list

battery sawzall
battery drill
ice pick
.015/.018 7-strand SS cable (McMaster-Carr)
A/C capillary tubing
crimp tool
USB drive
2.88 FDD
CD/DVD burner
Saran wrap
bolt cutters
diagonal cutters
Security Torx
dead HDD's
distilled water
hacksaw blades
single edge razor blades
masking tape
duct tape
3/4" PVC conduit
 66/100 punchdown
wax paper/tracing paper
Zona saw
pliers
cold chisel

BJS data

http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&tid=47
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/bjs/grants/227604.pdf (2007)
https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/bjs/grants/234173.pdf (2009)

------------------------2007--------------------

Table 2. NICS denials by FBI referred to ATF field divisions in 2007       
Cases    Percent      
FBI denials referred to ATF Brady Operations     73,992    100%      
Brady Operations referrals to ATF field divisions     6,275    8%       
layed denials     2,566    3%      
Standard referrals     3,709    5%      
Not referred to field or overturned     67,717    92%       
Most common reasons for referrals to field       
mestic violence misdemeanor     1,739    28%      
nvicted felon     1,605    26%      
bject to protective order     1,421    23%    


Table 5. Charges referred for prosecution, 2007       
Charge definition     Charges    Percent      
Total     196    100%      
Falsified information when buying firearms     93    47%      
Possession of firearm by convicted felon     20    10%      
Possess firearm after domestic abuse charge     15    8%      
Receive/ship/transport firearm after indictment     11    6%      
Possession of firearm by drug user     11    6%      
Other charges     46    23%    

 
Table 6. Status of 2007 charges referred for prosecution       
Judicial status     Chargesa    Percent      
Total     196    100%      
Selected outcomes       
Declined by prosecutor     74    38%      
Guilty plea by defendant     46    24%    

------------------------2009--------------------
Table 2. NICS denials by FBI referred to ATF field divisions in 2009       
Cases    Percent      
FBI denials referred to ATF DENI Branch     71,010    100%      
DENI Branch referrals to ATF field divisions     4,681    6.6%      
Delayed denials     2,390    3.4%      
Standard denials     2,291    3.2%      
Not referred to field or overturned     66,329    93.4%       
Most common reasons for referrals to field       
Subject to protective order     1,343    28.7%      
Domestic violence misdemeanor     1,149    24.5%      
Convicted felon     1,057    22.6%    


Table 4. 2009 cases declined by ATF field offices       
Cases    Percent      
Total     4,726    100%      
Most common reasons for declination       
No prosecutive merit     2,037    43.1%      
Federal or state guidelines not met     1,104    23.4%      
Not a prohibited person     572    12.1%    

Table 6. Status of 2009 charges referred for prosecution       
Judicial status     Chargesa     Percent      
Total     140     100%      
Selected outcomes:       
Declined by prosecutor     63     45.0%      
Guilty plea by defendant     31     22.1%      
Dismissed per plea agreement     17     12.1%      
Pending action by prosecutor     16     11.4%      
aAs of November 28, 2010    

The Spitfire is starting to take shape

I posted about this airplane a while ago, but it was still pretty bare at the time. Now its starting to look like an airplane.

Guest blogging at Ace of Spades

If you haven't noticed, I've been doing some guest blogging at Ace's joint. A lot of the same sort of stuff I've been doing here, but it gets a lot more exposure over there.

What's wrong with this picture?

We have here a photo from AFP of an Iraqi woman who claims the bullets she's holding "hit her house".

H/T Confederate Yankee

...the greatest thing I have ever done

MNF-I

Baghdad Soldiers rescued a 2-year-old Iraqi boy from a dry well in which he fell Aug. 9.

Soldiers with Company B, 2nd Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division responded to the pleas for assistance from the father of a 2-year-old boy who had fallen into a dry well near the family’s residence [PA's note: this was a serious 25' deep well].

The company commander, Capt. David Powell of Newport Beach, Calif., was about to begin a scheduled security patrol when the boy’s father approached the gate of his Coalition outpost on foot. Using an interpreter, Powell quickly assessed the situation and sent the patrol to assist with the recovery of the child[...]

[...]"In my 18-years in the Army," Powell said, "this is, by far, the greatest thing I have ever done."

H/T North Shore Journal

Amy Winehouse - "(drug) Rehab is a cop-out"

This girl needs a bit more than rehab. She needs a 7x24 keeper.

Daily Mail

[...]The 23-year-old, who is notorious for her wild partying, was treated in a London hospital last week after taking a cocktail of heroin, ecstasy, cocaine and the horse tranquiliser ketamine[...]

[...]Rehab is a cop-out[...]

Very cool -- jet engine simulation from NASA

While stumbling through a bunch of links researching pulse jets - specifically the Lockwood-Hiller design that has no moving parts (Lockwood eliminated the petal valve...the only moving part in a traditional pulse jet) I ran across this sim for a turbo-jet engine.

Its a Java applet, so you'll need to enable Java on your browser.

NASA Glenn Research Center

With this software you can investigate how a jet (or turbine) engine produces thrust by interactively changing the values of different engine parameters[...]

Pelosi "earmarks" for bioweapons

Wassup with the biowarfare WMD shit Nan? The nutroots ain't gonna be down with that at all girl.

Bloomberg

The California Democrat has won funding for six companies in a 2008 defense funding measure. One is a $4 million request to develop a ``novel viral biowarfare agent'' for Prosetta Corp., based in her San Francisco district.

