Weaver mounts

Anyone wondering (it's kind of hard to find the information on the web because there's a big argument between what "picatinny" and "weaver" mean) what a weaver base looks like, the holes are drilled 5mm, and they're 10mm between eachother. That is, from the outside of one to the outside of the next, it is 20mm. On my personal rifle, I have another set of two 5mm holes, 10mm apart, 43cm from the outside of the second of the "first" holes. So the "second" holes would be from 43-48mm, followed by 10mm, followed by another 5mm, or 58-63mm.

The rifle in question is a Marlin 1894S chambered in 44 Mag/44 Spl. Weaver is kind enough to provide a base for this rifle, and while it's longer than the 63mm (and will thus stick "forward" of the action a little, this doesn't bother me. I could always have it machined anyways.

Incidentally, Weaver has pretty competitively priced optics – both riflescopes and spotting scopes. I'm at the moment torn between the Leupold FX-II in 2.5x28 (Brockman's preferred scope) and the Weaver 4.75x40. Both have that "look appropriate on a levergun" look, both have a duplex reticle, and the Weaver has a much bigger field of view. On the other hand, if I start spitting 450 Marlin out of one of their guns, the Leupold may be a better choice.

I've also been thinking of replacing the iron sights on this rifle (I bought it used at a pawn shop) with Brockman's tritium ghost ring sights, and essentially make this a 100-yd tack driving rifle.

Or I could get a 450 Marlin, they're not so bad (my .44 needs some repairs...) and that damn 308 Marlin is awful sexy. And while it's a cowboy rifle, and I'm gonna get me a Stetson and boots, the stainless with laminate has me all lubricated in my drawers. I wonder if Brockman can work with an XLR. I'd love me a blue laminate with an SS body in .450.... nnngh.

Why this bike?

edits: "blogger in draft" seems to be having issues with photos, so I've edited/reedited this more than a couple times. sorry. short: this is going to have a lot of pictures. the previews will be modest, but the "full size" pictures hover around 1mb in size. I have the original NEFs if anyone is interested. Also, some colors etc have been adjusted because the lighting at the show was hard.disclaimer: the bike in this picture is the 2008 Ninja 250R. It is styled very differently from the 2007 (or, ours, the 2001 – which hasn't changed much until 2008). They (Kawi) are bringing it in to line with bikes like the ZZR's (which are about as close to secks as bikes, uh, come):

But, the 250 was lacking. It had kinda pokey styling, and really, the 2001-2007 bikes really still did. But then Kawi went and sexed them up. Here are the pics of Sandy on the 2008:

The first time she gets her tush on the bike. I think the ass fell in love first.

Here we see that she has great ground clearance. Her biggest issue finding an appropriate seat height. The dirtbikes and dual-sports (the ones I like) and the sportbikes (the ones she likes) are both too tall, and too wide for her to sit on and still reach the ground. She's got a lot of room on this bike. Really.

This is deceiving for a non-rider. You can see her legs are bent here; she's hugging that bike with her thighs, and her knees are still really bent. She can put her feet on the ground, and this makes her a lot safer in traffic and "slow speed turn issues" (which bikes are terrible with)

And here we have great peg position. Many sportbikes have small pegs so you can drag the bike around turns. The pegs on the "baby Ninja" are a lot more generous (which is useful with my size 15 shoes!)l Note, again, how close her foot is to the ground.

Now here we see another important aspect. The handlebars are not very aggressive at all. On many sportbikes, they're really angled back towards the driver, making them very "twitchy" (which is great on a high performance bike, but not so good for learning).

Last image of her on the bike, I promise (at least not till we have her on her bike in her pink leathers!!). She has a very upright position here for a sportbike. Great reach to the ground, great peg control, great handlebar control, easy reach to the levers. All around, this bike is fantastic.

She did ask me to sit on the bike, and I obliged. I said I felt a little cramped (which is to be expected; the seat height is 32 inches and my inseam is 33.5 inches), and my knees were way up by the handlebars. Of course, since they're not canted back so far as the ZZR bikes, this doesn't matter much. She saw no point in taking a picture, evidently. Instead, I explained that I really liked the pegs and seating position on the Yamaha R1s:

Note this is more or less terrible posture on the bike, but that it is much bigger and just fits me better. My legs aren't anywhere near as compressed. But that's a litrebike, and that means danger. There's an R6, which might be not so bad (it's kind of like the gixxers and the ZZR's).

And I don't need to regale anyone with tales of the bike that not only fits me perfectly but fits my style perfectly, is stunningly beautiful, and powerful enough to haul my ass around but not so powerful I'm liable to get into any triple-digit tussles with some PFY on a CBR1000. Although, I may see if I can find an R1150GS that hasn't been beaten up too much and isn't too expensive. I am very interested in shaft-drive and paralever/telelever setups, just being the geeky sort. Most people hate these things. All the better for me, right?

