Guns, Cars, and Tech

Category: Cars

  • Well, obviously!

    I buy a lot of used cars. I mean, I used to, back when I would buy an $800, drive it for a year, and sell it for $800.

    So as a direct result of that, I have spent a lot of time looking at used car lots. Mostly, that involves driving down the local highway that has 86,000 used car lots on it and stopping when I see something that might meet my criteria.

    I pull in, jump out of my car, check the mileage, and leave when I see they are asking $4,000 for a 20 year old car with 250,000 miles on it.

    Apparently, that makes me a racist or something:

    Abdullah told Channel 4 News he faces religious bigotry in many subtle ways as he conducts business at his car lot.

    “When I approach a customer pulling up, they see me, and they get right back in their car again. I know for a fact they were interested in a certain vehicle,” Abdullah said.

    Okay, then.

  • What size tires does the Dark Knight Batmobile have?

    Freaking HUGE ONES!

    (okay, the answer is 18.5/44×16.5 Interco Super Swamper IROKs)

    Yesterday I took my lunch break to go see the newest Batmobile, called “The Dark Knight Tumbler” and that piddly little bike thingy called the BatPod. It’s neat. Unfortunately, they didn’t let me test drive it.

    Protip: Don’t stand 6 feet away from it when they start it up. Loud does not even begin to describe it.

    Pictures below the fold:
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  • Why YOU should call the cops if you ever display your weapon

    I came across this story this morning, and I’ve got some thoughts about what happened. The reporting is pretty slim, so I could be completely wrong, but here goes.

    “Victim” and “suspect” are being mutual assholes on the highway. “Victim” decides to teach “suspect” a lesson, and gets out of the car to, er, administer that lesson.

    The alleged victim stated he then exited his own vehicle, “to see what the other driver wanted.”

    “Suspect,” who has his two kids in tow, then persuades victim to get back in his car by flashing his Glock.

    At that point Keller reportedly began yelling, cursing and pointed a handgun.

    I imagine the yelling and cursing was “Get back in the fucking car” or “Don’t come any closer, asshole.” Both would be appropriate if “suspect’s” version is accurate:

    Keller stated he “may have been” riding the complainant’s bumper on Memorial Boulevard. He reported the other motorist “locked his brakes” in the road, exited and approached his car. Keller admitted to then showing the other driver he had a gun, but claimed not to have pointed it his direction.

    So that’s why you call the cops if you ever have a defensive gun use. If the guy you may or may not have been tailgating* escalates the situation by forcing your vehicle to a stop and advancing towards you and your children, it’s probably time to put your hand on your gun. The rule is “first to call 911 is the victim.” I suspect Keller didn’t because he was carrying illegally**. The details around where the victim was when Keller showed his gun are important–and missing from the report. If the victim was within door-opening distance and still advancing, presenting the firearm would be appropriate. If he was 40 feet away, it would not.

    If Keller felt he was justified, he should have driven to the nearest gas station and called 911 to report the incident. Instead, the other guy did that and Keller was arrested.

    Cooler heads should have prevailed, and Keller should have made an effort to get away if that was practical. If you carry a gun, you know how a physical confrontation can end. It’s your job to avoid that, no matter how it makes you look in front of your kids.

    *The best thing, of course, is for Keller to not have been tailgating in the first place, but I know people who consider less-than-one-car-length-per-10mph to be tailgating, even during rush hour.

    **Suspect is not in my current database of Tennessee residents with Handgun Carry Permits. He could have just gotten his, but I feel like the reporter would have mentioned that. The article doesn’t mention that Keller was arrested for carrying without a permit, nor what the two counts of reckless endangerment were actually for.

  • Car Safes

    Every now and then, I have to disarm. I try to avoid it, but sometimes you have to go to “gun-free” zones to get stuff done.

    Like getting new license plates. Or meeting friends for dinner at a restaurant I’ve never been to and seeing the please rob my restaurant gunbuster sign.

    Because, you know, it’s safer to leave it in a box with tempered glass sides than on my person.

    Anyway, several years ago I bought a car safe thingy similar to this one from GunVault for those situations where, despite my efforts at avoidance, I have to leave the gun in the car.

    For a while, I would transfer it from my jeep to my wife’s car when we would go on trips and stuff. Then, I just started leaving it in her car full time. So I bought another one, only this time it had a combination lock instead of a key lock.

