Category: Geekitude

Monday Links

September 9, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Sweet FSM. I miss a week and the articles stack up. This is going to be a long links post. A lot of gun/RKBA related stories this week.

Let’s start with our normal collection of Reason articles. And talking about RKBA-related stories…

How courts are evading the Bruen decision. Color me surprised that lawyers and judges (but I repeat myself) are trying to push the guardrails of new legal theory.

Eighth Circuit strikes down Missouri’s 2A Sanctuary law. These kinds of laws are why I think we need an amendment that allows at least a majority of states to nullify onerous federal laws.

Another parent being charged with murder because their offspring decided to murder schoolmates and teachers. I am highly skeptical of this trend, particularly since it feels like we’re burning the parents in effigy (legally speaking).

A historical look back on arms bans prior to the 20th century.

The Biden administration is trying to go ahead with its plan to cancel student debt. Even though it’s illegal and the Supreme Court has struck down pretty much all attempts. Oh yeah, that will help keep the cost of college down. If it didn’t cost so much, I’d almost be in favor of it to help burst the college bubble.

A thinkpiece on what the .gov could do to help with the housing crisis. In the same vein, here’s an analysis on what happened when the Dutch recent tried national rent control. Spoiler alert: it ended up hurting the people it was supposed to help. Cue surprised Pikachu.

A recent survey of college students find almost a third think violence is an acceptable form of protest. I’m a little leery since I didn’t see how they worded the questions, but someone needs to explain to these young adults that the means you think are fully justified for your cause are going to be adopted by your opposition because they now think they have permission. Come to think of it, that describes a lot of what’s gone wrong in this century.

Have we reached peak public schooling? This rolls into one of my soapboxes that the nation needs to have a serious discussion about what it wants out of public schools. Everyone will say they want to make “responsible and educated citizens.” But let’s face it. It’s also state-sponsored daycare for a lot of folks.

Idaho’s Child Care Program expanded benefits and now is facing a $16 million deficit. Either there were a lot more needy families or there were a lot folks just lining up to the trough. These days, it’s probably both.

And now for some Ground News aggregations.

Trump is concerned how expensive IVF is and wants insurance to pay for it. Proving once again that Trump is fine with handing out goodies if he thinks it will get him elected, and he still has no concept of economics.

Okay, yes, the WHO beclowned itself with its obsequience to China during the pandemic. Still, it’s nice to have another study showing that there’s no link between brain cancer and cell phones.

NVIDIA is getting a hard look by the DOJ for trying to lock customers into its products. Companies being asses tends to open up the market for competitors, but DOJ is going to DOJ.

The US, UK, and EU sign an AI treaty. Yeah, that has beneficial to the growth of the technology written all over it.

Now for some more RKBA and gun related content.

John Richardson is reporting that one of the NRA directors is advocating for firing the Brewer firm. Jettisoning that firm would be a strong sign that the NRA is healing.

Speaking of John, guess who’s going to be on the ballot to become part of the NRA Board? Honestly, if I could immediately vote in the election, this might get me to join back. I’m still in my wait and see period.

TTAG article on Polymer80 closing up shop after years of fighting “ghost gun” legislation. It’s sad to see Pyrrhic victories in the gun world.

I’ve got a slew of tech-related/adjacent articles.

From The Verge, an article about how new AI-powered photo editing tools will make it harder to believe what you see.

Also from The Verge, Ecoflow launching a new series of batteries/powerstations. Honestly, I’m loving the innovation and expansion in this segment. I think advances in battery tech are crucial to improving the overall health of the power grid.

From The New Yorker, an essay on why AI isn’t going to be making art. While I think AI will make art creation more accessible to more people, it’s not going to replace the spark of creativity in humans.

From Bloomberg, Intel’s problems is endangering the promise of the CHIPS Act. Damn, it’s like industrial policy can’t overrule business / economic rules. Or that maybe the government has a bad track record of choosing winning corporations.

Via Wired, the Internet Archive got slapped down for lending out copyrighted books willy-nilly on its platform.

From MacStories, Reeder is launching a revamped product. I use the current Reeder (soon to be known as Reeder Classic) to gather the various stories that tend to end up here. (h/t The Brother)

Not tech, but of local interest, the local news station has an article on Tervis filing Chapter 11 reorganization. The Ward household has many of their products and hope they come out stronger.

Geek Culture reports on Transformers new line combining TF characters with other IP forms. Of particular interest to me is the Macross collaboration. Although I doubt it’s going to be a re-issue of the G1 Jetfire toy.

Monday Links

August 26, 2024 / / 0 Comments

This is going to be a weird one, as I have only one Reason article.

