More linkage.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loudness_war
http://www.schlockmercenary.com/d/20080523.html
This is a brilliant metaphor for my recent work actions — solving problems with clients by means of the exuberant application of violence and reason in carefully-metered portions.
The only consequences that matter are the ones you wanted.
Well, I say that, but I don’t believe it. It’d be more accurate when rendered as:
Nothing doesn’t matter.
Which is nothing like what I say. But that’s the kind of hypocrisy I can live with.
…Or just crazy.
[People not interested in HEMA can skip down to web links of late. Be forewarned that this entry reads like a Joseph Conrad story printed on cheap, splintery Soviet TP.]
Gawd, CAS Iberia put out some awful thing on sword and shield combat. I won’t link it, b/c it doesn’t deserve any more viewings. It’s already ranked 1/5 on YouTube, thankfully.
OTOH, www.achillemarozzo.it has a number of YouTube clips posted on sword and buckler, round shield, and single.
User Tossetoke has some very cool vids extrapolating Viking shield combat from German fechtmanual techniques. I’ve seen articles before (by e.g. Paul Wagner), but this is the first accurate set of clips I’ve seen.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KXPujfwQJUg
Or you can do a search for HEMAC 2008 vids. Three guys have posted a fair number of bouts from the longsword tournament. Some terrible footwork, some decent demonstrations of skill (timing, distance, etc.)… Maybe I’ll go next year and show ‘em how an Asian fences. I’ll be the Cuong Le of HEMA!
Other web links perused of late:
http://members.aol.com/illinewek/faqs/casting.htm
http://www.theodoregray.com/periodicTable/Stories/030.1/index.html
http://www.newton.dep.anl.gov/askasci/eng99/eng99519.htm
http://www.rc-soar.com/tech/casting.htm
How the hell can you consume 2900 calories in a single drink?! Most days, I struggle to reach 2200 (assuming crude estimates of 1200 for my main meal, 300 in nuts and dried fruit, and 800 in milk / OJ / assorted no-sugar-added fruit juices).
http://www.menshealth.com/eatthis/20-Worst-Foods/index.php
http://health.yahoo.com/experts/eatthis/5027/americas-unhealthiest-drinks-exposed/
http://health.yahoo.com/weightloss-motivation/how-to-lose-weight-like-a-guy/prevention–23299.html
Go, market corrections.
http://promo.realestate.yahoo.com/five-cities-with-biggest-decline-in-home-values.html
This was happy good webtrawling for combating depression. Started off innocently enough, with searches for ballistic ceramic.
http://www.armorusa.com/Ballistic%20Ceramic%20Composite.htm
This led to a thirst for greater understanding of what NATO peacekeepers can do to misbehaving targets.
http://www.dec.fct.unl.pt/projectos/impacto/Public_Papers/Report%20on%20Ceramic.pdf
The average insurgent often experiences difficulty in procuring B4C ceramic / aramidic-weave polyethylene fiber plates. Morbid curiosity prompted the search for ways to evaluate bullet performance on flesh.
http://www.myscienceproject.org/gelatin.html
In the name of science, the expression denoting unfeasibility “…like nailing Jell-O to a wall,” had to be assessed for veracity.
http://www.myscienceproject.org/j-wall.html
A side jaunt into enzymatic interactions and effect on proteins was called for here.
http://learn.genetics.utah.edu/units/activities/proteins/advice.cfm
Busting adages with the liberal application of science.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MythBusters_%28season_2%29#Needle_in_a_Haystack
Then a resumption of the descent into madness and the merely insipid.
http://www.myscienceproject.org/beer.html
By random link association.
http://www.myscienceproject.org/viagra-flowers.html
The very heart of darkness.
http://www.myscienceproject.org/condoms.html
If you read this far, you need to get a life. If you followed every link, someone should take you out to the pasture and put you out of your misery.
That said, I leave you with a cliffhanger:
The past two months have seen WW I-era Gallic quantities of angst, resignation, fear, sweat, tears, and blood (*mostly* internal lacerations). The blood was from HEMA practices. Everything else was not. Within another month, I should either have stupid-good news, or I’ll be evicted from the poorhouse and put in a Frigidaire box.
It could be worse — I could still be doing door-to-door sales.
Or a year in this case…
Lots of people have said it (including me) — the last one I remember was Kevin:
“Alternative (green) energy represents a fraction of a percent of the overall US energy portfolio.”
