Rogue Sci

Turns out that TPB has a good selection of firearm information. One guy who originates a lot of material, including AGI rips, is "Don't Tread On Me". In his postings, he plugs a site called Rogue Sci, which appears to have some educational information that the government control freaks definitely don't want their subjects to have access to. That is, it's the kind of stuff that a patriotic citizen should have, even if he doesn't ever intend to make use of it. Fight the power!

c|net commentary

Remarks to a c|net article on international SNSes:

mixi also now requires a Japanese cell-phone email address to confirm registration. This may not be too terribly effective in controlling one person having multiple accounts, since one could change one's email address and register again, but it certainly limits people who don't live in Japan from joining.

And another on DHS requiring fingerprints and photographs for permanent residents:

Japan does the same thing already. Even if you have a long-term or permanent visa, you get your fingerprints taken (just index fingers, though) and photo snapped. I think it sucks and does nothing to provide extra security, but who in the government is going to listen to foreigners' complaints? Resident aliens are pretty much 2nd-class citizens in Japan. Tourists are ok because they spend money then leave, but tourists don't have special visas.

This gripes me off, though. So why would DHS do this if the borders aren't sealed anyway? They're going to inconvenience people who enter via legal means, and ignore people who sneak in illegally? Brilliant. I feel safer already (that's sarcasm, in case you didn't catch it). The less government invasiveness the better.

.308 Ammo

I posted this link before, but to summarize on its own entry:

The site Rifle Company has a post on one of its forums that's continuously updated with the cheapest 7.62x51mm ammo on the Net, aptly titled "The cheapest 7.62x51mm Surplus on the Internet". The forum also has some interesting posts, like The 10 Golden Rules of Ammo and All About U.S. Military Small Arms Ammunition. Great stuff!

Follow-Up Comment

A follow-up to the previous comment:

Clarification: The AK-47s used for hunting that I was referring to are semi-auto versions of the weapon, not the full-auto versions. That is, the "assault weapon" version of the gun, not the "assault rifle" version. The problem with the AK is that it's not particularly accurate in its common incarnation, so it's not very well suited to hunting.

And one more thing about anti-gun legislators: they're not only acting illegally (in terms of the Constitution), they're twisting the arms of legal gun-owners. That is, law-abiding citizens are forced to comply with the illegal legislation (an oxymoron on the surface, but it happens a lot) or become criminals. The anti-gunners would then point to defiant *formerly* law-abiding citizens as further "proof" that their illegal laws are correct. A blindly law-abiding citizen can't preserve his rights in the face of that, and committing civil disobedience in the case of firearms would get one killed by a government out of control (BATFE and FBI). The irony is that people in power don't need to have their own guns because they have security who do the dirty work of protection for them. Kind of like that hypocritical racist Rosie O'Donnell, who railed against handguns and backpedaled when it came to light that her kid's bodyguard carried a concealed handgun.

I have yet to hear one cogent and compelling reason from anyone for restricting 2nd Amendment rights.

GOA Article Comment

The GOA sent me an alert on Facebook, vectoring to an article related to the AWB.

People can and do hunt deer with AK-47s (in certain states, with 5-rd reduced capacity magazines, and with hunting loads). Yeah, I'm against a renewed AWB partly because I really like guns. It's not just that, though, it's because I have the right to own them. The reason the 2nd Amendment exists is to protect the people from a hostile government. Think the colonists would've been able to rise up against the British if they had no rifles? (Or would you have been one of those who welcomed the British domination because they told you they had your best interests at heart?) Rack your brain a bit harder.

I'd love to own an assault rifle, except I can't afford the 20-grand that it takes to buy one because of stupid anti-gun legislation. Since you seem to be confused, assault rifles are machine guns. "Assault weapon" is a bogus term the anti-gun people invented to mean semi-auto versions of assault rifles.

I'm a law-abiding citizen with a permit to carry. (I'll state that I'm an employed, white-collar engineer in high-technology and not a redneck, since most of the anti-gun schmucks stupidly seem to equate armed citizens with the uneducated. Also I have two degrees.) I don't go around shooting people indiscriminately -- I'm one of the good guys. For sure I'm more upstanding than the police officers you see in the news who get caught selling dope from impound and beating on people just because they're not white. I'm probably also a better shot that most police officers, who are allowed to carry handguns most of the time. Handguns are used to save lives -- the lives of the owner and his family. If the police can have handguns, why not law-abiding citizens? What makes the police and military so special? Training? Citizens can get training, but they shouldn't need it to own guns on their own property. They should get training to carry guns in public, same as a driver's license. The real point of that is control: the perception is that police and military are on a short leash and are directed by the government, which is exactly what you *don't* want, at least if you value your freedom. A standing military and police state are the first steps to becoming a non-republic.

The point of carrying handguns out in public is because criminals don't follow laws saying that you can't carry a loaded semi-auto handgun, rifle, or shotgun. (Most states only allow concealed carry of handguns, not shotguns and rifles.) Even if you could carry a rifle, you want to get rid of semi-auto rifles, which probably includes magazine-fed bolt-action, so you'd have a single-shot bolt-action. It'd be tough to save your bacon against multiple attackers with that. Besides, rifle bullets have more penetration than handgun bullets -- or didn't you know that?

The problem with the anti-gun crowd is that they're illogical, and always appeal to the emotional side of things. "Why can't you accept 'reasonable' bans on guns?" What's reasonable? The 2nd Amendment is quite plain on saying that there's no such thing as a reasonable ban. In fact, I'd say that rules restricting guns are illegal according to the Bill of Rights. Anyone following the NFA, GCA, etc., is actually guilty of breaking the highest law in the United States of America! Of course I'm not saying to break those rules, because the ATF will kick down your door and shoot you if you do. I'm saying that our legislators can't even follow our own laws, so how can they expect normal folks to respect their stupidity?!

Criminals don't follow laws by definition. Any new anti-gun laws, therefore, will be ignored by criminals. The only people that will lose their guns are the people who follow the law. So you'll have criminals with guns and law-abiding citizens without guns. Who's at a disadvantage? Think about it. Can't be more plain than that.

Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop

Just to make sure that I was using the idiom properly, I googled "wait for the other shoe to drop" and found a site that explained the origin of the phrase:

This phrase means "to await an event causally linked to one that
one has already observed". In the form "drop the other shoe",
meaning "say the next obvious thing" or "end the suspense", it dates
from the early 20th century. It derives from the following joke:

A guest who checked into an inn one night was warned to be quiet
because the guest in the room next to his was a light sleeper. As
he undressed for bed, he dropped one shoe, which, sure enough,
awakened the other guest. He managed to get the other shoe off in
silence, and got into bed. An hour later, he heard a pounding on
the wall and a shout: "When are you going to drop the other shoe?"

I have no idea if it's apocryphal or not, but I liked the joke.

Tiptacon

A while ago I found a site with a guy offering to add a rail to an HK-91 wide handguard for mounting a vertical foregrip. For some reason I didn't post it here. The real interesting thing, though, was the technique of using a sling with the foregrip to minimize the effect of recoil. Apparently, with an appropriate sling tension, by pushing forward on the foregrip, one can better keep the rifle in line with the target. It certainly made me revisit my stance on foregrips.

Edsger Dijkstra

Joel sent me a great link to a paper by Edsger Dijkstra on "the cruelty of really teaching computer science" and notably "radical novelties". The paper wanders all over the place, but it's excellent in many ways, particularly in highlighting that people misconstrue digital computers to have analog qualities, and that metaphors fall short in almost every technological instance.

西行法師

From some checking I did earlier: Saigyo Hoshi on Wikipedia. A collection of some waka by Saigyo. A translation of the quote I was looking for.

Super Sniper Riflescope

My dad told me about this scope as a possibility for one of my black rifles. Granted, the name "Super Sniper" is a bit pretentious. Still, it's got decent specs and doesn't cost as much as a Leupold.

WaterMill

Not a water-powered mill, but a water producing element called WaterMill. Joel sent me the link, and it looks pretty cool. Too bad they don't have more details, specifically pricing at the moment. That'd be pretty fugly on the house, though.

Leather Belts

I found a couple places that sell made-in-USA leather belts.
Solesu
Leather & Things

NH & FL Carry Permits

The application for New Hampshire carry is available online.

Florida requires that an applicant send away for a packet.

