MatthewMaynard.net

You may remember that I got some parts for my M1991 earlier. When I installed the spring in the mainspring housing, it got stuck, and wouldn’t budge, which meant the gun wouldn’t fire. The problem has been solved.

At first, I thought I could drill into the mainspring cap and thread it, then use a screw to extract it. This didn’t work; the drill bit got about a eighth of an inch in before it broke. I even tried going slowly, backing out to remove the metal chips, and using plenty of cutting oil – the bit broke anyway. This makes sense, as the part was hardened, so it probably wasn’t going to be coaxed out with an undersized drill bit.

Of course, being a man, I resorted to the next idea to get the cap out – getting a bigger hammer. Or drill bit, in this case. I moved up from a 3/16th bit to a full 9/32nd bit, which filled the hole in the mainspring housing. After setting up the drill press, I began chipping away at the cap, careful to not let the bit chew up the sides of the MSH. Pretty soon the cap popped out and I was able to pull the mainspring out with my fingers.

Upon inspection, it turns out the mainspring had been overcompressed when I installed it in the new housing. The spring had bulged out a bit at one end, and it must have bound up on the cap, jamming it in place deep in the housing. I cleaned out the MSH and installed a new mainspring and cap, then slid it into the frame and pounded home the retainer pin. A quick function check followed and everything worked like a charm.

I’m glad to have my pistol back, but I’ll be happier when I can test fire it.

I’ve been going through the audiobook versions of David Weber’s Honor Harrington series (if you haven’t read it, it’s basically Horatio Hornblower in space, as a woman). They’re good sci-fi, and I’ve been picking one up every once in a while, when I have nothing else to listen to. The latest I’ve finished, Field of Dishonor, has a complete lack of space combat, but that isn’t a problem.
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(Major Computer Geek alert, you’ve been warned)

So I’m making the pattern of lights change however I want at work yesterday and all is well. I tell Windows to update itself with Service Pack 1 before I go home, and off I go.

I come in today and lo and behold, the page I was working on yesterday has grown a fuzzy mane of pseudorandom characters at the beginning, just where my form begins. So this code:

Test Text
<form id=”form1″ runat=”server”>
<div>
My data table

comes out looking like this when rendered:

Test Text
CBNaWRlYXN0HwUFamh0dHA6Ly93d3cubWFya2V0d2F0Y2guY29tL25ld3Mvc3RvcnkuYXNwP2d1aWQ9JTdCRjA1OTUwMjItNDBCNy0xMUUwLTg0MkItMDAyMTI4MDQ2MzdDJTdEJnNpdGVpZD1yc3MmcnNzPTFkZAICDw8WAh8EBQEwZGQ…..
N0IG9mIENFTyBkZWF0aHMfBQVqaHR0cDovL3d3dy5tYXJrZXR3YXRjaC5jb20vbmV3cy9zdG9yeS5hc3A/Z3VpZD0
My data table

After much frustration, my coworker suggests I set EnableViewState=”false” at the top of the page.

<%@ Page Language=”C#” AutoEventWireup=”true” CodeFile=”mypage.aspx.cs” Inherits=”mypage” EnableViewState=”false” %>

Lo and behold, the mane disappears.

Not sure why, but it works.

Courtesy of Cowboy Blob, we have this video of Ted Gundy, a WW2 vet:

The man shoots a 5 inch group at 1000 yards.

That’s half a Minute of Angle.

He’s 84.

Now, those who have never tried to hit anything at a quarter of that distance will say its all in the equipment, and that they could easily do the same if they were in his shoes.

I’d like to see them try, I could use some cheap entertainment.

Theodore Roosevelt is an empire-building, tree-hating, Wookiee murderer.

Here’s proof:

Teddy Roosevelt VS. Bigfoot by ~SharpWriter on deviantART
Stinkin’ Imperial.

(And yes, I know it says ‘Bigfoot’, but where do you think the legend came from? Endor?)

Note that this is from CBS News – the same CBS News that, under Dan Rather, ran a story about George W. Bush that relied on documents from the 1960s version of Microsoft Word.

Not that I’m casting doubts on the authenticity of the report, far from it. David Codrea and Mike Vanderboegh have been reporting this story since late December/early January, and have been putting out far more support for it than the Texas ANG story ever had. So I’m impressed at the change in reporting standards that has occurred at Walter Cronkite’s alma mater, and the lack of reporting on the story from Fox News and other reportedly right-wing news sites, like Drudge.

This, more than anything else, is a threat to Barack Obama’s presidency, and could prevent him from winning a second term. The allegations reach as high as AG Holder, and it would not surprise me if it comes out that the President himself knew of the operation.

Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged is finally coming to the big screen, and the trailers are here. I liked the book when I read it, but as a Christian I feel it falls short; essentially, since there’s no agape-style selfless love in it, it lacks a critical aspect of the human existence that makes it too artificial and distant.

Nevertheless, I’m looking forward to the movie, but am still anxious about it. Since they couldn’t hire actors from the A-List (no budget for that, apparently) they went lesser lights in the Hollywood constellation, and I think it comes through in the trailers. So while the script may be an excellent transition from book to screen, the acting may hold the movie back.

Oh well, we’ll see come this April 15th. And since it’s a multi-parter, we’ll see how they improve it in parts two and three.

I updated the local WordPress to 3.0.5 earlier today, along with all the plugins that needed updating. As an aside, I think I know what causes Gilby and me to be unable to update automatically via the admin pages. It appears the files all need to be set to have universal write permissions (chmod 766 *.php). Since I’m not sure how that works while keeping the site secure, I’m hesitant to try it. Perhaps I’ll switch all the files to have those permissions the next time an update comes along, just to see what happens, then switch them back.

… wants BRAIIIIINSSSS!!!!!!

or a promotion from Colonel to General.