Sunday Overnight Open Thread - July 6, 2025 [Doof]

Howdy Hordelings! Hope your Sunday has been good and your holiday weekend safe and enjoyable. The ONT is here for you as always. Come on in and share your wit and wisdom in the comments.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (370) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gun Thread: Vacation Edition 1.0

Howdy, Y'all! Welcome to the wondrously fabulous Gun Thread! As always, I want to thank all of our regulars for being here week in and week out, and also offer a bigly Gun Thread welcome to any newcomers who may be joining us tonight. Howdy and thank you for stopping by! I hope you find our wacky conversation on the subject of guns 'n shooting both enjoyable and informative. You are always welcome to lurk in the shadows of shame, but I'd like to invite you to jump into the conversation, say howdy, and tell us what kind of shooting you like to do!

Holy Shitballs! How in the ever-loving hell did it get to be the Vacation Edition v1.0? Yep, that's correct guys and gals, We're headed to the beach for a week. Frankly my rigorous retirement schedule of napping, smoking cigars, and playing with Fun Size Joe & Gertie has been so exhausting I found I already needed a break. Thank you for understanding!

Fun Vacation Update: So we left Northern Virginia Saturday morning and about six hours later arrived at Surf City, NC. As we neared the beach, a portable digital road sign displayed the following message: TROPICAL STORM WARNING IN EFFECT which needless to say was something of a surprise as the last time I had looked at the weather the forecast was for fairly typical summer beach conditions. Anyhoo, it rained and blew bigly all Saturday night and into Sunday morning, but appears to be clearing, and I was able to venture out to get donuts and bagels for breakfast.

With that, step into the dojo and let's get to the gun stuff below, shall we?

Posted by: Weasel at 07:00 PM | Comments (136) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Food Thread: Puttering And Popcorn!

One of the pleasures of cooking is the relaxed pace of a home-cooked meal. Oh, I'm not talking about the frenetic meals that provide little besides fuel and a cursory check that the brats are still alive. You know, the ones that are scheduled between homework and band practice and baseball and picking up the car from the shop and getting that last load of laundry put away.

No... I am talking about the meals with good friends on a lovely and relaxed weekend, or the last evening of a vacation (or even an impromptu breakfast of savory French Toast with salt and butter).

The Roasted Chicken With Leeks and Butter-Sautéed Carrots that you see above was the delicious result of just such an event. And even better, it included shopping for the ingredients!

There are very few things better than puttering around the kitchen with friends, glasses of wine, sharp knives, and no real plan.

But it worked out marvelously, especially since the food really was good. As many of you know, my mantra when entertaining or being entertained is that the real pleasure is the company, and if the food is good? What a wonderful bonus!

We did forget to open the champagne, so there will need to be a reprise of this meal...

Posted by: CBD at 04:04 PM | Comments (192) | Trackbacks (Suck)

First World Problems...

That doesn't look like a problem! On the contrary, it is a delicious and wonderful thing, courtesy of Saccharomyces cerevisiae and a curious blind Benedictine monk.*

But...that is the extent of our Independence Day celebrations, since we are currently 3,650 miles from the greatest country in human history. That's a first for me, and I don't like it.

Seriously. I love Independence Day, because it reminds me every year exactly how lucky we all are, being the beneficiaries of that marvelous confluence of countless events that built the United States of America, none more so than the absolutely stupendous Declaration Of Independence.

56 men, mostly in their 30s and 40s (average age of 44!) signed that document. All of them knew that they were declaring open rebellion against one of the greatest powers on earth. If they lost, they would hang. But they did it anyway!

And against all odds they knocked the snot out of Great Britain, and took the greatest place on earth away from that empire. Little did King George and parliament know what they had just lost.

Luckily for them we are a forgiving people. 141 years later we bailed them out of a catastrophe in Europe, and then we did it again 25 years after that!

We have huge issues in America, and in many ways we have lost our way. But looking at the stunning developments over the past three election cycles makes me far more sanguine about our future prospects as a great country.

Yes, even the many catastrophes have shown us who the enemies of the Republic are, and that is a tremendous advantage. The battle is joined!

We are Americans, so we will win!

* Not really. Champagne wasn't invented by anyone...it evolved over centuries, but existed before Dom Perignon.

