Toxn
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Everything posted by Toxn
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No, there are just a lot of them and they get used a lot. So any given day at the mall is likely to include the arrival of some of the folk I described above to put in/take out cash from the machines. -
It gets really strange because we have a shittonne of ATMs here (along with every spaza shop and streetside stall having a card reader) so you bump into these dudes all the time. They all seem to get the same uniform (in blue or black): cap, button-up shirt, trousers, black lace-up boots, flak jacket (with a few mags in the pouch), R5 and fuck-off stare. There might be a sidearm, utility belt or sunglasses if the guard was feeling really creative that day. These guys are letting the side down by taking SMGs and shotguns to work. Obligatory image of someone's day going badly wrong:
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I've said this before, but these heavy, short-ranged MRLs strike me as falling into a design niche of their own. Something like a modern-day seige mortar or bombard.
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To be fair, that's a lot of panache right there. Edit: interestingly; the gun I probably see most often in my day-to-day life is the R5 as every police officer, CIT guard and private security guard freaking loves it.
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And then we bought the rights from the Israelis, replaced the wood with plastic and made it a bit longer.
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I think he's just cheesed off because a cyberbaboon becomes Pope in 2164.
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It figures; my musings are Dreher-bait. http://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/pig-man-transgender-biology-modernity/
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I can't actually watch it right now (work internet), but sadly no. Does it contain lots of sketchily-drawn bioroids or something? Edit: Ah, okay.It's the one that's been making the rounds. Here are some others you might like: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=52Gg9CqhbP8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PZbkF-15ObM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RHFFeQ2tu4
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Violence as the seat of power is a tad overblown, as anyone who has tried to run an organisation entirely on it quickly finds out. This is not to say that the monopoly on violence isn't a workable principle, but rather that it can only exist where other factors are present as well (a certain amount of legitimacy, ancillary advantages accrued to supporters etc.). Additionally, commerce seems to exist just fine between nations even when none of them have a monopoly on violence, so your second point is absurd on its face. My point was in any case towards the use of violence et al as techniques in and of themselves (ie: ignoring the role of the actors). This is intuitive, as there is nothing essentially stopping people from doing whatever they can think up, but all applications of effort have limits and qualifications. A man can only hit his neighbour so many times before it becomes preferable to try to kill him rather than do what he says. Similarly, no amount of money provided by the government will make me content to throw myself and my family into a furnace. The way it all works out is that some forms of power are inherently more or less useful in certain contexts than others, and this has predictable ramifications for when and how they are deployed. Thus (for instance) a regime which favours violence cannot be overthrown by actors within it trying to bribe it to death. This is, then, something like an underlying theory for the iron law of oligarchy or Plato's five regimes - an rough mechanical hypothesis to provide a mechanism for a broader sociological trend. You may dispute the power of the theory (because, let's face it, political philosophy is rank bullshit) and, in doing so, point out the places where it holds no explanatory power or predictive merit. But simply quoting another theory at it as a rebuttal is weak.
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In the future, hippie shoots you.
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Interesting comment buried in the basement of an otherwise-boring article: It's interesting to see someone in this day and age applying Toffler's old idea of forms of power, and doing so in a much more coherent way than he could manage. In theory, violence is the crudest form of power - it can only deter and silence, but it is incredibly strong (nobody likes pain). Wealth is a more sophisticated form of power - it can compell both positive and negative action, but is weak (a person may do something for money, but you can't buy back your life). Knowledge and ideas are the most sophisticated form of power - an idea in the right place can guide actions very finely and be hard to compel against (a person may be willing to forgo reward or hazard pain in the service of an ideal). But knowledge/ideas are very difficult to use, and very prone to going astray. In addition, all of the above have attenuation effects. Violence, once used, becomes normalised and thus less effective. Wealth (and its products) depreciates in value as it gets spent. Ideas get attenuated and cannot be infinitely stacked together (you can't get people to believe both in Christianity and Islam at the same time to the point that they're willing to lay their lives on the line for both). As a result, power in societies tends to shift between violence, knowledge, money and back to violence. Violence, after all, can only be countered be more violence (with depreciating returns) or the inherent resolve of ideologically-motivated people. Ideologies, in turn, become weakened and corrupted by wealth - which promises immediate rewards rather than insubstantial benefits. Finally, wealth is destroyed by violence in the way described above. Looked at under this lens, our global society is transitioning from a period in which wealth was the seat of power to one in which violence is.
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South African Empire wins again, son.
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This also caught my eye, especially the comments: http://www.defenceweb.co.za/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=42608:ratel-rolls-zero-injuries&catid=111:sa-defence&Itemid=242
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I'm quite sad that we don't do IFV development very much anymore. At least we can still add camguns to things...
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BlackTailDefense Doesn't Know Shit About Tank Design
Toxn replied to Collimatrix's topic in Mechanized Warfare
I readf it ands I'm perfecatyly finye- 123 replies
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- 5
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- military reform
- tanks
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That is a really weird looking pulsejet on the back. I've never seen a valveless/valved hybrid...
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The coat of plates makes perfect sense in terms of production and tempering of steel sheets. It's just much easier, for all sorts of reasons, to make a small piece of well-tempered steel than a large one.
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I don't like you and I want you to go away: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_g5ZDfFpfPg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KsXYK_CNoQ
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Triggered: http://www.mymodernmet.com/profiles/blogs/los-carpinteros-the-carpenters-aviao
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Seconded on both counts. How big do you expect these animals to be? I should mention here that I met a dude years back who successfully hunted a bush pig using a 1911. But that was an animal in the small deer range. And even then, there's a reason he was notable for doing so.
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Do a pig-shooting run-and-gun and see. RE tactics: I chatted with some of my collegues regarding pig hunting (warthog and bushpig, in this case) and they recommended driving the animals as a good strategy (although they weren't entirely comfortable with it). This is especially useful with bush pigs, because they avoid open ground wherever possible. So add that to the pile of possible approaches here.
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So which one represents the majority here? If it's the former, then our quibbles over ethics etc. are minimal. If the latter, then I'm sure you can understand my distaste.
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Since we've somewhat conflated issues here (something I am completely guilty of), let's look specifically at helicopter hunting: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89UliEiQQyU Not a fan of the music, but the shots look good and there seems to be follow-up on downed animals (even if minimal) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubt19wLNcKM This is what people object to, I think. Shitty music, a plethora of gopros strapped onto everything, taking fairly long distance shots, shooting through brush, no follow-up. Did these guys kill anything? Did they wound anything and then fly away? I don't think they know or care. Edit: this should answer your elephant-hunting question as well.
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Then why are all the other options so distasteful to you? Do you really think that this is the only way forwards? Do you even think this is the best way forwards? What happened to the rest of the ecologist's arsenal that 'shoot them from the air with an LMG' became the one true option?
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If this was neglected during my multi-quote session above, then I apologise. Please read the words though, and tell me if I'm describing all helicopter hog hunters with the term 'spraying down'. Because if that's how the lot of them are doing it - lots of poorly-aimed shots and rapid switching between targets - then I'm not sure how you could defend it in the way you have above. And pointing out the tourist potential (as the folk in the video did) had nothing to do with this? Or is legislation suddenly made with the best of intent and using the best available practice?
