When the spousal unit and I were first married - that would have been thirty-five years ago *yesterday* - we lived in the Dayton Ohio area, which at the time was a hot bed of test marketing. Domino’s Pizza test marketed breakfast pizza there. I dimly recall they had three of them: one with scrambled eggs but no meat,…

In some contexts this is referred to as the “swiss cheese” mode of failure... sometimes the holes all line up and everything fails: the primary, all the redundancies, and secondary, the backup, etc.

Perhaps Foone mentions this, but I’m fairly certain that “Normalization of Deviance” originated with Diane Vaughn and her 1996 book THE CHALLENGER LAUNCH DECISION. I read this massive tome by Vaughn, a sociology professor at Columbia, cover to cover some years ago. (I dimly recall that the later edition I read had an…

I always pack my Fusion 5000 in my travel gear. But I do have two complaints about it.

I always pack my Fusion 5000 in my travel gear. But I do have two complaints about it.

I am inclined to agree with you. But a couple of summers ago my wife and I were on a road trip from our home near Denver Colorado, driving on a state route through Arkansas in my 2016 WRX with Subaru’s “Eyesight” package. This was a divided multilane highway but *not* controlled access; there were turnoffs, sometimes…

(Because I know people will wonder, I take three handguns to the range to practice with: an H&K VP9, an H&K VP9SK, and a Walther PPS. My choices have evolved over the years. They’ll probably evolve again. And yes, I do practice with my Remington 870.)

I own my share of handguns. I don’t need them. It’s just a hobby. I’m a little surprised from time to time to get asked gun advice by my more left leaning friends. And they are in turn surprised when I tell them that handguns are a poor choice for home protection. A better choice is a sturdy bedroom door with a good…

This. The weight machines are not furniture. And playing with your phone isn’t a workout. Get your set done and get off. If everyone did this, none of us would have to wait very long for a machine.

His CRYPTONOMICON might just be the best novel I’ve *ever* read. But that’s just me: I read his THE BAROQUE CYCLE - which is a three thousand (!!!) page historical novel published in three volumes in the U.S. and eight in the U.K. - over a four months period, and if you had told me there was a three thousand page…

I recall that William Gibson, Neal Stephenson, and Lauren Beukes all have new novels coming out in 2019. They’re each on my “must read” list.

In the spirit of full disclosure, my daily driver is a 2016 Subaru WRX, in the summer I can often be found on a Triumph Bonneville, and I own a *lot* of watches. Used, new, mechanical, quartz, automatic, windup, you name it, I probably have one. I am not wealthy by any means, but I own *three* Rolexes, and at the…

Preaching to the choir. Car & Driver made the case for this decades ago - putting snow tires on a Porsche made it a passable winter driver. I’d been driving all season radials for decades, but when I bought my WRX, I splurged for a set of aftermarket wheels on which I but Blizzaks. Takes the tire shop maybe ten…

From Nobel prize winning physicist Kip Thorne’s 1994 book BLACK HOLES AND TIME WARPS. I was forced - FORCED, I tell you - to order three inexpensive wooden meter sticks from Amazon just so I can do this in real-life.

Get three meter sticks: that’s a measuring stick like a yard stick, but it’s one meter long, it’s divided up into one hundred centimeters, and every centimeter is divided up into ten millimeters.

(A couple of winters ago I was driving home from work in the dark in a bad snowstorm and I passed a county dump truck with a snow plow blade rolled over on its side in the median, its chains clearly visible on its tires. Sometimes it just doesn’t matter what equipment you have, you’re screwed anyway.)

Eh. Denver Colorado. All seasons is what I did for decades. Then, Subaru WRX. Now I have two sets of wheels, one with the OEM tires, one with Blizzaks. Takes just a few minutes for the tire shop to swap them. I worry a lot less.

I think I was carrying a Glock 23 that day. Now I’d probably use my HK VP9.

The instructor was all about choice #1 being avoiding a confrontation in the first place. I totally get that. Just don’t let yourself get into that situation if at all possible.

Years ago I took a tactical shooting class. Here’s what I learned that’s pertinent to a knife wielding attacker. A handgun has a useful range of about the length of a car or the width of a room. Any further than that and either you won’t hit your target or you won’t do enough damage to stop your attacker. If you’re…

Similar story with a five year old Goodyear Assurance Tripletred on my old Subaru Legacy GT. Alls well that ends well, but it could have turned out very different, coming apart on Interstate 70 during rush hour within sight of my exit.