So I'm seeing a bunch of wailing and caterwauling from the Left about how the riots hurt minority owned businesses...

Hey liberals -- why do you care? According to you: they didn't build that, someone else made that happen.

A Douglas Adams Roundtable. Sorry about Nicholas Joll's terrible audio, but I believe you can make out what he's saying.
I have to say, Skype conferences are not great for podcasting.

The Wow! Signal podcast finally covers the August 1977 event it is named after, with guest Bob Dixon, who was instrumental in bringing the Ohio State Big Ear radio telescope to bear on SETI. We also learn about Argus, which if built full scale could potentially detect many such signals.

Told You So

And then I went further.

Now I'm going to tell you the rest:

The protests are nothing more than an attempt at a Reichstag fire, an effort to give Chairman Zero reason to declare martial law - for "social justice" (which of course, is not justice).

Any question of whether Chairman Zero was on the side of justice or mob rule was answered last night during his press conference. His body language and visible anger spoke volumes. He is on the side of the unruly howling mob (but, if you've been paying attention, you knew that already.)

Justice for Michael Brown?

He strongarm robbed a convenience store then assaulted a police officer. It's really a shame he wasn't able to survive his wounds, justice for him would have been 10 years in prison.

Anyone still lurking around this place? I see several people are still active here.... quite a huge pile of names I have not seen in a long long time.

okay so i built a diy intrusion detection box for my network, even though i now know the infection came from inside the network. suddenly my network went from 1.0-2.0 MB/s to 4.0-7.5MB/s. we are paying for 7.5MB/s but due to wireless limitations only one wireless box has 1300 mbit dual channel wireless n/ac. that one gets the full speed connection, the rest get what their laptop wifi does. except the ones using ethernet over powerline. someone told me that it was probably line noise because of the number of devices we have, which doesn't make sense to me, but ok. also the diy box has squid transparent proxy enabled, another reason could be multicast, the wifi router is a decent one but consumer grade was putting a real cpu (quad core) that big a difference in ability to multicast and cache data efficiently?

the cpu was the cheapest low watt cpu i could find, but the box still idles at 26 watts (inline power consumption measuring device) which i know is a lot for just an idps box. still it was cheap but is only as well configured as i know how to which isn't much knowledge at all, i tried about 7 different distros before picking one. it is amazing it made that big a difference in network performance though.

the only other reason i can think of for the bandwidth is a botnet is being blocked by the new firewall that the old router didn't fix/block.

So i don't control everything that happens on my network and i had people besides me able to install programs. well i found the culprit and my network was compromised 2 months ago. http://imgbin.org/index.php?page=image&id=20501 i have since closed the hole (allowing other people to install software) at least on my network. checking logs to see if the scan caught the files already and quarantined the file or if i have to reinstall windows.

so since all my machines were compromised, i need to know what is the best solution for this problem. our wifi has a good router with firewall, but was unable to stop the infection of my systems.

the router is i believe linux based. is smoothwall still the best firewall? or should i roll my own using a BSD? which hardware makes the best firewall, should i install freebsd or linux to it.

which anti virus/anti malware/anti root kit is most reccomended. i am making it so no one but me can install software to the windows machines but even my home dir on linux was hacked. is there a good tut for rolling linux on my own and use clamtk and firefox as a secondary scan for usb sticks etc.

norton was useless at stopping the infection. only one windows machine had it's files overwritten and thus that was the only one to be factory reset. how about intrusion detection with the add on firewall? i use bittorrent for linux i am not real big on jigdo and debian because it is not 'easy' to do yet. i can follow step by stem guides but that is painful so please only give me better links than simple googling...

After 5 years of Obama, the labor force is decimated.

So much so, that you could, and should, call Obama's job killing policies the Obola Virus. Just as lethal as Ebola, only the Obola virus kills jobs.

2011, 2012, 2013, and 2014 AL Central Division Champs!

