When they added locations with local radio stations in PGR2, I thought it was coolest thing ever. Growing up in the DMV, “Elliot in the Morning” on DC101 was (still is) the big morning talk radio show. Hearing Elliot introduce tracks by Bif Naked, Trust Co., and such while racing past local monuments was wild.

I wonder what sort of nightmare it had to be for a game studio to get all the necessary rights. It was after Clear Channel (iHeartRadio) acquired a ton of stations in the US so DC101, Hot 99.5, etc were probably negotiated through a single point of contact. The international stations were mostly independent if I can remember right.

Geometry Wars was the one that was playable on the arcade machine, in the garage area, in Project Gotham Racing 2 on the OG Xbox. Got a proper release and sequels after that. I was a PGR addict as a kid. Awesome soundtracks, online play, and my first racer that wasn’t arcade-like or combat oriented (Road Rash, Twisted Metal, etc).

If the guts are held in with a snap ring, I could see someone blowing them out while smacking something with the backside. Only on models like those pictured. They have a hole all the way through with a dial to change the drive direction and a thin snap ring keeping everything in.

Models with a solid back and drive switch, there’s no real way to put force behind the guts to push them out the front. Those usually have a faceplate held on with machine screws. If they’ve somehow stripped them and/or their holes out, I’d be impressed. But, for that odd scenario, if there’s enough meat left they could probably tap the holes the next size up and get the next size screws. All that assuming they haven’t lost any of the internals (small springs and pawls).

As the other reply pointed out, rebuild kits are also a thing. You can pretty much be assured any tool truck brand (Matco, Snap-On, etc) has rebuild kits for their ratchets. Harbor Freight even offers them for order with their more expensive “Icon” line of tools. Granted an in-store, lifetime warranty exchange would be even easier and they’ll probably just hand you a new ratchet without questions.

Late edit correcting myself: HF doesn’t offer rebuild kits for their ratchets. I was mixing up the fact that some Snap-On kits will drop into some Icon ratchets. You’re basically stuck trading in if it’s borked but at least their warranty is solid.

I overlooked it but the snap ring is actually visible under the drive plug on the left. Also the ratchet on the right looks like it probably does have a switch style drive selector instead of a dial. The back of the plug on that one has the push button to release the ball detent in the… “anvil?” That’s what you’d call it on an impact gun anyway. I just realized I have no idea what it is on a ratchet. Just a “square drive” I guess.

Prefacing with my usual “I’m not a dev, just a tinkerer” disclaimer: new wave, goth rock, industrial and EBM are my gaming/coding gotos (my musical tastes go far beyond that but I definitely never “outgrew” my angsty, anti authoritarian tatses). I’ve been a big fan of Nine Inch Nails and Reznor’s work, and his influences and collaborators. New Order, Gary Numen/Tubeway Army, Bauhaus, Thomas Dolby, Peter Schilling.

I lean more towards industrial while scripting, messing with my self hosted stuff, wrenching on my truck or mower or whatever. 16volt, Sister Machine Gun, Front Line Assembly, Skinny Puppy, KMFDM, …

Have
Some
Links

So the people who “can barely run their phones” are also the ones consciously seeking out adb files and acknowledging the warning that pops up when they proceed to install them? Because it seems like every single time I heard of a bunch of rubes being pwnt, they’d all installed some fake tool or Jerry Smith tier bubble popping game that unsurprisingly ended up being malware… distributed by the fucking Play Store. When Google’s “Play Protect” doesn’t seem to actually matter, why would anyone want to allow them to then monopolize app distribution under the false flag of “security?”

I took a break from my X-Files binge to watch Mr. Inbetween. I thought it was phenomenal, if not a bit short. The YouTube algo kept pushing it on me so, when I finally caved, I was surprised to find out the episodes were only about 23m (half hour with commercials). The vibe I got, from the clips, was that episodes would certainly be hour-block to contain and meaningfully convey everything they had to. In reality the story is just very fat-free and told well. It parallels Ray’s spartan demeanor. I wish it was longer, and it easily could have been, but it wrapped up properly before it had any chance of going downhill.

First played it on my Sega Dreamcast. Probably the only way I could still play now since I don’t have a CRT anymore for light guns.

I was overdue for a reminder about this site. In the same spirit “USB Killers” are indeed a thing. One I saw, a while back on Hackaday, was basically a bunch of small surface mount capacitors on a board stuffed in a generic thumb-drive type case.

Now that is an ambition to strive for! Easily one of the most significant communal projects of our time which, despite still remaining almost unheard of to countless people who unknowingly rely upon it, would be such a remarkable honor to take part in.

