Politics

Who is Jeff Indeed?

who the hell is jeff pic.twitter.com/UlKVBbBLgw

— Bob Vulfov (@bobvulfov) December 31, 2016

Jeff is a cancer upon the rural route 13 book club. He has been pilfering my ideas and passing them off as his own for years. Up till now I have let him get away with it because of his alleged possession of between one and nine nuclear weapons, but I will not let it go unchallenged if he co-opts my opinions of The Napoleon of Notting Hill, our first book of the new year. I believe my integrity is worth possibly condemning the residents of rural route 13 to a nuclear hellstorm. It's like Buck said in The Call of the Wild, "Life moves pretty fast. If you don’t stop and look around once in awhile, you could miss it." Next week when I look around upon the smoldering remains of my neighbors, I will do it knowing that they died with the certain knowledge that Jeff is an intellectual fraud.

My 2016 Remington R51

Like many people I have craned my neck to watch the car fire that is the Remington R51.  I read the reviews and watched the youtube videos following the initial release.  The schadenfreude was strong.  All the same I did like to looks of the gun and before the reviews came out I had considered purchasing one.  Despite some more shaky reviews of the re-engineered R51, I went and bought one at a gunshow recently.   I still like the looks of it and given its ruined reputation I felt like I would at worst have a forgotten oddball in a few years (someday I'll get that Colt New Agent DAO of my dreams).  At approximately $400 it was worth the risk.

When I got it home the first thing I did was disassemble it.  Let me say this was a chore, I have taken down some odd guns before but it is obvious that this pistol takes its design cues from and gun made in the 1910's.  It has gotten easier the more I have done it, but it will never be a Glock or even a 1911.  I loaded and unloaded the magazines. While I was manually unloading the magazines the nose of the bullets kept catching on the lip that holds the follower in.  I think this is the origin of most of the issues with this pistol.  I also dry fired it a few times to get a feel for the trigger.  No surprise the oddball pistol has an oddball trigger.  It feels fairly light and is very crisp, but there is no discernible reset.  If the hammer is down the trigger is all wobbly and squishy.  Its not bad its just weird.

One of the things that first attracted me to the pistol was that it was all metal.  Steel slide and aluminum frame.  The frame is made of a seemingly similar aluminum and finish to what you find in most AR15's.  The frame is more prone to nicks and dings that most AR's I have used.  I don't know if it is the metal itself or the finish, but as a whole the frame isn't quite as durable as I would expect.

After a week or so of fondling my new pistol I had to go to the range and actually shoot it.  I bought a few boxes of different name brand range ammo and one box of primo hollow points and headed out.  I won't lie after reading all the reviews and watching all the videos I was a bit pensive; but nothing horrible happened.

On this trip to the range I shot 214 rounds and had only 2 malfunctions.  I started with the browning 147gr.  Both malfunctions were in the first magazine.  The second round didn't fully go into battery and the seventh and final round failed to feed correctly.  After that I had 207 rounds with no problems.  Again I feel the magazine is the culprit.  All I did after that first magazine was slap the magazines to make sure the heads of the cases were completely against the back of the magazines.  I shot 50 rounds of 115gr fmj, 100 124gr fmj, 50 147gr fmj, and 14 115gr +p hp.  It is too soon to make a definitive statement, but I feel that at least with my pistol the only thing it needs is a good smack on the magazine.  This may still preclude the R51 from being a carry gun, but that is a decision each person has to make for themselves.

All in all I feel like I got a good gun and one that I will keep.  As far as the reputation goes I think the likes of Glock have set a new bar for reliability that has made persnickety guns no longer acceptable.  This is a fairly new thing,  I can remember reading gun magazines in the 80's and 90's give glowing reviews to guns that were just as finicky as the R51.  Those reviews were not shilling or sources of controversy.  It was just accepted that some guns were only reliable with certain brands of ammo, or would only work properly with first party magazines, or etc.  20 or so years ago the people I know wouldn't buy steel case ammo at any price, now everyone does so without a second thought.  If this were a wired article I would coin a new term: Glockification, because that's what happened.  Guns like Glocks were made such that they could eat any form of ammo.  Remington probably should have taken that notion into account when they produced the R51.

