Month: September 2009
Modern Sporting Rifle
Housekeeping
Fiddling with the blog settings.
Comments should show avatars. RSS feed should show summaries instead of the full text. Fiddled with the CSS slightly. Other little settings changes.
All of this continues to be subject to change.
That is all.
Updated: Went back to full-text RSS feed.
Let Recoil Happen
Courtesy of Rob Longenecker, an article titled “Let Recoil Happen.”
The article discusses handgun shooting and flinching. Author Ron Avery’s response? Let recoil happen.
Granted this is simplifying things, but his point is sound. Recoil is going to happen. We cannot stop recoil. As humans we don’t like these loud explosions going off just a few feet in front of our faces, and naturally we flinch, naturally we tense up trying to fight and stop the recoil. You can’t stop the recoil; the best we can do is manage the recoil. This can happen through good technique: e.g. modern isosceles stance, “nose over toes” (putting your weight on the balls of your feet, weight forward, butt sticking out), using equal and firm grip pressure but letting the rest of your body be more or less relaxed, etc.. It’s a good article on helping to manage recoil and stop flinching.
Mr. Avery briefly touches on an interesting topic:
With the trend towards smaller and lighter handguns and more powerful cartridges, I have noted an increase in flinching among students shooting these firearms. Weight is not a bad thing if it is kept in a range that allows for controllability along with ease of carry.
I’ve observed newbies shooting a Kahr (i.e. very small and lightweight handgun) chambered for .40 S&W (i.e. powerful, snappy cartridge) for the first time. Invariably the newbie shooters do not like it. Small guns are harder to control: you can’t get enough grip on them, they have less weight thus less mass to help absorb and manage that recoil. But, people want small guns because they believe that’s the only way to carry concealed, so the first gun they get and try to learn to shoot with is a small gun and inevitably it leads to a lot of frustration because they can’t shoot it well. Frustration then equates to not practicing, and not practicing well… you know what that means.
I made this mistake. I started out with a small gun. It wasn’t too bad, but upon the recommendation of a good teacher I put the gun on the shelf and bought a big full-sized gun. I’m glad I did. It was much easier to shoot a full-sized gun and consequently I learned faster, practiced more. Once I had competence with the larger gun, it wasn’t as difficult to go back to the smaller gun and be successful in shooting it because I had the technique fundamentals down. Hence my opinion that small guns are better for “advanced shooters” and beginners should stick with full-sized guns. Get through the learning curve, get a solid foundation, then move to the small gun. Besides, yes you can conceal full-sized guns.
Snow Leopard’s file system changes
Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” brought a slew of under the hood changes. There are two distinct but related changes that Apple made that most users will probably never notice and many developers probably never will either. But if you happen to be someone who works with the file system, these changes may affect you. These changes are:
1. KB vs. KiB. That is, is a kilobyte 1000 bytes or 1024 bytes.
2. file-system-level compression of files
Since I recently went around with these, I felt it’d be worthwhile to share what I discovered, since there isn’t much information out there on the topic. The only thing I found that remotely discussed the matter was this page of Ars Technica’s Snow Leopard review.
Continue reading
Music bleg
Lynyrd Skynyrd have a new album (to be released Sep. 29, 2009), “God & Guns” coming out. Check out the video for the first single, “Still Unbroken”. Supposedly you can listen to all the tracks this week here at CMT’s The Leak, but as of this writing it’s not working. “Still Unbroken” sounds pretty cool tho.
KISS has a new album coming out called “Sonic Boom”, much to the surprise of everyone that thought they were actually going to retire some 13 odd years ago on that first (of many) farewell tours… but to the surprise of no one that knows Gene Simmons likes to make money. 🙂 All the tracks are available for streaming. It’s really not that bad. It feels like a return to their 70’s albums, but certainly with a hint of the 80’s in it too. Really, one of the better albums they’ve put out.
Megadeth also has a new album, “Endgame” and you can stream the whole album on their MySpace page. I haven’t paid much attention to Megadeth the past some years, but this album rocks. Mustaine’s guitar playing is awesome. There’s rumor going around that “the big 4 of thrash” (Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax, Slayer) might do a tour. You hear various things from various sources which makes it sound like yes it’s actually being talked about but no one wants to really say anything until all the details are worked out and the contracts are signed. It would be logistically interesting, and certainly an ego-filled endeavor. But hey, if Megadeth and Slayer can tour together these days, maybe it could work out. Anthrax would have to get their shit together, and hopefully Metallica wouldn’t feel a need to be the kings of the roost (they may be the most commercially successful, but like Slayer was ever commercial? And bands that have to go on either before or after Slayer always have a rough time). Still, if it was to happen, I’m sure lots of money could be made.
Ruger SR-22
Ruger just released their SR-22.
In short, a 10/22 with black plastic furniture.
I can’t blame them for doing this. To have an AR-styled rifle that shoots .22 LR is all the range these days. It’s not like it was hard to find 3rd party furniture to turn a 10/22 into an EBR in the first place, so Ruger is just capitalizing on things and getting a quick product on the market and money in their pockets.
Me, I wouldn’t buy it. If I wanted an AR-style .22, I’d want one as close to the actual manual at arms so that training muscle memory is in effect (e.g. operation of the safety). If I wanted a 10/22, I’d want it with different furniture and outfitting.
Nevertheless, there’s a market for this and I’m sure people will buy it. Good for Ruger.
Updated: Another good thing about this: it takes AR accessories, but it also takes 10/22 accessories. Arguably two of the largest aftermarkets out there.