Combat Shotgun

I've been thinking up ways to trick out a Remington 870 shotgun for home defense. I was thinking that the 18" barrel (since MN prohibits SBSes) with a pistol grip, metal pump foregrip with a rail to hold a vertical grip, extended tube magazine, and receiver attachment with a shotshell holder and rail to hold a red dot would be pretty good.

Then I got to thinking that it'd be neat to have a detachable magazine for a shotgun. Flipping through Shotgun News, I saw an ad for a Izhmash's Saiga-12, which is an AK-47 receiver converted to fire shotshells. A company called Alliance Armament makes modified Saiga-12s as well as 20- and 30-rd drum magazines. Sweet! The base gun itself is only $600 or so, but when one starts accessorizing it, things get expensive really fast. Alliance offers a "reliability service" which makes me think that the Saiga as-is has issues. Their rail system is $250, and the drums area $380 and $425.

Then again, semi-auto only could jam in a critical situation. The SPAS-12 can operate in either mode, which would be better. I think I'll stick with the cheaper pump option for actual defense, but I might buy a Saiga-12 just for the hell of it.

Demiforce

This guy I used to know at OSU from the Japanese Club apparently has "made it" in the game industry. CNN has an article about his game Trism.

I saw the link in my CSS reader and figured I'd skim it. The pic kind of looked like Steve Demeter, and his name was mentioned in the text. "Nah, it can't be" I thought, but when the text mentioned Demiforce, a handle he'd used in the past, that settled it. Steve was always pretty driven to write games, so it's not really a surprise. Pretty wild, though.

Google Blows

I've had to keep these pages hidden by blanking out the template since I posted about "CCAW". I realized that the phrase was sufficiently unique to turn up high on the list of a search of that phrase, so I deleted the post and submitted a removal request to Google. They pulled the page from the index, yet it was added again later by the crawler for some unknown reason, and linked to the page that was supposedly deleted. Fuckin' piece of shit! With the pages blanked I can still access my links, which is kind of all I care about. Still, it sucks the way this worked out.

Glass Blocks

I was considering making a glass block skylight, so I did a little search and found that a company IBP (Innovative Building Products) makes them. It wasn't quite what I was looking for, but amusingly enough, IBP is a Berkshire Hathaway company.

IBP also makes glass walkways and such, which is kinda cool, too.

Pittsburgh Corning actually makes glass blocks—the IBP skylights are a derivative product. They have a projects site as well. According to IBP's site, other vendors include Solaris, Mulia, and Weck.

CCAW

CCAW posted the anti-Wojcik flyer to Scribd, which is a free document hosting service. Let's hope this gets out there in time!

More P-B Comments

The American Hunters and Shooters Association is a bunch of lying, left-wing assholes. How disgusting that the P-B would publish this shit. AHSA has no credibility in among real gun owners.

The NRA is a moderate group. AHSA is a sham organization in league with the Brady bunch. If you want REAL pro-gun folk, check out the Gun Owners of America.

wamps: Right on with this comment - "The 2nd Amendment is NOT about Hunting!" 2A/RKBA is how we protect the rest of our rights from an increasingly hostile government!

cajred: The 2nd Amendment is the most important one in the Bill of Rights, and I would vote solely on a candidate's 2A record. Unfortunately both Obama and McCain are not friends of gun owners.

Maverick: I AM packing, if you know what I mean!

neo1: Gonna need guns if Obama wins, too -- for the 2nd American Revolution....

P-B Article on Wojcik

The Post-Bulletin apparently published an article on the Progressive Majority (the scum fucks—PageRank that!) support of Wojcik's City Council bid. My remarks:

Mike Wojcik says, "...it is sad that my opponent is trying to link this endorsement to partisan ideology." Marcia Marcoux has not tried to do this. The people who know Mike and/or oppose him noticed and rightfully tried to point it out. Marcia has been nothing but respectful to Mike despite his attitude, and hasn't made any negative statements about him that I've seen or heard. Obviously Mike has been making a lot of negative comments about Marcia regardless.

Mike did not disclose his affiliation previously. Furthermore, it's reasonable to assume that if an organization supports a candidate that, should that candidate be elected, the organization will expect something in return. It's illogical and unreasonable for Mike to say that partisanship shall play no part in his campaign. This is a blatant conflict of interests, and if he really is so concerned about ethics (as someone who knows Mike, I can say that he has no business talking about ethics whatsoever), he would've run without Progressive Majority's partisan support.

The only ethical thing for Mike to do now is to resign his campaign. But that'd be too much to expect from an ambitious, aspiring politician, wouldn't it?

To bloggin: The endorsement wasn't on Mike's website until recently; after he was "outed," I think. The Progressive Majority link was uncovered in mid-September via a Google search. (And no, it wasn't me that posted it to P-B, but I wish it had been!)

And:

To schmittts:
"...this just smells like a hatchet job at the request of the incumbents [sic]."

Wait a second, the P-B published an endorsement of Wojcik and you suggest that this afterthought was a smear? If the incumbent had the clout to instigate a smear, then for sure her opponent wouldn't have gotten the backing of the paper! Sorry, your conspiracy theory logic doesn't fly. Truth of the matter is, the media will publish anything they think will attract them eyeballs. Worked, didn't it?

Regarding individual activists, why would that be news? An individual helping a campaign is what happens normally. What isn't normal is a concerted effort by a large political group to alter supposedly non-partisan local politics and provide significant organizational support and training, which is the purview of decidedly partisan political organizations.

2nd American Revolution

So I was checking out this video I found on YouTube by this black guy going off on liberals. I don't like McCain, but I like this guy's arguments.

On his favorites list was a video by a guy imagining what Thomas Paine would say about our current state of affairs.

Although that video was about peaceful dissent, there was another video about non-peaceful revolution. That one is fucking awesome. Partway through they show the cover for Unintended Consequences. I might have to buy their CD.

DNS

According to /. comments:

DynDNS
FreeDNS
Dynect

CrossLoop

Walter Mossberg reviewed the CrossLoop service in the 9/25 WSJ Personal Journal. I'll have to check it out again when they have a version for OS X.

.50-Cal Uppers for AR-15

I thought I'd linked these here before, but they don't turn up in a search, so here they are.

Several companies manufacture "uppers" for AR-15 rifles. The nice thing about AR-15 uppers is that they don't require an FFL to purchase, so even if the ATF is conducting illegal recordkeeping of firearm transactions (they're not supposed to retain that documentation except in the case of NFA items), there's no way they would know. That is, unless the manufacturer itself is reporting sales. The general idea isn't for criminal action on the owner's part (.50-cals have never been used in criminal activity), but rather that if a .50-cal ban occurred and confiscation were attempted, one wouldn't have to yield to the government's illegal actions. Just because the government makes a law doesn't mean its right. The existence of "jury nullification" is legal evidence of that.

Anyway, here are some selections:

• Advanced Long-Range Systems LLC's ALS 50 BMG: single-shot bolt-action, 33-inch barrel, 35 lbs (upper only)


• Safety Harbor Firearms' UltraMag 50: magazine-fed bolt-action, 29-inch barrel (19-in and 22-in also available), 15.5 lbs (upper only)


• Serbu's BFG-50 (Big Fucking Gun, get it?): single-shot bolt-action, 36-inch barrel (22-in and 29.5-in also available), 32 lbs (upper only)


• Bohica Arms' (as in, "bend over, here it comes again") FAR-50: single-shot bolt-action, 36-inch barrel (16-, 24-, and 30-in also available), 25.5 lbs (upper only)


• Ferret50's eponymous conversion: single-shot bolt-action, 36-inch barrel (19-in and 29-in also available), weight not listed


• Ligamec Corp.'s Ultralite50: single-shot bolt-action, 29-inch barrel (18.5-in and 22-in also available), 12.2 lbs (upper only)


• Watson's Weapons' .50 BMG Upper: no details on website (there are more details about the carrying case than about the upper itself!)


• L&G Weaponry's .50-Cal Conversion: single-shot bolt-action, no further details

Placenta

Some people do interesting things with their kids' placentas. In the end, we left ours at the hospital, partly because Sachie didn't know what to do with it, and Sachie's mom thought it would be too grotesque to stick in the freezer. (Plus, we don't yet have a deep freezer.) Maybe with the next one we'll have a plan.

