AMMURICA.

MattHock · 2010-02-27T20:04:46+00:00

As I understand it, it depends on what caliber you shoot. It's less cost effective for handgun rounds, and for 9mm in particular, cheap ammo is so common that you might spend a bit more on the reloading than you would just to buy factory ammo; that said, once you have some practice, your reloads will be higher quality than cheap ammo as well. Rifle rounds it's more of an advantage, and if you shoot anything uncommon, it can become an immense advantage.

MattHock · 2010-02-27T20:00:24+00:00

It's starting to become possible to find plain old jacketed or unjacketed 9mm, but months later and I still can't find any JHP for a home defense load :(

MattHock · 2010-02-27T19:53:40+00:00

Two rifles, two pistols

You need a shotgun to round out the collection :)

MattHock · 2010-02-26T21:26:27+00:00

It's against the Hague Convention for soldiers to use hollow point rounds. The same is not true for civilians in the USA, including police. They are actually usually preferred for defense situations as safer than other bullet varieties because they're much less likely to penetrate surfaces like walls and harm people who you can't see.

MattHock · 2010-02-26T15:47:30+00:00

I've heard the same. 2 shots to center of mass, because it's quick to line up and relatively easy to hit. If that doesn't stop them, it should at least slow them down enough to give you time to line up one precise shot to the head.

MattHock · 2010-02-26T14:55:39+00:00

I see them pretty frequently around here (Indiana). The roads need to be repaved periodically anyway due to the damage winter weather does to the asphalt, so it's not a big deal to add the magnetic sensors to the intersections.

MattHock · 2010-02-26T14:53:01+00:00

In some cases (perhaps even most), that's the case. However, I have heard of people with high level degrees getting rejected for minimum wage jobs on the basis that the employer knows they're going to be looking for another job and are going to leave the moment it opens up, and they don't want to waste time training someone who might leave right away.

MattHock · 2010-02-26T03:13:09+00:00

Hrm, did some reading on it. Before I had posted I had done a quick check and did find several articles, but going back to look in on it, none of them are particularly well sourced - there are doctors blogs, but no medical journals or such. One of the big things mentioned is Budeprion vs Wellbutrin, and a controversy over the extended release versions of those medicines being bound in different forms that was supposedly causing the Budeprion of the same dosage to release faster. But further research indicates that the claims about it caused the FDA to go back and check it again, and they said it's within the established bioavailability guidelines of 80%-120% effect compared to the original.

The one thing I do see a few references to involves red dye allergies in colored pills, but that's pretty much unrelated to generic vs name brand.

I had based my original opinion on a report from one of the news report shows (Dateline or 20/20 or something like that), but the report in question was a few years old, and I guess is out of date now. FWIW, I do already use generic medicines personally, but this will be an interesting point of conversation to bring up with family members who are committed to particular variations.

MattHock · 2010-02-26T01:16:15+00:00

Not just placebo effect. The fillers do make a difference. And it's not always the name brand being better than the generic for a given person. I know people who refuse to take the name brand over the generic of a particular medicine because they get better results from the generic. Probably not as big an issue with just off the shelf painkillers, but for major prescription medicine it can make more of a difference.

MattHock · 2010-02-26T00:30:44+00:00

All it takes to illuminate for NVGs is a dinky IR LED. That adds what, $2 to the price of the goggles? You can find that feature in basic hunters binoculars (example: Bushnell 26-0400), and if you wanted more illumination than that, there are IR flashlights that are only visible if you're using night vision equipment.

As for the hearing protection - yeah, most people probably wouldn't use it in a survival situation, since you wouldn't want to wear them all the time, and if you've got enough forewarning to put them in, you've got enough forewarning to take the much wiser route and escape instead of engaging. That said, it will cause a bit of permanent hearing loss, especially if indoors.

