Category: Personal Defense

Monday Links – Tab Clearing

July 10, 2023 / / 0 Comments

This is going to be a bit long and scattered. That’s what happens when I have a couple weeks’ worth of links.

Let’s get the obligatory Reason/Volokh Conspiracy links out of the way.

The FDA is lying about vaping. Is it better than not smoking? Nope. Is it better than smoking? Oh hell yes.

CBO is projecting huge deficits. This is my shocked face.

Welcome new rent control, same as old rent control. I swear, it’s like no one understands how this is a bad thing.

Let’s go on to some gun-related articles.

First, Tam has a post about psychologists and guns.

TFB has one about a federal judge slapping down ATF – on how it defines what constitutes a firearm.

Gun Digest has an article on debunking revolver myths.

The coward Scot Peterson has been acquitted. Which, to those of us who know that the cops have no duty to protect, is unsurprising.

Here’s a couple of think pieces.

From Mike Munger, an article on the good versus the perfect. It’s not what you think.

From Ben Thompson, an analysis of the latest kerfuffle between the FTC and Amazon.

Our final link is from Active Response Training on medical care for cats.

Monday Links

June 26, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Surprisingly, this week only has one Reason link.

An article on how insurance – both government and private sector – are driving up the cost of healthcare. This is my surprised face.

And now for some random tab clearing.

From Active Response Training, Greg presents the “bag trick.”

From Bearing Arms, an article about an Indy defense attorney blaming gun owners for criminals not getting charged. Cam is skeptical, and so am I.

Heard about this on the “Word and Numbers” podcast. Pew has a calculator to see where you stand in global income rankings.

I was concerned what would happen to the 1632 universe with the death of Eric Flint. Apparently, there’s a new online magazine to continue the franchise.

The Brother sent this my way. An article on how maps shape how we see the world. It’s always surprising just how big Africa is.

Monday Links

June 19, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Y’know, there are weeks I think I should just rename this feature the Monday Reason Links and Other Stuff. Yeah, it’s going to be that kind of week. As long as you count the Volkh Conspiracy (since they’re publishing under the Reason banner).

First, California is killing fast food jobs. This is my surprised face.

Second, on the Free Range Kids front, an article about a mom confused how her kid made friends with another kid she didn’t know. Or, as us Gen X folks used to call it – summer vacation day.

While the Florida legislature was busy playing right-wing social justice this past session, they also decided to play the crony capitalism game with their dealership friends.

I first heard this story over at Borepatch’s place, but now it seems the esteemed Eugene Volkh is asking Amazon some pointed questions about booting a guy off his account and making him unable to use all of his Echoes. This is of some concern due to the fact that Ward Manor’s smart home environment is Echo-based. However, I also have a backup – read “manual” – system if Amazon decides to play silly buggers.

Last Reason article explains that over half of Protestant churches have at least some reliance on armed citizens for their security. While I am not a church-going person, I do want parishioners to be safe in their chosen house of worship. I will always recommend churches, synagogues, mosques, little storefront pagan meeting spaces to discuss and have a security plan. It needs to be more than “call 911 and wait for police.”

Semi-switching gears as we leave Reason territory:

Massad Ayoob has some thoughts on Daniel Perry’s indictment in New York.

Also, Rand has a meta-analysis on studies regarding effectiveness of firearms safety training requirements. TLDR; not enough rigorous studies to make a determination.

And for our light item this week? A new Babylon 5 animated movie is coming out. I should really introduce The Wife to B5.

Monday Links

May 29, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Happy Memorial Day! We’re going to start off with several Reason articles.

First, the face of teachers’ unions during the COVID pandemic only taught for three years, but is expected to get a full pension. I’m of the opinion that if you’re working for the union, the union should be dealing with your benefits.

Next are a couple items on the reshuffling of the political parties. I’ll let the headlines speak for themselves. The left-right spectrum is mostly meaningless and the rise of right-wing progressivism. Just as the labor market is in flux, the political market is similarly in flux. Fun times.

