Moving up in the HR organisation

Frank Roche has a great piece on the kinds of people that get in to HR. In my time at Archstone-Smith, we had extensive experience with Ms. Michelle Levix. It's really kind of funny that, being the sort of punishment-type that she is, she is promoted and goes to work for Archstone corporate human resources. Undoubtedly, her primary goal will be to recruit more people just like her. With the winning sort of personality she has, it's no wonder that the web is full of complaints from their residents, the misdoings of the company, and the sort of feudal we-own-your-home setup they force upon those unfortunate enough to not own their homes. It's like being back in the 1700s again.

So a dvorianstvo gets her comeuppance, and uses it to further the power she so vindictively wields over her vassals, and even further, to recruit others like her. It's really no wonder the company is the thinly-disguised wage-slavery we had decades ago with share-cropping and plantations.

Such is the life of the renter.

Why do you need all that military stuff? You're a civilian!

Some friendly civilians armed with military weapons. See, they're being responsible.

Especially when the Feinsteins, Boxers, and Pelosis of the world start flapping their gums, the continual squealing is always "but that's military equipment! the military uses the M82A1! the military uses fully-automatic weaponry! civilians don't need military equipment!They're partially right on the gun front. I don't really need an M82A1, or an M24/M40. But here's the point. The military doesn't fuck around with equipment (although there have been concerns about the M-16 and the .223 round which I won't go into here), and when they make a decision on a weapons system, they tend to pick the right weapon. So, when it came time for me to pick a weapon to take to the range (I don't hunt; I'm a hobbyist), I picked a rifle almost identical to the M24 or M40. And I love it. When I build another rifle, it will be damn near the same thing, and if I had the money, I'd buy an EDM Arms Windrunner or a MacBros Tac-50, and I'd shoot that 50 BMG and enjoy the shit out of it. It's not really about whether civilians need military weaponry. Ladies, it's about whether they need to justify owning them. I just don't have to justify owning them. Not to you, not to my neighbors, or anyone else, really. And, to paraphrase Scalia, it's the constitution, stupid.

So what about other items? I own a USMC "boonie hat." I bought it because it's very good at its job. It's also very useful when keeping the sun out of your eyes when you're looking through high-powered optics on that "military rifle."One thing this war in the desert has brought us is a plethora of new technologies, be they garments or devices and compounds to keep particulates out, and so on. For better or worse, war tends to push the technological envelope.

And so I find myself buying what sounds almost laughable – tactical jeans. Yeah, denim pants, and they're "tactical." The main point here is they have an extra pocket for my leatherman (which I use at work, not to slit throats), and they have a little room in the back for an inside-the-waistband holster which fits a Glock 21 (which isn't to say I'm always carrying; rather the Lands End jeans I normally wear are not so accomodating). They also claim to be stronger due to some twisted weave or other (a good thing, I guess), and also wick sweat away better (Northern Virginia is absolutely wicked in the summer).

It gets even sillier. I bought a tactical belt. The reason for this is not that I'm some special forces dude who needed to attach extra magazines and such to my waist line, but rather because it's lighter, stronger, has a simpler clasp, is designed to fit my tactical jeans, and I think that's just great.

What about a MOLLE backpack? Fact of the matter is, MOLLE works. And the Camelbak gear not only "just works," but it's been through shit I'll never come close to putting it through. So why bother buying some REI or other fancypants outfitter's idea of what hiking in style is when this so-called "military equipment" is perfectly suited to civilian use?

I'd like a "drag bag" for my rifle and a shooting mat, and my god, they might even be in desert tan or OD green. Them's military equipment, too. Where does it end?

I'm no huge fan of McCain, but I seriously worry about an Obama administration, a new "assault weapons ban," and his ambiguous stance on these issues.

