Sarah Palin is the only woman who can make Tony Romo WIN a playoff.
StinKer asked if there was any application of robotic shooting as relates to border protection. At the moment, they are trying not to shoot wetbacks.
Here is a reprint of a flurry of emails between Allan, Vilmar and myself when I first signed up to shoot something over the internet.
Stan:
Vilmar,
What we need to address this problem is thousands of those remote controlled internet rifles, strung out across the US side of the Mexican border. They could be manned in shifts, by a concerned citizen militia. Why just think of how many illegal aliens that the members of this web site could bag, given the opportunity.
I know that you are opposed to this concept, but perhaps you should reconsider.
Stan
PS: For those of you who were not party to our email conversation over the weekend, here are a few excerpts.
Stan:
Speaking of vision impaired web sites and firearms, what do you thing about this?
http://www.live-shot.com/
Unless you are willing to field-dress it, I don’t think you ought to be able to shoot it. You can’t even smell the cordite for God sake.
Stan
Stan:
I went and signed up for target practice. More to follow.
Stan
Allan:
Hmmmmmm, now that looks like an interesting concept.
Allan
Stan:
It is an interesting concept. I don’t think that I approve of it for hunting. It is one thing to shoot at a target that doesn’t move. If you are shooting at an antelope or something, you might go from a clean kill shot, to just blowing the poor bastard’s jaw off, due to internet response time issues. Maybe this type of hunting should be confined to people in wheelchairs with high bandwidth connections.
An interesting concept, but I am not quite comfortable with it.
No more getting out of bed at 4AM to go get into the deer blind however.
I have mixed emotions.
Stan
Stan:
Well I have to install some software.
http://www.sunrise-data.com/liveshot/pic1.bmp
It is a java app. You need the Java runtime 1.4.
http://www.sunrise-data.com/liveshot/pic2.bmp
These guys are sitting on a goldmine; no shooting slots are available for the entire month of my membership. I am going to ask for a refund!
http://www.sunrise-data.com/liveshot/pic3.bmp
I am able to move a camera around on somebody’s pasture. Here is a deer feeder.
http://www.sunrise-data.com/liveshot/pic4.bmp
Conclusion:
This web site is a ripoff in its current incarnation, but they do seem to be getting some response.
Stan
Allan:
I’ll pass since it’s java. My experience is the response would be too slow since java SUCKS.
Allan
Stan:
Subject: Well this is actually kind of… fun
Well in spite of the fact that I want my money back because I can’t click my mouse and shoot anything (all the shooting schedules are taken for about the next 100 years), this site is kind of fun to play with. The camera on the left can be controlled by the observer (me in this instance). I scanned around and found a deer feeder. I scanned a bit more and found the shooting range.
http://www.sunrise-data.com/liveshot/pic4.bmp
The camera on the left is controlled by me. The camera on the right is the 22 rifle. You can zoom in and out. This is all causing quite a hubbub do a search on Google news for live-shot.
Lets fire up the browsers and go kill something.
Stan
Stan:
Subject: Illegal Alien Defense
The founder, John seems to have a potential application of this invention for the US Border Patrol.
http://www.houston-press.com/issues/2005-03-10/news/hairballs.html
You can’t just go all Lee Harvey Oswald from your keyboard, however. A ranch employee is positioned next to the rifle, and he does not remove the safety to allow a shot until he’s sure everything’s okay.
“We’ve got a lot of illegal aliens who come through our area, and you don’t want somebody who doesn’t know any better to sight on a person and pull the trigger,” says Lockwood, whose naïveté about at least some of his audience’s attitude toward illegal aliens is charming.
Imagine about a couple of thousand of these gadgets scattered out through the desert between Laredo and Cotullia. You can bag your trophy buck, or if hunting is slow, bag an illegal alien or two.
Stan
Stan:
Subject: Livestock on the Range (Shooting not Home on the Range)
There is a horse loose in this pasture! Several actually.
Is that a good idea?
http://www.sunrise-data.com/liveshot/pic6.bmp
http://www.sunrise-data.com/liveshot/pic7.bmp
Stan
Vilmar:
There’s something VERY wrong about doing ANYTHING like this (relative to hunting). It’s just that I can’t put it into words.
