Glibertarians.com 2019 Archive

Category: Pastimes

  • OverRated: The Week in College Football Polls

    Redemption Edition as Serious Play Begins

     

    As the season rounds the first corner, a few true scrums have been had, blemishes have arisen, and toldjasos have begun to fill the inboxes of alumni everywhere.  Most years have slow starts:  you can’t laugh at someone for losing until they at least put their season on the line and play a competent school.  So we have finally begun in earnest:  Week Four was most yummy and delivered even more yucks than I could have hoped for.

    Week Four Most OverRated Football Program Results

    1           Utah, most obviously overrated, lost to unrated USC

    2          Cal survived a trip to Ole Miss

    3          Iowa was consumed by one of those marching band scandals

    4          Washington State handled winless UCLA

    5          Florida filleted hopeless Tennessee

    5          Notre Dame scored one whole touchdown that wasn’t a gift from Georgia

    5          UCF was outsmarted, outworked, and eventually edged at Pitt

    5          Georgia made the biggest statement of the year over Notre Dame

    9          Clemson destroyed former directional school Charlotte

    9          Oklahoma was idle

    11        Oregon had few problems with Stanford

    11        Auburn managed a capable Texas A&M on the road

    11        Boise State shot down Air Force

    14        Texas awoke and survived Oklahoma State in Austin

     

    So, we now mount that trophy on the wall as our #1 biggest takedown of the year, the largest pelt taken, the silliest ranking debunked:  Utah.  Notre Dame sold off although they lost to a highly ranked Georgia, but that’s the way it is with tulip bulb mania.

    In other news,UCF lost at Pitt (our interesting team from last week) and moves from my miss column to my hit parade; I had said they seemed to be doing okay, but, suddenly, my initial disgust was proven right.  Michigan was humiliated by Wisconsin, so I’m also overturning my earlier miss on them.  Washington State is completely unranked now, so I’m moving them to my win column as well.

    Off my radar, newly ranked TCU promptly lost to cross-Plex rival SMU, but I had recorded no opinion on either heretofore.  In summation, we add four pelts to the wall, at least a couple of which are fine specimens.

    Next week conference play now begins in all earnestness, and we’ll see who survives the grind and who is forged in fire.  Here’s my latest ranking of puff toads.

     

    Newest Week N + 1 Most OverRated Football Programs

     

    1          Cal could barely hang with terrible Ole Miss; they are the newest king of hype

    2          Iowa was recently added to the list but yet to disappoint

    2          Virginia joins our list; this fever shall pass

    4          Boise St just isn’t proving anything this year

    5          Florida has yet to be disrobed

    6          Clemson must run the table since they’re ranked numero uno

    6          Georgia has made the best statement against being overrated

    8          Texas has a comfy few weeks until the Red River rivalry resumes

    8          Auburn is barely overrated if at all

    10        Oregon is living up to the hype and might well not be overrated

    11        Oklahoma is solid and might well not be overrated at all

     

    So how has our year gone so far?

    Year to Date Hides on the Wall Ratings

    1          Utah lost to an unrated USC

    2          Stanford was revealed by USC

    2          Syracuse was unranked after Maryland

    2          UCF was edged by unranked Pitt

    5          Iowa State was dethroned before their decent showing against Iowa

    5          Michigan State fell out of the ratings, so I was right after all

    7          Texas probably over-paid for losing to titan LSU

    7          Texas A&M probably over-paid for losing to titans Clemson and Auburn

    9         Washington St is now unranked after becoming lowly UCLA’s first win

    9          Florida was ranked down after silly pre-season enthusiasm (but are back up now!)

    11        Michigan was blown out by Wisconsin

     

    Year to Date It-Would-Seem Blown Calls Because They’re Doing Okay

    1          LSU

    2          UCF is now a skin on the wall after Pitt

    3          Michigan no longer a blown call because Wisconsin

    4          Washington State no longer a blown call because UCLA

     

    So closes another week.

    links to older opinions:               2019-09-22              2019-09-13              2019-09-06

     

     

    Disclosure of sources of bias:  your writer has attended the University of Tennessee, Memphis State and the University of Memphis, Christian Brothers College . . . and he sleeps with an alumna of Georgia whose parents met at Washington State . . . and his son went to Houston . . . and he never met anyone from TCU he didn’t like . . . and he irrationally hates Notre Dame, UCF, Clemson, and Notre Dame.

     

  • Petroglyph

    Bullhead City AZ

    Ten days into a multi week layoff and I was getting really bored, and decided to do a diorama, with the barest needs, as I was staying at the Daughter’s house, and things can get messy.

    The Kit.

     

    Just about everything you need to build a basic landscape, it’s a great buy for the young ones, and and a nice add-on for us old guys/gals.

