Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Ballistics, Civil Rights, Constitution, Daily Kos, Failure, Government, Guns, Politics, RKBA, Society
No, not from blogging. And it is only tangentially related to yesterday’s post. Rather, from visiting some of my usual gun forums – the upcoming inauguration has caused a resurgence of hatin’ on “LIEBRALS and DEMONCRATS”, and I just don’t have the stomach for it right now. As I said in a diary I posted on dKos a month ago:
I have given up participation in some gun forums for being told that I cannot be a gun owner and still be a liberal. Seriously, sometimes it is impossible to get other gun owners to understand that this issue does not need to be one which breaks down according to party alignment (and isn’t good for gun rights if it does). Even my family and some of my gun-owning friends have a hard time wrapping their head around it. The most common refrain is that no “true” gun owner can possibly be a liberal, or vote for a Democrat.
It happened again to me last night in one forum I particularly like. But I’ve seen much too much such sentiment the last week or so, on a variety of such discussion forums.
It’s maddening. Maddening because it is so damned short-sighted. A lot of people would rather be “pure” than win – they don’t care if they lose an argument, or their rights, so long as they get to trumpet their moral superiority. And a whole lot of “gun-rights activists”, who have tied their activism to the tail of an elephant, and now are so aligned with that party that they can’t see that there is a better path to preserving their Second Amendment rights. A path where the RKBA, and all the rest of the Bill of Rights, is respected and preserved by *both* major political parties. No, they would much rather pay homage to the GOP, and so alienate most moderate gun owners that they seem to be extremists – and therein delegitimize their cause, perhaps even hastening new pointless gun control legislation.
Gah. Makes me crazy.
So, I’m going to take a break. Being off to the wilds of northern California next week will help. Maybe the worst of this outbreak will pass by the time I get back.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to Ballistics by the inch Blog and UTI.)
So, Saturday I stopped in at my local gun shop, needed to pick up some components for a reloading project yesterday. They were busy, which is good to see, so it took a bit before I had a chance to chat with Dave.
“Had a chance to check out the Ballistics by the inch site yet?”
“No, not yet – busy with the holidays and stuff. You know.”
“No worries.”
“Going well?”
“Yeah, we’ve had over 350,000 hits in the month since it went up.”
“Wow.” Pause. “Um, is that a lot?” (They’re not real big on computers, these guys, which is why there’s just a link to a Yellow Pages listing for them off of our website.)
“Heh. Yeah, that’s a hell of a lot. It’s gotten quite a lot of attention. More and more, I see it cited as a reference when people are talking about this or that caliber performance.”
“Huh. Well, I guess. But everyone knows that it’s just basically 25 fps for each inch of barrel. Simple.”
“Well, no, actually the data we got shows a much greater range . . .”
“Oh, yeah, might be a bit more with some calibers, some weights of bullets and powder charges, but that’s a pretty good rule of thumb.”
Another guy had a question about a lever gun behind the counter, and Dave turned to help him. I took my powder and primers up to the front counter and had the new kid ring me up.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to the Bbti blog.)
Filed under: Ballistics, Flu, Guns, Health, Pandemic, Preparedness, Society, Survival
Naturally enough, given the backstory and plot devices in Communion of Dreams, I have written here many times about the threat of pandemic flu. And given my recent involvement in the Ballistics by the inch project, I have also written about ballistics fairly often. But it is still a little weird to see the two things come together.
Say what?
I was doing a little checking on the Bbti site stats this morning, since we created the site a month ago (didn’t go public with it until two days later). To date we’ve had just under (by about 2,000) a third of a million hits to that site. In looking at where the site had been mentioned (referring links), I noticed that early this month it had been posted in a thread over at PANDEMIC FLU INFORMATION FORUM.
Weird.
Sure, it makes sense. As I have argued here, being prepared for a pandemic may well mean being armed. And in making some intelligent decisions about firearm ownership, particularly for those who are not already firearms owners, having a resource like Bbti can be very helpful. This was one of the primary reasons we came up with the project, after all. Still, it was a little odd to see the site mentioned and discussed in the context of pandemic flu for me this morning.
Now if I could just get them to mention Communion of Dreams . . .
Jim Downey
Filed under: Art, Ballistics, Book Conservation, Failure, Feedback, General Musings, Guns, Marketing, RKBA, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
One afternoon last week I was delivering a batch of work to a client here in town. Everything went fine, and after we had gone over the work I had done and the charges, the person I was meeting with asked whether I knew anyone in the area from whom they could learn a particular skill.
“Sure. Contact Professor X in the art department at the University. They should be able to help you out – either get you into a workshop or tell you who you can get private lessons from here locally.”
“Wow, thanks.”
“No worries. Tell them I sent you – I used to represent Professor X at my gallery.”
“Gallery?”
“Yeah, I ran an art gallery downtown for 8 years.”
“Huh. I didn’t know that.”
