If you want to buy that gunsmithing lathe, please use this Althouse Amazon link.
It seems pretty cool, doesn't it?
I may want new work, now that I'm about to hang up my law-professor spurs.
I can just see myself, gunsmithing at the Shop Fox, then going out carousing in my hot dress.
There's a little arrow in the upper right corner of the ad, so I click that and get...
I am so tempted to click "I already own this." Then what ads would I get? Or would the government start spying on me? And spare me the comment "Start?! Althouse you are so naive."
Here's the link to John's post about spellchecking "commenter." Don't hesitate to make a comment, er....
If my post made you wonder why I wrote "Parents are so terrible!" — feel free to speculate in the comments, but you will never guess.
If my post made you wonder about the origin of the phrase "hang up your spurs," read this, at Grammarphobia.
Today, to “hang up one’s spurs” (or the tools of one’s trade) means to retire from the field, to give up, or to turn one’s attentions elsewhere. This... is a tradition dating back to classical times. The Roman poet Horace, who lived in the first century BC, refers to this tradition... [w]ith the lines nunc arma defunctumque bello / barbiton hic paries habebit, the narrator decides to retire metaphorically from the field of battle and hang up his weapon—the lyre with which he does his wooing.ADDED: Meade says "'the lyre with which he does his wooing' should be a picture of me from the New York Times on the front porch with my laptop." He means the picture of him here.
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Now those are truly random thoughts. Althouse breaking free.
Professor, Are you retiring 1/1/17?
Or 12/31/16
Say, if a second civil war breaks out, I judge Meade as just handy enough to turn a mean barrel. I would go for the lathe if I was you.
What could drive this blog more, Professor Althouse, than an image of you gazing fetchingly over your shoulder in a hot dress while running a gunsmithing lathe?
Oh you crazy kids.
Or 1/20/17 @ noon?
Ha.
Along with the gunsmithing lathe, you may want to pick up reloading equipment and supplies.
As an aside, I purchased a crossbow last year for archery hunting the wily whitetail. I would suggest anyone with the slightest inclination to try it. Not difficult and riotous good time. And the best part, the weather is typically delightful during archery season.
I had the same issue with "commenter" yesterday here. I use Chrome. I just went with it. And again in in this comment, sometimes you have to say fuck you to the the red squiggly line.
Mystery Man Horace Meade will never hang up his spurs/lyre/hoe. 'Ah've come too far and am no ways retarred'.
Give a man a gun and he shoots for a decade, but give a man a gun lathe and he fiddles about in the garage for a lifetime.
Gunsmithing will require longer hours and less pay, but at least it's honest work.
"Professor, Are you retiring 1/1/17?"
I'm retiring on 1/12/17, my 66th birthday, the last day of the Fall semester.
I mailed the form in yesterday.
Instapundit posted an affiliate link to the lathe a couple of days ago. You are connected to Instapundit based on links and cross-clicks and probably likes. If Amazon chooses to target advertising to people who like Instapundit, Facebook knows...
I already have the lathe and I don't need a dress so.............................
It looks like an ordinary lathe to me. Maybe it's smaller or something.
They're bad with carpets, by the way.
Will Althouse be emeritus, emerita, or some other choice.
While not "worthless" I would judge that lathe far inferior to an older used classic American made lathe. Don't get me wrong, it's not a toy, but I think you'd find the amount of backlash and lack of rigidity to be disappointing.
Drudge says googlefacebook will restrict ads on fake news sites, probably meaning Drudge, the first page I visit every morning.
Stories not being suppressed is the lure. Doubtful ones are easy to detect but at least you see them.
Has the new list of pronouns reached the Spanish department.
I suspect the gun, gun smithing and reloading equipment manufacturers have been working three shifts in anticipation of a Hillary victory.
Now they have a glut with no corresponding spike in demand.
You're going to need a grinding wheel to sharpen the tools on that thing, by the way. Diamond is best.
Then there's fluids running around. You'll need to get rags and an apron.
It's more than just buying the lathe.
Amazon recommends DVDs of films you've already bought, which is a dysfeature they ought to fix.
It's software sort of related only to DVDs though, which may make it not high priority.
So you have to write your own software to check.
That's a cute little lathe... sort of like a lady's model. Perhaps it comes in pink?
Now, my 19x80 Summit... that's a man-sized machine!
A little bit too big for my shop...
https://youtu.be/8TQkHGtjE3I
Will Althouse be emeritus, emerita, or some other choice.
She should at least get her own political identity proper noun, Lawtina, perhaps.
I knew that I had seen the lathe a day or two ago, but couldn't remember where. It very well may have been on Instapundit. I have noticed that my Amazon and eBay searches and purchases, and Google searches are now turning up in all sorts of places. I bought some quick connect battery cable connectors (for my winch) a couple months ago, and battery cable stuff started popping up all over the place on the Internet. It took maybe two months for those ads to trickle off. Now, I have been looking at and buying stuff for the handgun I bought the day before the election (expecting a Crooked Hillary win, and, buying in advance of the expected sharp increase in demand - I wasn't alone, the range where I bought it saw record sales in the three days before the election). Still looking at holsters, but don't need any more magazines, since I won an eBay auction for six of them a couple days ago (besides, I am in CO right now, which is considered a reduced magazine state, which means that a lot of sites don't show standard sized magazines). But, neither the sellers, nor the buyers, of that information about me know that, so I expect to see magazine ads, along with holster ads, for the foreseeable future.
