#open source everything

[corvidstoneage]

Hope all y'all aren't sick of vampire poems because I wrote another. I tried a new thing with a self rhyming line between each of my standard couplets this time. Feedback welcome.

As always my writing is licensed CC-BY-SA.

The hiss of rain on waxen cloaks,

The rush of wind through ancient oaks,

Knighted hands in blighted lands.

Darkened plates of dented steel,

Sun blessed hearts that would not kneel,

Weapons forged for monsters gorged.

For vengeance to our people owed,

Careful, cautious, plans we sowed.

Plots were laid and tactics made.

Two lairs stood nearby, we knew,

But men and arms we had but few,

Friends outmatched but plans we hatched.

We sought the sun to watch our back,

So each soul present could attack,

We could be brash; their backup ash.

Upon one lair we made our play,

The sun above us, near midday.

An arrow flew; the monsters knew.

From fate unkind or foes we shun,

Our single hope we saw undone.

Foes entombed but tactics doomed.

As dying foes for comrades bid,

The sun behind a cloud was hid.

Shouted cries and clouded skies.

The unwatched lair to our rear,

Spewed forth foes that knew no fear.

Metal clangs ‘gainst razor fangs.

And as they fell, my comrades all,

I felt the rain begin to fall.

[cocainesocialist]

Anyone, anywhere in the world should have free, unhindered access to not just my research, but to the research of every great and inquiring mind across the spectrum of human understanding.

Stephen Hawking (x)

[corvidstoneage]

Here's the full video if anyone needs it. Licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0 for your viewing and sharing pleasure.

[corvidstoneage]

A discussion of ethics preparatory to a discussion of ethics

In the course of discussing firearms the topic of ethics is invariably brought up. In discussing ethics in the firearms space I have found the conflation of terms to be a major impediment to productive conversation. Therefore, preparatory to writing a document describing my views on ethics in the firearms space I find it necessary to define some of the terms I intend to use.

For context: I was raised in the western united states in the LDS church and participated in what was, at the time, called the Boy Scouts. While I am, at this point, pretty thoroughly a heretic by the church’s standards some bias from my upbringing is inevitable; and while I will attempt to recognize and point it out as I go along some things may escape my notice.

Furthermore, the definitions expressed here are not intended to be universal, or even necessarily to represent the meanings of the terms in any other context. Many of the terms defined have subjective and overlapping definitions. All the definitions herein are intended only as tools to better describe my own opinions.

‘Ethics’ as used here is taken as meaning two defined by Merriam-Webster: “a set of moral issues or aspects (such as rightness)”.[1] We will consider ethics to be composed of four such aspects in this case: goodness, rightness, justness, and righteousness.

One may note that legality, while frequently used as an aspect of ethics by many, is omitted in this definition. This is intentional and is due to the author’s opinion that allowing the will of unqualified and un-vetted individuals to determine one’s morals rather than work them out for oneself is a detrimental practice and is best avoided.

‘Good’ as used here is a word for that which improves the quality of life of people as individuals. ‘Bad’ then of course is that which degrades the quality of life of people as individuals.

This can often be difficult to quantify. Is it good to clothe your family? Certainly. It improves their quality of life. What if the only place you can afford to purchase clothing uses slave labor?

While it may be tempting to simply tally the individuals impacted in each direction and make a determination based on simple subtraction, this sort of calculation has led to great atrocities in the past [2] and is the reason for the ‘as individuals’ stipulation in the definition.

For purposes of determining good and bad each person must be considered to be as valuable as all people combined.

Rightness is taken as constancy to one’s word. Wrong then, being the opposite is a lack of adherence to one’s word.

Notably, this is determined separately from good and bad. By this definition the act of cheating on a dedicated partner would be both bad and wrong. By contrast, to seek an additional partner in an unlabeled relationship or “situationship” may be bad but is not wrong. [3]

Justness is the measure of that which renders individuals equal. For instance: justice, properly executed, is just. If an individual steals an item; to compel them to return it, or the value thereof, is just.

Righteousness [4] is that which has the approval of the divine. More cynical [5] readers may point out a possible contradiction with the author’s decision to omit legality as an aspect of ethics.

To clarify: righteousness is not that which has the approval of a religion, the representative of a religion, or gods. Righteousness is that which has the approval of the divine.