UPDATE -- NRO is saying they talked with the reporter who wrote the story and the guy screwed up. He says the work was to treat viruses used in biowarfare.

Chinese torture/kill "corrupt" officials in online game

I wonder how well such a game would do here in the US? Being able to shove a virtual red hot poker up a few politicians asses might prove very compelling.

Middle East Times

BEIJING -- An online game in which players can torture and kill corrupt officials that a Chinese local government set up to teach people about the perils of graft is proving a roaring success, state media said Thursday.

"Incorruptible Fighter," developed by the government of east China's Zhejiang province, was launched just over a week ago and is already so popular that it is being redesigned to accommodate more players, the China Daily said.


"I feel a great sense of achievement when I punish lots of evil officials," one gamer surnamed Sun was quoted as saying.

The game, which lets players get ahead by killing officials by means of "weapons, magic, or torture," has been downloaded more than 100,000 times, the Southern Metropolitan Daily said[...]

Airplane porn - Boeing 777 wing destruction testing

Nice. I think the 777 will stay together. Now if they'd just get rid of that fly by wire crap, they might get me to fly on a commercial airliner again.

Wild and crazy Scandis - fly R/C plane through tunnel

Whoever was piloting that rig has some mad skillz

Retard BMW driver video

Ha, ha, ha. Moron.

The Ball Screw

This isn't a post about porn...well sort of -- metal machining porn perhaps. Every so often I come across some bit of technology that is so perfectly suited to a particular task its worth mentioning. The notion of the ball screw is one of those.

One of the problems with high precision machining operations is play in the machine tool itself. Things like threads are used to advance cutters and such, but ordinary cut thread screws have a certain amount of slop in them and can wear over time resulting in imprecision creeping into the machine. For a lot of run of the mill machining operations, this slop may not be a big deal, but for some things that need to be precise to say 1/10,000th of an inch (ex tiny internal combustion motors like the old Cox .010 cubic inch model engine which isn't much bigger than a $.25 cent piece), slops of any amount make producing the part virtually impossible.

Enter the ball screw. The interposed between the male/female "threads" of the ball screw are small ball bearings -- the male and female ride on those miniature ball bearings and remove virtually all the mechanical slop in the feed screw mechanism and reduce friction during traverse operations.

A wonderful thing the "ball screw idea" is -- much of the high precision small components of today's world would be almost impossible to make without it.


Jose's machining info

The screw itself uses a special spherical thread. That is, it is not made with a pointed angular cutter, but it appears to be made by rolling. The surface is very smooth as you can easily see in the photo[...]

eBay's patent problems with "Buy It Now"

As much as I despise eBay (for a host of reasons), SCOTUS got this one wrong. The MercExchange patent should have been voided. There are very real problems at the USPTO these days when it comes to "technology" type patents. There's a vast amount of crap being awarded patents falling under the category of "obvious" or when there is prior art the patent filer failed to disclose or direct real world analogs making a technological implementation of same trivial and obvious.

I had two software patents awarded while at IBM. Neither of which was obvious, and neither of which had meat world analogs.

Seriously, "buy it now" is pretty much the same thing as the listing price on a house where several buyers will be making offers (i.e. bids). The first guy who offers the seller's listing price is going to take it. To patent something as obvious as this, that has clear real world analogs, that have been in practice for thousands of years in fact, is a travesty.

Next we'll find out that some jackass has patented "the idea" of a door knob.

AP

A federal judge Friday denied a request from a small Virginia company to stop the online auction powerhouse eBay Inc. from using a feature that allows shoppers to purchase items at a fixed price[...]

[...]Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that although eBay infringed upon MercExchange's patent for the service, it was up to the lower court to decide whether eBay had to stop using it[...]

Cox/Estes PRC made model airplanes recalled

Bogus lithium batteries. IMO, lithium batteries are bad news and I won't buy anything using them. The CPSC is one of the few Federal government services we pay for that is actually worth something.

CPSC

WASHINGTON, D.C. - The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, in cooperation with the firm named below, today announced a voluntary recall of the following consumer product. Consumers should stop using recalled products immediately unless otherwise instructed.

Name of Product: Sky Rangers Park Flyer Radio Control Airplanes

Units: About 21,000

Distributor: Estes-Cox Corp., of Penrose, Colo.

Hazard: The airplanes are launched by hand and can explode near the consumer’s head, posing a risk of temporary hearing loss and injuries to eyes, face and hands.

Incidents/Injuries: Estes-Cox has received 45 reports of airplanes exploding, including 22 reports of consumers experiencing temporary ear pain or hearing being affected; five reports of minor burns to hands, faces or eyes; two reports of chest impact from debris; two reports of eye injuries; and one report of a cut hand. One consumer sought medical attention for burning eyes.

Description: This recall involves Model 4116 Sky Rangers Park Flyer radio control airplanes, which come with a black battery charger. The airplanes have a wingspan of about 14 inches, a light blue, white and orange polystyrene foam fuselage, and a copper coil on the rudder. Airplanes with a warning sticker on the fuselage near the on/off switch are not included in the recall.

Sold at: Hobby stores and other retailers nationwide from September 2005 through December 2006 for between $20 and $40.

Manufactured in: China

Remedy: Consumers should stop using the recalled airplanes immediately and contact Estes-Cox to verify that their plane is being recalled and for instructions on returning the airplane for a replacement product[...]