The XM25 Moves From Prime Time to Real Time

Unlike the FN P90 which seems to have only been deployed in the Stargate universe on the SciFi Channel the XM25 is actually seeing use in the real world.

photo courtesy of wikimedia commons

So, we've been watching the development of the XM25 for what feels like a decade now.  Mostly one has seen it on the various cable future weapon shows, now it will be seen in Afghanistan in actual use.  While a little bulky, the XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System weighs only 14 pounds fully loaded and fires a 25mm grenade that is wirelessly fused to airburst just inside the window, a little behind the wall, or right above the foxhole from which an opponent is firing at our team.  At $25,000 a piece the XM25 may sound a little spendy but each smart grenade cartridge costs only $25 dollars each.  Others have mentioned it's a lot cheaper and much more precise than using a Hellfire missile or Viper Strike glide bomb for the same job.  In any case we've come a long way since the Vietnam Era M79 Bloop Tube.  Any implement that lets our troops kill more bad guys, with less risk to themselves, while inflicting fewer unintended casualties sounds like a fine idea to me.  Some days our tax dollars get spent on something truly useful to the troops.  Wonder what they'll call it...

National Opt Out Day

Will you Opt Out on November 24, 2010?

image courtesy of the TSA

The TSA has been deploying Advanced Imaging Technology since 2007.  Persons (including the pilots of the very aircraft the TSA is trying to prevent from being hijacked) can choose to be electronically denuded or they may "Opt Out" and be subjected to an enhanced pat down that includes an inspection of the groin, buttocks, and breasts.  TSA administrator John Pistole says the new procedures strike a "balance between privacy and security."

Some folks disagree and have decided to resist what they regard as an unwarranted intrusion on the privacy of the flying public.  They have designated tomorrow, Wednesday, November 24, 2010, the day before the Thanksgiving holiday here in the US and one of the busiest travel days of the year, National Opt Out Day.

The media, the blogosphere, and US politicians are divided (except perhaps those US politicians who are exempt from any screening).  Some lean one way or the other.  Some note that the Israelis don't use AIT.  Some writers are having their cake and eating it.  In This Junk Won't Fly: The idiocy of airport-scanner "Opt-Out Day" William Saletan argues we shouldn't opt out because doing so will cause inconvenience to all travelers.  Saletan wasn't quite so sanguine about the privacy violation back in his March 2007 piece title Digital Penetration: Invasion of the naked body scanners.

I'm traveling by car this weekend so I don't have to decide.  How about you?

Updated 23 November to add: Actually I do have an opinion...

The TSA has reacted predictably to every new mode of attack by implementing a more intrusive inspection regime. Al-Qaeda says "Boo" and the next thing you know the TSA is looking at naked pictures of our mothers, wives, and daughters? What happens when some unsuspecting trans-Atlantic drug mule fills his colon with Semtex instead of a heroin shipment? Will we all line up for preflight abdominal x-rays or opt out and submit to body cavity inspections?

Terrorism may seem like a big problem, but our collective fear of terrorism and the ability of others to profit or accrete power as a result of that fear is a bigger problem. We're going to stop over-reacting sooner or later, why not now?

Updated again on 25 November...

Initial media reports were that National Opt Out was a total bust.  Now, it seems that one of the reasons air travelers did not opt out much at all on Wednesday was because the TSA appears to have quietly turned off their AIT machines, eliminating the need - or the option - to opt out.  An interesting, if transparent (please excuse the pun) solution.  So, if the TSA is convinced we cannot fly safely without the AIT program, on what grounds, and on whose authority, can they choose to turn off the backscatter and millimeter-wave scanners on the busiest travel day of the year?

Nature Is Cruel, But We Don't Have To Be

Please, please, please, put Temple Grandin on your Must See list!

The HBO movie Temple Grandin, starring Claire Danes, won seven Emmy Awards in 2010.  It is now available on DVD.  The movie is clever and heartfelt and is one of the best movies I've seen this year.  The performances, large and small, were spot on.  Danes became Grandin; if you close your eyes I'm not sure you could tell them apart.  I look forward to watching it again.

