Nuffing.com

via MakeUseOf.com
The Best 6 Sites to Get Free Ebooks

Link

An old segment from How It’s Made which shows how a steel rod is gradually made thinner and thinner, then run through a metal shaving machine, and woven together to transform it into the scrubby cleaning material we’re familiar with.

via The Awesomer
How Steel Wool Is Made

Usually the chassis of a silencer is wasted space. No sights, no lasers, nothing but a chamber designed to contain and cool expanding gasses before they’re released from the muzzle….

The post Silencer Review: Alpha Dog Silencer appeared first on The Truth About Guns.

via The Truth About Guns
Silencer Review: Alpha Dog Silencer

By David Codrea

USA – -(Ammoland.com)- Lessons learned from one man’s struggle to challenge a gun purchase denial from the National Instant Check System give insights into how difficult it can be for a citizen to clear his name once the government has decided he’s a “prohibited person.” Fortunately, an Anchorage medical professional and “avid gun collector” [name withheld at his request] had the savvy, the wherewithal and the persistence to successfully fight a bureaucratic denial of his right to arms.

A former U.S. Army officer with a clean record that includes not so much as a speeding ticket in the past 10 years, albeit with one inadvertent self-reported fish and game violation in 2004, the doctor attempted to purchase a rifle at Cabela’s in Anchorage Alaska in early November. His first background check was delayed and then it was denied a few days later.

As an aside, the doctor says he has purchased many firearms over the last decade with no trouble. He immediately filed an appeal letter online and after multiple tries at trying to reach a live human, got a recording saying FBI was currently evaluating appeals from August 2015, putting them one year and three months behind even looking at his appeal.

“This was unreasonable,” he noted with extreme understatement, “so I created a plan to expedite my appeal. I immediately filled out my appeal online when I received the denial.

“I contacted my congressman, Don Young, and his office sent a congressional inquiry to the FBI NICS,” the doctor continued. “And I completed my concealed carry course and turned in all the needed information to the background evaluation officer at the Alaska State Troopers. This agent evaluates your finger prints and other data to determine if you are eligible for your CCW permit. This agent also communicates with the FBI NICS.

“I sent another copy of my finger prints to NICS for evaluation,” he concluded. The end result was that the denial was overturned. The process took about four weeks vs. a year-and-a-half, but it required significant effort on my part.”

And the reason for the initial denial, for withholding a fundamental right for an undetermined period and without due process, and for making a citizen go through extraordinary measures, including recruiting the assistance of a United States Congressman in order to not get hung out to dry by a bureaucratic snafu?

“The fingerprints you submitted are not identical with those in a record used in the evaluation of your attempt to possess or receive a firearm,” a weasel-worded Department of Justice attempt at excuse-making without admitting fault (or heaven forbid apologizing for rejecting the wrong guy) offered as justification. “Based on further review and investigation, we have been able to determine you are eligible to possess or receive a firearm. The FBI Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division’s NICS Section Firearm Appeal Certificate is enclosed.

“If more than 30 days have elapsed since the initial background check, the FBI must recheck the NICS before allowing the firearm transfer,” the letter warned.

They had.

Reading about how bureaucratically rigid and wrong the government can be may make for forehead-slapping and head-shaking, but to a person trapped in their errors, it’s no laughing matter.  As Martin Luther King Jr. observed, “A right delayed is a right denied,” and that’s not supposed to happen under our Constitution without due process.

Researcher John Lott has documented the preponderance of “false positives” in his warnings against Brady background checks. That’s also a real danger in the latest bit of “bipartisan” rights denial being pushed under the “No Fly/No Buy” slogan. And it shows yet another downside to the Bloomberg “background check” mandates designed to end all private sales plus establish identifying data needed for a registration system (“Effectiveness depends on the ability to reduce straw purchasing, requiring gun registration…” — National Institute of Justice).

As noted, had this doctor been a person of lesser drive, someone who did not know how to go about righting a wrong and staying with it to completion, he’d still be in limbo. And there’s no guarantee the bureaucrats would make things right when they finally got around to trying to undo the sloppy work that led to the denial in the first place.

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating / defending the RKBA and a long-time gun rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament.

In addition to being a field editor/columnist at GUNS Magazine and associate editor for Oath Keepers, he blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.

This post Citizen Persistence after NICS Gun Purchase Block Results in Overturn of Denial appeared first on AmmoLand.com Shooting Sports News .

via AmmoLand.com Shooting Sports News
Citizen Persistence after NICS Gun Purchase Block Results in Overturn of Denial

via TechCrunch
Siren Care weaves electronics into fabric to keep diabetic patients healthy

MySQL has had a JSON data type since version 5.7 was released way back in ’15. But did you know you could produce JSON output from non-JSON columns? It is very simple and saves a lot of time over trying to format it in your application.

World Database

We will be using the good old World database that MySQL has used for years in documentation, examples, and in the classroom. Starting with a simple query we will build up to something more complex.

SELECT Name, District, Population FROM City;

This will output the data from the table in a tabular format.

'Kabul', 'Kabol', '1780000'
'Qandahar', 'Qandahar', '237500'

Array or Object?

We have two options for composing JSON data: JSON_ARRAY and JSON_OBJECT.

Of the two, you will find JSON_ARRAY the least fussy. It will JSON-ize your data very easily. It takes a list of values or an empty list and returns a JSON array.

We add this function to our example query and it becomes SELECT JSON_ARRAY(Name, District, Population) FROM City;

And the output looks like:

'[\"Kabul\", \"Kabol\", 1780000]'
'[\"Qandahar\", \"Qandahar\", 237500]'
...

