It’s not on the agenda, but I suspect it’s being heard in the Criminal Justice Committee at 10:30AM CST.
Here’s the money quote from Gerald McCormick (who we’ve talked about before):
In McCormick’s words: “We can argue about it and then pass it, or we can just pass it.”
I guess he learned his lesson after Maggart was unseated. We’ll see.
UPDATE: This is the bill. It will be heard in the Civil Justice Subcommittee at 3:00PM.
UPDATE 2: Passed to full committee.
2005 Ford F150 with only 44,000 miles!
Black, 4×4, power everything!
Only $54,000*!
The perfect thing for elderly ladies delivering newspapers.
*Only stops handgun rounds, though. If you want to stop assault patrol rifles, you’ll need to spend a little more.
Little known fact: I got my private pilot license (VFR) about ten years ago. I’d always wanted to be a pilot, so when the opportunity presented itself I took it. Got 42 hours of instruction/flight time in 2 weeks for about $3,000.
I’ve flown twice since then, and my medical lapsed long ago. It’s a very expensive hobby, and I’ve had other priorities.
I’ve always been interested in flying. I had a plan to join the Army and fly Apaches, but unfortunately that wasn’t in the cards for me. As a teenager, I lived along a military training route so I got to see all kinds of rotorcraft flying about 1000′ overhead. There is nothing more terrifyingly awesome than 10 AH-64Ds and 5 OH-58s buzzing your house in formation.
For the last three years, I’ve lived within spitting distance of an Air National Guard installation. I get C130s doing touch and gos for hours. I get OH58s and UH60s just over the treeline. I also happen to be in “Long Final” for Nashville International Airport, so during congestion I get to see 5-7 passenger jets stacked up waiting to land. It’s pretty neat.
Last year, I saw an article on Hackaday that showed a guy using a cheap TV-tuner to decode aircraft transponder signals. HOW COOL IS THAT?
Unfortunately for me, like many really cool software projects this one was all Linux and C and Mac. I’m a geek, but not that kind of geek. Linux just HATES me. I bought two of the tuners anyway knowing that eventually the Linux guys would make it easy for us Windows folks to play along.
That day has come. Yesterday I got both of my tuners hooked up and receiving ADS-B signals. I’m using the stock antenna, and it’s poorly placed, so my results are not stellar but they ARE working:
Now, how did I get here? Well, first you need the correct tuner. If you want more technical details, google up “RTL SDR” and spend a few hours reading. If not, just get this tuner
I have the slightly-less awesome version running the E4000 chip, but I’m ordering two of these shortly for another project that I’ll talk about at a later date.
You’re also going to need some software (download and uncompress to your desktop or some other folder):
The latest version of Zadig (and 7-zip to uncompress the download)
ADBS# (Project Page)
adsbscope (Project Page)
Got everything? Here we go!
1. Plug in the antenna to the tuner
2. Plug in the tuner to a USB port
3. Run Zadig and replace the driver, following the instructions here. Stop when you get to the section titled “Automated installer”
Note that the screenshots are for an older version of Zadig. Mine didn’t have “Bulk-In, Interface (Interface 0)” as an option. “RTL2832U” was what was presented to me. Also very important: You have to do this once, and only once, for every USB port you plug this in to.
4. Open “ADBSSharp.exe”, which is wherever you unzipped it after downloading. Keep the default settings and hit “Start”
5. Open up adsbSCOPE. It’s pretty far down in the folder structure where you unzipped it. I unzipped it to a folder called “ADS-B” on my desktop, so the executable is “Desktop\ADS-B\adsb_all\pc_software\adsbscope\26\adsbscope26_16384.exe”
6. Go to other->Network->Network Setup. Change your settings to match these:
7. Hit the inexplicably greyed-out and confusingly-named “start RAW-data CLIENT” button:
Now you’re reading data! But we aren’t quite done yet. You probably don’t want the map centered in Europe, and you probably want an actual map. To re-center, go to Navigation->goto Town or Airport and choose the closest large airport by it’s call letters.
