archer

5 minutes ago, Iuz the Evil said:

Yeah, where I live we have only 6 deputies covering the County at a time and we are in the North Bay Area. They’re intentionally spread out but response time can vary. In the back regions it could be 30+ minutes, for sure.
 

As to a reason to intervene, I would respectfully disagree with the statement by the Sheriff regarding the relevance of immigration status specific to Mr Oropeza, as he was not lawfully able to acquire the firearm he was in possession of based on said undocumented immigration status. Unless I’m mistaken (which is possible) one needs to be a legal resident of the State to do so with a valid ID and a valid “alien number”. He appears to have been violating Federal Law simply through firearms ownership. Had that existing law (18 USC §922(g), it appears, which prohibits a person who “is illegally or unlawfully in the United States” from possessing “any firearm or ammunition”) been enforced, in this case it might have saved lives. The Sheriff had legal grounds to intervene, particularly if as alleged there were prior complaints.

If we are going to pass laws restricting firearms, which have subsequently withstood legal challenge, a reasonable first step might be to enforce them rather than the common practice of lamenting the lack of sufficient laws or regulations.

 

”The penalty provision for a violation of § 922(g) appears at 18 U.S.C. § 924(a)(2), which provides that a person who "knowingly" violates § 922(g) "shall be fined as provided in this title, imprisoned not more than 10 years, or both." 

 

 With regard to the morality of his actions, yes murder is murder. On that I’d agree. 

From what I've read, local law enforcement officers are often reluctant to try to enforce a federal law.

8 hours ago, DShomshak said:

Another story I've read has Sherriff Capers attributing the slow response to having only 3 deputies to cover a very large area. Everyone was simply far away at the time. This is plausible, but... Stories also say this was not the first time neighbors complained of Mr Oropeza's gunfire, and police had talked to him before. I suppose that's one for the "Get your own gun for home defense" side. I would prefer a policy of taking guns away from people who use them irresponsibly, just like taking licenses from people who drive irresponsibly.

 

Side note: Gov. Abbott brought up the alleged immigration status of both Mr Oropeza and Mr Garcia's family. Props to Sherriff Capers for saying firmly that this does not matter. Murdering children is murdering children.

 

Dean Shomshak

I'll admit I haven't read anything about that case.

But I did have a friend from elementary school who, years later, robbed a bank in a rural community.

You'd be very fortunate to be able to make the trip from the police station to the bank in as little as 25 minutes. And the single paved road connecting the two locations had a large number of, unbanked, 90 degree turns so it was impossible to just "go faster" to get there more quickly.

And 25 minutes response time was for a danged bank robbery.

So I could swallow the sheriff's excuse of "big area and no one close" in some places, unless someone showed otherwise.

On the other hand, I'm sure the police could have found a valid excuse to arrest or detain the guy before that incident if they'd really wanted to.

Just now, Duke Bushido said:

Fair enough.

 

As an implement of reaping, they are remarkably well-balanced.  They can be find-tuned by shortening the end or assing a small amount of weight.

 

I would not so much like to attempt to use it like a bat, a sword, or a polearm (though someone did mention that as a polearm, the blade is mounted differently.  Still, if it is on a properly cruiked staff, it'd be- well, it would still be awful.  If it is on a straight shaft, then it's a scythe on a stick.   

 

 

In paintings and drawings of peasants carrying scythes to war, they're depicted carrying them vertically rather than horizontally. So I've always assumed that, at the beginning of the battle at least, that they brought the blade down toward the opponent's head rather than trying to sweep the legs.

On 4/19/2023 at 12:46 AM, Sundog said:

If by "sailing ship" you mean a square-rigged tall ship, by the time of those they could make a planed bottomed small craft fairly easily. Rather than launch from the ship, use a crane to lower a boat-bottomed ornithopter (basically a flying boat) over the side and let it take off under it's own power. Reverse the procedure for recovery.

 

I was thinking a crane for recovery as well. But the ornithopter would be a mostly ship=to=land vehicle since you'd need very calm seas to both land the ornithopter and to recover it. That's somewhat similar to the role of the first aircraft launched from ships.

For launching, I was thinking from a raiseable platform on the aft mast. Ropes and pulley to get the aircraft to the top of the mast. Furl the ship's sails so you don't have the slow aircraft working against the momentum of the ship.

