A nice compromise between controlling power and stoppability
The .380 Auto is known in Europe as the 9mm Short. Does that mean the .40 S&M is called the 10mm Shibari over there?
Freudian slip noticed in comments to a post about defensive handguns at DailyPundit.
20030213
20030211
Idea number 241
I would also very much like the USAF to buy me a PDA. Not that I don't like my present platform, the Palm m500.
A commander some years back shared with us his vision that "someday the Air Force will not issue its airmen rifles, but computers." That vision is coming true haphazardly and unconsciously; we are now required to update dependent information through a website, for example, and we use the execrable FormFlow to prepare travel vouchers (the FormFlow version of the travel voucher still admonishes you to "press the pen firmly so all four copies are legible"---on an electronic form). But the automation has not penetrated deeply enough, and I still need the rifle.
Virtually all Air Force instructions ("regs") are available as PDFs now, downloaded from either a central Air Force site or from a CD-ROM copy. Technical Orders (equipment manuals) are beginning that painful transition from paper to pdf. My career field depends upon a constellation of AFIs, AFMANs, AFHs, TOs, and purpose-built network clients. I already share my schedule with two peers, two managers, three classrooms, and three email lists.
The only reason that all of these files cannot be crammed into 16 MB on a PDA is that the AF simply dumps full-size JPEG images into their pubs, in effect bloating a 300KB document to several MB by adding color photographs, even in a document that will only be printed in black and white anyway. If the AF simply hired some illustrators to take these photos and "compress" them the old fashioned way, Idea number 241 would. be. feasible. Today.
The AF then issues a standard PDA to everybody---Palm or the OS formerly known as Wince, makes no difference---and each office would have one or two cradles to dock them. "Hey, Tony, there's a new 10-2501 waiting for you at your next synch. Look at my notes attached to it. And there's a change 3 for 14P4 dash 15 dash 1!"
Yes, we do verbalize the dashes.
The AF could then stem the explosion in the number of desktop and notebook computers it has to buy, maintain, and replace. Even morale uses of these computers could be reduced---just read and compose emails to Significant Other offline, and they'll be sent the next time you dock. You can still get your Instapundit and your DavidMSC too.
In a small way, I've done this already---four of us bought our own Palm pilots before a recent deployment, and shared schedules, documents, and so forth. Sand didn't bother them (perspiration did---somebody needs to build a waterproof PDA).
If you came here from this post, then you can guess what's coming next.
Either the digital camera snaps on to the PDA, or communicates with it. The PDA uploads the images, calculates the contamination and digests it to a file. I would caution against using a flash memory device to transfer images from camera to PDA, because handling those little devices while wearing rubber gloves is difficult and invites ESD. Wireless would be unwise because RF on an airbase is discouraged. Infrared is cheap and proved, and you won't be using this capability while hostiles are watching you through night vision gear.
When the images are uploaded and digested, you get yourself to the nearest dock and blurt the digested information to the mapping terminal. If the PDA gets slimed, throw it away and restore your backup to a new one.
Then the mapping terminal blurts back to you a password-protected map of where the slime is.
I would also very much like the USAF to buy me a PDA. Not that I don't like my present platform, the Palm m500.
A commander some years back shared with us his vision that "someday the Air Force will not issue its airmen rifles, but computers." That vision is coming true haphazardly and unconsciously; we are now required to update dependent information through a website, for example, and we use the execrable FormFlow to prepare travel vouchers (the FormFlow version of the travel voucher still admonishes you to "press the pen firmly so all four copies are legible"---on an electronic form). But the automation has not penetrated deeply enough, and I still need the rifle.
Virtually all Air Force instructions ("regs") are available as PDFs now, downloaded from either a central Air Force site or from a CD-ROM copy. Technical Orders (equipment manuals) are beginning that painful transition from paper to pdf. My career field depends upon a constellation of AFIs, AFMANs, AFHs, TOs, and purpose-built network clients. I already share my schedule with two peers, two managers, three classrooms, and three email lists.
The only reason that all of these files cannot be crammed into 16 MB on a PDA is that the AF simply dumps full-size JPEG images into their pubs, in effect bloating a 300KB document to several MB by adding color photographs, even in a document that will only be printed in black and white anyway. If the AF simply hired some illustrators to take these photos and "compress" them the old fashioned way, Idea number 241 would. be. feasible. Today.
