The migratory pattern of the Netscape profile
The problem of migrating user profiles from Netscape 4.7 to 7.0 has been figgered out. As usual with my skills and equipment, a kluge was involved.
The Profile Migration tool included with 7.0 gave me nothing but blank stares because it did not prompt for a location of profiles, insisting that it was smart enought to look for them itself. Not finding any on its present drive, it had nothing to migrate and plopped me at Netscape's home page to read today's news.
The profiles were, of course, on the original drive, not the new drive upon which OS X, OS 9.2 and Netscape 7.0 were installed "clean." I first copied them over to a folder on the new drive and ran the Profile Migration tool. No dice, still blank stares, here are today's headlines. So I restarted with OS 9.2 on the new drive, ran Netscape 4.7 on the new drive, and used its Profile Manager to port over the profiles from the older drive. Then restarted with OS X, and ran the Profile Migration tool again. The tool now saw a previous version of Netscape on its present drive, and recognized the profiles, and migrated them.
Would it have been unreasonable to expect a paragraph in a readme to explain this?
20021010
20021009
Keep it clean around here . . .
A man of the cloth now visits from time to time. Please welcome Donald Sensing of One Hand Clapping. Owing to his military service, he is listed among Bloggers in Force.
A man of the cloth now visits from time to time. Please welcome Donald Sensing of One Hand Clapping. Owing to his military service, he is listed among Bloggers in Force.
20021007
The Sidearm and the Militia-Utility Test
Instapundit pointed me to this post, where Mark Kleiman argues that there is Constitutional protection for a long gun, owing to what I would call a militia utility test. If one can demonstrate what the militia is for, and how it should be armed, the Constitution protects the right to own that kind of arm---but none other. He then turns that argument to sidearms.
Sidearms are indispensable for searches of or working in such places as buildings, tunnels, and vessels, for driving vehicles, or for those carrying specialized equipment where weight of one's kit is at a premium. All of these are conceivable roles for members of various teams in a well-regulated militia.
I carried a sidearm, as a mid-level enlisted man, just last year in Central Asia. It was there in those cases when I could not carry a rifle; each time, I had an escort with a rifle nearby. I was issued both pistol and rifle, and I was free to choose which to bear according to the situation.
Anyone who carries a crew-served weapon, such as an MG, rocket launcher, in fact anything other than the standard service rifle, carries a sidearm as the backup in case the primary arm fails or its ammunition is exhausted. Private soldiers tend to acquire sidearms whenever they can; if they are not issued sidearms at the outset it is more likely a budgetary or training decision rather than one of philosophy of how men should be armed.
This also:
Organizationally, they'll look more like investment clubs, HAM radio clubs, and fantasy-football leagues. (I expect ridicule out of this last point, and perhaps I deserve it. So horse-laugh now and get it over with.)
Historically, the sidearm was developed for cavalry, because the service rifle (or its equivalent of that period) was too cumbersome for operation from horseback. The Confederate Colonel John Singleton Mosby was the first cavalry officer to order all of his troops to abandon the saber completely and standardize on the revolver among his troops.
The M1 Carbine of World War II was conceived, among other reasons, as a means to eliminate the several other classes of small arm, including the sidearm, so that the US would need to supply only the Carbine and the M1 service rifle. Obviously the sidearm continues to this day, because there was, and is, still a valid and fairly common need for it. Uncle doesn't issue M1 Carbines any more.
So I disagree that the sidearm would not enjoy strict Constitutional protection under the militia-utility standard. It is neither an officers-only nor a specialist's weapon. It is a tool designed for certain applications, and a militia could be called upon to carry out those applications. The same can be said for the shotgun and the SMG; Jeff Cooper's essay "The Role of the Five" explains this, and if I can find it online I will link it here later. They have their uses in a militia organization, especially one formed as American values and character would have it. The full-dress service rifle should be considered its principal arm, necessary but not sufficient.
Instapundit pointed me to this post, where Mark Kleiman argues that there is Constitutional protection for a long gun, owing to what I would call a militia utility test. If one can demonstrate what the militia is for, and how it should be armed, the Constitution protects the right to own that kind of arm---but none other. He then turns that argument to sidearms.
"A side-arm is not a weapon of war, because it lacks the range to strike the enemy. No private soldier carries one. Side-arms are for officers, to threaten, or if need be to shoot, disobedient subordinates. The rank-and-file carry long guns."This is true for the Russian model, and others, but not for the present American one.
