The problem with point shooting

Point shooting is a very useful thing to be able to do. Under stress, it's exceptionally hard to use your sights, and very few people are fast enough to actually do so without substantial amounts of practice.

Thankfully, a lifetime of laser tag, nerf guns, light gun games, paintball, airsoft, and what have you have made me a superb point shooter. I can even dual wield, firing at one or multiple targets in a close cone effectively, with basically no loss of accuracy (double dominant eyes helps here, both hands aim properly at what I attempt to point at). So, what I'm saying is I have no problems with point shooting.

Except when you put a proper gun in my hands. I can't not aim. Part of it's simple practice. Making it to the range is kind of a rarity, so when I do it I want to make every shot count. I also tend to shoot at longer ranges, and don't practice much at defensive range.

I'm hoping that my glock training barrel that's in the mail that just arrived will help me with that, eventually I'll be getting a laser bore insert and one of those laserlyte glow target things.

Tech Tuesday

Halfassed addition, now with almost some content! Most of which is by way of IFLScience, because I'm a lazy shit and these are mostly just whatever new tech related stuff comes across my desk.

http://www.iflscience.com/technology/scientists-create-transparent-solar-concentrator
Solar power is useful, it's just ugly and expensive. Solar windows and stuff? Good idea. Any advances in making it actually not incredibly terrible are useful.

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/space-station-cosmonauts-find-life-in-the-vacuum-of-spa-1624978001
Somehow, microbes made it to space. Alive.

http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/researchers-identify-genetic-recipe-lizard-tail-regeneration
First we figure out how to get hearing damage caused by noise to heal (pending more testing before it gets to people. Very useful for people into guns and such), now we've identified what allows body parts to grow back. Perhaps in the near future, you'll have the options of a chrome replacement or just growing a new one in case of losing a bit of you.

http://www.iflscience.com/plants-and-animals/neanderthals-survived-early-contact-humans
Astonishingly enough, humanity managed to coexist with another sapient race for a few thousand years, rather than going straight for trying to wipe them out.

http://www.iflscience.com/technology/hydrogen-generating-water-splitter-runs-aaa-battery
Hydrogen generation, on the cheap.

http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/researchers-discover-proteins-block-both-hiv-and-ebola-virus-release
Not a cure, but a step in the right direction.

Double Tap vs. Anchoring Rounds

Random thought, since it's come up in the news and stuff again. People keep talking about double taps, and they're doing it wrong. A double tap is two shots on a single target in quick succession. It isn't banned by any conventions, it's often seen as a generally good idea, particularly with handguns (which are actually pretty terrible as far as guns go). Basically, if it's worth shooting once, it's worth shooting twice. The double tap has a big brother, the triple tap, which is just 3 quick shots.

What the press, people, and Zombieland keep referring to as the double tap, is actually known as Anchoring Rounds. It is the act of shooting someone on the ground, so the bullet finishes them off and "anchors" them down. This IS illegal, banned by military conventions, and is pretty much a terrible idea at all times (sticky situations happen against enemies who play dead then get up and attack, though. I believe there were problems with that in Iraq/Afghanistan for a while).

Tech Tuesday

Things seem to have been a bit lean on the "finding random new tech articles" front to ramble about.

http://www.iflscience.com/technology/inventor-develops-synthetic-leaf-produces-oxygen
http://gizmodo.com/nasa-will-make-oxygen-from-co2-on-the-surface-of-mars-1614018168
Various techs for making oxygen from CO2. Handy for space.

Aaaand, that is everything I have for that front

However, tech related, just got a new laptop. Sweet gaming rig. Still setting it up, posting this from my old one because I haven't gotten stuff all ready yet.

Fitness and things

Finally (almost) caught up on sleep, and have been looking at local gyms, because there's a certain type of workout you can't get any other way than lifting heavy things repeatedly.

I've just purchased a fitness sledgehammer, and found a place to begin developing the workout from, the Hindu Mace Workout. I've also collected my little hand maul, which will be getting a matching partner, for modified Indian Club Training.

The purpose of the hammer workout is, in addition to building muscle, to build dexterity and train in the basics of one and two handed axe/mace fighting. Among the additional workouts I've determined will be included are a series of horizontal swings, an exercise I'll be calling Love Taps that amounts to quick defensive swings that keep the weapon in control enough to block with, and a broad, figure eight stroke that is PHENOMENAL for basically the entire body, and helps you practice keeping the weapon in motion.