Well, that *was* true. (OK, still *is* true, where specifically solar power is still under 0.1% of the $3 trillion global energy market.)
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/23/business/23wind.html?scp=27&sq=energy&st=nyt
Also, Google solar thermal power generation, which offers potentially $0.10 KWH (currently $0.15 - $0.20 for lack of economies of scale) and is cropping up all over the Southwest.
Three years ago, Texas was 3rd in the wind race — behind CA and .. WA? Well, we’ve been #1 in wind power production since 2006 (after my stint with Green Mountain) — and 3% of the TX energy portfolio is now in wind. I haven’t seen the numbers, but over the past year I’ve seen lots of articles on how quickly we’ve been growing our wind power generation capacity.
Read the article to see what oil tycoon Boone Pickens is gushing about, re: wind power. $10 billion for a wind farm. *Billion*. That’s good spending money, even on an int’l level.
And Nevada, NM, and CA are all not standing still, either.
How did this happen? Hundreds of thousands of individual consumers signed up for “green energy” accounts with the power companies, that’s how. The power of Greyskull is in you!
By damn, exercise the full extent of your power as 0.0000004% of the US voting / consumer population (in practice, probably 5-10 times more than that, since most of the populace is apathetic, thereby weighting your purchasing decisions and actions favorably). And I’m dead serious — *no one* can say that we can’t make a difference, when the past 3 years have seen such huge changes.
(more…)
We *can* make a difference!
Never believe you can’t improve the world. Take the stairs. Buy local produce. Don’t drink bottled water (it’s got higher fecal matter content than tap, anyway). In the words of Yul Brynner (The King and I), “Et cetera, et cetera!”
Until 2005, I believed like many others that I couldn’t make a difference. Now, when I hear others say that, I don’t know how to prove what I’ve learned — that what I do does impact my world. Well, here’s proof that my call made some tiny difference:
“Just moments ago the House passed its version of the Energy Bill (H.R. 6) by a vote of 235 - 181. The bill includes an increase in the fuel economy standards for cars and light trucks — the first since 1975 — and a renewable electricity standard that would require utilities to produce 15 percent of their electricity from renewable sources by 2020. Also, the House took out a provision added in the Senate that would have put the financial risk of building new nuclear power plants on taxpayers. All in all it’s a pretty good bill and a definite step in the right direction.”
I haven’t personally seen any news items yet to confirm it, but yee-ha!
That’s, what, 54% — a pretty decent margin.
Some info about what HR 6 does for / inflicts on us:
http://rismedia.com/wp/2007-12-06/alliance-urges-bill-with-higher-cafe-tax-incentives-appliance-standards/
Yes, it does raise costs of business for manufacturers, but if they don’t change / improve their business processes and products, they’ll become increasingly marginalized — the Studebakers and DeSotos of the 21st century. Japan already outproduces us in the auto industry. All the noise about profit margins is just a child screaming b/c he doesn’t want to take his medicine. (Well, there’s more to it than that, but we’re not going down that rant — er, road.)
And the main site I go to:
http://www.moveon.org/
I use a couple others to cross-check my facts, but I find them all through Google.
The very facts that we have stores like Whole Foods, and that companies like Toyota, BP, and even Wal-Mart are making strategic decisions the way they are — these all demonstrate the differences we can make. It’s a crazy powerful feeling to be even a tiny part of such a huge progressive movement.
To celebrate, I think I’m going to go call my reps in Congress and the Senate again about Internet radio royalties.
On a sidenote:
I remembered another tidbit from Karl’s dinner party. Xander mentioned that there’s an enormous plastic trash heap in the Pacific. Something to do with prevailing currents and gyres.
[Update: Nooo! Curse you, U.S. Senate!]
No, not the Michael Crichton story.
Ever wanted to know just when all those dinosaurs (and Christians) fell in the scheme of things?
Thanks to MooBob42.
… is difficult when a bloody stub of an article utterly fails to mention any names. Interesting idea, though, that the Daylight Savings change kills people. I have no idea how to verify this — usually, it’s not too hard, with the power of Google these days. OK, just distracting myself. Back to work.
[Listening to Workbench, “Air Cargo”]
Oorgh.. Must cut 8 more minutes off presentation… I keep clocking in at a hair over 30 mins. 30 info-dense slides. Not sure it can be done. Must… hack and slash.
