sevesteen.com

Not a truck

2011-10-25T13:54:00.000-04:00

Me: Remember, we didn't bring the truck
Wife: It will fit...
(She almost had to ride home with the paper towels on her lap)

Occupy Wall Street vs The Tea Party

2011-10-11T09:38:00.000-04:00

Diagram from The Cato Institute blog

I've got issues with both the Tea Party and Occupy Wall Street--but I'm firmly in the center of this Venn Diagram. It would be nice if we could work together and concentrate on the parts where both sides agree--I think that would help both groups with the parts outside the intersection.

More on Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-11T09:35:00.000-04:00

The previous post was of what appeared to be an Occupy NY supporter's demands, but I have no way of verifying. Daisy Deadhead is a very liberal (self-described hippie) blogger I read, so I asked her what their platform was. She pointed to one of her posts, which I'm fisking here.

As we gather together in solidarity to express a feeling of mass injustice, we must not lose sight of what brought us together. We write so that all people who feel wronged by the corporate forces of the world can know that we are your allies.

I feel wronged that our second amendment rights are restricted...but I doubt that counts here.

As one people, united, we acknowledge the reality: that the future of the human race requires the cooperation of its members; that our system must protect our rights, and upon corruption of that system, it is up to the individuals to protect their own rights, and those of their neighbors; that a democratic government derives its just power from the people, but corporations do not seek consent to extract wealth from the people and the Earth; and that no true democracy is attainable when the process is determined by economic power. We come to you at a time when corporations, which place profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality, run our governments. We have peaceably assembled here, as is our right, to let these facts be known.

They have taken our houses through an illegal foreclosure process, despite not having the original mortgage.

Was the mortgage paid as in the terms of the contract? This might be a technical legal issue, but morally, you still owe. A lot of the mess was because the government pressured mortgage originators to be 'fair' rather than fiscally responsible.

They have taken bailouts from taxpayers with impunity, and continue to give Executives exorbitant bonuses.

Just about everyone would take a bailout if offered, and in a couple cases banks were pressured by regulators into taking TARP funds, along with TARP regulation. The issue of bonuses is complicated--Should a struggling company lose the manager of a profitable division because other managers screwed up?

They have perpetuated inequality and discrimination in the workplace based on age, the color of one’s skin, sex, gender identity and sexual orientation.

We will never reach 100% equality. At some point the cure becomes worse than the disease, with employers unable to risk firing non-productive employees.

They have poisoned the food supply through negligence, and undermined the farming system through monopolization.

Family-run businesses in modern times are mostly limited to service industries--we don't have much family manufacturing businesses either. Farming is either labor-intensive or capitol-intensive, and big business can afford the capitol. Big business can also afford to navigate government subsidies more efficiently. If we were limited to family farms, food prices would be significantly higher.

They have profited off of the torture, confinement, and cruel treatment of countless animals, and actively hide these practices.

Stop eating meat. (To be fair, Daisy Deadhead says she's a vegetarian, so she's not being a hypocrite in this point)

They have continuously sought to strip employees of the right to negotiate for better pay and safer working conditions.

Union organizers are against non-anonymous elections, so they can pressure people into voting "properly". There is no good excuse for this, there is a reason most fair elections have secret ballots. My union experience has been working beside auto workers, and I'm not sympathetic--many were proud of working the system--an example is that tradesman work was divided into break/fix and project work. Some would refuse to do project work unless they were on overtime--and they could get away with it.

They have held students hostage with tens of thousands of dollars of debt on education, which is itself a human right.

How much education is there a right to--bachelor's, Master's, PhD? We also have vastly different definitions of rights-requiring the effort of others can't be a right.

They have consistently outsourced labor and used that outsourcing as leverage to cut workers’ healthcare and pay.

It's only racism if the foreigners are lucky enough to live in America?

They have influenced the courts to achieve the same rights as people, with none of the culpability or responsibility.

Somewhat valid--but some of the owner's rights should pass through to the corporation.

They have spent millions of dollars on legal teams that look for ways to get them out of contracts in regards to health insurance.

But the same sort of shenanigans to get out of paying a mortgage is somehow OK.

They have sold our privacy as a commodity.

Valid point.

They have used the military and police force to prevent freedom of the press.

Not so much, otherwise I'd never have heard of you.

They have deliberately declined to recall faulty products endangering lives in pursuit of profit.

Sometimes. But products are safer now than ever, and there's no such thing as risk-free.

They determine economic policy, despite the catastrophic failures their policies have produced and continue to produce.

Huh? Unless 'they' are the ones setting up 'subsidies for this, tax breaks for that' plans.

They have donated large sums of money to politicians, who are responsible for regulating them.

...often donating to both sides, perpetuating the corrupt 2 party system. The real problem is the politicians who take these contributions.

They continue to block alternate forms of energy to keep us dependent on oil.

Like Nuclear. Oh wait....
How are they blocking alternative energy, other than the laws of science? Alternative energy is like alternative medicine--the alternatives that work well become mainstream.

They continue to block generic forms of medicine that could save people’s lives or provide relief in order to protect investments that have already turned a substantial profit.

So why should they invest billions in research to find new drugs, (most of which will be unsuccessful) if they can't profit on the few that work? Without patent protection, nobody will go through the time and trouble of testing. There are abuses and problems here-it is surprising how often we 'suddenly' find a safety problem with a drug just as it goes generic, with a new alternative waiting.

They have purposely covered up oil spills, accidents, faulty bookkeeping, and inactive ingredients in pursuit of profit.

Again, less than at any time in our history.

They purposefully keep people misinformed and fearful through their control of the media.

Quit listening. This is as much incompetence, laziness and that most of the public is more interested in entertainment than news. Every news story I've known about through non-news sources has significant errors in the reporting. Everyone I've asked says the same thing.

They have accepted private contracts to murder prisoners even when presented with serious doubts about their guilt.

What is this referring to?

They have perpetuated colonialism at home and abroad. They have participated in the torture and murder of innocent civilians overseas.

Colonialism is declining, although I won't defend much of our overseas meddling. .

They continue to create weapons of mass destruction in order to receive government contracts.

The fault here is the government's, not the corporations. We need a strong military-but I'll agree not as large as we have.

To the people of the world,
We, the New York City General Assembly occupying Wall Street in Liberty Square, urge you to assert your power.
Exercise your right to peaceably assemble; occupy public space; create a process to address the problems we face, and generate solutions accessible to everyone.

I'm not seeing much in the way of solutions, other than 'more government except with US in charge".

To all communities that take action and form groups in the spirit of direct democracy, we offer support, documentation, and all of the resources at our disposal.
Join us and make your voices heard!

Occupy Wall Street

2011-10-06T01:18:00.000-04:00

When I first read this list of proposed demands from the "Occupy Wall Street" movement, I thought it must be a fake, put up by someone to discredit the movement--I didn't want to be taken in by an Onion article. I'm fairly convinced this is genuine, which frightens me.

Their demand list from here:

Demand one: Restoration of the living wage. This demand can only be met by ending "Freetrade" by re-imposing trade tariffs on all imported goods entering the American market

In general, cheap goods increases our standard of living more than the accompanying job loss harms it, but the lost jobs are easier to point to. Free trade benefits both sides of the deal. Remember the lack of quality in American cars when they were only competing with each other?

To level the playing field for domestic family farming and domestic manufacturing as most nations that are dumping cheap products onto the American market have radical wage and environmental regulation advantages.

The argument that it is not fair to compete with goods manufactured without enviornmental controls is somewhat valid, but competing with low wages is self-correcting over time. Competing environmentally may be--developed countries are almost always better environmentally than developing. And don't people in poor countries deserve jobs as much as we do?

Another policy that must be instituted is raise the minimum wage to twenty dollars an hr.

...which will cause immediate inflation, increase unemployment, and drastically increase entry-level unemployment. Few people who haven't had a job are worth $20 per hour.

Demand two: Institute a universal single payer healthcare system. To do this all private insurers must be banned from the healthcare market as their only effect on the health of patients is to take money away from doctors, nurses and hospitals preventing them from doing their jobs and hand that money to wall st. investors.

A better argument would be to disconnect health care and health insurance from employment--End the policies and tax benefits that artificially make self-purchased health insurance uncompetitively expensive compared to employer-paid. We need some sort of cost controls, some method to prevent consumers spending on health care as if it is someone else's money.

Demand three: Guaranteed living wage income regardless of employment.

Not sure what this means--if you don't feel like working, you still get a living wage? If you aren't willing to do more than show up at work, an employer still has to pay you 'a living wage"? If you are just unqualified or unable?

Demand four: Free college education.

Not everyone needs or can benefit from a college degree, and almost anyone willing to work at it can get one now. If college is free, then it becomes the equivalent of a high school diploma, required for a job at Target.

Demand five: Begin a fast track process to bring the fossil fuel economy to an end while at the same bringing the alternative energy economy up to energy demand.

Unless you count nuclear as 'alternative to fossil', this requires either a repeal of the laws of physics, or a drastic reduction in our standard of living. We can do better at conservation, and we will--Chances are we are at or near 'peak energy', as measured by consumption.

Demand six: One trillion dollars in infrastructure (Water, Sewer, Rail, Roads and Bridges and Electrical Grid) spending now.

Where does this trillion dollars come from? Immediately? These sorts of things need years or decades of planning to do even remotely efficiently.

Demand seven: One trillion dollars in ecological restoration planting forests, reestablishing wetlands and the natural flow of river systems and decommissioning of all of America's nuclear power plants.

OK, nuclear is NOT considered alternative.

Demand eight: Racial and gender equal rights amendment.

What would this cover, and how would it be enforced--If women aren't as interested in sports as men, would colleges still have to restrict men's sports?

Demand nine: Open borders migration. anyone can travel anywhere to work and live.

Almost anyone who is willing to work for a living and isn't a criminal, sure.

Demand ten: Bring American elections up to international standards of a paper ballot precinct counted and recounted in front of an independent and party observers system.

Probably the most realistic and important demand. I'm not sure of the exact mechanism, but that would be better than what we have now.

Demand eleven: Immediate across the board debt forgiveness for all. Debt forgiveness of sovereign debt, commercial loans, home mortgages, home equity loans, credit card debt, student loans and personal loans now! All debt must be stricken from the "Books." World Bank Loans to all Nations, Bank to Bank Debt and all Bonds and Margin Call Debt in the stock market including all Derivatives or Credit Default Swaps, all 65 trillion dollars of them must also be stricken from the "Books." And I don't mean debt that is in default, I mean all debt on the entire planet period.

Wow. This would wipe out our economy faster than just about anything else, and may be the most ridiculous demand in this manifesto. People should really be forced to rent until they can afford to save up for a house? Even if this were a 'one time' forgiveness, no rational business or bank would be willing to loan substantial money ever again.

Demand twelve: Outlaw all credit reporting agencies.

If loans are illegal, what's the point?

Demand thirteen: Allow all workers to sign a ballot at any time during a union organizing campaign or at any time that represents their yeah or nay to having a union represent them in collective bargaining or to form a union.

There are many good reasons for secret ballots, and very few good reasons to require open ballots--whether we are talking about government or union elections, we should go to great lengths to avoid coercion or retaliation for voting 'wrong'.

These demands will create so many jobs it will be completely impossible to fill them without an open borders policy.

More wishful thinking.

Honey in fiberglass repair

2011-10-02T01:50:00.000-04:00

A few weeks ago I found a set of hard fiberglass motorcycle saddlebags at a garage sale for $2, in fairly poor condition. I de-rusted the hardware and painted it flat black, patched up the cracks in the fiberglass and painted them to match the bike. I'm learning how to paint, and was still experimenting with the tops, so I didn't re-attach the safety chains...oops.

On my way home from work, I apparently did not properly latch one of the lids, and without a safety chain it fell off. I didn't notice immediately, and by the time I found the lid, it had been hit and the last 3 or so inches was broken off.

The two lids are identical, so I've been trying to use the intact lid as a pattern to repair the broken lid with fiberglass. The first attempts at the form were with expanding insulation foam and plastic wrap so I can remove it. I think the method could work, but the expansion makes it difficult to get an accurate form with a thin enough layer to cure in a reasonable time. Worse, the outer layer appears to be fully cured, but removing the foam from the lid revealed that the center was almost completely soft and liquid. A layer thin enough to cure would not duplicate the shape properly.

I gave up on the foam and made a form out of fiberglass. I greased the inside of the good lid, lined it with foil and added a layer of fiberglass and resin. I used popsicle sticks and binder clips to hold the fiberglass in the sharp corners of the lip. This form turned out well, so I riveted it to the broken lid. I was going to use the same combination of grease and foil to separate the new fiberglass from the form, but saw honey and figured it would be sticky enough but easier to clean. That part worked fairly well.

I need a couple more layers of fiberglass for strengh, then I'll bondo over the repair so I can smooth it out a lot easier, but I think it is going to work.

Not wasting a blog comment

2011-10-01T10:07:00.000-04:00

A court in Oregon has recently ruled that the state cannot ban licensed concealed carry on campus. This worries Baldr Oldenson, despite the complete lack of problems in the few other states that allow it. Baldr is irregular about which comments he chooses to allow on his blog, so rather than wasting the effort, I've used my comment as a basis for a post.

He writes:

Among college-aged people (ages 18-30, to include most grad students), 81.5% of homicides and 46.5% of suicides are by firearms. Homicide and suicide are the number 2 and number 3 causes of death in that age range (behind unintentional deaths, where firearms are about 1%) (based on CDC WISQARS data for 2008). Percentages increase if you drop the age to undergrad ages (18-22), and the difference in ranking between accidental and homicide drop dramatically.

This definition of 'college age' includes the peak criminal and gang years. Criminals account for most of the non-suicide gun violence, it is misleading to lump them in with college students.

Yes, those are schools that have had shootings. It's true that no one was allowed to carry a gun and "play Wyatt Earp" (to quote myself from this post) and shoot the bad guys. However, I would counter that in mass shootings that have happened outside of university settings, including on military bases, no one intervened in any of them, either, despite the ability for citizens to carry guns. In other words, allowing guns on campus isn't likely to stop the shooters, but it definitely will increase the likelihood of homicides and accidents by students. In colleges all over the nation, the rate of gun-related crimes is far lower on-campus (in those gun-free zones) than in the surrounding city.