The AF then issues a standard PDA to everybody---Palm or the OS formerly known as Wince, makes no difference---and each office would have one or two cradles to dock them. "Hey, Tony, there's a new 10-2501 waiting for you at your next synch. Look at my notes attached to it. And there's a change 3 for 14P4 dash 15 dash 1!"
Yes, we do verbalize the dashes.
The AF could then stem the explosion in the number of desktop and notebook computers it has to buy, maintain, and replace. Even morale uses of these computers could be reduced---just read and compose emails to Significant Other offline, and they'll be sent the next time you dock. You can still get your Instapundit and your DavidMSC too.
In a small way, I've done this already---four of us bought our own Palm pilots before a recent deployment, and shared schedules, documents, and so forth. Sand didn't bother them (perspiration did---somebody needs to build a waterproof PDA).
If you came here from this post, then you can guess what's coming next.
Either the digital camera snaps on to the PDA, or communicates with it. The PDA uploads the images, calculates the contamination and digests it to a file. I would caution against using a flash memory device to transfer images from camera to PDA, because handling those little devices while wearing rubber gloves is difficult and invites ESD. Wireless would be unwise because RF on an airbase is discouraged. Infrared is cheap and proved, and you won't be using this capability while hostiles are watching you through night vision gear.
When the images are uploaded and digested, you get yourself to the nearest dock and blurt the digested information to the mapping terminal. If the PDA gets slimed, throw it away and restore your backup to a new one.
Then the mapping terminal blurts back to you a password-protected map of where the slime is.
Idea number 372
We have received some constructive criticism of Idea number 354, from none other than an experienced cadre member at a US military NBC training facility.
The portable paper-band contamination tracker fails to satisfy on several counts:
So Cadre one-upped me. "Our people have already stationed the detector paper around the base, as part of pre-attack detection measures. Give us a device that looks at that paper and quantifies the contamination. What do digital cameras cost these days?"
OK. The required granularity would be there. We'd be using an existing resource more wisely rather than procuring a new system with its own expendables. So:
If any readers are familiar with the equipment used to perform complete blood counts, for example, please reality-check me. The software involved in counting colored dots in an image with fixed background color can't be so complex it can't be packed into a high-end notebook, right? Statistical output of an image compressor, such as JPEG?
In fact, might this software be simple enough to run on a properly configured PDA? If so, check out idea number 241.
The challenge to such a system would be porting all of these images back to one location where they can be assembled and assessed. The bandwidth required for hauling around two-meg jpegs would kill a base network; if the assessment function were pushed out to the periphery of the system, closer to where the images are captured, then the message coming from the imager to the mapping software would be a few bytes showing color, concentration, and temperature, a couple bytes identifying the camera, operator, and date/time group, and a couple bytes of location coordinates.
It's also a reason for the USAF to buy me AutoCAD.
We have received some constructive criticism of Idea number 354, from none other than an experienced cadre member at a US military NBC training facility.
The portable paper-band contamination tracker fails to satisfy on several counts:
- Even if the device went out for competitive bid and somebody like Lexmark or Brother won the contract,
Uncle Sugar would still never buy enough of them to cover an airbase with the granularity needed to capture a meaningful
image of the "plume," the footprint of deposited liquid agent. - Of course Uncle Sugar would never put this device out for competitive bid, and would ultimately pay five thousand dollars each, for seventy-five bucks of hardware and a fifteen-dollar expendable paper band cassette. There's a reason I suggested two fax/printer/copier manufacturers as bidders---this device is no more complex than that.
So Cadre one-upped me. "Our people have already stationed the detector paper around the base, as part of pre-attack detection measures. Give us a device that looks at that paper and quantifies the contamination. What do digital cameras cost these days?"
OK. The required granularity would be there. We'd be using an existing resource more wisely rather than procuring a new system with its own expendables. So:
- Control the focus and lighting with a simple, folding (disposable?) plastic frame that holds the camera at a fixed distance and reflects the flash evenly across the sample detector paper. Put a thermometer in a corner of the frame.
- Capture an image of the paper under known shutter speed and aperture, with a known resolution and color depth. Done right, this system could be independent of camera make and model. Just meet the exposure, resolution, and flash specs.
