OR
What to do when stopped while transporting firearms.
The trials of gun ownership never cease. At least, in California...
After weeks of study and research I've determined that when it comes to gun laws; you are truly at the mercy of the District Attorney. At worst you find yourself on the receiving end of a DA with something to prove, with a gun-unfriendly jury convinced that you are an evil outlaw attempting to use the system of "laws" (he would use air quotes, you know it) to avoid much deserved jail time. Yikes. At best you find yourself dragged through the mud, possibly at the loss of property, and spending tens of thousands of dollars keeping yourself out of jail on charges that will just be dropped anyways.
Gun ownership and active use in California seemed difficult at best, threatening at worst.
After a recent trip to the range with my dad (LA Sheriff of more than 35 years) we got to talking about legal transport of firearms. Not the silly what-if scenarios you read about on so many boards where people attempt to skirt the law to get away with keeping their gun in their car without a CCW permit, "Yes, I do have a gun in the car. Where am I going? Why, to or from the range... (tee hee!)." Idiots. Some folks argued for pages on whether or not to admit to a cop that you're transporting firearms in your car (lawfully or unlawfully). What the argument boiled down to was that it really depends on the cop. Is the cop of the mind that law abiding citizens should be allowed to own guns (and *gasp* transport them?!), or is the cop a rookie looking to impress his superiors? It even got into the whole off-list lowers discussion; will the cop know about OLLs? Will the cop take your word for it when you educate him about the law? Or will he just confiscate your possibly illegal weapon just to be sure? 10 to 1 on the last.
Back to our conversation, I covered a number of legal aspects of searching cars, and he covered what the average cop's responses would be fairly well. Here's some of the highlights...
1. If a cop wants in badly enough, he'll get in.
If there's no probable cause to search your vehicle, and they want to; they will find it. Maybe they thought they smelled drugs, maybe they thought they saw you make furtive movements when driving by, there are a number of easily pardoned reasons that can be used to search your car. Some will stretch the truth or even simply lie to get a look around in your car. They are convinced that they are doing it for their own safety, and to enforce the law, most will not think twice about this. I was told about cops who picked up unloaded handguns and loaded magazines stored separately and in some form of locking container, and simply put the magazine into the gun, and called it loaded. Again, they view this as an officer safety issue. Unless you have everything on video, good luck convincing the Judge that the law enforcement officer is lying to him.
My dad went over some specifics regarding implied consent, and other tricks to getting into your car entirely legally. There are provisions on what can and can't be searched, but it all falls apart when confronted with a cop who thinks you're up to no good, and thinks everyone would be better off with you off the street or disarmed.
Pretty much the only semi-safe thing we came up with was putting the gun in a small COMBINATION (no keys!) locked box that isn't obviously for guns. A money box is a good choice. Dad said that in that case, perhaps the case will be busted open and tossed into a dumpster on the way in, and its contents submitted into evidence. I thought this was a bit extreme, but he insisted that it could, and probably did, happen. The only saving grace for this instance was the thought that the cop's in-dash camera would record the officer returning to his car with an obvious box. Whether or not the cop HAS an in-dash camera, and the department would be willing to relinquish the (unedited) footage is another matter entirely. But this was about as close as we got.
2. 99% of the time, your mood determines the cop's mood.
Cops are put in life threatening situations every day. The only thing that keeps them alive is a sense of good guys, and bad guys. Since you can't always tell one from the other they develop a list of things that good guys do, and a list of things that bad guys do. One of the big things that bad guys do, is disrespect the police. If you give a cop attitude, he's not going to "make it hard on you" just for payback, he's going to do it for his own safety. In his experience people who give cops attitude have something to hide, and you, a law abiding citizen confuse yourself with a law breaker simply by acting like one. Cops treat (perceived!) good guys and bad guys differently. If you don't want the bad guy treatment, don't act like you need it.
3. Rights-thumpers get no love.
I thought this was the answer.
"Officer, I will produce my license, registration, and proof of insurance, if you cite me, I will sign the citation; but I will not answer any questions without an attorney present."
Simple, yes? What cop couldn't respect a citizen exercising their rights? My Dad for one. In one of our many hypothetical traffic stops I felt confident in whipping out that line. My dad's response was immediate. "You're hiding something." I reasoned that it could just be a citizen who knows his rights, to which he replied, "Doesn't matter. Non-cooperation is a sign of hiding something. I'd definitely want to search that car." Oh well. So much for my proud, defiant response to unlawful search...
4. Most cops don't know the law.
At least, they don't know all of it. This is why your best defense is to know the law, and act within it. There's a pretty good chance that once on the stand, the officer will nullify his search (and its findings), and leave you free to go. But its up to you to now the specifics they don't. Dad said that he was "amazed" that so many convictions come from illegal searches, and/or poorly written reports. He though that he could personally get 90% of traffic stop cases thrown out simply by asking the right questions.
So what's the final answer from Dad?
Lie. Say you don't have any firearms in the car, and give them no reason to believe there are any. This includes any gun-related items left in an area readily viewable from the outside of the car. Too much can go wrong. If you lie and don't get away with it, the courts will decide if you were transporting legally or not (which you should always be).
So, after all this nonsense with probable cause, caveats, implied consent, and truth stretching I asked my Dad the serious question.
"What happens if you have a CCW permit?"
"Nothing. It's almost always legal to have a loaded gun on your person, or in your possession."
"Well then... For the sake of simplicity, I'll just get one then!"
There you have it. I didn't plan on getting a CCW permit, but now I need one to just ensure my freedom as a firearm owner. Beautiful. Fortunately, I found a number of California CCW resources with tricks and tips for getting approved on the first try. The process IS cumbersome, but is clearly worth it. I'm fairly confident that I'll be able to get a CCW permit, and am lucky to be in a "may issue" county. ("May issue" means that if you're a law-abiding citizen with no criminal past, with numerous character references, and want to be able to protect yourself, your loved ones, and others... You will be denied your 2nd amendment right to bear arms. You need something much more precious than life to protect! Like diamonds, cash, or drugs. No I'm not kidding. Protecting life will not get you approval in a "may issue" county, protecting lots of cash will! My solution? Give your kids diamonds!)
For your reading pleasure, I've provided one of our better traffic stop exchanges; enjoy!
Dad: Hi, any weapons in the car?
Me: I will produce my license [...] not answer questions without an attorney present.
D: Please step out of the vehicle
D: Where are you headed?
M: I will not answer any questions without an attorney present.
D: You need an attorney to tell you if it's ok to say where you were going?
M: Is that a question?
D: Where is your license?
M: In my wallet in my back pocket.
D: Where's your registration?
(this is usually when you say that its in the glove box, and the cop has implied consent to go into the glove box to retrieve the documents)
M: in a small carrier clipped to the visor above my seat.
D: Where's your proof of insurance?
M: in the same visor.
D: Ok, let me get it. (pause)
(the pause was for implied consent, if you do not stop or respond negatively to an officer's statement that he will search or otherwise enter your car, you are giving implied consent. Note how dad made it a semi-question by beginning with "let me")
M: I do not consent to any searches!
D: I know, but you need your information.
D: [reaches for the visor, feigns dropping the wallet from the visor to under my seat] Oops, clumsy me, let me just feel under your seat for your information... [retrieves the wallet, then slips again and drops it behind drivers seat] Oops, there I go again, let me just get that... [Looks in the back seat]
M: [feeling a little uneasy about my real rights being pretend violated] I do not consent to any searches!
D: ...I know... [Finishes, steps out of the car] What's in the case on the passenger seat?
M: I will not answer any questions without an attorney present.
D: [Takes my imaginary keys from the ignition to see if the case has a key on the ring, unlocks my glove compartment and looks inside] What's in your pockets?
M: I do not consent to the search of my pockets.
D: Fair enough. [takes out the imaginary case] Where's the key?
M: It's a combination lock, and I do not consent to the search of my locked container.
D: What's the combination?
M: I forgot.
D: Well, I've got a prybar in the car, I can help you open it since you forgot the combination! [smiles]
M: [crap] Hey, I just remembered the combination, but still don't consent to the search of my locked container.
D: Look, the box is heavy, and clanks when I shake it, it's pretty obvious to me that there's a gun in there. (pause)
(the pause is for implied agreement, I need to reject the idea)
M: Could be full of rocks.
D: But why would you lock rocks in a box, and refuse to tell me about them?
M: Is that a question?
D: It did go up at the end.
M: I will not answer any questions without an attorney present.
D: There's obviously a gun in here, it's obviously well locked, and obviously being transported safely. Now, I DO have the legal right to inspect any firearms being transported to ensure they are being transported securely, I don't need your consent. This is just a officer safety issue. Just open the case, and we'll move on.
M: ...
D: Well?
M: Was that a question?
D: I'm going to put handcuffs on you and you can sit in the back of my car while I call for gunpowder and drug sniffing dogs.
M: Am I being detained?
D: I just need you secure while I get the dogs over here.
M: Then I'm free to go?
(The question of being detained MUST be answered with a clear yes or no, I'm mad at myself for not asking "Am I being detained? I need to go." sooner in the conversation. It's supposed to be a good way to put some pressure on. The question of detainment is an important legal one, make sure it's asked frequently, and answered clearly)
D: ... No. I'm detaining you for suspicious activity.
M: Which law is that?
D: [smiling] Was that a question?
M: I will not answer any questions without an attorney present.
Aaaaaand scene!
At no point in this scenario was my Dad breaking any laws (that he couldn't easily explain around).
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
Tuesday, June 20, 2006
BLOOD FOR ODIN!!!!!!!!
Oh man. This is too insanely funny to be fake...
Read for yourself...
(short read)
Hell, even if it is fake, it's still worth the read!
Read for yourself...
(short read)
Hell, even if it is fake, it's still worth the read!
Thursday, June 15, 2006
third silk screening pic
This is my third silk screening, I did it at the request of some guys on a forum (plus I wanted to see how well I could do it)
Pretty good. I like the speckles around the design, but may get rid of them.
Some of the lines are a bit flakey, but its no where near enough to detract from the design. If you were going over it with a magnifying glass, I'm sure you'd find plenty of things to complain about anyways.
CLICKY for full size.
My next project will be a sprawling sketch full of strangeness, made with the intention of becoming a shirt. It will probably be my first professional-style silkscreening.
Pretty good. I like the speckles around the design, but may get rid of them.
Some of the lines are a bit flakey, but its no where near enough to detract from the design. If you were going over it with a magnifying glass, I'm sure you'd find plenty of things to complain about anyways.
CLICKY for full size.
My next project will be a sprawling sketch full of strangeness, made with the intention of becoming a shirt. It will probably be my first professional-style silkscreening.
Wednesday, June 14, 2006
Traffic school post! (finally)
Ok, so this was lost in my moleskin. I though I had lost it somehow...
3-4-06 (UBER BELATED!) (yay!)
It's odd to see sooo many different people in one place. Majority of the people here are here for getting tickets from those photo ticket things. The instructor is teaching in an anecdotal fashion. I enjoy it, and I think everyone else does too. It really makes the time pass more quickly and makes the experience more pleasurable. I wonder if instructors also find straight reading from the manual boring, so they use anecdotes to cover the points they must. I wonder, if the instructor preferred anecdotal teaching, but didn't have any meaningful anecdotes if the instructor would make up stories to make the learning more enjoyable for us, and the teaching more enjoyable for themselves. I like that I didn't look at the instructor as a teaching robot, but as a person who may not prefer their job.
[the following is not part of the journal entry]
One thing I remember was with so many people in there for the photo red-light ticket machines, there was a lot of ill will toward them. When the instructor asked who thought they were a good idea, a percentage of people raised their hands. When asked who thought they were a bad idea, a percentage of people raised their hands. When asked who didn't care, I was the only one to raise my hand. "So much for wallflowering my way through this..." I thought to myself. The instructor asked me why I didn't care, and before I had a chance to get aprehensive at being the deviant, and develop some kind of present-company-friendly response, I spoke the unpalatable truth:
"Because it's still breaking the law, whether you were caught by a cop or a camera. Thinking you shouldn't be punished because it was one or the other is silly."
To which she [the instructor] replied, "...Well there you have it!"
3-4-06 (UBER BELATED!) (yay!)
It's odd to see sooo many different people in one place. Majority of the people here are here for getting tickets from those photo ticket things. The instructor is teaching in an anecdotal fashion. I enjoy it, and I think everyone else does too. It really makes the time pass more quickly and makes the experience more pleasurable. I wonder if instructors also find straight reading from the manual boring, so they use anecdotes to cover the points they must. I wonder, if the instructor preferred anecdotal teaching, but didn't have any meaningful anecdotes if the instructor would make up stories to make the learning more enjoyable for us, and the teaching more enjoyable for themselves. I like that I didn't look at the instructor as a teaching robot, but as a person who may not prefer their job.
[the following is not part of the journal entry]
One thing I remember was with so many people in there for the photo red-light ticket machines, there was a lot of ill will toward them. When the instructor asked who thought they were a good idea, a percentage of people raised their hands. When asked who thought they were a bad idea, a percentage of people raised their hands. When asked who didn't care, I was the only one to raise my hand. "So much for wallflowering my way through this..." I thought to myself. The instructor asked me why I didn't care, and before I had a chance to get aprehensive at being the deviant, and develop some kind of present-company-friendly response, I spoke the unpalatable truth:
"Because it's still breaking the law, whether you were caught by a cop or a camera. Thinking you shouldn't be punished because it was one or the other is silly."
To which she [the instructor] replied, "...Well there you have it!"
More often before, less often lately...
4-13-06 (belated journal post)
More often lately I've been getting an overwhelming feeling of loss. Maybe loss isn't the right word. Maybe it's just incompleteness. I just get that whole rat race feeling. I go from day to day with few highlights, and think to myself that things will be different soon. Well I just kind of figured out that that is unlikely. It was a "this is your life" moment. I just got the feeling that I was trying to keep busy to avoid something, and I didn't want to avoid it anymore. I feel like I should be doing more, but I'm not sure what "more" is. There's something I miss doing, but have never done before. There's some intangible round peg out there, just waiting to make me whole. But what and where is it? Does anyone else feel this way?
5-9-06 (less belated journal post)
I've been drawing more, and have started scanning and coloring my sketches. I've also been perusing my interest in firearms. I can't think of anything else notable that I have done since the entry on the opposite page (above), yet I'd forgotten that lost feeling I used to have. The above activities are the only things I can attribute the lost feeling to. I hope I'm really dealing with these feelings and not just busying myself enough to forget about them.
More often lately I've been getting an overwhelming feeling of loss. Maybe loss isn't the right word. Maybe it's just incompleteness. I just get that whole rat race feeling. I go from day to day with few highlights, and think to myself that things will be different soon. Well I just kind of figured out that that is unlikely. It was a "this is your life" moment. I just got the feeling that I was trying to keep busy to avoid something, and I didn't want to avoid it anymore. I feel like I should be doing more, but I'm not sure what "more" is. There's something I miss doing, but have never done before. There's some intangible round peg out there, just waiting to make me whole. But what and where is it? Does anyone else feel this way?
5-9-06 (less belated journal post)
I've been drawing more, and have started scanning and coloring my sketches. I've also been perusing my interest in firearms. I can't think of anything else notable that I have done since the entry on the opposite page (above), yet I'd forgotten that lost feeling I used to have. The above activities are the only things I can attribute the lost feeling to. I hope I'm really dealing with these feelings and not just busying myself enough to forget about them.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
Novice silk screening
I'd had an interest in it before, and have finally gotten around to trying it out.
Well, not entirely. I'm actually doing a half-assed version using those cross-stitching hoops. I still use actual silk screen (2 yards for $1.35!), and the right paint, but I just use glue instead of a photo receptor to get the design in the screen. The results have been promising, but using this method, I'm restricted to small, relatively simple designs.
After an extended Sunday session, I have a sketch of mine on a one shirt, and a glider on the other. I did rather like walking around with a big glider on my shirt, knowing that most of the people who saw it would wonder what on earth I had on my shirt, and that a select few would understand.
For now, I'd like to stay within the boundaries imposed by the method I've chosen. I think it will force me to become more creative with my designs. Plus, the main benefit of silkscreening is to be able to mass-produce designs quickly, cheaply, and easily. For now... I have no need for that. Just being able to put my designs on a few shirts is good enough.
I have no doubt that I'll pick up the correct equipment, and make a few screens for some quality designs, but for now, I'm happy with a few simple designs.
The power to make my own (very professional-looking) t-shirts has made me spend more time drawing up more designs. Of course, the design constraints have helped me to get more designs out. Without constraints, I usually just spin my wheels and accomplish nothing.
Well, not entirely. I'm actually doing a half-assed version using those cross-stitching hoops. I still use actual silk screen (2 yards for $1.35!), and the right paint, but I just use glue instead of a photo receptor to get the design in the screen. The results have been promising, but using this method, I'm restricted to small, relatively simple designs.
After an extended Sunday session, I have a sketch of mine on a one shirt, and a glider on the other. I did rather like walking around with a big glider on my shirt, knowing that most of the people who saw it would wonder what on earth I had on my shirt, and that a select few would understand.
For now, I'd like to stay within the boundaries imposed by the method I've chosen. I think it will force me to become more creative with my designs. Plus, the main benefit of silkscreening is to be able to mass-produce designs quickly, cheaply, and easily. For now... I have no need for that. Just being able to put my designs on a few shirts is good enough.
I have no doubt that I'll pick up the correct equipment, and make a few screens for some quality designs, but for now, I'm happy with a few simple designs.
The power to make my own (very professional-looking) t-shirts has made me spend more time drawing up more designs. Of course, the design constraints have helped me to get more designs out. Without constraints, I usually just spin my wheels and accomplish nothing.
Why do I need an AR???
This question has been posed to me, and I've refrained from explaining the real reason because I wanted to have time to make my reasons clear and understandable. I will do that here.
There are really three reasons Iwish to own an AR type rifle. One is patriotic, one is practical, and the last is a bit morbid.
1. The AR-15 is America's rifle. It fought and continues to fight on fronts all over the world in the hands of Americans. It is a symbol, and has served this country well.
2. This is really an argument for carbines. Having a short-to-mid range, rapid fire, carbine with decent penetration is the yin to a shotgun's yang. Even the largest, most intimidating, room-broom still has disadvantages. Is there a perfect, well-rounded weapon that has a balance of both worlds? Probably. But I'd rather have selection of two weapons that are optimized for different situations than pick one that will have any shortcomings in the situation I need to employ it in. Like settling on a wagon when you really need a small, fuel efficient car, and a large truck.
