Monday Memeishness!

Gratuitous Gun Pr0n #256...

Wrapping up the review of the KelTec PR57. This is going to be one of the most complex reviews I've ever written.

Meme Dump!

Other writing...

• Roadmaster!


• Reduce, Reuse, Recycle!


• Reload!

.

Meme Dump!

Lotus Position

A very snarly-looking Lotus Exige S. These had a 1.8L Toyota inline four, supercharged and intercooled, making 218 horsepower in a car that only weighed 2,057 pounds.

.

Thank God it's Meme-Day!

Meme Dump!

The times remain interesting...

Iran claims to have hacked the Israelis in a major breach. Are they bluffing or nah?

Meanwhile rumors are flying that Netanyahu's government is prepping for a unilateral strike on the Iranians, who the UN's nuclear watchdog group says are way out of compliance with their treaty obligations.

The Iranians, in turn, are stating that they'll retaliate against remaining U.S. assets in the region if the Israelis attack. It may be bluster, but we're taking it seriously enough to partially evacuate our embassy in Baghdad.

.

Tab Clearing...

• Weird AI-generated SEO spam blogs are squatting unused sites at Nvidia, NPR, and U.S. government agencies.


• Elon blinks.


• Jim Grey on why he stays on Wordpress.

.

Middle-o'-the-Week Memes!

Tech

The basic USB socket had a good, long run. I've been using Lightning connectors for a bit because of the iPhone and iPad and, when I upgraded my desktop and laptop earlier this year, finally had to start switching over to USB-C.

Honestly, I was prepared to hate it, what with it being smaller and therefore nominally fiddlier.

Thing is, I was not ready for how much I'd appreciate the symmetry.

With the classic USB socket, we all just kinda dealt with the fact that, despite what should have been a 50/50 chance of inserting the plug correctly even blind, on the backside of a tower or in the dark or whatever, USB sockets were surrounded by an eldritch field that warped the laws of probability and guaranteed that no matter which way you oriented the plug, it was wrong the first time.

I just had to plug up a regular USB battery charger for the first time in a couple months and ran afoul of that. I won't miss it when it's gone.

.

Meme Dump!

Ammo Recall

Apparently there are three lots of Magtech 5.56mm ammunition that may have been loaded with "incorrect" powder charges and are being recalled.

You can see the affected lot numbers here.

The fingers you save may be your own!

Memeday Monday!

Signifying Nothing

So, apparently a digital services company that used to have a contract with the Indiana state government got hacked, and this resulted in some scam ring getting a whole trove of Hoosier phone numbers.

Folks have been getting a pretty steady trickle of texts like this one:

Now, a reasonably well-informed person would glance at this, notice immediately that that's not an actual government URL (notice that the ".gov" is in the middle of it and it actually ends in ".vip") and would also know that the Indiana state government does not dun citizens via text message under any circumstance anyway, and send this straight to the spam file.

However enough people apparently fell for this that it made the news.

And everyone who saw it on the news immediately ran to NextDoor (or, as I call it, "Karens-dot-com"), where they temporarily paused their incessant monitoring of their Ring doorbell cameras for people walking through the neighborhood while Black and breathlessly reported to everyone that "THOSE TOLL MESSAGES ARE A SCAM PHISHING TEXT!!!ONE!"

There must have been fifty or a hundred more or identical posts by semiliterate people who apparently couldn't be arsed to check first and see if someone had already posted on the topic.

I don't know what the actual lowest common denominator social media site is... normally I'd be inclined to say Facebook or TikTok ...but NextDoor has got to be in the running.

Meme Dump!

Tab Clearing...

• A clear-eyed look at military hardware journalism: "It’s not objectivity—it’s Stockholm Syndrome with tracer rounds."


• Meta's all up in your business, snooping...again.


• Uber comes up with an idea for shuttles that run fixed regular routes and carry a bunch of passengers. I thought those were called "buses"?

.

Close the Week Out With a Meme!

Automotif DLXXXII...

Only 2,400 Citroën SM coupes were imported during the 1972 and 1973 model years, making this sighting of a '72 SM just out driving around Broad Ripple on Tuesday afternoon a rare occurrence indeed.

.

Robo-Grope

If the TSA gets their new tech to work, they'll be able to feel you up without touching you.

Basically, using the combination of augmented reality goggles, haptic feedback devices in gloves, and sensors like backscatter X-rays or millimeter wave radar, an airport blueshirt will be able to cop a feel or fondle your junk remotely.

The future is really gross and squicky.

 .

Meme Dump!

Tab Clearing...

• Global automakers feeling the pinch of China's rare earth export restrictions.


• Meanwhile, the U.S. continues disengaging from one to the globe's other abundant sources of those strategic resources.


• Jim Grey's monthly "Old Cars Parked" roundup for May of 2025

.

Midweek Memes!

Meme Dump!

"L'audace, encore de l'audace, toujours de l'audace!"

Here's a gift link to a video-heavy article on Ukraine's decapitation strike against Russian strategic aviation assets.

The level of planning and preparation this took is just off the chain, to the point that the guys driving the trucks with the little prefab conex "houses" that concealed the racks of drones under their roofs were just patsies who had no idea what they were hauling.

You could walk into the "house" and look around and not notice anything because the drone racks were concealed in an 8" deep space between the interior ceiling and the external roof. So some guy hires you to tow his tiny house for him with instructions to just drop it off in a specific parking lot at a specific time and his buddy will come get it from there... what's so hinky about that?

To put this all in perspective, remember that Russia set out in February of 2022 to duplicate the US invasion of Iraq in 2003. If OIF had gone like that, we would have been recommissioning M48 Pattons to use as mobile artillery pieces in the bogged-down fighting around Basra in 2006, when a surprise attack blows up half our B52s on the ground at Barksdale, AFB.

.

Monday Memes!

Automotif DLXXXI...

A 1973 Pontiac Firebird Formula in Navajo Orange. This one's got the dual-exhaust 4-barrel L78 400 rated at 230 SAE net horsepower, backed with a TH400 3-speed auto.

.