In re: TERFs, transgender people make up a very small part of the general population, roughly .5%. The odds that any given TERF would get picked up by an UBER driver that is a transwoman are very low.

I suspect–and I’d need to be checked on this–that you would need to have gotten your gender marker changed on your driver’s license in order for Uber to correctly identify your gender. And that makes it an even smaller subset of trangender people that could trigger TERFs. OTOH, I could absolutely see a TERF going ballistic over a cisgender woman that wasn’t fully gender-conforming…

The fact that the cancelled in the face of public pressure means nothing; they can always resume the partnership once the pressure subsides.

10% is pretty close to a controlling interest, since many shares never vote at meetings.

Ask them if they’ve read Ammon Bundy’s piece about immigration, and ask them what they think of it. Keep in mind that Bundy is pretty far right in almost every way, but almost all of his right-wing militia buddies have abandoned him on this.

IMO he’s arrived at the right conclusion, but his reasons–because god–are nonsense. It’s going to be interesting to see how his worldview changes as he realizes that most of the people that he thought were True Believers like him were only allies of convenience.

In my job, I need to use materials that have a mil spec; that means it’s literally military grade, but it’s just saying that it meets or exceeds a certain specification for X product that is used in the military in some way. IMO, if something says ‘military grade’, but isn’t listing the mil spec(s) that it complies to, then it’s essentially meaningless.

I do have a compass that I think was advertised as military grade. It’s the same lensatic compass that is currently used by the military (…when they aren’t using GPS…), except that it doesn’t use tritium on the face. The half-life of tritium is about a decade, so it didn’t seem like a great idea to pay a ton extra for something that would barely glow in the dark in 20 years or so.

That’s like saying that it’s inevitable that murder and rape will happen.

Just because someone is going to do it eventually doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t have the death penalty for doing it.

The proprietary cartridge design kills it, IMO. It’s like making a super-gucci AR-15, but then it only uses your mags, and your mags cost $150/ea., v. $20 for a Magpul.

Don’t fucking buy Mira products; they’re overpriced Czech surplus. The OM-90 is the Czech designation for Mira’s CM-7M, and you can get them for $90 on eBay, vs. the $450 or so that Mira charges.

Honestly, get yourself an M-40 that’s in good shape, buy a 40mm-to-3M-bayonet adapter, use some 3M P-100 cartridges (you can get them for about $2/ea. when you buy in bulk). P-100 will filter out all particulates–even finer particulates than a HEPA filter or N-95–and will also filter out water- and oil-based aerosols. That covers all riot-control agents, because CN, CS, and OC are all aerosols, and not true gasses. Almost any surplus gas mask that’s been made in the last ~30 years, seals, and uses a 40mm NATO cartridge is going to be just fine for riot-control agents.

If you are really worried about a P-100 filter being insufficient, get a few new old-stock NBC filters. NBC (nuclear, biological, chemical) filters were phased out about 15-20 years ago in favor of CBRN (chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear) filters, but if they haven’t been used, they’ll be absolutely okay for riot agents.

If you wear glasses–and many people do–get a spectacle insert for whatever mask you have. Glasses break the seal, and while you will probably be fine with contacts in, that’s not necessarily a good risk to take. Supposedly the Kris Optical Mag-1 glasses can be worn under a mask without compromising the seal, but I can’t personally attest to that. I think that they’re one of the older styles of BCGs that were issued, but I’m not sure.

Oh, and get GOOD hearing protection. Consider high-end electronic ear muffs, and wearing ear plugs under them. Some places are using LRADs to disperse crowds, and those can wreck your hearing.

N95 is insufficient. You want a P100 filter cartridge; P100 will filter out oil-based and water-based aerosols, as well as all particulates. They will not filter out true gasses, but, good news!, CN, CS, and OC are all aerosols, not gasses.

No. Avon still exists, they have the current contract to make the M-50 gas mask. (Which, BTW, is not compatible with standard NATO CBRN 40mm cartidges.)

It’s not my Walther; it’s my partner’s, and they got the F version specifically because the reduced spring power on the slide makes cycling it easier. But the reduced spring power also makes it less likely to go fully into battery without a very firm grip. In general, the Walther PDPs are very nice guns, but the F versions have to make some trade-offs to work for smaller/weaker hands.

Me, I’ve got a CZ Shadow II Compact (I would have gotten the Carry, but that came out a month or two after I got the Compact). Love it. I went from using an inexpensive steel boat-anchor of a double-stack .40S&W/10mm 1911 in matches to the CZ.

For anyone that reads this, with the time for a gunfight that ArcaneSlime notes, .8 seconds for a draw from concealment and a single shot on target in the A zone is ‘competitive’. You should practice to get to that point. I’m not there, and I need to practice to get there myself.

…'Cuz carrying a gun isn’t like a magic talisman. It doesn’t make you safer to carry a gun unless you practice, and practice a lot. No one wants to get in a gun fight unless they’re either psychotic, suicidally stupid, or both.