     

    I watched a video from Mel the terrain tutor, here’s one: https://youtu.be/uBiMry45qhM

    Mel Bose taught me just about everything I know, anyway….

     

    HaHa! it seems there is still a lot of work even though you are working with three colors, which is actually those colors plus black and white for tinting. Let’s begin with a basic wall, and throw some color on it.

     

    That brown is pretty weak, but let’s see what we can do.

     

    Better, let’s continue.

    The scenario: SW desert, USA , a known set of American Indian petroglyphs that can be accessed by canoe in the Spring, so Road Trip!

     

     

    Where is everyone? the model needed the canoes early but the very expensive people could wait til later, next we did some waterfalls and moss, tedious painting and waterworks, but the moss colored paint ended up as a complimentary color for the main wall, coup!

     

     

    After a lot of tricks and fun, I came up with this:

     

    And to add a bit of whitewater, and the finished product:

     

    I wasn’t happy at first, I never am, but painting and tweaking the idea, I usually come up with some thing nice, enjoy!

    PS: there are some petroglyphs, find em all!

    Gallery

    Wanna play?

    It’s pretty simple, and you can go from a window decoration to a full sized wargaming table with the same recipes, and even make money. 

    I’m going to do a dragon on a pile of gold next, and a duck pond, just because, try one!

    OH Yeah.

    Notice I don’t tell you how I do this? That’s for you, or Magic, whatever.

     

  • OverRated: The Week in College Football Polls

    While Indiana was getting reamed, nothing else happened in the NCAA!

    Few tilts have spoken to us at this point; conference play has only been hinted at, and, frankly, it’s still hot as hell and hard to believe anyone is padding up for scrimmage already.  That said, we have results from another week . . . but, sadly, no news whatsoever.

     

    Week Three Most OverRated Football Program Results

    1        Utah                annihilated who-knew-there-was-an Idaho State

    2        Florida             escaped a solid Kentucky with a fourth quarter resurgence

    3        Notre Dame     flexed their way past New Mexico

    4        Auburn            curb-stomped Joe Walsh (the rocker) alma mater Kent State

    5        Boise St           galloped past alphabet people’s studies heavyweight Portland State

    5        Oregon             mauled the Montana Grizzlies

    7        Texas               beat Rice for the 70th or 80th time

    8        Georgia           bravely blanked the Fighting Osteopaths of Arkansas State

    8        Clemson          took it to formerly over-rated Syracuse

    8        Oklahoma        handled winless UCLA

    So there’s just nothing in the way of take-downs to high five anyone over.

    Off topic:  Penn State almost got shown up at home by Pitt.

    Not rated and not worth mentioning:  The University of Tennessee bulldozed an University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, but no copyrighting was attempted.  Reportedly, 1996 third round 49er draft pick Terrell Owens watched every snap over popcorn.

     

    So we await next Saturday’s scrums with few changes to the OverRated other than the odd addition.

     

    Week N + 1 Most OverRated Football Programs

    1          Utah           must run a gauntlet of 20-ish rated PAC8, 10, or 12 teams

    2          Cal             same as Utah, must endure hellish, SEC-like conference; welcome!

    3          Iowa          escaped the Cyclones; welcome to our list, latest national sweetheart

    4          Washington St re-enters the list; Houston was much tighter than the score shows

    5          Florida        may live up to their vaunted spot . . . but has not yet

    5          Notre Dame     must put up or shut up at Athens; somebody’s gotta lose that game

    5          UCF            might well run the tables and get to a very nice bowl

    5          Georgia       would be humiliated by a loss to the Irish ‘twixt the hedges

    9          Clemson      can only screw up; anything shy of perfection is unacceptable

    9          Oklahoma     is solid and should have a thoroughly nice season

    11        Oregon          PAC10 anybody as the best cage match this fall anywhere?

    11        Auburn          starts a grueling, PAC8-worthy loop through neighbors and cousins

    11        Boise St        can’t fail in the regular season unless they lay an egg somewhere

    14        Texas           has a comfy few weeks until the Red River rivalry resumes

    Year to Date Hides on the Wall Ratings

    1          Stanford          was revealed by USC

    2          Syracuse          was unranked after Maryland

    3          Iowa State       was dethroned before their decent showing against Iowa

    4          Texas               probably over-paid for losing to titan LSU

    4          Texas A&M    probably over-paid for losing to titan Clemson

    4          Florida             was ranked down after silly pre-season enthusiasm (but are back up now!)

    Year to Date It-Would-Seem Blown Calls Because They’re Doing Okay

    1          LSU

    2          UCF

    3          Michigan

    4          Washington State . . . but we get another bite at this apple !

     

    So closes another week.

