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!