- Imprint coordinates with the image, captured from a GPS receiver. Better yet, snap the coordinates of the paper when it is stationed in the first place, and record the coordinates directly on the paper so it's imaged there, instead of captured later.
- Issue software that sucks the images in from several cameras,
- assesses each image by color of spot, size of spot, number of spots, and
- determines agent type and concentration of deposition, then
- plots the concentration on a base map for the Wing King.
If any readers are familiar with the equipment used to perform complete blood counts, for example, please reality-check me. The software involved in counting colored dots in an image with fixed background color can't be so complex it can't be packed into a high-end notebook, right? Statistical output of an image compressor, such as JPEG?
In fact, might this software be simple enough to run on a properly configured PDA? If so, check out idea number 241.
The challenge to such a system would be porting all of these images back to one location where they can be assembled and assessed. The bandwidth required for hauling around two-meg jpegs would kill a base network; if the assessment function were pushed out to the periphery of the system, closer to where the images are captured, then the message coming from the imager to the mapping software would be a few bytes showing color, concentration, and temperature, a couple bytes identifying the camera, operator, and date/time group, and a couple bytes of location coordinates.
It's also a reason for the USAF to buy me AutoCAD.
20030209
Why I'd rather not fly any more
Penn Jillette talking to a TSA representative after an unpleasant security experience; found via Armed Liberal.
" . . . freedom is kind of a hobby with me, and I have disposable income that I'll spend to find out how to get people more of it."
Penn Jillette talking to a TSA representative after an unpleasant security experience; found via Armed Liberal.
Cafe con piernas
Mind the web filters, y'all.
During a business trip to Chile in 1995, our hosts took us to a coffeeshop whose name translates to "coffee with legs."
There was no seating; all customers stood. The walls were mirrored such that we could admire the young women serving coffee, in dresses that revealed their legs very flatteringly.
Courtesy of dustbury, links to the blogosphere equivalent of cafe con piernas.
Mind the web filters, y'all.
During a business trip to Chile in 1995, our hosts took us to a coffeeshop whose name translates to "coffee with legs."
There was no seating; all customers stood. The walls were mirrored such that we could admire the young women serving coffee, in dresses that revealed their legs very flatteringly.
Courtesy of dustbury, links to the blogosphere equivalent of cafe con piernas.
20030206
Grudging acceptance?
James Rummel comments on my post about the purpose and limits of government.
Update: sorry, yes, it was "grudging realization." Anyway, government has to be intrusive to be effective, but there must be limits to the degree of intrusion, to preserve the faith of the governed that the intrusion is justifiable and should be allowed. The difference between party A investigating party B for a possible violation of party C's rights, and a fishing expedition for A to find something about B, possibly with no party C of any kind.
This does work back to an express libertarian principle, that there has to be a wronged party, a victim. It also means that there must be laws and impartial referees to determine when intrustion is justified, and penalties when the intrusion is not justified but happens anyway.
James Rummel comments on my post about the purpose and limits of government.
Update: sorry, yes, it was "grudging realization." Anyway, government has to be intrusive to be effective, but there must be limits to the degree of intrusion, to preserve the faith of the governed that the intrusion is justifiable and should be allowed. The difference between party A investigating party B for a possible violation of party C's rights, and a fishing expedition for A to find something about B, possibly with no party C of any kind.
This does work back to an express libertarian principle, that there has to be a wronged party, a victim. It also means that there must be laws and impartial referees to determine when intrustion is justified, and penalties when the intrusion is not justified but happens anyway.
I feel left out too
Follow this link to Silflay Hraka, for a proposed new romantic holiday.
It's only days before my birthday.
Follow this link to Silflay Hraka, for a proposed new romantic holiday.
It's only days before my birthday.
20030204
Ubicams may not be enough
One of my struggles with libertarianism involves the question of whether the civil rights we recognize and enjoy are protected only against government, or against other forms of power as well. Can an employer, for instance, be prohibited from sampling the urine of her employees or applicants? Can a homeowners’ association be restrained from fining me if I paint my house a non-approved color?
David Brin’s The Transparent Society repeatedly stresses that government is not the only center of power able to threaten individual liberties. Government is a necessary evil precisely because other centers of power rise to overwhelm the individual. Governments are instituted among men to secure the rights of the individual against other parties that naturally form among men, as well as against other governments. That governments pose the gravest threat to liberties is secondary, and though Brin agrees (I think) he cautions that government is not the only threat.