Work on GURPS Metro is slow, but will be resuming soon. I've been on a creative kick, getting back into drawing and writing and crafting and such things, which has been taking up time that would otherwise be used to grind through all the gun stat building. From there, I just have Life in the Metro, Metro Medicine, and a bunch of updating earlier works, before I can collect everything into a single worldbook. I'll have to try to tweak things to allow it to be run with more variance in magic (more available, no mana vs. low, etc) and psionics (again, allowed vs. not), and world (fantasy variety bucket world or not). Not sure where I'll put it when it's done, but it'd be great to have all this work pay off for more than one game, I'd love to hear about someone else running a game of it, even if they only use bits and pieces (improved character sheet, even more general purpose gun list, punktech equipment, etc).

R&R

Apparently I have been so busy doing stuff at all times with no downtime whatsoever that I burned out my ability to shrug off sleep deprivation. Trying to catch up on sleep finally,  and I keep waking up going"oh, so this is what "well rested" feels like, only to realize I still have enormous dark circles under my eyes and am substantially fatigued.

I literally cannot remember what it feels like to be completely well rested.

Anyway,  that's why posting has been extra light. Also explains the slow rate of progress with workouts.

Stanley Fitness Equipment

Was recently looking at gyms and fitness centers, and various other workout regimens to perform, and was reminded of Indian Club Exercises. Thinking about those reminded me of the effectiveness of good old fashioned WORK. Until I was 18, I never worked out at the gym, yet I had more useful muscle than a great many people who could bench/squat/curl two to four times what I could. Why? I always got my workout while doing work around my grandparent's house or the family cabin, splitting wood, chopping down trees the old fashioned way, hauling logs, and the like. I didn't have much in the way of lifting ST, but I had Striking ST for days (further compounded and trained with lots and lots of martial arts of the purely striking variety).

So, combined with a recently made character who fights with a war maul, I thought "hmm, I bet there's a sledgehammer workout. Swinging all that weight around at the end of a stick takes a lot of muscle"

A bit of googling and what do I find? Just about every sledgehammer workout is basically just "get a sledgehammer and an old tractor tire, and smack the latter with the former a bunch until you get tired".

So, I decided to experiment. A bit of cursory testing indicates that you can get a VERY intense workout, even with just a 6 or 8 lb head sledgehammer. I plan to combine it with a ~40 lb weighted training vest, and add in some more standard Indian club exercises with a 2 lb head engineer hammer. So far it's enormously effective on the core, back, and shoulders, with a fair bit on the arms, but limited targetting of the legs. A few more exercises and the added weight of the vest should round it out. On top of it all, it'll give some reasonable training for Ace/Mace weapons, at least of the unwieldy/very unwieldy variety.


I think I'll call it the Dwarven Exercise Regimen.

Motorcycle License: Achieved

Finished the class, written portion was a breeze as expected. Just have to hit up the DMV and take a cursory 20 question test to get my permit to then unlock the full motorcycle endorsement on my license. My mom thinks it's kind of cool since I can drive the Elio when it comes out, but was very firmly against me ever riding a proper motorcycle. I'm kind of torn on the whole "regular motorcycle" thing, because it's fun, but it IS dangerous, and there's no two ways around that.

If I can get access to a proper motorcycle (which would most likely have to be my own), I can start tinkering with trying to make things safer, and potentially make all the money if I can figure THAT out. At the moment my computer is attempting to melt itself to death, so picking up someone's old used bike will be somewhere down the line (if at all) from getting something new to play with. Still need to pick up my AR-15 too.

More Motorcycles

Class is going alright. I'm having a little trouble with some stuff, but it's mostly due to moderately severe sleep deprivation and heat exhaustion. Still, I've pretty much got it, and tomorrow I get to practice more stuff.

Hot DAMN do you feel tiny and exposed on a bike, I'd forgotten about that from the time I tried out riding a moped. I don't know how anyone could deem it a good idea to ride a motorcycle without this level of learning first (even the guy who already has a motorcycle and rides with his learner's permit agreed). The fact that plenty of people DO explains part of why motorcycling is so dangerous (idiots on the road account for a substantial portion too, of course).

I think, if I ever get a bike, I will consider it as a ground-based version of Skydiving, with marginally more useful applications.