To build on this - casings and bullets are more likely to be useful because the marks left on them by the lands/grooves (for the bullet) or the chamber, extractor, and bolt face (for the casing) are likely to be consistent with the criminal’s firearm. However, this assumes that the criminal is caught first, and the gun they used was both recovered, and can be linked to them. (either circumstantially or by forensic evidence).

I suspect that, if you replaced the barrel and extractor immediately after committing a murder, it would be very difficult to link the firearm to the murder, particularly if it was an exceptionally common firearm. Although you’d want to buy the parts with cash, so that the purchase couldn’t be linked to you…

Should have had them directed by Quentin Tarantino.

The reason I did it was to see if I could endure it. It was a matter of facing something that scared me because I knew that it was going to hurt, and still passing through. I’m not a stranger to pain–I’ve had well over 100 piercings, and currently have about 25 or so remaining–but a suspension is on another scale.

I guess you could say that it was a ritual for me, similar to many coming-of-age rituals that are done in tribal societies, such as some of the tattooing in the Maori culture, or the scarification done by certain tribes in Africa.

Some people say they experience transcendence; that the pain puts them in a euphoric state. For me, the swinging motion just made me motion sick.

I should have been a little more precise; 1923 was, IIRC, when he’d consolidated power. It wasn’t an instant process as soon as the tsar and his family had been murdered, and the government overthrown.

That’s a dumb take, given that the two largest communist countries so far were both founded before the CIA ever existed. Lenin started the authoritarianism of the USSR by 1923 (not terribly long after WWI, although the Bolshevik coup took a while to consolidate power), and the revolution in China that put Mao Zedong in power in 1945, shortly after the end of Japanese occupation. But, as with the Russian revolution, the Chinese revolution had been going on for some time prior to WWII.

Meanwhile, the CIA didn’t even exist until 1946. The predecessor to the CIA, the OSS (Office for Strategic Services) was founded in 1942, specifically as part of the wartime effort.

Moreover, the US fought in two wars to prevent communists from taking over, since the communist governments were unfriendly to US interests, notably Kim Il-Sun in North Korea (took power in '48), and Ho Chi Min in Vietnam (took over part of Vietnam in '45). Additionally, Fidel Castro overthrew the Cuban gov’t led by Fulgencio Batista; Batista had the support of the US, and was friendly to US interests in the region, while Castro was decidedly not. The US attempted multiple time to overthrow Castro, and failed each time.

So the idea that the CIA is appointing the heads of communist countries is simply not supported by facts.

They can’t find your house, but somehow they know your phone number…? I don’t know about you, but I’ve never had to use a person’s email address or phone number when I was mailing them a letter or package, just their physical address or post office box.

Sometimes it breaks the relationship

My parents and I had a very strained relationship for a long time. It took them a long time to accept that I had not only left their religion, but had converted to Satanism (the atheistic version). Interestingly, Trump in '16 broke a certain amount of their social conservatism, and may have turned them off to Republican governance entirely, because they saw–for the first time–just how awful the political party they believed in had become. They’re old–both in their 80s–but they’re finally starting to ask some of the fundamental questions about following authority for themselves.

recognize where the boundaries are to forgive yourself and others

That’s the tough one, isn’t it? I know that when I was a believer, I said and did some pretty awful shit to other people, shit they absolutely didn’t deserve, because my entire worldview was warped. Sure, it wasn’t my fault I was raised that way, and sure, it’s hard to really question the foundation of your upbringing, but at the same time, I caused real harms even though I didn’t intend to. You can’t change the past; the best you can do it apologize where you can, and try to do better in the future.

treat them how you wish you were treated.

I try. And still, even 30 years later, in the heat of them moment, it’s hard to be empathetic. It takes a degree of mindfulness that’s hard. I continue to work on it.

Never.

My parents at the time were religious conservatives, and authority was expected to be followed. He did say that members of their religious organization had served as Nazis, because they had been drafted by their government, and that it was morally correct for them to have served their country, just as it was morally correct for American members of their church to also serve their country, and for both of these people to try their level best to kill each other at the behest of their respective countries. “Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar’s.”

It wasn’t until I had a nervous breakdown in my very early 20s–due in large part to the extreme cognitive dissonance caused by membership in that religious organization–that I started to seriously question authority.

freeze drying is not the ultimate food preservation method.

Ultimate? No. But it’s part of a suite of food preservation tools. Without watching the video–YouTube is doing that annoying thing where it requires sign-in–I can say that you need to be able to use multiple food preservation techniques. You should learn to do canning as well, and you really need an effective vacuum sealer (that can use heavy-duty mylar, versus specialty plastic bags) in order to effectively preserve freeze dried foods, and those mylar packages need to also be sealed in containers away from pests that might chew through the bags.

Freezing food, by itself, is only useful as long as you have electricity. If you’re entirely off-grid, and have over-capacity solar system, that might be good enough, if you have a LOT of freezer space. The least expensive freezers I can find are around $25 ft^3; costs decrease slightly when you’re talking about large walk-in freezers, but that requires a building that can accept a walk-in installation, and $25,000 for a 1000ft^3 freezer is more than most people can afford.

