Sebastian – Page 541 – Shall Not Be Questioned

What 5MB Used to Look Like

From Old Picture of the Day, courtesy of Instapundit. One of the great ironies of liquidating my company has meant going back ten years to when a terabyte was quite a lot of storage. Now I can put that on a portable USB drive. Our current technological infrastructure would be tight on a 20TB san. To me the next great leap will be shedding mechanical hard drives. After seeing Bitter’s MacBook Air, Solid State Hard Drives (SSDs) are definitely the way things will go.

I guess what’s also astonishing is that the technology that the 5MB drive was transported on is completely recognizable to us today, 55 years later. Computer technology has advanced far faster than transportation technology, or even our cultural ability to handle what the advances in computer technology is bringing.

Our Opponents Make Up History

I really don’t know how anyone can say this with a straight face:

Leave it to Sarah Palin to turn Paul Revere’s ride intoÂ a statement about “gun-grabbing.”Â In a wonder of historical revisionism, she stated about Paul Revere, in one of her famous off-the-cuff blunders,

“He who warned the British that they weren’t gonna be takin’ away our arms by ringing those bells, and makin’ sure as he’s riding his horse through town to send those warning shots and bells that we were going to be sure and we were going to be free, and we were going to be armed.”

According to a professor of history, appearing on NPR, with the exception of the warning shots, Sarah Palin got her history right. I mean, seriously, who doesn’t know that General Gage was marching on Concord to seize one of the arms caches the colonials had there?

Prof. ALLISON: Yeah. She was making a Second Amendment case. But in fact, the British were going out to Concord to seize colonists’ arms, the weapons that the Massachusetts Provincial Congress was stockpiling there.

So, yeah, she is right in that. I mean, she may be pushing it too far to say this is a Second Amendment case. Of course, neither the Second Amendment nor the Constitution was in anyone’s mind at the time. But the British objective was to get the arms that were stockpiled in Concord.

BLOCK: So you think basically, on the whole, Sarah Palin got her history right.

Prof. ALLISON: Well, yeah, she did. And remember, she is a politician. She’s not an historian. And God help us when historians start acting like politicians, and I suppose when politicians start writing history.

Our opponents are either highly incredulous or ignorant to an astonishing degree. Maybe some combination of the two. Either way, the accusation that we’re attempting to rewrite history here is breathtaking in its ignorance, or outright hypocrisy.

Constitutional Carry Moving Along in Wisconsin

From NRA:

The amended bill, sponsored by state Senator Pam Galloway (R-Wausau), allowed law-abiding citizens to carry concealed without a license for self-defense in the same manner as is available to the citizens of four other states.Â It also included the option of obtaining a concealed weapons license, for those who must pass through school zones or who want to be able to carry a firearm for self-defense while traveling in a number of other states through reciprocal agreements.

Wisconsin is already a state where one can open carry without a license constitutionally, and the courts seemed primed to declare a right to carry concealed in that manner if the legislature did not address the issue. I’m glad that a constitutional carry bill seems poised to be placed on the Governor’s desk.

Another Reason NRA’s Doctor Law is Stupid

Jennifer’s doctor is a gunnie. Gag laws are just a bad idea. Especially when you consider the number of doctors that are actually on our side. There are many. Some of them even read this blog.

Without revealing too much …

… I’m in the middle of trying doing something recklessly entrepreneurial. How reckless? That is still to be determined, but I spend time on the drive home with Bitter talking about how, “This whole damned thing is crazy, and I’m crazy for staying involved in it.”

I wish I could reveal more, but for a lot of reasons I have to keep my personal life just that. I am not the one at the tip of this spear, but I am the one who knows how to put Humpty Dumpty back together again. There are many cats in need of herding between here and not having to go look for another job. This is consuming the spare CPU cycles.

The good news is that our temporary offices now have Internet access that is not hopelessly bad. We should be returning to our somewhat regularly scheduled routine somewhat soon. I appreciate your patience in the matter. Previously I had a fairly well-regulated routine for supplying the blog with fresh material, which has hence had a wrench thrown in that formula.

Doctors Sue to Overturn Florida Gun Gag Law

I believe this should be an easy case for our opponents to win, and it was for this reason, plus a general conviction that we have a thing called free speech in this country, that I oppose NRA pushing these bills in state legislatures.

That said, I can see the strategic value in our opponents having to spend money they are short on to fight it. Even though the case should be fairly slam-dunk from their point of view, and for the First Amendment’s sake, I hope it is, it’s still money they won’t be able to spend fighting a case I really do care about.

In addition, it’s a shot across the bow to the medical establishment that they really ought not insert themselves into a contentious social issue that has absolutely nothing to do with the field of medicine. It’s not the AMA, AAP or ACP the press touts as the country’s most powerful lobbying group, and they would do well to remember that.

My Story of How I Became a Gunnie

Jennifer asks:

But whether Iâ€™ve met you or not, I want to know your story.Â The vast majority of my readers are firearms enthusiasts of some stripe.Â How did that happen?Â How did you become gunnies?

I was into shooting, pretty much only air guns and smallbore, from the time I was about 12 and 13 up until maybe 15. My Uncle and cousins moved to a more rural area where you could safely do that. Now it’s been built up and you’d get a SWAT team called on you for doing some of the shit we did, but we got away with it in the late 80s.

I completely lost touch with the hobby from 16 through to my mid-20s, which is probably fairly common for most young men. I did not get back into shooting until my friend Jason (same guy who is doing the 3D magazine project) took me out one time, and I remembered I once really enjoyed this.

