now wife) purchased her then new car about nine years ago and I made the promise to her that I'd look after the mechanicals for her. This included doing the same schtick as outlined earlier. Five quarts at about six bucks each plus a decent filter brought the usual costs to about forty dollars or so, and that was done about four times annually.

Then we moved to the sticks after getting married, and I started driving 315 miles, minimum, each week, to and from work, often more if I needed to avoid construction or the latest organ donor program on the highway. My trusty '96 Nissan D21 was getting the wheels driven off of her in a big way, and changing the oil every two months has been pretty much the norm now for about the last seven and a half years.

I've told you all of that so I could tell you this; I've always used the same oil in her, Quaker State™ 5W-30 oil and a Wix™ brand filter. This is hardly the most expensive combination of consumables on the market for this sort of thing, but they aren't cheap either. I've had great luck with this combination in every vehicle that I've ever owned and not had any failures with lubrication as a result. I'll be damned if I'm going to change it now, with 210,000 miles on the odometer.

The last time I went to the auto parts store to stock up, I grabbed a case of oil. The same I've used for years. That's twelve quarts, or three gallons. That's not quite enough to do that change three times, but I know that I've got to do it those three times at about an eight week interval, so it's not going to last all that long.

The cashier rings me up.

Two filters and one case of oil.

The bill came out to about $65.

I looked at the receipt and about shat my pants. No kidding here, that case of oil was ALMOST FIFTY GOD-DAMNED DOLLARS!!!

I became determined to find a more cost effective solution about thirty minutes later.

About a week later, I found it at a place I hate going. China-Mart (you know who I'm referencing) has a five quart jug of the exact same product for about eleven dollars. That's about HALF the price of what the auto parts stores charge for the same stuff.

S.O.L.D.

I now have four jugs on the lubricant shelf in the garage.

It behooves everyone to fight the insipid inflation in this nascent depression, that's being obviously flagged now, on a daily basis over at SurvivalBlog, by doing their own post on ways they've discovered to reduce costs on similar or same items.

Cementing us in the Stone Age

The article is just dripping with sanctimonious finger-wagging horseshit.

Get this straight, there is no such thing as "Clean Energy."

It must be produced from either burning coal (specifically, in this case), natural gas or oil, OR you build a nuclear reactor. In either case, you will still be using the resultant heat generated to power a turbine(s) to get your juice.

The "alternatives" aren't all that useful, and still require the use of metals (mined and processed from the ground, with ALL of the drawbacks of any type of mine), plastics (more oil) and, this is the elephant in the room, close proximity to the end-user.

Power transmission isn't something that can, practically anyway, be accomplished from thousands of miles away, regardless of generation method, and MORE SO with shit like wind and absolutely with solar.

Get this muddle-headed "thinking" out of your dim heads, and right now; if you want juice in this country, and you want it without having to tend your very own systems and you want as much as you can use at any point in time, live with the fact that you are going to be using the juice made from burning a fucking rock.

Got it?

All the World's a stage

It's surprising to wake up in the morning to see that Our Fearless Leader is coming to my home base to pitch his wares to the masses.

One of his stops is a little company called Smith Electric Vehicles.

Supposedly, they are going to save Mother Gaia from the Evil-Oil-Burners, or something.

You'd think that if the POTUS is going to come over to your house to pimp your shit for you, you'd have a pretty serious presence in your own yard, but I have to give my testimonial here, I'VE NEVER SEEN ONE OF THEIR VEHICLES TROLLING MY FAIR CITY.

Ever.

BTW, if any of you retards out there had a clue, you'd realize that the "technology" being touted here is that of taking a battery (whole other post about these), an on-board vehicle charger, an extension cord, and then plugging it into a fairly standard outlet when the battery needs a top-up...which is connected to the power grid...which is fueled by...

Coal.

ALL of it.

Really, not too green.

Fucking idiots.

The march of technology

Via Sipsey Street; It seems that it took just over thirty years to go from fanciful weapon of the movies to get to the real deal.

World's first lightsaber.

Quoting the article;

"...the laser is so high powered that shining it on fleshy parts will cause them to burst into flames..."

Pretty close to the original mark, if you ask me.

All for about $200.

I want one.

Not sure what I need it for, but it might find a good use in the near-future, should the fucking governments of the world keep futzing with fiat currencies and monetary exchanges, like they've been wont to do of late.

Of course, I'm sure the feds are going to take notice of this thing, and for all of the obvious reasons.

I'm also curious as to what that waiver that's mentioned actually says.

Keeping an eye on what's necessary

As mentioned over at Tam's (as well as a mud test from a vid at Xavier's), the SA Mil-Spec is a great 1911, if you are in the market for an entry into 1911-type pistols, and don't want to sell vital parts of your anatomy.

The issue brought forth regarding forging versus casting (MIM also) is addressed in the Mil-Spec by using IMBEL sourced frames and slides (at least they are on my vintage). I bought mine about three years ago, and I've been very happy with it. Not that it matters much in the low pressure .45 ACP cartridge, but it is nice knowing that by being rather over-built for the chambering, it'll more than likely keep shooting for 2 or 3 generations before being rendered unservicable, so long as my progeny can keep throwing the odd extractor, barrel link and springs at it.

So, my opinion of the goods hasn't changed since my purchase. I think the steel forgings are pretty good, with the rest of the innards holding up well too, and the finish (parkerized) still looks good, with a few shiny spots from holster wear.

A good value.