Next, go to load Maps->Background Picture. That should load a rudimentary map with interstates, and major cities. Go to load Maps->Northamerica USA ex. alaska to load state lines.
That’s it!
Now, the thing about these signals is that they’re very sensitive to interference. I can pick up only very strong signals inside my office, but at home I pick up a lot more. It’s still not everything, though, because I have trees, buildings, and hills in the way. Also, the stock antenna is not designed for this radio band, so it’s passable but not great. Ideally, you’d want a specially designed antenna mounted on a pole at the top of a hill. There are some other really cool things you can do, like mounting all this stuff remotely and having the data streamed to you or to an online service that will do the mapping for you.
There are other programs you can use to decode the data that comes from ADSB#. I’m going to be testing out a few of them to see what works best for me. I’m interested in an Android app that can decode the signals as well, but my searches so far have been unsuccessful. I have a feeling that a better antenna is really something I should look at, but I’m not quite ready for that yet.
Stay tuned!
At last month’s IDPA match, I cracked my 4 year old Raven Concealment Systems Phantom Holster. Back then, they were literally the only people making holsters that could handle my Glock 23 with the Insight M6 Tactical Laser
Then, that Magpul Handgun DVD
Here is my old, cracked holster:
You can see how it happened. The original holster used the tension lever on the M6 to hold the gun in the holster. Over time, drawing and reholstering weakened the kydex until the day I reholstered into a ~20 degree Fahrenheit piece of plastic.
I hopped on RCS’s site and placed a warranty order. About two weeks later, I got the new one in the mail. I suspect that I’m not the first person to have the holster fail in this specific manner, because they’ve addressed this issue:
Other side, too:
As you can see from that picture, they now index it differently. The light is still what keeps the gun in the holster, but there’s a little “dot” that keeps the light from moving:
It’s a pretty tight mold, too. You can see the outline from the raised lettering on the light in this picture:
That being said, I don’t feel like it’s as tight a hold as the old index point. The old one may have actually been too tight, so this might be like saying “After driving an Excursion, the Suburban fells too small.”
Actual headline: Shots ring out following case of road rage
UPDATE: Headline has changed to the equally misleading “Shots fired following north Nashville collision, driver charged”
Accurate headline: Hit and run victim stops fleeing suspect from running over, killing witness
Actual headline: Sen. Campfield asks mother: Have you ever thought about therapy?
Accurate headline: Local Democrat activist threatens GOP lawmaker
Actual headline: The NRA opposes background checks
Accurate headline: NRA opposes ban on private sales and the creation of a national registry
I could do this all day.
Since my previous post about this rifle, I’ve added a couple of things:
Needed those, because I got this:
😀
6 month wait this time, partially my own fault for not reading the directions (As it turns out, if you print the two-page Form 4 on two pages, ATF will reject it. Lesson learned.). Woulda been 5. Next on the list: .45 Osprey.
I bought that can from DWH in a transaction that didn’t involve a dealer. It’s been featured on Oleg’s blog as well. He sold it because he wants a titanium model instead of the heavy stainless steel.
I completely understand. My AR now weighs twelve pounds fully loaded with the can on it. After I get the Osprey, I’ll move to getting something like a Gemtech Halo and move this one to a bolt gun.
Protests across the country called for thousands to march, all to push for tougher legislation when it comes to buying a gun. With a simple post online, a crowd of concerned parents, grandparents and kids showed up Saturday morning to march at Sevier Park to push for changes in gun legislation.
This march is part of the non-partisan One Million Moms for Gun Control march in Washington, D.C.
I don’t know about you, but when a protest is highlighted by former democrat appointees and Commie Day protestors, “non-partisan” is the last thing that comes to mind.
Intuit, the company that makes Quicken, QuickBooks, and several other pieces of financial software* has decided that guns are icky and they want no part of them.
Give them what they want. Use something else.
Update: Linoge reminds me in the comments that they also make TurboTax. Might I suggest some H&R Block Tax Software
*They also have a mortgage unit and a web hosting company.
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