Let the record show

That I have in fact found my TDMA module, that it is in fact mostly complete, and not only do I understand parts (parts!) of it, I have even fixed me a few bugs. Awesome, huh.

sub new {
    my ($class, $zeroh, $epoch_time, $frame_number) = (@_);
    my $frame_start = ( $epoch_time / $FRAMES_PER_EPOCH ) * $epoch_num;
    my $slots = bless [
        $zeroh,
        $frame_start,
        $epoch_num,
        [ map TDMA::Day::Epoch::Frame::Slot->new(
            $zeroh, $frame_start, $frame_number, $_
        ), 1 .. $SLOTS_PER_FRAME ],
        sub { 1 },
    ], $class;
    return $slots;
}

There may well be bugs there, but then bugs are everywhere. It should be noted that perl is nowhere near fast enough to actually create a full TDMA-segmented day in one "slot" (1/128 of a second), but that you can redefine the granularity of your time division, and one day, perl may actually be fast enough to do it. So, take heart, this isn't just another useless module.

synctoy

Is there a tool/applet/whatever that lets me sync an iTunes playlist to a machine (e.g., my Air), which doesn't have the space that my "main" iTunes library does?

I would be a very crappy hamper if somebody had something like that.

Perils of dynamic storage

I may have lost that TDMA module I wrote in the switch between my Macbook and the Air. Which sounds insignificant, except that code was really cool, and I totally don't remember what it looked like.

Mirroring indeed. Fuck.

Organisation in an unorganised world

short: move along, nothing to see here

I've been trying extra-hard to keep myself organised with this laptop, as every time I move from one machine to another I have a brutal time of making sure I get everything from the current machine to the next machine.

Years ago, when my primary machine was a server sitting on a T1, I actually just kept my entire home directory in cvs. This grew very quickly into something unmanageable (although whether it started as manageable is open to debate) because of a few factors: churn, binaries, and size.

To address cvs' problem with binaries, simply moving to subversion is sufficient, and I've been very happy with it.

For size, I've been trying to keep things logically compartmentalised so I am only backing up what I want backed up (so, for example, I can back up my Documents/ directory without backing up my Pictures/ directory – at least on in version control). Subversion is also less balky with larger-sized repositories (I'm using fsfs; I don't know about the other options).

For churn, svn seems to also do a pretty good job of managing lots and lots of commits. However, there isn't a great way to make sure that new files get committed when they're added and files get deleted when they're removed. I could probably write a cron job that finds stuff that isn't in svn and emails it to me daily, or something. But what a pain in the ass.

So I think I have a reasonable system, by running stuff into subversion. This, combined with being fairly anal about file placement (having a Projects directory helps me keep piles of stuff organised) appears (after a couple months, I guess) to be working, as long as I'm religious about keeping stuff where it belongs (e.g., no 'crap' folder on my desktop).

But the missing component here is a good interface for the whole thing. Unfortunately, I'm juggling two (or three, depending on how you look at it) different interfaces for these carefully-laid-out files.

XCode, on the left, and TextMate on the right

I like XCode's interface a lot. I have a reasonably good editor (which is to say, it's not vim, but it'll do in a pinch), a reasonably good file manager (approximately as good as the finder), and some additional tools, like "make in this directory" or "find where this subroutine is defined." Unfortunately, it's pretty bad with perl code, and it doesn't know what to do with e.g., Word documents (I also keep all my writing in subversion, and manage it with a TM project).

I like TextMate's interface less. Substantially less, I think. However, it doesn't really get in my way the way XCode does, and it does the right thing when I double-click on a document it doesn't know how to work with (Word, etc). And it has support for subversion, and it understands perl. But its bundled packages are kind of clunky, and I don't like the way it formats text/syntax (yes, I know this is customisable; that's besides the point – the idea of this whole enterprise is to simplify things; If I have to create custom setups for each of these interfaces, I haven't simplified much at all!). Its management of C (& ruby, etc) projects is nowhere near as shiny as XCode's (and XCode is free!!).

So, unfortunately, I'm using both. I have TextMate organising files into its preferred project format (.tmproj) because it can keep a bunch of stuff in one pane, and preview in the other pane (with hilighting!) and it will DTRT if I doubleclick a document it doesn't know how to work with. One such document would be the XCode project format, .xcodeproj. So I have "parent" "project" files, which are viewed in TextMate and "sub-project" files, which are viewed in XCode. Boy, what a pain. Things are organised well enough, and both editors do what I want them to do (within the limits of their "responsibility"), but I can't help but being a little worried that I'm depending on two different sets of document management schemes.