Same boat except my Arduino and Pi devices are still gathering dust (but I do want to eventually get a general, foundational knowledge of electronics). My own ideas most often devolve into timesinks that leave me questioning how I even convinced myself to start down that road. I like doing dev stuff more if it happens when an update breaks something, like a service or a plugin to some app I host. “Hey, that’s a goddamn puzzle! I fucking love puzzles!” And there’s the underlying fact that, if I manage to solve it, I might be helping somebody else out. Some psychological compulsion to help others that I can identify but still not deny.

Anyway, I might never end up a “contributor” to anything else but one of my biggest highs was singlehandedly debugging, submitting, and having a fix merged to a Jellyfin plugin I use. From first reporting it and thinking out loud about it in the app’s Discord, to poking through the source on GitHub (in a language I’ve never touched), I worked it out in a few hours and even compiled a replacement .dll for my own use until the merge was accepted. To the reception of some compliments and pats on the back from regulars on the server that, at the risk of over sharing, did more for my emotional well being than my last lay. The problem ended up being a simple order-of-operations issue but the experience was the sort of the thing that makes a guy, who hasn’t worked so much as a help desk position, briefly think “Maybe I could hack it.”

Conversely, my biggest low was wasting 45 minutes on an Advent of Code problem because I forgot to switch from the sample data to my actual puzzle data in the second half. It was a first-week problem, probably child’s play for any pro, but I had a working solution fast enough to have landed on that day’s leaderboard. It would’ve been entirely self serving and good for nothing but bragging rights. Instead I wasted nearly an hour to reach the “duh” moment and subsequent self loathing. I wanted those bragging rights!

The TLDR is Programming turns bipolar disorder into a speed run session too easily for it to be more than an on-again off-again hobby or the occasional necessity for me. I can’t fathom how the actual pros, especially those in prestigious and lucrative positions, keep from crashing out or falling into imposter syndrome any time they let themselves get caught up in an off-by-one or some other nonsense.

The 2A crowd opposed to the current regime isn’t declaring war for the same reasons the people bold enough to cry out loud “please, now is the time to shoot these people” don’t find the stones to do it themselves. Nobody wants to be the first. Nobody wants to risk winding up in a sting trying to recruit/join others. Nobody wants to go it alone and end up a crazed, lone gunman that maybe clips one head off the hydra before their own brains are splattered by a sniper team and their family is left with a closed casket and the shame of whatever propaganda gets cooked up to explain their actions. “He was a bad dude. A real bad guy. It has been said he had terabytes of transvestite furotica and a pet cat named Karl. He once took a picture of a rainbow. A disgusting man.” Then, two weeks and two fresh heads later, the media cycle has moved on and the world is just a little worse than before.

It’s not worth it if they’re still comfortable. It’s not even worth it if there’s a sliver of hope to continue eking out a tolerably miserable existence - “at least I’m not dead.” They’ll carry on until there’s a knock at their door then either go out in a hail of gunfire or hand over their arms and freedom because “False, indefinite imprisonment? At least I’m not dead.”

That was mostly directed at OP, who is welcome to show us how it’s done. To your own point - Years ago, and probably still, “tanks and drones” was a routine troll over on /k/ and the answer to it is always “Asymmetric Warfare.” You don’t go toe-to-toe and fist fight the wrecking ball swinging toward you. You blast the tracks off the crane. You hydrolock the engine. You make people too scared to sit in the operator’s seat. Guerilla tactics, sabotage, etc.

You also don’t police with military drones. You surveil and exact precision strikes. The second the American military launches missiles at Americans in America, we’ll have that civil war that nobody with a brain actually wants. In our current political climate I genuinely believe that would kick things off. Point of no return, war were declared, hope you stockpiled canned goods and water because the supply chain is getting disrupted.

As for tanks, you can ruin the streets with them to stick them on the corners but it’ll only be a show of force - an intimidation tactic. Tanks are rolling shields for infantry and other equipment, with a few bullet hoses and a big gun to blast encampments and other tanks. They also need those same foot soldiers, willing to kill their fellow citizens, to defend them from folks flinging molotovs or dropping DIY explosives down the barrel.

If you’ve got a water jug of pre-1982 pennies, that you haven’t been bothered turning into pizza and beer or selling for the slightly higher scrap value, and you never stared at it and thought “I could smelt these down into cones because… I just really like the shape of cones,” you’re not trying hard enough to break the illusion that you’re already defeated.