3. The SHTF situation. If America becomes occupied or threatened by forces foreign or domestic, there's about a 50/50 chance they will be carrying weapons that use 5.56 (.223) ammunition. Which will be extremely important in mounting any kind of resistance. What's the other 50% chance? They will be using 7.62 ammunition. And yes, I am looking into getting an AK type.
Some have said they do not understand my third reason. I was tactfully suggesting that we may, one day, have to turn our weapons on our own government (in the form of our military), and they will undoubtedly be using AR-type weapons which will fire the same ammunition as my AR. The decision was a question of ammunition availability in the case that ammunition is taken away from citizens.
There are really three reasons I
1. The AR-15 is America's rifle. It fought and continues to fight on fronts all over the world in the hands of Americans. It is a symbol, and has served this country well.
2. This is really an argument for carbines. Having a short-to-mid range, rapid fire, carbine with decent penetration is the yin to a shotgun's yang. Even the largest, most intimidating, room-broom still has disadvantages. Is there a perfect, well-rounded weapon that has a balance of both worlds? Probably. But I'd rather have selection of two weapons that are optimized for different situations than pick one that will have any shortcomings in the situation I need to employ it in. Like settling on a wagon when you really need a small, fuel efficient car, and a large truck.
3. The SHTF situation. If America becomes occupied or threatened by forces foreign or domestic, there's about a 50/50 chance they will be carrying weapons that use 5.56 (.223) ammunition. Which will be extremely important in mounting any kind of resistance. What's the other 50% chance? They will be using 7.62 ammunition. And yes, I am looking into getting an AK type.
Some have said they do not understand my third reason. I was tactfully suggesting that we may, one day, have to turn our weapons on our own government (in the form of our military), and they will undoubtedly be using AR-type weapons which will fire the same ammunition as my AR. The decision was a question of ammunition availability in the case that ammunition is taken away from citizens.
Can on handgun defeat an army?
Bravo!
An unbelievable article, long and meaningful! All Americans should read it!
What good can a handgun do against an army?
An unbelievable article, long and meaningful! All Americans should read it!
What good can a handgun do against an army?
Psychiatrist examines the anti-gun mentality (and more)
Good god, this is a good article!
RAGING AGAINST SELF DEFENSE: A PSYCHIATRIST EXAMINES THE ANTI-GUN MENTALITY
(caps are not mine =)
Interesting article on personal defense mechanisms, and how to convince close-minded people to open their minds a bit. Definately worth the read.
RAGING AGAINST SELF DEFENSE: A PSYCHIATRIST EXAMINES THE ANTI-GUN MENTALITY
(caps are not mine =)
Interesting article on personal defense mechanisms, and how to convince close-minded people to open their minds a bit. Definately worth the read.
Friday, June 09, 2006
Why own guns?
This is probably the most asked question. What made me decide to get a gun, and have I prepaired for the risks involved in gun ownership. I think to appropriately answer both questions I need to provide a bit of background.
I had very little experience with guns when I was young. In fact, half of the experiences I did have were negative, so I was in no way a gun freak/nut/thumper... In fact, I'd later discover that I actually had a fear of guns, unbeknownst to me.
I was a believer in the 2nd amendment because I knew history. I knew that Hitler rolled over so many European countries because they offered little to no resistance due to the fact that they were mostly disarmed by their government. I knew that when asked about invading America's west coast in world war two Japan's Admiral Yamamoto is reputed to have said, "You cannot invade America. There is a rifle behind every blade of grass." I knew by reading the Franklin letters that the point of the 2nd amendment wasn't for hunters, it was to protect civilians from a tyrannical government, and to remind the government that citizens of America will never be disarmed and overthrown. I knew that it was our freedoms that made us a strong people, a people who turned a very young nation into arguably the most powerful nation on the planet. I also knew that bad people have guns, and if good people didn't have them to level the playing field, things would be very different in this nation.
But that just makes me a 2nd amendment promoter, not a gun owner.
During the Katrina situation, I saw the worst in people; robbing, looting, raping, murdering, but I also saw some great people who stood up when the police didn't (and wouldn't). They stood up against those awful people, and protected their families and their neighbors. With guns.
Living in southern California along a fault line, which (everyone agrees) is LONG overdue for the "big one," the idea of being left high and dry in the event of a natural disaster seemed like a sobering prospect. As to police protection; remember the LA riots? Police fought valiantly to protect the city? Nope. There were too many rioters and the police literally stepped back and let them have control of the city for days until it burned itself out. Unbelievable. The world was rapidly becoming a more dangerous place. Well, not really, it was already dangerous, I was just naive.
I looked into the future, and saw my family, and looked at my girlfriend (mostly fiance), and knew that I had things to protect.
But I still wasn't decided. I thought I was being a little cynical to think that the police can't protect me at all. So I started talking to my police friends and family members... Wow. I didn't believe it, and wound up searching the net for a long time to find people denying these statements, but only found agreements. The police DO NOT, and WILL NOT "protect" you. The supreme court has found that the police are NOT liable to provide you with protection. This means that if you call 911, and they never come, it's not their fault. Not to mention that response times can vary from 5 minutes to 5 hours in busy areas (or even if areas become busy as the result of a disaster of some sort). If there's a natural disaster and widespread looting and violence, you can NOT count on the police to help. Try to find out how many police are employed by your city, then find out the population of your city. Now do your county. The police are outnumbered, and overworked without the added strain of a disaster of some sort. I'm not just saying these things. They're true. Don't trust me, get the numbers and see for yourself just how safe you are.
For more info on how the police can't and won't protect you check an earlier post here, or just google it.
I feel it's worth touching briefly on the notion that you can simply run away from your attacker. Assuming you aren't protecting your children, know your surroundings perfectly, can outrun a rapist or murderer, aren't disabled in any way, have already called the police, and know the attacker is working alone, you may have a chance. If people could simply run away from their attackers, there would be no victims of violent crimes. Since that is not the case, I think we can assume that "just run away" isn't the correct answer.
After all this, I realized that I should have a gun. I then started a long process of researching, testing, and buying my first handgun. In the process of researching my first handgun purchase, and in the weeks following my purchase I came across lots of other information. Most bothersome of which was the fact that a handgun is not very effective in combat. People type for pages about stopping power of this caliber versus that caliber and muzzle velocity for this round versus that round, but the simple fact remained. Handguns are not very effective, and are hard to use. Firing a handgun accurately takes lots of practice and training. But even after you've mastered your handgun, and can place three shots into a nickle at 50 feet in under a second from a standing position, a handgun's energy output is FAR less than that of a rifle or shotgun, and its effective range is still FAR shorter than that of a rifle. I know that most gun encounters take place within 5 feet, and take less than 5 seconds, but in an instance where you are protecting an area (your home, your neighborhood), or simply don't want to have to shoot someone four times to make sure they are neutralized, rifles and shotguns are the undisputed masters.
Just as you wouldn't bring a knife to a gunfight (as the saying goes), you shouldn't bring a handgun to a gun fight. Rifles and shotguns are 10 times easier to use than a handgun, and are 100 times more effective. Even in the hands of someone untrained. Pistols are hard to use effectively, and are not effective people-stoppers. The only advantage handguns have is portability. In a situation where you are not concerned with concealing a weapon on your person, IE: there's an intruder in your home, handguns lose their only advantage instantly. As an aside, the absolute best anti-crime device is the sound of shotgun being racked. The only thing that will stop a criminals faster is if you pointed it at them and pulled the trigger on some double aught buckshot.
I began to see gun ownership not as a choice, but a duty. Our founding fathers knew that an armed people are a free people. Countless studies find that more guns mean less crime. And if you've decided you need to arm yourself to protect your loved ones, you have a duty to arm yourself with the most effective tools available to you.
The dangers. Ah the dangers. Everyone always wants to remind you of the dangers. To those who say that guns are dangerous I ask that you support this site http://www.assaultweaponwatch.com the people here are dedicated to protect our children from the dangers of evil guns. Or perhaps they're providing a stinging satire; I can't remember. There is no doubt that guns can be dangerous in malicious or untrained hands. Therefore, a responsible gun owner MUST educate those with access to the guns (including children of age), and a responsible gun owner MUST store their guns safely. To me, the idea of gun locks is silly, as most locks are easily opened (I'm a novice lock picking enthusiast, and am well versed in the shortcomings of most locks), and they will not prevent the gun from being taken and becoming a danger to others. A safe is the only way to go. Otherwise, remove an important part (or otherwise disable it), and store it separate from the locked gun. I am, of course, referring to guns that are not being employed in protecting your home, and need not be ready at a moment's notice. I won't say that a loaded gun with children home is a good idea, though it's the most effective. I also feel reluctant to apply a lock to a gun that is being used to protect your family. Maybe some form of quick safe like the small under-the-bed safes that hold one handgun, and use a push-button combination to open, so they can be opened quickly in the dark, except for shotguns... I dunno. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
I know that guns aren't for everyone, and that some people are fearful of them (as I was), but I beg you, PLEASE get some form of basic handgun training. It's not that expensive, and you will never know when you may use the experience! A gun (especially a handgun) in untrained hands IS DANGEROUS to everyone within range! I know the movies make it look easy, but believe me, it's a difficult skill to master, and a trial by fire is not the way you want to learn to save the lives of your loved ones.
Remember, a 3 minute 911 response time may seem fast now, but just wait until someone's two kicks away from breaking in your door.
I had very little experience with guns when I was young. In fact, half of the experiences I did have were negative, so I was in no way a gun freak/nut/thumper... In fact, I'd later discover that I actually had a fear of guns, unbeknownst to me.
I was a believer in the 2nd amendment because I knew history. I knew that Hitler rolled over so many European countries because they offered little to no resistance due to the fact that they were mostly disarmed by their government. I knew that when asked about invading America's west coast in world war two Japan's Admiral Yamamoto is reputed to have said, "You cannot invade America. There is a rifle behind every blade of grass." I knew by reading the Franklin letters that the point of the 2nd amendment wasn't for hunters, it was to protect civilians from a tyrannical government, and to remind the government that citizens of America will never be disarmed and overthrown. I knew that it was our freedoms that made us a strong people, a people who turned a very young nation into arguably the most powerful nation on the planet. I also knew that bad people have guns, and if good people didn't have them to level the playing field, things would be very different in this nation.
But that just makes me a 2nd amendment promoter, not a gun owner.
During the Katrina situation, I saw the worst in people; robbing, looting, raping, murdering, but I also saw some great people who stood up when the police didn't (and wouldn't). They stood up against those awful people, and protected their families and their neighbors. With guns.
Living in southern California along a fault line, which (everyone agrees) is LONG overdue for the "big one," the idea of being left high and dry in the event of a natural disaster seemed like a sobering prospect. As to police protection; remember the LA riots? Police fought valiantly to protect the city? Nope. There were too many rioters and the police literally stepped back and let them have control of the city for days until it burned itself out. Unbelievable. The world was rapidly becoming a more dangerous place. Well, not really, it was already dangerous, I was just naive.
I looked into the future, and saw my family, and looked at my girlfriend (mostly fiance), and knew that I had things to protect.
But I still wasn't decided. I thought I was being a little cynical to think that the police can't protect me at all. So I started talking to my police friends and family members... Wow. I didn't believe it, and wound up searching the net for a long time to find people denying these statements, but only found agreements. The police DO NOT, and WILL NOT "protect" you. The supreme court has found that the police are NOT liable to provide you with protection. This means that if you call 911, and they never come, it's not their fault. Not to mention that response times can vary from 5 minutes to 5 hours in busy areas (or even if areas become busy as the result of a disaster of some sort). If there's a natural disaster and widespread looting and violence, you can NOT count on the police to help. Try to find out how many police are employed by your city, then find out the population of your city. Now do your county. The police are outnumbered, and overworked without the added strain of a disaster of some sort. I'm not just saying these things. They're true. Don't trust me, get the numbers and see for yourself just how safe you are.
For more info on how the police can't and won't protect you check an earlier post here, or just google it.
I feel it's worth touching briefly on the notion that you can simply run away from your attacker. Assuming you aren't protecting your children, know your surroundings perfectly, can outrun a rapist or murderer, aren't disabled in any way, have already called the police, and know the attacker is working alone, you may have a chance. If people could simply run away from their attackers, there would be no victims of violent crimes. Since that is not the case, I think we can assume that "just run away" isn't the correct answer.
After all this, I realized that I should have a gun. I then started a long process of researching, testing, and buying my first handgun. In the process of researching my first handgun purchase, and in the weeks following my purchase I came across lots of other information. Most bothersome of which was the fact that a handgun is not very effective in combat. People type for pages about stopping power of this caliber versus that caliber and muzzle velocity for this round versus that round, but the simple fact remained. Handguns are not very effective, and are hard to use. Firing a handgun accurately takes lots of practice and training. But even after you've mastered your handgun, and can place three shots into a nickle at 50 feet in under a second from a standing position, a handgun's energy output is FAR less than that of a rifle or shotgun, and its effective range is still FAR shorter than that of a rifle. I know that most gun encounters take place within 5 feet, and take less than 5 seconds, but in an instance where you are protecting an area (your home, your neighborhood), or simply don't want to have to shoot someone four times to make sure they are neutralized, rifles and shotguns are the undisputed masters.
Just as you wouldn't bring a knife to a gunfight (as the saying goes), you shouldn't bring a handgun to a gun fight. Rifles and shotguns are 10 times easier to use than a handgun, and are 100 times more effective. Even in the hands of someone untrained. Pistols are hard to use effectively, and are not effective people-stoppers. The only advantage handguns have is portability. In a situation where you are not concerned with concealing a weapon on your person, IE: there's an intruder in your home, handguns lose their only advantage instantly. As an aside, the absolute best anti-crime device is the sound of shotgun being racked. The only thing that will stop a criminals faster is if you pointed it at them and pulled the trigger on some double aught buckshot.
I began to see gun ownership not as a choice, but a duty. Our founding fathers knew that an armed people are a free people. Countless studies find that more guns mean less crime. And if you've decided you need to arm yourself to protect your loved ones, you have a duty to arm yourself with the most effective tools available to you.
The dangers. Ah the dangers. Everyone always wants to remind you of the dangers. To those who say that guns are dangerous I ask that you support this site http://www.assaultweaponwatch.com the people here are dedicated to protect our children from the dangers of evil guns. Or perhaps they're providing a stinging satire; I can't remember. There is no doubt that guns can be dangerous in malicious or untrained hands. Therefore, a responsible gun owner MUST educate those with access to the guns (including children of age), and a responsible gun owner MUST store their guns safely. To me, the idea of gun locks is silly, as most locks are easily opened (I'm a novice lock picking enthusiast, and am well versed in the shortcomings of most locks), and they will not prevent the gun from being taken and becoming a danger to others. A safe is the only way to go. Otherwise, remove an important part (or otherwise disable it), and store it separate from the locked gun. I am, of course, referring to guns that are not being employed in protecting your home, and need not be ready at a moment's notice. I won't say that a loaded gun with children home is a good idea, though it's the most effective. I also feel reluctant to apply a lock to a gun that is being used to protect your family. Maybe some form of quick safe like the small under-the-bed safes that hold one handgun, and use a push-button combination to open, so they can be opened quickly in the dark, except for shotguns... I dunno. I'll cross that bridge when I come to it.
I know that guns aren't for everyone, and that some people are fearful of them (as I was), but I beg you, PLEASE get some form of basic handgun training. It's not that expensive, and you will never know when you may use the experience! A gun (especially a handgun) in untrained hands IS DANGEROUS to everyone within range! I know the movies make it look easy, but believe me, it's a difficult skill to master, and a trial by fire is not the way you want to learn to save the lives of your loved ones.
Remember, a 3 minute 911 response time may seem fast now, but just wait until someone's two kicks away from breaking in your door.
Data; the medium to end all media
(binary) Data is rapidly becoming the primary medium for information transmittal, desemination, and storage. Data can be used to represent pretty much anything. And while this is not particularly impressive, what IS impressive is the fact that the very nature of data is to be free.
I know I've probably just annoyed a large group of people with that statement. "Information wants to be free" is a common chant for those breaking copywrite laws, which some people resent. Whether or not it's right, it's definately true.
Data is easily replicated, cheaply stored, easily transmitted, manageable, and can represent almost anything. This makes the medium very prone to "sharing," which people will do as long as it's easy to do and carries little chance of reprecusion. Any attempts to control data will, I have no doubt, be soundly defeated.
Human nature aside, the fact is that Bill Gates was an anomoly. The fact that he was able to get people to spend their real money, on a series of ones and zeros is truly admirable. But the current level of data control is a bit different than it was when Billy was pushing his snake oil.
We can easily, and cheaply transmit gigabytes of information across the world very quickly. And by "we" I mean almost anyone. This lovely internet is mostly unpoliced, and that is a great thing; to allow anyone with as little as $9 a month to have access to this mind-blowing wealth of information, and instant world wide communication!
There's no doubt that the internet has changed our lives, well now it's changing some companies' business models. (or at least it should be)
Information doesn't want to be free.
Information will be free.
It will always be free. That's why I have no worries about Microsoft beating out Linux. Microsoft can't win. Their business model is obsolete. They may have been able to get away with selling data before, but with so much ease of data management available to everyone, there's no way they'll be able to keep it up. It's not a matter of if, but when.
All data will be free.
I know I've probably just annoyed a large group of people with that statement. "Information wants to be free" is a common chant for those breaking copywrite laws, which some people resent. Whether or not it's right, it's definately true.
Data is easily replicated, cheaply stored, easily transmitted, manageable, and can represent almost anything. This makes the medium very prone to "sharing," which people will do as long as it's easy to do and carries little chance of reprecusion. Any attempts to control data will, I have no doubt, be soundly defeated.
Human nature aside, the fact is that Bill Gates was an anomoly. The fact that he was able to get people to spend their real money, on a series of ones and zeros is truly admirable. But the current level of data control is a bit different than it was when Billy was pushing his snake oil.
We can easily, and cheaply transmit gigabytes of information across the world very quickly. And by "we" I mean almost anyone. This lovely internet is mostly unpoliced, and that is a great thing; to allow anyone with as little as $9 a month to have access to this mind-blowing wealth of information, and instant world wide communication!
