First, my sincere sympathies for the victims of this unprovoked terrorism. To loose a loved one to terrorism is a greatest sadness I can think of.
The only thing for us to do, is get them before they get us. Obama is worthless for this, he lacks the stones to even call them Islamic extremists. Maybe the French can lead the way, they are a second rank industrialized power, with an army. They could whip a third world insurgency. If they wanted to, they could send a decent sized force to Syria to clean house.
Saturday, November 14, 2015
Washing Windows 8
The Micro$ofties stuffed Windows 8 chock a block full of crapware, programs that suck up RAM and CPU time but don't actually do anything for you. Every so often I go out on a crapware hunt, and I always find something. Today I scored three kills. First off is a program "DasHost.exe". It is supposed to alert you to incoming email, sometimes. My email client, Thunderbird, has been successfully detecting incoming email for years with out it. After a net check, the consensus of opinion was "worthless", so I went after it. It's a service. Services are little (and some times not so little) programs that Windows runs behind your back. They all suck up precious RAM, and hog CPU time. They show up in Task Manager as processes and there is a special Windows program to manage them. Go to Control Panel. Pick Admin. Tools. Pick "Services". Find "Device Association Service. First STOP the Device Association Service. This shuts down the copy running in RAM at that moment. Then hit "properties" and change the startup type to "disabled". That preventsWindows from starting it up on the next boot.
While you are in there, find service "Themes" and give it the same treatment. Themes suppores the fancy Aeroglass look in the display. It sucks up a lot of CPU time and I don't like the look, I prefer the standard old Windows look.
My last kill today was "Power2Go Gadget". This is not a Micro$oft program, and several websites called it useless. It is NOT a service, so you cannot zap it thru the Services program, like Dashost and Themes. I found it with Task Manager, and the Windows 8 Task Manager can stop it, and prevent it from reloading (disable it). I'll double check tomorrow to see if it stays dead, but it's stopped now.
For doing all this, laptop feels livelier, it can keep up with my typing now.
Be careful messing with services. Back in XP, there were a couple of services, Remote Job Entry for one, that were essential to Windows. If you disabled Remote Job Entry in XP, Windows would never boot again. The only fix was to reinstall Windows from scratch, a tedious task, especially if you lacked the install CD-ROM discs. I suspect the Micro$ofties have planted similar booby traps in Win 8, but I don't know what they are. So don't disable anything unless you are sure, or have searched the internet and found an authoritative site like Black Viper to say that you can disable it without a disaster.
While you are in there, find service "Themes" and give it the same treatment. Themes suppores the fancy Aeroglass look in the display. It sucks up a lot of CPU time and I don't like the look, I prefer the standard old Windows look.
My last kill today was "Power2Go Gadget". This is not a Micro$oft program, and several websites called it useless. It is NOT a service, so you cannot zap it thru the Services program, like Dashost and Themes. I found it with Task Manager, and the Windows 8 Task Manager can stop it, and prevent it from reloading (disable it). I'll double check tomorrow to see if it stays dead, but it's stopped now.
For doing all this, laptop feels livelier, it can keep up with my typing now.
Be careful messing with services. Back in XP, there were a couple of services, Remote Job Entry for one, that were essential to Windows. If you disabled Remote Job Entry in XP, Windows would never boot again. The only fix was to reinstall Windows from scratch, a tedious task, especially if you lacked the install CD-ROM discs. I suspect the Micro$ofties have planted similar booby traps in Win 8, but I don't know what they are. So don't disable anything unless you are sure, or have searched the internet and found an authoritative site like Black Viper to say that you can disable it without a disaster.
Friday, November 13, 2015
Doing National Hari-Kari
World War II was a total disaster for Japan. They suffered enormous casualties, we sank their navy, we sank their merchant marine, we nuked their cities, and the ones we didn't nuke, we firebombed. Then we occupied the Home Islands, hauled Japanese leaders up in front of a War Crimes Trial, imposed a new constitution, and rewrote a lot of Japanese law to make it favorable to free market capitalism and democracy. We ran the place until the 1950's.
A worse outcome to a war is hard to imagine.