I had finished that book last week. This evening, in an article about libertarians’ frequent kind sentiments for the Confederacy, this struggle again caught my attention in a comparison of our Constitution’s Founders with the Chicago mob:
Timothy Sandefur, "Liberty and Union, Now and Forever," Liberty Magazine, July 2002, page 37. Inexplicably, not available online.
Put aside for the moment that the criminal underworld to whom the writer is referring was trafficking in substances and services that Libertarians would legalize, removing the artificial profits and allowing competition to occur peaceably in the sunlight. Timothy Sandefur instead points to the possibility, even the likelihood, that gangs, mobs, conspiracies and so forth tend to form, either with evil intent at the outset, or by later transformation from innocence to evil, and that the power of government must from time to time be used to oppose them.
The question then becomes: what role has government to play in limiting the power of these other entities? The classical response from libertarians has been the free market. If you object to pissing in the cup for your next job, keep looking---employers have rights to hire and fire as they wish. If you want to paint your house flamingo pink, you should not have bought a house in the covenant-controlled community---government has no power to impair contracts. This is a far cry from Al Capone, of course.
I’ve always found such answers to be inadequate, but cannot yet successfully articulate that inadequacy. I can only offer examples of how it’s not adequate. Go ahead, try buying a house in the Denver metro suburbs without a covenant attached to it. Try getting a position of responsibility and challenge, with commensurate compensation, without having to submit bodily fluids for inspection.
Better yet: Your violent ex-husband knows where you work, what car you drive, your schedule, so forth. Try to carry an otherwise lawfully-concealed handgun on your employer’s premises. Try to carry it to the school to drop off and pick up your kid, or to church to celebrate Mass with the kid. Try to rent a video for the kid or buy her a new pair of tennies. You will encounter numerous other entities who don’t want your business, and who are using the force of law and their status as “private” to give you the bum’s rush. Entities that are not innately evil. Misguided, mistaken, but not Trying To Take Over The World.
You will quickly realize that you have rights that only government is bound to respect, and only very well-behaved government at that. But when the power of government is used to protect those rights, we often end up with laws that grant some entity the “rights” to the contents of your pocket.
You actually thought I’d try to make an argument of any kind without working in a blaster? I accept this about myself: this is the lens through which I view most topics.
I am slowly coming to agree with David Brin that transparency will bring accountability, which is more likely to protect rights without the nasty side effects of government regulation. But I don’t think transparency alone will suffice.
David Brin’s The Transparent Society repeatedly stresses that government is not the only center of power able to threaten individual liberties. Government is a necessary evil precisely because other centers of power rise to overwhelm the individual. Governments are instituted among men to secure the rights of the individual against other parties that naturally form among men, as well as against other governments. That governments pose the gravest threat to liberties is secondary, and though Brin agrees (I think) he cautions that government is not the only threat.
I had finished that book last week. This evening, in an article about libertarians’ frequent kind sentiments for the Confederacy, this struggle again caught my attention in a comparison of our Constitution’s Founders with the Chicago mob:
What is the difference between a group of men in Philadelphia in 1776 declaring themselves no longer subject to the laws of the English monarch, and a group of men in Chicago in 1920 declaring themselves no longer subject to the laws of the United States?
Timothy Sandefur, "Liberty and Union, Now and Forever," Liberty Magazine, July 2002, page 37. Inexplicably, not available online.
Put aside for the moment that the criminal underworld to whom the writer is referring was trafficking in substances and services that Libertarians would legalize, removing the artificial profits and allowing competition to occur peaceably in the sunlight. Timothy Sandefur instead points to the possibility, even the likelihood, that gangs, mobs, conspiracies and so forth tend to form, either with evil intent at the outset, or by later transformation from innocence to evil, and that the power of government must from time to time be used to oppose them.
The question then becomes: what role has government to play in limiting the power of these other entities? The classical response from libertarians has been the free market. If you object to pissing in the cup for your next job, keep looking---employers have rights to hire and fire as they wish. If you want to paint your house flamingo pink, you should not have bought a house in the covenant-controlled community---government has no power to impair contracts. This is a far cry from Al Capone, of course.
