I was checking the web stats, saw that BBTI is closing in on 2.5 million hits (probably hit that mid-afternoon tomorrow). A link from a site listed in the referrals had this comment about the project that I thought I would share:
“As I recollect, it was actually someones Master’s research project at the University of Iowa. Can you imagine doing graduate level work in external ballistics? Kinda cool.”
At first I just thought it was amusing, since we explain right on the homepage what prompted us to do the testing. But then thinking about it a little further, I realized that it was actually a nice compliment and somewhat insightful: what we did could be seen as being comparable to graduate-level study and research. I hadn’t thought of it that way before.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to the BBTI blog.)
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Ballistics, Feedback, Guns, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction
Time for a recap of April.
There were another 484 downloads of the ‘classic’ Communion of Dreams, and another 70 downloads of the 2010 revision. 134 people downloaded at least one of the MP3 files of the book, and 32 people downloaded at least one individual chapter. We’re quickly approaching at least 24,000 downloads of the book. Who woulda thunk it? I hope some % of those who have downloaded the book will also buy a hardcopy once it is published and out.
And over at Ballistics By The Inch, things continue apace. April was the third-highest month for total hits since we launched the site in November 2008, with a total of 178,170 hits. That puts us at 2,351,313 hits. I spent some time yesterday afternoon finally getting some links to BBTI on Wikipedia, and I’m sure that will help to keep hits climbing.
And so it goes.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to the BBTI Blog.)
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Ballistics, Feedback, Guns, Publishing, Science, Science Fiction, Writing stuff
OK. It’s April 1. A day which I have come to hate, at least online.
Be that as it may, I’m not joking around about looking back at the past month, and I have some good numbers to report. As noted, I did get news that Communion of Dreams is going to be published, though I am still waiting to sort out all the details. As well as the psychological boost that gave me, it seemed to also have a boost in terms of downloads of the book. March saw a total of 891 downloads of the original “complete” manuscript, 224 downloads of the revised manuscript (which will be basically what is published), at least 61 downloads of the MP3 version of the book, and at least 17 downloads of all the individual chapters. That’s over 1100 downloads in one month, no matter how you slice it, and puts the total number of downloads over 23,000.
BBTI has continued to do very well, as well. Late in February we crossed 2 million hits to that site, and March saw another 155,165 hits – the fourth largest monthly total to date – to bring us to a total of 2,173,143 hits. We have been forced to delay doing the next round of testing, due to ammo shortages, but that hasn’t hurt the popularity of the site at all.
So, no foolin’ – March was a good month. And it is bright, and sunny, and wonderfully spring outside. April seems to be off to a decent start.
Jim Downey
Cross posted to the BBTI blog.
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Ballistics, Feedback, Government, Guns, Science
I mentioned the other day that the BBTI site was closing in on 2 million hits. And, with the site chugging along with 3,500 – 4,500 hits a day, I figured we’d get there before the end of this month. But then, over the last couple of days, hits about doubled, approaching 7,000 hits a day.
Now, this happens. Usually it is due to BBTI being “discovered” and posted on a new gun/shooting forum someplace – so a bunch of people who haven’t heard about the project yet run off to check it out, and send links to their friends. And it has also happened when I’ve posted some new information to the site (such as when we added in the additional testing results last spring) or announce something new in the works (as with the cylinder gap tests).
But that wasn’t the reason why we saw the bump up this time. Instead, it was because of an announcement from the FBI.
See, the FBI has announced that they are going to go to a .40 S&W AR-15 carbine. And in discussing that decision, people started citing our numbers on the .40 S&W cartridge performance in different barrel lengths. You can see what I mean at The Firearm Blog, at Calguns, and elsewhere. This is something I have mentioned before, how BBTI has come to be increasingly used as a resource for evaluating firearm performance, but this is the first time that I’ve seen it happen in response to some newsworthy item. And I think that is really pretty cool.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to the BBTI blog.)
