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Joined 8 months ago
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Cake day: March 13th, 2024

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  • Puncturing the skin has nothing to do with it. Human skin normally has high resistance, the palms and fingertips more so due to their skin being thicker and more likely to be calloused. Saline will always lower that resistance, though possibly not enough to allow for painful shocks across the width of your body from fingertip to fingertip. That’s quite a lot of resistance to overcome. There’s also the matter of the resistance provided by the terminals, but we’ll handwave that.

    How often would you try to shock someone’s palms in a torture situation? How often do you expect to see current routed from the left hand all the way over to the right hand? And how likely are you to use just the lead battery terminals? Generally, you’d administer the shock across a shorter span, minimizing the most resistive part of the circuit. Any area with thinner, more sensitive skin is likely to experience thermal discomfort from a high amperage current, especially with lowered resistance. Even at 12V, it wouldn’t exactly be pleasant. The resistance is lowered even further by using thick copper cables, which are much more conductive than the lead terminals.

    The picana makes it all so much worse. Ohm’s law tells us that current is equal to voltage divided by resistance. The rheostat in the picana allows the resistance in the circuit to be manipulated further at the turn of a dial. Cranking down the resistance means more current is applied, and that current is flowing through two copper conductors that are typically pretty close together. That means you have even less skin to serve as an insulator against the current, which ultimately results in more pain for the unlucky person being tortured.














  • Non-credible. Purpose-built mine flails are on the borderline of credibility already. In this configuration, you’d need at least a class IV hitch to handle the tongue weight, probably a class V when you factor in the force imparted by the motion of the flail. That’s not even taking into account how much power is needed to properly swing the chains with enough impact to detonate a significant portion of the mines.

    And if there happens to be an AT mine or two in the mix, the whole ill-advised experiment becomes an unappealing art installation.



  • Oh, I full-on agree, hence that final paragraph. I’m one of those idgaf-about-fads types, but I know plenty of folks who do care and who get hosed by the system as it currently exists. Fashion as a whole is pretty much a racket as far as I’m concerned. But what isn’t these days?

    The reason they won’t price fast fashion bs lower is because they don’t have to. Trendy things sell at inherently predatory price points, then they declare a new “what’s hot” before the sales drop off. Capitalism is a mfer, and folks are exploited at every rung of the fashion ladder.

    I guess that would change if enough people stopped buying in, but do either of us see that happening any time soon? I don’t, and as frustrating as it is, I think you don’t, either. So garments marketed primarily to women remain pocketless and flimsy, and those marketed primarily to my-tastes-don’t-change men continue to trend towards work-wearish looks that are at least marginally sturdier at roughly equivalent cost.

    Except for those goddamn fishing shirts. Who decided that was a thing? They’re terrible.




  • Apart from fashionistas, “standard” men’s style is far more static. Cuts, materials, colors, and patterns don’t deviate far from the baseline from year to year, so garments tend to be a bit sturdier and longer lasting.

    As an example, picture a guy in a Henley, cargo shorts, and work boots. What decade is he from? Okay, now put him in straight leg jeans and a flannel shirt. Was this picture taken yesterday? In the 90s? 2005? Who knows, guys have been wearing that for ages, and will be for ages to come.

    However, pre-pandemic I think high-waist flares were one of the main jeans trends for women. Five years later, it’s low-waist straight-leg, right? Or have they shifted back to skinny jeans? I think early-2010s was the last time capris were the statement look, but hell, I truly don’t know. The point is, women’s styles seem to change not only year-to-year but season-to-season. Today’s trend is tomorrow’s faux pas is next week’s retro is next month’s vintage… sure, I’m exaggerating, but women’s fashion does lend itself more to sweeping change.

    The criminal part is that woman-specific options are underconstructed and overpriced compared to men’s clothing. That, and the lack of pockets. Seriously, my heart goes out to anyone who wears clothing targeted to women. I’d be fucking lost without pockets.