Month: November 2010

We Must Prevail

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Head of the TSA, John S. Pistole says:

“We have discovered dozens and dozens of artfully disguised items that have posed a risk,” said Pistole, a former FBI agent who took the TSA post this year. “The threats are real, the stakes are high and we must prevail. When it comes to the TSA, we are the last line of defense.”

The stakes are high and we must prevail.

So, where is the line drawn?

Because that’s all this is… an arms race. They do something, so the TSA reacts by saying we can’t do that any more. So terrorists ramp it up, and you react — just like a terrorist wants — by being fearful. When the next guy shoves something up his ass to smuggle it aboard the plane, does that mean we’ll have to bring our own KY Jelly for our cavity search? Just remember to bring no more than 3 oz of it.

And the TSA is the last line of defense?

Hardly.

The last line is guys like Todd Beamer, ready to roll.

We are the last line of defense. TSA? You’re just affront.

Updated: (yes, I meant to type “affront”… “a front”, “affront”… sounds the same, and both meanings are intended here).

I’M MAGICAL!

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

From Hyperbole and a Half: Dogs Don’t Understand Basic Concepts Like Moving.

Just go read it. It’s funny, especially if you’re a dog owner.

I didn’t want dogs like this. That’s why I got a Kuvasz. But then… my dog eats cat poop and is happy to spin around and chase her own tail, so… sometimes I wonder. 🙂

Wounding factors

/ hsoi / 7 Comments

In 1989, the FBI printed a paper on “Handgun Wounding Factors and Effectiveness”. You can find a PDF here, HTML here.

Since all pistol rounds suck, what matters? Most of all, penetration.

CONCLUSIONS

Physiologically, no caliber or bullet is certain to incapacitate any individual unless the brain is hit. Psychologically, some individuals can be incapacitated by minor or small caliber wounds. Those individuals who are stimulated by fear, adrenaline, drugs, alcohol, and/or sheer will and survival determination may not be incapacitated even if mortally wounded.

The will to survive and to fight despite horrific damage to the body is commonplace on the battlefield, and on the street. Barring a hit to the brain, the only way to force incapacitation is to cause sufficient blood loss that the subject can no longer function, and that takes time. Even if the heart is instantly destroyed, there is sufficient oxygen in the brain to support full and complete voluntary action for 10-15 seconds.

Kinetic energy does not wound. Temporary cavity does not wound. The much discussed “shock” of bullet impact is a fable and “knock down” power is a myth. The critical element is penetration. The bullet must pass through the large, blood bearing organs and be of sufficient diameter to promote rapid bleeding. Penetration less than 12 inches is too little, and, in the words of two of the participants in the 1987 Wound Ballistics Workshop, “too little penetration will get you killed.” Given desirable and reliable penetration, the only way to increase bullet effectiveness is to increase the severity of the wound by increasing the size of hole made by the bullet. Any bullet which will not penetrate through vital organs from less than optimal angles is not acceptable. Of those that will penetrate, the edge is always with the bigger bullet.

So there you go. This is why calibers such as .25’s, .32’s, .380’s, and stuff like bird-shot aren’t considered ideal for self-defense, because they just can’t get down where they need to be. All pistol rounds suck, and some suck more than others.

Of course, the real important thing is accurate placement in the right spot because a deep wound in the foot doesn’t do much to stop your attacker. Must be accurate, then must penetrate, then the bigger you can make that hole the better such as with modern hollow-point ammo or just larger calibers (and cue the .45 is king flame fest!). 🙂

Note as well tho, this doesn’t just apply to handgun rounds and self-defense. When I go hunting, I need a toolset that will travel the distance and still have enough energy and ability to penetrate as deeply as necessary. Big game animals are man-sized or larger, with potentially tougher hides and structure. I won’t take a .22 LR deer hunting in the Texas Hill Country, but my 6.8 SPC with Barnes TSX bullets can do the job just fine. So can .308 Winchester, so can a lot of other proper rifle calibers. But on the flip side, you still have to worry about over-penetration or being too much for the job. Oh sure, I could hunt a deer with a .50 BMG but I’d ruin lots of meat and that bullet would keep travelling right through the deer and come to rest who knows where. That too could have lots of problems. Firearms are more specific in their application than people tend to believe, so make sure you choose the right tool.

