Friday, July 17, 2026

Now it can be told...

The reason I was in Nebraska last month was for a product launch event for a new Leupold optic, the LCO Pro F2. The format of the event was a 1½ day class, followed a mini carbine match, during which I had the opportunity to put several hundred rounds downrange using the new dot.

Hornady hosted the event at the excellent Heartland Public Shooting Park just outside Grand Island.

Kyle Lamb instructed us media types in the use of the carbine...

...aided by Doug Koenig.

I'll expand further in print elsewhere, but in short, Leupold is gearing up to go hard into the high-end duty grade electro optics biz again, since they're one of a small handful of companies who can credibly play in that end of the pool.

Chris Cerino lighting up a target.



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Friday Memes!




Wednesday, July 15, 2026

Tuxedos and Origin Stories

Gorillafritz has an interesting tale on professional attire for firearms instructors and the origins of the "tactical tuxedo".

"I was there, Gandalf..." (photo by Oleg Volk)

The shoot-me-first vest in that photo is an O.G. one from Royal Robbins. I bought it in late '01 or very early '02, before there was a company called "5.11 Tactical"*. The buttons still have the little hiking dude from the famously granola-y outdoor apparel company.

To this day I prefer Royal Robbins for my gun burkhas.


*The Wikipedia article has a good history of how 5.11 Tactical came to be.

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Some Memes to Pull You Over the Hump!




Monday, July 13, 2026

Welcome back my friends to the show that never ends...

Me, Last Year: "I need to upgrade my Mac Mini to keep running Photoshop for work. I can save money by getting the smallest HDD since I never play games anymore."

Me, Last Week: "I need to de-stress. Maybe I'll take up WoW again."

Me, Yesterday: *googling 'how expand mac mini hard disk cheaply'*
When your first hard disk was a 20MB Seagate, it feels wild that with just MacOS, MS Word and Excel, Photoshop, and World of Warcraft, you've filled a 256GB HDD to the point that PShop is howling about its scratch disk size every time you open it.

"My little dude, nothing I ask you to do really requires much of a scratch disk."

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Monday Memeday!




Friday, July 10, 2026

Jerked by a Mechanical Turk

The latest iteration of the Neo domestic robot from startup manufacturer 1X has freakishly sensitive and mobile fingers. Very dextrous, pretty much the equivalent of human hands, capable of delicate chores like screwing in a light bulb, or... well, you know how people are.


Thing is, like most of these robots today, it's not entirely autonomous...
1X says the goal is full automation for Neo, but for now, the robot is partly teleoperated, as a Wall Street Journal video noted last year.
Some guy who works in a Singapore cubicle farm sits at the dinner table with a haunted, 1000yd stare.

“How was work today, honey?” asks his wife…

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Thank God It's Meme Dump!