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Tuesday, November 20, 2018

November 20, 2018 -- A Quick Run Around The Web

"How to Scan a Battlefield | Post Shoot Protocol"--Warrior Poet Society (7 min.)
Research into vision shows that people tend to see what they expect to see and do not recognize something different or new. This actually encompasses two similar phenomena: change blindness (not seeing something new in the visual field) and inattentional blindness (not seeing an unexpected visual stimuli). The former is generally an issue with noticing new stimuli because we are "working off a script", while the other may be related to our perception load (such as being too focused on one task to pay attention to something unrelated to that task). Unfortunately for us old guys, inattentional blindness worsens as we get older. In any event, the issue for combat is people mechanically scanning for other potential threats after stopping the primary threat, but not seeing these other threats. In this video, the author offers a more deliberate method for scanning, summarized by a little ditty, that hopefully will remedy the issue:
1 - Is he down? Yes he is.
2 - Did he bring any friends? (scan one side) Did he bring any friends? (scan the other)
3 - Does anyone else want to play? (behind and to one side) Does anyone else want to play? (other side)
4 - Return to target
5 - Last check (one side) Last check (other side)

  • It's Tuesday and time for another Woodpile Report.
  • One of the articles that Ol' Remus mentions is "BASIC MEDICAL REFERENCES YOU NEED ON HAND" from American Partisan. It lists some sources of medical references that are free to download, and has suggestions on a couple necessary references.
  • "Battle of the Best 22 Survival Rifles: Henry AR 7 vs. Marlin Papoose"--Ammo Land. They each had their pluses and minuses. The author felt that the AR7 edged out the Papoose, however, because all the parts fit within the stock and it didn't require any tools for assembly or maintenance. 
  • A couple over at the Survival Blog: "Guest Post: Asymmetrical Warfare and 4GW: How Militia Groups are America’s Domestic Viet Cong" (Part 1) (Part 2). Part 1 gives an overview of the disparity between a theoretical guerrilla group and the U.S. military as well as a primer on Fourth Generational Warfare (4GW). Part 2 discusses how 4GW may play out in Europe and the United States, and the skills needed for someone fighting in a 4GW environment. 
        U.S. troops working inside CONUS against a hypothetical guerrilla group face a problem never before experienced by our military: that its entire logistics tale will be exposed to attack, from the factory/refinery/power station to the post where those at the tip of the spear live ... and where their family lives, goes to school, shops, etc. 4G warfare also means that a guerrilla organization would not be primarily for combat, but would, in theory, need people expert in various fields in order to attack the government on the moral plane, as well as provide intelligence and other technical support.
  • "Digital Night Vision: Is It Worth While?"--The Firearm Blog. This article looks at a couple low-light/I.R. cameras.
  • "Striking Distance: Sap and Blackjack Buyer’s Guide"--Recoil Magazine. An overview of some of the current manufacturers and a couple products from each.
  • This looks like a great addition to a get-home bag or a bug-out bag: "'Invisible' air filter that you stick up your NOSE blocks 90% of pollution particles, allergens and bacteria"--Daily Mail. The product is called the O2 Nose Filter. Obviously it won't prevent you breathing pollution through your mouth, but they are very small and compact. Apparently there are other, similar products, although I was unaware of these products. A concern with fires, earthquakes, or other potential disasters or emergencies is breathing in particulates such as smoke or dust. I keep dust masks on hand, but this looks like it may filter out more of the particles and be more compact. If anyone has experience with these products, please comment below.
  • "Is A New Grand Solar Minimum Upon Us?"--Silicon Graybeard. A review of  Dr. Valentina Zharkova's "Climate and the Solar Magnetic Field Hypothesis" and her prediction that that solar activity will fall by 60 percent during the 2030s, similar to that of the Maunder Minimum of 1645-1715. 
  • Related: "The cooling climate"--Vox Popoli. "The trend for fall snow across the northern hemisphere has been increasing, defying the forecasts over the last two decades for snows becoming an increasingly rare event."
  • Related: "Global cooling was not a myth"--Vox Popoli. Global warming fanatics are apparently trying to airbrush history to claim that global cooling was not a concern in the 1960's and 70's.
  • Related: "Global Warming Snowed Under"--American Thinker. A run down of the record cold temperatures and snow falls the past few weeks.
I wish we could go back in time and uninvent the gun. Because then, bigger stronger men who could swing swords and axes harder than their enemies would go back to ruling the world. No more of this ridiculous female “empowerment” and all minorities would be enslaved just the way they were meant to be. Without having disgusting guns to fight back, the weak and disenfranchised would have never forgotten their place in life, a life they should be thankful they were even allowed to have to begin with.


"What Did Remington Do to Fix My R51?"--HR Funk (9 min.)
Funk had been having some unusual feeding issues with his R51, but only with the first round from a fully loaded (7 rounds) magazine, and attempted several fixes involving the magazines. Finally, he sent the weapon into Remington for warranty work, and when it was returned, he had no problems with it. So what did Remington do? They polished the bottom of the breach block.

