GDW 1217. Spent around 12 hours upgrading to Windows 10 Creator insider preview because Windows mixed Reality require it. Crippled my laptop several times. In fact it's still kind of crippled. Still haven't actual got the headset to work yet. But this week will be a productive week! I plan to spend at least 6 hours a day in the library. Plan to go to firearm training classes this week. Sword guy got back to me but didn't really seem excited by my VR training pitch. Guess I'll start with prototype and see how it goes.
GDW 1236. It's finally over. Think I mostly burned it out of my system. Evidently there's a continuation of this called ShenMoWuShuang (as in "Muso" like those Dynasty Warrior games). Have to say that later on GDW loses a lot of the original charm and suffers from a lot of power ramping like DBZ. I have yet to visit the library. Did get my MR headset working after a total of 2-3 days messing with Windows though. Went to Armed Defense in the Home class today. Take away is that looking for the intruder is a bad idea -you should instead call the police and hole up in a room until they arrive. Of course when they do arrive make sure they know who you are. Also it seems a single pistol shot only has a 7% chance of stopping someone vs. 80% with a shotgun. Also consider the stress induced fight or flight response. Sword guy made some videos available to me. Will review and start on my prototype.
Evidently Windows Mixed Reality Headset does NOT do Mixed Reality! Wtf! Is this an epic marketing fail or what? Think I'll return this ill-conceived thing and put the money to buy something actually useful like a bunch of Vive trackers. Thinking about getting a mocap setup again... Ipisoft is going to run me $50 for 6 PS Eye cams and another $350 a year. Ikinema will run me $400 for 4 Vive trackers and $540 a year. I'm pretty sure I'm going to buy a bunch of Vive trackers anyway. Decisions decisions.
Went to a Judgement Tactics class last Thursday. It was intended for civilians but the content shown was designed for police. Learned that bank robberies are surprisingly not deadly 96% of the time as bank personnel including security are trainings to follow the robber's instructions. It's after all federally insured money (in the US) so even the bank doesn't have skin in the game. So don't be a hero at bank robberies. Convenience store robberies however are an entirely different matter as the money belongs to the owner, and the robbers tend to be more desperate.
Luckily I never try to be the hero. If the robber is disarmed and on the ground I might kick him though
If he's already not posing a threat it may be considered "excessive force" if you kick him. The laws where I live are picky about this. Let's say that someone punches you can defend yourself by fighting back. If you knock him down you cannot give him an extra kick to teach him a lesson. Well, I suppose you can but it's no longer self defense at that point. The class really surprised me. One of the first scenarios covered was you walking into a public garage, and finding someone fiddling with your car window. He's probably trying to jimmy the door but you can't really tell from your distance. You are armed since this is a class for LTC holders. Most people at this stage would yell something like "Hey! What are you doing with my car?". This then plays out in one of two ways. In the first branch, this man of slight build approaches you unarmed and eventually swings at you. Predictably being a LTC you think that he approaches you aggressively, you draw your gun, tell him to stop and back up, and when he doesn't and moved to attack... you can shoot him. Evidently it would not be legal to do so because unless your are a woman or a senior, the attacker is not considered to have ability to cause death or major harm if he's unarmed. It then becomes your burden to convince the jury that you really thought he was a 130lb MMA contender out to seriously harm you. Also the fact that you were carrying, and feared that he might take your gun away from you is also not a legally valid excuse. It was after all your choice to carry. So in the end some of your other choices include: 1. Fight him unarmed. If he puts you in a spot where your life is in danger or in danger of serious harm you can then shoot him. It's not super clear when you can draw though. Technically you can draw if he has ability to inflict life threatening or major damage but since he's unarmed. Of course if you're getting the stuffing beat out of you good luck with drawing and shooting. This is basically the Zimmerman defense. 2. Walk away and call the police. Sounds reasonable but very few people can actually do this. After all he could just be checking his reflection in your side view mirror or something... plus it's your car that he's potentially vandalizing. 3. Put a car between you and the guy then confront him after you are ready to call the police (think about the current location description, dial the number without hitting call). If he turns aggressive or tries to appproach you play keep away by running around the car while completing the call to the police. You think about how to describe your location before hand because you might be busy running. 4. Use pepper spray. It's not lethal force so you can use it on unarmed attackers. Results vary. If they are stopped by it remember to run away and call the police. 5. Unfortunately a lot of unexpected things may happen. Running around the car sounds great until he climbs on top of the car. We don't expect people to climb on top of cars but nothing prevents them. Also the other factor that might completely screw up your tactics is if there are actually more than one attacker. The other branch is when he is armed with a gun, and then the question is when can you draw. Since you can draw if there's ability (for the other guy to threaten your life or inflict major injury), you can draw once you see that he has a gun. You can't actually shoot him though until he reaches for it. It sounds simple but even in a simulated environment it's really stressful because unlike a FPS you are weighed down by the legal and ethical implications. It's also not clear oftentimes just who the bad guy(s) are. The scenario I ran through was an active shooter incident where there were shots fired with dead or wounded people on the ground. All of a sudden I see a guy carrying something in his hand come from the right and walk away from me shouting something. Wow long post. Need to sleep now. I'm not a lawyer. Laws vary greatly by state. I encourage people to learn and educate themselves. My personal observations may or may not be correct.
