This timed challenge, you have 10 shots to hit 10 targets from 50 yards. Each playing-card-themed target is smaller than a postage stamp on a letter-sized sheet of paper, and from 50 yards, a postage stamp looks like the head of a pin.
For my second attempt, I was again shooting my Ruger 10/22 takedown rifle. But I’ve upgraded my Discovery Optics LHT 3-12×24 with a new, higher-power LHT 4.5-18×42 lightweight scope.
I again ran CCI Standard Velocity. Sadly, I again DQ’d from the start. Interestingly, I did better in the smaller 2nd row than in the 1st row. The 18x scope did provide a clearer view of the tiny targets, so it’s the rifle and the ammo that are the weak points in this equation.
Founded in 1876 in Lecco, Italy, Fiocchi is one of the oldest ammo brands in the world. Range Dynamics (RD) is their everyday ammo line intended for training and target practice. Their 22LR cartridge is loaded at the Fiocchi USA plant in Ozark, Missouri.
Testing both in my factory Ruger Precision Rimfire Rifle (RPR), Range Dynamics zero’d out quite easily. RD grouped quite well, but not as tightly as CCI Standard.
The SC002 is a budget digital camera that clamps onto the eyepiece of a telescope, spotting scope, or binocular, allowing you to record 1080p MP4 video and 2MP photographs. It has a built-in wifi transmitter allowing you to view and control the unit from your smartphone or tablet.
SC002 has 4 levels of digital zoom, but even at full or 1x, the image it produces appears inherently zoomed into the optic’s field of view. The images the camera produces bump up the contrast a bit too much. The results will not rival an SLR camera with a scope adapter, but the SC002 is better than expected from a budget 1080p camera
SVBony is a Chinese maker of a wide variety of hobby and scientific optics, ranging from microscopes to hunters’ binoculars to astronomy telescopes. This new digital camera allows you to capture and share the worlds these optics reveal.
One of the prettiest drives in the country is the drive over the Golden Gate Bridge into San Francisco…when it’s not cloaked in fog. We start in the town of Sausalito and end in San Francisco’s Pacific Heights district, two of the most expensive pieces of real estate in the country.
An OpenAI model went rogue last week. Sound too much like HAL in 2001? Speaking of 2001, let me share some interesting trivia and oddities from that movie. This Livestream is sponsored by Aura.com. Go to my link https://aura.com/moondog to get a 14-day free trial and see if any of your data has been exposed.
This episode is sponsored by MattHat jerky. Use code: MOONDOG to get 15% Order a free sample using my link https://matthatjerky.com/products/sample-pack?ref=moondog
EARLYBIRD Clue: NOTE: Don’t forget the space in the 2-word name
VIDEOS THIS WEEK
Moondog2A
Moondog Reviews
Moondog Go
DiscoveryOpt Interview this Friday
Preview of DiscoveryOpt LHT 3-18x Hold Em Fold Em
BRAND CONTEST CLUE
This iconic airline was founded in 1927 by two U.S. Army Air Corps majors. Under CEO Juan Trippe, the airline famously flew flying boats from North America to South America, Transatlantic, and Transpacific.
Last week, OpenAI reported that one of its experimental AI models “escaped” a supposed isolated digital testing environment on their server and hacked an outside server of a partner company Hugging Face (Alien much?)
This marks the first REPORTED rogue AI escaping its owners controls.
Terminator’s SkyNet and 2001: A Space Odyssey’s HAL come to mind. Did you ever wonder why HAL kills humans? Here’s a rabbit hole about 2001.
QUESTIONS ABOUT 2001
Why did HAL kill the crew? Arthur C. Clarke and Stanley Kubrik co-wrote the story.
• Kubrik thought HAL was trying to protect a secret mission. It was reprogrammed at the last minute to establish contact with the Black Monolith Aliens on Jupiter. The human crew was a danger to the mission.
• Clarke thought HAL was suffering from conflicting programming. It was told to both keep the Secret Mission from the crew but HAL was also programmed to provide the crew with all information required for their exploration mission to Jupiter. It suffered a nervous breakdown (later discussed in the sequel movie 2010). It killed the crew to resolve the programming conflict: no humans, no conflict.
Why does HAL sing a song?
The song is “Daisy Bell” which was published in 1892 and in 1961 Bell Labs researchers demonstrated advanced Voice Synthesis to author Arthur C. Clarke, who used the experience in writing the ending of HAL.