And the leadership that took Japan to war with the United States knew they would loose. And they did it anyhow. There was an independent staff study by top Japanese academics predicting total disaster. There was Admiral Yamamoto who had spent a lot of time in the US, spoke English well, and he said "For the first six months we shall run wild, but I have absolutely no confidence after that." There was Matsuota, the foreign minister who had grown up as a foster child in California. The Japanese knew that America had a huge population, a vast national territory, highly industrialized, blessed with abundant natural resources, and out weighed and outclassed Japan in every category. They knew war with the US would lead to defeat.
And, they should have known that they didn't need to go to war with the US. Japan's national goal in those days was to take over China. They had made a good start, and there was no reason to beleive that they could not finish the job. Japan was depending upon imports of iron and steel and crude oil from the Unitied States. And we did not approve of a Japanese takeover of China. We finally imposed an embargo (traditional American action) upon Japan.
This put a bind upon the Japanese. They all knew that they would run out of steel and oil in a matter of months. But, there was plenty of oil in Dutch Indonesia, not far away. Hitler had invaded and occupied Holland, which left the Dutch colonial regime in Indonesia kind of blowing in the wind. Japan could have obtained plenty of oil from Indonesia, either by trade or by force.
We, the Americans, would not have approved, but we had Nazi Germany to deal with. The entire American establishment, political, military, business, the papers, all agreed that proper US strategy was to do Germany first. Germany was bigger, stronger, more advanced, and closer than Japan. Plus the isolationists made life difficult for the Roosevelt administration to do anything internationally. The Japanese should have known that they could do pretty much anything they wanted on their side of the Pacific, and all the Americans would do about it is write diplomatic nasty grams.
But, the Japanese plowed ahead and attacked Pearl Harbor. They didn't have to do it, it led to a disastrous military defeat, they knew it would, but they did it anyhow.
A worse outcome to a war is hard to imagine.
And the leadership that took Japan to war with the United States knew they would loose. And they did it anyhow. There was an independent staff study by top Japanese academics predicting total disaster. There was Admiral Yamamoto who had spent a lot of time in the US, spoke English well, and he said "For the first six months we shall run wild, but I have absolutely no confidence after that." There was Matsuota, the foreign minister who had grown up as a foster child in California. The Japanese knew that America had a huge population, a vast national territory, highly industrialized, blessed with abundant natural resources, and out weighed and outclassed Japan in every category. They knew war with the US would lead to defeat.
And, they should have known that they didn't need to go to war with the US. Japan's national goal in those days was to take over China. They had made a good start, and there was no reason to beleive that they could not finish the job. Japan was depending upon imports of iron and steel and crude oil from the Unitied States. And we did not approve of a Japanese takeover of China. We finally imposed an embargo (traditional American action) upon Japan.
This put a bind upon the Japanese. They all knew that they would run out of steel and oil in a matter of months. But, there was plenty of oil in Dutch Indonesia, not far away. Hitler had invaded and occupied Holland, which left the Dutch colonial regime in Indonesia kind of blowing in the wind. Japan could have obtained plenty of oil from Indonesia, either by trade or by force.
We, the Americans, would not have approved, but we had Nazi Germany to deal with. The entire American establishment, political, military, business, the papers, all agreed that proper US strategy was to do Germany first. Germany was bigger, stronger, more advanced, and closer than Japan. Plus the isolationists made life difficult for the Roosevelt administration to do anything internationally. The Japanese should have known that they could do pretty much anything they wanted on their side of the Pacific, and all the Americans would do about it is write diplomatic nasty grams.
But, the Japanese plowed ahead and attacked Pearl Harbor. They didn't have to do it, it led to a disastrous military defeat, they knew it would, but they did it anyhow.
Hoot, the movie
A heart warming flick about three decent kids, who manage to do some good. Came out a long time ago, 2006, low budget ($16 million) didn't make the nut. Too bad.
Logan Lerman has the starring role. In 2006 he was only 13 years old. He plays the role well, at least as well as Daniel Radcliffe played Harry Potter at age 12. A couple of other child actors who I never heard of before play the other members his gang.
Enjoyable. More so than the average new flick today. Netflix has it.
Logan Lerman has the starring role. In 2006 he was only 13 years old. He plays the role well, at least as well as Daniel Radcliffe played Harry Potter at age 12. A couple of other child actors who I never heard of before play the other members his gang.
