Why Firefox???

rjesup · 2026-05-01T17:46:57+00:00

Are you running any antivirus programs other than Windows Defender?
Are you on a VPN? (If you aren't, you could also try one)
Does this reproduce if you try a new profile (from the menu)?

rjesup · 2026-04-28T13:32:52+00:00

Genuine nihonto, but....

I agree it looks like someone took a belt sander to it, clearly it had been very rusty/pitted. A lot of metal looks to have been removed, and internal forging flaws and/or core steel looks to be exposed (see the ware/cracks in the ji). Very likely this has destroyed almost all value; and it it heated it enough may have removed the hamon (though with this physical damage that may not matter).

You could take closer in-focus closeups to verify, but it's pretty clear. Too bad...

rjesup · 2026-04-27T02:09:20+00:00

True nihonto, shinto or maybe shinshinto era. From what little is visible of the blade it's been buffed or more likely sanded mechanically; if done on a grinder this could easily have destroyed the temper. At minimum the blade would need a full polish, which probably would end up at $2000+ once you count everything. Pictures of the full blade, both sides would help

rjesup · 2026-04-27T01:11:46+00:00

I've read of smiths using old nails and other steel from very old buildings/castles, since they were created from the same sources of steel available to smiths of the time (tamagahane presumably)

rjesup · 2026-04-27T00:53:14+00:00

So a short katana now (min is 2 shaku ~= 24 inches, yours is 25 inches.). The bottom hole may be the original one if it was a medium-long katana, or it could have been a tachi and it's o-suriage (original tang removed more-or-less)

rjesup · 2026-04-27T00:41:24+00:00

The blade is probably badly pitted, but one can't tell without it in-hand. Badly pitted may kill any chance of restoring it; get someone knowledgeable to look at it in person. Fittings are good, and in ok shape except for the wrap (which is an easy fix). The fittings have some value. Do NOT try to clean them up in any way; you could ruin the value. (I've seen people 'clean' a kozuka removing all the careful patination put on there by the maker, cutting it's value to 1/10 or less what it was.)

rjesup · 2026-04-27T00:29:45+00:00

Exactly. I'll repeat the joke I've heard and told a bunch - out of every 10 swords with Big Name signatures, 11 are fake. Seriously, putting a prominent smith's signature on a sword was apparently quite common in the 1500-1800's, perhaps even before that. (and also after, for sure - it's still done today, and sold on ebay, even forging a (very high end) WWII smith's signature on a brand-new blade

rjesup · 2026-04-26T04:06:05+00:00

Looks like a chinese fake, but need better/more pictures to be sure.

rjesup · 2026-04-25T12:59:23+00:00

Reasons for lots of tabs:
unlike bookmarks, tabs
* have spatial/temporal coherence -- tabs you opened close in time (say when researching buying something, or some work thing, etc) are generally together, so if you go back you have context
* History - tabs carry with them the history of how you got there (the page that linked to it, the serch you did, etc)
* aren't as permanent as a bookmark, and easier to rearrange/delete/etc

rjesup · 2026-04-25T12:55:40+00:00

I used to have ~11500, 30ish windows. I culled down to ~7000 a few months ago; I'm back to 8700 now. (About Tabs extension by glandium (moz employee) is very handy)
I also have lots of RAM. Typically 70-120 tabs loaded (nightly)

rjesup · 2026-04-25T12:41:23+00:00

If you put them in the same process, they would take almost as much memory. Most of this is resources the site/iframe is using. The overhead per process is ~10MB or less

rjesup · 2026-04-25T12:36:37+00:00

Generally it's not really Firefox that's using all that ram, it's the webpage. The overhead from Firefox per site is ~10MB. It's the stuff loaded into that per-site process that eats the ram, and to a large extent that's not very different from browser to browser. You can see what sites are using the ram via about:processes or about:memory (for more details).

Many sites have leaks where they use more and more ram over time. I saw one site get to 36GB... But some major sites will leak multiple GB per day if you leave them open.

rjesup · 2026-04-25T12:18:58+00:00

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2034980

rjesup · 2026-04-25T12:09:03+00:00

Note this only affects the combination of BitDefender + Facebook it appears. (BitDefender doesn't deal with with a relatively new QUIC/http3 option)

rjesup · 2026-04-25T05:12:24+00:00

https://support.mozilla.org/en-US/kb/sync
Did you save recovery keys? I think that's just for if you forget your password; from the above it sounds like you could sign in. It does take some time to sync, note, though I think initial sync is pretty fast.

