Superfine: Tailoring Black Style is a special exhibit at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It is put on by the Met’s Costume Institute and brings together examples of Black fashion over 300 years. It ties it to celebrities of different centuries and eras and how the past influences the present.
Seeing the Met’s custom collection is always exciting. New York is the center of America’s fashion industry after all. Over the last 20 years, fashion and cloting as art have made a larger presence at the Met. This exhibit connects high fashion to and the influence of Black pop-culture.
DEDEPU is a specialty scuba tank company that produces a portable electric air compressor for its mini scuba tanks. This electrically powered air compressor can also be used to fill air tanks used in PCP tanks used in airguns, paintball, and airsoft. My hobbies encompass both, and fortunately, they reached out to me to test it for the latter.
The unit comes in a large, hard-shell lockable travel case. Inside the case is high-density foam padding with just enough space for the compressor unit and its cables, hoses, and filters. The air compressor unit is a black metal case about the size of an early 1990’s PC, weighing about 27lbs. It contains a pair of computer fans to cool the compressor, a pressure gauge, and connector ports for air and power.
The unit can be powered either with 12V DC power or 110/220V AC power. There are separate connectors on opposite sides of the case. There is a separate power/kill switch for AC or DC, respectively, with a 3rd compressor/fan activation switch. The pressure/fill gauge has a selector dial that controls its auto-shut-off feature, which turns the pump off after the tank/hose has reached the selected pressure.
The DEDEPU pump has a maximum rated pressure of 6000 PSI, so it can fill 4500 HP PCP hunting air rifle tanks. It took about 7 minutes to fill a PCP pistol to 3000psi. While not very fast, it was surprisingly quiet for an air compressor. While speed is a convenience, slow is less stressful to tanks and can help prolong their lifespan. The DEPEPU pump has a retail price under $500. While not a budget pump, its high-quality build and components, and ability to be safely used for both airgun and SCUBA give it a value that cheaper pumps do not have.
Too Much Information live chat show. Today’s episode I’m coming to you live from Los Angeles International Airport where I’m waiting for my flight on Frontier Airways.
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The name is the 3 letters designation for this airport that is the international airport for the city of Los Angeles.
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
LA Airport trivia
George Lucas filmed parts of his Busiest end destination airport in the US. The majority of passengers disembark here rather than connect to other cities.
Began in 1929 as Mines airfield
This airport is mentioned in the very first line of Miley Cyrus’ hit song “Party in the USA”
It’s iconic Space Age structure in the center is simply called the “Theme Structure” or at one time the “Theme Restaurant”
George Lucas filmed parts of his student film “THX 1138” in parking lot walkways late at night. film “THX 1138” in parking lot walkways late at night.
Czechoslovackia is one of the top arms makers in the world, though often overlooked and under appreciated by most Americans. Meopta is a Czechia-based company that manufactures various products mainly in the field of optics. The company was once well-known for its professional photographic and movie cameras, although it no longer manufactures such products. At SHOT Show 2025 Meopta showed off their wide line of hunting and target scopes that offer high-quality glass and precision construction.
5.11 Tactical was asked by the Las Vegas Police Department to supply their new duty uniforms. 5.11 too it a step further. Rather than simply supplying their off-the-shelf apparel, 5.11 talked to the Department, and using their feedback, they customized their uniforms to fit the Department’s priorities. At SHOT Show 2025, they showed off the results.
“Sargent in Paris” is a new retrospective at New York City’s Metropolitan Museum of Art (Met) showcasing the early career of American painter John Singer Sargent. John Singer Sargent is one of my favorite painters and was a rare American artist who created some of Europe’s most iconic portrait paintings during the late 19th Century’s “Gilded Age.”
Sargent grew up traveling throughout Europe with his parents. He studied art and painting in Paris under famed portrait artist Carolus-Duran. Paris in the 19th Century was the center of the art world. It was also a time when tastes and style were being transformed by Impressionism and the Industrial Revolution.
This retrospective includes works Sargent created while a student and during his travels around Europe, North Africa, and the Middle East. It explores contemporaries and influences, and friends like Claude Monet and Rodin, and includes pieces by Renior, Manet, and Sargent’s mentor Carolus-Duran.
