Saturday, June 27, 2015

Guns Ballistics for Video Gaming

(subject to editing - this was done with out a lot of planning, just a lot of musing while playing)

I've been on a binge of Fallout recently.    Specifically Fallout 3, and Fallout New Vegas, which coincides nicely with the Announced release of Fallout 4 for November 10.

One of the things that's always bugged me about weapons in games is the odd damage values they assign.   Now, I've been reloading for a long time (since about 1973) but I don't consider my self an expert, just a reasonably well informed amateur.  Given that games do a lot of simplification anyway that's probably okay.  What I'd like to do here is lay out some basic concepts for game designers on firearms in gaming.

I notice damage and ammo inconsistencies more in Fallout than anywhere else, mostly because you can make your own ammo in Fallout (it's also my favorite series of games). You have .44 Magnum handguns that do more damage than 7.62x51 rifles.  There are 5.56 sniper rifles that do more damage than 7.62x51 FN-FAL (FWE mod).  The Browning BAR does less damage per shot than the M1 Garand, yet both are .30-06, with similar barrel lengths.  The .308 is more powerful than the 7.62 - which is usually wrong (at least in the FWE mod).   Some of the .308 weapons out damage the .30-06 weapons.   There's a .223 pistol (that uses 5.56 ammo)  but the 7.62 weapons can't use .308 and vice versa.  Who the hell makes a .308 military sniper rifle - it should have been a 7.62.

Yes - most people think the .308 and the 7.62x51 are the same thing, so there's much argument about the interchangeability of .308 and 7.62.   The reality of it seems to come down to three things.

Head spacing: For what ever reason, military ammo hold spec quite well, while the chambers is a lot of military small arms are wildly out of spec - by as much as 10-15 thousands or more.  And yes that's a lot. If you're chamber is excessively long you can run into case expansion, primer backing and case separation issues on ejection.   The military solution for this is to use heavier cases (thicker walls - less internal volume).    If you know your chamber is to spec, then either .308 or 7.62 is fine.  If you're not sure - I'd stick with 7.62 or load your own.  If you're wondering what the hell head spacing is, and why it's critical to the correct operation of a firearm, the wiki description of Firearms Head Space is pretty good.

Semi auto and  full auto have tighter specs requirements than bolt action rifles.  OAL and head spacing as well as overall pressure are specified to provide for reliable cycling of the bolt.  My personal experience is that Federal Match .308 works fine, some of the .308 hunting rounds don't.  So my general rule is Match ammo, or Military 7.62 for semi (and full auto).  Pretty much what ever you want in a bolt gun although improper  head spacing can still cause some issues with accuracy and case extraction if your chamber is very far out of spec.  My personal experience (and your milage may vary) is that for my bolt gun setting the OAL depends on the bullet I'm loading but I get the best accuracy when the bullet ogive (the curve of the conical front portion of the bullet) just touches the lands (that's the raised part of a rifled barrel - lands and grooves).  With semi auto I don't mess around with that - I go for the mil spec OAL and call it good.

Primers: Much of the Nato 7.62 is Berden Primed and takes a lot more work to make it reloadable.  Lake City brass is Boxer primed (standard U.S. commercial easy to reload).   For the sake of games like Fallout, I think it's fair to assume it's all Boxer Primed.

Pressure: For reliable cycling you probably want to avoid rounds that for what ever reason are not very close to mil spec.  It's unlikely that you'll achieve a case pressure in a .308 that the 7.62 brass can not handle as the Lake City brass is actually more robust (smaller case volume, thicker walls) than a lot of the commercial brass.   Again if it's a bolt gun, as long as you're not experiencing overpressure indicators - pitted or backed out primers, cracking of the brass, etc  then you're unlikely to be firing a gun who's chamber can't handled the pressure.   Interestingly where this can be a real problem is the older WWII .30-06 weapons.  You want to really make sure the ammo is not overpowered for those.  Or if you want a really extreme example, compare a old trapdoor .45-70 government load to what you can use in a modern day Marlin or similar.  The stuff I shoot in my 1895 Cowboy would eventually crack the chamber of an early period piece.

