Tab Clearing...

• If the idea of "Flintlock 3 Gun" doesn't make you want to get your gun nerd on, you might not have a gun nerd to get on.


• A plea to NSA mathemeticians.


• Boomers living among the hipsters, but not doing it ironically.


• Runway graders don't work well above 16,000 feet.

And today's random picture:

Seen at a West Lafayette, IN sushi bar: "Ah wants me some unagi, some maguro, some toro, and a bottle of ripple!"

"Armorer" ≠ "Gunsmith"

There are a lot of people who hang a "gunsmith" shingle out who are really glorified parts-swappers. Sure, they can mount and boresight your scope, free-float a barrel, or put a Wolff spring kit in your Ruger Redhawk, but that's not really gunsmithing. An actual gunsmith, as opposed to an armorer, is someone who could take a block of steel into a machine shop and come back out with a functioning firearm.

On the other hand, over the last couple years, the guys at CCA have fabricated for me:

• A takedown plug for a Colt 1902 military,
• A cocking indicator for a Dreyse M1907, and
• An extractor for a Frommer Stop.

Given a set of drawings or an example to work from, and time and money, of course, I'm beginning to think they could machine a cure for a rainy day.

Incidentally, this is one of the nicer things about old-style machined steel firearms: If you buy the new Blastomatic 2000 tomorrow, and the Blastomatic Corporation goes tango uniform after one year and 5,000 units sold, good luck finding replacements for the toaster parts inside if anything breaks five or ten years down the road. This is one factor behind my hesitation to be an early adopter, even of new designs from established companies; I like making sure there's a bit of an installed user base to guarantee a parts supply and aftermarket support for a good long time. That's the reason that, up until maybe a year or two ago, I would have unhesitatingly picked a Glock over a Smith M&P despite preferring the Smith in amost every way...

Hold the phone.

JayG was wondering if rotary phones still work. Coincidentally, blogger Keads posted about his Western Electric 302 phone the other day; we have one of those in use here at Roseholme Cottage.

I can tell you, they don't make 'em like they used to. How many modern phones could be used to beat an intruder to a paste and, when you were finished, still be used to call 911?

Fountain Heads.

I don't think I will ever fully grok the fountain pen aficionado.

I mean, generally when I want to write something down, I want to do so with as little screwing around as possible: 1) Grab nearest writing stick. 2) Make marks on paper. 3) Done.

My roommate, on the other hand, is presently over at her desk engaged in a process full of splashing and clicking noises, somewhere between a Japanese tea ceremony and adjusting the SU carburettors on a British roadster. To get a pen writing. And she seems happy as a clam about it.

Sic Transit Gloria Mundane.

Sickened by all the eBay typewriter auctions that state "Will cut off the keys". That's like killing an elephant for the tusks. -Marko Kloos on Twitter

My friend Marko really likes him some typewriters. The process of using a manual typewriter resonates with the particular strain of creativity he possesses: The letters imprinting mechanically onto the paper, with finality, all in one pass; the writer feeling connected to an intricate, well-crafted machine that, further, might be significantly older than he is.

Of course, the very things he most enjoys about typewriters are the reasons they have been pretty much entirely supplanted for day-to-day use by computers and word processing programs. People generally don't give a rodent's hindquarters about the gestalt of the creative process when they want to knock out a business letter, a brownie recipe, or an email to grandma, and we'll usually gladly give up that feel of a well-oiled mechanical interface for the ability to back the cursor up and change "rat's ass" to "rodent's hindquarters" so as not to shock said grandma.

Myself, I love old military rifles, and I most love them in their original condition. I know that every day they get re-finished or cut down into ungainly hunting rifles, are left to rust in neglect, or are even broken up for spare parts on GunBroker. I know that if I want to ensure that one is preserved in its original condition, the only way I can do so with any assurance is to buy it myself and leave it alone. I have to live with the fact that other people may not see things my way, and that they are free to do as they want with their rifles.

It's the nature of the beast; for every old treadle sewing machine or wooden spinning wheel lovingly preserved, dozens have been turned into planters and thousands upon thousands have been thrown away. The comparatively few all-original '32 Fords and '57 Chevies are valuable because so many were turned into "hot rods" and so many more were turned into scrap metal. What were the everyday appliances of yesteryear are the treasured artifacts of today precisely because so many were altered or destroyed.

With old manual typewriters, the fad of the moment is to turn the key caps into costume jewelry, and throw the rest of the typewriter away. This understandably annoys Marko, although it's perhaps more respectful of the typewriter than what would otherwise happen, which is the machine getting pitched into the dumpster or recycling bin, key caps and all. It was seeing this typewriter butchery mentioned on eBay that set my roommate off on her latest round of acquisitions.

I know well the feeling of "People are destroying these things I love so much..." The trick is in not appending the second half of the thought: "...somebody oughtta DO something about it!" because that way lies madness. At best you wind up trying to adopt every puppy in the pound; at worst, you start some annoying organization like People for the Ethical Treatment of Antiques.

The things up with which I put.

In case you were wondering how my roomie, the geekiest chick on the web, spends her free time, lately it's been restoring an old telephone. It is not yet hanging on a wall somewhere in the house, but I suspect that is coming.

Kids these days...

It's an axiom among some folks that if you can't figure out an electronic gizmo, you should hand it to the nearest 13-year-old.

Of course, if the electronic gizmo in question is a portable cassette player and the 13-year-old in question is a kid in Scotland so dense that he practically has an event horizon, then this plan may not work. There he is in the picture, forehead beaded with flop sweat like Dick Nixon lying to reporters, trying to puzzle out the buttons on the device, despite the fact that they are emblazoned with the very same hieroglyphs for "stop", "play", "eject", "fast forward" and so forth as every other electronic media player in his house.

There exists the possiblity, of course, that he was playing it for yuks and I'm just a mean and reactionary old biddy. I mean, I was actually listening to a cassette in the car today. You know, just for some retro kicks. Anyhow, it's good to know that the last laugh will be on him...

You can almost imagine the excitement about the Walkman coming out 30 years ago, as it was the newest piece of technology at the time.

Perhaps that kind of anticipation and excitement has been somewhat lost in the flood of new products which now hit our shelves on a regular basis.

Personally, I'm relieved I live in the digital age, with bigger choice, more functions and smaller devices. I'm relieved that the majority of technological advancement happened before I was born, as I can't imagine having to use such basic equipment every day.

Yeah, junior, in 2039 you'll be hearing "Can you believe dad actually had to stick speakers in his ear and store audio files on a chip in his pocket rather than just having them beamed to his audio implant?" Feel cutting edge while you can, 'cause the future just keeps coming...