Sidearms are indispensable for searches of or working in such places as buildings, tunnels, and vessels, for driving vehicles, or for those carrying specialized equipment where weight of one's kit is at a premium. All of these are conceivable roles for members of various teams in a well-regulated militia.
I carried a sidearm, as a mid-level enlisted man, just last year in Central Asia. It was there in those cases when I could not carry a rifle; each time, I had an escort with a rifle nearby. I was issued both pistol and rifle, and I was free to choose which to bear according to the situation.
Anyone who carries a crew-served weapon, such as an MG, rocket launcher, in fact anything other than the standard service rifle, carries a sidearm as the backup in case the primary arm fails or its ammunition is exhausted. Private soldiers tend to acquire sidearms whenever they can; if they are not issued sidearms at the outset it is more likely a budgetary or training decision rather than one of philosophy of how men should be armed.
This also:
"A militia member fights as a soldier, with whatever arms are conventional at the time . . . "Even soldiers fight less like soldiers today, as there are fewer and fewer of them, and more specialists in support and services fields, enhancing the effectiveness of the fewer but better-equipped and better-supported infantrymen. The tooth-to-tail ratio of the modern army is diminishing (whether this is sound theory, or effective in practice, is outside our scope here); we can expect the same for the militia if they are to be easily assimilated into the army, especially in a culture that prizes diverse experience, advanced education, initiative, and individualism. If our militia reflects our society and its values, we will not be forming waves of conscripts prodded forward by pistol-waving officers.
Organizationally, they'll look more like investment clubs, HAM radio clubs, and fantasy-football leagues. (I expect ridicule out of this last point, and perhaps I deserve it. So horse-laugh now and get it over with.)
Historically, the sidearm was developed for cavalry, because the service rifle (or its equivalent of that period) was too cumbersome for operation from horseback. The Confederate Colonel John Singleton Mosby was the first cavalry officer to order all of his troops to abandon the saber completely and standardize on the revolver among his troops.
The M1 Carbine of World War II was conceived, among other reasons, as a means to eliminate the several other classes of small arm, including the sidearm, so that the US would need to supply only the Carbine and the M1 service rifle. Obviously the sidearm continues to this day, because there was, and is, still a valid and fairly common need for it. Uncle doesn't issue M1 Carbines any more.
So I disagree that the sidearm would not enjoy strict Constitutional protection under the militia-utility standard. It is neither an officers-only nor a specialist's weapon. It is a tool designed for certain applications, and a militia could be called upon to carry out those applications. The same can be said for the shotgun and the SMG; Jeff Cooper's essay "The Role of the Five" explains this, and if I can find it online I will link it here later. They have their uses in a militia organization, especially one formed as American values and character would have it. The full-dress service rifle should be considered its principal arm, necessary but not sufficient.
20021006
More on the Warthog
Toren at The Safety Valve and Kathy on the Third Hand praise the A-10.
Let the Army have them, because the Air Force won't fly them, or will shoehorn them into "observation" roles. It will require a change in Federal law to make it possible, but that's what we have a Congress for, right?
Toren at The Safety Valve and Kathy on the Third Hand praise the A-10.
Let the Army have them, because the Air Force won't fly them, or will shoehorn them into "observation" roles. It will require a change in Federal law to make it possible, but that's what we have a Congress for, right?
20021005
These nutjobs have to be stopped
They will be stopped with forensic ballistics, not by vigilant cops catching the sniper in the act. What ballistic facts have been released are sketchy, and have been (characteristically for the press) poorly reported.
The bullets recovered may indeed be consistent with those used in the .223 Remington cartridge. But that does not mean that they were fired from a .223 Remington, also known as 5.56 x 45mm or 5.56mm NATO. The same diameter bullet, even the same bullet models themselves, are used in dozens of other, more powerful hunting cartridges. The graphic descriptions I have read so far of the wounds and placement suggest this, rather than .223 in the urban carbine. Any shooting enthusiast can rattle off the names of such cartridges. Update: Kim du Toit rattles some of them here.
Handguns can be had in these cartridges too, though these will be single-shot handguns with a bolt action or a "cannon lock" to contain high pressures. These handguns do not lend themselves to concealment inside the waistband. But they are capable of the accuracy and range exhibited here.
The police reports confirming the .223 caliber---the diameter of the bullet, actually dot two two four inches---can also be smoke. How much of the bullet's material has been recovered?
