Author: hsoi

Small incident

/ hsoi

Had a small incident tonight.

I’m chillin’ with Daughter in the house when Oldest rushes into the room and says, “Mom needs you, now.” Urgency there, I get up and go. Wife briefs me. There’s some dude hanging around the street-light a couple houses down. Gave Oldest the willies, and it was certainly odd behavior. Strange person, why would they just be hanging out at the street-light?

I head outside to check on things. I’m able to do a few things in the yard to look busy and otherwise occupied, but watching what the dude is up to. Then I see good neighbor across the street, who has a similar penchant for paying attention to the neighborhood goings on. I head over and we talk, as he too noticed the dude.

As we watched, dude’s behavior wasn’t too suspicious. Perhaps just waiting for someone to pick him up. But then it dragged on. We were standing outside talking about life, family, work, hunting, playing in band back in grade school, whatever topics. But dude was still there… hour went by, still there. It went from a concern, to probably nothing but we’ll keep an eye, to “this is just getting weird.” Why just standing there, doing nothing, for about an hour? Gave the police a call to have them drive by. I don’t know exactly how long it took them to show up, but I know I checked the clock and 15 minutes went by and it was some time after that before APD rolled onto the scene. Two cruisers showed up, they spoke with dude, eventually some people from a nearby house come out and there’s interactions with the police and discussions. Back and forth for a bit, APD seemed eventually satisfied and left. People from house brought a phone out to dude, and eventually he leaves in a car with someone (they had pulled up prior to APD arriving).

While the men were outside minding things, the women of the neighborhood were on the phone alerting all other neighbors. People were watching out their windows, noting things, taking descriptions, pictures, whatever. If something was going to happen, we were going to be prepared. 🙂 Plus, as everyone connected, it was evident that others had noticed dude too and had similar concerned feelings about the matter.

No idea what was going on, but it was still all very strange. We’re attempting to contact APD to find out the story.

Lessons learned:

  • Don’t blow off gut feelings. If something feels wrong, act on it.
  • You don’t know when ugly will strike, so always be prepared. I have all my everyday gear on me (including my flashlight), every day all the time. Wife needed me now, I was able to go and was ready (well, didn’t have my phone on me… still trying to work out a good “gotta keep it charged but need to keep it on me” strategy). I didn’t have to take time to get all my stuff together, I was ready and could act immediately.
  • Ensure all your neighbors know each other and have each others contact information. You don’t have to be friends, but you are neighbors. Even if you might not like your neighbor, there may come a time where there’s a bigger evil that will require you to come together.
  • If you’ve got a team, ensure you’ve got a plan. My wife and I? Team. Kids can be involved too. Then have plans, and ensure people know their parts; practice. Wife knows one of her primary roles is communication: she calls proper people, gathers information. I didn’t have to walk out the door and tell her to do any of this; she knows her role, I know mine. Kids even do to, for instance, they know that yeah sometimes in life you might be able to argue with Mom & Dad, but when something serious is going on you must obey… and they know that.
  • Don’t count on a fast police response. I’m not surprised they didn’t come blaring in with sirens within 2 minutes, and I expect if they had to get two cruisers/officers and coordinate a bit that that would require a little more time too. I wish they were a little faster in their response but in the end it was acceptable response time. Still, it was quite a long time for the response…. you can only count on the police for so much, and your immediate safety isn’t necessarily part of that equation.
  • If you believe in self-defense, your training shouldn’t be in only physical skills such as punching or shooting. You need to know street smarts, mental skills, and other such things. That will take you further.

I believe the world is a generally safe place. I believe the world is filled with good people. But evil can come in any form to any place at any time. Nothing is immune. If you don’t want evil to harm you and your loved ones, it’s good to be prepared to deal with it when (not if) it comes your way.

Scope covers tidbit o’ info

/ hsoi

I’ve been needing some covers for the scope on my hunting rifle. The rifle was a combo that came with a scope. Seems the scope is a Simmons Blazer, the 3-9x40mm model. A set of Butler Creek scope covers would be fine. Thing is, I didn’t know what size to get. So, I did the logical thing: I called Simmons to ask.

