My little corner of the Web, to talk about things as and when they become available.
I have a lot of things I find interesting, and hopefully I will be able to write more about them here. This blog is an experiment, an exercise in creation, an outlet for getting things out of my head so they can live longer in a relatively nicer place.
The recent Futility Closet story about Floyd Collins reminded me about Omayra Sanchez. So many well-meaning people, so many resources and more than enough time. And somehow both people die.
I wonder if some of them didn't try as hard because a bad ending would have made for a better story?
I just want to say, we don't have this in my country. And we don't have reliable statistics on the wrongfully-convicted. Seeing as there is most likely a pretty substantial percentage who don't get to stay alive until they reach the court.
I guess everyone is fascinated with the question of how well they would do in the event when society's support systems fail. When the [insert qualifier here] Apocalypse comes, how long will you last?
I think it's easier to answer these questions if we look at a less extreme case, where someone voluntarily abandons a group/community and tries to make it on his own. How well does he do? How prepared was he?
Like the case of Philip Johnson. It's depressing how one can screw up his life despite having all the promise in the world, just because he couldn't follow the rules. This brings to mind Marc MacYoung's words on the subject:
Relationships are economies. When I talk about economies, I'm referring to a back and forth of goods, services and emotional investments. Both parties are benefiting, both parties are active participants and -- most of all -- it's give and take. (For years I had a deal with the women I lived with. She cooks, I'll do the dishes. Together we got it done via this equal division of labor.)
We do more for those inside our family/clan/tribe than for those outside. While we may do random acts of kindness and charity to strangers, mostly, we reserve our good deeds, empathy and concern for 'our own.' It's a very inside kind of thing.
Outside, there are certain social standards that allow strangers to -- if not get along -- get through their day and take care of business. These are kind of broad, general standards that do have some specific application -- like you behave differently in a church than you do in a restaurant than you do walking down the street. People are generally expected to understand these unwritten rules in order to get through the day.The point is, these behaviors are kind of standard and really shouldn't have to be explained to adults. As an added benefit, extra courtesies are gifts (e.g., holding the door for someone, giving an elderly or infirm person your seat on public transportation.)
It's a sobering lesson. This is the threshold of adulthood: realizing you're not hot stuff, and that you need to observe the customs of where you are to fluorish. I see myself in that violin thief, and I affirm that he is not someone I want to continue to be.
It kind of struck me hard, reading this news about Baby J. I've experienced being mediocre despite knowing I could do better. I've seen my friends move on to bigger and better things. I've choked on a career-changing moment before, even.
I'm lucky that my hiatuses have only been for three months at a time. But she's been plugging away for two years.
The thing with her field is that it's so horribly competitive. The top won't budge, and every year more people are debuting at the bottom. Management has different priorities from advancing your personal career, and fans get tired of you - if they don't become rabid anti-fans first. People like her get edged out, then without a support system her skills degrade. It's hard to keep up the same performance level when you have to spend majority of your waking hours doing unrelated work to get the money for food or rent.
I write this to be reminded that effort and perseverance and everything else isn't always rewarded. You don't know what will happen. You just keep on going believing that you'll reach your dream.
I have this nice metaphor I've developed about the martial arts. See, if you go to multiple samgyeopsal places in South Korea you'll notice each one has a different interpretation of the food. Each place has its own set of side-dishes that accompany the meat; and they use different ingredients for a marinade, that is if they do use one.
There might be a recommended way to eat the meat after it's cooked...
The meat might be smoked first before being seared...
And the meat might be scored to increase the surface area and give a distinct texture.
Back in the day, practitioners were from every background you can imagine, and their experiences were just as varied. There were scholars, bandits, bodyguards, chefs, mercenaries, soldiers, opera actors, ordinary people, security guards, even gangsters. There were those who fought on the lei tai (maybe it wasn't called that, but the culture might have had something similar), others fought in the back-alleys or slums. Others didn't fight at all. All of them would have had different ideas on what was "sporting." Or they wouldn't have had any such term in their vocabulary.
My teacher told me this story. That his teacher's grand-teacher (four generations removed from me) sold oranges on the sidewalk. And was still scarily good even in his old age. So you see, martial skill is grassroots; jealously guarded and lovingly honed over a person's life. It is an individualistic endeavor. Much like the mom-and-pop eateries of South Korea.
The psychics were only too happy to oblige him his fantasies. They gave him the feeling that he was doing things, that he was getting closer to his goal. That somehow things were finally going his way. That there was a point... Sadly that's how occultism generally goes - a great big con job.
I've been there, same as him. But I never let it get to the point he's in now. I was lucky - if I had been born with an active gene for substance abuse or mental disability, I would probably be right up there. But who knows what the future holds? I might still get to experience things from his point of view.
I read about this feature, detailing what netizens in South Korea feel like about the college experience - basically, that it's better to be the dragon's tail, i.e. last among elites, than to be the head of a snake (first among inferiors).
I would say, basing from what I've read and from my own personal experience, that this is not so. Being last in an elite school means that after graduation the recruiters will just pick everyone else who ranked above you. You get to participate in a stressful rat race for position instead of getting the room to experiment and grow.