Good to also see this iteration of the 10/22 includes recent improvements to the 10/22, like the magazine release and being able to drop the bolt with one hand.
Updated 2: Steve at TFB has more details.
Updated 3: Possible side-effect of the SR-22?
But what if you need more when installing?
As a developer of Mac OS X software, how to deliver that software is an issue of constant battle.
Long long ago, everything was shipped as either an installer or just in a StuffIt archive. Typically applications came in installers and the only thing in StuffIt archives would be non-applications (documents, pictures, other data).
Mac OS X tries to change this by simplifying things using drag-installs. It’s actually a very simple process of download, drag the application icon to the Applications folder, and off you go. But, even something as simple as that can prove too confusing for the lay person, or at least it allows for a host of problems. Installers still exist as well, and there are many other modes of delivery and installation out there.
Various bloggers have been discussing the issue. It starts with FireFox distribution issues, where they ultimately conclude that you should just ship an installer and piggy back off other mechanisms (e.g. automounting of .dmg’s). John Gruber counters that we should just use .zip files, and makes rather compelling arguments for that approach. Chris Clark also agrees with using zip archives. Andy Kim takes it a bit further and actually starts to touch on what I’m going to hit at.
All of these solutions are nice, but they all seem to target one thing:
Very simple applications.
If all your application is is itself, then I guess that’s fine. But what if your application has more than just the application itself? What if it needs to install drivers or other kernel extensions? What if it had launch agents or daemons? How about other plugins that need to be installed? Maybe something that requires a restart of the machine? What if you need to run scripts to deal with housekeeping (e.g. to help upgrading past users to the new version of the software)? All of these simplistic approaches just do not cut it.
Some would argue this should be a part of the application itself. That is, self-healing applications. I see merit in that approach and it could be a solution that solves this and the initial download-and-install problem. But it is not a panacea.
The ultimate problem is there is no one-size-fits-all solution, which seems to be what people are proposing… or at least, they’re not considering the wider scope that some developers may need in the install process. Apple seems to have the tools in place, but isn’t quite there. What ought to come would be:
- A new installer format. It could be an archive holding all the parts to be deployed, but it should allow for logic to be applied during the install (e.g. use of shell scripts, etc.).
- This format is understood by the OS, so when applications such as Safari download them, they can start the install process. Of course, we have to be mindful that some people could use this for nefarious purposes, so being fully automatic is not ideal… asking the user would be helpful. Using code signing and other forms of trusted computing may help here.
- The notion of installing then isn’t just some file format, but is also considered an end-to-end process, from either downloading the software or inserting the removable media that has the software on it, to getting the software installed, configured, registered, and cleaned up after (optionally removing older versions of the software and its support files, removing any archives, trying to leave the machine in a cleaner state than before it started). Get the users going the whole way through. It should “just work”; Gruber’s mention of how the iPhone works is apt.
- To publish a set of tools AND guidelines on installer creation. Apple goes through a lot of trouble to establish human interface guidelines on how applications should work. Apple can and should do the same with installers so that the experience of getting software to users can be as simple and pain free as possible, but also as consistent as possible.
The big problem we have today is too many approaches to installing software. Everyone has different needs and different thoughts on how best to approach it. I’ve had debates at my office about how we should deliver our software, and it’s difficult to achieve consensus because all approaches have strengths and weaknesses. This only serves to hurt the user because there isn’t one way that “just works” for them to get to know and be comfortable with. Every install process is different and unique, and for the non-geeky types, just frustrating and confusing.
I hate to say it but the movement to improve this will ultimately have to come from Apple. It’s their platform, it’s their user experience that they wish to control and dictate. Ultimately Apple must be the one to improve this.
Can we 3rd party developers do something about it? Sure. We could work to tackle the problem, publish our own guidelines, create tools to help out. But I’m not sure how far it would get. Efforts like Growl, Sparkle, solve some great problems and didn’t come from Apple and have gained a tremendous amount of traction in the developer world. Still, some venture to do it themselves. Code solutions are good, but guidelines are better so if you have to do it yourself, at least some guiding principles can be followed with the hope of still making things good for the user.
Where to start?
MUC applied
One of the best parts of SouthNarc’s curricum is MUC: Managing Unknown Contacts. Effective MUC can stop a situation before it has a chance to get ugly.
John Farnam just posted a quip that provides a pretty good example of MUC. I don’t know if this student was formally schooled in MUC, but it appears at least something similar.
Some key points from the quip:
- She was aware of her surroundings. Not just observing a strange man and his behavior, but also being aware of the time of day and her location.
- She kept up a monologue, not a conversation.
- Her voice and demeanor were emphatic.
ShivWorks’ Practical Unarmed Combat DVD gives a good introduction to SouthNarc’s MUC material. Better is getting some training direct from SouthNarc.
Gun in the car – bad idea
Roberta X points out why keeping a gun in the car isn’t the hottest idea.
Stealing guns from cars is a big way that guns go from being “legal guns” to “illegal guns.”
Here in Texas, I know a lot of people keep a gun in their car. Honestly I don’t know what good it does them. The gun is rarely (never?) on their person, crimes in a car aren’t that frequent, and if one does happen most people who keep guns in their car keep them in some useless state (e.g. bagged up, boxed up, etc.). So basically it’s just a 4-wheeled storage crate, where you bring the gun to the thief.
The unfortunate thing is a lot of laws force law-abiding citizens to behave in this manner. You might have a concealed handgun license but now you need to go into a building where you cannot legally carry it, so you are now forced to leave it in your car. It’s just bad feeding worse.
Stuff From Hsoi 