Firearms Thoughts

This has gotten so out of hand as to have become fodder for a Shakespearean tragedy. Sadly that comparison is what we now see so often every time some imbecile decides to end a argument with a bullet.

Dont misconstrue this rant. I am pro-firearm ownership. 

What I'm not for is a gun in every hand.

What I'm not for is the illegal sale of firearms. 

There are humans who should not have this privilege. Everyone knows this. 

It should be exceptionally difficult to legally purchase a firearm. At the very least, it should be ridiculously more arduous than buying liquor or cigarettes or getting a drivers license. It should take at least as much time and effort to buy a firearm as it takes to obtain say, a pilot's license. The current system is reprehensible in its lack of responsibility.

I'm thinking Code of Hammurabi. If one kills another with a firearm without provocation. You die by firing squad.

Simple. Easy to understand. 

It isn't the responsibility of firearms manufacturers to police who buys their products. That is stupid.

And, idiots spouting off about their 2nd amendment rights being stomped on probably have something to hide. CCL is so stupidly easy any moron can pass the test. (And, fuck you. If you disagree with any of this, you probably shouldn't be carrying.

Stupid Human Pet Tricks

The reality is the ad nauseam atrocities that define middle-east and arab/jew conflicts are nothing more than a squabble that has gone on for thousands of years because a story was written about some imaginary magical asshole choosing his favorite pet.

That that evolved into the clusterfuck that defines the modern-day middle east, antisemitism and anti-arab idealogies is testament to the self-serving leaders of these cults long-utilizing the power of propagandized ignorance to kill innocent humans. That's just plain evil and it comes from both sides of the fence. Choose a side? Choose the lesser of two evils? Let god decide? Lol. You think either side is justified? I would love to hear that argument.

My Current State of Mind - 9 October, 2023

You murder one another for some dirt with imaginary lines drawn in it. You drop bombs on the innocent because their belief and yours in magical beings are different, or because of who your mother or father or sister or brother are, or because of where your family is from, or for trinkets, or for what happened hundreds or thousands of years ago. You rape and murder women because you're incapable of self control or rational thought.

In the grand scheme, petty resentment means nothing, but it nonetheless is the engine that will destroy humanity and drive the destruction of our world. Those that condone and participate in these atrocities are destined to live through them, if you're that unfortunate.

The Wild Wild NAS

Note: I wrote this in 2016.

Our company recently purchased a quadcopter UAV, a really cool drone with a killer, gimbal-mounted, high-res multifunction camera capable of video and still photography. Its intended use is to provide us a means of inspecting inaccessible roofs. As I write, our drone is sitting on a workbench at the manufacturer's repair facility, out California way while back in Chicago, its operator (me) awaits a damage assessment/repair bill. It's FUBAR. I know it. I scraped it off the ground.

And I am not alone.  As of January, almost 300,000 recreational drones have registered with the FAA. Expect this number to go sky high come summer, as the FAA should make Part 107 the new law on the block. Currently, an operator of a drone for profit is required by law to possess a pilot's license. ...a real, bonifide pilot's license. Part 107 will likely do away with this.  I recently attended a Meetup panel presentation Titled "Is the Sky the Limit?" There, Mark Foisy, the Aviation Safety Inspector/Unmanned Aircraft Specialist for the Federal Aviation Agency alluded to as much.

As said, this will likely cause the number of drones and drone operators to skyrocket. To say the drone industry is a magnet to dreamers, schemers and snake oil salespeople is an understatement. With the tech built into today's consumer UAVs, practically anyone who's ever picked up a game controller can fly a drone. It's a no-brainer. Hell, I flew ours mere hours after acquiring it. And I take RTFM very seriously. So it is absolutely imperative that operators are held to high standards of safety, responsibility and oversight.

Think about this. The operator of a 15 pound drone has a flyaway  (a loss of operator control). The UAV crashes, resulting in vehicle accidents, property damage, personal injury or other mayhem. And with their proliferation and likely ubiquity, the potential for such scenarios increase.

So what is a fledgling drone operator to do? Moreover, what will the regulatory outcome be? Regarding the latter, the FAA has the final say, and they're still trying to figure it out. The rules will invariably be tweaked, again.

As for me, my plan is to operate responsibly, within the current regulations. In anticipation of Part 107, I'm planning on taking flight school (ground school) courses to become familiarized with the the terminology and NAS rules and regs. Ignorance has no place in the wild, wild NAS.

Luck

Yesterday I went grocery shopping. When I shop I use wireless Bluetooth headphones. At the checkout line, I take them out and put them in my pocket. After walking out of the store with my cart I reach into my pocket to retrieve the buds to put them back in their case only to discover one is missing. Also I discover a hole in said pocket. I look for them to no avail. Anyway, fast forward to this morning I call the grocery store and ask if they could look for it in lost and found. It wasn't there. I asked if I could come back to look one more time. They said sure. So I put on the same jacket and as I'm walking out to the truck I reach into the jacket pocket below the holy pocket and find the second earbud. It fell into another pocket.