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[#] Sun Feb 14 2021 22:08:56 UTC from darknetuser

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2021-02-13 16:09 from Nurb432
Its intended purpose is just to toss cheap bolts into a target in the

back yard.  If i can get it strung, it will do fine with that. 
Going to end up getting a commercial stringer, giving up on trying to

improvise. 

Ammo is so expensive now, and so hard to find, been looking for cheap

alternatives.  

 

Hahaha, then it is ok.

I am a bit concerned with weapon availability here. Manufacturing an actual gun (say a submachinegun) is not the hard part, but provisioning quality ammo with modern Nitro powder seems to be.

In fact, I even did some research in bo-shurikens and vegetal based poisons in order to have a decent fallback if it even came to absolute shortage of ammo in here :-) While I became practiced throwing bo-shurikens at targets and digging nice hones in them, I don't think they make for practical self-defense weapons, though.

[#] Mon Feb 15 2021 02:05:15 UTC from Nurb432

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I do agree, when it all falls apart, functional firearms are not at all hard to manufacture ad-hoc in a garage.Sure, having a lathe and mill like some of us do does make it far easier, but its not a barrier for entry. Even with no power tools, it can be done. Just a lot of elbow grease. The problem is always the ammo.  While its not impossible to start from scratch, its not trivial. 

Related to my crossbow, it was not uncommon for us go go to the range several times a month using normal calibers and what we carry..   But, back when Obama came into office, with the shortage/prices then i switched to 22.  Eventually even picked up a couple of pellet guns as there seemed like no end in sight. This shortage we are in now, its effecting everything... and i dont see it ever getting better. Only worse.



[#] Thu Feb 18 2021 02:15:38 UTC from ParanoidDelusions

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So, guys, you know we've invented this thing called gunpowder. It solves this problem - and you don't even have to think about the mechanics by which it works. You point the bang-ey end at the target, and pull the trigger, and holes appear in what you're aiming at. 

It is all pretty cool. 

You probably can't do it in your backyard though - unless you have a big back yard, or live in an area where you would have plausible deniability. 

 

Sat Feb 13 2021 16:09:30 EST from Nurb432

Its intended purpose is just to toss cheap bolts into a target in the back yard.  If i can get it strung, it will do fine with that.  Going to end up getting a commercial stringer, giving up on trying to improvise. 

Ammo is so expensive now, and so hard to find, been looking for cheap alternatives.  

 

Sat Feb 13 2021 06:08:50 EST from darknetuser

I have run the numbers already.

Any pistol crowssbow you can reload with one hand in a reasonable amount of time is bound to deliver too small of a hit as to be a viable weapon.


 



 



[#] Thu Feb 18 2021 13:22:36 UTC from Nurb432

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Yes. i even have reloading hardware in case it gets worse. And bullet molds. While its not 'hard' its still not trivial to do, correctly.   And you can only reload brass so many times, slowly eating into your ( currently ) finite supply.  Primers are scarce too.    ( or caps, if you go black powder to avoid the reload treadmill )

Today, ya id get in trouble in my yard, as i no longer live out on several acres in the country.  However, one of my son-in-laws does.    

In theory, this solves all the problems, for a low cost. AND i dont have to head out of town to do it.. ( or pay for range time. All our free ranges have dried up around here )

 



[#] Fri Feb 19 2021 17:28:16 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

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Does your crazy uncle believe that 5G is evil?

If by "crazy" you mean "believes that 5G is basically just 'like 4G but faster'" then there are a lot more crazy people than just LS's uncle.

[#] Sat Feb 20 2021 14:22:04 UTC from Nurb432

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Actually, i'm not understanding the manufactured fear of 5G. What is the angle? I just dont get it.

Companies, get to charge more for service, and/or sell all new hardware.  Consumers, can watch their cat videos even faster, in super-duper 10x resolution.

 

I'm not so sure we really 'need' it, but i dont see a reason to instill fear to block it.

Fri Feb 19 2021 12:28:16 EST from IGnatius T Foobar
Does your crazy uncle believe that 5G is evil?

