Interesting flying… This is for all those Air America guys…

This is for a friend of mine, Weird Neil… He used to do this for a living for Air America out of Laos in an early Pilatus Porter. These takeoffs and landings are down in Sumatra and Indonesia, so a similar environment.  Enjoy!!!

Simply amazing… And gives a whole new meaning to seat of the pants flying and being able to hit EVERY landing right on the stall warning… Neil said the biggest problem was having enough power to actually taxi UP some of the hills…

Gone shootin…

Light blogging and commenting for the next couple of days… Go read the folks on the sidebar- I’ll be back in battery on Monday.

 

Privacy, we hardly knew ye…

More and more we are hearing reports, seeing articles, and coming face to face(book), with the lack of privacy today…

Each time we log on, make a phone call, or in the urban areas walk down the street, we are being tracked…

The facts are plain, Google has for years collected “unsecured” data with it’s Street View vehicles, both here and in Europe, the fine?$7 million… Against a company that makes something in the neighborhood of $100 a day…

And the fault?

The company blamed the intrusion on a rogue engineer who rigged a data-collection program into equipment that was supposed to only detect basic information about local Wi-Fi networks to help plot the locations of people using its mapping service and other products. After concluding its own investigation, the Federal Communications Commission last year asserted that some of Google’s managers knew about the engineer’s plan to vacuum information being transmitted over the Wi-Fi network

Report from CNN HERE; from Fox HERE. Now let’s be honest here, does anybody really believe the ‘rogue’ engineer story??? When they’ve touted how ‘tight’ their controls are on development, to put this kind of excuse out there is just ludicrous…

And the data will all be destroyed?  Yeah, right… It’s in government/regulator’s hands now and you can bet it’s already in a data mining data base somewhere!

Facebook has ‘always’ been “open” about tracking your account, your friends and other things (like buying, websites visited, etc.). Apple and the other phone providers track your location all the time and all those nicky neat pictures you take with your phones and digital cameras have metatags embedded that show exactly when/where the pictures were taken.  Here’s a LINK to the Wiki on it.

Bruce Sheneier has an editoral up at CNN International that goes into a good bit of detail, and hits most of the high points HERE.

Among other things, remember google maps, was not created by google, it was developed by In-Q-Tel, a taxpayer funded, not-for-profit, development organization of the CIA.  It is a whole lot easier for private companies to do snooping on AMERICAN citizens than it is for the government; and if they get busted they pay a small fine (see above), and are quietly reimbursed under the table by the agency that hired them to do their dirty work.  Oh, and as an aside, Siri, Apple’s voice query tool, also can be traced back to In-Q-Tel.  Now ask yourself, “What can the government do with voice-print and voice-recognition software, and how can they collect my voice….”  hmmmm, maybe you just gave it to them….

And here’s In-Q-Tel’s SITE if you want to read about it’s ‘history’…

Lastly, remember that everything you do on line is subject to snooping by any government agency, that includes walking around with your cell phone.  Also remember, there are cameras everywhere, and if you do not carry your cell phone you will stick out because facial recognition software will pick you out and you could be tagged as an “extremist/insurgent” who is not carrying a cell phone because he does not want to be tracked.  It doesn’t take much computing power to pick out people who don’t carry cell phones, especially if it’s old white guys with carry permits who are under constant surveillance anyway.  As for the filtering, it’s a simple comb filter algorithm that’s been around since the ’60’s.
And along this theme, a short story that Matt Bracken wrote at the WRSA site last year for your reading ‘pleasure’…
Are we screwed? Probably…

Another voice is heard…

We’ve all commented on the new BS medal for drone drivers…

Now a different voice has spoken up, and “I” think this will get some attention!

The creation of the new medal honoring unmanned vehicle pilots and cyber troops, “is a telling and sad commentary on the judgment of those who are responsible for the creation and approval of this award,” Jack Jacobs, Medal of Honor recipient and Vietnam veteran, told USNI News on Wednesday.

/snip/

“The very name of the decoration is ludicrous. ‘Distinguished’ implies a level of admiration that can’t possibly be reached in the prosaic act of piloting a drone,” Jacobs said.

