I neither envy nor admire people that speak multiple languages fluently. It’s a useful skill, but it’s not strictly necessary where I live. If I lived in Europe, or near the border with a country that spoke another language, it would be more useful. But where I am, and where I’ve largely lived, it’s a skill that’s more useful than juggling, but less useful than being able to drive a car without getting in accidents.

I would largely suggest that most people should learn at least two languages though: English and Klingon. If you speak Klingon, you’ll be able to fluently converse with nerds from any country. :)

Batteries are quite expensive. Lead-acid batteries are readily available, but don’t really work well for powering a house on a regular basis, because they don’t have a very long life cycle. LiON batteries work very well, but they’re fire hazards. Even worse, if you live in an area where you get freezing temperatures, they must be kept inside, because they can’t be allowed to freeze if you’re cycling them. LiFePO4 is the current best option. If you don’t charge them above 80, 85%, and never discharge below 20%, you should have a nearly infinite lifespan. But that means that for every 30kWh of power you use, you want 50kWh of battery. And currently LiFePO4 battery banks run approx. $1000/kWh (+/- depending on band). If you heat your home with electricity, and you live in e.g. North Dakota, you’re going to want more like 200kWh of batteries, because even high efficiency heat pumps can suck a lot of power when it’s -20F.

I’m currently working on getting a 17.7kW system approved by the local utility. It looks like I’ll need to step down what I’m feeding into the grid, because the line capacity out where I live is only 10kW, and they will only approve 75% of the line capacity for grid-tied systems.

I have priced out gym equipment, because I live 100 miles from the nearest “city” (…which is, like 20,000 people).

At $30/mo for a gym membership, it would take me >15 years to pay for a decent, mid-range power rack, Olympic bars, and bench. And that’s not including the weights themselves, which are usually $2-5/pound. A decent elliptical machine from eBay? Another 2 years, plus a year and a half for shipping.

If you’re serious about weights, and not independently wealthy, it almost always makes more sense to have a gym membership.

I wouldn’t call it a satire; it’s more a thought exercise on how to make galactic colonization economically viable. The cost involved in setting up a colony that’s tens or hundreds of light years away would be astronomical, and the return on investment would take so long that it’s simply not reasonable under any current economic system. Right now we talk about how it would be hard to colonize Mars, and that’s only about nine months of travel, and not at anything close to relativistic speeds.

Win 11 IoT Enterprise LTSC is what you want. It comes with a grand total of zero drivers, so you’ll need to download them to a USB drive before installing, otherwise you won’t even be able to get online because there’s no driver for the ethernet or WiFi. You can even uninstall Edge! (Which you should definitely do.) I think that massgrave.dev is considered reputable for downloading and activating, which is done by shell scripts. You should be able to turn off pretty much all telemetry on it.

If you’re including all non-experienced shooters

Even if you include only gun owners that think they’re experienced, it’s still easy-ish to be better than average with focused practice. There are a lot of people that think going to the range once every six months and shooting 100 rounds of slow fire makes them good. Meanwhile, the people that are actually good do dryfire drills daily, and shoot thousands of rounds each month.

I’m solidly low-middle when it comes to shooting competitions like local PCSL, local USPSA, Brutality, Gun Run, etc. That probably puts me in the top 5% of gun owners though. (And I absolutely suck at long range shooting; I’ve done a little, but I don’t know my holds, because I’ve had very limited ability to shoot past 100y. I really struggle past 300y without a spotter, and past 500y it’s basically pure luck for me to hit a full-sized steel IPSC target.)

Absolutely. There are certain things that will make it easier–like having very good proprioception/kinesthesia, or perfect vision–but with enough focused time and practice, almost anyone can become a highly proficient shooter. Some people will definitely have an easier time than others, and some abilities in other areas will help more than others. And yes, you absolutely need to practice or else you’ll start losing your ability.

But.

As far as needing to be introduced to shooting early, absolutely not. There are a number of people that have moved to the US in their middle age from other countries (Korea, in particular) with no experience with firearms, taken up shooting, and have become USPSA masters and grand masters, because they understand how to practice.

Depending on what you want to learn, my first suggestion would be to look up NRA classes. Yes, yes, I know, but trust me, the NRA classes are very good for foundational work. You want to start with safety and get very, very familiar with that before moving on, because carelessness with a firearm can kill. From there, you can do something like Project Appleseed to get proficient with rifle marksmanship, or you can take classes with Ben Stoeger and Joel Park for pistol.