Enjoyable. More so than the average new flick today. Netflix has it.
Thursday, November 12, 2015
Long Range Strike Bomber (LRS-B) program halted.
The losers (Lockheed Martin and Boeing) filed a protest of the contract award to Northrup Grumman. GAO ordered a stop work for 100 days while they sort thru the paperwork. Take a 3 month schedule hit right there. GAO might, after the 100 day hangup, approve the contract award or order the contract rebid, which will take a year.
The losers objections are unclear, and mostly unpublished. What has come out is the Air Force looked at the bidder's re recurring engineering bids and using a lot of bad past experience doubled all the bids. Not a bad idea, contractors typically bid low to get a foot in the door, thinking that they will be able to get their profit margins back up when the Government orders changes, which it always does. But, what ought to happen when the contractor's underbid, is the government holds them to the original contract. Fifty years ago, Lockheed under bid on the C-5 job. USAF made them eat the difference between what Lockheed spent and what Lockheed bid.
Fifty years later, USAF lacks that kind of stones. And, the last big program USAF put out for bid, the KC-46 tanker job, was a disaster. Boeing protested the award to Airbus, got the contract rebid, and walked away with it. And Boeing is doing cost overruns and schedule slippages right now.
It's hard to tell from where I live want the real story is. Could be, GAO is allowing a frivolous protest to slow the program down. Could be USAF did another KC-46 style bungle. Could be Pentagon procurement regulations are so screwed up that nothing works. Any way, the program is delayed by the bureaucrats, and delays always raise the cost to the taxpayer.
The losers objections are unclear, and mostly unpublished. What has come out is the Air Force looked at the bidder's re recurring engineering bids and using a lot of bad past experience doubled all the bids. Not a bad idea, contractors typically bid low to get a foot in the door, thinking that they will be able to get their profit margins back up when the Government orders changes, which it always does. But, what ought to happen when the contractor's underbid, is the government holds them to the original contract. Fifty years ago, Lockheed under bid on the C-5 job. USAF made them eat the difference between what Lockheed spent and what Lockheed bid.
Fifty years later, USAF lacks that kind of stones. And, the last big program USAF put out for bid, the KC-46 tanker job, was a disaster. Boeing protested the award to Airbus, got the contract rebid, and walked away with it. And Boeing is doing cost overruns and schedule slippages right now.
It's hard to tell from where I live want the real story is. Could be, GAO is allowing a frivolous protest to slow the program down. Could be USAF did another KC-46 style bungle. Could be Pentagon procurement regulations are so screwed up that nothing works. Any way, the program is delayed by the bureaucrats, and delays always raise the cost to the taxpayer.
20 Best Handguns
Washington Times internet posting here. They show nice big pictures of 20 different handguns, nineteen of 'em automatic pistols, and one snub nosed revolver chambered for a ridiculous load. The automatics are a mix of full sized service pistols and tiny belly guns. Most of 'em were just under $500, which is significant money for most of us.
First time buyers should be aware that it is extremely difficult to hit anything with a pistol. If you can find a pistol that fits your hand properly, you can vastly improve your chances of hitting the bad guy. A story. Back in USAF they issued us .38 revolvers for target practice and qualification. The issue revolvers were in miserable shape. All the checkering was worn off the wooden grips, the grips had been marinated in gun oil for 20 years and they were slippery. Each shot made the grip twist in the hand, throwing your aim off for the next shot. The grips were too small to get all your fingers around, my pinkie finger either waved free in air, or slipped underneath the butt and damn near dislocated with each shot. My target shooting was miserable with the issue .38
Later, on a sandpit shooting afternoon, a friend let me shoot his commercial .38 revolver. It had nice big wood grips, good sharp checkering, nice and dry, good smooth trigger, shot like a dream.
Before you shell out $500 for a handgun, you want to shoot the thing, say twenty rounds, and see if it agrees with you. Then think about revolvers. A home defense gun might spend 20 years in a night table drawer, loaded, unloved, unlubricated, but that one time something bad happens, you want it to work. A double action (pulling the trigger cocks the hammer) revolver is good for this. You just pull the trigger and the gun goes bang. No safeties, no slide to work, no magazine releases to avoid. And it stores loaded, and un cocked, all the springs uncompressed. In automatics, the magazine spring is fully compressed when the magazine is loaded and the hammer or striker is cocked. Over the years, compressed springs can weaken, or even break.
