The Threadless Nut

I believe that everyone has a right to defend themselves, and the right to the access to the tools to be effective at that goal.

New Palm Pistol

To that end, Constitution Arms has developed a palm pistol designed to be used by the elderly and disabled, or anyone who is unable to use a standard handgun. As you can see from the rendering here, its ergonomics are quite different from a standard handgun. I can see how this would be easier to use by someone with limited hand dexterity or strength. It has even been approved as a medical device, so it can actually be prescribed by a doctor and is eligible for insurance coverage, that’s certainly interesting. I applaud Constitution Arms for taking on this challenge and developing this firearm.

Old Palm Pistol

Now, the concept of the palm pistol isn’t really a new one. Here’s one example from France in the late 1800’s. There were several other designs along these lines. The primary purpose was as a hide-away gun to stick in your vest or hat for dire situations, but as you can see, it resembles the new one quite closely in basic form. This particular example is in the, quite anemic, .32 rimfire caliber with a 10 round capacity, but as they say, “Any gun is better than no gun“.

So why am I writing this? Is it really to laud Constitution Arms for their vision and civic responsibility? No, it’s not. While I still do commend them for taking this on, I think there’s a rather large problem with their design. Unlike the 1800’s version above, the new model is in an acceptable defensive caliber, 9mm, which is good. However, also unlike the 1800’s version the new model is single shot. While still keeping the “Any gun is better than no gun” axiom in mind, this is a severe limitation. Given that this is targeted to people who are already at a defensive disadavantage, giving them only one round of 9mm (or any caliber) is simply not enough. 1 shot, even if well placed is not a reliable attack ending response, and gives you no recourse for multiple assailants.

So, I’m challenging Constitution Arms to build upon this first step and develop a handgun that will provide those that really need it, an effective defensive tool. Please feel free to send one to me for testing.

Well, the F650 is officially gone, picked up this evening. While I’m certainly glad to have the space back and I love the new bike, there was a bit of a twinge of sorrow as we loaded it onto the truck. It was my first bike and it served well, I hope it will do so for the new owner.

Cue photo montage with sappy music….. not really.

This morning on the way to work, a black Jeep eases past me as I’m turning off to the bridge. There’s a kid in the back and he points, smiles and is yelling to his Dad, “Daddy, Daddy, a motorcycle!” I wave back to him and he laughs and starts telling his Dad about it more. How cool is that?

Anything you can do to brighten a kid’s day is great in my book. Sure, there are a lot of things I could have been on that would elicit a similar reaction, like a fire truck or a Ferrari, but I can’t afford either of those or they get much worse mileage than the bike. Actually, it’s both, but I don’t think any kid has ever shouted “Mommy! Look, an Accord, a grey one!”

A while ago we took the plunge, canceled our land line phone and switched to cell phones as our primary lines. While this has been a significant cost savings for us, there was one significant downside. You only get 1 phone. With a normal phone line you can scatter phones willy nilly about your evirons. One in the kitchen, one in the living room, one in the office, a couple in the bedroom, and, if you’re rich, one in each bathroom. Going to a cell phone means you only have the one, which you can carry around, but set it down and you do the inevitable race for the phone, if you were close enough to hear it playing your Rockford Files ringtone.

Enter the Xlink-BT.

This little gem wires into your existing phone system. You can either hook it up to the wiring, or just plug a multi-handset cordless phone into it, which is what we did. It then connects to your phone via bluetooth, just like your Borg headset. Just like that, you can use your home phones with your cell. It can connect to 3 cell phones at once, and each gets a distinctive ring, so you know whose phone it is. Once paired with your cell, it will automatically bond when you get in range. The cell phone handset is still enabled when it’s connected to the Xlink, so it won’t steal your calls like the headsets do.

I did have a few issues initially getting things working, but I downloaded new firmware from the Xlink site and updated the device and everything cleared up. The firmware application is Windows based, but it worked fine in a VMware image. As hard as it is to resist hooking up everything right away, I’d recommend getting the latest firmware first thing.

This is really a wonderful little piece of kit. It never causes any problems and just works transparently. You can leave your cell plugged into the charger and never have to worry about running out the door with a depleted battery and never have to go looking for the cell when a call comes in.

There is one complaint I can make. The name portion of the caller id is lost somewhere in the chain. So on your house phone you’ll see the proper number that is calling, but the name will always be “Xlink-BT”. It really is only a minor annoyance though, and I imagine there’s a good reason why they can’t make it work.

So this is a little story that (mostly) happened to me a while ago. There’s an update today, but since I never posted the original story here, here it is, skip to the bottom if you must:

The Toaster Revolt of 1997

So, I’m getting a bagel this morning. Little did I know I was about to witness the worker’s revolt of 97.

I get my nice sesame bagel, head over to the bagel biter, slice it in half and and turn to go to the toaster. This is one of those commercial conveyer-belt toasters. Anyway, there are about 10 people around the toaster, this 1 woman, whom I’ll refer to as Norma Rae, is pontificating to the cafeteria guy, (we’ll call him Jimbo), on how much of her precious break time is being wasted dealing with this toaster. People are putting their bagels, bread, muffins, puppies, etc into the toaster, staring at it for a minute and taking their item out, looking at it and shaking their heads. It seems the toaster isn’t so much as toasting as it is warming.

Ok, so normal person would say, “Oh, darn” and run the bread product through again until the desired toastedness is achieved, but not your average corporate citizen, no! The folks are standing around, ganging up on the poor cafeteria guy, “What’s wrong with this thing?, “Why aren’t there 2 toasters?”, “Why do my shorts keep riding up?”. Poor Jimbo is just trying to get to the knob to turn the thing up a little, but Norma won’t let him get by. She continues her assault on defenseless Jimbo while one of her compatriots, whom I’ll call Brain Donor, is repeatedly PRESSING the temperature adjustment KNOB. So Norma is quizzing Jimbo on why there is only 1 toaster, Jimbo is mounting his only defense, “I’m just a contractor, the corporation supplies the equipment”, Donor is continuing to press the knob, wondering why it is having little effect.

Meanwhile, another party, whom I will name MacGyver, swoops in to retrieve his bagel. Mac discovers that his bagel is being blocked in the output tray by another. Being the resourceful guy that he is, MacGyver grabs the tongs, removes the offending bagel, placing it on a plate to the side of the toaster, and takes his own bagel, slipping away stealthily. Well, Mac had no idea what he had done. You see, this bagel belonged to Norma, she had finally disengaged from Jimbo’s jugular to get her tasty bagel. Much to her horror, someone…or something had removed her bagel from the toaster and placed it on….a plate! “Did someone take this out?”, Norma demanded. “Who did this, did it fall?” “Is this my bagel? Who’s is this? Mine was a sesame? Is this mine? Who took this out?” My mind was reeling from the assault. It was all I could do to weakly mutter “that’s mine” when Norma pointed at my bagel, which was on its second trip through the toaster.

Well, I got out of there just as Norma was looking for something to make protest signs with and Donor was wondering what the pretty red things inside the toaster tasted like. I heard a distorted scream of pain as I left the cafeteria.

Cut to this morning. I’m wandering around the same cafeteria, with the same (or reasonably the same) toaster. There’s a nicely printed and laminated sign hung next to the toaster. This sign reads:

“Please do not butter item before placing in toaster”

Really?