> > GM shop manuals from the early 1970's were more text book than service > > guide. Nothing I've seen since then has been better.There are three main stages of factory shop manuals:
Stage 1: this stuff is all new, and we don't have any repair procedures nailed down yet, so here's all the theory as to how it all works, and our best guess as to how to fix it.
Stage 2: here's now to fix it, and some general description about how it works.
Stage 3: we'll just give you the condensed version as a reminder since everyone knows this stuff.
Stage 1 manuals are fangler material...
>> >> No, but there were Tatras in "The Breed." > > > > That was the vampire movie with Adrian Paul, right? IIRC, you really liked > > that. I'll have to try to catch that again. I saw a few minutes of it once > > and it didn't grab me. I liked Paul in the Highlander series (where he drove > > an old Tbird convertible and a Citroen DS21) and it looked like The Breed was > > meant to be a pilot for another series.Adrian Paul? Hell, I don't remember. Hm, IMDB shows another "The Breed" from 2006, another damned island movie...
I don't think "The Breed" was intended to be a pilot; it was made in Hungary, and I don't think there was enough there to make a series out of. I've seen quite a bit of horror stuff coming out of Hungary lately.
"The Breed" has rock-solid camera angles, doesn't overdo special defects, things are a bit grayed out for the noir effect, and there are no big action sequences. I can see why it slid under the general American viewer's attention without a trace.
If you can sit long enough to watch it, it's a *fine* movie. It's set in some sort of post-collapse America that looks like the USSR in the 1950s; the NSA has replaced the FBI as some kind of Federal police, and the spy spooks have discovered the existence of vampires, and are using them for undercover ops. A homicide cop crosses path with them when investigating a murder by a renegade vampire, and is co-opted into the NSA to continue the investigation.
The movie is obviously low budget, but they worked very hard on the details. There's nothing in-your-face about it, though - you have to keep watching the background and edges.
It's about as far as you can get from, say, "Underworld: Evolution", another Hungarian movie that seems to be tuned more toward modern American tastes.
- unknown
> > I'm waiting until some enterprising Chinese folks start producing LED > > replacements for all my marker bulbs, then I'll switch everything to those.They're on the shelf at AutoZone, along with 768 weirdball taillight and headlight bulbs. Bulb proliferation has gotten completely out of hand... yes, I used to curse trying to get an 1157 bulb in the socket right, or when the bulb turned in its base, but do we *really* need twenty different blade-connector replacements?
- Dave "Ned Lud Lives!" Williams
> > Cubicles: The great mistake. > > When openly challenged, the cubicle still gets the last laugh.The alternative for non-management personnel: the bullpen.
If you think cubicles are bad, wait until you're trying to do something productive out in the open. If you're lucky you'll have a desk of your own, otherwise you get to share cafeteria tables.
"Yeah, I know, but the thing is: sometimes people walk away because they want to be alone, and sometimes they walk away because they want to see if you care enough to follow them into hell. I think I went the wrong way."
- Zack and Garibaldi, Babylon 5, "Shadow Dancing"
> > I noted that the place I ordered my Mossberg at had a notice that they had > > some Mosin-Nagant rifles for sale. I believe the price was $60.Russia had contracted production of their main battle rifle to the USA. Remington, Winchester, and others were all making them, and a lot were backed up for shipment when Kerensky's people managed to overthrow the Tsar. The Communists refused to pay for the rifles, so the manufacturers sold them off. Nobody much wanted them because ammunition was proprietary and almost unobtainable - you used to have to do considerable modification of .303 British to get something to fire in one - and, by American standards, they were butt-ugly. Even in the 1980s you could pick up three for $50. The cost of having one rebarreled to some available cartridge was considerably more than the guns were worth, so few were sold, most of those as wall-hangers.
Nagant rifles were produced in several of the former Communist countries. Lately, some have been coming in from China. American-made ones are still available, ninety years old and never been fired.
The rifles have an enormously strong action, very few parts, and are quite accurate. Scope mounts are available. One peculiarity of the design is that no safety was provided; a crossbolt safety can be gunsmithed in if you insist.
