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Thursday, May 24th, 2012
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12:38 pm - Just too good not to link to
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| Wednesday, May 23rd, 2012
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10:08 am - A new Gun Freedom Argument
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I know and can regurgitate all the standard firearms freedom arguments. I can argue from natural liberties and preexisting rights, I can point to the Constitution, I can discuss the etymology of the term 'well-regulated.' I know all the pithy statements about guns not killing people, people kill people, better to be tried by twelve than carried by six, I carry a gun because i can't carry a cop with me everywhere I go, and so forth. I can debunk all the fake statistics about how a gun in the home is 43 times more likely to injure the residents than it is to shoot a burglar (it's because 37 of the above 43 are suicides and the remaining 6 are just as questionable). I have access to all the statistics that show that gun control never ever ever helps the people and is always about governmental control of the people.
Here's a new one to chew on.
Go look up prices for 'CNC machines'. CNC stands for Computer Numerical Control. A CNC machine is a fabricator. You feed it stock (plastic, aluminum, steel, whatever the CNC machine you have is rated for) and it grasps it with robotic manipulators. Controlled by a computer no more powerful than the one on anyone's desktop, it will cut the appropriate shapes out of the stock you have given it.
Cheap ones are limited in what stock they use (plastics) and how many dimensions they are capable of - a 2d CNC machine requires that you feed it the correct thickness of substance and it cuts the maximum number of shapes out of it for you. A 3d CNC machine is not so restrained - it can pick up and manipulate the feedstock so as to carve advanced shapes out of it, all programmed in on the computer that guides the machine.
They are rated in their standard of error - a cheap CNC machine cuts to hundredths of an inch, a more expensive one cuts to thousandths of an inch. You can pay for speed and duty life as well.
A cheap 3d CNC machine that cuts the appropriate grade of steel for firearms (it will also cut aluminum, plastic, and many other materials) to the appropriate thousandths of an inch tolerances for firearms currently costs about $25,000 new, $10-15,000 used. Recent advances in the technology indicate that this price is going to go down to about $5000 within five years. That is easily within the hobbyist/small business level. It won't be the fastest or the most heavy duty, but it will work steadily. Many firearms manufacturers currently use the more heavy-duty, faster, longer-running versions, and then do some finishing work by hand.
What this means is that inside of five years, people will be able to download a gun off the internet just as easily as they now download a song.
They will be able to put some steel into their CNC machine, assemble the parts, add a few things from the hardware store like screws and a spring, oil it up and they will be ready to go. A $5000 machine can easily make 5-10 guns a day.
Of course, what I've just said is illegal. They won't have a gun manufacturer's license and it won't have a serial number. The CNC program that holds the design for a firearm might be copyrighted, like music, or it might just be measured from an existing firearm and duplicated like a recording. It would be just as difficult to get hold of a firearm design as it is to pirate a song over the internet.
Which means the cat is out of the bag. It will soon be impossible for the government to regulate firearms just like it's impossible for it to regulate the theft of easily duplicated data.
The problem is that the modern firearm is, at minimum, a hundred year old technology. Trying to ban it is like trying to ban the socket wrench. Anyone who thinks that this knowledge can be restrained is a child.
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| Saturday, March 17th, 2012
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10:08 pm - No-Piss Movie
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John Carter of Mars is a no-piss movie. By which I mean, I was with about 20 people in a 150-person 3D theater 7:20 pm Saturday night one week after opening. And of those 20 people, one hundred percent had to rush for the restroom at the end. One hundred percent.
The particular word for it is 'pacing.'
Scenes go on as long as they have to to make their point, then stop. Then either a new scene begins, or this scene sufficiently transforms into something else that a new point is being made, one that builds off the first but is not the same. Nothing goes on too long, nothing drags. We have all been to, say, the Pirates of the Caribbean movies which have endless swashbuckling swordfights filled with sudden surprise reversals that go on and go on and go on and no one gets hurt or seriously discommoded. Or the Obi-Wan/Anakin fight where it becomes more and more clear as time drags that they aren't allowed to hit one another with their lightsabers and can only punch and kick one another, until you are totally outside the idea of the movie.
