Now that I have fixed my rectal cranial inversion on the whole "electronics are the only way to solve problems" issue, I have several thoughts about how to practice and store energy, not to mention an idea about using momentum absorption as a method for powering my psionics. From the earlier I know that electrical impulses might be used but had massive side effects and are really hard to calibrate here, but what about conversions that had built in adjustable limiters. The spring and gear mechanisms on my toy wound down at a specific rate, providing energy over time, which was much less "burst" oriented than the primitive shocking mechanisms which built up and then discharged almost instantaneously.

I really wanted to dig into that, but it was time for posting up all the research subject desired ads. I needed to be very specific that there was some level of physical harm involved, so I dug up old copies of the flyers from the failed zap-attack testing. Which were useless. No mention of the possible pain or anything more than what appeared to be the standard payment.

I spent several hours wrestling with the verbiage until I just fell back to the basics, no fancy or misleading language, because they can always not come back. I opted to tell them we were going to make a small controlled incision on the elbow and test a new treatment method for minor cuts. Will need to commit for a two season test, once a tenday, alternating arms, double pay if you complete the entire test. Snacks provided after each test. Food and money, prime motivators for college students in my former world. I liked both, so how wrong could it go. It'd be easy enough to stock up on some shortbread-style cookies that would not go bad, and tea was cheap. Milk and sugar wouldn't be offered, but the cookies would be sweet enough to balance the bite of the cheaper teas nicely.

I knew that the elbow cuts would be less painful, but that doesn't mean there would be no pain. Anyone who's skinned a knee or elbow knows that it can hurt, but if you did the same abrasion to your palm, it's a completely different level of pain. I needed them to have some level of pain, so that they had something to "ignore" for the technique of "Relax. Clear your mind. Meditate. Imagine the pain is gone and the wound with it." A chant that the tester was to guide each...well… test subject is so clinical and calling them test victims seems a bit harsh, if not entirely out of line, so I will stick with volunteers. Lucky stuck-ees. Or slice-ees. And realistically, it's not any worse than what blood donors would go through for some cookies, juice, and the feeling that they are helping out their community. If only they had blood donors here. Not even sure about transfusions, or if we have blood types? So many things unknown, and not enough time to spend wading through a library. I miss wikipedia and search engines now.

Anyway, I keep wandering off topic. I got the flyers made up, and used the "tear-off" strips along the bottom half, using the address of the department as the contract location for them to register. It was… adequate. My handwriting was by necessity better here than when I had easy access to a keyboard and printer. Typewriters were a thing here, lever action with ink ribbons and gear driven friction wheels to advance the paper, but I wouldn't need one until I was drafting the final reports and the findings booklet would be made on an odd machine that pressed ink through a screen, one screen per page. I could make the screen cuts using a specialized fiber paper and effectively a typewriter that used sharpened strikers instead of dull ones. Basically similar to silk screens for making "modern" t-shirts, but with paper as the printed surface and rotary drum system that pressed the ink to the paper then fed another sheet. We didn't quite have the need for a printing press for the reports, so this filled in the niche of small batches of printing where the setup and layout of standard printing was high enough that the low demand quantity didn't sufficiently defray the initial investment in time and thalers, but high enough than hand-writing the pages would be more expensive. It was an odd decision curve. If there were few enough, handwritten was simplest, fastest, and least expensive. With more than three or four copies, then the drum-press system was the best bet. Last up, with more than 100 copies was full-on printing presses like used for the news sheets, or even a bindery that used higher quality papers and made actual books. Of course the length of the information mattered as well. 100 copies of a single page wasn't really worth the printing press setup. So, I made these singleton pages by hand. Simple text. Clear offer. Bonus. Disclaimer. It took about 5 minutes per sheet. I ended up spending just under 4 hours making all the sheets. Which really took 6 hours with breaks for my hand spent playing with my new toy.

As my last act for the day, I roamed around the omni, putting up the flyers on announcement boards, dorm doors, and finally the cafeteria area got my last three, and I stopped in for an adequate dinner that I didn't have to make, then I trudged my way home and up all the stairs to my apartment.

Before I went to bed for the night, I checked on my gains from playing with the toy.

{

Skills:

Energy Conversion

3.064

+.010

Energy Emission

2.685

+.002

Energy Control

2.332

+.010

Channeling

0.165

+.016

Instructor

0.091

+.001

Meditation

2.716

+.018

Walking

5.027

+.001

}

Surprisingly large gains in Meditation and Channeling, as well as some decent gains elsewhere, with the obviously limited results on the areas I hadn't spent much time on. I did gain some points in Philosophy and Engineering, but since I wasn't focused on those, I've omitted most non-psionic gains.

Satisfied with the work I got done today, and more than a bit tired, I put out my lamp, and went to bed early. Tomorrow was Eightday, so only one more workday before I could catch up on other things outside the Omni.