Bullet manufacturers routinely brag on "high weight retention," how much of the bullet is left, as a percentage of original weight---some is expected to be lost. Hunting bullets get mushroomed, flattened, and fragmented, such that the original dimensions of the bullet may be difficult to determine. They are built to expand, to bring the animal down immediately, nothing inhumane about it. In contrast, military bullets are more likely to be recovered intact, and less likely to do such spectacular damage, because they are constructed not to expand, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, and they are driven with less energy so the rifles firing them have a longer useful life.
So the bits of lead and gilding metal that were recovered could be from a .243", a .25", maybe even a .264". Blogs4God has conjectured a caliber of .308" though I don't buy that either. They could have been fired from your granddad's Savage 99 in .22-250, or a Swedish Mauser '96 in 6.5x55 (the model numbers are abbreviated years of introduction, beginning in Eighteen, not Nineteen). The rifle could be older than everyone investigating the crime today.
Of course, if I were investigating these crimes, I would not release more of the ballistics I've discovered than I absolutely must to satisfy the baying press. Nor would I be above minor disinformation to protect the progress of the investigation.
So I'm not sold yet on the notion that the sniping is being done with off-the-shelf .223 Remington ammunition and/or with an AR.
They will be stopped with forensic ballistics, not by vigilant cops catching the sniper in the act. What ballistic facts have been released are sketchy, and have been (characteristically for the press) poorly reported.
The bullets recovered may indeed be consistent with those used in the .223 Remington cartridge. But that does not mean that they were fired from a .223 Remington, also known as 5.56 x 45mm or 5.56mm NATO. The same diameter bullet, even the same bullet models themselves, are used in dozens of other, more powerful hunting cartridges. The graphic descriptions I have read so far of the wounds and placement suggest this, rather than .223 in the urban carbine. Any shooting enthusiast can rattle off the names of such cartridges. Update: Kim du Toit rattles some of them here.
Handguns can be had in these cartridges too, though these will be single-shot handguns with a bolt action or a "cannon lock" to contain high pressures. These handguns do not lend themselves to concealment inside the waistband. But they are capable of the accuracy and range exhibited here.
The police reports confirming the .223 caliber---the diameter of the bullet, actually dot two two four inches---can also be smoke. How much of the bullet's material has been recovered?
Bullet manufacturers routinely brag on "high weight retention," how much of the bullet is left, as a percentage of original weight---some is expected to be lost. Hunting bullets get mushroomed, flattened, and fragmented, such that the original dimensions of the bullet may be difficult to determine. They are built to expand, to bring the animal down immediately, nothing inhumane about it. In contrast, military bullets are more likely to be recovered intact, and less likely to do such spectacular damage, because they are constructed not to expand, in accordance with the Geneva Conventions, and they are driven with less energy so the rifles firing them have a longer useful life.
So the bits of lead and gilding metal that were recovered could be from a .243", a .25", maybe even a .264". Blogs4God has conjectured a caliber of .308" though I don't buy that either. They could have been fired from your granddad's Savage 99 in .22-250, or a Swedish Mauser '96 in 6.5x55 (the model numbers are abbreviated years of introduction, beginning in Eighteen, not Nineteen). The rifle could be older than everyone investigating the crime today.
Of course, if I were investigating these crimes, I would not release more of the ballistics I've discovered than I absolutely must to satisfy the baying press. Nor would I be above minor disinformation to protect the progress of the investigation.
So I'm not sold yet on the notion that the sniping is being done with off-the-shelf .223 Remington ammunition and/or with an AR.
20021004
Keep it outside the squadron, kids
Donald Sensing posted something a few weeks back, about some military force (not the US, likely) instructing its members not to sleep with each other, because it harms morale. Unfortunately, the link in his post did not lead me to the article he cited. But weigh in on the topic, I will.
If you haven't figured it out already, I just came back from a year of active duty in the War on Terrorism. I started this blog while deployed overseas for that duty. I observed a few things that will be described, in due time, in this space, as I figure out what safely to say about it and what not to. This is the first.
Trying to keep young men and women working and living together, and sharing hardship, from knocking boots is like keeping them from getting tattoos. I spent nearly six months at one location, a logistics center, where the split was nearly 60-40 men to women. There was ample evidence that sexual congress was occurring, and clear communication that Uncle Sugar disapproved of it. It is the first instance I've seen of the term "fraternization" applied to anything other than that (properly) harshly forbidden between officers and enlisted folks.
