That's a good question. I've only heard about it through a random conversation I struck up with someone who does it. I didn't actually ask, but I just assumed they used wooden or rubber swords or something. I think the folks that do it around here aren't quite this hardcore. Maybe, though. I'm kind of curious now and want to go see what they do.

A set of plate armour can't be cheap. I had a friend who made chainmail to sell at renaissance fairs and a... uh... smock.. whatever they call it... (jerkin?) of that costs about $1000. That's hand-made though, if it's popular there's probably a Chinese factory churning it out by the ton. Airsoft is a new hobby for me this summer, and I thought I was dumping too much money into gear, but I bet it isn't a fraction of what these guys invest.

Fuck gamergate. They are not, never have and never will be about "ethics in journalism".

They are straight-up misogynistic assholes that make me ashamed to be associated with an art medium/hobby that I've been involved with for over 30 years.

Let's just put this in context. They claim they are against the collusion of game companies and journalists.

First up, the specific instance they targeted was not a conflict of interest. There are absolutely, undoubtedly, HUGE collusions between game reviewers and games, but gg ignored all those because they were for AAA mainstream games that gg likes and instead accused journalists of giving higher review scores to indie games.

Here's a fucking hint: go read some movie reviews, and tell me if you see movie critics favouring indie movies over blockbusters. Of course they do. People who are seriously into something almost always prefer a niche product. See also: craft beer vs budweiser, restaurants vs McDonalds, etc. I could go on.

But here's the cheery on the big cake of poo.

When a games journalist dared to express an opinion against an otherwise well-reviewed game*, what did gamergate do? Applaud their journalistic integrity in offering a dissenting opinion?

Nope: they started a fucking campaign to get the game company to blacklist the reviewer.

The hypocrisy is simply staggering.

And I haven't even mentioned the doxing, the rape threats and so on.

Once again, fuck gamergate. Frankly, they're on a par with the KKK as far as I'm concerned.


* polygon gave Bayonetta 2 a score of 7.5/10 because the reviewer felt it was juvenille and over sexualised. gg started a campaign to get nintendo to block polygon. Nintendo, to their credit, ignored the little fucktards.

I translated the YouTube comments of this video and I didn't learn much. Anyone know what's going on in this video? It seems to be taken from a recon drone. Do those tanks in the video deploy drones for targeting and recon? I doubt this is is the work of a hobby droner, unless said droner has huge lithium balls.

Also, what a tragedy. I don't know what Damascus used to look like, but it's sure in ruin now.

Idk man. I'm out looking in too, but my list of problems guns are a good solution for stops pretty short after "killing something you want dead". I mean, cars and knives can do that pretty good too, but I've not seen many getting to work or chopping vegetables with their automatic. Well, unless its an automatic transmission car, which I gather are quite popular state side. Gun, automatic gun I meant. Also I guess technically the vegetable chopping thing is _possible_ with a firearm. I digress.

When used as self defence I think they might sometimes have uses if you are prepared and have it ready. My problem is that the only person who knows for sure that they are going to be in a gun point robbery/rape/[insert crime] situation on any given day is the guy doing the robbing/raping/[insert crime]ing. I mean, is the aim to get the point where every man woman and child is so strapped to the nines that mutually assured destruction is guaranteed? Excuse me from taking it the logical extreme, but I don't think it's entirely fallacious.

They are fun? I've shot some guns. It was fun. I didn't need to own them mind. Hunting aint for me, but evidently some people enjoy it...but I guess I'm not sure how strident I would be in defence of my hobby if it involved the use of a machine that has been streamlined by war to be the most efficient man-portable tool for taking life that we can conceive.

So yeah, I certainly think your right that is more to gun violence than gun ownership. Clearly there are countries with relatively high levels of gun ownership with comparatively little gun violence. (altho the US still has almost twice as many guns per person than the next nearest...so yah). I just struggle to understand exactly what reason there is for having quite so many of them given that everybody else seems to be doing mostly ok without them. What exactly are these problems the Americans should be using their guns as a solution for? Can knives and cars, which according to gun advocates are at least as lethal, perhaps be leveraged in creative ways to be the solution to the problems for which apparently only guns can currently solve?

BBC news did pretty much exactly the same thing. They even have an article on their website outlining the reasons why it is a bad idea to report the shooters name and picture etc...but then they are just as guilty of writing these bullshit stories about who the killer was, who his parents were, his hobbies, his favorite colour, that thing he once said to someone etc etc. Meanwhile the victims are just numbers for the most part.

Yes, they are in a unique situation.

