As some of you know I am involved with biometrics at work.  And it’s possible that some of you put two and two together when you saw my “Quote of the day” yesterday.  One of the proposals I submitted for possible funding yesterday was to further develop a means of eliminating the need for passwords in computer security.  It’s possible that the computer would, in essence, “just know” you when you sat down and started using the computer.  And it could transmit your identity to other computers/websites that you interacted without the need for passwords.  Kind of cool in some ways, huh?  It’s possible that it would make it much harder for someone to get access to your bank account.  It would reduce the ability of “bad guys“ being able to trick someone into giving up their password or mother’s maiden name, etc and making off with their life’s savings.  Websites could be automagically restricted such that your children couldn’t access “adult“ sites even if they got a password from a friend or discovered or guessed yours.  “Transparent security“ could be very cool in some ways.

Among the downsides is that in a totalitarian society it would make it much tougher to deny your involvement in the freedom movement.  Another is that if the system were broken it would be harder to prove it wasn’t you that accessed that kiddy porn site.

From a technological standpoint I’m really excited about the prospect of providing a solution to this problem.  The question is; Can it be made compatible with a free society and the individual fighting for freedom in a totalitarian society?

As I reported on Wednesday Barb was sick over the weekend and I may have become infected.  I was sort of teetering on the edge of being sick all week.  I would feel good in the morning then poor that evening.  I had a pretty stressful day at work yesterday getting a bunch of proposals out just before a deadline.  Two of them were mine the other seven belonged to other people.  The boss man ask a co-worker (who had three) and I to “clean-up” everyone else’s proposals and get them back to him by close of business.  My co-worker and I had things in fairly good shape for our stuff but some of the others were really bad.  I had the unpleasant task of telling one guy that he really needed to just start over.  He wasn’t at all happy and decided to “just drop it”. Another person decided to do just two instead of three after I talked to them about the changes needed.  But they did a good job once I gave them a little guidance.  Anyway we got them all cleaned up and out the door by 17:10 which was acceptable.  Then I had a three hour drive home and I arrived sick.  I wasn’t much better this morning and got worse throughout the day.  Lots of things I should do today and I basically just stayed in bed.  I just got up for a bit to try and do something productive for a little while.  I’ll probably be all better by Monday when I have to go back to work.

A few minutes ago I updated the Boomershoot Bloggers section of the Boomershoot website.  Analog Kid at Random Nuclear Strike has been linking to Boomershoot for the slightest excuse for weeks now and finally made it over the 100 unique referrals to warrant a free entry.  Thank you! 

I received two more boomershoot entries this week.  The event is half full now.  Wish I was feeling well enough to get some more work done on the event.  There are more targets to modify and more experiments to do.

My nephew is in Iraq and came across a rather odd bullet.  Any ideas on what it is made of?  And what kind of gun shoots it?  Wish he had answered more of my questions…

Jason:

…we dug the slugs out of the wall and the humvee tire and they were strange.  Not lead.  Really light and silver.  Steel maybe?  But really light.  Maybe a muj attempt at an armor piercing round made out of steel?  They had a tracer mix in them though.  So that makes me think it’s manufactured.  And I didn’t really get a good look at the weapon system, but it was full auto and I think an RPK.  Which should be a 7.62 round, but the slug was small.

Thoughs?

Joe:

Mild steel bullets were made by the Chinese.  Maybe some others as well.  Have you tried a magnet on it?  The Chinese bullets were 7.62 x 39 and the same weight as lead bullets, but longer to make up for the lower density.

Did they have a jacket?  “The slug was small”.  Small in diameter or length? Did it compress, break into pieces, or not really deform when it hit rubber, wood, brick, or metal?  Compare in weight to your 7.62 or 5.56 rounds or a penny or ideally actually measure the weight in grains or grams.  Actual dimensions and shape would also help determine what they are intended for.  Pictures?

Jason:

The bullet was about the size of a .22.  It didn’t defom much at all when it punched through the hub of the humvee and into the run flat tire.  It was also able to punch through about 18 inches of concret with little or no deforming either.  It was a tracer/ball mix of about 4 to 1.  And fired from what sounded like an AK or RPK. 