There's no doubt that the internet has changed our lives, well now it's changing some companies' business models. (or at least it should be)
Information doesn't want to be free.
Information will be free.
It will always be free. That's why I have no worries about Microsoft beating out Linux. Microsoft can't win. Their business model is obsolete. They may have been able to get away with selling data before, but with so much ease of data management available to everyone, there's no way they'll be able to keep it up. It's not a matter of if, but when.
All data will be free.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
E-diction
Gadgets, gadgets everywhere;
And still I hesitate;
Gadgets, gadgets everywhere;
Are they really that great?
I'm not really much of a gadget freak. I used to be, but somewhere along the way, I realized that I'd really much rather spend money (or not) on more important things. It should be noted, though, that this line of thinking causes me to pick up games, hot new portable gaming systems, and gadgets when I can't readily think of something I'd rather spend the money on.
Most recently, though, I've been focusing (fixating) on the slew of worthy games being released for the DS. Initially, I didn't have much interest in the DS, I picked one up for my girlfriend, and found that, while I though it had some pretty good ideas, it was poorly executed. It was big, cumbersome, and annoying. I'd seen Advance Wars: Dual Strike come out for it, and knew that there was no way I could justify getting a DS just for one game, so I pretty much dropped the idea.
Recently the game Brain Age was released, I'd been paying a bit of attention to it, and thought it was a cool idea. I only needed a slight push to pick it up. After my girlfriend said a coworker enjoyed it, I was sold, and picked it up for her.
It's a pretty good idea and a pretty cool premise, you test your brain function with a test, and determine your "brain age," then train daily with different programs, and track your progress. It also graphs your results so you can see your improvement. It's a bit of fun, and definitely worth my time (especially when there are measurable results!). So my DS interest was re-kindled.
I looked around and quickly found that the DS Lite was coming out soon. I looked at reviews and comparisons, and the lite is, for lack of a better word, sexy. I want it. I told my girlfriend that I'd happily buy it for her, but she was resistant. She thought it was silly to get one just because it was smaller. I'd have a tougher time justifying the purchase for only myself. (I don't like spending money on myself if it's not a necessary purchase) So I started reviewing some of the games available for the DS (to justify the purchase to myself), and while there were a few MUST HAVE's (Twilight Hourglass, Advance Wars: Dual strike) I could see that the game selection had expanded into some impressive games. I knew I had to get Super Mario 64, and New Super Mario World looked awesome, Partners in Time got awesome reviews; I was sold (again).
I had picked up "brother in arms, earned in blood" used from gamestop when I picked up Brain Age, and planned on returning it, as it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. Instantly this return turned into money towards the DS Lite. I also figured I could trade in my GBA Micro toward the DS Lite. (I really love the Micro, but the DS Lite seemed like it could (almost) fit the niche, plus it had a bigger screen with the micro's DPI. I love my Micro, but every time I take a game out, and pop it in my girlfriend's DS I always admire the game's appearance (though the same can't be said for the DS). Making the issue worse, I just got my bonus check (modest, but enough to put me over on the DS Lite). I was pretty resolved to get it.
If you know me, you'd know that after I've resolved to something, it becomes time to second-guess it!
I started to think about the game, the Micro, the Lite, and the bonus check. If I turn them in, and deposit the cash, I could get around $160 extra cash. Extra cash can be spent on other things. Other things like part of an upper for my newly acquired lower... I know I said I'd take my time building that rifle, and maybe I should, but it is quite tempting.
Continued... After thinking about this a bit, and coming back to it, I think I should really spend more time preparing for the upper purchase, so I should not spend it on that. However, saving specifically for the purchase is tempting, and probably the thing I should do. But on the other hand, $160 isn't that much to bother over. I was really looking at it as "free money" because it was money I didn't have before. But just because it's free money doesn't mean I should spend it, just to spend it. I think I'll use it to pay down my credit card, that way, I'll leave both options open... I still don't know what I'll do...
Bugger. I don't know. I think I'm going to reserve it. Well, it's not like it won't be there later... I obviously don't need it right NOW... It's just that the thought of that huge, bright, colorful screen gets me all hot and bothered. I don't even know when it will be released... Ah. June 11th. Is it sad that I'm so worried about this?... Hey, word is out that Target is improperly selling Lites early... I'll have to hit the Target in the same shopping center as the GameStop... I think I'm going to get it. As it happens, that bonus check was really just a spiff. The bonus check should come mid month, and be a bit larger... (further justification!)
Ok. I'm going to wait. (probably the best idea.)
And still I hesitate;
Gadgets, gadgets everywhere;
Are they really that great?
I'm not really much of a gadget freak. I used to be, but somewhere along the way, I realized that I'd really much rather spend money (or not) on more important things. It should be noted, though, that this line of thinking causes me to pick up games, hot new portable gaming systems, and gadgets when I can't readily think of something I'd rather spend the money on.
Most recently, though, I've been focusing (fixating) on the slew of worthy games being released for the DS. Initially, I didn't have much interest in the DS, I picked one up for my girlfriend, and found that, while I though it had some pretty good ideas, it was poorly executed. It was big, cumbersome, and annoying. I'd seen Advance Wars: Dual Strike come out for it, and knew that there was no way I could justify getting a DS just for one game, so I pretty much dropped the idea.
Recently the game Brain Age was released, I'd been paying a bit of attention to it, and thought it was a cool idea. I only needed a slight push to pick it up. After my girlfriend said a coworker enjoyed it, I was sold, and picked it up for her.
It's a pretty good idea and a pretty cool premise, you test your brain function with a test, and determine your "brain age," then train daily with different programs, and track your progress. It also graphs your results so you can see your improvement. It's a bit of fun, and definitely worth my time (especially when there are measurable results!). So my DS interest was re-kindled.
I looked around and quickly found that the DS Lite was coming out soon. I looked at reviews and comparisons, and the lite is, for lack of a better word, sexy. I want it. I told my girlfriend that I'd happily buy it for her, but she was resistant. She thought it was silly to get one just because it was smaller. I'd have a tougher time justifying the purchase for only myself. (I don't like spending money on myself if it's not a necessary purchase) So I started reviewing some of the games available for the DS (to justify the purchase to myself), and while there were a few MUST HAVE's (Twilight Hourglass, Advance Wars: Dual strike) I could see that the game selection had expanded into some impressive games. I knew I had to get Super Mario 64, and New Super Mario World looked awesome, Partners in Time got awesome reviews; I was sold (again).
I had picked up "brother in arms, earned in blood" used from gamestop when I picked up Brain Age, and planned on returning it, as it wasn't exactly what I was looking for. Instantly this return turned into money towards the DS Lite. I also figured I could trade in my GBA Micro toward the DS Lite. (I really love the Micro, but the DS Lite seemed like it could (almost) fit the niche, plus it had a bigger screen with the micro's DPI. I love my Micro, but every time I take a game out, and pop it in my girlfriend's DS I always admire the game's appearance (though the same can't be said for the DS). Making the issue worse, I just got my bonus check (modest, but enough to put me over on the DS Lite). I was pretty resolved to get it.
If you know me, you'd know that after I've resolved to something, it becomes time to second-guess it!
I started to think about the game, the Micro, the Lite, and the bonus check. If I turn them in, and deposit the cash, I could get around $160 extra cash. Extra cash can be spent on other things. Other things like part of an upper for my newly acquired lower... I know I said I'd take my time building that rifle, and maybe I should, but it is quite tempting.
Continued... After thinking about this a bit, and coming back to it, I think I should really spend more time preparing for the upper purchase, so I should not spend it on that. However, saving specifically for the purchase is tempting, and probably the thing I should do. But on the other hand, $160 isn't that much to bother over. I was really looking at it as "free money" because it was money I didn't have before. But just because it's free money doesn't mean I should spend it, just to spend it. I think I'll use it to pay down my credit card, that way, I'll leave both options open... I still don't know what I'll do...
Bugger. I don't know. I think I'm going to reserve it. Well, it's not like it won't be there later... I obviously don't need it right NOW... It's just that the thought of that huge, bright, colorful screen gets me all hot and bothered. I don't even know when it will be released... Ah. June 11th. Is it sad that I'm so worried about this?... Hey, word is out that Target is improperly selling Lites early... I'll have to hit the Target in the same shopping center as the GameStop... I think I'm going to get it. As it happens, that bonus check was really just a spiff. The bonus check should come mid month, and be a bit larger... (further justification!)
Ok. I'm going to wait. (probably the best idea.)
Death by PowerPoint
It's really amazing how impressively tired I get as soon as someone fires up a power point "presentation." I really wonder if other people really get as worn out as I do, simply by sitting in a chair and reading (or trying to read) a bunch of slides with three lines of info each. I actually have trouble keeping my eyes in focus. I have to fight not to see double. I'm serious, it's like I'm drunk...
I suppose the only thing more amazing than how tired I get during a power point, is the fact that the presenters make so little effort to make their presentations more exciting than a funeral. No movement from the presenter. Droning voice. Pointless slides. Even something as minor as using colorful clip-art can stimulate your brain more than seeing a slide full of text, listening to the presenter read all the text word for word, then moving to the next slide.
Worse, was I didn't bring a notepad to doodle or write on. At one point I seriously considered writing on my arm just to keep from becoming a drooling vegetable. I didn't know if I could write in the presentation book I'm writing in now, nothing to do but sit. I could feel pieces of my mind melt away one by one, and spread across a vast darkness seeking to join the other lost consciousnesses. I was lost in the abyss. Free floating in nothingness, trying to keep my mind focused on something, anything, to keep it from descending even further into the unknown. But there was no stimulation, nothing to focus on, I had to focus on something. I wonder what would happen if I didn't fight it. If I would have just reduced to a catatonic state. And become on of those weird stories in the paper where some random person somehow breaks their brain in an unexplainable way...
An unidentified man was rushed to a hospital after he fell out of this chair at a presentation, and became unresponsive. Once at the hospital, doctors declared him to have somehow slipped into a coma. "He was awake, and watching the presentation like we all were, then he just fell out of his chair, and he was gone." said another patron of the presentation. No one has come forward to identify John Doe, so we've supplied a picture, but police are quite certain that he will be lost forever.
As the world withdrew further and further from my sight and my focus slipped from the conscious realm; I heard a magic word which echoed in my abyss. First it was muffled and underwater, then as the sound bounced closer it became more clear until it reached my ears clear and bright as the shine of the sun on a summer day in a rolling meadow.
"Break."
My mind, spread across the universe, coalesces instantly. I'm violently gripped by my chest and rocketed from the darkness. The nothingness whips my face and howls in my ears as I ascend. I snap back into consciousness so fast I fear I might have a stroke. For a brief moment I am reborn. Confused. Panicked. Scared. Blind. Lost....
Alive.
Fractions of a second later I regain my bearing, and immediately forget how closely I came to losing myself.
Onward to the next journey...
I suppose the only thing more amazing than how tired I get during a power point, is the fact that the presenters make so little effort to make their presentations more exciting than a funeral. No movement from the presenter. Droning voice. Pointless slides. Even something as minor as using colorful clip-art can stimulate your brain more than seeing a slide full of text, listening to the presenter read all the text word for word, then moving to the next slide.
Worse, was I didn't bring a notepad to doodle or write on. At one point I seriously considered writing on my arm just to keep from becoming a drooling vegetable. I didn't know if I could write in the presentation book I'm writing in now, nothing to do but sit. I could feel pieces of my mind melt away one by one, and spread across a vast darkness seeking to join the other lost consciousnesses. I was lost in the abyss. Free floating in nothingness, trying to keep my mind focused on something, anything, to keep it from descending even further into the unknown. But there was no stimulation, nothing to focus on, I had to focus on something. I wonder what would happen if I didn't fight it. If I would have just reduced to a catatonic state. And become on of those weird stories in the paper where some random person somehow breaks their brain in an unexplainable way...
An unidentified man was rushed to a hospital after he fell out of this chair at a presentation, and became unresponsive. Once at the hospital, doctors declared him to have somehow slipped into a coma. "He was awake, and watching the presentation like we all were, then he just fell out of his chair, and he was gone." said another patron of the presentation. No one has come forward to identify John Doe, so we've supplied a picture, but police are quite certain that he will be lost forever.
As the world withdrew further and further from my sight and my focus slipped from the conscious realm; I heard a magic word which echoed in my abyss. First it was muffled and underwater, then as the sound bounced closer it became more clear until it reached my ears clear and bright as the shine of the sun on a summer day in a rolling meadow.
"Break."
My mind, spread across the universe, coalesces instantly. I'm violently gripped by my chest and rocketed from the darkness. The nothingness whips my face and howls in my ears as I ascend. I snap back into consciousness so fast I fear I might have a stroke. For a brief moment I am reborn. Confused. Panicked. Scared. Blind. Lost....
Alive.
Fractions of a second later I regain my bearing, and immediately forget how closely I came to losing myself.
Onward to the next journey...
Impressive stupidity
In a previous post, I, tongue-in-cheek, suggested that under the "strictest interpretation" of Ca law, one would be required to put a gun lock on any lower receivers they purchase. Apparently this was not as far from the truth as I though.
Sunday I purchased a STAG-15 lower receiver, and when filling out the paperwork to own this piece of aluminum with no moving parts, I was told that if I have a gun safe, I would be required to bring the model number in when picking it up, if I didn't have a safe, I would have to bring in a receipt to prove purchase of a gun lock.
A stripped lower receiver is not actually a gun. It's a piece of molded aluminum, with no moving parts, no firing pin, no barrel, no springs, no pins, no trigger, no nothing. It's a paperweight. An expensive paperweight. Yet since it has the "capacity" to become much more, it must be treated as a firearm. I guess, technically, that makes sense. Otherwise, you'd be able to assemble a gun with no control on any of the parts. But to require a lock be purchased with it? I don't know.
If we pull this "capacity" argument out a bit, we can find new laws on pretty much anything. Imagine having to register your pet rock for its "capacity" to become a dangerous weapon? What if you are a highly trained martial artist? Should you have to register your body as a lethal weapon? How would you lock it up to prevent others from using it? (or yourself, on accident?) These are silly arguments, but so is the idea of needing to prove purchase of a gun lock for something that simply has the capacity to become a weapon.
What if I had no intention of using it, but only chose to buy it as an aid to show people what a "Dangerous Assault Weapon" is? I'd still have to buy a trigger lock for a piece of aluminum that doesn't even have a trigger (or even a trigger guard to put the lock into).
I'm not arguing that we don't need gun locks, I think they serve a very valuable purpose, but to insist that one be purchased before the gun is even a gun? Feel free to enforce gun lock laws once the lower receiver joins with an upper receiver, and a barrel, and (for god's sake) a trigger. But until then? Trust I have the ability to handle a chunk of aluminum responsibly.
Sunday I purchased a STAG-15 lower receiver, and when filling out the paperwork to own this piece of aluminum with no moving parts, I was told that if I have a gun safe, I would be required to bring the model number in when picking it up, if I didn't have a safe, I would have to bring in a receipt to prove purchase of a gun lock.
A stripped lower receiver is not actually a gun. It's a piece of molded aluminum, with no moving parts, no firing pin, no barrel, no springs, no pins, no trigger, no nothing. It's a paperweight. An expensive paperweight. Yet since it has the "capacity" to become much more, it must be treated as a firearm. I guess, technically, that makes sense. Otherwise, you'd be able to assemble a gun with no control on any of the parts. But to require a lock be purchased with it? I don't know.
If we pull this "capacity" argument out a bit, we can find new laws on pretty much anything. Imagine having to register your pet rock for its "capacity" to become a dangerous weapon? What if you are a highly trained martial artist? Should you have to register your body as a lethal weapon? How would you lock it up to prevent others from using it? (or yourself, on accident?) These are silly arguments, but so is the idea of needing to prove purchase of a gun lock for something that simply has the capacity to become a weapon.
What if I had no intention of using it, but only chose to buy it as an aid to show people what a "Dangerous Assault Weapon" is? I'd still have to buy a trigger lock for a piece of aluminum that doesn't even have a trigger (or even a trigger guard to put the lock into).
I'm not arguing that we don't need gun locks, I think they serve a very valuable purpose, but to insist that one be purchased before the gun is even a gun? Feel free to enforce gun lock laws once the lower receiver joins with an upper receiver, and a barrel, and (for god's sake) a trigger. But until then? Trust I have the ability to handle a chunk of aluminum responsibly.
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Friday, June 02, 2006
Thursday, June 01, 2006
One of these things is not like the other... Or is it???
Below you may behold the aluminum cast visage of pure evil! Or so your Senator would have you believe...
Don't let their looks fool you. These pieces of aluminum are pure evil.
Look at these molded chunks of aluminum. Some of these are DEADLY ASSAULT WEAPONS! While others, somehow, are not. There's no need to squint; these chunks of aluminum are exactly the same, except for some cosmetic differences. Yet the state of California has deemed these strangely shaped bits of aluminum are the very face of death and destruction that our elected officials are sworn to protect us from!
Note I called them "weapons," that's because that's what these are. You may not purchase one of these unless you are over 18 years of age, pass a background check, and wait a state mandated "cool down" period. (I guess you could throw it at someone if you were angry) Yeah. These pieces of aluminum are deadly. Under the strictest interpretation of Ca. law, were I to purchase one of these evil pieces of metal (or even one of the non-banned ones which are just as capable) I would be required to put a gun lock on it.
Here's an artist's rendition...
Don't worry, Ma'am... Your children are safe!
If you weren't able to determine which ones were illegal assault weapons and which ones were not, don't worry. I'd bet $10,000 the senators and DOJ wouldn't be able to tell either; and they passed the damn law.
Don't let their looks fool you. These pieces of aluminum are pure evil.
Look at these molded chunks of aluminum. Some of these are DEADLY ASSAULT WEAPONS! While others, somehow, are not. There's no need to squint; these chunks of aluminum are exactly the same, except for some cosmetic differences. Yet the state of California has deemed these strangely shaped bits of aluminum are the very face of death and destruction that our elected officials are sworn to protect us from!
Note I called them "weapons," that's because that's what these are. You may not purchase one of these unless you are over 18 years of age, pass a background check, and wait a state mandated "cool down" period. (I guess you could throw it at someone if you were angry) Yeah. These pieces of aluminum are deadly. Under the strictest interpretation of Ca. law, were I to purchase one of these evil pieces of metal (or even one of the non-banned ones which are just as capable) I would be required to put a gun lock on it.
