HelixDab2

joined 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

On some level it's reasonable to say that you own shares in a mutual fund, not shares in the individual companies.

But the other side of that is that you can fairly easily see what the mutual fund is doing, and copy it, without the problematic companies. Yes, it will be less profitable, but you can do it, and you can do it without too much difficulty when you're talking about millions of dollars in investments. So it seems, I dunno, weak to say that you can't divest your own personal investments from these things. Plus, I'm pretty sure that there are at least a handful of mutual funds that entirely avoid those kind of companies in order to attract ethical investors.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 days ago

Depends on the application. A dirt bike? Absolutely not; too much torque and horsepower means that you're going to spin your wheel regularly (and this is why most dirt bikes are thumpers, too). A conventional street bike, touring, or dual sport? You can probably go a little lower, but probably not a lot for a large touring bike like a Gold Wing. A sport bike? That's low, by at least 20bhp; 100-ish bhp is about the lowest you'll see for a 600cc-class sport bike. I can't say for certain what the tops competitive 1000cc supersport bikes are putting out, but it's probably close to 200bhp. And all of that power needs to be in a very light package, because you need the maneuverability to quickly negotiate s-curves. (I live in the mountains; there are a number of s-curves near where I live. I've seen the aftermath of cruisers crashing because they misjudged corner speeds.)

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago (2 children)

To paraphrase Nietzsche, that which doesn't kill you psychologically scars you and leaves you with a lifetime of therapy bills.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 days ago (2 children)

Hey guys, def. do not decorate your firearms with anything. No pro-cop stuff, and def. not anything like "This machine kills fascists" either. If you ever use that firearm in an ostensibly defensive manner, a DA can and will use that decoration as evidence of 'state of mind'.

Also, Trump was in favor of seizing guns without any form of due process; he is not friendly towards the rule of law or rights in general.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 days ago (4 children)

According to Mormons, god is literally male, with (perfect) male genitalia. There is also a god--the-mother, who is female, and is both secret and sacred (they really don't like talking about her), and also utterly subservient to god the father, because of course she is. According to Mormon theology, both gods were once mortal, and were raised up to godhood by their godly parents; Mormons--if they're good enough--can go to Mormon super-heaven, where they will also become gods in their own right. Before everyone was born physically, they were born spiritually, in... More or less the same way babies are born now, except in heaven, to a heavenly mom. And there were hundreds of billions of spirit babies, so I guess that god the dad and god the mom really like sex or something? The implications start getting really, really weird, very fast. Which is part of the reason why Mormons don't usually want to talk about stuff like this with people that aren't Mormon.

I believe that the quote is, "As man is, so once was god. As god is, so man can become," or something like that.

Source: was Mormon for >25 years.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago

It is, honestly, not nearly as bad as you'd think. The weight should be pretty well distributed, armor doesn't have to be all that heavy to stop a sword, and the gambeson is doing a lot of the heavy lifting for piercing weapons. Blunt weapons, well, those are going to be unpleasant pretty much no matter what. You get really hot though; there's a reason that the Saracens did such a number on the crusaders when they were able to get them outside of cities.

Wearing a plate carrier is, IMO, worse than wearing a gambeson and chain maille.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago

Unfortunately, this one goes both ways. Some women feel like they need to play hard to get, because otherwise they're sluts, and also they want to know that a guy really likes her. It's self defeating of course, on both sides.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

What's crazy is that, for all the poundage that a war bow requires to pull, it's still less powerful than a small-caliber bullet. A breastplate will easily stop a clothyard arrow with a hardened bodkin point, and a .38 Spl will blow right through. I tried doing some back-of-the-envelope calculations a while back, and IIRC a .22LR has more energy at the muzzle of a 14" rifle barrel than a 160# bow could put into an arrow. (Someone needs to double check my math on that though.)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

Blackhawk Down gets things very right.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Sword fight? Fanning at each other, crossing and smacking swords.

Just watch Olympic fencing; you get a very fast exchange that you can't follow, and then someone has a point. In a real sword fight, without armor, that's about what would happen. OTOH, when everyone is wearing armor, it gets a lot messier.

And of course, the classic gunfight where nobody hits anything.

That is surprisingly common. Most people are really bad shots when they're stressed out. It's physiological; when your body dumps adrenaline into your bloodstream, you lose fine motor control. So unless you've trained extensively under stressful conditions, you're gonna have a hard time doing shit.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Ooooo! Can I play?

Let's say that you have a pro-genocide Republican, a pro-genocide Democrat, and an anti-genocide 3rd party candidate, but the anti-genocide candidate also wants to give all school children machine guns and grenades, and require cars to intentionally run down pedestrians?

Or or or let's say that the anti-genocide candidate's campaign is so bad that her own party is telling her drop out? .

[–] [email protected] 12 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Most people in the military do a basic qualification that is pretty easy to pass (23/49 targets, at ranges from 25 to 300m); these aren't head shots, these are just on the target. Once you've done that, and graduated from basic, depending on your specialty, you may rarely touch a rifle. Lots of former military people think that they're good, just because they managed a single qualification, and that they know a lot about guns, but it's often just fudd-lore. Spec ops guys and Marines tend to be more proficient overall, because they spend more time practicing. (TBH, a lot of the spec ops are very mediocre as far as competitive shooting goes, but they have a lot of other skills that are relevant to the military, and tend to refuse to give up.) Cops are often even worse; their qualifications are at short distances, with very lenient time standards.

Bear in mind that the kill-to-bullet ratio in Afghanistan was about 1:300,000; most shooting in the modern military is suppressive, rather than directed at a specific target.

Compare that to someone that's a USPSA B class shooter, or someone that regularly shoots PCSL 2 gun matches; they will tend to outshoot a lot of retired military, because they tend to practice, and practice on a shot timer, a lot.

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