…

Okay, got to run.  If you want to ask other people about the round feel free, it’s not classified or anything.

I was sort of down last week after enduring some abuse from Claire Wolfe and friends (this is almost for certain about me too).  After talking to numerous people (not even work associates, but gun owners) I’m convinced I’m right about the turning over certain parts of the boomershoot web logs to the counter intelligence guy upstairs.  I’ve been thinking about it for days and have an outline of a post on the topic in my mind.  Way, way too many other things going to start writing on it though.  Basically I am of the opinion their world view is set and not subject to new data and situations.  In their minds WW III either doesn’t affect them or doesn’t exist.

I went to the Lewiston Pistol Club IPSC match on Sunday, I sucked big time.  I think it was the worst I have done in years.  I zeroed one stage.  Did poorly on most of the others.  The classifier (El Presidente) was the only one I did reasonably well on.  I felt really ‘spacey’.  Sort of dizzy most of the day.  Barb was coming down with something and missed work Monday.  I may have become infected too.  The dizziness continues and I have a bit of a sore throat as of late Tuesday.

I conducted some explosives tests after the match.  They were the continuation of this.  Another set of disappointments.  None could be detonated with the .22LR and only the 20 and 30 mL of fuel mix detonated with the .30 Carbine.  I read some stuff in my new pyrotechnics book that gives me another idea for a fuel to try that might result in a more sensitive mix.  It will have to wait for a week or two however.  I’m much too busy with other things right now.

Stephanie has been doing a bunch of work on the Boomershoot news releases and related stuff which is really nice to have taken care of.

In a surprisingly fair article the Chicago Tribune reports:

Fresh off its success at poking holes in a Wilmette handgun ban, the National Rifle Association has launched a new legislative drive to dismantle strong gun prohibitions in Chicago and test Gov. Rod Blagojevich’s wavering commitment to broader gun control.

Taking direct aim at Mayor Richard Daley’s hard-line stance against the proliferation of guns, the NRA package of state legislation would allow residents of Chicago and other communities that ban handgun ownership to legally keep the weapons in their homes for self-defense purposes. It also would hold Chicago and other places with bans liable for injuries that residents claimed could have been avoided had they been allowed to carry handguns.

And this editorial claims Howard Dean as chairman of the DNC will be “The last nail in gun control”:

The expected election of former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean as chairman of the Democratic National Committee this month will strike a crippling blow to the gun-control movement, lobbyists and political observers say.

Like Dean, Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) is a strong supporter of gun rights. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) supports gun control but rarely mentioned the issue before the 2004 election.

I’ve been watching WA state flirting with an assault weapon and .50 BMG ban the last couple of weeks and I have concluded it probably won’t go anywhere.  Yeah, they introduced it but hundreds of freedom supports showed up for the hearings and only a handful of bigots showed their support.  Something could pass, but I put the odds at about 30%.

The risk freedom advocates run now is that we relax.  NOW is the time to (politically) shoot anti-freedom bigots in the back as they run for cover.  We should root them out of their hidey holes like Saddam Hussein and humiliate them with our political victories and the data showing freedom is not to be feared.  Let Freedom Ring in our country as well as around the world.

Ken Macdonald, QC, the Director of Public Prosecutions, announced “licence to kill“ guidelines for householders.  Basically they are saying you can use deadly force to defend yourself and your family.  The guidelines appear to be pretty close to what you would expect in most of the U.S.  Here are some examples from the article: 

THE CLUEDO GUIDELINES

Colonel Mustard awakes to find a burglar standing by his bedside — he reaches for a length of lead piping, strikes out and knocks him unconscious or kills him.
Lawful

Miss Scarlett hears noises in the night. She creeps downstairs and sees a burglar in her dining room. He has not seen her. She seizes a candlestick, hides behind the door and strikes him unconscious.
Lawful

The Rev Green is woken by the noise of a burglar making his escape. He races after him and and with the butt of his revolver knocks him unconscious to the ground.
Lawful

Mrs White disturbs a burglar in the library. She seizes a knife in the kitchen and stabs him. He falls to the ground and is rapidly becoming unconscious. Just to teach him a lesson she stabs him again.
Unlawful

Professor Plum hears on the grapevine that a man he suspects of thefts from his house is planning forced entry through the kitchen. He lies in wait to trap the burglar and then shoots him or knocks him unconscious.
Unlawful

Mrs Peacock disturbs burglars in the billiard room. They flee empty-handed. She chases after them with a shotgun and shoots one of them dead.
Unlawful

THE NEW ADVICE

What is ‘reasonable force’?

