Night Ops: Homework Extra Credit Assignment

Exchange the techniques and skills needed to walk the shadows. Post your guides and how-tos here.
Post Reply
Pontifleviticus
Member
Posts: 14
Joined: Sat Feb 06, 2010 12:30 am
Contact:

Night Ops: Homework Extra Credit Assignment

Post by Pontifleviticus » Sat Nov 21, 2015 9:03 pm

im up in ur forum stealin ur topics

Is this post tl;dr? Fuck you, read it anyway. If you don't have time, put a reminder somewhere to look at it when you do have time.

We operatives are a dark lot in the sense that our lifestyle revolves around the night. However, each of us have a day life too that we have to maintain. This daily life often gets in the way and prevents us from oping as often as we'd like. And on the rare occasion we have the time to do an op we either lack the motivation, are out of shape or simply can't get into the "zone".
But just because we can't op enough doesn't mean we have to fall completely out of touch with ourselves. So for the next few weeks I'm going to be setting homework tasks that I expect each and every one of you to complete. Just simple exercises to help you stay sharp and in shape.
These assignments also extend to you visiting guests and silent lurkers - yes, you, the reader - I want you all to participate as well.

I am going to post these every once in a while. I really liked the original assignment threads and had some ideas for my own spin off. As I am new and not an admin or mod, ill be posting these as extra credit ideas.

Lesson:

This first lesson will be one in tactility. An Operators tactile sensation can be as useful for observing your environment as vision or hearing. The sense of touch goes far deeper than just feeling a surface for roughness or smoothness. Feeling vibrations on the surface you walk on can indicate vehicle movement nearby. A hand on the train tracks can sense a train otherwise you cant hear or see because sound waves travel faster through solid mediums. Its an odd thing to think that you can feel sound before you can hear it but its true for many cases where the sound is in the higher range of decibels.

Being able to make a good assessment through tactile sensation takes a lot of practice. An assessment of this kind highly depends on what your focus and scope for the particular situation. One assessment for climbing a structure will be different trying to determine nearby moment. Things to keep in mind range from surface temperature, to how solid or malleable a surface may be, to detecting patterns of vibrations. Try it right now. Put your hand to a surface, a wall or even your computer. What do you feel? Can you feel the plumbing working? A hard drive working? Is it room temperature or otherwise? Dont feel obligated to post your findings but feel free to do so.

Homework:

Your assignment for the week is to tune your tactile sensation. During your day feel various surfaces. Come up with your own style of tactile assessment. Learn which part of the hand is best utilized for the job. Learn to use other body parts to pick up tactile clues. Report back with interesting findings and learnings. Questions about assessment methods are welcome as well as your particular assessment strategy,

Brotips: *Placing a hand on a computer can tell you if its been used recently by heat.
*Similarly feeling the hood of a car or its wheels tell you if its been there long.
*Feeling anything that may be electrically charged use the backside of the hand. Electricity causes muscles to contract and you don't want to clamp down on a live wire.

User avatar
Xanatos
Moderator
Posts: 2675
Joined: Sun Jun 21, 2009 2:51 am
Location: The last place you look.
Contact:

Re: Night Ops: Homework Extra Credit Assignment

Post by Xanatos » Sun Nov 22, 2015 7:40 am

A useful skill to develop, however keep in mind that if you wear gloves while opping it will decrease your sensitivity somewhat.
We are all books containing thousands of pages and within each lies an irreparable truth.
What is locked, can be opened. What is hidden, can be found. What is yours... can be mine.

CookieThief
Member
Posts: 89
Joined: Sun Aug 23, 2015 5:06 am
Contact:

Re: Night Ops: Homework Extra Credit Assignment

Post by CookieThief » Sun Nov 22, 2015 8:23 pm

I seem to have using this skill without knowing what it was. But, now that I concentrate I hear/feel less then I did. Could you expand on tactile perception? Perhaps with some links to pages talking about the subject?
The world is dark until your eyes adjust.

Post Reply