greg1647545532

The flip side of that is that school has become less relevant over the last 30 years. I literally spent more time reading Chaucer than I did learning about computer programming, and I was lucky that my school even bothered to have a programming class. Can you imagine? Chaucer! Guess which skill has been more meaningful to me? I certainly don't envy educators today. There's a lot of societal and governmental pressure to adhere to this 19th century ideal of a liberal arts education, while it's pretty clear that the world is changing faster than schools and regulators can keep up. It's not like kids are genetically different now than they were 15 or 30 years ago, so if they're not doing as well in school, it's the grown-ups' fault. Blame the teachers, blame the state, blame the parents. But if a kid who grows up with wikipedia and smartphones can't see the point in memorizing facts that he could easily look up in 12 seconds on his magic pocket wizard, it's not his fault. Society has failed him. From what I've seen, kids are still eager to learn, but the subject matter that they're interested in has changed. Schools will need to adapt.

Yes, young people are less interested in driving. Unless you're a car company, dealership, or some other industry that is directly affected by new car sales, I'm not clear as to why this is a "problem" that needs to be solved. It's just something that's happening, that's neither good nor bad, in the same way that decreasing lava lamp sales weren't good or bad (except for lava lamp manufacturers). But come on man, I'm just going to quote you here: You don't mention cars once in this frothing rant. How is that not you looking down your nose at "whipper snappers?" It's 0% about a market shift, and 100% a judgement call about people who are younger than you.

Man, my generation was supposed to be spoiled and entitled and unwilling to do hard work. What gives? Actually, kids in the 60s were lazy and aimless and entitled, what with their long hair and their pot smoking. What happened to them? Or was it the kids in the 20s, with their drinking and their crazy dancing and the jazz music, disregarding society's conventions but still expecting to get a job? -- If you think young people are lazy, entitled brats, may I suggest that says more about the type of people you surround yourself with, and less about any generational trends? Because I work with a lot of young people who constantly blow my mind.

Yup. Not that people don't race on the left coast, but out here it's more about action and less about image.

Yeah. I dunno, we have a world-class road course an hour away, an active autocross community, a drag strip, a paved circle track that holds drift events, and 7 or 8 road courses within a reasonable driving distance. Pretty much something for everyone. I'll take that over acres and acres of hard-parkers any day.

So don't do that? Y'all keep arguing that hog attacks are hypothetical possible, which I don't deny, but I'm arguing that it's not a real problem that normal people have to worry about. Hunters getting in over their heads, sure. Farmers defending their property, yeah. I can't find any stories of pig attacks that don't involved one of those two categories. Dude was way more likely to get struck by lightning than attacked by a pig.

For hunting hogs? No. For a walk? Yeah. Feral hogs don't just attack people. The only news accounts of them goring or killing people involve hunters who cornered them. If you've got a several hundred pound anything cornered and scared, you should probably be armed with something respectable, be it a mild-mannered mini-14 or a black-and-scary AR-15. But if you're just walking around, hogs aren't a threat. Or if they are, I can find basically zero evidence of it. This guy was either using "coyotes and hogs" as a cover story for his open-carry activism, or he's very, very bad at risk assessment. Given that he's an 18-year army vet, I'm going to give him the benefit of the doubt and say that he probably knows a thing or two about assessing threat. Unfortunately, that makes him a bit of a liar.

I'm not sure why they want to keep it, but I'm pretty sure this isn't it. Radar needs curved surfaces to work properly. Imagine shooting a beam at a basketball. It's going to get scattered everywhere, but because of the curvature, at least some portion is guaranteed to bounce right back at you. Now imagine you're standing off to one side of a mirror. It's why the F-117 is all flat panels and angles, no curves. The raised lettering may have presented something of a signature, but probably not enough to matter. And they got rid of it anyway. They're better off aiming at a headlight or something.

Normally when people employ the tricky dicky "which gun is more dangerous" routine, which should be pretty well played out by this point, it's in response to someone who wants to ban certain weapons. "How can you ban assault rifles if you can't even define assault rifle, or tell what one is!" they cry with smug satisfaction. And as annoying as this tactic is, it's effective, and for that reason (among many), I've gone from pro-AWB to anti-AWB over the years. Job well done. But Kirk isn't talking about banning anything, he's talking about people walking around in public with guns. So it doesn't really matter if it's an M-60 or an AR-15 or a Mini-14 with "tactical" mods or a BB gun or a movie prop. If it looks alarming, you probably shouldn't carry it around in public. Or if you do, you shouldn't be surprised if people are, you know, alarmed. So I'm not sure what your goal here is. If Kirk or someone else sees some bloke walking around with what appears to be an M-16, and the bloke is walking towards what appears to be a movie theater, do you want him to pause and reflect on this moment? "Well that gun certainly looks like it has no business being near a movie theater, but M-16s are bust-fire and expensive to own, and from this distance almost indistinguishable from a civilian AR-15, which is only semi-auto and not truly an assault rifle per US Army definition. Or it could just be a Red Rider pump action BB gun that's dressed up to look like an M-16. My alarm is borne only out of ignorance, so I'll let that nice young chap carry about his business." Meanwhile, Kirk sees a guy with what appears to be a broom handle, but remembering this moment, he thinks to himself, "Well, it appears to be a broom handle, but it could also be a 1977 Ukrainian made Vetlshlyeva QC-64 assault broom handle, cleverly designed by the soviets to be the most deadly automatic weapon disguised as a piece of cleaning equipment. I'd better take him out." People would do well to trust their instincts when it comes to issues of public safety, so I'm not sure why you'd want people to second guess those instincts just because they can't accurately identify what type of scary-looking weapon some guy is carrying when the point is really just that people shouldn't be carrying scary-looking things if they want to live in polite society and not scare people.