“War and uncertainty loom large!”
“Buy defense sector stocks!”
“Buy, buy, buy!”
Cripes. OK, break, then one more pass before I pass out.
The IPCC’s AR4 Summary for Policymakers is out. It’s like a State of the Environment address every 5 years.
It’s an extremely compact document. Like having 0.5% body fat. Fairly readable, since it is intended for politicians, not lawyers or scientists.
Some say we’re already beyond the IPCC’s worst case scenario. I say so what? All we can do is the best we can do. So ignore that and let’s look at what we can do:
Whole Foods has 30 ways to make a reasonably easy effort.
Plant a tree (for those with yards).
Strive to avoid extensively packaged products. Aim to reduce your monthly garbage output by 10%. I could do it by going cold turkey on prepared snacks (which aren’t good for me anyway, like chips and goldfish crackers). The rest of my output tends to result from allergies, so that’ll be a bit more challenging to reduce. I think I only take out one grocery bag of trash every 2 weeks, anyway.
I reuse all my coke machine soda cartons in various ways. Formerly, they were a major source of cardboard for armor patterning. And whether pattern-cut or not, it all eventually goes to the recycling center in monthly drop-offs en route to school.
Greenstyle Magazine put out a list of 101 things (from piddly to life-changing) you can do to green up.
Got an LCD monitor yet?
Avoid drivethroughs.
Eat less meat.
Skip the bottled water (or at least reuse the bottles like some people I know do). This one is huge. Stupid big. I appreciate the water snobbery, b/c I am one. That’s why I ruthlessly recycle my bottles for drinking, then for sharp cutting practice, then I finally recycle them monthly. And anyone who’s seen me at practice or an event knows I have that obnoxiously modern Nalgene bottle. Leather wrapping. Someday. Gulf Wars? Reasonable target.
Bring your own bags (cloth or otherwise) to the grocery store. I use my 4 Windrose Armoury bags for that.
My friend and WMA partner of 6 years, Chris C., is as near to a paragon of environmentalism as I know or can tolerate. :) He was on Green Mountain back when rates were $.08 / KWH and he paid $.23 / KWH (it certainly discouraged high usage, in addition to being green). Soon as he got his new job, he ditched the old Pontiac for a Prius. He’s been bringing his own cloth bags and tupperware containers to Whole Foods for as long as I’ve known him. One of my skeptical friends thought he was just another big talker, until we went out after practice one night, and we observed Chris being his normal, low impact self.
He’ll never know I wrote this, but I’ve always admired him for it.
Yeah, there’re no doubt greener folks in Austin, but I live in Houston, and we’re trying.
And I loved the fact that there were 2 Prii at Roses (Maaggie and .. I don’t know if the other Prius’s owners are on Xanga). But go you. You guys are making it possible for people like me to buy a used one in 5 years. :) Well, that may or may not be sensible, with the rumors of expensive battery replacement. I’ll do more thorough research when I get closer to replacing my soul-blackening SUV (that has served me well and with only moderate complaints these past 7 years).
[For the romantics among you, have a listen at Kissing, by Bliss.
I’m sooo glad I found out who it was by — for 3 years, I only had a 74-minute techno chill mix with the song in it.]
Take a look:
(Senator Clinton’s full plan; a short, easy read)
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/issues/energy/
Let her know you support it (if you do):
http://www.hillaryclinton.com/action/energyplan/
The Democrats have set out some really challenging (but feasible) targets on green and energy issues. I think that they’re a big step in the right direction (and the Republicans won’t be the first ones to stand for good, Christian stewardship of God’s earth so *someone* has to do it). And the plan appeals to the non-green-minded populace as well, with creation of 5 million jobs (primarily higher-tech, I might add), and $20 billion to help out the auto industry in this direction. But obviously, if they get Senator Clinton into office, horse-trading with the Republicans will water down and rein in some of them.
It’s still better than dicking around in the desert with boys and their toys.
I see the side of my pro-gun / libertarian friends, but when it comes right down to it, I believe more in the greater good than my own need for pro-gun platforms. I intend to be around in 2030 (and beyond), and I’d like to help make some real progress away from things like that direly blue and toxic SPF 2000 stuff from the Max Headroom / Mad Max / whatever movie. And since the Democrats are pro-choice, that makes my choice even easier. On that note…
For an interesting perspective on crime, did you know that NYC is America’s safest large city, at 6.9 murders / 100,000 people? Washington DC has 20.9/100k (29.1 if you go by the FBI’s 2005 figures). London has 2.4/100k murders. (These are 2006 figures)
On the flipside, London’s total crime index is 946/100k. DC’s is 6162/100k.