There's a company called LifeBank that will store the cord blood and optionally the placenta for later use. The service is pretty spendy, though, so you have to be fairly loaded to even consider it.

MSI Wind

Hmm, there was a /. link to an article on getting OS X installed on the MSI Wind. $480? I'll have to give it some thought.

Hack A Day & Business Card Web Server

Hack A Day seems like a cool site to scope when one has time. A recent article on how to build a business card-sized webserver was slashdotted.

Insulation

Searching for the foam insulation my neighbor was using under the siding she replaced (unfortunately I forgot the name), I came across a Dow site on various building materials. They have a number of foam insulation products for various purposes. Home improvement has a lot of choices to consider, especially in the area of materials.

Cultured Stone

In the Think Bank "Swap & Shop" there was a post advertising "River rock cultured stone". I wasn't sure if this was a brand or not, but a quick search turned up an Owens Corning company called Cultured Stone. They make the River Rock type of "stone veneer". I rather like the ledgestone designs.

Fujitsu to sell to WD?

CNET had an article relaying the Nikkei report from last night.

Here's my commentary:

Fujitsu only makes mobile (2.5") and server HDDs. The 2.5" space has been getting crowded lately: HGST, Toshiba, Fujitsu were the main players, but now Seagate, WD, and Samsung have joined in and snapped up market share. It's inevitable that one would have to bow out.

WD doesn't really make server-class drives -- although they claim to, they're still 7200 RPM SATA, which is decidedly NOT a real enterprise model -- so acquiring Fujitsu would bolster their efforts in enterprise and eliminate a competitor in mobile. Sounds like a good strategy to me as long as they can capitalize on the server business.

However, merging corporate cultures is painful, as survivors of the HGST/IBM and Seagate/Maxtor acquisitions can attest to.

Incidentally, Fujitsu is denying the Nikkei rumor...for now:
http://pr.fujitsu.com/jp/news/2008/10/2.html

Name Tools

My cnet RSS feed pointed me to an article on Usernamecheck, which tipped me off to a service called BustAName. The latter takes several keywords, generates various combinations of the words, and looks up domain name availability. Could be useful.

Absorption Refrigerators

While reading up on propane, I found out about absorption refrigerators, which use heat in the refrigeration cycle rather than a compressor. Apparently the technology was invented in the '20s (and that PR whore Einstein was co-named on a later patent), and is in use in some applications.

I dislike compressors because they're noisy, so silent operation is very attractive. Dometic makes refrigerators for RVs that use the absorption method. As a plus, they are typically "dual fuel", electric and LPG. Unfortunately, they're quite expensive relative to their size: $600 for the smallest non-portable model (BigDiscountRV).

Typical Democrat Response

So why is it that when Democrats get their hand caught in the cookie jar they respond with indignation rather than the shame they should be feeling? Take this piece of shit Charles Rangel, for example. A Republican would've been crucified for tax evasion and/or "violating the public trust", but Rangel says he did nothing wrong. U.S. citizens must by law pay U.S. taxes on all income regardless of source, worldwide. That includes income on rental houses in the Dominican Republic. Even corporate slave like me knows that, and I was liable to the IRS for those taxes. A scumbag legislator like Rangel should have to pay 10x in penalties because "ignorance of the law is no excuse" (the quoted text is sarcasm, but the preceding is not).

A Mommy Story

Katie was telling me (in IM) about her fiance's sister-in-law has a blog called "A Mommy Story". Somehow the subject of "mommy blogging" came up.

What's weirder is that I dated a girl Katie's fiance dated, and went out a couple times with a girl Katie's fiance's brother dated. I'm glad I'm not doing that anymore....

Random Articles

SSDs lackluster
Lights out for fireflies?
Chrome easter eggs

DRIcore

Daren was installing this DRIcore subfloor in his basement. Sounds like a great idea. The only problem is the impact on ceiling height, compounded by the necessity for any in-floor heating to go on top of the subfloor. However, this is probably a necessity for having flooring in the basement.

Kill Chavez

Die Chavez! Die! Die!!

Look at that picture—something's seriously wrong with the guy. He needs a cruise missile in the ass.

Or let me shoot him. I'll do it.

.50-Cal Ranges

Finding ranges where one can shoot .50 BMG is problematic. There are at least a couple in MN:

Oakdale Gun Club
Gopher Rifle and Revolver Club

There's a range nearby that might allow .50-cal, though I have yet to find out. Byron Sportsmen and Conservation Club's website is rather meager and references several PDF files, none of which seem to be accessible.

Concealed Carry Info

Apparently packing.org no longer exists. Some forum posts pointed to the following replacements:

usacarry.com
carryconcealed.net
handgunlaw.us.

Project Vote Smart

I'm not sure about this site, but it could be a supplemental source of information.

City Council

The downside of democracy is that stuff like this is possible:

Rochester MN 2008 Election Primary Results (Post-Bulletin, see Olmsted County)
Challenger tops incumbent in Ward 2 primary (Post-Bulletin)

I know Wojcik personally, having worked in the same department for five years, and I would emphatically not want him as City Council rep from my ward. The Mt. Fuji incident comes to mind when he talks about ethics and responsibility.

I'm shocked that he actually made it through the primary. The incumbent Marcia Marcoux had better get started campaigning! And I think I might have to help her out.

Democrats looking to get laid

I guess this is why they don't promote abstinence? (This is sarcasm, as I'm not particularly prudish when it comes to sex, I just think Democrats are illogical in general and like to take jabs at them.)

This is kind of like how Democrats tend to be the ones who go crazy and shoot people, not Republicans, which is Dems are against gun rights: they know their own tendencies.

HGST Rochester's "Black Monday"

The horrid news that HGST is terminating the internal channel mission was vaguely reported in the local newspaper as simply being "hardware design team" layoffs.

Stealing Wi-Fi

Link blog post #512—a nice "round" number.

There was a post on c|net about how stealing Wi-Fi in an airport is bad. I agreed with the following comment.

I agree, this sort of unauthorized use of Wi-Fi on a continuing basis is theft. Quite clearly the service is made available for the purpose of making a profit, and so circumventing the system constitutes stealing. Kind of like phone phreaking; while it's cool to figure the ins and outs of the technology, going much further past demos is hard to justify. This thing called ethics says just because you can doesn't mean you should.

Now I would change my reaction if we're talking about an unprotected signal coming into my house. It's my airspace, and if someone is broadcasting something I don't want at me, then it's their problem if I decide to take advantage of it. The law is dead wrong in saying that that is theft. If I chuck an iPod into someone's open window and they decide to keep it, it's not theft since I put it there. (Actually, it's my bad for throwing stuff into their space, and they'd have a right to be upset.) Decoding a signal is more marginal ethically. I'd say it's "half theft" in that as above, the user is stealing service, but it's also half the broadcaster's fault for polluting the PUBLIC (outdoor) airspace with their private signal, in contrast to the private airspace within the airport. With publicly shared things like frequency spectrum, there are gray areas abound.

NFA Gun Trust Lawyer Blog

This "NFA Gun Trust Lawyer Blog" might be useful, I'm not sure. The bit about an NFA trust looks inspiring.

Unlawful Armed Force

An article on CNN claims:

Meanwhile, Human Rights Watch said there was "mounting evidence that Russian and Georgian military used armed force unlawfully during the South Ossetian conflict" and it emphasized that this "highlights the need for international fact-finding missions in Georgia."

What the hell does "unlawful" mean in an international military context? How can anyone say that with a straight face? Forcing someone's notion of "international law" upon the world is farcical to say the least. Put another way: Whose law was broken? The reason people fight is because they can't resolve things peacefully, and no law can be applied to that.

The Geneva Convention wouldn't mean a damn thing if the aggressor who violated the rules were to win. Such laws are only used as a pretense for the winning nation to justify their actions upon the loser. "War crimes" is a nonsensical term—there is no crime in war, only the will of the victor over the vanquished. Nuremburg after World War II was a farce in that punishing the losing generals was some application of authoritarian law. No way: The Allies extracted vengeance and had to apply the shield of "law" to make up excuses for their actions. The Allies rightfully won (although the Allied leaders were minor tyrants in their own right), and still they felt they had to apply a bit of decorative color to the war's end. Well, the winner writes history, always.