Here's an artist's rendition...
Don't worry, Ma'am... Your children are safe!
If you weren't able to determine which ones were illegal assault weapons and which ones were not, don't worry. I'd bet $10,000 the senators and DOJ wouldn't be able to tell either; and they passed the damn law.
Why gun control will never work.
"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find ways around the laws." - Plato
I particularly like this quote because it doesn't end with "will break the laws" because, in reality, criminals really just find their way around laws and punishment.
Everybody likes to think that the Police will save everyone all the time, instantly. They can't. They'll be the first to admit that. I think that most people really need to have a sit-down discussion with a cop of more than 15 years.
Ask them three simple questions;
1. Can the Police protect me?
2. Does the Criminal Justice System work?
3. Do gun laws keep guns out of criminals' hands?
Three easy questions. Questions I was told to ask any police officer I met by my Dad, a LA County Sheriff.
Here's the overwhelming response to these three simple questions. While I will not recount every single word uttered by every cop I asked, I will note inconsistencies between them, and emphasize things they emphasized.
1. The response from all but one was a "Yes" which they quickly changed to a "No." The other simply answered "No." The police rarely catch and stop crimes in progress, much less prevent. Ask any cop how they spend most of their time, and they will tell you gathering information on crimes that have already been comitted, and writing reports on those crimes. When I raise the question of 911, they were all quick to note that a call to 911 (that doesn't get a busy signal) almost never stops a crime from taking place. They talked about response times being from 5 minutes to several hours depending on the severity of the crime. Were you to call to report some suspicious characters hanging around your house, that's given a low priority. Were those people to force their way in, and prevent you from calling again with the escalated situation, know you may have to wait hours for help to arrive. This isn't the fault of the Police, they are often behind the 8-ball, and doing their best to do their job. A few even related not being able to properly "handle" dangerous people for fear they would file complaints or cause legal trouble which, no matter how unfounded, remain on their record permanently.
2. Everyone I asked expressed dismay with the current state of the criminal justice system, but some were optimistic that it was making a positive difference. Two answered simply; "We need a victim justice system, because right now only the criminals are getting justice." You don't have to search the internet very long to find cases like this, so I won't bore you. It is my contention that the criminal justice system doesn't work well enough.
3. Everyone I asked answered "No." When pressed they told me that we can make all the laws we want, but since criminals don't respect our laws we're only making it harder on law-abiding citizens.
The police are not a protection company. Have no illusions.
I was at a sporting goods store recently, and saw "Bear Mace," a form a pepper spray to be used on bears. I couldn't help but laugh. A bear is charging you with the firm intent of mauling you, so you spray it with something that will inflict minor pain, and expect it to stop in it's tracks? Lunacy. Idiocy. Ignorance. Peper Spray doesn't stop determined humans from doing what they're trying to do. It may slow them down, which may give you time to escape, but to a 1,500 pound that can run faster than you, and is hundreds of times stronger than you, you're just making it more likely to kill you. For a situation like this, Yogi would be much more receptive to multiple shots from a rifle or .45 pistol.
I would say that dialing 911 is about as effective as that bear mace will be on an angry bear, but I'd be lying. In the choice between 911 and bear mace, I pick bear mace. At least the bear mace has a remote chance of protecting my life. All 911 will do, is give you false hope.
I particularly like this quote because it doesn't end with "will break the laws" because, in reality, criminals really just find their way around laws and punishment.
Everybody likes to think that the Police will save everyone all the time, instantly. They can't. They'll be the first to admit that. I think that most people really need to have a sit-down discussion with a cop of more than 15 years.
Ask them three simple questions;
1. Can the Police protect me?
2. Does the Criminal Justice System work?
3. Do gun laws keep guns out of criminals' hands?
Three easy questions. Questions I was told to ask any police officer I met by my Dad, a LA County Sheriff.
Here's the overwhelming response to these three simple questions. While I will not recount every single word uttered by every cop I asked, I will note inconsistencies between them, and emphasize things they emphasized.
1. The response from all but one was a "Yes" which they quickly changed to a "No." The other simply answered "No." The police rarely catch and stop crimes in progress, much less prevent. Ask any cop how they spend most of their time, and they will tell you gathering information on crimes that have already been comitted, and writing reports on those crimes. When I raise the question of 911, they were all quick to note that a call to 911 (that doesn't get a busy signal) almost never stops a crime from taking place. They talked about response times being from 5 minutes to several hours depending on the severity of the crime. Were you to call to report some suspicious characters hanging around your house, that's given a low priority. Were those people to force their way in, and prevent you from calling again with the escalated situation, know you may have to wait hours for help to arrive. This isn't the fault of the Police, they are often behind the 8-ball, and doing their best to do their job. A few even related not being able to properly "handle" dangerous people for fear they would file complaints or cause legal trouble which, no matter how unfounded, remain on their record permanently.
2. Everyone I asked expressed dismay with the current state of the criminal justice system, but some were optimistic that it was making a positive difference. Two answered simply; "We need a victim justice system, because right now only the criminals are getting justice." You don't have to search the internet very long to find cases like this, so I won't bore you. It is my contention that the criminal justice system doesn't work well enough.
3. Everyone I asked answered "No." When pressed they told me that we can make all the laws we want, but since criminals don't respect our laws we're only making it harder on law-abiding citizens.
The police are not a protection company. Have no illusions.
I was at a sporting goods store recently, and saw "Bear Mace," a form a pepper spray to be used on bears. I couldn't help but laugh. A bear is charging you with the firm intent of mauling you, so you spray it with something that will inflict minor pain, and expect it to stop in it's tracks? Lunacy. Idiocy. Ignorance. Peper Spray doesn't stop determined humans from doing what they're trying to do. It may slow them down, which may give you time to escape, but to a 1,500 pound that can run faster than you, and is hundreds of times stronger than you, you're just making it more likely to kill you. For a situation like this, Yogi would be much more receptive to multiple shots from a rifle or .45 pistol.
I would say that dialing 911 is about as effective as that bear mace will be on an angry bear, but I'd be lying. In the choice between 911 and bear mace, I pick bear mace. At least the bear mace has a remote chance of protecting my life. All 911 will do, is give you false hope.
Most people are trusting... to a fault
My girlfriend and I were getting out of the car after parking in a parking lot, looked over at a mother, grandmother, and 3 kids getting out of a car.
Grandma: How do you lock it?
Mom: Just leave it unlocked.
Grandma: You can't just leave it unlocked.
Mom: No one is going to steal it. Besides, how would they know it's unlocked?
Grandma looks reluctant, but says nothing
Me walking by: I know it's unlocked...
Mom: But would you steal it?
Me: Doesn't matter.
I thought of a few things I could have added later (and was upset I didn't remember them at the time);
Criminals are busting into cars, (or opening unlocked cars) and getting garage door openers and registration. Few people lock the door between their garage and their house, so armed with your address off your registration, they open your garage and ransack your house and leave... if you're lucky.
I know for a fact that that woman didn't suspect even for a moment that by leaving her car unlocked she was letting criminals into her house. She may even have been secretly hoping it would be taken so she could get another car with the insurance money.
Mom walks into her home after her car is taken: Tee Hee! I "forgot" to lock my car, and now the insurance will buy me a new car! I'm so smart!... Honey? Is that you?
I hope that bothered you to read, because it bothered me to type it. It's very simple. When you come hope, you relax because you're safe and comfortable inside your home. To have someone gain such easy access completely unbeknownst to you (especially at your fault) is a huge violation on many levels.
This is a simple thing that could wind up saving the lives of yourself and your children. To anyone who would say "That's a bit far-fetched! What are the chances that could happen to me!?" I say that if there is a .00000001% chance of the situation happening to you, you'd better prepair for it. Because if the possibility isn't a flat 0% you need to know that it happened to someone, and it may as well have been you (and may be in the future).
If the chances are 1,000,000 to 1, there's still one person who had it happen to them; and I'll bet money that they didn't think it would happen to them either.
I'm not saying that you should take extraordinary measures to ensure the safety of yourself and your family, I'm just saying that a little bit of effort here and there goes a long way toward protecting your loved ones.
There's no reason to be paranoid either, you shouldn't suspect everyone, I'm just saying that we don't exactly live in a utopia. The argument "I live in a good neighborhood" is well and good until your neighbor murdered in a home invasion robbery. And if you have kids, remember that they trust and depend on you to protect them. If you put them at risk just because you didn't want to take an extra few seconds to lock the door behind you, or check the windows before bed, or just because you don't think something like that would happen to you, the blame falls entirely on you. You've failed. And what if you survive an attack but your children don't? Was it worth the carelessness?
Grandma: How do you lock it?
Mom: Just leave it unlocked.
Grandma: You can't just leave it unlocked.
Mom: No one is going to steal it. Besides, how would they know it's unlocked?
Grandma looks reluctant, but says nothing
Me walking by: I know it's unlocked...
Mom: But would you steal it?
Me: Doesn't matter.
I thought of a few things I could have added later (and was upset I didn't remember them at the time);
Criminals are busting into cars, (or opening unlocked cars) and getting garage door openers and registration. Few people lock the door between their garage and their house, so armed with your address off your registration, they open your garage and ransack your house and leave... if you're lucky.
I know for a fact that that woman didn't suspect even for a moment that by leaving her car unlocked she was letting criminals into her house. She may even have been secretly hoping it would be taken so she could get another car with the insurance money.
Mom walks into her home after her car is taken: Tee Hee! I "forgot" to lock my car, and now the insurance will buy me a new car! I'm so smart!... Honey? Is that you?
I hope that bothered you to read, because it bothered me to type it. It's very simple. When you come hope, you relax because you're safe and comfortable inside your home. To have someone gain such easy access completely unbeknownst to you (especially at your fault) is a huge violation on many levels.
This is a simple thing that could wind up saving the lives of yourself and your children. To anyone who would say "That's a bit far-fetched! What are the chances that could happen to me!?" I say that if there is a .00000001% chance of the situation happening to you, you'd better prepair for it. Because if the possibility isn't a flat 0% you need to know that it happened to someone, and it may as well have been you (and may be in the future).
If the chances are 1,000,000 to 1, there's still one person who had it happen to them; and I'll bet money that they didn't think it would happen to them either.
I'm not saying that you should take extraordinary measures to ensure the safety of yourself and your family, I'm just saying that a little bit of effort here and there goes a long way toward protecting your loved ones.
There's no reason to be paranoid either, you shouldn't suspect everyone, I'm just saying that we don't exactly live in a utopia. The argument "I live in a good neighborhood" is well and good until your neighbor murdered in a home invasion robbery. And if you have kids, remember that they trust and depend on you to protect them. If you put them at risk just because you didn't want to take an extra few seconds to lock the door behind you, or check the windows before bed, or just because you don't think something like that would happen to you, the blame falls entirely on you. You've failed. And what if you survive an attack but your children don't? Was it worth the carelessness?
Wednesday, May 31, 2006
Treated guilty until proven innocent
So, I'd spent my hard-earned money on a gun.
Then I waited 10 days to claim my legally purchased property.
It was like pre-ordering a book on Amazon.com; I send them my real money NOW, then they think about sending me the book sometime in the remote FUTURE.
Part of the 10 days includes a background check, which I don't think I'm against. I don't think (recently) convicted felons of violent crimes should have guns, nor do I think people on probation for violent crimes should have guns. I DO think that the whole point of the criminal justice system is to rehabilitate (though I'm not so naive to think that EVERYONE can be rehabilitated), and to let a convict out of jail because he is "rehabilitated" and not let him buy a gun, is silly. If he's dangerous, leave him locked up.
So I wasn't too upset about that. What I WAS upset about, was that part of that 10 day waiting period was a "cooling off" period... Because anyone purchasing a firearm is doing it to murder someone in anger! Really instils a lot of faith in law abiding gun owners.
Your Seanator: "Well, you're buying a gun, and guns are used to kill people in cold blood, so you must be planning on killing someone in cold blood! So, we'll give you a bit to cool off. Oh, and don't think that we're treating you as if you are guilty of a crime you've never commited, nor that we have any proof or probable cause to believe you WILL commit! You know... It's just in case... Besides, wouldn't you rather we err on the side of treating you like a criminal?"
Me: NO.
This is the problem with the whole "If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear!" crowd. That isn't the chant of concerned honest citizens. It's the chant of a government trying to extend its power just a little bit more. Don't believe me? Take that phrase, and put it on one of those communist propaganda posters. I'll pause a moment while you do this... Don't mind me, I'll be here when you get back.
..
....
!
So, you see then. If you still don't believe me, try putting some other phrases on that same communist poster...
A people that values its people above its privelages soon loses both
Yeah. Doesn't quite work does it?
How about this old favorite?
Anyone who gives up freedom for the sake of safety, deserves neither freedom nor safety!
Somehow this one doesn't fit either... (btw I believe use of this quote consitutes 256 instant diggs =P)
Here's a new one I picked up recently;
One sword often keeps another in the scabbard.
That definately doesn't promote any communist ideals...
And yet...
Eeerie, isn't it?
The government will not take away our rights with a backhoe! They'll slowly chip away at them. Before we know it our broad base of freedoms will be a slender pole we balance on to try to keep from falling off into prison.
Then I waited 10 days to claim my legally purchased property.
It was like pre-ordering a book on Amazon.com; I send them my real money NOW, then they think about sending me the book sometime in the remote FUTURE.
Part of the 10 days includes a background check, which I don't think I'm against. I don't think (recently) convicted felons of violent crimes should have guns, nor do I think people on probation for violent crimes should have guns. I DO think that the whole point of the criminal justice system is to rehabilitate (though I'm not so naive to think that EVERYONE can be rehabilitated), and to let a convict out of jail because he is "rehabilitated" and not let him buy a gun, is silly. If he's dangerous, leave him locked up.
So I wasn't too upset about that. What I WAS upset about, was that part of that 10 day waiting period was a "cooling off" period... Because anyone purchasing a firearm is doing it to murder someone in anger! Really instils a lot of faith in law abiding gun owners.
Your Seanator: "Well, you're buying a gun, and guns are used to kill people in cold blood, so you must be planning on killing someone in cold blood! So, we'll give you a bit to cool off. Oh, and don't think that we're treating you as if you are guilty of a crime you've never commited, nor that we have any proof or probable cause to believe you WILL commit! You know... It's just in case... Besides, wouldn't you rather we err on the side of treating you like a criminal?"
Me: NO.
This is the problem with the whole "If you've done nothing wrong, you have nothing to fear!" crowd. That isn't the chant of concerned honest citizens. It's the chant of a government trying to extend its power just a little bit more. Don't believe me? Take that phrase, and put it on one of those communist propaganda posters. I'll pause a moment while you do this... Don't mind me, I'll be here when you get back.
..
....
!
So, you see then. If you still don't believe me, try putting some other phrases on that same communist poster...
A people that values its people above its privelages soon loses both
Yeah. Doesn't quite work does it?
How about this old favorite?
Anyone who gives up freedom for the sake of safety, deserves neither freedom nor safety!
Somehow this one doesn't fit either... (btw I believe use of this quote consitutes 256 instant diggs =P)
Here's a new one I picked up recently;
One sword often keeps another in the scabbard.
That definately doesn't promote any communist ideals...
And yet...
Eeerie, isn't it?
The government will not take away our rights with a backhoe! They'll slowly chip away at them. Before we know it our broad base of freedoms will be a slender pole we balance on to try to keep from falling off into prison.
First firearm purchase
I had decided. After months of shooting different guns, and different calibers, I'd decided. Mostly.
Before I say what I decided on, I want you to know my initial thoughts on what firearm I'd choose. They were simple; No 9mm. No Glocks. After one month, I'd decided on (say it with me) a 9mm Glock. A G19 to be exact. I didn't much like the way it fit my hand, but I could shoot it well, and the 9mm recoil was manageable. I was decided.
Or so I thought. I kept reading about the Springfield XD "out glock-ing the glock," so I decided it was worth checking out. (just another excuse to go to the range!) When I tried it out, I found a gun with sig-like internals, glock-like polymer frame and trigger safety, and 1911-like grip safety. It had a loaded chamber indicator, and it fit my hand much better than the glock! I though I had instantly changed my mind. I wasn't as good at shooting it, but I knew that would come with time and grip and trigger skill development.
Over the following month I researched the hell out of the two guns, and carefully balanced the reliability issues, safety issues, and control issues. I decided on the G19. The XD9 was highly favored, but the Glock had many more years of development and active duty on the XD, and that was what it really came down to. Sure the glock was a bit more expensive, but I knew better than to hinge my decision on price.
My mind was made up, and I was planning on buying it from Turners in a few days when I visited my uncle and dad and talked to them about my decision. They were a little concerned about a firing pin issue (one I'd never read about) that caused LAPD and LBPD to no longer approve of usage of glocks. Apparently both departments had a number of issues with the firing pins failing to strike the primer hard enough. They could take the misfired cartridge from the glock, and fire it with no problems in a different gun. My faith waivered a bit. I convinced myself that (as many glock-o-philes have stated) glocks take up a large percentage of the market (especially in LE), and we hear about more failures simply due to market volume. In the back of my mind I realized that I was making excuses.
When the time came I went to Turners, and saw the G19 waiting for me behind the glass. While I was waiting (3 other people were buying guns at the same time) I noted that the XD9 and 40 were on sale for $459. My eye twitched involuntarily A clerk asked me if I needed help, I told him I'd like to buy the G19, and he told me we'd have to wait just a bit for one of the other clerks to finish up. So I talked to the clerk for a bit, it turns out that he picked up an XD9 (over a glock) over a year ago and has been enjoying it, and since they put it on sale they've been selling much more than usual. I waivered a bit more, worried about my decision, I redirected the conversation toward the Glock. After talking a bit more, I realized I didn't have my HSC card (stupid), and would need to pick it up; I excused myself.
Longest car ride home ever. It was only a few miles there and back, but in those few miles I changed my mind no fewer than 6 times. I reentered the store not knowing what I was going to buy. When the other clerk asked me If he could help, I said, (without knowing how I'd finish the sentence, or if I'd just chicken out to think about it more) "I'd like to buy an XD9."
Now we play the waiting game.
Before I say what I decided on, I want you to know my initial thoughts on what firearm I'd choose. They were simple; No 9mm. No Glocks. After one month, I'd decided on (say it with me) a 9mm Glock. A G19 to be exact. I didn't much like the way it fit my hand, but I could shoot it well, and the 9mm recoil was manageable. I was decided.
