cdh's Liked Comments

I know Hamlet. And what he might say with irony I say with conviction:

‘What a piece of work is cat! How noble in reason, how infinite in faculty, in form and moving how express and admirable, in action how like an angel, in apprehension how like a god!'
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Wow...manufactured by the thousands....I have really got to read up on this gun. It would be a neat piece to collect and to show to friends, but I suspect such a piece is many thousands above my budget -- which is sorta running on empty right now ;)

It's interesting - I was originally a watch nerd...still am....and I thought guns were just neat but gave them little thought....then I started studying the mechanisms, how they're put together and now I'm kinda starting to become geekish about guns too. I wonder how much cross-fertilization happens between gun nerds and watch nerds.
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Hey there John, and good early morning (yer west coast right?) Interesting post. I did not know about this particular firearm until now.

Why did this not catch-on? I haven't yet read the attached article, but I suspect the reasons were:

1. The mechanism was complex. Complex mechanisms, even if they're pretty reliable, still need maintenance and the occasional tweak, or repair. For example, right now, in the town in which I live, people who drive Ferraris or even ageing Alpha Romeos need to drive up the road to Portlandia (well, 2 hours up the road, 1 hr 20 if you drive real fast.)

Me? I have vowed to only purchase pre-1994 Mercedes 'cause this was the last year they applied their policy of over-engineering. Plus, more relevant, I can easily work on every part of these cars without borrowing friendly Mercedes mechanics' equipment, ears, or time...you gotta go easy on their good will for when you really neeeed it,

I suspect this gun was a proof-of-concept, perhaps a model to be shopped around to various manufacturers. It is an elegant, attractive piece, but I suspect it went nowhere because other, simpler to reload repeater became available around the same time and caused the novel loading mechanism to be perceived as obsolete.

Now....I will actually read the linked article and see if what I just wrote is a good, bad, or ugly guess....Wah Wah Wah....
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The predator does seem to have, in its mouth, bony structures that function as teeth. The movable tusks at the corners of its mouth were likely developed in a much, much earlier part of its evolutionary history.

They look to be useful for capturing a prey animal that is hiding in a burrow - just stick your head in and use your prehensile tusks to grab your meal. Later, when the Predator evolved from quadruped to biped, the tusks were repurposed to new functions. Now that the Predator is a biped, the most obvious function for these mobile tusks is communication, much like we use our facial muscles and display our bony teeth. Originally, when hominids displayed teeth, it was a warning or an aggressive act -- now we are simply smiling. Hominids also used their teeth for fighting, now, we usually don't do this, at least after the age of 24 or 25.

So....my theory is that the mobile tusks are used in the way humans use their facial muscles -- for communication (and the films seem to support this.) I am willing to bet the predictor species are not only warriors - the warrior caste is the only one we have encountered.

I bet there are Predators who fret and worry to the point of going to a plastic surgeon to make their tusks more appealing, more sexy. Especially Predators trying to make it big in entertainment, or marry that certain sugar-daddy or sugar-momma.
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Am I really going to post this? It looks like I am. What is wrong with me? I don't live under a bridge and shake down people trying to cross it....I left the profession years ago...can't....must resist the atavism....must.resist..must..not...post...ctrl..v---

Bubble-butt, bubble-butt
Oh bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble-butt, bubble-butt

Call my baby bubble-butt, tell you why
His kiss is sweeter than an apple pie
And when he does his shaky rockin' dance
Man, I haven't got a chance

I call him bubble-butt, bubble-butt
Oh bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble-butt bubble-butt

Sweeter than candy on a stick
Huckleberry, chimry or lime

If you had a choice he'd be your pick
But bubble-butt is mine

bubble-butt, bubble-butt
Oh bubble, bubble, bubble
bubble-butt, bubble-butt

Crazy way he thrills me, tell you why
Just like a lightning from the sky
He loves to kiss me till I can't see straight
Gee, my bubble-butt is great

I call him bubble-butt, bubble-butt
Oh bubble, bubble, bubble, bubble-butt, bubble-butt
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No kidding! Brussels sprouts are a Christmas tradition in rural Oregon too. Except it's done a bit differently. After the traditional Christmas dinner of black-bear chops and raccoon stuffed with squab, each 'adult' (anyone over the marriage age of 12) is presented with a dish of 26 (13 times 2) raw Brussels sprouts. A blank round is fired by the eldest person at the table. The gunner doesn't participate as he or she is the judge. The last person to finish is stripped to their underwear, hog-tied and tossed into a snowdrift. If there isn't enough snow yet, they are simply locked in the ice-house.

They remain in the snow for 13 minutes, or in the ice-house for a wilumit (13 minutes plus 6.5 minutes.) After this he or she is given the finest libations of his or her choosing, and is given a large mason jar of choice lard, an all-day-sucker, and a kiss on the cheek from anyone present if they want one.

It is a fascinating ritual to watch for us city-slickers. There are participants who obviously have no interest in being tossed to the cold. These folks finish so fast, it's like watching gun-dogs eat after a week in the bush. However, there are always a couple of usually young studs or bonnies who compete to be the last one. They will pick around and nibble until the elder makes them perform paper-rock-scissors until only one remains.

....edit.....Oh, by the way, sometimes I exaggerate....and shi t.
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Yes, this is pretty interesting but I've seen this in person, no big dealio - the cats always walk away just fine, no worse for the wear.

My alma matter, the University of Oregon, has a skydiving club and on Caturday, usually on a Saturday every other month. The club has a charity fund-raiser for a local charity like Jasper Mountain or the Pearl Buck Center in which _TRAINED_ cats skydive solo, accompanied by humans. The cats of course don't pull their own chutes, humans do this by remote control. If the remote deployment doesn't work, the cat's 'chutes have the same fail-safe auto-deployment the human's chutes have.

This is not cruel - the cats start with tandem-jumps - they are very used to this by their first solo. In fact, my Shih Tzu, Cinnamon, recently did her first solo jump. She has tandem jumped with me for two years, and her first tandem jump was when she was three years-old. No problems ever. This is not at all cruel for the cats who are naturally used to flying through the air.

/the only thing accurate about this comment is my dog's name and breed, and that my alma matter has a great sky-diving club.
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  1 reply
I agree with the logic of my threadfellows. However, I am a North American and I assume most of the others in this thread are too.

This might not be as scarring to the kid as we might think, and it might not be the pissy, punitive, long-term-trolling punishment that we North Americans see at first glance. Maybe the pic was taken by someone with different sensibilities?

My friends, and my family members (on mom's side) from Eastern Europe, my experience is they are far, far more tolerant of personal foibles. Personal foibles, the minor ones, anyway, are funny and give some insight. Plus, this being a baby picture, it is simply cute...not something in which to rub the grown child's nose.

/end pedantry ;)
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Long Time! No See?

Long Time? No See!

Long Time? No See?

Long Time! No See!

Long Time. No See!

Long Time. No See?

Long Time. No See.

Amazing how many meanings four words can have depending on emphasis.

--------------------------------------
BTW the expression was adopted by English, via calque translation. http://www.interproinc.com/articles.asp?id=0303

......Snip.........
"A calque or loan translation (itself a calque of German Lehnübersetzung) is a phrase borrowed from another language and translated literally word-for-word."

好耐冇見 -Cantonese

好久不見/好久不见 - Mandarin
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  • Member Since 2012/08/04


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