Former Sabaton guitarist Tommy Johansson did a cover of Stan Bush’s “The Touch” from the ‘86 Transformers movie. I’m going to miss seeing him on Sabaton tours. He was always a fun addition.
Category: Geekitude
Clearing Out the Tabs
I had a bunch of links collected that I haven’t had a chance to put into Monday Links. Since this week’s Monday post was the 2023 wrap-up, I decided to just clear out all my tabs.
Per tradition, we clear out all of the Reason links.
First is an examination of Colorado removing Trump from the primary ballot. For the record, I think this was a bad move – mostly because there’s been no conviction of incitement or related charge. And that’s not even touching my issues with how we do primaries.
Let’s continue with populist leaders, and a rebuttal of Tucker Carlson’s attack on Dollar Stores.
Florida’s leaders are becoming more and more hostiles to immigrants.
Tens of thousands of students haven’t returned to public school since the shutdowns. And no one knows where they all went.
Magazine bans hurt those who want to defend themselves. This is a talking point that needs to be rebutted, as it seems like a reasonable issue to most non-gun folks.
The St. Louis attorney who used an old-school AR to fend off protestors in his gated community can’t get his guns returned. The dude’s an asshole, but he did nothing wrong – at least legally speaking. This is one of those fears that if the police get our guns for any reason – evidence, malicious red-flagging, etc – we will never get them back.
A case for letting foreign-flagged airlines service domestic air routes.
This is a personal issue. Who created the Cuban sandwich? How can anyone take Miami’s claim seriously. They don’t even use yellow rice for their arroz con pollo.
Now for some Ground News compilations.
There was a record drop in homicides for 2023. The article cites success of gun control. Um, no. This is regression to the mean after the insanity of 2020 and the aftershocks.
It looks like Steamboat Willy will enter public domain.
NASA demonstrates how to use a laser for extremely long distance streaming. By sending a cat video nineteen million miles.
Now on to the rest of the links in no particular order.
Gunsamerica has a checklist on what to look for in trainers to avoid bullshido. I’m pretty sure this is a h/t to Tam.
Bloomberg reports that the FTC has banned Rite Aid from using AI-powered facial recognition on customers. Apparently, there were a lot of folks falsely flagged as potential shoplifters.
Techcrunch has an article on music creation coming to Microsoft’s Co-Pilot.
The Intercept has a profile on FBI and NYPD entrapping someone they called a terrorist. This kind of shit is how you get degradation of trust.
War is Boring takes a look at how the crash of a V-22 Osprey could endanger the Army’s new tiltrotor.
Finally, The Firearms Blog discusses the passing of Gaston Glock.
Peter Cullen’s Acceptance Speech
I mentioned on a Monday Links that Peter Cullen was getting a lifetime achievement award. His acceptance speech was awesome.
Monday Links
This one is going to be a bit tech heavy. Just how the stories came across my feeds.
First, of course, are a couple of Reason links.
With all the brouhaha over Florida punishing Disney by taking away their special district, this infographic is a good reminder that Disney wasn’t the only one receiving special treatment.
Over the Volokh Conspiracy, an article on the large gap on how the generations view the Israel-Hamas War.
In that same vein, we have an opinion piece from the Times of Israel called Dear World: I Don’t Care.
Here’s a couple of Ground News aggregations.
Homelessness rose to its highest levels. The housing shortage is certainly a factor, in addition to the normal causes.
There’s a growing schism in the United Methodist Church. I have some interest in this as I grew up in a UMC.
Let’s do some gun stuff.
Tam has an article on the state of red dots. At some point, I’ll have probably have to jump on the bandwagon and add one to my carry pieces.
If you have a Taurus GX4. there’s a recall notice.
Now on to tech news. I have a couple articles from a new source – 404 Media.
Polish white-hats are being sued for bypassing a train manufacturer’s attempt to force repairs to their authorized sources. I am fine with manufacturer’s saying that if you repair your stuff or take it to an independent place, that it will void the warranty. I do not support manufacturers actively stopping repairs.