I first encountered Temple Grandin, Ph.D., when she was interviewed on NPR in 2006. She said her visual thinking let her experience the world as a cow does.  This caused her to develop evidence-based animal handling systems in which livestock experience much less stress.  Ironically, her explanation of how animals perceive the world has made me a better hunter.

Dr. Grandin is an outspoken champion of those with Autism Spectrum Disorders.  She invented the "hug machine" which is used to comfort and calm hypersensitive persons.  Grandin is a prolific author, penning a variety of books including The Way I See It: A Personal Look at Autism and Asperger's and Thinking In Pictures: My Life With Autism.  She gave a funny and poignant talk at TED 2010 where she said she felt right at home with many of the attendees who seemed to be operating somewhere on the autism spectrum.

And yes, she designs slaughterhouses...

A New Batch of iTunes U Podcasts...

Having caught up with my podcast listening over vacation it's time for some new on-line courses...

photo from photos8.com (you really should check out this site if you need stock photos)

The Book of Revelation almost didn't make the cut for inclusion in the Christian canon, and there's no telling how much happier Western Christianity might have been without it.  Having literally written the book on Revelation this course appears to be an in-depth exegesis by Dr. Louis A. Brighton (Professor Emeritus of New Testament Exegetical Theology at Concordia Seminary in St. Louis, MO) who apparently will be taking this troubling book very, very seriously.

Zombies! The Living Dead in Literature, from the University of Alabama promises to be a real hoot.

[Updated to add: Yep, it was a hoot.]

What Darwin Got Wrong by Professor Jerry Fodor may be worth a listen.  This lecture is apparently drawn on the controversial book of the same name by Fodor and Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini.

The History of Modern Mathematics (1906) by David Eugene Smith is featured in the USF Lit2Go series.

In Tales of Vampires and the Undead, Dr. Rebecca Haynes will "look at tales of vampires and the undead with special reference to Central and Eastern Europe and some orthodox funeral customs used to placate and hopefully prevent their return as revenants to the world of the living."

[This was actually a quite scholarly lecture on the European folklore surrounding the topic, from which Bram Stoker drew his inspiration.]

Religion in History: Conflict, Conversion and Coexistence is offered by The Open University.

[I've also added Coleridge's The Rime of the Ancient Mariner and Stoker's Dracula, both from the USF Lit2Go program.]

As always, these courses are free to anyone with an iTunes account or (in most cases) by visiting the host institutions.

No Excuses

My Hoyt Havoc and I were inseparable this last week...

Purchased used from a very serious bowhunter who set it up as a pure hunting tool, my Hoyt Havoc XT 2000 dual cam compound bow is compact, very fast, and extremely quiet.  It's capable of such fine accuracy that I was forced to named it "No Excuses" after its first trip to the range.  I used it that first season to collect my Second Chance Buck.  About the only fault I find with it is common to all compound bows - the metal riser sucks the heat from my hands in cold weather.  This season I gave up on light arrows and mechanical broadheads.  I put Three Rivers Archery weight tubes in my Beman ICS Hunter carbon arrows and installed Muzzy MX-3 broadheads.  I zero'd the pins at 20, 30, and 40 yards (this last distance is intended for challenging practice rather than use in the field).  I was running the bow cranked down to it's full 70 pound pull for practice but backed off a full turn mid-week; a fella needs a bow he can draw without a warm-up once he's out hunting.  I saw the ten point buck I'm interested in three different times this last week but not once did he grace me with a shot.  One evening he loitered for 45 minutes in the vicinity of my buddy Greg's stand while I watched a mess of does from my ambush spot.  Problem was Greg was hunting does and I was after the buck.  Guess that's why we call it hunting instead of deer shooting.  Our host Tim shot a dandy buck his one morning in the river bottom.  Greg tagged a nice doe on Friday.  Alas, I have nothing to show for my efforts...yet.  I have until the end of December to try again...