The guy on the phone said I wanted a 10 eye (1.516″/38.5mm) and a 28 objective (1.890″/40.0mm) (these are the regular flip-open models). So off to the store I went and bought them. Came home, put them on, and well… technically they fit, but really they don’t. They’re probably the exact size, but that made them just a hair big and thus they were loose. No way they would work. So, went back to the store looking for the next size down. No luck. I did find a 26 objective (1.820″/46.2mm) which was fairly tight but works, so I exchanged the 28 objective for the 26. I think a 27 objective (1.840″/46.7mm) would probably work… fit well so it wouldn’t fall off, but not be so tight that it’s difficult to remove (like the 26). I don’t know what eye I would need, but my initial guess is just one size smaller at a 9A eye (1.485″/33.7mm). It’s possible a 9 eye (1.468″/37.3mm) could be right, but no way I can know until I can try them. Apparently Cabela’s should have 9 and/or 9A, but I don’t feel like hauling all the way down there just for one of these. I’m sure I’ll be down there sooner or later anyway and I’ll look for one then.

Just wanted to put this information online for the search engines… in case someone else runs into this eventually.

BTW, here’s a handy Butler Creek scope cover size chart.

The Bill of Rights – Amendment 6

/ hsoi

In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Source: The National Archives and Records Administration, “The Charters of Freedom” exhibit.

Front Fiber unfixed

/ hsoi

Since I had to fix the fiber optic insert on my front sight, I tried using the green insert.

It didn’t pan out.

It just didn’t show up bright enough. Not enough to “draw my eye” to the front sight. After a few days of dry firing and working with it, it’s just not working to grab my eyes.

So I just changed it back to a red fiber. Much better.

That said, this isn’t me advocating red as better than green. My understanding is it’s truly a personal thing depending on how your eyes work. Some people work better with green, some better with red. So I’m glad I used the opportunity to figure out what worked for me, and it seems my eyes like red.

Equal furor

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Lest ye readers think I’m anti-Obama and thus some sort of Republican-lover, read this.

This position is so obviously unhinged from any concept of Republican “principles”.  It has become clear for some time that, while a few Republicans have suggested some real reforms, Republicans believe their best strategy is simply to oppose whatever Obama proposes

I agree. Republicans and Democrats these days both suck, just in their own special and different ways. They’re both for more government, they’re both more taxes, they’re both drunkenly irresponsible. Something to the effect of: Democrats want to legislate compassion, and use my money to do it; Republicans want to legislate morality, and use my money to do it. Libertarians want to do neither, and I get to keep my money. I don’t perfectly mesh with the Libertarian party, but it’s about as close as I can get if I must label myself.

Previous diatribe.

Subtle bias

/ hsoi

I am at the teacher supply store (yea iPhone!) waiting on Wife to finish shopping for some teaching supplies. While waiting I wander around looking at the teaching aids and workbooks. I happen upon the book section on social studies and government. Oh cool! A workbook on the US Constitution. I flip through it. There is a section on the second amendment. It has a brief discussion of the “controversy” of 2A. Then the question section:

On the lines below, describe one argument for and one argument against gun control.

Why not for or against the right to bear arms? for or against the right to defense? for or against the abridgement of a fundamental right?

Subtle bias?

The weather rock

/ hsoi / 5 Comments

Do you know what a weather rock is? It’s a fantastic device for telling you what the weather is. Quite accurate too, far better than those weathermen on TV.

Linoge tells of his weather-rock like story.

I have a similar one.

Wife loves to follow weather. She knows all about the science of it, can even decently predict things. She’s kept an accurate count of how many days have been over 100º in Austin this summer. She really digs weather.

But whenever it looks like rain, she must go look at the radar. Either the dedicated radar channel on the cable TV, or pulling up a web browser and looking at a website with a radar feed.

I just look out the window.

So it’s a fun little joke between us… she can’t confirm if it’s raining or not without looking at the radar. I confirm it by going outside and getting wet or not.  I might be the technology geek, but sometimes old-school techniques work just fine. 😉

Snow Leopard cometh

/ hsoi

Mac OS X 10.6 “Snow Leopard” is due tomorrow, August 28, 2009.

Macworld has a series of articles discussing the new OS version.

As a Mac software developer I have to keep up with such things. Frankly, the Snow Leopard update isn’t all that sexy for end users. You’ll see there’s no massive nor major feature list upgrade, which is a change. Every upgrade of Mac OS X so far has been a big step forward, so this is the first small step. Frankly what that points to is a maturing of the OS, and I think that’s welcome. We don’t have to be chasing the latest thing all the time and plunking down a lot of money to do so. Well, at least end-users don’t have to be… what Snow Leopard really brings about are a lot of under-the-hood changes that affect us developers far more.