    In any event, they’re pretty cheap. They secure to the car via aircraft cable–I loop the cable around the front passenger seat bracket. I just found out that they’re also TSA approved for transporting firearms in checked baggage. That’s definitely an added bonus.

    I highly recommend them.

  • Tactical Dog Approves

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  • Overheard in the car

    Driving down the Interstate, we are passed by a Subaru WRX STI.

    Me: Man, I’d love to have one of those some day.
    Mrs wizardpc: But that’s a hippie car.
    Me: What? It’s a turbocharged off-road rally racer that gets like 18mpg! How is that a hippie car?
    Mrs wizardpc: Because it’s made at a factory powered by sunflowers and rainbows.
    Me: That’s totally going on the internet

  • To-done list

    Up at 0430. On purpose.

    Ran a 5k. Mostly.

    Went to the gun show. Surprisingly few guns. The only thing I came home with was for the dog.

    Moved blog from a self hosted solution to a hosting provider. I was already paying for the space and didn’t want to have downtime again.

    Dinner with the wife’s family.

    Possibly found her a new vehicle.

    Played with the dog until she decided to start tearing up the house.

    Feeding lilwizard before bed.

    Not a bad Saturday.

  • Things I see on my commute

    image

    That is a vintage John Deere in the turn lane.  Beats the hell out of 8 lanes of concrete and stop and go traffic.

  • Clearly, the answer is more government regulation

    The geniuses that run my city banned parking on the street several years ago*. People adapted in completely predictable ways and started parking in their yards.

    Obviously, that means we need to ban people from parking in their own yards.

    I’m sure that in a few years they’ll limit the size of driveways, and when that doesn’t work they’ll just say you can’t have more than 4 people with driver licenses living under the same roof. I’m not sure why they don’t just come out and say “We really don’t like all these hispanic folk renting houses here,” since the folks who lived here when the first ordinance passed said that was the motivation.

    *You can tell which houses were built after this ordinance by their gigantic driveways. My 1800 sq ft house has a driveway that fits 8 cars, plus the two for the garage.

  • I’m having a hard time following the logic here

    First off, let’s remember that the reason the economy is in the crapper is because people who shouldn’t have gotten loans to buy houses got loans to buy houses, cars, jacuzzi tubs, and jetskis and ridiculously low interest rates based on nothing more than “I want it and deserve it because I breathe air!” When those people didn’t repay the loans, it started a cascade of trickle up poverty. I was writing mortgage underwriting software at the time, so I had a front row seat to the entire thing.

    I went to Starbucks over the weekend and saw this new campaign they’re having: Create Jobs for USA

    The display they had asks for donations to help create jobs. I’m pretty sure the best way for me, as a consumer, to create jobs is to buy products or services that I find useful. Donating money just so that someone can have a job seems like busywork. Or government.

    Me, being me, asked the manager “So how many positions are you hiring for?”

    “Oh, at this store? None.”

    Wait, what?

    So I decide to look a bit further into this, and it turns out that the donations don’t go to help people get jobs. The donations go to banks, who then lend out the money to small businesses that are on the verge of failure. Plus they cart out the “created or saved” mantra as a success metric.

    So here’s how it works: You donate $5 to the program. That program then gives the money to a bank as a grant. That bank then loans the money out, collecting interest and fees. It’s a great gig for the bank, because there is ABSOLUTELY NO RISK TO THEM. Anything they charge for interest or fees (closing costs, application fees, etc) is pure profit. The borrower, on the other hand, is more screwed now than he was before. He was already struggling, and now he has another bill to pay and another creditor breathing down his neck.

    I don’t begrudge the banks for trying to turn a profit. More power to them, but debt is not a blessing, and charity shouldn’t be a profit center unless you’re up front about it. I once gave a truck to a guy I worked with because he heard I was trying to get rid of it and he told me he wanted a project that he and his sons could work on. He was in his mid 20’s and his boys were at that age where they were getting curious about mechanical things. For me, this was win-win: I get rid of the truck, he gets some father-son time. A few days later, his “brother in law” came to pick it up.

    I found out a year or so later that he had immediately put the truck on craigslist after I agreed to give it to him. The guy that came to pick up the truck was the guy he sold it to.

    I was completely willing to give up the truck for free to a good cause, but I was furious when I found out what really happened. I felt cheated and taken advantage of.

    This program is a lot like that.