Bottom line: consider the intent behind the tool and ensure to use the proper tool for the job at hand.

Hard Drive Upgrade

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It appears the hard drive upgrade for my MacBook Pro is mostly complete and successful.

I’ve had the stock hard drive in the machine and space was running tight. As a developer you can quickly fill up your hard drive with all sorts of things, especially artifacts from the compile process. Since the MacBook Pro still has a lot of life left, why not just upgrade the drive? Looking at Other World Computing‘s prices, I am amazed at how much you can get for so little money.

I settled on a Hitachi Travelstar 7K500, which is a 500 GB 7200 RPM drive. It’s one of the biggest and fastest 2.5″ hard drives you can get today. It’s not the fastest nor the biggest, but when I looked at all factors it ended up being the best all around. If this was going into a desktop machine I might be able to accept a little more vibration, a little more power consumption, a little more heat generation, but since this is a laptop, sorry, no.

The upgrade process was fairly smooth. I purchased the drive with OWC’s upgrade bundle, which includes their “On The Go” enclosure kit with the FireWire 800 interface. I thought it was also cool that their little upgrade toolkit was included. I didn’t really need most of the tools within it, but the nylon pry tool was useful. I installed the new drive into the enclosure, plugged it into the MacBook Pro, and used Disk Utility to format and partition the drive. I then used a Mac OS X 10.6 OS install DVD to reboot the machine (boot from the DVD). Once rebooted, I launched Disk Utility, selected a drive, selected the Restore panel and restored my internal drive (source) to the new external drive (destination). I let that run overnight.

Waking up this morning, I shut the machine down and went about taking the MacBook Pro apart. It’s actually pretty easy to do, so long as you have the right tools (e.g. anti-static wrist-strap). Plus, OWC makes a series of videos that show you exactly what to do. It’s mostly unscrewing a lot of little screws, the details once you get inside are where the videos helped most, but even then it’s pretty painless… just a matter of figuring out what to do.

So the old drive comes out, new drive goes in, reassemble the MacBook Pro, put the old drive into the external enclosure, and restart the machine. She started right back up, no fuss, no muss!

Performance? I can tell there’s an improvement. Going from a 5400 RPM to a 7200 RPM drive, plus whatever other advances are in the drive yeah, you can tell things are peppier. Any sort of read from disk is going faster, even just basic things like browsing in the Finder and listing the contents of a folder. I have noticed web browsing is faster, since web browsing can be very disk intensive as it reads to and writes from cache files. A good test will be later on when I start running Xcode and compiling, pushing real memory to the limits and involving a lot more virtual memory… how will swapping improve? I figure some, but just how much remains to be seen.

So far so good. There’s a lot of work still yet to be done, but that’s just a matter of time. I’m shifting around some files since I was able to make a better partitioning scheme. Spotlight is doing a full reindex and that’s going to take a while. I’ll suspend Time Machine backups during the day today and let it run overnight tonight since I’m sure it’ll have to do quite and extensive backup.

All in all, a good upgrade. Went smooth. More storage space. Better all around performance of the machine.

Now if I really wanted to see a performance upgrade, those solid state hard drives would be cool, but the price tag is scary! (OWC’s Mercury Extreme Pro SSD, 480 GB, $1579.99!!!). But OH the performance is wicked. 🙂

Updated: Now that I’ve been using it a bit longer, a few things to add.

It’s quiet. In fact, I think it’s quieter than my OEM drive (which was also a Hitachi). When I was working with the old drive in the external enclosure, I could hear it, clicking, whirring… not loud, but noticeable. But the new drive never made noise that I could hear above the rest of the din of whirring drives in my office.

