Which is the best martial art? Do 90% of fights go to the ground (It seems maybe not that many). Is traditional MMA the best ever? How should I train to kill a man with my pinky?

Well, I went to National Science Institute and searched. It turned out they'd done the research. It took me a while to find it, so I'm sharing it with you here. This is the flow-chart of internet arguments about martial arts ... according to them.

( Click. It's big. )
-Marco

Two of these, and fairly long, in the same day. Yeah, LJ-Cut time.

The First One - The Previous One

( Read more... )

And I have a terrabyte of storage, about 30 times more than in my PC. Isn't Moore's Law great!

I have investigated Valve's Left 4 Dead. I was cool to it because I felt that a game with three squad-mates would be a hassle: having to play over and over to get them all through, getting them lost around corners, etc.

And I never play online.

It turns out that the zombie-apocalypse thriller is not only slicker than I imagined it was slicker than I thought possible. The single-player mode is excellent.

And yesterday for the first time in decades I played online with Todd.

-Marco

This image of Obama allegedly "checking out" a 16 year old girl at the G8 summit in Italy is currently making the rounds:



I want you all to bookmark this video showing what really happened, as I know, I just know that this image will be used for "swiftboating" attempts against Obama until the end of the next American presidential elections at the very least.

The Legend is already forming...

Part I - Part II - Part III - Part IV - Part V - Part VI

(Part VI is still being fiddled with as I write this, but I need to keep moving even so)

-------------------------------------------------------

..............Slight & His Nibs..........

The manor on the hill was enormous.

With the back half set into the trees, and the front facing down over the town, it provided a near-perfect vantage.   The toppers of the second-floor windows were placed well to step to, grip the roof-edge, and simply swing up.  So, they sat on the tiles, and pointed out various features to one another. 

The English flags - very new flags, too - over all the town, but the cries from the market were not English at all.  Danes, maybe?  His Nibs thought so, and Slight admitted ignorance, but such exchanges were the meat of their relationship.

The coach, too, they admired.  Very like a proper English coach, surely, they both agreed.  They admired it almost halfways up the hill, before realising that it had passed the last possible turning-off.  Then they ducked heads behind the peak of the roof, and wondered if there was anywhere they might go to see and hear who had arrived.

.............The Barrie Family............

"Father!"

The children ran to father, and near to bowled him down, laughing and relieved to have finally made it loose from the ship again.  They could speak of nothing else; the boy and his light.  Sitting by the rail and watching as the edges of the jungle were combed had given some fun, it should seem, but it dragged on and on forever and ever, you see, and wasn't it all just so very strange and impossible and marvelous and horrid?

George was forced to agree that it was.  And then to bear the laughter of the cook, thinking she mocked him.  In a flash of pique, he turned,  before he saw that her dark face was open in pure delight.  Then he had to grin at her, a right fool of a jumped-up governor, but his children were safe and here.

The cook herself breached protocol, then, saying that there would not be a meal for a goodly hour, but if they all wished, there was a-plenty in the kitchen, table and chairs.  So it was that the governor of the island sat in his kitchen at a table with his cook, laughing and plain as if he were just George Barrie, as the children regaled them with the tale of the crossing, too, and the dreary boredom of England.

Mary, though, was quiet throughout.  George could not bring her to join in the welcome and homecoming.  He would find out later that she had been shocked so badly by the events near the shore that she had felt the need to question everyone about it, and to call everyone "Darling", as if it were a title - Captain, darling, Gwendolyn, darling, Micheal, darling.  He would live out his term on the island as Governor Darling, and smile at it...  But all that came later.

For now, the table, the joy of it, and the two boys outside the window that listened, so suddenly feeling more lost than ever before.

...............Mister Stark..............

The coachman was not willing to run his horses up to the Governor's house again so soon, and Stark was obliged to walk.

Just another humiliation to add to his listing for the day.  First, hearing he was to be put ashore while the captain went to make a few changes in the crew.  Second, to be the one to carry the captain's letter.   And third, to need to pace up this god-blasted hill, all twists and turns.

