Who Needs To Know Who We’re At War With Anyway?

Posted on July 28, 2013 by Alaska

Sorry, Citizen: only your Congressional Representatives can properly handle this information. List of Terror Groups with Which America is At War is Now Classified

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Finally, The Last Dangerous Visions!

Posted on July 28, 2013 by Alaska

For those, like me, who’ve been waiting for decades, well, here’s a thought-provoking review.

Maybe this was what Harlan was planning all along.

– Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

On Security, Physical and Cyber

Posted on July 28, 2013 by Alaska

Chris Byrne notes your housekeys are now very vulnerable to copying. Better than soap!

He also has a nice overview of one professional’s crypto practices.

Posted in By Ourselves, For Ourselves | Leave a comment

Sunday Tunes

Posted on July 28, 2013 by Alaska

I’ve found that Protoculture goes nicely with Ron Abuelo Anejo 12, which is pure rum nectar. Ode to the Ocean above; Cobalt below. Crank ’em both, well worth it after the build.

And something this weekend made me think of Y&T’s Anytime at All. Haven’t heard it for decades, but it still makes me happy.

Posted in Kewel! | Leave a comment

Cure for Cancer AND Obesity?

Posted on July 28, 2013 by Alaska

Well, now, this looks very interesting indeed. Human trials perhaps next year.

 

Posted in Kewel! | 1 Comment

I am shocked!

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Oscar Gordon

Shocked I tell you, to see this happening!

 

Nah, I’m not.  I’m shocked it took this long for it to happen, honestly.

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I had no idea

Posted on July 26, 2013 by Phil Kadath

That Robb had driven diagonally across the nation to Seattle.

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Though when I did see him, I figured he was just hanging around after the Paul McCartney concert at the baseball stadium the evening before (Dave Grohl and Krist Novoselic stopped by the stage for a bit, as well).

In other news, Hail Lego! Congrats Robb.

Posted in Kewel! | Leave a comment

First they Came for the BB Gun Owners…

Posted on July 24, 2013 by Alaska

Ask for a local depredation permit, get flagged in national databases.

How do I know RNS is a bona fide journalistic publication? We get press releases. Presented uncut (just like the newspapers do!), but with bolding of the fun parts by me:

For immediate release

Police Department Targets Local
Resident After Applying for a BB Gun Permit

Grand Junction, CO, July 24, 2013–Discharging a BB gun in the city limits of Grand Junction, Colorado (Pop. 50,000)  is illegal. In order to try to rid his area of an officially recognized invasive species, the Eurasian Dove which the State of Colorado allows to be hunted with no bag limit. James Shults requested a Discharge Permit to use a 30-year old Daisy BB gun to run the pest from his residence area and from neighbor’s areas with their permission.

After inspection of Shults’ neighborhood by two separate police sergeants the Chief (whom Shults likes personally) refused the permit as the neighborhood of single story houses is densely populated. Shults, a former National and , multi-state rifle champion and holder of many state and national records has no problem with the Chief’s decision, though he says “… it was sort of funny, of course it is densely populated, it’s inside the city.”

However, Shults noted that the Chief also sent copies of his denial letter to the Deputy Chief of Police, Grand Junction’s police Patrol Commanders and the city’s new high-tech 911 Center. Shults checked with his many law enforcement friends and contacts around the country and they confirmed he had indeed been targeted and flagged by the police and 911 center. According to Shults some LEOs (law enforcement officers) humorously chided him saying– “That’s what you get for trying to do the right thing.”

Shults says–“All this action for requesting a legal permit to discharge a Daisy BB gun in the city seems a little twisted. Am I now a terrorist to be watched by the full command of the Grand Junction police to include a flag on my residence by the 911 Center? I must be a very dangerous man armed with my Daisy BB gun; obviously a weapon of mass destruction.”
Continue reading →

Posted in Freaks, Mutants, and Morons, Have Gun, Will Travel | 1 Comment

RNS Quote of the Day, The Past Is Not Fixed in Stone Edition

Posted on July 24, 2013 by Alaska

Or consider the history of the Fast Fourier Transform (FFT) , one of the most useful algorithms known to man. John Tukey had an idea for speeding up the calculation of the discrete Fourier transform: Dick Garwin saw that it was  incredibly useful and pushed it, while Cooley wrote the program.  But the idea goes back a bit further in time: Good published a related idea in 1958, L. H. Thomas in 1948, Danielson and Lanczos in 1942, Stumpff in 1939, J.D. Everett in 1860, A. Smith in 1846, and F. Carlini in 1828.   The first treatment of the algorithm, and the only one as general as the Cooley-Tukey article, was by some geek named Carl Friedrich Gauss, back in 1805  (17 years before Fourier published his work) .  An unpublished paper on this topic was included in Gauss’s complete works, published ( in Latin, of course) in 1866.  If someone  (a  Jesuit?) had just looked in the right place and talked to Babbage, the British would have been doing digital signal processing in the Crimean War.

–gcochran9, “Battle for the Planet of the Low-Hanging Fruit” @West Hunter

Emphasis mine. I have always been fascinated by instances where small changes in history would have had great effects down the road. This was one. There are many, many more.

Posted in Quote of the Day | Leave a comment

Your Friendly Neighborhood Militiaman

Posted on July 23, 2013 by Alaska

Citizen…doesn’t need camo fatigues, a BOB, or even a rifle to be effective.

One does need good form, and this gentleman is demonstrating a fine deliberate Weaver-style hold with his Beretta Helwan, with his arm, not the barrel, rested on the tree (and on the right side so brass won’t be bouncing off of the trunk), this while in the midst of a riot no less.

In which Trayvon riot was this pic of a gentleman and his Beretta Helwan taken? Oakland? Los Angeles?

Original image, and the answer, after the jump.

Continue reading →

Posted in By Ourselves, For Ourselves, Have Gun, Will Travel | 5 Comments