Practical Collectible Investments for Hard Times:— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) June 17, 2019
You can't shoot a looter with a Willie Mays rookie card or a Gibson Les Paul, but a 1912 97% NRA EXC Smith & Wesson Triple Lock is still a .44.
Sunday, June 16, 2019
Investments for Hard Times...
Automotif CLXII...
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| 1964 Chevrolet El Camino, photographed with Nikon D700. |
When I saw this super-straight 2nd Gen El Camino as we were leaving the parking lot at Target today, I asked Bobbi if she would stop and let me hop out to take its picture, and she kindly obliged.
Considering that she'd also sat patiently at Half Price Books while we waited on them to tally up an offer for the several boxes of books I'd brought in, this was above and beyond the call.
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Saturday, June 15, 2019
...and then the realization hit me...
OMG, I just realized that the #JohnWick universe is Harry Potter for violence nerds!#mindblown— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) June 15, 2019
Thursday, June 13, 2019
Neighbor & Puppers
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Zero-Sum Politics: Team Sport Edition
The kulturkampf demands you take away the other side’s favorite rights before they can take away yours. It’s a race to the boxcars; first team there gets to make the other team ride.— Tamara K. (@TamSlick) June 13, 2019
Had a range day yesterday morning...
...mostly for photographing stuff.
The SBR'd Sig Sauer MPX with the Romeo 8T sight is a hoot.
I tried some different things, moving a bit out of my comfort zone taking photos. For this one, instead of standing off with the 24-105mm f/4L IS USM* or even farther out with the 70-200mm, I got all up in his space with the wide-angle zoom (an old 17-35mm f/2.8L) and got shooter, gun, and target all in the frame.
I think for long guns shooting reactive targets, especially, this technique could turn out some neat shots and I'm anxious to play with it more. I'm wanting to get the shooter, shotgun, ejected shell, and busted clay all in a shot...
*The 24-105 is rapidly becoming one of my favorite lenses. It's great on a full-frame body, but even on a crop-sensor Canon it's got a pretty useful focal range, becoming the equivalent of a 38-168. That's goes from the wide end of "normal" to a reasonably useful telephoto on the long end. For the sorts of photography I usually do around the neighborhood, it's actually better on a crop sensor.
The SBR'd Sig Sauer MPX with the Romeo 8T sight is a hoot.
I tried some different things, moving a bit out of my comfort zone taking photos. For this one, instead of standing off with the 24-105mm f/4L IS USM* or even farther out with the 70-200mm, I got all up in his space with the wide-angle zoom (an old 17-35mm f/2.8L) and got shooter, gun, and target all in the frame.
I think for long guns shooting reactive targets, especially, this technique could turn out some neat shots and I'm anxious to play with it more. I'm wanting to get the shooter, shotgun, ejected shell, and busted clay all in a shot...
*The 24-105 is rapidly becoming one of my favorite lenses. It's great on a full-frame body, but even on a crop-sensor Canon it's got a pretty useful focal range, becoming the equivalent of a 38-168. That's goes from the wide end of "normal" to a reasonably useful telephoto on the long end. For the sorts of photography I usually do around the neighborhood, it's actually better on a crop sensor.
Wednesday, June 12, 2019
Now & Then
When George Eastman, founder of the Eastman Kodak Company, introduced the Kodak #1 camera in 1888, photography became vastly more convenient. With a sale price of $25 (roughly $700 today), the camera was preloaded with a 100-frame roll of film. Once finished, the film and camera would be sent back to Kodak for developing. As one Kodak ad from 1889 put it, “Anybody can take photographs with the Kodak.”The link goes to an interesting New York Times piece that compares a photo essay they ran back in 1951, featuring candids of people out shooting photographs on the streets of the Big Apple, with a photo of people doing the same today. While the folding cameras and 35mm rangefinders have been replaced by DSLRs and smartphones, the similarities are as striking as the differences.
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Tuesday, June 11, 2019
Gyros Tumbled.
Bobbi is working the weird shift this week.
The easiest solution, which would probably cause the least disruption, would be if I just shifted my schedule out as well. It's theoretically easy enough to do; I can write at night as easily as in the daytime, after all.
However those of you with cats that are fed on a schedule know how well telling the cats "Well, you're getting fed at noon and midnight this week instead of 6AM and 6PM" would work.
So, I'm up to feed the cats right now and then I'll probably try and lay down to get four or five hours sleep until Bobbi wakes up. Then I'll try and get in a couple hours of writing before laying back down for two or three more hours of sleep before the little monsters wake me up for their breakfast.
