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.
If it ever seems all is lost keep those neurons firing, keep trying things, and don’t give up. Things you thought were insolvable problems might have a solution.
I have no category for this. This is in a category all it’s own for which I do not have the words. Maybe Tam does. Planes are within her area of expertise and her skill with words exceeds mine by an order of magnitude or more.
H/T to Joe D. from an email list.
…[W]hen I get to the moon I’d like a choice of food other than Happy Family Pork Seafood Rice #5. I was kinda hoping for a Big Mac rather than some soy & curry concoction, though. If we want to get back in the game, I say we tell Americans that anything that happens over a hundred miles up is tax-free, and then stand the hell back.
Tamara K.
October 22, 2008
The space race goes on…
[I’d prefer a little lower altitude, like five miles, but we’re just quibbling over details at that point.–Joe]
Yeah, my blog was down for most of yesterday. All my websites that use ASP.NET were down. It was a problem with my web provider. I need to finish migrating to another provider but I haven’t. Maybe over Thanksgiving or something…
Earlier today Say Uncle sent me an email asking if I could help out a reporter looking for “someone of authority” to address the body armor versus deer hunting ammo issue. I know a lot more about exterior ballistics (I wrote Modern Ballistics) than terminal ballistics but I’m not totally ignorant of it either. So I agreed to “look up a few references” for the guy.
My email, with very minor edits, to the reporter follows. His email response indicated he was happy with my answers.
Say Uncle asked that I address your “deer ammo going through body armor” story. I’ll address it as best I can but strictly speaking I’m not an expert. I’m a very well informed hobbyist.
Although there is occasional some controversy over the National Institute of Justice testing procedures and standards they are still “the standard”. You can read their standard here.
Their main page on Body Armor is here.
Probably the part that is most relevant to your issue is the body armor classification. This can be found in section 2 starting on page 17. The basics are that body armor is classified according to the level of protection it provides. Those classes are, in order of increasing protection level:
Most law enforcement officers wear type II or IIIA. Higher levels of protection require metal or ceramic inserts which increase the weight, bulk, and the body heat retention. See also Section 6, Selecting the Appropriate Level of Protection in this document. At some point in the tradeoff between comfort and protection the police officer will stop wearing the armor on an everyday patrol. In a high risk entry/arrest situation they are more likely to upgrade to type III armor if it is available.
The problem certain well intentioned politicians get into is that they don’t realize the body armor problem is as much a velocity problem as it is a bullet construction problem. Certainly sharp pointed Teflon coated tungsten carbide (a very hard metal used for metal working tools) bullets will penetrate a higher level of armor than a blunt nosed soft lead bullet. But that only goes so far. Increasing the velocity of the bullet by a few hundred feet per second will overcome the inferior construction in most applications. Rifle bullets are much faster than common pistol bullets. The typical handgun bullet is on the order of 1000 fps. A typical modern center fire rifle bullet leaves the muzzle at a velocity on the order of 2500 fps or greater.
I’ve done some informal testing with the 30-06 rifle on an engine block. The Speer Reloading Manual says of this rifle cartridge, “It is safe to say that the 30-06 Springfield is the best-known and most successful centerfire cartridge ever developed.” In a typical hunting load (see http://www.federalpremium.com/products/details/rifle.aspx?id=260) at 100 yards from the muzzle the bullet is still traveling at over 2600 fps. The tests I did were with a target cartridge and bullet (http://www.federalpremium.com/products/details/rifle.aspx?id=148). At the muzzle this bullet is traveling at about 2700 fps and is still going at over 2500 fps at 100 yards. I was shooting into the side of a six cylinder car engine from the early fifties from about 50 yards away. This was a very heavy engine block compared to today’s cars yet the target bullet would penetrate half way through the block penetrating the water jacket, one side of a cylinder and frequently one side of a piston. A very high velocity (1350 fps at the muzzle) 9mm bullet shot at the same engine block only knocked the rust off of the metal. It did not dent or crack the side of the engine.
