Tears in Heaven

Lately I've been trying to introduce Kid#1 to songs and movies that I think were formative for me.  Today I had her listen to some Prince, the MTV live clip.  She'd mentioned a kid at school named Boston, who had said something goofy; it made me think of "More Than a Feeling", so I played that for her too.

For some reason, Clapton's "Tears in Heaven" popped into my head, and I went to look up the history on Clapton's young son who died.  There in the references was the sordid history of Clapton's relationship with the wife he had that child with.  And I thought my marital relations were screwed up!

Olde Tyme Skillz

Via someone's post on Facebook, two schools in the upper Midwest that teach skills some would consider obsolete: North House Folk School (in Grand Marais, MN) and Driftless Folk School (in Viroqua, WI).  Very intriguing.

NIJ Firearm Examiner Training

The National Institute of Justice has on their website training modules for "firearm examiners".  The information on small arms ammunition is quite interesting, as it was written by a former CCI/Speer employee.

Machining/Welding Information

Your tax dollars at work!  While searching for machining textbooks, I found a page with a few links to public-domain works by the U.S. military:

• US Army Fundamentals of Machine Tools
• US Army Welding Theory and Application
• US Navy Machinery Repairman Handbook

The comments have additional links as well.

I also came across a reference site called "Virtual Machine Shop" that has some useful information and diagrams.

Crypto Edu

I can't even remember where I got this from...but it's an educational link on crypto.

Liberty Training Rifle

The recommended rifle for an Appleseed shoot is the so-called "Liberty Training Rifle", described both on the Appleseed forums and the blog.

The suggested sights are "Tech-SIGHTS" (dunno what's up with the capitalization).  The set for the 10/22 replace the front dovetail sight and screw into the factory scope rail holes in the receiver.  I've heard that the sights are made in China, though, which would be highly unfortunate.  The other two open sight options I've seen are Eagle Zephyr and Williams FireSights; the former appears to be no longer made, and the latter is poorly reviewed.  Apparently one of the first appearances of the Tech-SIGHTS was on the forums on The High Road.