Albuquerque police chief thinks it’s okay for cops to turn off their body cams under their Fifth Amendment rights. Um, no.

Now for a couple of Ground News aggregations.

DOJ is going after a software firm saying that their algorithm allows landlords to raise rents.

Former deputy who killed airman is being charged with manslaughter. I would like to think that a private citizen would get the same consideration in terms of charging.

For news items from other sources.

Duke Medical study finds gun laws have mixed impact on suicide and homicide rates. Almost as if murder and suicide are complex problems that can’t be fixed with “one simple solution.”

The Guardian is reporting on trouble in the dating app world. Namely, the apps are losing users / subscribers.

AP is reporting that the Fed Chairman is signalling that they may reduce interest rates in the near future.

Local news station is advising people not to trust flood maps when deciding to buy flood insurance. Note to any new or prospective resident of Florida – you need flood insurance. I don’t care where you live in Florida, you need flood insurance.

The Verge is reporting that Chik-Fil-A is looking into launching a streaming service. Um, okay. Question. Will it run on Sundays?

Creative Loafing Tampa is reporting on Busch Gardens shutting down the Scorpion roller coaster. I remember when that coaster opened, and rode it a lot when I was younger, thinner, and able to ride coasters without feeling like I got bashed around.

Another Guardian article, but this one on the reveal of some of the major features of Civ 7. There’s been a lot of sturm und drang among the Civ FB groups on the changes. I’m going to wait until I’ve played before making judgements. I will say that I’m inordinately excited that rivers will now be navigable.

Via The Brother, there’s this nifty USGS site showing all of the world’s water in a sphere.

Not Exactly How I Planned To Spend My Sunday

August 22, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Sunday began with the distinctive chirping of one of the smoke alarms telling me that the batteries were dead. Joy. After locating the offending device, I switched out the batteries. Still not working. Popped out the new batteries. Well, hell, that looks like corrosion on one of the contacts. Check the old batteries. Yep, one burst and managed to take out the alarm. Fortunately Amazon has same day delivery for a replacement.

The Wife and I then got ready for a trip to Apopka. On Friday, I won an auction on Gunbroker and the store handling the auction was in Apopka. Rather than have them ship the pistol over to their store nearby, The Wife and I decided it would be a fun little jaunt to just travel the two hours. It would give her time to crochet while the both of us listened to our audiobook.

We got to the store and found out that their Gunbroker auctions group didn’t work weekends. In other words, Derek jumped the gun instead of waiting for the email/call that my gun was ready for pickup. But it should be done in a day or two. Um, yeah, I’m not going to be able to make that trip anytime soon. I asked if they would please let their Gunbroker folks know to ship it over to the local store. They would have them call me.

As we were leaving, The Wife looked at her phone and asked if we wanted to go hit Disney Springs. After all, I wanted to pick up another lightsaber. We have plans for mounting them in the space between our offices. Except there was one small problem. I wasn’t planning on going to Disney, and I had a variety of devices that Disney frowns on bringing into their various attractions. Well, we were at a gun store. We found one that I liked and got it set up in the Ward Wagon. One of those times I was glad that I had TSA’d my sling bag.

Let’s just say if we knew we were going to make the trek to Disney Springs we would have made different wardrobe changes. But we hiked from the parking garage to the Star Wars store. There was momentary panic because they moved the lightsaber case. I had a hard time deciding between Luke’s green saber from Return of the Jedi and the Darksaber. The clerk informed us that if we ordered the Darksaber from the online Disney store, it was cheaper. That much was true. It was also sold out with no timeline for restock. The Wife looked at the budget and saw there was some play. Both of them ended up coming home with us. Now, I have to figure out how to mount the Darksaber, because it won’t use the ones I bought for my lightsabers.

It was not the day we planned, but it was a good day nonetheless.

Derek’s Mildly Useful Reviews – Deadpool and Wolverine

August 7, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I don’t understand all the hate I’ve been hearing from the professional movie reviewers. It kind of reminds me the reviews around Bright. I was laughing pretty much non-stop throughout the film.

My general rule for these reviews is no spoilers. Which makes it difficult because there are so many – I can’t really call them Easter Eggs. I would call them more “surprise guest stars”. Let’s just say if you’ve been a Marvel movie watcher since the mid-90’s, there’s plenty of callback, gags, and homages.

I will say watching Hugh Jackman and Ryan Reynolds together was a joy. It was clear they had a ball making the film.

Like the previous Deadpool films, there are a lot of fourth-wall breaks and callouts to the comics movie universe. It all comes fast and furious. I’ll have to watch again just to see what I missed.

Prime Day 2024

August 1, 2024 / / 0 Comments

This year’s Prime Day was focused around a couple of re-orgs I’ve been wanting to do.

