HelixDab2

You can absolutely get high octane ethanol-free gas; there's a place near me that sells it. I know that a lot of people with motorcycles use it, because inline four cylinder motorcycle engines tend to be high compression, and motorcycle people tend to be almost religious about not using ethanol. (Which is unnecessary; assuming your motorcycle is fuel injected, the only risk with ethanol is storage for several months at a time with a full tank of gas. If you do that, then you're going to end up with water in your gas, because ethanol is hygroscopic. As long as you keep riding regularly, or empty your tank and run the motor dry before storing it for more than a month, you'll be fine with ethanol in your gas.) I know of at least once place near-ish to me that sells 110 octane ethanol- and lead-free racing gas. Ethanol-free high octane fuels tend to be about 25-50% more expensive than fuels with ethanol.

Avgas is another story. The odds are pretty good from what I can tell that any prop airplane is going to need gas with tetraethyl lead. To me, that sounds like a good reason to remove them all from service in favor of jets, but I think that jets have a higher stall speed, which can be a problem, esp. in backwoods areas.

(Jet-a and jet-a1 are kerosene derivatives, and don't have lead.)

1. The ball was red.
2. I have no idea.
3. I have no idea.
4. Like, maybe softball sized? A little bigger? I'm not sure.
5. Square. It was made of brown.

Eh. You should be cutting that with a wet saw, like any other masonry product. The problem is that a lot of contractors are trying to go fast, since time is money, and they skip wetting stone and masonry products while cutting.

Lead in gasoline was a stop-gap solution. If I remember correctly , it was added because we didn't have the technology at the time to refine gas sufficiently to get the octane levels necessary to prevent pre-ignition of fuel (which causes rod knock) at a reasonable cost. Tetraethyl lead effectively increased the octane level/resistance to pre-ignition. As a side benefit, the lead slightly lubricated the valves and valve seats so that they lasted for tens of thousands of miles, instead of needing to be reground every few thousand miles.

It was a stupid stop-gap though, esp. since the dangers of lead were well known by then.

The guide specifically calls for police agencies to set up what NTAC calls behavioral threat assessment units that can assess potential dangers and then provide resources to make sure individuals get help before they resort to violence.

This is the part that everyone is intentionally missing.

Most people that commit the kinds of mass violence that make national news can be diverted without getting caught up in law enforcement. These aren't people that are mentally ill in most cases, but they usually do need some kind of help. A heavy-handed approach that involves jailing them or taking their rights because they might be dangerous at some unspecified point in the future is not a great approach, since we don't have a functioning Pre-Crime Bureau yet. Moreover, as the Secret Service pointed out in a prior report, people that commit mass violence have a wide number of warning signs, but no person in their study had all of the warning signs, a very few had no obvious warning signs, and most of the warning signs are common and could apply to potentially hundreds of thousands of people.

If you have nothing to hide, why worry?

This is such a stupid, disingenuous argument. Look, if you've got nothing to hide, then you should be fine with cops performing a warrantless search of your house, car, and strip searching you, right? After all, you haven't done anything wrong, correct? If you've got nothing to hide, then your medical records should be public, right? Why are you keeping that bathroom door closed if you're not hiding something, huh?

The right to keep and bear arms is a right. It's not supposed to be a privilege dependent on the good will of the state. Same as speech/press, freedom of--and from--religion (which mean, yes, freedom from religious interference in state matters as well), and so on.

red flags laws

These have already been used to harass people that legally own firearms. Because it's a civil process, the gun owner needs to pay for their own attorney to fight the claims. That means that you can easily end up with tens of thousands of dollars in legal bills just because you have someone decided to report you to police. It can take months or years to fight, and there's not a clear standard since you might be a risk. I've personally dealt with this kind of bullshit in Illinois; I lost my FOID because I was held for observation for 72 hours while I was in the middle of an ugly divorce -and- being abused by my spouse. I would have needed to sue the state in order to get my basic rights back.

It's only too late because I have too many other things that I do with my time. If I had a thousand lifetimes, or never needed sleep, it would be different. Unfortunately, you need to make choices about how you spend your time in life.

It would never be more than just a hobby; I've seen people I know try to make a living as musicians, and I simply don't have that kind of passion to live in poverty just to get a taste of the dream.

It is what it is.

Yeah, 100%. Because it's ironic.

I tried reading his "Mission Earth" series. I did not finish the series; I managed about two and a half books before I realized that I wasn't obligated to finish it just because I'd started.

Spoiler: he wasn't. It was "The Apprentice" that made his fortune, before that it was just him squandering an inheritance.

That's good to know, and not something I would have expected.

I will always regret not learning to play drums; my parents insisted that I learn clarinet instead. (My brother got to play drums though. Bastard.) Oh well. I have too many hobbies to try and add another one at this point. :)