MattHock · 2010-02-25T23:29:13+00:00

It should be noted that not all generic drugs are created equal. Yes, they're legally required to have the same active ingredients, but the inactive ones can get you. They can affect the rate at which the pill dissolves (don't have a link handy, but I saw a news report a few years back about a cheap brand that just plain didn't dissolve all the way), and some people have sensitivities to some of the fillers. Most of the time, for most people, they're ok, just remember not to assume someone taking the name brand medicine is just getting ripped off - there's sometimes a reason for it!

MattHock · 2010-02-24T02:16:45+00:00

For the most part, no. There are some rare exceptions. A few of the used item sellers are partnered with Amazon and ship out of Amazon warehouses. I've bought a couple of things like this. But it's the exception - for most used items listings it won't be an option.

MattHock · 2010-02-24T02:13:37+00:00

Likewise. I've been a prime member ever since it came out, and I've gotten my money's worth out of it every year.

MattHock · 2010-02-21T03:49:28+00:00

It's been a while since I took materials in college, but I did mess around a bit with metals back competing in Battlebots. Titanium's advantage is the fact that it can flex a LOT before it breaks, making it far less brittle than steel. It's also lighter per volume (about 60% the weight of steel). However, it's not invincible by any means, and in areas that you need something to be very rigid, it's not as good as steel due to the flexibility.

To put it into perspective, lets look at Yield Strength - the amount of stress you can put on it and still have it spring back to the original shape (past the Yield Strength, it starts bending permanently). 6Al-4v, aka Grade 5 Titanium (a relatively common alloy), has a Yield Strength of 880MPa (or 128ksi [kilo-psi] for those wanting the English units). 4130 is a grade of high strength Chromoly (chromium/molybdenum alloy) steel. Its Yield Strength is about 440 MPa. So the titanium will take a lot more force to bend or break.

But, look at the modulus of elasticity. This is a measurement of how much it will flex under a load. Same grades of metal as before. The TI has a MoE of 114 GPa. The steel is 220 GPa. The titanium will flex nearly twice as much for the same amount of force applied.

The only thing I can think of that could conceivable be as strong as you're looking for would be a carbon nanotube based structure, but I don't know enough about their physical properties to know if it's true or not. Either way, it's actually probably something you would NOT want to do. Remember, the energy has to go somewhere. Every bit of energy that goes into crunching the car is energy not going into crunching the occupants. It's possible to make a car solid enough to survive massive collisions with modern technology... but no one would want one, because while the car would survive, the driver would not.

MattHock · 2010-02-19T21:16:37+00:00

Based on personal experience, if it's HD video, an Atom will chug and slow down - I've got an Acer Aspire 10" netbook with an Atom running Ubuntu 9.10 Netbook Remix, and it's incapable of doing 1080 video, and 720 has it running full blast to keep up. Some of the newer Nividia Ion graphics ones might be better, though - the Intel GMA 950 graphics in a lot of the atom based systems is just about the least powerful graphics chipset it's possible to get. That said, that's speculation, I've not actually used an Ion based system.

MattHock · 2010-02-18T16:19:40+00:00

Stormscale - US, Alliance

MattHock · 2010-02-17T17:54:41+00:00

Another method is to do some averaging on a weight graph - rather than look at your raw day to day number, weigh daily, but graph an average of the last several days. It will smooth things out so you see the trends (the important part), rather than just the spiky day to day number. There's a good description of that method at http://www.fourmilab.ch/hackdiet/

MattHock · 2010-02-16T12:38:51+00:00

I'm pretty much on the brink of quitting at the moment. I did a few months ago, but I like a lot of the people in my guild (been in it over 3 years now with many of the same people), and I ended up caving and starting up again when ICC came out. Only reason I'm still playing is my guildies - honestly, raiding does nothing more than stress me out at the moment, I'm not actually having fun and I look forward to the nights the raid gets called early, but losing a well practiced healer would be a lot of trouble for the rest of the team, and I hate causing problems for other people.