And the London papers are screaming about how unsafe the city is compared to the rest of the UK (roughly twice the national crime rate). <cocked eyebrow>
Rates of murders/total crimes seem in line with each other. I found some other news articles (one from the BBC, no less) that had really wacky numbers — 14,000 crimes / 100k pop in London in 2000.
There is no way London’s crime could have gone from 14k/100k to less than 1k/100k in 7 years. And it also means that 1.4 in 10 people were victimized annually. That’s not a city — that’s a warzone. It’s not possible even if an armada of flying Portuguese Man-O-Wars reached down out of the sky with their magic tentacles to promote hooliganism in London’s boisterous youth.
Oddly, the official Metro police report says there were 12,500 crimes against the person in 2000. I suspect someone misinterpreted raw totals with per-100,000 population index figures.
So do we need guns? Yes, if the 14k/100k figure is correct (but I haven’t found any other sources to support that huge number). Otherwise, no. It would appear that we are in fact better off living in a police state — I make this claim only where violent crime is concerned. :P
I didn’t check my number further b/c it is late and I felt I’d sufficiently cross-checked my facts and sources. :P
That said, I don’t plan on giving up my guns, present or future, any time soon. I *like* 7.62 x 39, thank you. I just think gun ownership doesn’t substantively correlate with increased personal safety on a societal level. And without proper close combat training, can be a hazard in self- or home-defense situations. In short, I think people should be able to responsibly own guns, but they shouldn’t argue that the guns promote personal safety.
Sources:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article407900.ece (2006 numbers)
http://www.met.police.uk/crimefigures/index.php (for 2000 and 2006)
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/dccrime.htm (supposedly sourcing its data in turn from the FBI, Uniform Crime Reports) (for 2000 and 2006 numbers)
http://www.london.gov.uk/gla/publications/factsandfigures/factsfigures/population.jsp (for 2001 census figures)
Intelligent counterpoint source (Lott, J. and Mustard, D. Crime, Deterrence, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handguns, University of Chicago, 1996.):
http://christianparty.net/gunstudy.htm
Alas, the research paper is hosted by an iffy site.
[Don’t know why I periodically write these things. It’s interesting, but kinda pointless, to see where I come from and how absurd past positions were.]
I thought I was living in the U.S., the most advanced nation in the world…
http://www.space.com/missionlaunches/071009-kaguya-update.html
http://www.jaxa.jp/press/2007/11/20071107_kaguya_movie_e.html
Sure, a moon probe by itself doesn’t mean anything. But the fact that these countries are really getting into the swing of pure space exploration (sending anything to the moon is currently a 9-figure loss, with no commercial benefits) means they have economic power and brains to spare.
So admittedly the Nikkei, at 17,000, has yet to reach 50% of where it last peaked at 38,000 in the ’80s. I’m, for once, trying to not be all sensationalistic about this. China (especially), India, and Japan have all come a long way since the ’70s, but http://www.economist.com/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10102893 says it’s not time to hide the women and the liquor just yet, ‘cos the Hottentots aren’t out to eradicate us — just make some big bucks and tech growth off us.
In the medium term, it’ll be pretty exciting and cool to see which countries grow to give the U.S. some more competition. Japan officially has the world’s second largest economy ($4.2 trillion to the US’s $13 trillion), but by purchasing power parity, China effectively has a $10 trillion GDP. India lags behind Japan by a hair at $4.16 trillion. (All this is out of a global economy worth $65 trillion, so the U.S. has a pretty nice slice out of 194 countries.)
Growth-wise, China has been giving us all a pasting at 11%. India’s just behind at 9%. Those are *amazing* numbers at the level of nation-states. 3% seems to be about typical (we’re at 2.9%). Japan’s the big loser at 2.2%.
The European Union combined manages to edge out the U.S. by $20 billion, but they’re not quite that coordinated yet.
(All numbers from 2006)
And a rising tide floats all boats, so here’s hoping the world overall does well and manages its growth effectively (runaway growth leads to crashes).
