As much fun as carnival games look, they’re designed to steal your dollars, and not to award you that giant stuffed bear. Engineer Mark Rober is here to explore the math and physics behind carny scams, which are the biggest rip-offs, and a few ways to improve your chances.
Pair Eyewear, the Warby Parker for kids, launches today
In February of 2010, Warby Parker launched into the world and became a global brand and eventually a unicorn. And today, Pair Eyewear wants to do the same.
Pair, the brainchild of Sophia Edelstein and Nathan Kondamuri, wants to be the Warby Parker for children, giving kids and parents a way to affordably shop for glasses online. But Pair takes it one step further with customizable frames, letting kids continually change up their look.
Today at launch, Pair is going live with five base frames (the original frame you’ve come to recognize with glasses) and 10 top frames (a clip-on customization) for every base frame, bringing them to a total of 50 top frames.
Right now, the market is dominated by a single player, Luxottica, which makes and sells glasses for brands like Oakley, Ray-Ban, Chanel, and owns retailers like Sunglass Hut and Lens Crafters. According to Edelstein, the markup for these glasses is around 3x to 5x, meaning that parents could pay around $400 for just a base level pair of glasses for their child.
“I started wearing glasses when I was eight, and I’ve worn them my whole life,” said cofounder Nathan Kondamuri. “As a kid, you don’t know what glasses are and yet you’re being forced to wear them. It feels like a medical device.”
Pair wants to change that by making glasses fun for kids, letting them change up their look on a whim to suit that day’s mood.
Base frames, which include hand-polished acetate frames and anti-reflective, shatterproof polycarbonate lenses, cost $125 and include one top frame. Extra top frames can be purchased for $25.
Like Warby Parker, Pair realized that selling glasses online means creating a way for users to try on the glasses at home. So the company has set up a way for kids/parents to ‘try on’ cardboard cutouts of the frames and top frames that they like, which they can then keep. This also means that parents don’t have to ship back frames they don’t want.
And, again, following in the footsteps of Warby Parker, Pair is dedicated to social good, running a buy one, give one program through EYElliance, a non-profit founded by the Vision Spring founder Dr. Jordan Kassalow, which is focused on vision care for young people.
Thus far, the company has raised $125K in seed funding from Creative International Concept and angel investors such as Ullas Naik and Stefan Kennedy.
While the initial product offering is akin to Warby Parker, only time will tell if Pair, which launches today, will have the same long-term success.
via TechCrunch
Pair Eyewear, the Warby Parker for kids, launches today
Concealment Express: Quality Kydex IWB Holsters Delivered Fast
(sponsored post)
For years now, the fastest growing segment of the handgun market has been pistols designed for every day concealed carry. Finding the right gun for you is a matter of striking the right balance between capacity, stopping power and concealability.
Once you decide on the right gun for your particular needs, the next item on your concealed carry to-do list: choose the right holster. The good news is that Concealment Express has exactly what you need. You’ll want a rig that provides low-profile concealment, superior construction, top notch materials and a comfortable fit. Concealment Express builds all of that and more into each inside-the-waistband Kydex holster they make.
Concealment Express offers gun owners quality, U.S.-made concealed carry holsters at a fair price without the usual wait and hassle. While some companies take as long as four to six weeks to ship their holsters, Concealment Express custom builds their IWB holsters and ships them out the next business day.
Whether you choose Concealment Express’s standard IWB holster or their stealthier tuckable model for added concealment and versatility, you’re getting a hand-crafted rig made of top quality components and first rate Kydex that’s beautifully finished.
All of Concealment Express’s Kydex holsters are custom molded and feature easy adjustment for the exact degree of cant (carry angle) you want and just the right level of retention for your pistol. You won’t find a better IWB concealed carry holster for the money.
Finally, you’ll need a secure, comfortable way to carry your holster. Fortunately, Concealment express has you covered there, too.
You can’t rely on a weak, floppy department store belt for a job as important as comfortably supporting your concealed carry gun all day long. You need the right tool for the job. That’s why Concealment Express’s Ultimate Concealed Carry Leather Gun Belt is made of 100% premium full grain leather that won’t stretch out or sag. It features steel hardware and, best of all, it’s made right here in the USA.