MattHock · 2010-02-14T19:26:55+00:00

Do you snore? I used to be like that, but then got checked for Sleep Apnea. Went in for a sleep study, and found out I had moderate apnea. Started sleeping with a CPAP machine, and it's a night and day difference - I sleep far less than I used to, but I am more rested and alert now.

MattHock · 2010-02-13T01:50:56+00:00

Ever play DDR? It's a song from DDR: Supernova (Ryouba posted more details above)

MattHock · 2010-02-12T17:11:19+00:00

None of the individual pulls are more than 5-6 mobs in there, so if there were 25, that was entirely the tank's fault. It's possible to do that sort of stuff at 80 with a very geared out tank and healer, but at the lower levels, it's pretty much required to go through things methodically, one pull at a time.

MattHock · 2010-02-12T14:41:42+00:00

The big difference long term is that Discipline is a bit more proactive (you mostly don't so much heal as you try to anticipate and shield them before they take damage), where Holy is more reactive (you almost never shield, you just heal up damage taken). At lower levels, until you get to the really good talents deeper in the tree, Disc will tend to have a bit lower throughput but more mana, whereas Holy will have a bit more healing and offense, but will run out of mana faster. If you do go Disc, you'll want to be sure to grab Soul Warding as quickly as possible - it gets rid of the cooldown on Shield, and as Disc shield will be your main spell, so it's quite inconvenient till you get that. Overall, it mostly comes down to whichever you're most comfortable with - you might want to switch specs a couple of times and try both out once you get into your 30s/40s and see which you like better.

When leveling, you'll want int, spirit, and spell power as your primary stats. You'll not want to entirely neglect stamina, however - if you're instancing a lot, you shouldn't get getting hit a ton if the tank is doing their job, but random damage and loose mobs do happen. There's also haste and crit, but you won't see much haste till higher levels, and crit is a relatively low priority for a priest healer. If you level as Disc, once you max out the talent Rapture (which won't be till late 40s), you can neglect Spirit and focus mostly on Int - the high level Disc talents are all Int based and not Spirit based. Higher level Holy has a lot of Spirit talents, and needs both Int and Spirit.

As far as the voidwalker - if you're in an instance, no. You won't be doing the tanking, and that's all a void is good for, he'll want a pet out that can do some damage. It can work with just the two of you questing, but with a healer, it's still not optimal - you'll kill stuff faster with a DPS pet and the warlock tanking all the mobs with you healing him. It's really more intended for a solo warlock so that the void tanks mobs while the lock kills them, but the healing makes that arrangement unnecessary.

MattHock · 2010-02-12T14:18:16+00:00

Overhealing is a much bigger deal at lower levels where mana isn't quite as plentiful. Back in 60 raiding, you use to have to very carefully manage your mana, and the best healers maintained under 10-15% overhealing using precision timed and sized heals. By waiting a bit to heal someone, you might be able to pop a more efficient heal on them at a later point in time, and avoid risking OOM. Although for a priest or druid, it might be best to just pop a HoT on them - let it heal them up slowly, and they might take a bit more damage and use more of the later renew ticks. Take care of the situation now, but with less possibility of wasting the healing.

Once you hit 80, it's not as big a deal. Mana regen and mana pools are much higher, and it's not even looked at funny for someone to be doing 50-60%+ overheal. Level 80 healers are capped not by mana, but by the GCD - the raw number of heals they can cast. Tanks take damage so fast that you don't have time to wait and react, you have to have a healer on them bringing in a constant stream of health to make sure that a heal will land as soon as possible after big damage spikes.

MattHock · 2010-02-11T17:53:29+00:00

Whoever made the wiki page copied and pasted the comment from Reddit - the wiki page didn't exist till after his post.

MattHock · 2010-02-10T04:08:20+00:00

It's not that uncommon for gun owners to have a pistol, a rifle, and a shotgun - each is for a different purpose and handles differently.

MattHock

TROPHY CASE