analog_kidd

OK, this is pretty cool. This guy's got a new axe design in prototype. First off, I've never seen wood chopped like in the video, and second the new design is very interesting. The web site gives a little more detail.   http://www.mnn.com/family/protection-safety/stories/weve-been-splitting-wood-all-wrong?utm_content=buffer4c6ed&utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook.com&utm_campaign=buffer   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KCJADv2shNE  

I thought it looked fishy too.

  Not sure of all the details. I think his friend stole a bunch of stuff from a hotel they worked at.

  No, no reason for that particular barrel, other than I like the price and reviews on the Midway site, and I have an established business relationship with Larry. I buy a lot of stuff from Midway, and I guess they are just my default go-to site. any other site / barrel  suggestions?

A friend of mine had a felony conviction for theft some 15 or so years ago. He hadn't actually stole it, but held the loot after the robbery and they all went to jail. They just recently petitioned the judge to expunge the record, and he did. Right after the expungement, my friend decided to get his HCP. I was skeptical that he would actually get it, but he did.   He did not hire a lawyer, he just wrote a few letters to the judge and made a few calls. I think it was totally up to the judge in this case.

Was thinking of this barrel for my TGO build. It's out of stock now, but I can wait. Anyone see anything wrong with this one?   http://www.midwayusa.com/product/750829/ar-stoner-barrel-ar-15-556x45mm-nato-m4-contour-1-in-9-twist-16-chrome-lined-chrome-moly-phosphate

That's pretty cool! I have been making soda can stoves for years, but I have used a more traditional design. The drawback to the design I have used is that you have to have some sort of stand to place your pot on, otherwise you smother the flame. This design, the stove is the stand. Plus the added bonus of being able to empty the fuel. I like his crimping method too. Mating the two halves together is always the most difficult part for me. I can't wait to try this version out.   I usually keep a soda can stove and a bottle of fuel in the BOB in my truck. Super light and the price is right. When I show it to people, they are amazed.   Word of advice: do not use gasoline in one of these. I thought I was going to have to call the fire department to put out my workshop the one time I tried. The flame goes about a foot high, and there is horrible black smoke. Trust me, don't try it.

Good for the judge!

  You know, I've seen the term "80% Lowers" and always assumed they were blems or something. I had no clue what they actually are, and that you could buy a receiver like this. Turns out you can have been shooting for years and still learn something new. TGO members are awesome. Thanks for the clarification JayC.

Growing up in Florida, I remember guys that had shotguns on the racks in the rear windows of their trucks, parked in the school lot. Nobody even blinked. Now look at us.

I built a computer about a year ago that is dedicated to my entertainment unit. The case is designed to look like a stereo component, and blends in well with the rest of my equipment. We mostly use it to stream from Amazon Prime, but you can also find some shows online right from the broadcaster, like CBS or NBC, etc. It's a bit of a pain streaming from the broadcaster because their interface is not very streamlined.   I got tired of finding the DVD's we have for the grandkids laying around, getting scratched or lost after they visited and left them out. I have ripped most of them to the PC's hard drive and put the DVD's away for safe keeping. All of their movies are now played from the PC on our TV.   I also have XBMC installed on the PC. It's kind of like Roku, or Boxee. It finds shows that are stored out at various sites, such as the broadcasters, and does all the work of finding them and presenting them with an easier interface. XBMC has lots of add-ons or plug-ins that can be installed to bring additional content, such as Ted Talks, or Documentaries, as well as some free movie options like Crakle.   We got the Amazon Prime mostly for the free 2 day shipping, and the video streaming was a bonus. The movie options are definitely not as robust as Netflix, and I think Netflix choices are limited (especially for new content), so there's not a lot I watch there. We have found a few shows there that are not broadcast on our DirecTV, such as BBC's Sherlock that is on Prime, and they have a nice selection of old classics and Westerns (which I just started watching). I wouldn't recommend Prime if that was all you were getting it for. I think you can browse thru the movies and shows on Amazon's site and it will tell you if the shows are available for free for Prime members. You may want to take a look and see if the shows you want are there.

I heard a news report the other day that said "abandoned carts" at online retailers is a big deal, especially to places like Amazon. I'd venture to guess that the shipping costs disclosed at the very last step is the biggest reason. I always calculate the shipping into my final cost, and if they don't have an option to calculate shipping charges before I enter my card info, I just move along.

How much do you want to bet that the movie will be another in which the guns will be blazing the whole movie, since that is the kind of movie he knows how to make, but somehow will end up making the point that guns are bad, especially in the hands of the common man.

Here is the entire video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xI6eE_FAwao#t=522   In it he's actually railing against 3-D printers, but more importantly, he wants to outlaw the ability to purchase a stripped lower receiver. He wants to outlaw guns that can be put together in a basement.   He held up a legally purchased AR-15 and claimed this one is OK, then held up a lower receiver and said this is bad.He claims that a DIY receiver comes without a serial number that can be "detected" by the police. Maybe that's true fro a 3-D printed one, but I don't know about one you can get anywhere else. He also thinks that with a block of aluminum and a drill press you can make a receiver in your garage.   One of his big complaints was that with a lower receiver, you can put together a fully automatic rifle. Somehow you can't do that with a fully assembled rifle you buy at the store. I guess he doesn't know how easy these are to disassemble, and how interchangeable the parts are.

