Moral-Flexibility.Net

Jilly sleeping over at her Grandmas, a pair of perfect steaks for Lisa and I, then a dash off to see Hot Fuzz. The only down side was that I had to rush off after the movie and don my polyester crime fighting gear.

Overall I enjoyed the movie, but even as a fan I’d have to say it was a bit of a let down after Shaun of the Dead (this might be because despite the genre of the film, I still hoped against hope that zombies would appear). Despite the films occasional slow pacing there are plenty of belly laughs, some great tongue-in-cheek action sequences and the usual Pegg / Frost combo carries the day.

Oh come on, go see it already.

Finished reinstalling the DVR package (long story saved for later), fished a hairball blockage out of the sinks drain, got my haircut, did some quick grocery shopping and gassed up the car.

I must be getting ready to go back to work tonight. I am only ever this productive when the errands start cutting into my sleep time.

I’ve held back on commenting on this tragedy. Unless you’re living in a cave you’re undoubtedly aware that another unbalanced individual has claimed the lives of innocents in a senseless tragedy. Blame is already being levelled, and I’d expect the pitch to increase as the days pass. Some just want the question “Why?” answered, others are already spinning this to suit their own agendas.

My thoughts and prayers are with both the survivors of this horrific incident and the families of the fallen.

I feel certain that this incident will result in a number of cries for tighter gun control from the usual suspects, but I’ll admit that I am at a loss to see how it would have prevented this tragedy. You see the underlying assumption seems flawed. An unbalanced man decides to take his vengeance on the world that wronged him (somehow, we’ll likely find out more about the motivation as the days pass). Can we really assume that were a firearm harder to get he would have just shrugged and given up on the idea of punishing society?

Somehow I don’t think so. It occurs to me that level of hate is going to find a way of acting itself out.

People tell me there is no room for firearms in a civilized society. They may be right, but there seem to be an awful lot of savages wandering around this civilized society of ours, and they’re profiting on our higher values. I guess my point is that were I to be on the receiving end of this sort of rampage, I would want the ability and the tools with which to defend myself.

Aw crap. Just did my semi-monthly perusal of the Marstar site and found they are offering semi-auto functioning reproductions of WWII German firearms.

On offer are the MP38, MP44 (I’m looking at you Mike) and the MP3008 (one I wasn’t familiar with).

All in the range of $3,000 each I sincerely doubt I’d be able to grab one, though I am sorely tempted. The MP38 has long been an SMG I’ve admired.

-sigh-

Anyone want to donate $3,000 to the cause?

Ok, we’ve been running ZoneMinder for over a week and I’ve formed a few impressions as to how it fares compared to the other software (Windows XP stuff) we had originally monkeyed with;

• Stability – So far ROCK SOLID. No crashes, even when I attempted to induce them, or any evidence of data corruption.
• Flexibility – Amazing. Zoneminder allows the user to configure a number of different types of “zones” within the video window to specifically configure how and what the system should interpret as movement. Most usefull (and missing from any other package I have played with) are the “preclusive” zones. Zones only a few pixels across that are set to trap sudden lighting changes and prevent any alarms being triggered within that frame. This was a major problem with the previous packages as the headlights of our neighbors across the street, and of cars making a turn a half block down would generally trigger an alarm. With Zoneminder I am seeing less that 30% false alarms (meaning no ACTUAL movement took place) and I am still in the midst of fine tuning.
• Ease of use – Excellent. All the problems I have enountered to date stemmed from my unfamiliarity with Linux, the documentation for Zoneminder is excellent, as are the support forums.

I have encountered a few minor problems, but they are more asthetic than functional in nature, and do not affect the recording, alarm generation or review of images.

I’m beat, but before I rack out I wanted to make sure you had all given sufficient thought to your actions when faced with the inevitable hockey mask wearing aquatic zombie that may accidentally target you amidst his periodic slaughter of co-eds.

You are ready, aren’t you?

My cleaning kit is out of control. I suspect the large collection of firearms specific tools it houses is a side effect of having been involved with so many project guns, I just hate having a problem at the range and not having the right tool to sort it out with. Of course as any gun nut will tell you, there are an amazing variety of tools for firearms out there. I’ve commented on this before, but I think today is the day that I trim the collection of tools in my cleaning kit down to a manageable level.

My cleaning kit is kept in a three partition first aid kit from Mountain Equipment Co-op, I picked it up years ago when I found I would occasionally need more than a cleaning rod and some patches while at the range. The three compartments are divided into a) cleaning brushes, picks, solvents/fluids and bore sighter and bore light, b) cleaning patches, pipe cleaners, q-tips, rags and optics rags, c) all the tools including pliers, screwdrivers, hex keys, sight adjustment tools (AR15 and SKS/AK/VZ58) and specific wrenches for the M14 and AR15, at least one set of cleaning rods and some other odds and sods.

Think I’ve enough in there?

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My day, just mine. Spent the morning fine tuning the settings on the DVR computer, then dashed off to the range with the AR15, new Remington 870 and the S&W Model 14. Expended approximately 300 rounds between the AR and the S&W, had a couple of gun conversations with guys at the range and eventually lost feeling in my feet and called it quits.

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