This whole conflict with Georgia and Russia is a case of he said, she said—who knows what exactly happened out there. What we do know is that Russia is not to be trusted. The wounds of the Cold War run deep, and just as China longs to rule Asia once more, Russia longs to again be the dominant power in Europe. Where such ambition runs rampant, war can never be far behind.

GPS Map for Japan

I thought about buying a GPS prior to this last business trip but decided against it. It'd be cool, but an unnecessary expense.

Garmin apparently allows downloadable maps, and one company produces a GPS map for Japan. The one with routing information, version 2.0, costs more than the one without routing info, version 1.2.

Satellite Installation

In a search for satellite dish installation, I found some info from a vendor in NJ. They mention the RG6 cabling, which apparently carries power. Interesting. I should've read up on this more before the Dish Network third-party installer weirdos showed up.

い草

さっちゃんがちょっと前に送ってくれたリンク：
い草天国
イケヒコ・コーポレーション

買いたい物が増えたな。

Coharie Arms

In consideration of purchasing a "CA89" (SP89 clone) or a "CA94" (HK94 clone), I've been doing some reading. Coharie Arms is the only clone manufacturer left, apart from buying a flat and having the gun manufactured from a kit. The problem is, they're quite controversial in that a number of people are happy with their purchase while a seemingly equivalent number have had problems. Todd Bailey is at the center of the controversy, as many question the ethics of his business practices. Discussion of his products, via companies Special Weapons and Tactical Weapons, was verboten on HKPro at one point, though recently the ban has been rescinded.

HKPro post on the CA89
Another HKPro post on ordering
Bailey's comments on ordering

The Photographer's Right

Via a Slashdot article's comments, I came across "The Photographer's Right", a single page flyer by an attorney indicating what photographers can expect legally. That could be useful.

On the other hand, when someone in a position of power isn't getting their way, they're liable to screw you over, regardless of what your rights are. So I'd imagine that if one intends to push the envelope, one had better have a videocamera, with a flash memory card, that one can afford to lose for the purposes of filming the confrontation. People on a power trip are unlikely to take kindly to non-sheeple.

KD-36HD600

Nowhere on the web can I find specs for my Sony TV, model KD-36HD600. Of course, it is a Japanese TV, but even Sony's site just lists it as discontinued. A Wikipedia page lists FD Trinitron/WEGA TVs, though those are only the American model numbers.

I want to know the resolution of the TV—it's not in the manual. I sort of found this info on another site, which says that the vertical resolution is 1300 lines:

「スーパーファインピッチブラウン管」というのは前回ご説明した「トリニトロン方式」を採用しているから搭載できている機能。横方向の解像度1300本以上を実現するまさにスーパーなブラウン管を搭載しています。ハイビジョン映像の1125iと呼ばれる放送方式ですが、ソニーいわく、理論的に横方向に関しては1300本の解像度が必要らしく、そのためにはキメの細かいピッチ幅が必要とのことで、その理想の解像度をブラウン管で実現できているのは現状ではソニーのスーパーファインピッチ管だけとのこと。

Also, since the TV supports the D4 connector, it should handle 1080i and 720p. However, lacking an HDMI or DVI output, that means that the TV technically isn't "HD Ready"

Japanese TV

I was looking at DirecTV for satellite service, since the lone cable company around here, Charter, sucks. However, DirecTV doesn't carry Japanese programming; furthermore, they seem to have a bunch of Asian countries, e.g. China, Korea, Philippines, Vietnam, etc., other than Japan. That offended me in a way.

So I looked into Dish Network, and they do have Japanese channels. $25/mo is a bit steep, but it would be pretty cool to get. Maybe after we unpack more of the boxes piled up in the living room of the new house—and set up the TV!

The Website is Down

Samir sent me a link to this video on Break.com which is friggin' hilarious. From the comments, I found the full version of the video.

Building an MP5

There was a post on HKPro a while ago about building an MP5.

It's about $1200 to fold the flat into a receiver, assemble the gun add a paddle magazine release and finish the gun in original HK style black. Every part on the gun is factory HK. Basically what you get from Adam is an MP5 with a big chunk out of the receiver missing so that it is no longer a firearm. All the parts are there minus the receiver. The receiver flat is produced on HK tooling by a company licensed by HK to produce MP5's. Once the flat is turned into a receiver by a pro like Jayson at IGF, the completed gun is every bit as much an MP5 as one from Obendorf, except of course for the semi auto shelf.

Sounds way cool...except for the part about $1200+. Plus if one wants it converted to NFA (SBR or AOW), there are the additional modifications and taxes. And it still won't be a real sub gun. Ah well.

Indirect Solar Indoor Lighting

I must've seen something on this in an article on a zero-emissions building in California. There was indoor lighting that utilized solar concentrators and fiber optics to channel light indoors so that electricity wouldn't have to be used during the day.

Out of curiosity, I wanted to find out how much it costs, because that'd be pretty sweet to use in my new house. I googled "fiber optic lighting basement sunlight" and came up with a few interesting links. Unfortunately I still don't know how much this stuff costs—other than it's likely outside my price range.

Sunlight inside no direct-sunlighted rooms
Simple and bright, heliostats tap sunlight for lighting outdoor and, increasingly, indoor spaces
Sunlight Direct Hybrid Lighting: Install It, Get a 30% Federal Tax Credit
Hybrid Lighting Promises Cool, Efficient Light and More...

Fireproof Safes

So I'm looking for a fireproof (er, fire-resistant) safe for the new house, i.e. a big-ass gun safe. Of course it has to be made in the U.S., so my selection is probably limited. Here are some vendors:

Sturdy Gun Safe Manufacturing - Possibly the best value. Has minimal moving parts, a removable door, and the insulating material is ceramic and glass wool.
Sportsman Steel Safe Co. - Similar to Sturdy. Uses ceramic wool, drywall, and an air gap for insulation.
Graffunder Safe & Vault - Look to be the best, albeit the most expensive and heaviest of all. The insulator is a cement compound.
American Security - Looks pretty good, albeit expensive. Insulation is cement-based.
Fort Knox
Heritage Safe Co.
Liberty Safe - They are way overpriced, and use drywall as their insulator. Can be found at Gander Mountain.
Smith Security Safes
Hall's Safe Co.

Slashdot News

Brightnets: "Owner-Free Filesystems", distributed, public storage
How Facebook stores all those digital photos
Bjarne Stroustrup reveals C++ secrets
Metallic glass
Bad boys get more girls, fo' real. Shiz.

enysea

グリソが行くダイブショップ…かな？

Dog Tags

Yasu had asked about getting dog tags. I found a site, Military Dog Tags, that sells U.S.-made tags, and the order page is pretty nice. When Sachie and I went to Okinawa in 2006, she made a pair at a shop on Kokusai-Dori. I don't think she's ever worn them, though.

Definition of a Conservative

CNN for the most part has a hard liberal bias, and therefore, for the most part, they suck. They've been trying to appear less biased by featuring Glenn Beck's op-ed periodically, and certainly it helps. (They have that Reuben Navarrette on there that consistently pisses me off with his moronic, liberal, pro-illegal immigration op-eds.) Beck has a piece on who to vote for in the election this year, stating that he might not vote for McCain because McCain's not a true conservative. Beck goes on to list what he thinks defines a conservative, and it's pretty good.

My comments:

Mr. Beck, excellent op-ed piece. That about sums it up, and I'm facing the same dilemma. Certainly those values are the right ones to have, regardless of what the label is. The problem is splitting the vote, like Perot did. So the issue at hand is, how badly do we not want Obama to get into office?

To mbronx, the point of not letting the government control education is to not allow the curriculum to be polluted by outside parties. Parents should have control of what kind of information makes it into their children's heads, not the government. Supplemental funding should be handled at the local level so that no stipulations can be placed on receiving the federal money.

There were a few scumbag posters:

"Who cares for whom Mr. Beck wants to vote. This is not news." — Apparently dr doesn't notice opinion pieces when they're left-wing (admittedly, I've thought the same thing, though, about Navarrette). Newspapers always have op-ed sections. Why not try to get people to think about the issues of the day? Maybe that's impossible.

"Thank you for laying out all of the reasons I don't consider myself a conservative." — Hey Justin, why say that you're a moron in a public forum? Try growing a brain!

"I'd rather you stay home on election day, anyway." — Don't have kids, Kris, I'd rather you stay out of the gene pool, anyway. Beck didn't say he'd stay home, but rather that he may not vote for either main party candidate. Cretin.

