Dakao v. 2.0 - The Crooked Cut

Wahoo!

Ξ June 29th, 2006 | → Comments Off | ∇ Fitness / HEMA, General |

Everyone should take off once in a while.

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King's College

Ξ June 25th, 2006 | → Comments Off | ∇ Fitness / HEMA, SCA |

It’s tough being the teacher, and I love it.

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Is this Postmodernism?

Ξ June 22nd, 2006 | → Comments Off | ∇ General |

I’ve known some people who make liberal use of that word. It seems to be shorthand for odd or unusual, unconscious juxtapositions of elements from different cultures.

On my way to work, I saw a black guy working on some utility tunnel. City of Houston type everyday stuff. The sun was hot and bright, following a light rain. He was wearing an Asian reed hat.

Modern multiculturalism came about as a result of increasing ease of transport. I suppose it’s a process that’s as old as trade, which in turn is as old as mankind itself. It’s cheaper for us to ship a thousand such handmade reed hats from somewhere in Southeast Asia (Viet Nam?) on the other side of the world, through a manmade channel cut through miles of land, to the port of Houston… Than it would be for us to spend a few hours making our own hat. Never mind the opportunity cost of time spent for that labor (call it $10 / hr) — just simply finding and buying the raw materials to make a similar hat domestically would probably cost as much as it does to buy the completed hat (maybe $5?).

Still, it wouldn’t surprise Marco Polo.

What are we supposed to be saving, anyway?

Ξ June 21st, 2006 | → Comments Off | ∇ Current Events, Science / Technology |

We got into a discussion last weekend after class about environmental issues. I had figured that Gore’s movie, An Inconvenient Truth, had compromised in some way on its presentation of the situation. Adam said that his research had indicated that CO2 may have little or no actual impact on global warming — water vapor has a much bigger impact. And that undermines the whole point of the movie.

And yet, many of the manmade sources of CO2 (other than people themselves) are responsible for a huge variety of pollutants that we’re not readily aware of. So I figure the movie’s a simplistic way of telling our dumb mass audience that Columbus discovered America, so to speak. Someone’s always known that Amerigo Vespucci figured it out, and that Leif Ericsson set foot on Newfoundland (did I get that right?), and the Amerindians beat everyone to the punch via the Bering Strait by 12,000 years. But it wasn’t taught that way in schools until recently in the 20th century. Hell, apparently, plate tectonics and the formation of mountain ranges weren’t even theoretically conceived until within the past couple decades. Can you imagine a prof telling his class that mountains were created by some unknown force? It happened to Adam in one of his geology classes, and Adam’s my age.

So I think that the American population is aware of the world and its environment in a “Columbus sailed the ocean blue in 1492″ kind of way. I don’t know that the movie is a good way to handle things. People should be responsible enough to clean up their own messes and leave things as they found them or better. But unfortunately, I also don’t see people cleaning their act up just because. A reasoned approach to the environment may be doomed to failure b/c not only can our scientists not agree (even as Gore claims that all our scientists agree) as to what’s wrong and how to fix it, but the population simply doesn’t care.

Me, I’ve been wrong too many times about the big environmental issues. But that’s okay, because the scientists aren’t all clear either. So for me, it just comes down to being conscientious about your own living conditions. If you spill punch on the carpet, you get some stain remover and clean it up. If your bathroom gets dirty, you clean it. You plunge your own toilet. You take out the garbage. If you drop cigarette butts out the window and a cop busts you, you pay a fine. If you don’t get caught littering, well, I guess you got away with it. But the message is still there…

Never mind rationale or reason, we need to expand the “Don’t Mess with Texas” campaign to encompass all of Earth. Why should we not dump mercury into our groundwater? Why should we not kill all our fish? Why should we use more efficient cars and reduce our A/C usage? Because, you dumb motherfuckers. Just because. Not because someone’s gonna slap a fine on your dumb ass for wasting resources and extravagantly living beyond your means and not caring about messing up someone else’s quality of life because they have to drive past your litter or drink water with your contaminants in it. …As much as we may want to.

Adam said that the environmentalists are overreacting — our planet has done and seen worse things than anything we’ve done so far. How can we really *destroy* the environment? (ref. alt.destroy.the.earth and alt.pave.the.earth) I agree with him. But I also agree with him that we can and have adversely affected our own quality of life. And in our own lifetime. It’s not much consolation or tragedy to me that, perhaps in 50,000 geologically short and cosmically miniscule years, our environment will continue to survive even if our race’s ecological niche has been marginalized due to climatic changes by that point, and that we’ll have been replaced by some humanoid reptilian race that can better thrive in the increased UV and heat conditions of our desertified world. But within my ~80 allotted years? Yeah, that matters.