It is a very different problem to stop a rifle bullet than to stop a handgun bullet. Although it isn’t quite this simple you can think of it as an energy problem. The energy of the projectile is proportional to the mass of the bullet times the velocity of the bullet squared. That is E = m V2. The mass of a common hunting bullet is on the order of 150 to 180 grains. The mass of a pistol bullet is on the order of 125 to 200 grains with the heaver bullets moving much slower than the lighter ones. The rifle bullets typically are moving about 2.5 times as fast as the pistol bullets. Hence they will typically have about 2.52 or about 6 times as much energy as the pistol bullet.
Even the ancient 30-30 Winchester cartridge has a muzzle velocity of nearly 2400 fps with a 150 grain bullet (http://www.federalpremium.com/products/details/rifle.aspx?id=28) which will cut through the typical concealable body armor worn by law enforcement on a daily basis. Higher end rifles for larger game such as, the still very common, .300 Winchester Magnum with a 165 grain bullet (http://www.federalpremium.com/products/details/rifle.aspx?id=592) have muzzle velocities of over 3000 fps. Run the numbers on that and see the sort of problem the body armor is facing.
Hence, the NRA claim that outlawing ammunition on the basis of its ability to penetrate typical body armor would result in the banning nearly all common rifle hunting is true. It is possible the politician did not have that intention but that would be the result.
That is probably more information than you really wanted but I hope it answers your questions. If not or if you have any further questions please let me know.
He says he is sorry about bringing down Microsoft.com today. He didn’t even have to use any Boomershoot technology.
As people say, his brain is a very powerful CPU but it’s running a buggy operating system.
This is the sort of thing you can expect once Big Brother has taken your firearms away:
“CrimTrac has told us there will be 5000 cameras around the country, overwhelmingly in populated areas, taking some 70 million photos every day.
“There’ll be maybe 1000 cameras in downtown Sydney, close to that number in Melbourne, perhaps 100 or so in Brisbane.
“If you use the main roads, you’re likely to be snapped several times a day, and all those photos and any related data will be held by CrimTrac for up to five years.”
Mr Vaile said it was false to represent the proposal as number plate recognition: “It’s a photograph-all-drivers system.”
At present, there are an estimated 300 fixed ANPR cameras and 100 mobile units in Australia.
CrimTrac is due to hand a $2.2 million scoping study for an integrated ANPR to the Minister for Home Affairs, Bob Debus, and the Ministerial Council for Police and Emergency Management in November.
According to a privacy consultation paper issued in June, all ANPR data collected would be made available to participating agencies in real time, and retained for five years for future investigations.
This fails my Jews in the Attic Test with such authority it takes some thought to imagine ways to fail worse.
As my Austrialian friend who sent me the link said, “This is some scary shit…”
The folks at CMMG have come out with an AR-15 gas piston conversion kit. It comes with a new gas block, piston and bolt carrier (so it works more like the AK). As far as I know, before this conversion kit you had to buy a whole new upper for your AR if you wanted a piston-driven system. It’s an attractive idea in some ways, especially for those who’ve had problems with carbon fouling in the bolt carrier. The piston system keeps more of the carbon out of the receiver and it’s great for use with a sound suppressor, in which case it keeps more of the trapped gasses from blowing back into your face. The conversion kit’s price is roughly equal to that of a new AK rifle and several spare magazines. However, they call their piston kit a “direct impingement gas piston system.” Anyone else see a problem here? It may be nitpicking (and please correct me if I’m wrong) but “direct impingement” is exactly that one thing that a piston system is not. When Stoner came up with his piston-less operation back in the day, he called it “direct impingement” to describe his system of channeling the gas back into the receiver where it “directly impinges” on the bolt carrier without an intervening piston rod or tappet.
At Blackwater last weekend we used ammo supplied by International Cartridge Corporation.
