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Right Angle: Backstage (04-27-2021)

A week after Stephen Green’s bang-up job of home remodeling, Scott Ott announces his own home improvement project, bringing in the heavy artillery.

Right Angle: Backstage (04-27-2021)

A week after Stephen Green’s bang-up job of home remodeling, Scott Ott announces his own home improvement project, bringing in the heavy artillery. Thanks to our Members for funding this project.

https://youtu.be/ug8pk0–Pz0

80 replies on “Right Angle: Backstage (04-27-2021)”

Rutgers is a sad shadow of what it was when I went. (Rutgers College Class of 88). Hell, there isn’t even a Rutgers College anymore.

And we had an excellent Classics curriculum back in the day.

No trigger warnings back then.

Speaking of coddling college students (and students in general) reminded me of a sci-fi story I read once where all teaching was done remotely and teachers got paid by the number of students who tuned into the teacher’s channel. So teachers were doing all sorts of things to catch/keep the students’ attention. One woman was doing a sort of perpetual strip-tease; one teacher was doing stand-up comedy, etc. We seem to have gotten to that place, and the teachers, instead of performing to keep students’ attention, are disregarding their responsibility to teach in favor of getting favorable ratings from their students and less flack from their Department Chairs.

I love listening to Backstage while I’m cooking and putzing around the house in the evening. I live alone and listening to the guys chat makes it feel a little less alone. Always entertaining! 🙂

Steve’s joke reminds me of one.
back in the day the is Hoosiers (that’s people form Indiana) and the Kentuckians were not getting along. One day the Kentuckians had finally had enough and wanted to start a war. So they march down to the Banks of the Ohio River and started throwing dynamite. The war last long though. The Hoosiers just lit the dynamite and threw it back.

I want a barbecue apron with “I grill in questionable weather” on it.
Preferably with a caricature (or similar) of Steve, grilling.

I’m pretty sure that would be a good money-raiser for BWN. 😀

I guess that since Backstage is member’s only, it isn’t necessary to blur out Steve’s cup. The only reason I noticed is because the last time Steve had that cup, Scott made an announcement about why his cup was being blurred.
My name is RoadRunner NM, and I am an inveterate Steve Cup Reader.

OK, I don’t recall what it was and the printing is much too small for me to see.
What is (was) it saying? Looks like a list of names?

I looked at it in full screen 1080p mode on a 65 inch monitor and I can’t make out what’s written on it. It’s not intentionally blurred and it’s not pixelated to conceal anything, it’s just not in the camera’s focal plane and the lighting washes out most of it in a reflection anyway. It’s not readable and it’s not concealed, it’s just not picked up well enough by the camera to capture it in a legible manner.

Second time this week we need to tell Steve to up his game. What’s the point of having different mugs if we can’t tell what they are and then make fun of him for it?

I know hey, I stopped the video and even used my desktop zoom function to try to read that mug. No joy. Sometimes I don’t make fun of his mugs. Sometimes I just make fun of him and envy his mug collection. He’s got some pretty cool mugs.

I wonder how big his office or kitchen has to be to hold all of them. I really like the Sinatra one.

You need to make sure your Youtube quality setting is set to the maximum value (720p) to be able to make it out. I believe the default quality level is 240p or 360p, which is too low a resolution to make it out.

Wow, yet another item I wish I had created. That’s brilliant. My GM is am accountant, but his mom was an English teacher. I think I just found his Christmas gift.

It’s going to be a great week for Right Angle!

I love this backstage thing, it makes a subscription worthwhile all on its own. Which is an important point considering that you can watch everything else for free on YouTube and/or Rumble.

Personally I’d like some more depth on the things the guys were talking about right at the end of the video. There is a dearth of good news lately and I’d like to hear more of that sort of thing so I can spread it around a bit.

I’m with Bill on this one. Where did all the money go the last time?
Hey, it’s tax season, let’s look at how your tax dollars are paying for Guatamala “obligations” shall we?
https://foreignassistance.gov/explore is a super fun and easy and…graphical….site where you click on a map and see where the money went! it’s FUN!
And it works for any country! In cool categories like, “Requested, Appropriated, Obligated and Spent”.