Playing D&D 5e

My halfling character had been lost for decades in the astral planes with a handful of cantrips and no companionship. So he kept his clothing together with Mending spells and kept himself clean, and otherwise amused himself, with Prestidigitation. And he built up decades' worth of unrealized comedic potential which spews forth in a somewhat uncontrollable fashion.

After coming back to the prime material plane, he teamed up with several others for adventures including a female Firblog druid (who is being played a first time rpg player). As something of an OCD habit, he uses Prestidigitation to clean himself and his companions anytime the story indicates they might have gotten dirty.

Our travels brought us to an abandoned temple where we encountered some rather large spiders (of course everything is rather large from my perspective but that's neither here nor there). After killing a number of spiders, we located an intact egg sac and determined we'd likely have time to get it back to town and sell it before the spiders hatch. But the egg sac was up high on a wall and the firblog was the only one tall enough to reach it...but she refused because she's scared of spiders and touching the egg sac is icky.

But through a lot of cajoling, we convinced her to take down the egg sac and drop it in  my backpack.

As soon as it was done, the player turned to me with a horrified look on her face and pleaded, "Prestidigitate my hands! Prestidigitate my hands!"

Without missing a beat, I cast Prestidigitation and told her that her hands are now purple (the spell is highly versatile and besides cleaning things can make change colors).

The player gets this even more horrified look on her face as she realizes that not only are her hands now purple but her hands are still dirty from touching the egg sac.

"Clean my hands! Clean my hands!"

"Oh, okay, I can do that," in an innocent tone of voice and I clean her hands.

"My. Hands. Are. Purple!", very unclear whether this is in character or not.

"Well, you know, the color only lasts for an hour. Here, let me," and I cast Prestidigitation again. "Now your hands smell like apples."

"I don't want my hands to smell like apples!"

On 4/28/2023 at 4:13 PM, Duke Bushido said:

Yo!

 

And yes; it's heavier.  However, it's also balanced, and isn't swung at all like a sword or a staff.  The reach- if you are using it as a weapon and not a harvesring implement- really isn't much; you would have more range thrusting a sword.  It needs a sweeping / twisting motion to work, but as a person who has only ever goofed around with a sword, I can say comfortably that I could (and have) use a scythe for a couple of hours between water breaks.   I feel pretty sure i's be done swinging a sword in ten or fifteen minutes.

 

As always, YMMV.

The scythe we had when I was a kid was made probably sometime in the 1920's (like many of the older things we had lying around) and was massively made.

Also, I'm about 5'7" now (and maybe a bit shorter back then) and it's very likely the thing was made for a somewhat larger person. So my perception of how well-balanced it was and how much strength it'd take to use it all day might be affected by that. 

4 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

 

That goes without saying.

 

You've never sat in the Wal-Mart parking lot across the street from the Cowboys' stadium on game day for six hours waiting for your daughter to get off work because they start blocking traffic into the area around the stadium once the game starts. (And that's after close to an hour in traffic getting to the store parking lot.)

No, it doesn't go without saying.  

I don't know how people who live in that residential area (which starts a block away from the stadium) deal with it.

5 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

 

 

EDIT:  I suppose there may be significant logistical issues waiting so long, but having the draft held in the Super Bowl champ's city is working out very nicely.  

OMG, I hope the Cowboys never win....

5 minutes ago, Logan D. Hurricanes said:

Hmm, 6'5" OT I've never heard of. Ok, that's... good?

No. No, it's not.

Jaguars left tackle Cam Robinson is facing a multigame suspension for violating the NFL's performance-enhancing drug policy. sources told ESPN today, and he had the sixth-worst pass block win rate for an offensive tackle last year. Right tackle Jawaan Taylor left in free agency. Harrison is versatile enough to step into the left tackle spot until Robinson returns to the lineup and then push Walker Little for the starting right tackle job. -- Muench

2 minutes ago, Logan D. Hurricanes said:

Crossing my fingers for Myles Murphy for you.

3 minutes ago, Pariah said:

 

Maybe he'll get drafted by a team that is stable enough to let him watch & learn for a year or three. Kinda like Aaron Rodgers all those years ago.

OMG, I just realized he's going to drop down to the Cowboys.