Now that I've complimented it, I must include the negative. The actors are a little wooden until they realize what they are doing and get into their roles. With a lot of CGI, that is dangerous. It has a lot of characters and a lot of visuals go along with various explanations - I can see how someone might get lost. I actually found that reading the reviews ahead of time and knowing some minor details that I was going to see helped me so I was never close to getting lost. It's the flip side of 'it's a visual medium, show don't tell.' They show a heck of a lot and at a brisk pace, too.
A delightful humorous bit from a character actor that I loved, some parts that tugged at my particular heartstrings, and a truly great ending by my lights. Well worth seeing.
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| Friday, February 17th, 2012
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10:38 am - Gender Studies Exam
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As we all know, He-Man receives his abilities from the 'power' of Castle Greyskull, while She-Ra receives her abilities from the 'honor' of Castle Greyskull.
Similarly, Thundarr the Barbarian is 'one man (who) breaks his bonds to fight for justice. ... Pitting his strength, his courage, and his fabulous Sun Sword against the forces of evil.'
Compare and contrast these themes with the six virtues of friendship in My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic - honesty, kindness, laughter, generosity, loyalty, and 'magic' (togetherness, community, organization, unity).
For extra credit, correlate these themes to the seven principles of Kwanzaa - faith, creativity, purpose, cooperative economics, collective work and responsibility, self-determination, and unity.
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| Thursday, January 19th, 2012
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3:32 pm - Yes, it's obvious.
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Romney for President. Money, acts presidential by not saying anything/flip-flopping, executive and managerial experience, organizationally skilled, every time I hear about him firing people and saving money I want to vote for him more and more.
Newt for Vice President. Can articulate the conservative message. Can attack every annoying press question given to him. Was there the last time we cut any budget. Grandfather-like gravitas. Should be kept far away from actual power. Can use congressional experience to chair the Senate. Perfect assassination/impeachment insurance.
It seems almost too perfect.
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| Friday, January 13th, 2012
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7:46 am - Number of the beast, could not buy nor sell, etc etc
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| Thursday, January 5th, 2012
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7:30 am - Obama is NOT the Antichrist!!
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In keeping with some of my previous posts, I happened to find a listing of reasons why Obama is NOT the Antichrist. So here, have some delightful cut and paste:
Satan wouldn't claim he visited all twelve circles of hell.
Satan can speak without a teleprompter.
Satan can pronounce the word 'corpsman.'
Satan knows there's no Austrian language.
Satan does not throw like a girl.
Satan doesn't need the media to carry his water for him.
Satan at least offers you SOMETHING for your soul. And he doesn't make your children and grandchildren pay for your debt.
Satan mixes truth into his lies.
And finally, everyone knows the white man is the devil! Tiddly-boom tish!
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| Saturday, December 24th, 2011
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11:21 pm
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I have a beautiful burmese python as a pet. About four times a year (and just today) she becomes quiet and mostly hides in her box. When I open her cage I can see that her skin between her scales has become white, her scales have darkened, and her eyes have gradually become cloudy; eventually milk-white to nearly blind her.
She's too well trained to bite me in this state but when I touch her she lets me know in no uncertain terms how unhappy she is. Itchy all over and blind and there's nothing she can do about it except hide and hiss angrily at anyone who might try to draw her out.
All I can do is feed her at the appropriate times and provide appropriate humidity. These are what I can do to make her passage easier. Other than that, only time and the machinations of nature can ease her sufferings.
When her skin is ready to shed, she will flip her head over and rub it against whatever she can - her water dish, a rough space in her cage, the carpet. Often she leaves a perfect mask of her face behind, revealing her eyes once again shiny and bright.
She'll enthusiastically crawl through the opening in her self-made prison, stripping it away from her body as she goes, leaving it inside-out. Sometimes the passage is easy and it comes off all in a touch. Sometimes not so much, and it comes off in patches and parts requiring her to crawl around and around the television set because the gap behind it is just the right size to rub her on both sides.
At this time she is always the most interested in the world around her; exploring, finding, discovering. She's also the most affectionate, curling up with people to rest as opposed to finding a lurking position where she can just watch.
It is truly a miracle.
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| Thursday, October 13th, 2011
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2:52 pm - An old joke that my mother might tell:
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It's one of those Israeli jokes that goes around and around and has come up recently.