As Donald quoted in his post:
I agree. It can't be stopped, but it should be limited. Soldiers will accept the limits, if the reasons for such limits can be articulated. And the reason is right there in the quote. Mutual trust, morale, unit cohesion are undermined if sex or even courting is taking place among people who work that closely together, even if they are of the same rank. It can be as damaging as O-on-E fraternization.
Keep it outside the squadron. Don't even date within the squadron. Look after the people in your own unit like brothers and sisters. SPs, you can pursue the Loggies. Fire dogs, hit on the babe in the command post. And so forth. But not inside your immediate unit---not anyone who has the same first shirt as you. It's like incest.
I realize that many military marriages started out this way, and it verges on hypocrisy for me to weigh in against it, because my wife and I met through work. Still, the reason for such a prohibition is not hard to argue, nor hard to understand.
Please see my lone comment at Donald's post also.
Donald Sensing posted something a few weeks back, about some military force (not the US, likely) instructing its members not to sleep with each other, because it harms morale. Unfortunately, the link in his post did not lead me to the article he cited. But weigh in on the topic, I will.
If you haven't figured it out already, I just came back from a year of active duty in the War on Terrorism. I started this blog while deployed overseas for that duty. I observed a few things that will be described, in due time, in this space, as I figure out what safely to say about it and what not to. This is the first.
Trying to keep young men and women working and living together, and sharing hardship, from knocking boots is like keeping them from getting tattoos. I spent nearly six months at one location, a logistics center, where the split was nearly 60-40 men to women. There was ample evidence that sexual congress was occurring, and clear communication that Uncle Sugar disapproved of it. It is the first instance I've seen of the term "fraternization" applied to anything other than that (properly) harshly forbidden between officers and enlisted folks.
As Donald quoted in his post:
. . . sleeping with fellow soldiers of either sex, or indeed their partners, would be bad for morale, threatening "mutual trust and soldiers' willingness to help each other."
I agree. It can't be stopped, but it should be limited. Soldiers will accept the limits, if the reasons for such limits can be articulated. And the reason is right there in the quote. Mutual trust, morale, unit cohesion are undermined if sex or even courting is taking place among people who work that closely together, even if they are of the same rank. It can be as damaging as O-on-E fraternization.
Keep it outside the squadron. Don't even date within the squadron. Look after the people in your own unit like brothers and sisters. SPs, you can pursue the Loggies. Fire dogs, hit on the babe in the command post. And so forth. But not inside your immediate unit---not anyone who has the same first shirt as you. It's like incest.
I realize that many military marriages started out this way, and it verges on hypocrisy for me to weigh in against it, because my wife and I met through work. Still, the reason for such a prohibition is not hard to argue, nor hard to understand.
Please see my lone comment at Donald's post also.
20020927
Amtrak with Boeings
Writer, raconteur and grouch Kim du Toit invites airline executives to pound sand since they have hit economic hard times and are seeking a bailout from Uncle Sugar. Says he:
It's too late for the free market to punish these businesses and reward newcomers. Air travel has already been effectively nationalized. In what meaningful ways can an airline distinguish itself from the dinosaurs and capture business from them? Between local government ownership of the airports and Fed responsibility for security at all points in the air travel experience, there is little left to the airline itself to improve service without diminishing its profits further, or either changing or violating a law.
Air travel won't be profitable as a business again, nor tolerable for Kim or for me, until the present airline security approach is removed, so airlines can begin treating their passengers as paying customers instead of felons. With what to replace it?
Give me back my Gerber E-Z Out.
I've advocated allowing pilots to arm themselves with firearms, and that actually might happen. I've also advocated allowing flight attendants to carry firearms, but that is unlikely and has even been dissed here in the Blogosphere.
Allowing passengers to carry firearms is even less likely. But a few stout folding knives would have been very useful to the brave passengers of United 93, or the folks who restrained the shoe bomber.
Writer, raconteur and grouch Kim du Toit invites airline executives to pound sand since they have hit economic hard times and are seeking a bailout from Uncle Sugar. Says he:
"F*** 'em. Let 'em go out of business. Let new airlines arise from the ashes of these burnt-out, bloated conglomerates, let these new airlines heed the lessons from these failed and extinct dinosaurs, and maybe everyone will be better off."