     

    links to older opinions

    2019-09-13

    2019-09-06

     

    Disclosure of sources of bias:  your writer has attended the University of Tennessee, Memphis State and the University of Memphis, Christian Brothers College . . . and he sleeps with an alumna of Georgia whose parents met at Washington State . . . and his son went to Houston . . . and he never met anyone from TCU he didn’t like . . . and he irrationally hates Notre Dame, UCF, Clemson, and Notre Dame.

     

     

  • Don Escaped Texas Tries His Hand at a Glib Crossword

    Dear all: I was inspired by our first crossword and have attempted another. Without cool software, I soldiered through this attempt in Excel; NewWife checked it after a fashion, but there still may be mistakes . . . hope not. The first crossword was small and tight, but I went for big and funny, so crossing for clues will be harder . . . it couldn’t be avoided.

    Indeed, the clues are seldom easy because this group has proven itself wise, widely read, and witty. A couple are extremely hard, one because I’ve never seen the word on the site before; otherwise, the clues will be somewhat clear and accessible. Notice the question marks: those are for jokes or sarcasm; it’s hard to tell what qualifies as normal in a Glib crossword, so maybe every clue should end in a question mark? Anyway, this is written only for us, so assume your normal shitlord posture and read into everything in the most cruel, selfish, and kinky way you can achieve.

     

     

    Click to download the whole package as a pdf. (Spoiler alert: Contains solution on the last page!)

     

    Check the solution here!

  • Over-rated: The Week in College Football Polls

    Ranking college football teams is contentious stuff, and since I love football and math and human nature, this is one of my favorite topics.

    Since I’m a jerk, I like making fun of people, and over-rating things is easy pickings.  People are optimistic; they run in herds (so do lemmings), and they are bad at math and statistics.  So, since figuring your own ratings takes time while poking fun at the overly optimistic is easy (sports is a target-rich zone), I just point out rankings that are likely to be too high.  I’ll get some of these wrong (shrugs:  so does everyone, that’s how the pointy ball bounces), but I’ll also get to point and Nelson-laugh a time or two most weeks.

    To get us started, I stuck my neck out and had some opinions last week and was brave enough to put them in writing.  Like most first weeks, this one didn’t tell us much, but a couple of teams failed to handle their cupcakes well.

    Week Zero Most OverRated Football Program Results

    1 UCF                         played nobody

    2 Northwestern           oops; see below
    3 Washington St         played nobody

    4 Florida                      barely survived Miami
    5 Utah                         did not man-handle BYU
    6 Syracuse                   hung 24 on Liberty!
    7 Iowa St                     edged North Iowa . . . edged!
    8 Texas                        played nobody
    8 Stanford                   hung 17 on Northwestern!
    8 Georgia                    handled Vandy
    11 Clemson                 destroyed hapless Ga Tech
    11 Oklahoma               was sorely tested by Houston
    11 LSU                       played nobody

     

    So not much news, irony, or missteps . . . as we would expect.

     

    I honestly can’t figure out why I had an opinion about them

    Northwestern:  how’d they get in my list last week!?  I have no idea. . . . . . let’s get back to business.

     

    So I had a clerical error and a few insights for the first week.  Since the weekend, the AP re-racked its votes and came out with a new top 25, so here’s, predictably,

    Week Two Most OverRated Football Program Results

    1        Iowa St            how our new king is still ranked at all?

    2        Florida             no one will admit they were wrong yet

    3        Utah                they know something or I do; we can’t both be right
    3        Syracuse          holding steady, their news yet to come
    5        Texas               the Notre Dame of southwestern over-ratedness

    5        Michigan St    joins our list after stomping little Tulsa
    5        Georgia           is good, but more than two teams are even better

    8        UCF                opinions and facts are coming together slowly

    9        Notre Dame     perennially over-rated, they finally join our list

    9        Texas A&M    joins the list after blowing up Texas State at home

    9        Auburn            is suddenly slightly over-rated after defeating Oregon

    12        Stanford          proved enough to be somewhat less over-rated
    12        Clemson          it’s always easy to say the number one team is slightly over-rated

    12        Oklahoma        is plenty deep, solid, and might justify the hype eventually

    12        Oregon                        got spanked in the ratings but is still barely over-rated

     

    No Longer OverRated Because I was Wrong

    LSU                            I think this was a brain fart, but I should have caught it so my bad

    Washington St            proved enough to come off my list

     

    So closes another week in silly season.

  • Searching for Steve Smith

    Monster Hike is a book in the spirit of Bill Bryson’s A Walk in the Woods and Cheryl Strayed’s Wild. As Avrel Seale approached 50, he decided he needed an adventure. A hike seemed just the thing. He can’t leave his job to spend months hiking the Appalachian or Pacific Crest Trail and doing just a portion doesn’t appeal. He wants to do ALL of something.