If by "crazy" you mean "believes that 5G is basically just 'like 4G but faster'" then there are a lot more crazy people than just LS's uncle.

 



[#] Sat Feb 20 2021 16:33:26 UTC from darknetuser

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2021-02-20 09:22 from Nurb432
Actually, i'm not understanding the manufactured fear of 5G. What is

the angle? I just dont get it.

Companies, get to charge more for service, and/or sell all new
hardware.  Consumers, can watch their cat videos even faster, in

super-duper 10x resolution.

 

I'm not so sure we really 'need' it, but i dont see a reason to
instill fear to block it.

I think 5G is part of this trend of making everything Internet aware, which is not a good thing.

I mean, the NSA spends a significant amount of resources taking consumer-grade products, such as phones, tablets, fridges and gym-machines and DISCONNECT them from the Internet so they are safe to use by senior officers.

If senior officers are not using IoT devices then we should conclude they are not a great thing.

So why I don't think 5G is an evil tech of Death, it is a catalyzer for an evil tech of Death.

[#] Sat Feb 20 2021 21:53:11 UTC from zooer

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The evil of cell phones probably started back with 2G if not earlier.  Once they required GPS... for 911 safety reasons of course, it was unquestionably evil.



[#] Sun Feb 21 2021 02:56:27 UTC from IGnatius T Foobar

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Companies, get to charge more for service, and/or sell all new
hardware.  Consumers, can watch their cat videos even faster, in
super-duper 10x resolution.

There's the thing. 5G isn't really about speed, it's about density. They made the range shorter in exchange for the ability for more transmitters to simultaneously access the same cell. For a typical human with a phone in their pocket, it doesn't really amount to much of a difference.

5G is far more about IoT than it is about your phone. I suppose that means more surveillance, which is a reasonable driver of fear. The kind of "bugs" you see in spy movies, that are tiny and can transmit back to a receiver far away, are probably going to become within reach to the average consumer, which seems like a reasonable driver of fear.

I have some other thoughts about smart appliances, but I'll post elsewhere.

[#] Sun Feb 21 2021 07:35:46 UTC from arabella

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"deformation of the deformated"


Every instance of this word, in that post should have been "deformed"


/pedantry



[#] Sun Feb 21 2021 15:16:57 UTC from Nurb432

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Even with that, i dont see the reason for the FUD. I'm not fond of IoT either, ( no my toaster does NOT need to be internet aware ) but the hysteria, i just dont understand.

Wonder how it compares to LoRA, since we are talking IoT

Sat Feb 20 2021 21:56:27 EST from IGnatius T Foobar
Companies, get to charge more for service, and/or sell all new
hardware.  Consumers, can watch their cat videos even faster, in
super-duper 10x resolution.

There's the thing. 5G isn't really about speed, it's about density. They made the range shorter in exchange for the ability for more transmitters to simultaneously access the same cell. For a typical human with a phone in their pocket, it doesn't really amount to much of a difference.

5G is far more about IoT than it is about your phone. I suppose that means more surveillance, which is a reasonable driver of fear. The kind of "bugs" you see in spy movies, that are tiny and can transmit back to a receiver far away, are probably going to become within reach to the average consumer, which seems like a reasonable driver of fear.

I have some other thoughts about smart appliances, but I'll post elsewhere.

 



[#] Wed Feb 24 2021 14:41:31 UTC from Nurb432

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"Dating system X was hacked and passwords uploaded.. bla bla "  "i always use a VPN, and my choice is brand Y"

 

wtf does one have to do with the other? At least if you are going to to push a product, try to make sense.



[#] Wed Feb 24 2021 15:07:26 UTC from darknetuser

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2021-02-24 09:41 from Nurb432
"Dating system X was hacked and passwords uploaded.. bla bla "  "i

always use a VPN, and my choice is brand Y"

 

wtf does one have to do with the other? At least if you are going to

to push a product, try to make sense.


Dunno, I think it would make sense if we were talking about something other than a dating service.