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Alzheimer's, Ballistics, Book Conservation, General Musings, Guns, Predictions, Publishing, RKBA, Science, Science Fiction, U of Iowa Ctr for the Book, Writing stuff
I spent most of yesterday re-reading Communion of Dreams, to make sure that all the little changes I’d made in the previous week were correct and to see if I could catch a few more typos. Once it was all checked and double checked, I created manuscript files in the format preferred by the publisher, appended an email, and zipped the whole thing off. If you would like to see the finished product, the CoD homepage has now been updated to have the final .pdf version.
So, now we wait and see what the publisher decides.
And speaking of the publisher, I have had a couple of queries about them. It’s a new enterprise, Trapdoor Books. I like their attitude and approach, though of course with something so new it is hard to judge. And if this works out, I hope that I can help them as much as they can help me. If it doesn’t work out, no hard feelings on my part – lord knows that I had to turn down a lot of talented artists in the years I had the gallery.
But it does have something of the same feeling as when I first started at the University of Iowa Center for the Book. That too was a new enterprise, and no one was really sure how it would work out. Now it is perhaps the most highly regarded book arts program in the country, and my almost 20 year career as a conservator has both benefited from the reputation and added to it in a small way.
So, we’ll see. It looks like things are moving again with Her Final Year, and that book could garner a lot of mainstream attention, since there is little in the care-giving literature from a male perspective. BBTI will cross 2 million hits later this month, and we’re currently planning another very large series of tests this spring which will once again generate a lot of interest in the gun world. It could be a very interesting year.
Jim Downey
Filed under: 2nd Amendment, Ballistics, Guns, Preparedness, Survival, Terrorism, Violence
“What’s that?”
“Oh, I got it for giving a donation to the snipers.”
I looked again at the pewter skull, about the size of a silver dollar, hanging on a thin ribbon on my friend’s chest. There was a hole in the middle of the forehead, through which the ribbon ran.
A shudder ran through me.
* * * * * * *
The SHOT Show was huge. Massive. Some 50,000 attendees. I heard that if you walked all of the paths through the various booths and displays, you’d cover something like 34 miles.
Big chunks of the show were dedicated to booths catering to “Law Enforcement,” though there was more than a little para-military stuff in these areas. Not surprising, given how much police agencies deal with para-military tactics; they need para-military equipment.
I wandered through these areas, along with pretty much all the rest of the show. Not that I have any real interest in any of the stuff most of them were featuring – I don’t have a ‘wannabecop’ mindset. I was just curious. And it was . . . educational.
* * * * * * *
“Ballistics by the inch? What’s that all about?”
The man stopped next to my table in the food court, looking at my name tag. It was early evening, but I was beat from walking most of the show and dealing with the crowds. I don’t do crowds well. My ‘extrovert batteries’ were worn out, and all I wanted was just a light dinner before going to hide in my room and charge up again for the next day of the show.
But, he was smiling, and seemed nice enough. I gestured to the empty chair across from me. He set his tray down, and we introduced ourselves.
“Well, BBTI is a project myself and several friends did, testing how muzzle velocity varies according to barrel length for 16 different handgun cartridges.” I handed him a card.
“Just external ballistics, then?”
“Yeah. But we’ve put all the data online for people to use freely. We launched the site about 14 months ago, and we’re now approaching 2 million hits.” I’d given this little spiel enough times already at the SHOT Show that it pretty much rolled off my tongue automatically. “Why?”
“Well, I’m into ballistics, too. Though that isn’t my ‘day job.'”
* * * * * * *
One of the major reasons I went to the SHOT Show was to make contacts, to meet people with whom I had corresponded. One of these was Kathy Jackson, editor of Concealed Carry magazine and the person behind the excellent Cornered Cat website. I had chatted with Kathy many times over the years, and we worked with her on the great article that Concealed Carry did on the BBTI project.
Anyway, when we did finally have a chance to meet in person the last day of the show, it was a delight. There were four of us, all chatting together. In the course of the conversation, she asked “what is the silliest thing you’ve seen here?”