Pistols come in various sizes, too damn big (Dirty Harry's .44), service pistol (cop's holster gun) and pocket pistols. Service pistols shoot best, they have enough weight to soak up the recoil of a decent load, a long enough sight radius to be easy to aim, big enough grips. Unless you are planning to carry the gun in your pocket, there is no reason to mess around with pocket pistols. They are harder to shoot, harder to get a hit with, and are often chambered for wimpy little loads that won't stop a bad guy, but just make him mad.
You want a handgun chambered for a standard, widely available load. These are .38 Special, 9 mm Luger, and .45 ACP. There are a lot of other loads out there. Any thing less than .38 special isn't big enough, anything more than .45 ACP is too damn big. The lighter the gun, the harder it will kick, which throws your accuracy off. The shorter the barrel, the fiercer the report. For example, the classic 1911 .45 government model automatic pistol weighs 39 ounces, has a 5 inch barrel, and handles the big .45 ACP load reasonably well. I have seen ads for little pocket pistols weighing only 14 ounces, with 3 inch barrels chambered for .45. I would not care to shoot one, too much kick, too loud a report.
First time buyers should be aware that it is extremely difficult to hit anything with a pistol. If you can find a pistol that fits your hand properly, you can vastly improve your chances of hitting the bad guy. A story. Back in USAF they issued us .38 revolvers for target practice and qualification. The issue revolvers were in miserable shape. All the checkering was worn off the wooden grips, the grips had been marinated in gun oil for 20 years and they were slippery. Each shot made the grip twist in the hand, throwing your aim off for the next shot. The grips were too small to get all your fingers around, my pinkie finger either waved free in air, or slipped underneath the butt and damn near dislocated with each shot. My target shooting was miserable with the issue .38
Later, on a sandpit shooting afternoon, a friend let me shoot his commercial .38 revolver. It had nice big wood grips, good sharp checkering, nice and dry, good smooth trigger, shot like a dream.
Before you shell out $500 for a handgun, you want to shoot the thing, say twenty rounds, and see if it agrees with you. Then think about revolvers. A home defense gun might spend 20 years in a night table drawer, loaded, unloved, unlubricated, but that one time something bad happens, you want it to work. A double action (pulling the trigger cocks the hammer) revolver is good for this. You just pull the trigger and the gun goes bang. No safeties, no slide to work, no magazine releases to avoid. And it stores loaded, and un cocked, all the springs uncompressed. In automatics, the magazine spring is fully compressed when the magazine is loaded and the hammer or striker is cocked. Over the years, compressed springs can weaken, or even break.
Pistols come in various sizes, too damn big (Dirty Harry's .44), service pistol (cop's holster gun) and pocket pistols. Service pistols shoot best, they have enough weight to soak up the recoil of a decent load, a long enough sight radius to be easy to aim, big enough grips. Unless you are planning to carry the gun in your pocket, there is no reason to mess around with pocket pistols. They are harder to shoot, harder to get a hit with, and are often chambered for wimpy little loads that won't stop a bad guy, but just make him mad.
You want a handgun chambered for a standard, widely available load. These are .38 Special, 9 mm Luger, and .45 ACP. There are a lot of other loads out there. Any thing less than .38 special isn't big enough, anything more than .45 ACP is too damn big. The lighter the gun, the harder it will kick, which throws your accuracy off. The shorter the barrel, the fiercer the report. For example, the classic 1911 .45 government model automatic pistol weighs 39 ounces, has a 5 inch barrel, and handles the big .45 ACP load reasonably well. I have seen ads for little pocket pistols weighing only 14 ounces, with 3 inch barrels chambered for .45. I would not care to shoot one, too much kick, too loud a report.
Wednesday, November 11, 2015
Debate Watch Party
We had another one. Not bad. Chris Christy came on strong on the junior debate. Fox and WSJ did a highly professional job with the questions and with the moderation, far far superior to those CNBC clowns last month. In the main event, everybody looked pretty good. I didn't see a clear cut winner, everyone looked pretty good. No body choked up.
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