For more information on models and guns or to find out how to order a Concealment Express custom Kydex holster, check out their website.
via The Truth About Guns
Concealment Express: Quality Kydex IWB Holsters Delivered Fast
Gun Review: Smith & Wesson M&P9 M2.0 Compact
Aside from the M&P Shield, Ive never been a fan of M&P pistols. I was continually surprised to see knowledgeable shooters compete with M&P’s — but not surprised that they’d changed the grip, sights, trigger and barrel. And then I shot the new full-sized Smith & Wesson M&P9 M2.0 featured in RF’s recent review. For all intents and purposes it’s a different gun. A better gun. Is the Smith & Wesson M&P9 2.0 Compact as good?
The M2.0 Compact isn’t another GLOCK “generation” with little more than cosmetic changes (OMG Becky front serrations!). While Smith gave their GLOCK 19-sized M&P an aesthetic upgrade, they addressed all the major ergonomic and functional “issues” that hamstrung their handgun. First and foremost: the grip.
A lot of people complain about the GLOCK’s shooting angle; its “unnatural” point-of-aim. But you can train yourself to acclimatize to its “quirks.” What the naysayers neglect to mention: the shape and texture of the GLOCK’s handle. How a handgun feels in your hand, how secure it is, has an enormous impact on your speed and accuracy.
The new Smith & Wesson M&P9 M2.0 Compact’s handle is perfectly comfortable and extremely grippy. It helps make the Compact a true hand-gun (singular). Thanks to the pistol’s geometry — low bore axis and all — and the grip’s simple shape and texture, you can get a rock-solid hold in single-handed fast-as-you-can-pull-the-trigger fire.
Comparing the Smith & Wesson M&P9 M2.0 Compact head-to-head with the GLOCK Gen 5 G19 — as everyone will — the Smith’s superior ergonomics are never in doubt. In fact, I can’t think of any current striker-fired pistol with such a great human-to-firearm interface. [Unlike the full-size version RF reviewed, our T&E gun had no external safety. I’d prefer one. If you do too, Smith makes ’em.]
Bonus! The M&P9 M2.0 Compact’s slide is easy to manipulate on the frame — which was a little surprising considering the gun’s minimal recoil. Again, a bit of mass on top of great geometry carries the day.
The Compact’s sights are bright white traditional 3-dot style, well suited for a tactical pistol. This rear sight on this version has a slight vertical angle on the rear sight, but it’s fairly smooth and doesn’t catch on a pocket or my belt for one-handed slide manipulation. As of this writing, S&W doesn’t offer a tritium night sight for the M2.0 Compact, as they do for the M2.0 Shield. I hope they add that option and fit a much more vertical notch on the rear slide, instead of the Shield’s ramp-style rear sight.
One of the few places without improvement: the Compact’s magazine well. There’s no flaring, enlarging or funneling. Reloading problems are a thing; any miss and the magazine will catch on one of the handle’s angles, slowing you down. A slightly flared and funneled mag well wouldn’t have created any additional bulk, and would’ve helped blind magazine insertion. It took them a few decades, but even GLOCK learned to funnel and flare their magazine well (that’s the G19 Gen 5 on the bottom in the photo above).
For everyday carry, the Compact’s dimensions are much more friendly than the full-size version. That’s from a guy who thinks the GLOCK 19 is the perfect size pistol. If you like the G19’s dimensions, you can keep the G19’s dimensions. As you can see above, the M2.0 Compact and the G19 Gen 5 are virtually identical in size.
The S&W Compact’s fairly narrow frame conceals easily while providing enough sight radius and hand purchase for fast, accurate fire. I ran the Bill Wilson 5X5 test quite a few times with the M2.0 Compact. I’ve never quite broken 20 seconds with a gun I’ve never shot before, but I consistently got close with the Smith. A lot of that has to do with the Compact’s new trigger.
Lest we forget, the original M&P’s trigger was widely regarded as the worst of any in a modern striker-fired pistol. So the M2.0’s “vastly improved” trigger arrived with low expectations. Talk about a reversal of fortune; the M2.0’s trigger sets a new standard, only equaled by the Walther PPQ.