And in the end all you would have achieved is a fancy piece of paper. Big deal, everyone has that piece of paper.
Being the head of a snake is fine, so long as you plan to turn into a dragon; but remaining a snake is fine too - because you'll end up happier in the long run.
The guy was walking near the parking lot outside the office. He was absorbed with his phone so he didn't see the car exiting the parking lot. Car's driver honked his horn and startled phone guy probably, because after the latter looked up and registered the car that almost hit him he proceeded to act all cocky by slowing down his walking pace. Driver got even more impatient and honked his horn, phone guy kept on taking his bloody time - blocking driver from getting off the parking lot.
Eventually there was enough room for the car to get out. Driver then pulled up to phone guy; driver kept the car going abreast of phone guy as he walked. I heard some words being exchanged, some manly staring. Then driver sped the car up and went on with his life.
...It is true that most experimental subjects were somewhat swayed by the group. Fewer than a quarter of experimental subjects resolutely chose the correct line every time. (In a control group, unaffected by social pressure, errors were rare.) However, the experiment found that total conformity was scarcer than total independence. Only six out of 123 subjects conformed on all 12 occasions. More than half of the experimental subjects defied the group and gave the correct answer at least nine times out of 12. A conformity effect certainly existed but it was partial.
...Conformity was already a well-established finding by 1951, and his experiments were designed to contrast with earlier research on social norms. This previous research showed that people conformed to social pressure in situations where there was no clear correct answer — for instance, when asked to identify which of two ungrammatical sentences was the most ungrammatical. But Asch wanted to know if peer pressure would also wield influence when the crowd was unambiguously wrong. His research provided an answer: social pressure is persuasive but, for most people, the facts are more persuasive still.
So if total conformity is a rarity, then that means the Nazis and those who supported them can't use the "Everyone was doing it" excuse. When you are in an environment of corruption, joining in is ultimately your own choice; you chose to be the three out of 12 who were swayed by the group.
I find stuff like this informative because the problems being discussed affect all of us. It's just that women are the biggest victim demographic right now; but any race or individual or age group or gender or whatever group rises in the future can be a target for harassment and worse.
See, this is something I have a small problem with about Western comics. The major publishing houses that are DC and Marvel rely too much on the same stable of characters, in the same universe. There's variation by changing the people bearing the names of the characters (but usually this results in a return to the status quo), or by giving characters power upgrades (like the one in the video above).
In Japan, stories in comics have a start and an end. Authors can be expected to write about more than one universe, more than one setting, more than one set of characters. And more often than not you'll see characters using their powers in creative ways. Sometimes the characters don't have powers at all; they use their cognitive ability.
Tim Harford makes for some good reading. I particularly like this article of his about how multitasking isn't necessarily all bad. As with everything in life, there are nuances.
I'm having trouble with multitasking. Even when doing programming jobs at work I have to finish things one at a time, which is bad when one issue proves to be pretty ornery. Right now I can only put focus on two things; if I'm into programming and hand combat skills I can't focus on Go or Japanese. I blame not being organized when I was younger. If I'd gotten this down back in college I wouldn't be struggling so hard.
This New Yorker article talks about Harvey Levin and his private CIA, TMZ. He changed the whole celebrity-chasing game by insisting on hard proof and compensating his sources. What I am also particularly impressed by is how a positive externality came out of his endeavors - exposing unethical behavior of marines in Afghanistan.
Then again, he does take responsibility for launching Kim Kardashian...
Kotaku recently featured a performance during some martial arts demonstration in China. This video which was also shown on the article displays the skill. I have an interest in these things; in fact, if things had gone differently I might be right up on stage doing a variant.
This is not a put-down of the performance. I hate to rag on a martial arts performance, I consider it the province of internet trolls and armchair practitioners. This post is not a commentary meant to drag down the practitioner on the video. This is, rather, an analysis of what he's possibly doing, in the interest of learning something important to my own practice. I hope that's clear and no misunderstandings will be had.
Leaving aside techniques like hiding padding under the uniform or having an actual castrated person do the thing. We can see that the contraption they built is very unstable; it needs people to hold on to the supports, the poles are not sunk into the ground, the weight is suspended via chains. The weight as a result would be moved back by the opposing force as it hits the guy. The lack of rigidity means only a fraction of the potential force will be passed on to the target, like if you punched someone with a limp wrist.
The person moving the weight also isn't imparting much force with the weight. He's jumping up and down, rather than driving off with one leg into a falling step.
Notice also that the weight acts like a pendulum. If the bricks had instead fallen down vertically, 100% of the force from the weight of the bricks would be transferred. Since the bricks move horizontally we're lucky if we even get half of that. The surface contacting the body once the hit happens is pretty big, that also serves to further reduce the damage from impact. And also the weight hits the guy on the upswing, when the weight would surely be losing momentum...
In another place you could say this is illegal, but we're talking about martial arts - "cheating" like this, where you try to maximize the advantages available to you, is perfectly acceptable. The highest level of martial arts is cheating and dirty fighting, basically anything that lets you win with minimum effort and injury.
