Tuesday, June 11, 2013

Stuff...

  • Tacti-pen!

  • Wait, wait, wait... Through all the 3D printed gun brouhaha, I somehow missed the part where you can buy plug-and-play Star Trek replicators from Amazon for about what a decent AR-15 costs now. I need one like I need a hole in my head, but, oh, do want!

  • Views of the NSA scandal from all over the political spectrum. If you're not pissed, you're not paying attention.

  • Europe gets weather; America oddly not yet blamed.

  • Bicycle camper trailer

  • Airmen reminded not to download classified documents using NIPRNET, even if said classified documents have been leaked and are currently being hosted on media servers. WND misinterprets plain English, promptly goes full Chicken Little.

36 comments:

Anonymous said...

I don't see any molle straps on that pen. Posers.

jf

Tam said...

It's not TDC* either.

*Tactical Dirt Color.

Anonymous said...

No REAL SEAL sniper Delta ninja operator would use a pen without a mounted light on a rail.

Just saying

Gerry

Bubblehead Les. said...

What I find interesting is that whether they're Right, Left, Center or Klingon, they're has been almost ZERO Effort from the Inside the Beltway Politicians to shut down the NSA Spying. But there has been a lot of Activity to go after the guy who pulled back the Curtain and revealed "The Great and Powerful Oz!"

So since it looks like Big Brother is going to get a Pass, even though Al-Queda just put out a Bulletin screaming "Get OFF the Web!", it looks like "Your Federal Tax Dollars at Work" is just going to keep on keepin' on.

All I know is this: if the NSA wants to keep on Monitoring our Phones, spend some money and find a way that to keep them connected! You can't get the "Metadata" if my call keeps getting dropped!

Oh, and release the 3D Printing Data, since it's already out there.

staghounds said...

"Thousands of German troops have been sent to help flood-hit regions..."

There's no river within miles of Gliwice!

Mike_C said...

Are sure you want the FlashForge 3D printer? Its features include:
* An equipment which can turn your 3d design into real object.
* Low price with stable quality.

Note it doesn't promise good quality, just "stable" quality. Admittedly, I can't write copy in Chinese, but I would at least bother to hire someone who could.

On the Don't you get it? front, last night on the commute home heard someone on the radio actually say, apparently unironically, "But it's not just the right wing -- Senator Feinstein has condemned Edward Snowden, and she's hardly one to be unconcerned about governmental overreach and violation of civil liberties!" Um, yeah.

Tam said...

Mike C,

Consumer electronics made in China!? Stop the presses! ;)

-sent from my iPad

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

Buy the MakerBot instead.

At least according to my friend who wants to buy one and have its children. :)

Fuzzy Curmudgeon said...

Or possibly have it clone his children, now that I think of it.

Sklutch said...

Tam, I can't believe you linked to a video with that much hippie vibe. Or is it just part of your camoflage research?

Tam said...

Remember: Pirates are just aggressive hippies.

Sigivald said...

WND's been bad at reading comprehension as long as I can remember.

Scott J said...

WND used to be a good read.

They went all Alex Jones sometime in the first couple years after 9/11.

Tam said...

WND: At least we're not Debka!

Anonymous said...

I didn't see the chicken coop in the video. Hope he ditched that idea--living that close to a chicken is liable to kill you.

Scott J said...

Debka. I'd forgotten all about them.
Talk about a blast from the past...

John A said...

3D printer - if you go to the bottom of the Amazon page, it can be rented for about $100/mo, including basic supplies. Hmm...

perlhaqr said...

Y'know, my bank account really could have done without that link to the #d printer section of Amazon, I'm just sayin'...

global village idiot said...

I use two pens. One is a Pilot V5. It's designed after the hint of a drafter's technical pen and works well with triangles, rulers with inking edges, etc. It's my "EDC" pen, if you will.

The other, a Waterman Phileas, is the low-end of the Waterman line.

The latter, though less-used, is far and away my favorite. Makes it a joy to write with and has actually changed the way I think about the French.

gvi

Mike_C said...

I usually use uni-ball* 0.5 Micro pens, as they flow smoothly, look nondescript (so there's less temptation for someone to nick them) and are reasonably cheap. Lately they've had an annoying tendency to leak after flights though. I was going to make a snarky remark about "speaking of things made in China" but inspection reveals the word Japan in no less than three (!) places on the pen. Doesn't say anywhere Made in Japan, so who knows.

Recently bought a pen made from a spent .50 BMG casing just to piss off my anti-gun office mate (who's otherwise a thoroughly decent fella), but keep forgetting to bring it in. so thanks for the reminder, GVI.

* uni-ball: the e.e. cummings of writing instruments.

DaddyBear said...

So there I was, up to my ankles in the blood of both friend and enemy, when three big guys armed with RPG's and Nagant pistols jumped out from the alley in front of me. Bringing my Blastomatic 2000 RD7-K up into a modified Weaver stance, I stroked the custom trigger lightly, as if it was a whisp of hair trailing down the face of a young girl in a Bangkok bar.

Boom!