You are not expected to make fine judgments over the level of force you use in the heat of the moment. So long as you only do what you honestly and instinctively believe is necessary in the heat of the moment, that would be the strongest evidence of your acting lawfully and in self-defence. This is still the case if you use something to hand as a weapon. The more extreme the circumstances and the fear felt, the more force you can lawfully use in self-defence.

What if the intruder dies?

If you have acted in reasonable self-defence and the intruder dies,you will still have acted lawfully.

When would my actions not be lawful?

If having knocked someone unconscious you decided to hurt them further or kill them to punish them; or you knew of an intended intruder and set a trap to hurt or kill.

What if I chase them as they run off?

You are no longer acting in self-defence and the same degree of force may not be reasonable. You are still allowed to use reasonable force to recover your property and make a citizen’s arrest.

Do I have to wait to be attacked?

No, not if you are in your own home and in fear for yourself or others.

I’ll believe it’s a trend rather than just crumbs thrown to the subjects when they can carry handguns in public for self defense.

Probably a pretty low chance of getting dooced over this.  I don’t hold back my opinions at work about this anyway.  A bunch of senior managers at DHS are leaving in the next couple of months:

The resignation of Secretary Tom Ridge and Deputy Secretary James Loy was widely publicized. But other resignations include Asa Hutchinson, undersecretary for border and transportation security; Frank Libutti, undersecretary for information analysis and infrastructure protection; Robert Liscouski, assistant secretary for infrastructure protection; and C. Suzanne Mencer, executive director of the Office of State and Local Government Coordination and Preparedness.

So why is government money being spent on trying to help transportation security, and infrastructure?  I can see efforts “spilling over” into to industry in a beneficial way, but not having an “undersecretary” for that job.  It’s really tough for government to get industry to do something unless they give them incentative of some sort.  Typically that involves using force of some type or another.  Taxes for example, or the threat of breaking them up (as in the AT&T break up).  I’m involved in project right now that has a bunch of academics and “scientist types” (technically I’m one of them) that is supposed to be “helping” industry with something.  You can’t just give them a gift and expect them to use it.  It has to make economic sense for them to use it.  So imagine the following situation.  We see some gaping hole in the telephone communicaton industry (no, that’s not what I am working on, it’s just an example, I don’t know of any gaping holes in our communication industry security).  This hole is so big that someone with 300 baud modem could dial up almost telephone company central office in the country and set off a chain reaction that cause all but the rotary dial only offices to melt down into a heap of aluminium/epoxy/silicon slag.  We come up with a good way to fix it.  Suppose we give the solution to industry and it only costs $1.00 per phone to implement, will they fix their security hole?  Why should they?  It’s going to cost them hundreds of millions of dollars to implement.  It’s never happened before, so why should they worry about it now?  And if it does happen, what then?  Why of course!  The government will pay for them (or at least loan them the money like the airlines after 9-11) to build all new central offices in record speed!  The public utility commisions will agreed to any rate hike requested and the telecommunications company will be better off if they are attacked!

The problem is that our government will not allow some industries to fail and gives out government sanctioned monopolies.   If the free market were allowed to function the utilities would be much more motivated to maintain their investments.  Government scientists, like me, would be working for private industry or working on problems that are the proper domain of government like building better tools for intelligence gathering or defending our borders.

Ry just sent out email saying that with the failure of his wheel bearing his road trip was over.  I’m sure it was the Super Bowl temporal nexus that caused the bearing to overheat and explode rather than him setting the cruise control at 85 MPH for hours on end as he went through Montana and North Dakota.

Yesterday Hewlett-Packard reported they may have the successor to the transistor working in their labs. 

… its researchers have proven that a technology they invented could eventually replace the transistor, a fundamental building block of computers.