Now, imagine if our military were to deploy something like this in “urban areas” of Iraq?
Vilmar
Stan:
Vilmar,
Yes, this is creepy and compelling all at once. I wouldn’t shoot a deer like this, but it might be fun to fire 10 rounds at a target.
I find myself sort of pulling for John Lockwood, the guy that came up with the concept. He is an estimator at a body shop in San Antonio. He is raking in some pretty good money hanging a target and reloading a 22 Ruger rifle. According to the voluminous press he has been getting, he has at least 300 members at $20 per pop. He can quit his estimator job if allowed to continue.
He has all the animal rights groups and every state legislature trying to stop him.
http://www.chattanoogan.com/articles/article_63419.asp
http://pittsburghlive.com/x/tribune-review/sports/outdoors/s_306913.html
http://www.commondreams.org/news2005/0309-14.htm
http://www.ntxe-news.com/artman/publish/article_24020.shtml
http://www.jointogether.org/gv/news/summaries/reader/0%2C2061%2C576405%2C00.html
http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/legislature/11099080.htm
And many, many more… Do an “Internet Hunting” search on Google news.
Why shouldn’t the guy be allowed to profit from his idea? What if the Texas Parks and Wildlife issued a special hunting license for handicapped people? What about the recreational rights of the handicapped? Maybe the ACLU will find itself arguing both sides of this issue.
There is a person with a rifle sitting there also. If a hog got his jaw shot off instead of getting killed, the real life hunter could track him down and finish him off.
If you are going to make sausage, the first step is to kill the hog. This is just one other lawful (temporarily) way to accomplish the first step.
This is a little creepy but, why shouldn’t the guy be allowed to profit from his idea? Hummm…
Allan, maybe we can get paid to port the application to some other platform besides Java.
Stan
Vilmar:
Stan,
The guy came up with a novel idea and I am impressed at the ingenuity of the American mind when it comes to making money. I have no problem with the business.
It’s just not something I care to do. There’s no fun shooting unless the trigger snaps your finger back or the pistol’s recoil causes your arms to go upwards or the rifle’s recoil makes your shoulder sore.
Check back in 30 years and people will be divided on this like the ones who will NEVER type a letter on keyboard or typewriter preferring to “write one” on paper instead. (I hope I made sense.)
Hey, are the bluebonnets in bloom yet? I was wanting to drive to Austin to do some photography. I will call the TDOT or Ladybird Johnson center tomorrow, too.
Vilmar
Stan:
Yes I prefer to smell the smoke myself.
The bluebonnets are just now coming out. It should be a good year because there has been lots of rain.
Stan
Allan:
Vilmar,
They already have “force feed” joysticks that provide physical feedback from on-line games. There are even some joysticks that shock the piss out of you when you die in a game. Why not a “rifle” joystick with tactile trigger and shot feedback? The technology is already there.
Simply combine this ....
http://pcworld.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=4976259
With this ....
http://pcworld.pricegrabber.com/search_getprod.php/masterid=313568
Allan
Allan:
Stan,
I like the way you think. Perl would be faster but use more memory. Perhaps PHP? Or maybe, server-side includes or even ASP. This requires thought. Hmmmmm ....
Allan
Stan:
Smoke, we need the smoke too. Maybe something to set off two or three grains of powder. Just enough for the smell, but not enough to set off the smoke alarms. Maybe a freezer closet too to approximate sitting on your ass in a cold deer blind.
We could get rich!!!
Stan
Stan:
Folks,
Here is good powder load for this application:
http://www.reloadammo.com/32swlong.htm
You could load the blank in the rifle, and aim at the target, through a virtual goggle system, and fire. To make it work without a whole lot of virtual running around the pasture, to start with, both rifles would need to be on a tripod (sandbag), which is what you are usually doing from a good deer blind anyway. Later, maybe you could have a virtual four-wheeler to navigate around the pasture and stop at certain spot to wait for a shot.
Food for thought.
Stan
GET ME OUT OF HERE ...
Oh, and here's some kind of visitor flag counter thingy. Hey, all the cool blogs have one, so I should too. The Visitors Online thingy up at the top doesn't count anything, but it looks neat. It had better, since I paid actual money for it.