The M&P9 M2.0 Compact’s trigger breaks at a little over five pounds, with a smooth pull and very little grit or stack. Like the full-size version, the new trigger is both a huge improvement and something of a disappointment. The trigger shoe is the issue. It’s simply too tightly curved and doesn’t allow comfortable finger placement. Nor does it give you many options on where you put your finger.
Because of the fairly small grip and my not small hands, I had to pull my trigger finger out of the trigger well to get any kind of consistent trigger pull. That left most of my finger outside the well, with only the last half of the tip of my trigger finger on the actual shoe. The pistol ships with no fewer than four backstraps. Swapping the standard backstrap for the largest one helped a bit. But a less extreme curvature of the trigger would have helped a lot.
If this were my only gun, as much as I appreciate the Compact’s new go pedal, I’d still fit the pistol with an aftermarket trigger. But I shoot a lot of different guns, so I can’t train on a single platform. If this was my EDC, and especially if it was my duty gun, I’d leave the factory trigger alone and let consistent training do its job. Bottom line: unlike the original M&P, an aftermarket trigger on the M2.0 is a nice-to-have, not a have-to-have.
As usual, after an initial lube of the gun, I never cleaned, lubed or disassembled the Smith & Wesson M&P9 M2.0 Compact. I shot over 500 rounds including IMI Di-Cut cartridges, FMJs and hollow points from various brands, in grains from 115 to 147. There were no problems of any kind at any time. Magazines always inserted securely and dropped with authority. I had no issues returning to battery with any round regardless of my grip.
The Smith & Wesson M&P9 M2.0 Compact presents the same problem I have with a lot of compact polymer pistols: my thumb tends to rest on top of the slide release, no matter what I do. I can’t bring my thumb lower in a two-handed grip because my other hand is there. I can’t bring my thumb higher because that’s where the slide is. And allowing my thumb to float above the slide is a bad idea on a lot of levels (so to speak).
Like the GLOCK 19 and the SIG SAUER P229, I just have to accept the fact that my thumb inadvertently presses the Smith & Wesson M&P9 M2.0’s slide release, causing intermittent failures of the slide-to-lock back on an empty magazine. I can live with that.
Disassembly remains as simple as it can be, but Suzie Safeties note: you will have to pull the trigger to get the slide to release from the frame. As always, make sure the gun is completely unloaded prior to attempting to disassemble the firearm.
After my trigger time with the full-sized Smith & Wesson M&P9 M2.0, I was looking forward to shooting the Compact version, mostly because I liked the full-sized M2.0, but I’m not really looking for a gun that can double as a diving board. I wasn’t surprised with how well its smaller sibling handled recoil. The Compact is a fast, flat-shooting gun that barely moves in my hand.
Shooting of a bench, the M2.0 Compact’s accuracy was very good, not stellar. Firing at 25 yards off a bag, I shot two to 2 1/2″ five round groups. The IMI 115gr Di-Cut round printed at 2 1/2″, as did other rounds of the same weight.
I was expecting the M2.0 Compact to replicate the full-size M2.0’s distaste for heavier grain bullets, but the Cap Arms 147 grain FMJ was my best scoring round, averaging a 2″ group. This is a particularly soft-shooting round, an oddity amongst the heavier grained 9mms. What this pistol didn’t like: any of the other 147gr rounds or 124gr+P rounds I put through it, all of which shot closer to the 3-inch mark.
Smith & Wesson have created (recreated?) an American-designed, American-made gun that competes with anything in its class. This is a great firearm that would be a good value at a higher price. I don’t know if large police departments who’ve bought GLOCKs and SIGs for decades would make the switch to Smith, but they’d be fools not to consider it. As would you.
Specifications: Smith and Wesson M&P9 2.0 Compact
Caliber: 9mm
Capacity: 15+1
Barrel Length: 4″
Overall Length: 7.3″
Front Sight: Steel – White Dot
Rear Sight: Steel – White Two Dot
Action: Striker Fire
Weight: 24.0 oz
Barrel Material: Stainless Steel – Armornite® Finish
Slide Material: Stainless Steel – Armornite® Finish
Frame Material: Polymer
MSRP: $569.00
Ratings (out of five stars):
Style and Appearance * * * *
I don’t particularly dig the look of any of the modern polymer pistols, but this one at least has some style to it, with matching slide cuts front and back.