Four guys are standing on a street corner…an American, a Russian, a Chinese man, and an Israeli. A reporter comes up to the group and says to them: “Excuse me, What’s your opinion on the meat shortage?”
The American says, "What’s a shortage?"
The Russian says, "What’s meat?"
The Chinese man says, "What’s an opinion?"
The Israeli says, What’s “'Excuse me'?"
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| Wednesday, September 28th, 2011
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7:52 am - The most hilariously incompetent thing about the Gunwalker scandal
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The most hilariously incompetent thing about the Gunwalker scandal is that it assumes we would care about Mexicans being killed by other Mexicans in Mexico when it is already proven that we don't.
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| Thursday, August 18th, 2011
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10:51 am - On Race
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Freakonomics and countless other studies have shown us time and time again that race is not a signifier of success.
That is to say, a white child in a fatherless home in the inner city has exactly the same chances of success as a black child in a fatherless home in the inner city as a hispanic child in a fatherless home in the inner city.
This reveals that the problem is not the race, but the fatherless home and the inner city.
The problem lies in that more blacks and hispanics proportionally live in fatherless homes in the inner city. Yet we measure by race and we see that race correlates to success.
When the answer is that race correlates to living in the inner city in a fatherless home and that is what correlates to success.
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(2 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, August 10th, 2011
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2:56 pm - That's my dad!
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http://www.wired.com/dangerroom/2011/08/pentagons-mach-20-missile/
"Darpa got serious about ground testing after the April misfire, with month after month of trials. A scale model of the HTV-2 was covered with a temperature-sensitive paint that glowed brighter, the hotter it got. It was brought to the Air Force’s hypersonic wind tunnel, near Silver Spring, Maryland, for trials.
What engineers discovered was that the HTV-2 had a problem stabilizing itself in flight. When it tried to correct its yaw, it went into a roll. That triggered the HTV-2’s malfunction in April, 2010, leading to “a self-destruct sequence that sent the missile tumbling like a football into the ocean,” as Danger Room co-founder Sharon Weinberger puts it."
The temperature-sensitive paint that glows brighter (it also changes colors) the hotter it gets was my father's last and largest project at McDonnell Douglas (now a part of Boeing).
The problem was that the carbon fibre that is used in making warplanes is made through what is essentially a baking process. If you cook it right, it comes out with all the wonderful carbon fibre properties you're looking for. To find out if you're cooking it right you need to put a sensor on it so you know when it's done. But a temperature sensor has weight, and it deforms the surface you're trying to bake when you place it on as well as shielding the area under it from heat so it doesn't cook right. You know when it's done but what comes out is flawed in shape and internal structures. It has a guaranteed weak point under where the sensor was. (You also can't put sensors everywhere so you don't know if every unsensored location baked right either).
My father's innovation - and extensive work for at least two years if I recall correctly - was to devise a temperature sensitive paint. The paint is what's called a 'fluorescent polymer' which is a fancy way of saying it's a liquid plastic that responds to energy with a glow kind of like certain plastics respond with a glow under the ultraviolet blacklight at Hot Topic. Except it responds to temperature.
So by painting the thinnest possible even coating over the airplane wing - it also has to not interfere with the baking process - and simply watching the glow, you know when the baking process is done. Once the airplane wing is glowing the correct color and brightness, you take it out of the oven.
My father has a diploma-looking award from McDonnell Douglas explaining how this innovation saved thirty-five million dollars the first year it was in use, and countless millions of dollars thereafter.
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(1 comment | comment on this)
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| Saturday, July 23rd, 2011
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4:07 pm - Living in the Plastic Age
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Playing on the web from airplane wifi on a >$200 Android tablet.
And several years from now if I look back, it will seem incredibly crude.
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| Friday, July 15th, 2011
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10:35 pm - I don't know what everyone is complaining about
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We passed a balanced budget amendment! Here it is! Yay! We got what we always said we wanted! And we didn't even have to do anything about it!!!