It's too late for the free market to punish these businesses and reward newcomers. Air travel has already been effectively nationalized. In what meaningful ways can an airline distinguish itself from the dinosaurs and capture business from them? Between local government ownership of the airports and Fed responsibility for security at all points in the air travel experience, there is little left to the airline itself to improve service without diminishing its profits further, or either changing or violating a law.
Air travel won't be profitable as a business again, nor tolerable for Kim or for me, until the present airline security approach is removed, so airlines can begin treating their passengers as paying customers instead of felons. With what to replace it?
Give me back my Gerber E-Z Out.
I've advocated allowing pilots to arm themselves with firearms, and that actually might happen. I've also advocated allowing flight attendants to carry firearms, but that is unlikely and has even been dissed here in the Blogosphere.
Allowing passengers to carry firearms is even less likely. But a few stout folding knives would have been very useful to the brave passengers of United 93, or the folks who restrained the shoe bomber.
20020923
Countercounterfeiting
Found via Dustbury, a recently invented technique to derive keys from physical objects. This reminded me of a Scientific American article, maybe 1985 to 1989, just a little sidebar story about a technique the US military-industrial complex developed to authenticate serial numbers on cruise missiles.
Spray a mixture of lacquer and microscopic ground glass particles over the serial number, and photograph it from several angles. The reflection patterns of each marking will be unique and reproducible (standardize the flash intensity and color, and the angle of incidence) but difficult or impossible to forge.
Found via Dustbury, a recently invented technique to derive keys from physical objects. This reminded me of a Scientific American article, maybe 1985 to 1989, just a little sidebar story about a technique the US military-industrial complex developed to authenticate serial numbers on cruise missiles.
Spray a mixture of lacquer and microscopic ground glass particles over the serial number, and photograph it from several angles. The reflection patterns of each marking will be unique and reproducible (standardize the flash intensity and color, and the angle of incidence) but difficult or impossible to forge.
Somebody likes me
Somebody who shall remain nameless bought my banner. Thank you.
Should the mood strike you, gentle reader, to look for my tip jar, I do not have one nor will I install one. Please drop shekels into the coffers of the many deserving institutions listed to your left, members of the Public Policy Institute.
Somebody who shall remain nameless bought my banner. Thank you.
Should the mood strike you, gentle reader, to look for my tip jar, I do not have one nor will I install one. Please drop shekels into the coffers of the many deserving institutions listed to your left, members of the Public Policy Institute.
Another idea of mine stolen
Found courtesy of Dodgeblog, in an article about women deeply conflicted about what they want from men:
First the sleeplearning pillow, then the adaptation of DOCSIS to line-of-sight wireless, now this.
Found courtesy of Dodgeblog, in an article about women deeply conflicted about what they want from men:
Glenlivet, the whisky brand, ... is opening a male finishing school
First the sleeplearning pillow, then the adaptation of DOCSIS to line-of-sight wireless, now this.
20020919
further evidence that I've not kept up with my reading
When did Ruger resume making the .44 Carbine? I saw one at a show last weekend, with a plastic upper handguard. Had to be recent manufacture. Yup, they did.
There's a Thumper candidate.
When did Ruger resume making the .44 Carbine? I saw one at a show last weekend, with a plastic upper handguard. Had to be recent manufacture. Yup, they did.
There's a Thumper candidate.
Honeydews
I'm catching up on housework, now that I have the time and the energy. My corner of the basement is being reorganized, the whole garage is straightened up, the flagship PowerMac is upgraded (more on this later). We took delivery of some pavers to purty up the card-table-sized back yard.
Half of the stuff in the garage is now on casters so we can get at it. After saying goodbye to a massive war surplus steel desk (kept in the garage because the movers wouldn't try to get it to the basement) I deck-screwed a plywood plate to the bottom shelf of one of those cheesy-looking plastic
modular shelving units, then lag-bolted 250-pound casters to the plate. I liked the effect so much I built a few more low platforms on 75-pound casters, just big enough for the Rubbermaid 20-gallon storage tubs that are stacked in the basement.
Yet to go: the Linux box needs device statements to tell KDE where the CD-ROM and CD-RW drives are. A batch of porter needs to be brewed. And my wife and I need to get to Jim Crews's school.
I'm catching up on housework, now that I have the time and the energy. My corner of the basement is being reorganized, the whole garage is straightened up, the flagship PowerMac is upgraded (more on this later). We took delivery of some pavers to purty up the card-table-sized back yard.