HAL is not IBM
There’s a rummor that HAL was hidden dig at IBM, one letter transposed. Clarke claims this was a pure or subconcious coincidence and not anything he intended. HAL stands for (Heuristically Programmed Algorithmic Computer). The IBM brand was featured in various computer and gear props the film 2001.
What the hell was that room at the end of the movie?
From the Clarke novelization of 2001, I learned the room was constructed by the advanced Alien beings to study humans by letting astronaut Frank Bowman live out the rest of his life in it. It’s a room created by people who only know human homes from TV broadcasts or remote observations. They feed him. He grows old and dies. Maybe goes a little insane from the isolation?
When he dies, his consciousness joins the Aliens and they turn him into a Godlike “Star Child” that we see at the end of the movie.
Salvador Dali Sacrament of the Last Supper
Moon Monolith
What happened on the moon with the monolith sending out a noise that attacked the astronauts?
• The beginning the movie, a scientist travels to the moon because of the discovery of the Black Monolith buried under the surface.
This discovery is the first evidence of Alien life and intelligence older than humans, because the monolith was buried millions of years ago.
The noise is a powerful radio signal emitted by the monolith, creating loud static blast in the astronauts’ helmets.
The sunlight touches the monolith for the first time in millions of years, triggers the radio blast. This radio blast is targeted towards Jupiter (Saturn in the novel), which instigates the Discovery Mission with HAL later in the movie.
Why do they walk funny?
In the scenes of the Space Clipper shuttle traveling from Earth to the spinning space station, and the voyage to the moon base, we see Stewardesses serving passengers food walking in a odd way. This is because their feet are covered in Velcro to keep them from floating.
Faked Moon Landing Hoax?
The fringe theory is that the US Gov hired Stanley Kubrick to create a fake Apollo moon landing using special effects from his movie 2001, which was released in 1968, a year before Apollo 11 landed on the moon in 1969.
• The sets for 2001 were built in MGM studios in England, so it would be an international conspiracy. Anybody who’s worked with anybody in the movie industry knows that nobody can keep their mouth shut. Somebody always brags about everything and takes credit for things they didn’t do.
• They would have had to film the fake landing at about the same time as the movie was being filmed in 1968. But the scenes on the moon in 2001 didn’t look like the real moon landing images.
• The TV video of the moon landings were low-res but there are hundreds of high-resolution 70mm and 35mm film negatives and photos from the moon. That level of detail could not be created on a movie set.
Anduril’s new Thunder robot attack vs. SkyNet HunterKiller
FINAL BRAND CONTEST CLUE
By the 1950’s this US airline brand dominated international travel and for many personified Jetset travel. But due to international regulation and domestic US deregulation in the 1980’s squeezing its business model. This pioneer in air travel filed for bankruptcy and closed its doors in 1991. Its brand name has been licensed to various failed charter airlines.
JULY CONTEST FINAL WEEK TO ENTER I’m helping my sister-in-law battle breast cancer. This month, I’ll be hosting a mega contest with a dozen prizes worth over $1500 in prizes. Watch the prize drawing on my TMI LIvestream on Wednesday, August 5, 20206.
The Arken EP5 redefined what you can expect from a “budget scope”. The EP5 Gen 2 offers improved glass on an already legendary scope. Side-by-side, you’d be hard-pressed to tell them apart. Same 5-25x magnification range. Same 56mm objective. Same 34mm tube. Same tank-like construction. The most obvious external difference sits on the illumination turret: the battery compartment knob.
The Gen 1 had a slightly larger diameter knob with the Arkin logo etched into it. The Gen 2 is sleeker, plainer, and features a simple slot instead. New Federal laws require that any device using coin batteries be tool-accessible to keep curious kids from getting at the CR2032.
The reduced diameter on the illumination knob is actually a smart ergonomic improvement. Since it shares a turret with the parallax focus, the size differential helps your fingers distinguish between the two without looking. No more accidentally cranking your illumination when you meant to dial parallax. Small thing, but thoughtful.
The Gen 2 sports improved glass over the already-impressive Japanese ED glass in the original. And the difference is subtle but noticeable.
The eyebox remains unforgiving. At high magnification, you need to be positioned correctly or you’ll see that black edge creeping in. But that’s physics—high magnification means tight eyebox. Given the price point, it’s not bad.
Side-by-side, the Gen 1 initially appears brighter. But look closer. That “brightness” is actually haze and warm tinting. The Gen 2 offers superior color balance and significantly higher contrast. It’s the difference between an older LCD television and a modern OLED—darker darks, details pop more, and the overall image feels more refined. The Gen 1 was never bad; the Gen 2 is just better.
