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Oh I know, I can't believe how much they lifted. If my calculations are right, there are only approximately 12 original blues songs and every one covered them. I've been listening to bluesville on XM radio. They play early early recorded stuff, and even those guys were ripping each other off.

Covering famous blues songs and giving it your own spin seems to be standard in blues, to the point that sometimes most of a CD or even artist's output consists of covers. Whereas in rock this ceased to be cool, causing them to learn how to write their own material. Or be 'inspired', as Led Zeppelin often was. And woo to the rock band whose most famous hit was a cover, for they would forever be doomed to play that cover till their breakup days.

Better let Lars Ulrich not see that. For he will fire up that one warrior that beats even a berserker, the lawyer.

In Lar's defence, he saw the whole mp3 thing coming with Napster.

He saw the end of the music industry business model coming. But using repression to prop up a failing business model is not the answer, what's needed is a new business model. In that sense he was more like some middle eastern dictator unleashing his armies on protesters then the next Steve Jobs. And caused unrecoverable harm to the Metallica brand. There are people to this day who hate the band because of what he did and who used to be fans. The only way I can still stomach listening to their music is by pretending Metallica died after the Black Album tour and some tribute band took over. Which IMHO also explained why all successive albums have been shite.

Better let Lars Ulrich not see that. For he will fire up that one warrior that beats even a berserker, the lawyer.

Everybody should question forced injections, but I would be interested to learn which countries are actually going that way. I am in a risk group, and I'll personally take the known and unknown side effects of a professionally developed, tested, and risk-assessed vaccin over the already-known side effects of a covid infection any day.

Thing is, I don't trust big pharma even at the best of times. There is too much money for them to be made at stake and too much pressure from governments to come up with something for them to not resist cutting corners. If I have to be a guinea pig then at least pay me for the risk. Which I have done in the past.

I'm right there with you on this.

I have not seen anything about governments forcing vaccinations anywhere, but I have seen speculation that employers may require it before returning to the office. That is a different matter entirely and between employers and staff. Perhaps that is what Maudzin is referring to?

Which is a form of privatized enforcement of behalf of a government which can then maintain plausible deniability. And the form I am most worried about. Because I work parttime as a gym instructor. And I can totally see the company asking for mandatory vaccinations in order to be allowed to work. If its not to be mandatory by the

There are times when matching up multiple fictional universes makes for interesting thought experiments. But one fictional universe is the eight hundred pound gorilla in any match-up.

Which faction has the best defended homeworld between Warhammer 40k, Halo, Mass Effect, and Star Wars?

Gee, I wonder. It's more like a competition to see who can come in second place. No matter what the match-up is, Warhammer 40k has the most over the top example of it. Possibly including actual fun and pleasure, given the presence of Slaanesh (although, for the Imperium, they come in dead last for pleasure, apart from worlds dedicated to R&R... oh, for fu--)

Pff, your average major world in the Imperium of Man is better fortified then the homeworlds of other scifi universes. Just look at the three wars for Armageddon.

I cant believe that there are pedal scalpers, a weird thought to me and those people are scummy.

No different than the people that get the pre-sale tickets for the latest video game consoles for $450-500 and then turn around and sell them for $800-900 when they are first released.

We have people in my area that are buying up all of the Lysol cleaning products and re-selling for 2-3x the price online. Pittiful!

That's capitalism for you. Where there's insane demand for something, somebody will find a way to profit from it. Although in the case of the gaming console, a totally unnecessary product, you get what you are willing to pay for. Early adopters always pay full price if not more. Which is why I will never be one.

DLW, thanks for those encouraging words.

This whole thing reminds me of why anti-vaxxers piss me off so much. My grandmother had polio as a child, and had reduced lung capacity her entire life as a result (didn't stop her smoking, though... ) and if it wasn't for vaccines, we'd still have polio, and all kinds of other viruses that crippled nations worse than even CoVID has, like smallpox. Bubonic plague was bacterial, not viral, IIRC, but it still killed an estimated 30% to 60% of the European population. The modern world was getting dangerously complacent about these things. Even Ebola seems to have been seen as just one of those odd things that only happen in Africa.

Ebola will remain one of those things that only happen in Africa because its too potent to travel that far. It kills too quickly. A corona infectee can travel for a much longer time before the symptoms show. And while I agree that anti-vaxxers are the epitome of stupid, with tried and long time proven vaccines that is, these are fairly new vaccines, of which the long term side effects are not known yet. I am kinda iffy on the idea of being forced to be injected with something that might have unknown long term side effects. For now the point is moot anyway as I am probably far down the priority list of people to be injected first. This is a process which will take a long time.

 EHX again proves why they are ahead of the pack. And no, I wouldn't build a DS-1. Never liked its sound anyway. I'd mod one though. In fact I did. 

So many people are so focused on showing off their playing versus letting everyone know what the gear actually sounds like

God help it if you want to hear a good higain rhythm tone and the person demoing it is a blues noodler or shred wannabe!

A luthier once lamented to me about Fender replacement parts, nothing fits. Fender also constantly changes things so that a pickguard screw holes that fits on one guitar doesn't line up on another. And it doesn't help that many companies use metric, as they are in metric countries, while the Anglosaxon world persists with Imperial. So that adds to the fun. Many, many MANY times did I order knobs that turned out to be metric and wouldn't fit on imperial measured pots.

Since we're getting Lady Thor soon we need one with that picture of Natalie Portman holding that plastic hammer and looking at it like its made from neutronium or something.

I am not quite sure what this is supposed to do, I guess I am not as savvy as I would like to think. Can anyone enlighten me?

I am fond of using that George Carlin quote, know how stupid the average person is, and realize that half are even more stupid then that?

But on the other hand our brains are constructed in such a way that they don't see reality as it is, they construct one in our brains from our sensory input. When you look at something, you don't see reality, you see an interpretive movie that plays inside your brain. This is why there is no such thing as common sense, or why it feels so damn odd that nobody else can see what seems clear as crystal to you. Everyone's brain movie is different and you are probably just as stupid to them as they are to you. And in a way its so amazing that it actually works in such a way that most of the time most of us can agree on anything.

I has always boggled my mind how the US has allowed its voting systems to become such a dispersed mess. 3rd world countries like India, which has 4 times as many people and endemic corruptions organizes its elections better. A clear case of of the law of the handicap of a head start if there ever was one.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Law_of_the_handicap_of_a_head_start

I agree with the OP, surface mount soldering ain't fun. And sadly as more and more through hole components go out of production it will become more and more the norm. As driven by the electronics industry, for whom this is both cheaper and allows for less repairs so more planned obsolescence. Kaching!