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Odd Lots
- Do not fail to read Bruce Schneier's latest short item in Wired, which is his simple demolition of David Brin's peculiar "transparent society" concept, which I first read of in his so-so novel Earth (1990) and thought was BS even then. Having no secrets doesn't help where the differential of power between two parties is high. This seems pretty obvious to me; I do not understand why Brin gets points for this "no secrets" notion of his.
- Some of the worst horror films (as well as SF films and some westerns) can be streamed without charge here. Where else can you find "Attack of the Giant Leeches" or "Killer Shrews," both of which I recall seeing on Channel 7 at 4 PM on Thursdays back 1965-ish. Even at age 12 I could roll my eyes and say, "Those aren't giant shrews. Those are dogs in bad shrew costumes." But hey, that's what makes a B-movie a B-movie, right?
- It may be clever, but can a gun this small really be deadly? (That is, assuming you don't aim it up your left nostril...)
- This is freaking amazing: Images of a landslide on Mars, taken while it's happening. (Thanks to Pete Albrecht for the link.)
- Jim Strickland pointed out a pneumatic tennis-ball based antenna launcher. We always used slingshots back in the day, and I have a Greenlee Cablecaster that was designed for dragging CAT5 over suspended ceilings via fishline, but something about the ball shooter is very appealing.
- Glover Wright is bringing back Science Fiction Quarterly as an online pub, and it looks promising. I recall reading a few ancient issues of the original SF Quarterly pulps from the late 50s and was pleased, though the world and I were, um, at least thirty years younger then. The first issue will be out in March.
- Gripe of the week: The keycap letters on my expensive Avant Stellar keyboard are decals, and they are already wearing off. It's only been a year. What's this thing going to look like after another ten?
- Speaking of keyboards: I need a wireless keyboard for use while sitting on the couch and running photos or video clips on our big TV. The SX270 is under the TV in plain view of the couch. The keyboard needs to have an integral pointing device. (I prefer things like IBM's TrackPoint nipple to the ubiquitous scratchpad.) Anybody got any suggestions?
I haven't tried these, but they got a pretty good review on Ars: http://arstechnica.com/journals/thu
-Jim
I like the small size; no significant amount of text is going to be entered here, so that doesn't matter much. It's mostly navigation for watching videos and still photos on the big screen.
I'm bookmarking that one for future reference while I continue to shop. It's currently the frontrunner.
http://www.swissminigun.com/ammunit
the SwissMiniGun fires a .128 g bullet at about 122m/s, roughly the same bullet mass and muzzle velocity as a higher-end BB gun. It would probably sting like the dickens if you got shot with it, but I think it would take a freak accident to kill a human with such a thing.
(Anonymous)
Hoplophobia at its international, irrational, best.
-- CNet News "Itty-bitty minigun is still a lethal weapon"
Actually, at 2.34 mm (0.092 inches), the projectile is just about half the diameter of a BB or air-gun pellet.
The 122 ms-1 muzzle velocity can be attained by careful assembly of common office supplies (as reported here (http://www.officeguns.com/gunadv_super_maul.html), ain't the internet wunderful?) with projectiles of considerably greater ballistic cross-section and terminal kinetic energy.
Point: At more than $6,000 a unit and with the published statistics, the Swiss MiniGun is neither a credible means of self-defense, nor a particularly interesting curiosity (read: grown-up's toy). Perhaps a tour-de-force in meso-scale machining and a boundary-pushing exemplar in what might, and might not, be considered weaponry, though. Not to mention its value in testing journalists' firearms literacy. The title of the CNet piece referenced above contains one debatable assertion ("lethal") and one conceptual inaccuracy / intellectual-property violation ("minigun" is a trademark of General Electric / Dillon Aero for their electrically-driven, multi-barrel, gun system, about as far from the Swiss mini-revolver as one might get).
Re: Hoplophobia at its international, irrational, best.
I posted the above comment without any attribution. Shame on me. Any errors therein (and there are at least a few, see below) are entirely mine.
- Michael S. Sargent
CORRECTION: "The 122 ms-1 muzzle velocity" should actually read: "The 15.61 N-s projectile momentum at the muzzle can be attained... (and in fact can easily be exceeded by an order of magnitude)."
Re: Hoplophobia at its international, irrational, best.
Generally speaking, there are two schools of thought regarding the effectiveness of firearms in the personal defense role. The first school basically believes that effectiveness is directly proportional to the energy delivered by the projectile. The second tends (all other things being equal) to balance energy delivered against the size of the hole put in the target, at least as long as all the energy is delivered into the target. Call the first school the 'big rock' school and the second the 'deep hole' school.
Exemplary of the 'big rock' school would be the 547 Joules of muzzle energy delivered by a .45 ACP round. The 'deep hole' school is best represented by a high-velocity 9mm Parabellum round delivering 34,377 J/m2.
By either of these standards, the 2.43 Swiss cartridge delivers 0.2% of the Muzzle Energy and 0.6% of the Energy Density at the muzzle of the above rounds.
Most pundits would select one of the example rounds as a personal-defense pistol round, but, wouldn't say either one guaranteed a one-shot stop. Thus, the (long story) response to Jeff's query is: NO! Such a small pistol is definitely NOT something I would consider 'deadly', anymore than I'd consider a (weak) BB gun 'deadly'. However, one should never underestimate the capability and creativity Mr. Murphy to cull the catastrophically- sense-challenged from the gene pool.
Contra, if not necessarily positive...
All of the above assumes that the primary (and only) mechanism of the weapon's lethality is its kinetic energy.
Sometimes, however, all we need is to deliver a projectile under the skin. The 1969 assassination in London of Bulgarian novelist and dissident Georgi Markov (see details at: www.spymuseum.org/programs/educate/pdfs/b
Re: Contra, if not necessarily positive...
That said, and granting a certain amount of charity, it is not inconceivable, though extremely unlikely, that such a weapon could deliver a poisoned bullet subcutaneously (likely requiring direct contact with the victim's bare skin to accomplish the delivery) thereby changing the lethality estimate from NO to MAYBE(if you're lucky).
The only advantage I can see to the 2.43 Swiss over the 'tried-and-true' umbrella 'bang-stick'; multiple rounds available for single or multiple targets.
I highly endorce these, as I'm a touch typer with a very heavy hand too. People joke about my 'thwack' sound I make as I type. I added this keyboard as my mainstay at work where I now clack AND click all day long.
For a compact wireless keyboard, I'd like to recommend the Grandtec Long Ranger USB RF Keyboard. It's a wireless compact keyboard with integrated trackball. The keyboard is very easy to hold. Grandtec has a view at http://www.grandtec.com/products/vi
You can pick it up at most online retailers, just look for the Grandtec KEY-2500
(Anonymous)
bottom line on keyboards
Bill Meyer
Ballistics
I am reminded of this:
http://twain.thefreelibrary.com/Tramp-A
-Jim