Which is basically what I did the last couple days, and let me tell you, it does not a thing for my mood or the coherency of my thought processes.
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The easiest solution, which would probably cause the least disruption, would be if I just shifted my schedule out as well. It's theoretically easy enough to do; I can write at night as easily as in the daytime, after all.
However those of you with cats that are fed on a schedule know how well telling the cats "Well, you're getting fed at noon and midnight this week instead of 6AM and 6PM" would work.
So, I'm up to feed the cats right now and then I'll probably try and lay down to get four or five hours sleep until Bobbi wakes up. Then I'll try and get in a couple hours of writing before laying back down for two or three more hours of sleep before the little monsters wake me up for their breakfast.
Which is basically what I did the last couple days, and let me tell you, it does not a thing for my mood or the coherency of my thought processes.
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Monday, June 10, 2019
Something you don't see every day...
Some people might not be aware that aluminum beverage cans are lined like this. (Which is what makes it fun when you run into the occasional fedora who still tries to impress with his refined beer palate, declaring that he doesn't like the 'metallic' taste of domestic beers in cans. Whatever, bro. Craft brewing's been trending to pint cans for years now.)
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Sunday, June 09, 2019
"STOP TOUCHING IT!" Part the Whateverth...
I swear, if AIDS and ass cancer had a baby, it would look like unnecessarily finger-banging your gun in public restrooms.
HOW ABOUT JUST LEAVING YOUR GUN ALONE IN THE HOLSTER AND NOT TOUCHING IT. IS THAT SO HARD?
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HOW ABOUT JUST LEAVING YOUR GUN ALONE IN THE HOLSTER AND NOT TOUCHING IT. IS THAT SO HARD?
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Saturday, June 08, 2019
HorsePOWER...
One of my favorite Carroll Shelby quotes was from the early Nineties, after Porsche had shuttered the 959 technology demonstrator program. In an interview, someone asked Shelby about the 959 and Porsche's technological supremacy, and Shelby's reply was dismissive. Paraphrasing, here, but his response was something to the effect of "How much money did Porsche lose on every 959 they sold? You don't think that Toyota or GM has the engineering talent to build a car like that? They do, but they're in the business of making a profit."
Horse"power"...
When I first became aware of cars as a thing in the early '80s, the auto world in the US was at something of a nadir.
From the giddy horsepower wars of the late Sixties/early Seventies, we'd gone through a couple of shocks. The glory days of the muscle car era had been ended by skyrocketing insurance premiums and fed.gov safety standards. Hot on the heels of those came a fuel crisis in '73, followed by a second one in the early '80s.
Direct comparison of power numbers between early '80s and late '60s cars is hard, because part of the sweeping federal regulations that transformed the scene in the early '70s changed how car makers advertised engine power.
Prior to 1972, car makers used SAE gross horsepower, which measured a motor on a test stand with all power-sapping accessories like a/c compressors or power steering pumps (and sometimes water pumps) removed. Occasionally automakers would do other tricks to enhance gross horsepower numbers, like running tube headers instead of exhaust manifolds, using low-restriction air intakes instead of silenced street ones, or just making the numbers up out of whole cloth.
Net horsepower ratings required the motor to be in a configuration like one would find actually in the vehicle. Between this requirement and the sudden tightening of emissions rules and raised mandatory fleet fuel economy standards, horsepower numbers plummeted.
Imagine, if you will, a very fortuitous high school graduate of the Class of '71 whose parents told them they could have their choice of a new Mustang, Camaro, or Firebird. The top motors in those cars produced 375, 300, or 335 SAE gross horsepower, respectively. Ten years later, an equally fortunate graduate of the Class of '81 would have seen the the most potent powerplants in those same three cars reduced to 122, 185, and 200 SAE net horsepower.
I remember that in high school, as I got into that car-shopping age demographic and began to bend the focus of my nerdery in that direction, that I considered 130bhp to be the threshold for "a lot", in much the same way that I considered an eight second zero-to-sixty time to be "quick".
These days, the Zed Drei (189bhp) and the Five-Oh (215bhp) are coming up lacking even when compared to generic base model secretary-mobiles from the Mustang and Camaro lines. The current rental lot Mustang has an EcoBoost turbo 4-banger pumping out 310bhp and its rival Camaro sports a 2.0L 275bhp turbo mill.