The ammo worked great. I have zero complaints about the performance of the ammo. Accuracy was excellent. We fired the ammo about five or ten feet from steel plates (that is what Tam was doing here) with only a hint of dust coming back when the wind was right. It is made of sintered copper and tin so it is non-toxic. Because there is no jacket the bullets can be made very accurate. The major factor in bullet accuracy is the jacket being of different thicknesses on one side than another. This puts the geometric center of the bullet at a different point from the center of gravity. As the bullet traverses the barrel the bullet rotates about its geometric center. As it exits it rotates about it’s center of gravity. If the two centers are not the same it will “jump” a little to one side as it makes the transition. This will cause the bullet to go in a slightly different direction than that which the barrel was pointed. Hence the homogeneous, sintered, bullet can be made more accurate.
The bullets are also made with a lubricant for release from the mold during the manufacturing process. This lubricant is part of the structure of the bullet and is still present when the bullet is fired. Along with the tighter diameter tolerances (about 0.0005″) the guns shooting these bullets run much cooler. Todd Jarrett told us of full auto guns having barrels cool enough to hold the gun by after emptying a complete magazine loaded with this type of ammo.
The ammo rep on-site with us said the price was about the same as hollow point ammo. He also said the bullets were not available for reloading. Something about them being too fragile and cracking in reloading presses. This seems a little odd. They didn’t crack when we dropped them on the gravel in the shooting bays. They didn’t crack when we dropped them on the concrete. The didn’t crack when they were fired.
I also found where they are sold for reloading. From their dealer page click on http://www.frangiblebullets.com/. There you can find prices, loading data, and lots of other interesting information.
One thing you will notice about the bullets is they are much lighter than the same caliber lead bullets. This is because the materials used, copper and tin, have a lower density than lead. They can, and are, loaded to higher velocities and can reach IPSC major power factor in .45 ACP, 10mm, and probably .38 Super. Minor PF can apparently be reached with 9mm. .40 S&W appears to be unable to reach major PF.
If my blood levels of lead were on the high end of normal I would probably buy the bullets and reload them in my pistols for practice and competition. As it is my lead levels are on the low end of normal and lead bullets are cheaper (in .40 S&W about $0.18 versus $0.11). And in any case I don’t think I would use the bullets for self-defense. I’m inclined to believe that heavy, deep penetrating bullets are better fight stoppers than light bullets that leave a lot of fragments behind upon entry.
Another reason I would be disinclined to use the light bullets is the recoil. For the same bullet momentum (Power Factor in USPSA terminology) you get more recoil. This is because more powder is used with the light bullets and the high velocity powder exiting the barrel adds to the total recoil. The recoil is also spread over a longer period of time with the slower moving bullet. Hence a light fast bullet causes a very “snappy” recoil which tends to be uncomfortable. I noticed this with the .45 gun I was shooting over the weekend. The recoil was much different than what I expected from a .45. I asked what the bullet velocity was on the 155 grain bullets we were shooting. About 1150 fps I was told. Normal .45 ACP velocities are in the range of about 750 to 925 fps and you feel more of a “push” than the “slap” I was feeling.
Still the lead free frangible bullets have their place. I could see indoor ranges requiring lead free bullets or steel plate competitions requiring frangible bullets. I remember taking a pistol class once and the instructor telling us that for every class they usually have, on the average, one injury from the back splatter from the steel targets. They had about 10 students per class and were firing about 1000 rounds each on steel so there were a lot of bullets going down range and eventually the odds would catch up with someone. The injuries were always minor and required nothing more serious than a Band-Aid but still the injuries did occur. Wrap around eye protection and either directly facing the targets or facing away was required. Those concerns would be eliminated with ICC’s frangible ammo.
Because my officemate, I, (and a few others) won an award for working some long hours last year and delivering on time we spent the money by taking a few others and going kayaking on Lake Union this afternoon. I updated my Twitter account several times and was wardriving with my cell phone while kayaking. Here are the twitter updates:
My boss took some pictures and updated his Facebook account with them while still on the water. Ry (who wasn’t even there) tagged some of the pictures with names before we made it back to work and dropped people off.