With the fall of the Soviet Union, mass quantities of 7.62x54R ammunition have become available, usually in big lead-sealed Spam cans, and cheap. The 54R is in the 8mm Mauser / .303 British / 7.7 Arisaka / .30-06 / .308 class. If there's anything in North America a 54R won't kill, I suggest running like hell.
There are several web forums and subforums on the Nagant, quite active, and several "history of" and "identification of" web sites. Check 'em out.
> It's crazy, We waste humungeous resources driving the kids to a school > a few minutes walk from home,Where do kids go to school a few minutes' walk from home?!
Federal busing decrees and "equal rights" make the school districts bus kids to the other side of the county, by law. I see the buses running at 0600 in the morning, and I see them running at late as 1900 in the evening; some kids spend as much time on the bus as they do in class.
> Ditto here. Well, its not federal busing in action, but just the way the > district does things.Arkansas' busing program was mandated by a Federal circuit judge ruling from St. Louis, Missouri. Supposedly fines and jail time were theatened for noncompliance.
That sort of thing smacks of courts making law, which is the job of the Arkansas legislature and Congress. I'm not entirely clear on who would have carried out the court's sanctions; not the FBI, and not the DOJ's Federal marshals, as far as I know. "Dollar Billy" Clinton was governor then, and he rolled over instead of telling them to screw off, pretty much like he did later in the Oval Office.
> Our middle-schooler and high-schooler get up at 6:15am, catch > the bus at 7am, are at school by 8-8:15am, then let out at 3-3;15pm, > get home at 4-4:15 pm...So much for saving gas...
They could put a blackboard and teacher on the bus, and dispense with the schoolhouse entirely, wot?
-- Why summoning demons is a Bad Idea (Terry Pratchett, "Eric")
So I'm browsing the .pdf at the Arkansas State Police web site. It's fairly normal - who are you, where do you live, are you a nutjob / druggie / illegal alien / alcoholic, has anyone ever filed a complaint on you for "domestic abuse," etc.
Then we get to section 32:
32. Do you declare allegiance to the United States Constitution and the Arkansas Constitution? ________
Um. I guess I need to find a copy of the Constitution of the State of Arkansas and read it. I guess it's reasonable, since it's Arkansas that will put its state seal on the document, but that's the first I've ever heard of a state requiring allegiance to its constitution.
> > moral imperatives of the majority. Even the tax code contains moral preferences.Stuff like this is why I *still* don't comprehend the difference between "morality," "ethics," and "because I said so."
For something that's supposed to be so important, morality is an awfully wiggly snake to pin down.
> > List what out?Your moral code. Or contemporary American white-middle-class society's moral code, if you're not willing to divulge your own.
This isn't the first time I've asked. I never get any answer.
When Bob was here near Christmas, he gave me some of the stuff he takes. It claims it's 500mg unbuffered niacin. Last night, I popped two.
Wow.
For a while there, I considered calling the poison control hotline. The burn started at my ears, like they'd been badly sunburned, and gradually worked its way down to my toes over the next half hour. It was no fun at all...
This morning, I tried just one 500mg tab. The results are milder, but still highly uncomfortable.
Tomorrow, I'll try cutting one in half, and see what that does.
Wow.
>> > > we're becoming a nation of low-pay hamburger flippers? > > > > Because McDonalds pays well, especially when you get into management.That kind of management doesn't flip burgers. They're usually not even in a store; they sit in management offices in office blocks.
The "manager" in the store makes another fifty cents an hour to collect time cards and make note of any major personnel problems. He's just a flunky.
Most of your chain businesses are operated this way, which is why they're rigidly inflexible. Nobody in the store has the authority to change the least thing.
"Soon."
"How soon is soon?"
"Longer than little while, faster than later."
- Mary Ann Cramer and Security Chief Michael Garibaldi, Babylon 5, "Infection"
> Another problem , Parents shielding their kids from anything that might > be distasteful or require competence. [Oh Johnny shouldn't have to walk > 1/2 mile to school I'll drive him both ways] > When you shield kids from the bitch slaps of life you do them no favorFeh. The damned school buses stop for *every* child now - six houses in a row, if needed. Used to, they just stopped at the end of a street, or every half mile. Now each and every kid gets door service, while traffic is held up for miles...