* * * * * * *
I got copied in on a note from Jim K to a magazine editor he is working with for an article about our ballistics project. It was discussing the reaction that people have had to the whole thing, and it reminded me of this passage from a post last year:
Well, from that discussion emerged an idea: conduct the necessary tests ourselves, compile all the data, then make it freely available to all on a dedicated website. Sounds like one of those great ideas which no one will ever get around to doing, because of the time and expense involved, right?
Well, as you know, we did do the whole project, and it has indeed been a pretty phenomenal success. But 18 months ago, it really was just one of those ideas that people would dismiss. That specifically happened to me at my favorite local gun shop, when I told the sales guy I usually chat with about the upcoming project.
“Oh, they did that,” he said, “back in the 30’s. Guy chopped down a rifle, measured the velocity drop-off.”
“But no one has done it with modern handgun calibers,” I said.
He laughed. “Yeah, true. So, when you going to get it all done?
“We’ll probably do it next spring.”
“Yeah, right.” It wasn’t said sarcastically. Well, not completely so.
* * * * * * *
The last few days have been filled with the news of the Madoff debacle, the latest in a long string of examples of poor judgment and questionable ethics in the financial sector, all of which have played a major part in the economic collapse that we are experiencing. This one meant losses of some $50 billion last I heard, though of course there is still a lot of uncertainty about the actual numbers.
It’s weird, but it actually makes me feel somewhat better about the losses I caused my investors with the gallery.
See, for 8 years we struggled to make a go of it. Most of that time I (and my business partner) did without a salary, scrimping and saving to make the most of the capital we had. Still, when the end came I felt really guilty about having cost my friends and family members the thousands of dollars they had invested in the business, because I couldn’t make my dream work out exactly the way I wanted. In spite of their disappointment, I don’t think any of my investors agreed with my sense of guilt – they knew they were taking a risk and that I had done all that was possible to make the business succeed.
But still, I have continued to feel guilty about it. Blame my Catholic upbringing.
Now, that sense of guilt has been blunted a bit. I wasn’t running some Ponzi scheme, violating the law and the trust of my investors. I wasn’t living high on the hog, bilking people of their entire life’s savings. I was doing my level best, and we just failed (financially – the gallery was a success by about any other measure). That’s life. I still have debts to pay, and will be getting to that this next year if my bookbinding business holds steady.
* * * * * * *
In spite of my (mock) complaining about resenting the success of the ballistics project, I c0ntinue to be very pleased with the ongoing (though slowing) spread of my novel. The ‘official’ tally on the website is 12,500 but this last week alone almost another 150 people have downloaded the book. Yeah, I’d still love to see it conventionally published, with a “Bestseller” table at the local bookstore featuring the book – but given the broken nature of the publishing industry at present, that is pretty unlikely.
And I’m looking forward to getting more serious writing done this next year. First, a book on being a care-provider, then the long-delayed prequel to Communion. Something to look forward to.
* * * * * * *
Tomorrow I deliver another 104 volumes to a client, as I mentioned on Monday. I have confidence that the client will be quite pleased with the work, and consider my fee for doing it more than fair.
And as I have worked on these books the last couple of weeks, I have been doing a lot of thinking. Some of that has peeped out here on this blog, but a lot of it has just been simmering. The comment from the client I mentioned in the first section of this post sort of gelled a number of things for me. That client, and the one tomorrow, consider me to be a talented and successful craftsman. And that is a good feeling.
But it is also only one aspect of who I am.
On gun forums around the world people now know me as one of the guys involved in the ballistics project that almost everyone praises.
Over 12 thousand people have downloaded my novel. It’s just a guess how many have actually read it, or how many of those found it interesting, but I do get some positive feedback about it on a regular basis.
My art gallery was something of an institution here in my community for almost a decade. Now there is a used CD store where it used to be.
My Paint the Moon project captivated the imaginations of many around the world – but also gave plenty of fodder to those who wanted a good laugh.
Things change. Most people know you for only one slice of time, from seldom more than one perspective. What does it all add up to?
I dunno. But the common thread for me through it all is passion. Coming up with an idea, evaluating it, then attempting to do it whole-heartedly. Being passionate enough to be willing to risk failure.
I don’t care if people don’t know something about me. But I do hope that what they do know about me reflects my passion about that one thing.
Jim Downey
OK, this is a little weird.
I’ve created a monster. Well, not just me, but it’s at least largely my writing. Not that even my own sister could tell that.
See, the Ballistics by the inch project has been really successful. Really successful. Like over-a-quarter-million-hits-in-the-two-weeks-since-we-launched-it successful. I won’t know the actual number for a couple of hours, but already yesterday it was past that mark.
That’s more than twice the number of hits I’ve had to the Communion of Dreams site in the entire two years since it launched.
The Bbti blog now gets more hits daily than this blog does. And that’s with just a handful of posts and comments over there. Compared to the two years worth of writing and commenting here – some 565 posts, hundreds of thousands of words, hours and hours and hours of hard work and pouring out my soul. And in two weeks that other blog is doing better.