There was, truth be told, a *lot* of silly things at the show. There was the odd little bayonet which was supposed to affix to your pistol. There were the “mall ninja” toys and people who wore them. There were the science fiction/fantasy themed custom knives which would be useless in the real world. But I said “All the grim-faced men and women in the advertising photos and banners in the LE section of the show.”
* * * * * * *
“What’s your day job?”
“I’m a research scientist. We do a lot of work for NASA and the various aerospace industries, mostly things like orbital mechanics.”
“What brings you to SHOT?”
“Launching a new ballistics calculator, for long-range shooting. Really long range shooting. Stop by the AI booth tomorrow, and I’ll show you.”
We chatted from there, comparing notes on the show, discussing our respective backgrounds in shooting and what got us each interested in the projects we developed. Smart guy. Very smart guy.
* * * * * * *
There was a very interesting post last night on MetaFilter. I know I mention MeFi a lot, but that’s because I am frequently impressed with the quality of the discussions which take place there. This one was about Simo Häyhä, one of the most deadly snipers in history with over 800 confirmed kills during the Finnish “Winter War“. The whole thread is here, but what caught my attention was the discussion which ensued concerning the ethics of being a sniper.
Several people commented that snipers were little more than sociopaths who took some pleasure at killing. Here are two such comments:
How does it feel to have personally murdered that many people?
posted by monospace at 9:11 AM on January 28
And:
Also, the idea that “legalized killing” is really conceptually different from illegal murder would seem to imply that the people who are best at “legalized killing” are temperamentally unrelated to those who murder. I do not buy this. Häyhä’s lack of retrospective remorse is no doubt related to the fact of why he was such an effective killer in the first place: hurting others didn’t have much of a negative emotional effect on him. He probably enjoyed hurting people, which is how he was so calm and good at doing it.
It’s not a stretch to believe that the dispositions that make the best soldiers/snipers are identical to the dispositions of the worst rapists and serial killers. The only difference might be a slightly different life context. The difference between a certain person being celebrated as a war hero or reviled as a serial killer might come down to the chance event of a war happening at a certain time.
posted by dgaicun at 1:59 PM on January 28
There was a lot of push-back against this mindset. The best is from a woman who lived through the siege of Sarajevo. Here’s an excerpt from her:
Sarajevo was a city with a mixed Serb, Croat and Muslim population, as well as significant numbers of Jewish and Roma people. Probably the most obviously “multi-ethnic” city in the former Yugoslavia. It was also a peaceful, cosmopolitan place. This made it a particularly significant target for those Serbs who used ethnic hatred and “the practical impossibility of people living together” as justification for genocide and violent aggression. Sarajevo’s existence proved that to be a lie. Naively, many Sarajevans – myself included – assumed that our solidarity as a city would magically ward off any attacks. Wrong!
Because Sarajevo is in a valley surrounded by mountains which quickly were controlled by Serb forces, we were in an indefensible position. We didn’t have much to defend ourselves with in any case. We were, at first, a purely civilian population. But we were shelled and massacred anyway.
Slowly, some of the men in town who owned rifles (for hunting) realized that one of the only ways to defend themselves was by becoming snipers. These were the same guys who – only weeks or months earlier – argued that only through pacifism would we survive and show the world. We soon discovered the world didn’t care much. As many of us lost family members and started starving, we realized that if snipers would slow the numbers of civilians being killed, that’s what needed to happen. There wasn’t any other choice.
I lived frighteningly near the frontline. So much so, that in quiet moments, there would occasionally be dialogue between “our” snipers and the Serbs shooting and shelling us from the hills. Usually, it was our guys shouting at the Serbs in the hills to lay down their arms. (Most of the Serbs were “local” and frequently each side personally knew the guys on the “other” side.) These requests were quite obviously ignored. It didn’t stop our guys from trying, and they were heartfelt pleas. Our snipers were engaged in self-defense, and I’m amazed that people are so ignorant of war – even in secondhand terms – that they see no difference between self-defense and aggression.
posted by Dee Xtrovert at 4:26 PM on January 28
And another from the same comment:
I can’t idolize a sniper, no matter how tough he was. To be a sniper you have to be no more than one notch away from a psychopath. To kill 800 people, looking at each of them in the face, you have to be dead inside.
