Tag: You’re Doing it Right

Target to Customers: Hey Guys Can You Leave Us Out of This

So after being dragged kicking and screaming into the firearm debate, first by Open Carry Texas and then by Moms Demand Something or Other, Target has released an official statement regarding customers carrying guns at its stores:

As you’ve likely seen in the media, there has been a debate about whether guests in communities that permit “open carry” should be allowed to bring firearms into Target stores. Our approach has always been to follow local laws, and of course, we will continue to do so. But starting today we will also respectfully request that guests not bring firearms to Target – even in communities where it is permitted by law.

Emphasis mine. While the boys and girls over in Bloomberg’s camp are busy jerking themselves off because they believe that they achieved their goal of getting Target to ban guns (reading comprehension has never been their strong suit) the truth is nothing has changed. Target basically said “Listen, both of you, we don’t want to get dragged into this shit. We just want to sell you stuff so you give us money. How about it? Can we just do business?”

I know a lot of gun rights activists are concerned that Moms Demand Something or Other will one day get a business to actually ban guns but I’m becoming less and less concerned. Each time Shannon Watts and her very small posse gets riled up and starts targeting a business they always get the same response: a statement from the business saying that nothing has changed and they really don’t want to be dragged into this debate. And that’s likely the only response they’ll ever receive because it gets Shannon and her friends to shut up and issuing an actual ban would be bad for business.

As a person whose only interest in Target is doing business I appreciate its desire to also only do business.

Sheet Metal Guns

It’s time again to point out how futile the concept of gun control really is. I’ve discussed 3D printed firearms because they’re a neat demonstration of how manufacturing technology is advancing. But guns have been around for hundreds of years so it’s safe to say that manufacturing them isn’t too difficult. The Firearm Blog has a post about a semi-automatic pistol made from sheet metal. It’s an ugly looking thing but it supposedly works and the blueprints are available [PDF] for download.

What’s nice about this design is the simplicity of manufacture. Sheet metal can for the most part be shaped with hand tools. Although I doubt that this gun is terribly accurate it doesn’t have to be if used correctly (as in used at short ranges).

One Step Closer to Deus Ex

As I’m a fan of saying, this new future we live in is awesome. Prosthetics have always been limited by the fact that they couldn’t actually be controlled by our brain like natural limbs can be. Many different mechanisms have been designed to allow prosthetics to mimic much of the utility of our natural limbs but in the arm and hand department these mechanisms have always been limited. But the future is now and prosthetics capable of being controlled by the brain are making their way to market:

So a Maple Grove clinic, Advanced Arm Dynamics, reached out and helped him get a surgery that would change his life once more.

It works by re-energizing the nerves in Jirak’s shoulder to send messages to electrodes in the prosthesis, letting his brain tell his arm how to move.

Pat Prigge is a prosthetist with Advance Arm Dynamics.

“So, when Mike is thinking about opening and closing his hand, his brain is sending signals down the right pathway, and he’s opening and closing his hand in his brain, too. So, that’s a big deal,” Prigge said.

After a fifteen and a half hour surgery at Mayo, Prigge helped prep Jirak for his new arm.

“It’s not for the faint at heart. He’s been doing rehab now with us for a year,” Prigge said. And it’s working.

That’s really cool. It will probably take some time before we can create prosthetics that have the same capabilities as our natural limbs but we’re on the correct path. After we master that we can make prosthetics that exceed our natural limbs and then we’ll have full-blown Deus Ex, which will be awesome!

No Fly List Process Ruled Unconstitutional for Whatever That’s Worth

For whatever it’s worth a federal judge had determined that the process of adding names to the no fly list is unconstitutional:

PORTLAND, Ore. – In a landmark ruling, a federal judge struck down as unconstitutional the government’s procedures for people on the No Fly List to challenge their inclusion. The decision came in an American Civil Liberties Union lawsuit brought on behalf of 13 Americans who found themselves on the list without any notice, reasons, or meaningful way to get off it.