In a paper published in Tuesday’s Journal of Applied Physics, HP said three members of its Quantum Science Research group propose and demonstrate a “crossbar latch,” which provides the signal restoration and inversion required for general computing without the need for transistors.

Palo Alto, California-based HP said that the technology could result in computers that are thousands of times more powerful than those that exist today.

…

The crossbar latch — which Williams said was six to 10 years from widespread commercial use — could help to extend Moore’s Law, the 1965 observation by Intel Corp. co-founder Gordon Moore that computing power doubles roughly every 18 months as production costs fall by about half.

I remember back in the late 70’s researchers were doing work with Josephon Junctions and were making all kinds of claims about how they were going to be the next big thing.  That work was largely abandoned (but interest has picked up again).  I’ve wondered about Moore’s Law for a while.   There are physical limits to the size of our current technology and it was the constant reduction in size of the junctions that allowed us to build faster and faster computers.  The physics represented a “brick wall” that we were going to hit in the not too distant future.  My confidence in the free market and technology said we would find a way around it but the wall was looming larger and larger.  Maybe the “crossbar latch” is that path.

Saturday Ry stopped by and left his cat with my daughter Xenia while he went on a road trip. I was worried about the dependability of his van and he jokingly thanked me for lending him mine.  HA!  I told him that if he broke down within 300 miles I would come and rescue him, but if it was a 1000 miles away to forget it.  He left Sunday and had his first breakdown at about 500 miles away on Monday.  He limped on into town on his own and $93 poorer continued on his way.  Tonight he made it almost exactly 1300 miles away before breaking down the second time. 

I’m afraid this road trip is going to be one of those “well thought out” plans hatched from his “incompletely myelinated” brain that “seemed like a good idea at the time”.  He’s (technically) an adult and just as long as he doesn’t do something that gets him a “felony dumbass” conviction that “insurance doesn’t cover” and he makes it back in time for Boomershoot I guess I don’t have anything to complain about.  But I’m almost certain that his spreadsheet for this adventure has a “need for more columns“.  OMG, it’s getting close to “Superbowl Sunday” isn’t it?

See Ry’s dictionary to understand the significance of the quoted phrases in the previous paragraph.

Liberty News made a post mentioning Boomershoot today.  It seems I can barely keep up with all the postings.  Analog Kid again mentioned boomershoot today.  There were some others too.  I think they are all listed here now and the number of referrals should be close to up-to-date.  Claire Wolfe would be the exception, she just keeps racking up the hits on Boomershoot.org.  I expect she’ll have a free entry to Boomershoot by tomorrow if she wants it.  It’s also very, very interesting to see what sections of Boomershoot.org the various people look at.  The Claire Wolfe people are interested in different things than the Kim du Toit people, who are interested in different things than the IsntAPundit people.  I can see why the people at work have a full time counter intelligence guy looking at the lab web logs.

There is a lesson in the previous paragraph for people paying attention.  Darwin awards await the people that have more balls than brains.

Imagine my surprise when the first referral I see through my blurry eyes to Boomershoot.org this morning is from the blog of my greatest inspiration in our fight for freedom–Claire Wolfe.  Her post is rather brief but I’m thrilled just the same.  She also mentions my Jews in the Attic Test.  Very cool.

I updated the Boomershoot Blogging section 20 minutes ago but Claire’s column already is out of date — it should be 19 now.

Thanks Ms. Wolfe, you made my day.

Say you got laid (no future pun on this intended) off.  You are receiving unemployment benefits.  You get a job offer from a different field that pays well, better than your previous job, but you decide to turn it down.  Would the state be justified in cutting off your benefits?  At first thought I would say, “Yes“, with the qualification that the state shouldn’t be in the business of employment insurance to begin with.  Germans have a new wrinkle in this area of their law since they made prostitution legal two years ago.

Under Germany’s welfare reforms, any woman under 55 who has been out of work for more than a year can be forced to take an available job – including in the sex industry – or lose her unemployment benefit.

…

The government had considered making brothels an exception on moral grounds, but decided that it would be too difficult to distinguish them from bars. As a result, job centres must treat employers looking for a prostitute in the same way as those looking for a dental nurse.