Drying foods in general is decent, and high sugar content–fruits in particular–can lasts decades if they’re vacuum packed with oxygen absorbers. Even though dried foods will have some moisture content, the sugars act as a preservative and prevent the growth of bacteria. (Sugar curing meat is definite a real thing, much like salt curing; more on this in a sec.)

Canning is good for some things, but certain things can not be safely canned, and canning is slooooooooooow. It also requires a botttle/ring/seal for each and every thing that you can; seals are not reusable.

Dry goods don’t need to be freeze-dried; you can vacuum seal most of them with oxygen absorbers and desiccants, and be fine. Things like flour can mostly be put in large buckets with gamma seal lids and be okay for years at a time. White rice stores wonderfully for the long term, as do dried beans. (However!, dried beans must be soaked prior to cooking, the soaking water discarded prior to cooking, and can not safely be eaten raw. Cooked canned beans are a better choice for anything other than very long term storage.) Brown rice has a high fat content relative to white rice, and has a bad tendency to spoil, as do nuts of all varieties; I haven’t tried vacuum sealing them with oxygen absorbers and desiccants to see if that preserves them for longer than a few years.

Meats can be preserved by curing. This is, however, a very exacting process, and it not recommended unless you know what you’re doing. It requires a temperature and moisture controlled container and a few weeks of time, and fucking it up means that you kill yourself with bacterial contamination.

Freeze drying works for complete meals where you can’t freeze things, and you want food that’s going to be ready-to-go, either rehydrated or dry. Yes, you can eat freeze dried things without reconstituting them, although it’s not terribly pleasant in some/many cases. If you, for instance, made a stock-pot full of red beans and rice, freeze drying would be the ideal way of preserving it and making it shelf-stable.

I failed the original game very early on. I’ve heard that lock picking was MUCH harder on the console than it was on PC; it kept getting me killed. And I was just kind of frustrated, put it down, and never picked it back up again.

…But I loved the history in the little bit I did play.

It seems like it’s absolutely possible to solve all of the unrealistic problems that exist in CRPGs. You could have a rational encumbrance system, where you can only have the armor you’re wearing, minor supplies in a backpack, and everything else has to go on a pack horse. You could have realistic hit points, where a solid hit from an enemy with a sword meant very rapid death from blood loss or organ damage, hits on armor did nothing, you got physically tired quickly and had to actually rest to feel better (ever done HIIT training?, like that), and when you were exhausted you just collapsed and got stabbed to death. They could have realistic movement speeds, where trying to walk across a kingdom would take a month in real time.

But would it be fun? Would anyone want to play Medieval Minor Nobility Life Simulator?

Ah, got it.

I’ll have to look at some historical plans to see how some things were done before I can make that decision; while I can piece out how most of the designs would have been made by Stickley, et al., I’m not positive on everything.

I’m going to have to get back to this; my browser crashed on me.

The point is to watch local craigslist, […]

Oh yes. I def. do that. :)

Good advice overall, thank you.

I have the table saw and router, I need to get a planer for sure. I’m currently looking for a used DeWalt 735/735x ($400 or so seems to be the mid-range price), and planning on replacing the HSS knives with a Shellix head. I have several combination squares, and a few carpenter squares; I’ll need at least one precision square. I hadn’t really thought of doing pinned tenons; a quick search seems to indicate that it’s mostly cosmetic at this point (e.g., Titebond 3 holds much better than hide glues). But I’ll add that to the list of maybes.

And yeah, lumber is def. going to be one of the expensive parts. While QS white oak is more traditional, I like the appearance of the wormy red oak that one of the yards near me stocks; there’s a nice contrasting appearance when you fill the worm holes.

It depends on what you’re doing with it.

I use it solely for Ace XR, which is a dry-fire simulator/tracker. Ace XR is available solely for Meta Quest (2 & 3), so I didn’t really have many options. Unfortunately, I’m currently rehabbing a serious injury, and I am unable to practice.

For gaming? Not really. I like the PSVR2 headset more for that; it’s a better headset overall. I’m still working on getting it set up to work with my PC though. As other people have said, getting corrective lenses for a headset really makes them more enjoyable if you need glasses; it’s a pain in the ass to have to put in contacts when I want to use VR. For the Meta Quest specifically, and upgraded head band and spare battery (that also acts like a counterweight) is very nice to have.

And what, exactly, is positive about it, that has no associated negative outcomes?

IMO, there’s no such thing as responsible AI use. All of the uses so far are bad, and I can’t see any that would work as well as a trained human. Even worse, there’s zero accountability; when an AI makes a mistake and gets people killed, no executives or programmers will ever face any criminal charges because the blame will be too diffuse.

They seem to have a foregone conclusion that AI is a positive thing, rather than something that should be eradicated like smallpox or syphilis.

Nope, not today, glowie.