Half of the stuff in the garage is now on casters so we can get at it. After saying goodbye to a massive war surplus steel desk (kept in the garage because the movers wouldn't try to get it to the basement) I deck-screwed a plywood plate to the bottom shelf of one of those cheesy-looking plastic
modular shelving units, then lag-bolted 250-pound casters to the plate. I liked the effect so much I built a few more low platforms on 75-pound casters, just big enough for the Rubbermaid 20-gallon storage tubs that are stacked in the basement.
Yet to go: the Linux box needs device statements to tell KDE where the CD-ROM and CD-RW drives are. A batch of porter needs to be brewed. And my wife and I need to get to Jim Crews's school.
The low spark of Breathe-Right strips
Take a Breathe-Right nasal dilator strip into a completely dark place. Watch as you peel open the paper envelope in which the strip is packaged. A faint blue glow is created as the adhesive holding the two sides of the envelope together yields.
Take a Breathe-Right nasal dilator strip into a completely dark place. Watch as you peel open the paper envelope in which the strip is packaged. A faint blue glow is created as the adhesive holding the two sides of the envelope together yields.
20020914
20020910
Getting reacquainted
Returning to my family after six months is like an amnesiac being told that he has a family, a history, whom he must approach almost as if it were an introduction. I didn't appreciate how rich and fortunate a man I was until I met these people again and was charmed by them, learning little things about them that I thought I knew.
Boy is now 2 years old. When my wife handed him to me at the airport, he immediately squirmed to escape me. He didn't recognize me.
He ran back to his mother, who told him that I am his father. He ran back to me. He would not stop talking during the drive back to Castle Rock. His mother says he is one hundred percent boy. After spending some Dad-and-son time with him, I conclude he is also about 30 percent orc.
Middlechild is a Daddy's girl who wears glasses at age 4 due to astigmatism inherited from me. And who was picked up from the school office today because she bit someone who was fiddling with her Spongebob keyring. I need to borrow a polygraph from someone and be shown how to use it, because this girl can lie like a rug.
Firstchild, six years old, started first grade this year. I gave her a small wad of Omani currency to take to school for show-and-tell. I showed her how to look at the watermark, how Arabic reads right-to-left, how currency comes in units and subunits, and how to pronounce rial and baisa. She can make change in US currency, and reads at a better level than I did at her age. She benefits from the marriage of two powerful concepts in education: charter and Montessori.
The town has changed in these six months as well. Mama-san needed to inflate a vinyl wading pool, and I couldn't find my airchucks, so I had to make a tool run. At the point where I normally would turn left to head for the WalMart, hoping they had air-powered parts, the entrance to the new Home Depot came into view off starboard. To hell with anybody's viewshed, and screw your objections about big box stores. I now live within five minutes of a Home Depot and I didn't have to move, thank you.
Returning to my family after six months is like an amnesiac being told that he has a family, a history, whom he must approach almost as if it were an introduction. I didn't appreciate how rich and fortunate a man I was until I met these people again and was charmed by them, learning little things about them that I thought I knew.
Boy is now 2 years old. When my wife handed him to me at the airport, he immediately squirmed to escape me. He didn't recognize me.
He ran back to his mother, who told him that I am his father. He ran back to me. He would not stop talking during the drive back to Castle Rock. His mother says he is one hundred percent boy. After spending some Dad-and-son time with him, I conclude he is also about 30 percent orc.
Middlechild is a Daddy's girl who wears glasses at age 4 due to astigmatism inherited from me. And who was picked up from the school office today because she bit someone who was fiddling with her Spongebob keyring. I need to borrow a polygraph from someone and be shown how to use it, because this girl can lie like a rug.
Firstchild, six years old, started first grade this year. I gave her a small wad of Omani currency to take to school for show-and-tell. I showed her how to look at the watermark, how Arabic reads right-to-left, how currency comes in units and subunits, and how to pronounce rial and baisa. She can make change in US currency, and reads at a better level than I did at her age. She benefits from the marriage of two powerful concepts in education: charter and Montessori.
