Woldan

What about Rocky's? I know.

Back in the day a lot of people liked those maces so they made extremely pompous specimen which would evolve into generals scepters and later into the ceremonial marshal's baton. Italian mace, 16th century:

Yeah, that's not really practical though. And I imagine -13 C weather will steal any amount off heat of me pretty damn quickly if I'm not dressed well. I didn't say you should exercise naked in the open right during a blizzard. Yeah, now that doesn't sound very practical indeed. Trust me Woldan Malc is right about this, there are 2 things I've come to realize that Malc is authoritative on. Cold Weather and the lifestyle and habits of Moose. I never argue or debate him on these matters Now that I re-read the post I think I mis-interpreted something here, or its kind of a misunderstanding, warming yourself up through exercise doesn't help you a lot when being inadequately dressed in cold weather, what I was trying to say is you don't need to curl up under 5 blankets to feel warm inside your house and that exercise makes you feel comfortably warm inside your 4 walls much more effectively and faster. I don't suggest people to do some bench pressing and then walk into subarctic wastelands in their underwear, I haven't lost all of my sanity. And speaking about winter temperatures, I just watched the news and how everyone goes batcrap insane over the cold overseas, its winter for gods sake. Winter is cold. Really. Its the same story every single year, it gets a little cold and people freak the hell out like its the end of the world. Last year I went for a walk in the woods when the outside temperature was below minus 28 Celsius (-18F) with a chilly wind and while it was indeed kind of cold and somewhat uncomfortable in the face I didn't die nor did I have to cut off any frozen limbs. And I saw people walking around. And I never - in my entire life- had to change my daily life routine due to some cold weather, and I have experienced VERY cold weather. I cannot speak for the elderly and physically impaired though.

#1 Super Smash Bros. Wii U / 3DS *edit* Oh I see, I'm not the only finding that a little bit odd....

More heavy crossbows drawn with winches, cranequins, belt-hooks, and goats-foot levers because huge projectile weapons are awesome against them big beasties.

Yeah, that's not really practical though. And I imagine -13 C weather will steal any amount off heat of me pretty damn quickly if I'm not dressed well. I didn't say you should exercise naked in the open right during a blizzard. Yeah, now that doesn't sound very practical indeed.

Exercise works like wonders to combat the coldness, if you feel like freezing lift weights for 45 minutes and you'll feel comfortably warm again for the next 2 hours easily. To bundle up is not a solution.

A benefit of still having to spend my time sitting in a library, studying for physiology finals is access to psychiatry textbooks. True, but this was kind of wild even for my standards.

Something strange happened when I was taking a nap today, when I was in the twilight zone that is between being awake and falling asleep I suddenly heard an extremely loud voice speaking unnaturally fast, so fast I couldn't understand a word. It also sounded like talking backwards. It sounded like the source of the voice was very close. It lasted only 4 seconds or so and then it was gone but it was enough to make me SO awake. I didn't have any radios, TV's or computers turned on at that time and I have only a hand full of neighbors relatively far away, so it must have been a dream. Still extremely intense and loud for a dream. On the other hand I often experience strange stuff when I'm falling asleep.

What a coincidence, a good friend of mine works in a special purpose vehicles garage, they build all sorts of such vehicles for extreme expeditions -just like the one you posted- for customers all around the world. They refit Ranger Rovers and Steyr trucks with electrical winches, new suspensions, water tanks and pretty much everything you need or want. The craziest they have built was a pickup truck (don't remember the model) that had one winch on the front, one at the back and a little crane on the bed. It could literally drag itself up a mountain - and that is exactly what it was made for.

I used to listen to music until I realized that when reaching a certain point of exhaustion I don't even listen to the music anymore, my whole focus goes to keeping up with the exercise. Same with watching TV or any other distraction. The feeling of boredom and dullness persists though. Edit: Yay, I just burned 1020 Kjoule in less than 20 minutes! That means I can eat some extra donuts tomorrow!

Brought my stationary bike from my garage back to my exercise room. Power is nothing without control endurance. I have to admit that cycling that way is really dull and one of the most boring activities there is safe sleeping, but its totally necessary in this time of year. Though it being a dull activity isn't so bad, forcing yourself to do an exhausting, boring and difficult task teaches you self discipline and tenacity.

Moving away from guns I'd also like to see various maces, my favorite blunt weapon! Sadly an extremely overlooked weapon type in all medieval and fantasy games.... Personally, I'm a fan of the less elabrorate simpler designs.