<> You forgot Red Dwarf !!I never liked that, or Blake's 7.
I am definitely hooked by Hyperdrive. BBC only made a dozen episodes over two seasons, but they were excellent..
Captain: "That... *thing*. It's eating my crew!"
Security chief: "Only the slow ones, sir!"
At half of the current price, that's a no-brainer. Buy it.
As soon as you set it up, you will find it is too small and not rigid enough. That is normal; anything that doesn't require a reinforced floor and professional riggers is going to be too small and not rigid enough. But you also have to consider the little HF mill can be disassembled and moved by one person, that it doesn't take much space or three phase power, and that is can be set up and making parts or money while a "better" mill is still a dream for the future.
I have a big Gorton vertical mill and one of the little HF mini-mills, a couple of sizes smaller than the one you're looking at. For most jobs, the mini-mill works just fine, and for most of the rest, even the Gorton is a couple of sizes too small...
Even if you find it's not what you want, at that price, plus the changing renminbi/dollar ratio, you wouldn't have any trouble selling it later at a profit.
Last year I went to look at a pair of horizontal mills that a major defense contractor wanted to get rid of. The price: free. But they disassembled into three major sections, each one just barely small enough to fit on a semitrailer flatbed, and probably overweight at that. They took 480 volt three phase power and 1960s magnetic tape controls. One was set up and running, the other had some kind of controller failure and was available for spare parts.
Pro: table large enough to hold a Class C motor home Pro: operator platform rode along on the overarm Pro: thermonuclear overkill in the milling machine one-upmanship wars Con: manufacturer long out of business Con: floor space required was larger than my house Con: 480V 3-phase power not available in my area Con: estimated $15,000 for riggers and freight Con: estimated weight 40,000 pounds. Each.I felt sort of like the fisherman that caught a whale - it was *this* big, but it got away...
And to me the best part, he was asking $400 and I got him to come down to $360.Can you feel the waves of jealousy emanating from Arkansas?
Okay. First thing you need to do is go to Lindsay Books' web site and order a catalog. Then subscribe to the cnczone.com and practicalmachinist.com forums.
cnczone is the gunco of the machining fora. And it's not all about CNC.
Next thing you need to do: take the mill apart. All the way apart. It's not rocket surgery. Clean everything up, check for obvious wear, put it back together. The mill will have to be "trammed", the tightness of the gibs set, you might want to make some mods to reduce lash in the leadscrews, etc. There's quite a lot about that on cnczone in the mini-mill subforum.
Then you'll have a clean, correctly aligned machine that you know inside and out, that you can learn on without having crunchy screws and a sloppy table make things twice as hard as they need to be.
As for the Linsday catalog... if you have any fangle genes, you'll feel sharp stabbing pains about your wallet area. But they'll go away soon enough.
- Lloyd Bryant
> By Brit Hume > > A new study from the Pew Research Center concludes that a deep rift > exists between Western and Muslim societies, with both sides blaming > each other.Britney Boy gets the "Captain Obvious" hat today.
It's like those highway signs I've seen in northern California, "Turn Headlights On When Dark." Uh, yeah. Most places, people can figure that out for themselves.
> Citizens are left with two choices. They can either rely on the kindness > of criminals, or they can protect themselves.Yeah! And they might get organized, maybe arrange some kind of monetary compensation for time they spend helping others, maybe get some snappy uniforms, specialized training, maybe some transportation and a building to put their stuff in, even some kind of official status... nah.
I think that one has been tried before, and it didn't really work out in the end.
> An article on the liberal Web site Alternet.org, titled "America's > Air Conditioned Nightmare," argues that the southward migration made > possible by AC's ability to beat the southern heat has caused > citizens who might normally be influenced by the more liberal north > to instead soak up the Sun Belt's conservative culture. > > The piece also blames air conditioning for a "social chill" that's > weakened the political system, making people "less inclined to gather > spontaneously" and crippling grassroots political action.I noted that online five or six years ago, and it's made at least one pass around the 'net and media since then. And I probably wasn't the first, either.