Hehe.

Snopes Education

Recently my mom forwarded me a warning about the "postcard" virus. The note claimed it was checked out on Snopes, but didn't include the link. Well, I found the real link and discovered that as I surmised that the warning was a hoax. (There aren't any viruses that can "burn" one's HDD.)

That got me reading various articles on Snopes. There were a couple of interesting entries, one on the "Triangle of Life" that Harry Lam had forwarded me while on assignment, and one on The Great Stork Derby. Charles Millar sounds like he was a really cool guy.

Region Free

The Firmware Page used to have a good collection of patched/hacked optical drive firmware to bypass region codes. Since >NIL: retired in 2005, however, the firmware scene has somewhat sucked.

The Dangerous Brothers have a lot of new firmwares, but not for the newer Pioneer drives, which kind of sucks. Well, that's the way it goes. Beggars can't be choosers. So beggars will have to buy a supported drive, if available.

Edit: I found out from reading the forum above a bit more that MediaCodeSpeedEdit (MCSE) supports updating a standard Pioneer DVR-215 firmware to RPC1. Sweet!

CNN's Editorial Skillz

CNN has an article on the proposed bill to make concealed carry legal in national parks. This is a doubly good idea, to cement CCW policy into federal law before the anti-gun laws that are sure to be passed in 2009. But true to form, the CNN article has a glaring error, which I sent in to CNN as a correction:

First paragraph: "...in which a black .22-caliber Glock pistol sits snugly."

Glock does not make any .22 handguns, although third-party conversion kits are available. Glock does have a model G22 in .40, which is a favorite caliber of police officers.

http://www.glock.com/english/pistols_models.htm

It wouldn't make sense to carry a .22 for personal defense, since its stopping power is almost non-existent.

The World of Golden Eggs

So a while back, Kevin sent me this link to an anime skit called "すげえデブ", which unfortunately is no longer available due to copyright violation. Apparently the group or whatever is called The World of Golden Eggs. Sachie found out from her bro the name of the group, and had me watch a couple of their other videos. Some are hilarious, like the 91TV one where the Kunoichis help Dubya finish his speech, but some are more incomprehensible to my sense of humor.

The SSD Threat

Samsung didn't have me very worried with their cheap flash, because they were screwing themselves trying to build a market by dropping prices to unsustainable levels. Apple took them for a ride. Intel's effort is more of a concern, because they have the market clout to push flash. That Seagate's going to enter the SSD arena as well is an even bigger concern—perhaps the HDD industry's headed for some more pain in the near future. Remind me why I do this again?

The Homebrew Channel

/. had a link to some hack for the Wii called The Homebrew Channel, which allows running homebrew code on a Wii. I knew there was a good reason for buying the Zelda Twilight Princess game: even though I haven't played it yet...installing the "Twilight Hack" apparently requires the game. A software hack sounds a lot more attractive to me than having to install a hardware mod that may get screwed by a Wii firmware update.

Another way to beat jet lag

Russ sent me this link to an article regarding how to beat jet lag—by going hungry.

変圧器

秋葉原で見てきた。これは西口の線路下の店や、ラジオ会館の店じゃなくて、駅の南にある、線路下のほうだ。俺的に新しい発見の、「ニューアキハバラ。」そこの店に真空管アンプ専用変圧器などが置いてある。

Californication

I found a blog that has a translation of the Red Hot Chili Peppers' Californication into Japanese. Wacky! And I think the guy did a pretty good job. As well as making reasonable sense of Anthony Kiedis' lyrics!

Pop Baby Names

CNN had an article recently about the top 10 baby names for 2007. Essentially it was a wrapper around the SSA's press release. "Emily" (12 years running) and "Jacob" (9 years running) are the most popular names...? I don't know any Emilys or Jacobs, but then again, I don't know anyone with 9-12 yr olds.

Previously I'd linked to a CNN article on "baby name remorse" and the SSA's top name list. Search for "baby" on here to retrieve all such links.

渡辺玲子

Her version of Tzigane kicks ass.

Gun Links from Edo

Ed sent me these a while ago in an IM session. Most are C&R related.

IMA
Model 1 Sales
AIM Surplus
SOG
Military Gun Supply
Akron Armory
Classic Arms

Happy Hour

This is so friggin' true.

Konica Pages

I found a site with scanned Konica user manuals. There was another somewhat interesting one as well.

Camera Fungi

I didn't realize how mold/mildew or whatever could grow in camera lenses. I mean, I'd heard of it, but never knew how it could happen. It's humidity that does it. While I was in Japan, it was much more humid than in the upper Midwest of the U.S., so some SLR lenses I had grew some stuff. That really sucks. Here's some stuff about cleaning out fungi. Professional help may be best. However, apparently the fungi can etch the coating on the lenses, which sucks. Act fast.

Fungi in Photographic Lens [sic]
Camera cleaning, restauration [sic] and maintenance
Cleaning lens fungus

FlatWire

Digging through some old WSJs that had piled up, I found reference to a product called FlatWire, a paper-thin wire that can be used to add lighting without tearing up a wall to install. They have A/V models, too. I've seen flat speaker wire before, but not quite this thin.

43 Folders

43 Folders is Merlin Mann's personal productivity site. (Link to most popular posts.) I stumbled upon it when googling David Allen's Getting Things Done. Apparently 43f has a bunch of "life hacks" in the GTD vein.

The tip about metering usage of clothing by putting the hangers up backward, replacing them the right way, and after six months purging clothes that are unused is particularly interesting. I have a closet full of stuff that I don't wear but can't seem to part with. My work room is strewn with stuff like that. I need a bigger place to hide my stuff.

Pilkington Competition Equipment

My dad sent me a link to the Pilkington site, since they're one of the few places that have information on the Beretta 89. I'm still not clear on how it differs from the 87, other than the grip, but they sure as hell look cool.

Bogus Shooting

CNN has an article about the dude in NYC who was shot by plainclothes cops. Here's the comment I submitted.

I wasn't there, so I don't know the exact situation.

However, if I were getting into my car and some guys in plainclothes drew guns, I'd get out of there. Why would you trust someone who pulled a gun and claimed to be a police officer? No uniform, no car, no badge. It could be just a robbery!

Based on the limited facts, I'd say that Sean Bell did nothing wrong -- nothing I, as a law-abiding citizen, wouldn't have done. I'd say the cops reacted out of proportion and therefore did the wrong thing.

Japanese Gun Videos

Some dude on YouTube has videos from some Japanese TV program showing various guns in action. The G3 one is pretty sweet with the cut-away of the roller-delayed blowback action. The HK G11, PSG1, MP5SD, MP5A3, MP5K in briefcase, FN P90, FAL and others are shown. Man, those Japanese know how to film guns!

Various c|net

Blog post comparing "computers, chips, [and] coffee"
Malcolm Gladwell "not thinking" at RSA2008 (comment)
Another blog post about combating burnout

"AR-57"

Some company's making an AR-style upper in 5.7x28mm. Very interesting. Might have to get into that cartridge yet. Looks like the retail price will be around $700.

Olmsted County Property Information

After some googling, I found the Olmsted County property record information that I was looking for. The Olmsted County site isn't easy to navigate, so it takes a bit of digging. The property information site and the plat maps are the most interesting.

I found the assessed value of a couple places the wife and I were looking at, which was quite instructive. One place was asking $20k over the assessed value, so it's somewhat out of the picture. From the property info, there's a link to Microsoft Virtual Earth, which gives a sweet bird's eye view of the prospective houses. Pretty cool!

From someone's address you can find the full name of who lives there, approximately how much their place is worth, and how much they pay in property tax. I started to feel a bit like a stalker checking all this stuff out.

Random Geek News

A guy who built himself a mini tank....
The top 10 gadgets you [reader] can't get here [U.S.] yet....
A place called Dynamism that sells Japanese electronics....
And Plat'Home's mini Linux box making it to the U.S. market...?

Clinically Nuts

With all the presidential election brouhaha lately drawing all the nutjobs out of the woodwork, I've been more and more disgusted with people. Especially Democrats, who apparently are clinically nuts. Hah, I knew it!