Posted by: CBD at 02:00 PM | Comments (180) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Russia Will Win In Ukraine, And It Doesn't Matter At All

I am tired of hearing about Ukraine. I am tired of seeing Zelenskyy and his stupid track suits and smug assumptions that he is a global player. He looks as stupid as Hillary Clinton in her pants suits, and maybe just as arrogant! And I am sick of Putin being elevated into some vaunted position as a global leader when Russia is a regional, not a world power. And most of all I am tired of the histrionics emanating from the media and most European capitols that Ukraine is some bastion of Western Freedom, and we all must rally 'round their flag. What that actually means is that they want America to foot the bill in treasure and blood so that they can continue their lovely cradle-to-grave welfare state lives while spending almost nothing on defense.

Russia is bigger than Ukraine, has a larger army, has access to allies that will assist them, and will most probably win this war. And why should they stop? They are achieving whatever goals they have, and the West without the American military doing the heavy lifting won't, or can't (or both) help.

Ukraine has a power-mad midget dictator (when was the last election in Ukraine?) who wants the West to pay for his intransigence in the face of the current Russian belligerence. But Ukraine is not blameless in this war, and regardless of why it started, they had opportunities to end the war with a negotiated ceasefire, but chose to continue to burn through their men and the West's arms on some ridiculous hope that somehow they could turn the tide. They were wrong, and a lot of people are dead because of that decision.

Putin Tells Trump He Won't Give Up Goals In Ukraine, Kremlin Says

Putin told Trump that “Russia will achieve its goals” in Ukraine and “will not abandon” them, according to Kremlin aide Yury Ushakov, who spoke with reporters following the July 3 call. Russia is seeking to conquer Ukraine and bring the independent country back into its fold. [bold mine]

Wow...where did that assumption come from? It's the first time I have seen it, and I doubt very much that Putin wants all of Ukraine. Hell, what would he do with it? My guess that he wants what he has been saying all along...he wants the Russian parts!

U.S. Pauses Ukraine Arms Shipments Amid Broader Military Aid Review, Pentagon Says

The announcement follows confirmation by the White House that some shipments—reportedly including vital air defense munitions—have been temporarily halted.

“We can’t give weapons to everybody all around the world. We have to look out for America and defending our homeland,” Pentagon spokesperson Sean Parnell said during his first solo press briefing.

And this is the unavoidable reality of the world. We have to make decisions based on what is best for America, but until recently we didn't have a president who cared more for America than for the rest of the world.

I am happy that the administration is prioritizing the defense of America and its armed forces over the defense of a corrupt pseudo-democracy and its tinpot dictator president.

[check below the fold for some clownish stupidity from Bill Kristol. It's almost too stupid to believe it is real!]

Posted by: CBD at 11:50 AM | Comments (250) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Sunday Morning Book Thread - 7-6-2025 ["Perfessor" Squirrel]

Welcome to the prestigious, internationally acclaimed, stately, and illustrious Sunday Morning Book Thread! The place where all readers are welcome, regardless of whatever guilty pleasure we feel like reading (a little something for the 'Ettes, HT: Dash my lace wigs). Here is where we can discuss, argue, bicker, quibble, consider, debate, confabulate, converse, and jaw about our latest fancy in reading material. As always, pants are required, unless you are wearing these pants...(fireworks not included)

So relax, find yourself a warm kitty (or warm puppy--I won't judge) to curl up in your lap, let off any remaining fireworks (preferably not from your lap), and dive into a new book. What are YOU reading this fine morning?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 09:00 AM | Comments (307) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 6 July 2025

Top Story

• The Nvidia RTX 5090 - the fastest graphics card available - can lose up to 25% performance if it doesn't have full PCIe 5.0 x16 bandwidth. (WCCFTech)
  
  For example, running at half speed - with either a PCIe x8 slot or PCIe 4.0 - it loses... Basically nothing. Maybe 1%.
  
  At a quarter of the bandwidth - so PCIe 3.0 - it loses 10% of its performance.
  
  If you drop all the way back to PCIe 2.0 you finally see that 25% performance loss.
  
  Meaning that PCIe 5.0 doesn't improve performance unless you don't have all 16 lanes available, even on a 5090.
  