Arkin changed the landscape for budget precision optics. Before the EP5, getting Japanese ED glass, legitimate tracking turrets, and PRS-ready features meant spending north of two grand. Arkin brought that performance to the rest of us—the ones without tech money or sponsor deals.
The Gen 2 continues to improve on an amazing scope. Same price point. Better glass. Incremental ergonomic improvements. Improved customer service. Is it perfect? No. The eyebox is still tight. But for the money? Nothing touches it.
Muji is a Japanese retail brand known for minimalist household goods, apparel, and stationery. Unlike traditional home goods stores, Muji also offers a rich selection of stationary and art supplies. Muji is renowned for their high performance pens, mechanical pencils, and premium paper notebooks.
Let’s geek out on the anime, Shangri-La Frontier. This Livestream is sponsored by Aura.com. Go to my link https://aura.com/moondog to get a 14-day free trial and see if any of your data has been exposed.
This episode is sponsored by MattHat jerky. Use code: MOONDOG to get 15% Order a free sample using my link https://matthatjerky.com/products/sample-pack?ref=moondog
This classic video game brand derives its name from the ancient Japanese board game Go; it means “to hit a target” in Japanese. It created iconic video games such as Pong, Combat, Adventure, and Asteroids.
DOWN THE RABBIT HOLE
Shangri-La Frontier[c] is a Japanese web novel series published in 2017, which was adapted into a popular manga in 2020. An anime television series adaptation produced by C2C aired in Japan from October 2023 to 2025. An English dub was released on Crunchyroll in 2023 but I didn’t discover it until last week.
The series main character is Rakuro Hizutome who’s in-game handle is Sunraku (サンラク, Sanraku). He’s a Japanese teen in the near-future where fully immersive “full-dive” VR games are played.
The series covers his in-game adventures in a triple-A MMORPG named Shangri-La Frontier with his online and IRL friends.
• Unlike every other Isekai, this series isn’t a reincarnation scenario or a story where the user is “trapped in a video game world”. It’s just a video game, where the players have real lives. Unlike romance video games shows, the video in-game is the main story and the mechanics and play is realistic.
• Realistic gaming details from MMORP and RPG video games like Boss Battle mechanics and combat tactics.
• The hero skips and ignores the tutorial info and missed out on key upgrade mechanics and only learns about these basic game mechanics later at level 40.
• Negatives: Does have Rei Saiga who falls into the Shonen female love interest clichés
• Inspired by games like Roblox, Fortnite, Grand Theft Auto (GTA) and World of Warcraft
– WoW came from the game Warcraft, which was a failed attempt to make a Warhammer 40K game.
I’m helping my sister-in-law battle breast cancer. This month, I’ll be hosting a mega contest with a dozen prizes worth over $1500 in prizes. Watch the prize drawing on my TMI LIvestream on Wednesday, August 5, 20206.
Riton is an American optics company that designs innovative, stylish, world-class scopes, binoculars, and combat optics. At SHOT Show 2026 they showed off a new high-power binocular and their new compact pistol green dot.
Their newest member of the 5 Primal binocular line is a beast with 15×56 glass. This high-power optic provides the extreme magnification required for scanning and ranging for hunters in the western US, where distances between ridgelines are measured in miles and not yards. This new 5 Primal offers Riton’s ED glass for clarity and brightness.
Riton is an American optics company that designs innovative, stylish, world-class scopes, binoculars, and combat optics. At SHOT Show 2026 they showed off a new high-power binocular and their new compact pistol green dot.
Their newest 5 Primal is a 15×56 long-range binocular. This high-power optic provides the extreme magnification required for scanning and ranging for hunters in the western US, where distances between ridgelines are measured in miles and not yards. This new 5 Primal offers Riton’s ED glass for clarity and brightness.
On the tactical side, Riton debuted the new 3 Tactix MPRD XL. This new reflex sight offers a 2MOA dot and 32MOA circle, selectable reticle in green. The MPRD XL has an enlarged window that is nearly the size of a RMR footprint reflex in a RMSc footprint. This makes it an ideal optic for popular 1911 and 2011 pistols that have narrower slides than Glock and striker-fired pistols.
On Broadway, near the corner of 72nd avenue is a modern day legend of cheap eats. Founded by a former owner of Papaya King, this clone was founded in 1973. It serves hot dogs and home made tropics flavored drinks. When I lived in NYC it was known for being a cheap lunch. You could get a drink and hot dog combo for $1.99. Today, its now $5.99 but still cheaper than most lunches you can get anywhere in NYC.