Mass shooters tend to choose places where they think resistance will be minimal. Mass shooters almost always give up or suicide once someone else shoots back. And when someone intervenes quickly enough, there's not an opportunity for it to be a mass shooting. Most of the benefit of concealed carry is not in criminals getting shot, it is in criminals not being assured of harmless victims. Unless accompanied by unrealistic increases in physical security, banning guns in 'sensitive' areas is likely to make them more attractive to mass shooters. The mass shooting at a military base that he refers to is evidence for my point rather than his--On a typical base the only legal loaded guns are on the gun range or carried by security. In the Fort Hood incident, nobody could shoot back until an armed civilian arrived.

But accidents happen every day, and there are plenty of violent and reactive people out there. Where there are guns, there are gun crimes and accidents.

In general, proponents of expansion of licensed concealed carry keep predicting minimal issues and a slight drop in crime, while anti-gun activists keep predicting severe problems, even when similar measures have not been a problem in other states. Once enough time has passed to judge these predictions, one side is consistently more accurate than the other.

NPR 100 best SF--CS Lewis Space Trilogy.

2011-09-19T12:44:00.000-04:00

A bunch of the bloggers I read have talked about the NPR 100 best Science Fiction and Fantasy list. I've read at least part of 30 of the list--the list includes series. I've decided to go through and at least attempt the books I haven't read, (and possibly re-read ones I haven't read in a while) starting at the end of the list, The Space Trilogy by CS Lewis.

I read the first book and partway through the second before I gave up. That's unusual for me, I rarely drop a book midway through, and I've read some pretty crappy books before giving up on a series--I even managed to finish Tom Clancy's Red Rabbit.

The book is set during WWII, but reads like a much older book. In it the main character, a professor taking a walking tour of England is kidnapped by other humans and taken to Mars due to the kidnappers misunderstanding what the Martians wanted. It turns out that three species of Martians live together in harmony under a supreme being. We also discover that the reason Earthlings are uncivilized and violent is that our Supreme Being is bent--basically mentally ill, shunned by the other supreme beings. Although the story has the hero learning the universal Martian language and is translated into English, many of the words are left untranslated for no good reason. Book two has the hero volunteering to go to Venus, where he meets a pseudo-Eve searching for her lost Adam in a floating Garden of Eden. One of the kidnappers from the first book shows up and details his evil plans. I'm not sure what happens next, that's where I decided that it was no longer pleasure reading, and there wasn't likely to be a sufficient reward for finishing.

I can't imagine this making a top 10,000 list, let alone top 100.

CeeLo, translated

2011-08-08T12:41:00.000-04:00

Cee Lo Green, in American Sign Language. Fast forward 20 seconds

750 Seca vs. CX500

2011-08-02T10:10:00.000-04:00

I finally got my 82 Yamaha 750 Seca running. I bought it before the 81 Honda CX500 I've been riding, but it was a barn find and the carbs were gummed up from sitting a couple of years.

The bikes are completely different, both in mechanics and in riding. The CX engine is a water-cooled 500cc v-twin with 4 valves per cylinder, operated by pushrods, originally rated at 52 horsepower and with the crankshaft running fore/aft The Seca is an air-cooled 750cc inline 4, with 2 valves per cylinder operated by dual overhead cams, originally at 82 horsepower and the crankshaft running left/right. Both bikes have shaft drive, both 5 speeds with front disks (dual disks on the Yamaha) and drum rear.

The Yamaha has more features, some very nice, some very silly 80's. Nice features are the self-canceling turn signals that are based on time and distance--they stay on indefinitely when stopped, turn off after either a certain distance or time after moving, whichever comes first. They also can be manually turned off by pushing in on the switch. I'm not familiar with modern bikes, but apparently this is still uncommonly good--other signals are either full manual or strictly time based.

Another nice feature is the kickstand interlock--Unless the bike is in neutral, the engine won't run with the side stand down. I'm sure experienced bikers never pull away with their side stands down. I'm not an experienced biker yet. It is embarrassing and potentially dangerous to turn left with the stand down.

The instruments are 'very silly 80's'. A big bulky rectangular dashboard, known by Seca fans as the Atari. In addition to the standard lights and gauges found on most bikes, it has an LCD monitoring system that tells if the side stand is down, oil pressure, brake fluid or battery electrolyte is low, headlight or taillight is burned out or fuel is low. There is also a 4 segment fuel gauge, the one addition that is useful.
The LCD's are visible, but not attention getting--the attention part is handled by a big red light in the top center of the dash. If any of the warning LCD's are on, the red light starts blinking . Particularly annoying is the battery warning light--the sensors on these don't typically last 30 years, and won't work on all batteries, so every time I start the bike, I have to cancel the battery warning. It is possible to bypass the unused sensor with a resistor--but my first attempt made things worse, as it would shut the monitor off only intermittently, and every time it came back, the warning light would blink again. Apparently this is similar to how fuel works--but on my bike, reserve is at about 1/4 tank, and I haven't filled it up enough to get a feel for actual range.

The brake fluid monitor is required only because of the silly master cylinder location. Rather than the usual practice of mounting the master cylinder at the brake lever and using a clear reservoir, the Seca has a cable-operated cylinder hidden between the fork legs. Looks neat--but part of the reason for using hydraulics is to eliminate cables. Feel is not as good as bikes I've tried with conventional brake setups. The Yamaha also has anti-dive forks that are supposed to firm up the fork under braking, I haven't really noticed a difference here, and it is very likely that the system needs to be rebuilt. The Yamaha also has silly rubber covers over the handlebars.

The riding position on the Seca is not terribly different than the CX, but more comfortable--This might just be a better seat. Power is much smoother, and of course there is more of it. The Honda is rated at 52hp, the Yamaha 82. The Seca sounds like it is revving faster at a given speed in top gear, although the tach says it is a bit less--I'm guessing that what we gauge RPM by is the sound of the individual exhaust pulses, and more cylinders equals more pulses at a given RPM. The Seca has a wider useful powerband than the CX. The CX chugs if it is cruising below about 3000 rpm, or accelerating moderately below about 4000, and doesn't really make a lot of power below 5000. The Seca doesn't seem to complain as long as it is above about 1500, and still has some acceleration this slow without having to downshift. Both bikes have similar redlines--despite being a pushrod engine the Honda goes to 9650, where the Yamaha redline is at 9500. The Seca engine feels kind of buzzy at interstate speeds. The Seca seems to be a bit more stable, with less wander over pavement grooves and such. This may be either tires or worn parts on the Honda--I rode the Yamaha about 20 miles on the original tires and it wasn't nearly as good. The Seca still has stock mufflers, and they are very quiet at the rider's ears, especially at city speeds--Loafing along at around 30, it feels and sounds like a scooter with the majority of noise being gear or chain whine rather than exhaust.

I am not quite happy with the rear suspension on the Yamaha, large bumps like frost heaves are uncomfortable. It does have both preload and damping adjustment, I haven't played much with either. Preload was set to minimum, it is quite possible that with my weight I need a higher setting to prevent bottoming on large bumps. My Honda is the other way around--the initial hit is less jarring, but the bike keeps bouncing a bit after.

The Yamaha has been poorly repainted--it looks nice from a distance, but not nearly as nice up close.

Safety Gear

2011-07-23T23:54:00.001-04:00

I've decided that at least for now, if I'm going out of town on my motorcycle, I'm wearing long pants, jacket and gloves. (In addition to helmet, of course)

I started with a cheap legal minimum 3/4 helmet that Walmart had. I replaced it fairly quickly with a Snell-approved mid grade HJC that the local Honda dealer was selling--on a bike like mine without a windshield it is much more pleasant. Not only does the full face do a better job of keeping the wind out of my eyes, the helmet is more comfortable and has better internal ventilation as well--with chin and head vents open while riding you can feel slight air currents, and there is no significant heat build up despite the black color. (Would have preferred silver or grey, but the in stock choices were black or graffiti)

I bought an inexpensive Fieldsheer armored textile jacket that was on clearance at Motorcycle Superstore--a bit boy-racer for my taste, but I'm not particularly fashion-conscious. Abrasion-resistant mesh, and armor over elbows and shoulders that meets some European specification that I've never heard of. Fits OK, the zipper likes to get stuck where there is a front seam about 3/4 up, but generally comfortable.

What really surprises me is that wearing all this gear isn't hot while riding, up to at least 100 degrees-in fact, even at around town speeds, riding with long pants, jacket, helmet and gloves is less warm than being outside in shorts, short sleeves and flip-flops. Stopping for lights can be a bit warm, and I've got in the habit of pre-staging the bike--push it out of the garage and load the saddlebags before I go in and gear up in the AC--that way I can just hop on and go.

I had someone argue that leather bike gear was better--that may be true, but I'll wear the textile jacket even in this weather. Everyone has their own level of acceptable risk--I don't feel the need for leathers, but I'm more than happy with the gear I've got.

Canton, Ohio policeman flips out about concealed carry license

2011-07-21T01:40:00.000-04:00

Warning, video has foul language.

Canton, Ohio police see a car stopped, pull behind it to investigate. Cops yell at 2 of the people involved for about 6 minutes, completely ignoring the driver--but searching inside the car. After 6 minutes, they get to the driver. First thing the driver says is "I've got a carry..." and the cop interrupts, demands the truth. Driver explains, tries to offer his carry license. Finally the cop realizes what the driver is saying, and flips.

Ohio law says that a concealed carry license holder stopped by a law enforcement officer for a law enforcement purpose while carrying a gun must promptly notify the officer. It also says you must obey all lawful orders. The driver wasn't perfect, but you shouldn't be expected to shout at or interrupt an angry police officer to stay within the law. According to Ohioans for Concealed Carry, the prosecutor has offered to drop all charges in exchange for a promise not to sue.

In my limited experience with law enforcement, I've never had to deal with an officer like this, and never had a problem with notifying--the worst reaction I got was a local cop who once I notified would not let me get my own wallet out of my back pocket. However, I will notify even if I have to talk over an officer.

As far as I am concerned, the cop in the video demonstrated his unsuitability not just in his dealings with the license holder, but also with the others--'If I find you one more time tonight, I'm going to put lumps on you'.

Its just gum

2011-07-13T00:29:00.000-04:00

Limited Edition Design gum.

Huh? It's gum. You chew it. It is in a stick, the same size and shape as the 'regular edition'. Maybe the wrapper is different--but I don't have any to compare to, since I wad them up and throw them away.

The Pledge

2011-07-11T01:12:00.000-04:00

Apparently Michele Bachmann has signed "The Marriage Vow", a fundamentalist anti-gay pledge. The pledge is below in italics, my comments in standard text.

The Candidate Vow:
Therefore, in any elected or appointed capacity by which I may have the honor of serving our fellow citizens in these United States, I the undersigned do hereby solemnly vow* to honor and to cherish, to defend and to uphold, the Institution of Marriage as only between one man and one woman. I vow* to do so through my:

Personal fidelity to my spouse.
Should be between me and my spouse--Different people may have different agreements--fidelity is following your personal agreement as amended by mutual consent.

Respect for the marital bonds of others.
...except those we don't think should be allowed to marry.

Official fidelity to the U.S. Constitution, supporting the elevation of none but faithful constitutionalists as judges or justices.
This one I can agree with, except that the definition of 'faithful constitutionalist' is uselessly vague.

Vigorous opposition to any redefinition of the Institution of Marriage – faithful monogamy between one man and one woman – through statutory-, bureaucratic-, or court-imposed recognition of intimate unions which are bigamous, polygamous, polyandrous, same-sex, etc.
Should not be the government's business to define marriage. Marriage should be spiritual, between the parties involved and not to get government benefits. Was Loving vs. Virginia a redefinition of marriage, previously only available to people of the right racial combinations?

Recognition of the overwhelming statistical evidence that married people enjoy better health, better sex, longer lives, greater financial stability, and that children raised by a mother and a father together experience better learning, less addiction, less legal trouble, and less extramarital pregnancy.
...but we don't want gays and lesbians to have these benefits. There is certainly a benefit to having two parents who cooperate and care, especially when compared to having a single indifferent parent. I have not seen any evidence that certain gender combinations are unsuccessful at raising children.

Support for prompt reform of uneconomic, anti-marriage aspects of welfare policy, ...
Not awful, I guess.
...tax policy, and marital/divorce law, and extended “second chance” or “cooling-off” periods for those seeking a “quickie divorce.”
What does this accomplish?

Earnest, bona fide legal advocacy for the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) at the federal and state levels.
How does restricting who can marry 'defend' marriage?

Steadfast embrace of a federal Marriage Amendment to the U.S. Constitution which protects the definition of marriage as between one man and one woman in all of the United States.
It is already too late for this amendment, you couldn't even get a simple majority to agree, and that support is diminishing every year.

Humane protection of women and the innocent fruit of conjugal intimacy – our next generation of American children –...
But apparently illegitimate bastards don't deserve humane protection. And why the tortured language here?
...from human trafficking, sexual slavery, seduction into promiscuity, and all forms of pornography and prostitution, infanticide, abortion and other types of coercion or stolen innocence.
So long as all involved are consenting adults, porn, prostitution, and promiscuity don't belong in the same bucket as human trafficking, slavery of any kind, or infanticide.

Support for the enactment of safeguards for all married and unmarried
why not just say 'all' here?--is there a third classification of people besides 'married' and 'unmarried' that I'm unaware of?
U.S. Military and National Guard personnel, especially our combat troops, from inappropriate same-gender or opposite-gender
Again, is there a third classification?
sexual harassment,
From what little I know, we need to make a much stronger commitment to ending male on female sexual harassment in the military--a much bigger problem than gay on straight harassment.
adultery
How are politicians going to protect military personnel from adultery?
or intrusively intimate commingling among attracteds (restrooms, showers, barracks, tents, etc.);
Gay Cooties! The gaze of a homosexual might....um....well...
(In the 80's, once I was out of tech school my barracks were co-ed, although we had separate showers)
plus prompt termination of military policymakers who would expose American wives and daughters to rape or sexual harassment, torture, enslavement or sexual leveraging by the enemy in forward combat roles.
...even if the woman involved is aware of the danger and has volunteered to serve--since awful things never happen to men in war.