Bill & company. I was shown this video this morning. I think you will be able to use it in your RA about the trigger-warning Rutgers professor.
This is an individual who was never exposed to literature in his education. The slightest bad day at work just ruins him, leaving him sobbing in a corner.
Notice the self-abuse, and lashing out at the computer that “betrayed” him.
It’s a 6-year-old’s temper tantrum writ large.

RME … This opening …

Steve, M80s are not “high explosives” they’re low explosives. They’re made from flash powder and have a max shock wave velocity of around <5,000 feet per second (Fps). Flash powder is a “deflagrant”, it converts solid to gas thermally by burning really, really fast. High explosives are “detonants”, they convert from solid to gas all at once, or close enough to all at once for all practical purposes. HE usually has a max shock wave well north of 10,000+ Fps. Deflagrants push, detonants shatter. Nitrocellulose smokeless propellant in a firearm cartridge pushes. You can’t use TNT in your handgun or hunting rifle, the breach and chamber would shatter and the bullet lodged in the remains of the barrel with a wry grin on its face.

To make matters worse … “High explosives and compressed water …”

Water is non-compressible. They covered that in 9th grade physical science class. That’s what makes M80s so deadly to sewer pipes and depth charges so unfriendly to submarines. Or vice-verse if you prefer.

Why is all that important enough for me to comment about? Because there are few or no problems in life that cannot be remedied by the suitable application of a sufficient quantity of high explosives. If you go around trying to fix problems with low explosives you’ll be exposed as a rank amateur. Your problems won’t get fixed and all you do is make a lot of smoke. So …

Sheesh, Mr. Green, lift your game a bit, willya?

And they completely missed the fact that the ‘gender reveal’ story used 80 lb. of Tannerite, not dynamite.
Dynamite would have been an order of magnitude more destructive.

True, that. If you could even get hold of dynamite anymore. Which you can’t because to the best of my knowledge they don’t sell actual “dynamite” (nitroglycerine infused sawdust and clay). You haven’t been able to buy that for several decades. What most people call “dynamite” today is actually quarter strength TNT. That’s not easy to get and takes some regulatory hoop jumpings-through.*

Comparatively easy to get is Kine-Pak which is a binary, we used to use it all the time on the farm. Dad bought it by the case(s) and had an open blasting permit. I was trained in explosive demolitions so I did all the actual blasting. He’d just crack a beer and sit back for the show. It’s always best to have only one person actually handling the blasting materials to prevent accidents. Explosives bite real hard and are very unforgiving.

Sometimes I’d actually make it a show for him too but most of the time well placed properly configured and tamped charges do not make a lot of noise or throw much debris. You want the energy going into the work you’re trying to accomplish (which then absorbs the noise). You don’t want to waste working energy on the atmosphere.

One time I picked a rock out of his lawn (that weighed somewhere in the vicinity of a quarter ton) and rolled it neatly down a little hill into a creek. He lived on the edge of town and his neighbor 200 yards away never heard a thing. I used three charges, one on a .02 delay and the others on standard instant ignition. Two to get it moving and one to push it the direction I wanted it to go.

Tannerite is just an adapted form of NH4NO3 with other goodies included to achieve correct sensitivity and safety. Plus stuff to provide a nice flash and a satisfying cloud of smoke. Besides a high velocity bullet it can also be initiated by primary such as a Hercules #2.

80 lbs. of Tannerite would be comparable to 80 lbs. of Kine-Pak. They are fundamentally the same core materials.

80 lbs. of Tannerite in an uncontained atmospheric detonation would make a hell of a boom, it’s a bit of overkill too. If those people didn’t crack any windows in the area they got lucky. That kind of shockwave can cause damage to walls and foundations too, it’s essentially a huge fist made of compressed air hitting a large surface area that was never engineered to take that kind of lateral impulse stress. Overpressure is not the same critter as wind. Pretty stupid thing to do if you ask me but …

I bet it made a great mushroom cloud.

(*I’m not giving an explosive demolition instruction class here and am being intentionally vague. No sense in giving anyone any ideas, there are some Q-Anon and such like in here that are short enough on living brain cells as it is.)

