jupiterGroup

In the strictest sense of the word, yes, you are correct that arbitrarily shooting another individual in the face is an exercise of your freedom. That being said, I do not feel anarchy is freedom. Laws exist (or should exist anyway) solely to protect the freedom and property of individuals from other individuals, corporations, and the government itself. By making murder a crime, I am allowing the government the right to restrict my freedom of murdering another human being in exchange for the freedom to live my life in safety. Theft is a crime because it is my right to own and possess something. It is not your natural right to forcibly take it from me. Being opposed to "free loaders" and the "whole occupy wall street" movement does not make you liberal or conservative. I wouldn't use those two as credentials anyway. Progression is not a "restriction" of freedom. Your own example argues against this. Women having the right to vote is easing a restriction on their freedom. By eliminating the restriction on the right to choose a representative, you are enabling a new freedom. Yes, that is progress but please do not think that this makes it a restriction of freedom. I doubt anyone would sanely argue that someone gaining a right of self-representation erodes the individual's freedom. One quick thought, Apple is by no means "above Microsoft." I despise and loathe Microsoft and I haven't used Windows as an operating system outside of work since I was 13 (9 years ago--sorry to make some of you gentleman feel old). That being said, I would never use an Apple product either. Apple is "above Microsoft" in the consumer electronics category. When you look at server operating systems (Apple OSX is used in under 1% of servers) and personal computer use (Microsoft still holds around 85%) you'll realize Apple is still a nobody. Microsoft is a *software* company. They are not hardware. Apple is now a hardware company. That's like comparing a small arms manufacturer with a heavy weapons industry. Yeah, sure, they still fall under the same "defense" category but any relationship drawn is pointless. The media likes to make it seem like an Apple vs Microsoft world because they need a villain and a hero. If it weren't for Microsoft purchasing hundreds of millions of dollars worth of Apple stock in the late 90s, the company would have been bankrupted. Microsoft was forced to purchase the stock to keep the FTC from fining them as a monopoly (as long as Apple existed, Microsoft could argue it had competition). I haven't commented on the CEO pay until now and I suppose this is the appropriate time. First off, you failed to include a source for your image so I already find the fact this is even up for debate comical. CEOs that have "early termination" clauses in their contracts are entitled to the "golden parachute." Now, let me ask you, if you were going to run a company and be the public face of the company, would you not want some security in case you become the fall person? I sure would. So that's how those clauses get written into those contracts. It shouldn't surprise you any. Hell, even in the military I rate severance pay if my contract is cut short. If you honestly feel that the CEO of a particular company is overpaid then you have every right to refuse to purchase stock in the company or purchase goods produced by the corporation. Ironically, either of those actions are more likely to result in affecting the factory worker more than the CEO. If a CEO lies to his investors then he is committing a crime. This goes back to the earlier mention of what makes a law valid. If the CEO inflates profits on paper then he is stealing from investors and he should go to prison. Enron ring a bell anyone? So why are CEOs paid so much? Well, in part, because the culture that they work under. CEOs are expected to dress a certain way, drive certain cars, and have enough money that they can entertain people in the "high class" fashion (my definition of entertaining guests is shooting beer cans with a .22). How seriously would you, as an investor, take a billion dollar company if the CEO showed up in a 1992 Honda Accord that was missing rims and had a duct-taped rear window? Not to mention the fact that pay works in a pyramid structure and if you have 60,000 people working under you, that's a hell of a base for a pyramid. Of course, we could just redistribute the wealth. If you do that then each person in the US would get just shy of $50,000 ($14.59 Trillion GDP / 300 million people). Of course, that's GDP which means the total value of all goods and services. What you would really need to do is find the currency plus demand deposits (M1) and divide it by population. In that case, you have $1.8 trillion divided by the US population for a grand total of $6,000 USD per person. That really just goes to show you how in debt the US is. Since I have more than $6K in the bank, I'm definitely opposed to this. Now that I've gotten so far off-topic I might as well continue the rant. To the individuals who believe that Barack Obama is going to come and save the 99% from the top 1%... since he's been in office the percentage of wealth owned by the top 1% has grown faster than under Bush. So much for redistributing the wealth. Of course, he'd LOVE for you to think that he's against the rich and wealthy and for the common guy so he goes about making a big deal about something that he's only making worse. God bless politicians. It's like Chicago's government moved to the White House. I couldn't agree more with this. Also, to the individual that asked if George Bush was a liberal: socially? no. He was a social conservative. Fiscally? Yes, he was a liberal who paraded around with a conservative mask. The problem with America is that it's past the point where you can fix the system but too early to shoot the bastards. adirondackbushwhack answered this sufficiently. I would only like to add that setting a minimum wage is only meant to make people feel better about paying the bare minimum. It causes inflation and the lowest class of people (individuals making minimum wage) end up hurt more by the minimum wage law than without it. If someone's job is to sit in a chair and repetitively press a button for 8 hours a day (extreme example) then they shouldn't make $7.25 an hour. Plain and simple. Totally off-topic but someone sent that book in a care package and I had just started reading it before I ended up being sent to a different FOB. The first 30 pages were definitely interesting. I'm home in a few weeks and I figure I'll finish it then.