But we in the U.S. probably don’t want to get left behind, turned into a tech backwater reliant upon tourism and olive oil exports. Oh, wait. That’s Spain. Admittedly, Spain’s been doing well for itself since Franco kicked the bucket in ‘75, but it’s in 14th place and the last of the $1+ trillion economies. Canada, South Korea, Brazil, and even Mexico all beat out Spain — whose armadas and empire once spanned the globe.
Growth trends can be looked at a lot of ways:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dow_theory
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Product_life_cycle
But in a nutshell, you have the innovators (or people present at inception) who kick off something. Then you have the early adopters (or people in the know) who further contribute to sales growth, influence, power, whatever. Finally, you have the late adopters (i.e. the ignorant masses) who finally catch on that they’re missing out on something cool.
Unfortunately, the first phase is where the biggest action happens. The second phase may push total sales, influence, reach, power, etc. up further, but the impulse isn’t as big as in the first movement. The third phase is where the product or activity becomes commonplace. In terms of stocks, this final peak tends to be lower than the second peak.
But people only perceive that something is big once it’s in the second phase, moving into the third, by which point it’s already relatively in decline. Not necessarily in real quantities, but in influence or power or growth.
So Rome, Spain, et al were at their most colorful and grandiose at that point, when their growth had long ceased to be dynamic. And then when the slide down into obscurity happened, it caught people by surprise, b/c we see what is, rather than what will be. It’s easier to perceive the current quantity, than to calculate future growth. Or even to predict where something with constant velocity will be instead of something with even a simple, constant rate of acceleration (or deceleration). That last point ties into WMA and martial arts very well, BTW, but you won’t hear the gory details from me. :P
And I could make some sort of cautionary tale out of this, but I doubt the U.S. is going to collapse in 20 years or anything like that.
But the really important thing is that everybody needs to get sorted out, long-term. Lots of growth will lead to increased competition for a shrinking pool of resources. And when people can’t get their fuel, food and cheap entertainment, they get cranky. Like genocidal war kind of cranky. I like to cite Diamond’s book Collapse, wherein he says that the lists of top 10 places in the world with critical environmental problems (including overpopulation) also happen to be the top 10 politically unstable places. He gives a solid argument for reasons why, but I won’t repeat it here.
Zero-population growth and stabilizing per capita consumption are pretty much the *only* way to do it, medium to long-term. Longer-term, technological growth will let us do more with less, thereby effectively making the pie bigger, so that people’s relative slices stay the same but the real amount of fruity goodness increases. But that’s the work of decades, not fashion seasons.
Argh, I don’t need to wake up at 6 anymore, but I’m adrift in the seas of sleep madness. Past couple days have been like that. 4 hours, 2 hrs, 30 mins. Sometimes in class or a short window in the afternoon. Just haven’t been able to get to sleep. Haven’t been able to stay awake, either, but that’s to be expected.
Last night, I got out of Kaplan training (after 10) and dropped one of the other instructor trainees off at Rice. Did a bit of a workout, ran through my limited set of Shao Lin forms, then called it quits when I couldn’t do another push-up. I usually park across the street from campus, in one of the West U neighborhoods. Parked down in the stadium lot, visitors’ section (the farthest away, natch). Don’t think I’ll do that again — walking through the desolate expanse of the main lot is kinda depressing.
Stopped by Kroger on the way home. On a whim, picked up some BioKleen dishwash concentrate and Seventh Generation laundry stuff. Phosphate-free, etc. They’re pretty price competitive with (or cheaper than!) most of the non-green brands. Going to see if I can persuade my mother to try them out. I tried to substitute stuff that approximates her current preferences (liquid concentrate). If they work, I might try a switch to the powder versions, which’re even cheaper (and then we’ll see if we get any clumping issues).
I’ve seen reviews of them, plus they’re featured on various LOHAS (Lifestyles of Health and Sustainability) retail sites like www.gaiam.com. So it seems like the folks who A) care about this and B) are making money off of the upscale believers believe in those brands.
Aside from what little green research I’ve done (*not* into dishwashing detergents), I just don’t have time to research every product, and I kind of have to take it on faith (and some cursory fact-checking) that these products *are* environmentally sound alternatives.
I can’t be a hardcore hippy, but I hope at least I’m not just another dude who buys trendy things b/c they make him look good.
Unless they’re clothes.
Oh, wait. Not even if they’re clothes.
OK, unless they’re swords. Then I’m a total snob.
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