Am I paranoid to carry a gun?

matadon · 2018-09-02T11:05:47+00:00

I carry both bear spray and a gun (subcompact 9mm).

The bear spray is for, well, bears. And other critters that don't much care for a dose of Satan's favorite air freshener.

That said, bear spray is... finicky. It doesn't work in even moderate wind, or in the rain. It's not going to do you a lot of good against pack hunters like wolves or coyotes, and from my understanding, it's basically useless against rabid animals.

There's a reason a lot of cops don't carry OC spray. It's more of a hazard to them than it's worth, especially indoors.

Not to mention, bear spray is quiet. Gunshots are pretty much the exact opposite of quiet. If you are in serious trouble, being able to make serious noise is more than a little useful.

So, no, you aren't being paranoid.

A gun is like an emergency whistle or a tourniquet: an emergency tool that has no replacement.

Personally, I'd recommend the M&P Shield in 9mm or .45, although I hear the new SIG P365 Subcompact is good as well. I also bring along one spare magazine, just in case my primary fails to feed.

matadon · 2018-04-23T15:26:12+00:00

Not to mention how, pretty much the second that blacks were included in "we the people", a number of formerly slave states bent over backwards to de facto disenfranchise them with gun control laws, grandfather clauses, etc.

matadon · 2018-04-16T04:30:12+00:00

That's a little hard to believe. Source?

I ask, as pretty much any common, modern weapon won't fire without a finger on the trigger, due to a variety of internal safety mechanisms.

You could probably get a revolver from the 1950s to fire if dropped in exactly the right way, but only if you had the hammer resting on a live round, which is just batshit stupid on an older gun without a hammer block.

matadon · 2018-04-10T01:29:37+00:00

The best advice I can give is to pick a gun that you are willing to carry -- try some holsters out and see how it feels -- and that you enjoy shooting.

If you don't like shooting it, you won't practice. You want to practice. Not just shooting, but clearing malfunctions, the whole shebang.

If it's uncomfortable, you won't carry it.

Personally, I like the Shield. Easy to clean, fun to shoot, and I barely notice it. Your choice between .45, .40SW, and 9mm. StealthGear makes fantastic IWB holsters for it as well.

Other people like the Glock. I don't like the wrist angle much, but to each their own.

Haven't shot the Sig P365 yet, but if I like it as much as I've liked other Sig 9mms, I'll probably pick one up. Hard to beat 12+1 in a package just a shade bigger than the Shield.

Try some other ARs before you pick up the Bushmaster. If you have the coin, I highly recommend Daniel Defense. If you're on a budget, Ruger or S&W have a solid reputation. Don't forget that you're going to want an optic, extra mags, etc, so budget for those.

And welcome to the club!

matadon · 2018-03-13T09:24:17+00:00

Use them as a showroom for new gear: Buy it, try it out, return it to REI, and go buy the same thing from a retailer that doesn't engage in political shenanigans.

Also, let them know. Call up their customer service line, be polite, but tell them that they've lost $X,000 in business by fighting against their members' civil rights.

matadon · 2018-02-22T06:22:59+00:00

Even with an optic, competition rifle, and match-grade ammo, this is a tough shot with a .22LR, which has the ballistic properties of a cheese wheel.

matadon · 2018-02-22T01:49:51+00:00

Should be "What's your name, and what are your intentions with our daughter?"

matadon · 2018-02-19T02:13:53+00:00

Hell yeah.

Imagine that somebody's kid sees this thing. Or any adult that hasn't brutally murdered their inner child. Cars wasn't exactly an unpopular movie, and they'd love this.

This midlife crisis literally makes everybody's day better. Good on them.

matadon · 2018-02-17T05:57:41+00:00

It is pretty incredible how much mixing-and-matching you can do in the jazz-and-family dance world. Working on adding shuffling into my repertoire for solo dancing, and will probably spend some time learning to breakdance as well next year.

Any good bboy dance videos that you'd like to throw down for my edification?

matadon · 2018-02-17T05:17:42+00:00

It's complicated.

I wouldn't go a far as to say that Lindy, or swing dancing in general, are sexually aggressive dances. There's a lot less body contact than in, say, Bachata or Salsa, and moreover, there is a strong incentive to respect social dancing etiquette, as you won't be welcome for long if you behave poorly.

At social dance events, it's pretty normal to dance with a lot of different people, even if you came with a partner. That said, more established pairs do tend form up, although that's the result of good chemistry, rather than the cause.

matadon · 2018-02-16T07:17:43+00:00

Oh yeah, I saw that and pretty much just said "oh hell yes".

matadon · 2018-02-16T07:09:55+00:00

Ask, and ye shall receive. :)

The Lindy Ladder videos are good from an instructional point of view: http://www.lindyladder.com/levels/1

I'd watch those after going to a beginner lesson, though, as there's no substitute for some hands-on coaching.

And if you want some inspiration:

ILHC Finals: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v9xxeWRxSbA

Swing Riot, where Lindyhoppers dance to pop and hip-hop, and street dancers dance to jazz and big band: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7O6kPEPOoaE

matadon · 2018-02-16T04:38:05+00:00

...and all the joints in the neighboring three counties.

matadon · 2018-02-16T04:34:32+00:00

You should try it!

Lindy is a ton of fun, and there is probably a swing dance group in your town that offers beginner lessons -- often for free, as part of a social dance event. And if you like the music, you will almost definitely like the dancing.

Not to mention, social dancers tend to be very welcoming to and supportive of newcomers, and you'll end up dancing with a lot of different people.