A marketing company is saying it can use what your smart devices “hear” to do targeted advertising. I’m not sure if this is hype or actual, but the fact that someone is claiming they can, means that they will try to do so.
Wired has a look at Microsoft’s Digital Crimes Unit.
WaPo discusses recent widespread cyber intrusions linked to Chinese PLA hackers.
And finally from Ars Technica, an article about how some cats like to play fetch. The Brother sent this last one over for consideration.
Monday Links
Reason links time!
Who came to Florida during COVID? Here’s an infographic.
Ohio town is charging $100 to challenge traffic tickets.
Ground News has a collection of articles on how scientists used CRISPR to develop a promising new therapy for sickle-cell anemia.
Now switching to some gun news.
The Reload has an article on the newest gun control bill introduced in Congress. Okay, it’s poorly written and would ban just about every gun sold right now, but it’s an interesting change of tactics by our opponents.
TFB is reporting that there might be a shortage of gunpowder in the next year. May be time to stock up.
Firearms News is reporting that the Broomhandle Mauser turned into Han Solo’s blaster sold for a cool mill, and made it into Guinness.
Hasbro has discontinued their Selfie Series. I’m glad I got mine, but I was hoping to get another.
Monday Links
Let’s start with Reason links.
Confirming some of my priors, a new study finds helicopter parenting is detrimental to kids’ mental health.
An interesting piece on how Congress has not learned the lessons of high interest rates. They also haven’t learned that pumping money into an economy causes inflation, so why should anyone be surprised?
Going on to other news sites.
Related to the last Reason item, the deficit hit $1.7 trillion driven by – surprise! – higher costs for entitlements (Social Security and Medicare/caid).
A new threat to LLM’s from an old technique – prompt injections. As these LLM’s become more prevalent, we’re going to find all sorts of unexpected benefits and threats.
Via Erin Palette, comes this blog post about why Jews may be looking at others with some suspicion. I’ll admit, it hit me wrong. I dislike the whole “I can only trust people in my identity group” attitude. I understand how it arises, and that we’ll see more of this as America transitions to a low-trust society. I will still extend my hand – if you feel threatened and want to learn the basics of gun handling feel free to contact me.
Some gun news from TFB.
CSG – owner of CZ, maker of my beloved Bren – is now the proud owner of Vista Outdoors’ collection of ammunition brands. Including Speer, which makes the ammo I tend to use for my defensive purposes.
If I’d known Smith and Wesson was going to come out with this PCC, I might have not purchased my FSC. I prefer the “AR” rifle configuration over the FSC’s more “Uzi”-style configuration.
Steyr announced a new version of their Scout rifle. The original Scout debuted right when I was getting into guns, and it’s always had a place in my heart. Something about that integrated bipod and the mag holder in the butt. The new one looks like a worthy successor.
Time for light items.
Disney is developing a live-action version of Gargoyles. Well, that could be either very good or very bad. I should really introduce The Wife to the series.
And because I’ve had this song pinging around my head for some indiscernible reason.:
Monday Links
You, know, I had just a few light items for this week. And then shit had to break loose.
Here’s coverage from Reuters about the ouster of McCarthy from the speakership and what will/may happen next. For the record, everyone was kind of half-predicting something like this when the compromise to put McCarthy in the speakership was forged back in January. And Gaetz is a fucking media-whore who acts like a nihilist.
Hamas decided that it was smart to poke the Israeli hornet hive. Israel is replying with full force. Expect “Republicans Pounce” style headlines in 3, 2, 1…
It didn’t help that tensions between Turkey and the US are rising due to the US downing a Turkish drone. In response, Turkey’s stepping up attacks on the Kurds.
For our obligatory Reason article, the federal government is spending billions on new furniture for offices that are mostly empty. I don’t advertise that the day job is with the .gov, but I will state that I’ve told many senior people in my organization that COVID was an excellent chance to reorient how we use space.