Customization * * * * *
Backwards compatible with the aftermarket options available on the original, and multiple palm swells as well as magazine base plates are included. There’s not much you can’t do to this gun.
Reliability * * * * *
Perfection.
Accuracy * * * *
It didn’t drop below the 2-inch mark, but it hovered right there. For five-round groups at 25 yards with a couple of different weights and a wide range of brands, that’s good performance in a firearm of this size.
Overall * * * *
This is a great value on an American-made pistol. I’d carry it any day and be very confident in it’s performance. Smith and Wesson paid attention, and stepped up big time. The lack of renewed attention to the magazine well, no factory option for night sights (yet) and a less-than-perfect trigger geometry keep this gun out of the five star category.
via The Truth About Guns
Gun Review: Smith & Wesson M&P9 M2.0 Compact
Robots in disguise
Some faves are problematic; others are merely embarrassing. 1986’s Transformers: The Movie may be both, but leans towards the latter.
You have to fit into a very narrow generational window to love this movie. It was really for late Gen X/early millennial cuspers, with a little bit of a hangover into millennials proper because of home video. But for the most part, if you’re a little bit older or younger, you’re either completely baffled by this cartoon or mildly surprised that it isn’t total crap.
I saw this film in the theater with my two brothers, one older and one younger. My mom and older sister saw Ferris Bueller’s Day Off down the hall. None of us had any idea what we were in for. I would contend that of the two films, Transformers should have PG-13. Mild scatological humor is no match for beloved toys cursing and slaughtering each other.
As kids who loved the TV cartoon, we were literally invested in these characters. To the extent that a child can have net worth, a huge percentage of it was tied up in these toys, and the characters they represented. Here they are getting killed off right and left — ominous smoke pouring forth from their mouths, my god — and all Megatron can say is “that was almost too easy.”
The best analogy I can think of is this: suppose you’ve read the first three or four Harry Potter books. Those are all that’s available. You hear that there’s going to be a Harry Potter movie. But instead of a film version of the books you love, the movie busts right into the story from books 5, 6, and 7. You jump forward in time to a creeping totalitarian state, beloved characters are getting killed off right and left by Voldemort and his Death Eaters, and BAM! A half hour into the movie, Dumbledore is disarmed and blasted out of the tower.
You’re six years old, and you watch your Dumbledore die with Reese’s Pieces in your hand. Only instead of a wizard you read about in a book, he’s a robot that turns into a truck, and you have to go over your friend Davey’s house to play with him because he’s too expensive.
Then instead of a big funeral, you blast into outer space for another hour of heavy-metal soundtrack movie. More deaths. More metamorphoses. Planet-devouring robots. Cars who say “shit” and “god damn it.” “Dare To Be Stupid.”
On top of that, unlike Dumbledore’s underwhelming death in the film version of The Half-Blood Prince, the scene where Optimus Prime is killed is totally amazing.
I mean, that is almost Luke vs. Vader and the Emperor in Jedi good.
The problem with Transformers: The Movie (besides all of the problems with the movie and all the movies and TV shows that came after it) is really the toys. The whole show is designed to sell the toys. All the character deaths, the new generation introduced in the movie, and the magnificent decision to send the Autobots and Decepticons into exile in uncharted space, are all decisions made to create a market for more goddamned toys.
The toys, our physical proximity to them, the ability to shape and change them, and the ways we use them to play out narratives, are the mechanism for our affection. But they’re also intentionally disposable. It’s as far from respectable art in the traditional sense as it gets.
MovieBob’s Bob Chipman has a terrific video about this problem, specifically as it relates to Transformers: The Movie.
TL:DR — the decision to kill off most of the established characters actually forces the movie to make some compelling artistic choices. It’s a war movie where the generals and top lieutenants are killed off immediately, forcing a raw younger generation to make their own choices and mistakes. This in turn resonates with aging kids who’ve parents die and split up, who have either already faced or will soon face their own traumas.