I’ve always found such answers to be inadequate, but cannot yet successfully articulate that inadequacy. I can only offer examples of how it’s not adequate. Go ahead, try buying a house in the Denver metro suburbs without a covenant attached to it. Try getting a position of responsibility and challenge, with commensurate compensation, without having to submit bodily fluids for inspection.
Better yet: Your violent ex-husband knows where you work, what car you drive, your schedule, so forth. Try to carry an otherwise lawfully-concealed handgun on your employer’s premises. Try to carry it to the school to drop off and pick up your kid, or to church to celebrate Mass with the kid. Try to rent a video for the kid or buy her a new pair of tennies. You will encounter numerous other entities who don’t want your business, and who are using the force of law and their status as “private” to give you the bum’s rush. Entities that are not innately evil. Misguided, mistaken, but not Trying To Take Over The World.
You will quickly realize that you have rights that only government is bound to respect, and only very well-behaved government at that. But when the power of government is used to protect those rights, we often end up with laws that grant some entity the “rights” to the contents of your pocket.
You actually thought I’d try to make an argument of any kind without working in a blaster? I accept this about myself: this is the lens through which I view most topics.
I am slowly coming to agree with David Brin that transparency will bring accountability, which is more likely to protect rights without the nasty side effects of government regulation. But I don’t think transparency alone will suffice.
20030203
Sauve qui peut
Am slowly recovering my blogroll goodies since the template files were getting damaged---this includes, with humble apologies, restoring the ring code for the Colorado Bloggers' webring. Reconstruction should continue this evening if I can sled my way up I25.
13SEP16805769 thru 13TER14935702
Am slowly recovering my blogroll goodies since the template files were getting damaged---this includes, with humble apologies, restoring the ring code for the Colorado Bloggers' webring. Reconstruction should continue this evening if I can sled my way up I25.
13SEP16805769 thru 13TER14935702
20030130
Guy's gotta eat
I can manage to pay the bills without starring in bondage videos.
My full-time boss at my Guard unit is very ill, cannot work. I am temping in his place since my civilian job dried up. Please keep Jim in your thoughts.
13TER14935702
I can manage to pay the bills without starring in bondage videos.
My full-time boss at my Guard unit is very ill, cannot work. I am temping in his place since my civilian job dried up. Please keep Jim in your thoughts.
13TER14935702
Woo hoo!
I passed the second exam of Course 6.
This is the correspondence course that satisfies Professional Military Education requirements for one to advance from E6 to E7.
Imagine a correspondence course on leadership, management, protocol, and international affairs written by the United States Air Force. In fact, you don't have to imagine it. That's what Course 6 is, a poke-yourself-in-the-eye-with-dull-stick pain.
Then consider that the materials are about 12 years out of date. The AF regulation regarding uniform and personal appearance is still listed as AFR 35-10. That number changed long ago to the 36 series.
An errata list included with the course materials instructs the student to delete entire passages in the international affairs section describing the Soviet Threat---or simply inserting the word "former" at certain points. There is no mention of the decisive successes of Airpower! in Desert Storm and Shield. Missed opportunities that should be rued.
Still, I passed it, it's behind me, and I'm in a slot in the org chart that allows me to proceed to that grade.
13TER14935702
I passed the second exam of Course 6.
This is the correspondence course that satisfies Professional Military Education requirements for one to advance from E6 to E7.
Imagine a correspondence course on leadership, management, protocol, and international affairs written by the United States Air Force. In fact, you don't have to imagine it. That's what Course 6 is, a poke-yourself-in-the-eye-with-dull-stick pain.
Then consider that the materials are about 12 years out of date. The AF regulation regarding uniform and personal appearance is still listed as AFR 35-10. That number changed long ago to the 36 series.
An errata list included with the course materials instructs the student to delete entire passages in the international affairs section describing the Soviet Threat---or simply inserting the word "former" at certain points. There is no mention of the decisive successes of Airpower! in Desert Storm and Shield. Missed opportunities that should be rued.
Still, I passed it, it's behind me, and I'm in a slot in the org chart that allows me to proceed to that grade.
