Guns, Cars, and Tech

Author: wizardpc

  • Weekend Discussion

    Thoughts or suggestions for a replacement for bittorrent RSS feed site http://ezrss.it ?

  • Friday Funny

  • Housekeeping stuff

    My server doesn’t seem to want to keep time. It was off by about 20 minutes yesterday when I manually synced with pool.ntp.org. This morning it was off by 5 hours. Meh.

    I’ve added a Resources page and a Contact page. The Resources page will contain stuff I use to research, and so far I’ve got links to the Lexis-Nexis version of Tennessee Code Annotated and the TN General Assembly page. I’ve got links somewhere that provide direct camera feeds rather than having to use the stupid Silverlight stuff on the TGA video page.

    I added some Social Media stuff to the bottom of posts. Just felt like the thing to do.

    Also, if you know of a good place to get header graphics, lemme know in the comments.

  • New Shooter!

    Coming late February 2012: lilwizard!

    I’m hoping for 2/23 since that’ll be a pretty easy date to remember. 3/08 would be too cruel to my wife 😀

    I got to hear the heartbeat this morning. Fricken cool.

  • You know what I haven’t talked about?

    Cars. So here we go:

    Lexus has released a Lexusified Prius, called the CT 200h. It’s $30,000 for the base model, has 98hp, gets 43mpg on the highway, and has a 0-60 time in the 10 second range.

    For $4,000 less, I’d rather have a TDI Passat that gets the same mileage.

    Of course, I haven’t paid more than $4000 for a car since 1999, so it’s not like I’m likely to buy either one today. Four years from now after they’ve lost 60% of their value to depreciation, however….

  • Gun Porn

    At this month’s meeting of the Tennessee Firearms Association we had James Kay from The Battle of Nashville Preservation Society give a presentation on civil war arms, and a bit of history on the Battle of Nashville. I’m not an antique gun guy, but it was pretty neat. One thing I did not know before last night was that Union troops had cartridge firing repeaters by the end of the war. The other thing I didn’t know was that rifles shooting Minie balls had effective ranges out past 900 yds. Mr. Kay told a story of a General who’s last words were “He can’t possible hit us from that distance.”

    I used to carry a Derringer as a backup gun. People laughed at me, until I showed them the round it fired:
    image
    I kid, I kid. That’s from a siege gun that could hit a barn door at 1600 yards.

    The top one in the picture below is (IIRC) a Springfield that was converted from flint-lock to percussion. The bottom one is a cavalryman’s carbine of some sort. Again, I’m not an antique gun guy
    image

    And the obligatory JayG bait:
    image
    ZOMG! Bayonets at the Golden Corral! EVERYBODY PANIC!

  • It all ends with puppy-killing SWAT teams

    As you may have noticed, Penn Jillette has an opinion piece on CNN that talks about why he is a libertarian. It’s all over my Facebook feed, so it’s resonating with peopleUncle pointed out that Jillette used the phrase “government is force”, which is a rare thing to see in an MSM piece.

    Here is the what he said:

    There is great joy in helping people, but no joy in doing it at gunpoint.
    People try to argue that government isn’t really force. You believe that? Try not paying your taxes…. When they come to get you for not paying your taxes, try not going to court. Guns will be drawn. Government is force — literally, not figuratively.

    I would like politicians and bureaucrats to acknowledge this: Every law, rule, and regulation made by the government ends in puppy killing SWAT Teams. Every dime that is spent in our name was taken at gunpoint.

    I want them to understand that every action they take has this statement as a footnote: “This is important enough that my grandmother should be killed if she does not abide.”

    The rhetoric might be a little over the top, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. Take the story of Rawesome Foods, who were raided twice in one year by full-ninja swat teams for such horrible crimes as “improper egg temperatures.” I mean really what could possibly justify that?

    It seems ridiculous that this could happen, right? Well, all it takes is one word: No.
    As an example, I’ll use my city’s recent doubling of property taxes to fund such necessities as computerized timing mechanisms for public baseball fields. Here is how it goes:

    Government: We need to double your taxes so that umpires don’t forget to turn off the ballfield lights after games are over.

    Citizen: No.

    Government: Um….but we need it.

    Citizen: No.

    Government: Well, it doesn’t matter what you think. You have to pay it anyway.

    Citizen: No.

    Government: [Later] I see you didn’t pay the new tax rate. Here’s your updated bill with penalties and interest.

    Citizen: No.

    Government: Okay, fine. See you in court!

    Citizen: No.

    Government: What? BUT YOU HAVE TO GO!

    Citizen: No.

    Government: Fine. We waved a magic wand and took ownership of your house. You have to get out.

    Citizen: No.

    Government: [Press Release] SWAT was deployed today and killed a barricaded suspect. Multiple attempts to negotiate were rejected, so SWAT had to move in. The suspect resisted arrest and was shot 37 times. We waited a couple of hours and then found out he was dead.

    Pick any issue, and that’t how this will end. From speeding tickets to multiple murder, the only way to ensure a civilized society is with brutality. If a violation doesn’t end that way, then what’s the point? I mean, if I can just say no until you go away, then why have the rule in the first place?

  • A little less creepy

    It’s still creepy that they do it, but I just noticed that Facebook is collapsing threads for politicians other than The One.

    I feel better. Glad my suspicions of an in-kind donation were unfounded.

  • Why would you ever need to carry a gun in your own house?

    Because some people don’t care that you’re home with your young son when they want to steal your stuff.

    Via email from Steve in TN

  • Well that’s neat

    I just accidentally discovered that Windows Key + number launches “the program pinned to the taskbar in the position indicated by the number. If the program is already running, switch to that program.”

    I use Alt+Tab, Win+D, Win+E, and Win+L daily. I’ll need to re-arrange my taskbar add this to my list.

    More keyboard shortcuts here