This is the GS. I shamelessly stole this image from this dude. Sorry.

We will have pictures of our (read: her) Ninja up as soon as it sees daylight. At the moment, it's a garage queen.

First ride on the Ninja

short: we have a bike. I rode it. It's mostly Sandy's. The next post will be image-heavy, and this is all text.

Sandy recently spent about the sum total of the cash she works so fucking hard (and god, she works hard! All you assholes who want iPhones – she's the one you're bitching about its stupid color or font or whatever. I wish you'd all die so I can have a happy wife) for on a 2001 Ninja 250R. It seems like a small bike, but it's our first bike (I've never ridden either), and when our good friend Colin brough it home for us (from Hagerstown to Arlington – 79 miles, including interstates 270 and the dreaded 495 as well as the George Washington Parkway, he at one point had the thing up to 85 (Maryland is a weird place where people are really aggressive drivers, and drive really fast, especially on 270), and while "the wind is its master" at that speed, the bike was capable of it. It should be quite sufficient for puttering around Arlington on surface streets (I rarely get above 55 around town, and rarely above 65 on the freeway – although there are of course the occasional jaunts into way triple-digits).

When I failed my MSF course (Sandy and I took it at Apex), it was the dreaded figure-eight. For the uninitiated, this is turning a figure-eight in an eight-by-eight foot box (although I think Apex uses eight-by-sixteen). The problem is that motorcycles are pretty bad at speeds below 10mph, because they don't have all that force keeping them up. So there's a delicate balance between leaning and steering, and I just wasn't ready.

I won't say I conquered it today, but I will say that I managed several slow-speed turns (forty eight; twenty-four in each direction of a square parking lot, times six laps) and only once did I feel a little iffy, and I didn't have to put a foot down (which is safe at low speed, but looks like you're a rookie, and will fail your drive test). I learned how to do this, interestingly, on an MSF dirtbike course DVD we rented from netflix (although, curiously, I can't find it there...). What the instructor, Jun Villegas, told the "new riders" (actors) was going around a dirt turn, feather the clutch a little. You gotta lean in, and (real importantly) look where you want to be, not where you're going, and if you stay on the throttle it's going to want to fold up on you or high-side you. Maybe in more advanced riding, when they have better bike dynamics and so on, they can power right through turns dragging knees. But for me, feather the clutch a little, keep a constant speed (although keep that constant speed with light application of the rear brake), and throttle out of the turn (also taught in the dirtbike course).

This may be because I learned to drive in dirt pits, but I doubt it. I think the Apex instructors, while dedicated, had too little time, and too many students to pay particular attention to students with problems (like my slow-speed-turns thing).

The bike is also really touchy in first gear. As careful as I was with the throttle (and, as a newbie, I'm of course pretty ham-fisted; gawd I'm glad we didn't get a gixxer), the bike was always in fits-and-starts, and felt downright unstable. Always weight transferring front to back, back to front, and so on. I learned very quickly that shifting up into third was about the right way to do it in the parking lot, which is kind of surprising given it was mostly 10mph (although I'm not ashamed to admit I had it up to 30 once, mostly to test the brakes, but also to test the oomph of the 250; it is more than enough). The engine was just a lot smoother. Feather the clutch when necessary (this, for you slushbox drivers, is way different than how you drive a car), easy on the throttle, two (or one) finger on the brake, same with the clutch, and don't be afraid to use the rear brake.

The bike didn't get too hot for me, but Colin complained on the freeway the engine got a bit hot and the cans got real hot. With appropriate leathers, I think we'll be okay. But speaking of leathers, even though I took the weather liner out of my mesh Joe Rocket jacket (it's basically a vinyl liner that prevents it from getting wet, but is otherwise a nylon mesh with internal armor, so air can flow through to the cyclist), it was hot. This may because of the low speed and the 83° F temperature in the garage, so I'm hoping that out on the road, the "leathers" (nylons, really) will do the trick. I had my visor up, and the helmet didn't get so bad, but hair got real wet and I think I'd have to have grooming supplies at the office.

Performance deserves its own description. First is pretty short, as I said, and it makes the bike kinda touchy. Second is better, and it may make better sense to just keep a finger on the clutch and start in two for the most part. It's approximately as fast as the STI, really. The STI is a real beast and has no less than ten times the displacement (and a turbo!!). But for the most part, in this garage, I keep in first and hover around 3,000 rpm (at which speed, the STI is explosive – that's when it comes on boost), mostly because I'm lazy, but also because it kind of lugs in second and third. For comparison, the bike pulls in third fast enough to scare me (sort of like the STI in first at 3,000). I don't know how tall the Ninja's third is, but my guess is it's more than enough to get to freeway speeds. For those who have been reading this for a while, what I've really wanted is a car that scares me. The bike may be the solution until I can make the Z the beast it deserves to be.

