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Tri-Mess Wants To Be A Leader

Despite their ongoing financial issues (which the agency claims are due to rich bus drivers and maintenance workers, and has nothing whatsoever to do with the rail-centric managers), the former transit agency (now a development agency) wants to spend $20 to $30 million on implementing a "paperless ticketing" system. This, they note, would position TriMet as a leader among "transit agencies".

It's all part of the costs associated with maintaining the myth that Porkland is on the cutting edge of green, sustainable societal evolution. Despite opposition, the Agency plans to implement the technology this summer, with full deployment timed to coincide with the grand opening of their new 7.3 - mile light rail line to nowhere; slated for September 2015.

All aboard - whether you want to or not!

Rise Of The Replicators

A three-dimensional time-for-space wiggle image of the sun taken by NASA spacecraft STEREO. 

We're all familiar with 3-D printed models, and the 3-D printed weapons have been getting a lot of play as well. But NASA's investing in the next big thing: they've awarded a grant to the small Systems and Materials Research Corporation, which will produce a prototype food printer.

NASA's interested in the concept because long-duration space voyages (say, to Mars) mandate such a device; they can't store - or grow - sufficient food to supply such missions. SMRC proposes to get around this issue using liquids and powders stored in cartridges, with shelf lives of as much as 30 years. The protein blocks could be derived from ground mealworms, other insects, or even algae; it doesn't matter because they're just components of the printing process, which will produce food by printing it, layer by layer.

The company has somewhat loftier plans than simply producing meals for the star-bound, however: taking a page from Paul Ehrlich, they envision a time in the near future when it simply won't be economical nor practical to grow food the old-fashioned way - on farms. Nope, there'll be a 3-D printer in every kitchen, and protein derived from ground-up insects and algae will rule. Mixed with flavorings and liquids, a healthy breakfast like the one above will be printed out for your enjoyment in a matter of minutes, and your trip to the corner grocery will involve merely exchanging spent cartridges and purchasing refills.

Mooch ought to love it; she's always ragging on you to "eat healthy", anyhow.

Your dog wants steak.

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No Expectations

Think you're entitled to privacy? Not if you don't power off your cell phone. At least, that's what federal judge Gary Brown says.

A federal judge recently ruled that if someone has their cell phone turned on, their location data does not deserve protection under the Fourth Amendment, meaning law enforcement can track individuals without a search warrant.

ACLU calls the ruling "ridiculous", and it does appear to contravene prior rulings prohibiting authorities from affixing a gps tracking device to a car, absent a warrant, but the judge says that location tracking technology can be defeated by a cell phone user by the simple expedient of shutting the phone off. Of course, that means that you've just turned your phone into a doorstop, since you can't place or receive calls when it's turned off. Moreover, some phones can't actually be turned off completely unless you take the further step of removing the battery.

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Time To Buy Stock In Bed-Wetting Detectors

The dawn of the wikiweapon is here.

The 3D-printable gun craze is just beginning as the blueprint plans for the new “Liberator” plastic gun were downloaded nearly 100,000 times in just a two-day period this month.

Democrat Chuckie Schumer of NY is absolutely apoplectic; word has it that he bought out his local Costco's entire stock of Depends® undergarments, possibly emulating the DHS approach to ammunition. Really, everybody panic! Not. You know darned well that most of the downloaders don't have access to a 3-D polymer printer at present; they just want the plans because they figure the feds are going to try to block downloads (ideed, they have sent a strongly-worded letter to the Defense Distributed unit, demanding that they immediately remove all data from the public domain) and so they might as well get the plans while they can. Maybe, down the road, they can scrounge up a printer somewhere. And maybe they can even improve on the design. At this stage, it's just an intellectual exercise.

As for the State Department warning - that seems a lot like an effort to quash First Amendment rights. It'd be one thing if Defense Distributed stole government or manufacturer plans for weapons, but quite another to demand that DD remove their own intellectual property from public domain.

Gosh, if only the State Department and Democratics in general had managed to get themselves equally lathered up over the Benghazi attacks....

Hypocrites.

 

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Well, That Was Fun

Network crashed sometime yesterday; intermittent Internet access followed by complete shutdown on all systems. Man, what a pain. Checked all systems, of course, and they all were fine - just incommunicado. Great. So Comcast upgraded a few weeks ago here, and the modem couldn't handle that, so it had to be replaced. Maybe that was the problem.

Nope, didn't seem to be. So, let's check the router (Cisco/Linksys EA-2700, their top-rung). Unbelievable. Yep, it's fried. Trail tip: don't buy the 2700. You get better results with the 2500, which is also A through N compatible and features dual-band for less interference.

After swapping out the 2700 and setting up the 2500 (which, by the way, is actually easier than setting up the 2700), everyone was back online with high-speed access. Even the printers were easier to re-set.

