Blog postings will resume. Hope everyone had a good Christmas.

I have a few pre-compiled Christmas related posts up my sleeve, but other than that I’ll likely be too busy to spend any time on the computer.

Hope everyone has a great Christmas!

-Mike

Damn, and I was just in Los Angeles.

From their website LAGangTours.com:

The mission of LA GANG TOURS is to provide an unforgettable historical experience for our customers with a customized high-end specialty tour. We will provide customers with a true first-hand encounter of the history and origin of high profile gang areas and the top crime scene locations in South Central, Los Angeles. Each tour bus for LA GANG TOURS will have a guide from the South Central areas who has gained hands on knowledge and experience of the inner city lifestyle.

Best quote from the L.A. Times article:

“I’m not saying you have to stop shooting each other,” Lomas said. “Just allow me a certain time in the day. . . . Just let the bus go through.”

Sounds Dangerous.

Interesting though…

When I first heard about Google wave I was excited to see something new from Google.

I watched the first video Google put out where they branded it as a revolutionary way to communicate.  It definitely looks like it has potential to save a lot of time and increase productivity in certain situations.

A condensed version of the original video Google made highlighting the features, can be watched below:

I misunderstood the original video I watched, so when I first got my Google wave invite a couple of days ago I was pumped to get onto some gun related waves.  Of course I didn’t realize that the whole wave system is not public, and you have to invite people to join a wave.  Boooooooooooo…

Bare minimum I thought I’d at least be able to get on some “9mm v.s. .45″ or “why the desert eagle .50 (DEAGLE) is the best gun evaahhhhhh” wave debates… but no….

There I was with my shiny new Google wave window open, and no one to talk to.

When you sign up for an account they give you 8 invites, so I decided to invite my dad to join so we could try it out.

We had a small conversation using the akward interface, and both quickly lost interest.

If I was still in university doing group projects I’d definitely give it another try.  Since I am not, I likely won’t spend any more time trying to figure it out until it gets out of its beta “preview”.  Hopefully the user interface will be more intuitive by then.

This picture really sums it up:

For those of you that are not completely turned off of by my poor review and are looking for an invite, you can email me, I have a couple remaining.

This looks like fun:

On December 4th I blogged that DARPA was holding a competition (On Dec. 5th) where you could win $40000 in prize money.

My Predictions:

My guess is the correct answer is submitted in less than 30 minutes, on behalf of some sort of tightly knit organization.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

I wonder if anyone is planning on playing dirty and attaching a bunch of fake decoy balloons at various locations throughout the U.S. … If that is the case then maybe my prediction of 30 minutes isn’t realistic.

The Winner:

The Red Balloon Team of M.I.T. (Massachusetts Institute of Technology)

I find it unsurprising that M.I.T. won, considering the people that go there are obviously very intelligent.

What I do find surprising though is the lack of information released by M.I.T. or DARPA about the details on the network that was established that led to the win.

There is a useless PDF that the DARPA site links to – HERE and all it says it it took “less than 9 hours”.

The FAQ of the M.I.T. Red Balloon Team offers some insight into the process, but still doesn’t give any details about how many people ended up signing up and how they eventually won.

Kind of anti-climatic considering I thought there would be a lot of fake balloons launched, and other random hi-jinx.  Well maybe there was, but who knows, because like I mentioned earlier there seems to be absoultely no information about the progression of the contest.

Here is the map from DARPA on where they placed the 10 Balloons.  I wonder what their problem was with the central U.S.?

DARPA Network Challenge

The competition kicks off Dec. 5 at 10 a.m. Eastern Standard Time, when DARPA ( Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency ) will display 10 8-foot, red weather balloons at undisclosed, publicly accessible sites around the continental United States. The balloons will remain at their locations throughout the day, until sunset.

The first person to identify the precise latitudes and longitudes of all 10 balloons will win the prize money.

Norman Whitaker, deputy director of DARPA’s transformational convergence technology office, conceded that it would be nearly impossible for any one person to pinpoint every balloon within the designated timeframe. But if the competitors worked together as teams – using social networking forums made possible through the Internet – it is possible, he said.

My guess is the correct answer is submitted in less than 30 minutes, on behalf of some sort of tightly knit organization.  It will be interesting to see how this plays out.

I wonder if anyone is planning on playing dirty and attaching a bunch of fake decoy balloons at various locations throughout the U.S. … If that is the case then maybe my prediction of 30 minutes isn’t realistic.

Good luck to everyone that is participating.

More information on the contest – HERE

Get A Life – Bin That Knife

is what these bins that are all over the UK read.

