Six months ago we launched Ballistics By The Inch. And since then we’ve had over 770,000 hits, one major magazine article, and coverage & discussion of the site in countless gun forums & blogs around the globe. When I have checked the stats for the site, I have never failed to be impressed with just how widely it has become known.
Well, tonight we posted a major upgrade to the whole site. This includes three additional caliber ‘chop tests’, but it also includes data collected from testing over 40 additional “real world” guns – including a baker’s dozen carbine-length guns. This data has been separated out into a new series of graphs for easy comparison. All together, there are now over 150 graphs showing ballistic performance – along with all the charts giving numerical averages for each 1″ increment in barrel length for 16 different calibers. And for the true data junkies, there are downloadable files (in two formats) for the entire sequence of initial tests, and another set for the second round of testing done in April 2009.
Like the initial project, this major upgrade and revision has been a huge job – and one only made possible by a lot of work from several individuals. Yes, there were the three of us testers from the original project. But there was also the addition of a fourth tester this time around who helped us gather & operate all those ‘real world’ guns, and I would like to welcome Keith to our team. But I would especially like to thank my good lady wife for all the html coding & design for our website – both the last time and with this major revision. Quite literally, none of this would have been available without her hard work.
There will probably be minor tweaks and additions to the site in the coming months and years. We still have some ideas of data which might be of interest to the gun community. But for now we hope that you will enjoy and make use of the data provided, and help to spread the word to others who may be interested.
Cheers!
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to the BBTI blog.)
Just a brief post this morning to pass on this:
Mannahatta Project Recreates What New York City Looked Like 400 Years Ago
* * *
Included was a map from 1782, when the British occupied New York during the Revolutionary War. It is an incredibly detailed and accurate map, showing brooks, hills, marshes, forests and streets. Features were sketched with pen and ink, then hand-colored with blue, pink, brown and green watercolor.
It is an invaluable window into long-ago Manhattan, a Manhattan that already was ecologically altered by European immigrants, but nothing like the massive changes that would come with the 19th and 20th centuries.
What if, Sanderson immediately wondered, he was to use his landscape ecology skills and layer that map over a modern map of Manhattan? Could he get them to mesh? Would he be able to discern if today’s Times Square was once meadow or marsh, wet or wooded? What was Greenwich Village long ago? What, in fact, did Manhattan look like 400 years ago, when Henry Hudson sailed past Manhattan on a September day?
The result can be found here: The Mannahatta Project.
Jim Downey
(Hat tip to ML!)
Filed under: Ballistics, Emergency, Flu, Government, Guns, Health, Pandemic, Predictions, Preparedness, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Survival
Couple minor things . . .
The Ballistics by the inch site has broken 700,000 hits. The related blog has been getting more hits than this one, but I think that is mostly due to our recently having completed the second sequence of tests and starting to talk a bit about that.
Looks like things are stabilizing for now with the H1N1 virus. This is good, even if it means less publicity for Communion of Dreams. Yeah, I know, I’m not nearly as cynical as I like to pretend – I would rather not have a global pandemic, even at the cost of a bit of fame. Oh well, at least I have reviewed my preparations for the coming Zombie Apocalypse.
I still keep spending too much time flinging rocks. Being obsessive-compulsive is sometimes a pain.
Maybe more later.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Emergency, Flu, Government, Guns, Health, Pandemic, Predictions, Preparedness, Science, Science Fiction, Society, Survival, Weather
“Foraging?”
I chuckled. “Yeah.”
“But I thought you already had like 40,000 rounds of ammo,” said my friend.
“You exaggerate.”
“Yeah, but not by much.” He laughed. “So, what were you foraging for?”
“Oh, just decided to top off some of the usual supplies we have at home. You know how it is.”
He did. He too lives in the Midwest, where a winter storm or spring flood or summer tornado can leave you isolated without power or the ability to get out for upwards of a week. “So, you really think this is the start of a pandemic?”
“Probably not, but it is too soon to say. But even if it isn’t, there could be a panic, which could be almost as bad.”
“Yeah, good point.”
* * * * * * *
WHO says swine flu moving closer to pandemic
BERLIN – The World Health Organization warned Wednesday that the swine flu outbreak is moving closer to becoming a pandemic, as the United States reported the first swine flu death outside of Mexico, and Germany and Austria became latest European nations hit by the disease.
In Geneva, WHO flu chief Dr. Keiji Fukuda told reporters that there was no evidence the virus was slowing down, moving the agency closer to raising its pandemic alert to phase 5, indicating widespread human-to-human transmission.
* * * * * * *
“You know, this is all your fault,” said a different friend.
“What is?”
“The swine flu.”
“How do you figure?”
“I read your book. I know the backstory. This is how it starts, isn’t it?”
“Well, something like this, anyway.”
“So, what’s next?”
“Aliens.”
He laughed.
* * * * * * *
Jim Downey
…into what had me busy last week(end): The big list. Shooting the damned derringers was brutal. But you hafta be ready for the Zombie apocalypse.
Jim Downey
Filed under: Astronomy, Bad Astronomy, Ballistics, Cassini, Depression, Enceladus, Guns, Health, NASA, Phil Plait, RKBA, Saturn, Science, Space
Man, I still feel like someone beat me with a bag of nickels.
I wonder if this is just an effect of having subjected myself to a lot of blast shock over a four day period? Shooting a lot of the ‘real world’ guns (we test something on the order of 40 with all the different ammos available from the previous tests) wasn’t such a big deal. But some of them – particularly the Bond derringers in the larger calibers – were just brutal to shoot 20 – 30 times in a row. And the blast from the short barrels of the chop tests could knock your teeth loose.