And start dipping his nachos in his coffee....

7 minutes ago, Old Man said:

There were some weird rumors about Levis' "personality" leading into the draft, but I'm surprised he's fallen this far already.

I don't care if he eats bananas in his coffee just as long as he doesn't do things to land himself in jail

1 minute ago, Old Man said:

Broncos haven't made a stupid pick yet tonight.

Yet

Washington - facepalm

Pats -  TANJ

Detroit - double facepalm

Seattle - already won the first round so they could take anything at this point and still get a good grade. WR or QB?

Maybe Will Levis to Washington?

I mean, they need everything but QB's seem to be in short supply....

Ooooo....Packers could get a good CB. But they won't

Historically, peasants were compelled to be in mostly unorganized militias to fight for whichever lord's land the peasant happened to live upon.

And the peasants used whichever farm implements they had as weapons: scythe, pitchfork, etc.

I don't know who here has actually swung a scythe but it's significantly heavier than a spear. And peasants routinely swung a scythe from sun-up to sundown when harvesting their grain.  

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythe

So my personal feeling is that STR minimums are fairly wrong in FH, that the STR stat is unrealistically low for normal people, or that peasants weren't normal people. 

2 hours ago, Cancer said:

Some of them cooed, like very large deep-throated pigeons, also.

I can imagine a couple of T-Rex's wearing sunglasses and sitting around smoking pot. One of them looks at the other and says, "Coo, man. Coo."

3 hours ago, Old Man said:

 

If I were Tucker Carlson, I'd downplay it during the primaries and run it 24/7 during the general.

 

(I typed "If I were Tucker Carlson" and threw up in my mouth a little.)

I know what you mean.

I started, as a joke, typing, "At least Tucker Carlson would be a better president than...."

I not only couldn't find a way to finish the sentence but I got nauseated and the room started spinning a little. Counterclockwise.

The Ultimate Solution of Grace Quigley Down Under

11 hours ago, Pariah said:

I recently watched the Star Trek: Voyager episodes "Year of Hell", parts 1 & 2. Also known as 'Kathryn Janeway's Descent Into Madness'. 

 

Strangely enough, I don't remember seeing this story before. This was about when scheduling by UPN made it difficult for me to find Voyager episodes when I was actually at home. This one was pretty well done, although the Status Quo Is God ending was a bit of a letdown. I understand that at one point there was talk of extending this storyline beyond two seasons, perhaps even for a full year. Enterprise later did this with the Xindi war, but it could have been interesting with this storyline as well.

I thought "Years of Hell" should have been the Voyager story from beginning to end.

They're at the other end of the galaxy with no allies, no maintenance facilities, and most of the crew dead. So there should have been a visual progression of the ship breaking down.

Maybe at first just random crewmen tripping over frayed carpet and maintenance panels being left off the walls or no longer fitting right. A lot more "does anyone on the ship know how to ______?"

Then a progression to cables being strung across the corridor, ceiling panels missing, weird and clearly alien technology being plugged into random places in the ship to replace broken Federation tech, etc.

More of having to detour looking for supplies needed to keep going. More moral choices about what they needed to do in order to get whatever they needed.

Honestly, that was what I was expecting from the premise of the show as presented in the first episode. I was disappointed and consider the while thing to be a bait-and-switch (especially as we started to get bipolar Janeway behavior as a replacement for well-written stories).

2 hours ago, Sociotard said:

Tucker Carlson just got offered a job with Russian state media. I had to double check it wasn't the Onion. I mean, I can't imagine him taking the job, but it is still funny.

 

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/tucker-carlson-offered-jobs-russian-state-tv-channels-putin-ukraine-rcna81281

RT had a tweet out offering him a job about an hour after the announcement of his firing.

But Carlson has been seriously discussed in the mix of possible 2024 GOP presidential candidates. So I'd expect him to go in that direction and just continue to collect checks from the Russian government under the table....

/s

11 hours ago, Steve said:

I wonder if they’ve done any more editing changes on it?

I've heard that in this version that Han doesn't shoot first.

OMG, Martha Wayne didn't die in Crime Alley all those years ago!

GLAAD Press and Seal Team Six

9 hours ago, Bazza said:

 

Infinity stone shorts sound uncomfortable to wear.