  And if you're using it for a workload that resides mostly on the card, like AI processing, you hardly need anything. There's more variability between test runs than between a single lane and a full x16 slot.

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (144) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Saturday Night "Club ONT" July 5, 2025 [The 3 Ds]

Welcome to Club ONT! A collaboration of your Sunday through Wednesday ONT Crew - The Disco, The Doggo, and The Dino.

Welcome the the 5th of July, Club edition. We hope you were able to properly honor the USA yesterday, limited your sunburn, broke out an amazing Independence Day outfit, grilled and consumed plenty of protein, and can account for all your fingers (and appendages). No sparklers required this evening.

Posted by: Open Blogger at 10:00 PM | Comments (421) | Trackbacks (Suck)

When in Rome (or Hollywood)... [Lex]

When movie trivia was fun this was a good one: what two films, produced in the 1960s, took a two-decade break before the sequel was made in the 1980s?

The answer: Psycho (1960) and The Hustler (1961), their sequels being Psycho II (1983) and The Color of Money (1986). It was a good trivia question because the practice of a follow up in which the actors reprised their roles, separated by two decades no less, was rare -- if non existent.
How times have changed...

There have always been serial style movies (James Bond or The Thin Man franchise) and regular sequels (The Godfather II, a masterpiece; The French Connection II, pedestrian) and remakes or reimaginings (Ben Hur, The Invisible Man, Road House) and reboots (The Planet of the Apes or Halloween), but I'm not talking about those.

The focus of this post is the continuing of a tale some years later, but there's a difference between what I mean and a straight up sequel. Sequels usually come fast and furious (yes, I meant to do that) upon the heels of the first chapter. So The Fast and The Furious or Superman or Rambo.

The characters may be the same but there is no nostalgic yearning to see what they have been up to after many years, a la Norman Bates or Eddie Felson.

Traditional sequels usually are plot-based. Ethan Hunt is assigned a new mission. Clark W. Griswold goes on his next vacation. We care less about how the characters have evolved or aged or where they find themselves than we do about them saving the day or finding a decent hotel.

Business-wise it makes perfect sense. Hollywood produces a popular film and wants to cash in on sequels, so we get Final Destination part LVIII (or whatever we are up to now) and will keep getting more as long as profit is to be had.

But somewhere along the line, in addition to the traditional sequel, we got the years-later-what-are-they-up-to film.

What changed? Why were the cases of Psycho II and The Color of Money as follow ups isolated?

Posted by: Open Blogger at 07:30 PM | Comments (301) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Hobby Thread - July 5, 2025 [TRex]

Welcome hobbyists! Pull up a chair and sit a spell with the Horde in this little corner of the interweb. This is the mighty, mighty officially sanctioned Ace of Spades Hobby Thread. We gave the Ace of Spades Wheel of Hobbies(TM) a spin and it came up with woodworking.

[Top photo: Bowl from the root of a Pecan tree]

Posted by: Open Blogger at 05:30 PM | Comments (210) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Ace of Spades Pet Thread, July 5

* * *

Good afternoon and welcome to the almost world famous Ace of Spades Pet Thread. Thanks for stopping by. Kick back and enjoy the world of animals.

Would you like a treat?

Let's relax a little with the animals and leave the world of politics and current events outside today.

Posted by: K.T. at 03:28 PM | Comments (87) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Gardening, Home and Nature Thread, July 5

Hi, KT … It's good to see you back in the Captain's Chair again. Excellent column! Attached is a pic I found in files on the Venerable XHD - some spider lilies. These were in a 'kinda-sorta' garden next to what had once been JAX Brewery in the French Quarter.

It was about 0730, and the light was great. Equipment was a Bogen tripod, Olympus OM-4 (black) w/16mm Olympus macro lens. Exposure? Heh. A triple exposure on the same film frame. No easy task with the OM-4. It had a button that had to be depressed when 'advancing' the frame (which kept the film stationary in-camera) for each subsequent exposure. In reality, this was a 'hit 'n hope' shot, and I was quite the happy boy when the print was ready at Colorpix. It was also a good seller. Sometimes luck trumps skill, yes?

Oh. Filmstock? It was probably one of the stocks from Agfa, 'cos I really like its 'European' color balance from that time.