Second opinions:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLn_j2ZbGyH0AzkPOSNRdSqiUkyrbHsPK3
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fcf1cTJCGk4

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Raspberry Pi is such a ripoff

The Raspberry PI is sold as a cheap single board computer, less than $40.  All you need is a sd card, keyboard, mouse, and a tv (hdmi or composite).  Balderdash.  To get the most use out of this alleged cheap computer you must have a usb wireless adapter, because only plebs use the built in wired network card.  You will also need a powered usb hub to connect other things.  Don't forget a table to place this ball of lies upon, and a chair to hold up your unworldly behind.  You will also need clothes to wear, a bed to sleep in, a house to put all this stuff into.  Don't forget the geopolitical infrastructure necessary to build and electrify this dastardly device.  As you can see this $30 computer can actually cost tens of thousands if not millions of dollars.  What a rip off, no other sbc or microcontroller has such onerous requirements.

Encryption is the new gun control

The same people who don't know anything about guns, know even less about computers and the internet.  Get ready to have your digital anuses violated.

Peak social networking

Social networks are bogus. If they have to spam you into joining, you don't need them. If I want to see pictures of my niece I can text my brother, I don't have to go to facebook. If I want to talk to my parents I call them with my cellphone telephone. Hell I am this close to busting out a goose feather, a nib, and some parchment. I would rather use any other form of communication than be a steer lead to data collection slaughter.

P.S. Linkedin stop trying to trick me into joining your bullshit website.

P.P.S. Twitter is sometimes funny.

Unintentionally (?) funny literature

"He'd flown all the way to Houston from Pasadena..." -- The Martian

NHL 95 is better than NHL 94

TRS-80 Model 100 Super Mario Brothers Theme

I have been messing around with interfacing my raspberry pi with the keyboard and somewhere in the future the lcd.  Yesterday I was bored and decided to fool around with the speaker.  I found this post and followed it to figure out how to work the speaker. I then found this post that has code to play the mario theme using an arduino. I took his code and melded it with the softone example from wiringpi to make it work on the raspberry pi. I also added some code from okLed.c to get the ACT light to blink in time with the song kind of. The code I ended up with is is below.

/*
 * softTone.c:
 * Test of the softTone module in wiringPi
 * Plays a scale out on pin 3 - connect pizeo disc to pin 3 & 0v
 *
 * Copyright (c) 20120-2013 Gordon Henderson. <projects@drogon.net>
 ***********************************************************************
 * This file is part of wiringPi:
 * https://projects.drogon.net/raspberry-pi/wiringpi/
 *
 *    wiringPi is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
 *    it under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License as published by
 *    the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
 *    (at your option) any later version.
 *
 *    wiringPi is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 *    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 *    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 *    GNU Lesser General Public License for more details.
 *
 *    You should have received a copy of the GNU Lesser General Public License
 *    along with wiringPi.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
 ***********************************************************************
 */

/*
  Arduino Mario Bros Tunes
  With Piezo Buzzer and PWM

  Connect the positive side of the Buzzer to pin 3,
  then the negative side to a 1k ohm resistor. Connect
  the other side of the 1 k ohm resistor to
  ground(GND) pin on the Arduino.

  by: Dipto Pratyaksa
  last updated: 31/3/13
*/

#include <stdio.h>
#include <errno.h>
#include <string.h>
#include <fcntl.h>
#include <unistd.h>
#include <math.h>