Full article HERE at USNI website.  Hopefully Hagel will listen and dump the medal in its entirety… Sigh…

Stop it, just STOP it…

Harry Reid once again showed how disconnected from reality he is, blaming the tragedy in Nevada with seven Marines killed Hawthorne Army Ammunition Depot in Nevada and seven or eight injured on sequestration…

Hawthorne is out in the middle of nowhere, about 120 miles Southeast of Reno, NV and transportation of the injured was almost surely an issue…

Among his other blather was this ‘gem’ of wisdom…

“Mr. President, it’s very important we continue training our military, so important. But one of the things in sequester is we cut back in training and maintenance. That’s the way sequester was written.”

You can go HERE and read the rest of his BS statement if you’d like. I’m hearing the Marines are NOT happy about this, and basically consider this nothing more that political posturing, using the dead Marines.

The problem is, exercises like this are planned WELL ahead of time, and safety IS always high on the priority.  What has been done was to immediately isolate the lot of mortar rounds that included the round that blew, both stateside and downrange.  The Marines ‘may’ also temporarily pull the 60mm Mortars from use until the accident investigation board is completed. 

Actually, they HAVE banned the use of all 60mm mortars worldwide… Article HERE

Thoughts and prayers go out to the families of the Marines who died, and all those who were injured.  And I truly hope Reid and his ilk just SHUT UP!

Seniors Texting Codes…

Young people have theirs, and now Seniors have their own texting codes…

* ATD- At the Doctor’s

* BFF – Best Friends Funeral

* BTW- Bring the Wheelchair

* BYOT – Bring Your Own Teeth

* CBM- Covered by Medicare

* CUATSC- See You at the Senior Center

* DWI- Driving While Incontinent

* FWIW – Forgot Where I Was

* GGPBL- Gotta Go, Pacemaker Battery Low

* GHA – Got Heartburn Again

* HGBM – Had Good Bowel Movement

* LMDO- Laughing My Dentures Out

* LOL- Living on Lipitor

* OMSG – Oh My! Sorry, Gas

* TOT- Texting on Toilet

* WAITT – Who Am I Talking To?

Hope these help. GGLKI (Gotta Go, Laxative Kicking in!)

From the CMP, an update…

It’s STILL ugly out there for ammo and other things, but this is the first time “I” can remember ever getting something like this from CMP…

LIMITED INVENTORY AT CMP STORES
(March 2013):

 RIFLES: The CMP currently has over 12,000 unfilled orders for rifles, ammo and other items. We also still have thousands of M1 Garands. These rifles all require inspection and repair and grading before being put up for sale. At times the customer demand exceeds the amount that our staff can make ready for sale. This is the case now with the field and service grade M1 Garand rifles. As the CMP armory produces the rifles, they are all being used to fill existing mail orders, some from as far back as the beginning of January. Until we catch up on mail orders, there will not be any field or service grade rifles in the stores at Anniston or Camp Perry. For now, we only have the M1 Service Grade Special ($950), M1 CMP Special ($995), M1C, M1D, M1NM, and Kimber model .82 (.22LR) in stock at both stores. We expect this to continue until late June.

 AMMO: The CMP does not have any caliber .223, .22LR, or .30 carbine ammo for sale at either store. We are sold out and expect to receive shipments of these calibers in 3-6 months. We continue to accept orders for these calibers and will fill those orders when we receive the replenishment shipments from the manufacturers. We do have caliber .30-06 ammo at both stores, but a 10 can purchase limit per year per customer applies. We also still have the Atomic caliber .308, but expect to run out in the next 60 days

I’m sure others got this too… sigh…

Posted in CMP

Keeping memories alive…

This one was done a couple of years ago, and is very poignant…

Can you imagine the memories of those old pilots as they saw those airplanes?  I know at the military opening of Udvar Hazy “I” saw a lot of tears…

This is going to be ‘so’ much fun…

Old dog trying to learn new tricks…  This is going to take a while… Please bear with my stupidity while Barron tries to beat this into my thick skull…

Moving Day…

Due to all the spam issues, and the hack last month, I’m shutting thus blog down and moving it WordPress.

The new address is oldnfo.org

If you’re reading this on RSS you’ll need to move your feed.

Many thanks to Barron Barnett for the help and advice to get it set up…