Or so I thought. I kept reading about the Springfield XD "out glock-ing the glock," so I decided it was worth checking out. (just another excuse to go to the range!) When I tried it out, I found a gun with sig-like internals, glock-like polymer frame and trigger safety, and 1911-like grip safety. It had a loaded chamber indicator, and it fit my hand much better than the glock! I though I had instantly changed my mind. I wasn't as good at shooting it, but I knew that would come with time and grip and trigger skill development.
Over the following month I researched the hell out of the two guns, and carefully balanced the reliability issues, safety issues, and control issues. I decided on the G19. The XD9 was highly favored, but the Glock had many more years of development and active duty on the XD, and that was what it really came down to. Sure the glock was a bit more expensive, but I knew better than to hinge my decision on price.
My mind was made up, and I was planning on buying it from Turners in a few days when I visited my uncle and dad and talked to them about my decision. They were a little concerned about a firing pin issue (one I'd never read about) that caused LAPD and LBPD to no longer approve of usage of glocks. Apparently both departments had a number of issues with the firing pins failing to strike the primer hard enough. They could take the misfired cartridge from the glock, and fire it with no problems in a different gun. My faith waivered a bit. I convinced myself that (as many glock-o-philes have stated) glocks take up a large percentage of the market (especially in LE), and we hear about more failures simply due to market volume. In the back of my mind I realized that I was making excuses.
When the time came I went to Turners, and saw the G19 waiting for me behind the glass. While I was waiting (3 other people were buying guns at the same time) I noted that the XD9 and 40 were on sale for $459. My eye twitched involuntarily A clerk asked me if I needed help, I told him I'd like to buy the G19, and he told me we'd have to wait just a bit for one of the other clerks to finish up. So I talked to the clerk for a bit, it turns out that he picked up an XD9 (over a glock) over a year ago and has been enjoying it, and since they put it on sale they've been selling much more than usual. I waivered a bit more, worried about my decision, I redirected the conversation toward the Glock. After talking a bit more, I realized I didn't have my HSC card (stupid), and would need to pick it up; I excused myself.
Longest car ride home ever. It was only a few miles there and back, but in those few miles I changed my mind no fewer than 6 times. I reentered the store not knowing what I was going to buy. When the other clerk asked me If he could help, I said, (without knowing how I'd finish the sentence, or if I'd just chicken out to think about it more) "I'd like to buy an XD9."
Now we play the waiting game.
CountyComm a little-known place for cool shit.
Stumbled across this place a bit ago, they've got all kinds of militaria, tools, odd stuff, and all of it is kick-ass and fairly priced.
Picked a couple hundred feet of Paracord 550, a German Military issue Victorinox "Travler" type knife (quality), signal mirror (may save my life!), and on and on and on...
Check it out!
http://www.countycomm.com
Picked a couple hundred feet of Paracord 550, a German Military issue Victorinox "Travler" type knife (quality), signal mirror (may save my life!), and on and on and on...
Check it out!
http://www.countycomm.com
Firefox Tamperdata
When I'm not doing a full-blown penetration test or web app security test, I'm reluctant to take the time to set up the webscarab proxy if I want to do simple POSTs. I found the Firefox extension "Tamperdata" a bit ago, and after figuring it out, found that it allows me to fuxor with POSTs all I want with only a few clicks.
You can even leave it on without tampering and it will gather all the GETs and POSTs for later review, and even lets you export to XML! Great for doing a quick run-through of a site you were using to see if you find any "interesting" POSTs you might want to play with later...
It's quality, and it's certainly free. Get it if you're into security. (and you know what you're doing...)
You can even leave it on without tampering and it will gather all the GETs and POSTs for later review, and even lets you export to XML! Great for doing a quick run-through of a site you were using to see if you find any "interesting" POSTs you might want to play with later...
It's quality, and it's certainly free. Get it if you're into security. (and you know what you're doing...)
Working out works
Holy crap.
Since we've returned from Cancun, we've been talking about working out. Though that's pretty much all we've been doing. In the past few weeks I've been using the excuse of feeling crappy for not going; nothing particular, just upset stomach, sluggishness, general malaise...
Well, yesterday I was thinking about the times when I did work out, and how well I felt for the rest of the day when I did. I decided that I would just have to drag my ass to the gym today.
I ate way too much pizza last night, so I was thoroughly crappy around 9:45 when I woke up. Work was at 11, so I had a little time. Time I spent trying to sleep a little more, and thinking about whether or not I really want to go to the gym... Around 10:10 I got up and started looking for my workout clothes; I caught myself taking my time so I wouldn't be able to go, so I picked up the pace and was dressed and ready to go at 10:35(ish). Hit the gym for about 40 mins, did some time on the eliptical to get the blood pumping, then some very light weight training (to not get sore, so I could go back sooner).
Now that I'm at work, I feel so much better than I would have had I not gone to the gym.
That was kind of a pointless story...
Since we've returned from Cancun, we've been talking about working out. Though that's pretty much all we've been doing. In the past few weeks I've been using the excuse of feeling crappy for not going; nothing particular, just upset stomach, sluggishness, general malaise...
Well, yesterday I was thinking about the times when I did work out, and how well I felt for the rest of the day when I did. I decided that I would just have to drag my ass to the gym today.
I ate way too much pizza last night, so I was thoroughly crappy around 9:45 when I woke up. Work was at 11, so I had a little time. Time I spent trying to sleep a little more, and thinking about whether or not I really want to go to the gym... Around 10:10 I got up and started looking for my workout clothes; I caught myself taking my time so I wouldn't be able to go, so I picked up the pace and was dressed and ready to go at 10:35(ish). Hit the gym for about 40 mins, did some time on the eliptical to get the blood pumping, then some very light weight training (to not get sore, so I could go back sooner).
Now that I'm at work, I feel so much better than I would have had I not gone to the gym.
That was kind of a pointless story...
Friday, April 28, 2006
Meet Gimby
:o
I made this little guy (and a few others) while messing around with my sketchpad last night. My interest has been sparked in character creation, and so I've been experimenting with cartoon-ish designs, and I've found it strangely rewarding...
If you're interested in trying this out yourself, just keep drawing until something wierd comes out...
Monday, April 24, 2006
Handgun Training
I'm no dummy. I have an idea of how a gun works. I've had experience using rifles before, and a little experience with handguns (a LONG time ago). I felt that if I was in a situation that warrented it, and I had the means, I'd be able to successfully opperate a handgun if necessary. Well, I was wrong.
I used to think that using a handgun was simple. You aim it, you pull the trigger smoothly, and you hit your target. Well it's a bit more involved than that.
I went to the training with an open mind, and hoped to learn something. The first part of the class was pretty basic discription of the gun, and how its parts work; stuff I knew. The second was a video that (while old) was actually pretty helpful introducing us to firearms. Then they brought out some handguns to look at and handle. I became uncomfortable at this stage, as it seemed dangerous to me to handle guns, bullets or no. Obviously this was silly, but I never knew I felt that way. I blame growing up in Californian society for teachimg me that guns are dangerous, and are only for shooting other people. I say that jokingly, but I'm really not joking...
They described the different types of actions on the guns, and the different safeties on each one. They also explained the "safety triangle," hear me out... the triangle is comprised of three things; a human (an operator), the gun, and the ammunition. If the three of these things are together, there is a possibility of danger. Take any of these things out, by moving the ammunition to another room, or locking the gun and ammo in a safe, and there is safety. Simple and effective.
When we came to the firing practice we went over all the motions you need to go through to hit a target. I thought it was silly, because all you had to do was point, and pull the trigger. I listened to all the things this championship shooter had to say, then fired 10 rounds at the small dot target at about 10 yards. I couldn't believe that I had missed that dot so terribly! It was abundantly clear to me that should I have been called upon to use a handgun in protection of my life or the lives of others prior to that day, I would have failed. miserably if you factor in the adrenaline that would, no doubt, be at play in such an incident...
This was not a good feeling to have.
As I continued firing off more rounds, I became more comfortable operating the handgun (glock 19), and became more accurate. When the instructor came around and reminded me of some of the tips he gave, I was suprised how positively it affected my aim. The day was just full of suprises...
Well, to sum it up; you don't know what you don't know, until you know... Now I know. "And knowing is half the battle! GI Joooooe!"
I used to think that using a handgun was simple. You aim it, you pull the trigger smoothly, and you hit your target. Well it's a bit more involved than that.
I went to the training with an open mind, and hoped to learn something. The first part of the class was pretty basic discription of the gun, and how its parts work; stuff I knew. The second was a video that (while old) was actually pretty helpful introducing us to firearms. Then they brought out some handguns to look at and handle. I became uncomfortable at this stage, as it seemed dangerous to me to handle guns, bullets or no. Obviously this was silly, but I never knew I felt that way. I blame growing up in Californian society for teachimg me that guns are dangerous, and are only for shooting other people. I say that jokingly, but I'm really not joking...
They described the different types of actions on the guns, and the different safeties on each one. They also explained the "safety triangle," hear me out... the triangle is comprised of three things; a human (an operator), the gun, and the ammunition. If the three of these things are together, there is a possibility of danger. Take any of these things out, by moving the ammunition to another room, or locking the gun and ammo in a safe, and there is safety. Simple and effective.
When we came to the firing practice we went over all the motions you need to go through to hit a target. I thought it was silly, because all you had to do was point, and pull the trigger. I listened to all the things this championship shooter had to say, then fired 10 rounds at the small dot target at about 10 yards. I couldn't believe that I had missed that dot so terribly! It was abundantly clear to me that should I have been called upon to use a handgun in protection of my life or the lives of others prior to that day, I would have failed. miserably if you factor in the adrenaline that would, no doubt, be at play in such an incident...
This was not a good feeling to have.
As I continued firing off more rounds, I became more comfortable operating the handgun (glock 19), and became more accurate. When the instructor came around and reminded me of some of the tips he gave, I was suprised how positively it affected my aim. The day was just full of suprises...
Well, to sum it up; you don't know what you don't know, until you know... Now I know. "And knowing is half the battle! GI Joooooe!"
Friday, March 17, 2006
William Orbit - Hello Waveforms
Holy crap is this CD good. Unbelieveable.
This thing fits a niche in my music taste that's been empty for so long I'd forgotten about it.
Electronic/Jazz/Techno sweetness.
This thing fits a niche in my music taste that's been empty for so long I'd forgotten about it.
Electronic/Jazz/Techno sweetness.
Benny Benassi - Hypnotica
I picked Hypnotica earlier today.
Even though I only paid $10 for it, I feel like I should have paid a quarter of that.
Only because half the songs sounded exactly like the other half.
And all the songs were twice as long as they should have been.
BURN! (I guess... It's really just sad.)
Even though I only paid $10 for it, I feel like I should have paid a quarter of that.
Only because half the songs sounded exactly like the other half.
And all the songs were twice as long as they should have been.
BURN! (I guess... It's really just sad.)
Check your balance from your phone!
So I'd been thinking about this one for a while and when I finally got around to doing it, it was easier than I thought.
Being the linux head that I am, I already had the scripts to accomplish most of what I needed, so a short script later I could check my bank account from my phone!
1. The basic idea is that you notify your computer via e-mail that you would like your bank balance.
2. Your computer checks its e-mail every minute or so, and catches your request.
3. Your computer logs into your banking site, and finds your balance.
4. Your computer SMS's your balance to your phone, and goes back to sleep.
Hokai! So! Here's the earth... First you need to get a free pop3 mailbox for your linux box. I used fetchmail because it's fucking easy to set up. If you get a pop3 account that doesn't require SSL encryption it's even easier to set up. But be mindful of what data you send over your phone and e-mail... The other easy part of this is that you don't have to set up sendmail or postfix, since you're only picking up the mail from your pop3 account, not sending. We're using google's SMS engine for that!
I'm using washington mutual who has a pretty good (and VERY up-to-date) website which displays my account info on the first page after logging in (good cuz I'm lazy!).
First lets make the mailwatcher:
mailwatch.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
while(1)
{
$diff=`diff /var/spool/mail/username mailtemp.dat`;
@diff=split(/n/, $diff);
if(@diff[3]!~/^>/ && $diff=~/e-mailaddy/ && $diff=~/wamu/i){
chomp($date=`date`);
print "$datetsending balance!n";
`/home/username/sendbalance.sh`;
}
`cat /var/spool/mail/username > mailtemp.dat`;
`sleep 1m`;
}
Since I don't know an easy way to read mail besides reading it off of the /var/spool/mail/user I just make a new copy of it each minute so I can only look at the newest e-mails, and it doesn't get activated off of old e-mails. It compairs the new mail to the mail it just gathered from the same place a minute before (~/mailtemp.dat). The diff command will show only the different lines which will show either how the new mail file has more than the old mail file, how the new mail file has been emptied and the old one has more, or that they're the same. I check the beginning of one of the lines to make sure the diff output doesn't have a ">" in the beginning to keep from picking up the old requests when the new mail is emptied. It also makes sure the output has your cell phone's e-mail address in it (represented by e-mailaddy), and looks for the keyword in the output (in my case the keyword is wamu (case-insensitive)).
If those conditions are met, then it runs sendbalance.sh
sendbalance.sh
curl -s --connect-timeout 15 -m 45 --insecure -L -c cook(cont)
ies -v -d "txtUserID=username&pwdPas(cont)
sword=password&Image2.x=0&Image(cont)
2.y=0" "https://online.wamu.com:443/ac(cont)
cess/oblix/apps/webgate/bin/webgate.dll?/Ide(cont)
ntityManagement/postlogon.hdlr" 2> /dev/n(cont)
ull > balance.out;
/home/username/wamuparse.pl balance.out;
shred balance.out cookies;
Please note that the first 7 lines are all one line. There are no trailing spaces, so you can just delete "(cont)" until the next line rejoins the former. Right, so we're using curl to send post data that logs you into the site, then follows the redirects, and spits out the webpage to balance.out. The website is then parsed by wamuparse.pl
wamuparse.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
my $file=shift;
my $html=`cat $file`;
@html=split('<tr', $html);
@html[2]=~/<nobr>(.+)</nobr>/;
`curl -s 'http://sms.toolbar.google.com:80/send/sms?cli(cont)
ent=firefox_sms_but&numsms=phonenumber&carriersm(cont)
s=SPRINT&msgsms=$1&sendsms=Send+message'`;
Hokai, so you pick up the file, and split it by the table row tags, then grab the portion you want (in this case the third section (remember that's number 2)), then locate the unique tags around your account balance (in this case the "nobr" tags), then I use a simple http GET request sent to google's SMS function to send the balance to your phone (phonenumber) via SMS.
Being the linux head that I am, I already had the scripts to accomplish most of what I needed, so a short script later I could check my bank account from my phone!
1. The basic idea is that you notify your computer via e-mail that you would like your bank balance.
2. Your computer checks its e-mail every minute or so, and catches your request.
3. Your computer logs into your banking site, and finds your balance.
4. Your computer SMS's your balance to your phone, and goes back to sleep.
Hokai! So! Here's the earth... First you need to get a free pop3 mailbox for your linux box. I used fetchmail because it's fucking easy to set up. If you get a pop3 account that doesn't require SSL encryption it's even easier to set up. But be mindful of what data you send over your phone and e-mail... The other easy part of this is that you don't have to set up sendmail or postfix, since you're only picking up the mail from your pop3 account, not sending. We're using google's SMS engine for that!
I'm using washington mutual who has a pretty good (and VERY up-to-date) website which displays my account info on the first page after logging in (good cuz I'm lazy!).
First lets make the mailwatcher:
mailwatch.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
while(1)
{
$diff=`diff /var/spool/mail/username mailtemp.dat`;
@diff=split(/n/, $diff);
if(@diff[3]!~/^>/ && $diff=~/e-mailaddy/ && $diff=~/wamu/i){
chomp($date=`date`);
print "$datetsending balance!n";
`/home/username/sendbalance.sh`;
}
`cat /var/spool/mail/username > mailtemp.dat`;
`sleep 1m`;
}
Since I don't know an easy way to read mail besides reading it off of the /var/spool/mail/user I just make a new copy of it each minute so I can only look at the newest e-mails, and it doesn't get activated off of old e-mails. It compairs the new mail to the mail it just gathered from the same place a minute before (~/mailtemp.dat). The diff command will show only the different lines which will show either how the new mail file has more than the old mail file, how the new mail file has been emptied and the old one has more, or that they're the same. I check the beginning of one of the lines to make sure the diff output doesn't have a ">" in the beginning to keep from picking up the old requests when the new mail is emptied. It also makes sure the output has your cell phone's e-mail address in it (represented by e-mailaddy), and looks for the keyword in the output (in my case the keyword is wamu (case-insensitive)).
If those conditions are met, then it runs sendbalance.sh
sendbalance.sh
curl -s --connect-timeout 15 -m 45 --insecure -L -c cook(cont)
ies -v -d "txtUserID=username&pwdPas(cont)
sword=password&Image2.x=0&Image(cont)
2.y=0" "https://online.wamu.com:443/ac(cont)
cess/oblix/apps/webgate/bin/webgate.dll?/Ide(cont)
ntityManagement/postlogon.hdlr" 2> /dev/n(cont)
ull > balance.out;
/home/username/wamuparse.pl balance.out;
shred balance.out cookies;
Please note that the first 7 lines are all one line. There are no trailing spaces, so you can just delete "(cont)" until the next line rejoins the former. Right, so we're using curl to send post data that logs you into the site, then follows the redirects, and spits out the webpage to balance.out. The website is then parsed by wamuparse.pl
wamuparse.pl
#!/usr/bin/perl
my $file=shift;
my $html=`cat $file`;
@html=split('<tr', $html);
@html[2]=~/<nobr>(.+)</nobr>/;
`curl -s 'http://sms.toolbar.google.com:80/send/sms?cli(cont)
ent=firefox_sms_but&numsms=phonenumber&carriersm(cont)
s=SPRINT&msgsms=$1&sendsms=Send+message'`;
Hokai, so you pick up the file, and split it by the table row tags, then grab the portion you want (in this case the third section (remember that's number 2)), then locate the unique tags around your account balance (in this case the "nobr" tags), then I use a simple http GET request sent to google's SMS function to send the balance to your phone (phonenumber) via SMS.
Computers aren't toys...