Captain James to take the pardon.  Now there was a turn, but the logic of it could not be faulted.  The island was off the line from any regular protection of the fleet, and so acting as port for English-flagged privateers was to their interest.  The Governor had been given rights to pardon any who would settle the island or take it as their home port for just this reason.  The Captain, thus, would have a very free hand indeed - trade, privateering, and smuggling all as one great lump could outpay their previous concerns quite handily.  A free hand; a piece of wit, that, he'd need to save it.

But why the captain had to lose a hand before he saw it, and why Stark was the one that had to carry the letter, were not such plain matters.  To the first, a thirst for revenge seemed obvious, but the captain had seemed cool to the suggestion - thoughtful, even.  And to the second, as first Mate, he could speak with some authority, sure, but even so.

Finally.  The manor.

................................................

The Next One

( Feedback of whatever kind is, as always, very desirable stuff.)

I've recently discovered Google Insight and am using it for all sorts of pointless trend analysis attempts - to see what's hot, and what isn't.

And apparently, LiveJournal is not so hot any more. Searches for it have declined by more than half since its peak in January 2005. This suggests that the community of LiveJournal users isn't really growing (with the possible exception of Russian Spambots), and that interest is slowly waning.

Blogging itself seems fairly stable at the moment, so there must be other trends filling up the void caused by the reduction of LiveJournal.Twitter, possibly - but what else is out there?

Hi all,

I'm somewhat new to GURPS in general and had a question about one specific rule.  It says that you can only block one attack per round.  It seems a little strange to me.  If I have a shield on my left arm and 3 archers fire at me from my left side, raising my shield should (possibly) block them.  I wouldn't block one and then have to dodge the other two.  I understand that the shield defense bonus raises all defenses, but that doesn't seem adequate.

I am reluctant to create house-rules for that type of situation since I am inexperienced with 4th edition gurps.  Has anyone here made a rule for this situation? 

I was considering a clarification that said you pick one general arc, either front or shield-side, and you can try to block attacks from that arc.  either that or you can raise your shield and it acts as cover would, forcing opponents to target exposed areas with the normal hit-location penalties.

thanks for your time.

Dreams, of course.

Last night I went to IUPUI (Indiana University of Purdue University of Indiana). Except it was my old grade school. Except the inside was an old Army barracks I once stayed in while on Ex in Florida. Except that ... well, let's just say things got freaky.

After a while it was back to Chaplinhaus (which makes sense, I lived there for two decades) and the damn secret passage again. That secret passage to the the abandoned third floor (which doesn't exist, and I don't mean the finished attic) has been in my dreams for twenty years now. I don't know why.

The genesis of the dream might start in JFA (James Foote VC Armoury) though. It would have been about two decades ago, before the massive rennovation to the block you see on the left and the rest of that wing (off the photo). Teaching Army courses there, we knew where there was a climb, a short scramble, and a drop (back when I could climb, scramble, and drop) that would lead you into the abandoned wing. Old offices, old halls, spiral stairs, a huge safe in the wall ... and an incredible grand staircase with a massive old chandelier encased in almost a half-century of cobwebs (when the wing had been closed after massive reductions in the military after the war) in that block on the left.

Walking down those abandoned halls, illuminated by thin beams of light between boarded windows, forming veils of dust dancing on the air, it was hard not to believe the building was haunted (and many believe that it is).

On the other hand, the non-existant secret floor in Chaplinhaus was always a (mostly) furnished and carpeted room, not out of kilter with the rest of the house.

Who knows how (or why) my brain works (or doesn't work) the way it does? Not me.

Doug.

Act V, Scene 2b: A) To a doubtful Horatio, Hamlet defends his decision to send Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to their deaths.

As noted last time, Horatio is the character who doesn’t push back against Hamlet. So it’s significant that he now privileges his role as audience stand-in over his position as Hamlet’s supporter and confidant. Like us, he protests the harshness of R & G’s fate. Stung, Hamlet simultaneously concedes the point and shifts the blame to Claudius. If he hadn’t killed Hamlet’s father and married his mother, he wouldn’t have set Hamlet on this corrupt path, letting “this canker of our nature come in further evil.”