Ugly Americans

There was an article on CNN about the movie "21", which is based on the Ben Mezrich book "Ugly Americans". (I read the book some time ago and posted about it on my main blog.) The CNN bit led me on a kick where I checked out the Wikipedia article, which mentioned a possible true identity for the protagonist. A blog post had some more information and pointed to a Boston Globe article along the same lines. Is the reality as interesting as the book? It'd be interesting to find out for sure.

Statistics for Dollar-Value

Historical gas prices
Retail milk prices
(USDA ERS data sets)
Historical gold price
Bureau of Labor Statistics' Consumer Price Index

SATA Dev Resources

The Linux ATA project has a page for SATA development resources. Just in case I want to refer to it later.

Sad Socket

In Tuesday's edition of WSJ there was an ad by the Galvin Electricity Initiative with the tagline "Meet Sad Socket" and the catchcopy "You'd be sad, too, if you had to power digital-age businesses on 1950s technology." While Tesla's system worked well for the turn of the century—the 20th Century, that is—the grid as it is today is overtaxed and vulnerable to disruption. With people as ignorant as they are about infrastructure issues, reform is highly unlikely.

Egg McMuffins

The inventor of the Egg McMuffin has died. As I really like the Sausage & Egg McMuffin, I feel saddened by this news.

日本に住んでいた時も、朝早く起きたらたまに嫁と「朝マック」していた。

.50-Cal Hysteria

CNN has an anti-gun article that appears to be an attempt to garner negative public opinion of firearms using the .50 BMG cartridge. I submitted a comment on the article. CNN probably won't post it, so here it is:

While I don't doubt there's a problem in Mexico, in the U.S. there is no recorded case of a .50 BMG weapon being used to commit a crime. The rifles used to fire this round are huge and not easily portable because of the heavy action, long barrel, and the need to otherwise suppress recoil. Since .50 rifles aren't a problem in the U.S., what needs to be questioned is how the guns are getting into Mexico. It's illegal for non-immigrant residents to purchase firearms in the U.S. It's also already illegal in the U.S. to move firearms across borders without declaring them to CBP, and it's probably illegal in Mexico to take firearms across the border as well (I'm not familiar with Mexican law). Someone's not enforcing laws already on the books. Maybe this is another reason to put up that border fence.

Further comments:
.50 BMG is a very expensive cartridge, costing over $4 a round for surplus. Often times surplus comes belted, and must be de-linked before being fired in a non-belt fed rifle. Unless the agents found a real Ma Deuce (Browning M2 machine gun), this statement misleads readers to thinking there was one. An M2 is even less portable than a Barrett, by the way: over 120 lbs without the ammunition!
FN's 5.7x28mm cartridge is a carbine round, not a rifle round, meaning that it's closer to the 5.56x45mm cartridge, aka .223 Remington, used in the M-16. (The M-16 is indeed a carbine, not a rifle, and is maligned at the end of the article for being too weak. That may be true, but then why does the U.S. military still issue them, and why does U.S. law enforcement still buy them? For reference, a .22LR cartridge is 5.7x15mm!) A certain type of 5.7x28mm round is considered to be armor piercing, but it is for military use only and its sale to civilians is illegal. The attraction of the Five-seveN is that it uses the same cartridge as the P90, and has 30-round capacity magazines.
If the Mexican police really captured that much ordnance from criminals, why don't they use that equipment, or use the $200M to buy better standard issue arms?

Overall, this article was very misleading, and should be considered anti-gun propaganda. When it comes to firearms-related topics, CNN is absolutely biased in the negative.

Affiliate Scout

これって役に立つ？Affiliate Scout

そういえば、eBayもそういうのがあるらしい。

将積健士

ググってみたらアタリが出てきた。へー。

Info Athletes系のサイト：
ブランドガイド
バレンシアガ
キッズブランド

Advanced Ventilation Systems

In browsing house listings, I found a place that claimed to have an "advanced ventilation system (AVS)" installed. Having no idea what that was, or if it was for real, I did a search and found a store, Conservation Technologies, that has a few filtration products that look interesting. Interestingly enough, they're based in Duluth, MN.

The brand name is distinct, so I further searched on that and found the manufacturer's site: Venmar, in Canada. The site describes a Heat Recovery Ventilator, which apparently takes stale indoor air, uses it to cool fresh outdoor air, and expels the stale air while passing in the fresh air. That might be useful for the house I end up buying.

Dial 911 and Die

This is more proof that people need guns to keep criminals at bay. The cops won't save you—in fact, they have no obligation to even respond to a 911 call.

The best thing to do is get a big-ass gun and shoot the fuck out of assholes that try to rob you. Someone who threatens one's life to rob and plunder deserves to die. Anyone who says citizens don't have a right to own guns means they want you to roll over for criminals and get raped in the backdoor. I say they need to get shot too.

Life Insurance

I should probably get some now since I'm no longer single.

Money Magazine's Lesson 20
eHow's How to buy life insurance
Yahoo Finance's How to buy life insurance
The Motley Fool's Insurance Center

MN CCW

The Minnesota Department of Public Safety has a website with information about obtaining a carry (CCW) permit. Well, I may just have to get one while I still can. There's a way to get multiple permits to obtain carry reciprocity among the thirty-some states that allow it. Now that would be sweet.

Eliot Spitzer Jokes

From CNN:

"It's just mind-blowing that he spent $4,300 on a hooker," said New York comic Lisa Landry. "It just shows how high the cost of living is in New York. That same hooker would cost $50 in Newark."
...
"They're talking about impeaching Eliot Spitzer if he doesn't step down," David Letterman said, "and I'm thinking, `Whoa, a Democrat being impeached for extramarital sex. Well, happy days are here again!"
...
Across the country, the "Tonight" show's Jay Leno peppered Spitzer with seven jokes. "The real ironic thing about this case?" he said. "Today the hooker said that Spitzer was done in a New York minute."

Politics is the only profession where the wife of a man caught with a prostitute has to stand by his side, Leno said.

"If this guy was a plumber ... he would have his wife's SUV tire tracks over his head," he said.

どやっ

湘南台に俺が好きなお好み焼き屋がある。それはどやっ。名もおもろいやねん。

前にリンクを貼ったと思ったけど探したら無かったから今付けた。

Why do we fall for bubbles?

Why do we fall for bubbles, you dumbass?

The answer is ego. Each of us has the capacity to completely ignore all logic and reason, to delude ourselves into believing that we're so special that nothing bad will happen to us. When we take risks that our bank accounts can't cash and deep inside we know better, we're being just a little bit too full of ourselves.

Airport Security Gestapo

For some reason I found a bunch of horror stories about airport security, as well as the lack of airline customer service.

One guy's tale of horror regarding TSA and GAT Security incurred a lot of comments on both sides. Ok, so the guy should've gotten there earlier, even before the counter opened, but the security theater in letting rentacops with superiority complexes mess with your stuff completely sucks. Let people with CCW licenses carry guns onto flights: some dude stands up and yells "Allah Akbar!" and he'll fall over with ten bullets in his head. Self-regulation beats government-imposed regulation every time. But the lemmings that are the bulk of this country are too self-absorbed to care about things like freedom and civic duty.

Another guy had a microcontroller programmer confiscated because of some incompetent screeners: "Apparently, it’s not 'improvised' if it comes in a printed box."

Apparently TSA screeners think hummus is a liquid. One gem of a comment: "I'm glad I live in America, where, at least until they rescind the Bill of Rights, I can proclaim THIS ADMINISTRATION SUCKS ASS." Indeed. However, it's because Bush is a neo-con, pushing his agenda down everyone's throats. Democrats do that as a matter of course. The Republicans have fallen quite a ways. McCain's a neo-con too, so what do we have? Three presidential candidates who suck ass. Ron Paul's the only decent candidate, yet he doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell because there are too many stupid people. Well, they'll reap what they sow. In the meanwhile, I'd better stock up on bullets for when the revolution comes. I mean, there are all those stupid people.


Seems like from one of those sites I picked up a link to Alex Jones's Infowars site. He's a Ron Paul advocate, so he's gotta be decent. Check out this video of Bill Clinton, linked from Infowars. Sure sounds culpable, doesn't he?

餃子スタジアム

＠ナンジャタウン

1 out of 10 Americans are sleep deprived

According to the CDC, anyway. And I'm one of the 10%!

Part of it is time management. Part of it is wanting to do too many things. Prioritization is another important skill that isn't taught in school. Happiness has a lot to do with how well one can integrate those things into one's life.