The movie’s message — terrible things will happen, not everyone will make it intact, but you can find a way to go on — becomes a resource kids draw on as they grow up. Again, very similar to Harry Potter: just for us folks who were a little too old to catch the book before our childhoods ended.
Robin Sloan is a novelist, blogger, and media inventor. He’s also like three weeks younger than I am and grew up about three miles away. Unsurprisingly, he and I had very similar reactions to Transformers: The Movie.
I mean maybe it’s cliched to say this, or impossible with any credibility, but I’m pretty sure that movie was the most emotional experience of my life inside a movie theater? I can’t remember the whole experience with total clarity, but I do remember which friend I saw it with; I also remember my initial confusion — it didn’t announce its time-shift, so any young fan of the TV cartoon was initially like, “Wait… what?” — and, of course, THE DEATH OF OPTIMUS PRIME. What do you even say? Biblical, Shakespearean, and totally sci-fi, all at once. Megaton-scale. I wonder if the people who made the movie even understood what they were doing, what impact it would have.
Looking at it as an adult today. I think the movie is astonishing. Even for all its flaws, all the rough edges in its animation, sound, script, it just does *so much more than it had to*, particularly for a movie of that kind, of that time. The scale of it… I mean have there even BEEN any other movies with planet-sized robots? Has anyone else even DARED?
Maybe that’s what makes a movie — or any piece of media? — seem special: the sense that it isn’t merely “made to spec” but rather the special product of a confluence of people who cared, for one reason or another — and with a big dollop of weird luck thrown in, always — who made something sui generis. If Transformers: The Movie belongs in any category, it’s that one: Fully Its Own Thing.
Finally: the voice acting, including Orson freaking Welles, is outstanding.
My Brain Refuses to Believe These Domino Tricks Are Real
GIF
It’s certainly impressive when someone spends an entire week stacking dominoes, but watching them fall over for half an hour gets a little dull after the first few minutes. So domino masters Hevesh5 and Kaplamino teamed up to create a series of seemingly impossible domino tricks that are far more impressive than any Guinness World Record attempt.
GIF
Gravity is still the main power source for most of these tricks, but at other times a slight breeze or the subtle vibrations from a domino toppling to the floor is all that’s needed to keep a chain going. Hopefully this video inspires other domino stackers to stop chasing word records, and instead put more thought into their domino runs, because I could watch these for hours.
[YouTube via The Awesomer]
via Gizmodo
My Brain Refuses to Believe These Domino Tricks Are Real
5 things no one tells you about starting a startup
Startup sign with road background. (Photo via Bigstock)
[This guest commentary is by Avni Patel Thompson, founder and CEO of Poppy.]
There are things that I wish I had known before I had started my startups. Not because it would have changed my mind, but because I would have been prepared for them and I wouldn’t have obsessed over them.
Poppy founder Avni Patel Thompson.
Not the obvious, ambiguous things like — “It’s the hardest thing you’ve ever done” or “It’s the most rewarding.” The non-obvious, the in-the-trenches truths.
There are many, and everyone’s experience is different, but here are the five that I had wished I’d had a better sense of because they’re the ones that better capture the essence of being a founder on a daily basis:
1. You’ll have to find a different level of belief in self.
Startups are not about products. They’re about wills. The will of one person or a team to do what everyone says can’t be done. To keep going. To find the source of faith, belief, inspiration that will create a bubble over your team to do the hard work. But it also means it’s your job to venture outside of the bubble every so often to make sure you haven’t drank your own Kool-aid too much and you’re now ignoring important realities. Talking to your users regularly solves that pretty easily. So be prepared to become your own cheerleader and your own worst critic – no one can do that for you.
2. You will wake up every morning terrified that this is the day everything will unravel.
Every day your mind wants to tell you all the ways that you don’t know what you’re doing. Just like athletes, your job becomes increasingly about managing your mental game. About funneling all your energies into what you can control. Which is your attitude, your focus, your willingness to talk to your customers relentlessly, to suspend disbelief while you do the work. You’ll have to actively shut the down the thoughts that try to crowd in at 3 a.m. by literally telling yourself you’re not allowed to think about this until your first cup of coffee.