It annoys me when people treat their computers like toys. Little is more trivial to me than to hear about the new mouse you just bought, and how high your resolution can go. I equate it to "ricing out" a honda. It's pointless. It's stupid to spend so much money making your computer top-of-the-line, when it's only so you can play games on it. Wow, you've got a 3.7 Ghz processor? Who gives a shit. I guarantee 99.99% of all the cycles your computer will be able to complete in its lifetime will be completely and utterly wasted. Useless, pointless diversions that simply mock the power and ability your computer had before these silly "upgrades." There are two things driving the Ghz race: Games, and bloatware (though it should be noted the two are not too dissimilar). Somehow these games we played years ago looked awesome, and today you really need more fps than your eyes can see? And bigger and even more bloated environments so you can look at all the pretty pictures and forget that the gameplay sucks? Shitty games aside, how foolish to use a computer's incredible functionality for simple diversions.
Perhaps it's the staggering functionality that a computer has daunts people to the point that they have no idea what to do with it. (nah, they just want their porn)
With a little bit of programming skill you can make your computer do many things, but if you combine your computer's information processing power with a limitless supply of information (the eeenternet) there really is little that can't be accomplished! To quote Dane Cook, "Dream it, you fucking dreamers!" To use such information processing power for such insignificant tasks should be a crime. Sure I don't mind games, but I also appreciate the computer for its abilities and recognize that any upgrade that only adds speed is weak sauce.
I remember back in the day, my franken-linux box with the 500 Mhz processor and 512 megs of RAM would kill our $30,000+ network in a heartbeat (when powered with linux of course! Just the thought of a 500 running XP makes me want to pull my teeth out with a claw hammer).
The power is there to be used well, not so programmers can do a shitty job of making their apps and just raise the hardware requirements. Weak programmers rely on the brute force processing power to accomplish their tasks in a tolerable amount of time. Good programmers would be able to make their app work on half the hardware.
Your computer can do so much more for you than you think.
Perhaps it's the staggering functionality that a computer has daunts people to the point that they have no idea what to do with it. (nah, they just want their porn)
With a little bit of programming skill you can make your computer do many things, but if you combine your computer's information processing power with a limitless supply of information (the eeenternet) there really is little that can't be accomplished! To quote Dane Cook, "Dream it, you fucking dreamers!" To use such information processing power for such insignificant tasks should be a crime. Sure I don't mind games, but I also appreciate the computer for its abilities and recognize that any upgrade that only adds speed is weak sauce.
I remember back in the day, my franken-linux box with the 500 Mhz processor and 512 megs of RAM would kill our $30,000+ network in a heartbeat (when powered with linux of course! Just the thought of a 500 running XP makes me want to pull my teeth out with a claw hammer).
The power is there to be used well, not so programmers can do a shitty job of making their apps and just raise the hardware requirements. Weak programmers rely on the brute force processing power to accomplish their tasks in a tolerable amount of time. Good programmers would be able to make their app work on half the hardware.
Your computer can do so much more for you than you think.
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
Don't leave your console unlocked!
Aaaah the console. So raw and powerful. I use it so heavily that I usually get a little bothered by leaving it open when I leave my computer momentarily. I'm not one of those SUDO freaks or "su -c" nazis, so I usually have one of my consoles open as root, or in some cases the scripts I run need to be root, and I don't want to have to worry about changing tail to /sbin/tail for every script I want to write! But, in the immortal words of uncle ben (the spiderman one, not the rice one) with groot power comes great rootsponsability. So leaving an ssh session or a terminal open as root unattended doesn't seem like the smartest thing to do. But the problem is that if you log out (especially in an ssh session) you have to log back in and reestablish the connection before you can continue work.
Enter vlock
vlock will lock out your console and require you to enter either the password of the user logged in, or the root password. Nice, eh? Well, NICE but not particularly pretty...
Enter cmatrix
Yes, a matrix screensaver for your console. Kick ass? Yes. I use 'cmatrix -a -b -u 5' it kicks ass. But if only you could make it a password protected console screensaver...
Enter ; (semi-colon)
By simply adding the alias:
alias 'lock'='cmatrix -a -b -u 5; vlock'
You've got yourself a fully functional password protected console screensaver! Now you're not only secure, you look cool doing it. You can tell all your friends that not only have you found the matrix, you're viewing it over an encrypted SSH tunnel!
Well, now you can leave that terminal open as root, and not worry about who may be taking advantage of it while you're away. Now the tough stuff; how to deal with people asking you what that matrix-y thing is on your screen. You can say you've encrypted your session and that if they look at it funny it will "hack the mainframe" and "port the phone" to call the FBI. Then for effect you can throw some more threatening jargon at them, and hold your coat open to appear larger and repeat the jargon loudly to scare off the lesser user sniffing around your claim...
Sigh. Gone are the days when someone would ask you what you did, you could simply answer "computer stuff," now they're much more "savvy" and prod for further information. I don't like telling people I'm a hacker of any sort because they don't understand my skillset and the knowledge I have. It's your standard "I don't understand anything about what you do except what I read about in the paper" effect, people are dubious about trusting someone who knows more about something than they do; especially when it involves "hacking the internets" Doubleplussigh...
Enter vlock
vlock will lock out your console and require you to enter either the password of the user logged in, or the root password. Nice, eh? Well, NICE but not particularly pretty...
Enter cmatrix
Yes, a matrix screensaver for your console. Kick ass? Yes. I use 'cmatrix -a -b -u 5' it kicks ass. But if only you could make it a password protected console screensaver...
Enter ; (semi-colon)
By simply adding the alias:
alias 'lock'='cmatrix -a -b -u 5; vlock'
You've got yourself a fully functional password protected console screensaver! Now you're not only secure, you look cool doing it. You can tell all your friends that not only have you found the matrix, you're viewing it over an encrypted SSH tunnel!
Well, now you can leave that terminal open as root, and not worry about who may be taking advantage of it while you're away. Now the tough stuff; how to deal with people asking you what that matrix-y thing is on your screen. You can say you've encrypted your session and that if they look at it funny it will "hack the mainframe" and "port the phone" to call the FBI. Then for effect you can throw some more threatening jargon at them, and hold your coat open to appear larger and repeat the jargon loudly to scare off the lesser user sniffing around your claim...
Sigh. Gone are the days when someone would ask you what you did, you could simply answer "computer stuff," now they're much more "savvy" and prod for further information. I don't like telling people I'm a hacker of any sort because they don't understand my skillset and the knowledge I have. It's your standard "I don't understand anything about what you do except what I read about in the paper" effect, people are dubious about trusting someone who knows more about something than they do; especially when it involves "hacking the internets" Doubleplussigh...
Friday, March 03, 2006
How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love VNC
We didn't used to have the tools we use for remote desktop management. We used to use VNC. Dun Dun DUNNN! If you're from the linux community you're probably wondering what the big deal is. But if you've used VNC on windows for remote support you'll remember out-of-sync cursors, long delays, and "painting" the screen with your mouse. Man that stuff was frustrating.
When I found VNC was originally a Linux tool, I wasn't surprised. It meant windows VNC was FAR from optimized, and was probably being weighed down with bulky windows BS resulting in the piss-poor performance. I did a little looking around, and found a comment that VNC for Linux was like RDP for Windows in regard to speed and functionality. I was extremely skeptical.
Since I got into linux I never saw the need to use VNC (and I probably would have avoided it like the plague even if I had the need), I used my crappy KVM that worked great if the boxes were turned off, and the KVM was turned off and on, then the boxes were turned on. So for a while things in KVM land were great. Until someone kicked the surge suppressor that powered the KVM and it got out of sync again. Not wanting to reboot my linux box (uptime 141 days and counting) I roughed it, and instead of getting to switch to the box on the first try it would take quite a few tires. But since I didn't switch that much (and REALLY didn't want to have to reboot) I worked through it. Well recently my keyboard cable became loose from the kvm, resulting in me having to go to the back of the PC and unplug and replug the keyboard ps/2 plug after every switch. So, stubbornly, I stayed on the linux box for a few days, then had to go to the windows box for a few more days, and finally got fed up with it. I typed vncserver -name omgwtfbbq -geometry 1280x1024 and picked up a VNC client. I connected and saw it moving quickly, but that was just running X. I reset it to open GNOME and was amazed. It was responsive, there was no painting, and the delay was almost undetectable! Deciding to test the ultimate I opened a video off google video... lossless. Smooth, and beautiful, and over fucking VNC! Heaven.
I was (and still am) ecstatic. VNC doesn't suck, Windows just makes it suck!
When I found VNC was originally a Linux tool, I wasn't surprised. It meant windows VNC was FAR from optimized, and was probably being weighed down with bulky windows BS resulting in the piss-poor performance. I did a little looking around, and found a comment that VNC for Linux was like RDP for Windows in regard to speed and functionality. I was extremely skeptical.
Since I got into linux I never saw the need to use VNC (and I probably would have avoided it like the plague even if I had the need), I used my crappy KVM that worked great if the boxes were turned off, and the KVM was turned off and on, then the boxes were turned on. So for a while things in KVM land were great. Until someone kicked the surge suppressor that powered the KVM and it got out of sync again. Not wanting to reboot my linux box (uptime 141 days and counting) I roughed it, and instead of getting to switch to the box on the first try it would take quite a few tires. But since I didn't switch that much (and REALLY didn't want to have to reboot) I worked through it. Well recently my keyboard cable became loose from the kvm, resulting in me having to go to the back of the PC and unplug and replug the keyboard ps/2 plug after every switch. So, stubbornly, I stayed on the linux box for a few days, then had to go to the windows box for a few more days, and finally got fed up with it. I typed vncserver -name omgwtfbbq -geometry 1280x1024 and picked up a VNC client. I connected and saw it moving quickly, but that was just running X. I reset it to open GNOME and was amazed. It was responsive, there was no painting, and the delay was almost undetectable! Deciding to test the ultimate I opened a video off google video... lossless. Smooth, and beautiful, and over fucking VNC! Heaven.
I was (and still am) ecstatic. VNC doesn't suck, Windows just makes it suck!
Add SMS to your scripts
One line
http://sms.toolbar.google.com:80/send/sms?client=firefox_sms_but&
numsms=phonenumber&carriersms=carrier&
msgsms=message&sendsms=Send+message
The phone number must be US with the area code, (555) 555-5555 should be 5555555555 in the URL.
The carrier is the provider, sprint, cingular, etc. Enter it in all caps.
The message must have spaces seperated by "+" and non-letter characters printed as their hex equivalent.
Hence:
omg my computer is talking to me!
Would be:
omg+my+computer+is+talking+to+me%21
Sample:
One Line
http://sms.toolbar.google.com:80/send/sms?client=firefox_sms_but&
numsms=3215551234&carriersms=SPRINT&
msgsms=test%21+oorgle+woot%21%3F&sendsms=Send+message
If you want to tie it into a script just cURL it or get() it, and send off your message! I'd even recommend using tinyurl.com to shorten specific messages to make the procesing easier.
Oh yeah, were I so inclined I'd post the tinyurl to message obscene things to Jack "Sue it if it moves" Thompson. Fortunately for him, I am not. Though I wouldn't mind it.
OC Asylum, and getting plastered.
A friend of mine is opening up a paintball park called the OC Asylum in Anaheim. I helped them open it up two weeks ago, and we got to play there for a bit a week ago. It's an outdoor, astroturfed, netted soccer field converted to one big airball field (with extra netting of course). After we played (awesome) we went to my friends place to watch movies, drink and hang out. On the way home I saw more cops and more cops pulling people over than I'd seen in about a month. When we got to my friend's place, I prefaced the evening with "I hope you're all comfortable, because the city is crawling with cops, and no one's going anywhere without getting pulled over..." Aaaand so, free to drink it up, knowing we'd be staying over for the night, we proceded to... well, drink up.
We started around 10ish, and by 11:30, we were gone. Not "buzzed" or "interesting" or "drunk" but about as gone as you can be without falling over and vomiting on yourself. It was the drunkest I'd ever been, and it was fun because it was with friends.
The next morning we drove home (sober) and slept until 1pm. It was fun, but I'm not much of a drinker, and couldn't help think it was a bit excessive. In the future I'd think twice before doing it again, but I think I still would (with friends).
That evening we were talking about drinking, and after some thought I found that I don't agree with the idea of "unwinding" with a beer every day after work. Once in a while is one thing, but every day is another. Unwind with some hot cocoa or tea, just don't grow to depend on that slight buzz to get you relaxed for bed.
We started around 10ish, and by 11:30, we were gone. Not "buzzed" or "interesting" or "drunk" but about as gone as you can be without falling over and vomiting on yourself. It was the drunkest I'd ever been, and it was fun because it was with friends.
The next morning we drove home (sober) and slept until 1pm. It was fun, but I'm not much of a drinker, and couldn't help think it was a bit excessive. In the future I'd think twice before doing it again, but I think I still would (with friends).
That evening we were talking about drinking, and after some thought I found that I don't agree with the idea of "unwinding" with a beer every day after work. Once in a while is one thing, but every day is another. Unwind with some hot cocoa or tea, just don't grow to depend on that slight buzz to get you relaxed for bed.
Traffic school tomorrow
Bugger. I was supposed to have traffic school two weeks ago, but they misscheduled me (and about 5 other people). We all called right then at the same time so they were sure they made the problem. The dude on the phone actually implied that I copied the location down incorrectly. "Well, when our people enter the code, the location automatically comes up, so it would have been hard to tell you the wrong spot." "And yet here I am... Look, no matter how hard it was for your people to tell me the wrong spot, I still wound up writing down the wrong spot while I had the person on the phone. The likelyhood of the person on the phone telling me my code, me repeating it and writing it down, then the person telling me Anaheim, and me repeating it and writing down Westminster is quite slim." So they rescheduled me and the others to tomorrow at Westminster. I must say, I haven't felt discomfort at anything like I have this traffic school for a long time. I've looked forward to teeth-pullings more than I look forward to traffic school. I suppose the more terrible I convince myself it will be, the less likely it will be able to be that terrible. It's a good thing. I'm just suprised at myself for being so fervently negative about this. I don't think I was innocent, and I don't think I should get out of my punishment, but I just really really don't want to go. Bah. I just have an odd feeling about it. I'm sure it will be fine.
Drawing is cool
(keeping with my poor title selection)
I've been making an effort to draw more for about a month, but I've actually started drawing more since two days ago. It feels good to see what I can do. I'm *yet again* reminded of the power and control I have over the Fisher Space Pen, my drawing impliment of choice. I'd recommend to anyone who sketches in pencil to try the space pen, they're available at office supply stores all over. I've owned 7 I think. Anyways, I've got a few sketches I quite like, and I'd quite like to post them on here. Just gotta pick up a scanner, or mooch usage off my sister's scanner or the one at work.
I found that if I though about drawing enough, I'd get an image stuck in my head of something that would be awesome to draw. It's incredibly cathartic to actually capture it on paper.
Fear not citizens; pictures shall follow!
I've been making an effort to draw more for about a month, but I've actually started drawing more since two days ago. It feels good to see what I can do. I'm *yet again* reminded of the power and control I have over the Fisher Space Pen, my drawing impliment of choice. I'd recommend to anyone who sketches in pencil to try the space pen, they're available at office supply stores all over. I've owned 7 I think. Anyways, I've got a few sketches I quite like, and I'd quite like to post them on here. Just gotta pick up a scanner, or mooch usage off my sister's scanner or the one at work.
I found that if I though about drawing enough, I'd get an image stuck in my head of something that would be awesome to draw. It's incredibly cathartic to actually capture it on paper.
Fear not citizens; pictures shall follow!
Linux is cool
You know what my punkasses.sh one-liner is called? An active blocking, intrusion preventing, adaptive firewall. Rather, that's what it's called when it's stuck inside a fancy looking piece of network hardware and charge thousands of dollars for it. It amazes me that people really don't seem to grasp that Linux can do pretty much anything you want. A bit ago the company was looking at these "tunneling" boxes; expensive hardware which allows encrypted access to the network with a very light client. I, of course, knew BS when I saw it, and about an hour later had the ssh server available to the world, and a document on establishing a port-forwarding puTTY (SSH) tunnel. You connect via puTTY, log in, and then RDP to localhost:forwardedport to get to the terminal server, or set your mail server to localhost:forwardedport to use your outlook when away from the office, all encrypted though an SSH tunnel, all with existing technology, on existing hardware, and freely available software. Beautiful.
(man, that was a terrible title)
(man, that was a terrible title)
Punkasses.sh
awk '/Failed password/ {if ($9=="invalid") print $13; else print $11}'
/var/log/secure|cut -b 8-|sort|uniq -c|sort -nr|awk '{if ($1>10) print $2}'|
xargs -i iptables -A INPUT -s {} -j DROP
(all one line)
Read the security logs, find IPs with more than 10 failed login attempts, and drop all future traffic from the punkasses!
Man I love iptables. I spent such a long time avoiding learning them because I had a perception that they were complex. They're bloody easy!
OMGPANCAKESDANGEROUS
3-1-06
Renewed exaspiration at existencial junk.
...Just kidding.
I've decided that being prepaired (with tools) doesn't necessarily mean carrying everything you could possibly need around. Why carry tools around when you can simply make them more available? The 99 cent store has pocket knives and multi tools, flashlights, LEDs, etc. all for 99 cents. Sure they're crap, but a crappy tool in the hand is worth two awesome ones at home... Anyways, buy 3 sets of tools and keep the sets at home, in the car, and at work. You don't have to carry all of it around, but it's still readily available if you forget what you usually carry.
I seem to be getting tired of my music. What I usually listen to isn't affecting me as it used to. Truthfully, though, I haven't been giving it the undevided attention it problably deserves. I need to devote some time to it.
Every once in a while I really just step back and marvel at all the functionality linux has. I learned by messing around with Macromedia flash that powerful tool sare hard to control (read the "hole hog" section of "in the beginning there was the command line"). I was reading the steps involved in moving a shape across teh screen and was simply dumbfounded at how complex they seemed to make this simple task. After learning more I realized that this program was capable of very complex actions and activities, and that with out those complexities it would be a simple tool with simple functions. The exact same can be said about Linux. if you can dream it, you can do it. It may take some research and learning to accomplish it, but it can be done. This is where Lunux/Unix deviates from other OS's on a philisophical level. Ease of use comes at the cost of function. I wrote a one-line bash script that parsed the ssecurity logs, found IPs that had more than 10 failed login attempts, and blocked them. Doing something similar in windows would be extremely difficult, and require substantial programming prowess. Yet Linux/Unix has these small, single-function tools ready for use, and provides a means for combining them to increase their abilities. Macs are like shopping at Target for furniture; you have a selection of furniture ready made and functional. Windows is like shopping at Ikea for furniture; you may have to work to get it functional, but it's not really that hard (plus more selection). Linux is like being handed tools and pointed at a tree. It takes skills and knowledge to get your furniture, but you have the option of making whatever you want, however you want, from beginning to end.