Finally, an article from The Volokh Conspiracy discussing a recent Florida Supreme Court decision that loading and openly carrying a gun on your property is not criminal use of deadly force. Although, if you’re having to face multiple attackers on your property, it may be more prudent to have your weapon already loaded. Or get behind cover to load and wait for the police.

In the vein of self-defense, we have an article from The Hill about a “prank robbery” going horribly wrong when the pranksters came across an armed civilian. And this kind of outcome won’t slow down these kinds of pranks. Because the dumb fucks think it won’t happen to them.

Now for our light items.

I think this is probably vapor-ware, but this Extreme Tech article depicts a “laptop” with six monitors, dual AMD Epyc “Genoa” 96-core CPUs, and 24 DIMM slots for up to 6TB of DDR5 memory. And it weighs 55 lbs. Um, yeah. There’s part of me that wants one in a kind of morbid fascination way.

Finally, we have a Variety article on Weird Al. Because Weird Al.

Hurricane Learnings

May 18, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Last weekend, The Wife and I trekked up to Tampa to take in a program at the Straz. One of the local weathermen, Denis Phillips was giving a presentation on his time as a meteorologist and things to keep in mind as we go into the upcoming season. He’s a local celebrity for a bunch of reasons, but the two biggest reasons was he was the first to predict Charlie’s swing to Punta Gorda in 2004, and his Rule #7:

Stop freaking out… until I tell you to freak out. We’re fine

It’s that kind of levelheadedness that makes him trusted by wide swathes of the Tampa Bay viewing area for storms. This includes The Wife – which was why we went to the presentation. It was very entertaining with many hilarious anecdotes.

For myself and my own preparations, there were three major takeaways:

  1. The warming of the Gulf is going to make storms intensify quicker. As in storms going from Cat 1 to Cat 4 in 36 hours.
  2. If a storm looks like it is possibly aiming for the panhandle or the west coast of Florida, the five day forecasts are worthless. For those kinds of storms, landfall won’t be determined until 36 hours out.
  3. Which leads to the third point – that if there’s a storm that looks like it may go to the west coast of Florida, then the entire west coast should consider themselves as a likely target and take appropriate action. If it looks like we need to evac, we need to evac ASAP. Waiting until those 36 hours out, we may not be able to evac due to the sheer number of people that has moved to the area.

I am taking this into account as I make my plans.

Here’s a good checklist that was shared during the meeting.

Monday Links

May 1, 2023 / / 0 Comments

It’s going to be a little sparse on the ground this week.

First, we have a Reason article about Disney suing DeSantis. Based on statements made and the timing of actions, I think Disney has a decent case. I’m also not liking this populist trend of DeSantis using government power to achieve political ends regardless of civil liberties.

Next, Professor David Yamane has an article in The Hill explaining that Stand Your Ground laws do not give people a license to kill. I agree with a lot of commentators that the consistent repeating of this mantra is misinforming a large segment of the populace – who then rely on that misinformation to inform their actions. When it comes to self-defense, that has life-changing and life-ending consequences.

From The Verge, we have an article that Microsoft is shuttering a large segment of its peripheral business. They’re shifting to “premium” Surface-branded peripherals. Which means I probably need to stock up on some Sculpt keyboards.

The Drive has a profile of an Oregon company that does custom lifts for Subarus. Okay, the idea of lifting the Ward Wagon intrigues me, but the likelihood of me using any off-road capability is minimal.

Finally, Blabbermouth reports that a new Savatage album is coming next year. According to Jon Olivia, this will be the last album for Savatage. Thank you Jon for giving me decades of music.

Tab Clearing

April 20, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Monday Links was pre-empted by history. I still need to clear out some links that I’ve built up.

Let’s start with a few Reason articles.

First, one on the EPA banning the production of gas-powered cars. I’m not a fan of mandates. I know surprise.

Second, a discussion on the benefits of teen employment. I am a fan of young people learning work ethics from their first job. My years managing fast-food showed me the best and worst of employing teens.

Third, a discussion on proportional representation. I’m kind of leaning more and more to something like this.