For some people the divine is represented by a god or gods. For some it’s represented by the beauty of a sunrise. The author’s father calls it The Great Goop.

The author R.A. Salvatore explains it well in his Dark Elf Trilogy: “You view the gods as entities without. You see them as physical beings trying to control our actions for their own ends, and thus you, in your stubborn independence, reject them. The gods are within, I say, whether one has named his own or not.” [6]

So how does on tell if they have the approval of the divine? The obvious answer would be the absence of a guilt response. However, emotions are a volatile thing and perhaps not the best basis for decision making when it comes to ethics.

While at the end of the day the measure of righteousness is subjective; for the purposes of having a functional definition for use in discussion a reference will be borrowed from the author’s religious upbringing: “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself.”[7]

Because this is frequently interpreted in such a way as to permit maximum bigotry we will add to it a statement by Hillel the Elder for clarification: “That which is hateful to you, do not do unto your fellow.” [8,9]

Therefore for the purposes of discussion we will consider righteousness to be that which shows love towards people.

It is the author’s hope that with these terms defined a future publication discussing the ethics involved in the ownership and use of firearms will prove fruitful and productive.

My own work on this project is licensed CC BY-SA 4.0. Others' work is attributed and used under US Code Title 17 Chapter 1 Section 107 for nonprofit scholarly use.

[1] https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/ethics

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_human_experimentation

[3] because this is the piss on the poor website let me be clear: I am aware that this is not the case using the common definition; that’s why I used it as an example.

[4] fair warning: there’s some religious references in this section. I think it’s worth reading even if you’re not into that but I’m not your mom so do what you want.

[5] and correct

[6] R.A. Salvatore, Sojourn, 1-56076-047-8, pg. 183 (though you should start on 182 and read the whole conversation if you’re not reading the whole book)

[7] https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/scriptures/nt/matt/22?lang=eng&id=p39#p39

[8] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hillel_the_Elder

[9] do I get into both jewish hell and mormon hell if I quote these next to eachother?

[corvidstoneage]

Yet another vampire story

A shorter piece than I usually do. It may end up getting continued, I do know where the story goes from here, or it may end up getting abandoned and just sitting on my hard drive forever. Either way you get to read it now!

It was sometimes said that the older a vampire was the more powerful they were. While that is true in a sense, most of the power of an old vampire comes from accumulated wealth and political connections not the magical powers some seem to think we accumulate with age.

What abilities are granted by the gift are all granted when an individual is turned without the need to wait hundreds of years for them to appear.

Of course there are vampires more powerful than others, but that distinction comes with generation not with age. The First vampire was given the gift in its fullness near the beginning of time and was made nearly a goddess. She gave it to the Second, and while his power was great; he could no longer stand in the presence of the truly faithful and fled into the wilderness.

When he granted the gift to my sire she was trapped for three years on the island where she had found him before a nearby village used it as a midpoint for a bridge and she could walk across on dry land.

While the addition of stumbling through every threshold I try to cross is, admittedly, somewhat annoying; the first time I watched my brood frantically counting grains of spilled barley I considered myself exceptionally lucky.

The first time I watched their brood step into the sunlight that opinion was very firmly solidified.

For any one of those younger generations being sealed in a vault underground may have been considered a boon. Unfortunately their weaknesses made it far too easy for them to be cornered and executed for them to need to worry about that.

Not that the lack of weaknesses did anything for the elders besides allow them to take more humans down with them when they fell. Of the thousands of us that once were; three existed when I was entombed here.

The First disappeared into hiding. Had she been slain the entire world would have heard it but she seemed almost to have been forgotten.

The Second simply continued to wander as he always has, keeping to the more desolate parts of the world.

When they found me I was hunted and harried across the world until I attempted to lure one of the groups following me into an underground temple to ambush them.

By the time I realized they hadn’t followed me all the way down they had already sealed the entrances and were back filling the corridors leading to them.

CC BY-SA 4.0 as always :) Thanks for reading!

[corvidstoneage]

The Drawing Stones

The sun shone golden through the mist that drifted along the hills that surrounded my hometown. The other locals often spoke in hushed tones of an old danger hidden within the stones, but the sunbeams filtering through the golden leaves to land on the moss covered ancient stones made an image that I couldn’t help but try to capture.