    He decides to do the Lone Star Hiking Trail through the Sam Houston National Forest in eastern Texas. The trail runs about 100 miles, a distance he thinks he can do in the time he has available. But, unlike most long hike books, Avrel Seale isn’t looking for enlightenment, he’s looking for big foot. He’s convinced that big foot exists and that there is a large population living in the Sam Houston National Forest. He also believes that the USDA and the Dept. of Interior are covering up the existence of big foot and keeping the population down.

    Seale has been interested in big foot since he was a kid. He follows the research through books and organizations like the North American Wood Ape Conservancy, the Texas Bigfoot Research Conservancy, and the Bigfoot Field Research Organization. He also follows a podcast called Sasquatch Chronicles.

    Seale believes because of the thousands of sightings, video and other evidence. He also notes that the phenomena appears to be worldwide, not just limited to North America and that sightings stretch back in time with consistent details. He subscribes to the theory that big foots can be found in forested areas that receive at least 40 inches of rain annually and that offer prey such as deer. The Sam Houston National Forest fits that description, offering not just white tailed deer, but also wild hogs. It is considered a hot spot for big foot sightings.

    So, while Seale follows the standard format of a hiking genre book, detailing the physical challenge experienced and providing some history of the trail, he also discusses why he believes in big foot, the state of the research and what signs of big foot he finds along the way. Along with the usual hiking gear, he brings audio recorders and a camera.

    He sets off, alone, and on his very first night completely freaks himself out. He sees and hears a helicopter and gunshots. He thinks it must be the government hunting big foots. He’s convinced (at least in the middle of the night) that he hears big foots killing a white tailed deer. Twice. He also hears ‘tree knocking’, which is thought to be big foots hitting trees to communicate.

    He feels better in the daylight and spends the second night in a camp, but still doesn’t sleep well. His brother is acting as support, and meets him at a trail head. Because he has slept poorly, he opts to have his brother pick him up each night and stay in an AirBnB with him. So, hike during the day and stay with his brother for most of the nights.

    Near the end of the hike, he finds what he thinks is an 18 inch long footprint. It doesn’t look like a footprint to me, but, I’m not exactly a tracker. He finishes the hike and feels elated at his accomplishment.

    As I’ve been reading rock-n-roll biographies, I’ve tried to make it an immersive experience. If the author talks about writing a song, I listen to the song. If they talk about a video, I watch the video. I even bought and drank Trooper beer. So, when Seale discusses (for example) The Bigfoot Field Research Organization, I checked it out. I even listened to part of a podcast. Apparently, through BRFO, you can join expeditions to search for big foot and they will train you in the correct, scientific, techniques. Essentially, you go camping with other people who are interested in finding big foot. Now, if you want to hunt big foot, well, look elsewhere. BFRO is strictly no kill. I bet the people that sign up have a blast!

    When this book popped up in my Amazon recommendations (I blame you people!), my first reaction was to roll my eyes. Then, I thought this would be a fun review for Glibertarians. I was right. Seale comes across as plausible. He explains why he believes in ways that mostly stopped me rolling my eyes. For example, to the question of why haven’t we found big foot if it exists – he answers by asserting that we have! There have been more than 10,000 reported big foot sightings. As the book progresses, he points out that even if he’s wrong, no one has been hurt and he has learned science and met interesting people along the way. Not a bad return for any hobby.

    Overall, I thought this book was a fun twist on the hiking genre. It didn’t change my mind about big foot, but it introduced me to a whole new sub-culture I had no idea existed. I rate it 3.5 out of 5 stars.

  • What Are We Reading – August 2019

    JW

    I picked up a refurbed Kindle Paperwhite recently, so I’m actually reading something, other than the articles in Playboy.  I took it with me on vacation and started “Leviathan Wakes”, by James S.A. Corey; book 1 of what “The Expanse” is based on.  I enjoyed the series greatly, so I thought it would be fun to see how much it differs from the book.  Short answer, if you go by the show’s seasons, quite a bit.  None of the gubmint characters who figured prominently in the show’s early episodes have been introduced as yet.  No Mars-Belt war in the show either.

    But, it’s solidly enjoyable read and good for the show’s background material, as I like punishing myself with that kind of minutia.

    Who knows, now that I have a Kindle just lying around, maybe I’ll finally start reading regularly again.  Maybe.

    jesse.in.mb

    Finally finished The Last Policeman. It should’ve been an enjoyable procedural set just before the world ends, but I had too much going on to read it in a single siting and it suffered by being broken up into little bits and pieces. I’m currently working on Anne Corlett’s The Space Between the Stars because it was available in the local public library’s audiobook section and it had name recognition from io9’s review of it. It’s actually pretty enjoyable. A plague wipes out everyone but a handful of people were isolated for various reasons spread across Earth’s far-flung colonial system. The government is made up of assholes and the main character just wants to be left alone.

    mexican sharpshooter

    I ain’t got nothin…I’ll pick something up for next time around.