13TER14935702
20030125
Idea number 354
Military airfields are big s**t magnets. They cannot be hidden, they cannot be moved. One of the biggest threats to our airfields in Southwest Asia, in the coming conflict, will be chemical attacks. To mitigate the threat, we need the ability to detect when and where a chemical has been released, to know which areas are contaminated and to what concentration. With this information we can predict when an area will be usable or even traversible again.
US and NATO forces already possess a very effective and inexpensive (expendable!) device to detect contamination, a detector paper that changes color when it is contacted with suspected chemical agents. Each country has its own model or designation of the paper, some adhesive-backed. It's a throw-away item, everybody carries a little pack of it.
Measuring droplet size is key to determining a few important parameters. Measuring change of droplet size over time also helps to predict how long the agent sticks around---"persistence"---which the base commander must know so he can balance the threat of the chemical against the loss of personnel to heat injuries caused by the clothing that protects them.
Idea number 354 would use a long ribbon of this paper, say 10cm wide in a 50 meter cassette just like an oversized VHS videocassette. It loads in a machine that exposes a 10x10cm window of this ribbon at any moment, horizontally facing the sky, advancing the ribbon about 20mm a minute. As the ribbon passes out of the window and back into the machine, it comes under a color scanner, just like the scanning head of a flatbed scanner you probably have connected to your home computer. The scanner notes change of color, from the olive drab of the paper as it is manufactured, to the red or yellow or blue-green that indicates contamination. A color change trips an alarm. A date/time stamp, including temperature, is imprinted on the paper at the trailing edge of the window exposed to the sky. An optional windcock attachment includes windspeed and direction (really useful information) in the stamp.
This device is networked through a narrowband connection on standard field wire to a PC in some command post, which polls as many devices as you've positioned. When the flag flies, the PC starts drawing all of the inputs in, and depicts the areas of the base with the highest concentrations of contamination, with a time resolution that does not overload (air quotes here) the Boss who Needs the Info.
The PC can also hold the devices in non-scroll mode until an attack is expected, can speed up the ribbon movement to catch more-precise measurements of droplet size (timestamps continue every minute while the detection is active), slow it back down, stop the scroll if it's a false alarm, and so forth.
If no chemicals land in the window, the machine scrolls the ribbon to the end, then reverses direction and scrolls back. The cassette doesn't have to be replaced unless it has detected something, and then it will be retrieved and shipped off to a lab for verification (and evidence) anyway.
The active dyes in this paper could be masked in a pattern that helps the scanner to measure droplet size with usable precision.
Anybody want to guess what this box would cost? Remember, it needs to be painted in sand color, powered by either battery or AC mains, and handled by high-school graduates. Over-engineer it a bit.
13SEP16805769
Military airfields are big s**t magnets. They cannot be hidden, they cannot be moved. One of the biggest threats to our airfields in Southwest Asia, in the coming conflict, will be chemical attacks. To mitigate the threat, we need the ability to detect when and where a chemical has been released, to know which areas are contaminated and to what concentration. With this information we can predict when an area will be usable or even traversible again.
US and NATO forces already possess a very effective and inexpensive (expendable!) device to detect contamination, a detector paper that changes color when it is contacted with suspected chemical agents. Each country has its own model or designation of the paper, some adhesive-backed. It's a throw-away item, everybody carries a little pack of it.
Measuring droplet size is key to determining a few important parameters. Measuring change of droplet size over time also helps to predict how long the agent sticks around---"persistence"---which the base commander must know so he can balance the threat of the chemical against the loss of personnel to heat injuries caused by the clothing that protects them.
Idea number 354 would use a long ribbon of this paper, say 10cm wide in a 50 meter cassette just like an oversized VHS videocassette. It loads in a machine that exposes a 10x10cm window of this ribbon at any moment, horizontally facing the sky, advancing the ribbon about 20mm a minute. As the ribbon passes out of the window and back into the machine, it comes under a color scanner, just like the scanning head of a flatbed scanner you probably have connected to your home computer. The scanner notes change of color, from the olive drab of the paper as it is manufactured, to the red or yellow or blue-green that indicates contamination. A color change trips an alarm. A date/time stamp, including temperature, is imprinted on the paper at the trailing edge of the window exposed to the sky. An optional windcock attachment includes windspeed and direction (really useful information) in the stamp.