This beat ends in dramatic defeat for Horatio, who, failing to get the assurance he seeks, shifts to the more comfortable pragmatic issue of how quickly Claudius will get news from England. If only by default, that makes it a victory for Hamlet. So we score this with one up and one down dramatic arrow for our two remaining PCs.

B) Another oleaginous courtier, the buffoonish Osric, shows up to issue an invitation. Hamlet befuddles him with a stream of contemptuous verbiage.

Once again, an apparent intrusion of comic relief introduces a darker note. Just as Claudius has corrupted Hamlet, he’s turning the court into a haven for clowns like Osric. Osric has no choice but to cheerily deflect Hamlet’s scorn, giving him a (somewhat cheap) emotional victory. But since Osric is a ridiculous lackey figure, we feel he deserves it.

C) Osric lays out the terms of the wager and duel with Laertes.

A pure procedural beat, this exposition sets up the final confrontation. We know that Claudis and Laertes are scheming to secretly kill Hamlet, so his acceptance of the duel increases our fear for him and thus counts as a procedural down moment.



Full map here.

'Nuff said really.

Musings: I consider myself a feminist, one of the on-the-ground variety as opposed to a theorizing one. (There's nothing wrong with someone writing the theory, it's useful and necessary, but it's just not my bent.) So with that in mind, two expressions I've read often lately really get on my nerves.

(1) Douchebag. I don't use the implement myself; it's rarely necessary for anyone for hygiene, and often likely to make one more susceptible to yeast infections. That said, using an item intended for gynecological health as the ultimate expression of contempt really, really bugs the shit out of me.

(2) Slut-shaming. I have a vague notion that the expression means "making women feel unworthy for not upholding one's standards of moral purity", or "assigning the blame for inequalities or assault to women for acting as sexual beings", but it just sounds dumb and contradictory to me. I particularly despise it when it's used as counter-feminist argument when one complains of the image of women-as-available-sex-slaves projected by a lot of the porn (and media) industry.

Book 31/50 Best Served Cold by Joe Abercrombie, tp, 535 pages.

This book is a sequel (in that it happens after the events in Abercrombie's First Law trilogy: The Blade Itself, Before They Are Hanged, and Last Argument of Kings) but it isn't a narrative sequel. The action moves to Styria (a land only mentioned in First Law) and although one of the two main characters in the narrative is a supporting character of the trilogy (the Northman Caul Shivers, for instance), and a number of supporting characters do show up to reprise their roles, Best Served Cold stands alone.

Styria is much like historic Italy of Machiavelli, Hawkwood, the Medicis and the Borgias . A number of city states, pressure from outside forces, rapidly shifting alliances ... and treachery.

Monza Murcatto commands a mercenary regiment in the employ of the Grand Duke of Talins. Betrayed by her employer and left for dead she swears vengeance on the seven who were present, and ends up gathering together a parcel of rogues to help her accomplish her bloody goal.

As always (so far) Abercrombie's characters are all truly flawed beings. I'm sure there's a well-adjusted character there somewhere (and now that I think of it, there is an ex-Practical who seems relatively even-keeled). Abercrombie continues to do a good job of playing on those flaws, and characters grow (although not always in the direction they chose) as they pursue Monza's dire course. Yet amongst the grim work and the bloody scenes is a thread of humour that keeps the books from being too dark.

A year or two ago I hailed Abercrombie as "sword pr0n sans pareil." He hasn't lost his touch. His action scenes are edge-of-your-seat, slipping on the floor, elbow in the face, swirling melees that do more to bring across the absolute chaos of combat than any other author I can recall. Even if the rest of the book wasn't a roller-coaster of intrigue, betrayal, and tension (and it is) for that alone I would give Best Served Cold a glowing recommendation.