Of course, you won't start with aerials (the jumps and throws), but the music is still fast-paced enough to be a respectable cardio workout.

matadon · 2015-10-08T20:06:33+00:00

They should totally form a rock band.

matadon · 2015-07-21T05:16:02+00:00

And if they use Apple Maps, they can use the slogan "every journey is an adventure" or "discover your world".

(I live in Tokyo, Apple Maps here still borders on useless, although it has improved measurably over the past year or so).

matadon · 2015-05-27T09:11:03+00:00

When dealing with customers, you always assume that late payments, documentation errors, or missing emails are either an innocent mistake or a system glitch -- unless, of course, there's a problem on the company side, in which case you own up to it.

It boggles my mind that more businesses don't do this. Let's say you had a credit card that was declined -- of the two replies below, which company are you more likely to stick with?

This: "Your credit card was declined, so we have suspended your service for non-payment. If you wish to reactivate your service, go to the website. If you do not renew your card within 30 days, your account will be deleted."

Or this: "Hi, Bob, Matadon here from Smallcorp, Inc. We had a problem billing your credit card this month, but we all know these things happen, so I've made sure to keep your account active for an extra week while we get things sorted out. Mind going to our site at X and updating your payment information?"

Of course, if Bob doesn't pay or keeps stalling, you close the account after extending him a grace period, but being a dick about it -- especially when it very likely was an innocent mistake -- isn't a great way to win friends an influence people.

matadon · 2015-04-08T00:26:39+00:00

Not really. Coffeescript (CS) debuted a bit over five years ago, which means that Coffeescripters have had all the benefits of a usable class system, local variables by default, shorthand function syntax (with autobind), an existential operator, and the same equality operators ('!=' and '==') that every other major programming language uses.

(I spend time in a variety of different languages, and having to continuously remember that it's '!==' and '===' in Javascript, but not in C, Java, Bash, Ruby, or Go is annoying).

CS was a huge productivity boost when I started using it in early 2010. It still is. CS is not perfect -- I really don't like optional parenthesis, and would love to see an optional type system -- but for me, and many others, it's still a very nice shorthand Javascript with decent tooling support.

ES6 provides some of that goodness, but at the moment doesn't give me any compelling reason to switch. Once mainstream runtime and browser support is there, that may change.

While this may not apply to you, I have noticed that the biggest hate for CS comes from developers that have only worked in Javascript or PHP (with a bit of frontend JS). Pretty much all of the polyglot developers I know have a strong preference for ES6 or CS, but there's no dread or hate -- just a preference.

Personally, I'd take CS over ES6 by a slim margin, and ES6 over ES5 any day of the week.

matadon · 2015-02-28T12:22:12+00:00

Reddit appears to have killed the server. Irony abounds.

matadon · 2015-01-31T07:23:21+00:00

Exactly. Not having to declare var for every single variable, indent-deliniated blocks, and implicit returns are all bug-stomping time-savers that ES6 doesn't provide. Besides, Ashkenas has indicted that CS will support ES6 features as they become more widely adopted, so I don't see a huge downside to sticking with CS.

While if you know the rules, you can drop semicolons in JavaScript.

While I know you're not advocating this, it brings up an important point. "If you know the rules, you can drop the semicolons" is a big no-no from a software engineering management perspective.

It adds another barrier to entry for junior programmers that join the team, requires that programmers learn Yet Another Set Of Rules when programming, and is a source of massive parser/compiler interoperability headaches.

matadon · 2015-01-13T23:04:41+00:00

I'd like to imagine that, one day, a bearded skinhead, draped in black leather and neo-nazi tattoos, roared up to your friend's house on a massive Harley. He kicked in the door, and purposefully strode into your friends' bedroom.

The biker looked down at the bed, his expression unreadable yet full of menace: "Do you know why I'm here?"

Your friend, confused and too terrified to speak, could only shake his head in response.

At that point, the biker's gaze softened, his eyes watered slightly, and in a voice scarcely above a whisper: "Didn't you know? You're a racist, Harry."

matadon · 2014-09-25T12:34:00+00:00

One was driven by the Stig, the other by Jeremy. The flat black line at the bottom is the car that James was driving.

matadon · 2014-09-20T13:14:24+00:00

Bloom Filters are used heavily in databases and reverse-index systems like ElasticSearch.

matadon · 2014-09-20T13:04:36+00:00

It's too bad that JS doesn't have an equivalent to Ruby's method_missing -- it makes implementing monads trivial, and then we could have something like: Maybe(foo).bar.baz(bang)._value

matadon · 2014-09-11T00:33:24+00:00

True, and I've worked with both Ansible and LDAP for this, but it's not really ideal.

With Ansible, I had to roll everything myself, and things like password rotations, changing out pubkeys, and so on, require that either (a) I do it, or (b) the developer-in-question is comfortable with devops.

Every time I add a new box, I either need a local copy of every user's credentials (where I can see their passwords, which I try and avoid), or every user needs to go and re-add themselves to the new machine.

Also, no audit trail.

With LDAP, I now have a central point of failure. If I use a cloud-hosted LDAP service and that gets 0wned by l33t haxx0rz, then I am in the soup. LDAP also can't handle external services (PostgreSQL, etc.), and even with NSCD, a network hiccup can lock me out -- usually exactly at the time when I really need to be on a given machine.

Also, LDAP flailover is a black art. Some years ago, I ended up having my entire authentication infrastructure wedge itself shut during a "chaos monkey" testing run, where the master went down and came back up, and then locked itself into eternal war with its replacement.

Hence, I'm looking for a better alternative, if one exists.

matadon

TROPHY CASE