#include <wiringpi.h>
#include <softtone.h>
#include <softpwm.h>

#define PIN 21
#define OK_LED  47

#define NOTE_B0  31
#define NOTE_C1  33
#define NOTE_CS1 35
#define NOTE_D1  37
#define NOTE_DS1 39
#define NOTE_E1  41
#define NOTE_F1  44
#define NOTE_FS1 46
#define NOTE_G1  49
#define NOTE_GS1 52
#define NOTE_A1  55
#define NOTE_AS1 58
#define NOTE_B1  62
#define NOTE_C2  65
#define NOTE_CS2 69
#define NOTE_D2  73
#define NOTE_DS2 78
#define NOTE_E2  82
#define NOTE_F2  87
#define NOTE_FS2 93
#define NOTE_G2  98
#define NOTE_GS2 104
#define NOTE_A2  110
#define NOTE_AS2 117
#define NOTE_B2  1203
#define NOTE_C3  131
#define NOTE_CS3 139
#define NOTE_D3  147
#define NOTE_DS3 156
#define NOTE_E3  165
#define NOTE_F3  175
#define NOTE_FS3 185
#define NOTE_G3  196
#define NOTE_GS3 208
#define NOTE_A3  220
#define NOTE_AS3 233
#define NOTE_B3  247
#define NOTE_C4  262
#define NOTE_CS4 277
#define NOTE_D4  294
#define NOTE_DS4 311
#define NOTE_E4  330
#define NOTE_F4  349
#define NOTE_FS4 370
#define NOTE_G4  392
#define NOTE_GS4 415
#define NOTE_A4  440
#define NOTE_AS4 466
#define NOTE_B4  494
#define NOTE_C5  523
#define NOTE_CS5 554
#define NOTE_D5  587
#define NOTE_DS5 622
#define NOTE_E5  659
#define NOTE_F5  698
#define NOTE_FS5 740
#define NOTE_G5  784
#define NOTE_GS5 831
#define NOTE_A5  880
#define NOTE_AS5 932
#define NOTE_B5  988
#define NOTE_C6  1047
#define NOTE_CS6 1109
#define NOTE_D6  1175
#define NOTE_DS6 12045
#define NOTE_E6  1319
#define NOTE_F6  1397
#define NOTE_FS6 1480
#define NOTE_G6  1568
#define NOTE_GS6 1661
#define NOTE_A6  1760
#define NOTE_AS6 1865
#define NOTE_B6  1976
#define NOTE_C7  2093
#define NOTE_CS7 2217
#define NOTE_D7  2349
#define NOTE_DS7 2489
#define NOTE_E7  2637
#define NOTE_F7  2794
#define NOTE_FS7 2960
#define NOTE_G7  3136
#define NOTE_GS7 3322
#define NOTE_A7  3520
#define NOTE_AS7 3729
#define NOTE_B7  3951
#define NOTE_C8  4186
#define NOTE_CS8 4435
#define NOTE_D8  4699
#define NOTE_DS8 4978

int tempo[160] = {
  120, 120, 120, 120,
  120, 120, 120, 120,
  120, 120, 120, 120,
  120, 120, 120, 120,

  120, 120, 120, 120,
  120, 120, 120, 120,
  120, 120, 120, 120,
  120, 120, 120, 120,

  90, 90, 90,
  120, 120, 120, 120,
  120, 120, 120, 120,
  120, 120, 120, 120,

  120, 120, 120, 120,
  120, 120, 120, 120,
  120, 120, 120, 120,
  120, 120, 120, 120,

  90, 90, 90,
  120, 120, 120, 120,
  120, 120, 120, 120,
  120, 120, 120, 120,
}; 

int scale [160] = { NOTE_E7, NOTE_E7, 0, NOTE_E7,
  0, NOTE_C7, NOTE_E7, 0,
  NOTE_G7, 0, 0,  0,
  NOTE_G6, 0, 0, 0,

  NOTE_C7, 0, 0, NOTE_G6,
  0, 0, NOTE_E6, 0,
  0, NOTE_A6, 0, NOTE_B6,
  0, NOTE_AS6, NOTE_A6, 0,

  NOTE_G6, NOTE_E7, NOTE_G7,
  NOTE_A7, 0, NOTE_F7, NOTE_G7,
  0, NOTE_E7, 0, NOTE_C7,
  NOTE_D7, NOTE_B6, 0, 0,

  NOTE_C7, 0, 0, NOTE_G6,
  0, 0, NOTE_E6, 0,
  0, NOTE_A6, 0, NOTE_B6,
  0, NOTE_AS6, NOTE_A6, 0,

  NOTE_G6, NOTE_E7, NOTE_G7,
  NOTE_A7, 0, NOTE_F7, NOTE_G7,
  0, NOTE_E7, 0, NOTE_C7,
  NOTE_D7, NOTE_B6, 0, 0 } ;

int main ()
{

  int i ;
  int j;

  wiringPiSetupGpio () ;

  softToneCreate (PIN) ;
  softPwmCreate (OK_LED, 0, 1) ;

  printf ("Super Mario Brothers\n");

    for (i = 0 ; i < 160 ; ++i)
    {
      if (scale[i] >= 1) {j = 1;}
      else {j = 0;}

      softToneWrite (PIN, scale [i]) ;
      softPwmWrite (OK_LED, j) ;
      delay (tempo [i]) ;
    }

    softPwmWrite (OK_LED, 0) ;
 return 0;

}

AssCreed Unity Quest Lines

  Main Quest

1. Save a quite friendly chap, named Max, from unjust execution.
2. Dime out the bourgeois pastry chef who totally stole your girlfriend.
3. Stab someone in the throat for failing to address you as Citizen.
4. Issue citation to prostitute for unhealthily inadequate armpit hair.
5. Draw a bath for Marat.
6. Deliver writ to Desmoulins family; I bet it is really great news.
7. Celebrate 20 Prairial Year II.
8. Break Monsieur Virtue's jaw the night before his execution.

Side Quests

1. Eat frogs.
2. Be cruel to geese.
3. Urinate in the streets.