JSON_OBJECT wants key/value pairs and will complain if the key name is NULL or you have an odd number of objects. If we try SELECT JSON_OBJECT(Name, District, Population) FROM City; we will get Error Code: 1582. Incorrect parameter count in the call to native function 'JSON_OBJECT'. This fuctions sees the odd number of arguments as a ‘key’ and the evens as the ‘value’ in key/value pairs and therefore we should not have an odd number of arguments. We could stick in a dummy literal string into the select but odds are that we want the three fields specified but need to turn them into key/value pairs. So lets add ‘keys’ and let the database supply the values.

SELECT JSON_OBJECT('City', Name, 'Dist', District, 'Pop', Population) FROM City;,

And the output looks like:

'{\"Pop\": 1780000, \"City\": \"Kabul\", \"Dist\": \"Kabol\"}'
'{\"Pop\": 237500, \"City\": \"Qandahar\", \"Dist\": \"Qandahar\"}'
...

Conclusion

Developers need to work smarter and not harder. And I have been harping on letting the database do the heavy lifting for years. This is an example of letting the database format your information for you rather than feeding it into a function within your application. Sure you can do it but this saves you a step or two and reduces the complexity of your application.
via Planet MySQL
Using MySQL to Output JSON

DreamWorks Animation has released a new trailer for Voltron: Legendary Defender season two. Spoiler alert: It’s awesome! Fans are in for a wild ride this season. It looks like they have really ramped up the action this time around. The team who is handling this show is really doing a great job. The story, characters, and animation are all amazing. I really enjoyed watching the first season. It is definitely one of the best animated series airing anywhere right now.

If you haven’t seen the first season yet, head over to Netflix and watch it. You will love it. Season two airs on Netflix January 20, 2017.

• Source

via MightyMega
Voltron: Legendary Defender Season Two Trailer

via Dilbert
Dilbert 2017-01-06

With a new year upon us, let’s take a few minutes and talk about essential prepping gear.

Hang on a minute, in the grand scheme of things, what would be considered “essential”?  This is an subjective term.  The definition depends on who is reading this article.

To someone is a rural area, a 22 rifle is essential; you never know when an unwanted pest will go into the chicken house.  To someone in an urban area, they may want a bug out bag or fuel stored for their vehicle.

Let’s talk about items that will serve preppers well, regardless of their setup or location.

Water Filter

Water, water everywhere but nary a drop to drink.  The timeless words from “The Rime of the Ancient Mariner,” by Samuel Taylor Coleridge ring true to all.  Does not matter how much water you have, if the water is not safe to drink, you might as well have a single drop.

There are the classic iodine water tablets, Lifestraw, Sawyer, MSR, Katadyn, and water bottles with built in filters.  There is a ridiculous amount of water filters on the market. Do your research and buy wisely.

Portable filter:  Every prepper should have some kind of water filter in their prepping gear.  What about a purifier?  A purifier is for viruses.  If you live in an area where sewage runs into streams, lakes and rivers, get a purifier.

When the water I filter is in doubt, I use a two step process. First, the water is cycled through a Katadyn hiker water filter. Second, a SteriPen is used to kill anything that made it though the filter. The SteriPen uses ultra-violet light to kill bacteria and viruses.

Home filter:  My home filter is a Royal Berkey.  The Royal Berkey is made up of two stainless steel tubes, which are stacked on top of each other.

Pour the water in the top tube, and gravity pulls the water through the filters.  The Royal Berkey can have up to 4 filters with each one filtering an estimated 3,000 gallons.  The filters remove 99.9% of viruses and bacteria.

Something like the Royal Berkey is family sized and portable.  Going to a remote camp for a weekend?  Bring the Berkey along for the trip

Solar Powered Radio

Everyone needs a radio in their prepping gear. It does not matter if they live in a rural area or big city, The public needs a way to get information when the power goes out.

When the power goes off, I find myself doing three things:

• Flipping the light switch on, which is a habit.
• Turn on an AM/FM radio and tune it into a local station.
• Get a book.

Even when there is a complete grid down situation, chances are radio stations will be in operation, at least for a little while.  After hurricanes Ike and Rita made landfall in Southeast Texas, the local radio station was operating on a generator backup and was able to provide locals with important information.

The built in solar cell keeps the radio going when the batteries run out.

Radios like this are not “just” for emergencies.  Use them when there is a family get-together, cook out, or anywhere you may want music playing.

Freeze Dried Food

This is something we covered in another article – stockpiling freeze dried food.  This stuff has a shelf life of up to 30 years.  Freeze dried food is available in pouches and #10 cans.  Pouches serve one or two people, while #10 cans are for family sized meals.

The #10 cans are perfect to store at a bug out location, deer camp, or in a closet.  Since they are made of metal, rodents are unlikely to chew through them.

Pouches are perfect for camping or hiking.  Just add boiling water and wait until it cools to eat.

With regular canned foods, you have to keep up with rotation and expiration dates.

Freeze dried foods, just remember to eat it sometime in the next 30 years.

Well Rounded Prepping Stockpile

There is so much to prepping it would be impossible to cover it all in a single article.  I decided to pick three topics that I thought would fit just about all prepping needs.  These are water, food and communications.

Even in a complete grid down situation, with these three items hopefully you will have safe drinking water, something to eat (if you can boil water), and be able to listen to a local radio station for news.

 

The post Must Have Prepping Essentials in 2017 appeared first on AllOutdoor.com.

via All Outdoor
Must Have Prepping Essentials in 2017