The town has changed in these six months as well. Mama-san needed to inflate a vinyl wading pool, and I couldn't find my airchucks, so I had to make a tool run. At the point where I normally would turn left to head for the WalMart, hoping they had air-powered parts, the entrance to the new Home Depot came into view off starboard. To hell with anybody's viewshed, and screw your objections about big box stores. I now live within five minutes of a Home Depot and I didn't have to move, thank you.
jardin défendu
The Front Range has been rainy and overcast every day since my return. Still, people worry about the drought, and several municipalities here have restricted water use or are going to court to restrict someone else's water use, which reminds me of Ed Quillen's column about architecture's adaptation to climate, and the water-conserving walled garden homes of the Mediterranean.
Housing developments here, at least in my price range, all have card-table-sized lawns in front and in back. The front lawns are all sodded and have irrigation gear installed, whether you like it or not, and privacy fences running from house to house. Not enough room here to throw a Frisbee, not enough room for a decent porch either.
The rear lawns are left in mud, brown-eyed susans and purslane, and you will install your own privacy fence to separate your mud from your adjacent neighbors' mud. You will also be blessed with some massive green box or doghouse of some kind, to provide the electrical power, telephone, or cable TV service for the block.
Your covenant gives you an arbitrary 60 days to get the rear sodded, or your homeowners association will hound you, financed to do so by your dues. Any landscaping more complex than sodding from fence to fence requires a permit that must be signed by your adjacent neighbors.
I'm the kind of guy who likes to solve more than one problem with one solution, and yes, I classify busybody neighbors with veto power over my front and back yards as a problem. The windswept front lawn whose irrigation system blows acre-feet of water down the street is also a problem.
So somebody please design a development where each block looks in upon itself, like an atrium. Move the houses out to the sidewalk, turn them so they face each other inwardly, and merge each useless little front lawn and its nearly-useless rear lawn into one workable lawn for each property, protected from the wind. Run a sidewalk down the middle, flanked by waist-high fences, where neighborhood kids can bike, skate, toss balls and whatnot, free from the dangers of automobiles and perverts. The paved bike paths that lace these communities together today can be passed through the block.
Anybody who Joneses for a dramatic porch and window treatments can still do so and compete with his neighbors (double entendre intended). Anybody who wants to be able to sunbathe buck naked in his lawn can erect privacy fences, set back from the sidewalk an appropriate distance, thereby closing off the view to his porch.
From the outside, where the automobiles move about, one sees only walls---whether wooden, concrete, or discarded car tires rammed with earth, it doesn't matter---say 8 feet high, and the rears of the houses, punctuated at regular intervals by garage doors. By covenant, these outward facing walls have no windows, or have windows such that no one can look from his window into anyone else's. Balconies here, overlooking the street, would be permissible only if the view is similarly restricted. And by covenant, anything that neighbors see on your house from out there is legit, whether it's a solar collector, a satellite dish, a HAM antenna, or aluminum foil to block the CIA's brain scans: the HOA must keep its hands the hell off.
All of the utilities are accessed from the street, so no hardhats will ever be poking around in your yard. The mailbox pod is placed at one end, and everybody gets to greet each other as they waddle down the central sidewalk to pick up their mail. Heavy deliveries are made through the garage. Firefighting is conducted through the sidewalk entrances, because that's where the hydrants are located.
The security-obsessed developments can put coded gates on the sidewalk entrances, directing transient footpath traffic around the blocks rather than inviting them through.
With this neighborhood design in place, we can then talk about the little stuff, such as recycling the laundry and shower water for irrigation, and putting twenty-buck sensors on the irrigation systems so they don't irrigate when it rains.
The Front Range has been rainy and overcast every day since my return. Still, people worry about the drought, and several municipalities here have restricted water use or are going to court to restrict someone else's water use, which reminds me of Ed Quillen's column about architecture's adaptation to climate, and the water-conserving walled garden homes of the Mediterranean.
Housing developments here, at least in my price range, all have card-table-sized lawns in front and in back. The front lawns are all sodded and have irrigation gear installed, whether you like it or not, and privacy fences running from house to house. Not enough room here to throw a Frisbee, not enough room for a decent porch either.
The rear lawns are left in mud, brown-eyed susans and purslane, and you will install your own privacy fence to separate your mud from your adjacent neighbors' mud. You will also be blessed with some massive green box or doghouse of some kind, to provide the electrical power, telephone, or cable TV service for the block.
Your covenant gives you an arbitrary 60 days to get the rear sodded, or your homeowners association will hound you, financed to do so by your dues. Any landscaping more complex than sodding from fence to fence requires a permit that must be signed by your adjacent neighbors.