A few months later he informed me there was a sale on Romanian AK-47 clones on sale at a local gun store near him. I was surprised this was legal, since I was aware of the Assault Weapons Ban, so I started researching, and discovered what it actually banned. I went up there and bought one. You can see it in the picture not to long after it was purchased.

I did not buy it for anything other than a novelty. In truth, I got it because I was appalled at the Assault Weapons Ban when it passed, and was even more appalled at it after I understood what it was really about. I short, I wanted it because a certain types of people who can’t mind their own damned business frowned on the idea of me having one, and I did not aim to please them. Turned out, however, I enjoyed shooting it. My next purchase, after that, was a .22LR pistol, a Ruger Mk.II, which I loved to shoot, and it was all downhill from there.

I purchased my first gun in 2000, after the Y2K thing turned out to be nothing. I’m guessing that was the reason for the sale.Â I did not grow up in a house with guns. My mother never would have allowed it. Whether she would have allowed me to keep one in our house as an adult, I don’t know. She died when I was 20 and did not have a say in the matter. My dad was fine with it. I moved into an apartment later that year, but I was still living at home when I bought my first firearm.

I did not get a License to Carry a firearm until 2002. The first firearm I carried in public was a Bersa Thunder .380. I took it on a trip to my sister’s the day I got the license just because I could. I felt very awkward, and thought everyone could see it. By that time I knew how to be safe with a pistol, as I had been learning for two years. If I knew then what I know now, I would have sought more formal training with reputable instructors in those two years than I did.

I did not get into competitive shooting until 2007. My only classification competitively is in NRA Air Pistol Indoor/Outdoor, and IHMSA. I have never been classified in IPSC or IDPA, and have never shot a formal match in either sport. This is not because I wouldn’t like to, but because the clubs in my area either don’t allow such shooting, or if they do don’t have formally sanctioned matches by a Â Shooting Sports governing body. Ironically the best place for me to shoot those kinds of matches is over at Central Jersey Rifle and Pistol, who run a lot of great matches, but taking a gun into New Jersey is not a wise move. Just ask Brian Aitken.

Finally, I got into gun blogging to impress a girl who said I should do it. She’s now my co-blogger, among other things :) I kept gun blogging because I built an audience, which surprised the hell out of me. Through this I’ve gotten to meet some terrific people. I don’t have any current plans to stop. What’s next for me in this issue? I’d like to find more trigger time competitively, and try some practical shooting sports. I’ve gotten out of the swing, so to speak, because of my schedule. Made the IHMSA match this weekend. It was fun. Every once in a while you need a reminder that shooting is more fun than working.

So that’s my story. What’s yours?

Department of Education SWAT Raid

Uncle notes that now we know what the short barreled shotguns they ordered were for. Tam thinks this is indefensible. Â Dave Hardy notes “[F]rom the list of matters to be seized it sounds as if they suspected her of getting student loans without being enrolled at a college. OK, send out a squad car and knock on the door.”

If a federal agency has a SWAT team, they are going to end up using it to justify its existence. I’ve long believed that there’s too much federal law enforcement, and it should all be consolidated under either the FBI or US Marshall’s service (since they’ve been around longer). It would be a huge cost savings, and you don’t have to worry nearly as much about the left hand not talking to the right hand.

Posts Coming

Internet at the old offices has been cancelled, and I’m no longer spending the day in front of a computer. I have a board meeting for my club tonight, so I will be getting some posts up thereafter. My company has essentially leased a closet from a short term leasing company for the three of us to finish the wind up, so space is going to be tight. We are very nearly out of our building, and ready to turn it back to the landlord, who is currently rather unhappy with us.

As far as my personal job situation goes, I have a few irons in the fire, which I’ll be able to speak about a bit more if one of them strikes.

Relaxing with X-Plane and the Embraer ERJ-140

One way I relax, and get my mind off nearly everything is tooling around in the X-Plane Flight Simulator. I downloaded a new jet model some time ago that I haven’t had much time to try out. I’ve flown on this plane before, and chances are many of you have as well. The manufacturer is Embraer, and it’s one of the many signs that Brazil is aiming to be a major player in the world economy. It takes a certain amount of sophistication to be able to produce airplanes; even the Russians and Chinese haven’t really managed an airliner that you’d want to take your wife and kids on, but the Brazilians have, and Americans are flying on them in droves every day. Dan Klaue has created a fantastic X-Plane model of this Regional Jet, which my video doesn’t really do justice. Flight is from Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson International (KATL) to Cleveland Hopkins (KCLE), near dusk:

As a 3D model this plane is tip top, though it still needs some work in the systems simulation category. Nonetheless, it’s a great platform, and is X-Plane 10 compatible whenever that ends up coming out. I’ve preserved all the sounds on my video, which are pretty true to what I can remember flying on Embraers. You can see in this video some of the deficiencies of the X-Plane 9 model, including having to bake lighting features on to scenery, with the rest being pitch dark and unrealistic looking at night. Twilight is spectacular though, which I’ve always thought X-Plane renders quite well. You can also notice the rather ad-hoc nature of building scenery when you get close to it in the X-Plane 9 model. X-Plane 10 will have global illumination, where even cars on the roads will have light sources in their headlights. It will also base its mapping data on Open Street Maps, and generate plausible communities based on that data. I’m really looking forward to X-Plane 10, and hope it’ll be out before the end of the year.

I do all my own piloting in these, which shows in the takeoff and landings being far less than you would expect from a professional. In particular I flared a little early on the landing, drifting a bit in the crosswind and putting the left rear wheel down on the runway before the right, and slamming the nose down a bit hard. Live and learn.