I’ve also dug up an AP article that the FBI may have secretly recovered a bunch of gold from the Civil War back in 2018.
Let’s do some lighter items.
After decades on the air, the BBC is pulling the plug on Top Gear. Grand Tour Nation has a pretty good retrospective on the show. There were many years where The Brother, Shootin’ Buddy, and me would watch that show together. I learned a lot about high performance (and not so high performance) cars from that show. I still do not understand the cults around Alfa Romeos and Maserati.
From Anime News Network comes an article about a pilotable Patlabor possibly debuting next summer.
Exo Squad +30
Last week was the thirtieth anniversary of the debut of the cartoon series “Exo Squad.” It’s probably one of the better mecha cartoon series – particularly considering when it debuted and the fact it was aimed at the American market. It echoed a lot of the themes explored in Robotech. I loved the series.
Of course, it wasn’t without controversy. I linked to this video before, but I think it’s a good one to repeat.
And of course, here’s the intro!
Last note. I watched it when it debuted, but I really got into it about fifteen years later when I was doing a lot of travel. I was scrounging on my computer and found it on this then-new site called Hulu.
Monday Links
This one might be a bit scattered. As usual, we’ll start with Reason.
The Biden Administration is proposing a large increase in federal worker pay. It’s the annual pay raise that federal workers get as a COLA. Wow, the same inflation fueled by profligate spending results in government workers need higher wages.
Here’s an article on how fast-food joints are being attacked.
Finally, we have Reason’s coverage of the New Mexico governor’s blatantly unconstitutional “public safety order” banning carrying of guns. Yeah, this was clearly a publicity stunt. And it looks like it’s backfiring. Spectacularly. Particularly when she gets her own officials saying they won’t enforce or defend. Particularly with a US judge quickly handing down a TRO. Particularly when she is forced to narrow it down to playgrounds in Albuquerque.
I’ve got a couple articles from The Hill.
First, some school districts are looking at four-day work week due to teacher shortages and needing to prevent burnout. That will have interesting downstream impacts on parents who will need to figure out childcare.
Second, an article on how most women still take their husband’s last name after marriage. However, there’s an uptick of younger women keeping their maiden name. The Wife and I had the discussion if she wanted to take my last name when we got married. She’d built a strong work reputation on her maiden name, and there were some downsides of the change. Still, like most of the women in the study, she chose to take my last name.
On to some gun stuff.
Kevin Creighton muses on if there really is a Gun Culture 3.0 or if it’s more a matter of Gun Culture 2.5.
The British military has selected an AR-pattern rifle for its Royal Marine Commandos and Ranger battalions. I wonder when they’ll finally ditch the L85 series.
And Beretta’s got a new AR-pattern rifle. I kinda like their ARX-160, but it was never in the running for my home defense carbine. Beretta can be kinda weird sometimes.
I heard about this on ACP. A Michigan ammo manufacturer pissed off a politician, who then used campaign finance laws to threaten the company.
A couple of miscellaneous items.
War Is Boring has an article on China sanctioning LockMart and Northrop Grumman over sales to Taiwan. I think the phrase is “don’t threaten me with a good time.”
Rwanda is allowing a company to test a small-scale nuke reactor. Excellent. Wide spread cheap and carbon-neutral energy will do wonders to help lift people out of poverty.
Finally the light items.
WaPo talks about the 20th anniversary of the pumpkin spice latte.
Crunchyroll has announced the second season of Spy X Family will be debuting on Oct 7. Which I am looking forward to because the first season was uproariously funny.
Forty Years of Knowing Is Half the Battle
This week the G.I. Joe – A Real American Hero debuted on televisions across the nation.
Was it a half-hour commercial for toys? Probably. But it also fueled my imagination as a child. As well as giving my generation a bunch of catchphrases.
And now there’s a livestream playing all of the episodes!