Thursday, September 21, 2006

Hack It All

Remember when you were a kid and you took everything apart? My mom loves to tell the story about when I got the Fisher-Price Barn (you know - the one that "moos" when you open it?) and as soon as I opened the door I was no longer interested in playing with the barn, but rather how it made that noise. I took the whole thing apart and put it back together again before I would ever play with it.

Now, I didn't truly "hack" it - because I didn't improve it.

Hacking something (computer hacking not withstanding) is getting into the meat of a device or technology and really figuring out how to make it better. Folks who can add a new fuel-injector into their car to make it run more efficient aren't nearly as interesting as those who can add a flex-capacitor and make it go back in time (run for it, Marty!).

Here's a cool intro from PC Magazine - http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,1895,2016599,00.asp

Also check out:

Make Magazine - http://www.makezine.com/

Make is truly the best source for DIY (do-it-yourself) projects and how to best hack the world around us.

As Doc would say, "great Scott!"

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Airsoft: Paintball's little brother

I met up with one of the Raiders today and got the rundown on a recent airsoft adventure he undertook. He has a group of friends from church who are former paintballers who got tired of the speed-ball scene and moved into the more tactical and gear-intensive world of airsoft.

The scenario sounded really cool - huge acreage, sub-objectives (Intel, recon, etc), and a wide variety of weapons from M-16s, AKs, and sniper airsoft guns. It seemed like a great way to spend a Sunday afternoon - I think I am going to join him on the next one.

Airsoft has always been paintball's little brother: really wanting to hang out with the big kids, but when the pain gets to be too much, it'll go off and do it's own thing.

Now don't get me wrong - I think airsoft guns are really cool. They are a great way to get a handle on some military-esqe hardware that would otherwise be unattainable for middle-class America (I mean seriously, do you have $25,000 sitting around for a class III M-60 - does it even exist in the market?). Plus airsoft offers the shooting enthusist a great way to practice defensive shooting drills indoors, and with a minimum amount of damage to the interior of the house (pets and loved ones not withstanding).

But the bane of the hobby is this - airsoft pellets just really don't hurt that much - and that really takes away from the realism of the game.

When I am out in the field playing paintball, I duck and move and get behind cover because damnit - those .68 caliber paintballs can really hurt. Now there is also a great realism factor with airsoft and it's way-cool equipment, but the motivation for a small plastic pellet just isn't really there. There have even been times when I have played in airsoft games and there wasn't even a clear indication that someone hit me - they saw it - but I didn't feel a thing. On the other hand, when people are shooting paintballs at you - you get out of the way.

Paintball will always be the king of pursuit sports. It lacks the sci-fi lameness of laser tag and the pain causes the players to take it much more seriously. There is also the fact that whatever you are wearing has the very real possibility of getting messy and/or destroyed. This really puts your equipment through the ringer and causes you to get in there and take it - in the pursuit combat sense of the phrase. The color-style-manufacturer-coordinated tac gear of airsoft always looked a little too spit-shined for me, too. It doesn't have the "lived-in" look of a good paintball harness that has been with you for a few seasons.

In either case, my buddy's story has me thinking about having some more intensive scenarios for the Raiders.

And I certainly haven't sold my airsoft CAR-15 and HK USP gas pistol.

They are after all, really cool. :)

The Orion Airsoft page - http://www.orionfoundation.org/airsoft.htm

Monday, September 18, 2006

Happy Birthday to the Sundance Kid.


You can take the man out of the fight, but you can't take the fight out of the man.

Pals.

Perfectly sane and rational behavior.

"Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."
- Emperor Manual II Paleologos of Byzantine

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Eat, Exercise, and Be Healthy: A Lesson from Our Ancestors

Note: I grabbed the below essay from a primitive lifestyle's newsgroup. I am posting in its entirety, with references below - golgo13

Long before fast-food restaurants became a part of our lives, our ancestors hunted wild animals for meat, gardened, and gathered berries, nuts and plants to provide a healthy and well-rounded diet.