We have been waiting a really long time to get here (about a year and a half now), and I think that we're both adult enough to handle the responsibility now, would enjoy this new hobby, and it makes perfect sense with the petrol situation. And, since I was a teenager, bikes (and gear) have gotten a lot safer. Back then, (and even as recently as, say, twenty) bikes were "forbidden fruit." I'd have died on a CBR600RR or something. I once hit 177 in the Z, imagine the evil things I could do with a bike.

The bottom line: I'm good with mechanicals, and I understand the mechanics of the bike well. It still scares me; I worry constantly I'll drop it because I will do something stupid. I think when I worry less and focus more on riding, I'll be a better rider. And, really, I love it. It's a blast to ride. This is gonna be a fun summer. I can tell we're going to argue over who "has" to ride to work.

And yes, I'll get a picture of the bike up soon, with Sandy in her pink leathers. She's just so fucking cute, I want to ride with her with a sticker on my helmet with an arrow that says "I'm with the hot chick on that bike."

280zx travails

short: gory details on 280zx suspension

So the 280ZX has these cursed four-bolt hubs which means tire rack doesn't even bother to stock wheels for them. I'd like 16x7 on the car, but I don't have a lot of choice. Now, the 300ZX has 5-lug hubs, and the "spindle" (the part that connects the hub to the knuckle") is the same diameter on the rear of the 300ZX and 280ZX, but on the front, it tapers to a bit wider diameter. Hopefully this isn't because of catastrophic suspension failure.

At any rate, if I lathe two 300ZX front hubs, and supply two 300ZX rear hubs, I can use their brakes, their bolt patterns, and – thank god – their wheels.

All I need is some goddamn machine shop work. See also this reference (which is slightly different than mine):

Front Race Version
On this version, I wanted maximum diameter rotors for racing applications. Thus, I bolted a 300ZX rotor (4 bolt) onto my Z hub (this is again a direct bolt on replacement for the Z rotors), then mounted the assembly onto the spindle of the Z strut. Next, I took the 280ZX front calipers and placed them over the new rotors, and with the aid of air pressure applied to the piston, held the caliper into a position similar to the old position of original Z calipers. Because of the 300ZX rotor's larger diameter of around , the caliper mounding holes on the strut and the caliper, do not match up. Thus I measured the difference, disassembled the entire assembly, and proceeded to weld up the old caliper mounting holes in the Z strut, added material to the outside of these bosses, and then drilled new holes for the caliper to bolt on in the new, extended position.

Insipid music required

 short story: new music... caution: itms links abound.

I like to pride myself on listening to a lot of pretty cerebral music. While from my last.fm profile, it might appear that I get a lot of mental cheesecake – you don't have to look far to find it in my "chart" – that can be kind of misleading. To listen to Jesse Dangerously, for example, is to listen to both poetry, Canadian political issues (!), the social stigma of being a young gay male, and others. One can't listen to Alkaline Trio without the frankly crushingly- and so very well crafted lyrics of suicide and anger. Nouveaux Punk, if you will (although I'm sure I'm abusing somebody's idea of what that term actually entails).

There's also a fair amount of what most people would consider classical, with Chopin, Liszt, Tchaikovsky, and so on, but I think it takes a greater man to compare these traditionally intellectual composers with the less-traditional we have today, up to and including Eminem, who is entirely capable of being very intelligent in his chosen style of music (rap, of course, for those who've been living under a rock).

And then there's Electronic Music. I grew up raving in Southern California, so please, don't tell me I don't "get" it. I do. Really. How does one even typify or describe the complexity that goes into modern goa trance? Daft Punk, while most definitely in the "house" category (which is almost entirely bereft of anything involving thinking – preferring rather anthemic melodies and snare spirals and breaks) is enormously complex in their composition. A lazy listener would miss, for example, the incredible complexity of the oft-criticised track, Around the World. How the reviewers managed to miss the subtle blending of so many different instruments in a rhythmic, almost "cylindrical" (hence the name) melody? How about Aphex Twin and specifics of his such as Polynomial-C and Fingerbib? Music, especially electronic music, has merged with math in ways nobody really considered. And, if you're the kind of person who wants to listen to something that makes you think, Electronic Music is a treasure trove of thinking music.