For Semi/Full auto: OAL (Overall Length) is more important that for most bolt fed guns because of the mechanics of stripping a round of the magazine and pushing it up the ramp.  A round with an excessive OAL my not even fit in the magazine, and yes I've seen that happen.   Longer OAL is typically a result of loading a heavy bullet or one with a particular profile Spitzer point boat-tails (SPBT) in the upper ranges of weights for a particular caliber will typically be longer than a military ball ammo.   Also not a big concern for gaming.

So what issues should game designers consider when setting the damage rates on their firearms?

Ammo:

  • Bullet Mass: Heavier bullet typically have better penetration despite the fact that they are usually slower than their lighter counterparts.    In a round like the 5.56  you can find loads with 35 grain bullets all the way up to 70 grain.  A 35 grain load is moving about 4,000 fps out of a 20" barrel. While the 70 is going to be moving at somewhere between 2,700 and 2,900 fps (more or less).  There's not much difference between a 9mm 124 grain and a 9mm 145 grain in terms of terminal ballistics.  But when you get to rifle velocities it can become noticeable. 
  • Case Size/Caliber  - This will vary with caliber designation.  Generally speaking bigger is more powerful - but not always.  For example a 10mm is more powerful than a .45 ACP.  The 10mm makes up for it's slightly reduced diameter with extra velocity, bullet masses are similar although on average the .45 ACP bullets are 40-50 grains heavier, you can run a 180 grain HP in both and the 10mm is going to hit noticeably harder.  A typical example would be the .357 Magnum - which in revolver format can shoot .38 special and .357 - both of which have different case lengths and significant different specification for maximum case pressure.  A slightly different example would be the 9mm Largo (9x23) and the 9x23 Win.  The 9x23 Win has a very strong case is rated for MUCH higher pressures - giving it essentially identical ballistics to the .357 magnum.  The largo has a much lower power. 
  • Bullet Composition:  Generally (but not always)  AP rounds will be lighter than the same length ball type bullet.  This is due to the steel penetrator that makes the core of the bullet being a bit lighter than lead - it's not enough to worry about in general.  For example, 5.56 Ball is 55 grains and the Green Tip M865 (standard Nato military) is 62 grains.  Where things get interesting is in the bigger rounds.   For my .45-70 I have loads that run 300 grains at 2,300 fps to the 430 grain moving at 1840 fps.   That 430 grain load will handle pretty much anything on 2 or 4 feet that walks on this planet - although I'd rather use something bigger for rhino, hippo, or elephant.  
  • Muzzle Velocity: All cartridges have a target muzzle velocity - it's the standard round from a standard barrel - for example 230 grain ball ammo from a 5" barrel in a 1911.  Subsonic rounds need to not exceed about 1000 fps (depending on altitude and temperature) 1116 fps at 59F or 15C at sea level.  So 1000fps is a reasonable target.   What this means is that most pistol rounds  for subsonic use will be under powered.  9mm is close, .45 ACP is fine,  10mm will be significantly under powered.   So will all the rifle rounds.   The .300 Blackout (nee 300 whisper) was designed to run both supersonic and subsonic.   The standard round is 7.62x39 and around 125 grain bullet.  The subsonic is about 220 grain.  If I had to choose between a 9mm sub gun, and a .300 blackout SBR, it would be a tough choice - a good expanding 220 grain bullet designed for subsonic use should expand just as well as a 9mm or a .45 but it's much smaller diameter still makes it somewhat problematic, and with no velocity advantage, the lighter round is probably the better choice.   For me the ideal sub gun is the .45 ACP - a full power or even +P round is subsonic so you lose nothing.   For sniper use, there's little point in worrying about subsonic ammo at all - you just don't have the power and accuracy that you need for the job, so stick to regular (or match) ammo.  The suppressors job on a sniper rifle is to make it harder to locate your position, not to keep anyone near by from knowing rounds have been fired. - Keep in mind, a really good suppressor is only going to drop the sound of a rifle to somewhere around 120-130db and that's not quiet - subsonic rounds will be noticeably quieter but nothing is silent - an MP5-SD will sound a bit like someone saying CLACK CLACK CLACK at slightly above conversational levels.  A subsonic 22 will be the quietest you'll come up with. 
In general - you want to look up muzzle energy of the various rounds you'd like to use in the game, and assign a base damage to each caliber based on that.   You can further assign damage modifiers for hollow point and armor piercing - HP doing more damage to unarmored targets but significantly less to armored targets.   Using the Damage Threshold from Fallout 3: New Vegas  a standard round would have no DT modifier, a HP would have a small but noticeable positive modifier and AP round would have a noticeable negative modifier - but would also have a somewhat lower base damage than the 'standard' round as it will not expand or deform as much.    This will prevent the bizarre cases where a handgun does significantly more damage than a rifle.  Sure there are cases, a 22LR rifle will do less damage than .38 special  - maybe even a .380 auto (9mm short). But scaling on muzzle velocity will make things consistent. 