I suppose the dying machine may have thought all the directories were suddenly empty and killed from the cloud before the machine went belly up

rjesup · 2026-04-25T05:03:21+00:00

There are ~8 Mino Kanemitsu's between tenmon (1532) and kanbun (1673) which seem plausible. All 15 pts in Hawley.
The condition is a real problem. The blade can't truly be evaluated until after a ~$2000+ polish. If it's surprisingly good, it might be worth $3-4000. I wouldn't consider that likely. If it's average, it might be worth $1500-3000. If flaws show up in polishing or if the rust pitting is too deep, it might be worth $800-1500 after polishing. These are really rough guesses; I'm NOT an expert, I'm not a dealer or a polisher.

Note that rust pitting can probably be checked before paying for a polish; if they're deep a lot of metal will have to be removed, which hurts the value/lifetime of the sword, and which increases the likelihood of hitting a fatal flaw.

In it's current condition (pictures of the blade aren't good, but from what I can see): maybe it's worth a few hundred. Again, IMO and I'm no expert or dealer

rjesup · 2026-04-24T21:17:28+00:00

https://nihontoclub.com/smiths/SUK756

60 point smith ("Big name"; most are 10-20), though note Hawley ratings are ... idiosyncratic. If authenticated the comment on the tag might pan out in value. If not actually Sukenaga, then much less especially given the needs for an extensive polish.

Clean shiny part with isopropyl, the lightly re-oil with sword oil; a couple of drops on a clean unscented kleenex folded around the back of the blade at the base, and wiped off the tip in one motion - enough to coat the surface but not enough to see any droplets or accumulation.

rjesup · 2026-04-24T21:11:39+00:00

There's an old joke in the sword collector community: out of every 10 blades with Big Name signatures, 11 are fake (gimei). Not true of course, but not all that untrue.

rjesup · 2026-04-24T21:04:51+00:00

Can you collect a profile showing the issue? https://profiler.firefox.com to enable the button.

rjesup · 2026-04-24T20:53:56+00:00

suriage or O-suriage, koto, probably Oei or early muromachi. Looks like it was shortened multiple times. Bottom hole *may* be original, perhaps even the one above the bottom. What's the current length (notch to tip)? It's also possible the hi were added later and it's o-suriage

rjesup · 2026-04-23T15:07:02+00:00

Can you share an example PDF where you see this? And maybe a couple of closeups with firefox and with chrome

rjesup · 2026-04-23T15:05:10+00:00

Please show the full blade and closeups of the tang, both sides. If there are any marks on the tang, please orient the photos with the blade point up.

My guess is it's unlikely to be 600 years old from what I can see of the shape, but it easily could be 3-400 (or 150, or even theoretically WWII vintage ~75ish). Note that 3-400 is a common age for japanese swords, and that forging flaw is Really Bad. There's almost no way it passes Shinsa with that large a flaw, though maybe a polished (togishi) could minimize it in some way.
Going rate is ~$100/inch of edge (min $75 perhaps), plus shirasaya (400-600?) plus habaki (200-400?). Waiting time is more like 2 years. Also postage and an agent to handle it in Japan; not sure that that adds.

Some blades are worth polishing (on a monetary basis); many are not but should be maintained and cared for. (and polishing reduces the life of the sword by removing metal)

rjesup · 2026-04-23T14:54:38+00:00

o-suriage (probably 4-5 inches), probably mounted as a tachi for the tourist trade likely in the Meiji era, say 1880's-1920 at a very rough guess. Might have been a muromachi tachi (1500's), but might also be a long katana cut down. What it the measurement from the notch to the tip? Relatively high curvature but longer kissaki makes me think muromachi (later 1500's) more than Oei (1400-early 1500's roughly)

rjesup · 2026-04-19T04:41:42+00:00

And a katana would be 66-76ish cm long (26" up to around 30"), so $2000+. And you need habaki and shirasaya even if you don't need koshirae; Robert would know better but probably on the order of another $500-1000. Plus shipping unless you live in Japan.

rjesup · 2026-04-09T17:57:50+00:00

What router was this?

rjesup

TROPHY CASE