Now, I don’t begrudge other writers their success. We each do what we think is important, write for an audience of one (ourselves) and if others respond to our work, that’s great. But I feel like the guy who ghosted the Clinton autobiography (either one – take your pick), watching the thing skyrocket to the top of the bestseller lists, generating millions of dollars in sales – his (or her) work, but little or no credit, and the response is purely due to factors out of his control.
Well, OK, I do get credit on both the Bbti site and the blog. My name is all over those. But when my own sister called to tell me how cool the main site was, she was stunned to find out that I did virtually all the writing there. She was surprised to find that the light-hearted tone, the easy going humor, was all my writing. She loved it, mind, but she just didn’t recognize it as my writing style.
Man, talk about having mixed feelings. Um, thanks?
Well, anyway. It’s weird, being resentful of your own success.
Jim Downey
For those following along, here’s a quick update to yesterday’s post about Bbti.
As noted, the increase in traffic on Monday had seemed to be continuing, at least to some extent. The stats for Tuesday are 33,528 hits, for a total of almost 100,000 hits in just two days.
Wow.
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Art, Ballistics, Guns, NPR, Promotion, Science
I’ve written previously about the ballistics research project I’ve been involved with, and how the launch of the site was going really well. We had some 100,000 hits the first week it was up (11/29 – 12/5), and then this past weekend that pace was keeping up, with the usual variation you expect day to day. As I noted on the 3rd, this was really exciting to see, and more hits than my Communion of Dreams site had gotten all year. The associated blog hadn’t been getting much attention, but those things sometimes take time to ramp up.
Well, late yesterday, I knew something was up with the Bbti site, because suddenly the blog traffic had picked up significantly. As I told my cohorts last night:
Surprisingly, had another jump in hits to the blog today. Be interesting to see in the morning whether this is connected to another growth in overall hits to the Bbti site, or whether it is more just a reflection of the blog getting more coverage through search engines.
But either way, there were also more people going from the blog to the Bbti site.
So this morning I came downstairs, got some coffee, fired up the computer, checked mail, and then pulled up yesterday’s stats for the Bbti site.
Huh.
60,000 hits. Actually, 61,970. In one day.
Now, this isn’t a large number by today’s standards, for sites which are well established or get “slashdotted“. But that’s not what happened. We did get a link posted off of Dark Roasted Blend, but that was literally in the middle of a bunch of links, and only accounted for about 2,000 hits (that I can tell – the actual number is probably larger than that, but still . . . ) Rather, the traffic seems to be coming from a wide variety of sources, not all of them gun-related.
And that pace seems to be continuing, based on traffic on the blog today.
To put this in a little perspective, my great ‘claim to fame’ was my Paint the Moon project some 7 years ago. The internet was a smaller place back then, but even taking that into account, the entire project generated something like one million hits to my website – over the course of about 5 months. It took about a month to cross the 10,000 hits mark. I don’t think it ever got 60,000 hits in one single day, not even after being on the Howard Stern show and then the next day on Weekend Edition.
So, we’ll see where this leads. And I suppose I should update my Wikipedia entry.
Wild.
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Ballistics, Civil Rights, Constitution, Daily Kos, Politics, RKBA
. . . you’re curious, I posted a thing to Daily Kos this morning about what some people find to be confusing: my liberal/libertarian politics and my support for gun rights.
More later.
No, really.
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Ballistics, BoingBoing, Emergency, Failure, Feedback, Government, Guns, Kindle, Marketing, NYT, Politics, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, RKBA, Society
An update to this post… In the four days since the site went public, we’ve had almost 75,000 hits. That’s more hits than I’ve had to the Communion of Dreams site this entire year. I’d say it’s off to a good start. Interesting that it has already started to propagate beyond the usual gun forums and whatnot – we got a lot of hits from a link on SomethingAwful, and we’re seeing some links from people’s Facebook and Myspace pages.
* * *
Did you see this post in the NYT about the future of publishing? I was going to write about it, but have been occupied with other matters. Then I saw this piece by Clay Shirky in response, and figured I’d just tell people to read what he said. An excerpt:
There are book lovers, yes, but there are also readers, a much larger group. By Gleick’s logic, all of us who are just readers, everyone who buys paperbacks or trades books after we’ve read them, everyone who prints PDFs or owns a Kindle, falls out of his imagined future market. Publishers should forsake mere readers, and become purveyors of Commemorative Text Objects. It’s the Franklin Mint business model, now with 1000% more words!
* * *
Got a note from a friend in response to yesterday’s doom & gloom report. He asked what my advice would be for anyone wondering about how to handle some modest investments (and acknowledged that I am not a financial advisor in any professional way). My reply:
Warm clothes and sturdy shoes.
* * *
Well, I have other matters to attend to. Have a longer post working in the back of my mind, perhaps for later.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 