Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with Bullet

Which guns should I get?

ZaneJ. — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 13:54:54 -0800

What, or where could I find out, are the most common guns and ergo the most common types of ammunition in the United States? If I were to procure firearms I'd be curious to know which ones would I have the easiest time finding ammunition for say, in the instance of infrastructure collapse. Or, interchangeably, which guns have ammunition that the price isn't prohibitively expensive. I'd be talking about shotguns, rifles, and handguns.

Did somebody shoot my car?

escabeche — Sun, 09 Aug 2009 16:52:59 -0800

Did somebody shoot my car? This morning in Tucson, AZ we came out of the house we were visiting to find the driver's window of our rental car shattered -- that is, the glass was cracked into tiny pieces but almost entirely still in the windowframe, apart from a small hole, about hand-sized, near the mirror. That part of the glass was scattered on the driver's seat. There was also a small hole in the driver's side door, a little above the handle; the door was still locked. There was nothing of value in the car, and the interior was, as far as we could tell, untouched. No marks on the trunk.

So what happened here? Attempted break-in? But then why not sweep all the glass out of the window? And why not try to force the trunk, when the car itself was visibly empty of valuables? The folks at the rental car agency said the hole in the door looked like a bullet hole. But do people randomly shoot at parked cars in the middle of the night? Would a bullet fired at a car penetrate the outside metal of the door but not enter the cabin? (There was no hole on the inside of the door, and no bullet inside.) And would shooting the door of a car shatter the driver's side window?

screwy bullet lists

Meatbomb — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 05:11:49 -0800

Why do word processors screw up the size of bullets in bulleted lists? I initially thought it was a MSWord issue, but I see the same behaviour now that I am using Open Office as well. Is it a problem with the .doc format itself? In bulleted lists, I often end up with the first bullet being a different (larger) size than the rest of the list - and often no amount of screwing about fixes it.

So I guess my question has a few parts:

Why does this happen?
Is there an easy, bulletproof way to fix it when it does happen?
Is there anything left to live for? After half an hour trying to get my promo flyer looking right I am ready for a bullet to be inserted into my brain.
Is there a specific individual who can take the blame for this incredibly frustrating bug? What is his name and contact info?

Bullet Theory (Not JFK related).

ryecatcher — Sun, 10 Jun 2007 16:23:04 -0800

An empty field. Nothing for miles and miles and miles. And a gun. I shoot the gun. The bullet blasts out of the barrel and doesn't stop until....well, that's my question. Few more details inside. How far does a bullet travel if you assume that it hits nothing, there isn't any wind resistance and whatever else you need to make this as easy on you as possible when doing my thinking for me.

Further, how far would it be before it is rendered ineffective (i.e. bullet wound) but still in motion? Like I could just swipe it out of the air with my bare hand and receive nothing more than a sting and some redness on the fingers?

I hope I'm clear in my question.

Thanks all.

Installing the Eve3 Framework

Toolshed — Tue, 04 Apr 2006 17:56:43 -0800

I'm trying to install the Eve3 framework on a Powerbook G4 in order to run the Magic Bullet Suite 2.1 plug-in for Adobe After Effects Pro 6.5. I have the downloaded framework file, but when I copy it to the Frameworks folder, the UNIX Eve3 executable file changes into a document, rendering the thing non-functional. All the other frameworks in the Hard Drive Library have lots of aliases in them, but Eve3 doesn't when I drag it over from the desktop. The installation instructions say copy the framework to /Library/Frameworks/. Does copy mean I can't drag it? Does it have to be done in UNIX/Terminal and if so, what are the commands? Is this the frameworks folder in the System Library or the Hard Drive's Library? I also have another file, the Eve3 Carbon Library. Where does that go?

Gill Sans + XPress = Crazy Printing

Wild_Eep — Thu, 16 Mar 2006 09:55:25 -0800

Quark/Font filter: Using Gill Sans in an existing XPress layout. •, ', ™, and - fail to print. Rather, they are replaced with yen, nothing, opening double curly quote, and en dash, respectively. G4, OS X 10.3.9, Quark 6.1, Suitcase, printing to Xerox Docucolor 12 via a Splash G640 RIP.

Our successful workaround at this time is the following:

Add a new textbox to each page in the layout, type the •, ', ™, and - into it, and then set the text color to white.

Position the textbox in an unpopulated area of the layout.

Print out the document one page at a time. That is, for a 6 page layout, print job 1 is page 1 only, print job 2 is page 2 only, etc.

So far, we've tried:

Scanning Gill Sans (the offending font) with Font Doctor from the Suitcase CD.

Replacing the printer driver with a freshly downloaded driver from Xerox.com

Deleting and re-adding the printer in Printer Setup Utility.

Copying and pasting the offending textboxes to a new, blank layout. (characters still fail to print properly)

Creating a fresh layout, with one textbox, typing in the offending characters. (Prints successfully)

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Is there something obvious about this I have overlooked?

What the Hell is a "Bullet Carafe"?

mph — Sat, 10 Dec 2005 19:34:06 -0800

A friend of mine insists that he's seen what he refers to as a "bullet carafe." Evidently it's a glass carafe with a bullet embedded in the side within a raised circle of glass. Nobody seems to believe him, though a few people have asserted that they think such a thing might possibly exist. He's mocked ruthlessly for believing in the fabled bullet carafe, mostly because he's variously accused atheists of being scientologists and people from Washington of being Californians. I'd like to either end his suffering or continue to mock him with a clear conscience. Bonus for anyone who can post a picture or provide a link to a purveyor of, er, "bullet carafes."

Informercials

Slimemonster — Wed, 13 Jul 2005 13:08:40 -0800

Has anyone written some sort of scholarly critique or observations about infomercials and their bizarre and sort of addictive appeal? There's this infomercial that airs all the time (in Seattle at least) about the "Magic Bullet" which as far as I can tell is a glorified blender. I have no intention of buying this machine, but everytime the informercial is on, I feel an odd compulsion to watch it all the way through, smiling and kind of getting into the demonstration of the product. What is that? have there been studies about the appeal of informercials and their infiltration into pop culture (I'm sure most TV watchers know that RonCo guy or "set it and forget it").