As a footnote to this, when I explained this to Sandy, she told me that "you're always going to be stuck with a vendor." The correct response is, of course, "not on Unix...". In Unix, I'm happy to use vim to manage all this stuff, tar and cvs/svn to move things around, wget/rsync/scp to push/pull, $EDITOR to edit, and so on. At the same time, though, it feels kind of stupid to not be using all the shiny tools Apple has given me, especially since I supposedly pay a premium to get their fancy hardware and their fancy software.

At any rate, wasn't NeXTStep supposed to take all these individual tasks and make plugins for a Grand Unified Interface? So many of these tasks are common: file management, editing, store/retrieve, diff/blame/co/ci, etc., why do we still have so many programs that do some, but not all of them? I realise I can mount a subversion repository, over DAV, like I would any other filesystem. But the implementation of client-side DAVfs is slow and buggy, and I would still require something in the Finder that would give me a reasonable editor or preview pane, and some sort of "click this to commit/update/check out." I hope, as Apple attempts to court developers with all these fancy free SDK's, that they tie more of the functionality for developers into the user interface.

Maybe it's time Apple actually separated out the "more advanced" stuff (scm, etc) from the basic interface, and had some toggle mechanism to switch the advanced stuff on so as not to frighten the non-advanced-users. For a very long time, they steadfastly refused to use multi-button mice, or to have hierarchical displays in the Finder, and they've been slowly rolling back the "keep it simple" in particular places of the OS. As they begin to garner a bigger and bigger segment of the userbase, at some point, they're going to have to start providing the new Mac users the tools they want to use and previously were using Windows or Unix for.

I for one

…am looking forward to the AT-AT being once again available for purchase.

On a more serious note, it seems to me that there is much hand-wringing and squealing in the media (boy, NPR was a complete trainwreck this morning). Said pundits and editors seem outright shocked by the decision (were they really shocked?), and have predicted the sky will fall within three weeks.

But many of these same organizations have issued polls, including CNN, MSNBC, AOL, and of course your average not-quite-media-rich local paper sites, such as the Salt Lake City tribune. These polls seem to indicate a better than 2/3 majority of respondents are in favor of gun rights (or at least approve of the decision). How is that possible? Is it really the case that a third of the population is actually more vocal than another body, twice its size? I must admit, I really don't understand the dynamic.

I'm not surprising anyone by saying I'm actually pretty happy about the ruling, and Scalia has mostly summarized the more "traditional" reading of the amendment when he says,

It may be objected that if weapons that are most useful in military service – M-16 rifles and the like – may be banned, then the Second Amendment right is completely detached from the prefatory clause. But as we have said, the conception of the militia at the time of the Second Amendment's ratification was the body of all citizens capable of military service, who would bring the sorts of lawful weapons that they possessed at home to militia duty. It may well be true today that a militia, to be as effective as militias in the 18th century, would require sophisticated arms that are highly unusual in society at large.

Indeed, it may be true that no amount of small arms could be useful against modern-day bombers and tanks. But the fact that modern developments have limited the degree of fit between the prefatory clause and the protected right cannot change our interpretation of the right.

Which is actually very refreshing. I think that while many gun owners, especially owners of weapons which are decidedly not CQB or strictly "defensive" (such as high-powered rifles), really enjoy the sport/hobby, there's an undercurrent of pride (for lack of a better term) that their country won't be coopted by the same tyranny it sought to escape when it was founded.

Vote from the rooftops, indeed.

The easy solution to nabbing OBL:

Pakistani authorities Sunday [22 Jun 2008] reported a new outbreak of avian flu at a commercial poultry farm in the country's north west, killing thousands of birds, officials said.

