In Reply To #3
A spring-loaded potato masher sounds exciting, lat least potentially. Have you attempted to weaponize it yet?

In Reply To #16

I'm left concerned over it's use. The recipe for the soup called for mashing the cubes of potato while they were in the pot of soup. Thankfully I only made soup for two, so the water level was low, but more soup would have meant a partly submerged handle, and a submerged internal spring. That would have bee very hard to clean... it's not dismantle-able-ish.

I imagine modern assault rifles are made to continue working after being submerged, but it seems to me that for the masher, it could lead to problems. Come to think of it, if a rifle is made to work after being in water, that doesn't necessary mean it'll be OK in thick soup, either.

In Reply To #17

AK-47s famously work after they've been submerged in water.

Then again, they also work after they've been buried in mud and dug up again. Kalashnikov knew what he was doing when it came to reliability.

Most assault rifles aren't quite so sturdy though - even more modern ones than AKs. Only a few work with any water in the barrel. Most are utterly fucked by salt water corrosion, and are badly impaired by even a few silt particles - but will work okay after they've been thoroughly cleaned.

It's a bit of a design flaw, really. Given that soldiers have to tramp around in muddy fields and that.

Of course, the big advantage rifles have over potato mashers is that you can dismantle them for cleaning.

I heard my baby's heart beat today :D

In Reply To #18

The other plus of more modern rifles that aren't as durable as the Kalashnikov is that they can hit the broad side of a barn from a bit farther away than the distance from one end of the barn to the other.

Cool!

But also freaky. Really freaky. There are two hearts inside you right now. You're like a Time Lord.

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In Reply To #20

I haven't ever fired any guns, but according to my brother (who has), Soviet-bloc AKs are "a lot more accurate" than he expected, and "about as accurate as an M-16" - bearing in mind he hasn't been officially trained in either, none were his weapons, and he mainly uses bullpup rifles.

(there are probably some more official-type comparisons knocking about, but I thought I'd throw that anecdote out there)

The ones with wooden stocks are also much heavier than they look, apparently.

In Reply To #21

Accuracy of single shots might be similar, but I'm guessing the M-16 suffers less recoil.

Interesting how we manage to turn a topic about pregnancy-related insomnia into a discussion about assault rifles. Games don't make people violent? Yeah, right ;)

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In Reply To #19

I'd be lying if I said I know the feeling, but that must have been a very special moment. Awesome.

In Reply To #22

It would have been a US Army M-16 which is - if my gun-nerd-fu is right - burst-limited and a Souvenir AK, which I would be very disappointed if my brother wasn't firing in controlled bursts as per his training (that I paid for, with my taxes )

So yeah, I'd imagine that the real difference in accuracy comes when you get untrained people firing AKs on full auto and spraying their bullets up into the air.

(his OiC's office in Basra had bulletholes all over it from the toppling of Saddam - the locals fired up into the air in celebration, and then the bullets came back down again...)

Boom!

White House says "no" to Death Star

In Reply To #25

Time to get a new White House imo. Clearly they're not up for the job.

In Reply To #26

This is the inevitable consequence of kicking the British out, I'm afraid.

We would have built a Death Star if we were still in charge. We had 'Empire' in our name and everything.

In Reply To #27

I just heard this on the BBC, I enjoyed the comment about the cost of the Deathstar vs the cutting the deficit.

Yet another valid argument for Australia not becoming a republic nation. Long live the Brits (but you can take away your English - tis a silly language).

In Reply To #29

As a counter-point I'm just going to say "Uluru".