Tech Tuesday: Sick Edition

Managed to catch a bug that slipped through my ridiculous HT stat, at least I can do something (vaguely) useful and write a bit.

http://www.iflscience.com/health-and-medicine/scientists-make-progress-development-one-size-fits-all-artificial-blood Exactly what it says on the tin, progress on making artificial blood.

http://www.iflscience.com/technology/new-type-computer-capable-calculating-640tbs-data-one-billionth-second-could and another step up in processing power, complete with a substantial power requirement reduction.

http://www.iflscience.com/technology/hologram-projectors-your-smartphone-could-be-close Portable mini-hologram projectors? Closer than you think.

http://elitedaily.com/news/world/scientific-breakthrough-may-laid-groundwork-human-teleportation/613912/ Teleportation of the "copy, reproduce, and destroy the original" variety has all kinds of ethical problems, but if you can just teleport without any of that? Not bad, not bad.

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/holy-crap-nasas-interplanetary-spaceship-concept-is-fr-1589001939 Warp drives and spaceship concept art.

http://www.iflscience.com/space/scientists-discover-smallest-known-star It's barely bigger than Jupiter

"Project" guns

Friend and flatmate's father had some health problems, and it was discovered that his house had descended into Hoarderdom since they were last there. A substantial amount of guns and ammo have been rescued from the place, but many of the firearms are in seriously bad condition. Rust is rampant, and other such problems.

Presently I have hold of a revolver that was left soaking in oil until the oil congealed in it. I'm going to disassemble the thing, hose it out with brake cleaner, and see if I can get it halfway presentable. Might just get a near-free revolver out of all of it. Definitely going to take that and all the other guns to a professional for a judgement whether any of them are safe to use after they've been cleaned up.

Traffic Driving

Just took a glance back through some of my various posts up here. Average views were 0-3. And then there's one of the ones mentioned/linked by McThag. Which has about 70.

'Preciate the shout out!

Preparedness is a system

http://borepatch.blogspot.com/2014/06/fitness-as-preparation.html

Being ready "just in case" requires the whole system to operate. If there's anything gunfighting with paintballs has taught me, it's that you will become intimately aware of every way your body isn't up to the rigors of battle very, very quickly. However far you can (or can't) run, how long you can hold yourself in the weird positions needed to take cover behind obstacles you'll actually find in the real world, instead of nice oddly shaped plywood cover analogues, how long you can carry all of the equipment you need for it, even little things like where your shoes rub that you don't notice during day to day wear.

When you make sure a car is ready for a big trip, you don't just check the engine. You check the tires, the brakes, the fluids. Any failures might not be anywhere near as major as the engine going, but will make the trip far less pleasant. Same for things really going wrong. The gun is the engine, you absolutely need it for a gunfight, but you're going to need the muscle strength and stamina and some training if you want to get through the whole event as well as can be managed.

Soon as I finish it up, I'll toss up a link to my Tactical Workout, developed based on what I've learned from major scenario games (a giant paintball war, waged over hundreds of acres. At Legends, which I still need to post up more about, I probably hupped 30-40 lbs of gear over ~10 miles, a lot of that at a full sprint)

No good to tell you to train your body and not do anything to help with it, right?

Tech Tuesday: Too Varied To Bother With A Theme edition

Sorry for the lull in posting, to the few people who actually read me. Just had a serious case of "can't be arsed." Had these building up but just never could be bothered to actually write up the post.

http://gizmodo.com/fda-approves-first-prosthetic-arm-controlled-by-muscle-1574530219 Now approved for general consumption, a prosthetic arm that's controlled by muscle readings. We've got better stuff in the works, but this is still a substantial step up from a lot of what's around. I'd take muscle-reading hands to a hook, at least until "hooked into the brain and works/feels just like the old one, but easier to replace if busted" became available.

http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/the-solar-powered-fridge-of-1937-made-sunbeams-into-ice-1574174343 Solar, used to do stuff before we had solar panels. As someone in the comments says "imagine where we'd be if we actually built on what we already know, instead of reinventing everything every couple decades"

http://paleofuture.gizmodo.com/the-futuristic-superhighways-of-1964-had-glow-in-the-da-1562397863 More retrotech, but relevant today as a more viable version of stuff being thrown about these days. Glow in the dark road markings would be darn useful, particularly in inclement weather. Wouldn't even have to be the really good high end glow in the dark stuff that can go all night on a charge, just has to glow for a bit and spit light back from headlights, to make up for the fact that when wet the headlights themselves wouldn't throw enough light back off the markings to make them visible (water makes it work like a mirror, so instead of hitting the ground and scattering to provide useful light back to the driver, it just goes on ahead)

http://www.iflscience.com/technology/new-dual-carbon-battery-charges-20x-faster-lithium-ion Improved batteries. We keep getting good advances but they aren't making it all the way to functional usability. Hopefully these will see use, and start making electric cars and other such things viable, with fast(er) charge times and higher capacity. Electric vehicles are great in theory, but battery tech just isn't ready to make them really workable... yet.