Dr_No

A great trip down memory lane. Timely, too. Great substitute for fireworks in the garden (especially around dogs - ask me how I know).

*

Posted by: K.T. at 01:27 PM | Comments (66) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Independence Day Weekend (with a little socialism)

Happy Independence Day Weekend! Along with the festivities, why not take the opportunity to make remembering some history fun for the kids? One of the keys to the popularity of the clearly incompetent socialist mayoral candidate in NYC seems to be that he smiles a lot.

We can do better than this with young people. And older people, for that matter.

* * * * *

History of Independence Day

Posted by: K.T. at 11:19 AM | Comments (241) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Classical Saturday Morning Coffee Break & Prayer Revival

Good morning boys and girls and everything in between. I certainly hope you have all of your fingers and toes this morning. Too late to pray for you not to blow those digits off.

Before we enter the Prayer Revival just a few housekeeping matters to go over. (Rulz for those of you in Plover)

1) This is an open thread. Feel free to lurk, opine and/or bloviate.
2) Be kind be nice. Even the trolls have warped feelings.
3) No running with sharp objects.
4) Have a great weekend!

Posted by: Misanthropic Humanitarian at 07:04 AM | Comments (279) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Daily Tech News 5 July 2025

Top Story

• AMD's Zen 6 CPUs could be really fast and have lots of cache. (Hot Hardware)
  
  Some of the rumours around Zen 6 - expected next year - appear to be solid: It will have 12 CPU cores per chiplet, up from 8 in all earlier models, and L3 cache will likewise scale by 50%.
  
  Speed is expected to pass the 6GHz mark, which seems reasonable. Intel has already done that with its fastest models, and AMD is planning to move from TSMC's 4nm node to 2nm, which is notably faster.
  
  The one new rumour here is to do with the X3D models. The X3D cache chips are also rumoured to be 50% larger, and it is possible to stack two of them on one CPU for up to 240MB of L3 cache on a single chiplet - up from 96MB currently.
  
  Also rumoured are the speeds for the smaller, slower Zen 6c cores: Up to 4.5GHz. Since these have exactly the same performance per clock as full-size Zen 6, they will be quite respectable performers.
  
  Zen 6 will launch on the current-generation AM5 socket, so you can easily upgrade existing Zen 4 and Zen 5 systems. Intel already abandoned Socket 1700 which supported its 12th, 13th, and 14th generation chips (which were basically all the same), and is expected to abandon its current Socket 1851 for yet another platform when it launches Nova Lake next year. So forget any upgrades on that side.
  
  

Posted by: Pixy Misa at 04:30 AM | Comments (131) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Land Of The ONT And The Home Of The Brave

HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY!

Posted by: WeirdDave at 10:00 PM | Comments (506) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Fourth of July Cafe

Washington Crossing the Delaware (of course)
Emanuel Leutze, 1851

Dachshund pool party.

A baby and a dog are manning the lemonade stand.
She rescued a paralyzed dog from the shelter -- where it was about to be euthanized, because no one wanted to take a chance on it -- and then a miracle happened.

Orphaned baby ducks are put into a duck pond. How long will it take for another duck to adopt them?

Rescue dogs are very grateful.

Owl and parakeet become friends.

Funny Amazon review for a Medusa head.

Elephant asks for treats.

The important thing is that he tried.

Lion and tiger BATTLE over who gets to be the little spoon.

Olga Korbut's perfect (well, 9. parallel bars performance at the 1972 Olympics. The "dead loop" maneuver which was later banned for safety reasons is when she comes to a dead stop on the high bar and then stands on it.

A desperate intervention for JackStraw.

Posted by: Ace at 07:30 PM | Comments (267) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Pool Party Open Thread

Posted by: Ace at 06:30 PM | Comments (83) | Trackbacks (Suck)

The Gift of Crows Open Thread

Animals are known to give presents to each other, but the crow is one of the only animals (apart from dogs and cats) to give "gifts" to humans they like.

Posted by: Ace at 05:30 PM | Comments (116) | Trackbacks (Suck)

Deer Friends Open Thread

Posted by: Ace at 04:30 PM | Comments (135) | Trackbacks (Suck)