In the earlier trilogy there is a bit of a "Fantasy Travelogue." Despite understanding the reasons they're included, my patience for such travelogues has been worn thin. (And Erikson, for all that I love his books, has just about worn me down to an uncaring non-reader with his). In Best Served Cold, although Monza and her band of nefarious henchmen criss-cross Styria as they pursue her revenge, Abercrombie neatly sidesteps the Travelogues, each "book" starting in a new region. It works for Dumas and Edmond Dantès (sort of my archetype for clever vengeance driven protagonists ... and one whose voyage has some (although not every) parallel with Murcatto), who we did not need to follow travelling from France to Italy and back to Paris to know that he did so. It works for Abercrombie as well, and since I'm done gushing incessantly about this book, let's call it five stars and move on.

Doug.

I got a Blu-Ray player last night from Best Buy. I'm not intrinsically against Blu-Ray but I had been in no hurry at all to get one. I'm not an audiophile or a videophile by nature: I do want the "premium experience" in general but not enough to pay exorbitant prices--and the cheaper Blu-Ray players didn't appeal to me.

But our DVD wasn't working so when we took it back Best Buy pulled an amazing customer-service move: they looked up Gina's purchase on the computer (we didn't have the receipt), did not stick to their 30-day return policy (the DVD player was a Birthday present from December), and offered us either another DVD of the same sort or the full purchase price towards ... well ... anything else.

So I got an LG wireless Internet enabled Blu-Ray player. I set it up this morning but have yet to do anything with it.

-Marco

View series to date here.

Purple fingers. Yawn. We need a new code-image for "look at the little darlings with their elections in developing countries; they'll be walking next".

News media in China and HK were announcing SBY's win yesterday evening, which struck me as suspiciously early. I'm not trying to do Indonesia down, but if it takes the US longer than a day to count the results, how's The World's Largest Archipelago going to manage it so fast?
But it turns out those were just exit polls, so never mind.
.

I mailed out some books that have been in packages all addressed for MONTHS. that means you Ide and KC!

am only touching cmoputer approx. 5 min per hour or every 2 hours if i'm good. hands/arms espec right hand are v painful tendonitis am on full rest and celebrex with predinsone is a couple days if that doesnt improve. i have to take time w/out pay from work ugh.

to blog about soon whenever i can

- oscon - doing Ignite talk - Your Flying Jetpack!
- blogher geek lab talk on Dreamwidth coming up
- the tolliver family books
- the saffy's angel books
- gundam wing
- organization theory book by kevin carson and how it ends up almost exactly in feminist sf utopia. lolzor! zond7 said Oh and volume 2 is the feminist theory one where he makes sure ab out child care and raising and i got super excited but it was a joke.
- corner store internet kiosk idea. might try it maybe end of summer. go blog in corner store and offer info services free
- wall e movie and how much they hate on people in wheeelchairs
- how will i travel in chicago to blogher if i can barely wheel myself? i guess i'd still go but just constatnly ask for help. aggravating/scary
this is too much typing

I miss the internet ow ow ow ow

This entry was originally posted at http://badgerbag.dreamwidth.org/306799.html. Please comment there using OpenID.

http://kotaku.com/5307391/infamous-defeats-prototype-in-cross+dressing-playoff

Stolen from Jason. Never before have I ever thought to myself, "Damn, I wish I was a Russian!"


A detail of a helmet.



There are five dozen photos from the session and a lot of Russian text, but if you have ever played in a costumed event, or a post-apocalyptic game (table-top, computer, whatever) then you really should check this out.

Doug.

She is, in my reading of her behavior, dogmatic, incurious, irascible, vindictive, dishonest, manipulative, trivial in her view of the world, and unjustifiably self-righteous. Katie Couric did the country a great service by bringing those traits to the fore in her unforgettable TV interview with Palin in September; the Pulitzer Prize committee missed an opportunity when it failed to recognize her work, easily the best piece of journalism of 2008.
--Peter D. Kramer, Does Sarah Palin Have Narcissistic Personality Disorder