http://gizmodo.com/skype-to-launch-star-trek-style-real-time-language-tra-1582404890 Autotranslate. It'll still have the google translate problem, but it's a damn sight better than nothing for communication across a language barrier. Throw that together with google translate-or-equivalent's text reader, and a throat mic, and you could probably even converse with people you didn't share a language with in mostly real time.

http://sploid.gizmodo.com/scientists-think-there-may-be-wormhole-in-the-center-of-1582831794 I for one support throwing things into black holes, if we can get to them. For Science, and stuff. Still going to need some manner of faster communication or something to get word BACK as to whether it's a wormhole or a black hole (although a probe that can turn around and come back, assuming it works like that, would work)

http://gizmodo.com/soviet-doctors-cured-infections-with-viruses-and-soon-1587311881 If antibiotics don't work, why not infect the bacteria with a virus? Good to at least have options for getting rid of antibiotics when stupid people overuse them until they stop working.

http://www.iflscience.com/technology/hovercraft-coming-market-2017 It's a hoverbike. It looks like it might not be the ultra flying car of the future, but it certainly looks more controllable than modern hovercraft. I suspect it's either related to this, or is at least an offshoot. The Hoverbike seems designed to be more "flying motorcycle" than the AeroX.

http://gizmodo.com/the-armys-new-helmet-design-comes-with-built-in-a-c-1575643048 and lo, the Space Marine's gear gets one step closer to arrival. Looks futuristicy. Also futuristic helmet related, http://heartsracer.com/ Gimme a blend of the two and a space rocketbike.

Fight me for gun control

The way I see it, there are a few main reasons people support gun control. If you happen to be reading this and are one of them, I'm going to give you the benefit of the doubt, and assume you're just outside your area of expertise. You mean well, but you don't have any experience with the reality of combat, of fighting, of self defense. I've gotten lectured on the ins and outs of self defense by plenty of folks who couldn't throw a proper punch to save their life or figure out which end of the gun the bullets come out of without a manual and a committee.

I'm assuming, if you support gun control, your premise is that you and others are able to defend yourselves as well or better without firearms.The other option would be the belief that without guns, there wouldn't be any crime or need to defend yourselves, which is clearly wrong based on all of human history.

So prove it. If self defense is so much better when nobody has a gun, step into the ring with me. You'll have all the pads you want, and I'm a skilled martial artist so there's no risk of me actually harming you (I've practiced fighting without harming my opponent for around 15 years). I'm pretty well set for fighting. I've spent a significant portion of the better part of my entire lifespan training. Odds are pretty darn good that I'm bigger than you, tougher than you, better at fighting than you, and despite being incredibly out of shape due to surgery, I'm still likely stronger, faster, and probably more fit than you. All in all, I'm a good example of a believable-but-very-bad-case opponent.

I like sparring weapons, so I'll see what I can find in the way of foam padded or rubber or whatever ones, so you can attempt to use whatever you please against me after the first bout, if you'd like.

Either way, with or without weapons, the rules are simple. You must interact with a mock-phone for 30 seconds to represent a call to the police. You must then hold out against me for 3 minutes, assuming a very good response time on the part of the police. That's it.

If you step into the ring, I don't intend to go easy on you. To go any easier than absolutely necessary would be a disservice. I want you to understand the reality of a fight. If I've done my job well, you'll have nightmares about it. I do this because I want you to be safe. I've spent a significant amount of time dedicated to learning about fighting in its many forms. My pursuit of excellence has taught me that true melee combat is one of the most vicious, brutal things you can find, and tends to heavily weight the odds against anyone smaller, weaker and less willing to utilize violence.

If you have no prior training in self defense, I'll give you an hour long lesson. In that time, I've yet to find someone I couldn't get to be fairly competent with a firearm. Assuming you aren't like me and absolutely love to spar, you're unlikely to put in much time or effort, so that seems like a realistic amount for someone who took a self defense class once. And then you'll get to put those freshly trained skills to the test immediately, instead of waiting months or years to let them get rusty.

So how about it?

Sci Fi Friday: Ocean Arcology

http://www.iflscience.com/technology/plans-unveiled-floating-future-city

~70% of the ocean is covered in water, while humanity fights for the tiny scraps of land. But what if there was a way around it? Just build some more, float a city on the water, use the considerable force of the ocean for power, use modern efficient farming and fishing techniques for food, zippy integrated transport as a key design feature rather than something of an afterthought.

But there's always going to be trouble in the big city. A floating, oceangoing city will have its own unique troubles to deal with. It's been touched on a few times, often in games and movies. Everything from Waterworld to the recent(ish) game Brink, feature big floating cities with a whole mess of trouble in them.

But what if it mostly worked? Despite having to button everything up for sea storms, the dangers of pirates and hostile foreign parties who might not consider the floating city to be part of a nation and therefore up for grabs, seedy businesses looking for places to do their thing outside of normal country's laws, it was more or less a reasonable place to live? Sounds like a good spot for some Player Characters to find work, stir up trouble, or both.