For guns, we need to consider four things.
Barrel Length: which has a couple of  interesting effects - short barrels will reduce velocity, standard barrels will have no effect and longer barrels will also reduce velocity.   Yeah that seems weird but think about what's going on inside - when the powder burns, it creates a rapid change in pressure as the gas expands.  The powder will continue burning typically while the bullet travels down the barrel.  Ideally your powder will completely burn just as the bullet exits the barrel.  With short barrels (compact hand guns, SMG's etc) the powder will still be burning after the bullet has exited the barrel - that energy does nothing to accelerate the projectile.   The same round, in a long barrel for the sake of argument here let's use a .44 Magnum revolver with barrels of 3", 5" and 10"   Our 3" will do somewhat less damage because the same bullet is moving slower, the 5" the standard to which the ammo was loaded will have no effect.  The 10" barrel how ever provides 5" of barrel friction with little additional acceleration so. It's likely to fall somewhere between the 5" and the 3" barrels for velocity - you will gain some extra accuracy due to a more stable exit from the barrel, and the longer sight radius (assuming no scope).   If we look at the 1911 style .45ACP  a 3" compact will have a muzzle velocity some 100-200 fps slower and when we're talking about a 900fps standard - that's 10-20% slower. That's a lot.   For a 5.56 - a 8.3" barrel (SBR short barreled rifle) will loose 130 fps over the standard 20" barrel that the round was designed for.    If you were silly enough to make a 30" barrel for a 5.56 it would likely lose even more (although I have no way to test that).

+P rounds will give that 3" barrel about the same velocity as a standard round in a 5" barrel.

A .22LR rifle with a 14-16 barrel will do better than a 6" pistol but for game purposes probably not a lot - maybe 10% or so.

There is no significant difference between .223 and 5.56 as they are the exact same bullets moving at very similar velocities.  The same goes for .308 and 7.62 - although the .308 is more likely to have a heavier bullet - say the 180gr SPBT.  The 7.62 is typically the 150gr steel core lead bullet (AP)  or the 168 grain Match ammo.

SMG's and pistols should do about the same damage with the same rounds.   Suppressors will not affect the velocity much at all, assuming a non-specific sub-sonic round.  And they typically provide a very slight increase in accuracy (spread - like maybe .2 MOA)   That additional accuracy when it happens is generally attributed to the bullet stabilizing earlier in it's flight path due to less interference  of gasses escaping the muzzle.

Typically, shorter barrels will have Higher MOA - minute of angle - essentially 1MOA is 1" at 100 yards (close enough).   So more spread.   A typical bolt action will have less than a semi.  and Full auto will increase the spread significantly.  Burst fire 1 MOA might easily become 6-12 MOA. Long bursts without a lot of skill will see MOAs of  30-60 inches at 100 yards.   A really skilled operator can probably keep 15 rounds on a 10 plate at say 10 yards  - at 50 there's going to be a lot of missing. There's not much accuracy to be gained by going from a 16" barrel to a 20" barrel.  For .308 - some experts find that you might was well use 16 or go all the way to 27.

Type of action: Bolt action is going to be more accurate than an auto-loader. Although, I can show you specific examples of a semi-auto being significantly more accurate than a bolt gun - it's pretty much always a quality issue.  For handguns, it's a bit of a wash - you can make both types of handgun more accurate than the shooter so... In terms of muzzle velocity, an auto loader will have a higher muzzle velocity than a revolver because there's no leakage of gas pressure, revolvers have a gap between the chamber and the barrel that allows some significant amount of gas to escape - in the case of the really big revolvers the .50 AE or the .454 Casull - enough gas can escape to literally amputate a misplaced thumb. Don't get any part of your anatomy forward of that revolving cylinder or you might lose it.  In anywise - it won't significantly affect the damage as there aren't that many rounds that are used in both revolver and autoloader.