One of Hume's staff probably dredged it up from the Wayback Machine. Life must have been hard for pundits back in the old days, when they had to think up stuff for themselves instead of using the 'net...
"Yes I did."
"I'm shocked. Shocked and dismayed. I'd remind you that we are short on supplies here. We can't afford to take perfectly good clothing and throw it out into space. Always take the jacket off first, I've told you that before. [to offender]Sorry, she meant to say: Stripped naked and thrown out an airlock. I apologize for any confusion this may have caused."
- Sheridan and Ivanova, Babylon 5, "The Illusion of Truth"
You wouldn't have to conquer America. Any reasonably-sized country (or alliance of small ones) could divert part of their military budget and just *buy* the United States.
The last few decades, from ABSCAM forward, has shown the entire US government is for sale to the highest bidder. Just send your representatives to DC with briefcases full of cash, buy better trade agreements for your country, adjust the dollar ratio to something more favorable, obtain favorable loan rates, outright monetary grants, action against your enemies, etc.
Basically, what Communist China has done. China is now an integral part of the US economy, and they're on the tugging end of the chain. If they *really* wanted the USA to dance to their tune, our only alternatives are to comply or face economic collapse.
> You don't have to work in a lab to love these science books.Pfaugh.
He didn't even mention "Engineer Dreams" by Willy Ley. Yeah, the one from Peenemunde.
If nothing else, that book would cause myocardial infarctions or brain aneurysms in any environmentalist or global warming bozo who read it. Ley describes plans to dam Gibraltar to flood central Africa to change its climate, or dry up the Mediterrenean to provide more European real estate. All of them were technically feasible when he wrote the book in 1955.
> A couple years ago I read a little book George Gamow wrote a > while back. (I got the paperback from my father, and no longer > have it, which is too bad). He has a good writing style and goes into a > lot of scientific stuff in layman's terms. In case you're interested, > the book is called "One Two Three, Infinity: Facts and Speculations of > Science". He talks at length about probability theory for one.I have that one, too. It's quite good.
For a while it looked like Gamow was going to be another Asimov, but unfortunately he shuffled off this mortal coil fairly early.
There don't seem to be any Asimovs out there now, teaching complicated stuff from first principles.
> They're all just beliefs. In reality, nobody knows for sure. Climate > models are not nearly as well developed or validated compared to > weather models, thus giving much more uncertainty in predictions."Show me your code."
When the hockey-stick people start talking about secret algorithms, I suddenly lose interest in listening to them...
"They say God works in mysterious ways."
"Maybe so, but He's a con man compared to the Vorlon."
- Security Chief Michael Garibaldi and Sinclair, Babylon 5, "Deathwalker"
> > While driving (car :( ) the other day, three high powered HFs were > > coming the other way with lights. The lead was dazlingly bright, the > > others ok. There is almost a tendancy to steer towards the light.Some motorcycle "safety classes" in the USA teach new riders to ride with their high beam on.
Even in broad daylight that can be painful to oncoming traffic. When I see one, I have to fight the urge to run over him. And I'm a rider myself...
"Don't deliberately piss off people in trucks..."
>> >>There are a huge number of issues as to using headlights in daylight. Of >> >>these my main criticisms of using them are the total lack of evidence that >> >>there is a drop in incidents when bikes come (or are mandated) to use >> >>headlightsI remember when the US DOT mandated headlights-on for motorcycles. As far as I can tell, it didn't make a damned bit of difference either way, though the DOT can manufacture filing cabinets full of data to support their ruling.
Sometimes, the emperor really *doesn't* have any pants on.
With the prevalence of "Daytime Running Lights" on cars, drivers are being trained to look for and avoid things with lights. Pretty soon, I guess they'll put lights on pedestrians, light poles, mailboxes, and anything else that isn't supposed to be run over.
> > Another time I was > > driving with a group on one of the dutch canaldykes at night in the > > countryside. We all suddenly slid in every direction because we ran over > > lots and lots of migrating frogs.That one has happened to *me*! Who would have thought frogs would be so slippery?
Late one night, I went through a pack of raccoons in a wooded corner. Contrary to what the zoology books imply, they *do* run in packs, at least sometimes.