The stories I read stated that, yes, mushroom cloud, yes, shattered windows, and at least one home-owner reported damage to their foundations.
How does one go about claiming that on their Home-owner’s insurance, I wonder?

I’m pretty sure if you were the homeowner you or your insurance would end up suing the dipstick that broke your house, or suing his insurance company. I’m betting he didn’t have an umbrella policy to cover all contingencies and his insurance won’t cover acts of gross stupidity either. He committed the act, he’s financially responsible for the consequences of his actions.

The problem with this kind of thing is that you can’t get blood out of a turnip. If the Tannerite detonator guy didn’t have something insurance-wise to cover this and he doesn’t have deep enough pockets to cover it … You can get a judgement in court but collecting on that judgement is a whole ‘nother critter.

Setting off a BIG BOOM sounds like a lot of fun and I can personally vouch that it is but … You need to know what you’re doing and not let your fun be anyone else’s tragedy too. Or put in the more vernacular …

“Have as good a time as you like, just don’t be a dick about it.”

M80’s today are not what they were in my day. I’m 73 and they used to be a REAL kick! 🙂

The idea of the “Kobayashi Maru” no win scenario is completely lost today. A good example is the short story “The Cold Equations” by Tom Godwin, arguably one of the best Sci-Fi short stories of all times. It has been made into film several times, and each time Hollywood bent over backward to “da ex machina” a solution to the title issue, for which the quality and purpose of the story suffer greatly.

I’d be way more interested in Congressional reapportionment controlled by the Republicans if the Republicans could figure out what they believe in and learn how to fight for those beliefs.

This statement . . .

 if the Republicans could figure out what they believe in and learn how to fight for those beliefs.

How many times is it not the hill upon which to die?
BTW – here is what Republicans believe. [spoiler title=”What we believe – Elected Republicans”]
We want to get re-elected no matter what it takes. [/spoiler]

The problem with avoiding every hill to die upon is that you get to the point where you’re completely surrounded by enemy occupied hills

the gop has spent so much time avoiding a fight that the supreme court decided they no longer have standing. fearing it’s too late becomes a viable concern.

The way to win a culture war is to make the other poor bastard die for his hill.

HIPAA protects you from someone else releasing your information without consent, it doesn’t prevent crap about asking you for that information (that’s more ADA)

It’s not illegal to ask, it’s not required that you answer. I could never get my Mom to understand this concept. She thought if someone asked her a question, any question at all, she was somehow required to give the most complete answer possible. I even drilled her repeatedly on the four word reply to a question you are not going to answer …

“Mind your own business.”

Do a comprehensive kitchen remodel (floor-to-ceiling and wall-to-wall) with just the help of your wife (no contractors), and then we can talk about how “stressful” it was. My wife and I did so last Summer and Fall. Lots of work: electrical, plumbing, cabinetry, sheet rock, tile, etc.

I have had this type of remodel recommended to me previously; by divorce lawyers looking to drum up work. Pretty sure the three main reasons for divorce are money woes, infidelity, and kitchen remodels. 😉
Hope it turned out well on all fronts!

It did. There is the additional pride of accomplishment of doing the work oneself. Plus, my wife and I are too stubborn to let a little stress-induced divorce into our lives. Life’s too short for that sort of misery.

We recently added a sunroom that my wife had been wanting for years. Full blown contractor for that as it was a big project. But one afternoon as I was working downstairs (been working at home for 13 months) I heard banging. I go up a short time later and the mantel if off the fireplace. See you could see the sunroom and mantel in LR and the mantel just didn’t go.
I tried to get one of the guys doing the work to make the changes we wanted, once we decided. Then said to myself – self – you are a degreed engineer who has built a lot of stuff over the years. Get your tools out. Two days later, new shiplap wall and new mantel with new baseboards, trim etc. I like that part of the project more than the fancy sunroom. For the obvious reason.

My daughter-in-law loves doing all that kind of thing. I’m not being sarcastic, she genuinely loves working on her house and can do pretty much all of it. She even has a pink leather tool belt. All my son has to do is help clean up, which is good because he hates remodelling as much as I do.

Obviously the boy married well. 🙂

We lack the cultural confidence to insist that new immigrants and their children become Americans and have pride in the country they’ve adopted. We used to do that. But not anymore.