Aran's post inspired me to post some pics of my muzzleloaders. Springfield 1847 (replica), thats an 1842 smoothbore musket that was later (1847) equipped with rifling and sights so it could fire .69 caliber Miniè balls. Used in the mexican war and later in the civil war. Due its large caliber and very heavy recoil it was not a very popular weapon among the soldiers who preferred the 58's. Lyman Hawken Great Plains Rifle in .54, typical deer and moose hunting rifle of the 1840's. Many soldiers owning such rifle equipped them with peep sights and used them as sharpshooting rifles along with their general issue rifled musket. They were very accurate.

I've always liked top-break revolvers, isn't that a modern copy of the Schofield (Russian version)? 44-40 or 45 Colt?

I just completed the Unreal Tournament 3 single player campaign and I feel so ashamed I had to turn down the difficulty from ''hard'' to ''normal'' in the last battle. Me, a hardened UT veteran who started playing UT in 1999! In the last battle -which was 1-on-1 duel- the main baddy always snatched the power ups right before my nose and there was no way to beat her on hard with her having Udamage and the shield belt. She just had perfect timing and pretty much 100% accuracy, the best result for me was 19-20 even though I only got the shield belt like once. All the other matches ended like 15 , 12, 13 for me and 20 for her. I either had to dodge so hard that I couldn't hit anything or be somewhat less mobile to make hits which always resulted in me getting shock-comboed to death. Forget fighting Xan in UT99, this was WAY harder. Plus the map sucked. On normal I whooped her butt so hard though it wasn't even fun, 20-7 for me.

@ Jarmo According to the old military trials reports it sounded like they could hit said paper with each shot. Thats what I read anyway, however, there is another well known military report from the mid 17 century mentioning a similar accuracy result with a super sized version of the Brown Bess musket, a wall gun version in 25mm caliber. The shooter and the soldiers testing it were really happy with it. This is an exact modern copy: There is also this article: http://militaryhistorynow.com/2013/09/18/big-shots-amusettes-jingals-and-other-super-sized-muskets-and-rifles/ To quote the important part: They didn't mention the size of the paper target though, but since its a military trial I bet it was torso-size or smaller. I can neither confirm nor deny those claims about the accuracy from wall guns and amusettes, I can only recite what I read in some old documents - though I can say from first hand experiences that smoothbore weapons (especially those with larger calibers) of any kind can be surprisingly accurate when the projectile is a snug fit and a good patch is used. Another thing to consider is that those wall guns and amusettes had -contrary to the smaller general issue muskets- very thick heavy barrels which always makes a positive impact on accuracy, even on todays guns. (less barrel whip and better harmonics) Personally, I think its very possible that a paper target the size of a mans chest could be hit with such weapon at up to 500 meters under perfect conditions. Should I ever get my hands on a large caliber smoothbore musket I'll surely make extensive tests with it.

739 Kb really isn't that big.

They did not have rifled barrels, the guns simply must have had a fortunate match between the extreme barrel length, the caliber and sight radius. I guess they could have made equally accurate cannons and field pieces, but with a similar caliber-barrel length ratio those cannons would have been HUGE and heavy. And pin-point accuracy is not the point when using cannons. That barrel is almost two meters long, a cannon shooting a cannon ball 5 times the size would have needed a barrel at least 10 meters long. You'd need a lot of horses to move such cannon.

Got a 125 liter saltwater fish tank for my birthday so I bought a book about all there is to know of exotic fish, anemones, shrimp and all the other sea plants and animals that live in the ocean. I have to say that even though it appears to be a somewhat complex hobby I'm absolutely thrilled, those sea water tanks with all the sea spiders, crabs, snails and corals look like a piece from another planet. Stunningly beautiful, can't wait to grow those plants in my little tank. Time to start a new hobby!

For those interested in early firearms - I just read an interesting article about those huge wall and rampart guns I mentioned in my previous post, they were actually called ''Amusettes'' and according to various old documents that kind of firearm was more accurate than any field artillery, cannon, bow and crossbow! In fact, they were so amazingly accurate they could hit an A4-sized sheet of paper at 500 yards and the guns was still regarded effective out to 1000yds! For comparison - standard smooth bore muskets had an effective range of 60yds. I find it amazing to get that much accuracy out of a extremely simple smoothbore gun from the 1600's.

What? 7.62x51 (not 30-06) out of a heavy semi auto is a pussycat to shoot. Try shooting a shotgun with a standard slug, those easily kick 5 times as hard. The M16 sights are very similar to those on the AK-4 (G3). Those are called peep sights.

Hot ride! The even thought of mud flaps!