Rate of Fire: This will mostly affect accuracy - the DPS is simple math assuming the rounds hit the target the question is - will they.   Higher recoil (more muzzle energy) can be controlled by skill to some extent, and weight/balance.   The addition of compensators will also help this.   The advantage to very high rate of fire (ROF) is really in the short burst.  the muzzle doesn't really have the time to climb much between rounds.  A 9mm sub gun with a full 30 round magazine can be held on a man size target at 20-50 feet but it really takes skill and strength. A heavier gun will have less issue with this, up to a point.  A heavier gun is also more difficult to hold steady (think Light Machine Gun).

Quality:  In terms of accuracy this - given the same ammo - is the biggest factor in accuracy.  A very high end bolt action sniper rifle will run 3/8 MOA - that's almost overlapping holes at 100 yards for a .308 or .75 inches at 200 yards - which seems to be longer than any shot you can achieve in Fallout - due to (I assume) graphics considerations.


What does that mean for the "unique" guns?  from a "realistic" point of view - I'd rather seem them have much improved accuracy, rate of fire, and spread than noticeably more damage.  Perhaps though the perfect balance of weight, trigger, grip, recoil mechanism and other factors  that 10mm Ultra SMG will be able to do a much better job of keeping those rounds on target - but having 30% more damage - well I gotta wonder where the heck is that extra energy coming from?

Wednesday, May 27, 2015

More Feminist Whining

I really want to know if we're all watching the same movie trailer. 


I was there the day Joss said this was just so 70's sexist.  I've seen the FauxRage from the feminists and SJW's   But i'm trying to figure out what it's based on.  I happen to be a fan of some of Joss's work - Firefly in particular but also Dollhouse.  Didn't watch Buffy.  I just got to say - I don't care how good a writer you are, or director, or take your pick.   A judgement about on character portrayal based on this trailer is CRAP. 

She has a 16 second voice over before she comes on screen then she's visible for at most 11 seconds out of a 2:38 second trailer, He's visible for maybe 20 seconds.

How exactly does one make a judgement about how a character is protrayed by seeing 11 seconds of video cut out of various spots (some of which - if this is like many trailers, won't even be in the film). So we see her standing around talking, then jumping off a waterfall with him, then shouting RUN.  We see him making the obvious comment about making a hybrid Dino being a BAD idea.  What? were we supposed to see her single handedly grabbing the 40' dino by the tail and smashing him back and forth like you might expect the Hulk to do?   Give me a break.

Seriously how do you get anything beyond - oh it's a Jurassic Park sequel and they're even bigger idiots than last time - yay!  

I am completely OUTRAGED! Because, Damn it I just know someone is going to eventually say something that will cause me to be outranged.

Special Forces a Netflix movie review

For me a movie needs to hold my attention - which means my willingness to suspend disbelief must be maintained.  If I find myself rolling my eyes, or cussing at the screen, it does not bode well.

Just finished watching Special Forces (Forces spéciales) on Netflix.  It's a French film staring Djimon Hounsou as the special forces team leader, and Diane Kruger as a war correspondent.  It's billed as a rescue mission, which I suppose, is a reasonably accurate description. 
The film has subtitles for a significant part, as it's mostly in French. 
Elsa (our French war correspondent) is in Pakistan reporting on Taliban treatment of women when she is kidnapped.   Her kidnapper Zaief, is apparently known to her, she's written about him and perhaps met him in the west where he seems to have spent much of his early life (hint of an English accent maybe?).  French intelligence claims he's taken her off to his tribal base in the Wardak region (central Afghanistan) The team lead by Kovax (Djimon Hounsou) is sent in to get her back.

If you are an fan of military movies - which I am, you notice stuff that the average person would miss. I imagine my lack of military background means I miss quite a bit that military person would pick up on.  Sometimes the those little mistakes (or moderate) break the movie for me. There were more than a few in this one, but oddly by the time they rescued the girl and were attempting exfiltration I just didn't care.  It became easy to care about the people, to get involved in their struggle, to empathize.  The men acted much like I would expect, perhaps a bit more emotional than a stereotypical SF guy - but then, they were French.  I just really got the feeling that these guys had spent a lot of time together, both good and bad. That they really were closer than family. 
 I wold hardly call this a realistic movie, but it's fast paced, and the human is good.  All in all I quite enjoyed it. 

