Starting to get into the swing of things

Loaded a new batch of .30-06 Saturday morning before the hash, then went shooting yesterday.  How much of it is the “recipe” and how much is my finally getting around to RTFM to make sure the Garand’s sights were properly set up is unknown (windage was way off from where it should’ve been), but  I think these are my best yet:

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16 rounds at 75 yards…nothing outside the 8 ring, two bullseyes.

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17 more rounds on the same target, this time at 100 yards…just one in the 7 ring, and it was the one shot I loaded manually instead of through a clip as I had 33 with me.  Three more bullseyes.

Load recipe for this batch: mil-surp (HXP) brass, CCI 200 primer, Hornady 150-gr FMJBT, 44.2 gr Varget.  It’s supposed to be good for 2500 fps, and I had no misfeeds.  The load data I have says you can get up to 2600 from this combination of bullet and powder, but this was only my second batch (loaded the first one with less powder for 2400).

 

CyanogenMod 12.1 brings back stock features on the Moto X

About two years ago, I replaced my iPhone 4 with a Moto X.  One of the coolest features at the time was that you could shake it while it was “asleep” to bring up the camera.  It’d also wake up the screen periodically to show the time and recent notifications.

These features went away when I unlocked the bootloader and switched from stock firmware to CyanogenMod 11 a while back, but the advantages of a mostly-unlocked phone (still need a SIM unlock…can probably do that next month for free when my plan’s up) outweighed the disadvantages.

Today, I got around to updating to CyanogenMod 12.1.  It took an unusually long time to install and Lollipop has moved lots of things around compared to where they were in KitKat, but the hardware is still able to keep up with it.  More importantly, the sleep-mode notifications and the shake-to-switch-to-the-camera feature are back.  It was nice to not have to unlock the phone and dig through the menus to fire up the camera; shake it anytime and the camera’s ready in about a second.  That means fewer missed shots when something happens.

Who knew? The Google Play Books Chrome app has an offline mode.

IMG_20151104_130132A new tablet arrived yesterday: an HP Stream 7, which set me back a whopping $60 at Woot.  After letting it update itself from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 (yes, it runs Windows, not Android or iOS) and putting Chrome and a few other apps on it, I set out to find a decent ebook reader.  Ideally, it’d support ePub and would sync bookmarks between existing devices.

I have been using Google Play Books to share my collection between Android and iOS devices.  Apps are available for both to download part or all of your collection for offline reading; bookmarks are synced when online.  Unfortunately, there’s no dedicated Windows app…but it turns out that’s not a problem.

After trying several ebook apps for Windows and finding them wanting in one measure or another, I ran across references to a couple of things I didn’t know about:

  • Google Play Books is available as a Chrome app
  • The Chrome app can use HTML5 local storage to hold selected ebooks for offline reading

Sweet!  The only tricky part now was selecting books for offline reading.  You’re supposed to hover the mouse pointer over the title you want to download, then click a “make available offline” checkbox that pops up.  Without a mouse, though, you can’t hover over anything.

That’s where a program called TouchMousePointer comes into play.  It converts part of the screen area into a touchpad, and puts up a mouse pointer that you can hover over the books you want to download.  It’s easily toggled off most of the time, but is there if you need more precise positioning than your fingers can deliver (as apps written with a mouse in mind might need).

IMG_20151104_130807Here’s the end result…note that the tablet’s in airplane mode.  The screen doesn’t really look like that; it’s some weird interaction between it and the camera in my phone that you’re seeing.

Who knew? The Google Play Books Chrome app has an offline mode.

IMG_20151104_130132A new tablet arrived yesterday: an HP Stream 7, which set me back a whopping $60 at Woot.  After letting it update itself from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 (yes, it runs Windows, not Android or iOS) and putting Chrome and a few other apps on it, I set out to find a decent ebook reader.  Ideally, it’d support ePub and would sync bookmarks between existing devices.

I have been using Google Play Books to share my collection between Android and iOS devices.  Apps are available for both to download part or all of your collection for offline reading; bookmarks are synced when online.  Unfortunately, there’s no dedicated Windows app…but it turns out that’s not a problem.

After trying several ebook apps for Windows and finding them wanting in one measure or another, I ran across references to a couple of things I didn’t know about:

  • Google Play Books is available as a Chrome app
  • The Chrome app can use HTML5 local storage to hold selected ebooks for offline reading

Sweet!  The only tricky part now was selecting books for offline reading.  You’re supposed to hover the mouse pointer over the title you want to download, then click a “make available offline” checkbox that pops up.  Without a mouse, though, you can’t hover over anything.

That’s where a program called TouchMousePointer comes into play.  It converts part of the screen area into a touchpad, and puts up a mouse pointer that you can hover over the books you want to download.  It’s easily toggled off most of the time, but is there if you need more precise positioning than your fingers can deliver (as apps written with a mouse in mind might need).

IMG_20151104_130807Here’s the end result…note that the tablet’s in airplane mode.  The screen doesn’t really look like that; it’s some weird interaction between it and the camera in my phone that you’re seeing.

No, bacon’s not going to kill you

6175755733_b2932d7838_b-998x668As if such a ridiculous notion had any sort of credibility behind it to begin with…damn busybodies are trying to steal our bacons:

The WHO’s Bacon Fatwa And The New Puritanism

I am shocked, shocked to discover that the claim that eating “processed meats” will give you cancer is a load of bunk.

The assertion was made last week in a new report from the WHO, the World Health Organization. From some press reports, you would get the idea that eating bacon is just like smoking cigarettes. Except that it isn’t.

According to the CDC, smokers are 15 to 30 times more likely to get lung cancer than non-smokers. How about bacon-lovers? The less sensational news reports indicate that eating bacon increases the lifetime risk of getting colon cancer from 5 percent to maybe 6 percent. In other words, from small to small.