Rejection of Sharia Islam and all other anti-woman, anti-human rights forms of totalitarian control.
More grandstanding, and overly simplistic. If a couple with a family were married under Sharia law, are they no longer married in the US?

Recognition that robust childbearing and reproduction is beneficial to U.S. demographic, economic, strategic and actuarial health and security.
Huh? This sounds like "have more children so the Social Security Ponzi lasts longer!"

Commitment to downsizing government and the enormous burden upon American families of the USA‟s $14.3 trillion public debt, its $77 trillion in unfunded liabilities, its $1.5 trillion federal deficit, and its $3.5 trillion federal budget.
Finally, another pledge I can agree with.

Fierce defense of the First Amendment‟s rights of Religious Liberty and Freedom of Speech, especially against the intolerance of any who would undermine law-abiding American citizens and institutions of faith and conscience for their adherence to, and defense of, faithful heterosexual monogamy
Only OUR intolerance should be tolerated.

Blackpowder cannon

2011-07-05T10:18:00.000-04:00

Brother in law's blackpowder cannon on the 4th of July.

74%

2011-07-04T15:58:00.001-04:00

Agriculture contributes about $176 billion to the US economy. Worst case, how low would that number be without the US Department of Agriculture? 25% less? 50% less? No better or worse?

What should the Department of Agriculture's budget be, based on the revenue of the sector it is supporting? 5%? 10% 25%? 25% sounds kind of high to me...How about 75%? No, that would be ridiculous. The actual numbers are....

$131 Billion. That's only 74%. Whew.

h/t to Macbourne's Musings

CCW holder attacked

2011-06-30T10:14:00.000-04:00

Earlier this month, an Ohio carry license holder was attacked at a gas station about 25 miles from me, with one primary attacker and the attacker's friend running in to help. Based on the victim's account, backed up by surveillance video, the attacker greeted the victim by someone else's name, demanded a ride and tried to pull him out of the car when the victim tried to leave. Victim had left his gun in the center console, managed to retrieve it and fired two shots, then left and dialed 911. Last I saw, the attacker was in the hospital expected to recover.

Both the victim and the attacker's friend have posted about the incident, the victim posting on the Ohioans for Concealed Carry forums, the accomplice on Facebook. The accomplice's version doesn't quite match up with either the victim or the surveillance video--and his speed in running away doesn't match up with his tough-guy front, either.

An example of the accomplice's facebook:

'It was just crazy though, cus Brandon was beatin dude's ass & his pussy ass pulled a gun a shot em.. It was nuts I swear, I don't 4 get a face though, he knows what it is"

(H/T and link to gunguynextdoor, who has a friend saving screenshots even after the Facebook went private)

What do you expect

2011-06-26T10:10:00.000-04:00

The town this was in is pronounced Roo-she, spelled Russia, so I guess I shouldn't expect too much.

Spotted wandering around the neighborhood

2011-06-25T22:38:00.001-04:00

'I've had enough of people stuffing me full of junkmail, I'm outta here...."

The Daily Show on the ATF's Fast and Furious

2011-06-23T00:55:00.000-04:00

For the few readers unaware, the ATF had a harebrained scheme to assist Mexican criminals in buying guns from American dealers...for some reason that still isn't clear, and without the knowledge of the Mexican government. The scandal broke when American Border Patrol agent Brian Terry was murdered with one of these guns.

Some gun rights supporters believe that the goal was to create a problem that could be 'solved' with more ATF funding and power. I'm not sure I believe that, but I'm not sure I don't, either.

Harley parts on a Honda

2011-06-06T20:02:00.000-04:00

This isn't a fancy Photoshop trick, it is a view through one of the old mufflers from my motorcycle. (click to enlarge). I wans't particularly happy with the mufflers that came with the bike, because as you might guess they were rather loud. According to the Honda CX forum, most Harley mufflers would fit my CX, although modification of brackets may be necessary. Apparently some Dyna mufflers fit with no modifications. Most Harleys don't come from the factory all that loud, but because many Harley riders believe that Loud Pipes Save Lives, there are lots of new and nearly new Harley mufflers available cheap.

Yesterday I found a pair at a garage sale for $10. They were from a Fat Boy rather than a Dyna, but getting the brackets to work wasn't all that bad. A huge reduction in sound, and a lot more pleasant to ride. No significant change in power.

I also fixed my trip odometer--the middle digit wasn't resetting properly, and there was a screw loose inside the spedometer. Getting the odometer working was fairly easy--the difficulties were in getting to it, and then getting the oil out from the places it shouldn't have been. If I ever do that again, I'll wrap the rest of the speedometer assembly in towels or something, to minimize oil getting where it shouldn't be.

Odd evening

2011-06-06T19:18:00.001-04:00

We had a Catholic church festival this weekend, complete with loud music and a beer truck. I rarely park in our driveway, but during festival weekend it is usually the only option within a couple blocks.

Last night near the end of the festival I was working in my garage, and heard the neighbor across the alley talking to police. I went to ~~be nosy~~ investigate, found that some unknown person had parked across the neighbor's garage door. Caprice station wagon with actual expensive wire wheels (not just wire hubcaps) with a window down and a Blackberry and what looked like an iPod tOuch plugged in to the lighter socket.

It took some time to get the police and a tow truck--but more than 2 hours after the festival closed, the owner had not come to claim his car. 2 of the 3 Stooges finally showed up with a tilting bed winch truck, but had problems because it was rear drive and the front wheels were cocked--it kept wanting to veer off the bed of the truck, they would reset the winch and pull it sideways, then up the truck another couple feet. You can see the marks where the tires were dragged along the pavement-the car was parked parallel to the garage door, blocking the entire door. Whoever parked there had to have pulled past, then backed in, so this wasn't just accidentally blocking a driveway.

I'm really curious what was going on here--A very odd place to park even considering the circumstances, odd that hours after the end of the festival the driver still had not claimed his car. Odd that a decent cellphone and ipod were left in plain sight, with an open window. Apparently the owner didn't have a license.

Called on account of bugs

2011-06-05T22:16:00.000-04:00

I went for a short motorcycle ride this evening, shortened drastically by bugs. I cleaned my face shield before the ride, this is after less than 15 miles. From the sound they made when they hit, I think some of the bugs were made of rock.

Motorcycle upholstery

2011-06-02T12:43:00.001-04:00

The seat my Honda CX500 came with looked like this when I got it, except with black tape wrapped around the back. Not only damaged, but uncomfortable for someone my size--I needed to slide back a few inches, but the hump between the driver's and passenger section prevented me. I re-shaped the seat with a bread knife, and added a bit more padding to the front section.

The first attempt at a cover looked awful, barely better than what was there before--but it was a good bit more comfortable to ride.

The final version turned out quite a bit better. For the top I used 2 layers of marine vinyl with quilt batting between. I was originally going to sew ribs, but the back of the vinyl had this diamond pattern in it, so I sewed along that pattern. It needs to be touched up in a few spots--I've got a pucker that I need to tear out and re-sew, and 2 spots where a second line of stitching will close a gap. However, it is no longer the worst part of the bike, so I'll probably leave it for now.

Use it or lose it

2011-05-31T11:10:00.000-04:00

When I was in the Air Force, we had "use or lose" budgets--if we were economical this year and didn't spend our entire shop's budget, next year's budget would be cut by a similar amount. The fourth quarter was interesting--week by week we would be told to spend more, or to defer spending, depending on how close we were to the target budget. The last weeks we would often order something expensive, to use up the rest. One year we replaced all the workbenches in our shop with many thousands of dollars in new benches. The new ones looked newer, but were not as functional as the old ones.

Neil Gaiman is a successful SF/Fantasy author who gets asked to do appearances frequently. As he puts it,

I'm really busy, and I ought to be writing, so pricing appearances somewhere between ridiculously high and obscenely high helps to discourage most of the people who want me to come and talk to them. Which I could make a full time profession, if I didn't say 'no' a lot."

He makes exceptions depending on who is hiring him, and apparently he donates much or all of this money to charity.

About a year ago, he was asked to speak at a Minnesota Library event, paid with funds from a special tax rather than out of the library's operating budget. The money was 'use or lose', with a significant delay between the original schedule and when the money was actually released, resulting in a very short time to find a way to spend it. The people who hired him did not attempt to negotiate a lower fee--after all, it isn't their money, and there really wasn't time to spend any savings anyhow.

There was a good bit of anger at this spending. Some of the anger was justified--Although the venue was at capacity, the 'obscenely high' fee worked out to $90 per person. I would agree that it wasn't a good use of taxes, but where to lay the blame is somewhat difficult here. I don't think there is very much blame attached to the library--in theory they could have returned the funds, but it is likely that would have been considered poor job performance for the people involved. Blame whoever wrote the law? The voters?

However, some of the anger (from at least one politician, among others) was misdirected at Mr Gaiman. From what I've read, Mr Gaiman made an agreement to perform for a fee and more than fulfilled his end, staying quite a bit longer than agreed on. It shouldn't be up to him to determine if his temporary employers are wasting their money.

The problem here is getting government involved where it doesn't belong, on diluting accountability so far that nobody can be held accountable.

Shooting at the Piqua Taco Bell

2011-05-16T12:27:00.000-04:00

My small town had a shooting at Taco Bell. Apparently 2 couples went from a bar to Taco Bell, there was an argument, one of the men shot the other, then the shooter drove the victim to the hospital. Both the victim and the suspect had been arrested numerous times in Miami County.

http://www.daytondailynews.com/news/crime/piqua-shooting-suspect-identified-115868

http://www.dailycall.com/main.asp?Search=1&ArticleID=172662&SectionID=86&SubSectionID=164&S=1

Visibility.

2011-05-09T12:54:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I went to see my Mom for mother's day. On the way home in the dark, I barely spotted a single taillight. It was extremely difficult to judge distance to the single red light, or even tell if it was getting closer or farther away. At one point the light got somewhat brighter, and my eyes interpreted that as suddenly being much closer and stopped--I suspect he merely flashed his brake light a bit. The light would also blend in with the lights up the road. The taillight was going about 5mph below the speed limit, but it was too difficult to judge exactly where it was for me to be comfortable passing.

It turns out that the taillight was from a rider with dark clothing, a black helmet and a black duffel bag strapped to an old smaller yellow Yamaha motorcycle. I could not see any of this until we got into town and there were street lights.

As soon as I got home, I added some reflector tape to my new helmet. Adding a second visual reference point a distance from the taillight will not only make it easier for drivers to see me, but will make it easier for them to judge distance.

smartass

2011-05-04T01:22:00.000-04:00

From the 'for sale' bulletin board at work

Ubuntu 11.4 Natty Narwhal Not Ready

2011-05-02T00:25:00.000-04:00

Friday I upgraded my system from the previous version of Ubuntu to 11.4. So far upgrades have generally gone well, this time not so much. The new interface is awful--appears to be optimized for Netbooks and other tiny screen computers--I've got dual 23" monitors, and the controls are all the way to the left, combining both the controls for launching apps, and the controls for accessing the already running apps in one bar. This isn't a dealbreaker, since the old interface is available by choosing 'classic mode' when logging in.

More important is that on the same system that was perfectly stable I've had several crashes and other glitches in just a few hours. Had to uninstall a plugin to Rhythmbox, othewise launching it would crash the system. Trying to access a CD logged me out. In my first attempt to write this post the backspace key got stuck, and unplugging the keyboard did not help.

I'm backing up my home folder now, and I'm likely to do a reinstall of the previous version. I'm getting more irritated with Ubuntu with each release--Instead of being the distribution that just works, they keep making fairly drastic interface changes with little apparent justification.

If you see distribution update in update manager, it's probably best to skip it for now.

more motorcycle stuff.

2011-04-29T00:44:00.000-04:00

I picked up my Honda CX 500 today and drove it 15 miles or so, where I dropped it off to get a new tire. At first Wife was ahead of me in the truck. I like to give plenty of distance between me and the next car under the best of circumstances, and even more on a windy day on a motorcycle. For some reason, Wife wasn't going above about 40-45. I'm thinking "Go....GO!!!" but I'm not comfortable passing. Finally she pulled over, and rolled down the window to ask if I was OK. I was puzzled, she said "Because you're going so slow! You kept getting way behind, so I'd slow down to let you catch up" We decided it would be better if she followed me instead.

I also got the front brake on the Yamaha working, and after changing plugs, got it to start and kind of run with gasoline instead of starter fluid. It wouldn't idle, but I could keep it running with throttle, and it ran enough that I'm more confident that it isn't going to need major work to get going. "Not major" is a matter of perspective--it needs all four carburetors cleaned, rebuilt and synchronized, and probably needs the valves adjusted which involves replacing shims plus lots of little things. It isn't likely to need a complete engine rebuild, however.

The Honda is just a touch small for me. I think I can make some adjustments to make it fit better--adjust the handlebars forward, and do something with the shifter position. Sitting on the Yamaha feels nicer.

Yet another motorcycle

2011-04-25T13:22:00.000-04:00

Before I even saw the ad for the Seca, I was trying to arrange a meeting to ride a Honda CX 500. Although I'd never actually rode one, the looks and basic concepts appealed to me--shaft drive, water cooled, pushrod 4 valve. Between weather and schedules I didn't get to ride the bike until today. It was still raining today and got worse the closer I got to the bike, but I decided to give it a shot anyway. This one isn't as nice as the Seca cosmetically, but everything works. Needs a new back tire, could use a seat and a side cover but basically sound.

So from zero to two motorcycles in two days, without going over budget.

Followed me home

2011-04-25T00:22:00.000-04:00

I hadn't really intended to buy a project bike before I got an actual running bike, but this one was too cheap to pass up. 1982 Yamaha 750 Seca. Shaft drive, sold as-is, but owner said it ran fine when he put it in the barn 2 years ago, and it started last year. Did not attempt to start it, but did make sure it wasn't locked up. I didn't examine it closely, just enough to find a value estimate significantly exceeding the purchase price. I suspect that I could flip it with nothing more than a better ad and double my investment.

I almost bypassed the ad--There was no picture, I didn't remember what a Seca was and envisioned a crotch rocket. Styling is a bit distinctively 80's especially in the handlebars, dash and headlights. Still better than a pseudo-Harley.