So now for the bad:
There was a opening shot previous mission (much bigger team). The helicopters are wandering around for a bit over the buildings and then teams fast rope down, when they leave they attach them selves to a big fat rope and fly out with their prisoner all hanging 30 feet below the chopper.   Might look cool, but if you're going to take your figging time putting boots on the ground and you're picking up a prisoner - and there is space to land, why the heck do you dick around with ropes coming and going? 

Six men go into clear out a multi building encampment - well 5 really as one is a sniper on overwatch. And one of them starts off with a pistol - seriously a Pistol?  Who the hell walks into armed camp with their pistol instead of one of the MP5SD suppressed sub-guns everyone was carrying?  At one point one guy switches from an MP5SD to a unsuppressed Glock - which struck me as a BAD idea, then again he was back on the MP5SD the next time I saw him. There was an apparent lack of body armor, or much in the way of ammo carriers. I'm sitting there thinking - wow these guys really like to travel light, where's all that crap they jumped out of the plane with.  Fortunately they remedied that problem a bit later when they picked up all the gear they'd apparently ditched (still, I'd want some armor if I were going in to an armed camp with the intent to clear it door-to-door.) 

The chase thought he hills was fine, except the tendency to stand up in the open and shoot back at the pursuing hoards, even when cover was available.  They failed to link up with their chopper extraction and announce they have no Plan B - really? special forces - rescue mission -  deep in enemy territory and no Plan B?   So the on the fly "I guess we'll go that way" takes them over snow capped mountains, though a blizzard, with insufficient equipment, clothing, food - and if that was the only obvious choice for walking out - why the hell wasn't there an alternate LZ along that route?

The final thing that still confuses is they talk about crossing the border into Afghanistan - when the hell did they ever leave it?  Wardak Provence is probably 200km from the nearest border.  As it turns out, the hostages are in Pakistan - perhaps the original intelligence was crap - actually that might make it the most realistic thing in the movie. Maybe the writers simply forgot they mentioned Wardak province and really wanted that whole crossing the border thing. 

Well despite the weirdness  and weak points in the story - the human element I think made up for it. I'd watch it again.

Friday, April 3, 2015

Religious Freedom

Watching Twitter, you'd think it was a hard concept to grasp.  It's not.  Recent news is discussing the mob attack on a small town Pizza shop - Memories Pizza in Indiana.   All this as a result of Indiana signing into law a Religious Freedom Restoration Act that is almost identical to the Federal version that got virtually unanimous support in congress and Bill Clinton signed into law.

How they Differ.

There seems to be some concern with religious rights as concerns Corporations - something what would have been shaken out in the courts.   But we don't use courts anymore except to exert force.

Photographer forced to work a Religious Ceremony 

Wedding Cake Maker forced to participate in Gay Religious Ceremony

Florist losing business for refusing to take part in Religious Ceremony

In every case the courts ruled that an business has no right to refuse services based on religion - we call that religious freedom. In every case it was the LGBT gang behind the suits.  It seems they wont be happy until all religious folks are put in their place.  Considering the findings of PEW Research's recent report - that's a lot of people.


In each of these cases the plaintiffs had other options - the suits were brought simply to FORCE individuals to take action against their Religious beliefs. In the case of at least the florist, they had been doing regular business with the person who sued them.  Obviously not discrimination based on sexual preferences. Now we have Memories Pizza - attacked for offering an opinion - not an action, but an OPINION. This is the new left - Total Conformity you are only entitled to their opinion - no matter how hypocritical, logically inconsistent and bigoted that opinion might be. Welcome to the Totalitarian State.

The religious freedom issue arose when these people were asked to take part in a Religious Ceremony that they felt went against their own religious beliefs. On the face of it - these courts are WRONG.  Yes I know - anti-discrimination - yippie! What we're talking about is FORCED association. Which is wrong, period. Too bad we lost that battle, and I'm not going to fight it - discrimination by race was never a good idea no matter that it happens in every race on every settled continent. Heck it happens between tribes and gangs of the same race. It's not going away anytime soon.  So making it illegal to discriminate by race was faster than letting the free market deal with it.   Can you imagine how long a business who put up a sign "no Blacks" would survive today (assuming it was actually legal and wasn't burned to the ground).  I wouldn't shop there - I imagine some would because "it's not my problem" but that's the free market in operation.  My bet: it would be out of business inside of 6 months.  That's today, - if it were 1970? Yeah not so much - so let's not go there.   What about discrimination by sexual preference - another stupid idea, but if your religion says "NO" then what are you going to do? Yes, the Muslim religion says "NO".   Some people seem to think the Bible says the same thing, I'm not convinced - then, I'm hardly and expert. I think the Church has the right to decide on the Marriage issue, and possibly on the "gay" thing as well - although that's a more tenuous position in my mind.

What does this mean?  It means the court has elected to use state enforced slavery to control dissidents .  Yes slavery, these individuals are being forced to work, against their will in complete disregard for the 1st amendment rights. Their freedom of association has been eliminated, their freedom of religion has been infringed. They face ruin or forced labor. And don't try to cover it up by saying they got paid.  Black slaves in the south got paid to - it just came by way of food.  And I don't buy the - but you can't sell them - argument either.  They are for all intents and purposes owned by the state.  Since private ownership is outlawed, the state has no choice but to keep them, but they can still force them to associate against their will - or face financial ruin. Yes the black slaves had it MUCH worse - no argument - but that doesn't make it okay.

Now, until this crap started - specifically the photographer getting sued - I was fine with gay marriage.   But now?  I'm not sure the gay community or the leftest media has shows enough maturity to even consider the idea of marriage. 

Then again, I think the government should just get the hell out of the marriage loop altogether - no licenses, no benefits, no tax breaks - nothing. At that point all you'd need to get married is sanction by your religious association - if that happens to be the two of you making vows - great, done. Maybe it's permission from the elders, perhaps it means counseling with a minister and a ceremony and a certificate - fine.  It then clearly becomes a Religious Freedom issue - and hence nobody's business. 

Literally no one stopped them from going to another shop for their services - they simply chose to use the media and the courts to beat these people into submission on principle and with out regard to their 1st amendment rights. So are the leftist consistent on this issue? Apparently not.  Louder with Crowder tested it out on Muslims - some were okay with it, a number sent him off to another bakery. Did the Media blow up over this - no, they took no notice of it at all. Feigned outrage, targeting one particular group.

The idiocy of these rulings makes my head spin.  Yes these are people doing business with the public, and discrimination in a public "place" of business is bad - and now, illegal; but we're not talking about that, we're talking about special occasion Religious Events.  If it's not a Religious event, then it's not a marriage.  Problem solved.





Saturday, March 28, 2015

Full Blown Orwell


Ithaca College has gone Full Blown Orwell.  Using an on-line Anonymous reporting system to encourage students to report "microagressions".  Yet another example of Progressive Dissociative Disorder.* 

The whole concept of microagressions is so flawed it deserves it's own curriculum. Basically it boils down to - finding a way to take anything ever spoken or written as an insult.  Intent is to be assumed by the victim, and nothing the "aggressor" says regarding intent matters:
"Are you feeling okay?" means, "You're too feeble to deal with life just go commit suicide and save yourself the grief."

"That's a nice haircut" means "Your so ugly that the only thing about you that isn't repulsive is the hair covering your appearance." 

Even better it's anonymous so you can ruin other peoples lives without consequence - what power!  The student administration  has every student spying on every other student and every student is terrified to speak least they be persecuted. All in the name of safety.  Ah, the brilliance of the totalitarian mind.

Were does this lead? I predict that Ithaca College will be bankrupt with in a few years as their attendence numbers drop and they are forced to raise tuition even faster to keep the administration in the lifestyle to which they've become accustomed.

Typical "feel good" politics with no thought to the resulting consequences.  The totalitarian progressive left never sees how the system will be turned against themselves, their presumed moral superiority makes them immune - they would never microagress, so obviously no one would ever report them.    In a way, they're probably correct, as straight white males will be the first victims of the system, followed by any white females who are insufficiently radicalized in the feminist movement. This will be followed by transgenders and gay men, assuming the college exists long enough for that to happen.

*progressives commonly exhibit symptoms of Dissociative Disorder as defined by the Mayo Clinic
Someone with a dissociative disorder escapes reality in ways that are involuntary and unhealthy. The person with a dissociative disorder experiences a disconnection and lack of continuity between thoughts, memories, surroundings, actions and identity.

Sunday, March 22, 2015

A MGTOW reaction

Speaking as a member of the MGTOW (Men Going Their Own Way) movement/trend/revolution? I can't help but wonder if the reaction was planned.  Yeah it's a conspiracy theory - and whopper of one.

So this is me, just sort of thinking out-loud. A few things to keep in mind - I'm a libertarian so I'm all about individual liberty and equal protection under the law,  I'm also a economist so, I tend to think in terms of maximizing the use of resources.  But let's be clear I am not a spokesman for MGTOW - I wouldn't dare presume to push my views on my fellow Men so don't go there.

MGTOW seems the logical conclusion to the Marxist Feminist movement*.  Or maybe not.... I can, if I struggle with it, see three possible outcomes.

  1. MGTOW Stage 4 (economic disengagement)
  2. The male feminist - essentially a serf to the ideology, worthless to society as they lack any of the features that makes a Man useful.  
  3. A mix, with enough luck to have some real women and real men who can keep things going.

I'm not sure any man can justify the risk of getting married anymore.  Women come with too much baggage - the entire federal,state and local government for example. Even women who don't buy into the agenda are fighting a losing battle. The system is rigged to make big government the father of their children. We're in #3 but moving toward #1, and I'm not sure where that leaves those women who actually want to be women - expatriation with their guys maybe?

Why do I discount #2?  Well, feminists have no use for those guys beyond being politically useful idiots. They can't repair a sink, or change a flat and they sure as hell don't have the guts to stand and fight when the barbarians storm the gate. Hell, they're repelled by the violence of free speech.  They're useless as a sacrifice, they'd never survive as a soldier.  They are the proverbial Bicycle to the female Fish.   They are already obsolete.

I'm not sure #3 will last, things are going down hill to damn fast. But men are stubborn.  Look at how many try to appease or ignore the feminist with out becoming a whore to the ideology. Giving up is hard - men who had men as fathers were taught - never give up.  Yet, when the Lame Street Media, the government, the educational system and a whole lot of the women are arrayed against you, what options are left? Do you keep fighting and waste what remains of the single nonrenewable resource that effects everyone - time; or do you bow to the seemingly inevitable and let them stew in their own sewage.

Does this mean the communist manifesto has won?  Well, maybe but I'm not sure they're going to much want what they get, which is essentially a country full of useless idiots. So, did they foresee the MGTOW reaction?  I doubt it.  Yes they saw and  worked for the destruction of the family - essentially achieved at this point. But I think they expected the men to just suck it up and live with it.


*MFM - progressive feminist - with all the contradiction 
[ The stages of MGTOW vary depending on where you look, but I use the following:
  1. Situational Awareness - you know things are messed up and that any sort of relationship with women can get you into serious trouble.
  2. Long Term Relationship Disengagement - You've decided you're never going to get married or be hit with palimony. 
  3. Short Term Relationship Disengagement - You've decided that life is just to short to put up with any risk associated with women.
  4. Economic Disengagement - Living the minimal life style, adding as little to the tax base of the system - or expatriation.  (I'm not completely disengaged yet and may never get there but I'm trying)  This could be considered going Galt but it's a bit more extreme. 
]

Political Insanity

Frankly a I'm constantly confused by various political affiliations.  Blacks and Democrats, Jews and Democrats, More Jews and Democrats - Really when has that EVER worked in their favor?  Ah hell, moderates and Democrats - this is what you were thinking when you voted for Obama right?

These are both cases of believing in the intent of the message while ignoring the reality of the actions.  It's insane, it never changes.  Every four years they make the same mistake.

Then again there's conservatives and the Republican Party.  You can see that at least Glen Beck woke up

Boggles the mind.


Thursday, March 19, 2015

Mitch Rosen Holsters

Tam posted here about a friend having issues re-holstering his pistol in a Mitch Rosen holster.
 And this wasn't crappy gear, either; it was a horsehide Mitch Rosen rig that had just apparently decided to give up the ghost after probably well more than a decade of carry.
Sadly my experience has been the same and it was with a brand new holster.  The build quality is very good except that the holster lacks sufficient reenforcement along the opening.  It might have worked as an OWB but as an IWB.  So, when you look for a holster, it's something to look at closely.