Stovepipes are pretty common if you limp-wrist your pistol. Similarly, some pistols don’t go back into battery if you don’t keep a rock-solid grip on the gun (I know for certain that this is an issue with the Walther PDP-F). Hang fires are something I wouldn’t worry about in a gun fight; if it doesn’t go bang, immediately cycle the slide and drop the round. Squibs on the other hand… If you get one of those, well, you aren’t shooting with that gun any more, not until you can clear it. If it goes pop instead of BANG, then you definitely should not try a second time.

Honestly, if you, as a non-cop/non-military person are in a gunfight, the odds that you will need to reload are incredibly low. The biggest reason to carry a spare magazine along with your carry gun is so that you can drop your mag and swap out if you have some kind of failure. But even that is highly unlikely, assuming that you have bought a reputable firearm in the first place (e.g., not KelTec, Taurus, or a Sig P320), and have kept it maintained. Keep in mind that gun fights outside of police standoffs and military engagements are almost always very, very fast; like, less than five seconds most of the time.

…But what happens when your second magazine runs out? What then?

Let’s say that I have a gun that normally has a seven round magazine. I add a second magazine. Now I’ve got 14 rounds! …But why not just make a 14 round magazine? And now when I run out, I have to change two magazines. (FWIW, normal capacity for a semi-auto 9mm is 13-18 rounds, and 15 is about average. 7 is the OEM capacity of all traditional .45ACP 1911 pistols.)

IMO adding a secondary magazine, rather than increasing the capacity of an existing magazine, adds needless complexity. Added complexity increases the odds of failure. I hate to say that this is a skill issue, but, well, changing a magazine quickly is a skill that you should practice if you want to be proficient in practical shooting. (By “practical shooting”, I mean things like IPSC, IDPA, USPSA, PCSL, three gun, steel challenge, self-defense, and war. You shouldn’t need to worry about rapid magazine changes for hunting or long range competitions.)

Unfortunately they’re pretty failure prone; they’ve got some small plastic parts that tend to break. Being pump guns, they’re also at risk of short-stroking, where you don’t fully complete a cycle, and jam your shotgun.

It’s a great idea, KelTec just needs to iron out the bugs.

It’s not from the past. It’s a current letter, as are ß, ð, and æ. They’re just not currently used for writing English, even though the sounds are common. For instance, ægishjálmur, scheiße, Oðínn. Both the eth and thorn are used in modern Icelandic, the sharp s in German, and ae is used in multiple Germanic languages.

The problem is that the website doesn’t allow some of the critical features that the app allows, such as depositing checks. IIRC there are a few things that I was trying to do–link accounts for payments, I think?–where I had to use the banking app.

Haven’t tried NewPipe yet. I currently use YouTube for specific videos, and I’m usually operating it from a private tab in my browser through a VPN, rather than the app. (So far I’m not getting served ads that way, although sometimes I have to skip to different countries to get around sign-in nags.)

Banking apps are the one thing that worries me. My prior bank didn’t allow rooted phones to be used for online banking; I haven’t made an attempt with my current phone. Given that I now live in a… Rather remote part of the country, access to online banking is fairly important.

Disappointing.

I bought one of their phones nearly a year ago. The UI was… Not great, IMO, but I was able to re-skin it. The SD card slot was the biggest reason for me. Well, now I know taht my next phone is going to be a Pixel with Graphene installed.

Batteries are quite expensive. Lead-acid batteries are readily available, but don’t really work well for powering a house on a regular basis, because they don’t have a very long life cycle. LiON batteries work very well, but they’re fire hazards. Even worse, if you live in an area where you get freezing temperatures, they must be kept inside, because they can’t be allowed to freeze if you’re cycling them. LiFePO4 is the current best option. If you don’t charge them above 80, 85%, and never discharge below 20%, you should have a nearly infinite lifespan. But that means that for every 30kWh of power you use, you want 50kWh of battery. And currently LiFePO4 battery banks run approx. $1000/kWh (+/- depending on band). If you heat your home with electricity, and you live in e.g. North Dakota, you’re going to want more like 200kWh of batteries, because even high efficiency heat pumps can suck a lot of power when it’s -20F.

I’m currently working on getting a 17.7kW system approved by the local utility. It looks like I’ll need to step down what I’m feeding into the grid, because the line capacity out where I live is only 10kW, and they will only approve 75% of the line capacity for grid-tied systems.

I have priced out gym equipment, because I live 100 miles from the nearest “city” (…which is, like 20,000 people).

At $30/mo for a gym membership, it would take me >15 years to pay for a decent, mid-range power rack, Olympic bars, and bench. And that’s not including the weights themselves, which are usually $2-5/pound. A decent elliptical machine from eBay? Another 2 years, plus a year and a half for shipping.

If you’re serious about weights, and not independently wealthy, it almost always makes more sense to have a gym membership.