I'm still looking for a running starter bike while I get this running.

I don't want you on my team

2011-04-24T17:14:00.000-04:00

Spotted while walking the dogs home--"Steal from us Again & You will BE SHOT! Promise" in red, then magic marker "1st amendment" and "Get A Job!!" on a fancy full sheet of chipboard.

I'm glad that they aren't second amendment supporters, I don't particularly want them on my side.

Motorcycles

2011-04-24T11:48:00.000-04:00

Last week, I took the Motorcycle Safety Course Monday through Thursday, and I got my motorcycle license on Friday. The course is 20 hours with the majority of it riding. In Ohio it is subsidized by motorcycle license fees, and only costs students $25. The school provides classroom materials, helmets (but you can use your own) and motorcycles. Students must wear long pants, long sleeves, gloves and over the ankle shoes.

The facility I went to is sponsored by Honda, at a Honda warehouse, using Honda motorcycles. Most people got small dual sport bikes (motocross-style, but street legal with street tires) while smaller people got Rebels. The class starts from the very basics, assuming only that you can balance a bicycle. The first exercise is merely rocking the bike forward and back using the clutch. Later it advances to weaves, swerves and quick stops. The class is absolutely worth the time and money, and especially when most of the cost is subsidized.

I'm now motorcycle shopping, trying to figure out what I can get within budget. I would prefer a Standard or Universal Japanese Motorcycle, would settle for a cruiser (as long as it isn't a fake Harley) and don't want a crotch rocket or dirt bike. Based on looks alone, the Kawasaki W650 comes really close to perfection, but few were imported to the US, so not much chance of finding one within budget.

I don't want a fixer-upper yet, although I'll consider that later. The first 2 bikes I looked at had bad front brakes--probably a simple problem to fix, but one of them was bad enough that I was not willing to ride it--especially since the seller had talked about the work he'd done, including that brake.

The third was a 440 LTD--ample power, but way too small physically. The fourth is a possibility, a 1978 Kawasaki KZ 750 twin. Big enough, simple, and mechanically decent from what I could tell, and well within budget. I don't want to buy the first adequate bike I find without trying something else.

Leave Me Alone!

2011-04-08T23:43:00.000-04:00

I don't want to play!

2 Dogs, One stick

2011-04-04T13:34:00.000-04:00

Fairly typical walk with the dogs. Bella loves sticks, Angie loves to be involved with whatever Bella is doing.

Car Radio

2011-03-30T09:31:00.000-04:00

The ABS light came on in my car, so I made an appointment to have it checked.

Meanwhile I put in a new stereo--the original was a cassette with 6 disk trunk-mounted CD. The CD player wouldn't play CD-R's, and the cassette auto reverse was based on volume rather than end of tape. This made using an adapter to play MP3's a problem, because at gaps it would reverse back and forth, and if you didn't start the MP3 player quickly enough it would spit the adapter out.

Turns out that diagnostics for the ABS system come through the radio plug, so the mechanic had to remove the new radio to read the code. And the factory radio shoved a splinter of plastic into my thumb as I was tossing it in the trunk, on my way to work, when I was running late.

The new radio is fantastic, and is working out just as I planned. I've got music on the USB drive. I can shuffle either a single folder or the entire drive. I have my music organized into folders based on what my wife and I both like, and what only I like, depending on who is riding. I've got podcasts on a CD Rewritable, and they stop and start without losing my place when I start and stop the car--this was the main reason for the new radio, and alone worth the switch.

One minor downside is that apparently the VW antenna is weak, and apparently needs an amplifier. I can pick up only one station. Not a significant problem--I can't think of the last time I listened to the radio except for a short trip out of laziness.

USB

2011-03-27T21:05:00.000-04:00

I replaced the stock stereo in my Beetle with a new low-end JVC that can play CD's, MP3's recorded on a CD, and MP3's on a USB drive. I don't plan to use the USB drive for anything else, so I wanted it as small as I could easily get. I could at least remove the folding cap, and figured I'd open the plastic up to see how much more length could be safely removed--If nothing else, remove the shell and use heat shrink tubing to cover the circuit board.

The shrink tubing turned out to be unnecessary. The little metal bit in the lower right corner is the entire drive, the rest is just a handle.

The first replacement hard drive I ever bought was a massive 1.6 Gigabytes. at least 10 times more expensive, and 100 times bigger. Doesn't seem that long ago...

8 quarts of soup

2011-03-27T01:20:00.000-04:00

Campbell's tomato soup made with milk was one of the simple foods I missed most when I was in the Air Force. The chow hall would often have tomato soup, but I think it was made with water-not sure the details, but it wasn't good.

Trader Joe's Tomato and Roasted Red Pepper Soup is the first tomato soup I've had that is better than what I grew up with. The texture is right and the flavor is excellent--the peppers and spices make it a good bit more interesting without being excessive. I don't get to Trader Joe's that often, so after trying this soup on our last trip, I decided to stock up this time.

(Despite the periodic reviews of Trader Joe products, I'm not sponsored by them in any way)

Partial blog feeds.

2011-03-20T01:09:00.000-04:00

I read a lot of blogs in Google Reader--usually more than I can keep up with. I use Reader's tags function to sort and prioritize--Blogs I never want to miss, comics in their own section, etc. I've started to read blogs from my phone. Unsurprisingly the G2 "Google phone" works very well with Google Reader-there is a dedicated app that downloads batches of blogs, so even with a painfully slow or spotty network connection the next blog post pops up instantly.

...except when the authors decide to only do a partial feed, only showing the first paragraph or so in RSS, requiring you to click to their site to read the rest. I can kind of understand this for commercial blogs--although a better alternative is to include ads in the RSS feed. I can't understand why noncommercial blogs do this.

This was a minor annoyance when I was reading exclusively on a computer--but with the limitations of a phone, makes most partial-feed blogs not worth the effort. I've decided that the vast majority of partial feed blogs that I used to read are going to the end of the line, into a different folder. I'll only read them in the very rare cases when I'm caught up with everyone else.

(If you are using Blogger.com or Blogspot, fix this by going to Settings, site feed, and pick "Allow Blog Feeds Full")

holes

2011-03-18T14:46:00.000-04:00

Grandson at the park. Click to embiggen.

DSLR

2011-03-11T22:50:00.000-05:00

Back in high school, I bought an Olympus OM-10 35mm Single Lens Reflex--manual focus, shutter priority automatic. Took a bunch of pictures, lost the camera when I was in USAF tech school--but by then I was spoiled. From then, I disliked point and shoot film cameras, even though I do not have a particularly artistic eye.

Later I bought a used, fairly old Minolta SRT-101 with an f/1.2 lens because I was more than willing to trade the minor inconvenience of match-needle exposure and manual focus for better pictures and less reliance on flash. Over the next few years, I bought a few more lenses, so when the camera died it made sense to find another used Minolta body rather than replace all those lenses. This illustrates a point with interchangeable lens cameras--you aren't just buying a camera, you are buying into a system. There is a good chance that your investment in lenses will eventually dwarf the cost of a body.

Although I did switch to a digital point and shoot around 2000, I still missed my SLR, just not enough to deal with film. A point and shoot digital does an OK job in most situations, and since film is free, you are likely to get as many or more acceptable pictures as you could with a 35mm SLR--I used to hand a digital camera to my 5 year old niece and get great candid pictures at family events, mixed in with pictures of refrigerator, shoes and aquarium. Nobody got camera shy when a 5 year old took their picture.

But even a good point and shoot has limitations compared to a DSLR. A DSLR is faster responding in almost every way--time from 'off' to the first shot, time between shots, focus time, shutter lag, zoom and how fast you can find a subject in the viewfinder. Higher end point and shoots can have the same number of pixels as a DSLR, but each pixel is much smaller--this affects image clarity, noise/static, low light sensitivity and the ability to control depth of field.

The picture above (click to embiggen) would not have been nearly as good with a typical depth of field--the background was cluttered, ugly and not relevant to the subject. By choosing the right settings on a DSLR, the background can be left out of focus, concentrating attention on the primary subject.

A couple weeks ago Woot.com had a couple of different packages of Pentax K-x camera outfits, differing in lenses and colors. I bought one with 18-55 and a 55-300 zoom lenses, only available in black. I'm very impressed. Automatic mode generally does a good job of figuring out what you are trying to do. If that's not quite right, there the most common exceptions are available as presets on the main dial--portrait, sports, macro, lanscape and night portrait. There are another handful of presets in the menu, and there is full manual control of almost everything. Low light ability without flash is fantastic even with the limitations of the kit lens. It can do about 4.5 pictures per second (depending on focus) for about 5 seconds, then it slows to about 2 per second depending on the speed of your memory card.

Pentax has kept a fairly surprising amount backwards compatibility with their older lenses, to the point where a 70's lens will do everything it did on the cameras it came with. With an adapter lenses from the 50's will work with some effort--although significantly less than on a 50's camera. You can set it to automatically take the picture as the image comes into focus, and if you tell the camera what the focal length is, image stabilization will work. I'm going to be looking for a couple of old K mount non-zoom lenses from the 70's or 80's--if I'm happy with low light performance and depth of field control with the current lens that only goes down to f3.5, an f/1.7 or f1.4 should be awesome.

Doubtful

2011-03-08T12:15:00.000-05:00

I've been getting responses to job applications that I didn't send, apparently to a guy with the first initial and last name as me. I finally found a copy of his resume on line, and sent him a text--

You are using the wrong email address when applying to jobs. [example]@gmail.com is mine--you can get your own gmail account for free

His response (cut and pasted):

Well I can do that but do you no about any jobs tryin to contact me ?

Wife's desk

2011-02-26T09:44:00.002-05:00

Testing photos to blogger from android

Over the last few days, I've built this desk and shelf setup for my wife. Originally we had another desk I'd built, that had been built for a specific spot in a different room. This gives better access to the window, lets in more light and has a better traffic path to the attic laundry room. The wood is oak plywood with the edges exposed (and voids filled) in the same style as our bookshelves.

One of my dogs gets very nervous when I'm doing a project like this--she's usually a bouncy happy dog. When I build stuff, she slinks around nervously.

Spell check?

2011-02-21T20:41:00.001-05:00

Work has a trouble ticket system where problems are recorded and assigned to the appropriate tech. Sometimes the information leaves something to be desired-for example "damaged by fort cliff"

As far as I knos we have neiter forts nor cliffs here. We do have these:

2011-02-20T10:23:00.000-05:00

Seen at Gander Mountain--a Smart car, with pro-gun bumper stickers. Appleseed is essentially a history and rifle clinic, and the sticker in the upper right is 'molon labe', which translates to 'Come and get it', with a further "from my cold, dead hands" implied. Not quite the neo-hippie signs you expect on a Smart.

G2 Android first impressions

2011-02-20T01:25:00.000-05:00

I've been carrying a PDA continuously since the late 1990's, starting with a Palm Pro, graduating to a Palm T/X before switching to an iPod tOuch. The touch was primarily used as a PDA.

Until about 6 months ago, I carried a plain dumb cellphone, usually some sort of budget phone since I rarely exceed 100 minutes a month, even without a home phone. I have gone with Virgin Mobile--they had the best deal when I started with them, and their service was cheap enough that I wasn't compelled to look elsewhere. Not long ago they started offering featurephones (internet and email, but not very smart)--more minutes than I'd use, plus unlimited text and internet for $25 per month, with no commitment beyond $80 for the phone. It worked as advertised, but not particularly well--adequate for phone, light email and an occasional emergency Google search, but between the tiny screen and a bad user interface, web access wasn't particularly useful.

I finally decided to combine both functions and get a true smartphone. I did not spend extensive time researching the absolute best possible phone, but Android was obvious, and it appeared that T-Mobile did the least crippling of its Androids, has coverage where I spend my time, and I'm a heavy user of Google products already. Their G2 Google phone seemed like a good fit. They also had a promotion where unlimited internet and text (and 10 times more phone minutes than I'm likely to use) were at the upper end of my monthly budget.

Comparing hardware, the iPod 4g has a slightly better screen, both in visual and touch sensitivity. The G2 has a hardware keyboard, a much better camera--5 megapixel with autofocus and a somewhat useful flash, but no front mounted camera. The keyboard is considerably better than the one on my featurephone, and miles better than a software keyboard. Of course the iPod is much less bulky, but that's a bit apples to oranges, I'm not familiar enough with the iPhone to compare.

Apple usually wins on polish of the user interface, but Android is extremely good--I think they are equal here.

For openness, letting me do what I want, the Android wins, hands down. No iTunes necessary, no waiting for someone to break the latest iPod scheme before I can manage it in Linux. The G2 shows up as a removable drive on Linux. If I want an mp3 as music, I drop it in the music folder. If I want to use an MP3 as a ringtone, alarm or alert, I drop it in the ringtone, alarm or alert folder. If I want more storage than it comes with I can replace the Sd card, up to 32 gig. I can delete songs right from the G2.

The web browser is based on Chrome, and works as well as the iPod's excellent browser, except with Flash support available.

No built-in spellcheck on the G2, a glaring omission.

Loudness war

2011-02-13T16:00:00.000-05:00

This is a visual representation of two songs--one is "Kid Charlemagne", a fairly fast paced, dense and intricate song, the other is "Ain't Nothing Wrong with That", a very funky song featuring heavy use of bass drum, and an electric pedal steel guitar. If I had to describe the rhythm of 'aint' nothin' wrong..." in words, 'Whump' would almost have to be one of them.

You can see a drastic difference in how these songs show up visually--one of them is dense and smooth, the other has lots of variation.

...except 'Ain't Nothing Wrong with That" is the one on top that looks smooth and dense. The difference isn't in the songs themselves, it is in how and when they were recorded, and illustrates a huge problem with music today, the Loudness War.

CD's and most other digital recording formats have a maximum peak volume that is impossible to exceed. When a song is recorded or mixed, you can still increase the average volume by removing room for contrast, making every part of the song equally loud--however gone too far and the music will be muddy and indistinct.

Why would you do that? Because when comparing songs, people tend to prefer the slightly louder one. It is possible to increase the average volume slightly without significant damage to the overall sound. The problem here is that the competition has already done that, so you need to do it even more, then they do...until there's no dynamic range left, no contrast, no impact, and every part is as loud as every other part. Some people say they prefer old vinyl albums to CD, that the vinyl sounds more natural. It isn't that vinyl is better as a medium (it isn't) but that it doesn't allow this sort of abuse.