LSI to Purchase Infineon Hard Drive Semiconductor Business

News from tha wire.

Aw hell. What does this mean for us internal folk?

Those LSI bitches are a tenacious bunch, pulling away some top people, and now hijacking one of our previous foundry partners. Perhaps I should update that resume after all.

EETimes has some insightful remarks as well.

ホトトギス

「なかぬなら殺してしまへ時鳥 織田右府」（織田信長）
「鳴かずともなかして見せふ杜鵑 豊太閤」（豊臣秀吉）
「なかぬなら鳴まで待よ郭公 大權現様」（徳川家康）

仮のリンク

後でまたまとめる
Shinada
Bandai [gashapon]
Figma
umipro

Meanwhile Bug

Pidgin, formerly GAIM, is a decent universal IM client. Part of its attractiveness its support for Sametime, a Lotus software application. The Meanwhile plug-in for Pidgin provides access to the Sametime protocol. However, in newer versions of the Sametime server, Meanwhile users were unable to see some people on their lists as being logged in, even though they were. This is a known bug. Oddly enough, even after I upgraded to Pidgin 2.3.1, the bad library remained, so I went looking for another fix.

SPAS-12

I stumbled upon a site dedicated to the Franchi SPAS-12. There are some classified ads on there. $1400-1500 is what the classifieds seem to ask. That's a lot more expensive than a Remington 870! I suppose I shouldn't be partial to collecting odd items, since I'm more concerned with practicality, but still, it'd be cool to have. An 870 with a pistol grip, folding stock, and rail for a red dot could be a fun shooter as well. It just doesn't have the cool factor of being banned from further importation!

Atchisson Assault Shotgun

My manager actually sent me a link to a video on YouTube of a full-auto shotgun. Naturally, I was intrigued. Of course civilians can't get them, but it's still cool. My dad had mentioned the Atchisson to me, but I never looked it up because he didn't really explain what it was! Wikipedia has an article that has a bunch of links, and there's a post on Digg. The manufacturer, Action Manufacturing Company, has a press release on the AA-12 as well.

Machine Gun Price Guide

On the HKPro forums someone posted a link to a site tracking the prices of machineguns. It's very informative. That and it's a bit depressing that it costs tens of thousands of dollars to buy machineguns that are all made before 1986.

Mini Trucks

My dad sent me these links. Makes me wish I had a ranch.

Ulmer Farm Service sells Japanese light trucks. They're right-hand drive, though, so aren't legal on public roads.
Bulldog Offroad has rebuilt vehicles, but they aren't street legal either.

Now if a company in the U.S. made a hybrid mini-truck, that'd be sweet!

Partnership Taxes

Goddamn taxes.

I found a definition online that helped decode the difference between adjusted basis, basis in assets, and capital accounts:

—Partner’s Adjusted Basis (Outside Basis): This is the partner’s investment in the partnership. Outside basis is determined without considering any amount shown in the partnership books as capital, equity, or similar account. When a partner disposes of an interest in a partnership, the difference between the sale price and the partner’s adjusted basis is the taxable gain or loss. Each partner is responsible for keeping track of his/her adjusted basis.

—Partnership’s Basis in Assets (Inside Basis): This represents the tax basis in assets held by the partnership. The inside basis is used by the partnership in computing depreciation, gain or loss on sale of assets, etc. The partnership keeps track of the inside basis of assets.

—Capital Accounts: This represents the partners’ share of partnership equity (partnership assets minus partnership liabilities). There is a separate capital account for each partner. The capital account generally represents the partner’s distributive share of the partnership’s net worth as shown on the balance sheet. The partnership keeps track of each partner’s capital account, and presents an analysis of the capital account on Schedule K-1. The capital account is different than the partner’s adjusted basis. The capital account does not include a partner’s share of partnership liabilities.

Chinese Flip-Flops

This site proves that Wal-Mart is evil and cheap Chinese products are dangerous shit. It's not just lead!

UniATA

Finally, an open-source Windows ATA driver that supports DMA: UniATA. This should be useful.

Multitasking and Productivity

Recently there was a post on /. linking to an article on The Atlantic about the problems with multitasking. Just what I suspected all along. The article appears to be from last November—why'd it take so long to get picked up?!

Then c|net has an article regarding productivity in this brave new age of technology. Referring back to the multitasking article, much of the current technologies actually aren't conducive to productivity at all! The claim: "interruptions from e-mail, cell phones, instant messaging, text messaging, and blogs eat up nearly 30 percent of each day"—ouch.

Early technologies, like the Deere plow, focused on helping us do one thing well. There's an important distinction between a core technology development and mere infrastructure changes. The Internet as we know it was invented in 1974 years ago. The Web was birthed in 1989. Where's the next leap in IT? Blogs, social networks, and such are just sideshows to the real leaps that change the way we do things. The question is, will we use what we have at our disposal in a productive fashion?

Boosted Air-Source Heat Pumps

c|net has an article on an electric heat pump that's supposed to be more efficient for cold-weather locales. The company, Hallowell International, has some more information on their website, including a white paper.

Thou shalt not murder

Massad Ayoob also writes articles for the magazine Backwoods Home, and I ran into a couple interesting columns recently. One of them is regarding ammunition: storage, safety, and pricing. His point about how ammo prices being artificially depressed in the '80s continuing into the '90s was new to me. Then there was a link about how to respond to anti-gunners. I'd seen some of that before in Boston T. Party's writings, but Ayoob is more mainstream. One of these days I'll have to attend LFI.

Anyway, the point of this post is that Ayoob brings up the Commandment that really says "Thou shalt not murder". Even in the Bible, the Old Testament at least, there is killing sanctioned by God. Wikipedia has a word or two on this as well, for those who don't believe an article in a magazine about living away from the beaten path.

Why not to use Ruby on Rails

Slashdot had a link to an article on what to and not to use Perl for. One thing was for Web applications, which I disagree with. Several other people did too, one of whom posted a link to some issues that Ruby on Rails has by one of the most prominent dev community members. The rant is rather spectacular. F-bombs and colorful metaphors all over the place. I actually sympathize with the guy's troubles. Having done Perl CGI freelance, I know that a lot of the code out there is total crap, and many of the people in the industry couldn't code to save their lives. Still, it sounds like Ruby on Rails really sucks: 400 restarts a day is very unstable. Why bother?

Dave Hall told me how cool Ruby on Rails is, but I'm glad I passed on the latest buzzword language. The Catalyst MVC framework for Perl sounds interesting. Even so, I'll probably roll my own.

37mm

Apparently some people entertain themselves with 37mm flare guns. There's at least one site dedicated to them, and they have a useful FAQ as well. Several places make flare gun attachments. Spike's Tactical makes a rail-mounted one that looks like a grenade launcher. Awww yeah.

C&R Links

Some interesting sites with information pertaining to the Type 03 FFL (C&R):

• Surplus Rifle's page on how to get a C&R
• Cruffler has lots of good info
• A useful C&R clarification via letter from the ATF
• Information from a previous post

Radford Survey

Apparently HGST uses the Radford Survey to compare salaries, benefits, etc. against other companies to determine competitiveness. It'd be interesting to have access to the raw data.

Social Networks & Wall Street

I was googling around to see what exists in terms of stock-related offerings to social networks. One blog post I found listed several minor sites. The main one seems to be SocialPicks. There's also a site called Herd St., and some other obscure ones like BigSmarty and UpDown.

Personally, I'm not interested in yet another SNS. I'm looking for a site that allows stock performance tracking with minimal noise. Some people don't care for sharing exactly what they're trading, but wouldn't mind to export their annualized ROI. A simple, functional site to keep track, and possibly export performance information to other web applications. An issue would be gleaning out the historic numbers from feeds.

Google Gadgets has a JavaScript API for retrieving stock data. Apparently they get their data from a company called CSI. Still, Google Finance exports all exchange data in the JavaScript of the individual stock pages, which could be used to get at least 5 years of data, possibly more.

Hi5

Yet another SNS—Hi5. I'm not sure what differentiating characteristics it has relative to Facebook, MySpace, etc., but apparently some people use it. Not everyone uses the big services, perhaps?

