Blackmoor Vituperative

I received a letter from the Henrico County police department today. I applied for a position as an Animal Control Officer, and the next step is to successfully complete a “physical agility” test. In order to qualify for that, I had to go to a doctor and have them check me over for a “statement of physical fitness”. I passed! Chubby and old I may be, but at least I am not about to drop over dead.

The next step is the “physical agility” test in April:

• Climb a six foot barrier
• Complete a one-quarter mile run/walk
• Jump a four foot culvert
• Dry-fire a police pistol
• Drag or carry a “human simulator” (a 155 pound weight)

The first four activities must be completed in three and a half minutes, while the human simulator drag has to be completed in under one minute.

I am pretty excited about this.

The SCO Group was dealt a serious, potentially fatal blow today in its courtroom battle against Linux. The jury in the trial between SCO and Novell has issued a verdict affirming that Novell is the rightful owner of the UNIX SVRX copyrights. This verdict will make it difficult for SCO to continue pursuing its baseless assault on the open source operating system.

(from SCO loses again: jury says Novell owns UNIX SVRX copyrights, Ars Technica)

Mwahahahahaha.

In a huge ruling, U.S. District Judge Robert Sweet has said that gene patents are invalid. As you may recall, last May, the ACLU was the first to finally challenge whether or not genes could be patented. There was a lot of back and forth over the case, with many saying that a ruling against gene patents would throw a wrench into the business plans of many companies, because so many biotech/medical companies have been relying on the idea that gene patents must be valid for so long. But just because many companies relied on a mistaken understanding of patent law, doesn’t mean that it should be allowed to continue. The judge made the point clear when it came to gene patents, saying that they:

“are directed to a law of nature and were therefore improperly granted.”

The case was brought against Myriad Genetics, who will surely appeal, so this is nowhere close to over. But it involved a test for breast cancer, that Myriad basically had a monopoly over — and the claim was that this not only made it more difficult for women to get tested, but it also greatly discouraged other research in the field. In part, this was because the patents that Myriad held were incredibly broad.

Patents, of course, are not supposed to be granted on things found in in nature — and it’s hard to argue against the idea that genes are found in nature. Supporters of gene patents often claim that they’re not really gene patents, but a patent on identifying the gene, which is a nice semantic game that the judge clearly saw through. This is a huge step forward for encouraging more real research into genetic testing, rather than locking up important information.

(from Judge: Gene Patents Are Invalid, TechDirt)

YES!

Patent system supporters regularly point (slightly misleadingly) to the claim that the patent system gives patent holders the right to exclude others from using their inventions. And, thus, most lawsuits we see around patents revolve around cases involving a company manufacturing a product that includes a patented invention. But what about a lawsuit for a company that deliberately chose not to license or use a patented technology, because it was too expensive?

Welcome to today’s world.

(from Tool maker loses lawsuit for not violating another company’s patents, TechDirt)

“Without patents, nobody would invent anything ever!”
“Without copyrights, nobody would create anything ever!”
“Without trademarks, nobody would name anything ever!”

“IP” stands for “imaginary privilege”.

At a press conference yesterday, researchers announced the completely unexpected: a Siberian cave has yielded evidence of an entirely unknown human relative that appears to have shared Asia with both modern humans and Neanderthals less than 50,000 years ago. The find comes courtesy of a single bone from individual’s hand. Lest you think that paleontologists are overinterpreting a tiny fragment, it wasn’t the shape of the bone that indicates the presence of a new species—it was the DNA that it contained.

(from Neither Neanderthal nor sapiens: new human relative IDed, Ars Technica)

Shooting fish in a barrel stops being easy when the fish can shoot back.

I decided to try my hand at turning a Nerf Maverick into a steampunk costume accessory. I made a lot of misteps with my first attempt, primarily by putting too many coats of paint on it. Here is how it went.

This is the Nerf Maverick as it comes out of the packaging. It doesn’t shoot more than about ten feet, but it’s a spiffy looking toy.

This is what it looks like on the inside of the frame. I have real pistols which are not this complicated.

This is the cylinder assembly, disassembled. Some people call this the “barrel”. That’s not correct. It’s the cylinder.

This is a portion of the cylinder assembly, with the air restrictors removed. To be perfectly frank, I saw no difference at all in the power of the toy after the air restrictors were removed.

The parts are washed and now drying.

Here the parts are primed, first with two lights coats of “plastic primer”, then with two lights coats of glossy black paint, then with two lights coats of stain black paint. In retrospect, this is four coats of paint too many. The “plastic primer”, in particular, is as thick as molasses, and I think the function of the toy was impaired by this.

I then painted some of the parts with glossy metallic chrome paint. This looked really spiffy, if not altogether steampunkish — a bit too shiny.

I misted the satin black with the metallic chrome, and this gave me a really neat effect. I call it “dark steel”. It’s more cyberpunk than steampunk, so I decided to paint over it with metallic brass paint (making the paint job even thicker), but it looked really neat, even though you can’t really see it in this photo.

Another coat of the metallic chrome on some parts, and another misting of the metallic chrome on the stain black slide. You can see the “dark steel” effect a bit better here.

Masking off the cylinder was the single most tedious part of this whole project.

Here the frame has been painted with the metallic brass, and everything has been given several coats of glossy clear lacquer (making the paint even thicker),and I am starting to reassemble it.

Here the cylinder has been assembled and inserted, and the frame is nearly reassembled. I had to take apart my other Nerf Maverick to see how to put everything back together, because there are a lot of very similar — but not identical — springs, and I was not sure which went where.

And here we are, all assembled and more or less functional. The failure to fire rate is something like 75%, which is horrible. I think it’s because the paint is so darn thick. Still, it’s not bad looking for a costume prop. I like most of this color scheme, and I think my “real” attempt will greatly benefit from what I learned on this prototype. For example, flat clearcoat on metallic chrome paint turns it plain old grey.