There is a good bit of new music that I sort of like...but the way it is recorded makes it unpleasant for me to listen to--the song has to stand out quite a bit before I'll put up with this hyper-compressed mushy-sounding recording.

Why due process matters

2011-02-04T01:03:00.000-05:00

Why is the Department of Homeland Security protecting us from copyright infringement? Or rather, alleged copyright infringement, since they were able to shut down these websites without due process, based entirely on allegations that they linked to other websites where sporting events were rebroadcast. These sites are not based in the US, and aren't meant for a US audience--however the domain registries (people who give out website names) for .com and .org are US based.

This is the problem with giving the government broad powers to fight terrorism, violence, or whatever scary excuse for expansion is current--especially giving those powers without due process and oversight. Homeland Security should be concerned with physical threats to the people of the US--not the well-being of ESPN and other networks. Expanded powers meant to fight terrorism should be restricted to real. physical terrorism--and even then, we need to be careful that the cure isn't worse than the disease.

All's well that ends well

2011-01-29T08:46:00.000-05:00

A year or so ago, Dad gave me his 10 year old cordless electric mower. Recently it was recalled due to a faulty safety switch, after a couple of previous recalls. I called the number provided--the guy I talked to didn't have a clue and had to look up what I was supposed to do--every couple minutes he would come back on the line and say "Hold on, Sir" and put me back on hold. Eventually he said to take it to the local Sears and gave me their address.

I was fairly sure that the local Sears would be at least as confused when I dropped off this mower, so I tried to call them to get as much as possible straightened out in advance--instead I wound up in voice menu hell, winding up with someone at a distant call center rather than at the local store. Call center operator assured me that the local store would be ready for me. It was almost time for lunch, but assuming that I'd be dropping the mower off for a later decision I loaded the mower into my Beetle and headed to Sears, thinking I would be back in 20 minutes or so.

The guy in the repair department had to go ask what to do...then came back and handed me the same bulletin I already had, and told me to go call the number. I told him that I already did that, and was told to drop it off to him. I tried to call the number again while still at Sears, got a busy signal. Repair guy offered to let me talk to a manager. Manager then asked most of the same questions, then wanted to know if I had a receipt, tried to look up the information from the mower. He finally gave up and passed me off to Lawn and Garden with a note.

Went to Lawn and Garden, He asked if I wanted a new mower, I said that would be fine, and he disappeared in the back again. A few minutes later he came back, and tried to figure out how to ring up the transaction, finally sent me back to the repair/merchandise pickup area to get my mower...which turned out to be a corded electric. Back to Lawn and Garden, more paperwork, and wound up with the floor model cordless--but until I checked, without the key or charger.

Despite my griping, I'm quite happy about the result of all this--I got to trade a nearly worn-out mower for a nicer brand new one. Sears really shouldn't have to do all this--the 'safety defect' is pretty minor and the mowers in question are all at least 10 years old.

What do you call a bus full of lawyers...

2011-01-22T11:20:00.000-05:00

“1 down and 534 to go”, in reference to the Giffords shooting. With no conviction of a crime, or even charges--a Massachusetts gun owner has lost his right to own guns based on that line in his blog.

This is a major reason we resist registration and licensing. He has been deemed 'unsuitable' due to political speech--I believe the speech in question to be tasteless, but constitutionally protected.

If the second amendment allows someone's guns to be rounded up due to some government official's opinion of suitability, what exactly does it protect?

There are other bill of rights issues involved as well--should the government be allowed to revoke other licenses based on someone speaking freely, if they are meeting the standards of the license? Should a driver's license be revoked if someone is accused of driving drunk or speeding, with no arrest, charges or conviction?

Taking my ball and going home

2011-01-17T10:21:00.000-05:00

I think I'm pretty much done arguing with Joan Peterson.

Joan wrote a post about Martin Luther King. I made this comment, preserved here:

One of the things that is routinely ignored in the civil rights struggle is the role of the Deacons for Defense and Justice, and other armed defenders.

Nonviolence works only under ideal conditions--primarily against a civilized, mostly nonviolent opponent. It worked against the governments of the US, and the colonial government of India, but would be useless against a more repressive regime or against violent enemies like the KKK.

The notion that defense will only escalate the violence is not supported by the facts. The KKK was fond of drive-by shootings--until they started taking return fire. At that point, the KKK decided that maybe drive-by shootings weren't a good idea.

It is immoral to use violence to achieve political goals. However, it is also immoral to stand by and allow innocents to be harmed when you have the means to effectively resist--I would much rather see the instigator of a drive by killed than their intended victim injured.

It is also immoral to take the means to resist away from decent people.

Her response:

Whoa there, Sevesteen. Are you sure you want these comments committed to writing? They seem pretty anti-government and leading to what?? " The notion that defense will only escalate the violence is not supported by the facts. The KKK was fond of drive-by shootings--until they started taking return fire. At that point, the KKK decided that maybe drive-by shootings weren't a good idea. " I don't think that is why the KKK stopped shooting people. Where is your evidence for such a statement? I wouldn't bring the KKK into a discussion about Martin Luther King- totally inappropriate and possibly incendiary. Please do not reply. You simply cannot justify what you said to having guns for self defense. Be careful what you are saying.

...and my response to that

Maybe I was not as clear as I should have been, but even re-reading my comment I think you've had to try hard to come up with an anti-governemnt interpretation. I am not advocating violence against the government, or even instigating violence against a group as awful as the KKK. It would be immoral to go hunt down the KKK, to instigate violence against them.

However it is NOT immoral to shoot back at someone in a KKK costume who is shooting at you, your family or your neighbors. There is a vast difference between immoral terrorist violence as practiced by the KKK, and proper, moral defensive violence.

If I am unwelcome here, I will abide by that, but to misconstrue my comment and then to say I'm not welcome to clarify? Of course it is up to you whether you allow this post.

Unless you specifically say that you want me to continue, this will be the last comment I post on your blog. I am saying this to keep me honest, and I will be posting a copy of this on my blog, whether or not you approve this post.

I don't mean for this to be 'she hurt my feelings, so I'm going home'. Rather, if I'm both unwelcome and she's unable to comprehend, there's little point in continuing to waste time posting there--and unless I publicly say 'I won't be posting', I'll be too tempted.

Reasons to end the drug war, part 74

2011-01-01T11:55:00.000-05:00

http://www.slate.com/id/2278244/

Patients in chronic pain cannot get relief, because their doctors are afraid of being prosecuted as drug dealers. In this particular case, Siobhan Reynolds became an advocate for pain relief after her husband died of a painful, debilitating illness. At one point his doctor was convicted of over-prescribing pain medications to other patients.

Even worse, in a case where Reynolds is working to help a different doctor to avoid prosecution, the courts have issued gag orders and required her to provide a data dump at great expense of all her documents relating to remotely similar activities. It appears to me that the prosecution isn't content with enforcing unjust laws, they are using unfair methods to harass opposition.

Some people claiming pain are drug abusers--but some really hurt. There is nowhere near enough justification in leaving pain untreated because someone, somewhere may be getting high.

End the drug war.

Loft bed

2010-12-06T00:07:00.000-05:00

This is the loft bed/desk I've been building for the past few days.

The room I use as an office is 8' by 10', with a 3x3' corner of that used by the attic stairs--plus it has 2 large windows and a total of 3 doors. Most of the time we've lived here, we have blocked off one or the other of the doors--otherwise there isn't much useful space in the room. That is why the picture is different colors-I couldn't get far enough away to get the whole thing in the picture at one time, so I took 3 and spliced them together.

I re-used a lot of stuff, including some lumber from a previous loft bed. The back of the rear shelf rests on a 2x4 strung across the bed legs, the front hangs from 1/4 threaded rod inserted into T nuts in the mattress support. The rail is 1/2" electrical conduit inserted into holes drilled into the wood. The first and last bar are screwed in place to hold the entire assembly together.

I'm very happy with the result so far. More desk space in the same basic area, as much storage, the lights work better with less glare--and there's now a guest bed, at least for a reasonably agile single guest.

Cat O'clock

2010-12-01T10:06:00.000-05:00

Our apartment is fairly small--big enough for the two of us, but fairly small for extra people. I would call it a 1 1/2 bedroom, with the tiny bedroom used as the office. There is not room for a regular bed without giving up one of the desks, and since we have rented the downstairs apartment there's no room for an overnight guest. I decided to build a loft bed, with my desk under it. This meant moving most of the contents of the office into a pile in the living room, including an old sweep-second clock.

Cat was fascinated by the seconds hand, and tried to attack it...

Cheap Harbor Freight airbrush kit

2010-11-17T23:14:00.002-05:00

As I got better with the construction of my holsters, I got frustrated with the finish--Black was fine--if there is a light spot, just slap more dye on. Dark brown was OK if not spectacular, but medium colors turned out very uneven, and the clear over-coat was very hard to get smooth. I finally gave up on trying to use daubers or sponges to get a nice finish, and bought an airbrush. I already had a small air compressor with tank meant for an air stapler.

The airbrush made a huge difference, I got a mid-grade Paasche--(single action, external mix) for the first one, and it works very well--I am able to do light colors evenly, and the clear coat is miles better--Like the difference between a car painted with a roller, and one painted properly. The problem here is cost--even if you already have a compressor, few hobbyists will do enough leatherwork to justify the expense.

After I bought the Paasche, I found 3 different sets at Harbor Freight. I decided to try their 'Central Pneumatic Quick Change Air Brush Kit" on sale for $8.99, regularly $15.99

The kit contains a really flimsy looking and feeling airbrush body, made mostly of plastic with a plastic trigger, 5 thin-walled plastic bottles that snap to the body, each with an adjustable nozzle, a thin plastic air hose, and an air line adapter.

Despite the initial impression of cheapness, this airbrush kit works surprisingly well. I haven't done a whole holster yet, but I have dyed and clear-coated some scrap leather. The end result is as good as the Paasche, and absolutely worth the money. If you have a source of compressed air, it is probably worth the money even for one or two holsters.

The Paasche would likely be better for fine detail work, more controllable and a nicer trigger. The Harbor Freight's spray pattern starts at about the middle width of the Paasche's widest tip, and goes wider still--but the range appears to be perfect for most holster work. The Harbor Freight seems to need less air to run, and cleaning should be much easier with less disassembly. Since the liquid nozzles are part of the bottle, changing colors is trivial, with no cleaning necessary between solutions. I doubt the Harbor Freight kit will last as long as the Paasche, but I would be amazed if it didn't last long enough to be a great value.

Prison time for a state line

2010-11-16T10:41:00.025-05:00

Brian Aitken's Mistake - Reason Magazine

New Jersey has a complicated set of laws that makes many non-violent acts with guns felonies--acts that are completely ordinary and legal in other states. Aitken was caught with legal, unloaded guns locked in his trunk. He was either moving which would have been legal, or he was keeping a drunken party from having access to guns, a felony. The judge disallowed testimony that he was moving.

Is a right really protected if the rules are complex, and the penalty for making a mistake is years in prison? I doubt I would risk owning guns in New Jersey.

Air Guns Classified as Firearms

2010-11-13T10:10:00.000-05:00

ATF Ruling 2010-4 - Certain AR/M-16-style Air Guns Classified as Firearms

This is an ATF ruling that was briefly posted, then taken down--but not before Google made the copy I've linked here. Apparently the ruling has been rescinded.

At first glance, the story seems pretty silly, even considering that they changed their mind-High-end Airsoft replicas counted as guns, because they could theoretically be converted. Although the replicas in question aren't the chintzy plastic things you see in Walmart, they are still essentially toys--More plastic, and the metal parts are mostly a zinc alloy similar to what is used in Hot Wheels or Matchbox toy cars.

It gets more complicated than that.The ATF distinguishes between 'gun parts' and 'The Gun'. Parts are mostly unregulated, but a bare frame or receiver with none of the parts needed to make it fire is considered The Gun, subject to the same regulations as a fully-functioning firearm. Like a number of rifles, the AR-15/M16 has a 2 piece receiver, with an upper and lower. In most 2 piece designs, the ATF says that the upper is The Gun. The AR was in use before serial numbers were required on The Gun, and Colt was putting the serial number on the lower. Apparently rather than make Colt move the serial number, the ATF simply declared the lower as The Gun on AR-type rifles, despite the inconsistency with other types. Had the ATF been consistent rather than expedient, convertibility of Airsofts would not be an issue--while there are similarities between the toy and real lowers, the uppers would be nothing alike.

The toy lowers did not work with a real upper out of the box, the ATF had to modify them. This is another issue. With enough work, it is possible to make an AK-47 receiver (The Gun) from stamped sheet metal, a zip gun from an old-style car antenna, or even a handgun from a billet of steel. These things obviously start out as 'not guns', and at some point turn into guns. The standard is typically 80% complete before they are officially a gun--although I don't know how you measure 80%.

So, did the ATF have to do more than 20% of the work to make these toy guns fire real ammo?

Another interesting question--what if the toy lower won't fit any current upper without modification, but someone builds an upper that does work? Would the lower still be considered The Gun, or in this case would the ATF consider that upper to fall under the 'non-AR' rules, and consider it The Gun?

Or should this be considered in the same way as cap and Ball pistols? They are loaded similarly to muzzle loaders and are not considered firearms. The cylinder to convert to modern ammo is merely a gun part, and is also not regulated--but once assembled, it is now legally a gun.

Collective Rights

2010-11-11T00:10:00.000-05:00

Before DC vs. Heller, one of the arguments used to justify ignoring the second amendment was that it referred to a collective right, rather than an individual right. Since the Heller decision, they like to point out that it was a 5-4 decision. That is true as far as it goes, but the 5-4 split was only on the extent of the right--If you read the decision, you would see that all 9 justices recognized an individual right.

What has never been clear to me is what a collective right is, and how it would differ from no second amendment at all. There's also the 'only for militia' interpretation-which almost always denigrates the unorganized militia. Apparently in this view, the only arms protected are the ones issued by the government for militia service--and if they decide not to issue to you, tough. Again...how is this different than no right at all?

Don't drink from the toilet

2010-11-10T22:08:00.000-05:00

Rules in Chandler restrooms: don't drink from toilets

A new City Hall is using water recycled from the cooling system to flush toilets. The city had to get a building code variance to avoid coloring the water, but they still require signs telling people not to drink from the toilet.

Earcandy

2010-11-07T23:15:00.001-05:00

Earcandy is a small applet for Ubuntu (and I believe other distributions using Pulseaudio) that can be used to automatically control and prioritize your sound based on rules you select. I can be listening to music on Rhythmbox, and when I play a video in my browser, the music shuts off until the video finishes. If I get a Skype call, all other sound will stop, without me having to do anything.

The defaults needed a little tweaking on my system--Earcandy takes over the volume control for individual applications, and the default for Rhythmbox was at 100%, giving distortion. Adjustment has to be done in Earcandy rather than the app itself--The app control will move, but immediately resets to the Earcandy setting. You can select whether or not to fade in gradually, and the fade duration--but the fastest fade setting is still too slow. Two videos playing at the same time in Chrome both played.

Finally some justification for Pulseaudio. Handy, but not worth the hassle caused by Pulseaudio.

Update: Not stable enough on my system--I've had it hunt for volume, or give pops and ticks. Not awful, but I quit using it.

Automatic Time

2010-11-07T21:50:00.002-05:00

I normally get up with my iPod beeping quietly about 10 seconds before my standard cheap and loud alarm clock goes off. This is enough time to get me up, and to the alarm clock, so I can shut it off as soon as it goes on. That level of synchronization was accidental at first, but now I make the effort to maintain it.

I forgot to re-set the clock this morning, so it went off an hour early. I shut it off and went back to bed, expecting my iPod to wake me at the proper time.

My iPod however managed to go off an hour late--the alarm was set for 7am, and the iPod changed itself back to standard time--but the alarm itself didn't go off until 8am Standard Time, even though the alarm still read 7. No big deal, I didn't have anything pressing to get up for today--but I'm not sure how they managed to do that particular error.

Not the first time I have had similar problems--I used to rely on an 'atomic' clock that listens for a radio signal every 2am. The only obvious setting was to change time zones, and the clock would not always hear the signal to re-set itself. When changing batteries, or when daylight savings came it would not reliably re-set itself so I 'd have to rely on some other method.

I have been making a living as some sort of technician for most of my life, I can solder, I can run Linux, I can even set up and run Windows if I have to. But for some reason, I can only set an alarm clock properly from scratch about 75% of the time. I'm glad to see that Apple is only a little better...

New York: End Use of Condoms as Evidence of Prostitution, Protect the Public's Health | Human Rights Watch

2010-11-06T22:09:00.000-04:00

New York: End Use of Condoms as Evidence of Prostitution, Protect the Public's Health | Human Rights Watch

One of the problems with prosecuting victimless crimes is competing goals. While prostitutes should absolutely be encouraged to use condoms, that is not a goal of prosecutors. They are rewarded for success, and public health is not one of their goals. This change makes sense--Condom use is a far more important goal.

J Frame IWB

2010-11-06T17:47:00.000-04:00

This is a prototype J frame IWB I'm sending to JayG for evaluation. I'm not fond of the revolver IWB holsters I've tried, I'm trying to address those issues with this holster--mainly trying to minimize the protrusion of the cylinder on the back side of the holster. I put a U shaped leather spacer in behind the cylinder, to give it a flatter profile--it is a little better, but still not quite where I want to be. I think I can get there, but I need to work some more on how I set up the press I'm using for molding.

Working with this holster also brings me to some advice--don't get cheap leather if you want your holsters to look good, it is much harder to work with. The leather I used here was on sale at a fantastic price, but from now on I will stick with the better grades. I have been using that hide for experiments like this.

Grocery IQ Review

2010-11-01T15:02:00.000-04:00

Grocery IQ is a free grocery list application for Iphone and Ipod Touch (and I think some other smartphones). I've got the version for the iPod tOuch.

The initial screen has selections across the bottom for list, favorites, stores, coupons and more. More is basically a preferences screen for initial setup.

Favorites is where you can build a master list of the groceries you typically buy. You can assign items to a particular store, or to 'any store'. You can search for an item, input it by barcode number, use a camera if the ipod has one to scan the barcode, or merely enter an item. When you search, the app will try to guess what you are looking for, so you do not have to type the entire item name.

Unfortunately for many items, there is no generic choice, just a choice between different brands. Searching for "basmati" brings up more than 50 specific brand name items with basmati rice, but not 'basmati rice' itself--you will have to type the whole thing, and assign it an aisle. This is probably the most annoying part of the app.

The 'list' section shows a list of just the selected items. You can again choose 'any store' or a specific store. If you want a particular item once, but do not want to add it to favorites, you can add it to either the 'all stores' or a specific store list here.

The 'stores' section lets you reorganize the order of aisles to match the specific store (with a different order in a different store), and select whether that store will display 'all stores' items.

The app is sponsored by coupons.com. If you are on a Windows system, you can get printable coupons related to your list--unfortunately you will have to install an application that will prevent you from making multiple copies. Although Wife's system can boot to Windows, we don't do it enough to be worthwhile. I am also not particularly keen to install software from an advertising company.

A relatively simple app, but does the job well. Even without the coupons, it is worthwhile.

Condition Yellow

2010-10-27T00:33:00.001-04:00

Back in high school driver's ed, (around 1979 or so) I was taught IPDE. That stands for Identify, Predict, Decide, Execute. When driving, you should always be looking around, trying to identify potential problems, predict how a problem might unfold, decide what to do about it, then if necessary, execute your plan. If you see a car in your mirror weaving through traffic, you have identified. You can predict he is likely to squeeze in between you and the car ahead, you can decide to make some extra room, make sure you can safely swerve, or merely be ready to hit the brakes. If he does cut you off, you don't waste time figuring out what needs to be done, you already have a plan to execute. With experience, much of this can become automatic--I scan other traffic without conscious effort.
People involved in concealed carry talk a lot about Condition Yellow. This comes from Jeff Cooper's States of Awareness color codes. Condition Yellow is a basic state of awareness-paying enough attention to your surroundings that most threats won't take you completely by surprise. (Short version of Cooper's colors: White, oblivious. Yellow, basic alertness. Orange, paying attention to something specific you may need to deal with, Red, ready to fight.)
There is a good deal of confusion about what Condition Yellow means. I have seen people new to carrying a gun say that they are hanging up their guns, keeping condition yellow all the time is too tiring. They are doing it wrong. Anti-gun people believe it means fearfully scanning for danger all the time like a rabbit. They don't understand it either. Condition Yellow is not limited to those carrying guns. It is not a state of paranoid hyper-vigilance. It is a basic awareness of your surroundings, coupled with the knowledge that you might have to take some action to protect yourself.
It is nothing more than the first step of the IPDE concept learned in Driver's Ed, expanded beyond driving. Simply pay enough attention that you can usually identify situations before they get serious. Defensive carry of a gun involves no more fear, no more alertness than defensive driving.

Fulton Farms

2010-10-26T22:00:00.000-04:00

A bunch of in-laws and family went to Fulton Farms to pick pumpkins. Really a pretty good deal, especially if you have kids. There's animals, a corn maze, hay bale maze, and a pile of hay bales with 2 slides and an area of loose hay to jump in. The wagons take you on a 10 minute or so ride out to the pumpkin patch, you get to pick a pumpkin, all for a bit less than Home Depot was charging for similar pumpkins (Assuming you aren't two and pick a tiny little green pumpkin, like my grandson did). A wristband is good all day, although only one pumpkin per band is allowed. Grandson really didn't want to leave the pile of hay bales.

The Cafe had something I see in many family-owned businesses that turns me off--a bunch of crabby notes to the staff, reminding them to follow various rules. No discounts without the approval of Mrs. Fulton. The handbook specifically says no text messages while working. Field Hands use the back bathroom. If you run a retail business, and must complain to your staff via notes, make a strong effort to do it where the customers don't have to see it. The pumpkin soft-serve was good, though.

Get Off My Lawn

2010-10-23T22:01:00.000-04:00

Walking back to my house today, I saw a guy on the porch. My initial thought was that he had no business there...but a split second later, remembered that we have rented the downstairs apartment, and for the first time in 17 years, there's someone not related to me who lives downstairs.

Semantics

2010-10-18T09:52:00.000-04:00

I've been debating with Joan Peterson, a Brady Campaign board member who blogs as Japete at commongunsense.com

Joan had been writing as if she is just an ordinary woman from Minnesota who believes in common sense gun laws. Based on a blog post by WeerdBeard, I asked Japete (I wasn't sure of her identity at this point) if she was a Brady Campaign board member or similar. She first demanded "why do you need to know this information. She finally wound up admitting to being a member of the local Million Mom March (A Brady subsidiary group), and on the board of several anti domestic violence groups--but for some reason repeatedly refused to either confirm or deny whether she was a Brady board member, although she clearly denied being a paid staff member.

After a bit of Googling, I found that Joan Peterson is listed on the Brady Campaign web page as a Brady Campaign board member and the President of the Minnesota Million Mom Chapter. Both Japete and Joan Peterson had a sister who was murdered with a gun by an ex in 1992. Both are from Minnesota, and are associated with the Brady Campaign and the Million Mom March. I am convinced. I cannot think of any sensible reason to be evasive about being a member of the Brady board, unless you are trying to be deceptive.

Evasion and deception are very common on her blog, Joan has repeatedly said that she does not want to ban guns--she just wants to keep them out of the hands of the wrong people. Like most of her statements, it needs examination and clarification--although she says she does not support a gun ban, she does support a renewal of the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban. According to her, banning many guns isn't a gun ban--you have to ban all guns for it to count as a gun ban. She won't say what the second amendment protects--as far as I can tell, she thinks it protects the government's right to arm the national guard or something.

She wants to end the gun show loophole by requiring background checks on all gun purchases at a gun show rather than just the purchases from dealers. Even when directly asked she will not say whether she wants to require background checks on all sales, nor does she say how she will handle purchases where the initial meeting is at a gun show, but the actual transaction takes place somewhere else.

Joan thinks that it is wrong to criticize US Representative Carolyn McCarthy, because McCarthy's husband was shot by a spree shooter. This especially applies to criticism of the laws McCarthy proposes or her ignorance of the details of her laws. (McCarthy is the one who was questioned on the content of the 1994 assault weapons ban, and was unable to correctly explain what a barrel shroud was--she thought it was 'the shoulder thing that goes up')

Recently we have been discussing laws on machine guns. From 1934, civilian machine gun ownership came under heavy federal regulation. Since then, only 2 legal owners have been convicted of machine gun crime. Despite this near perfection among legal owners, in 1986 the Hughes Amendment closed the registry--existing registered guns could still be bought and sold, but newly built or imported ones could not be owned by civilians. I've asked several times how this 50 year near perfect record required further restrictions--and if that record wasn't good enough, what gun law would be good enough? She made disparaging comments about unrestricted sale of machine guns, which isn't close to what we were discussing.

XKCD gets it right again.

2010-10-16T23:38:00.000-04:00

This has got to be a dream of almost all computer geeks. I'm almost always frustrated when I call tech support--calling them is a last resort, I've already rebooted everything, checked connectivity, made sure it was plugged in. I understand that probably 95% of their customers are clueless, but you would think they could do some triage based on the problem report--if it is "The internet is broke" there's one script, but "I seem to be having a DNS problem--I can access sites if I know the IP address, but I can't connect by URL" gets a higher level of support automatically.

And if you are at all technical, XKCD is a great comic.

Fence Repair

2010-10-14T23:15:00.002-04:00

Our back yard is surrounded by a 6 foot high stockade fence. Most of it has been there longer than we have, at least 17 years with little maintenance. Several years ago a neighbor's tree fell and damaged one section, several trees on the property line are considerably larger than they were when the fence was installed pushing the fence inward-The tree to the left was originally on the other side of the fence. As it grew it pushed a section of fence with it, leaving a gap of about a foot. Many of the pickets were missing their tips. Between the trees and the damaged sections, it was not only ugly, but close to losing its ability to hold the dogs in. A couple of spots had some very ugly temporary repairs to maintain dog resistance.

Another issue was the location of the gate. I put it in when we got our dog Bella, to finish enclosing the yard. I set it up so the back door of the downstairs was inside the fence--at the time it made the most sense. Since then I have separated the house back into two separate apartments, built stairs into the back yard from the upstairs apartment, and moved upstairs. We plan to assign the back yard to the upstairs apartment when we rent the downstairs.

I decided to move the gate and do some slightly more permanent repairs to the fence--but I didn't want to spend much, because under any circumstances the fence isn't going to last all that much longer. My initial plan was to get 2 new 8 foot sections of fence for the gate area, and use the older weathered boards from there to patch the rest of the fence. It turned out I was able to move the gate using the existing fence and one new post, and still had more than enough to repair the rest of the fence. Rather than alter the fence line to get around the tree shown, I cut out a section for the tree, and restored the fence to its original line. I replaced the top support board on several sections, left most of the rest of the support boards alone. On one section the original installers had spliced in another 2 feet of fence rather than dig another post. This section was sagging badly. When I replace the fence entirely I'll dig another post, but for now I took the pickets off and replaced all 3 2x3 spliced supports with 10 foot 2x4.

The fence looks much, much better than it did, and it is no longer threatening to fall down. I'm out of shape.

Odd rhythmbox behavior

2010-10-09T08:56:00.004-04:00

For years I've stuck with XMMS to play music, even when it was removed from Ubuntu's repositories due to outdated libraries. It was familiar--basically Winamp for Linux, seemed to use lower resources than its direct replacement (Audacious) and had the ability to directly delete files from within XMMS. It has some bugs--the biggest being that it displays a version of id3 tags that it can not edit, even when the version it CAN edit is present.

I started to use Rhythmbox when it gained support for my iPod tOuch--first to merely transfer files over, but then I started a project to properly tag, sort and de-duplicate my music files. Rhythmbox has search and bulk tag editing capabilities that made this much easier, and once I used it more, the new features outweighed the familiarity of XMMS.

