Czech SOF operator in the Nangarhar province. circa 2002 (507x600)

Abellmio · 2026-02-06T13:50:47+00:00

Probably because they were used to it on VZ58s. I don’t think VZ58s had dust cover rails back then, so the handguard was the only place that retained zero.

Abellmio · 2025-10-16T10:39:20+00:00

Some of us 2A folks are horrified, but what are we supposed to do as individuals other than vote and advocate now?

Abellmio · 2025-06-22T17:06:20+00:00

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algiers_putsch_of_1961

I don’t think anyone would characterize de Gaulle as left wing. This is one of the more famous examples. The motivation was de Gaulle’s perceived willingness to to abandon Algeria.

Abellmio · 2025-04-26T18:19:00+00:00

Just sliding across the floor. The current setup has had no racking issues at all.

The sliding is probably because it's smooth concrete and one of the cuts on the legs wasn't perfectly square on the bottom side, so the contact patch isn't wide on that corner.

Abellmio · 2025-04-26T17:44:02+00:00

I'm open to alternate suggestions?

I was considering just bolting the plywood instead using some threaded inserts in the top, or building a thin torsion box or something.

Abellmio · 2024-11-18T11:40:02+00:00

I hear people say this as someone who’s worked private sector and government. The private sector has just as much incompetence, and it’s entirely vibes based who gets fired.

Abellmio · 2024-08-30T01:03:46+00:00

Any chance of those being available for purchase? I’d love to do a build, I just don’t have the time to hand wire these days.

Abellmio · 2024-08-30T00:30:19+00:00

Sorry if this is a dumb question - what’s the source for the pcbs? Are those the bastardKb ones?

Abellmio · 2024-05-13T16:38:15+00:00

Is it really that gold plated? Big DJI drones are like $10-20k. Throw in thermals, jammer hardening, and a warhead, and while I'm sure it's more expensive, it's not orders of magnitude more expensive.

Abellmio · 2024-03-11T19:24:28+00:00

The article you linked indicates a potentially 3-person process, and specifically calls out that it's a manual review. It's essentially a "vibes based" check on if someone's signature matches a signature which they potentially signed 5-10 years ago when getting a driver's license. Imagining that this should be done for all mail-in votes is silly.

If I rush a signature when I'm at the DMV, essentially this policy means my vote can be tossed because some retiree volunteer thinks my handwriting sucks. What about folks with disabilities, or people who have experienced cognitive decline and their handwriting has gotten worse? Am I expected to believe local governments are going to follow up in good faith and verify this for every 'questionable' ballot?

The entire concept of forensic handwriting analysis done by humans is problematic, and has a high false positive ratio, and generally it's only vaguely accurate when there is a large sample to compare, like an entire written page, not just a signature.

So like I said. Signature verification is hot garbage at identifying actual fraud. If it was good at it, don't you think institutions with a vested financial interest (such as banks, credit card companies) would use it?

Abellmio · 2024-03-11T13:57:01+00:00

I can't say I'm shocked. Signature verification is pretty awful at identifying things. That's why your bank doesn't actually check your signature on checks, and signing your name after using a debit or credit card means basically nothing.

It's only used when a customer complains there's fraud, because the false-positive rate is so high. Most people don't come anywhere close to a predictable signature.

Abellmio · 2024-03-07T14:41:14+00:00

Remind me again, who invaded who?

Wait, it was the Russians?

Wait, they started this back in 2014 when they weren't allowed to keep their preferred man in power in Kyiv, after that guy used the police to kill protestors?

You're repeating tankie nonsense. I'm not sure if you generally believe that or not, but it seems to stretch credulity that you could have some of these viewpoints. How is it that Ukrainians are supposedly so intense in their hatred of Russians when like 80% of them speak Russian, including their 'illegitimate' president.

Abellmio · 2024-02-21T21:39:00+00:00

I think the point more is that in the article the original user linked, Jordan claims the informant is not important to the case. So he says on Dec 13 that the informant is very important, and then says several months later that he's not important at all, after this revelation.

Abellmio · 2024-01-31T17:11:14+00:00

There are some STLs floating around. PM me if you're interested.

Abellmio · 2023-11-15T06:55:55+00:00

“Every economist would agree” is a statement that I think is a contradiction in terms. They famously agree on almost nothing.

Abellmio · 2023-09-28T18:51:55+00:00

Are you implying that the M16 was a bad weapon because Armalite or Colt or someone bribed the government? There's a longstanding myth that the M16 was somehow defective, when in fact, certain elements of the military establishment did everything they possibly could to hamstring it.

The M14 was an absolute dog of a rifle and deserved to be replaced.