There are countless projects that attempt to make Linux more user-friendly, but it's not in Linux's nature to be that way. So they will always fail on some level, to some degree. A tiger doesn't change its stripes. Especially when it's been bred to be a tiger's tiger.
Renewed exaspiration at existencial junk.
...Just kidding.
I've decided that being prepaired (with tools) doesn't necessarily mean carrying everything you could possibly need around. Why carry tools around when you can simply make them more available? The 99 cent store has pocket knives and multi tools, flashlights, LEDs, etc. all for 99 cents. Sure they're crap, but a crappy tool in the hand is worth two awesome ones at home... Anyways, buy 3 sets of tools and keep the sets at home, in the car, and at work. You don't have to carry all of it around, but it's still readily available if you forget what you usually carry.
I seem to be getting tired of my music. What I usually listen to isn't affecting me as it used to. Truthfully, though, I haven't been giving it the undevided attention it problably deserves. I need to devote some time to it.
Every once in a while I really just step back and marvel at all the functionality linux has. I learned by messing around with Macromedia flash that powerful tool sare hard to control (read the "hole hog" section of "in the beginning there was the command line"). I was reading the steps involved in moving a shape across teh screen and was simply dumbfounded at how complex they seemed to make this simple task. After learning more I realized that this program was capable of very complex actions and activities, and that with out those complexities it would be a simple tool with simple functions. The exact same can be said about Linux. if you can dream it, you can do it. It may take some research and learning to accomplish it, but it can be done. This is where Lunux/Unix deviates from other OS's on a philisophical level. Ease of use comes at the cost of function. I wrote a one-line bash script that parsed the ssecurity logs, found IPs that had more than 10 failed login attempts, and blocked them. Doing something similar in windows would be extremely difficult, and require substantial programming prowess. Yet Linux/Unix has these small, single-function tools ready for use, and provides a means for combining them to increase their abilities. Macs are like shopping at Target for furniture; you have a selection of furniture ready made and functional. Windows is like shopping at Ikea for furniture; you may have to work to get it functional, but it's not really that hard (plus more selection). Linux is like being handed tools and pointed at a tree. It takes skills and knowledge to get your furniture, but you have the option of making whatever you want, however you want, from beginning to end.
There are countless projects that attempt to make Linux more user-friendly, but it's not in Linux's nature to be that way. So they will always fail on some level, to some degree. A tiger doesn't change its stripes. Especially when it's been bred to be a tiger's tiger.
Monday, December 19, 2005
Aren't I in Texas???
12 18 05
I ask for a Jack and Coke in Dallas Airport…
“Umm… I don’t have Jack Daniels…”
“Ah.”
“…I’ve got Crown…”
“Mmm.”
“…aaand… Pepsi.”
“Uhhh-huh.”
I’m 0 for 2.
“Aren’t I in Texas?”
“Umm… *looks around*… Yes?”
Now I’m 0 for 3.
“Givvus a shot of tequila”
“I've got...”
“Anything gold.”
“On the rocks?”
“Straight up with salt and lime.” I say not wanting to strain her mental capacity by using words like "twist".
*Does nothing for 4 1/2 minutes* “Here you go...” *hands me so little tequila there's barely enough to recognize gold from white*
*contemplates pouring it on the bar in protest/disgust*
*hands me bill for $7.50*
*drinks up*
I ask for a Jack and Coke in Dallas Airport…
“Umm… I don’t have Jack Daniels…”
“Ah.”
“…I’ve got Crown…”
“Mmm.”
“…aaand… Pepsi.”
“Uhhh-huh.”
I’m 0 for 2.
“Aren’t I in Texas?”
“Umm… *looks around*… Yes?”
Now I’m 0 for 3.
“Givvus a shot of tequila”
“I've got...”
“Anything gold.”
“On the rocks?”
“Straight up with salt and lime.” I say not wanting to strain her mental capacity by using words like "twist".
*Does nothing for 4 1/2 minutes* “Here you go...” *hands me so little tequila there's barely enough to recognize gold from white*
*contemplates pouring it on the bar in protest/disgust*
*hands me bill for $7.50*
*drinks up*
Organized religion still scares me a bit.
12 18 05
I’ve been a bit worries about me not being well-rounded enough. I’m sk8illed in language (but not languages), mathematics, electronics, art, but have no skills in musical instruments. For some reason I think I’d prefer a wind instrument, though only because they’re small (mostly) I suppose I’d be open to any small instrument.
I spoke with a fellow on the plane interested in becoming a priest. His religion was brought up through another topic (so he wasn’t just barge in into the topic). After I told him I was agnostic he started asking me questions and we engaged in a pretty good debate. I did my part to lead him to my conclusions and he told me what he believed and why; and I did the same. I definitely learned some new things about myself and the limits of my beliefs. I also gained some good insight into how he believed what he believed. What I (somewhat) determined is that people shouldn’t be able to escape their sins by changing their ways at the last minute. The experience was very thought provoking and I wouldn’t mind probing my own beliefs a bit more.
I’ve been a bit worries about me not being well-rounded enough. I’m sk8illed in language (but not languages), mathematics, electronics, art, but have no skills in musical instruments. For some reason I think I’d prefer a wind instrument, though only because they’re small (mostly) I suppose I’d be open to any small instrument.
I spoke with a fellow on the plane interested in becoming a priest. His religion was brought up through another topic (so he wasn’t just barge in into the topic). After I told him I was agnostic he started asking me questions and we engaged in a pretty good debate. I did my part to lead him to my conclusions and he told me what he believed and why; and I did the same. I definitely learned some new things about myself and the limits of my beliefs. I also gained some good insight into how he believed what he believed. What I (somewhat) determined is that people shouldn’t be able to escape their sins by changing their ways at the last minute. The experience was very thought provoking and I wouldn’t mind probing my own beliefs a bit more.
What's important?
12 14 05
Ah, the excitement. I’m bored in my flight. I’ve run out of attempted small talk topics. The clouds we’re flying above are like fluffy white sand dunes that stretch across a desert forever… So I was thinking about fabricating my own reality. Well, actually I was thinking about just accepting that all my reality could just be an illusion. I suspect things would be more interesting were I more mindful of the possibility that everything I see could not be there. What’s interesting is that your memories are mostly devoid of details. Do you remember the face of the last person who washed their hands next to you? Did you even look? In your memories, that person is not John or Joe, It’s just a person. Look at the people around you now. Whom among them are you going to remember in a day, week, month, year? How important can the world around up really be if a vast percentage of it is forgotten
Ah, the excitement. I’m bored in my flight. I’ve run out of attempted small talk topics. The clouds we’re flying above are like fluffy white sand dunes that stretch across a desert forever… So I was thinking about fabricating my own reality. Well, actually I was thinking about just accepting that all my reality could just be an illusion. I suspect things would be more interesting were I more mindful of the possibility that everything I see could not be there. What’s interesting is that your memories are mostly devoid of details. Do you remember the face of the last person who washed their hands next to you? Did you even look? In your memories, that person is not John or Joe, It’s just a person. Look at the people around you now. Whom among them are you going to remember in a day, week, month, year? How important can the world around up really be if a vast percentage of it is forgotten
Musings while taxi-ing
12 14 05
We’re on our second flight and I’m finding myself a little tense. I think it’s because I don’t’ usually fly on planes this small. The fear is entirely irrational but its fear nonetheless. Writing about it has calmed me a bit. I think too much. Actually I think I may be getting claustrophobic, coupled with my irrational fear, it’s making for an interesting cocktail. I can’t listen to my music until we take off, so I’ve got to cowboy up. The pilot just applied the breaks suddenly, and I got a mental image of some other plane cutting him off. (after which he would of course hand out the window and shake his fist in the air, while calling him an asshole) (in a New York accent, naturally). I’m upset I didn’t bring my monocular. There were some pretty great views to be seen. We’re taking off. No, someone else is taking off. We’re waiting. Looking at the big planes makes me calm. Here we go… *Death* just kidding. We’re still waiting. I suspect our tiny plane got bullied to the back of the line by the bigger ones. Waiting… The waiting is making it worse. Aahh! The girls next to me is writing in her journal and her writing is much better than mine! My pages always look like the ravings of an angry chimp. Still I like the hurried look, and my girlfriend liked that my notes to her were always (here we go…) (well that was faster and smoother than the big planes) very expressive in their writing style.
We’re on our second flight and I’m finding myself a little tense. I think it’s because I don’t’ usually fly on planes this small. The fear is entirely irrational but its fear nonetheless. Writing about it has calmed me a bit. I think too much. Actually I think I may be getting claustrophobic, coupled with my irrational fear, it’s making for an interesting cocktail. I can’t listen to my music until we take off, so I’ve got to cowboy up. The pilot just applied the breaks suddenly, and I got a mental image of some other plane cutting him off. (after which he would of course hand out the window and shake his fist in the air, while calling him an asshole) (in a New York accent, naturally). I’m upset I didn’t bring my monocular. There were some pretty great views to be seen. We’re taking off. No, someone else is taking off. We’re waiting. Looking at the big planes makes me calm. Here we go… *Death* just kidding. We’re still waiting. I suspect our tiny plane got bullied to the back of the line by the bigger ones. Waiting… The waiting is making it worse. Aahh! The girls next to me is writing in her journal and her writing is much better than mine! My pages always look like the ravings of an angry chimp. Still I like the hurried look, and my girlfriend liked that my notes to her were always (here we go…) (well that was faster and smoother than the big planes) very expressive in their writing style.
Art Style
12 13 05
My art style, I fear, is limiting. I’m used to applying hard, sharp lines to my work which limits my ability to draw softer objects. My charcoal control is such that the drawing may start soft but end up much harder and more overdone than intended. Recently I picked my space pen backup and was once again reminded of its ability as an instrument. I enjoy mucking about with charcoal but ballpoint pen (especially my space pen) affords me much more control and range than my current skill level in charcoal allows. I worry that my skills will become limited as I continue to use the same style. But whatever. I’ve taken to drawing odd shapes and lines and seeing what I can make of them. It’s much more interesting than attempting to draw “X”. My last drawing was done this way. I always surprise myself when I’m done. It’s hard to believe I drew something so well. No matter how much I deny it, I seem to be somewhat skilled.
My art style, I fear, is limiting. I’m used to applying hard, sharp lines to my work which limits my ability to draw softer objects. My charcoal control is such that the drawing may start soft but end up much harder and more overdone than intended. Recently I picked my space pen backup and was once again reminded of its ability as an instrument. I enjoy mucking about with charcoal but ballpoint pen (especially my space pen) affords me much more control and range than my current skill level in charcoal allows. I worry that my skills will become limited as I continue to use the same style. But whatever. I’ve taken to drawing odd shapes and lines and seeing what I can make of them. It’s much more interesting than attempting to draw “X”. My last drawing was done this way. I always surprise myself when I’m done. It’s hard to believe I drew something so well. No matter how much I deny it, I seem to be somewhat skilled.
"Like Groking the Universe"
12 12 05
I openly agree with those internet zealots (and I use the term affectionately) like O’Reilly, who believe the internet is more a state of mind or out new zeitgeist instead of simply a tool for ordering socks in your underwear or locating the nearest Thai place. The internet is the idea of complete interconnectivity of everyone. It’s like the impact of the invention of the phone on steroids. The idea that you can punch some numbers into a handheld device and instantly be talking to someone on the other side of the world is huge! One of so many advancements in communication that we just take for granted. Well the internet takes the idea of connecting people with people and connects people with the collective intelligence and knowledge held in the entire internet. This must be that Web 2.0 they keep trying to explain to us. It’s like ascending to another plain, like groking the universe.
I openly agree with those internet zealots (and I use the term affectionately) like O’Reilly, who believe the internet is more a state of mind or out new zeitgeist instead of simply a tool for ordering socks in your underwear or locating the nearest Thai place. The internet is the idea of complete interconnectivity of everyone. It’s like the impact of the invention of the phone on steroids. The idea that you can punch some numbers into a handheld device and instantly be talking to someone on the other side of the world is huge! One of so many advancements in communication that we just take for granted. Well the internet takes the idea of connecting people with people and connects people with the collective intelligence and knowledge held in the entire internet. This must be that Web 2.0 they keep trying to explain to us. It’s like ascending to another plain, like groking the universe.
The eee-nternet
12 12 05
For all my posturizing about how great the internet is about data transmission and information exchange I still and skeptical of the connectivity between the web world and the real one. I’m still a little surprised when something I do on the internet causes a package to arrive at my door. I suppose I should stop worrying, clearly my actions on the internet consistently cause my credit card to be charged! Companies like Amazon have done an excellent job connecting our money with their merchandise. I should just accept that there exists a reliable connection between the net and the physical earth. It seems, however, perverse to imply such a thing.
For all my posturizing about how great the internet is about data transmission and information exchange I still and skeptical of the connectivity between the web world and the real one. I’m still a little surprised when something I do on the internet causes a package to arrive at my door. I suppose I should stop worrying, clearly my actions on the internet consistently cause my credit card to be charged! Companies like Amazon have done an excellent job connecting our money with their merchandise. I should just accept that there exists a reliable connection between the net and the physical earth. It seems, however, perverse to imply such a thing.
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Kentucky
Ok, so I'm going to Kentucky to visit with my girlfriend's mom for 5 days.
While the lure of the country was never something I found particularly aluring(sp?) I have yet to experience the... well... experience.
I'm kind of looking forward to it. It's turned into a bit of a vacation during which I'm unsure what I'll occupy myself with. I'd happily bring a set of unfinished projects, however I'd be inclined to think that bringing them would only make me inclined to, you know... *do* them.
In short, I don't know what I'll be doing on this vacation, and I'm not entirely sure that I'd like to.
The past two days at work have been especially taxing (short staffed), and I worry that the remaining 3 days will be difficult for my coworkers. I, however, guiltily savor my escape.
I've been neglecting my drawings for some time, and think they deserve more attention than I've been giving them. Additionally, I've been furiously using my moleskin book to jot down the little bits of nonsense that float to the top of my brain. Both endevors have been fulfilling (and suprisingly fruitful), and I (unofficially) plan to pursue them in my down time.
Another concern of mine is that I *greatly* dislike checking luggage. This is not a problem of packing space, but a problem of what I can't bring with me. If I'm only using carry-ons, I'd have to board the plane sanstools. No knife, pocket knife, swiss card, or multi-tool. I'm *very* rarely without my Benchmade knife. This prospect worries me, but only slightly, as I'm also interested in seeing how it is to be tool-less for 5 days. I'm sure I could do no better than finding it inconveniencing, but suspect I'm only placating myself in preparation for what could prove to be an uncomfortable period.
I'll add my moleskin entries in when I get back, and try to upload some artwork. Thanks for reading.
While the lure of the country was never something I found particularly aluring(sp?) I have yet to experience the... well... experience.
I'm kind of looking forward to it. It's turned into a bit of a vacation during which I'm unsure what I'll occupy myself with. I'd happily bring a set of unfinished projects, however I'd be inclined to think that bringing them would only make me inclined to, you know... *do* them.
In short, I don't know what I'll be doing on this vacation, and I'm not entirely sure that I'd like to.
The past two days at work have been especially taxing (short staffed), and I worry that the remaining 3 days will be difficult for my coworkers. I, however, guiltily savor my escape.
I've been neglecting my drawings for some time, and think they deserve more attention than I've been giving them. Additionally, I've been furiously using my moleskin book to jot down the little bits of nonsense that float to the top of my brain. Both endevors have been fulfilling (and suprisingly fruitful), and I (unofficially) plan to pursue them in my down time.
Another concern of mine is that I *greatly* dislike checking luggage. This is not a problem of packing space, but a problem of what I can't bring with me. If I'm only using carry-ons, I'd have to board the plane sanstools. No knife, pocket knife, swiss card, or multi-tool. I'm *very* rarely without my Benchmade knife. This prospect worries me, but only slightly, as I'm also interested in seeing how it is to be tool-less for 5 days. I'm sure I could do no better than finding it inconveniencing, but suspect I'm only placating myself in preparation for what could prove to be an uncomfortable period.
I'll add my moleskin entries in when I get back, and try to upload some artwork. Thanks for reading.
On wearing tools
I already had my first solution, because I already wore a mini USB drive around my neck. this solution seems to qualify as elegant. My second solution came in the form of an LED attached to a strong clip with an 8 point swivel. It has a slide switch so it stays on, and can clip to just about anything including my moleskin (check off book light...) The clip can attach to glasses, bands, the brim of a cap, whatever. My solution was to clip it to my belt loop. It is covered by my untucked shirt and is still easily accessable without being in the way of anything! I clip it at 9 o'clock and forget about it till I need it. The side of the hips doesn't see a lot of movement or preassure so the location is ideal. Since I obtained my paracord 550 I picked up an $8, 5000 pound carabiner. I took about 5 feet of cord, folded it in half and tied figure 8 knots in it every inch or so. It took some futzing to get the knots the right spacing but it was wirth the time. The current length of the lanyard is about 1/3 of what it was. It makes a tolerable key lanyard. The unknotted spots are big enough to fit the carabiner through to make a loop that should hold about 1100 pounds, and can be used to your creative heart's content. The carabiner is a bit unweildly but it's managable, and it's a small price to pay for its utility.
On carrying tools
I endeavor to be constantly prep aired. My attempts are thwarted regularly by practicality (ah, practicality, my old foe). I list the tools I commonly need (or would need to be prep aired), unfortunately I can't go to work or hang out casually in clothes that would permit carrying all the items. The result is me going to work with what I can fit (mostly) comfortably in my pockets (creating lots of unattractive and thigh-poking bulges in my otherwise nice pants). My first idea for a solution was a crude one. More pockets. I thought the Scott's e-vest approach would work. But no. Furthur thought only left me with more unsightly bulges in my pants or shirt/vest/jacket. I knew there had to be a more elegant solution to my problem. I said in my notes, "stop carrying things, start wearing things." This seems to be the solution, but it's the execution that eludes me.