Unfortunately Rhythmbox on my computer quit recognizing my iPod, although Wife's computer and my netbook still worked. I also discovered that a significant number of songs would play silently for the regular length of the song. These songs played fine in other programs. Under some circumstances, trying to play these songs in Rhythmbox would start another song going that could not be stopped without quitting Rhythmbox--trying to switch to a different song would leave both of them playing at once. I didn't try these songs on other computers.

Most mp3's are recorded at 44khz, the same as CD. When I looked for common features of the silent songs, they were all recorded at some other sample rate, mostly 22khz. Re-recording one of these at 44khz allowed it to be played, but that is fairly time consuming with my fairly old computer.

It turns out that both the playback and iPod problems have a common cause. Rhythmbox has a preference "use crossfading backend"--this should smoothly blend the next song, but winds up fading the beginning of songs too much. When I turned off crossfading, Rhythmbox was able to play the songs it couldn't, and it found my iPod again.

Muppets....stronger than they look?

2010-09-27T18:31:00.004-04:00

Guy hired to play Elmo is on break, goes to look at guitars at a nearby store. Another guy 'feels threatened', attacks Elmo...and loses.

h/t to Popehat

Just what I always needed

2010-09-26T18:49:00.002-04:00

Some people have more money than sense, but apparently not as many as Meijer's expected.

A small bundle of sticks, on clearance for 6.99.

Under Pressure

2010-09-25T00:38:00.000-04:00

I decided to get a press for holster making. I ordered a sheet of inch thick gum rubber and cut it into two 12 inch squares. I tried a homemade press using some 2x12 and threaded rod, but it was too hard to get enough pressure. Harbor Freight had a sale on their 12 ton shop press--bigger than I need, but I heard some complaints about their smaller bench model.

The press is fairly typical Harbor Freight quality--The spreader bar at the bottom was misaligned and broke a weld while squaring the press up, but it is still usable. The upper I beam is a bit of a loose fit to the side beams, I'm probably going to add some washers inbetween to tighten it better. It works well enough for my purposes.

The basic setup I'm using is a chunk of 2x12, one of the rubber pads, the holster with a blue gun inside, the other rubber pad, then another 2x12. The press came with 2 inch thick metal blocks, I use one of those on top of the wood to spread the force of the press out, otherwise I am pretty sure the wood would split.

I'm not sure how hard I have to press to get the level of detail I am looking for--I think I went more than necessary this time.

I want enough pressure to get decent detail, but I don't know if I need so much that I can read the lettering engraved on the dummy gun.

This saves quite a bit of time in molding the holster by hand, and I think the end result looks better.

iphone shot timer and airsoft

2010-09-17T11:45:00.000-04:00

Previously I had experimented with using my PACT shot timer with my old spring-air airsoft. The timer had to be set at the target, to record the impact rather than the shot, which meant walking back and forth for each shot.

That airsoft died, so I splurged and got a CO2 airsoft. I have not tried the PACT timer with the new Airsoft, but I have played around with Surefire's shot timer app for the iPod tOuch. With a small tweak to the sensitivity, it works fine. I even slapped a holster together out of some crap leather (and discovered that the Tippmann Boss will not sew wet leather...) and practiced drawing from under a cover shirt, and experimented with aimed vs point shooting. My target was a piece of printer paper and a homemade pellet trap, and I was able to hit it reliably out to about 10 feet or so without using sights. The speed increase was only about 2/10 of a second.

I do not believe that the airsoft is representative of followup shots, but as a cheap way to practice the draw and first shot on target, I think it is worthwhile.

If you are a shooter with an iPhone or a tOuch, with a mic (or the earbuds with remote and mic) get the shot timer app--it is free, and works well with real guns, too.

Convervative vs libertarian

2010-09-12T09:36:00.002-04:00

There is a quiz over at the Center for American Progress, "How Progressive Are You?", with fairly typical questions designed to measure where you fall on the left-right political spectrum. Like most of these quizzes, it totally ignores the libertarian-statist axis.

I scored a 155, counting as conservative--but I am fairly sure that in quite a few cases either my logic as to why, or my idea of a proper solution was different from either their preferred solution, or from what they perceived as conservative. .

Examples:

Government regulations are necessary to keep businesses in check and protect workers and consumers

Yes, I am not an anarchist. However, we currently have vastly more of these regulations than necessary or helpful.

America's security is best promoted by working through diplomacy, alliances, and international institutions.

Usually. But it helps to have a big stick, and to negotiate from a position of strength.

Americans should adopt a more sustainable lifestyle by conserving energy and consuming fewer goods

Sure--but we should not be forced or taxed into this.

Religious faith should focus more on promoting tolerance, social justice and peace in society, and less on opposing abortion or gay rights

"Religion should" is not a relevant political question. I am not likely to go to an anti-gay church, but as long as they just talk, and don't go physically hunting down gays, so what?

Human life begins at conception and shold be protected from that point forward

Sort of--Human life should not be begun unless it will be protected from that point forward.

America's economic future requires a transformation away from oil, gas and coal to renewable energy sources such as wind and solar.

More than likely eventually this will be yes. Again, the question is whether we get their through natural market forces, or if we get there through coercion.

Changes in the traditional american family have harmed our society

In some ways yes, others no. But this is mostly irrelevant to government.

Social Security should be reformed to allow workers to invest some of their contributions in individual accounts.

This assumes that Social Security should be kept. Individual accounts is better than a pool of money for the government to "borrow', but it is still forced savings.

Rich people like to believe they have made it on their own, but society has contributed greatly to their wealth

This appears to be justification for taking money from the rich, rather than an actual political question.

Government policies too often serve the interests of corporations and the wealthy

Yes--Not because the policies are designed to do that, but because corporations and the wealthy can hie people to navigate the complexity and maximize benefit.

African Americans and other minority groups still lack the same opportunities as whites in our country

Yes to an extent--but most of this isn't due to current racism, but rather to lingering effects of past generations of racism, and the awful results of a welfare system that actively discourages self-sufficiency.

Backin' up, backin' up

2010-09-09T21:55:00.000-04:00

A hilarious remix of a news story of a robbery:

The original news report:

And an article covering the original story and the video

(HT to Mo Rage)

Who cares

2010-09-03T22:39:00.000-04:00

Gun enthusiasts, Tea Party supporters, conservatives and to some extent libertarians are often stereotyped as anti-gay bigots.

When I blogged about Southern Style Granite, I realized that the only place I had seen references were from other gun bloggers. I assumed it was sample bias, since I have a high proportion of gun bloggers in my RSS feed. After posting a comment on Daisy's Dead Air, I decided to look into who was spreading the word about Southern Style Granite. Ambulance Driver and Dan Savage both mentioned this incident on August 30, so there has been plenty of time for both sets of readers. I logged out of Google to avoid getting customized results, and checked the first 50 results. Well over half of these results mentioned thir bias, and 13 mentions were distinct blogs. (some blogs showed up several times in the Google results, I only counted each one time.

Of the 13, 6 were people I recognized as gun bloggers, 4 gay or gay oriented (and one gay gun blogger counted in both), and 4 that were not easily classified in either of the first 2 groups.

So bigoted, right wing gun nuts are doing more than gay-oriented bloggers to spread the word about a particular incident of anti-gay bigotry. (EMS bloggers may be tied with gun bloggers, I didn't count them separately)

Too many people confuse a lack of support for legislation for a lack of support for the cause itself. Jennifer said it well--

I don’t believe in forcing tolerance by force of law, but I do fully support any individuals desire to move their dollars elsewhere. It’s the beauty of the free market. I choose not to do business with bigots like Southern Style Granite.

Southern Style Granite should be allowed to choose who to serve--but they should not be shielded from the results. I hope this spreads, and there is a significant drop in Southern Style's business as a direct result--and I hope they realize the cause.

Bigots at Southern Style Granite

2010-09-02T00:29:00.000-04:00

Ambulance Driver points us at a story of bigots at southern style granite.

Basic story: 2 men go to look at granite counter tops. One of the co-owners asks them if they are a gay couple, and when the answer is yes, rudely tells the couple that their kind is not welcome here.

As someone else pointed out--Is overt anti-gay bigotry really wise in a company that relies on interior decorators?

Straws and camels

2010-08-30T00:12:00.001-04:00

“How do you defeat a karate master? Offer him as many small coins as you can shove into a hat before he says “stop”. Of course, to get the money, he must catch the hat – with his head, as you drop it from the fifth floor.”
...To a libertarian, every new statist restriction is similar to a coin from this joke"

RTWT. This is a concept I've been trying to articulate, he does a better job than I've been able to manage. Each law passed adds a coin. The "coin" may have varying monetary values--this is the beneficial part. But each law/coin also has a weight--the restrictions it puts on us, the extra power given to government officials--in some cases making it impractically difficult to follow the whole law. No matter how small or trivial each individual weight is, enough will crush us.

Some laws are well worth the weight--the value of laws against murder, assault, theft and fraud are far greater than the restrictions they add.

Some are not--what good purpose is served by licensing criteria for hairdressers beyond basic sanitation? (or even licensing them at all?) Does it make sense that thrift stores and garage sales can be held responsible for product recalls?

(H/T to Oleg Volk)

Zoo picture dump

2010-08-27T23:00:00.002-04:00

Took my grandson to the Columbus zoo today--First time we have taken him that far, he did well--but he was exhausted by the time we left, asleep before we were out of the parking lot. Click on pictures to make them huge

They have a bucket of combs and brushes at the petting area.

He wanted to get in and swim with the fish...

It is really hard to get a picture of a toddler at the zoo that shows faces and that he's at the zoo. Sometimes you just settle for faces.

Big snake

Giant aquarium. I think it is fantastic, he wasn't impressed.

Fox Bats

He did like the tank with manatees and rays.

They had a fantastic playset, although I am not sure why it belongs at the zoo. Kind of like the McDonalds ones, except much bigger and better.

The only downside was if your kid didn't want to come out, it was hard to get to him...

These were the "stairs" to the upper levels--a series of steps like this, except with the hole in a different corner for each step--maximum fall level was only about 2 feet onto a stretched cloth floor.

Level 2 of 3 levels.

I am probably going to use this picture for a Gimp tutorial.

Catchy Song

2010-08-23T23:28:00.001-04:00

There is a lot about this song I usually would not like--particularly the NSFW language. In this case it works, and the song is catchy and funny. I've listened a dozen or more times in the last 2 days

(Mom, you probably don't want to listen)

(HT to Roberta X)

Italian Mantis

2010-08-19T10:28:00.000-04:00

I moved one of my basil plants to the deck. It got a visitor:

I didn't know preying mantises liked Italian...

Technology shuffle

2010-08-15T23:36:00.000-04:00

I wanted to upgrade my iPod Touch--despite it being barely over a year old, and being updated once in that time, the majority of apps I have tried to install in the last few months need a more recent version of the iPod OS.

It needs a Windows (or a Mac) computer to update, with enough space to make a copy of everything on my iPod--in this case, about 12 gigabytes. I have one computer left that can still boot into Windows, and it does have far more than 12 gigabytes free.

Except the iPod gives no choice in where that free space must be, it insists that it must be in the user's "my documents" folder, which is by default on the C drive. Windows makes it slightly difficult to install with 'my documents' anywhere but C, and even more difficult to move them after the install.

When I install Windows, I have been in the habit of partitioning the drive, with a small but adequate partition for the C drive, and the remainder as an E: drive for data. This means that if I have to reinstall, I can wipe Windows without wiping out the data.

There may be a workaround within iTunes, but I couldn't find it in the time I was willing to devote. There is a section within iTunes to enter a path, logic would lead one to believe changing that path would change where the backup would go--but when I changed it to a path with more than enough free space, it still tried to use the "my documents" on C: to put the backup.

I finally managed a workaround by adding a spare old hard drive I had available, shuffling data then using Linux to expand the partition holding the C drive--a project I had been meaning to do anyway. Once I did that, I was able to sync my iPod and run the update. I have no idea how long the update took, but at least several hours with the CPU running at 100% for most of the time, and virtually no indication of progress--usually a symptom of an application that has hung. I left it overnight and when I awoke, the upgrade had completed.

I am still amazed at how amazingly well Apple does some things, and how amazingly badly they do others. My brother is an advanced Mac user. He said that iTunes for Windows left such a bad impression, it kept him from giving Mac a serious chance for about a year.

Jolicloud 1.0

2010-08-09T23:43:00.000-04:00

My wife and I both have EeePC 900 netbooks in addition to our main computers. Being a geek, I was not happy with the version of Linux that came with the netbooks--it worked OK, but it appeared that little effort was spent on keeping things up to date. The versions of applications used were old, particularly Firefox.

I went through a handful of netbook-specific versions of Linux. The Eee 900 series has slightly odd audio hardware, and needs a modified kernel to get sound working just right. I was also hoping to find a version that could do Skype video cleanly. I finally settled on on Jolicloud beta. Jolicloud was meant to be a "cloud" based system--rather than relying on local data storage, it is meant to be on the web for almost all use. Many of the official apps are slightly modified versions of web applications, with most of the browser controls removed. Not perfect--the default method of installing applications was limited to apps that fit their philosophy, but since Jolicloud is a tweaked version of Ubuntu Netbook Remix, entering "sudo apt-get install synaptic" in a terminal gave me the full graphical installer from Ubuntu.

I was mostly satisfied--I had come to the conclusion that the hardware just wasn't strong enough to do Skype with video, but other than everything worked fairly well.

Unfortunately, the "upgrade" from the 0.9 beta to 1.0 was not an improvement. Power management no longer worked, the interface was drastically different, many applications that I had installed had been removed, and the Chromium browser would not remember changed settings. It also refuses to log in without a network connection. I did a bit of checking on the internet, and found that this was by design.

So rather than fight with Jolicloud, I went back to Easy Peasy. I've got the Eee with a separate drive for my home folder--this means that while I have to reinstall some apps, I do not have to configure them. For example, installing Pidgin then launching it automatically logs me on to the IM networks I had set up before.

In my view, there should not be major changes when going to a "stable" version--too much of a chance of introducing bugs that won't be caught. It is also a bit of bait-and-switch for those who went through the beta versions and expected something similar in the stable.