I could go on, but I think rehashing Bowie or early Nine Inch Nails would be not only repetitive with everyone else talking about music, but I think it's pretty trite to say that Reznor's (I'd have added links here to the amazing Sin single and the Fixed remixes of Broken, but I can't seem to find them) "Closer" pushed the envelope of what could be done and said in music – in general, not just in his genre.

So I derive no small amount of enjoyment from music. It makes me think, it motivates me to write, and I have indelible associations of music with books (10,000 Maniacs "Our Time in Eden" with Clive Barker's Weaveworld, and Air's 10,000 Hz Legend with China Míevile's Perdido Street Station – both the album and the book still give me serious shivers).

But lately, primarily at work, I find that I am so intellectually (or at least physically, in the sense that what I do requires thought and correlated labour) drained by the ups-and-downs, ins-and-outs of the field, and trying (with some success, even) to manage the interpersonal relationships in a very diverse organisation (everyone from marines and airmen all the way to former intelligence officers turned project managers, if you can imagine). I am frankly too exhausted to listen to Alkaline Trio's "Trouble Breathing," which, while not the world's happiest tune, is so hauntingly written that I both love it and fear listening to it again (, and again, and again...). This is repeated over most of my musical library. Even Cake is so full of puns it requires thoughts to understand what's really going on. Even frickin' Matisyahu.

And I can't switch that off!

So, what to listen to in the office? A number of constraints pop up. First, I was listening to a lot of Velvet Acid Christ, which is pretty simple, has lyrics (when it has lyrics at all) that are insipid and mostly christianity-focused. Who cares, really? Well, it's serious industrial/goth-metal, and if that's coming out of the speakers in my office, when one of our more straight-laced employees shows up to tell me the internet down, the response is, "what IS that racket?" Explanations fail, of course. There is a huge generational gap (usually), an unwillingness to understand, and an entire lack of a frame of reference (how do you explain VAC to someone who loves classic-rock-"oldies"?)

I realised I needed something saccharine, poppy (so as not to really offend coworkers), not really too intellectual, and fast enough that I didn't get lethargic during the day (caffeine only goes so far). Kind of like Basement Jaxx or Aqua, only without being so... Aqua. That, and I've really listened-out Crazy Itch Radio, and I'm even really tired of the remixes.

4chan's /mu/ (and before you assholes get worried about rule #1, the secret is out. The honeymoon is over. Mootles is no longer teh sex.) was somewhat helpful, pointing out Crystal Castles, which I dig, but was really mostly interested in Vanished and Tegan and Sara's "The Con" (and this seems to not be an unusual perception of the duo). But I think they (/mu/) missed what I was really looking for (being music elitists, something like myself, and having little ability to come up with something insipid). They tired of me, and I tired of them, and in their defense, it's hard to ask elitists to come up with unelite stuff on command (they're quite ready to point it out when it's visible).

Enter Alice in Videoland (warning, music on load). I may discover a deeper depth to this music, but for the moment, it's quite upbeat, it's musically complex – but not too complex – and it has high-strung, sometimes vocoderised, vocals. Yay. It's kind of like Gwen Stefani was asked to do some vocals for Legion of Boom or I'm the Supervisor. I feel I have to say that Wide Open from Legion is one of the most amazing tracks Method has produced, despite it being sort of out of their genre, since I've mentioned Legion by name. Anyways, Alice in Videoland is pretty groovy. Pretty much what the doctor ordered. You have to check out the Outrageous (caution: music) album, but I'm pretty happy with She's a Machine, too.

Also is another one I'm not too sure about. Blind Faith and Envy is capable of some mind-warpingly intense techno tracks (and has a phenomenal goa trance mix of one of her songs) but can also be Sarah McLaughlin slow, and they have some Enya moments. We shall see. I hate to say it, because it kind of makes me a male pig (right?), but it may be a "chick thing." I clearly don't know, having a deformed chromosome.

And, then there's Futon. Who can resist gay club music? I absolutely loved Jonny McGovern's Dirty Gay Hits, but I've kind of listened it out. I picked up a couple tracks and considered it a win. Interestingly, it's part of a soundtrack from some HBO show along the lines of "HBO's XXX Thoughts." A compilation, which I normally detest, but, wow, has a lot of really cool shit, when I'm in this particularly braindead sort of mood. Sometimes, I suppose, not having cable has its drawbacks.

It will be a while before I bemoan "over intellectualism" again, so don't worry that I've become arrogant or anything. Pwomise.


(and there are probably lots of typographical, grammatical, and even insensibilities in this particular treatise; consider it irony and the fact it was awful complex to put together with all those links)

Anger management

Note to self:

Vulgar display of Enya may be better than Vulgar display of Pantera.

And if you get that not-quite-joke, you win one internet.

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.