On tools
To be a human without tools is to be a cat without claws, a rabbit without ears, or a hawk without wings.
We have natural properties that allow us to compete in nature. Our minds allow us to create simple or complex tools that give us the edge against creatures that have more obvious tools. Since we can't "think" our enemies to death we think of ways to accomplish our goals and to maintin our edge in nature. One may agrue that we don't need our tools in modern society, but to be without our natural edge is naturally suicide.
We have natural properties that allow us to compete in nature. Our minds allow us to create simple or complex tools that give us the edge against creatures that have more obvious tools. Since we can't "think" our enemies to death we think of ways to accomplish our goals and to maintin our edge in nature. One may agrue that we don't need our tools in modern society, but to be without our natural edge is naturally suicide.
Friday, November 18, 2005
I don't know how I missed this one...
My new favorite...
http://yellow5.com/pokey/archive/index220.html
http://yellow5.com/pokey/archive/index220.html
Sunday, November 13, 2005
40 Reasons to ban guns
Anti-gun advocates: This is a work of satire, if you came here looking for reasons to ban guns, you will not find them here. Please take the time to read the satire, and please feel free to challenge me on them if you disagree.
If you prefer not to comment, please take the time to read the following article written by a liberal, Why Liberals Should Love The Second Amendment
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."
-Benjamin Franklin, 1759
40 reasons to ban guns.....
1. Banning guns works, which is why New York, DC, & Chicago cops need guns.
2. Washington DC's low murder rate of 69 per 100,000 is due to strict gun
control, and Indianapolis' high murder rate of 9 per 100,000 is due to the
lack of gun control.
3. Statistics showing high murder rates justify gun control but statistics
showing increasing murder rates after gun control are "just statistics."
4. The Brady Bill and the Assault Weapons Ban, both of which went into
effect in 1994 are responsible for the decrease in violent crime rates,
which have been declining since 1991.
5. We must get rid of guns because a deranged lunatic may go on a shooting
spree at any time and anyone who would own a gun out of fear of such a
lunatic is paranoid.
6. The more helpless you are the safer you are from criminals.
7. An intruder will be incapacitated by tear gas or oven spray, but if shot
with a .357 Magnum will get angry and kill you.
8. A woman raped and strangled is morally superior to a woman with a smoking
gun and a dead rapist at her feet.
9. When confronted by violent criminals, you should "put up no defense -
give them what they want, or run" (Handgun Control Inc. Chairman Pete
Shields, Guns Don't Die - People Do, 1981, p. 125).
10. The New England Journal of Medicine is filled with expert advice about
guns; just like Guns & Ammo has some excellent treatises on heart surgery.
11. One should consult an automotive engineer for safer seatbelts, a civil
engineer for a better bridge, a surgeon for internal medicine, a computer
programmer for hard drive problems, and Sarah Brady for firearms expertise.
12. The 2nd Amendment, ratified in 1787, refers to the National Guard, which
was created 130 years later, in 1917.
13. The National Guard, federally funded, with bases on federal land, using
federally-owned weapons, vehicles, buildings and uniforms, punishing
trespassers under federal law, is a "state" militia.
14. These phrases: "right of the people peaceably to assemble," "right of
the people to be secure in their homes," "enumerations herein of certain
rights shall not be construed to disparage others retained by the people,"
and "The powers not delegated herein are reserved to the states
respectively, and to the people" all refer to individuals, but "the right of
the people to keep and bear arms" refers to the state.
15. "The Constitution is strong and will never change." But we should ban
and seize all guns thereby violating the 2nd, 4th, and 5th Amendments to
that Constitution.
16. Rifles and handguns aren't necessary to national defense! Of course, the
army has hundreds of thousands of them.
17. Private citizens shouldn't have handguns, because they aren't "military
weapons'', but private citizens shouldn't have "assault rifles'', because
they are military weapons.
18. In spite of waiting periods, background checks, fingerprinting,
government forms, etc., guns today are too readily available, which is
responsible for recent school shootings. In the 1940's, 1950's and 1960's,
anyone could buy guns at hardware stores, army surplus stores, gas stations,
variety stores, Sears mail order, no waiting, no background check, no
fingerprints, no government forms and there were no school shootings.
19. The NRA's attempt to run a "don't touch" campaign about kids handling
guns is propaganda, but the anti-gun lobby's attempt to run a "don't touch"
campaign is responsible social activity.
20. Guns are so complex that special training is necessary to use them
properly, and so simple to use that they make murder easy.
21. A handgun, with up to 4 controls, is far too complex for the typical
adult to learn to use, as opposed to an automobile that only has 20.
22. Women are just as intelligent and capable as men but a woman with a gun
is "an accident waiting to happen" and gun makers' advertisements aimed at
women are "preying on their fears."
23. Ordinary people in the presence of guns turn into slaughtering butchers
but revert to normal when the weapon is removed.
24. Guns cause violence, which is why there are so many mass killings at gun
shows.
25. A majority of the population supports gun control, just like a majority
of the population supported owning slaves.
26. Any self-loading small arm can legitimately be considered to be a
"weapon of mass destruction" or an "assault weapon."
27. Most people can't be trusted, so we should have laws against guns, which
most people will abide by because they can be trusted.
28. The right of Internet pornographers to exist cannot be questioned
because it is constitutionally protected by the Bill of Rights, but the use
of handguns for self defense is not really protected by the Bill of Rights.
29. Free speech entitles one to own newspapers, transmitters, computers, and
typewriters, but self- defense only justifies bare hands.
30. The ACLU is good because it uncompromisingly defends certain parts of
the Constitution, and the NRA is bad, because it defends other parts of the
Constitution.
31. Charlton Heston, a movie actor as president of the NRA is a cheap
lunatic who should be ignored, but Michael Douglas, a movie actor as a
representative of Handgun Control, Inc. is an ambassador for peace who is
entitled to an audience at the UN arms control summit.
32. Police operate with backup within groups, which is why they need larger
capacity pistol magazines than do "civilians" who must face criminals alone
and therefore need less ammunition.
33. We should ban "Saturday Night Specials" and other inexpensive guns
because it's not fair that poor people have access to guns too.
34. Police officers have some special Jedi-like mastery over handguns that
private citizens can never hope to obtain.
35. Private citizens don't need a gun for self- protection because the
police are there to protect them even though the Supreme Court says the
police are not responsible for their protection.
36. Citizens don't need to carry a gun for personal protection but police
chiefs, who are desk-bound administrators who work in a building filled with
cops, need a gun.
37. "Assault weapons" have no purpose other than to kill large numbers of
people. The police need assault weapons. You do not.
38. When Microsoft pressures its distributors to give Microsoft preferential
promotion, that's bad; but when the Federal government pressures cities to
buy guns only from Smith & Wesson, that's good.
39. Trigger locks do not interfere with the ability to use a gun for
defensive purposes, which is why you see police officers with one on their
duty weapon.
40. Handgun Control, Inc., says they want to "keep guns out of the wrong
hands." Guess what? You have the wrong hands.
If you prefer not to comment, please take the time to read the following article written by a liberal, Why Liberals Should Love The Second Amendment
"Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. Liberty is a well-armed lamb contesting the vote."
-Benjamin Franklin, 1759
40 reasons to ban guns.....
1. Banning guns works, which is why New York, DC, & Chicago cops need guns.
2. Washington DC's low murder rate of 69 per 100,000 is due to strict gun
control, and Indianapolis' high murder rate of 9 per 100,000 is due to the
lack of gun control.
3. Statistics showing high murder rates justify gun control but statistics
showing increasing murder rates after gun control are "just statistics."
4. The Brady Bill and the Assault Weapons Ban, both of which went into
effect in 1994 are responsible for the decrease in violent crime rates,
which have been declining since 1991.
5. We must get rid of guns because a deranged lunatic may go on a shooting
spree at any time and anyone who would own a gun out of fear of such a
lunatic is paranoid.
6. The more helpless you are the safer you are from criminals.
7. An intruder will be incapacitated by tear gas or oven spray, but if shot
with a .357 Magnum will get angry and kill you.
8. A woman raped and strangled is morally superior to a woman with a smoking
gun and a dead rapist at her feet.
9. When confronted by violent criminals, you should "put up no defense -
give them what they want, or run" (Handgun Control Inc. Chairman Pete
Shields, Guns Don't Die - People Do, 1981, p. 125).
10. The New England Journal of Medicine is filled with expert advice about
guns; just like Guns & Ammo has some excellent treatises on heart surgery.
11. One should consult an automotive engineer for safer seatbelts, a civil
engineer for a better bridge, a surgeon for internal medicine, a computer
programmer for hard drive problems, and Sarah Brady for firearms expertise.
12. The 2nd Amendment, ratified in 1787, refers to the National Guard, which
was created 130 years later, in 1917.
13. The National Guard, federally funded, with bases on federal land, using
federally-owned weapons, vehicles, buildings and uniforms, punishing
trespassers under federal law, is a "state" militia.
14. These phrases: "right of the people peaceably to assemble," "right of
the people to be secure in their homes," "enumerations herein of certain
rights shall not be construed to disparage others retained by the people,"
and "The powers not delegated herein are reserved to the states
respectively, and to the people" all refer to individuals, but "the right of
the people to keep and bear arms" refers to the state.
15. "The Constitution is strong and will never change." But we should ban
and seize all guns thereby violating the 2nd, 4th, and 5th Amendments to
that Constitution.
16. Rifles and handguns aren't necessary to national defense! Of course, the
army has hundreds of thousands of them.
17. Private citizens shouldn't have handguns, because they aren't "military
weapons'', but private citizens shouldn't have "assault rifles'', because
they are military weapons.
18. In spite of waiting periods, background checks, fingerprinting,
government forms, etc., guns today are too readily available, which is
responsible for recent school shootings. In the 1940's, 1950's and 1960's,
anyone could buy guns at hardware stores, army surplus stores, gas stations,
variety stores, Sears mail order, no waiting, no background check, no
fingerprints, no government forms and there were no school shootings.
19. The NRA's attempt to run a "don't touch" campaign about kids handling
guns is propaganda, but the anti-gun lobby's attempt to run a "don't touch"
campaign is responsible social activity.
20. Guns are so complex that special training is necessary to use them
properly, and so simple to use that they make murder easy.
21. A handgun, with up to 4 controls, is far too complex for the typical
adult to learn to use, as opposed to an automobile that only has 20.
22. Women are just as intelligent and capable as men but a woman with a gun
is "an accident waiting to happen" and gun makers' advertisements aimed at
women are "preying on their fears."
23. Ordinary people in the presence of guns turn into slaughtering butchers
but revert to normal when the weapon is removed.
24. Guns cause violence, which is why there are so many mass killings at gun
shows.
25. A majority of the population supports gun control, just like a majority
of the population supported owning slaves.
26. Any self-loading small arm can legitimately be considered to be a
"weapon of mass destruction" or an "assault weapon."
27. Most people can't be trusted, so we should have laws against guns, which
most people will abide by because they can be trusted.
28. The right of Internet pornographers to exist cannot be questioned
because it is constitutionally protected by the Bill of Rights, but the use
of handguns for self defense is not really protected by the Bill of Rights.
29. Free speech entitles one to own newspapers, transmitters, computers, and
typewriters, but self- defense only justifies bare hands.
30. The ACLU is good because it uncompromisingly defends certain parts of
the Constitution, and the NRA is bad, because it defends other parts of the
Constitution.
31. Charlton Heston, a movie actor as president of the NRA is a cheap
lunatic who should be ignored, but Michael Douglas, a movie actor as a
representative of Handgun Control, Inc. is an ambassador for peace who is
entitled to an audience at the UN arms control summit.
32. Police operate with backup within groups, which is why they need larger
capacity pistol magazines than do "civilians" who must face criminals alone
and therefore need less ammunition.
33. We should ban "Saturday Night Specials" and other inexpensive guns
because it's not fair that poor people have access to guns too.
34. Police officers have some special Jedi-like mastery over handguns that
private citizens can never hope to obtain.
35. Private citizens don't need a gun for self- protection because the
police are there to protect them even though the Supreme Court says the
police are not responsible for their protection.
36. Citizens don't need to carry a gun for personal protection but police
chiefs, who are desk-bound administrators who work in a building filled with
cops, need a gun.
37. "Assault weapons" have no purpose other than to kill large numbers of
people. The police need assault weapons. You do not.
38. When Microsoft pressures its distributors to give Microsoft preferential
promotion, that's bad; but when the Federal government pressures cities to
buy guns only from Smith & Wesson, that's good.
39. Trigger locks do not interfere with the ability to use a gun for
defensive purposes, which is why you see police officers with one on their
duty weapon.
40. Handgun Control, Inc., says they want to "keep guns out of the wrong
hands." Guess what? You have the wrong hands.
Thursday, October 13, 2005
The logic of leaf blowers.
Leafblowers are the greatest stupid invention of man-kind.
Problem:
Trees shed their leaves, and leave them on your lawn
Possible Solutions:
1. Pick them up
2. Gather them into a pile
3. Move them over 30 feet, immediately exonerating your of their ownership.
Best invention ever.
You can just see the informercial...
Blonde airhead with big tits: Bob, I'm tired of having to deal with leaves!
Dumbass 45 year old virgin with wig: Me too Doubledee, that's why I use the Leafblower 3000ZXarrrrgh!!!!11 Why actually deal with your problems when you can just move them enough that you won't have to worry about them?!?!?!?
Blonde: Did you say *blow*??? *wink* Cue laugh track
This amazing ability to absolve yourself of the responsability of your garbage by simply moving it farther from you must be harnessed to be used on other even more useful (yes, I know) applications!
Tired of taking out the trash? Kick over the can, and blow your trash out your door and into the street! Immediately relieving yourself of its ownership!
Hate to clean out that litterbox? dump it in the gutter! Hey, why walk the extra three feet? Dump it on the sidewalk! It's city property!
Kids, hate eating your peas? Chuck them off of your plate! Once they're off, they're not your problem! Daddy can't argue with the logic!
Trying to get rid of the recently deceased? Toss him over the hedges! He's the Jones' problem now!
Relatives got ya down? Move them to Florida!
Teenagers acting up? Leave them at the bus station!
Even better... We could just focus on the multiple uses the gas leafblower has in everyday life!
Use it for "Handling" paperwork at the office!
Crank it up to drown out the sound of those attempting to initiate annoying conversations!
Boss bothering you? Just keep blowing it in his face! Eventually he'll get tired and leave!
Neighbor cutting wood in his driveway and getting sawdust all over yours? Bludgeon him into submission!!! (Bludgeon is such a fun word and I so rarely get to use it!)
Load the tube with confetti for birthday and new year parties!
Ladies, does your hair take a long time to dry? Not anymore!
Feeling depressed? Hop in the car, roll up the windows, fire it up, and breathe deep! That's the smell of utility!
Yes the leaf blower has so many uses when you just apply a bit of creativity!
Next week we consider: the common molotov cocktail! STAY TUNED!
Problem:
Trees shed their leaves, and leave them on your lawn
Possible Solutions:
1. Pick them up
2. Gather them into a pile
3. Move them over 30 feet, immediately exonerating your of their ownership.
Best invention ever.
You can just see the informercial...
Blonde airhead with big tits: Bob, I'm tired of having to deal with leaves!
Dumbass 45 year old virgin with wig: Me too Doubledee, that's why I use the Leafblower 3000ZXarrrrgh!!!!11 Why actually deal with your problems when you can just move them enough that you won't have to worry about them?!?!?!?
Blonde: Did you say *blow*??? *wink* Cue laugh track
This amazing ability to absolve yourself of the responsability of your garbage by simply moving it farther from you must be harnessed to be used on other even more useful (yes, I know) applications!
Tired of taking out the trash? Kick over the can, and blow your trash out your door and into the street! Immediately relieving yourself of its ownership!
Hate to clean out that litterbox? dump it in the gutter! Hey, why walk the extra three feet? Dump it on the sidewalk! It's city property!
Kids, hate eating your peas? Chuck them off of your plate! Once they're off, they're not your problem! Daddy can't argue with the logic!
Trying to get rid of the recently deceased? Toss him over the hedges! He's the Jones' problem now!
Relatives got ya down? Move them to Florida!
Teenagers acting up? Leave them at the bus station!
Even better... We could just focus on the multiple uses the gas leafblower has in everyday life!
Use it for "Handling" paperwork at the office!
Crank it up to drown out the sound of those attempting to initiate annoying conversations!
Boss bothering you? Just keep blowing it in his face! Eventually he'll get tired and leave!
Neighbor cutting wood in his driveway and getting sawdust all over yours? Bludgeon him into submission!!! (Bludgeon is such a fun word and I so rarely get to use it!)
Load the tube with confetti for birthday and new year parties!
Ladies, does your hair take a long time to dry? Not anymore!
Feeling depressed? Hop in the car, roll up the windows, fire it up, and breathe deep! That's the smell of utility!
Yes the leaf blower has so many uses when you just apply a bit of creativity!
Next week we consider: the common molotov cocktail! STAY TUNED!
Wednesday, October 12, 2005
OBEY
can't sleep. splenda will kill me. can't sleep. splenda will kill me. can't sleep. splenda will kill me. can't sleep. splenda will kill me. can't sleep. splenda will kill me. can't sleep. splenda will kill me. can't sleep. splenda will kill me. can't sleep. splenda will kill me. can't sleep. splenda will kill me. can't sleep. splenda will kill me.
The Bastard Operator from Hell
http://www.theregister.com/odds/bofh/
A must read for anyone in an even REMOTELY technical position!
The Bastard Operator From Hell is a character created by Simon Travaglia, a system administrator who takes out his anger on lusers. This is one of the few things, I can sit down and read over and over and laugh each time. The british wit just bleeds through the monitor. Make sure you can keep up!
Here's one of my favorites...
http://www.theregister.com/2005/02/11/bofh_2005_episode_5/
A must read for anyone in an even REMOTELY technical position!
The Bastard Operator From Hell is a character created by Simon Travaglia, a system administrator who takes out his anger on lusers. This is one of the few things, I can sit down and read over and over and laugh each time. The british wit just bleeds through the monitor. Make sure you can keep up!
Here's one of my favorites...
http://www.theregister.com/2005/02/11/bofh_2005_episode_5/
Monday, October 10, 2005
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