These "hunter-gatherers", as they were called lived long before the beginning of agriculture and the domestication of animals. Many groups throughout the world continue to live this way today. Perhaps most interesting for today's health conscious people, these humans did not and do not have anywhere near the amount of the so called "diseases of civilization" such as cancer, stroke, diabetes, and high blood pressure that cause 75% of all deaths in America today.

It is commonly thought that the reason our ancestors did not get these diseases is because they did not live long enough. It is true that these early people often died early in their life because of infections or accidents. But those who survived these early set-backs lived long lives--surpassing in length the longevity of people today.

So why didn't they get "age-related" diseases like heart disease and high blood pressure? Scientists believe that diet and exercise had a lot to do with it.

You may wonder how we can know how people lived long ago and what they ate. First, the bones of these early people have been found and analyzed by scientists. Bones reveal how much calcium a person consumed in his or her diet, for instance, or how strong this person was. Also, there are people who still live today as hunter-gatherers throughout the world. Though they are mistakenly referred to as "primitive" people, they actually have very sophisticated knowledge about plants, animals and vitamins and minerals in their environment. Modern scientists are now trying to learn as much as they can about the medicinal use of plants from the medicine men and women of these tribes.

It is known that today's hunter-gatherer tribes live very much the way that our early ancestors lived. Researchers are studying these people to determine what contributes to their health.

In the past men and women got much more exercise than the average person today. Basically, they needed to engage in relatively heavy and consistent physical activity just in order to eat. The men in these early and present tribes were and are hunters. Hunting requires walking or jogging long distances for hours or days to track animals. And the women were no slouches either. It appears that the primary responsibility of women in early tribes was to garden and gather plant foods, berries, nuts and fruits.

In one African tribe existing today, the women routinely walk between two and twelve miles per day to gather food three days per week. If you think a twelve mile walk is impressive you be even more impressed when you consider the 15 - 35 pounds of food they carry on the return trip. In addition, many are also carrying babies on their backs. And, gathering food does not mean lazily picking up fruit off the ground: these women often have to climb the trees to get the fruit. Or, they dig out potato-like tubers or roots buried in the ground.

Today we are told to eat foods from four basic food groups: meat and fish, vegetables and fruits, milk and milk products, and breads and cereals. Our ancestors derived most of their nutrients from two groups: meat and fish, and vegetables and fruits. Even today, most hunter-gatherer groups do not rely on milk or milk products or upon breads or cereals. These products were not available to anyone until the beginning of agriculture. These two food groups supplied our ancestors with a good healthy diet. Much healthier than our diet of cereals, white flour and processed foods. If you compare modern diet with those of our ancestors, present day people are the losers.

Our ancestors consumed far more calcium (for good strong bones) and fiber (prevents colon cancer) than we do today. Our ancestors ate a high-protein, high fiber diet. Their intake of sodium, which causes high blood pressure in some people, was far lower than the intake of the average American today. When they consumed fat they consumed polyunsaturated animal fats instead of the hydrogenated plant fats that are included in today's processed foods.

Interestingly, their cholesterol intake was higher than modern peoples because they consumed much more meat than most folks in "civilized" societies now. However, our ancestors, and today's hunter-gatherers, ate wild game which has a much lower fat content than animals raised in confinement today. Furthermore, these fats were of the polyunsaturated type, the opposite of what is contained in our confinement raised beef, pork and poultry.

Additionally, unlike their cooped up counterparts today, wild animals ate a natural diet that did not contain hormones, tranquilizers and antibiotics. These wild animals had as much as 20% less fat than domesticated, confinement raised animals on commercial "factory" farms. These early people also did not have to contend with refined flour and grains which have had the fiber removed, so their food had more bulk and roughage than present day processed products.

Modern peoples wishing to live longer, healthier lives can take lessons from our ancestors: Eat whole un-refined grains, free-range or wild meats, and plenty of high-fiber vegetables. Limit your intake of carbohydrates and eat a high protein diet based on lean meats. Avoid sugars.

You can learn more about the benefits of native-style and high protein - high fiber diets from the following books, most of which are available from http://www.back40books.com/ web store or by calling 1.866.596.9982.

