Severe cold discovery: The Phlegm Diet™® is quite nutritious, but the flavor profile isn’t quite five star quality. Maybe 1/8 star. . . Texture? Well, if you like raw oysters. . . it’s a little less appealing than that.
To Sum Up. . .
I am constantly amazed at folks who just see no benefit from even such simple maths as algebra, trig, geometry, etc., in their daily lives. There was a brief point in my life, college calculus classes, when I could pretty much just look at a simple math problem and know the answer. (Gave my prof fits, ‘cos I rarely wrote down the steps to achieve the answer. . . cos I hadn’t thought of ’em.) But. . . word problems in that class that attempted to use semi-sorta “real world” situations where different calculus functions could be used to solve things were not so much my metier at the time.
Time passed, as is its wont, and everyday circumstances took on “math meaning” in my perceptions more and more often, until not a day passes that something doesn’t trigger algebraic, “trig-ic” *heh*, differential. . .-ic ?, or whatever thoughts.
Is It just Me?
Yeh, it’s probably just me. *heh*
Lil hitches in a sci-fi (or really, any) story stand out when the rest is well-written (especially if it’s “hard” sci-fi, which must meet a stricter standard for suspension of disbelief). Here’s a marginal blip: in order to “blend in,” a Chicom operative orders a cheese pizza. . . and eats it. The thing is, while lactose intolerance among those of northern European ancestry has generally been around 5%, among the Chinese, especially the Han, it’s around 90%. A cheese pizza just doesn’t seem normal. To me, that would stand out, not blend in.
*shrugs* My Wonder Woman chides me sometimes about being a bit too detail oriented, so maybe this is just an idiosyncratic problem.
The Best Thing About Being a Libertarian
The best thing about being a libertarian is not caring what anyone else thinks is the best thing about being a libertarian.
(IOW, you do you as long as you mind your own business and don’t infringe on others’ rights. If you stray from that, the consequences are all on you.)
Gotta Love Gun-Grabber Morons on Quora
Why love ’em? Because they are the single best argument for NOT surrendering one’s firearms to tyrants, fools, and liars — an even better argument than the existence of the ATF.
Recent exchange:
“Gun violence is the leading cause of death in the United States, so why are guns still legal? There is no reason for anyone to own a gun.”
[response]
Really? Since you start your question off framing it with a lie, then close the frame with an arguable statement, stated as if it were fact, I see no reason to respect your statements, your question, or you.
Per the CDC:
“Heart disease: 695,547
Cancer: 605,213
COVID-19: 416,893
Accidents (unintentional injuries): 224,935
Stroke (cerebrovascular diseases): 162,890
Chronic lower respiratory diseases: 142,342
Alzheimer’s disease: 119,399
Diabetes: 103,294
Chronic liver disease and cirrhosis : 56,585
Nephritis, nephrotic syndrome, and nephrosis: 54,358”
Firearms deaths are regularly under, 40,000/year, so alcohol kills more people (liver damage), and we know how well the last attempt to ban alcohol went. Oh, sorry, by “we” I meant anyone who’s not a complete historical illiterate who’s been playing with an autolobotomy kit, so, obviously, not you.
BTW, that “under 40,000” figure includes suicides (who can always find a way), gang violence, and execrable marksmanship from LEOs (interesting lil factoid: ATF firearms casualties at Waco were “blue on blue”).
“The human toll There were 39,707 deaths from firearms in the U.S. in 2019. Sixty percent of deaths from firearms in the U.S. are suicides. In 2019, 23,941 people in the U.S. died by firearm suicide. 1 Firearms are the means in approximately half of suicides nationwide. In 2019, 14,861 people in the U.S. died from firearm homicide, accounting for 37% of total deaths from firearms. Firearms were the means for about 75% of homicides in 2018. The other 3% of firearm deaths are unintentional, undetermined, from legal intervention, or from public mass shootings (0.2% of total firearm deaths). There are approximately 115,000 non-fatal firearm injuries in the U.S. each year.”
One last bit of “due respect” for your lie and disingenuous question:
“Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries.”
Not Optimal but OK
Reduced to dry fire exercises for a bit. Still useful. Fortunately, my new CC jacket makes this time even more useful. I don’t much care for the holster than came with the jacket, but I was able to stretch it over another holster, so the Velcro works well and everything fits and retains safely.
Unfortunately, with fewer pockets, I’m having to pare down my ADC contents for the jacket. Still have my “doody belt” *heh* ADC contents for pants pockets and belt carry, so that makes up for some. Have a slightly bigger FAK for my offside carry pocket. Both FAK and cell phone easily fit there. New slim wallet (TY, Son&Heir!) slims down jacket carry contents a bit, so there’s that, but since I need two slash pockets for Fall/Winter gloves (yeh, it’s already freezing temps here in America’s Third World County™), that further limits my ADC jacket carry contents.