I often sat on a fallen tree nearby, gazing down over the valley through the ring of upright stones, trying in vain to get the framing just right. I would spend an hour or so at a time hunched over my notebook scribbling awkward lines with a pencil, grasping at the beauty before me, before wandering back down the hill.

On this particular day I decided to walk through the park on my way to class and the glittering water and the scent of wet stones demanded that I try to sketch out the willows along the stream, their branches creating little ripples in the current as it passed by carrying little swirling leaves under the bridge.

Sighing a little as I looked between the beautiful scene and my wholly inadequate drawing I tucked my notebook under my arm and continued walking.

That evening I showed my friends my sketches as we walked through town. They made some polite comments but quickly changed the subject, leaving me to try to sketch the way the sunset reflected in the windows of the houses we passed and wonder if I would ever be able to re-create such a view.

The next morning as I walked up the hill in the cool autumn sun I felt as though I was carrying a sack of bricks, though I only had my trusty notebook and a couple of pencils. I plopped myself down in my usual spot on the log, worn smooth and shiny by the countless hours I had spent there, decided perhaps I was the sack of bricks, and flipped open my notebook.

After a half hour or so of muttering to myself over the placement of lines, how best to portray the golden grass swaying in the breeze, and whether or not I should try to add some of the falling leaves, I sighed in frustration and snapped the notebook closed. A couple of crows sunning themselves on the stones startled and flapped away leaving one crow to look at me curiously from his perch.

I sighed again and addressed the bird: “You know, I wish I could capture a scene like this.”

The crow just cocked his head at me.

“Not like a camera, I don’t just want to show what’s there physically I want to be able to make other people feel what I feel when I see a landscape like this.”

The bird hopped to a stone slightly farther away and croaked at me.

“Yea, alright. Fair enough. I’ll leave you to your sunbathing.” I turned to walk down the hill, glancing behind me to find the bird preening himself in a particularly large sunbeam. I laughed and, feeling slightly better, walked back down to the town.

That night I dreamed I stood in the middle of the stones. Darkness pressed close around the stones but didn’t enter the circle. Crows flew all around me, scraps of shadow torn from the surrounding darkness but with eyes that gleamed silver like the stars overhead and seemed to see straight into my mind and heart.

Two of the birds broke off from the group and flew towards me. I started to duck but faster than I could react, they snatched the sketchbook from under my arm.

My screams seemed muffled, as if they were unable to leave my mouth and my efforts to chase the crows felt like running in quicksand.

In the midst of my panic two more crows seemed to emerge directly from one of the stones with a book bound in dark leather between them. They gently set it on the ground in front of me and then perched on the two nearest stones to observe me.

I bent to pick the book up and as soon as my fingers touched the leather of the cover I jolted awake with a gasp.

I climbed out of bed and blearily made my way to the bathroom. I opened the curtains on the way back and sunlight streamed into the room from over the hilltops.

The nightmare faded as I admired the view for a moment before deciding I should try to draw it. I turned to grab my notebook and gasped.

Where my notebook usually sat was a black leather sketchbook with a silver crow embossed on the cover. Beside it was a mechanical pencil turned from a dark wood.

I picked up the sketchbook and flipped through it, finding the nicest drawing paper I’d ever felt. “Man, my roommates must really have felt bad about forgetting my birthday.”

Resolving to put the gift to good use I turned back to the window and put the pencil to the paper.

It seemed to flow effortlessly. Lines appearing on the page exactly as they appeared in my mind as I looked at the vista before me. In just a few short minutes the scene was rendered beautifully on the page, almost seeming to be in full color despite the grey pencil marks. “Wow, maybe #2 pencils really just aren’t up to drawing.” I muttered to myself, looking over the drawing.

Humming to myself happily, I tucked the sketchbook under my arm and headed out to face the day.

I practically skipped up the hill. A thin blanket of mist shrouded the bottom of the valley and a light breeze blew a few small clouds through the autumn sky.

I sat down in my normal spot and excitedly pulled out the new sketchbook. All three of the crows from the day before immediately turned and stared at me, un-moving.

“Uh, hi? That’s not creepy at all.” They continued to sit motionless and stare at me. Slightly unnerved, I opened the sketchbook and was quickly absorbed in drawing.

The pencil seemed to fly. I barely had to think about where I placed each stroke. After a few minutes the paper seemed to be alive so well had I captured the scene before me.