Bringing it back to me, because that’s what it’s really about, I don’t want to breathe fumes from some big dualie F-250 with a racketing diesel, custom amber trucking cab lights, vinyl chrome flames on the sides, and a decal of a Calvin clone pissing on some corporate logo. I’m sure the guy behind me doesn’t want to breathe fumes from my rickety-ass ten-year old SUV, either.

So my next car’ll be a zippy little wagon or maybe an SCA war wagon (more usually known as a minivan). And in the years it takes me to save up and pay off current debt, I’ll thank society to get a move on, so that my future car will be as efficient and advanced as possible for the price I can afford. And in turn, my own hopefully responsible choice will contribute to car buyers’ choices another 5-10 years down the road after that.

I don’t want to pay $0.16 / kWh so that some natural gas baron at Reliant can laugh at me as he roars off to his private duck hunting retreat. So I’ll minimize my usage in cost-sensible and effective ways, and hope for a better, cheaper future where 10,000 of my closest neighbors have also chosen to live more responsible, considerate lives — energy prices are rising due to demand, so reducing demand will reduce prices (after a short months-long lag while the energy companies catch on and restructure their pricing), until inefficiencies of scale appear (and that’s a loooong way off from our current usage levels).

I want to enjoy sushi without poisoning myself with contaminants accumulated in the meat. I want for there to always be rare seared tuna steak rubbed with salt and pepper. I don’t want to eat vat-grown algae that my bacterial ancestors might have feasted on 2 billion years ago. I want my sky to not have a brown smudge on it.

That’s what I want. And that’s why the environment matters. :P

Debutants' ball

Ξ June 19th, 2006 | → Comments Off | ∇ Fitness / HEMA |

(with an e on the end, we’d be female, see? I know my French)

One of these days, I’ll start remembering people I’ve met half a dozen times.

We headed out for Austin on Friday afternoon / evening. Kevin, David, and Steph stayed at Susan and Sean’s, while Adam, Clint, and I stayed at Conner and Robin’s. I didn’t have my head on straight, and bumbled my way through my German longsword class for Conner and Clint. Our group minus Adam went to Cheddar’s for dinner, then went home to settle in for the night. Adam met us there and he and I reviewed our notes for the weekend before going to bed.

Saturday dawned overcast and raining pretty hard. We got up way early, and were at Sean’s by 8:30. The others weren’t really up yet, and we hung out for a while, waiting to see what the weather would do. Conner went to recon a nearby park where the Austinites usually practice. By 9:30, everyone who was going to be there was there. David kept getting after me to make the call, and I waffled indecisively before settling on the park.

I can handle not having plans and I can plan well, but I have a lot of trouble when I make plans that go awry. The result that morning was I *still* didn’t have my head on straight, and getting into my rapier class was difficult. One of my major areas to work on is taking charge of a class. Another one is internalizing a structure for presenting each of my lessons or concepts.

I have in mind a routine where I’ll lay out a concept or technique, demonstrate it (preferably with a TA or repeat student), then pair off the students in two lines. I’ll walk them through once or twice until the group gets it, then I’ll make them repeat it e.g. 5 times. Switch roles, then rotate the lines and partners for the next technique.

That spectacularly failed to happen in my rapier class in Austin. I did it at A&M, didn’t do it in Austin, and don’t know why. I’m blaming myself for not having my head in it that morning.

Still, I can hope that I managed to convey something of the concepts I had planned for that class. I think that, at the end of class when some of the more adventurous people took me up on the chance to try the competitive mutual thrust with opposition exercise, those participants got something out of it. I’m not optimistic about what the ones learned who drifted through and (through my fault or theirs) didn’t get engaged in the class.

A good bunch of people drifted in late, throughout class, and watched. The sun was out and bright by 11:30, making for a gorgeous, cool, and muggy day. We broke for lunch at Fuddrucker’s. It was a good crowd, and I had fun at lunch. Conner’s an awesome guy, and Dawn’s cool too. RT made fun of me for introducing myself each time we met, and it took me another day before I remembered meeting him at AAA.

We got back on track by a little past 2, where Kevin took about 2.5 hours to run through his class. He showed a lot of confidence in his material, and I thought his class went well. We spent the afternoon chasing the drifting shade under the trees, and switched to the opposite side of the yard by the end of class.

Then we all took a brief break before jumping back in it for a couple rounds of free fencing. I like the visibility that daylight provides, even if it’s a little weird after doing primarily evening practices for four years. I *don’t* like being overheated. I went one round with Dawn, who said she’d see how long she lasted. I think she was snookering me and not doing herself justice. We went well past our five agreed upon bouts, and went at it hard. I wimped out and hid in the air conditioning after that, because I knew I couldn’t leave it all on the field before Sunday afternoon’s class. She went back out for another round of bouts.

Everyone went home to clean up, then we went out to Chuy’s. The … group, gang, whatever of old friends was fun to observe, and I sincerely hope I’ll get more chances to hang out with them, after David leaves.

