January 29, 2021
Well This Bodes Ill
Yesterday there was a bit of confusion regarding Space-X's test flight (which failed to transpire). Specifically, there were conflicting reports that the FAA had or had not rescinded their flight authorization at the last minute.
Well, Space-X does appear to be in trouble with at least one other branch of the government, the Justice Department.
They're gonna be prosecuted for not hiring foreigners at an
ITAR sensitive firm, and one of the Few U.S. firms with a global technological lead in its fields. There is no info on what the nationality is but as this doesn't seem to have been an issue until president Djo Bai Din came into office, I would be very interested in knowing that crucial fact.
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After the voting related process in November, I noticed some interesting noise, that could have been bragging and a victory lap, asserting that Biden is a restoration of normal when it comes to travel, etc.
The Biden affair was already certain to be an interesting situation, with all sorts of academically fascinating stuff to learn, and unforeseeable possibilities for what will actually happen.
I, personally, was expecting a public failure of Chang'e 5, and a loss of confidence in Xi Jinping Thought's claim to technical management excellence, with results to follow as expected. I hadn't thought about US private space companies being a goad to PRC status.
If this really represents PRC influence, and if that is a determination to take a victory lap and rub the truth in everyone's face, things may collapse faster than expected.
On the other hand, Musk is relocating out of California, and that may come with the loss of protection arrangements, for which revenge is to be taken. Right now, the California delegation should have a lot of influence, so is a plausible source.
Posted by: PatBuckman at Fri Jan 29 09:13:31 2021 (6y7dz)
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January 13, 2021
Good Grief! It's Real.
We covered the rumors of the Kel-Tec P50 before. And expressed skepticism that anything this cool could exist. Commenters reported seeing magazine articles on it, but now there is confirmation from Kel-Tec themselves via The Gun Hipster Network.
Sadly, Kel-Tec will not be getting it to market before January 20th, so there is still some doubt as to whether it will
ever be available.
Without handling the thing it's hard to make any judgements on handling, but the mag change looks flakier than it should be, not because its bad in concept, but because it opens SO wide that in the dark it looks like there's too big an area that the mag might go. It's certainly not "hand finds hand".
Still, that's what practice is for and a pistol shooting 50 rounds of
5.7x28 for under a grand is quite compelling and a potential budgetary hazard.
I'd been looking at an
1858 Remington, and then THIS goes and happens.
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December 23, 2020
Mr. Kellgren: QUICK! Get it to Market Before January 20th!
I don't know if this is a joke or not.
It's not on KelTec's website as I type this.
But it seems to be a new development, and given that it's allegedly a Kel-Tec product, it's a more plausible notion than it would otherwise be from less whimsical manufacturers.
But if this is real, and there's really a pistol coming out in 5.7x28 NATO, one that uses the 50 shot P-90 mags, well, I'm afraid my cashflow is likely to take a hit.
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Best reason yet to move out of California...
-j
Posted by: J Greely at Wed Dec 23 18:01:57 2020 (ZlYZd)
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That does look like a lot of fun. I might have to get the .22lr version just to be able to use it for the local rimfire challenge meets. The 5.7x28 version seems like a good way to defend yourself from the zombie mink apocalypse that is no doubt scheduled for 2021....
Posted by: David at Wed Dec 23 20:03:27 2020 (jdGUg)
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I actually wondered if something like this, albeit with a smaller magazine, might be a better PDW than the P-90. Although the P-90 is compact, it is still too large to fit into a hip holster, and so would be getting in your way much too often. A good PDW, in my opinion, is one that you can always have with you need it, and not something that you stored somewhere else because it was too bulky to carry around all the time.
Posted by: Siergen at Thu Dec 24 13:07:14 2020 (jIT9h)
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@Siergen
P-90 magazines are
available, and in a military context are in the NATO logistics system
Brügger & Thomet makes
something like what you're talking about, it also comes, in less compact form, in
full auto. The Coast Guard and Army
have kits for their Sigs that do much the same thing.
The magazine for the P-90 is about 10 inches long so this KEL-TEC beast is probably about 13-14 inches long. Assuming good balance (and its balance is going to shift a lot as the magazine empties), that is probably at the very limit of a wieldable pistol, but it also means that a folding or retractable stock will have sufficient length of pull to be practical, though such a feature would make it an SBR in the U.S. civilian market.
All of this assumes that this picture is not a joke by someone on 4-chan's /k/ board.
Posted by: The Brickmuppet at Thu Dec 24 13:39:54 2020 (5iiQK)
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Kel-Tec does not currently have a P50 pistol but they did trademark the name P50 in February.
Posted by: Rick C at Thu Dec 24 23:29:52 2020 (eqaFC)
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They should've adapted RDB for P90 magazines instead of this.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Fri Dec 25 00:42:57 2020 (LZ7Bg)
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Hey, almost on-topic spam!