This device is networked through a narrowband connection on standard field wire to a PC in some command post, which polls as many devices as you've positioned. When the flag flies, the PC starts drawing all of the inputs in, and depicts the areas of the base with the highest concentrations of contamination, with a time resolution that does not overload (air quotes here) the Boss who Needs the Info.
The PC can also hold the devices in non-scroll mode until an attack is expected, can speed up the ribbon movement to catch more-precise measurements of droplet size (timestamps continue every minute while the detection is active), slow it back down, stop the scroll if it's a false alarm, and so forth.
If no chemicals land in the window, the machine scrolls the ribbon to the end, then reverses direction and scrolls back. The cassette doesn't have to be replaced unless it has detected something, and then it will be retrieved and shipped off to a lab for verification (and evidence) anyway.
The active dyes in this paper could be masked in a pattern that helps the scanner to measure droplet size with usable precision.
Anybody want to guess what this box would cost? Remember, it needs to be painted in sand color, powered by either battery or AC mains, and handled by high-school graduates. Over-engineer it a bit.
13SEP16805769
20030122
Our elements are burnt out, our beasts have been mistreated, I tell you it's the only way we'll get this road completed
13TER14935702
Another installment in my saga of the disappearing hrefs. They disappear when I edit my template with Netscape 7. Every time, it seems. Not every time I use the version of MSIE included with MacOS X. That is, caeteris paribus, considering that Norton Personal Firewall and AntiVirus stand between my Mac and Blogger.
So I must reset the template once again, and load my blogroll, commenting, SiteMeter, and other stuff back up. Sorry.
13TER14935702
Another installment in my saga of the disappearing hrefs. They disappear when I edit my template with Netscape 7. Every time, it seems. Not every time I use the version of MSIE included with MacOS X. That is, caeteris paribus, considering that Norton Personal Firewall and AntiVirus stand between my Mac and Blogger.
So I must reset the template once again, and load my blogroll, commenting, SiteMeter, and other stuff back up. Sorry.
20030116
20030113
. . . never did like it all that much, and one day the axe just fell
I am so much at peace with being laid off this time, it is scary. We're going out to dinner tonight.
Options on the BDU side of the career are available; the kids missed me while I've been traveling to Kansas and now I get to put them to bed for a few more nights; I just took the second exam to qualify for E7. There's nothing to sweat.
I am so much at peace with being laid off this time, it is scary. We're going out to dinner tonight.
Options on the BDU side of the career are available; the kids missed me while I've been traveling to Kansas and now I get to put them to bed for a few more nights; I just took the second exam to qualify for E7. There's nothing to sweat.
20030102
20021228
Reason to quit
Some eight hundred thousand unemployed persons will soon stop receiving unemployment compensation.
Naturally there is pressure from certain quarters for Congress to find some way to extend this compensation.
The first instinct of fiscal conservatives and libertarians would be to attempt to persuade the public that this extension of benefits would hurt the economy. Let me suggest an alternative.
Pressure Congress and the White House to offer an escape hatch. Go ahead, offer an extension of benefits, but with a catch. In exchange for accepting the extended unemployment compensation, the unemployed person agrees in writing to be exempted from all future Social Security benefits of any kind, and will no longer have FICA collected from him or her.
In short, "if you take The Package, it's over. Ninety more days, then you're out for good, no coming back. No paying into it either. Deal? Sign here."
Update: did I mention that anyone taking The Package also receives a handsomely-framed certificate stating that future employers of said person will no longer collect from nor contribute FICA for that person?
Some eight hundred thousand unemployed persons will soon stop receiving unemployment compensation.
Naturally there is pressure from certain quarters for Congress to find some way to extend this compensation.
The first instinct of fiscal conservatives and libertarians would be to attempt to persuade the public that this extension of benefits would hurt the economy. Let me suggest an alternative.
Pressure Congress and the White House to offer an escape hatch. Go ahead, offer an extension of benefits, but with a catch. In exchange for accepting the extended unemployment compensation, the unemployed person agrees in writing to be exempted from all future Social Security benefits of any kind, and will no longer have FICA collected from him or her.
In short, "if you take The Package, it's over. Ninety more days, then you're out for good, no coming back. No paying into it either. Deal? Sign here."
Update: did I mention that anyone taking The Package also receives a handsomely-framed certificate stating that future employers of said person will no longer collect from nor contribute FICA for that person?
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