Recommended Reading:
- Traditional Foods are Your Best Medicine, Ronald Schmid, N.D
- Buffalo Bird Woman's Garden, Gilbert Wilson
- Nutrition and Degeneration, Weston A. Price
- Dr. Atkins Diet Revolution, Robert C. Atkins, M.D.

Taken from - http://the-old-buzzards-roost.blogspot.com/
Paintball this weekend in Dripping Springs
Sunday, September 17th

We are going back into action this weekend. Our next game will be this Sunday, September 17th at 3pm in Dripping Springs.

We'll plan on getting started right at 3:30pm, so make sure your gear is ready to go at that time. This will be a normal session, so we'll do speedball and some woods games.

I'd like to try to get a "pump-only" game during the day, so bring your pump guns out as well. If you can make it afterwards, let's do dinner at the Nutty Brown and talk about the new season.

Let me know who can make it out, especially if you are playing as a guest and you need to borrow gear - space is limited!

Monday, September 11, 2006

"I would give the greatest sunset in the world for one sight of New York's skyline, the sky over New York and the will of man made visible. What other religion do we need? I feel that if a war came to threaten this, I would throw myself into space, over the city, and protect these buildings with my body."

- Ayn Rand, from The Fountainhead

Wednesday, September 06, 2006

The Shadow Biosphere

I've always been interested by the spaces between objects. The idea of the universe being a vast emptiness for such huge distances that planets and stars become the anomalies. Atomic particles - a microcosm of their cosmic counterparts - are mostly made-up of empty space. The gulf between the electrons and nucleus of the particle is huge when compared to the overall size of its components. Even when you look at iron under a mircoscope, the uniformity of the metal is lost on the ridges and valleys of the surface.

It's no wonder that I am incessantly drawn to the fiction of Lovecraft and his contemporaries, writers who looked into the vast abyss and saw not benevolence, but vast wastes with nothing but the promise of interstellar horror. What exists in this space? A question that they and their ilk asked to challenge the traditional conceptions of the world around us.

But all of that aside, I recently came across a term (in Wired magazine) that got me thinking. The shadow biosphere bascially refers to the idea that there could be substances on earth that are so apart from our "normal" biological processes that we wouldn't even know that they exists. For example, all of our knowledge around the make-up of terra firma is based on our own periodic table - all of the elements that make up life and the natural world around us.

But what if there is something else - something we can't understand because it exists outside of our five senses.

Let's consult my ever-favorite Wikipedia for more:

A team of astrobiologists at the University of Colorado at Boulder have defined a shadow biosphere as, "...a microbial biosphere that is so chemically and molecularly different from life as we know it that it wouldn't be in direct competition with familiar life; familiar life couldn't metabolize it and it would occupy ecological niches that were underpopulated by familiar organisms. Such organisms might have proteins made of completely different amino acids or amino acids with the opposite chirality or it might have nucleic acids whose sugars have the opposite chirality, to name a few possibilities."

The term was also mentioned in the "Jargon" section of the May 2006 issue of Wired magazine where it was described as, "alternative microbial life that evolved from chemistry entirely unknown to modern science..."

Taken from - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_biosphere

I am not insinuating that the Great Cthulhu really does exist in the Atlantic Ocean (but wouldn't that be fun?), but that there could be a lot more around us than we can actually comprehend. This does have a bit of a tie-in to Keel's ultraterresterials (mentioned in a previous post) - the idea that the whole UFO/ET/ghost/angels phenomenon is based on a type of being that has been around as long or longer than us, but exists in an alternative dimension.

It's a cool idea in either case.

Let's all hope that we'll find something more exciting than a new form of bacteria.

Friday, September 01, 2006

Paintball this weekend at Miller Ranch

Yes, that's right. The long summer is drawing to a close and we all know what that means . . . only 3 more hot months to go!

It also means it's time to hit the fields again for paintball.

Our first game of the year is going to be this Sunday, September 3rd at Miller Ranch.

This is going to be over the Labor Day holiday (I know this won't work for everyone) and we are going to do a Sunday to Monday campout as well - food, grilling, maybe a night game or two?

I hope to see everyone there, or if not, at the next one.

Let me know if you need any other info. I'll be giving everyone a ring prior to the first game.

Saddle up, boys - we're back in business.