For me, it is always interesting to guess at where these ads got the information that I might be interested in some product or another. Because, for a surprisingly larger percentage of the time, they are somewhat accurate.
Your quote from Horace got me to thinking... Barbiton, a lyre. An interesting word, clearly not Latin it comes from the Greek. So was is the etymology there? No data. Ah, but it does resemble barbiturate, sleep inducing drugs. Orpheus used his voice and his lyre to sing Cerberus to sleep, any connection? ... None found. What about barb? A spur is a kind of barb, right? ... Nope. Barb derives from old French barbe, beard. Then I remembered this
By the rivers of Babylon we sat and wept when we remembered Zion.There on the poplars we hung our harps, for there our captors asked us for songs, our tormentors demanded songs of joy; they said, “Sing us one of the songs of Zion!”
From Psalm 137, traditionally attributed to King David, but of course it is bound to be much more recent than that. What's interesting is the implied meaning of hanging up the harp, which in turn implies Horace was using a well-establish turn of phrase.
One major Amazon failure is in computer fans. If you buy one, Amazon software thinks it's a new hobby and recommends thousands.
I'm retiring on 1/12/17, my 66th birthday, the last day of the Fall semester.
These kids have no work ethic anymore. I'm 78 and still working.
Just kidding.
Michael K - I think you are not kidding about still working - amirite?
Remembering Psalm 137 made me think of this, which in turn made me think of Cole Porter and Kansas City.
Now you can turn a rifle barrel and turn heads too!
Couple the gunsmiting lathe advertisement, seen here, on Instapundit, and on several gun blogs, with reports about FBI false flag operations to create and then prosecute criminals, and one gets rapidly into tinfoil hat territory.
Remember, shiny side out, guys.
@Althouse, no need to buy either one.
Meade already bought you a hot dress to wear on 1/12/17. He had been planning to surprise you, but he forgot his tin hat one day and my drone read his thoughts.
Most gunsmithing chores can be done using a good set of hollow ground screwdrivers, a set of files, a set of punches of different diameters, a good ballpeen hammer, and lots of solvent, lube, and cleaning brushes. Modern AR-type guns can be fitted with a new barrel for lots less than $4100.
@Dr K - I don't think that it is a bad thing that Ann is formally retiring. This may be the perfect time, economically, for her to take her pension from her university. At a lot of universities, tenured faculty have essentially lifetime employment, if they so desire. The market for law school grads has cratered in the last couple of years, followed by the crash of law school applicants and admittees, and layoffs to compensate have to hit the non-tenured first, which means adjuncts and lecturers first, but also tenure track profs too. Which is why at least some law schools have been sweetening the pot for their older Baby Boomer profs to retire, and unclog the upper ranks of academia, so that they can keep their most promising younger hires. This likely doesn't mean that she can't continue to work some, but rather, that she is receiving a pension while doing so.
I'm wondering what the difference between a gunsmithing lathe and a regular lathe is.
Rae said...
I'm wondering what the difference between a gunsmithing lathe and a regular lathe is.
The bed is shorter. I can only assume that they think a gunsmith doesn't have much room for a normal size lathe. The bed of which is about a foot longer.
DanTheMan said...
That's a cute little lathe... sort of like a lady's model. Perhaps it comes in pink?
Now, my 19x80 Summit... that's a man-sized machine!
They're making gun parts, Dan, not bloody big howitzers.
>> They're making gun parts, Dan, not bloody big howitzers.
You can make small parts on a big lathe, but you can't make big parts on a small lathe!
LOL
Up to a point Dan. I wouldn't want to single point a 10-24 screw on your Summit.
I got rid of a SB 9 for a Jet 12 gear head. Much more versatile for me.
I got the same ad. I mean the lathe, not the dress.
Question for AA. Curious, since this is your last semester, do you find yourself doing anything different in the class?
When a wrestler finishes his last match he takes off his boots and leaves them on the mat. I've always regarded it as a touching moment.
Just don't wear that dress while operating the lathe. It would be too dangerous. And not just because Meade would get excited.
I'm looking right now at the very first piece I machined on a lathe. It's a .40 boattail bullet in 316 (?) Stainless. Not to use of course.
Machining is a very satisfying skill. Try it.
"Question for AA. Curious, since this is your last semester, do you find yourself doing anything different in the class?"
No, but I sometimes feel relief at explaining something complicated for the last time.
I have a bit of a general feel of being sorry to bother the with this troublesome stuff.
Not sure why they use the descriptive "gunsmithing." Apart from the fancy digital controls on the left, it's pretty much the same as the machine we had down in our basement-- which my old man(who was a machinist, or, if you prefer, a tool and die maker) called simply a turret lathe.
If I were going to guess, I would guess that it's rightsized to do AR work, e.g., finish off those 80% receivers, maybe turn a bull barrel from a blank. But at present I don't see the specs so I'm just spitballing.
Since when is a howitzer not a gun???
Since when is a howitzer not a gun???
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