The exhibit culminates with the portrait of “Madam X”, a painting that would make Sargent famous, because of the mini-scandal it created in Parisian high society. The painting was presented at the 1884 Paris Salon exhibition and created a stir among the public and Art Critics due to the hanging dress strap as worn by Virginie Amélie Avegno Gautreau. She was the Kim Kardashian/Paris Hilton of her day.
Noblex may not be a well-known brand in the US, but this German tactical and sporting optics company traces its origins to two very important brands. Noblex is an offshoot from Zeiss Jena, the original Zeiss factory in East Germany during the Cold-War. After the reunification of Germany, the Bernhard Doctor optics company bought part of the old Jena factories from Zeiss, and produced the Doctor line of micro-reflex sights.
Doctor reflex sights were among the first micro red dots used on competition pistols and combat ACOGs. In 2016, Doctor Optics was bought by Noblex. Doctor/Noblex micro reflex sight designs (and Trijicon RMR’s) are probably the most widely copied designs. If it’s a generic Chinese micro-reflex sight, it’s probably a rip-off of a Noblex.
The NV OS is a sight Noblex designed for modern Glocks with MOS cut slides. The NV is one of the few micro reflex sights that has a low enough base to allow Glock factory iron sights to co-witness with its 4 MOA dot. The NV comes in either red or green emitter models. The sight offers an auto-adjusting brightness setting that can be manually set with a brightness memory to the last setting. The NV does not have motion activation.
Unfortunately, to get a low MOS base, a side battery tray was not posible, so the unit must be removed from the slide to access the battery. Moreover, it uses a small CR1220 battery, which only gives the unit 10,000hrs of runtime (a little over a year). The red dot will blink to warn you that the battery needs to be replaced. Fortunately, because the dot has an absolute co-witness with my factory irons, it is easy to visually zero.
Apart from the 10,000hr runtime, my other gripe is that the brightest setting of the dot is not quite bright enough for visibility in noon-day, direct sunlight. This would be a deal breaker for competitive action pistol shooters. The NV feels more like a low-light augment to your iron sights than as a primary aiming device. Despite these disappointing aspacts, the NV is a good example of precise and well built German engineering.
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Airsoft is the world’s most popular shooting combat sport. It utilizes mock firearms that fire 6mm plastic BBs propelled by compressed air, using electrical motor, compressed springs or pressurized air tanks. Evike is the nation’s largest airsoft gun and gear retailer with store locations in Los Angeles, the San Francisco Bay Area, and Houston TX.
The Kung Fu Panda Adventure is a motion-simulated 4D, animated theatrical experience ride in Universal Studios Hollywood. This attraction combines animated sequences with physical movement to create an immersive experience. The pre-ride queue includes a presentation with other Dreamworks franchise characters such as Shrek and the animals of Madagascar.
Guests sit in the Dreamworks theatre, whose seats have been upgraded as mini 3D motion simulators. The riders feel motion during the climactic action sequences they see on stage. The designers eventually utilized most of the theatre’s walls, the extent of which isn’t obvious at the start of the experience. The Kung Fu Panda Adventure offers a blend of entertainment and technology, providing a unique and memorable experience for visitors to the park.
Discovery Optics updated their Lightweight Scope mounts (which had an unfortunate typo of the name on the box, “Lightweinght”), which I reviewed last year. This new version has been named the DGCM-L and is available in 1.5″ and 1.93″ heights. The DGCM has a 34mm ring size but includes high-quality aluminum shims to adapt the mount for 30mm scopes. Like the previous version of this mount, it is made with aircraft-grade 6061 aluminum with lightening cuts to reduce its weight.
The DGCM mount and shims are notable for coming pre-lapped, with smooth bare metal interiors coated with a wax to protect them from corrosion. This extra smooth surface creates a stronger contact and grip with the rings, the shims, and your scope tube. The rings are paired and lapped with their bases for extra precision. Discovery went so far as to label the ring tops and bases to identify the ring to its base and to prevent accidentally reinstalling the ring tops backward.
Moreover, the rings were designed with an alignment pin to seat the ring top to the base for additional precision and added sheer strength. This level of extra finishing and design is not typically found in mounts or rings under $200. These rings have a street price far less than half that, at around $80. This is why I consider these to be the best budget mounts you can buy.