Tests conducted at a government-run laboratory in Islamabad confirmed the presence of the deadly H5N1 strain of bird flu at a farm in Swabi district, local livestock department chief Ibrahim Khan told AFP. "The virus was detected after the owner of the farm informed us on Friday [20 Jun 2008] that some 4000 birds had died within the past few days," he said.

I suppose now would be a good time for the tinfoil hat brigade to start screeching about the CIA inventing H5N1 to oppress the black mankill the evil terrorists.

Ego & IT

I've been ruminating about some stupid politics in the office. The thought was along the lines of, "if only people would just go with the answer that makes the most sense, rather than sticking to their position regardless of its (lack of) merit." That's pretty short-sighted. I realize now that my thinking that way is simply a response to my own ego being bruised. I think. There's no point in going in to details. The problem is always the same. Somebody insists on doing something one way because they said so, and people that are told to do it that way disagree for whatever reason. With very, very few exceptions, it works out that the person who "says so" gets their way, largely because to admit that they were wrong is to suggest that their leadership is flawed at least occasionally.

I like to think I take such criticisms and change my mind when it makes sense to do so, but would I be this bent out of shape if that were the case?

When I took this position, deliberately "underachieving," I told myself I had a lot of room to back away from a project, or to not engage so tightly, and yet I find myself being not a little chafed by the prospect of my normal routine and preferences being stomped on. I must be kidding myself at some level. If I really was decoupled from this sort of thing, I'd happily do whatever was suggested of me, even if I don't think it's the right idea. And I wouldn't get heartburn over it.

Clearly, though, even in some of these stupid ideological skirmishes, the principle of the disagreement makes me unhappy.

There is another possibility, though, and that is there are certain people I have much more difficulty "just doing what I'm told" with. I'm not sure which is less probable: that I'm deluding myself about being less personally invested in this position or that there are people who are really good at making me unhappy (whether they think they are or not).

Speaking of hunting

Beware the Somali Wild Ass.

History of the now

Well, okay, it's a crummy picture. But it's hard to really get a picture of the area these people live in, and Google took away my manual tilt/pan feature in favor of this wankery.

After reading Follet's (fictional) account of the Afghan resistance to the Soviet occupation, and being in the process of reading T. E. Lawrence's Seven Pillars of Wisdom, I find myself more interested in the history of "CENTCOM" (yes, I realize this is a horrible term for the area and period I'm talking about) in the 1600 - 1920 period. It seems more and more to me that where we are today is only a very small part of the history there (ahem). Specifically, the problems we're having (and not "we" in the "America! Fuck yeah!" context; rather "we" as humans) in the middle east is directly related to how we (America this time) have handled the last forty or so years in the region. Prior to us fucking things up there, the British were doing a great job of it. And of course, prior to that it was the Papacy, and prior to that it was, well, you get the picture.

What really bothers me is that nobody seems to be paying attention to this rather glaring fact (well, except the Muslims, but nobody's listening to them). I thought I'd go to a bookstore today and repopulate the stack-o-books I seem to be whittling down faster than I expected. Sorely disappointed. I wound up picking up two Arthur C Clarke books (I realize now I should have been reading this stuff a long time ago) and heading home. I went through their entire "world history" section, and the only things there were histories of the last, say, ten years. Maybe fifteen. Everything was Iraq this, al-Qaeda that, Nuclear Iran, and save the fucking pandas. I couldn't even find anything about the tribes in Afghanistan during the Soviet occupation, and that was very recent when compared to the history of the area. The only place I could find anything going back past 1900 was the Roman history section, and, well, anyone who knows me knows I can spout that shit for hours. I don't need any more (for the moment; I need to read more Cicero).

I get the impression that the only reason people are interested in reading history (at least, most of the current generations of Americans) is they want to read tabloids and gossip – about countries. I mean, they want to hear all the salacious details about how Osama bin Laden is actually in a secret prison underneath the white house with Elvis and Jimmy Hoffa, how the Iraqis are very noble and oppressed people, and on and on. It's not history, it's muckraking. I mean, that stuff might belong in the "politics" section (is a history of the 2003 - present invasion actually "history"?), except that there was such a rush to publish it (rather like a tabloid, eh) that it will be hopefully outdated in five years, let alone fifty, and we'll have proper books on the subject. If you wanted to find a relevant text, with data that actually encompassed more than this morning's New York Times (the pinnacle of journalistic excellence), you'd be hard pressed to find it anywhere other than a college book store.