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Sun Jan 3 17:52:30 2021 (PiXy!)
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I flipped through the "magazine" in a bookstore. Not a fan of the loading procedure for the P50. The interview with George Kellgren was okay, but omitted what I would've asked: why no update to P-3AT, etc.
Posted by: Pete Zaitcev at Sun Jan 3 19:55:38 2021 (LZ7Bg)
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November 24, 2020
October 20, 2020
January 26, 2020
Happy New Year Again
To our Chinese friends and those on their calendar, we here at Brickmuppet Blog hope your first full day of the year of the Iron Rat is hangover free.
more...
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No Bridezilla Will Ever Have Anything So Perfect As This
A wedding in The Philippines gets some spectacular fireworks thanks to a sudden eruption the Taal volcano.
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October 21, 2019
HIJNS Akagi Found
Discovered yesterday, by the
Research Vessel Petrel 18000 feet beneath the surface of the Pacific, the wreck of the flagship of Japan's once implacable Kido Butai sits in the middle of the craters she made when the vessel came to the end of her long fall from grace.
Akagi and her sisters sallied forth expecting to spring a trap and oversee the killing blow against the U.S.N. and the capture of the most important pile of sand and albatross nests in the world. Instead, the loss of of this vessel and 5 others at the hands of a numerically inferior and diffidently equipped scratch force of U.S. Navy planes dumbfounded the Japanese and ended their rampage across the Pacific and Indian Oceans. Over the next three and a half years there would be more battles and the Japanese would even win a few, but this battle ended the Japanese forward momentum and the loss of so many aircrew was a blow from which Japan never really recovered.
Japan's hope for success in her folly ended with the death of Akagi and her sisters.
Kaga was found last week:
There is a very good overview of this battle from the perspective of the Japanese here.
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Finally, they can stop grinding 3-4...
Posted by: Avatar_exADV at Tue Oct 22 19:10:14 2019 (v29Tn)
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World of Warships joke?
Posted by: Rick C at Tue Oct 22 19:24:36 2019 (Iwkd4)
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Kantai Collection, more like it.
Posted by: cxt217 at Tue Oct 22 19:31:30 2019 (LMsTt)
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...And I was wrong. Azur Lane.
Posted by: cxt217 at Tue Oct 22 19:32:08 2019 (LMsTt)
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We all have found the muppet essays and reviews on hijins akagi
research paper writing service topics. The details you must catch with their basic articles and reviews for better energy.
Posted by: Mabel at Mon Jan 6 00:37:23 2020 (NJnbp)
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The comment spam is becoming sentient.
Posted by: Pixy Misa at Mon Jan 6 09:19:00 2020 (PiXy!)
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What's impressive about that one is that they didn't just pick words out of the blog post, they spelled one of them wrong.
Posted by: Rick C at Mon Jan 6 11:34:04 2020 (Iwkd4)
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August 06, 2019
"I always wanted a pony. But after the accident, I got to BE the pony!"
Can't find the artist, but the girl's name is Mako Shimano. The centaurcycle is called a G.U.M.B.A and the source is an ad for a Toyota dealership in Gunnma Prefecture Japan.
An ad that fills me with equal parts skepticism and want.
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March 13, 2019
November 18, 2018
Mary Shelly Should Sue.
Via
Moe Lane, the Library of Congress has restored the 1910 Frankenstein, and, since it predates
Steamboat Willie, they have made it available for free download.
I note some subtle differences from the book.
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May 01, 2018
Things They Tried to Warn us About in 1978
Even then they foresaw the perils of the Googleplex.
Naturally, being the BBC, they blamed it all on the Catholics.
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May 21, 2016
It's the 21st Century! WHERE IS MY....Oh!
Steven was recently disappointed to learn that the word "hoverboard" had
been defined down by people who lack either vision or an understanding of the language.
Fortunately there are those working to rectify that.
In other, more meta news: I edited the
recent post that was speculating about practical applications of scientifically facilitated hybrid vigor. This was mainly to provide proper citations. However, in the process, additional expository graphics pertinent to the subject matter were uncovered and added.
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April 14, 2016
Some Truly Good News
This is a couple of days old, but it is still awesome news.
The National Space Society takes great pleasure in announcing that its 2016 Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Award has been won by acclaimed science fiction author Dr. Jerry Pournelle. This prestigious award selected by an international vote of NSS members will be presented to Dr. Jerry Pournelle at the 2016 International Space Development Conference (ISDC). The public is welcome to attend the conference and see the award presentation at the Sheraton Puerto Rico Hotel and Casino in San Juan, Puerto Rico. The ISDC will run from May 18-22, 2016.
Pournelle is one of the best of the hard SF writers and he has worked tirelessly since the late '60s to defend this nation and make us a space faring society. He worked on space policy for two presidents, and was instrumental in getting the
DC-X off the ground. In addition to his visionary and entertaining novels and short stories, Dr. Pournelle has been a tireless advocate for making humanity a multi-planet species.