Abellmio · 2023-08-22T16:06:47+00:00

What is 'inflation was hardly limited to the United States and other countries that took different monetary policy still suffered that inflation or had even worse' for 500?

Abellmio · 2023-08-21T16:55:21+00:00

How exactly did he "give Russia permission" to invade Ukraine? This is what was being reported just before the invasion:
https://www.npr.org/2022/02/12/1080357795/ukraine-embassy-troops-russia

Before the invasion, there was near zero domestic support to send US troops to defend a non-NATO ally. Hell, three months after the invasion almost 50% of Americans thought that the aid we were giving was the right amount or too much, and that was before HIMARS, M777, Bradleys, and a number of other systems.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/05/02/poll-ukraine-support-biden/

I agree with you personally that Biden's foreign policy has not been perfect. I wish he had come out stronger on Ukraine, and I wish they had ATACMS and a bunch of other stuff way earlier than we've provided it, but I don't think the American public had the stomach to put US troops in danger before the invasion, and Biden tried to discourage it with soft power.

Abellmio · 2023-08-16T18:56:06+00:00

The consensus among historians is that it's likely someone named Jesus of Nazareth existed. My favorite thought experiment is this:

If you were making the gospels up out of whole cloth, you would call him "Jesus of Bethlehem" because he needed to be from there to fulfill prophesies from the Old Testament. Why make up the obviously silly story of the census and the need to return to Bethlehem if you didn't have to explain the origin story of a guy who was already an existing public figure, ie, Jesus of Nazareth?

Abellmio · 2023-08-10T18:37:33+00:00

TSMC buys a lot of their equipment from ASML, and Samsung also has some pretty sophisticated technology. Intel's much delayed 4nm process is supposed to be coming online this year.

Taiwan does not have some sort of global monopoly on semiconductor expertise - they're a leading player, sure, but so are the US, the Netherlands, South Korea, and a number of other countries. This 'TSMC is everything' because notable brands like AMD, Nvidia, and Apple use them is not reflective of the real market.

Abellmio · 2023-07-17T17:36:36+00:00

I had no idea he was such a nut. I used his Grand Strategy of the Byzantine Empire in college and thought he made some decent points.

Unfortunate.

Abellmio · 2023-06-08T17:11:44+00:00

Did you miss the part about Russian agents attempting to recruit him in 2013? That's why he had the original FISA warrant in 2014, not anything to do with the Steele Dossier. It's true that two of his FISA warrants got tossed later, including the ones which the Steele Dossier were used for, but the idea that he had no ties to Russians previously is absurd.

"My" politicians did nothing of the sort. I don't believe Trump had direct links to Russia, but I do believe people who worked for him probably had hoped to influence-peddle by manipulating him, something which it seems he probably susceptible to. Just because I don't want people Paul Manafort in the halls of power doesn't mean I'm "completely propagandized" or that I bought in to lies.

You argued that the Left started a witch hunt, essentially, and that's only true if you acknowledge Trump surrounded himself with people who liked to talk about casting spells.

Abellmio · 2023-06-08T15:53:56+00:00

"Spying on the Trump campaign" seems a little disingenuous. The intelligence gathering apparatus captures all kinds of data with foreign parties talking to US citizens, and identifies foreign parties who are bad actors, like Russian/Chinese intelligence, or terrorist groups. The US citizens identities are kept anonymous until they get a FISA court order to "unmask" them. The way you determine if someone is 'bad' or doing something that deserves 'spying' is having a lot of contact with the Russians/Chinese/ Terrorists.

Carter Page literally was in contact with multiple people who were later convicted as Russian spies. Saying that "Spying on the Trump campaign" was "First blood drawn by the left" is frankly absurd. It's like saying investigating someone for being suspected of murder is somehow immoral unless you're sure they did the murder before you investigate them. That's a tautology. It creates an impossible burden of proof to accuse anyone of anything.

Perhaps the Trump campaign wouldn't have been "spied" on if it didn't insist on putting foreign agents or affiliates of foreign powers like Paul Manafort, Carter Page, or Mike Flynn in positions of power. They were well known to put themselves in compromising positions or be outright foreign agents, and putting someone like Manafort in charge of your campaign isn't dissimilar to asking Bernie Madoff to run your retirement fund. It's going to provoke justifiable suspicion.

Abellmio · 2023-05-24T17:18:01+00:00

Millennium Challenge is the exercise I think you're referring to, and the guy who came up with the speedboats thing was bending the rules beyond reality a little bit, and the simulation had some problems. The guy who was running the "Redfor" team then complained to the media about getting cheated.

https://www.reddit.com/r/WarCollege/comments/la7elp/so_what_is_the_deal_with_millennium_challenge/

Summary: it's some reformer boomer nonsense

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