Still, I have people asking me if they should upgrade. That’s up to you. Some people like to have the latest stuff, so if you like being on the cutting edge, then by all means be there at midnight when it goes on sale. One big feature for end-users is built-in support for Microsoft Exchange. If you have to work in an Exchange-based environment, you may find this quite welcome.

I must admit that I’m still a bit of a hold-out from converting fully to Apple’s own software. I still use Microsoft Entourage for my email because frankly it’s been the best Mac email client for a number of years. I have moved my calendaring to iCal (tho ToDo’s remain in Entourage because iCal’s doesn’t cut it), and with the purchase of the iPhone I have to use the Mac’s Address Book a lot more (thankfully Entourage can sync between its address book and Address Book.app). But with the massive amount of email, folder organization, rules, automation, and other such things it’s just tough for me to make the transition… probably take me a day or two just to try to get it all set up, and when I’ve attempted it in the past I discover Mail.app just isn’t quite there. But now with the Exchange support built-in, there may be more feature parity and it may work out. So I’ll probably reevaluate it at some point. The reality is, you do get further on the Mac working with Apple’s technologies because things like Address Book, iCal, Mail, etc. are all well-integrated into the system. They mesh with your iPhone better. Plus since developers can have access to such things (e.g. the Address Book API’s) the greater user experience can be enhanced if you’re taking advantage of what Apple provides. While some people don’t like this “monopoly-style” approach to things, it’s actually what makes the Mac such a great end-to-end experience. Instead of lots of disparate parts that don’t really hook together well causing the end-user a lot of frustration in accomplishing simple tasks, you’ve got parts that integrate well together from the hardware level through the OS lower layers to the higher layers to the end applications, and with everything hooking together, things can “just work.” User experience is so important and that’s what really differentiates Mac from other platforms.

So we’ll see. For me the key is being able to get my work done in a day with minimal-to-no hassle. So far so good, so it’s tough to want to change unless I can see improvement in that area.

But being a developer, I have been using Snow Leopard for a while and find that it’s just another upgrade. Being a “minor” upgrade for users, the impacts to me as a developer mean that I’ll still be supporting Mac OS X 10.4 “Tiger” for some time. Believe it or not, users are still using Tiger a fair amount. I can’t say why, but one possible reason is Tiger is the last version of the OS to include “Classic” support. If people are still relying upon Mac software from years gone by that was never rebuilt to be Mac OS X native, they would want to stick with Tiger. Trouble is, it’s going to be harder and harder to maintain that. Snow Leopard itself is Intel-only: PowerPC-based Macs are officially heading off into the sunset. Still, there’s not a whole lot at least in the work I do that would force one of my products to be Snow Leopard-only, and while I’m certainly working on a few Leopard-only things, so long as Tiger users exist and continue to buy software while holding out on that 4+ year old OS well… we’ll keep supporting Tiger users. Of course one potentially limiting factor will be Apple’s developer tools. Snow Leopard’s version of Xcode 3.2 does not install things for targeting 10.4… you have to do a custom install to get them (seems to be SDK 10.4 and gcc 4.0.x); so the writing is on the wall even from Apple: move forward.

Frankly, that makes sense for Apple. You see, at the heart of it all Apple is a hardware company. To make things like Mac OS X, iWork, and other bits of software, that’s really only done to make the hardware functional and useful. Macs, iPods, iPhones — it’s all hardware. The family iMac is a PowerPC G5-based iMac. It’s long in the tooth, no doubt. I’ve been wanting to replace it with a new Intel-based iMac for some time, but I have a rule with hardware purchases. You see, everyone always wants the best and wants to minimize obsolescence. There will always be something bigger, better, faster, cheaper somewhere on down the line, so there’s really nothing you can do about it. So you use what you’ve got as long as you can, push it until you truly cannot wait any more… not just desire wait, but some larger need. Then buy the best you can afford. So now that PowerPC is officially dead to Apple, eventually the family iMac just won’t be able to cut it any more. It should last a bit longer, but push is coming to shove and a new purchase is in the wings. Works well for Apple’s bottom-line, doesn’t it? 🙂

The Bill of Rights – Amendment 5

/ hsoi

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

Source: The National Archives and Records Administration, “The Charters of Freedom” exhibit.