Startups are not about products. They’re about wills. The will of one person or a team to do what everyone says can’t be done.
3. You’ll never be fully present.
This is the one that I most wish someone had warned me about. Being a founder means you’ve gotten obsessed by a complex, seemingly impossible problem. Which means you spend of your waking and many of your “sleeping” hours thinking about the problem, your team, the company, your competitors…. the list is endless, the thinking unending. So much so that it takes immense amounts of effort to constantly pull yourself back into the present — with your kids, your spouse, your friends. Essentially the most important people in your life, for whom you can start to feel distant and unengaged. When really, you’ve just fallen in love — with something that can’t be always ‘dimensionalized ‘or verbalized. It will be your job to adjust. To help your loved ones understand your obsession, but then also learn to set it aside so you don’t forsake your most important relationships.
4. Your team is the source of your strength.
If you’re lucky, you’ll have a partner or two in starting your venture. If not, you’ll need to get on building your team quickly. But not just anyone. And not just people who are smart — those are actually a dime a dozen. You need to find the grittiest, the most loyal ones. The smart ones with the heart and the will. It’s a tall order but you have to do it. Because these are the people that will see you at your best and very worst — when you’re erratic and anxious and frankly, a bit nuts. They’re also the ones that will know to just hold the boat steady and keep going to buy you the time to pull your s$%# together and focus again on point the ship in the right direction. Your team is your strength. Never forget that.
5. Your heart will feel emotions for your work that you have only otherwise felt for your partner or your kids.
In the same way that language fails to really capture the feeling of your daughter’s hand in yours as she skips down the street or when you sit hip to hip with your spouse on the couch after a long day, quiet but content, language fails to communicate the highs and lows of starting a startup. I don’t think finding the words are necessary. Just know that you’ll feel feelings about your work that you never thought were possible — both joyful and devastating. Embrace them all.
Like startups, these are complex topics – neither all positive or negative. But I believe that we can make starting startups more accessible the more we can have the honest discussions of what it’s really like.
How about you? What do you wish you had known before starting your startup, launching your business or embarking on your creative project?
via GeekWire
5 things no one tells you about starting a startup
Drawing A Pistol From Concealment, Part 2: Re-holstering And Apparel Choices
Note: This article was originally posted on NRA Blog
EDITOR’S NOTE: This is part two of a two-part series. To learn how to draw your pistol from concealment safely and effectively, read Part 1 by clicking here.
USA -(Ammoland.com)- Nothing is more important than firearm safety, and for that reason we’ll first revisit the NRA Gun Safety Rules. While training, especially for novices, I recommend using an unloaded firearm on the range or other prescribed shooting area. Never practice drawing from concealment in a public space, even with an unloaded firearm. Also, always be aware of your surroundings, and never point the firearm in an unsafe manner. Keep your muzzle downrange at approved targets only, even if you’re not pulling the trigger. Before holstering, check to ensure your gun is unloaded, and keep it unloaded throughout the exercise.
At this point, you’ve drawn your firearm and put sights on a target. If using an unloaded firearm and following the gun safety rules, you have either simulated a trigger pull or “dry fired” your gun, completed your post shooting ritual (i.e., follow target to the ground, immediate scan, deep scan, reload, press check, de-cock, or re-engage mechanical safety), and are ready to place the pistol back into the holster.
To learn the holstering process you need to learn this mindset first; therefore, we will do it together as a chant.
“Reluctantly re-holster, reluctantly re-holster, reluctantly re-holster… Amen.”
There will never be a contest on the planet to see who can get their gun back in the holster the fastest. You also don’t want to create bad habits of putting the gun away too quickly. There may be instances where threats are not neutralized by your initial shots, and additional threats may remain imminent. Therefore, don’t be so quick to put the gun away. In addition, this will provide an opportunity to feel any sort of irregular resistance that can be caused by clothing or other obstruction that could create a hazard.