Some of the others went back to Sean and Susan’s to hang out, but Conner took our group home and we vegged out, watching the circa 1974 Three Musketeers. My first impression was that the acting and fight choreography hadn’t withstood the test of time that well. But looking back on it, I realize that most movies today use a lot of camera tricks (extreme close-ups, lots of cuts) to create the illusion of a fight. Which makes that version of the Three Musketeers stand out a lot, all the more so considering when it came out.

Sunday morning came earlier than I wanted. It was bright and muggy when we showed up by 9:15. Adam got into his Fabris class, and I thought he did quite well. Some of the more veteran SCA fencers observed by the end of class that our classes, and Adam’s in particular, had highlighted for them just how subtle and minimal historical Italian fencing is. Tiny little shifts of an inch or three here, a few degrees there — these are all that make the difference between safe and dead in a fight.

I finally dug into the lunch stuff I’d brought with me. Made some smoked salmon sandwiches with onions and capers. Everyone was tired from 9 hours of classes in the sun, and I wondered how we’d do for the sidesword class.

But there were about 8 or so troopers and some observers who toughed out the last class. I made a better job of it this time, running people through the footwork and basic bladework. Got everyone paired off, and remembered to rotate them occasionally. Nathan really got into it, and his enthusiasm and involvement really made me happy. Most of the others were similarly positive, but his excitement really stood out, that late into the weekend’s exhaustion.

Conner brought his Paul Chen sharp for everyone to use in a cutting practice session. We all had a chance to cut plastic bottles. Of us Houstonites, Clint got the most effortless cut. Kevin and some of the Austinites bounced the sword off their 2-liters repeatedly. On the second round though, the pommel snapped off. We figured that the repeated shock of strikes and especially the botched strikes had caused too much fatigue. We found out that the handle was actually a hollow plastic shell, and David and the others thought that the play in the ill-fitting, hollow handle allowed the tang to vibrate more. It may have, but I really believe that the main culprit was simply a poor weld where the all-thread had been joined to the notch at the tang’s end. I know of other, much better blademakers’ swords that have suffered metal fatigue and failure at that point.

I wonder if any blades I eventually make or help on should have 3/8″ threaded tangs. Or else we should peen the tang’s end over the pommel instead of fiddling with welding and threading.

David asked Adam and me to have a try at fixing the sword. We packed it up with our stuff. The last few holdouts, about 7 or 9 of us, got dinner at a Vietnamese-Chinese restaurant up the street from Sean and Susan’s. Then we all headed home. Clint and I had a good drive back, but his thought process sometimes really befuddles me. Given a certain amount of resources, if we have too large a demand on those resources (i.e. greater than the rate of renewal for those resources), then that means we cannot support the people demanding those resources without running out. To me, that’s overpopulation — more people and needs than can currently be met by available resources; such a situation will eventually result in temporary or permanent depletion of resources. It plays out like so many of those real-time strategy games my generation and the next have played for over a decade (e.g. Starcraft). However, overpopulation can become sustainable population without requiring population reduction either by A) reducing per capita demand to sustainable levels (being responsible consumers), or B) developing newer, more efficient technologies which fulfill more demands on fewer resources. That’s what makes sense to me, anyway. What seems nonsense to me is to say that such overdemand is not an indication of overpopulation as I have just described it.

The drive was slowed a little by a significant rainstorm, but I saw some lightning of the sort that must have inspired fear and awe in my ancestors. Before we learned to harness electricity, no wonder we thought that storms and lightning were the devices of gods.

Little joys

Ξ June 13th, 2006 | → Comments Off | ∇ Fitness / HEMA, SCA |

One of the hardsuit fighters, John, and I started on what will hopefully become a weekly WMA lesson. He’s a very active and alert fighter, with a keen mind. My goal was and is to share what I know with him and other interested hardsuit guys, and then let them take it onto the field. From their field testing, I hope to learn (and eventually practice with them) applications of what I know academically.

We’ve already gotten a start on exploring some nuances of the art. John conceives of delivering strikes from different quadrants. A strike from e.g. right shoulder therefore strikes from the opponent’s upper left quadrant to his lower right. Alternately, a slower but more deceptive attack would be to pass the strike through the opponent’s upper right quadrant before striking (underhand) into his lower right quadrant. More chances for the opponent to commit to an erroneous defense. Of course, the tradeoff is slower striking time, which gives the opponent more reaction time.

So John immediately latched onto what Robert Holland (SSG) taught me, which is that after overbinding, the quickest strike is to immediately return a blow from the same quadrant, so to speak. When e.g. overbinding on the left, the sword enters a 1st ward posture and the quickest followup attack would be a false edge strike into the opponent’s lower right quadrant.

