The dumber people think you are, the more surprised they’re going to be when you kill them.
William Clayton
[There are more than one William Clayton I found on the net and none are particularly good candidates for this quote. But he is the only one I found this quote attributed to.–Joe]
I have my software project ready for an alpha release (feature complete, but there are known bugs which must be fixed before release).
This was designed for cell phones not a desktop. It will work on desktop and laptop computers but whenever a user interface design was a trade-off between a desktop user and a mobile user the mobile user was given the advantage.
The software is a web based exterior ballistics calculator and can be found here: http://test.joehuffman.org/ http://field.modernballistics.com.This is much different that Modern Ballistics but uses the same algorithms and concepts. This web based version is for use in the field. Example, while at Boomershoot you can input the exact ranges and inclination to a set of targets combined with the weather conditions to get the scope setting needed for one shot, one “kill” hits on the boomers. I plan to have it running on a local server at Boomershoot 2009 so cell phones (and laptops) with WiFi support can get really fast results even with a heavy load of users.
I’m also thinking that maybe for Boomershoot 2010 I will have a weather station on site that will update the conditions for a special version of the software in real time.
Known bugs:
All data is stored in cookies on your device. This means the website does not need to save the data on the site in order to save your data. The downside is that all your input from the desktop does not show up on your cell phone or if you get a new cell phone the data will have to be reentered.
At this point I’m mostly looking for user interface and device compatibility issues. Does it appear to work on your Blackberry? Does it work on your iPhone? Is the user interface easy enough to understand and use? If you have problems with your cell phone try using it on a desktop computer to make sure you are using the software right before assuming the cell phone is having problems with the website.
Leave comments here.
Thanks for your feedback.
Recently I was told “well you guys are all Glock guys” “you all just like glocks” we are surely NOT “glock guys” I don’t shoot glocks because I like them. I like them because they do for me what I want. They have the combination of reliability and longevity I want; in a reasonable package size, for a reasonable price. Funny things is a lot of people pick Glocks because of how much ammo they carry, that wasn’t really in my criteria at all. The only way that would fit into my decision making is if two guns were equal in ALL other areas and one carried more ammo, then sure I’ll always take more for no trade off.
Greg Hamilton
Founder and Chief Instructor Insights Training
Insights Email List: October 25, 2008 12:21 PM Subject: Random Thoughts
[I frequently get asked “What gun should I buy?” My response is typically a heavy sigh. It depends on what you are going to use it for, how often you are going to shoot, and probably a dozen other things. The Insights instructors mostly shoot Glocks but their criteria is a little different than mine. And my criteria is a little different than the last five people that have asked me what gun to buy.
I advise new shooters to buy something fairly cheap and shoot it until they are fairly certain they are shooting better than the gun or they understand their needs well enough to buy something more appropriate. My first rifle was a SKS I paid $125 for. I put over 1000 rounds through it before I had a need for a better rifle. But I knew the rifle was holding me back and a better rifle would get better results. My first handgun was a Ruger P89. I put about 30,000 rounds through it. I even won a few steel and USPSA matches with it. By that time I knew the P89 was holding me back and I knew why. I then bought my STI Eagle because it would overcome the weaknesses for my uses I had exposed in the P89.–Joe]
The palm-sized device designed by Qinetiq, the British defence firm that was once the government research laboratories, is pinned to the uniform and uses acoustic technology to calculate the exact position of the rifle fire.
Then a electronic voice passes on the “bearing and range” to the soldier allowing him to jump to safety and return fire.
The machine has already been purchased by the Americans for deployment in the New Year and the British are looking at a vehicle mounted version.
…
The device, which costs around £2,500, works by isolating the crack of the sniper rifle thanks to four microphones, a GPS system and a powerful microprocessor.
It takes less than a tenth of a second and provides the results in audio and visual formats. It can even send a grid reference via radio to supporting artillery and aircraft.
The system, which weighs less than 6oz, is so sensitive it can tell the difference between outgoing friendly fire and incoming enemy fire and can distinguish a sniper even in a gun battle.
It also works when the soldier is travelling at up to 50 mph on a vehicle.
The device has already been road tested in Iraq and Afghanistan to claims of great success.
The mayor is beating his chest trying to make a statement that he’s anti-gun. The mayor and violent criminals in this case have something in common this time — neither of them have any respect for the law.
Alan Gottlieb
November 21, 2008
Nickels expects December start to city gun ban
[Seattle Mayor Nickels says he is going to defy state law and prohibit guns by executive order on city property. The Washington State Attorney General says state law prohibits him from doing that. A public hearing is scheduled for 6:30 PM, December 15, at City Hall.
You can read the proposed rules and comment on them here. See also the Citizen’s Committee to Keep and Bear Arms news release. Be polite, run your comments through spelling and grammar checkers, and ask someone else to read them before submission. You might also consider get yourself into the proper State of Mind, and/or thinking about Just One Question before writing your comments.–Joe]
Last January I reported a fellow shooter, Joe Metz, was terminally ill. He passed away April 26 but there is another service being performed this Sunday, November 23, at the Bernie Petersen Memorial Range at 9:30. There will be a small memorial and they will spread the remainder of his ashes.