I might take him more seriously if he denounced all of the violent, gun promoting movies he's ever made. If he said, "I've seen the light, I was wrong to make those movies, and nobody should ever watch them again," then I might believe him. He just thinks that he has found another source of income in the gun hating crowd. I have a feeling he will discover his efforts were for nothing.

If its somewhere like a restaurant that we have already made plans to go to, I'll disarm and go inside. But that place goes on my "List" and we never go back.   I've got my wife trained. When making dinner plans she'll say, "Oh, yeah, we can't go there; they are haters". Haters is my term for business that post.

Liked

  I found this one and others from the same guy to be pretty helpful.   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e1omm6jY7Gg&list=PLFENSfZVVLqRpote2GFiwK5W2EBgU24XP&feature=c4-overview-vl   Also, the ones on Midway's site were good too. http://www.midwayusa.com/general.mvc/index/videolibrary

http://www.upworthy.com/an-artist-counted-every-atomic-explosion-on-earth-and-shows-them-all-in-a-matter-of-seconds-3   Holy Cow! I knew there was testing of Nukes in the past, but I didn't know there were that many  :eek:   Give it a minute or so into the video and it really gets going.

America is full of interesting or odd-ball people. Every town I've ever lived in has had it's share of people that everyone knows of because of their odd behavior. or the way they look, etc.   We have a older gentleman here in Oak Ridge that can be frequently seen walking down the various street of the town.Not sure how old he is, but he has a long ZZTop style beard that is white as snow. I have no idea what his name is, but everyone in town calls him the Silver Bullet, partly because of his long white beard, but also because when he walks, it is like he is power-walking. He walks everywhere, and always does it in this very fast gait. The rumors are that he is not very friendly. He won't acknowledge you if you say hello, and I've heard people have tried to interview him and he gets mad at them.   Someone created a FaceBook page about him called the Oak Ridge Walking Man. I'm sure he has no idea that thousands of people are talking about him on the Internet. One of the really funny things that people do on that page are snap pictures of him wherever they see him around town, and then post the pics. People then take those pics and photoshop him into other famous pictures, such as the Beatles album where the band is walking across the street.   Who is your local interesting character?

My wife gets mad at me when I point out one of these types of folks at Walmart and say, "Look, that poor person must not have any mirrors at their house." Otherwise they would have seen how foolish they look before they left.

I started with a pipe a few years ago. Used to do cigars, but the wife was not a big fan of the smell. She actually asks me to smoke the pipe because she likes it so much.   She got me a Meerschaum pipe a few years ago, that I really like. It's shaped like a hand holding the bowl from underneath. Its started getting the cool patina from using it, and really looks nice.   Last year i bought a Missouri Meerschaum corncob pipe kind of as a joke. Turns out it smokes really well and I really enjoy it. The stem is kind if cheap and I've mis-shaped it some by holding it in my teeth, but it's a nice pipe. I tend to hold my pipes with my teeth rather than my hand.

A guy at work couldn't remember the term polar vortex and was calling it the "Arctic Swirly". I thought that was funny.

Oh, and "TRY" to go with Windows 7. It will still be supported for patches for several years now, and it will be a familiar interface for her. Good luck finding a PC with it on it now though. Windows 8 had been around over a year, so any new PCs were built with that O/S in mind. You could buy a PC with Windows 8 and on it and wipe it and install Windows 7, but you may discover that the PC does not have drivers for Windows 7. If a company makes a PC designed just for Win8, they won;t give Win7 a second thought. Plus, you'll have the added expense of having to buy a copy of Win7.

  This is what I was going to suggest too. A laptop gives you flexibility over where you can use it. Use it at home, on travel, on the couch, or where ever. You can still use a desktop monitor, mouse and keyboard. Just make sure that the laptop has a plug on the back for her monitor.   Although if her monitor is several years old, you may consider upgrading that too. A nice 23" LCD flat / wide screen would be great for work. Be aware that many laptops now come with an HDMI or DVI style port, and older monitors have a VGA style cable, so they won't fit. They make adapters for a few bucks. Most new monitors support the HDMI or DVI. Some of them even still have a VGA cable too.   If you can find a laptop that comes with a docking station, even better. You can leave the monitor, keyboard, mouse, speakers, etc. plugged into the dock. If you remove the laptop and then return later, just plug the laptop into the dock and everything else is already connected.   Laptops come in several styles, but mostly they boil down to somewhere between ultra portable and desktop replacement. The ultra portables are very light and usually smaller, with no DVD or extras to weigh it down. A desktop replacement is going to be heavier, bigger, has an internal DVD, and lots of ports for connecting peripherals. The Desktop Replacement is perfect for someone who mostly wants to work at one desk, but occasionally go on the road. That is what I would recommend.   Most of the big names, like Dell, have a refurbished section on their websites where you can buy laptops and desktops. You are pretty much limited to the machines they have on the site, in the configuration they list it. Most of these are machines folks have bought with their own specs, then decided they didn't want it, or it wasn't the PC they were expecting, and they sent it back. So, the company sells them as-is. Still you can buy extra stuff and add it on yourself, like memory, or peripherals.   Good luck.