Well … there’s your problem. Apple. Made in the PRC, which is “managed” by the CCP. 😉

You think your kit-bashed Windows machine from Dell wasn’t built in east Asia somewhere? And I will take a seriously modded flavor of Linux over that abomination, Win10, every day of the week and twice on Sunday.

That said, Tim Cook is an evil, bureaucratic cog w/ none of the creative brilliance of Steve Jobs. Fortunately for Apple, they’ve got to much revenue coming in from legacy creations for a dull bean-counter to do the damage that was done the first time Steve left.

Actually, I am currently using a RHEL system right now (not modded), and all of my Windows systems were self-built. So much for our stereotypical assumptions. 😛
My job requires me to develop software on all of the big three OSes: Linux (various distros), Apple OS and Windows. The last of which is most despised. I find that too many of the Apple OS “security features” get in the way of easily using those products.

That gives me an idea… I’ve been looking for a non Big 3 phone, maybe I need to see what’s running on Linux

In the same vein as Flowers for Algernon and The Grapes of Wrath are Balto and the Great Race and One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Watching Jack Nicholson being cut off at the knees totally broke my heart.

I feel ya Steve. My stove broke back in Dec and stayed that way for 3wks. I had no idea how expensive microwave foos was. Or how bad it is.

In 2006 Charlton Heston also gave a ‘farewell speech (as the head of the nra) when he got Alzheimers disease it was gut wrenching to say the least.

Bill quotes: “They aren’t going to show you pictures of swords…”
Sword-geek me says: “Awwwww, I wanted sword pics.”

Isn’t art supposed to make people thing, or make them uncomfortable? Or is that just that Progressives making “art” to make the squares squirm?

Re: Scott’s comment – Sometimes when the progress bar doesn’t move as you read a story, it just means all the comments are being displayed below.

Toward Scott’s topic… as the Blogfather often says “insufficient opportunities for graft”
Also on Scott’s topic, saving a country is a bit like saving a drunk or a drug addict. They have to hit bottom, recognize its clean up or die, and choose to better themselves before you can actually help them. With so many countries either getting helped by the US or the USSR in the past (though that was more “helped into slavery” and is what the PRC would do given the chance), most will never hit that bottom.

Also, the people that have left the broken countries are much like our ancestors, the ones with enough gumption to try and fix their homes, get beaten down and outnumbered by those that don’t want to fix the mess and left for better shores. That the people Scott met are good and hard working is evidence that they were not happy where they were because of their character inside and went to where they matched what was outside.

Sword geek? Yah, me too. I can’t afford any of the really high end stuff but there’s a Tinker Pierce two handed longsword hanging on the wall about 5 feet from where I sit. It’s seriously, wickedly sharp too. As is my bearded axe … 🙂

The couple I have are not particularly sharp but I enjoy the antics and discussions of a few people on Youtube: scholagladiatoria, shadiversity, metatron, Tod’s Stuff, and Skallagrim. Lindybeige, JoergeSprave, Modern History TV have had a variety of also interesting stuff. Check out That Works (an actual blacksmithing shop).

My new favorite “sports” show is the Armored Fighting League. I think the show was called Knight Fight. On some streaming channel my smart TV found. Watched it when I go back from the weekend night job. Good fun, and lots of swords.

Thanks for the suggestion. I think I found some articles about it and will have to see where I can watch something. Looks like televised SCA possibly. There used to be a RenFaire close enough I could go do, and did a couple times, where they had somewhat scripted (I think) jousting but I didn’t get to see that much.

Funny side, a buddy of mine shared m=with me the new nickname for Jen Psacki, “Ginger Goerbells”

I like “Raggedy Jen” too. She looks like a rag doll that someone painted red cheeks on.

Marvel’s Black Panther, and was also in a movie called “Message from the King” iirc the title correctly. Was quite interesting, showed a few Hollywood types as scumbags and pedos.

i’ll add this with a straight face….not only did i not know who he is/was i didn’t know he had died.

I would say I only knew/remembered he had died since I remembered who he was when it was announced that he had. I missed that the former VP or whatever from Minnesota had died and a political cartoon made no sense until I found that out.

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