I'm the kind of guy who likes to solve more than one problem with one solution, and yes, I classify busybody neighbors with veto power over my front and back yards as a problem. The windswept front lawn whose irrigation system blows acre-feet of water down the street is also a problem.
So somebody please design a development where each block looks in upon itself, like an atrium. Move the houses out to the sidewalk, turn them so they face each other inwardly, and merge each useless little front lawn and its nearly-useless rear lawn into one workable lawn for each property, protected from the wind. Run a sidewalk down the middle, flanked by waist-high fences, where neighborhood kids can bike, skate, toss balls and whatnot, free from the dangers of automobiles and perverts. The paved bike paths that lace these communities together today can be passed through the block.
Anybody who Joneses for a dramatic porch and window treatments can still do so and compete with his neighbors (double entendre intended). Anybody who wants to be able to sunbathe buck naked in his lawn can erect privacy fences, set back from the sidewalk an appropriate distance, thereby closing off the view to his porch.
From the outside, where the automobiles move about, one sees only walls---whether wooden, concrete, or discarded car tires rammed with earth, it doesn't matter---say 8 feet high, and the rears of the houses, punctuated at regular intervals by garage doors. By covenant, these outward facing walls have no windows, or have windows such that no one can look from his window into anyone else's. Balconies here, overlooking the street, would be permissible only if the view is similarly restricted. And by covenant, anything that neighbors see on your house from out there is legit, whether it's a solar collector, a satellite dish, a HAM antenna, or aluminum foil to block the CIA's brain scans: the HOA must keep its hands the hell off.
All of the utilities are accessed from the street, so no hardhats will ever be poking around in your yard. The mailbox pod is placed at one end, and everybody gets to greet each other as they waddle down the central sidewalk to pick up their mail. Heavy deliveries are made through the garage. Firefighting is conducted through the sidewalk entrances, because that's where the hydrants are located.
The security-obsessed developments can put coded gates on the sidewalk entrances, directing transient footpath traffic around the blocks rather than inviting them through.
With this neighborhood design in place, we can then talk about the little stuff, such as recycling the laundry and shower water for irrigation, and putting twenty-buck sensors on the irrigation systems so they don't irrigate when it rains.
20020904
. . . and let me deduct the cost from my Federal income taxes
I've closed at least two posts with that line, referring to one of my pet ideas, that because gun ownership is a public good, the public should in some way defray the costs of providing that public good. If not sincerely, I promote it at least with tongue-in-cheek, to reverse-psych leftists into grokking libertarian objections to the Federal income tax.
Apparently someone has unwittingly climbed on board with me. As reported by the Volokh Conspiracy, Gary Wills finds the right to publicly funded sturmgewehren, sort of:
Another quote here, from Yevgeniy's post, formatted such that I think it's a quote from or paraphrasing of Gary Wills, not Yevgeniy's own words:
Honey, we need to go shopping.
I've closed at least two posts with that line, referring to one of my pet ideas, that because gun ownership is a public good, the public should in some way defray the costs of providing that public good. If not sincerely, I promote it at least with tongue-in-cheek, to reverse-psych leftists into grokking libertarian objections to the Federal income tax.
Apparently someone has unwittingly climbed on board with me. As reported by the Volokh Conspiracy, Gary Wills finds the right to publicly funded sturmgewehren, sort of:
"What Madison and the Congress did was underline the independent action of the militias when they were not federalized, pledging that the new government would keep them equipped for that local purpose. The right to demand this service is the first and foremost meaning of "Second Amendment rights."Emphasis mine.
Another quote here, from Yevgeniy's post, formatted such that I think it's a quote from or paraphrasing of Gary Wills, not Yevgeniy's own words:
"Rather, it's an affirmative entitlement to a form of government subsidy. Quite a remarkable reading of the phrase "the right of the people to keep and bear arms."
Honey, we need to go shopping.
"Customers who bought this book have also bought . . ."
While I was ordering David Brin's book about privacy, The Transparent Society, Amazon informed me which books "Customers who bought this book also bought", which books "Customers who shopped for this book also bought" and which books "Customers who bought this book also recommended". Think what we could learn if Amazon sold, uh, marital appliances.
While I was ordering David Brin's book about privacy, The Transparent Society, Amazon informed me which books "Customers who bought this book also bought", which books "Customers who shopped for this book also bought" and which books "Customers who bought this book also recommended". Think what we could learn if Amazon sold, uh, marital appliances.
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