This last weekend, I bought a Surefire G2 Nitrolon high-output flashlight at a Reno gun show, about $35. It's a very good alternative to the more expensive, earlier metal version, the Surefire 6P. For those of my friends who are getting into defensive pistolcraft for the first time - and who have budget constraints - I recommend this lightweight version.
September 2006 Archives
I code in Python, I don't gotta declare
drop vars left and right, interpreter don't care
and you'll notice my keyboard ain't got much wear
That's cuz py code is short like your schlong, with typing loose like your mom,
and curly braces missing like geeks at the prom,
all in this lovely little language by guido van rossum.
Patri Friedman
"...some python nerdcore lyrics I came up w/ yesterday while biking home..."
(with express permission)
Today's QOTD is a bit of background on the graphic novel "Roswell, Texas" by L. Neil Smith and Scott Beiser, which has been serialized in webcomic form on the Bighead Press website. It's a kick, and I recommend it highly.
….This custom is so thoroughly ingrained that, when the Pink Nazis loot the Vatican. the survivors refugee out to former Catholic girls’ school in Brownsville, and a new Pope (the former Cardinal Fulton J. Sheen) takes over from the assassinated Pius XII, he orders that everyone working for the Church (including priests and nuns) comply with the letter and spirit of the law of the nation of which they are presently guests. That’s why you see a .22 Colt Woodsman — ” … only a Popegun, sir … ” — on the poker table at Pius XIII’s elbow.
….The only standing groups resembling a military are the Texas Rangers (of which there are damned few — “One riot, one Ranger”), and the Texas Air Militia, which only has half a dozen planes.
….With a thoroughly armed society (of course you can get out of gun-toting if you apply for a license _not_ to carry a gun and go through fingerprinting and psychiatric evaluation) who needs an army or the cops?
L. Neil Smith
"Taxes in the Federated State of Texas"
As I mentioned a couple of days ago, I met my friend Dale Seago at the Pleasanton Highland Games this last weekend. Both Dale and our dojo chum Garland were wearing the new version of the Cold Steel Special Projects Scottish Dirk, which Dale reviews today in Swordforum.com. I was deeply impressed, and took Dale's advice to order it from the vendor indicated by Froogle as the lowest price supplier, Premium Knives. Noticing how Garland's unmodified Cold Steel-supplied dirk sheath loop seemed flimsy, I took Dale's advice at the Games to pick up a Scottish Dirk Frog from onsite vendor Ravenwood Leather, for the amazingly low price of $10.
I'm looking forward to receiving the knife in a few days.
"I'm not a conservative complaining about liberals," Rodgers says. "To me the 'greater good' is a catch phrase for people trying to force you to do what they want. And it's both sides of the political spectrum; it's not a liberal thing only. You look at our current administration. They have all kinds of greater good things. For example, they have decided what can and can't be done with embryo research. They're forcing people to follow their dictates. If you look the Constitution and the Bill of Rights, it's freedom from, not freedom to. The Bill of Rights doesn't give you a right to something, it gives you the right not to have the government do something to you."
My buddy Tom shows off a crazy Japanese t-shirt recently:
"OTHER PLAMS No thank you has lost many a butter cake okY? work step by step toward you goal step by step enjoy!"
The back says: "rupture of diplomatic relations good"
Is someone channelling E. H. Bronner?
I've had this recipe pinned to my refrigerator door, meaning to transcribe it here. It's a baked chicken recipe which I've made a couple of times in the last few years, after having had it at my friends' house a few years ago. You need these ingredients:
- One large, whole chicken
- 2 tablespoons butter
- One clove of chopped garlic
- 1/4 cup cooking wine
- 1/4 cup soy sauce
- 1/2 cup pineapple juice
- 1/2 lemon
- 1/2 onion
Stuff the chicken with the half lemon and half onion. Place it breast-up in a deep baking dish, and pour all the ingredients listed above in the dish around and over the chicken. Wrap the dish a couple of times in aluminum foil, taking care to leave some space between the foil and the chicken, and place the dish in an oven pre-heated to 375 degrees Fahrenheit. Cook 30 minutes, then remove from the oven and turn the bird over, using a baster to spread more of the resulting broth over the bird. Re-cover with the foil and cook another 90 minutes. Allow the bird to "rest" for about 15 minutes before serving. The chicken should be incredibly tender and moist. Enjoy.
I'm about a month late in actually publishing a mention of my friend (and Reuters reporter) Tom Burroughes' interview with Cambridge University gerontologist Aubrey De Grey, "Lifespans soon to be decades longer", which, interestingly, seems to have been syndicated on the Indian version of Yahoo! News.
Forwarded to me by Perry Metzger, and independently brought to my attention by Tom Burroughes, published in Science as "Cancer Regression in Patients After Transfer of Genetically Engineered Lymphocytes":
Using adoptive transfer of lymphocytes given after host immunodepletion it is possible to mediate objective cancer regression in patients with metastatic melanoma. However, the generation of tumor-specific T cells in this mode of immunotherapy is often limiting. Using a retrovirus encoding a T cell receptor, we report here the ability to specifically confer tumor recognition by autologous lymphocytes from peripheral blood. Adoptive transfer of these transduced cells in fifteen patients resulted in durable engraftment at levels exceeding ten percent of peripheral blood lymphocytes for at least two months post infusion. We observed high sustained levels of circulating, engineered cells at one year post-infusion in two patients, that both demonstrated objective regression of metastatic melanoma lesions. This study suggests the therapeutic potential of genetically engineered cells for the biologic therapy of cancer.
I have the full paper, forwarded to me by a friend, which I'm reading slowly.
Yesterday I attended the Pleasanton Highland Games, the largest event of its kind in North America, with my friends Dale Seago and Garland Glessner. I'd missed a few of these over the last few years, and I'm likely to miss several more, so I was especially happy to have attended this one, since 1.) I serendipitously met some friends I'd not seen in years, 2.) I got to hear the Wicked Tinkers live, and 3.) I met this sweet young lady, selling handmade silver whiskey flasks:
She'll be working at the Northern California Renaissance Faire this fall; find her and say hello. Sorry, won't tell you her name, you'll have to work for it...
Libertarians should not be denying scientific fact. We should instead spend our time combatting the religious impulse of people to think the modern world is evil and that we must repent for our sins by living cruddy lives and waiting for (in their minds) our inevitable and justified doom at the hands of a wronged Gaia.
Want hot sex from a woman? Keep the relationship psycho. It worked for me when I was single. I had many long-term non-monogamous relationships that remained erotic right up until the moment she tried to claw my eyes out. It costs a lot in therapy, but boy is it sexy.
Want love and contentment? Dump the psycho and build a nest. You get to have steady sex with somebody who is not trying to claw your eyes out. Plus you get to have breakfast without any coffee cups aimed at your head.
And there's nothing like reading a book, in bed, next to somebody you love.
Joe Quirk
"Scientists Have Discovered the Food That Makes Women Lose Interest in Sex"