Speaking of whirring, I don’t feel any vibration through the case of my MacBook. And maybe it’s just me, but it actually feels like there might be less. It’s hard to say. My body, specifically my left hand, is having a feeling of “something’s missing”. Like any vibration before was slight so the loss of it is barely noticeable. So maybe I’m imagining it, maybe I’m wanting to feel less vibration, but I can’t even say it’s vibration I am or am not feeling… just there’s a sense in my left hand (which rests over where the drive is located) that something is missing.

Heat generation doesn’t seem to be any different, at least that I’ve noticed so far. In terms of just what I feel through my hands on the machine, and smcFanControl’s temperature readout. That’s good.

Power consumption? Just have to wait and see. Not going to be using my battery any time soon.

The machine is still the machine. I can’t go faster than the CPU and video lets me go. But without question anything needing disk i/o is faster. Not some giant leap faster, but you can tell things are peppier.

I’m happy! All around good upgrade.

Doggie School – Day 5 & 6

/ hsoi

I just realized I didn’t write about “day 5” of Doggie School. But I can’t remember exactly what we did. Everything blurs.

Because yesterday’s day 6 of Doggie School was mostly a reinforcement of all that we’ve been working on. We continue to work on things like sit, down, place and so on, but with added time, distance, and distraction. Specifically yesterday we added food to the mix. So if I say “sit” but then drop a treat to the ground right in front of Sasha’s face? She’s not allowed to touch the food. Sit means sit and that’s all you do until I tell you otherwise: no moving, no barking, no getting things even within reach of you, nothing… you sit. If I get up and move away, no matter how far away I move, no matter how long I’m gone, you don’t get up… not until I say “free”.

The other thing we specifically worked on was the “recall”. That’s the dog being somewhere away from you and you say “come” or call their name and they are to come directly to you. The amusing part? When an energetic 10 month old 75 lbs. dog comes running at your petite wife? Well… the impact sends your wife airborne. 🙂  Wife wasn’t hurt, but she did get some nice air when Sasha barreled into her. One of those moments you wish the video camera was running.

That marked the end of our private lessons. We have the basics for manners and obedience: sit, down, place, come, , heel, no (corrections, both marking with “no” and a tug on the leash), “good girl” for praise, use of primary reinforcers like food/treats, walking on a loose leash. We have techniques for introducing her to people and people to her. We need to continue to take these further, such as sit with more distance, with more distractions, with more time, with food, etc..  We need to extrapolate behaviors such as when she hears the doorbell she doesn’t go ballistic but instead goes to her place bed (which implies laying down and being quiet, until we free her). So the basics are there, we just need to continue to practice and work on them with her.

I don’t think we’ll do another round of private lessons. I think that was necessary for the situation we were initially in, but now she needs even greater socialization. The neat thing about the private lessons was tho it was one-on-one instruction, Sasha was around a lot of distraction and other dogs because Triple Crown wasn’t devoid of activity while we were there. But I think next up we should take their basic manners and obedience class in the group setup. Yes, this would be a repeat of the curriculum we just learned, but it would be in a different context with more dogs and more people. It would help Sasha continue to generalize the commands, it would help us to reinforce the commands, and hey… I know that getting the same thing a second time can be good because the presentation may be similar but won’t be the same so inevitably you learn something new. Next classes that fit our schedule won’t be until January, so we may have to wait until then.

What can I say about Triple Crown? My experience has generally been good. I can’t imagine they’d be doing such good business if they didn’t do something right. But I also have heard stories and opinions from other people who Triple Crown is bad, but typically that’s been on the kenneling side of the business, not the training side. From reading How Dogs Learn it’s evident there are different approaches to training, and before I can put too much stock in stories and opinions I’d need to delve deeper into seeing where these opinions are founded. Perhaps that person views training differently thus Triple Crown’s methods are “bad” in their opinion. All I know is, I cannot debate the results. The Sasha we have today vs. the Sasha of 6 weeks ago is starkly different, and we’re happy both with the Sasha of today and our ability to handle and work with her. But will I kennel her there? That I can’t yet say, only because I’ve heard enough good and bad that I cannot determine what the Truth of the matter is. But furthermore, I just don’t know how well Sasha would take to being penned up and away from the flock she’s to protect for extended periods of time. Maybe as she’s older and more mellow it might work out better, but for now, just don’t know. So at this point, any sort of kenneling is out of the question no matter who does it.

Doggie grows. She’s just shy of 10 months old, and probably is now weighing 75 lbs. She needs to stop eating acorns (we think that’s what’s giving her the on and off diarrhea… we’re working on keeping her from eating them but she gets sneaky on us). She’s learning the groove of things, she’s becoming better behaved and accepting of the world around her. Like anything worth having, it takes time and work. So far, so good. 🙂

THIS is a hero

/ hsoi

Staff Sgt. Salvatore Giunta is awarded the Medal of Honor. Vanity Fair interview with Staff Sgt. Guinta.

What went through your head when you heard about [being awarded the Medal of Honor]?

“Fuck you,” I said. It sounds really awesome in theory, but what’s it worth? Brennan? Mendoza? No. I did what I did because in the scheme of painting the picture of that ambush, that was just my brush stroke. That’s not above and beyond. I didn’t take the biggest brush stroke, and it wasn’t the most important brush stroke. Hearing the Medal of Honor is like a slap in the face. I don’t think you know what I did. I didn’t do shit.

You’ll get asked a lot about bravery. What is bravery to you? How would you define it?

Bravery to me is doing something that doesn’t necessarily have to be done, doing it full heartedly, accepting it no matter what consequence comes from it, because it really does need to be done. Everyone out there is brave. Don’t have to be in Afghanistan.

By your own definition, it’s brave, what you did out there.

I was one person being brave in a group of a whole bunch of people that were being just as brave. Everything had the same thing to lose: their friends and themselves. I guarantee, no one thought about that out there. Bravery gets thrown around a lot. I served in Battle Company Second of the 503rd with the bravest men I’ve ever met in my entire life, and I’m proud to say that.

What does the Medal symbolize for you?

I want to stress the fact that this is the nation’s highest honor. Awesome. And it’s given to me, but just as much as me, every single person that I’ve been with deserves to wear it—they are just as much of me as I am. This isn’t a one-man show. I’m here because someone picked me. I hope that everyone around me can share in whatever pride that comes from it. They deserve that pride.

The man’s humility is greater than his bravery.

And I think Farker “JungleBoogie” said it best:

“When asked by CBS’s Lara Logan what kind of soldier he was, Sgt Giunta replied: “I’m average. I’m mediocre… I don’t think I did anything that anyone else I was with wouldn’t have done. I was in a position to do it. That was what needed to be done. So that’s what I did.”

What an impressive fellow.

The contrast between this man, a humble and courageous infantryman walking through the Valley of Death, and the self-important, preening, corrupt gasbag politicians who send these guys into harms way, could not be more stark.

Upgrades and obsolescence

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

In years past, if a computer was 3 years old it was on the way out. For a computer to still be in service after 5 years was strange… that it was still being used was impressive, that such a relic could still be useful.

It was especially harsh in the Mac world. Whereas you may still see someone today using a Pentium with Windows 98 and being happy about it, you just don’t see many Centris or Performa or Quadra still in circulation, except perhaps in a hermetically sealed off elementary school. But even these days that’s rare since most of those can’t exist in the modern world of the Internet (especially with a need for Flash).