Now that you understand that you need to “reluctantly re-holster,” the process of re-holstering is a reverse from the draw stroke. Your support hand should come back to your chest, preventing you from pointing a gun at your own hand when you start moving the gun back to the holster. The hand holding the gun should then insert the gun back into the holster.
Before you start pushing into your holster, rest your thumb on the back of slide or the hammer for both safety purposes and to ensure proper seating in your holster. If you are using a holster that features retention straps to retain the gun, you need to go around the holster and start the holstering process with the muzzle of the gun entering the holster from behind the straps.Once the gun is securely in the holster, then secure your straps.
Once you are able to do this from an open-carry position safely, you can begin donning garments to conceal the gun. There are basically two types of garments covering the pistol: an open-front (i.e., unbuttoned shirt), or a closed-front (i.e., buttoned up shirt, sweat shirt, untucked t-shirt). Many people who use open front garments will sew weights into the bottom of the shirt, so that when the hand sweeps the garment , the weights carry the garment away, clearing a path for your grip to the pistol. If the open front concealment garment is a jacket, adding items to front pockets, such as keys, will accomplish the same thing.
There are numerous techniques you can use to clear the garment away; I’ll cover three. One method consists of hooking the garment with the bottom two fingers of the shooting hand. Another technique entails making your shooting hand flat — known in military circles as the “knife hand” — and sweeping the garment out of the way.
The third technique, of which I am most comfortable, is a claw-type technique, or what I like to refer to as the “Indiana Jones Temple of Doom Kalima” technique. The tips of all the fingers (including the thumb) press into the center of the chest, sweeping the garment out of the way. Try all these and see which consistently works best for you to move the garment out of the way and give you the best position on your gun.
Closed-front shirts need to be lifted from the bottom out of the way to access the gun. Most people that decide to carry this way tend to ditch the undershirt, as it may get caught up in the draw stroke. When possible, both hands should to do the lifting. Special note for those that appendix-carry: you will need to lift your shirt high to the chest with the support hand.
Body structure and the potential restrictiveness of the clothing will dictate where one grasps to start the lift. With my particular build, I lift from the center with my support side hand. Smaller-framed individuals with more flexibility are likely able to reach a little farther across their body where their gun sits in the holster to lift the clothing with the support hand.
Professional shooter Karie Thomas shared the following tip for women: “Ladies, you may want to consider a camisole to wear underneath the closed front garment that you can tuck into your pants when practicing this on the range. This way you will not be exposing your sides, stomach, and other areas you would like to keep private. If you typically do not wear an under camisole in public, then you will need to practice this dry in your home without the camisole.”
A base layer or “second skin”-type athletic shirt may also accomplish the same effect as a camisole. Remember, you need to lift the clothing high enough so the gun can clear the holster. Rule of thumb: lift, then lift it more, just to be sure. Once you’re able to clear the garment, go back and start applying the draw stroke techniques mentioned in the beginning when you started out “running slick.”
If any of these concepts seem foreign or unfamiliar to you, or you feel you’re not ready to train on your own, consider enrolling in a training course! Find an NRA Training course taught by NRA Certified Instructors in your area by visiting http://ift.tt/1DsWr9e. For those that have taken fundamental training or have baseline knowledge, consider training at the next level by enrolling in an NRA Personal Protection In or Outside the Home course. Lastly, for those ready to learn advanced concealed carry and self-defense principles, enroll in NRA Carry Guard Level 1 training. Good luck, and safe training!
This post Drawing A Pistol From Concealment, Part 2: Re-holstering And Apparel Choices appeared first on AmmoLand.com Shooting Sports News .
via AmmoLand.com Shooting Sports News
Drawing A Pistol From Concealment, Part 2: Re-holstering And Apparel Choices
Steven Crowder Asks College Students to Change His Mind About Guns [VIDEO]
Cognitive dissonance is a a fascinating thing to behold. Steven Crowder’s latest project in guerrilla social experimentation was to set up a table on a Texas university campus and ask passers by to change his mind about guns and his support of Second Amendment rights. Polite, sometimes rational conversation ensued.