I was on my way to work today and saw a State Trooper's car on the side of the road. I knew it was a State Trooper not because of the distinctive two-tone blue that cruisers have (this one was black), but because it had several antennas and a radar gun on the driver's side.

It reminded me of the graphic that has gone around on Facebook with a picture of a police car in Europe (bright colors designed to attract attention) compared with an American undercover police car (designed to look like any other car and not stick out in traffic). It occurs to me that there are a few different reasons why American police departments (on the state and local levels) might employ cars with stealth-ish designs, one or more of which may apply:

• The police department may not be able to afford the number of officers required to patrol all parts of their jurisdiction. Having undercover cruisers means the people are going to be more careful about their habits in an attempt to not get ticketed.
• The police department is attempting to generate revenue for their {State|Community} by catching people off-guard.

In the first case, it would make sense, and it kinda works after a fashion. That isn't what bothers me.

In the second case, it's sneaky and underhanded. My train of thought (such as it is) went on to consider the fact that when people hunt, they have legal restrictions on what they are allowed to do to bag their prey. They cannot set certain traps or route their prey into certain areas for the purpose of killing them. If a hunter is found to have employed entrapment techniques, the Games Warden will likely take the kill and the hunter could lose his hunting license.

Why are police allowed to get away with the same sort of thing?

Don't forget Benghazi, either.

Hate Crime on Video

It is not a word spoken,
Few words are said;
Nor even a look of the eyes
Nor a bend of the head,

But only a hush of the heart
That has too much to keep,
Only memories waking
That sleep so light a sleep.

-- Sara Teasdale

I remember.

When you're at the range, and you line up your shot to center mass, and you pull the trigger, where you miss is indicative of what you're doing wrong -- if it's consistent. (Some short barrel concealed carry guns are not accurate at longer ranges; they aren't intended to be, either. However, the average full size hand gun is intended to be pretty accurate.)

Here's a link to a helpful free (PDF) target that may make you a better shot.

If I miss at the range -- which is rare -- I usually miss down and to the left of the bullseye (but not by much) because I'm pulling my index finger a little too hard -- I'm tightening my fingers.

If I was in a high stress situation -- say one where a yelling, large, aggressive nearly 300 pound man is charging me, I'd probably tighten up even more and miss to the left, say, hitting the assailant in the right arm. As I continued to pull the trigger, I would likely start missing up from the recoil of the gun -- more likely if I've firing a .40 cal, which has a sharper, more upward recoil than a .45 ACP or a 9mm does. (I've shot a few .40 cals before -- I've not shot a .40 cal Sig Sauer, but I have shot a couple of Berettas and I wasn't a fan. Besides -- .45 ACP is better than .40 anyways :) )

In this regard, the autopsy result of Michael Brown tends to support the officer's account of what happened. Brown was charging him, and under stress he over tightened, and missed to his left from center mass which would be the assailant's right arm / shoulder as he likely did not take a lot, if any, time to re-sight as he was in the line of a charging bull.

The other piece of evidence is going to be the brass. If it's all in a localized area, the officer was standing still. If it's scattered, then he was running toward the assailant.

The other question, which leads into another somewhat related point: How many rounds did Officer Darren Wilson fire? His gun had a 12 round magazine (+1 in the pipe) so it's possible that he missed a few times - which wouldn't surprise me, as here's a dirty little secret:

The police do not train with their firearms enough, or even as much as the average CHL holder.

A couple of my closest friends are police officers, and I can out shoot them any day of the week and twice on Sunday. Despite their "training" I have a much tighter grouping and many, many more bulls-eyes with the same weapon than they do.

The reality is, this trend tends to hold across the general population. You are far more likely to get shot by a cop -- whether intentional or not -- than you are a legal concealed carry licensee.

Consider that little fact the next time you want to think that "only the police should have guns".

And if you are a concealed license holder -- when was the last time you practiced? Find a range and keep those skills sharp.