Most of the time I can get internet service via my cell carrier. The only real controlling issue is coverage. Which is getting better, slowly, but it is getting better.

Last fall we lost power to the house when some idiot took out the power lines just down the street. While the house was without power we still had internet to our phones. We didn’t lose outside communications and if there was an issue I could have used my phone as a modem to get my main computer back on the net to do work by just using the genset.

I could also use my laptop (Chromebook running Linux) and not needed the genset.

When the entire town is without power everybody is attempting to get online via the cell carriers and there just isn’t enough capacity for that. This means that while my phone would get push notifications attempting to do anything else while the town was awake wasn’t really happening.

Regardless, because my business is support I needed to be available. Even with no power. Even with no internet. So my phone was on the entire time. If I had gotten an emergency alert from a client or server I would have been able to move to a place where I did have internet in order to do my work. No big deal.

But having my phone on and actively attempting to do things means that I was burning power. Which brings me to these gizmos.

This is a battery with two type-A USB ports for charging other devices, like your phone. It has a third port to allow you to charge from other power sources, like a car or house. The added extra is those solar panels. It is just a little larger than my cell phone in its otterbox and about 3 times as thick. There are four solar panels when it unfolds and in our Northern Climate it takes about 8 hours of direct sun to charge.

I get three charges for my phone from this. If you need to be able to charge your devices this might be useful to you.

I’m tired. We got our power back after around 30-36 hours. We did not suffer but we had to work a bit harder than normal.

I was responsible for clearing a 1/4 mile of driveway that had snow ranging from 30cm to nearly 90cm deep. The first pass was a pain because our snowblower is only good to about 70cm of depth. This means that you drive the blower into the snow, it shoots the snow off to the side and you let it start to climb. When it has climbed to about a 30degree angle you stop the drive wheels and pull the damn thing back

Then you do it again. It has no trouble with the ramp it left behind but shortly after that it will do the climb thing. Each pass gets you about 75cm of progress.

Once you get the first path done it is much easier. In my case I had a kid walk the path with a shovel and pull down a foot or two of snow. Then the blower throws that out of the drive. Relatively easy.

All in all I spent about 6 hours yesterday and today removing snow.

Duncan v. Bonta

You got to love the lie of omission. It won’t work with Judge Benitez but they still had to try. The state of California wrote a letter to Judge Benitez telling him of the decision in the 11th circuit court (Florida way) where the three judge panel found that Florida’s ban on 18-20yo owning a class of firearms is constitutional.

The decision was so egregious that the plaintiffs(good guys) didn’t even have to request an en banc hearing. At least one judge on the 11th circuit judge went “WTF?” and held the opinion pending a decision of the 11th Circuit court as a whole on whether to hear the case en banc to give an opinion.

The state just left out that part where it was found so egregious that the 11th circuit stayed their own opinion.

Koons v. Reynolds

Judge Bumb is not somebody you want to mess with. While the case was brought by plaintiffs(good guys) Koons et all against Reynolds in his official capacity for the state of NJ the Senate and the General Assembly wanted to get their arguments in as well.

They applied to become “Intervenors” which just means they want official recognition from the court to lawyer stuff such as give oral arguments. It isn’t clear to me when they were allowed to join as Intervenors but they are.

When Judge Bumb was threatened with with the state appealing to the Third Circuit court on March 8th if she doesn’t rule on the preliminary injunction in a timely basis she slapped them down and set the date for oral arguments for the March 17, 2023 at 10am.

There is this back and forth going on where the state wants more time to get the historical and traditional laws in front of the court while the court is telling them “The legislature said they had those laws at hand before the passed the law, what gives?” So the state wants to slow walk some parts and “get it done right now!” on the other hand. I think it depends on if they think they are going to have the law stayed or not.

Well the intervenors wrote to the Court telling her that one of the attorneys was in Florida and wouldn’t be back by the 17th and could they please attend virtually. A bit later the other lawyer for the intervenors wrote to the court asking for a ruling.

Judge Bumb gave them that ruling yesterday:

And got confirmation via NextDoor app which I use to keep track of the local weirdoes and crime.

If in 30 days the owner is not come to collect, we should have a nice BBQ…at least that would be my thinking.

Three little letters that often get the most derision from the gun community is MIM.

There are two types of mass production techniques that are similar and are often confused.  Powder Metallurgy (PM) and Metal Injection Molding (MIM).  Both methods use a metal powder mixed with a binder to fill a mold cavity with material.  The powder metal binder part that comes out is called a “green.”  The binder is removed from the green and the green is then sintered into a solid piece.

The differences in the process is what separates PM from MIM.

Powder size is one of the biggest differences.  PM powders are in the 50-100 micron range (0.002 – 0.004 in), while MIM powders are in the 2- 15 micron range (0.00008 – 0.0007 in).

The compaction of MIM is much higher than PM, using 40-50% binder in the green molding process, the material flows into the mold using processes borrowed from the plastic injection molding industry.

The debinding process in MIM is more involved, due to the higher volume percentage of binder.  It can be done by washing in water if is a water-soluble binder is used; solvent debinding using an organic solvent; or catalytic debinding, which uses an acidic vapor to dissolve the binding agent.  This converts the green to a brown part, which then goes to sinter.

