I’m curious how hard it would be for a typical user to chain VPNs together so that my traffic went sequentially through VPNs. In theory it seems like VPN #1 would know that it was connected to my home and VPN #2, so it couldn’t tell where data was originating. VPN #2 could see the site that was being accessed and VPN #1, but not me.

I have no idea if it actually works this way in practice through.

Off the top of my head, the only one that I’ve watched in recent memory was Fallout.

That’s okay, I’ll ramp up my piracy of Amazon-exclusive shows in 2025 too.

Imagine trying to argue that DUI laws shouldn’t exist because when you have had one beer you’re fine

Eh, except you probably aren’t. Depending on the state, your size, the beer, etc., one may be enough to put you over the legal limit.

The big issue is that there’s no difference at all between a 3D printer that’s used to print cute little toys and useful household gadgets, and one that’s used to print a Glock-style frame. It’s the same printer. So it’s absolutely unreasonable to regulate all 3D printers as though they were firearms, but that’s what some states are pushing to do. The second big issue is that the BATF has had regulations for years about what part constitutes a gun, and what parts are unregulated. Now the ATF is changing the rules, and prosecuting people that relied on prior rulings before doing anything.

The ghost gun thing is particularly ridiculous. You’ve always had the right to make your own firearm, and for decades the BATF has said that if a receiver (or frame, or whatever) is only 80% complete, that it’s legally not a firearm (yet). The reason it’s an issue now is that it’s finally easy enough for a regular person to make their own. Once you start regulating a block of metal–or in the case of New York, a 3D printer–as though it was a firearm, where does it realistically end? If I can pay $20,000 for a Haas 5 axis benchtop CNC mill, then a plan block of aluminum is not a ‘gun’ since I can easily mill it to be such.

Katrina was notably bad because of the murders that happened in the name of “stopping looting”. We don’t talk about Hurricane Sandy, for instance, or the Galveston hurricane in the same way that we talk about Katrina, despite the fact that e.g., Galveston killed 4x as many people.

IIRC there’s one part on the Shadow II that’s known to fail at regular intervals, I think the extractor? It’s something that’s well known to competitive shooters, common enough that they keep spares on hand the same way that most competitors keep spare optics batteries on hand. I don’t know that I’d try running a Shadow or Shadow II for thousands of rounds without cleaning, just because it’s got closer tolerances than a CZ-75B. But that’s just me.

Oh, and if you like CZ, check out KMR Arms. KMR does some of CZ’s manufacturing, and also does their own line. Sadly, they aren’t yet generally available in the US due to the general difficulties in importing pistols, but I’ve heard they’re trying to work out distribution. These should be viewed solely as competition guns though rather than tactical or duty firearms; you should probably not be using any of them as a carry gun.

EDIT: A range can probably get away with a little less cleaning, because they limit the ammunition that people can use; they can only sell very clean burning ammunition that won’t leave a ton of powder and copper fouling. Most people that practice on their own use whatever is cheap, which may even be shitty Russian surplus Wolf ammo with lacquered steel cases, and corrosive Berdan primers.

Well, you’re definitely correct about many PDs using revolvers before switching to Glocks. That goes back to the Miami shootout with the FBI; FBI agents were still using revolvers at the time, and they were significantly outgunned b/c one of the suspects was armed with a Ruger Mini-14 rifle. As a result, the FBI started looking for a better sidearm, and the initially settled on 10mm before adopting the .40S&W. Glock managed to bring a .40S&W pistol to market before Smith & Wesson did (!!!), and then charged below cost for PDs in order to convince them to adopt the then-new firearm.

And after finding an article about it, it looks like the NYPD did want to match the pull of their old double-action service revolvers. Which is nuts.

As in, white supremacists and cops murdering unarmed black people that are looking for food and shelter? That kind of bad?

But… That is the safety. A safety is intended to prevent ADs/NDs. And that’s what it’s doing here. If you have your finger on the trigger, then yes, it’s going to do off, and maybe you shouldn’t have your finger on the trigger unless you’re pointing the gun at something you intend to shoot?

The NY Glock trigger is, IIRC, for NYPD, so that cops aren’t “accidentally” shooting unarmed people. Because clearly it was an accident that they shoot unarmed people multiple times…

Glocks are among the most popular handguns, period. That’s because they work, and they work consistently, even with poor maintenance and cheap ammunition.

If you try running your expensive Staccato 2011 without cleaning it every few hundred rounds, you’re going to be guaranteed to have jams. A Glock? You can get about 3000 rounds at a range between cleaning.

Right. The John Sturges that was born in 1910 was directing films in 1890, twenty years before his birth, and also pioneered color and sound films several decades prior to their patents. Cool.

You’re not a very effective or amusing troll.

My experience has been that executives don’t usually have a solid grasp of how things work at ground level. They’re good for vision and overall direction, but can have… peculiar ideas about how to get there. Good management makes sure things go in the direction that executives want, without the executives interfering in actual processes.

This does assume that executives aren’t actually malicious though, and same with management.

Some of them certainly did. My younger brother, for instance. He’s quite literally a psychopath. There’s no cure for him, no rehabilitation that would fix him. The best that can be done is keeping him out of society for as long as possible. He was in and out of juvie starting at about 11.

People think this without a hint of irony, and yet have never worked in a place without management. Good management improves productivity and efficiency, while also shielding workers from executives. Bad/no management almost always leads to chaos.

It’s like the whole idea of not having leaders; it’s a great theory, but it assumes that everyone is capable of working together perfectly towards the same goal, when the reality is that not everyone has the same goal.

Middlemen, etc., are trading in knowledge. They know who can do what, and decrease duplication of effort.

The Magnificent Seven was released on October 12, 1960.

The Seven Samurai was released in 1954, six years prior.

A number of Kurosawa films have been remade for American audiences. Take The Hidden Fortress; it was remade as Star Wars. Meanwhile, Kurosawa did take inspiration from western playwrights, such as Shakespeare’s MacBeth (Throne of Blood) and King Lear (Ran).

And, BTW, I happen to absolutely love chanbara, especially and including the schlock garbage like Sleepy Eyes of Death, Zatoichi, Lady Snowblood, Lone Wolf and Cub, and especially Hanzo the Razor. Samurai film share a lot of similarities with western films, and many of the low-budget sword-fighting films were modeled after the western genre films (only with a funk and jazz soundtrack).

Kurosawa Akira’s The Seven Samurai was released in 1954. John Sturges’ The Magnificent Seven was released in 1960.

So, uh, first, The Magnificent Seven was the remake, not the other way around, and second, it comes only 6 years after the inspiration, rather than close to a century. If The Magnificent Seven had been made 80 years prior to The Seven Samurai, it would have been made in 1874. …Which would have been before some of the firearms used in the film were even invented, and only 10 years after the US Civil War.

One of my favorites that I don’t often see mentioned is Upgrade. It’s very nearly perfect as a near-future cyberpunk dystopia.

…80 or 90 years? You sure 'bout that?