Obviously, anyone who follows fencing or WMA will spot the high, low, inside, and outside lines. But it just goes to show that I (and others of my ilk) are vindicated in our belief that we *can* use WMA in the SCA. So phooey to the old farts with vested interests who say that WMA is amusing but irrelevant to their game. They are already using WMA concepts — they just have (by and large) never given it more than a rudimentary conceptual framework, i.e. a system.

On a similarly obvious-in-hindsight note, I picked up a tip from John that I should be thinking about minimizing the crossing of my wrists. I’m so used to doing it for the overbinds while keeping the shield near the sword hand, that I tend to forget that crossed hands can still be a bad thing in a close-in fight.

Anyway, John had this big ol’ grin (just like Toshi did at GW 15) on his face the whole time. He knew and I knew that he knows how to fight. The exciting part for him was that formal conceptual framework. So for next week, he’s looking forward to using the knowledge of I.33’s principles to find new applications for techniques he already employs.

And I need to read up more on it to give him more than the same old intro class. :)

Undies on the outs

Ξ June 12th, 2006 | → Comments Off | ∇ General |

So long-time readers will have read plenty worse (or better, depending on your POV) in the past about my mishaps. I went this whole evening at a dinner party with my cell phone clipped to my boxers. Only just found out when I got home and tried to change clothes.

In the Bizarro world…

Ξ June 6th, 2006 | → Comments Off | ∇ Philosophy |

…People will do what’s most effectively in their best interests.

But I realize that doing thusly 100% of the time is impossible, because it would require omniscience. And last I checked, the god club was full up and not taking any more applications.

I was on my way to Half-Price Books, and passed by these people sitting at a cafe. I watched this one woman pour water from an Ozarka bottle into a cup for her lap dog. While I applaud her concern for her surrogate child — er, pet — I remain greatly amused by how this society I live in will obsess over its potable water, horsepower in cars, CPU clock speed in computers… And yet neglect air quality, curb weight, or bus speed / cache / RAM / etc. in these examples respectively.

The Japanese, OTOH, appreciate air’s vital importance in our lives (Ever gone without water for an hour? How about air? Duh, right?). Heck, they’ve made it into a social scene with their oxygen bars. Them and Michael Jackson. If you can’t live without it for 10 minutes, it behooves you to make sure you get the best air you can, right? Well, OK, maybe just some passable air (but not passed gas).

Of course, that’s just to point out that the Japanese are a little kooky, too. Medical hearsay has it that breathing 95% pure O2 may not really be necessary for that little pick-me-up for the man on the street (I haven’t cared enough to research and debunk / confirm it for myself). And buying fancy high-tolerance ABEC bearings for skates only significantly affects the bearings industry’s pockets and skaters who zip along at >200 MPH.

What’s the point of this afternoon session of random association at the Apollo? We make fun of (or despair of) people who aren’t in the know when we know more than they do. But when we consider how many things we *are* relatively in the know about, versus the mind-numbing avalanche of modern-day topics abouth which we know absolutely jack-squat, there will always be people making fun of us and people for us to make fun of. Simply put, I as a single individual cannot acquire expertise in *everything* that touches upon my life, and therefore I will be considered a dumbass by more people than I really care to contemplate — many of whom I will have the great misfortune to meet in the course of my life and some of whom will distinctly make me aware of my deficiency (and, by implication, their superiority).

And that perspective helps me to understand and accept what some of our most successful educational or marketing campaigns have realized: Content is nice if you’ve got it, but what sells (or educates) is awareness. Anything — *anything* — can be important if you make it important.

So use your powers and this knowledge for good, not evil. :P

Observations

Ξ June 5th, 2006 | → Comments Off | ∇ General |

At a stop light, oncoming traffic broke briefly when the light changed. I watched a mockingbird daringly swoop down into the street during that break. One, two, three pecks, and it flew away with a grasshopper in its mouth just as a new spate of cars rushed over that spot.

The smell of Civilization (III, that is)

Ξ June 2nd, 2006 | → Comments Off | ∇ General |

We form the strangest associations sometimes. I opened my first bag of Kettle Salt & Ground Pepper chips in ages, and the first whiff recalled long nights of playing Civilization III. In like vein, Jon Secada’s “Just Another Day” or whatever reminds me of junior high afternoons spent playing Trade Wars 2020 (?) on a 2400 baud modem. Buffy the Vampire Slayer reminds me of my first (only) breakup.

But not all such associations need necessarily be good or bad or whatever. When I finally returned Season 1 to Jay and Lauren, Jay promptly went into his bedroom and came out with Season 2. It’s really good. Well, for a TV series in its time. Acting’s always a little second rate, but the storylines and dialogue are pretty good. They start out all seemingly formulaic, but then comes a bender or two from way out that’s usually pretty clever (but occasionally contrived), then it all ends up predictably again (b/c our intended audience, including me, does enjoy its comfort zone and sense of closure).