By the way, if you use lubricant, use silicone lubricant from an auto parts store. Vaseline, WD-40, etc. will eat the damage the plastic.

Public schools in the USA are to eduction as chicken factories are to farming.

If you love your children, do not make them eat a school lunch.

If you are installing Windows 7, or if you just got a new computer, there are a few things you should do before you start using it. Here they are.

1. Configure the Start Menu.
   • Right-click the Windows logo on the taskbar.
   • Select “Properties”.
   • On the “Start Menu” tab, click the “Customize” button.
   • Computer: display as a menu.
   • Connect to: not checked.
   • Control panel: display as a menu.
   • Default programs: not checked.
   • Devices and printers: not checked.
   • Documents: display as a menu.
   • Downloads: do not display this item.
   • Enable context menus: checked.
   • Favorites menu: not checked.
   • Games: do not display this item.
   • Help: not checked.
   • Highlight newly installed programs: not checked.
   • Homegroup: not checked.
   • Music: display as a menu.
   • Network: not checked.
   • Open submenus: checked.
   • Personal folder: do not display this item.
   • Pictures: display as a menu.
   • Recent items: checked.
   • Recorded TV: do not display this item.
   • Run command: checked.
   • Search other files: search with public folders.
   • Search programs: checked.
   • Sort All programs menu: checked.
   • System administrative tools: Don’t display this item.
   • Use large icons: checked.
   • Videos: Display as a menu.
2. Configure Windows Explorer.
   • Hide Libraries. (Or hide favorites, but you certainly do not need both.) (I changed my mind about this. I actually do use both.)
   • Make your local network a Work network (or just hide Homegroup).
   • Open Windows Explorer, click the “Organize” button, and select “Folder and Search options”.
     1. On the “General” tab…
     2. Show all folders: not checked
     3. Automatically expand: checked
     4. On the “View” tab…
     5. Always show icons: not checked.
     6. Always show menus: checked.
     7. Display file icon: checked.
     8. Display file size: checked.
     9. Display the full path: checked.
     10. Hidden files and folders: Don’t show (we will do something about this further down).
     11. Hide empty drives: not checked.
     12. Hide extensions: not checked (this is the most idiotic option ever).
     13. Hide protected OS files: not checked.
     14. Launch folder windows in a separate process: not checked.
     15. Restore previous folders: checked.
     16. Show drive letters: checked.
     17. Show encrypted: checked.
     18. Show pop-up: checked.
     19. Show preview handlers: checked.
     20. Use check boxes to select: not checked.
     21. Use Sharing Wizard: checked.
     22. When typing into list view: Select the typed item.
     23. Click the “Apply To Folders” button, and click OK.
3. Configure My Documents.
   • In Windows Explorer, navigate to “C:\Users\[your user name]”.
   • Right-click “My Documents”, and rename it to “Documents”.
   • Right-click “My Music”, and rename it to “Music”.
   • Right-click “My Pictures”, and rename it to “Images”.
   • Right-click “My Videos”, and rename it to “Videos”.
   • Drag and drop “Music” into the “Documents” folder.
   • Drag and drop “Pictures” into the “Documents” folder.
   • Drag and drop “Videos” into the “Documents” folder.
   • Drag and drop “Downloads” into the “Documents” folder.
4. Move the Taskbar to the left side of the screen. With a widescreen monitor (which any new computer will have), it makes much more sense to waste a small strip on the left than a strip that runs all the way across the bottom of the screen, making a narrow display area even narrower.
5. Install Classic Shell.
6. Install Toggle Hidden Files and assign a hotkey to it (I use “Windows+h”).
7. Show drive letters before the drive name.
8. Install Search Everything.
9. Install KeyTweak and remap the Caps Lock key to Left Shift.
10. Add a Take Ownership context menu to Windows Explorer.
11. Install Ditto clipboard manager.
12. Install AllSnap (the 64 bit version, if you are running 64-bit Windows). You must disable “Aero Snap” (which is useless) first!
13. If you use Photoshop, install FastPictureViewer Codec Pack
14. Remove the user folder from the Explorer navigation pane.

Now that you have done all of that, there are a few essential applications you should consider installing:

1. 7-Zip
2. Notepad++
3. Firefox You might also consider these addons:
   • bug 489729
   • Context Search
   • IE Tab V2
   • Lastpass
   • Tab Mix Plus
   • uBlock Origin
   • Xmarks (I synchronize bookmarks, but not passwords, and I turn Xmarks’ “Discovery” features off.)
4. Thunderbird with the calendar plugin (You might also consider linking Thunderbird’s address book and calendar to Google.)
5. Irfanview and the Irfanview plugins
6. OpenOffice LibreOffice
7. Avast! Free Antivirus (I eventually uninstalled this. It was just too much of a resource hog, even on a brand new computer.)
8. Copernic Desktop Search (I paid for the professional version. I think it’s worth it.) (I eventually uninstalled this. It was just too much of a resource hog, even on a brand new computer.)
9. SmartDefrag
10. Dexpot
11. Bulk Rename Utility
12. FontExpert (It costs money, but if you work with fonts a great deal, it is worth it.) When you put fonts into groups, make sure you create shortcuts, rather than copying the font files.
13. PeerBlock (Idon’t use this anymore. It interfered with games and I think the benefit is dubious.)
14. Install VistaSwitcher

In this blog post on infolawgroup.com, David Navetta takes a closer look at the PCI and encryption requirements of Nevada’s Security of Personal Information law, including the interplay between the PCI and encryption requirements, the scope of the obligations, potential problems/ambiguities in the law, and the applicability of a “safe harbor” for security breaches.