But something changed a few years ago. Apple changed to Intel processors, and Moore’s Law appears to have tapered off. My MacBook Pro is 4 years old and performs well-enough. Oh sure would I love to upgrade? Yes. But what would I gain for that? I’d lose a FireWire 400 port. I use a USB port. I lose the express slot (but big deal, I’ve rarely used these). I’d gain an SD card slot, but that’s of minimal use to me. I’d gain 802.11n wireless, but that’s not a huge deal since I’m mostly wired up and when I use wireless it’s just short bursts of network need and it’s fast enough as it is. Faster processor and graphics, but for the most part what I have works… it’s sufficient for email, web, IM, whatever… only compiling would be better but there my bottleneck is the hard drive. Gaining the nifty new multi-touch trackpad would be cool.  But really… for dropping a couple thousand dollars I’m not gaining a HUGE advantage over what I presently have. The biggest thing I’d really want is more RAM since I’ve maxxed out the capabilities in this machine but again due to compiling code you just can never have too little RAM.

The one other upgrade needed? Hard drive. The drive in here I’ve outgrown. I’ve ordered a Hitachi Travelstar 7K500 7200 RPM model from Other World Computing. That’s about the best I’ll get these days: 500 MB of storage on a faster 7200 RPM drive. That upgrade right there should help overall system performance. Yes there are some slightly faster drives, slightly larger drives, but the Travelstar seemed the best bet in terms of price, performance, capacity, low noise, low vibration, lower power consumption… to me it was more important to have a cooler, smoother, quieter, less battery draining drive than say a Western Digital Scorpio Black (whose performance benchmarks were wicked awesome). That upgrade should be here today, and I’ll be down for a while while I do the drive transfer.

But I just find it interesting that while this MacBook Pro is showing its age, it still churns along respectably well. I don’t feel a need to upgrade now because there isn’t the obsolescence there once was. Oh sure, within a couple of years I’m probably going to replace it, but it feels good to not have to plan for a new machine every few years.

Violence Is Golden

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

Over at Arthur’s Hall of Viking Manliness, Jack Donovan wrote an excellent article titled “Violence is Golden”.

It’s a well-written piece on the reality of violence’s place in humanity and society.

Go read.

Updated: Looks like Arthur’s website is gone, but Jack Donovan republished it at his own site.

AR ramble

/ hsoi / 4 Comments

I’ve been thinking about my AR in 6.8 SPC. While it certainly gets the job done, I’d like to outfit it a bit more specifically for hunting.

The biggest change I can think of is changing the stock to a Magpul PRS. The main reason? The adjustable cheek piece. My only reserve? I need to first do some measurements and see if my kids could still shoulder it with the PRS because if they can’t, then the PRS can’t be used. The intent of the rifle is so it could be used by either my kids or me (tho primarily me).

I’m also thinking about taking the Bushmaster lower off and building a new lower from the ground-up. I figured as long as I was doing this, it’d be kinda cool if I could get the lower etched with my own design or wording, something totally custom. Any reader know of a place that does this? or perhaps in 2 parts, one that makes a good blank lower and another that could etch? My Google-Fu has been weak.

Then I think about putting the Bushy back together since it’s got the lightweight profile and turning it into a lightweight home defender. Put something like Magpul’s MOE handguard, inexpensive and lightweight. Add something like their Angled Fore Grip and figure out a solution for a light (got a light, just a matter of how to activate it), a way to strap a second magazine onto the gun (Redi-Mag/Mod?) and that could be alright. Just keep it light and minimal.

What spurred all of this? I received a Aimpoint Comp M4s for test and eval for TacticalGunReview.com. When I have my review, I’ll be posting it to the TGR website. But finally getting the red dot of my dreams got me thinking. 🙂

If readers have any suggestions on a stock for the hunting gun, be it how well the PRS would work or how another solution might better fit my bill, or on a way to get a custom-made AR lower, please let me know.

Safety Bullet? No, not really.

/ hsoi / 28 Comments

Seen over at the Girl’s Guide To Guns, a new “safety device” called the Safety Bullet.

