Friday Feedback

Tenth Circuit Finds that Machine Guns Are Not Arms

As discussed yesterday, the tenth circuit decided that the first step in the Bruin methodology is to determine if the arm is in common use for self-defense before it can be considered an arm under the Second Amendment.

The reasoning behind the opinion is bad, to say the least, but we are not ready for this fight.

The criminal case involves a Glock Switch and other bad facts that would make bad law.

It Is Never Easy

I attempted an OpenStack install. The process never got to a working cloud. I want to be using OVN but the documentation is lacking, and I couldn’t make it work.

I learned something new: the concept of “cloud-init.” This might be interesting.

The problem I was having was that when using OVN I could sometimes get instances to come up and run, but sometimes the network wouldn’t work correctly. Breaking things.

The OVN implementation says that it has a metadata agent, but I could never get it to bind nor to answer queries. In the end, I decided to go back to using OpenvSwitch. Which then borked the OVN networks.

I’m in the process of removing the network part of OpenStack from that node.  I’ll try again once I have a baremetal machine ready to go.

Cloud-Init Looks Cool

Cloud-init is a set of processes that run during first boot, which pulls metadata from a “well-known” server.

The metadata can be scripts, configuration instructions, or a host of other things.

After the network is up and running, cloud-init makes a request to http://169.254.169.254. The server that answers at that IP will reply with the metadata for that particular server/instance. It would be nice to have a local server that provided an SSH key on first boot.

This should work for bare-metal installs if I set up a server at the above address to serve the metadata based on the IP of the request. An interesting reason to learn more about “Flask.”

Woodworking

Thursday I got my foreplane up and running. This was an eBay purchase of a narrow iron, high-chamber, medium-length plane. It is used for the rapid removal of stock.

If you are thinning a board or doing other bulk removal, a well-tuned foreplane will cut chips instead of shavings. You then smooth with a smoothing plane to get to the final dimension.

The plane looked good in the images, and what was delivered matched. What wasn’t obvious is that this plane had been made into a wall hanger.

Like a firearm that has been repaired but is no longer safe to use, this plane is no longer usable.

A former owner had applied a finish to the plane. Likely a polyurethane. I spotted this when I noticed a couple of drops that had not leveled out.

For the sole of the plane, this just meant it took a little longer on the lapping board. What I found Thursday was that there is more to a plane than a sharp iron and a flat sole.

That finish got into the throat and mouth of the plane. When it cuts a shaving, that shaving flows through the mouth and into the throat before it is pulled out and tossed or is otherwise disposed of.

What happens with that polyurethane is that the mouth is not only a little smaller, it also has a different coefficient of friction. This caused the shavings to jam so tight that I had to use an awl to free the shavings.

In the process I damaged the iron, which would require a few hours of sharpening to repair. Those old irons have very brittle cutting edges.

I’ve decided that this plane is now a wall hanger. I might be able to save the iron and tote, but I’m not sure anything else can be salvaged.

Furniture Plans

When I am using plans, I expect them to have instructions that tell me how to lay out my lines and to build the furniture. I don’t expect lifesize templates.

The plans for the trestle table I purchased don’t have radii or points of reference; you just tape the paper to the wood and cut it out.

I’m sure it works, but it is not how I like to work.

Scottish Girl

I’ve read some reporting that our ax and knife girl might get a little justice.

According to the original press stories, this was just a privileged white girl threatening an immigrant. Those stories did not mention what happened before the filming started.

The Scottish police originally claimed that the CCTV footage had gone missing, but they have now found the footage.

The muslim and his wife have been arrested. There are hospital reports of physical harm done to the 12-year-old that Ax Girl was defending.

The police are still insisting that the knife possession was a worse crime than being assaulted, but it is the UK.

Speaking Of Stupid Police

Some muckity-muck in the Canadian police is telling Canadians that if there is an intruder in their home, the best thing to do is to cooperate.

He strongly discourages anybody from taking the law into their hands.

Question of the Week

Have you ever set out to learn something, learned it, and then decided it was a total waste of your time?