2011 – Page 69 – Shall Not Be Questioned

Reverting to Your Level of Training

Spent the past several days brushing up on elegant ways to do various kinds of operations in shell scripts. Learned quite a few new things. Under the pressure of the interview, I reverted back to the quick and dirty ways of every day writing of shell scripts. Now that the pressure is off, I’m also thinking of the mistakes I made. Doing a pre-increment when I really should have used a post-increment. The kind of mistake I wouldn’t make except when I’m under the gun and second guessing everything I do.

We’ll see how things go. If it ends here, at least it ends. I can move on and start looking for other work. Tomorrow the free ice cream will once again flow.

Pretending We Didn’t Say That…

I know plenty of gun folks get all giddy when they see a newspaper-written editorial headline like this. “Gun control: Misfire” And then to see that the piece goes on to talk about how gun control advocates are completely unwilling to admit they are wrong on the blood in the streets predictions no matter how much evidence is thrown in their face – that’s just happy dance territory.

I guess the pessimist in me just had to come out and play. Because it seems rather odd that the newspaper staff would condemn anti-gun groups & politicians for not being willing to concede when they are wrong when traditionally the media has been wrong on this, too. Google, being my friend, helped me out in quickly finding an editorial in the very same paper pulling out the lethal mix rhetoric.

In Virginia, those who possess concealed-carry permits cannot possess their weapons in establishments that serve liquor or beer. Some in the state legislature believe it’s time to scrap that restriction. Yet guns, booze, anxiety, and stress can combine for a deadly mix.

Don’t get me wrong, I appreciate the side they are taking today. I don’t expect them to publicly lash themselves for engaging in the same kind of rhetoric they now condemn. But, just remember that if you’re doing the happy dance now, they could bring back the blood-in-the-streets rhetoric depending on who mans the editorial desk.

Snazzy Videos

I don’t know what possessed me, but I decided to go check out one of the blogs I monitored before our trip to Hawaii last year. Turns out, there’s been some pretty nifty video captured from the volcano lately. Since Sebastian is too busy preparing for an interview today, you’re stuck with this crazy stuff before I go looking up gun, legal, or political news for the day.

Unfortunately, the video linked isn’t embeddable (yet*) so I’ll just embed this one from March that shows something else kinda cool.

In this video, the lava lake’s disappearance drops the entire crater floor more than 250 feet & brings down a section of the crater wall. Amazing little things, these webcams.

*Consider that of the embeddable videos, they were posted in July even though they were captured in March. Yes, the local government agency office can get video posted within a day of an event, and the division of the agency with keys to the YouTube account takes 4 months to upload 30 second videos. Yay, government!

On Chamber Checking

Tam relays a story about how she became obsessive compulsive about checking that guns were empty. I don’t have any war stories to tell in this area, and hope I never do. It would seem that people who handle guns enough invariably have these stories, but the consistent pattern I’ve noticed is that the redundancy built into the rules has worked in every case where I knew one of the actors. Remember that you have to break two rules for someone to get shot. It’s like RAID, for gunnies.

New Shooter

Kitsap Rifle and Revolver Club in Washington introduces some Japanese citizens to shooting.

Be Thankful We’re Not a Parliamentary Democracy

See this article from Canada, detailing why their gun rights community faces an uphill battle:

Then there’s the fact that Canada’s got a parliamentary form of government. In the U.S. the NRA can focus its attention on individual legislators, winning them over one by one.

In Canada, representatives have to vote with their party, or else they get kicked out of the party and can’t run in the next election. For Bernardo, that means instead of exerting all his power on one legislator at a time, he has to convince a whole party that his policies make sense.

Our systems has many flaws, but it’s easier for the determined to make a difference, even if they are determined minority. That’s not true in other systems, where political parties tend to dominate the political environment. We tend to think that’s the case here, but it’s not compared to other systems.

It’s also interesting the role campaign finance laws play, but I note Canada’s also apply to how much candidates can spend on elections. I would note that NRA’s model could work even under these limits, since NRA’s political power is more derived from electoral muscle than it’s ability to donate money to favored candidates, and communicate through independent expenditures.

Full Auto Explained

Thanks to John Richardson for this video, showing why the hysteria about full-auto fire is mostly just that:

Of course, the only thing this convinces our opponents of, is that semi-automatic firearms ought to be equally banned. Keep in mind this guy knows what he’s doing with a full-auto as well. An amateur is going to spray more wildly, and waste a lot more ammunition.

If I had to go against a gun wielding madman, I’d almost want him to waste all his ammunition firing on full-auto. Unless the guy brought a belt-fed machine gun and a while lot of ammo, he’s going to be empty with not much to show for it pretty quickly, and there’s only so much you can carry. Worst fear? Shotgun wielding madman. You’re probably not getting up from that, if hit.

Correcting the Historical Record

While I remain appalled that Michelle Bachmann is being taken seriously, Clayton Cramer offers a defense of some of her history claims that are worth reading. Watching the media, talking heads, and Bachmann go back and forth is kind of like watching drunk people fight.

Call the Maintenance Guy

The free ice cream machine is once again not serving freely. Back to interview preparation mode. I have a third round phone interview with a prospective employer tomorrow evening. Second round interview was a bear. This company is notoriously difficult to get into, and it’s not an interview you can just waltz in and impress them. They will likely not be impressed because the guy interviewing you is likely an order of magnitude better than you are.

I’ve spent quite a lot of time on this one employer, and it’s a long shot to get the job, but it’s a career making job. If I did get in, there’s essentially no where else I couldn’t go in this field. It’s also a chance to be around top people in the field. Generally speaking, I want to be the dumbest guy in the workplace, because that means I have things I can learn from the smarter folks. I’ve been places I’m the smartest guy, and that might be a bit self-satisfying in a way, but it’s a dead end for learning anything.

My only fear is, with all I’ve put into getting this job, if it doesn’t pan out, I only have one other prospect I really like, another I kind of like, but aren’t real sure about, and a third that would only be a paycheck to pay the mortgage while I look for something better. All three of my other prospects I have not heard from in a while, though I’m discovering that doesn’t necessarily convey a lack of interest. Everyone seems to be moving at glacial speed on hiring these days.

Down the Memory Hole

Looks like American Defensive Enterprises are taking their embarrassing videos offline. I guess some attention from the big guns was more than they wanted to deal with. Sorry if you didn’t have a chance to see them first.

UPDATE: Thanks to reader David, and Bitter, we have a few more links:

Here’s one of their instructors. Here’s another. You can see yet another one here.