From the giddy horsepower wars of the late Sixties/early Seventies, we'd gone through a couple of shocks. The glory days of the muscle car era had been ended by skyrocketing insurance premiums and fed.gov safety standards. Hot on the heels of those came a fuel crisis in '73, followed by a second one in the early '80s.
Direct comparison of power numbers between early '80s and late '60s cars is hard, because part of the sweeping federal regulations that transformed the scene in the early '70s changed how car makers advertised engine power.
Prior to 1972, car makers used SAE gross horsepower, which measured a motor on a test stand with all power-sapping accessories like a/c compressors or power steering pumps (and sometimes water pumps) removed. Occasionally automakers would do other tricks to enhance gross horsepower numbers, like running tube headers instead of exhaust manifolds, using low-restriction air intakes instead of silenced street ones, or just making the numbers up out of whole cloth.
Net horsepower ratings required the motor to be in a configuration like one would find actually in the vehicle. Between this requirement and the sudden tightening of emissions rules and raised mandatory fleet fuel economy standards, horsepower numbers plummeted.
Imagine, if you will, a very fortuitous high school graduate of the Class of '71 whose parents told them they could have their choice of a new Mustang, Camaro, or Firebird. The top motors in those cars produced 375, 300, or 335 SAE gross horsepower, respectively. Ten years later, an equally fortunate graduate of the Class of '81 would have seen the the most potent powerplants in those same three cars reduced to 122, 185, and 200 SAE net horsepower.
I remember that in high school, as I got into that car-shopping age demographic and began to bend the focus of my nerdery in that direction, that I considered 130bhp to be the threshold for "a lot", in much the same way that I considered an eight second zero-to-sixty time to be "quick".
These days, the Zed Drei (189bhp) and the Five-Oh (215bhp) are coming up lacking even when compared to generic base model secretary-mobiles from the Mustang and Camaro lines. The current rental lot Mustang has an EcoBoost turbo 4-banger pumping out 310bhp and its rival Camaro sports a 2.0L 275bhp turbo mill.
Friday, June 07, 2019
New Band Name
Bobbi just learned about "whisper mode" on Alexa, where if you whisper a question to her, she'll whisper the answer back. (And it can't be a stage whisper; if there's any tonality at all, she responds normally.)
Also, my next band's name is "Sessile Whispering Robots".
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Also, my next band's name is "Sessile Whispering Robots".
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Thursday, June 06, 2019
D-Day
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Tuesday, June 04, 2019
Compare and Contrast...
I hadn't been by L. Neil Smith's page in...well, years. I swung by this morning.
Anyway, I found it interesting to compare this current essay of his with this one from 1995.
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Anyway, I found it interesting to compare this current essay of his with this one from 1995.
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Automotif CLXI...
I think this one's a '78 or '79, which would mean the base engine was Pontiac's 301 c.i.d. V-8 smog motor, putting out 135 net hp, with optional 350-, 400-, and 403-cubic inch motors. The latter was a 4-bbl Oldsmobile engine rated at 185 horsepower. Not a ton of grunt by the standards of the '60s-'70s muscle car years, to say nothing of the modern era, but it'd still get out of its own way.
In 1980, the increasingly strict CAFE regs caused GM to downgrade the base motor to Buick's 231 cubic inch V-6. The optional V-8s shrunk to 265- and 301-c.i.d. motors, and the dire Olds 350 diesel V-8, which helped put an entire generation of Americans off the very idea of diesel power.
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Monday, June 03, 2019
Overheard In Front Of The Television...
Newscaster: "After another mass shooting, the nation is asking questions..."
Me (yelling): "The only question I'm asking is why did it take so damned long for someone to start shooting back?"Only when these yahoos are getting reliably smoke-checked by their intended victims is this attention-seeking behavior going to stop.
This got stopped by good guys with guns, but people got killed waiting for them to show up.
Anybody who mandates you be disarmed in a country full of guns does not have your best interests at heart.
Ugh.
I have to write. I have to go to the bank. I have to go to the DMV. I have to box up books and take them to Half Price Books.
And I'm having one of those days where getting changed out of my pajamas seem like an insurmountable challenge.
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And I'm having one of those days where getting changed out of my pajamas seem like an insurmountable challenge.
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Saturday, June 01, 2019
"The Florida Chamber of Commerce could not be reached for comment..."
"No homeowner wants to be surprised by a break-in, but a 77-year-old Florida woman awakened early Friday morning to find an 11-foot alligator in her kitchen."One of the photo captions at the CNN story mentioned that it was a male gator, so this could just be an extreme manifestation of Florida Man.
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