    OMWC

    Most of my reading time has been with such fascinating places as LinkedIn and Monster. But I did pull down an old favorite off the shelf, Charles Coulson’s Valence. One of my long-time geekeries and the thing in college that sidetracked me from an original career aim of engineering to becoming a chemist was an inordinate fascination with what holds molecules together and why they have the shape they do. This book and Pauling’s Nature of the Chemical Bond were almost fetish objects to Young Man With Candy. Did I mention I was a geek? If you were always itching to have a really lucid comparison of the molecular orbital and valence bond approaches to understanding molecular structure and dynamics, you have found Nirvana. The math level is low enough that even old and rusty guys like me can deal with it- basic differential equations and linear algebra.

    Side note: Coulson was also a religious author and coined the phrase “God of the Gaps.” He was the PhD adviser to Peter Higgs of the Higgs Boson fame, and an early advocate of using science to improve food production in the Third World- I would not be surprised to find that he was an inspiration for Norman Borlaug.

     

    SugarFree

    I’m rereading The Expanse series, including all the prequels and interstitial stories. It is some really solid science fiction, something rare these days. I hope Amazon doesn’t screw the pooch with the new season.

    As a side note: Another Life, on Netflix, may be the worst science fiction television of the decade. The plot is derivative–a mash-up of a few other things and done poorly, relies on the “everyone’s an asshole!” model of character development to create drama, the science is laughably bad (why in the fuck would you need to do a gravity slingshot around a sun if you have FTL drive?) and it is seemingly produced and written by people who hate science fiction.

    Brett L

    I went and picked up one of The Expanse novellas, this one the back-story on Amos. Had I read it before the particular book that dealt with Amos’s return to Baltimore (still a shithole, OMWC!, even in 2250) I might have liked it more. It really didn’t add much. As an aside, I binge watched the first three seasons of The Expanse. Although the character playing Amos is too young and thin, the guy playing him does a great job of capturing Amos’s core character as a nice guy who thinks kids should be protected and all other human life is completely worthless. It is a strange, friendly, dead-eyed psychopathy that the actor pretty much nails.

    I also read the first book of Larry Correia’s Monster Hunter series. I give it a solid B. It breaks no new ground, the characters are fine, and the story moves along. It does kind of feel like the Koch brothers funded vision of The Laundry Files.

    For business, I picked up Effective Azure DevOps, because while I’m not drinking the devops Flavor-Aid, I did just lose a senior resource, and anything I can do to standardize and automate our build and deploy process will help me deliver a more consistent product and not have to do as much rework, which I no longer have the resources to indulge in where avoidable. Like any other set of IT practices, one should always be aware that your business is not necessarily the one the authors had when they created the process.

     

  • Violins of Hope

    A couple of years ago my mom asked if I would be interested in building a workbench for the Violins of Hope display that came to Nashville in 2018. The symphony (where she volunteers) organized it with the library.  Sure, why not. I like to build stuff and after meeting with those heading the project I had absolutely no idea what to build for them. So I did what I do best. I build something and hope they like it.

    A brief background in the Violins of Hope project from the Wikipedia page- “The Violins of Hope collection is a collection of Holocaust related string instruments in Tel Aviv, Israel. The instruments serve to educate and memorialize the lives of prisoners in concentration camps through concerts, exhibitions and other projects. The collection is owned by father and son team Amnon and Avshalom Weinstein, who are both violin makers.”

    My task was to replicate a luthier’s (fancy talk for violin maker) workbench like the ones the Weinsteins have at their workshop in Israel. Since money was tight (non-existent actually) I didn’t get to fly to Israel and visit their workshop. Instead I got to look at a few photos, and go from there. The only problem with the photos is they don’t really show the workbench. Instead they show the master craftsmen and the astounding number of violins in their shop. And really, does anyone want to see their workbench? Well, me actually. I figured it would look something like this –

    Next, I got to thinking about workbench theory – size, use, material, sturdiness, etc. This involved lots of research on the internet, of which only a small portion was beneficial. So I started with material and research on which woods are native to Israel, but are also available here in the United States and narrowed it down to cypress, cedar, and pine. Cypress is too nice, cedar is too fragrant and didn’t seem like the right choice so I picked pine. Easy enough. Home Depot here I come.

