Ask A Geek Anything, Volume 18

Good Morning and welcome to Ask A Geek Anything, Volume 18.

Yes, we’re legal at last. This is the latest volume of our little corner of the interwebs, where you can ask us anything that won’t get us Stoned in Berkley. (While some of my staff would be OK with getting Stoned in Berkley, I’m still working for the man where I have to take Golden flow tests, so I’m a gonna have to pass)

Our first question started as a Staff internal query by our Bombastic Ginger: Cedar Sanderson, who asked the rest of the staff: Is there a good way to prepare for and keep up with a college calculus class?

Well since it’s about time for school to start up again (please ignore the cheering you hear in the background that’s all the ‘rents who will be sending their progeny back to school and out from underfoot.  Also ignore the screams of hate and rage from said progeny) while this wasn’t meant as a question for publication, it’s a question too good to pass up!  We got several answers, the most comprehensive where:

Keith Glass: Get a head start.

 

Khan Academy

khanacademy.org

Susan Baker Farmer:  Do Every. Bit. of the homework whether it gets taken up or not. Do the other problems too. If you’re using “MyMathLab,” follow formatting directions To. The. Letter! If you have an answer that you think should be correct and isn’t, ASK. Do NOT wait until you’re lost to ask for help.

Dorothy Grant:  Also, try teaching it to one of your kids. There are some concepts that you only grok when you’re trying to turn them over and over and figure out a way to teach them to others. (I’ll put in my own aside here, one of the management tools I used in the Navy was; If I had a sailor who was not quite at the level of knowledge I expected, I assigned him to teach the subject.  Best damn way I know to make sure you have a thorough understanding of the topic.)

Next up: A Silly Student asks: Master, how do I improve my Google-Fu, so that I may search the inscrutable?

Our very young, but Ancient in the ways of the Oriental arts of Compujitsu, Amanda Fuesting, answers:
You are wise to seek to perfect your art, Grasshopper. You must practice constantly, exercise discipline, and you must learn Boolean logic. Boolean logic is how computers make sense of directions, but you’re asking about Google and not programming. In order to give you a quick and dirty understanding that will help immensely with your Google-Fu, I will direct you to a handy page from Berkeley. I also recommend taking a quick read over this page from ipl2 , as there are a lot of good tips available. In a flagrant bit of self-promotion, I will also refer you to a question that was answered all the way back in Issue Two about how to distinguish between a primary and secondary source. This is included because it may help you in your epic quest for better grades. If you are using any of the search engines listed in that column, Boolean logic is a must. The last thing I want to make note of is that if you aren’t finding was you’re looking for in the first two pages of a Google search, immediately stop and refine your search terms. These tips are what I use for doing (sometimes extensive) searches to answer questions here, and what I used for research papers (always extensive) in nursing school. Once mastered, they will save you a whole lot of time and headache when searching the internet for specific information. Learn these lessons, Grasshopper, and you too may one day be a master of Google-fu.

OK, so that’s the advice for the school bound for the week, next up, Jess Amule asks: I will likely carry my .38 special model 60. I for the most part just put it in my pocket but with the farm work I sweat and it can get tarnish/rust Already happened. Advice?

And as the resident gun nut, I’ll take this one on myself.

Well Jess, you have a couple options. first up, and cheapest is to get an inside the pocket holster like this one:

  if you keep the pistol oiled, and keep it in this to help isolate the steel from your sweat, you’ll have much more success than just putting it in your pocket (it’s safer too)  For this sort of work I would recommend Leather or Kydex, NOT nylon. Even if you opt for solution three or four, I would still do this, for safety and security reasons. A draw from an inside the pocket holster is far safer than a draw from flopping around in your pocket.

Second, but stupid is put it in a plastic bag.  Stupid because it’s going to mess with your draw, and you’ll sweat like a pig where the bag is. If the sweat gets in the bag, it will rust faster because the saltwater will stay with the steel, instead of wicking away.

Third, you could get it parkerized if you can find someone that still does that, but I would did go with the next option:

Fourth, most expensive, but what I did to my carry piece that spends a lot of time next to my skin and isn’t Stainless steel… is a metal treatment called Cerakoteing  {There’s also a different version called Duracoating, I have no experience with it, I do have a lot of experience with Cerakote.}  It’s practically bullet proof, and as I said, it’s what I had done to my social piece.  Available in about 50 different colors (anything from subdued black to something that looks like gold plate, with stops for pink, hunter orange, etc… also available in patterns like snake skin, if bling is your thing.  Me, I went with flat dark earth, because I don’t like calling attention to my pistol (I learned firearms in the era of the Patton Quote: only a pimp from a Louisiana whore house…) but hey, if you want something in red snake skin or purple and pink cammo, who am I to judge? If done right, this stuff (basically a few molecule thick ceramic coating) will allow you to toss your pistol in the sea, let it sit for a year, and then put new rounds in it and shoot it.  It’s available as a do it yourself kit, or you can find a local dealer that can do it for you. (I went with the second option as I have a guy that works for me that works part time as a gunsmith and does this work) It’s not cheap, but it’s worth it.

Well, that’s all the space we have for the day, so I’ll sign off folks. Remember, you can now e-mail us questions at askageekanythingowg@gmail.com or contact us through Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/askageekanythingowg . We have all the old articles there and will update it every week with new ones, as well as take questions from posts. If you’re so inclined, we’d appreciate it if you could like and share the page, because we’re running really low on questions to answer!