How can I say it? That’s just fucking stupid. Maybe, if you know you’re firing on civilians in an act of senseless aggression, it takes a kind of heartless person to do that. But that certainly wasn’t true for Häyhä, who was defending his country and people and likely saved many more lives than he took. Unlike probably everyone else on MetaFilter, I have been a victim of snipers twice, with scars to prove it. That’s not including a shelling that killed my parents, broke my scapula to bits and put me in a coma for weeks. Or the white-hot shrapnel. So if anyone has a right to judge snipers harshly, I am her. But I make the distinction between the people who shot me for no good reason and those who were defending a peace-loving, multi-ethnic city. Because there is a difference.
* * * * * * *
We stopped at the Accuracy International booth, and the fellow gave us a demonstration of the ballistics calculator he’d developed. I don’t want to go into a lot of detail, but suffice it to say that this hand-held device was extremely well designed and robust, capable of holding up to the worst kind of weather and, um, ‘field conditions.’ With it, a capable marksman with the right kind of gun could easily hit a moving target at the range of thousands of yards. Indeed, it is so sophisticated that it will calculate air density differentials according to elevation, and the effect that they would have on the flight of a given bullet at a given angle, because it was meant to be used for making shots up or down the sides of mountains. It’s such a powerful tool that it actually falls under the US laws concerning weapons technology transfers.
* * * * * * *
My comment about the grim-faced men and women was missed in the general chatter, and I’m glad. I meant it, because using those images was so over-the-top in many applications as to be absurd. You know, the whole ‘warrior’ images being tied to a particular flashlight or type of boot. Just . . . silly. Those I know who have been in real grim situations seldom celebrate the fact or try to draw notice to it.
But it is easy to misunderstand that. Sometimes a little black humor is entirely appropriate.
Before I left the show I stopped by the sniper’s table and quietly left a donation. They were out of the little skulls. Which was just fine by me.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to the BBTI blog.)
Yup. Got back last night about midnight, after two days of 15 hour drives. Exhausting.
As was the SHOT Show. Well, frankly, the whole trip.
But good. Lots of things to tell. More of all of that, later.
But today is recovery, laundry, playing with the dog, catching up on email and the news of the world.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Ballistics, Depression, Emergency, Guns, Health, Predictions, Publishing, Writing stuff
Well, I’ve been in a funk all week.
The news that UTI is closing down, a decision I respect and even prompted, is still news of one aspect of my life coming to an end.
And there are others.
My shooting buddy here in town is moving to California. We’ll still be able to keep in touch, but it is still a loss to have him go. He’ll be leaving this week – while I am gone to the SHOT Show.
And our old neighbor, Ray, is slipping in health. This is common in the elderly when they have taken a fall, or moved out of their home. We saw him the other day, and, well, I’m glad his daughter is in town this weekend to visit him.
Even the really good news about the book I got last Monday is a bit bittersweet. That may be hard for some folks to understand. But for me, I enjoy the process of working on something – and miss it when a project is done. I started thinking about the story behind Communion of Dreams about 15 years ago, and really started writing it over a decade ago. There’s a lot of my life tied up in that book.
So, forgive the funk. A lot of changes, all at once.
I will be mostly unavailable through the 26th, but will try and schedule some posts to cycle while I am gone. And I may have a chance to post some thoughts about my trip while out in Vegas – we’ll see.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Alzheimer's, Ballistics, Book Conservation, Guns, Health, Hospice, Marketing, Predictions, Promotion, Publishing, Science Fiction, tech, Writing stuff
As I have done for the last couple of years, I like to look at the stats for my sites on New Years Day – numbers don’t lie.