In both PM and MIM, sintering is done at a minimum 70% of the melting temperature.  The higher starting porosity means that the MIM part will experience significantly more shrinkage during sinter.

PM parts will generally achieve a 92% max density.  MIM parts can achieve 95-98% max density, with much finer final porosity and higher dimensional tolerances during shrinkage.  MIM parts can then be subsequently heat treated in a process called hot isostatic pressing (HIP), in which the part is subject to extremely high temperature and pressure (30,000 psi) in an inert atmosphere furnace the further compacts the part to near 100% dense.

When complete, the general rule of thumb is that PM and MIM parts have the fractional percent of strength of full density parts, i.e., a steel MIM part this is 98% dense will have 98% the strength of the same part if it were machined from the same steel.  For static loads, this is accurate.  The microporosity in MIM does reduce the fracture toughness by about 20%.

All sorts of materials can be produced by MIM.  Common alloys include 4140, 4340, S7 tool steel, 9310, 8620, 17-4 PH (precipitation hardenable stainless steel), as well as custom blends.  It’s possible to alloy in situ using carbon, carbonyl iron, and other alloying elements to make modified alloys that respond well to MIM processing.

MIM parts then can be subsequently heat treated and finished using the same heat treats and finishes as machined parts, such as quench and temper, carbonizing, nitriding, ferritic nitrocarburizing (FNC), aging, etc., that apply to each alloy.

MIM has the advantage of being a relatively low-cost process to manufacture small, complex geometry parts, with high degrees of tolerancing.

This is perfect for the gun industry.

Decades ago, when MIM first started to be used in the firearms industry, it gained a poor reputation for quality.  This is common when a new technology enters the market.  However, in the last forty years, MIM technology and quality has increased substantially.

All of your favorite guns contain MIM parts, a lot of MIM parts, muzzle devices, sights, firing pins, disconnectors, extractors, ejectors, frames, and there are at least two pistols out there that have MIM barrels.

These are guns that have been tested by the design engineers for the companies that manufacture them  to tens of thousands of rounds.

With a property designed and manufactured MIM part, made from the appropriate material and given the correct heat treatment, a gun owner or shooter will never have a part fail because it was MIM and not machined.

The reflexive hatred of MIM parts is a vestigial belief that is almost half a century out of date from some early bad parts that were not made with modern MIM materials.  But that belief is used to get gun owners to shell out lots of money in machined aftermarket parts that they don’t need to buy.

Your factory MIM parts are fine.

AWA is without power.

My lights have been flickering.

Yesterday I got this message from Eversourse, New Hampshire’s electric supplier.

I decided to give them a bit of my mind on Twitter about it.

Dear @EversourceNH

If you know that high winds and snow will topple trees into powerlines, then maybe you should trim the trees back away from the powerlines so that doesn't happen.

Just ask @insideFPL how they prepare for hurricane season. pic.twitter.com/YpvHeQPOvP

— GunFreeZone Blog (@GunFreeZone) March 12, 2023

Well… Eversourse got back to me.

Our robust vegetation management program includes tree trimming and removals near roadside power lines and high-voltage power line to help ensure reliable electric service. You can learn more here: https://t.co/od6d7jPW3x

— Eversource NH (@EversourceNH) March 13, 2023

Here is the relevant part of what they provided in the link.

A four to five year cycle?

This should be done annually the way FPL does for hurricane season.

They need more men with chainsaws.

I guess you well already know about the Gun Shaming campaign proposed by some gun control mouthpiece in Colorado. And here we have the confirmation and of all places, we got it locally in Nashville.:

NASHVILLE, Tenn. — Mayor John Cooper of Nashville, TN and 30 other members of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a nonpartisan coalition of current and former mayors that is part of Everytown for Gun Safety, recently released new data about the manufacturers of recovered crime guns in their cities. According to the data provided by the city, Glock is the top manufacturer of crime guns recovered in Nashville. In 2021, four gun manufacturers accounted for over half of the recovered crime guns: Glock (21.1%), Smith & Wesson (13.5%), Taurus (13.0%), and Ruger (7.0%). A full list of cities that participated in the report is available below.
…
I’m particularly proud that MNPD Chief Drake and his team are taking on the crisis of stolen guns in vehicles and working hand in hand with community leaders to make our neighborhoods safer for everyone.”

NEW DATA: Analysis Reveals Nashville’s Top Manufacturer of Crime Guns – The Tennessee Tribune (tntribune.com)

I love the fact that Mayor Cooper (proud member of Felon Mayors Against Illegal Guns) brings out the Chief of Metro Nashville Police Department into this Public Relations attack against Glock because the official sidearm of MNPD is Glock. Will the Mayor of Nashville issue orders to immediately “De-Glock” the department and find substitute firearm that complies with the wishes of his boss, Michael Bloomberg? I propose they go with the Armatrix iP1 Smart Gun.

And in order to help the Mayor of Nashville, I propose a Police Glock Buyback where we set shop near where officers gather and offer them to trade their evil Glocks for $25 gift certificates, no questions asked. If they add three or more loaded magazines to the trade, they get upwards of $50 in gift cards.

Who is with me?