I will be in the Seattle area and unable to attend but I wanted to make the announcement a little wider.
History suggests that capitalism is a necessary condition for political freedom. Clearly it is not a sufficient condition.
Milton Friedman
[It’s really sad that people are:
For those interested in political freedom I would like to suggest the First, Second, Fourth, Fifth, and 13th Amendments to the U.S. Constitution would be good additions to capitalism toward achieving political freedom. Although if the Second is uninfringed then the 13th pretty much should be taken care. Isn’t it ironic that our first president with a skin color strongly correlated with slavery in our country wants to continue the infringements that kept those people in slavery? And furthermore the first infringements upon that right in this country were enacted to keep people of that skin color from obtaining and using firearms? Condi Rice gets it. Barack Obama doesn’t. What makes the difference?–Joe]
The new machines being proposed for airplane security give results like this:
Never mind What TSA Really Stands For, that almost for certain it can never be effective security, and it costs billions each year that could be spent on something more effective, the response is:
After the machines were introduced at Amsterdam’s Schiphol airport last year, officials there said they had few complaints from passengers, saying most approved because lines moved faster.
Sheep.
The handgun ban is a reasonable restriction, because handguns constitute a unique class of firearm that have an unmatched ability to cause violence and kill human beings.
Daniel G. Jarcho
Brief of Violence Policy Center and the police chiefs for the cities of Los Angeles, Minneapolis, and Seattle as amici curiae in support of petitioners in D.C. v. Heller.
[Handguns cause violence? Unmatched in their ability to kill human beings?
And all this time I would have thought it was atomic bombs (super novas probably outperform A-Bombs but they haven’t actually been demonstrated on human inhabited planets that I know of) that were unmatched in their ability to implement violence and kill human beings. And that is why I was accepting of “reasonable restrictions” on atomic weapons. But now that the Supreme Court says handguns are protected by the Second Amendment and, according to Mr. Jarcho, atomic bombs are less dangerous than handguns I guess that means atomic bombs should be protected as well.
I’m glad Mr. Jarcho was able to clear that little misunderstanding up for me. I’ll be consulting his work more frequently from now on to make sure I don’t make some future similar mistake in my classification of weapon systems. Now, where is a nearby public range where I can rent an atomic capability artillery piece and buy some ammo for it? I want to evaluate some possibilities for the next Boomershoot.–Joe]
Ry reports the KING 5 Evening Magazine video on Boomershoot 2005 was nominated for an Emmy in 2006.
Guns got to go! Too many redneck, bible toting racist with them. There honestly is no need for anyone to have a gun, for any reason. Hunting included. Obama said he would get rid of guns and he will. Last season for hunters. Enjoy while you can.
Cedric T
THE AGENDA: GUN CONTROL
November 19, 2008 10:05 AM
Chicago, IL
[Μολὼν λάβε Cedric. Μολὼν λάβε!–Joe]
Self-determination, the autonomy of the individual, asserts itself in the right to race his automobile, to handle his power tools, to buy a gun, to communicate to mass audiences his opinion, no matter how ignorant, how aggressive, it may be.
Herbert Marcuse
An Essay on Liberation, ch. 1 (1969)
[Some people don’t want to be liberated. And a great many more don’t want others to be liberated either.–Joe]
President-elect Obama, I wish you all good fortune as you embark on your Presidential career. I suspect that you will come to realize (if you haven’t already) that Socialism and Communism don’t work, that we can’t tax our way into prosperity, and that punishing motivated people who succeed on their own by forcing them to support those with little or no ambition is a recipe for disaster. If you don’t figure those things out, that’s okay too. We might have to wait for the midterm elections of 2010, but one way or another, because of you, the nightmare of Socialism will finally be over for America.
John Ross
November 8, 2008
Hallelujah! The Nightmare Is Over!, or Thank You, Mr. Obama, for Putting So Many Bad Things Behind Us
[If it were only so easy. Maybe he’s right. But Barb tells me I always optimistic and I’m not optimistic in our present situation. Is this the way it has ever been? People elect a socialist to the top spot, he or she takes the country down the toilet and everyone realizes it was a terrible mistake and becomes capitalistic overnight (two years)? Show me an example where that has been the case and maybe I can be optimistic again.–Joe]
A patriot must always be ready to defend his country against his government.
Edward Abbey
(1927 – 1989)
[Among other accomplishments, such as his books, Abbey inspired the formation and associated with the members of Earth First! I find it very interesting how the words of one set of extremists can match the words of their opposites.–Joe]
If you are in the Moscow area you might be interesting in going to the range with some (University of Idaho) Vandals:
This Sunday, the 16th is a range day sponsored by the Vandals for Firearms Education and Training (VFET). We are meeting in the Safeway parking lot here in Moscow at 1pm and caravaning out to the range out on Lenville Road.
Look for the silver Subaru Forester with the fishing bobber antenna topper and the yellow flag on the antenna on top.
So come on out and have some fun at the range.
Daughter Kim and I plan on attending.
Update: Kim can’t make it due to a study session with a fellow classmate. I’m going to work on Caleb and Xenia and try and get them out there.