But they can be a bit confusing. Here’s how. In 2009, I could say that 9,619 people downloaded some or all of Communion of Dreams. That would break down as 5,877 downloads of the original “complete” .pdf of the book, 156 copies of the revised version, 3,183 of the first mp3, and 403 copies of the first chapter. Or I could say that there were a total of 6,765 downloads, using the numbers for the “complete” .pdfs plus the minimum downloads of both the mp3 and individual chapter files (on the theory that those numbers reflect “complete” downloads of the book in those formats.) For my year-end numbers in the past I have used the latter formula, and I will do so again.
So, 2009 had 6,765 downloads. That compares to 6,288 in 2007, and 6,182 in 2008. How many people have actually read the book, I have no idea – I have heard from people that they have passed on the .pdf they downloaded to friends, and others have told me that they printed the thing out and gave copies to others. So that would boost the numbers. Then again, just because someone downloaded the thing, doesn’t mean they read it. Lord knows I have plenty of books I own but have never gotten around to reading.
Which brings up another item – back in August I mentioned that I was working on a revision because there was a publisher who was interested in the book. In November I mentioned that I had submitted the manuscript with the revisions, and was waiting for them to take another look at it. Well, I’m still waiting, though the publisher said that he was going to assign it to one of their readers and go through it himself, and would get back to me soon. I’m not complaining about the wait – six weeks or so is not at all unreasonable – but I do wonder whether he just didn’t want to give me the bad news leading up to the holidays. So, we’ll see what comes of that.
I’m also in a “wait and see” mode on my two other writing projects. My co-author on the caregiving book Her Final Year still has to finish his editing before we can proceed with that, and I haven’t had a chance to get together with my sister to really get started on My Father’s Gun. But now that the end of the year is past, I hope to make progress on both of those soon.
Other aspects of life in 2009? A mix. I did get a lot of good conservation work done, though losing the one big client in the fall due to the economy hurt a lot – I have other work, but nowhere near as much, so that has hindered my efforts to resolve long standing debt leftover from the gallery. My health is better than it was a year ago, but I still need to lose several stones. The BBTI project was a huge success through 2009, and I’m sure will continue to be a source both of work and pleasure in the coming year. Otherwise, well, if you read this blog you probably already have had your fill of my introspection.
So, goodbye 2009, and best wishes to one and all for a better 2010.
Jim Downey
I just do not understand the mindset that some people have.
OK, let me explain. Monday I posted an excerpt about our upcoming “Cylinder Gap” tests to several of the gun forums I frequent, because I thought it would be of interest to some people who hang out at such places. And, for the most part, that proved to be correct.
But one place I got a response from one guy who said “it’s already been done”. See, he had done these sorts of tests using one brand of revolver which allows you to adjust the cylinder gap, in both a smaller and a larger caliber than the .38/.357 we’re testing. And the difference wasn’t that big a deal. Oh, he had the data somewhere, but he didn’t have it readily available. There was no real reason for us to conduct the tests.
OK, so here’s a guy who tested something different than we did (different calibers, and I guess only one barrel length in each). And he never published the data, though he says he’ll dig it up. Nor did he document the process he used.
Doesn’t sound to me like “it’s already been done.”
Now, I don’t mean to single this guy out, and if you go looking for the post don’t mangle him for his comment. Well, not too badly, anyway. Because I’ve run into this kind of mindset a lot in regards to the BBTI project, both in posts I’ve seen online in various places and in private emails I’ve received. People who think that just because they have done something a bit similar, and drawn their own conclusions, that therefore there is no value in what we’ve done or are planning to do. It’s like they resent the very idea that someone else might do more than they did, either in scope or in results. And so they try and either claim that they had the idea for the project first, or did some part of it first/better, or just try and belittle the results.
This sort of thing happens all the time, not just regarding the BBTI project. You see it with people grousing about invention and innovation, about movies and books, about blog posts or government or relationships. They seem to think that just the idea is what matters, not any effort or final product to bring that idea into reality.
Thomas Edison famously said that “Genius is one percent inspiration, ninety-nine percent perspiration.” A related quote from him perhaps sums up my attitude even better:
I am much less interested in what is called God’s word than in God’s deeds. All bibles are man-made.
Yeah, that’s it.
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to UTI and BBTI blog.)
Communion Of Dreams 