    I didn’t take as many pictures of this project like I normally would, but it started with giving everything a nice sanding. Not to make it smooth, but to get rid of the logos and stamps that were visible. Nothing says old workbench like a new Weyerhauser logo. Also, I figured nails would give it a nice detail, and I ran the 2x4s through the table saw to remove the rounded edges. This would make each board nice and square and make the bench look like it was made quickly using the cheapest materials around. After all, your time and money is spent on your projects not your workbench. Unless you are actually doing the old style woodworking with hand planes, bench dogs, and stuff like that. Then you want a sturdy bench. I don’t do that and I don’t think that is needed to build and repair violins.

    I used some screws to attach the legs to the frames in case it needed to be disassembled. Now I just needed to make it look old by darkening the wood.

    The museum curators wanted to be able to hang stuff from from the back so I attached this old sheet of pegboard I had laying around. 

    And then it was time to put a few coats of poly on it.

    And the final product…

    It went on display at the downtown branch of the Nashville library for a good 2 or 3 months. Lots of visitors came to see the display…

    …but also to look at the violins the Weinsteins have repaired.

    They made a little picture book and the workbench made it in…

    There is one violin that has a swastika and a Heil Hitler scribed inside of it that the owner likely didn’t know was in there. It was only discovered when the Weinsteins took it apart to repair it.  Did whoever do that wake up that morning and think about how he could be a dick that day? Christ, what an asshole. 

    The Nashville Symphony held a meet and greet for local luthiers that donated a bunch of the odds and ends for the display and the Weinsteins came and spoke at it. Afterwards I was riding in the elevator with the Weinsteins and the elder asked who made the workbench. We had a brief, but fun conversation about it and I felt honored that it was appreciated.

  • Japanese Swords – Part 2 – What Makes Them Superior?

    As in any country, not all Japanese of the top social caste were necessarily wealthy. Towards the end of the feudal era in Japan poor and even destitute Samurai did exist. Many Samurai were just making ends meet and only a few Samurai could afford a sword of high quality. While a low to medium grade Japanese sword was still a marvelous piece of technology for its time it was the finer swords which were truly amazing.

    In forging a Japanese sword the master would crouch on one knee at the anvil, holding the red hot billet with tongs in his left hand and strike it with a hammer in his right hand (Japanese of any social standing, had they been born left-handed, were forced to become right-handed). During the forging process there were three apprentices standing around the anvil – one opposite the master, and one on either side. When the master struck the billet they would, in sequence, strike the exact same spot on the billet with larger, two handed hammers.

    While common Japanese swords were forged from a single billet, the best quality blades were composed of separate billets of different composition, forge welded together for the end product. Usually this was done with two billets, each having started as a piece of iron forged to a piece of steel, heated, folded over on itself, then hammered together. This folding and hammering process was repeated many times to create thousands of layers within the width of the billet. Two of these iron-steel multi-layered billets would be forged to a pure steel billet between them, then forged into a sword blank. This resulted in a sword having a body of layered iron-steel with a center core and cutting edge of pure steel.

    A blade forged like this, when heat treated, would have layers of iron which were still flexible while the layers of steel would be more rigid, resulting in a blade which is much more difficult to break. In addition, forging a blade in this way would align the steel molecules more uniformly while driving out inclusions (microscopic spaces or impurities) resulting in a harder and more rigid material with less tendency to break or crack.

    But that’s not all. Japanese sword makers had a unique process for quenching blades which was the same for all Japanese swords. When the sword had been forged, shaped, and ready for heat treatment it was covered in a layer of clay mixed with ash. This layer of clay was about one quarter to three-eighths inch thick. After application of the clay, before it dried, the clay was scrapped off the part of the blade which was to be the cutting edge. When the blade was heated then quenched in water the exposed edge cooled quicker than the body of the blade, making the steel at the edge much harder than the rest of the blade.

    When this quenching process is used the difference in hardness shows up when the blade is polished. The body of the blade, being relatively softer, comes to a brighter shine while the harder edge is still duller. In fact, a Japanese blade polisher (not the same as a blade maker) will apply a slightly courser grit to this harder edge area to highlight this difference. The result is a blade with a very high polish on most of the surface with a cloudy finish on the area at the cutting edge.

    It was known that meteorite was prized by Japanese swordsmiths for use in making their blades. I have also read that some swords tested with modern equipment have been shown to have chromium in the steel. I have no idea how a feudal era Japanese swordsmith would find and identify natural examples of chromium and then blend it uniformly into a steel billet. I can only assume they had an empirical understanding about how some ore looked different and how that related to the end product.

    In the late 13th and early 14th century lived a man by the name Masamune who is regarded as the finest Japanese swordsmith ever. In his own lifetime his blades were so highly regarded that after one point he would no longer sign them (Japanese swordsmiths sign their blades on one side of the tang using hammer and chisel) believing that if a person could not recognize the quality of his work that person didn’t deserve to know who made it.