I agree that availability in the USA is a major factor but I think it is the availability to people who intend to use them criminally that is the problem (as I believe you alluded to near the end).

The police force is an interesting suggestion. But remember the USA is so very unalike Australia. Historically, you take care of yourself - that's the price of liberty. That's how many Americans want it kept. I don't blame them, every inch you give in to restrictions is almost never given back. Australia is the perfect example of that. In Australia one doesn't ask themselves "is this illegal", you take the default position of everything being illegal and ask "is this legal" - because it's probably not.

Banning particular types of firearms really doesn't work. As above, NZ is a really good example of how Australia's laws aren't making the difference that some politicians suggest they are (which is backed up by the majority of studies that have examined the situation).

I don't think they're a rarity with the ownership rates we have in Australia. It's a very popular hobby.

Congratulations. You've managed to capture the entire diversity of the US by visiting several times and not get shot or had a gun pointed at you. This is like forming an opinion about whether sharks will bite humans after you've laid on the beach once or twice and have never been bitten. Searching for some relevance here... and ... nope, none.

Agreed, if your gun is in a traditional safe, it's not much good when the burglars or home invasion psychos kick in your front door at 2 a.m. Jim Jeffries is indeed a funny guy, but like many who don't understand what "for protection" means to some homeowners here in the US, you might want to cite a bit more credible source or at least educate yourself.

Thanks to biometric safes and locking devices, it is quite easy to have a secured gun in a safe at arms reach, accessible to only one person, that can be unsecured, ready to fire in about 4 seconds. I know this to be true, because I have such a setup, and we practice what to do when the home alarm goes off just like we practice fire drills.

The distressing part is I absolutely hate having to be in such a situation. I'm no cowboy and this isn't the wild west, but when families around me are having their doors kicked in in the middle of the night by armed thugs, or having one or two fuckheads follow them up the driveway for an easy push-in robbery accompanied by beatings, shootings, molestation and sometimes killing, I decided that there would be no way I could live with myself if something tragic ever happened to my family at the hands of these nut jobs, knowing I might have been able to do something to stop it. And no, one can't relay on the local police to take care of these crimes. Around here, even with a top notch alarm system in the house that goes directly to dispatch, the cops usually arrive to clean up the blood and take statements, and almost never in time to stop the crime or catch the criminals.

Do you have house, car, fire or life insurance? Sure, but you hope you'll never have to use it. So, what's so unbelievable about a gun for protection? What do you suggest? You appear to think it's silly to state it's for protection... so does one simply relying on hope, faith or good luck in never having to witness your wife or child being duct taped to a chair while criminals rummage through your house, or having their head kicked in or bloodied on the end of a baseball bat?

Just a suggestions, but try to spend some time as an actual resident in a country before you pretend to understand it, consider yourself fortunate that you don't live in such a situation, and for fucks sake stop with the snide, morally superior judgement of those who do. If you can muster that, on a guess that you might be from NZ but really don't know, I'll stop telling everyone that Kiwi's really do fuck sheep, especially on National Lamb Day when it's a competition rather than just a hobby.

Have fun.

Penny Dreadful has a MUCH better take on ol' Victor and his hobbies.

Trikes though? That's cool but very repetitive it seems, with you essentially just sitting on your ass all of the time. I don't think I could adopt another hobby which has me sitting on my ass. Check out Sergio Yuppie for some serious downhill acrobatics.

*related=http://videosift.com/video/Hobbies-with-Asa-Akira-Ep-1-Tattoo-Artist

We all know she's a porn performer, right?
That explains all the overacting and "OMGs!"

Hobbies with Asa Akira - Ep. 2 - Taxidermy has been added as a related post - related requested by Trancecoach on that post.

Hobbies with Asa Akira - Ep. 1 - Tattoo Artist has been added as a related post - related requested by Trancecoach.

Lol. Right. I was curious and tried to Google the price of one and didn't have much success... admittedly I spent like less than 2 minutes before giving up (aka I scanned the first page and first page of shopping), but near as I can see, a good optical microscope will cost $2-4k, with most high end hobby ones around $3-500 range. I doubt there's a hobby range in SEMs. The only one I saw during that minute and a half search was a used one for $25k another for $27k and an auction listing that went for $2k (which compared to others seems out of price). Anyhow, between the auction price and the used listings, I figure roughly you are looking at $5-25k if you know where to look... Who knows what actually spending more time would have given me, but either way, I'm fairly sure a SEM is beyond most people's budgets.

He's almost to the point where his hobby costs more than actually owning a real (non-r/c) areoplane...

...maybe past it.