Bed stand Reorganization

My bed stand was getting cluttered, and I’ve been wanting to clean it up. One of the big areas is the collection of tablets. The tablet rack I was using wasn’t working and was too bulky. So, I switched out for this one.

Another item was all the charging cables. I reduced them somewhat and gained some space using this Anker wireless charging station for my phone, watch, and airpods.

Sling Bag Reorganization

After multiple times of having to quickly make my sling bag TSA-compliant, I’ve decided to just keep it that way. Which meant the knives and lighter. I switched out the lighter for one of these firestarters. Is it as convenient or handy as a lighter? Nope. Will it get through security? Yep.

I’ve also added an Anker Mag Safe battery pack. This one has a bit more oomph than the one I currently have. Plus, if our trip out west proved anything, it’s damned useful to have as much stored power as possible.

Miscellaneous

Some Amazon Basics paracord to restock.

This tiny S&W knife because I thought it was nifty.

Strangely, the only toy I picked up was a retro Autobot Blaster with Steeljaw cassette that Walmart had on sale.

Monday Links

June 17, 2024 / / 0 Comments

This week is a bit long. Reason starts us out.

First, a couple of articles relating to Hunter Biden’s conviction. One on the constitutional question of his conviction. I lean on the charge is bullshit, because I think the whole premise of banning people who might use drugs is bullshit. If they had convicted him on having the weapon on him while intoxicated, that would be a more reasonable charge. Anyways, this whole thing goes back to the infamous laptop, and we have an article on the media’s failure to own up to its mistakes on their coverage.

Reason covers the secret recordings of Alito done “Project Veritas”-style. The best descriptor of this story is that it’s a Rorsach test of your political priors.

Maybe charging teens with felonies for vandalism isn’t a good idea. Particularly if you’re going to ramp up the charges because you’re offended. Particularly in light of your failure to react the same when it wasn’t one of your sacred images.

On the good news front, preliminary UCR data shows deep declines in crime. More indications we’re coming out of the crazy that was the COVID lockdowns. I blame the lockdowns more for the sharp uptick in crime, and it looks like we’re trending back to baseline, at least in terms of crime.

Trump announced he wants to exempt tips from income tax. On one hand, I like this because it reduces the amount of bullshit reporting people have to do – or put them in jeopardy if they forget to do. On the other hand, I don’t trust Trump to get anything done if he’s elected (ask the gun lobby how much legislation they managed to get signed). On the gripping hand, I’m not sure I like the downstream impacts – either on the federal deficits or how wages will get structured in the labor market.

Let’s ban flavored vaping for the children! What do you mean teen smoking goes up in response? Is vaping a good habit to have? Probably not. Is it orders of magnitude better than smoking tobacco? Fuck yes. I swear, public health officials should be forced to take real economics. You know, the one where you learn there are no perfect solutions, only more optimal trade-offs.

Going on to other news.

I have a Ground News aggregation on how US soldiers are nine times more likely to die by suicide than combat action. Suicide is an epidemic in our society. Particularly for those of us who fear getting help will result in our guns or livelihoods being taken away. For gunnies, I’m going to recommend going to the Walk The Talk America site.

More Fulton County drama, but this time in the Young Thug trial. The judge wanted to jail the defense attorney for contempt after said attorney refused to disclose how he learned about an exparte meeting between the judge and the prosecution. The Georgia Supreme Court reversed that. Still, the defense lawyer made the baller statement of if the judge was going to throw him in jail, could he be jailed with his client so they could work on his defense?

The NYT reports on the FAA investigating how titanium used in Boeing and Airbus airliners came from a questionable Chinese source with fraudulent documents. One wonders how many more body blows Boeing can suffer before the company gets radically realigned.

Speaking of the NYT, the Economist did an investigation on if the NYT bestseller list is politically biased. To almost no one’s surprise, it is. (Paywall warning.)

AP reports that Armenia is getting tired of Russia’s shit and is withdrawing from their “security alliance”. Considering the recent series of conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan, I’m concerned this is the first step before a major flare-up.

The Firearms Blog reports a San Antonio officer was put on indefinite suspension after he took home guns from a recent buyback.

A story going around the local stations reporting that half of parents who visit Disney end up in debt from the trip. Okay, yeah, Disney’s been jacking up prices for years. However, I look at this as more of an indictment of young families budgeting ability.

Let’s go on to some lighter items.

War is Boring looks at deploying military tech, including drones and helicopters, to deal with – feral hogs. I’ll be honest, going on a hog hunt is one of those things I’d like to do.

Finally, The Verge has a look at the Excel World Championship in Vegas.

