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Comment: Re:Australia! (Score 1) 439

by BattyMan (#35054004) Attached to: Winter weather this year has been ...

As I said above, that's no big deal.
My guitarist concurs. It's not really hot until you're past 105.

Apparently this 40C stuff is coming off the interior with low humidity? One of the standing jokes here in Arizona is the postcard of a dried, bleached animal skeleton (it really doesn't matter what - cow, vulture, human, WTH) laying out in the desert under the blazing sun. The caption reads: "But it's a _dry_ heat!".

Comment: Re:Now, _that_'s funny! (Score 2) 439

by BattyMan (#35053950) Attached to: Winter weather this year has been ...

My (American) wife likens it to opening the oven door: storm-force gusts of air at >100 F and 5% humidity. Bloody brilliant for drying your clothes: by the time you've hung the last item on the line, the first one you hung is bone-dry ;)

See that's the climate in Phoenix - from about Easter to Halloween. At least you guys have the sense not to live there. I don't know who decided this was a worthwhile place to build a city. The natives abandoned it 1000 years ago...

Comment: Now, _that_'s funny! (Score 1) 439

by BattyMan (#35048212) Attached to: Winter weather this year has been ...

As I speak its 40 degrees outside in Melbourne. 39 tomorrow. My trick for cycle commuting is to jump in the shower in my cycling clothes right before I go, then pour most of my water on my skin when I feel hot. The body can only use 300ml per hour anyway and I carry about a litre.

40 degress and you're drenching yourself down? That's a tactic reserved for when you're too dehydrated to sweat anymore!
Oh, wait:

And for those few American readers of this site... that 40 is in Celcius - so it's over 100 degrees.

Lessee, another attempt at command-line bc.....
~$ echo "(40 *9/5 +32)" | bc // Knew there hadda be a way.
HAAAAAAhahahahahahah!!!!! As soon as you get moving, 104 is fairly comfortable.
I find 105 to be a sort of tipping point. Anything beyond that gets pretty bad. YMMV.
Try 114 or so - uh, ~$ echo "((114-32) *5/9)" | bc
  That's enough to cause little prickly sensations all over your body. I don't bother with the shower, because to walk outside in that covers me in sweat immediately. (Probably a conditioned response. Putting on my helmet, indoors inside the AC, will do the same.)

I agree that you cannot absorb water anywhere near fast enough to keep up with that kinda loss. 300ml/hour? I suck down well over a liter (2 extended-top bicycle bottles) in ten miles (maybe 45 minutes, in my old age), and have never lasted more than a couple of hours past 110. By that time we're looking at heavy dehydration, heat exhaustion and eventual heatstroke. On a Century ride (that's 100 _miles_)(in the spring, when it was only 100F) my pop had the foresight to weigh himself first. After riding all day and swilling water as fast as he could he'd lost ten pounds (about 5Kg).

And I imagine Melbourne is fairly near the coast? It was my understanding that temperatures in Oz (at least in the outback) pushed 120(F).
~$ echo "((120-32) *5/9)" | bc
Now that's HOT.
So if you wanna see what real, _deadly_ heat is, take a ride inland tomorrow.

Comment: Practice is a BIG deal (Score 1) 398

by BattyMan (#31032306) Attached to: Why the First Cowboy To Draw Always Gets Shot

for The Fast Draw(tm).

The Hot Shots hit balloons at 3 or 4 yards (I don't think it was 7?), from the holster, with single-action, in way under a quarter-second. Winning time of the meet I saw on TV was, IIRC, 118 mS. Shots are fired from the hip, without any time-consuming ritual of lifting the sights to your eye.

While this is nowhere near as fast as Gene Wilder in Blazing Saddles, you will NOT react to this guy fast enough to avoid getting shot. If he draws first, you're dead.

Comment: Re:Unforgivable! (Score 1) 398

by BattyMan (#31032210) Attached to: Why the First Cowboy To Draw Always Gets Shot

The vast majority of news stories I've read in my lifetime about 'gunfights' involve lots of rounds being expended & not many hits. Lots and lots of stories about the first shot being fired, and that missing completely. Any studies of several hundred modern 'gunfights' that say otherwise? Any studies at all?

Well, they won't be acknowledged around here, and they're hardly _studies_, but there are plenty of _News_Stories_ about reasonably accurate firearms use. These stories prove that it is possible to hit bad guys under stress, and undescore the fact that these criminals do NOT want a fight, they _want_ an easy score. When confronted with deadly force, they:

A. RUN AWAY!!! (often wounded)

B. Die.

C. (Occasionally) make return fire.

This makes a firearm (any firearm) that_you_can_connect_with a very valuable thing in any gunfight.

This guy managed 1 for 4, but that was enough:

There are plenty of stories like this. I'd cite more, but it's bedtime.

"Get off a shot _fast_. This startles your opponent, and gives you time to make your second shot perfect."
-- Lazarus Long