The History Channel recently started running a program entitled, “The Works”. The host, Daniel Wilson, has a PHD in “Robotics”. I didn’t know you could get a PHD in robotics, thus becoming what, a “roboticist” or a “robotologist”? I’d have thought you’d need three degrees for that– mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, and computer science, but I’m just a layman. For all I know, there are degree programs for “Vending Machine Technology” too, you know, for those who don’t quite feel up to the work load associated with a major in “Roboticism”.
He did an episode on guns, which was pretty good. It did however show an image of Superman flying “faster than a speeding bullet”, and as per the cliché, Superman was shown flying right next to a fully assembled, metallic pistol cartridge. I’m not sure how one is meant to propel an entire cartridge through the air at the velocity of a speeding pistol bullet (which the host correctly described as about a thousand feet per second) but I’m sure that where there’s a will, there’s a way, especially if you have a PHD in robotics.
Anyway, the program was interesting. Though the host talked down to us a little more than required, IMO, I can forgive him– he’s young. He obviously had a lot of fun with the various guns too, and wasn’t afraid to show it.
Check out “The Works” on THC if you have the time. I think you’ll like it. Oh and;
Congratulations, Dr. Wilson. Keep up the good works.
It is just me, or does MS spell checker not recognize typos that come purely from proximity on the keyboard (“fat-fingering”)? Example; the word “and” typed as “ans”– I don’t get “and” offered as a correction option. I find this sort of thing often.
OK, so I’m a whiner.
The other day Lyle posted “We Can’t Drill Ourself Out of This Problem”.
Today I was poking around in my quote collection and ran across this:
Drill for oil? You mean drill into the ground to try and find oil? You’re crazy.
Drillers who Edwin L. Drake tried to enlist to his project to drill for oil in 1859.
Apparently the “progressives” still haven’t caught up with the capitalists of 150 years ago.
Uncle points out that gun bloggers can change the perception of the world. By providing more links to the viewpoint we want presented we move the ranking of web pages up the chart on Google and other search engines.
Our next target is Carry Permit Holders.
Microsoft is run by a very bright, very energetic, very healthy person who has very few outside interests — and he has a killer instinct. I admire the guy — I think they ought to bronze him and break up his company.
Scott McNealy
[Bill has left the building. His last day at Microsoft was June 27.–Joe]
I changed a setting on my blog a few days ago and apparently there are some bugs associated with that feature.
It turns out that some of my blog posted only showed up for me. I wondered why some of my posts didn’t get the attention I though they should. Now I realized that their invisibility contributed to that.
The rest of the world was being deprived. Once I realized this could mean the end of the world as we know it I changed the setting back to the original. Still the postings did not show up. I finally hand edited the .xml and the missing posts appeared. The RSS feed still didn’t work but it was 1:30 AM and I went to bed anyway. This morning I found another field in the .xml that needed to be fixed so I went all geeky on that the RSS feed was populated and probably everyone is wondering, “Where did that come from?”
So now you know. I’m using a “daily build” of software under development and, surprise, surprise, it has bugs. But you probably already knew that from all the time my blog waits several minutes to respond or just plain says, “Service unavailable.” Now that Boomershoot 2009 registration is almost complete maybe I can spend some time on upgrading my blog software.
Man catches girlfriend’s sex romp on mobile call:
The court was told that the girl named Toni Milton sat on her cell phone by mistake while having sex with her old flame, and thereby unknowingly dialled the number of Neil O’Brien.
She came to know about the blunder only when she heard the muffled sounds of O’Brien.
Not knowing who was on the other side, she said “Hello”, and heard O’Brien shouting in rage.
“I take it we’re finished, then?” British tabloid The Sun quoted O’Brien as shouting.
Angered by what his girlfriend had done, O’Brien drove 15 miles to her home, beat her up in her bedroom and smashed up her possessions.
Just wait until your cell phone GPS can be queried remotely and without your permission.