I'm a huge fan of the angled grip versus the vertical grip but probably not for a practical reason that would help you any... When we go onto FOBs the rifles go on our back and it's bad enough having a magazine poking at you but the vert grip does the same. The angled grip is nice and (relatively) out of the way. Plus it never catches on stuff when we're moving.

Haha, I meant I wondered if the Marine Corps would let me stick that on my M16.

Thanks for the review. Dust cover looks pretty slick. I wonder if they would let me put that on my M16...

What did you think of All Star Tactical? I'm from Webster and was looking at buying a stripped lower receiver and they keep popping up but I can't find any reviews for them.

Wow, nice! Something similar is going to be my summer project this August out on my grandfather's farm. Out of curiosity, how many hours did it take?

I can build a fully-automated, GPS-guided UAV for around $1K. A friend of mine and I built one using a model airplane with a wingspan of 80" and a tiny 4-cycle engine. It could stay airborne for roughly 30 to 40 minutes and we had it programmed such that we could use Google Earth to select a point, enter the altitude, and his UAV would fly there and "monitor." You also had the option of taking full-control and piloting the system from a "ground station" (laptop computer). The actual concept of operations is simple, all that you require are the necessary electronics (microcontroller and low-power ARM system, GPS module, compass, IMU), webcam, and a 4G USB cellular modem. You automate the tasks of flying level to the microcontroller and essentially turn that into the autopilot. We then hosted a webpage on the ARM computer (running Linux) where we could navigate to, enter a password, and "assume control" of the UAV. The ARM computer would process our commands, do any serious math, and then feed the flight information to the autopilot. All in all it took us probably 70 to 100 hours and I think the final cost was around $900. It was a fun project and a decent test of programming ability.

Is this still available?

I couldn't agree more with you Doc. It doesn't help any that people have brought it on themselves by sharing everything on Facebook and making it easy to monitor. Plus, no one stands up to the government when they pass laws such as the one which allows the federal government to track individual person's cellular phones without a search warrant (although, according to a recent court decision, they still require a warrant to affix a GPS tracking device to your car or person). I remember seeing a sign out here on this deployment, "If terrorists hate us because of our freedoms, does that mean they're starting to like us?" It's a sad statement.

Good morning (afternoon?) everyone! I found this site from google and decided to join after spending the last 40 minutes lurking. I'm a corporal in the Marines (I'm a field radio operator) and stationed out of Camp Pendleton in the People's Republic of California. I hunted some before the Marine Corps but really got into when I started hunting yotes in California and Nevada on the weekends. I tend to favor gun over bow and have done so more since I joined the Marine Corps. I'll be the first to admit that I have a lot to learn about hunting. My grandfather gave me my first bow when I was 13 and my first rifle when I was 16. It was a Remington .32RF single-shot that belonged to his grandfather. I'm actually looking for a hunting partner for this winter to shoot some coyotes with. My grandfather owns 17 acres south of Buffalo (outside Holland near the speedway) and he's usually pretty good about letting me use it. I know he has a few yotes that cross his field from time to time. My family resides in the Rochester and Buffalo areas (except a sister in England). I'll be heading back to Monroe County after I EAS this fall. I'm currently in Helmand Province, AFG (and will be for another month or so) so I don't expect to be able to regularly contribute but I'll do my best. I just got back from a month of no internet and the first thing I did was order a new stock for my coyote gun... really tells you something about Afghanistan. Other than that I'm really not sure what to share. Apart from hunting and shooting, I like to mess around with computers and computer security. I run a small company that makes hardware firewalls out of old desktops and sells them for a few hundred bucks depending on configuration. I also do computer programming and home automation. Oddly enough, computers are a cheaper hobby than firearms. Anyway, it's almost 1 AM here (you can't get on a computer for internet during the day because the line is too long) so it's probably time I rack out. I attached some pictures of my guns from facebook and my email in case anyone was interested. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of my bow. Take care everyone! -- JupiterGroup

Relevant: https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/04/faa-releases-its-list-drone-certificates-leaves-many-questions-unanswered I'm new here but I'm assuming posting links to other, trustworthy websites is okay.

If there is a spot open in the spring (weekends) and summer (anytime) of next year I'd be interested. Unfortunately, I don't get back from Afghanistan until August and then starting around December I'll be unemployed.