The next K'lash

I made some mods to the 555th flat folding fixture today, the better to process receiver flats into beautiful sheetmetal carbines.

Flats usually have holes stamped in them at fore and aft so they center themselves on the fixture. That's only if the fixture has pins to engage those holes. So I marked and drilled holes and fitted pins that align with the holes. The bottom plate of the fixture needed some relieving so it would fit over the pins. Now I just set the flat on the center piece of the fixture and press it upon the pins.


Flats have dimples struck into them to align the magazine, to put tension on the selector lever, and to align the hammer and trigger axis pins. My fixture is relieved for the mag well dimples but none of the others. I made shallow drills at the right spots, then hogged them out somewhat with good buddy rotary tool, so the fixture won't damage the dimples. Below, the selector lever dimple on the op side.


Then I figured out that I could pre-bend the sidewalls of the receiver box by using the side plates of the fixture in a sheet brake. Yup, got one of those from Harbor Freight some months ago, so I clamped it all together and got the sidewall bends started. Below, the op side fold.


Since I was this far along, I figured I'd go ahead and bend the flat the rest of the way. This is a flat from AK-builder, and it's far superior to the Tapcos. I'm seeing great things in this K'lash, which is a Polish underfolder from the good people of Gunthings.

Like a Braille keypad on a drive-thru ATM

Why do you think socks are offered for sale in a resealable bag?

Do the makers think I'll wash my socks then put them back into the bag? Better yet, that I won't wash my socks, then put them back into the bag all stanksome? Like, this is a way to get them home from the gym without stanking up my car?

HS Reset time again

My valued Palm m500 once again gave me the Gray Vibrate of Death.

It could have been one of those little static shocks when I get out of a parked car---they happen all the time in the arid high plains---or it could have been a static hit from putting her in the pocket of my fleece jacket. But it's all it takes to put a Palm m500 into a death spiral.

The light in the on/off button illuminates, the vibrator sometimes runs, sometimes doesn't, and the screen goes as black as the waning voltage in the battery can stop it down.

The reset hole in the back of the unit won't revive her. I have to let her run the battery the rest of the way down, then recharge her and restore her memory from an SD backup. Good I had one less than 30 days old. I usually do.

But when this happens the USB port will not function, period. Palm's tech support, after about the fifth call on the same problem, sent me an SD card with a backup utility and an app called "HS Reset."


It backs the Palm up to the SD card, then runs the battery absolutely, positively dead dead dead. A soft setting of the USB port's clock speed gets erased---tech support says the static scrambles it so the USB port is inoperable---and then HS Reset puts the clock to the proper speed. Restore from the backup and you're able to HotSync again.

This is, IIRC, the seventh time I've had to do this in 3 years. The Palm is out of service for a full 12 hours while the reset app runs.

This got me to thinking, wouldn't it be nice to upgrade to a Palm that didn't have this problem. After a quick stroll of Amazon's new and used Palm offerings, it seems not only that I'm lucky to keep this m500 operating, I'm lucky I got the tech support that I did at the time---they sent me that SD card with HS Reset free, in Spring of '03.

In fact, I appeared twice in their database so they sent me two. I encountered a friend (Hey, TK!) who had the same problem with the same model, so I gave him the spare. These days, Palm charges bux just to take the phone call, and they are probably far less forthcoming about potential glitches like ESD sensitivity.

No LifeDrive in the immediate future for me. No Tungsten E2 either. I'll keep this m500 limping along until one of my offspring units drops it and cracks the screen.

Testing

Migration to the former Blogger Beta turns out to have been a big mistake.

Dammit. I want rid of that NavBar, and my archives are missing.

Update 22 Dec: Okay, okay, RTFM. I'm still using a Blogger template dating from 2002. There are more than a few pieces of code in that template that haven't been supported since '04, archives being one of them. A quick cut and paste . . .

I just padded the BlogTitle down from the top of the blog with a sh17load of breaks so the NavBar doesn't walk over it. Might take some of them back out.

Hmmm, can I post photos from a Mac now?

Guess so. Alright, I'm not angry now.

Add South Carolina

to the list of states where I've CCW'd.

Time for a new advocacy group

All you need to know about the potential for abuse of dynamic entry is on display in the first 7 minutes of Terry Gilliam's Brazil.

Life imitates art.

Damn you, Publicola

I can't get Sade out of my mind now. I've had to play her Is it a crime off my swell little player several times and still I can't quit her.

Another way to say "not a dime's worth of difference between them"?

My view: If the American Right ever establishes a fully fascistic government (not likely, not impossible) it will be done using the governmental institutions created by the Left. That's one of the reasons distinctions of Left and Right mean little.

Quote for the day, hat tip to Walter in Denver

A bunch of other people you don't have to worry about either

Ninth Stage graciously comments on my immediately preceding post, and makes a point about "just driving through."

So shall we put a finer point on it? Only those states where you carried a concealed weapon, in accordance with the law, as a private citizen, and did so by getting out of your car (no peaceful journey qualifications or McClure-Volkmer) and entered a place of business open to the public. Typically a mall or a home-improvement store.

I left Arizona off my earlier list because that was open carry.

It's not me you have to worry about

I have now packed heat lawfully in Colorado, Pennsylvania, Texas, Georgia, Wyoming, New Mexico, South Dakota, and Kentucky.

No lives were lost.

Update, 21 Dec 06: South Carolina.

Update, 30 July 07: Arizona.

15 March 09: Florida.

Update, 6 March 10: Missouri.

Update, 23 Sep 10: Nebraska.

Update, 20 Mar 11: Georgia and Alabama.

Too cheap to meter so the bastards just charge by the night instead

Is it just me or are hotels charging for wifi access again?

This is plain bu11sh!7, and makes no economic sense. Full - service hotels, even Marriotts, are charging for internet access. Meanwhile their down-market cousins, Marriott properties in particular, give it away.

Perhaps some beancounter noticed that high-speed access is no longer a luxury but an essential good for business travelers. If so, one would think access would be charged across all properties, not just at the top end properties, where its marginal cost would least affect the bottom line. Meanwhile I see burger joints and pancake houses offering wifi. Hotels, IMO, are bucking the trend where there seems to be no dollar incentive to do so.

Similarly, I'm wondering what other costs wifi access would impose on those who provide it. COPA enforcement? Spammers who check into a hotel just to use the IP address? I just can't see it.

And I won't keep paying for it if I don't have to. That means finding other places to stay, and/or finding other places to connect.

We'll start building the case again soon to direct all my soldiers to downmarket properties, even when the host of the function blocks rooms at the top end at government rate. I can't spend taxpayer money that way.

It may even make economic sense for me to investigate 1RX access over my soldiers' cell phones for longer TDYs.

What I wish there were: widely distributed wifi operated for a profit, paid by the hour with prepaid wifi cards, that I could load up with hours to burn at the airport, and at dumbass hotels that charge by the night (if I'm forced to stay in them).

I've got 4 prepaid phone cards that I just don't use. I carry two mobiles, there may be a third in my future, and payphones are a fading memory. But cards that get me into a wifi access point when I need it? I'd carry one and I'd get them for 21 other men. Where are micropayment infrastructures when you really could use one?