    While blade testing in Japan was not particularly common there are known historic examples of this practice. One test involved securing a blade of average quality in a solid fixture and cutting it with the blade being tested. To pass this test the superior blade should not show any nick or crack where it cut the other blade.

    Another testing method involved cutting through human bodies. In some cases this was done while executing a convicted criminal. A superior Japanese blade was expected to be able to cut diagonally through a human torso from one shoulder, through ribs, spine, and on through the ribs on the opposite side without damaging the blade. In one legendary case I have read about the blade had the inscription “five body sword” on the tang opposite the maker’s signature. Legend has it that this blade had cut through five stacked human cadavers in a single stroke.

    75 years ago US troops fighting the Imperial Japanese in the Pacific often faced Banzai charges of massed troops, some with little more than rifle-mounted bayonets and swords after running out of ammunition. In fact, there was a training film shown to some Imperial troops which described how to disable an American machinegun with the stroke of a sword in which a sword expert did just that with captured American equipment.

    During WWII and the following occupation of Japan many Japanese swords made their way to the US – a number of them true museum pieces. There still are some significantly valuable Japanese swords in the US market but you can expect that the best examples of them have already been identified and repatriated to the much higher priced market in Japan. Should you happen to possess or find one and wish to have it reconditioned please understand that only a person properly trained to polish Japanese blades will be able to do the job without seriously detracting from its value. This is a very expensive proposition and only worth it if you have a blade of exceptional value. Any collector can immediately tell the difference between a blade which was polished by a traditionally trained polisher and one which was polished with modern equipment.

     

  • Shorting Everything (Part 2)

    Previously…on glibertarians.com….

     

    “Does either of you want to explain why you decided to say you had a bomb on an airplane?”

    A TSA inspector had Sugarfree and I in a small room.  It had a single table and a couple chairs with a small light fixture in the center of the ceiling.  He sat there with an unopened bag of donuts on the table.

    “I don’t recall saying anything…”  I answered.  “…other than a request for counsel as it is my right guaranteed under the Constitution.”

    “I said I had a bomb”  Sugarfree answered.

    “Shut up!”  I shouted. “You’re going to get us into more trouble.”

    “It was true.  I brought the plane down.  I warned you.”  Sugarfree continued.

    “What is the reason you travelled to Washington?” The inspector asked again.

    “I told you, we are newlyweds on our way to the Earth Capital.”  Sugarfree said, again.  In all fairness to him, most of his answers seemed to confuse the TSA Inspector.

    “You guys have been here a while.”  The inspector seemed to take a different tack.  “You want a donut?”  He broke the seal on the bag of Drake’s Cakes donuts.

    “I believe I requested counsel.”  I answered.

    “I went Keto years ago, I can’t eat that.”  Sugarfree answered.

    “You sure?”  The inspector asked again.

    “Oh hell.”  I grabbed one with both hands, being handcuffed, and began eating the semi-stale powdered donut.  “I am still not answering anything until my counsel arrives.”

    “You sure you don’t want one?”  The inspector asked Sugarfree again.  “Drakes Cakes are really good.”

    Sugarfree shook his head.

    “Cmon.  You want a donut.  You’re really hungry.  You’re going to eat one and tell me where that bomb is.”

    Sugarfree shook his head again.

    “GODDAMNIT!”  The inspector grabbed a donut and shoved Sugarfree onto the floor, stuffing the donut into Sugarfree’s mouth. “I SAID YOU WANTED A GODDAMN DONUT.”

    “What is wrong with you?  That is abuse of power.  There is no reason to do that.”  I said.

    “YOU WANT ANOTHER DONUT?”  The inspector asked me.

    “Fuck off slaver!”

    Sugarfree rose slowly from the floor.  His eyes were bloodshot with pupils dilated and a burst capillary under his left eyelid made him appear to be crying blood.  His hands were noticeably shaking, his breathing seemed to increase rapidly.  “I….told….you….” his quivering words stammered out like a meth addict.

    “I….went…..KEETTTOOOOOOO”

    He screeched loud enough the inspector covered his ears.  I tried but couldn’t because of the handcuffs.

    “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”  Sugarfree kept shouting as he snapped the chain on the handcuffs.  “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH”  Sugarfree picked up the stainless steel table and threw it at the inspector.

    “Stop that!!”  The inspector tried shouting over Sugarfree’s bloody screech.  He pulled his weapon and emptied the magazine at Sugarfree.

    _____

     

    …thankfully this isn’t that kind of story.

    “You’re going to have to explain how we got out of there.” Sugarfree said while we were walking through the Mall. “I kind of blacked out there.”

    “You tweaked out.  I’m not so sure I want to get into that right now.”  I replied.