When the waitress looked into suing the job centre, she found out that it had not broken the law. Job centres that refuse to penalise people who turn down a job by cutting their benefits face legal action from the potential employer.

“There is now nothing in the law to stop women from being sent into the sex industry,” said Merchthild Garweg, a lawyer from Hamburg who specialises in such cases. “The new regulations say that working in the sex industry is not immoral any more, and so jobs cannot be turned down without a risk to benefits.”

Miss Garweg said that women who had worked in call centres had been offered jobs on telephone sex lines. At one job centre in the city of Gotha, a 23-year-old woman was told that she had to attend an interview as a “nude model”, and should report back on the meeting. Employers in the sex industry can also advertise in job centres, a move that came into force this month. A job centre that refuses to accept the advertisement can be sued.

I’m so amused.  This is what you get for government to have a monopoly on employment insurance.

Thanks to Claire for posting the link on her blog.

Update: Be sure to read the comments to this post.

Update 2: See this link for more (or less) about the story.

As frequent readers know I watch the log file on boomershoot.org pretty close.  Today I saw this scroll by:

62.252.96.7 – – [31/Jan/2005:14:47:34 +0000] “GET /2003/Kim.avi HTTP/1.0” 200 1703936 “http://pwnstar.proboards44.com/index.cgi?board=wtf&action=display&num=1105866135” “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 5.1; SV1; .NET CLR 1.1.4322)”

Following the referral URL I found some things I had to share:

these dudes are mad they mix explosives and shit up and shoot it with a rifle
http://www.boomershoot.org/2003/Kim.avi

HOLY SHIT! BOOOOOOOOM! hell yes!

girls should not be given a loaded weapon

omfg! i wanna do that!!! holy b’jesus that was cool!

Barb, hearing about girls and weapons, says, “You shouldn’t say that about our girl!”

I would logon to the forum and invite them to attend but it looks like they are probably just kids and probably are in Europe.  Not likely for them to be able to attend.

Stephanie Sailor has been sending me Boomershoot PR stuff all day to review, edit, and add to the website.  I think I am finally all caught up.  Check out the following stuff:

• Fact Sheet
• News Releases
• Media Specialists
• Gun Myths and Truths

Send me an email if you see something messed up, inaccurate, whatever.

I also updated the Boomershoot 2005 web page with the number of referrals from various bloggers.  I discovered I had forgotten to add Jeff Soyer (Alphecca) to the list of bloggers that have mentioned Boomershoot.  That is now corrected.

I’m done on the computer for a while.  Time to modify some more 8” targets.

More Boomershoot 2005 completed preparation this week.

Today I picked up the 3500W (peak) generator I ordered a few days ago.  Ry and his son Alan helped me unpack it, I filled it with oil and gas (with some Stabil), and gave the rope a pull.  Nothing.  Oh, turn on the gas, you idiot, choke it, and try again.  It started on the first pull.  I can’t tell you how happy that made me.  I’ve spent 20 minutes cranking on the old one before it would start sometimes.  I measured the voltage, put a load on it, everything works good.

I also ordered boxes (4“x4“x2“) to use as replacement 4“ targets.  I didn’t have enough of the ones we used last year and decided to try something different.  They are cheaper, pack tighter, and should be less labor intensive.  They hold slightly more explosives but that shouldn’t be a problem.

I sent email to the caterer telling them the dates and expected number of people.

I looked at the spreadsheet for chemicals and it looks like I already have all I need for this year with the possible except of something I can get locally at Wal-Mart.

Two more entries came in this week.  I’ll update the Boomershoot status page later this evening.

I posted yesterday about the movie Boomershoot (Ry and I) will be providing some special effects for.  Ry reports they have their website up now.  Lots of stuff still under construction, but the skeleton is up.  They have cast and crew calls out now if you want to get involved.  I’m virtually certain all the positions are unpaid, but heh, if you want to be in a movie…

So I got this email today…

It’s just a couple of college kids making a movie and they need a car blown up.  There were some emails exchanged and then we ended up chatting online for hours (until just a few minutes ago).  Ry and I, being nerds, wanted to encourage reality based stuff.  Such as no fireballs unless there really is excess fuel in the explosion.  And the sound arrives significantly AFTER the explosion occurs (at 700 yards, boomershoot range, it’s about 2 seconds).  Only if the camera is right in the middle of the explosion would it happen at the same time.  They probably aren’t going to go for it.  They want Hollywood reality, not physical reality.    Okay.  We can do that.  The first couple of emails follow.  We’ll be blogging about the project as we know more.  They should have a website and trailer up before long.