Monday Links

June 3, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Let’s start off with our normal slew of Reason links.

Obligatory article on Trump conviction. Do I think that anyone else but Trump would have been brought to trial on this flimsy of a legal theory? No. Do I think this demonstrates the abuse a prosecutor can do with his powers? Yes. Do I think this could have all been avoided if Trump just kept it in his pants and not cheated on his wife? Also yes.

Obligatory article on the unanimous Supreme Court decision in favor of the NRA. Again, give the government enough power, and officials will abuse it.

Oh look, Fauci was caught trying to evade FOIA. This happens way too often. And it only makes the news when it’s someone prominent.

Gorsuch rails against Florida’s use of six-person juries. This one I don’t understand. What does it matter if it’s six or twelve? But I’m willing to be convinced. Maybe a tiered system. Civil and misdemeanors use six, minor felonies use eight, and major felonies have twelve.

Jumping minimum wage up to $20/hr has bad effects. Shocked Pikachu face.

A couple of Ground News aggregations.

That deputy who shot an airman who answered the door with a gun? Yeah, he’s fired. Now to see if he’s prosecuted.

China convicted 14 pro-democracy Hong Kong protestors.

Now on to other news stories.

You think you know how SEO works for the Google algorithm? Probably not, according to some leaked documents.

An article on Exo-Squad. That was such a great cartoon.

Here’s an interview with one of the creators of Magic: The Gathering.

Derek’s Early Anime

May 20, 2024 / / 0 Comments

I don’t have really enough links to do a Monday Links post. So, I’m going back in time to present a handful of cartoon series that shaped my love of anime and storytelling.

This is the first one I really remember. I even had a birthday cake with the main villain on it. It wouldn’t be until I was an adult that I learned how “kiddified” they made it to play on American television.

This next one gave me an intro to a series with a long story arc. Plus, I would sing the theme song ad nauseum.

Then of course, was the penultimate influence on my early childhood in terms of anime and storytelling.

I’m going to give this one an honorable mention, as I think it had more influence on my tastes, but I really didn’t realize it at the time.

I’m also giving these two as honorable mentions for cementing my love of anime, but not to the degree as the others.

Monday Links

May 13, 2024 / / 0 Comments

Israel and its adjacent topics are a big theme in this week’s links. So, let’s start with our normal slate of Reason links (which include more than usual Volokh Conspiracy entries).

The UF president laid out his thoughts on campus free speech and protest.

Jewish students at Columbia did their own letter on their “lived experience” since October 7.

Here’s a pair of articles on the Supreme Court’s recent (disappointing) ruling on civil asset forfeiture. One from Reason and one from Volokh.

Now for some Ground News aggregations.

Biden halts arms shipments to Israel over the invasion of Rafah.

US alleges Israel broke international law while using US weapons, but on incomplete evidence. Both of these stories are troubling, because its showing how weak US resolve can be to even our most trusted allies.

US tells Intel and Qualcomm they can’t sell chips to China.

A US Airman was killed by deputies who broke into the wrong apartment.

Now on to other stories that crossed my transom.

SkyNews reports on a “massive” hack of Britain’s Ministry of Defence (Brit spelling). While officially, the hackers are “unknown,” bets are it was China. Reminds me of the OPM hack ten or fifteen years ago.

Bloomberg that there are over 40,000 AI-voiced audiobooks on Audible. I’m kind of torn on this. First, as a small author, if I want to convert one of my stories to an audio version, it’s nice knowing that there’s a lower cost alternative. As a consumer of audiobooks, I understand how important a good narrator can make a book come alive. On the gripping hand, I see this as where the great narrators will still be in demand, but lesser narrators will be pushed out of the market.

An American Cop piece on why “high-ready” might not be a safe way to hold your weapon. The expected audience is cops, but good points for non-cop folk. Things to keep in mind if you’re on either end of the gun. (h/t Tam).

Gizmodo reports on Victorinox announcing it was going to be offering bladeless versions of their famous “Swiss Army knife”. This is another good case to ignore the headlines and the sturm und drang on the internet. Victorinox is simply coming out with new versions for sale in areas where knives are banned/restricted. They’re still selling bladed versions. I’m kind of wondering if these new ones will be TSA compliant.

Tampa Bay Buisness Journal is reporting of Florida Aquarium getting funding for a planned $15 million expansion. It looks pretty interesting.

Another good article from Angry Staff Officer. This time on how fantasy armies never screen their flanks. I like reading him to make my writing better.

PCGamesN reports that Civ 7 will be out sometime later this year. Needless to say, I’m very excited about this news. As of this writing, I’m up to over 7,700 hours on Civ 6. Which, to be fair is a very different game now than when it released many moons ago.