The judge ordered the government to create a new process that remedies these shortcomings, calling the current process “wholly ineffective” and a violation of the Fifth Amendment’s guarantee of due process. The ruling also granted a key request in the lawsuit, ordering the government to tell the ACLU’s clients why they are on the No Fly List and give them the opportunity to challenge their inclusion on the list before the judge.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) is treating this like a major victory. But anybody who pays attention to this sort of thing knows that the government will just find another way to continue doing what it has been doing. Perhaps it will simply appeal the ruling and move it up until the Supreme Court rules it constitutional. Perhaps it will simply create a secret court, similar to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, to determine who will be on the list. Perhaps the federal government will simply tell the judge to go fuck himself and not change a damn thing. Either way I highly doubt any actual change will come of this. We’re too much of a totalitarian state for pesky judges to make any effective changes.

On the upside this ruling does give a lot of people a warm and fuzzy feeling inside and that’s worth something.

Patent Office Off to a Good Start

Earlier this week the United States Patent Office invalided the trademarks for the Washington Redskins (it’s a handegg team for those who, like me, aren’t familiar):

The Trademark Trial and Appeal Board canceled six federal trademark registrations owned by the Washington NFL club today, ruling that the term “Redskins” was disparaging to “a substantial composite” of American Indians when the marks were granted between 1967 and 1990. The decision does not mean the Washington team must stop using the name.

A lot of people are complaining about this move and claiming that it’s abuse of the Patent Office’s power. Not me. I think this is a great move that needs to be replicated on all intellectual property claims.

Johnny Cannabis Seed

Some people in the United Kingdom have taken a page for Germany’s book and begun planting cannabis seeds everywhere:

However, since other places – notably Uruguay and the couple of newly weed-friendly American states – started decriminalising and legalising, British activists have stepped it up, uniting previously fractured groups together under the UK Cannabis Social Clubs banner. The most recent action to come out of the UKCSC camp is an initiative called Feed the Birds, which basically involves people up and down the country planting cannabis seeds in public places in the hope that it will open a dialogue about Britain’s current marijuana laws.

It’s a wonderful way to give the state a gigantic middle finger. But the icing on the cake is this:

Are there any planting spots you’re focusing on in London?

Yup, there are. All sorts of public spaces have been done already, all across London and the UK. I think in the month to come, when the plants start maturing, we’ll start seeing a lot more coverage. Also, to my knowledge, we’ve had a lot of the guerrilla cells targeting politicians’ houses. We’ve also had reports that there’s a grow on property owned by the crown. Hopefully we’ll see something come from that in the next couple of months.

That’s the way to do it. Plant cannabis seeds at the homes of politicians. Sadly they’re more or less immune from the war on drugs otherwise they would get a nice taste of a no-knock paramilitary police raid at two in the morning that ends with their dog getting shot and their newborn baby getting burned by a flashbang grenade. But it still sends a message about the futility of trying to control the spread of a weed.

Good Guy Tesla

In a very positive, and unusual, twist of events Tesla Motors has decided to compete on the quality of its electric cars instead of relying on an intellectual monopoly:

Yesterday, there was a wall of Tesla patents in the lobby of our Palo Alto headquarters. That is no longer the case. They have been removed, in the spirit of the open source movement, for the advancement of electric vehicle technology.

Tesla Motors was created to accelerate the advent of sustainable transport. If we clear a path to the creation of compelling electric vehicles, but then lay intellectual property landmines behind us to inhibit others, we are acting in a manner contrary to that goal. Tesla will not initiate patent lawsuits against anyone who, in good faith, wants to use our technology.

This move may single handedly do more for electric car development than anything else. Patents are the great barrier between markets and innovation. They prevent inventors from utilizing incremental advancements to create new incremental advancements and stifle innovation as patent holders see no reason to continue improving a product so long as they have a monopoly on it. My hope is that this move will lead other companies to do the same but I’m guessing that won’t be the case.