Hunting specifically is going to require far, far more than shooting ability; you’re going to need naturalist skills, like being able to see trail sign, land navigation, getting a feel for movement without spooking animals, and so on. For hunting, most of your time will be spent in observation and waiting, with only a single shot at the end of it all. Spending a lot of time outdoors, in the woods or fields, paying attention to animal behavior is your ‘practice’ for hunting.

Aside from all of this, something to consider is that the average shooter is… Pretty bad. Most people that own firearms don’t put in any significant amount of time training. The police are no exception; most cops are not terribly proficient with their weapon, because they only have to qualify annually, and qualification is slow fire at a target 10y away, not a practical shooting course.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the NRA rifle courses; the instructional courses are where the NRA really shines. The NRA as a 501©(4) is great. It’s the NRA-ILA that’s a steaming pile of shit.

The Socialist IRA is… Very dependent on the chapter. Some are fantastic, amazing groups. Some are very cliquish, and you’re going to need to know your theory cold and never, ever voice any contrary opinions in order to get membership. (E.g., if I say that I think that come degree of professional policing is necessary, both because not all criminals are a product of material circumstances, and because ‘community policing’ can be the autobahn to vigilantism and night riders, that would get me thrown out of some chapters.)

There’s also the Liberal Gun Club, which has some pretty decent people in it, but they’re as scattered as the SocialistIRA is.

Operation Blazing Sword lists instructors that are willing to work with LGBTQ+ people; I’m on there for one of the states.

Appleseed events are a great way of learning the basics of rifle shooting over 2 days. Some of the history they teach as fact is highly suspect–it’s more the American myth than American history—but they nominally keep contemporary politics out of it.

I guess that I would have thought that you could isolate those individual compounds, and then reproduce them, rather than hoping that you can find a lucky ball of whale puke.

I dunno, I’m pretty sure I’m not their target audience.

For sound reproduction, I prefer my wired Shure SE-315 with sound-isolating ear tips. But Shokz ar much more comfortable for all-day wear.

So, I tried wearing earplugs with my Shokz. Disappointingly, the sound became very, very muffled. I don’t think that it’s true bone conduction, because if it was, then earplugs shouldn’t have had a significant impact on the sound. They’re still nice, just… Not as cool.

Firefly is solidly decent. It’s not great, it’s not terrible. It had real potential, and then got cancelled after 12 (?) episodes. Babylon 5 was arguably a better show overall, but I can see why Firefly still has a solid fandom 20 years later.

Makes me wonder why whale puke still gets used in cosmetics…

I believe that he also invented the first silencers.

Define “cheating”.

I looked up an online answer key for the last test I took. The test was take-home and open book, and the teacher repeatedly said that we could use ANY resource to complete the test. I spent hours scouring the course material trying to find some of the answers, and they just weren’t there; the course simply didn’t cover some areas of the test at all. Or even mention them. It turned out that there were several version of the course that I took, and the teach taught one version, but used the test for a different version.

Is that “cheating”? I don’t know. I did all the parts that I could without looking online, but I’m still not happy that I needed to look online in order to complete a course ‘successfully’.

I’ve been wearing VFFs for, uh, fifteen years or so? Something like that? I think it might be a little more, I’m not sure now. I’ve also got a pair of VivoBarefoot hiking boots, and the Bellville MiniMil rough-out boots that end up being my utility shoes. The only times I don’t wear minimalist footwear is on a bicycle (I used SPD pedals), and on a motorcycle (I have Sidi Vortice and Mag-1 boots). I always wear socks with my boots, and always Injinji socks with my VFFs.

I’ve gotten so used to them that regular shoes feel very weird and uncomfortable.

Yeah, but a lot of insurance plans also have coverage maximums.

You’d be fine, aside from the attorney’s fees for declaring bankruptcy.

…Oh, and probably losing your housing.

I say, it’s your money, make the choice yourself. I’d rather donate time and money to an org like Food Not Bombs where they can use the same amount of money to help more people. But, let’s face it, I’m too busy these days to find the time to volunteer. So for me, if I have money–and I usually don’t–I’ll give them what I feel like I can.

You don’t have to listen to it loud…

Kind of. It’s still not nearly as effective as Firefox with uBlock and a few other extensions. The downside is that some sites are just broken on Firefox, and blocking ads, etc. makes a relative few sites unusable. Which, yeah, 99.999% of the time I’m fine with. Until it’s something I need to do for my day job.