2010.01.23 22:00 - Guns, Magpul Masada/Bushmaster ACR, Internet Stupidity, Meatspace Stupidity
The short of it is that it took Bushmaster two and a half years to take what should have been a nearly finished design, strip out half the feature set (integral front sight, compatibility with AR-15 barrelsIt must look like a brilliant move to somebody, but I have no idea who.
[Update: According to one of Bushmaster's people posting for the company at arfcom, the ACR does use standard AR trigger parts. The barrel, however, is still a new part.]
Footnote
0. For the record, I like the MBUS: they work, and cost about a third what anything else with the same feature set costs. I'm even pretty sure they're there as much because they're made by Magpul as cost concerns. But, even a set of fixed (i.e., not flip-up) back-up iron sights made of steel costs twice what the MBUS does. When you're asking somebody to drop $3000 for a too-short rail farm and a folding stock, you could throw in a set of Troys for free. It would at least convey a sense that maybe you're not just charging the most you think you can get away with.
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2010.01.19 07:35 - Guns, Magpul Masada/Bushmaster ACR, Internet Stupidity, Meatspace Stupidity, Whining
I hate to sound like all the ninnies that have been getting hysterical over the ACR rumours for the last three weeks, but it looks like the rumors are right and the basic version of the Bushmaster ACR is going to priced at $2700, or close enough to as makes no difference.
I've still got some checking to do, but unless I can come up with one for a lot less, my answer to that question is the following:
Screw. That.
A SCAR, ugly as it may be, includes a rail farm and a folding stock for that price, and the XCR is only a little more than half that. Someone on arfcom claimed that dealer price on the Remington version is $1850-2050, which might be do-able. I'll have to do some checking with my own contacts and see what turns up. I'm sure as heck not paying $3000 for one, though.
[Update: Checking complete. Unless something completely unexpected happens, I am not getting an ACR, at least within the current calendar year. C'est la vie. I hear SIGs are nice this time of year, though ....
I also feel like I should point out that Bushmaster's ACR shenanigans have been a pretty big bummer. I'll have a brief post on why in a bit.]
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2009.09.12 23:47 - Entertainment, Music, Internet Stupidity, Miscellanea, Whining
My iPod came with a default playlist called 'Classical Music'. Intuitively, it contains anything in my music library that has been classified as belonging to the 'classical' genre.
There are currently twelve composers represented in this list.
- J. S. Bach is from the Baroque period.
- Anton Bruckner, Georges Bizet, Modest Mussorgsky, Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov, and Franz Schubert are all Romantics.
- Fritz Kreisler and Gustav Holst are Moderns (though I'm using that term rather more broadly than the music geeks in the audience probably like).
- Sergei Rachmaninov and Gustav Mahler are arguably Romantic and Modern.
- John Williams is late enough that I'm not sure he isn't post-Modern, but I don't know that he's Post-Modern, either.
- 'Traditional' is not a composer. And "The Star Spangled Banner" isn't classical, even if Sergei Rachmaninov is playing it on the piano.
And, for the record, that's about as music-geeky as I get. I can't particularly tell the difference by listening, but it turns out that I still remember a little of the music education I got in elementary/middle school.
Related: apparently, Frederic Chopin looked a bit like David Carradine (or so it seems to me). I had no idea.
[Edited: After much fixing of syntax, a terrible and over-used pun occurred to me, so I updated the title.]
[Edited again: Fixed some syntax.]
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2009.08.20 13:14 - Entertainment, Movies, Television, Internet Stupidity, Meatspace Stupidity
The Rifftrax guys are taking the piss out of "Plan 9 From Outer Space" this evening, and you may be able to watch at a local movie theater.
Admittedly, this seems like a target-rich environment, but, hey, they're working live.
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2009.08.04 00:19 - Guns, Internet Stupidity
Certain parties have given me some grief about my ... continuing interest in boomsticks and related malarkey. (Which, admittedly, does kinda border on the unhealthy. But only border.)
I'm mildly tempted to troll the heck out of them, but I don't think I can be bothered.
That said, here's a link to all the gun information you could want and probably then some. Here's a mildly novel, but impractical, idea from the PRC to get you started.
And one from the Soviet Union: an assault rifle made for use underwater.
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