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(6 comments | comment on this)
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| Wednesday, May 11th, 2011
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11:30 am - Activity vs. Inactivity - Obamacare and the Commerce Clause
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Everyone engages in the consumption of transportation - they move from place to place and even if they stay in their house forever food and other things must be brought to them and their waste carted away. On that basis we can mandate that everyone purchase a car from a designated private company such as General Motors or else face a penalty. How they use that car, if at all, is up to them but we hope they will use it to further their transportation needs.
Everyone engages in the consumption of food (under some definition, including people being fed intravenously). Therefore, the Broccoli Board can mandate the purchasing of a set amount of broccoli by every person to fulfill what the government sees as requirements in the national interest (both of health and in supporting our crucial broccoli farmers). While it is possible to go one’s entire life without eating broccoli and thus be completely inactive as far as engaging in broccoli-related commerce; the fact that one eats food means that one can receive a mandate to buy broccoli or else be required to pay a penalty. (Whether or not you eat the broccoli is up to you.)
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| Monday, May 2nd, 2011
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11:45 am - The right way to think about killing OBL
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Remember that Al-Qaeda is a franchise operation. Individual groups have a three-ring binder of operations that they follow. They get updates to their code from the home base. It's much like McDonalds, the iconic franchise operation.
So ask yourself.
What would happen to McDonalds if Ronald McDonald was killed?
Would they stop serving hamburgers? No.
Would they be as popular as they were? No.
They still have Mayor McCheese. They still have the Hamburglar. And they still have Grimace.
But without Ronald, it just doesn't have that zing.
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| Monday, April 25th, 2011
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10:56 am - Best Easter line I heard
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| Wednesday, April 20th, 2011
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3:02 pm - To follow up on my 'recyclical' post
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Rush Limbaugh had this clip from Obama's Easter Sunday Prayer Breakfast which is amongst the President's minor duties:
OBAMA: I wanted to host this breakfast for a simple reason. Because, as busy as we are, as many tasks as pile up, during this season we are reminded that there's something about the Resurrection, something about the Resurrection of our savior, Jesus Christ, that puts everything else in perspective.
As Rush was pointing out, it's an odd way to mention the Resurrection as 'something about it' that 'puts everything in perspective.' The Resurrection is a keystone of Christianity and without it the whole thing collapses.
I mean, it's easy to imagine the Via Dolorosa and the Crucifixion and such torments as one can see in 'The Passion' from Netflix as 'putting everything in perspective,' but the Resurrection?
The only reason it would set things in perspective for him is if he was looking forwards to miraculously surviving his head wound and lying insensate to rise upon the third day like Nicolae Carpathia.
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| Tuesday, April 12th, 2011
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4:17 pm - Tax the rich!
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10:20 am - No way dude, or Dilaudid dreams
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Several years back, I am playtesting a D&D 3.5 module for Living Greyhawk. All the people around the table are skilled, experienced players with well-crocked character sheets. The adventure is wacky and multidimensional, in a good way.
We hit the final climactic encounter, which entails mentally forcing one's way through an extradimensional membrane into a pocket dimension that works like Atari Combat in that you can fire off one edge of the screen and hit things by wraparound. Except the bad guys live there, they know how it works, they have instant death effects of various kinds AND it's not guaranteed that one can successfully mentally force one's way through the extradimensional membrane. If you fail the test you have to try over and over again until you make it.
So everyone holds hands, tries to get through, and two people make it through whereupon they are savaged by the entire fight which outnumbers them grossly on the other side. As time ticks on, other people gradually trickle through the membrane into the free-fire zone of death. The players pull out every possible trick and favor and delaying action they possess. At least two people are turned to stone and brought back before their heads are crushed. The fight takes up three hours of what was supposed to be a 4 hour session. We had planned on ending sometime between 11 and midnight but by the time things are resolved it is 2am. And now the time has come for constructive criticism to the module designer.
One person at the table looks up blearily, and after a moment's pause says, "No way dude."
It became a bit of a tagline.
It wasn't until later that I realized I'd used it again. I was in the hospital lying in bed, and I woke up to see a man I didn't recognize at the foot of the bed waiting for me. He had gigantic teeth - we are talking Trilogy of Terror teeth from the Zuni puppet, we are talking Mister T from The Letter People tall teeth. And I took one look at him and woke up again and he wasn't there.
No way dude.
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