Anyway, I ache everywhere. And I’ve been fighting a mild depression for the last couple of days. At first it was just masked by being tired (the tests were hard, and I got too little sleep). Also, I figured that the emotional energy it took to be in close proximity to several other people constantly over five days time was a component – don’t get me wrong, I like everyone involved in the testing a lot, but I am just not used to being with people that much. But I have now had some time to recover, and I should be past the worst of that.
So, a little post-project blues. Or maybe the blast shock, repeated several thousand times, has something to do with it. I dunno. I’ll write more tomorrow, in the meantime take a few minutes to enjoy these great images of the Saturn system from the Cassini spacecraft, courtesy of the Boston Globe’s Big Picture series.
Jim Downey
(Via Phil Plait.)
As I mentioned the other day, this last weekend was the next round of testing for the Bbti project. We finished up in good form yesterday, after completing the ‘chop tests’ of three new calibers (.327 Magnum, .41 Magnum, and 10mm) as well as revisiting many of the previously tested ammos with a bunch (like over 40) of new ‘real world’ guns. There are some very interesting results already evident in the raw data, some of which I will be discussing informally on my Bbti blog in the coming weeks until we get everything crunched and posted formally on the main Bbti website.
But not for a day or two. As I told a friend this morning: “My hands feel like they have been pounded with hammers for the last week.” Just doing this much typing is very painful.
So, until later . . .
Jim Downey
(Cross posted to Bbti Blog.)
Filed under: Bruce Schneier, Emergency, Failure, General Musings, Government, Health, Politics, Predictions, Preparedness, Science, Society, Survival, Terrorism, Violence
The annoying cold I mentioned the other day seems to be trying for an upgrade to bronchial infection, perhaps with delusions of becoming pneumonia. So I’m not feeling particularly creative or insightful. Maybe I used up too much outrage yesterday. Anyway, since I am a bit under the weather, let me just post an excerpt from something you ought to read. This is the closing of The Most Dangerous Person in the World?:
Security itself is an illusion. It is a perception that exists only between our ears. No army, insurance policy, hazmat team, video surveillance or explosive sniffer can protect us from our own immune system, a well-intentioned but clumsy surgeon, failing to look before crossing the street, an asteroid randomly hurtling through space or someone willing to die in order to do others harm.
In this sense, the only things that can truly make us more “secure” are not things. They are the courage to face whatever comes with dignity and intention, and the strong relationships that assure we will face the future together, and find comfort and meaning in doing so.
Imagine, then, what might happen if we simply quit listening to the scaremongers and those who profit from our paranoia. Imagine what the world could look like if we made a conscious choice to live out whatever time we have with courage, compassion, service and joy.
Terrorism is an act of the weak. But so is walking through the airport in our socks.
We can make better choices.
Go read the whole thing.
Jim Downey
(Via Bruce Schneier.)
Oops:
Mythbusters ‘Big Bang’ Shatters Windows
YOLO COUNTY, Calif. — A big explosion, in the name of science, scared a lot of people in a small town.
Mythbusters went to Yolo County and ended up with a bigger bang than expected.
* * *
They were trying to literally “knock the socks off” a mannequin by igniting 500 pounds of ammonium nitrate. But the explosion was a lot bigger than they expected.
“It felt like a house blew up, straight up,” said Paul Williams.
500 pounds of ammonium nitrate? That’d be worth seeing. Wonder when there’ll be video available?
And yeah, I would think that Mythbusters alone would be able to supply a lot of material for The Explosions Channel.
Jim Downey
(Hat tip to ML for the story!)
Filed under: Artificial Intelligence, Expert systems, Liane Hansen, NPR, Predictions, Science, Science Fiction, tech, Writing stuff, YouTube
[This post contains mild spoilers about Communion of Dreams.]
One of the main characters from my novel is Seth – an advanced expert system who functions as the personal assistant for the primary character. I’ve written about him here before, and how I see this sort of “expert” developing over time. My basic premise is that it will evolve out of simpler, independent computer programs which are brought together to create an easier and more comprehensive user interface.
Well, via this morning’s Weekend Edition, Microsoft has just come out with the first real step in this process:
Microsoft’s Laura will rule your Outlook calendar, nightmares
Back in Office 97, Microsoft wowed us with Clippy, the talking paperclip that made Word tasks far more annoying than necessary. By Office 2007 he was finally out of a job, but his spirit lives on in Laura, an oddly creepy virtual digital assistant shown off as part of Microsoft’s vision for the future (video of an earlier demo is below). She’s said to be able to schedule reservations, make appointments, and maybe even get you tickets for the first Watchmen showing tonight — much the same as the company’s EVA assistant, but not in a car and not as hot. She can judge you based on what type of clothing you’re wearing and even tell if you’re engaged in a conversation, perhaps keeping the doors on an elevator open while you chat with someone getting off, thus further annoying every other person on board.
Here’s the vid:
OK, about the title – what the hell is that supposed to mean? Well, in the book I explain. So go read the book.
Yeah, yeah, here’s the summation: Seth is an “S-series” expert, the latest iteration of such an artificial personal assistant, based on the most advanced type of computer. Chances are, there is some skipping around during the periods of chaos that I stipulate for my future history, and one can never account for advertising hype, but the basic idea is that the experts were named on the basis of the alphabet. Hence, he is the 19th generation of such a development. Now, being the first such artificial personal assistant, Laura should actually be named Anne or something that starts with an “A”. But Microsoft didn’t bother to ask me about it beforehand. Figures.
Jim Downey
Communion Of Dreams 