I sprang to my feet and felt as if I floated back down the hill I was so excited. I never noticed the motionless crows still mutely observing as I left.

On my way through the park I stopped to sketch the scene I had attempted a couple days prior and found it to be just as easy as the other two.

That evening when I met up with my friends and showed them my sketches they all crowded around the sketchbook. “Wow!”, “Dude!”, “You drew these?”, “Why didn’t you tell us you were so good at drawing?”

I glowed under their praise but out of the corner of my eye caught a flash of movement as a crow took off from a nearby roof and flew away.

The next morning I drew the sunrise through my window again. The graphite flowed smoothly from pencil to page almost without conscious thought on my part and I left the house with another beautiful picture in my sketchbook.

As I walked up the hill that morning several crows watched from the treetops. I didn’t even bother sitting in my normal place this time I was so confident in my new drawing abilities. I just stood in front of the stones for the three or four minutes it took to get the sketch done.

I decided to draw the park from another angle that day during my lunchbreak. It only took a couple minutes and the picture was as beautiful as always. I set the sketchbook beside me and watched the crows wander up and down the sidewalk while I finished my sandwich.

My friends oo’ed and ah’ed over the day’s sketches as we walked back across town as they had the day before. One of them mentioned that they hadn’t realized it was that cloudy this morning. I squinted at the picture but found I couldn’t remember what the weather had been like.

The next morning I stuffed the sketchbook into my bag and headed up the hill. The sketch was effortless and I headed to class.

I didn’t bother showing the sketch to my friends that evening and the next morning I stuffed the sketchbook in my bag and headed straight to class.

I watched the crows as I listened to my friends chatter excitedly on the way home and the crows watched me back.

The next morning when I left for class the bright golden sunlight shining in from the dreary day outside fell on two sketchbooks on my nightstand. One a worn spiral bound, almost full, and one a beautiful leatherbound tome almost empty. As I walked through the park I thought I heard a crow laugh.

This work is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

[corvidstoneage]

4. Tactics

Welcome back! Today we'll be discussing some basic tactics. before we start, I have no military or police experience. all the tactics we'll be talking about are things i have been taught or things I’ve learned through experimentation.

Tactics, as used here, refers to the manipulation of space and time to give an individual an advantage over their opponent. This includes the use of cover and concealment, movement, and maneuvering.

First, cover and concealment. Concealment is something that blocks sight, but not necessarily projectiles. Cover is an object that blocks projectiles but not necessarily sight.

The goal is to put concealment and cover between you and your opponent. a frequent issue when using cover is to merely hide behind it. while getting behind cover provides temporary shelter from incoming fire, it also ties you to one location, making you easy to flank.

The key to winning a fight is movement and maneuvering. movement is traveling relative to the ground and objects around you. maneuvering is travel relative to your opponent.

The goal, then, is to maneuver so that you are shielded from your opponent by cover, and optimally concealment as well. then move to your escape route, keeping the cover between you and your opponent.

alternately, the inverse can be done. placing cover between yourself and your opponent and closing the distance. this is particularly useful when responsible for the safety of more people than you can reasonably move with you.

importantly, cover is relative. what is adequate cover from handgun rounds may only be concealment from an opponent with a rifle.

So far we’ve talked about manipulating space and distance to our advantage now let’s talk about manipulating time. There are two ways of doing this, shortening the amount of time it takes us to do something, and lengthening the amount of time it takes our opponent to do something.

The first is primarily a matter of practice and skill and, as such, will be discussed further in depth in the skills essay.

The second relies on interrupting a process in your opponent’s brain called an OODA Loop. The term refers to a decision making model developed by John Boyd, a US air force colonel. It stands for Observe, Orient, Decide, and Act. [1]

These four steps describe the process of decision making undertaken in our mind and our opponent’s.

In the observe stage we take in information about the world and the situation unfolding around us. In the orient stage we compare that information to previous experiences and notions we may have had. In the decide stage we determine an action to take. And in the act stage we execute that action.

This whole process can be very fast and happens over and over again throughout the day. The goal is to force your opponent to restart their loop and then not give them time to make it to the act stage.

We discussed in essay 3. Mindset, how the attributes of decisiveness, aggressiveness, and speed are important to winning fights. This is why.