Week has been really unproductive. Got my hands on two Vive Trackers last weekend but only plugged them in today. Turns out I need a USB hub. Ended up reading PMG up to current chapter. Now catching up to ISSTH. My excuse is that I'm away from home, and have been living in a golf resort -I don't play golf. Wondering if I should commit to buying the PS Eye cameras, the USB hubs and tripods now...
do you know what is the only thing than makes me be afraid? when i go to NU and look at that list of new chapters where almost every link is white... damn it takes me atleast 4 hours per day just for finish the new chapters >.<
It seems like most of the series that I follow at not updating very often anymore. I think 4 hours a day is enough for me to stay current on all series that I regularly follow. My problem is when I expand outside of my regular series because of boredom or just a general desire to procrastinate and waste time. On the plus side my Vive tracker is operational, and I can track a long sword waster pretty well. Yay! Step 1 is a success! Step 2 is to record motions. Or maybe step 2 is to track a gun... On the down side I couldn't find a pair of solar eclipse glasses no matter where I searched. Even Amazon doesn't have any available by Monday. I bought a Mylar ballon in desperation. I'm going to cover my camera with it. Not going to risk directly looking at it. Was going to buy a better 360 camera for this and go see the totality but that fell through. Guess I'll just have to live with the partial and record some 360 photos on my current Theta. Bought 6 PS Eye cameras, a bunch of USB hubs, active USB cables and a nylon waster. Since I'm not flying to see the totality I guess this was an OK expenditure. Need to seize the moment and not waste time. Sigh.
The only thing that seems to work for me is not to read at all for a given day. Once I start reading any online novel I just can't control myself from looking at the next one. I think it does something to your brain.
Solar eclipse today. I bought a welder's mask because I couldn't find any eclipse glasses but had to return it since it didn't work in sunlight. A Mylar ballon seems to work but it's potentially dangerous. I took a quick look through one yesterday. Guess I'll have to rely on the pinhole camera approach. Most likely though I'll just look at the tree shadows. Planning to have 3 cameras ready for this: Theta S for 360 photo, a DSLR for video and an action cam for wider angle video.
Complete let down regarding the eclipse where I was. Saw it through a pinhole projection but didn't see the leaf effect at all. Also realized that sometimes it's really difficult to have rational conversations with people who you normally assume are reasonable. Maybe I'm just too flexible in thinking, and at times indecisive while others just kind of pick a stance and then never consider the alternatives. Guess that makes me a good problem solver, and a good tactical leader but a rather poor long term strategist because I'm weighed down by considerations of all the different options when I don't have to make immediate decisions.
I've been looking for a vibration sensor as a trigger switch for an airsoft and wow... there's just so much cool stuff on adafruit. Now there's so much random stuff I want to try.
Goal for today: track gun in addition to sword. My vibration switches came in the mail today, and I found some tactile switches yesterday with any luck I will be able to handle trigger presses. If vibration + tactile both don't work I will try the mic approach. Thursday: revisit my point shooting demo, add static targets with timing and grouping. Add another training mode with cans, baseballs and bricks. Should I add object breaking? Pool ball instead of a baseball? Friday: add basic character scenarios for shoot no shoot. Focus on one or two randomize events and timings don't get carried away. It's a PoC. Saturday: test and debug for Sunday demo. Sunday: demo and collect feedback. Monday: deep dive on sword movements look for potential PoC. Test out positional recording Tuesday: track feet Also should I prototype a vr game in addition to this training stuff? Should l even look at ARKit? Should I buy or build an IoT cat feeder? There's a pretty interesting one for $150 with an IP camera but I've had issues with dynamic IPs in the past.
Rats, got dragged to see a WNBA game. Nothing got done. Today got Arduino hooked up ran basic example. Couldn't snap the Arsuino board onto the holder. Paranoid about damaging it if I used more force. Plan to hook my vibration switch onto the Arduino to test. My tactile switches arrived but they are really really tiny -I don't know if I can actually solder something to them. Maybe I'll try the conductive glue but it takes forever to dry.
Been slacking off for a little more than a month. Need to really focus, and get stuff done. New round close door cultivation for 5 days begins now.
Day 1 Not super productive. Found that Unity has speech recognition capabilities for it to work for a couple of keywords including "computer end simulation". Could not figure out how to get it to recognize other languages. Attempts to just enter a kana keyword caused the speech recognition engine to seeming lock up. Downloaded language packs but it looks like the Unity wrapper doesn't allow you to set the language. Originally looking for a way to use sound to trigger actions in Unity. Udemy has a bunch of interesting classes on sale including two on Unity and another in Unreal. Should I or too much of a distraction. Wondering if I should look at the medical sector when looking for jobs or stick with finance. Looking for a place to print 3D models. Don't know why some places quote $60 to print small plastic parts. I might as well just spend a few hundred and buy a 3D printer at those prices. Wasted some time looking at Evo videos on YouTube. Some interesting insights on casual vs. dedicated.
It's really like an addiction :< Once I start then the entire day is kind of wasted. Reminds me of the "xi mao" parodies. It's the ones where people sniff cats and become super addicted to them like they were sniffing drugs. It seems so harmless at first.