Still, the warm flannel lining on this denim jacket and the corduroy facing on cuffs and collar hint at more possible durability than the worn out jacket this replaces (and it lasted me more than 20 years, given me second hand – I have nothing against wearing dead men’s clothes 😉 ) I do think I’ll Scotchguard® it – or some similar treatment – since I want it to shed water/stains well.
And practice draws and dry fire exercises with the jacket on are smoother than IWB practice sessions, at least so far.
Would be better with live fire, but not here in town. *heh*
How to Clean Up Our Society
Bring back dueling.
If challenged to a duel, I’d pick having one arm duct taped to one of my challenger’s arms and each have their selection of knives. I’d kinda have to “Eeny-meeny-miney-mo” between a 11” bladed Bowie knife, an 11” German fireman’s dagger (ca. 1930-ish), or a Ka-Bar with a tiny 7”-8” blade. Hmmm, then there’s the 12” bladed Khukri. . . Choices, choices. . .:-)
Loser to pay for his own funeral.
It’s an idea. It does have a few holes. Congresscritters are generally too craven for a duel. That’s one problem. Others?
Secure Passwords?
I recently had someone leave a key under their front door mat for me because their keypad was malfing (was so could “sit on” grandson after school). They returned, we visited, left. Got a phone call: “Where’s the key?” Well, I had not left it EXACTLY where instructed, but since THEIR keychain was on the bookcase where I’d been told to leave the key, I simply put the key on it.
Hiding in plain sight can work, but there’s “hiding in plain sight” and its idiot cousin, “Take me; I’m yours.” Don’t be the idiot cousin.
Writing down passwords can have the benefit of having them available when needed (and forgotten, but unless that list is under physical lock-and-key security, it’s “Take me; I’m yours.” Better: a secure password service, perhaps.
Better still: use passwords you can remember. No, not your dog’s name or your wedding anniversary date. (Oh, wait. That’s not somethining you’ve forgotten before, is it? *heh*) or ANYTHING ELSE derived from personal information about you. No, while easily remembered (except for the anniversary thingy), those kinds of things are available to others and so make easily “crackable” passwords. No, select a pass phrase that is memorable – title of a fav book, an aphorism, a line from a poem or song, etc., and construct your pass word using that in a way that is sensible and memorable for you.
For example, I took the “punch line” as I “misremembered” it! – from a Smothers Brothers parody of a song that was popular back in their heyday and constructed a password from that. VERY memorable for me, but since it’s from a parody of a song that’s not in the “Top Five Million” nowadays, and the line I used is NOT as it was performed in the parody, the password I constructed (an easy one) only used the first letters of each word (as “misremembered”), a “Massive Cracking Array” could take a couple of days to crack it, so not seriously secure. But then, as I said, an easy password. . . on a “Junk Mail” account designated as a SPAM catcher.so. . . *heh*
The Right Tool for the Job
You have one knife on your person. Good for you. Two is better. Three is better still. More, if you want to have self-defense options that include edged tools/weapons. No, really. Close range knife “fights” mean BOTH will be wounded. If not defending against a firearm, ranged knife defense – practice throwing knives? Sure – can be an exceptionally effective option.
Note: knife wounds are more likely to result in fatalities, so make absolutely certain you cannot remove yourself from danger without seriously wounding an aggressor.
Aside from self-defense options, knives are pretty close to being the ultimate “frustration-free packaging” tools, among many, many other uses, and the right knife for the job can make a big difference.
“Misunderedumacation” An’t Nuthin’ New
Impressions of grade school from my childhood. . . First grade (kindergarten? Never heard of that, at least not until vague references when I was in high school): two different schools. First one: only three memorable things, two negative, one (square dancing) just kinda *meh*.
Second school: Stupid Books™ in classroom library (fortunately Walter Farley books had addicted me to the town library by then, so. . . ). Oh, and times tables; I recall learning those to 12 in second grade. A kid in school played accordion for an assembly once, too. That was cool.
Another school: Third grade was a wash, but I got glasses, so it was a pretty clean wash.
Fourth grade? Learned a box step and a bunch of songs. Class had a pretty good classroom library. Oh, and the teacher was kinda loony, but most of that may have been due to her failure t grasp “new math” #gagamaggot. (But I still recall some of her loony rambles, like how she always turned her car off at a red light to save gas. I thought that was really amusing). F
Another school: Fifth ad sixth grades were. . . *meh* 5th: all I really recall is that the classroom was on the second floor, west side of the building, and that we ALL had to get Valentines cards for everyone in the class. Dumb.
6th: FINALY A REPREIVE! Got to spend a lot of time in “independent study” thanks to our neighbor running OFF THE ROAD and hitting me. Yay! Hospital, surgeries, and more. Kept me out of school and MUCH less bored for quite some time. Sweet!
Grade school was a bigger waste of time than junior high and high school, but that doesn’t say much for JH and HS. . .
At least I had libraries and extracurricular activities during grade school (even if it was just playing “500” in the street or riding my bike around or building silly things in the back yard or whatnot).