I’m sorry, but this is bad.

I watched their video.

  • You called a semi-automatic handgun an “automatic”. I can half-way forgive that because I know the history of where the nomenclature comes from. But calling a magazine a clip? Sorry, but no.
  • Most people use semi-automatic handguns. So in order to make your semi-automatic handgun ready for defensive purposes you must remember to cycle the action twice? Good luck with that when the flag is flying. That’s precious time and seconds lost, and what if you forget? It’s a non-standard action to undertake, and sure you can train yourself to do this so it’s truly your reflexive motion, but the precious seconds still lost to this remedial action are unacceptable. If the average gunfight lasts 3 seconds, if getting the first shot off quickly and accurately matters most, this setup is not setting you up for success…. it just sets you even further behind the curve.
  • What if the fur is flying, you forget to cycle the action twice, fire, and now all you’ve got is a glorified paperweight? There is no way you will get the gun back in action in time.
  • How about with a revolver? How are you supposed to quickly bypass the chamber with the Safety Bullet so you can quickly and immediately get your revolver into the fight?
  • I assume this is intended for a home-defense gun, not a gun you carry. But what if someone uses the same gun for both purposes? Now you’re causing that person to do a lot more fiddling with their gun than is necessary. They will have to remember to always check their gun, cycle their gun, load and unload, replace rounds, take out “Safety Bullets”. There’s just too much handling here, and with all the ammunition manipulation this is just asking for a negligent discharge (which runs counter to the intent of this device).
  • Why would a youth or intruder have access to your gun in the first place?
  • Oh, I don’t like the inventor/demonstrator muzzle flashing the camera, nor his finger on the trigger as the gun dangles about. I’m sorry, but if you cannot demonstrate basic gun handling safety, how should that extrapolate into your “safety” device and us trusting it?  Do you really understand gun safety?

I’m sorry, but there’s just too many things wrong with this device.

I browse the company website. Q&A Section:

Question: Isn’t education and training the real answer to this problem?

[…]OK, then why are we still having Accidental Shootings?  What I found after a year of reading hundreds of cases, is that most Accidental Shootings are caused by those people that did not have the benefit of a Safety Course.  Rarely do those of us who have had the education and experience get involved in an Accidental shooting.[…]

So what you’re saying is, keep the ignorant ignorant, but use my device and problems will go away! Of course, to properly use your device in a self-defense situation, that requires a good deal of education and practice… and you’re basically saying these are people who won’t get educated nor practice. I don’t know. Seems like a bad situation all around.

From the order page:

We are in no way recommending that you keep your gun loaded. What we do recommend is to lock up your gun unloaded of all lethal rounds. Keep one Safety Bullet in the firing chamber and one in the top of the clip.

Maybe that’s the lawyers and/or marketing department talking, but that’s a bad recommendation. Granted, if this is a historical gun, a range gun, target gun, hunting rifle, or any other gun that sees rare use, yes keep it unloaded and in a manner that is as safe as possible (e.g. remove the bolt). But if this is your defensive weapon? What good is an unloaded gun?

Does the device have application? Perhaps. If say I kept a gun out on display and the gun was to be for display only, I could see a mechanism like this being useful because it does lock up the gun’s action and render the gun useless, yet I could keep the gun in a “closed” manner that’s prettier for display.

This device was created with the best of intentions, but such paves the road to Hell. There are better ways of dealing with kids and guns (check Kathy Jackon’s CorneredCat.com website).

Just did some Googling on the product. I’m obviously late to the “whoa, this is a bad idea” party. But it seems to have come up in the news recently (maybe the company is hitting up news stations for product informercials disguised as news?) and it is the first I’ve heard of the product. There’s even a recently created website called Why The Safety Bullet Sucks. And it does seem Mr. Worley and company are avid salespeople and don’t take kindly to being rejected. Guess I’ll wait and see if they find this posting and how well they respond to it.