    “Why am I so hungry?”  Sugarfree asked.

    “I’ll tell you what, once we find STEVE SMITH I’ll buy you a steak?”  I answered.

    “Elk?  I can totally go for elk…”  Sugarfree made a yummy sound.  “Where’s STEVE anyways?”

    “The White House is this way, I assume he’s in that crowd somewhere.  Nothing is on the twatter about a Sasquatch being shot by SS.”

    “The SS?” Sugarfree was puzzled.  “The Schutzstaffel?”

    “No the Secret Serv–yes the Schutzstaffel.”  I stopped.  “Is that STEVE?”

    Sugarfree looked onto the crowd of people in black masks gathering at the White House gates.  He fixated on a single seven foot tall figure in the crowd.  His back was turned to us and was wearing a black hood and mask like everyone else.  “Is that ANTIFA?”  He asked.

    “1-2-3-fo, racist Trump has got to go. 5-6-7-8 we want someone new to hate”

    “What are they chanting?”  I asked.  We began to work our way through the crowd.  They had a distinct smell of urine and spray paint; and those fucking idiots kept stepping on my shoes.

    “1-2-3-fo, racist Trump has got to go. 5-6-7-8 we want someone new to hate”

    The gates to the White House opened, revealing a limosine behind them.

    “He’s going to rape Trump in the limo.”  Sugarfree said. “This should be good.”

    “1-2-3-fo, racist Trump has got to go. 5-6-7-8 we want someone new to hate”

    “That’s not the President’s Motorcade.”  I said. I turned and looked at Sugarfree.  He emptied a glass bottle onto a convenient white girl with dreadlocks.

    “What are you doing you creep?”  The white girl asked.

    “Do you have Styrofoam peanuts?” Sugarfree asked her.

    “Actually I do, comrade.”  She pulled out a handful from her coat.

    “1-2-3-fo, racist Trump has got to go. 5-6-7-8 we want someone new to hate”

    The car began to slowly creep out from the open gates.  The crowd began to gather around the car.

    “They won’t run over the crowd…” I said.  I looked and Sugarfree had stuffed the Styrofoam  peanuts into the bottle.  “Too many people are watching.”

    “1-2-3-fo, racist Trump has got to go. 5-6-7-8 we want someone new to hate”

    STEVE SMITH GET ORANJ MAN!

    The lone figure towering over the crowd began forcing his way through the crowd and jumped on the car.  Suddenly my phone began vibrating.

    Not Junior’s real Twatter

    “Oh no, he’s confusing Trump with Trump Jr.”

    Sugarfree was shaking the bottle to dissolve the peanuts.  I smelled gasoline. My phone vibrated again…

    “He took a photo of STEVE…we need to get him out of here.”  Sugarfree somehow found an oily rag.  My phone vibrated again…

    and again…

    and again…

    ”The voice of reason chimes in.  Do these people do anything beside sit on twatter?”  I asked.  Then it vibrated once more…

    ”STEVE SMITH has a twatter!?”

    “Do you have a light?”  Sugarfree asked.  I handed him my Zippo and tried to squeeze my way through the crowd.

    “STEVE!  You’ve been made!  Get out of here.”  I shouted.

    STEVE SMITH GET ORANJ MAN.  STEVE SMITH TAKE BACK $1.5MILLION PAPER LOSS FROM ORANJ MAN.

    ”Thanks for the light.”  Sugarfree handed me back my Zippo.  He had a lit Molotov cocktail.  “How long do we let this cook?”

    ORANJ MAN NO RUN FROM STEVE SMITH.  STEVE SMITH GET ORANJ MAN GOOD

    “Aye-ya-yie!”  Sugarfree tossed the Molotov cocktail at the crumpled limousine.  Flames erupted and spread across the car and into the crowd.

    ”The Nazis are here!  Run!”  The crowd began to disperse and panic.  A clusterfuck of hapless retards in black masks crawling over each other. I grabbed Sugarfree by the collar and moved with the crowd.

    ”Do you see Steve?”  I asked.  Sugarfree pointed at a tall figure sprinting through the crowd.

    And like that, he was gone.

    Washington was on lockdown and none of the restaurants seemed to be open.  Sugarfree didn’t seem to mind, he had a pigeon spinning on a makeshift spit over a small fire in a park.  He seemed to have spooked the homeless.  Thankfully, I found a gas station open.

    Tecate Titanium.  Its like regular Tecate, only they don’t water it down.  Its a thirst quenching, 7.5%abv Pilsner that has a needless bite of booze, which was what I wanted. Previously found only in Mexico, it is now available stateside…in tall cans.

    ”You want a breast?”  Sugarfree asked?

    “I’ll take a wing.  Well done.”  Tecate Titanium:  2.5/5