John Yoo on his new book on youtube

Sharp guy:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Deh05-KtKqw

"We certainly haven't gotten a lot of intelligence from operatives we have arrested and put on trial in our federal courts."

Interesting cross-exam before the above: Yoo vs Richard Epstein:                                         http://fora.tv/2006/10/29/Uncommon_Knowledge_Richard_Epstein_John_Yoo

Kasparov on computer chess

Interesting article.  On the surprising results of ubiquitous grandmaster level programs:

There have been many unintended consequences, both positive and negative, of the rapid proliferation of powerful chess software. Kids love computers and take to them naturally, so it's no surprise that the same is true of the combination of chess and computers. With the introduction of super-powerful software it became possible for a youngster to have a top- level opponent at home instead of need ing a professional trainer from an early age. Countries with little by way of chess tradition and few available coaches can now produce prodigies. I am in fact coaching one of them this year, nineteen-year-old Magnus Carlsen, from Norway, where relatively little chess is played.

The heavy use of computer analysis has pushed the game itself in new directions. The machine doesn't care about style or patterns or hundreds of years of established theory. It counts up the values of the chess pieces, analyzes a few billion moves, and counts them up again. (A computer translates each piece and each positional factor into a value in order to reduce the game to numbers it can crunch.) It is entirely free of prejudice and doctrine and this has contributed to the development of players who are almost as free of dogma as the machines with which they train. Increasingly, a move isn't good or bad because it looks that way or because it hasn't been done that way before. It's simply good if it works and bad if it doesn't. Although we still require a strong measure of intuition and logic to play well, humans today are starting to play more like computers.

More at:  http://www.nybooks.com/articles/23592

Hat tip, Marginal Revolution.

man bites dog: suing debt collection agencies.

High bit: if they say they can garnish wages or take your house, then you can get an easy $3500 settlement, at least in TX.

http://www.dallasobserver.com/2010-01-21/news/better-off-deadbeat-craig-cunningham-has-a-simple-solution-for-getting-bill-collectors-off-his-back-he-sues-them/1

A bright red line: Mass graves in Haiti.

As one quantitative metric for how bad things are:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703959804575007782151239548.html?mod=WSJ_World_MIDDLENews

good eDit interview

One of the best glitch dj's alive: http://www.koldcast.tv/video/edit

Articulate & gets it done.

emco v13 schematics

At sears(!?!) parts direct of all places: http://www.searspartsdirect.com/partsdirect/getModel!retrieve.pd?modelNumber=MAXIMAT%20V13&productCategoryId=0728000&brandId=0351&brandName=EMCO&modelName=LATHE

completely bizarre.

Now, if the motor on my v13 would just turn I'd be in good shape.

Well, that's a good attitude

I don't follow football (and not just b/c I don't have a TV), but this seems like a good, low-drama view of the world:

For the first time, Brady confirmed he has been playing with a broken bone this season.

A league source told the Globe Brady has a broken finger on his right hand. The injury is believed to have happened in early December.

“I’m feeling really good now. I’m feeling really good,’’ Brady told WEEI. “Everyone breaks bones over the course of the year. I’m feeling pretty good. This is the best I’ve felt in a while.’’

 http://www.boston.com/sports/football/patriots/articles/2010/01/05/brady_fully_aware_of_backup_plan/

A managerie of ported revolvers (and others)

I've been experimenting with porting using a mill rather than an  EDM machine.  The biggest challenge is cutting a hole so that there are no burrs inside the barrel.  There are ways to do this, but to reduce risk I've been looking for porting that allows enough clearance to deburr after if need be (possibly using a custom ground deburring tool).

So this is a collection of different porting methods for inspiration.

There's a good writeup on a ported S&W 500 at: http://www.gunblast.com/SW-500.htm

One way to deal with burrs is to bore out the barrel after cutting the ports, removing any burrs in the process. I don't think this is what they did here, but S&W has done it on other revolvers I've seen:

Ireland is insane: new blasphemy laws

Just when I think california is beyond retarded, the EU guys step up to the plate and knock it out of the park.  Quote'd in  Volokh:

Secular campaigners in the Irish Republic defied a strict new blasphemy law which came into force today by publishing a series of anti-religious quotations online and promising to fight the legislation in court.

The new law, which was passed in July, means that blasphemy in Ireland is now a crime punishable with a fine of up to €25,000 (£22,000).

It defines blasphemy as “publishing or uttering matter that is grossly abusive or insulting in relation to matters sacred by any religion, thereby intentionally causing outrage among a substantial number of adherents of that religion, with some defences permitted”....

But Atheist Ireland, a group that claims to represent the rights of atheists, responded to the new law by publishing 25 anti-religious quotations on its website, from figures including Richard Dawkins, Björk, Frank Zappa and the former Observer editor and Irish ex-minister Conor Cruise O’Brien.

Michael Nugent, the group’s chair, said that it would challenge the law through the courts if it were charged with blasphemy.

Nugent said: “This new law is both silly and dangerous. It is silly because medieval religious laws have no place in a modern secular republic, where the criminal law should protect people and not ideas. And it is dangerous because it incentives religious outrage, and because Islamic states led by Pakistan are already using the wording of this Irish law to promote new blasphemy laws at UN level.

Titanium just isn't that expensive.

I bought 22" of .25" round stock titanium on ebay for around $10 (including shipping).

I'm going to see if making a Ti firing pin actually helps a colt. "Probably not" is the expected verdict, but on the other hand "my python has a titanium firing pin" sounds cool.

So what can you do.

Just arrived: Emco V13

My "new" emco v13 got dropped off yesterday. It's the long bed version, so has a bigger footprint than the one it is replacing. It seems to be the last model they made: there's a boatload of different speeds (topping at 2,500) and has a couple switches my other one did not. As a bonus it came with a Royal 5c collet assembly.

In the spirit of the holidays,the freight company this time only bent the sheet metal on the back and break the cheap shelf underneath as opposed to ripping a bunch of rods and knobs off with a forklift. I have insurance so we'll see what happens.

There's a couple of negatives. One is that the bed seems more worn than my old one at least judging by the increased torque necessary when you move the carriage from the headstock towards the tail. On the flip side, it has much much less backlash.

The other downside is that there was a non-trivial amount of surface rust on the ways and industrial gunk in all sorts of other places. I've spent the last few hours cleaning all of this off with 0000 steel wool, wd40, and brake cleaner. I had to dump a few pieces in the ultrasonic cleaner.

This one came from a real shop rather than a tech school, so the above problems are not unexpected. Still.

The main challenge was that it was over 12" in the air when the freight guy left, so tonight I spent a bunch of time lowering it and putting it where it's supposed to be.

Here's the start, around 1,500lbs way up high:


First thing is to remove the lowest pallet using a couple of handy little car jacks I got from Kragen:


Then cut away a lot of the 4x4s and then put a way-too-enthusiastic amount of wood to hold up both ends:


Eventually lower an inch at a time all the way around (using a level so it didn't get too far out of wack):


Finally lower it onto a few bars:


And then push it into the right place: