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Saturday, December 19, 2020

A Quick Run Around the Web (12/19/2020)

     
VIDEO: "E.01 - Enter Japan - Pearl Harbor - WW2 - 120 A - December 7, 1941"--World War Two (30 min.) The World War Two channel on YouTube has been doing a week-by-week series on World War Two (similar to the Great War Channel's week-by-week series on World War I) with additional special episodes on various topics. But for the attack on Pearl Harbor, the production crew decided to do a 10-part minute-by-minute short series that tells you about the attack as it unfolded, starting from when the Japanese launched their first planes. Interspersed throughout is significant background details. You can find the full playlist here.

Firearms/Self-Defense/Prepping: 

  • As it's Friday, I will start off, as usual, with Active Response Training's Weekend Knowledge Dump. Articles, videos and commentary this week covers such diverse topics as: a couple surveillance videos showing poor use of firearms and judgment; why you might want to carry a backup gun if you work in law enforcement (Greg Ellifritz notes that most civilian carriers are not going to carry a backup gun, and he hasn't since he retired from the police force); the importance of monitoring your internal dialogue (e.g., eliminating negative thoughts); how being polite and letting things slide will do wonders for keeping you out of potentially dangerous confrontations; why you should carry an EDC flashlight; water purification; use of a knife or improvised weapons, including a nice graphic showing what areas of the body you should target; and a lot more. And his comments regarding one of the surveillance videos: 

    Take the time to watch this short surveillance video.  It’s pretty much the epitome of how not to handle a potential confrontation.  The guy in the red hoodie works at the location.  He confronted a trespasser who was acting suspiciously.  That confrontation led to a physical altercation.  It is obvious that neither party had any real fighting skills.  Red hoodie guy seems to be getting the upper hand when the trespasser draws a knife, opens it, and then threatens the worker with it.

    The worker drew his gun in response…after quite a bit of fumbling and racking a round in the chamber.  The employee then held the trespasser at gunpoint (while muzzling his own buddies and failing to create distance) for police.

    This is just ugly.  It’s exactly what we see when the participants have no true skill level in any fighting domain and are using their chosen weapon more as a threatening talisman than a useful tool.  Watch as both parties exaggeratedly threaten each other with their weapons.  Rory Miller would call this display a “monkey dance.”

    It’s two unskilled and unwilling people who get in an inept slap fight and then want to display their weapons to intimidate the other party.  Neither seemed serious or skilled enough to deliver effective violence when needed.  This is what people who don’t train look like.  You don’t want to be memorialized in a video like this.  Get some training across broad combative domains and don’t get involved in petty egotistical confrontations.

  • As all of you undoubtedly know by now, and as reported by the Prince Law Office Blog, "ATF To Institute Rulemaking/Guidance Regarding Stabilizing Braces And Require Registration Of Currently Owned Braces." Basically--and this was inevitable given how blatant people are in talking about how they use the braces--the ATF is concerned about people using the braces as a work around to obtaining an SBR tag. (I'm sure that the ATF has probably had a lot of complaints, also, from the people that shelled out the money to get their SBR registered). Thus, the ATF is looking at ways to differentiate between a weapon used as a one-handed pistol for which a brace would be useful and an SBR (using the brace as a stock). 

    The notice lists the "objective" criteria to be used, including: type and caliber of weapon; weight and length; length of pull (i.e., distance from the end of the stock--presumably the brace as fully extended--and the trigger); attachment method (e.g., is it attached via method that would give it a greater length of pull similar to that of a carbine or rifle); certain design features and whether those features or more like a stock or more like a brace; the aim point (i.e., whether the point of aim corresponds to use as a handgun or use as a shouldered weapon); presence of a secondary grip indicating that the purpose of the weapon is to be used two handed; use of sights or scopes incompatible with shooting the weapon as a pistol (e.g., scopes having a short eye-relief); and attachment of peripheral accessories associated with a rifle or shotgun versus a handgun (e.g., bipods). Unfortunately, per the document, "[n]o single factor or combination of factors is necessarily dispositive, and FATD examines each weapon holistically on a case-by-case basis." Which, of course, is the real rub since criminal statutes or regulations should clearly indicate whether a person is in violation of the law. I recognize that this is merely a guidance as to how the ATF will be interpreting the law, and not a criminal statute or regulation per se, but this is the standard that the ATF (and by extension, U.S. Attorneys) will be using to determine if someone is in violation of the law, and should, therefore, clearly define the prohibited conduct.

    It appears that the ATF is going to require manufacturers to submit products for review and, presumably, those members of the public that have assembled a firearm can use those as examples as to whether their firearm might be in violation.

    The ATF recognizes, however, that members of the public have purchased firearms that were sold or marketed as pistols which may ultimately be determined to be SBRs. The draft notice thus includes the following:

Consequently, following issuance of this notice, ATF and DOJ plan to implement a separate process by which current possessors of affected stabilizer-equipped firearms may choose to register such firearms to be compliant with the NFA. As part of that process, ATF plans to expedite processing of these applications, and ATF has been informed that the Attorney General plans retroactively to exempt such firearms from the collection of NFA taxes if they were made or acquired, prior to the publication of this notice, in good faith. This separate process may include the following options: registering the firearm in compliance with the NFA (described above), permanently AS SUBMITTED removing the stabilizing brace from the firearm and disposing of it, replacing the barrel of the firearm (16” or greater for a rifle, or 18” or greater for a shotgun), surrendering the firearm to ATF, or destroying the firearm. 

    While I understand why the ATF is doing this, it is nevertheless irritating, to say the least, that they took so long. I waited some time before purchasing a brace for an AR pistol because I wanted to see how things might shake out legally, so it seems disingenuous of the ATF to have waited as long as they did before attempting to provide guidance. The other matter I would note is that this crack-down does not appear to be because of a surge of crimes where people were able to conceal such weapons due to the short barrel and then use them like a rifle, but because the ATF wasn't collecting the taxes it believes were due (and probably goaded on by complaints of those that paid to register an SBR). This, then, merely underscores the stupidity of including short-barreled rifles among those items restricted under the NFA.

That’s fancy language for we know it when we see it and we’ll let you know when we do. In other words, there are no specific, “objective factors” for determining when a pistol equipped with a stabilizing brace will be considered a short-barrel rifle. 
    • More: "It’s Time: Make Yourself Heard RE ATF’s Latest Attack on Pistol Braces"--The Truth About Guns. Instructions on how to file comments regarding the ATF's proposal--remember that they are only accepting comments until January 4.
    • Related: "What Should You Do If the ATF Knocks at Your Door?"--The Truth About Guns. When the ATF raided Polymer80 over the Buy Build Shoot all-in-one 80% frame pistol kits, they demanded customer lists. The article also notes that "BATFE sent their flying monkeys to Diversified Machine, makers of Form 1-ready suppressor kits. They reportedly confiscated everything, including customer lists." Per the article, there are already accounts of the ATF showing up at customers' doors to confiscate products. What to do if they show up at your door? The author is this article relates:
Richard Hayes, an attorney with Walker & Taylor, suggests handling such a situation this way:

If you find yourself with ATF agents or law enforcement at your doorstep demanding to search or seize your gun collection, be polite, but don’t waive your rights. If they have a warrant, that’s one thing, but if not, say, ‘I want to help as much as possible, but have to speak to an attorney first.’

Do not consent to a search or seizure. The next step is critical; you should consult with an attorney immediately.

Got it? If they don’t have a warrant, don’t let anyone into your home, even if they flash a badge. Then get on the phone to your attorney as soon as possible.

If the people at your door have a warrant and confiscate any of your property, attorney Joshua Prince adds this:

Be aware that the agent may attempt to have you sign an ATF 3400.1 Form – Consent to Forfeiture or Destruction of Property and Waiver of Notice – which you should NOT sign under ANY circumstance. In the event that they ask you to sign an ATF 3400.1, inform them that the only ATF form you are willing to sign is an ATF 3400.23 – Receipt of Property and Other Items, as the ATF 3400.23 does not contain language, wherein you agree to the forfeiture/destruction of your property.

Prince also suggests taking photos of any items confiscated by the ATF. If you don’t already have a relationship with an attorney, there’s no better time to take care of that than right now.
    Poor grip means poor muzzle and recoil control. Your wrist is an amazing piece of anatomy… it’s comprised of many bones that allow the hand to flex, extend, and pivot in numerous directions. The pistol, on the other hand, wants to move as well. As the pistol recoils, it wants to move straight back, but your wrist is not fixed on the vertical axis.

    Pretend for a second you are holding a magnum revolver and shooting one-handed. Let it pretend recoil and move your wrist up moving the hand and imaginary gun up too. As your first moves vertical at some point your radius and ulna also become engaged in this movement and suddenly your hand and imaginary magnum are now pointing up and to the right (if right-handed). It’s simply a fact of anatomy… your hand isn’t a vice and your wrist will let recoil move the pistol where it wants to move.

    When we factor in two hands, we can now add both strength to the grip and limit the movement of the wrists to a consistent and repeatable manner.

    If the hands are cupped around each other then the up and away movement of the wrists is eliminated as each wrist will oppose that movement due to the hands being locked together… Same case if wrapped around a pistol grip. 

There is a lot more. The author has also included animated gifs to illustrate the points he makes in the article. Check it out. 

    The first thing you have to understand is that shooting is all about seeing. Vision drives the train. If I cannot see it, I cannot shoot it. There have been many times when I’ve been hunting that I knew I saw something over there in that tree line, but I could not zoom in on it and know exactly what I was looking at. This is very important in competition and in real life… It’s critical to be able to identify what we are looking at and to be able to see it well enough to shoot at it. When we talk about rifles specifically our capabilities are pretty much only ended when we cannot see any further. 

    I think running a dot on a rifle definitely has its place. I run plenty of rifles that only have red dots on them. However, if we are talking about a gun that you can use for anything, if you cannot see beyond 100 yards, you have a 100-yard gun, regardless of its other characteristics. It’s important to understand that.  

    You don’t necessarily need an LPVO because you have a rifle. You need an LPVO if you live in an appropriate environment where you may have to shoot at something beyond 100 yards. Think about the rural highway patrolman riding around Texas, or the guy that rides around on his farm checking fence line… There’s any number of scenarios where you might need to see a little bit better.  
Generally speaking, the human eye can see and recognize a person out to 100 yards. Beyond that, things start to fuzz together, get distorted, and you perhaps cannot make out what you need to. If I am gaming or plinking, I personally want 1x for every 100 yards. If I am using this gun for work in a professional capacity or even as a hunting gun; I want 2x for every 100 yards. Sometimes the world has a way of putting you in an odd position where you can’t quite see as good as you might want to.
    ... An everyday carry gun and associated equipment must be convenient to put on and take off and must be comfortable to wear for extended periods of time. Atop that, gun size, magazine capacity, holster type, carry location of the gun and spare magazines, size and shape of the individual, and the clothing he or she commonly wears have to be factored into the final decision. Though those are certainly not the only factors in play, they are by far the most common.

    As an instructor helping a student strike a suitable compromise, simplicity is often the best solution. Decisions can be easily adjusted as conditions change, but the student must be acceptably comfortable — physically and mentally — throughout the process.

  • "Near Contact Wounds"--Bev Fitchett's Guns. These wounds show characteristics of both contact wounds and short distance wounds. From the article:

    In near-contact wounds, the muzzle of the weapon is not in contact with the skin, being held a short distance away. The distance, however, is so small that the powder grains emerging from the muzzle do not have a chance to disperse and mark the skin, producing the powder tattooing that is the sine qua non of intermediate-range wounds. In near-contact wounds, there is an entrance wound, surrounded by a wide zone of powder soot overlying seared, blackened skin (Figure 4.5). The zone of searing is wider than that seen in a loose-contact wound. The soot in the seared zone is baked into the skin and cannot be completely wiped away. Small clumps of unburned powder may be present in the seared zones.

    In near-contact angled wounds (Figure 4.6), just as in angled contact wounds, soot radiates outward from the muzzle creating two zones: the pear-shaped, circular, or oval blackened seared zone and the light-gray fan-shaped one. The location of the blackened seared zone to the entrance hole is different from that seen in angled contact wounds, however. In near-contact angled wounds, the bulk of the blackened, seared zone is on the same side as the muzzle, i.e., pointing toward the weapon. This is the opposite of what is found in angled contact wounds.

  • Since it is winter, I thought I would include some links to articles on gun care when shooting or hunting in the rain or cold:

    When rain approaches, I’ve seen the outdoor range quickly clear out as shooters rush to pack up gear and precious firearms before the offending droplets can arrive. If it’s just passing shower with no threat of hail or lightning, I simply go to my range bag and pull out my waterproof poncho and continue on. I also carry a few large clear or translucent trash bags and Ziplock bags of various sizes. For equipment that is not or cannot be waterproof, such as cameras or ballistic calculators, tucking them in a Ziplock bag is a fantastic way to keep them dry while in use. The plastic baggies don’t take up much room in my gear bag, and that little bit of foresight can go a long way.

    Don’t forget other clothing that you’ll need in foul weather. Ignoring hunting and shooting for the moment, it’s always a good idea to keep a pair of waterproof galoshes, a poncho, waterproof parka, or rain suit in your vehicle. If you’re disabled on the side of the road, such gear can come in extremely handy. By the same token, if you’re out at the range, having that same equipment nearby in your vehicle can turn a trip cut short into a largely enjoyable experience. By planning ahead for the potential of foul weather, you can make an outing to the range or hunting trip a success instead of a failure.

    This post is the child of two converging forces: Warren Page’s warning that when you’re hunting, you leave your rifle uncleaned until you get home, and my shooting in a match two days ago in the pouring rain. It got soaked; I got soaked. But did I take it apart and have at it with oily rags and a hair dryer? No sir.

    Page wrote what he did because he hunted in the era of wood-stocked rifles, which rarely, if ever, gave you the same point of impact if you took them apart and put them back together. You had to re-zero, or miss. I shot in the morning, ended up in a four-way tie for first*, and had to shoot again in the afternoon, and my rifle, even though synthetic-stocked is not 100 percent about returning to zero if you go fiddling with it. So I left it alone, wet, and by the time it got wet a second time that afternoon, wet or dry was more or less academic.

    The stainless barrel was not about to rust. It takes three or four days of being constantly wet for that to happen, I’ve found. The receiver, which is blued, would just have to do the best it could. I’ve had receivers rust before, and if you get to it quickly, you can take the red stuff off with 0000 steel wool and powder solvent. If the bolt is bright steel, you should wipe that off, too. And if it really bothers you, put a squirt of lighter fluid through the trigger. Don’t go honking oil on it.

    The one thing that does call for emergency measures is salt water. A friend of mine, hunting bear off the coast of Alaska, had a wave come over the bow of his boat and soak his rifle. But he didn’t take it apart. He found a can of spray oil and hosed it down thoroughly, preventing most of the damage.

    • "Let It Rain" by Craig Boddington, Rifle Shooter Magazine. 

    Rust forms extremely quickly in a rifle barrel and is probably the most insidious affect of being out in the rain. But it is also the easiest to fix. When you get home or back to camp, wipe down your rifle, punch the bore, and that's the end of it. Now, it's what you can't see that will hurt you. If there's moisture in the air, stainless steel metal and synthetic stocks are the way to go. Rust can form in a matter of hours in the nooks and crannies of blued carbon steel--under the barrel channel, around the bolt, in the magazine box, any place you haven't looked.

    The same moisture, given a bit more time, will do nasty things to wooden gunstocks. Cosmetics are the least of it, but I've had several really nice walnut stocks bleached white after a few wet days. More insidious is swelling, which, if it's in the barrel channel, will quickly alter accuracy.

    ... Any gun given a healthy wipe over with an oily cloth to remove fingerprints is already on the ‘front foot’ in terms of warding off corrosion, but if you do get a gun (of any type) wet and dirty, clean it up at the earliest opportunity and try to dry off as much moisture as possible with paper towels.

    If the gun is likely to see immediate re-use then it’s better not to remove the stock; but after your hunting trip is fully over and you have the chance to recheck your zero, I would take the gun to pieces to make sure the stock and barrel channel are fully dried out and clear of debris. Whenever I reassemble a gun, the very last thing that I touch the sealed metal parts of the gun with is an oily rag, for the aforementioned reasons, and I never stand anything on or near a heat source or in direct sunlight.

    Any woodwork, if wet, must be allowed to air dry as gently and slowly as possible, but pay special attention to it – modern sealants have done wonders to prevent stocks soaking up moisture and warping but it is always good to know how your gun reacts to such environments. Internal cleaning of the bore is an entire subject of its own but I would, as a minimum, run a bore snake or dry patch through it at the earliest opportunity before a full clean and zero check.

    Don’t leave excess oil in the barrel or any part of the gun (a little goes a long way).... Don’t forget to carefully clean your riflescope; lens caps hold water and it can also linger inside adjustment dial caps. Remove the sling too; anything absorbent will retain moisture, and in storage, that is a definite no-no.

    Where guns start acting up is when moisture is involved. It doesn’t take but a drop or two of strategically placed rain to freeze a firing pin in place on a late season elk hunt or varmint hunting trip. We may not even need moisture in the form of precipitation to take our gun out of the fight.

    A trip into a warm house, truck or tent after being in the cold all day will cause condensation on and in the gun. With that fine film of moisture in your bolt or trigger mechanism when you head out the next day and expose the gun to the frosty temps things tend to start freezing up.

    Not to mention the exterior glass of your optics fogging up. If you have older optics you may start seeing the interior fog as well if there is a microscopic hole in a seal somewhere.

    Another thing to consider when shooting in the cold is the behavior of our ammunition and the changes in our velocity and how our bullet flies through the dense air.

    Finally, we need to consider the shooter. I don’t care who you are, when you are outside for extended periods in cold weather your extremities (fingers and toes) are going to get cold and not work as well as in warm weather.

    You need to keep your hands functioning to safely operate your gun.

Keep The Guns Running

    Let’s look at a few simple things we can do keep our rifle or handgun running in cold weather.

Keep Them Dry

    No kidding! But try still hunting through a spruce jungle after a wet snow. Everything you own will be wet. If we get our guns wet on a warm spring day, no problem. The guns will shoot and we take care to clean and dry them when we get home.

    Now, get the gun sopping wet in a late-season hunting situation and the temps are say 24-28°F and you will start seeing the water droplets turn to ice on the exterior of your gun and very likely freezing the internals as well.

    I recommend leaving your guns outside once you get them cold. When we backpack into our elk hunting area, the guns never come in the tent. They go up against a tree, usually with a garbage bag pulled over them to protect against rain and dripping snow.

    As mentioned above, when you expose a cold gun to the warm interior of the tent or cabin, you allow condensation to settle in and on the gun. This encourages rust and greatly increases the odds that you will freeze something and render your gun inoperable if the outside temps stay below freezing.

    The exception, of course, is if you freeze your gun. A few years back we were caught in a freezing rain coming back to camp late at night after boning out an elk. The next morning as we prepared to head out I checked my rifle and found the trigger inoperable and the firing pin frozen in the bolt.

    We brought the gun in the tent, pulled the tape off the muzzle and removed the bolt. I propped the gun against a backpack, muzzle down to allow any moisture to drain away from the action. I then cleaned every surface I could and dried everything. We waited about two hours to be sure all the moisture had dried out then headed out.

    With a 100% dry gun I did not have any other issues and managed to shoot an elk later that day.

Simple Cold Weather Tips

    Tip 1: Cover the muzzle with electrical tape. Place a piece lengthwise over the muzzle, then take a wrap around to keep everything in place.

    If you do this before you leave home it has to get really cold for the tape to stop sticking and come off. This keeps your bore dry and prevents snow or other debris from getting in and potentially plugging your barrel.

    Just shoot through the tape when spot your trophy. You can also use finger cots, condoms or specially made muzzle covers for this purpose. It’s OK to tape over your muzzle brake as well. The tape will blow right off when you fire the gun.

    Tip 2: Cover the gun with a waterproof sleeve. Many years ago Kifaru International sold a silnylon sleeve to cover your rifle and keep everything dry. They work like a charm. My gun sleeve went missing someplace years ago.

    Now if I’m packing in on a late season trip I just pull a Kifaru Meat Bag over my rifle. It covers the barrel, scope and action, and everything stays dry. It comes off in second and you’re ready to fire. Something as simple as a garbage bag will work, too. Just keep the gun dry.

    Tip 3: Clean and lubricate your firearm for cold, wet weather. If you are expecting extreme cold like the Arctic or maybe Wyoming or the Dakotas you want to clean your gun with something that removes all traces of oil, especially that made for warm conditions. Clean the trigger group, bolt and firing pin as well.

The author recommends Bio-Syn Extra Firearm Lubricant CLP or SLiP 2000, but acknowledges that "Break Free CLP is probably fine for the vast majority of shooters."

    • "Shooting in the Rain"--CompetitionShooting.org. After shooting a match in the rain, the author had the following thoughts/suggestions:
      • Something waterproof to hold dry towels in.  I really wished I had some dry towels to dry my hands, and also any other piece of gear that was waterlogged.
      • Multiple methods of cleaning my shooting glasses.  I usually use either the bag my Oakley’s come in, or I have an extra microfiber cloth.  Both were soaked so it was extremely difficult to clean off my glasses when the rain stopped.
      • A cover for my cart that actually works.  I really wish I would have tried my rain cover before actually showing up to the match.  Not knowing that the rain cover wouldn’t work with my shotgun could have saved me a lot of time and aggravation.
      • Waterproof footwear.  I was wearing my Solomon’s, which worked pretty well, however they’re designed to soak through and dry out quickly, not actually repel water.
      • A better rain suit.  I picked up a Frog Tog jacket/pants rain suit, and they worked okay, but are very stiff and can get in the way.  While it was raining and I shot, I removed the jacket.
      • A waterproof hat.  My hat soaked to the core is what caused water to flow across my glasses.  Annoying to say the least.
      • Extra sets of clothes, for after the match, as well as during in the event you need to go prone.
      • When you get back home, empty all of your gear bags, and leave the pockets open so that everything can dry out, even if you believe that they didn’t get wet.
      • Spread out all of your gear, and give anything metal a wipe down with an oily rag.
      • Field strip, and if possible, detail strip your firearms.  Wipe them all down with an oily rag until you can clean them.  If you can clean them immediately, even better.  Flash rust starts fast so don’t neglect this step.
    • "Pro Tips For Hunting Whitetail Deer In The Rain"--Game & Fish Magazine.

    Before I tell you what you should bring with you on rainy day hunts, I'll explain what should be left behind. Don't bring electronic gear (unless you are willing to risk losing it to moisture). Forget your wallet, keys, pocket knives, extra flashlight and GPS unit. Leave your pack behind. Don't bring cameras, cooking gear, tripods, range finders, space blankets, survival gear or anything else that rain will ruin. Think of your rainy day hunt as a minimalist outing. Bring only the necessary gear you will need to bag and tag your buck.

    Next, expect to get wet. I sweat profusely under any kind of rain gear (especially during bow season), so I opt for wicking-type long-johns, which keep me warm even when wet. I wear the usual camouflage pants and shirt, a fleece jacket (if it's exceptionally cold), a hat, face mask and gloves. Of course, wear the appropriate amount of hunter-orange clothing, as required.

    Other than my bow or gun, a sharp knife and a bottle of water, I carry only my climbing stand and a strap-on umbrella. I like the umbrella because rain running down a tree trunk will eventually fill your boots with icy water.

    Most target shotguns wear fine wood and beautifully finished steel. You want to keep them shooting well and looking great. Most firearm finishes will stand up well to rain as long as you thoroughly dry and lubricate them after exposure to moisture. On the course, I’ll keep a supply of dry towels (as much as practical) and wipe down the gun after each station, then try to put it under cover such as the roof of a golf cart, a tarp, or a non-absorbent gun case.

    After the event, take your gun to the clubhouse (if it’s allowed) and dry it thoroughly with fresh towels or paper towels if that’s the only thing available. Put it into a dry case, and get it home. As soon as you get there, get the gun out of the case and disassemble it as far as you feel comfortable. If that means pulling the trigger group, so much the better.

    Wipe everything off again and let it dry out. Lightly, carefully taking a blow dryer to it is a good thing, too. Canned air will reach areas you might otherwise not. Then let it all air dry out in the open for at least an hour or so. Finally, wipe down all surfaces with a lightly oiled cloth and lightly lubricate moving parts with high-quality lubricant especially for firearms.

  • "Two killed, 3 wounded in Lacombe home invasion"--Fox 8 Live. The article is sparse on details, but what it does relate is that four (4) burglars entered the victim's home, pistol whipped him, but somehow the victim was able to get to a firearm and shoot all four of the burglars, killing two of them. The homeowner's 4-year old niece was apparently injured in the crossfire. 
  • "Collectible Weapons: How to Protect Your Wealth – and Your Family – With Valuable Guns"--Ammo.com. It is often said that firearms are a good investment, that they will only appreciate in value (or at least hold their value) and so on. It's not really true. Like any other product, it depends on a lot of factors. For instance, while their value doesn't decline as steeply, just as a new car's value falls as soon as you drive it off the lot, a new firearm's value will go down as soon as you take it out to shoot it. And like cars, there are certain factors that will determine whether it will retain value or appreciate in value at some future date due to its collectability. While good quality firearms from reputable companies will generally hold their value better than other firearms, popular interest may play as big or bigger role. For instance, why does a Colt Python command such a premium when other equally quality .357 Magnum revolvers such as those offered by Smith & Wesson or even Colt's own Trooper bring in much less? Or why does the German Luger command such prices over other other firearms from the same period? Perhaps one of the best example of this is the Bren 10 which was a largely unremarkable pistol but has high collector value and interest because (i) it was used by the main character of the Miami Vice television show and (ii) was so unpopular and expensive at the time it was made that only a rather small number were ever manufactured.
    In any event, the Ammo.com article gives an introduction to collecting guns for investment purposes or profit, including some tips on what makes a firearm valuable. The article also notes that "there are a number of weapons on a special ATF list that are not subject to the same background check laws as other firearms." These are the C&R (curio and relic) firearms that can be transferred directly to someone with an inexpensive and easily obtained C&R license. Antique firearms dating from era of black powder cartridges (or earlier) may not even be considered firearms for purposes of federal law (check your laws and the manufacture date of your firearm). 


"Orkestra Obsolete play Blue Monday using 1930s instruments - BBC Arts" (4 min.)
Just some interesting musical effects using period musical instruments.

Miscellany: 

    Other studies linking declining mental health with lockdown policies have emerged for adolescents and young adults in recent months, but children were not typically represented. For example, the CDC reported in August that 1 in 4 individuals ages 18-24 contemplated suicide during the spring lockdowns, and a recent Harvard study found startling rates of depression in young adults. Adolescent mental health has been hit particularly hard by the lockdowns and related social distancing policies. For example, a 16-year-old boy from Brunswick, Maine took his life last week after leaving a note saying that he felt locked in his house during the pandemic and separated from friends due to remote learning.

    The new University of Cambridge paper is the first longitudinal study to trace the mental health effects of lockdowns and social isolation on younger children, finding that their mental health is similarly deteriorating during the pandemic response.

Remember that the people pushing the lockdowns are, by and large, the same persons pushing gun control in order to prevent suicide. There is no consistency in their world-view or actions.
    Politicians actively fanned the flames of resistance with their "rules are only for the little people" flouting of their own orders. Amidst a flurry of high-profile examples, California Gov. Gavin Newsom's expensive gathering with other officials at The French Laundry stands out for its arrogance. Why should regular people driven to the brink of poverty and despair pay any attention to the dictates of such creatures?

    In distress and after due consideration, many Americans have decided that they shouldn't comply. Individually and in organized groups, often with the support of their communities, people are pushing back against lockdown orders that they find more threatening than COVID-19.

    ... It is inherently unfair to those states that could follow the process.  It is a denial of the rights of law-abiding states, counties, and voters, in the interest of potentially denying the rights of, at best, a well-meaning unconstitutional and unlawful voter.  It said to states and counties, “Go nuts!  Do whatever you want with your election law and as long as someone doesn’t challenge it from within your state, you’re golden.”  In other words, if a state and activist judges decided to ignore the Constitutional process, for whatever reason they deem necessary, those changes cannot be challenged by other states, for any reason, whatsoever.

    It is a dangerous precedent to set, as it neuters the Court in being the standard-bearers of Constitutionality for future interstate challenges to election laws.  In this particular case, Texas was seeking to have states enforce their own laws and Constitutional restrictions.  The Supreme Court decided, in part, to allow States to ignore any law or Constitutional mandate.  Even worse, 7 justices decided that Pennsylvania’s ignoring of a Supreme Court order [i.e., the order to segregate votes received before and after the mail in deadline]  was permissible.  Essentially, the United States Supreme Court has abdicated its Constitutional power to the executive.  For instance, what is stopping any state from introducing discriminatory laws?  Should the Supreme Court issue an order to prevent the enforcement of that law, what motivation, if any at all, does any state or county have to follow that order?  Josh Shapiro, who likely belongs behind bars for Contempt, now has less-than-zero motivation for ever following a Supreme Court order in the future.

And that was the basic problem with the Court's refusal to even hear the case, which is that failing to address serious allegations of fraud undermines the legitimacy of the whole electoral process and, by extension, the legitimacy of the government. 

    This election was supposed to demoralize [so-called Deplorables], crushing President Trump and his supporters in a double-digit landslide that would give the Democrats solid control of the White House and Congress — and, with a little judicious court-packing, of the judicial branch, too. The Deplorables would be made to realize that they aren’t in charge, that if they want to ride, they’ll have to (in Barack Obama’s famous words) ride in the back.

    Only it didn’t work out that way. The big congressional victories turned into lost House seats for the Democrats. And the presidential election was hardly a crushing victory. For an election to really take, the losers have to admit that they’ve been beaten. And to admit that they’ve been beaten, they have to think they actually lost fair and square. Not many Trump supporters think that.

    Leaving aside charges of voter fraud and vote-rigging, there is the undisputable fact that Big Media and Big Tech put not just a thumb, but both hands on the scales to influence the result.

    On the recent Supreme Court ruling, a Deep State intel source told me, “the Supreme Court did not like to see half the country rioting against them, and preferred the decision be made by each state in the House of Representatives. That is the only way to handle this without jeopardizing the union. Even prominent Democrats I know realize that the fix took place. The error was to steal too many votes. This grand theft indicts the whole system, that has always been corrupt.”

    Dangers abound. On the propaganda front, for instance, far right nationalists are absolutely convinced that U.S. media can be brought to heel only by occupying the six main offices of the top conglomerates, plus Facebook, Google and Twitter: then you’d have full control of the U.S. propaganda mill.

    Another Deep State source, now retired, adds that, “the U.S. Army does not want to intervene as their soldiers may not obey orders.

    Many of these far right nationalists were officers in the armed forces. They know where the nuclear missiles and bombers are. There are many in sympathy with them as the U.S. falls apart in lockdowns.”

Also:

    A perverse form of blowback is already in effect as informed global citizens may now see, crystal clear, the astonishing depth and reach of Deep State power – the ultimate decider of what happens next in Dystopia Central.

    Both options are dire.

      1. The election stands, even if considered fraudulent by nearly half of U.S. public opinion. To quote that peerless existentialist, The Dude, there’s no rug tying the room together anymore.
      2. Was the election to be somehow overturned before January 20, the Deep State would go Shock and Awe to finish the job.

    In either case, The Deplorables will become The Ungovernables.

    It gets worse. A possible implosion of the union – with internal convulsions leading to a paroxysm of violence – may even be coupled with an external explosion, as in a miscalculated imperial adventure. 

My guess would be Barack Obama, Hillary and Bill Clinton, and John Brennan anxious to stay out of prison, heading a long list of officials present and former who committed crimes trying desperately to protect them, with accessories aplenty across the aisle. That’s what this four-year coup has been about, snowballing criminality, culminating in an orgy of blatant ballot fraud. ...
    Given the Democrats’ Faustian bargain with their leftmost faction, destructive rumors about Biden’s faculties or his family’s financial escapades will more likely come from his own party’s left wing, eager for a Harris presidency, rather than from the Republican opposition.

    Biden will enter office with an ethical cloud hanging over his head — one that could have been vetted and adjudicated rather than blacked out for most of 2020. His son, brother and perhaps family associates may talk if faced with FBI and IRS probes, if not a special counsel investigation.

    It will not help Biden that to defeat Trump, many of our institutions were deformed. Special counsels usually never receive a blank check — 22 months and $32 million — to assemble a team of partisans to investigate a new president on mostly hearsay evidence and an opposition-concocted dossier.

    But that precedent ended with the ill-conceived Robert Muller investigation. By spring, Biden could have done to him what was done to Trump — and what Biden himself so frequently cheered on.

    Nor do we impeach presidents often, especially knowing that the Senate will acquit them when there is no alleged crime as outlined in the Constitution. That bar is also gone. Should the Republicans hold the Senate and take the House in 2022, they could do what the Democrats did in 2020. But if they were to impeach Biden as a possible beneficiary of his family’s foreign influence-peddling, a Republican-controlled Senate might not so easily acquit him.

    Biden variously called Trump supporters “ugly folk” and “chumps.” He compared the president to Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s Nazi propagandist. Biden smeared Trump by referring to him as the nation’s first racist president.

    Half the nation will take some time to forget all that. The repair of warped protocols will take longer, given that the left forgot the ancient Thucydidean warning to us not to destroy the very institutions whose protections one day we may need.

    Biden should hope that a rogue FBI does not conduct freelance investigations of him the way it did to Trump. Let Biden pray there is not a partisan medical community to diagnose him as impaired and suited for 25th Amendment removal, as was the case with Trump.

    Biden should hope that if Republicans hold the Senate in January, they do not mimic the Democratic habit of voting against nearly every Trump nominee. ...

    The highly sophisticated and alarming breach of multiple government agencies, including the Department of Homeland Security, through the infection of routine software updates has sparked the establishment of an attack coordination group at the National Security Council and left an untold amount of damage in its wake.

    “Based on what we are seeing, I would not be surprised to see that the FireEye and SolarWinds breaches are part of a larger campaign targeting the supply chain of cybersecurity companies,” Brig. Gen. Greg Touhill (USAF, ret.), who served from 2016-17 as the nation’s first federal chief information security officer, told HSToday.

    On Sunday night, the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency issued an emergency directive “in response to a known compromise involving SolarWinds Orion products that are currently being exploited by malicious actors,” calling on “all federal civilian agencies to review their networks for indicators of compromise and disconnect or power down SolarWinds Orion products immediately.”

    Through breaching the SolarWinds Orion products, an attacker was able “to gain access to network traffic management systems,” the directive said, stressing that “disconnecting affected devices… is the only known mitigation measure currently available.”

    “The compromise of SolarWinds’ Orion Network Management Products poses unacceptable risks to the security of federal networks,” CISA Acting Director Brandon Wales said then. “Tonight’s directive is intended to mitigate potential compromises within federal civilian networks, and we urge all our partners — in the public and private sectors — to assess their exposure to this compromise and to secure their networks against any exploitation.” Agencies were ordered to report to CISA by noon Monday on mitigation efforts.

    Citing unnamed sources, Reuters first reported Monday that DHS internal communications were hit by the same Russian government cyber campaign that, as first reported Sunday, struck the Treasury and Commerce departments. The New York Times reported that the Defense and State departments were also breached in the operation, and the Washington Post reported that the National Institutes of Health was also on the list.

  • Hmm. "Two SolarWinds investors sold $280million in stock six days before it was hacked in 'Russian cyber-attack' along with six federal agencies"--Daily Mail. The two were investor firms Silver Lake and Thoma Bravo. The article also notes that outgoing SolarWinds CEO Kevin Thompson also sold more than $15 million in shares in the company last month. The hack was made in March, and so there is a question of whether the investors and Thompson knew of the hack before it being made public and affecting share prices.
  • It's easy to be generous when it isn't your money: "Churches across the US commit to paying millions in racism-linked reparations in bid to 'reckon with the wrongs and evils of our past'"--Daily Mail. Per the article, "[t]he Episcopal Church has been the most active major denomination thus far, and others, including the United Methodist Church and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, are urging congregations to consider similar steps." This is nothing but empty virtue signalling by denominational leaders, perhaps mixed with the hope that they will be the last to be eaten.
  • "China drafts new law on grains reserves amid food security concerns"--Reuters (h/t Anonymous Conservative). Basically, the law gives the central Chinese government more control over regional governments' stockpiling of food. "The new law stipulates how the reserve volumes should be set and the products to be included, as well as when the grains can be released." Although the article blames fears of food shortages on COVID, the more likely problem in China was the months of rain it saw through the summer and into the fall. My guess is that the central government wants to foreclose widespread corruption in the sale of grain during a food crises. And, sure to warm the hearts of the much maligned "prepper" or "survivalist," the article indicates that "[t]he document also encourages urban and rural residents to stockpile grains in a reasonable way."
  • "Radio Is Experiencing Its Most Challenging Period"--Radio Ink (h/t KA9OFF). Radio has survived tough times before, such as when society transitioned to television as the primary form of entertainment ending the golden age of radio. But COVID has hit commercial radio hard because the lockdowns and general reaction to COVID has resulted in people spending less time in cars and, therefore, less time listening to radios. But radio was already facing challenges from other methods to deliver audio entertainment that is more individualized. 
  • "Middle School Reading Lists 100 Years Ago vs. Today" by Annie Holmquist, Intellectual Takeout. From the article:
    In examining these lists, I noticed three important differences between the reading content of these two eras:

1. Time Period

    One of the striking features of the [modern] Edina list is how recent the titles are. Many of the selections were published in the 21st century. In fact, only four of the selections are more than 20 years old.

    In comparison, over half of the titles on the first list were at least 20 years old in 1908, with many of them averaging between 50 to 100 years old.

    Older is not necessarily better, but the books on the first list suggest that schools of the past were more likely to give their students time-tested, classic literature, rather than books whose popularity may happen to be a passing fad.

2. Thematic Elements

    A second striking difference between the two book lists are the themes they explore. The first is full of historical references and settings which stretch from ancient Greece (Tanglewood Tales) to the Middle Ages (Harold, Last of Saxon Kings) to the founding of America (Courtship of Miles Standish). Through highly recognized authors such as Longfellow, Stevenson, Kipling, and Dickens, these titles introduce children to a vast array of themes crucial to understanding the foundations upon which America and western civilization were built.

    The Edina list, however, largely deals with modern history, particularly hitting on many current political and cultural themes such as the Taliban (The Breadwinner), cloning, illegal immigrants, the drug war (The House of the Scorpion), and deeply troubled youth (Touching Spirit Bear). In terms of longstanding, classic authors, Mark Twain and Ray Bradbury are the only ones who stand out.

    It’s good for children to understand the world in which they live, but as with any area in life, you can have too much of a good thing. A continual focus on modern literature narrows the lens through which children can view and interpret the world. Would it not be better to broaden their horizons and expose them to a balance of both old and new literature?

3. Reading Level

    Many of the books on the Edina list use fairly simple, understandable language and vocabulary familiar to the modern reader. ...

    The first example uses simple words and a casual sentence structure, while the second uses a rich vocabulary and a complex writing format. Naturally, some might look at the second selection and say, “Good grief! How do you expect a child to understand that?!?”

But that’s the whole point. Unless we give our students challenging material to dissect, process, and study, how can we expect them to break out of the current poor proficiency ratings and advance beyond a basic reading level?

Up until now, only human beings and other great apes have demonstrated an ability to understand probabilities – being able to weigh up the odds based on the available data, or statistical inference, as it's formally called. Now, for the first time, a parrot species has demonstrated this skill.

The tests were conducted using kea (Nestor notabilis) parrots.

    Less positive things can be said for Spengler’s conception of civilizations as organisms. Organisms have a life course, ordained at birth. From a seed springs a sapling. From a sapling grows an oak. In time the mighty oak ages to leafless hulk. Accident may interrupt this natural course. Feller’s axe or fire’s heat may halt the journey from acorn to rotting lumber; poor soil may cause our oak to grow less tall. But if allowed to grow, the acorn shall always grow into an oak, and never into an elm, a mushroom, or a hippopotamus. As eggs are destined to hatch as tadpoles then grow to croaking toads, as infants are meant to pass through days of adolescent strength then on to wizened languor, so every great culture must travel its predetermined life-path.
 
* * *
 
    This is a bigger problem than it might seem. Why does Spengler conclude that cultures are organisms, destined to grow along their life path as saplings grow to trees? Only because he sees the pattern repeat again and again in human history. Nowhere does Spengler actually explain why a culture might travel the course it does. He only observes that past cultures have all done this, and thus Western culture will do so as well. Spengler’s argument is all correlation—and for a correlative argument, his data set is extremely small.
 
    I attribute these oddities in Spengler to a Hegelian heritage Spengler never quite acknowledges. Hegel saw History as an actor who operated above, or rather, through human agency. Spengler writes in a similar mode, distinguishing, as the Hegelians did, between true World History (with a capital W-H) on the one hand from mere historical ephemera on the other. Like the Hegelians, he privileges intellectual history as the core of this human story. Spengler's innovation is to point out a flaw in the Hegelian narrative: what Hegel and his acolytes had assumed was the grand narrative of human history was actually just a narrow slice of the whole. Spengler adds the rest of the globe to his attempt, replacing Hegel’s one big story of the Mind with many big stories, each a History of a specific culture’s Mind. You might think of Spengler as the marriage of Hegelianism and cultural relativism. If in Hegel individuals and events are simply expressions of the World Historical force as it marches on its predestined path, in Spengler individuals are similarly reduced to the trajectory of the Culture that birthed them.
 
    But Hegel is a flawed foundation. The trouble with Hegel, well acknowledged even in Spengler’s day: unless history with a capital H and mind with a capital M are just other words for God, there is no reason to assume there is some unitary, organic force acting outside of individual human agency. This problem is even more acute with Spengler, who clearly believes in neither God nor gods. We know that an organism follows a select life path because that path is translated, one protein at a time, from its DNA. Where is the genetic code of a culture? Is there even such an entity as culture? Neither world events nor intellectual trends are the result of some entity called culture acting on us or through us. There is no telos in a culture that precedes the interactions of the individuals who comprise it. Culture is an abstract shorthand we use to describe the totality of these interactions.

    Spengler’s runaway metaphor is really just an especially exaggerated case of a common human error—an error so common that evolutionary anthropologist Pascal Boyer argues that it is an innate feature of human psychology, just as built into our cognition as perception of the color spectrum. One aspect of this “folk sociology” is that human beings

Spontaneously construe human groups as agents. For instance, we talk about villages or social classes or nations as entities that want this, fear that, take decisions, fail to perceive what is happening, reward people or take revenge against them, are hostile toward other groups, and so on. Even the workings of a small social group like a committee are often described in such… This is not just a modern phenomenon. In many tribal societies, people talk about collections of individuals as distinct groups. Lineage societies, for instance, have distinct descent groups that are often considered to be different agents—such that one can say that the so-and-so lineage “wants this” or “resists that,” and there is nothing strange in such talk. In many places in the world these days, ethnic groups or social classes play this role, and it seems self-evident that each group has specific goals or intentions.

    But of course human collectives are not unitary agents. Corporations do not desire, nations do not act, bureaucracies do not maneuver, and the people do not demand. We describe them doing these things for much the same reason the U.S. Code affirms that “the words "person" and "whoever" include corporations, companies, associations, firms, partnerships, societies, and joint stock companies, as well as individuals.” Without this legal fiction, any transaction with a corporation—be it regulation, taxation, prosecution, or a simple commercial deal—would be too complex to manage. The legal solution to this problem mirrors the cognitive short-cut our brain takes to understand collectives. “Corporate personhood” is simply folk sociology encoded in law.

    It is not hard to jump from treating a collective as an agent to treating a collective as a living agent, possessing all the attributes of animals and people, the living agents we are most familiar with. It is natural to talk of the ‘death of Rome’ or ‘national birthdays.” It is hard to remember with such talk that these phrases are mere metaphors, and that words like “Rome” or “the nation” are themselves abstractions meant to simplify more complex realities. This is one of the other aspects of Boyer’s “folk sociology.” We are primed to think of patterns of human interaction as reified, external objects that act on us much like physical forces encountered in nature do. We are not actually “suffocated” by tradition or “pressured” by our workplace. This is not just because there is nothing out there in the world physically suffocating us or applying pressure to our bodies. The truth is that there is not really a tradition or a set of norms “out there” at all. What we experience and understand as an external force acting on us is in reality a simplified mental representation of the expectations, preferences, behaviors, and concepts of dozens or hundreds of other individuals, formed through thousands and tens of thousands of interactions.