Last December I made two posts about how busy I was at work:
About 10 days ago while I was in Louisville our Corporate VP held a meeting for all the people under him. I missed out on the big meeting but I’ve watched part of the video of it since then. One of the topics at the meeting was awards for various people. My officemate, Sapna, mentioned in one the previous posts, our PM, our test/system integration guy and I got one of the awards. Here is a screen capture from that video:
I told Barb about this and she thought it was pretty cool… until I told her what we had done. We designed/wrote/tested some of the website code that puts ads on mobile phones (like what you see here depending on what country you are in) for our mobile websites.
Barb’s response was basically “ads are evil”. But ads are the reason so much of the Internet is “free” just like most television programs and radio. For example Hotmail requires dozens of servers with massive amounts of storage and bandwidth. Ads pay for those resources. There haven’t been many ads on a lot of mobile phones for various reasons but that is changing and my little team (above) helped change that.
I find the diversity of our team interesting. Sapna is from India and on Monday participated in a folk-life event at the Seattle Center attended by some large number of people. She and about a dozen others put on several dances from India. I showed up and took a bunch of pictures. At 5′ 3″ and 110 pounds she doesn’t look like a software geek:
Taqi is from Pakistan (don’t India and Pakistan lob expolsives and high speed pieces of metal at each other on a regular basis? Odd–they get alone so well here.) and when he visits “home” I sometimes ask him about what “training camps” he spent time in. He takes it quite well and tells me stories from his time, years ago, in the military–which he makes of point of telling me was the secular military. He is about to finish his master’s degree from the U of W in physics.
Zane is of Asian descent and a Canadian citizen who loves to play basketball. Snowboarding is also up there on his list of things to do.
All of them are great people and I’m proud to work with them. However, I’m sometimes intimidated here at Microsoft. If you open your mouth about something you should know what you are talking about because I suspect the average I.Q. in our section of the building is probably about 150. Damn, these guys are smart.
On Saturday night (Sunday morning), at the NRA Convention, I stayed up until 3:00 AM socializing and blogging. I arrived at the Press Room a few minutes before 9:00 the next morning and found I was the first one there for the meeting with Paul Helinkski of Guns America. Wimps. Even the NRA staff hadn’t arrived to unlock the door early after being late the day before. If it hadn’t been for the wheelbarrow full of cash I received on arrival I would have been a little bit annoyed with the NRA for dropping the ball in this regard two days in a row.
About 9:00 other bloggers and press people showed up to wait. Bitter had no explanation:
More people showed up–and waited:
Then Helinkski showed up and waited with the rest of us:
Finally, about 15 or 20 minutes late, the NRA staff (names withheld to protect the guilty) showed up, let us in, and we all sat down to listen to Helinkski:
He gave us his background and while interesting from a technical aspect most of my readers aren’t going to care about that. What probably is interesting is what he had to say about the future of gun sales on the Internet.
Helinkski is of the opinion that gun are a very unique product that cannot be sold like other products. The required FFL for shipment and NICS checks for most sales is the reason. That “speed bump” could be smoothed out by “dealers” that do not stock firearms but simply do the transfers and charge $20 or $30. But, according to Helinkski, this would be the very bad for gun owners. Sure we could get guns a few dollars cheaper if we did our purchases that way but having the gun store down the street on the corner is more important that those few dollars. The public visibility is important and having the customer service locally available is important.
So what is the future of Internet gun sales? Helinkski has an innovative web product that addresses that. Check out GunsAmerica.com. His website allows dealers to post their inventory on the web and the customers to comparison shop. You can search for guns within X miles of your zip code and then if the dealer makes a sale because you found what you liked on the website Helinkski makes a flat fee on the deal. You still have to visit the dealer and purchase the gun face-to-face but what Guns America has done is make the comparison shopping much easier.
Transfers data wirelessly at 2.88 MBytes per second. It also doubles as a gun effective against squirrels, vegans, clowns, hippies, street urchins, hooligans, carpetbaggers & scalawags. Don’t try it with the girl scout though. She shoots back.
H/T to Kevin I. of the Lewiston Pistol Club.