Why is it that every time I try to learn something I have to find the direction everyone else is going in, turn 180° and go the other way? I mean, walking out of a book store because everything there was useless? I'm really disappointed.

Paper lies

So, if one looks just a little further back, we see what is, I think, a pretty good case for the 300 Weatherby. But, today I learned something. On paper, these calibers all have drawbacks and advantages. It's easy to look at the numbers and form an opinion. However, there are some intangibles that don't show up easily on paper.

The first, and perhaps most important in the decision is the possible safety problems with ultra-mag cartridges and the Remington 700 action. In a nutshell, while it is a great all-purpose action, and is chambered in damn near every major cartridge out there, the walls of the action are actually quite thin. It might be easy to dismiss this criticism were it not coming from Dan Lilja. I'm not really one to second-guess the guy. An argument could be made that going with one of the "custom" Rem 700 actions like the Surgeon or the Black Widow would help with the action rigidity, its safety under high pressures, and even with accuracy in general. But there's another problem.

The way Roy Weatherby designed his cartridges was actually pretty innovative. The principle is that you take a large cartridge (like the 375 H&H), neck it down or blow it out, and use a long bullet. This has the effect of increasing the velocity of the round substantially. Additionally, Weatherby cartridges are chambered with what is called "free boring." It's a pretty simple concept: an area forward (towards the loud end) of the round is left un-rifled. This bit of space before the rifling allows the bullet to "jump" out of the shell before hitting the rifling. I haven't chronied any of these rounds, but the articles I've read have said that gains of 200fps are typical.

This sounds pretty fantastic, until you remember that the rifling is what makes a round accurate. This is why we spend so much time figuring out twist and barrel length for a given cartridge. So, yes, you lose accuracy. People generally say that they tightest they're getting the 300 Wby and 30-378 Wby is 1 moa, with most of them being in the 2-2.5 moa range. Really, is this important though? The answer is not really. Weatherby designed cartridges for hunting. Every time he built a cartridge (although the origins of the 300 Wby are a little murky), he did so in the interest of having a more effective hunting round. 2-2.5 moa is perfectly acceptable for game larger than, say, a coyote. With whitetail deer, the vital area is something around the size of a volley ball, and within 300 yards, I think you'll probably be fine. Especially with a monster like the 378 or 338 Wby cartridges.

But I am not interested, really, in making a hunting rifle. I want to make a rifle that's a hell of a lot of fun to shoot, and will grow with me as my skills increase. Right now, I'm concentrating on the 600-1000yds range, and hopefully by the time I get good at that, I'll have found a place I can open up to 1,500yds. And 2.5 moa at 1,000 yds, or even at 800 yds, is very significant. How do you know, for example, whether you were responsible for your 5" group or whether the rifle was just not any more accurate than that?

So, I'm kind of disappointed, but I'm quite happy that I found this out now, rather than wondering what in the hell was wrong with my shooting when I switch from the .22-250 to the larger magnum round(s).

The question now becomes, what cartridge do I want to use?

At present, I'm leaning towards the .338 Lapua, the .300 Remington Ultra Magnum, and, yes, the .50 BMG. I realize that if I'm going to buy an action and a barrel that the cost of the rifle is going to be fairly constant between the three. The ammunition is a factor, but another thing I learned today (I had a lot of reading to do) was that apparently, once-fired brass is important for achieving the highest accuracy you can from a rifle. Apparently, the brass "blows out" to the dimensions of the chamber, and results in a tighter, more accurate chambering and firing.

If I'm going to have to handload eventually, the cost of the cartridges gets even closer between the available ultra-magnums. I might even consider the .408 Chey-Tac if I find a reasonable action for it (and suppressor, I guess...).