Source: SgtRock333 (flickr)

I previously blogged about the knife ban in the UK, but did not know about this initiative.   While reading about this today something else came to my attention… apparently “regular” police in the UK do not carry guns!  Only “special” units get them.

Anyway back on the topic of knife surrender bins, I have a couple of questions:

1) Do criminals actually use these?

2) Do criminals ever break into them to steal knives?

3) What do the police do with all the knives they take in?  Melt them down?

4) Why is the bin so big?  Even if people are depositing machettes and samari swords it still seems a bit large.

5) What is the ratio of garbage to knives on an average collection day?

6) If you got caught by the police with a knife, could you just claim “I was just on my way to a bin”, or is there some sort of special house to bin transport bag you need in order for that excuse to work?

7) How many ironic stabbings / knife heists occur right next to these bins?

John Allan Muhammad (The D.C. Sniper) will be executed today in Virgina at 9pm by lethal injection.

Giving this guy a lethal injection is far too humane if you ask me.

Hopefully that P.O.S. Fort Hood shooter is next in line.

D.C. Sniper Wiki Link – HERE

Source: AFP

What a terrible day November 5th was.

I was not around to blog about the events at Fort Hood as they unravled, but in my absence my fellow bloggers definitely picked up the slack.

SayUncle has a time line of the media shenanigans that happened throughout the day – HERE

The suspect Nidal Malik Hasan is reported to be hospitalized.

There are reportedly 13 dead, and close to 30 wounded. – LINK

Thank god for Sargent Kimberly Munley for putting an end to it. – LINK

While watching the latest episode of my favorite show “The Big Bang Theory” (Season 3 Episode 6) on November 2nd I noticed the upside down flag.

According to U.S. Flag Code:

The flag should never be displayed with the union down, except as a signal of dire distress in instances of extreme danger to life or property.

Source:  USFlag.org – United States Flag Code

The flag would appear right side up from Sheldon’s perspective if the laptop screen were closed.  Interestingly enough the “Go Daddy” logo (pictured below) appears right side up from the current viewpoint when the laptop screen is open.

I wonder, was this accidental or intentional?

Now that I got your attention, here is the closest thing you will probably see, to him ever holding a gun in public:

Nice HANDgun!

This is pretty badass:

Join, or Die is a famous political cartoon created by Benjamin Franklin and first published in his Pennsylvania Gazette on May 9, 1754. The original publication by the Gazette is the earliest known pictorial representation of colonial union produced by a British colonist in America. It is a woodcut showing a snake severed into eighths, with each segment labeled with the initial of a British American colony or region.

Video of when he showed it to the girls on “The View” ( at  1:32 ):

Learn about Join or Die on wiki – HERE

More about Craig Ferguson on wiki – HERE

This actually looks pretty interesting!  Hopefully he doesn’t spend every episode trying to “act”

According to THIS article, it’s true that he actually was working as a police officer between films

Some more interesting information about Steven Segal and his ties with the mob – HERE

A&E site for Steven Segal: Lawman – HERE

The series starts in December!

For those that don’t know, TUMI is a company that makes luxury luggage and accessories such as wallets and belts.

I was in one of their stores in Minneapolis, MN recently and this caught my eye:

This is what they call their “Digital Camouflage Extra Large 35″ Wheeled Duffel” Style: 22042 , and yes it is as BOLD in real life as it looks in the picture.

You can view the rest of the collection on their website HERE

The first thing that came to mind when I saw it was “Wow, that looks like CADPAT (CAnadian Disruptive PATtern)” (CADPAT wiki page) but I’ll let you be the judge of that:

With the uncanny resemblance to CADPAT, I wonder if there are any stylish Canadian soldiers that swapped out their issue duffel for one of those TUMI bad boys.

I am not a huge fan of CADPAT.  It definitely has utility in wooded environments, but outside of that I really prefer ACUPAT for urban environments and for good coverage in a variety of other environments.  Plus I think ACUPAT (below) would have made nicer looking luggage.

Pretty much everything is banned in the UK now by the looks of it, and from what I hear you are basically on camera everywhere you go in any major city.  Sounds like an enjoyable place to live *sarcasm*.  Too bad nothing will change because, oh right criminals DO NOT care about the law.

Thank god this magnitude of stupidity has not reached the US yet, although who knows what the future has in store.

To modify a famous quote:  “If kitchen utensils are outlawed, then only outlaws will have kitchen utensils”

And for your reference and amusement:

UK Government’s Offensive Weapons Act 1996

UK Government’s Violent Crime Reduction Act 2006