In order to interrupt your opponent’s OODA loop they must think one scenario is happening and then you must turn it into a different scenario before they realize that’s what’s happening.

If you decide on a course of action but are slow or halfhearted in it’s execution your opponent may well figure out what it is you are doing and recover their wits enough to take back the initiative. Your defense must be sudden and aggressive. End the fight before your opponent realizes they’re in a fight.

My own work on this project is licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0. Other’s work is attributed and used under US Code Title 17 Chapter 1 Section 107 for nonprofit scholarly use.

[1] https://web.archive.org/web/20110514132512/http://www.danford.net/boyd/essence4.htm

[corvidstoneage]

2.1 Use of Force

In a previous essay we discussed some of the legal considerations for owning and carrying firearms. Today we’ll discuss the legality of the use of force to stop a threat.

As previously mentioned, I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. Do your own research and consult an attorney if you’re unsure about anything.

Generally speaking, the use of force, including lethal force, is considered to be justified if four criteria are met. The first three relate to your opponent and the final one relates to yourself.

Intent. Your opponent must intend to cause death or great bodily harm.

Ability. Your opponent must have the ability to cause death or great bodily harm.

Opportunity. Your opponent must have the opportunity to cause death or great bodily harm.

Innocent party. You, as the defender, must not have had a part in the starting of the fight.

Great bodily harm is usually described as a physical injury that causes a substantial risk of death, extended loss or impairment of a body part or function, or permanent disfigurement. Of note, in some states rape is considered to be great bodily harm, in some states it is not. The definition varies from state to state and should be researched by each individual.

Sometimes intent is simple to articulate; if someone shouts that they’re going to kill you and then lunges at you they probably intend to try to cause death or great bodily harm.

Other times it can be more complicated. If your attacker is not so courteous as to announce their plan before assaulting you you should be prepared to articulate the non-verbal cues such as target glances and other body language that you saw to the jury.

Ability deals with what is sometimes called ‘disparity of force’. As the law sees it if a healthy young male is attacked by another healthy, unarmed, male he is not justified in whipping out a pistol and shooting his attacker. It is understood that two individuals, of similar weight and fitness are capable of bringing equal force to a fight and are therefore not in real or imminent danger.

If facing multiple assailants, an armed assailant, or an individual known to you to possess martial arts experience far in excess of your own (be prepared to articulate to a jury how you know that last one), things change.

The law also generally makes allowance for perceived danger. If an assailant threatens to kill you and then points what you believe is a firearm at you, even if it is, in fact, an airsoft gun or even just a black pipe, because a reasonable person would believe that object to be a firearm in the moment, the use of force to defend yourself is still justified.

Opportunity deals with the immediacy of the threat. If you and a mutual who lives across the country get into an argument and they post a picture of themselves with a large knife with a caption threatening to kill you, you cannot legally drive across the country to hunt them down and shoot them. We call that murder in the first degree.

This also means that if someone is trying to mug you with a knife from across a parking lot you cannot legally shoot them. They may intend to kill you, and they may have the tools to do so, but they don’t have the opportunity to do so.

The final criteria that must be satisfied for the use of deadly force to be justified is the innocent party rule. How this is written varies quite a bit from state to state but the gist remains the same; you can’t claim self defense if you started the fight.

This tends to be an issue with road rage incidents. Some dude cuts you off in traffic, so you start following them and trying to run him off the road. Eventually they pull over and you jump out, run up, and start screaming and pounding on their window. They pull a gun and point it at you and you, fearing for your life, draw your own firearm and shoot them. We call this murder in the second degree if you have a good lawyer and murder in the first degree if their next of kin has a good lawyer.

In some states there is also another legal burden on the defender called ‘duty to retreat’. This means that if there is any possible way for you to run away you must attempt to do so before using deadly force. This mostly precludes defense of a third party.

The inverse is also the case. Some states have what are called ‘stand your ground’ laws. The idea being that any place you have a legal right to be you also have a legal right to defend your position in that place.

Similar, are ‘castle doctrine’ laws. Which state that an individual’s dwelling is analogous to their castle as a place of last retreat and impose an assumption that a use of force to defend one’s dwelling is justified.

My own work on this project is licensed CC-BY-SA 4.0. Other’s work is attributed and used under US Code Title 17 Chapter 1 Section 107 for nonprofit scholarly use.