  • Related: "Kritocracy Then Chaos"--Z Blog. Z-Man explains that our judicial system is corrupted because judges have a fundamentally different philosophy when it comes to applying the law, and will apply (or interpret) the law in a way that advances that philosophy. He's not wrong, in general. However, some of the specifics of his article needed to be taken with a healthy dose of salt. For instance, he suggests that the more radical judges are shipped off to the Ninth Circuit in order to isolate them from the rest of the federal judiciary. Actually, the judges are generally selected from within the circuits in which they practice with input from congress critters representing the states within those same circuits. If the Ninth Circuit comes off as way out in left field, it is because it draws most of its judges from the Left Coast--California, Oregon, Washington, and Hawaii.
  • Wickedness never was happiness: "Why Are Young People Having So Little Sex? Despite the easing of taboos and the rise of hookup apps, Americans are in the midst of a sex recession"--The Atlantic. This article seems to be getting a lot of attention. The author initially seems to take the view that a reduction in couple-hood is the primary culprit, which brings to mind the article I cited yesterday that indicated that only 15% of adults in the 25-34 age range were co-habitating. But there are a lot of other possible factors briefly mentioned in the article, including that it might be "a consequence of the hookup culture, of crushing economic pressures, of surging anxiety rates, of psychological frailty, of widespread antidepressant use, of streaming television, of environmental estrogens leaked by plastics, of dropping testosterone levels, of digital porn, of the vibrator’s golden age, of dating apps, of option paralysis, of helicopter parents, of careerism, of smartphones, of the news cycle, of information overload generally, of sleep deprivation, of obesity." Even lower rates of childhood sexual abuse was rolled out as a possible cause. However, the causes that the author ultimately focuses on are the easy availability of pornography and "self-pleasure" that doesn't require the emotional, monetary and time commitments of actual relationships; a history of helicopter parenting that has stunted young people's ability to form relationships on their own; the rise of dating apps (which apparently are very inefficient and time consuming for the men using the apps); bad sex (influenced by what they see in pornography); and, ironically, greater physical and social inhibitions.
         John Hawkins at PJ Media addresses this issue (and The Atlantic article) in his piece, "5 Reasons Americans Are Living Through a Sex Recession." He thinks there are multiple concurrent causes somewhat different from The Atlantic article: (1) the easy availability of pornography which makes interactions with real women (or men) less interesting; (2) the proliferation of entertainment choices other than trying to socialize with members of the opposite sex, including video games and other electronic media; (3) people simply socialize less (a la Robert Putnam's book, Bowling Alone); (4) less attraction to the opposite sex because women are less feminine, men are less masculine, and people are, overall, fatter than in the past; and (5) female ego inflation--that because of the attention that women can get on social media, "women dramatically overestimate their value in the sexual marketplace based on the overwhelming response they’re getting, they reject the sort of men they could reasonably land and hold out for men who aren’t going to be interested in them."
        The latter factor is not imagined. Robert Allison crunched some numbers from dating sights to compare how attractive men and women find each other, on average. It is best shown by his graphs:


As you can see from the graphs, men's perception of the attractiveness of women follows a normal distribution. However, women's views are skewed such that women rate only 1 in 6 men as "above average"--every girl is a princess, I guess. Consequently, the vast majority of women will be pursuing the top 17% of men and ignoring the "lesser" men (and if they do hook up with these other men, it will be because they settled for less than they think they deserved). And since women initiate contact in a relationship by signaling their interest (the old "I chased him until he caught me" situation), this means that a whole lot of men are completely cut out of the sexual market place (or marriage market place, if you prefer).
       This isn't exactly a new phenomena. I remember as a young lad in college attending my student ward (church congregation for those who aren't LDS) and observing the behavior among women and their preferences. One memory that sticks with me in particular was a Sunday School class where the teacher (a female college student) decided to conduct a lesson on dating and relationships modeled off the Family Feud show, with certain "contestants" competing to match up answers to questions that had been presented to the women in the ward. My raucous friends and I shouted answers from the back of the room based on our knowledge that the women in the ward were vain and generally disliked and looked down on the men, achieving an almost 100% ability to predict the top answer to each question, even though some of our suggestions seemed absurd until the moment that the top response was revealed. 
        However, the attitude of women seems to have become exacerbated over the intervening decades. The only way to correct this situation would be for women to either become much more humble about themselves and their prospects and/or become more desperate.
  • "Metric system overhaul will dethrone the one, true kilogram"--Science. One kilogram has been defined as the mass of a certain platinum-iridium alloy cylinder kept in France. However, like other SI units, it stands to be replaced by a measurement defined in terms of some physical constant. The idea is that a kilogram could be calculated by measuring certain phenomena rather than having to consult a standard weight or measure. In this case, the kilogram will be related to the Planck constant. 
But applying the complex new definitions will baffle anybody without an advanced degree in physics, argues Gary Price, a metrologist [someone that designs measuring systems and equipment] in Sydney, Australia, who used to advise Australia’s National Standards Commission. In fact, he argues, the new SI fails to meet one of the basic requirements of a units system, which is to specify the amount of mass with which to measure masses, the amount of length with which to measure lengths, and so on. “The new SI is not weights and measures at all,” Price says.
Using nuclear power in principle bypasses some of the problems plaguing reusable chemical rocket programmes; because of the far higher impulse of nuclear rockets, they can be built more robustly than reusable chemical rockets, which must be an exquisite compromise between weight and stress tolerance. The Russian plan calls for a reuse turnaround time of 48 hours.
This is yet another situation where the United States could have done this decades ago, but for leftist anti-nuclear environmentalism and the welfare society that so drained our national fisc. The U.S. had advanced quite far in the development of nuclear rockets and jet engines in the 1960's, but these programs were terminated (at least publicly) in the 1960's and 70's. 
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