Big government and small business

2010-08-06T18:52:00.001-04:00

Phillip Greenspun is an electrical engineer and Internet guru. He has had the same email address since 1976, and founded photo.net in 1993. He now runs a flight school in the Boston area, in addition to teaching at MIT. He talks about lobbying and big government:

Boston Red Sox, along with other professional sports teams, lobbied Congress and the FAA for years trying to get them to forbid banner-towing airplanes flying over stadiums during games. They did this in hopes of preventing anyone from advertising to fans other than themselves, thus enhancing their billions of dollars in revenue. The FAA refused to hand over airspace to private owners, but Congress forced them to do so after 9/11, arguing that a 3 nautical mile ban around stadiums was necessary for security. Because this taking of public property was done under the guise of security, it was sufficient to ban only banner towers; all aircraft were banned except for those owned or operated on behalf of the sports team. The security value of the ban is negligible. A terrorist in a jet would fly through the 3 n.m. ring in about 1 minute. There would be no time to evacuate the stadium. It isn’t even clear that there are procedures in place for FAA controllers to inform stadium owners that someone has violated this security zone and therefore there would be notification to fans that it was time to duck.

(click the quote to read the whole article) Three miles is nowhere near enough for any real security--even a very slow airplane could cover that in a minute and a half--what could be done in a minute and a half? However, three miles covers most of Boston, meaning his flight school has to know the schedule and not run their helicopter tours when there are games--even if they will not overfly the stadium, even if the game is not on the printed schedule. He also talks about the costs of his flight school vs. the costs of a degree-granting college. His school is about half the price--but because of federal subsidies, it is cheaper to a student to get the same training at a college or university--because you and I pay the difference.

But "How can you be against security" and "how can you be against education"? Politicians need to be able to justify their votes, but they also need to be WILLING to justify their votes, and vote against ever-expanding government, even when it gives an opponent a sound bite to use against them.

OFCC Picnic

2010-08-01T00:09:00.000-04:00

Went to the Ohioans for Concealed Carry picnic today. It was the first time I've open carried other than at a gun range. Felt strange--my subconscious kept trying to tell me there was something wrong with my holster, I needed to fix it--kind of like having my fly open. No soccer moms this year.

I got a couple of ideas for different holsters, and won a box of .380. Speakers were OK, food was fair. Nikki Goeser was great for the first 20 minutes--I'm not going to tell her to shut up though, all things considered, she is doing well for herself and for gun rights.

Vanity

2010-07-29T23:12:00.000-04:00

An address is supposed to make it so people can find you. When you get your driveway named as a street you need to realize that "One Acme Widgets Place" might make it easy to send mail to Acme Widgets, but is going to be minimally useful to someone who needs to visit in person. This also applies to extremely short public streets--but these are at least slightly more likely to show up on a map or GPS.

A few days ago, Wife had an appointment in Dayton at one of these addresses. Google had the address, my GPS did not. Unfortunately a printout of Google Directions is not able to re-route around construction, and I didn't think to figure out a nearby address to put in the GPS before she left.

If you must have a vanity address, at least leave a clue--"1 Acme Widgets Place, off the 6000 block of Coyote Ave"

I am willing to make an exception for 4 of the schools in my hometown, but only because the alternative for them would be an address on Loony Road.

Halt in producton

2010-07-23T11:27:00.001-04:00

I have had a couple of people in real life ask why I haven't done a holster post in a while. I live quite a distance from the nearest Tandy shop, and generally don't go just for leather. I did not select my own leather last time, a significant mistake. The leather I got was on sale, and a good price--but awful in quality. The rough side was almost fuzzy with a ton of loose fibers, and the thickness was extremely variable--a lot of it is either far too thin or far too thick for the holsters I am making.

I've got a decent chunk of leather now, so I should start back up soon.

Rick K and the Allnighters

2010-07-17T23:54:00.000-04:00

Rick K and the Allnighters have recently become the subject of this viral video, based on the antics of their "Drummer at the Wrong Gig", Steve Moore:

Apparently the video was taken at an amusement park in Pennsylvania a few years ago, and basically ignored until sometime in June, when it went from a few thousand views to millions.

Even better is their version of Wipeout:

We went to Cool Creek Park in Carmel Indiana to see The Allnighters Friday night. That concert was just as over the top, and just as fun. They did two sets, changing outfits between--although the change was basically from blue sequined jackets to white sequined jackets...Lots of audience participation. Click to embiggen.

I took video. Warning--the sound is loud, and I didn't have a tripod.

There were a couple of vendor booths, and the park department was giving out these doggie poop bag holders:

In a couple of places, I've seen comments expressing sympathy for Steve Moore for having to play in a cover band. How many people would like to play music for a living? How many get to quit their day job without a girlfriend to support them? I'm guessing that a band like this with a heavy tour schedule is more successful than 98% of "professional" musicians.

Celebrating the 2nd of July

2010-07-03T23:19:00.000-04:00

We went with my parents to see Red White and Boom in Columbus--their fireworks display on the 2nd. (If you want good fireworks, see the displays in July that are not on the fourth) Unfortunately, I forgot both my tripod and a memory card for my camera, so I was only able to take 6 pictures...
These were the most impressive and most sky-filing fireworks I have seen. We were sitting downwind, and getting sprinkled with the cardboard flakes from the fireworks. The picture I am most disapointed in missing was the condo high rise behind us--we were at a perfect position to get the reflection of fireworks in the glass of the condo.

Oops

2010-07-02T07:31:00.000-04:00

There was recently a thread on the Ohioans for Concealed Carry discussion board had a post asking "what if your gun falls out in public".

A surprising number of people admitted to having their guns fall out in public.

The overwhelming majority were carrying in an Uncle Mike's or DeSantis cloth holster. I had a gun fall when getting out of the car to get gas--in one of those nylon DeSantis holsters. Last time I ever used a nylon belt holster. In my case the entire holster came unhooked from my belt and skittered under my car.

There are two problems with these particular holsters. The first is the relatively narrow clips used--Most narrow clips can easily twist off the belt when used alone, even if straight tugging feels secure. The same clips used in pairs can be very secure, since they can't twist without one of the clips coming undone first.

The second is retention. A soft nylon holster can't hold a gun securely without some sort of assistance, generally a thumb break strap. (A thumb break is a strap with a snap and a stiff section that can be pushed with the thumb while drawing to break the snap open)

A cloth holster with a thumb break and belt slots instead of clips is OK--probably not as comfortable or concealable as a good leather holster, but not likely to dump the gun. Nylon is also fine as a pocket holster, where lack of retention is a feature rather than a bug.

Although there is a bit of snobbery in recommending against nylon holsters, there are also a lot of practical reasons--Although it is possible to make a bad holster out of leather (I know, I've done it myself...) it is much more difficult to make a good holster out of nylon.

Bad holster design

2010-07-01T23:40:00.000-04:00

I have been using basic pancake holsters for my J frame to try new techniques--these are relatively simple, take less leather than for a bigger gun, and are fairly quick to make. In this case, I was molding by clamping the holster and gun between dense foam rubber. That part of the experiment worked reasonably well. (as a side note--the foam rubber I was using for the backside had a pattern that transfered as almost a basketweave pattern. Unfortunately the leather still needs to be touched up after molding, so I can't use this process as a decorative element)

I am not at all happy about the cut of the top of the pocket. I did not leave enough leather along the top, so I wound up having to cut a ragged-looking line, and still did not get enough trigger coverage. The trigger should be completely covered. The small gap is probably not going to be a problem on a revolver, but probably isn't quite good enough for long-term use. I am not sure exactly what happened, but I think I changed the cant between cutting the pattern and sewing the holster.

I was also trying to make the holster ride higher to be less likely to peak out from under my shirt. I managed that, but in doing there isn't enough below the belt to keep the upper part tight against the body. The J frame is small enough that it isn't a major problem, but it is not as comfortable as it should be. I had meant to angle the belt slots so the tops are closer together than the bottoms--this tends to pull the top inward. However, like the top of the pocket, I did not leave myself enough leather.
With some of these "not quite what I meant" I've been able to sell them cheaply while pointing out their problems, and at least recover the materials cost. The uncovered trigger means I can't let anyone else use this holster. Once I make what I really intended, I will destroy this one.

Picking trash

2010-06-30T23:04:00.000-04:00

We have been decluttering, and throwing away lots of stuff that in theory is marginally useful, but had not been touched in many years. Most of this stuff isn't making it to trash day-people go though it and take useful stuff, or the metal for recycling. I'm fine with that, I would much rather see it go to some use than to have it go to landfill and so far they aren't leaving a mess behind.

I question the economics of some of the pickers though--Do you really make more in scrap than the gas you spend collecting it? Especially when you leave your van running as you dig.

The strangest is that apparently some people are going around cutting the cords off any electrical appliances, and only taking the cord. I don't see how that can possibly be worthwhile.

Cooking Steak

2010-06-22T22:13:00.000-04:00

I've learned to cook cheap steak and have it turn out tasty. The secret is letting the steak warm up to room temperature with a heavy, heavy crust of coarse Kosher salt--basically as much salt as will stick. When it is time to cook the steak, thoroughly rinse the salt off under running water, and dry the steak with a towel. Don't overcook, use a meat thermometer. The steak winds up more tender than otherwise, and lightly salted throughout.

Don't even try this with table salt-I did once a few years ago, and the result was extremely salty and almost inedible.

How much?

2010-06-20T20:08:00.000-04:00

Dyson makes interesting products. I haven't used their vacuums, but from both testimony of people who have, and the number of people copying them, they appear to be excellent.

I have used the Dyson Air Blade hand dryer, and it is by far the best hand dryer I've ever used. In a couple seconds, it gets your hands as dry as a towel

A few days ago, I saw the Dyson Air Multiplier at Meijers--Dyson's take on a fan. Looks really neat, seems to work quietly and well...

...but it is $300. For a portable fan.

Conspiracy Theories.

2010-06-18T23:47:00.000-04:00

There is a program that allows pilots who have undergone rigorous training to carry a handgun in the cockpit of commercial airliners. The theoretical concept is good. Execution however is amazingly bad. Basically, every time the pilot has to leave the cockpit, he has to lock the gun up. That is bad enough, and appears designed to make it so inconvenient that many pilots are dissuaded. However, that's not the worst part--the worst part is that the pilots are required to lock their gun up by inserting a padlock through a hole in the holster, and through the triggerguard.

Put a hard metal object through the trigger guard of a loaded gun--and you can't even see the trigger when you do this. You don't have to be an elite trainer to cringe at this.

In theory, the holster should guide the lock behind the trigger. In practice, if the gun is not perfectly seated in the holster, the lock winds up just in front of the trigger, so that any pressure on the gun makes it go off. This has happened more than once--including at least once in the cockpit of an airplane-- yet no corrective action has been taken.

The Dutch have skimmers that can capture 5,000 tons of spilled oil per day per ship. They offered 4 of these to us 3 days after the spill.

In order to be useful, the skimmers have to also suck up water . The water separates from almost all the oil--but a few drops are unable to be separated and remain in the water. We apparently have regulations that forbid discharging water with more than 15ppm oil--even if the oil was in the water when you sucked it in. Apparently this idiotic regulation is why we don't have US oil skimmers. The Dutch skimmers are finally in action and working well, over a month late.

The state of Louisiana managed to get barges running to suck and skim oil--but the coast guard shut them down because....they were not certain that the barges had the appropriate life jackets and fire extinguishers...and instead of going aboard and counting, they wanted to contact the manufacturers of the barges.

I'm not a conspiracy theorist, and I've got pretty low expectations on the intelligence of government--but these stories strain the limits of mere stupidity.

(h/t to Linoge for the oil spill stories)

Pissed

2010-06-17T12:23:00.000-04:00

Yesterday we ate out on the deck. The trees have filled in, so there is plenty of shade--we didn't bother putting the umbrella up, forgetting that the primary purpose isn't to keep the sun off us.

Suddenly, I felt water...seemed odd, it was not cloudy enough for rain, and it would be surprising for that much rain to get through the trees that fast. Oralia asked "Is it raining?"

No.

Damn squirrels.

Fake Rolex

2010-06-16T22:33:00.000-04:00

My brother in law asked me to look at a Rolex he got from somewhere, because it would not run long. He didn't have it with him. I explained that if it was real, I'm not good enough to be worthwhile, and if it was fake, it probably isn't worth fixing.

Rolex fakes range from near-exact copies that are pretty much indistinguishable from the real ones without taking the back off, to slapping Rolex on whatever is handy.

This watch is far closer to the latter. In its favor, it is a mechanical movement, a screw-down crown and a solid-link bracelet. However, there are lots of clues to it being a fake. It is a modern sport-style watch but it has a glass display back--only some of the Cellini handwind dress watches with square cases have a display back. The movement is a skeleton, again not available in a sports Rolex. Tacky foil decorations taped on both sides--basically the watch equivalent of spinner hubcaps. Lettering is not nearly as crisp and even as a real Rolex. A huge clue is that the dial says "Co-axial escapement"--a trademark of Omega, one of Rolex biggest competitors. The case also has 18k markings, but is stainless steel. The back is marked "waterproof" a term that has not been used since the early 70's.

LeDoux Restaraunt

2010-06-16T00:32:00.000-04:00

LeDoux is a Cajun restaraunt north of Troy, Ohio in an odd location--they have a corner of what I think is a medical office building near the hospital. Decor is OK but looks like it was ordered from a Restaurant Decor catalog.

I've eaten at LeDoux twice. The first time was very good--I don't remember what my dish was called but it was some sort of pork with a spicy sauce over rice, and a cup of gumbo as a side. That meal was good enough that when my Dad offered to take me out for lunch, I opted for Ledoux again instead of my favorite, La Fiesta.

Unfortunately this time wasn't good. I can't entirely blame them for the Swamp Trash appetizer--it had Alligator and Crawfish, and since I've never had either one it may be that I just don't like them. However I had a main dish of Jambalaya with chicken and sausage. The sausage was OK, but all of the chicken had an off flavor that reminded me of chicken skin accidentally left in homemade soup. All my dishes had a flavor of old fry grease that needs to be changed, including the dirty rice side dish. I had half a Boudin Ball from someone else's appetizer--Much better than my dishes, but didn't have enough to judge thoroughly.

LeDoux may be authentic, I wouldn't know. I prefer Zatarains mixes from the grocery.