BTW I'm not saying to not buy a Mitch Rosen, I've talked with a number of folks that have had a lot of success with the brand.  I suspect it was the particular model of IWB for the Springfield XD 45.




Tuesday, March 3, 2015

You've got that wrong

There's an old saying - Crime Doesn't Pay.

The hell it doesn't - it pays really well.  It pays so well the government participates heavily, sadly they're doing it wrong - no wait - it isn't the government that doing it wrong, it's individuals within the government that are doing it and they're doing it right - they're getting the benefits while you pay the price.

(H/T) Bayou Renaissance Man and Taxicab Depressions

Just go read the Taxicab post.   If it doesn't piss you off, then you deserve what we're all getting - Royally Screwed but a bunch of Elitist Crooks with delusions of Aristocracy.

Seriously - write to your congress critters and demand that the Un-Justice Department return the money - with interest and then they need to fire everyone.


The Third Amendment

I followed a link from Shall Not Be Questioned - this USA today article.  I was shocked, really.  Dumbfounded.  I've gone back and read it again, looking for the usual But! and I can't find it.  How the hell did this slip though the mass media filters?

I've come to expect nothing but lip service to the constitution from the media.  The first amendment only applies to ProgThink, the second is so out of date it should be abolished, the fourth doesn't mean what it says - you know the usual kind of government expansionist crap.   Yet, here we have someone arguing in USA today that the Third Amendment should actually be applied to electronic eavesdropping by the government.   I'm in favor of it - they've castrated the Forth Amendment so badly that it's observed more often in the breach.  I can see the argument, then again I can see the counter argument, given the way things are today, I don't have much hope for a return to sanity.

Saturday, February 28, 2015

Major Corporations are Hacking your brand new computer

This sadly falls under the tag of "I'm not surprised".  Well, I'm not surprised it happened, I'm a bit surprised it was Lenovo.  It seems that Lenovo started shipping laptops with Superfish preinstalled.  What Superfish does is a classic man in the middle attack, and it gathers all your information - and essentially makes it public, if you happen to be silly enough to use it on a public wifi.  (Which a LOT of people do)

Read the above article to get more information.  

What does this mean?  If you bought a Lenovo in the last 6 months it means all "your passwords are belong to us."  At this point I wouldn't touch Lenovo with a 100' pole, which is sad because they made pretty good hardware and does a fine job running linux - The issue is that I'm not about to support a company that even considered thinking  this might be a good idea.  I HATE bloatware but it's one of those things you just sort of have to live with unless you build your machine from scratch - which is difficult to do with laptops.  Virtually any computer you buy today will come with bloatware, some benign like Netflix, or the Kindle App, some malware - and now some like Superfish - pure evil.  I mean spying on which web sites you access is bad, but spying on your supposed SSL encrypted connection to your bank - that is evil, and possibly criminal.

Samsung got caught spying on their Smart TV buyers so, if you think this will be an isolated event you're not paying attention.  There's a fair chance that it wasn't just Lenovo that started shipping Superfish - and if that name isn't Truth in Advertising I'm not sure what would be - maybe  WeStealYourData.   I can't decided if the programmers at Superfish are just a bunch of amateurs with delusions of adequacy or if they're stupid crooks. Those are really the only two options for what they did.  A smart crook would have not made all your data public thus doing a better job of hiding the fact that they were stealing all your data - it takes a special kind of stupid to pull shit like this.  A professional would have understood the risks involved and assuming they weren't also crooks would have declined to even create this piece of gǒushǐ*  

Fortunately we're seeing some movement in the games industry that should make Linux a much more widely accepted platform with the announced introduction of GLNext (more info here).

If enough of the game-devs move off of DirectX to this next version of OpenGL (GLNext) we might start seeing some serious support for drivers thus making Linux perhaps the best gaming platform available - light, fast, open, free.    At which point, perhaps Microsoft won't be able to force the majority of their users (gamers) into upgrades by making the next version of DirectX incompatible with previous versions of windows.  - You'll be able to get light weight installs of the OS, free apps that cover all the basics - there will only be a few reasons to use Windows at all, and the only compelling reasons to use Mac OS will be their excellent but stupidly expensive laptops for the likes of Photoshop, CAD software, and other vertical applications.



* Firefly Mandarin  - Crap or Shit. Go-Sa