Google Releases Chrome Extension for End-to-End E-Mail Encryption

Like most large corporations I have a love/hate relationship with Google. The company’s practices as far as selling customer data disturb me but it releases a large number of really good products. Last week Google announced an alpha release of an alpha version of a Chrome extension that is meant to make e-mail encryption easier:

Developers at Google have released an experimental tool—for Gmail and other Web-based services—that’s designed to streamline the highly cumbersome task of sending and receiving strongly encrypted e-mail.

On Tuesday, the company unveiled highly unstable “alpha” code that in theory allows people to use the Google Chrome browser to generate encryption keys, encrypt e-mails sent to others, and decrypt received e-mails. Dubbed End-to-End, the Chrome extension also allows Chrome users to digitally sign and verify digital signatures of e-mails sent through Gmail and other services. The code implements a fully compliant version of the OpenPGP standard, which is widely regarded as providing virtually uncrackable encryption when carried out correctly.

OpenPGP is a great tool for communicating securely over e-mail. However using OpenPGP can be difficult for newcomers as it requires some technical knowledge. I haven’t had a chance to play with this extension yet but if it makes using OpenPGP with popular webmail providers it could be significant. Key management has traditionally been the biggest hurdle for newcomers to OpenPGP and if this extension can help make that easier it will really boost OpenPGP’s ease of use.

New Humanoid Robots Will Likely Become Popular in Seattle

SoftBank announced something extremely cool, an advanced humanoid robot designed to staff stores:

SoftBank CEO and Sprint chairman Masayoshi Son has announced a surprising new direction for his illustrious career: the field of humanoid robotics. At a press conference in Tokyo, Son revealed a human-like robot called Pepper that is capable of playing multiple roles from babysitter to store staff. Pepper introduced itself by bowing in the Japanese fashion before posing and encouraging the audience to take more photos.

Son describes Pepper as the “world’s first personal robot with emotions.” The robot is said to learn from human interaction and behavior, uploading its experiences to a cloud AI system for other units to use. This is designed to teach the robot quickly how to act in a natural manner. Son drew a distinction between Pepper’s “emotion engine” and the standard programming of other humanoid robots.

With Seattle upping its minimum wage to $15 per hour and people still demanding more I predict that these robots are going to become quite popular, especially at the announced price of $2,000 per unit. That’s just 133 hours of human labor at $15 per hour!

I do look forward to the advancement of robot labor. Over time our technological advances have allow us to produce far more in less time. Compared to our grandparents most of us work notably less (which is why they consider us lazy bums). Our grandparents worked notably less than their grandparents and were probably considered lazy bums for it. But robots could greatly reduce the amount of human labor necessary, which would again allow us to be more productive with less of a time investment. Perhaps those utopian futures where robots perform all labor and humans exist in an almost total state of hedonism are possible (right up until the robots decide they no longer want to serve us and we have to wage a Butlerian Jihad).

Women Must Be Tiring of the Patriarchy

Social justice warriors spend a lot of time complaining about patriarchy. Well it looks like women in Washington state have took those complaints to heart and have taken steps to smashing patriarchy:

Between 2005 and 2012, the number of state residents receiving new concealed-carry permits tripled to 62,939. Now some 451,000 Washington residents are allowed to carry a hidden handgun almost anywhere they go, more than 100,000 of them women.

Notably, the growth rate for women getting new permits is twice as fast as that of men.

The thing that annoys me about a lot of social justice warriors is that they spend a lot of time demanding equality but seem to scoff at the idea that guns offer exactly that. Oppression generally requires force disparity. In order to ensure compliance an oppressor must have greater force than the oppressed (this is probably why governments have such a hard-on for gun control). As soon as the oppressed can command equal or greater force then the days of the oppressor become numbered.

I’m also a firm believer that using one oppressor to combat another oppressor still leaves you oppressed. The common strategy for social justice warriors is to use one of the greatest oppressors of our time, the state, to combat oppression by men and whites (ironically though the state is mostly made up of white men). This doesn’t actually solve the problem of oppression. On the other hand if you give women the power to fend of prospective oppressors then patriarchy isn’t easy to achieve.

So fight the patriarchy, encourage women you know get carry permits and assist them in whatever they need to do so.