Representational State Transfer

REST is another Web buzzword. Actually, I'm not clear on what the breakthrough was. Further, it mandates stateless behavior, which most Web applications rely on for login: either cookies, or a hidden input variable tucked away on a page, correlated to state information on the server. Still, I suppose it warrants more study.

Tech News

Wireless Charging at CES.
Google and Facebook join DataPortability.org.
Microsoft offers to buy FAST for $1.2B.
Data centers on cargo ships? Sounds like the beginnings of an "off-shore data haven".
Network Solutions has been front-running queries—boo!
Mobile phone projectors to debut this year?!
Linux-based PMP features head-mounted display.
Alienware to release a gigantic curved monitor?! I want one!!
Shimmer to secure port access.
Apparently, it's legal for customs to rummage around on your laptop.
Building Beer-Brewing Bender!
NYT has the story behind the breakup of Intel and OLPC.

日本のマナー

見舞いのカードに何を書けばいいかを調べたら、このサイトが検索結果に入っていた。結構使えそうだ。

Gold & The Privateer

While looking for information on the gold confiscation of 1933, I ran across a site called The Privateer, a newsletter for liberty-minded individuals. I haven't had a chance to check it out yet, but it looks intriguing.

Presidential Executive Order 6102 is some evil stuff. Basically, it forced people to sell their gold to the government at a fixed price. Nine months later, the Gold Reserve Act transfered ownership of Fed gold to the U.S. Treasury, and the value of the dollar was devalued 41% relative to gold. Basically, FDR screwed the American people. What a fascist piece of shit! Why anyone would respect the guy is beyond me. It took WWII to pull the country together economically, and war brought other problems with it.

The Privateer has a timeline detailing the gold-related events in the 20th century that's quite illuminating.

Gear

Some places for gear:

Bradley's Military
Maxpedition

Technology Voter's Guide: Ron Paul

C|net has Ron Paul's take on several technology issues. Their election guide has some interesting coverage as well.

Turns out Dr. Paul has the same view on Net neutrality as I do. He kicks ass!

Maybe Warren Buffett Sucks After All

Perhaps he's getting senile in his old age, but the Oracle supports the Democrats. How disappointing. I suspected something was amiss when he donated billions to the Gates Foundation. How it's readily apparent that Buffett's got some issues. No serious capitalist would vote for a gun-grabbing socialist for president. Well, I'm totally disillusioned now.

Misquotes

Apparently several quotes often attributed to Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson are incorrect.

First of all, the Benjamin Franklin one. As referenced by Wikiquote and backed up by some scholarly research, this is the correct quote: "Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety." Certainly that's different than the one generally seen floating about on the Net.

Jefferson is the subject of many mis-attributed quotes. One often attributed to him is: "When the government fears the people, there is liberty; When the people fear the government, there is tyranny." I rather liked that one, too, but apparently he didn't say it (also, Wikiquote).

Oh yeah, Nietzsche is also frequently misquoted. The proper quote is: "Was ihn nicht umbringt, macht ihn stärker" (What does not kill him, makes him stronger.)

Akihabara News

Apparently some publisher has this blog team in Tokyo doing coverage of Japanese gadget items, etc. Interesting, though everyone has their own take on Akihabara.

OS X Hacks

Since the wife wants an Eee PC, the possibility of hacking OS X to install on it is attractive. (Although the hack is technically a license violation since it's "modification", I do have a spare, legal copy of Tiger.) Hence I went searching to see what kind of success people were having with it.

The Eee PC Wikipedia entry has a link to a site dedicated to getting OS X up and running on the Eee PC. Apparently it works to some extent, but there are a few issues. The tutorial there points to an article that first documented an install, which was in turn based on a generic "Hackintosh" howto. Apparently there are lots of peeps out there with prodigious amounts of spare time.

C|net Comments

A couple remarks posted on c|net regarding an article on the sad state of privacy in the U.S.:

Dalkorian: The Declaration of Independence says that it's the people's duty to overthrow corrupt government. As far as I can recall from my reading of the Constitution, it doesn't say anything about revolution. As a matter of fact, U.S. Code Title 18, Part I, Chapter 115 spells out that it's a serious crime to plot sedition or advocate overthrow of government.

That doesn't mean the law is right -- laws are made by people, and people are often wrong. (This is why jury nullification is a necessary thing, though under-utilized.) Still, the federal government has become a huge piece of machinery, so unless you want to bring that down on your head alone, hold off until the right time, hopefully with the coordination of like-minded Patriots.

Note that a Patriot defends the Constitution, not the twisted mess that has grown up around it.

and

Absolutely. The 2nd Amendment right to keep and bear arms is the means by which people can hold onto their freedoms when things go to far. It really has nothing to do with hunting, but this is how the bad guys pushed the 1968 Gun Control Act through in requiring sporting purpose for importation. The NFA and GCA were pushed through Democrat-controlled Congress with a Democrat president (FDR and LBJ) to ensure that no one interferes with their big-budget government morass.

Citizens should be able to own military weapons, period. They could pre-1934. All that's happened since then is that the average citizen's minds have gotten soft, since all they care about is the latest entertainment. Gun control is unconstitutional and is thus illegal. However, it's the citizens versus the people with a monopoly of force, so guess who loses?

When a citizen criticizing the government can be labeled a terrorist, and people become held for undeclared reasons, we're only a few steps away from total oppression. In that regard, Al Qaeda won, although America has been screwing itself for the past 80 years.

To Power-Down or Not To Power-Down

A c|net blog post led me to an article on Ask Leo that compelled me to post a reply. Here it is:

To Roger: Not all drives use the CSS (contact start/stop) mechanism you described. All Hitachi hard drives use a load/unload ramp, which causes no friction wear to the head. (Ramps can have other issues, however.) Seagate's 3.5" drives still use CSS, last I heard, so people who use that vendor may wish to avoid excessive power cycling.

Also, most spindle bearings are FDB (fluid dynamic bearings) so bearing wear isn't nearly as much of an issue as it used to be. Modern flex tapes generally don't have fatigue issues, either, at least from what I hear being in development. (I work in the industry.)

Other remarks: What does concern me is electronics wear with power cycling, since electromigration effects are greater as transistor size shrinks (current generation SOCs are 90nm). However, risk of head-disk interaction as a result of internal contamination, application of external force, or other issues (firmware problems, failure to park on an emergency power-off, etc.) counterbalances the argument to leaving a drive on all the time, since usage of the drive raises risk of HDI. Excessive heat due to the drive running can exacerbate thermal decay of written data, as well.

All drives will experience degradation of the magnetics because of superparamagnetism, whether they are on or off. This is a practical limit on the lifespan of a drive due to degradation of the once-written servo pattern. Copying data to an HDD and leaving it in the closet for 5 years is NOT safe -- I'd prefer optical media (just make sure to use a high-quality brand like Taiyo Yuden, not the cheap stuff).

In the end, because of the complexity of HDDs, the differences in models, and the difficulty of extracting probabilities of failure, whether to power down or not is still a matter of preference. I shut off most all of my HDDs when not in use, since I view the mechanical and magnetic risks to be greater than the electronics ones. Thus far, I've had good luck. If one chooses to leave a drive on all the time, definitely make sure it's well cooled. Multiple backups over multiple drives is the safe thing to do. Also, don't trust what the manufacturer says about drive life -- the one oddball failure on the Weibull projection could be the one with your data on it.

Baby Names

CNN had an article on "baby name remorse" that I felt I had to comment on. I'm unsure if they'll post my remarks, so here they are:

A baby's name isn't a reflection of a child—it's a reflection of the child's parents' inclinations. However, that's as important as any of the teachings and traditions that the parents choose to pass down to the child. In a way, it establishes some of the character of the child, since a name does alter perceptions by one's peers.

My father claims he made up my name as a derivative of his name. For the longest time I hated it because no one could spell or pronounce it. As I grew up, I got used to it, but could never quite reason whether I was different because I grew up with the name, or whether the name simply suited the character of my parental influence. Later, I discovered that the name wasn't unique (also a shock to my dad) and honestly was disappointed!

Certainly some parents want to set their kids apart; the wisdom of this depends on the character of the parents. I wouldn't overdo it: certainly the name should sound natural to the parents. ("Normal" people will pick a "normal" name, "strange" people will pick a "strange" name—that's the way it works!) The kid will grow into it. Thus it's natural that some parents second-guess themselves, but they should figure it out before the child latches on to the name.