I won’t apologize for concluding that anyone who supports the free and unfettered possession of deadly weapons is sick in their head. Why in God’s name should the Democratic party, or any organization dedicated to improving the lives and future of Americans, give up on the idea of gun control? Has mental illness spread so far in our country that the concept of curbing violent death by gun is no longer viable?
Here’s my take: all gun owners should immediately submit themselves for psychiatric examination, to determine the extent of their illness and begin treatment before they do harm to someone.
Rifled, single-shot hunting weapons aside, this country should immediately consider laws making the possession of any handgun or assault weapon evidence of serious and dangerous mental illness, and anyone having such a weapon on their possession should be subject to immediate immobilization, hospitalization and confinement for treatment. The sale of — or display with intent to sell — any handgun or assault weapon to a private citizen should result in that person’s inventory being seized and immediately destroyed, and the seller hospitalized immediately for treatment. Any factory producing handguns or assault weapons caught selling their product to private citizens should be closed, their corporate officers hospitalized, and the inventory destroyed.
Sick in the U. P.
Oct 27, 2008 06:07 PM
In a comment to this article: Why we all need the Democrats to abandon gun control
[Sounds like some people are in full support of sending us for an extended stay in the reeducation camps. I wonder if he realizes what it would entail to get 80 million (or even a significant fraction) armed people to the camps. I would like to suggest it is they that need to seek psychiatric help.–Joe]
From admittedly “not the wisest person in the world“:
One way to probably lower gun use would be to make the price of the bullet higher. I think one bullet should cost almost as much as a gun and I think bullets should be sold individually.
I feel that if people had to pay a lot more for bullets, they wouldn’t buy them as freely.
I’m not the wisest person in the world, but I know if people had to pay $100 just for one bullet, people would think twice about how important it really is to kill themselves or other people with that bullet.
The black market starts appearing when the tax on something goes above 15%. $100 for a single round is on the order of 20,000%. Her suggestion would work about as well as the prohibition against recreational drugs and probably would use much of the same supply chain.
He says “these” firearms (Clinton included normal magazines like police use for protection), belong on “foreign battlefields.” God help us if they’re needed on domestic battlefields against a government confiscating rights. Mr. Obama — I know these people. Disarm criminals, mobilize robust support, disarm the public, mobilize robust resistance. Please choose wisely.
Alan Korwin
November 13, 2008
Hope for Obama’s Gun Bill
[“Battlefields” appear to be a theme recently. I wonder why.–Joe]
The roots of liberalism – and its associated madness – can be clearly identified by understanding how children develop from infancy to adulthood and how distorted development produces the irrational beliefs of the liberal mind. When the modern liberal mind whines about imaginary victims, rages against imaginary villains and seeks above all else to run the lives of persons competent to run their own lives, the neurosis of the liberal mind becomes painfully obvious.
Dr. Lyle Rossiter
The Liberal Mind: The Psychological Causes of Political Madness. 2006
[H/T to Jeff.
While looking around for an Zune compatible format for my consumption I ran across this:
Rossiter’s dream is to construct a grand, idealized libertarian, nightmarish, dystopia that creates hardships and inflicts wounds. This is dangerous, tragic, and sick.
So both sides accuse the other of being mentally ill.
Interesting.
So one then has to ask, “Which world view has resulted in the worst outcome for the affected populations?” I would presume the United States has best approximated (and poorly at that) the Libertarian viewpoint. But I’m not sure which of the following best represents the centrally planning government of the Liberal viewpoint: Communist China, USSR, Nazi Germany, or the Pol Pot regime in Cambodia. But then I decided that it really didn’t matter.–Joe]
I have absolutely no use for protecting those trafficking in illegal guns. Even those who would do so on principle. Street guns, slithering from state to state, do too much harm.
Fred Lebrun
November 12, 2008
Lock, load and try taking aim at the illegal handguns
[This is from a guy that claims to support gun ownership. This was the first instance I had heard of guns slithering. I would have thought they sort of hopped when the slide release was disengaged. But maybe this “street gun” he talks about is some new type that I’m not familiar with.
Regardless of their mode of locomotion Lebrun has a very naive viewpoint of the world. He thinks the following would somehow be a good idea and wouldn’t be a problem for gun owners:
…a national identification system for handguns. A computerized system that would be accessible to all law enforcement agencies, and that would standardize the requirements for handgun ownership coast to coast.
What he apparently doesn’t understand is there is already a Federal standard requirement for handgun ownership coast to coast. It’s called the Second Amendment. And even with that there are people who been chipping away at that with waiting periods (the original Brady Act), restrictions on who can purchase (age, prior felony convictions, prior domestic violence convictions and accusations), storage requirements, and types of handguns (“junk guns”, “Saturday Night Specials”, “armor piercing”, too powerful, too concealable, too many rounds). This incremental approach is what the people of the UK bought into which ultimately resulted in their complete loss of handguns.
It appears he is suggesting universal registration of handguns. He is hopelessly naive if he believes this will fly. He need look no further than Canada to see their gun registration failure. Then he should try to answer Just One Question.–Joe]
Update: Jeff and Sebastian both have posts up about the same article.