Trail tip #2: when wireless access starts screwing up on a 2700, wired ethernet won't work either. The ethernet started failing within hours after the wireless went down.

All in all, the 2700 is crapola - six months old, and nothing but a pain the whole time. You expect better from Cisco.

Let The Bedwetting Commence In Earnest: Plans Online

The first 3-D printed gun has been successfully test-fired, using a .380 round.

It's a mixed success, as a rifle round blew it up. Obviously, some additional tweaking is needed for that.

Wilson also treated the gun barrels with acetone vapor to smooth the surface and reduce friction. This may be why the gun is able to withstand the heat and pressure of .380 caliber bullets that would normally destroy this type of plastic.

As suspected, the six-oz. piece of metal incorporated into the weapon in order to comply with current law is not located in the barrel. Questions remain: is the barrel rifled? If not, accuracy is up for grabs. How many shots can be fired before a new barrel is required?

On the other hand, this was merely a prototype intended to test the concept - and clearly, it works.

Help your Congressmen overcome their bedwetting issues - see below. There must be some part of the words, "shall not be infringed" that they can't quite wrap their heads around.

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Let The Bedwetting Begin

And first out of the gate is Chuckie Schumer: What this country really needs is another law! Sorry, Chuckie, but that cat's outta the bag; 3-D printable weapons are already here.

Fun-Loving, Wacky Lefties

When spittle and drool aren't enough, make stuff up!

A well-known female liberal blogger and radio host at the University of Wyoming (UW) is being accused by police of fabricating a rape threat against herself to appear as if it came from a conservative.

The University of Wyoming Police Department issued a citation Monday afternoon in Albany County Circuit Court for Meg Lanker-Simons, a woman allegedly threatened last week in a social media post authorities now contend was a hoax.

The citation is for interference, a misdemeanor punishable by imprisonment up to a year and a fine up to $1,000.

"Subject admitted to making a controversial post on UW Crushes webpage and then lied about not doing it," according to the citation.

Naturally, she has her apologists, who accuse the cops of "bullying" the poor little hyphen; "blaming the victim":

She added, "I mean, my God, who would do this to herself?"

Um, well, no sane person would, but then, no sane person is a hard Leftist. The cops have her dead to rights, after all; forensics proved that the post from the alleged "conservative" actually came from her computer, at a time when she was in possession of the computer.

They never consider that all systems leave trails, although it's possible to circumvent them - but it's not possible to easily forge an IP trail that leads to some other party. That, too, can be done, but it requires considerably more thought and effort than the hard lefties are able to muster.

It's all Bush's fault.

But - Every Child Needs To Go To College!

Types--Vocational School. Location: Buffalo, New York (State) (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Well, that's what the Democratics say, and that's usually the assumption behind public school programs. But increasingly, more kids today are going for vocational schools. And unlike your hipster with a degree in art appreciation, vocational school students are likely to find a job as soon as they graduate - and without emerging from school mired in debt.

In Massachusetts, where the school is located, the average starting salary in manufacturing is about $45,000. “I can make as much money as someone going to college, coming straight out of high school, and I don't have to pay for college loans or anything like that,” Adams said.

These aren't the woodworking and welding shop classes we used to find in high school; most offer programming, coding, and design training, which makes them increasingly popular not only among students - but the employers who need those skills. As discussed on this site on a number of occasions over the years, the days when a college degree virtually guaranteed access to a good career have been over for a while. Most any barista in Portland can attest to that.

Gun Control Dreams

Firing pin on a Smith and Wesson Model 13 revolver. 

Having apparently tired of having his lunch eaten by a local meteorologist in the comments section over on OLive, one of our local amusements dropped off a comment here, claiming that the little Kipper represents "another reason for gun control". Actually, Kipper's an excellent specimen for the study of mental illness; gun control being nothing more than another Lefty dream.

After all, gun laws already exist, and in the USA every such incident has involved the offspring of dedicated liberal Democratics - not law-abiding gun owners. The only law that might put a dent in such activities would be one that bars Lefty Democratics from owning guns, but that would violate their Constitutional rights.

And gun law lovers are sure to get exercised over this little revelation: Defense Distributed has successfully produced a receiver for an AR-15 as well as a 30-round magazine using 3-D printing technology, and in the next two weeks expects to unveil the first 3-D printed handgun. All components save the firing pin are printed using ABS plastic, rendering the weapon virtually undetectable with present technology. Moreover, the 3-D modeling files will be uploaded to the Internet as open-source material in the public domain.

The original funding pitch follows:

And they found the funding. They anticipate that the beta version will be tested in two weeks, after which the files will be uploaded.

The folks calling for more gun laws simply don't understand the world we live in today.

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