Latest In Tech » Musings

Shaken not stirred; Sun’s Black Box can handle it

sarvinc — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 02:22:18 +0000

This is especially relevant because it fits in with my whole, “prefab housing,” desires.

Linked from Gizmodo

Me and my M-14

sarvinc — Sat, 09 Jun 2007 06:46:47 +0000

A man and his rifle…

I was mobilized for OIF III on Veteran’s Day (go figure), November 11th, 2004. Two days later I was at Ft. Bliss going through 30 days of accelerated training to prepare me for deployment. As part of that training program I was issued an M-16A2 from the unit to which I was going to be assigned (which was, at that time, embarking for Kuwait.) Upon inspection, I determined that the rifle’s front sight post was bent, and that the weapon was deadlined. I brought this to the attention of the Major distributing the weapons (out of the back of a black Suburban, no less) and asked if I might get a replacement.

Read the rest here

From Railroads to Space?

sarvinc — Mon, 04 Jun 2007 00:24:31 +0000

Lately, I’ve been wondering if a new history/ science blog is in order. For now, we’ll just post this here; enjoy. How the space shuttle was affected by the horse’s rear-end. Just for kicks, the day they changed the guage.

Let’s play a game called; name that union.

Largest union of it’s day (1893)?
First Industrial Union (in the US)?

If you’re even semi-intelligent then you already know it’s a railroad union; American Railway Union

Adobe’s Response to Microsoft

sarvinc — Thu, 26 Apr 2007 19:37:04 +0000

With Microsoft’s attempt to incorporate pdf’s, Microsoft’s Picture It, and now Microsoft’s Silverlight, it’s no secret that Microsoft has Adobe square in it’s sights. Silverlight presents a particular challenge, it does HD, is vector based, and works on both the PC and Mac. What’s Adobe to do, how about open sourcing Flex; Adobe’s SDK? Sounds like a good move to me, open-source has a bit of cache right now, plus Microsoft seeks to support the Mac and PC but where’s Linux support? Totally opening up a platform pretty much trumps Microsoft’s Silverlight announcements.

Sgt. York

sarvinc — Tue, 24 Apr 2007 04:51:02 +0000

Most people have probably never heard of Sgt. Alvin York, the man who singlehandedly captured 132 Germans.

“The Argonne Forest, France, 8 October 1918. After his platoon suffered heavy casualties, Alvin York assumed command. Fearlessly leading 7 men, he charged with great daring a machine gun nest which was pouring deadly and incessant fire upon his platoon. In this heroic feat the machine-gun nest was taken, together with 4 German officers and 128 men and several guns,”

Looks like his weapon might be destroyed soon.

Link to Wikipedia article.

Sad that it must come on the heels of this post.

Economics King of the Hill

sarvinc — Sun, 22 Apr 2007 00:39:06 +0000

Between Mike (from Techdirt), Scott Adams (of Dilbert fame), and James Ledbetter (CNN Money’s Deputy Managing Editor) it’s a veritable game of King of the Hill. Who’s the reigning champ, for now, looks like it’s Mike. Which Mike we’re talking about here I have no clue. Scott starts us off, Mike pushes him off, Adams answers, Mike manages to fend him off, James hears the other boys playing and wants a piece, but Mike’s still the champ.

One hundered year old fish caught… I say throw it back!

sarvinc — Thu, 12 Apr 2007 15:48:31 +0000

For crying out loud, will you look at that thing! I have an idea of why that thing is one hundred years old! It’s too ugly to touch. Ok, it’s not technology, just a bit of humor. You’ll be interested to know that this Shortraker Rockfish is 50 years younger than the oldest one caught.

New Uniform Can’t Measure Up

sarvinc — Thu, 05 Apr 2007 14:42:59 +0000

As I’ve said before, hey is this thing on, the new uniform will never be able to measure up to tried and true BDU. There’s a balance in the Army, about 80% of soldiers support the 20% who actually fight. Oddly, what always seems to happen is that the 20% is often forgotten about. Less thought was put in to the uniform concerning how well the camouflage would work, and more was put in to the idea that soldiers wouldn’t have to press their uniforms. We’ve moved to the brown “rough-out” boot (better known as desert boots). Why, so soldiers wouldn’t have to polish or spit-shine their boots in the field. Of course, no one asked why we’re concerned with soldiers polishing, spit-shining or pressing a uniform in the first place.

Now it’s looking like others are beginning to agree with me.

Military Slang

sarvinc — Sun, 01 Apr 2007 09:35:03 +0000

The L.A. Time is running a piece on Iraqi battlefield slang. I was pretty interested at first but after reviewing the list, it looks pretty white-washed. Some of these things aren’t even slang, just the abbreviated pronouncement. Hello, DFAC? I don’t know who did this or where they spent time doing it, but how could you leave out the now infamous K-pot? It’s been a few years since I got out but here are a few more that are a lot more interesting:

TOT time on target, often used by airbourne soldiers to describe when they’ll be hitting the ground after a jump.
leg – a derogatory term commonly used by airbourne infantry in reference to regular infantry, i.e. “you dirty leg.”
woobie or ‘cho liner – in reference to the Vietnam era poncho liner
snookie cap – in reference to the watch cap better known as a beenie
snivel gear – warm clothing, gloves, etc. it’s what you do without the gear
klick – stand for one military kilometer
Hump – to hike or road march with kit. “It’s a five klick hump.”
NODS – night vision. Though I don’t know this officially I suspect it’s the abbreviation for Night Observation Devices
Suck it – short for “suck it up” often used when complaining or when responding to a complaint

I’m sure I could go on forever without sounding like I’m making this up.

edit: oh, Jesus! I misspelled Military. Thankfully no one actually reads this thing.

It’s All Geek To Me

sarvinc — Tue, 20 Mar 2007 18:43:36 +0000

Niel Stephenson takes on 300, or rather takes on those who take on 300…

Link via Linkfilter

Link to a PDF for posterity.