Maybe, but he said: He's an activist. I'm not a mind reader but I'd put money on this being more about him making a point than worrying about feral pigs. We may have to agree to disagree here. We're also probably going to disagree about how effective this strategy is. As far as I'm concerned, the more stories I read like this, the more I think that people will eventually push for laws to make open carrying long guns illegal. Nah, that couldn't happen, right? eta: What have I said that's incorrect about guns that makes you think I need to educate myself? Because I use the phrase assault rifle without scare quotes? I'm well aware that gun rights activists like to think that assault rifles either don't really exist or have to be fully automatic per the US Army definition. In the real world, normal people know what I mean when I use the phrase. And yes, a Mini-14 Ranch Rifle isn't an assault rifle but an AR-15 is, and it makes no sense to you, and I understand that. Deal with it.

WHAT LAW AM I BREAKING?! I HAVE RIGHTS!!! :mad: Sorry. Couldn't resist

I agree 100%. I don't think the arrest was the right move. Cops should know the law and be able to practice restraint. I also don't think carrying an assault rifle around just to prove a point is the right move either. Two morons. Happy?

What if I were wearing full body armor carrying a holstered handgun on each hip with a mossberg slung over one shoulder and an AK-47 over the other one? What if I were all done up like that walking towards a movie theater? There's a spectrum of normal firearm behavior, and I'm sure that even jaded individuals like yourself have a point at which you'd be a little on edge. If a shotgun in a gun rack is common, then it's not exactly "unusual behavior," literally by definition. And no, that wouldn't bother me. A single holstered handgun generally doesn't bother me either, although I generally make the assumption that the person is an on- or off-duty law enforcement officer. Fortunately, in this case we don't need to make up hypotheticals where you try to paint me like some gun-fearing pussy. We have specifics. One guy walking around with a shouldered assault rifle. Not normal. I'd be on edge. Fair enough?

Because I want cops to respond to complaints about suspicious behavior. If some well-meaning citizen was alarmed enough to call the police, that's a step above a cop happening to drive by and deciding to pull a power trip.

That seems even worse.

Who messes with feral hogs? Just walk away. Or are there lots of stories of feral hog attacks that I'm not seeing (aside from hunting situations?)

Wuss.

Yes, the guy does a great job of painting himself to be a patriot. "I was walking deep in hill country with my junior woodchuck eagle scout son, just moments away from defending townspeople from cougar attacks." But he was on a paved road that was apparently patrolled by cops, so I'm not going to call him Daniel Boone just yet. It's not Applebee's, but if he was really someplace where he had to worry about wild threats, I don't think the cops would have found him. And remember, he says this is "halfway through" their 10 mile hike, so don't even try to say he was on his way back from cougartown. In any case, I don't think that you can pull a Wayne LaPierre and claim that the only thing that can prevent gun violence is a hyper-vigilant armed citizenry, and then at the same time tell us to completely ignore anyone walking around looking out of place with an assault rifle, keeping in mind that anyone with an assault rifle in a public place immediately looks out of place. Also, this.

Don't you understand? There's, like, pigs out there, and maybe even some hot older women with insatiable libidos! The world is a frightful place when you're an insecure pudgy guy.

Also, it's my understanding that the point of center barriers like that is to stop vehicles from heading into oncoming traffic. The driver in this case didn't fare well, but the cables did succeed in stopping the car.

BMW's marketing team deserves unlimited access to the company's hookers if they've somehow convinced the world that this is a sports car bargain.

Bingo.

http://steronz.com/random/GT40.jpg Wasn't the most enjoyable because I didn't really have to work at it, but I do believe this is the most expensive car to ever give me a point by.

Life is much easier if you don't have an "Act hard and never back down" mentality. Forgive and let live and all that. If you get rear-ended just shrug and say "Oh well, it's just a car." What's the worse that can happen? A bunch of hard motherfuckers call you a pussy on the internet? If the worst thing that ever happens to you is a bunch of hard motherfuckers call you a pussy on the internet, your life is pretty good. Sure beats getting shot or beat or terminal brain cancer or fired or a hangnail.

They were Napa branded, I didn't buy them so I can't be more specific but the box said Napa. I fucked up a lot of the video but I'll post what I've got when I get a chance to go through it. It's not pretty though -- we couldn't have been making more than 50 or 60 horsepower, and we kept hitting fuel cut at random times above 5k rpms. Top speed was about 90mph, drag limited. It stopped and turned like a beast, but any advantage I could make in the corners evaporated in about 3 seconds on every straight. Also, Chumpcar is basically Spec E30/E36 now. It's not at all like LeMons. We thought we'd prefer that, but I feel like we brought a LeMons car to a Spec E30 race, and there's not much joy in that.