The issue I take with the author's conclusion is that Spengler's laws had predictive powers even if Spengler was not able to explain why they worked  (or, else, Spengler picked up on trends that were not readily apparent to anyone else). For instance, although the author says that each generation complains of a decline in creativity, there is actual ways to measure it now--such as the decline in the complexity and originality of music--that indicates that this time, it is true. In fact, there seems to be an overall decline in creativity, sometimes termed a creativity crises. Spengler also predicted and described the rise of what he called "world cities" that would dominate nations to such an extent that countries would, in effect, become larger versions of city states subject to these vast centers of finance, industry, and society/politics. Thus, it was not surprising to read in the article "Renewed Calls For North American Union Based On Technocracy" that:

    ... There is Functional Geography (FG) mapping which is more relevant than the political maps that dominate our walls. FG shows how business comes together. Singapore is the capital of business in SE Asia because of its power of connectivity. Even though Singapore is an island of five million people, it is critical to the entire Southeast Asia connectivity. There are three hostile governments in that section of the world and yet they are all working together to master plan the economic future and crossing state lines. Tokyo is the biggest city in the world but the Pearl River Delta (PRD)is now the largest area of the world and has overtaken Tokyo. The PRD has 60 million people and a GDP of $2 trillion. How did this happen? PRD is one of the most densely connected places in the world. SEZ was an opening in China to allow certain parts of China to do business globally and to invest in U.S. real estate and finance. To build high infrastructure will be the way that we grow a country. It’s all about growing infrastructure and connectivity growth; not military growth.

    Asia has five billion people with 60 million in the Pearl River Delta region. Within a two hour flight, you can reach five billion people and there is one common factor. It has megacity archipelagos that define humanity. The growth is organic and irreversible because people want to move to the city. By 2030, there will be 50 megacities in the world. When you map economic connectivity, one city can affect millions of people. These cities are all capitals and not just business hubs. ...

* * *

    ... It’s looking at the Megapolis map that counts and not the political maps. It’s the target maps. If a city isn’t doing well then a country isn’t doing well. It’s not the country that grows a city. A city grows a country and matters much more. ...

    As hunter-gatherers settled down and took to farming the land, groups of people began gathering in larger numbers and cooperating. But new research suggests the adoption of agriculture encouraged violence between humans populations, too.

    "We were interested in understanding why people would make the shift from hunting and gathering to farming," Elic Weitzel, doctoral student in anthropology at the University of Connecticut, said in a news release. "Then I started to get interested in what happened in society after they made that shift and started farming on a larger scale."

    Weitzel and his colleagues used "ideal free distribution" to simulate the distribution of farmers in in eastern North America between 7,500 and 5,000 years ago, as well as to locate the most coveted land -- the acreage with the most food, water, raw materials and shelter.

    Scientists graded different land parcels with a "net primary productivity" score. The most productive pieces of land tended to host the largest concentration of people, and thus, host the greatest amount of conflict and violence.

 Also:

    During the time period studied, scientists identified archaeological evidence of larger, more dense population centers, a sign of growing levels of cooperation among groups of humans. But researchers also found evidence of increased violence and trophy taking in the archaeological record.

    "Of course there are signs of violence throughout history, but trophy-taking is a different type of violence," Weitzel said. "The victor removes a part of the loser as a signal they won. They took scalps, hands, feet, heads -- that first evidence appears to have happened at the same time as plant management."

    Scientists were also able to see patterns predicted by Allee's Principle playing out in the archaeological record. As concentrations of humans grew, the land's suitability declined and groups began to disperse once more. A decline in trophy-taking violence declined during the period of dispersal.

Or maybe it was being stuck in a monotonous job in close proximity to stupid people that led to the increase in conflict.

    A new study (Geirsdóttir et al., 2020) now affirms peak Holocene warmth at  least “∼3–4 °C above modern in Iceland” prevailed throughout much of the last 8000 years. Data from tree growth, glacier-induced soil erosion, algae productivity, sea ice biomarker proxies (IP25), and other climate indices affirm these conclusions.

    Harning et al., 2020 report an overall 7°C Holocene cooling trend In Iceland’s surrounding sea surface temperatures (SST).

    “In terms of foraminifera-reconstructed SST there is an overall trend of cooling throughout the last 8 ka from ~10 °C to ~3 °C.”

    It is only in the last few centuries of the modern era that temperatures sharply plummeted to their lowest values of the last 10,000 years (Geirsdóttir et al., 2020).

    “The coolest climate of the last 10 ka occurred in the late 1800s CE.”

    Consequent to the peak cooling, glaciers and sea ice reached their maximum extents of the Holocene just 150 years ago.

    While Iceland’s glaciers and North Shelf sea ice extent did partially recover in the first half of the 20th century, the ice extents are still beyond what they were in the 1700s and earlier.

    There is nothing to indicate modern warmth or ice recession in and around Iceland is unprecedented or even unusual.

  • A reminder that we live in the 21st Century: "HPE Invents First Memristor Laser" by Samuel K. Moore, IEEE Spectrum. As the article explains, "memristors are devices that store memory as resistance. The right voltage signal can change the resistance, and that resistance will remain even if the power is turned off." Researchers as HP Labs have done something similar: a laser that stores its own wavelength setting and keeps it even when the power is off. The article notes that having lasers able to operate at different wavelengths increases the bandwidth of information that can be passed through optical fibers and circuits, but this development also opens the door to developing fully integrated optic circuits, including memory, on the same chip. 

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4 comments:

  1. Bad AttitudeDecember 20, 2020 at 4:13 PM

    RE: "The Gyre Widens". Biden is only a vessel. The establishment really wants a Harris presidency. Assuming his fraudulent election is allowed to stand, Biden will quickly be removed from office - most likely by 25th Amendment action.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. DocentDecember 20, 2020 at 9:32 PM

      Undoubtedly. He's already said that if he has a policy disagreement with Harris, he will step down.

      Delete
  2. John WilderDecember 20, 2020 at 11:05 PM

    COVID is transmissible by 9mm?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. DocentDecember 21, 2020 at 9:09 AM

      You gotta just trust what the experts say. You don't want to be a science denier do you?

      Delete