Quotulatiousness

December 14, 2020

Hall Model 1819: A Rifle to Change the Industrial World

Filed under: History, Military, USA, Weapons — Tags: , , , , , — Nicholas @ 02:00

Forgotten Weapons
Published 7 Sep 2020

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John Hall designed the first breechloading rifle to be used by the United States military, and the first breechloader issued in substantial numbers by any military worldwide. His carbines would later be the first percussion arms adopted by any military force. Hall developed a breechloading flintlock rifle in 1811, had it tested by the military in 1818, and formally adopted as a specialty arm in 1819.

Hall’s contribution actually goes well beyond having a novel and advanced rifle design. He would be the first person to devise a system of machine tools capable of producing interchangeable parts without hand fitting, and this advance would be the foundation of the American system of manufacturing that would revolutionize industry worldwide. Hall did this work at the Harpers Ferry Arsenal, where he worked from 1819 until his death in 1841.

I plan to expand on the details of a variety of Hall rifle models in future videos, and today is meant to be an introduction to the system. Because it was never a primary arm in time of major war, Hall is much less well recognized than he should be among those interested in small arms history.

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QotD: Goodhart’s law

Filed under: Bureaucracy, Business, Economics, Quotations — Tags: , , , — Nicholas @ 01:00

This is why planning an economy simply doesn’t work. Issue targets that must be hit and people game the system to hit the targets without actually doing the desired underlying thing. Or, as it is formally constituted:

    Any observed statistical regularity will tend to collapse once pressure is placed upon it for control purposes.

Or as it has been reformulated:

    Goodhart’s law is an adage named after economist Charles Goodhart, which has been phrased by Marilyn Strathern as: “When a measure becomes a target, it ceases to be a good measure.” One way in which this can occur is individuals trying to anticipate the effect of a policy and then taking actions which alter its outcome.

Set a target for tonnes of shoes and you get one tonne shoes. Set a target for 100 shoes and you get 100 left feet. Set a target for being on time and people fiddle their definition of time.

It is, by the way, entirely fine to insist that airlines play fair with telling us how long a flight will take. You said it will take 4 hours, then 4 hours should be about the time it takes. Yes, sure, we understand, airports, crowded places. Idiot passengers forget to board, luggage must be taken off. Winds vary, thunderstorms happen, French air traffic controllers actually turn up to work today, their one day in seven. Sure, there’re lots of variables. But if you say it’s about four hours then it should be about four hours. Great.

But to complain that they pad their number a bit is ludicrous. We’re holding their feet to the fire, insisting that an underestimate will lead to financial costs. Thus, obviously, they will overestimate. That’s not really even Goodhart’s Law, that’s just human beings. But then, as we know, those who would plan everything don’t deal well with the existence of people, do they?

Tim Worstall, “Goodhart’s Law Applies To Economies, To Everything – Why Not Scheduled Airline Flight Times?”, Continental Telegraph, 2018-08-27.

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