But not before revealing more than a little misinformation and a few contradictions. Take, for example, the woman who believes that we have a police brutality problem in this country, but wants to cede her right to carry a gun and the responsibility for her personal defense to…you guessed it…the police. Or the gentleman who thinks that violent people (and we’ll know they’re violent because they will have undergone a psych evaluation) should be restricted to handgun ownership.
Crowder keeps it all very erudite and entertaining, not to mention civil. That is, until a few campus police officers roll up and apparently put a stop to the whole thing (we’d guess Crowder didn’t bother asking the school’s administration for permission in advance). Because the last place you’d want to conduct a polite, intelligent conversation about a controversial topic these days is at an institution of higher learning.
Here’s the video:
via The Truth About Guns
Steven Crowder Asks College Students to Change His Mind About Guns [VIDEO]
Here’s Why Engine Oil Filters Are So Fascinating
On a shelf in my garage sits a truly shocking collection of oil filters, including those for cars I don’t even own. I’m not sure I have a good explanation for my obsession, other than simply that oil filters are beautiful contraptions. Here’s why.
Before you judge me, hear me out on this—oil filters are far cooler than I bet you ever thought. There’s a crap ton of variation between brands on things like gasket material, anti drain-back valve material, media material, spring type, end-cap material, and pleating number. I think I’ve probably spent a hundred hours watching oil filter tear downs (like the one below) on YouTube.
But it’s important stuff! You can’t have small dirt particles getting caught between bearing surfaces; that’ll destroy your engine in no-time. The oil filter plays a huge role in keeping your engine from croaking after, for example, sand from a leaky air induction system gets into your precious crankcase.
How Oil Filters Work
Your engine’s oil pump pushes oil into the filter—which is sealed to your engine’s oil filter housing with a square-section round ring like the one shown below—through a number of radial holes in the filter’s metal “base plate.” The pressure generated by that pump is enough to push an anti-drainback valve—which sits just on the other side of the base plate—out of the way, at which point oil can enter the filter.
Once in the filter, the oil surrounds a cartridge, which consists of a usually-metal center tube surrounded by cellulose-based or synthetic pleated fibers, sealed off by metal, plastic or fiber end-caps. Once oil has passed through the base plate holes, through the anti drainback valve, and has surrounded the filter element, it passes through the pleated medium, through the holes in the center tube (shown below), and back up through the exit at the top of the filter.
The two most interesting parts of an oil filter are the anti-drainback valve and the bypass valve. The anti-drainback valve, shown below, makes sure the filter traps oil when the engine isn’t running. It’s essentially a nitrile or silicone one-way check-valve that prevents oil in a filter—particularly one that’s mounted sideways or upside-down—from flowing back into the sump. This means, when you come to start your engine back up, you’ll get instant oil pressure to lubricate your parts (i.e. you won’t risk a “dry start”).
The second interesting valve is the bypass valve, or release valve, whose job it is to allow oil to bypass the filter cartridge, flowing unencumbered by the filtration material. The point, here, is to ensure that high oil filter pressures—like those that might occur if the filter element has reached its capacity (like if it’s been left on a car for too long, and has clogged with dirt) or if the oil’s viscosity is too high (especially in cold conditions)—can open up a valve to allow for adequate engine lubrication under all conditions.
GIF
Also inside an oil filter are leaf or coil springs (that’s a leaf spring below, while the schematic at the top of this section shows a coil). Those springs simply act to push the cartridge up against the anti-drainback valve.
Another important thing to mention is the efficiency rating that you see on oil filter boxes (like the one shown below). That efficiency rating is simply a measure of the percentage of ~20-micron dirt particles that the filter can capture over a certain duration. You can read more about that efficiency test, called ISO 4548-12 (which is 86 minutes in total and requires both up-stream and down-stream particle counting), test here.
So those are the technical reasons why I’m so into oil filters. But there’s also a much less scientific justification: I just think they look fantastic. I mean, look at this classic Purolator red metal filter; it’s gorgeous!
If you’re yearning to learn more about how filters work, and how they’re made, Fram has two great videos on the topic on YouTube. Here they are:
And the sequel:
Surely I’ve convinced you that my oil filter thing isn’t that weird? No? Dammit.