Say you are active in a Cake Forum, and the Cake Forum has a security breach, the password database is stolen, and your private messages with compromised information get stolen too.

If you are behind an anonymozing service and have not posted identifying information, you are good, because the ugly stuff you sent over PM cannot be linked to you, and even if they crack the password hash, they don't know the password belongs to you.

If you are not behind an anonymizing service they can link your password and PMs to your IP and probably to more things, which is very bad in my book.


For a date service, being busted is quite a deal because chances are that you are using the date service to cheat your wife, or cheat your wife with a guy, of cheat your wife with a guy called Mary. Confidentiality in dating services is thus important for plenty people. The problem is, lots of dating sites request identifying information from you (geolocation, address) so being behind an anonymizing service won't do any good, since anybody breaching the server can fetch your personal data from the database anyway even if your Internet connection comes from the South Pole.

[#] Thu Feb 25 2021 00:31:29 UTC from Nurb432

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The implication was that 'if you use this vpn, this wont happen to you'.

which of course is totally false.



[#] Thu Feb 25 2021 09:54:17 UTC from darknetuser

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2021-02-24 19:31 from Nurb432
The implication was that 'if you use this vpn, this wont happen to

you'.

which of course is totally false.



Well, that is marketing for you.

Lots of people think security programs are like black magic. You sacrifice a chicken and install Gnu Privacy Guard and it magically secures the whole computer against evaesdropping. Don't laugh, I had a collaborator think that Gnu Privacy Guard worked that way :)

In this scenario, it is not hard to see you don't have to work any hard when it comes to marketing consumer-grade security.

[#] Thu Feb 25 2021 19:44:15 UTC from ParanoidDelusions

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Most TV ads for VPN services are aimed at technology illiterate folks. They're cash grab companies and, now that I think of it, they target older American conservatives who are paranoid about technology. 

Lots of my friends were VERY concerned about contact tracing apps - yet they're all walking around with BT turned on ALL the time, even if they aren't using it. 


But - you can't help those folks. They're part of the school of fish/herd - and they rely on safety in numbers. Not all of them are *supposed* to survive. 

 



[#] Thu Feb 25 2021 21:40:38 UTC from nonservator

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You want to protect yourself against first world nation states? Rots of ruck. You want to protect yourself against billion dollar corporations? You'll have a slightly less worse time. You want to protect yourself against the average doxxer and/or SJW? Not too much of an issue, if you're careful.



[#] Fri Feb 26 2021 18:36:24 UTC from darknetuser

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2021-02-25 14:44 from ParanoidDelusions
Most TV ads for VPN services are aimed at technology illiterate
folks. They're cash grab companies and, now that I think of it, they

target older American conservatives who are paranoid about
technology. 

Lots of my friends were VERY concerned about contact tracing apps -

yet they're all walking around with BT turned on ALL the time, even

if they aren't using it. 


But - you can't help those folks. They're part of the school of
fish/herd - and they rely on safety in numbers. Not all of them are

*supposed* to survive. 

 



Speaking of which:

There is an android program in FDROID that creates lots of fake, but real looking contects, in order to fool tracking apps that read your contact list.

[#] Fri Feb 26 2021 20:31:52 UTC from zooer

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Fri Feb 26 2021 01:36:24 PM EST from darknetuser
Speaking of which:
There is an android program in FDROID that creates lots of fake, but real looking contects, in order to fool tracking apps that read your contact list.

 

Plot twist, it is a tracking app that reads your contact list.



[#] Fri Feb 26 2021 20:35:55 UTC from zooer

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This is really pissing me off because so many stores do it.  You can "Order online and pick up in store in one hour" and there is a price.  If you go to the store for the item it is a higher price.  They won't give you the online price in the store.

I would think it would cost more money to pay someone to get the item and bring it out to the car then it would be for me to pick up the item for myself.

PetSmart and Walgreens both do this. 

I had a coupon for the $10 item, I didn't want to order it on my phone and stand there as they picked it out.

 



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