428 grains of copper jacketed lead flew out of the muzzle of my Mongolian death pistol. As it took flight at the forehead of bad guy number one, I could almost see traces it made in the air as it flew at him at over 22000 feet per second. Even before the flying ashtray struck the first target, I shifted my stance to draw a bead on the pronounced brow ridge of bad guy number 2. Again, I applied the 13.2 ounces of pressure necessary to fire my weapon.

Click.

I looked down at the slide, noticing that it was locked back for the first time in 2000 rounds and 25 minutes of sustained close quarters combat. Utilizing my much-practiced combat re-holster, I put the pistol back in my custom built Kydex and panda skin drop leg holster. As a follow through, I reached into my cross-draw scabbard. As I pulled my 17 inch custom ground Bowie knife, with add-on hilt made from anodized aluminum and Swarovski crystals, one of the remaining bad guys lunged forward, his look of hatred as sharp as the scimitar he swung at my head.

Assuming a forward leaning combat stance, I slipped the sharper-than-a-razor ceramic blade between his sixth and seventh rib. Crying out, the bad guy twisted in agony. In his death throes, my knife became stuck and the blade snapped at the hilt.

The third bad guy took advantage of the moment I took to look incredulously at the $1200 bicycle handle I now held in my hand, and came at me swinging. He was using a combination of Krav and Golden Dragon kung-fu. My Krav skills are second to none, but my White Platypus technique was no match for his Golden Dragon. Slowly, he beat me down, blow by blow, inch by inch.

Finally, I was down on one knee. My right eye was swollen shut, and I could tell that I had lost a few centimeters off my tongue when an uppercut had come during one of my patented witty combat remarks. Standing over me, he prepared for the killing shot. As he drew his fist back for the final blow, my hand fell on my Magpul pocket protector. My fingers closed around my TuffWriter pen, it's forged aluminum casing forming effortlessly to my grip. Lunging into the bad guys falling blow, I shoved all 6 inches of my tactical pen up his right nostril and into his cerebral cortex. Jerking as his brain misfired and died, the last bad guy slumped to the ground.

Exhausted, bruised, and bloody, I stood up. Reaching down, I retrieved my pen, slimy with blood and other iccor. Holding the bad guys chin in my hand, I left my calling card on his forehead in his own bodily fluids.

"DADDYBEAR WAS HERE. WHO'S NEXT?"

Damn, thats a fine writing instrument right there.

Tam said...

*standing ovation*

Old NFO said...

Good one for DB, and yeah that bike trailer 'is' interesting! And you're right, WND can't read!!!

Hammerbach said...

DB, I just read that to my wife. Now she wants to meet you. Dang.

DaddyBear said...

Too many years reading Jerry Ahern novels as a teenager.

rickn8or said...

DB: DAMN fine writing; you had me believing it all right up to the point where you misspelled "ichor", then the whole thing fell apart.

God, Gals, Guns, Grub said...

My German Shepherd Dog, Ruger, give the bicycle camper two-paws up... It's just the right size for him...

Dann in Ohio

og said...

I thought uni-ball was the Adolph Hitler of writing instruments.

Gewehr98 said...

That bicycle camping trailer is claustrophobic as hell, ain't it?

Ed Foster said...

Plastic guns? Why plastic? Get a CNC mini-mill

http://www.flashcutcnc.com/3000

then buy some decent hardened and tempered 4140 Chromolly for much less per pound than good hamburg, find the blueprints online, and make any weapon you want.

If it's in conformance with the 1934 Federal Firearms law and the Gun Control act of 1968, you don't even need to mark it. You just can't sell it to anyone.

Robb Allen said...

IIRC, you *can* sell it. You just can't make it with the intention of selling. On of those little details the ATF may or may not care about at their whim.

Tam said...

Ed Foster,

I don't care about printing guns; I have plenty of the non-printed variety.

But anybody who thinks a 3D printer isn't just cool, well, I'm not sure we can be friends... *looks askance*

Ed Foster said...

Tam, I too think 3-D printers are very cool, and can imagine scads of uses for them. So please Mistress, I beg you, belay the askance glance.

But a CNC mill is a 3-D printer that can work in alloy steel. Although, come to think of it, I imagine a 3-D printer could be made that worked in powdered metals.....

Steve said...

I notice that though the printer itself is relatively inexpensive, the ingredients are not.

They're using the Bic razor model of marketing: Sell the razor cheap and hook em for the blades.

Ed Foster said...

The more I think about it, the more I consider using 3-D to make lost wax or lost foam positive molds for castings. All kinds of bang things I could pour. Hmmmm....

mariner said...

Bubblehead Les,
What I find interesting is that whether they're Right, Left, Center or Klingon, they're has been almost ZERO Effort from the Inside the Beltway Politicians to shut down the NSA Spying. But there has been a lot of Activity to go after the guy who pulled back the Curtain and revealed "The Great and Powerful Oz!"

That's because Left, Right, Center and Klingon are all just different wings of the We'reInChargeSoFuckYou Party.

There seem to be fewer and fewer people in Washington willing to actually support and defend the Constitution of the United States (that's assuming there are ANY at all).