This is truly well deserved and it is uplifting to see it has come to pass.
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It's too bad there isn't a prize named after Pournelle. (Then they could award it posthumously to Heinlein....)
Posted by: Mauser at Thu Apr 14 19:35:39 2016 (5Ktpu)
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October 26, 2015
In Another Totally and Utterly Unexpected Development...
The death toll in Mexico from the most powerful hurricane ever recorded appears very likely now to be approaching...naught.
As a rule I dislike with increasing intensity whenever zeroes show up in these sorts of statistics, unless there's just one of them by itself in which case it's a joyous thing.
Math is weird that way.
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October 24, 2015
I Swear....
None of those typos were there when I proofread this morning's posts.
All fixed now...
...so it's time for some JUSTICE!
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Eileen Must Make The Gatekeepers Shudder
Ren'py has improved dramatically since I last poked around with it, (before the computer was hit by lightning). The whole process is even more intuitive than it used to be. The engine now allows mini-games in one's visual novel.
"...and embedded video!"
Eileen (the engine's helpful tutorialbot) doesn't look all that disruptive, but what was once the purview of tech giants and big publishing houses has been freeware for some years and is remarkably user friendly. It's still improving steadily.
Of course,
Sturgeon's Law remains in force, so this will result in a lot more crap flooding the market...but this will be a function of a lot more stuff getting made, which means that there will be more potential for those rare gems both by virtue of sheer numbers and the low threshold for experimentation.
All in all, things like this
and other tools may be a bigger development in the long run than people realize. Creators have increasing potential to do an end run around those who today often
presume to be
custodians of societies creativity and stifle that which they find uncongenial.
We still have no flying cars or O'Neal colonies, but take heart, Eileen here is proof that our future is not inevitably a dystopia...yet.
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July 12, 2015
Oh My. Yes! PLEASE...
...please don't screw
this up!
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Well, it's not surprising that "my husband was in danger but mercifully, I was really too sick in bed to understand what was going on" is not a Disney concept.
OTOH, you're obviously not a heroine if you're playing "that one chick who whines about her husband being in danger and demands that other people's husbands die instead." If you're going to have spunky love interests be a category, Hollywood, stop making them unheroic idiots.
But it looks like we'll be able to ignore the annoying bits and focus on the exciting parts.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Sun Jul 12 18:03:00 2015 (ZJVQ5)
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June 24, 2015
I've Got Nothing
To compensate for this quiescency (and to get Mum-Ra off the top post) here is Sakuya annoying the hell out of Rob Paravonian.
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Posted by: Mauser at Wed Jun 24 22:25:53 2015 (TJ7ih)
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Man, don't ever yell that at a musician playing in public. They might... actually do it. True story, I swear.
Posted by: Mitch H. at Thu Jun 25 09:53:11 2015 (jwKxK)
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The story I heard was that at a Concert in Philly, a fellow happened to yell this at Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention. So they started playing it the Mother's style with all the goofy noises and such they could.
Said heckler then demanded they do it right.
And they DID. Because those men were Musicians with a capital M.
Posted by: Mauser at Fri Jun 26 05:01:16 2015 (7MhH9)
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I don't play violin... but did the animator really put in the correct fingering and bowing? Because if so, the animator has my respect.
Posted by: Suburbanbanshee at Fri Jun 26 08:49:51 2015 (ZJVQ5)
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Getting the fingering right doesn't matter if the player is bowing on the wrong side of the bridge, or not making contact at all between the bow and the strings.
She's playing air fiddle.
Posted by: thornharp at Mon Jun 29 11:28:45 2015 (LdI08)
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May 21, 2013
OK. Here Is The Real Scoop on This Story
The story going around with this pic is that some HOA would not let a fellow fly an American flag and this was his response...
Now HOAs are a pernicious blight upon our civilization and and those that run them and think they are swell are bad and should feel bad. Thus there is a lot to like about this story. However, this story breaks down upon the slightest thought. The quidnuncs that form Home Owners Associations are going to have as one of their first despicable acts, strict rules on what colors their victims can paint their houses. Thus this made little sense unless the fellow was just going whole hog in an effort to stick his thumb in their eye.
It turns out after 2 minutes of image searching that this is actually a dispute with a local historical society. Historical societies that enforce repair regulations are like HOAs with government sanction so this is actually even a better story than the fake (assuming Captain America here doesn't end up in jail).
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HOAs having veto over the color of your house is exactly why I thought the store was fake as such, but I love the actual version even better.
Victorians come in such a wide variety of colors I can believe there aren't any restrictions on paint--I've seen black ones, pink ones, and other odd color combinations.
Posted by: RickC at Wed May 22 12:10:02 2013 (WQ6Vb)
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