From ABCNews comes a story about every gun owners worst nightmare. Police get wrong address, homeowner comes to the door with a gun, and as the article states “chaos ensues.” Homeowner ends up dead.

An article from Android Authority reports that the FBI warns not to use public charging ports. Also, don’t plug your phone into the USB ports in a rideshare or taxi. Just don’t.

An article from Bounding Into Comics about WoTC’s decision to remove half-races from Dungeons and Dragons. On the one hand, it invalidates decades of lore and characters (both in the novels and players’ favorite characters). On the other hand, it would be more in line with actual biology – unless orcs and elves are some form of human. On the gripping hand, the stated reason for the change is fucking bullshit.

Finally, an article about finding the original recording of the Wilhelm scream. H/t to FB friend Rob Reed.

Monday Links

April 3, 2023 / / 0 Comments

Let’s start with getting one of the big stories out of the way. Some asshole decided to shoot up a small private Christian school in Tennessee. The fact the asshole identified as transgender has sent the normal talking points all skewed. Here’s Operation Blazing Sword’s press release which probably encapsulates my feelings on the issue. I don’t judge a movement by its lunatic fringe – unless the moderates are celebrating the lunatic fringe.

Moving on to a couple of Reason articles.

US Trade Commission admits that tariffs caused increased prices to consumers. Which is what I’ve always said.

DeSantis signed a bill banning rent control and pre-empting local zoning. This could be good or bad. Particularly in the current housing market.

A couple of other serious items.

How do you treat someone who’s been a fixture of the local television and radio market for better than fifty years. According to The Tampa Bay Times, you fire him after a show to cut costs. I listened to Jack Harris for many a year – particularly before I got into podcasts.

According to Mac Rumors, General Motors is going to phase out CarPlay and Android Auto in favor of its own infotainment system. Great way to make sure your vehicles are not in the running the next time the Ward household is in the market for a vehicle. Or renting a vehicle.

Wrapping up with a couple of light items.

Gizmodo discusses Makita’s portable microwave. Which, the prepper side of me is interested in, but the more realistic side is telling me I’m not the target audience.

And because of the explosion of crochet in the Ward household, we have a Guardian article about how crocheters tried using ChatGPT to create patterns and hilarity ensued.

Cameras Out, Not In

March 15, 2023 / / 0 Comments

First, hat tip to Borepatch. I’d heard about this on one of my podcasts first, but he came with the article. According to The Register, police in Hamilton, Ohio served warrants to Ring for not only the videos for a person’s outside cameras, but those inside his home. Quoting liberally from the article:

Last year, around the Thanksgiving holiday, Ohio businessman Michael Larkin received a request for video from his Amazon Ring security system from Hamilton city police.

He complied, providing video from his doorbell camera that was stored on Ring’s servers. After balking at further demands, he subsequently learned that authorities had bypassed the need to get his consent by presenting Ring with a search warrant for video from several of his Ring cameras, including one that covered an indoor area of his home.

According to Politico, Larkin received a notice from Ring that the tech biz had received a warrant and was required to turn over video from numerous cameras, without giving the owner with any say in the matter.

The police reportedly sought neighborhood surveillance as part of a drug investigation in the US city. Larkin’s video-enabled Ring doorbell and other recording devices, they believed, might have captured information that would be helpful with their investigation.

The City of Hamilton Police Department did not respond to requests seeking comment about the scope of its search warrant.

EMPHASIS MINE

For transparency, Ward Manor uses the Echo ecosystem for its smart home stuff. This includes Ring cameras for the outside. We have the ubiquitous doorbell camera (because the one that came with Ward Manor sucks), and a couple more to cover areas that I can’t observe from the windows.

One rule I have enforced is I will not have dedicated cameras pointing inside the house.

Are there cameras inside? Yeah, but that’s because there’s somethings I can’t have without cameras, such as monitors the family uses to view the feeds from Ring. I don’t always like it, but for the Ward household, we’ve judged the trade-off acceptable.

When making your own arrangements, understand that any camera that feeds to anything other than a server you control, can be compromised. Plan accordingly.