From: Gideon Oakes
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 10:17 AM
To: joeh@boomershoot.org
Subject: Filming at Boomershot 2005

Hi Joe,

 

My name is Gideon Oakes. My buddy and I are students down here at BYU-Idaho, and we’re putting together a feature-length action movie called “The Moment.” In the film, there is a scene in which a car is supposed to blow up. I’ve visited your website and looked at everything, especially Project Fireball, with my eyes wide open. That kind of a fireball is exactly what we want. We’re not looking to demolish the car, but we want to have a spectacular fireball blow through the windows and up into the air.

 

I’ve been trying to figure out how we could do this on our own, but the prospect of experimenting on blowing a car up (with no prior pyrotechnical knowledge) is somewhat of a frightening thing to me. So that’s why I started looking for people who already knew how to do this kind of thing. When I came upon your site, I was first thrilled to see someone doing what you do. You guys are definitely my kind of people. I’m from South Dakota, where we too take our 2nd Amendment rights very seriously. Then when I saw that you did this all in Idaho, I nearly fell out of my chair. Of all 50 states, you’re in the same state as us.

 

So, I guess what I would like to know is, what would it take for you guys to put a titanium powder firebomb in a gutted out car and blast it at Boomershoot 05? We don’t know how far our movie is going to go, but we know that having this kind of special effect would definitely help its prospects out. Not to mention, it would be a heck of a lot of fun to do. 🙂

 

Please let me know if you’re interested, so we can begin working on coordinating this project.

 

Thanks,

Gideon Oakes

BRP Digital Media

http://www.rushmore.tv

 

From: Joe Huffman
Sent: Wednesday, January 26, 2005 10:40 AM
To: Gideon Oakes
Cc: Ry Jones
Subject: Re: Filming at Boomershot 2005

Rather than doing it at Boomershoot 2005 when my crew and I are very, very busy I would recommend some other time. Some weekend with a couple weeks notice would be probably work for us. Some of the issues I see are:

Do you have a car? If it wasn’t scrap before, it will be afterwards.

Cleanup. Unless you film it where you can just leave it the car and any pieces that fall off will have to be cleaned up.

Cost. If you can travel to us we can be had very cheaply–perhaps free if you give us credit in your movie. If we have to travel there then we would expect some compensation.

If we travel there do you have a place where this sort of activity will not upset the neighbors? Houses may shake a couple miles away. You might be able to mitigate this by inviting them to watch…

We will detonate it with rifle fire. If we travel to you we will need a safe place to shoot a high powered rifle.

Equipment risk. Depending on how close your camera(s) must be there is some risk of them getting hit by something. We can discuss this in more detail to give you some idea but if you decide to put them inside of the radius we give you (probably about 200 yards) then you take the liability.

Looking forward to hearing more about your project.

Oh, one more thing… we don’t do ‘bombs’ or ‘firebombs’. We do “reactive targets”–some of which happen to create fireballs. Talking about ‘bombs’ will get you turned over to the ATF, the FBI, and/or various intelligence agencies.

-joe-
—-
http://www.boomershoot.org
http://www.modernballistics.com

This post reminds me it’s time to mention my web page on airline travel with firearms.  I used to travel on a plane about twice a week and I always traveled with one or more firearms in my checked baggage.  As result I ended up with a fair number of stories (see my web page).  I have a few more that aren’t on the net too, but most of them are better told one-on-one so I can deny them later if necessary.

Be sure and read what the TSA has to say about air travel with a firearm and check out your airline for tolerance before getting on the plane for Boomershoot 2005.

This ad appeared on my blog:

The sad part is that eBay forbids the sale of firearms and that Google won’t allow ads for firearms so in a sense the 2nd Amendment has already been sold out by them.