Regarding what the performer is himself doing, and this is what interests me very much, he moves to meet the weight. This further reduces the force that gets transmitted to him. Moving laterally would be too obvious, and anyway he can't move too far in that direction on account of the stance he's in. I think there's a slight downward vector to his movement, like he's sinking down as well as moving forward. I believe that's what allows him to generate the power necessary to snuff out the force coming at him. The same concept was taught to me actually - meeting an attack - and it wouldn't be strange if other CMA schools knew about this.
I say he's only sinking and not rooting because in the case of the latter he would not have needed to move his legs. Moving the legs by the way allows him to "vent" force he can't absorb. He takes the hit with his pelvis and pubic bone - this still could be a source of injury, so I'm sure he trained to toughen those areas enough. Next time I play with push-hands I'm going to try "venting" the force and changing the target.
So then, is that all there is to know about Iron Crotch? Not at all; these combat skills are pretty deep. The one who taught my current teacher, he could draw up his testicles into his body. This was verified by my teacher and at least two others; when using the skill his scrotum did not feel like it had testicles in them. This master completed the training long ago, but he was still able to have children. What's more, he taught the training method to gain this ability. I'm too afraid to practice it though, given what I know now about testicular torsion. I do not want to gamble that way.
The person who came up with the martial system I am training in was trained in Liuhebafa. I unfortunately never met him, though I did at one point have opportunity to do so; I was told that he did see me, at least in video form - he watched me doing some push-hands with the one who is teaching me now, a student of his.
Just now I found this article reprinting an interview with Wai Lun Choi, who is the recognized lineage holder of the art. The interview probably was in Chinese, I would not have understood what was being said if it weren't for Mr. Troy who I'm guessing is the one who did the translation.
The part I found most interesting was the story of how LHBF came to be. Now obviously the veracity of the claim is suspect; it was common practice back then for martial schools to connect their practice with some famous personage for added legitimacy and prestige. And learning from long-forgotten writings is a tired trope - just look at every work out there in the wuxia genre and you can't help but be jaded.
But that Chen Hsi I, the founder of this old and storied style, failed the civil service examinations; examinations which, and here I quote the interview, were "the route to employment in the Confucian bureaucracy." And which there were no do-overs, apparently. This Chen Hsi I who could have lived a life of comfort decided to of all things be a recluse stuck in a cold mountain with the barest of necessities.
Were it not for his writings being discovered some time later, we would not have this system now. Imagine if his papers had somehow become nest to termites; or if a fire had broken out; or if someone had used them to wipe his ass after he took a shit. So many things that could have gone wrong, didn't.
I wonder also if Chen Hsi I did not really intend to teach his style. Was he too old by the time he had completed it? Or was he too afraid of failing again? If it were me, I would have been terrified. I would not have left the door of my room.
If he had wanted to teach, but could not, did he feel like all his study in the end was for naught? Maybe he felt himself a failure twice over, for not even leaving anything behind in the world?
My teacher's teacher, he saw what he taught being transmitted, however inefficiently. He passed with the knowledge that the thing he loved is going to live on.
Wing Chun students who look back to Cantonese Opera as a critical link
in the transmission of their system often assert that dummies were
either part of the ships rigging or were actually mounted on the
specially built (and highly uniform) fleet of Red Boats. Opera students
are said to have used them in both their basic training of performance
skills as well as in their pursuits of the higher reaches of Wing Chun
system. In fact, the Red Boats are often imagined as floating martial
arts schools.
If we accept this, then that means that at one point Wing Chun practitioners were training on their dummies very differently from now. The action of the waves on the ship would have caused practitioners to have unstable footing, adding a small amount of unpredictability when they issue their techniques. People would have had to work harder to gain footing, let alone the necessary grounding/rooting.
I think this is why it's important to know the history of your art - you gain insights into how your predecessors actually trained.
The world is filled with people who can do amazing things because of hard work. Back in the day these skills would be kept within families, as they were a source of livelihood. Now individuals keep these arts alive and teach them - sometimes for a fee...
This verse in the Bible talks about the birds in the air, and how we should not fear for our future because God values us more than birds, whom He already greatly cares for.
...Except He doesn't, really. Care about them all that much, I mean. Birds don't have food shoved down their throats. They have to search for food from wherever. I've even seen birds eat leftover scraps of chicken off trash from a fast-food restaurant.
Animals in the wild contend with competition, starvation, parasites, inclement weather... the list goes on. We don't see those who can't adapt to these circumstances. And when we fell trees for our own human reasons the birds lose shelter and food.
If God treats His birds this way, whom He cares for, what can we, who are supposed to be more valuable, come to expect?
I came across this video and the panel ended up discussing the fundamental attribution error as it applies to the current developments in the Ahmed Mohamed incident. It's a pretty good explanation about what the cognitive bias is.
Yesterday I was taught the final set of postures to complete my kungfu school's form. It took me about three years to get everything; now starts the process of correction and refinement. I need to be able to use it in real applications, get the flow and intention down, etc. And also since my teacher doesn't have to spend so much time teaching the form we can concentrate more on partner work, all the way until I am proficient in sparring.
I still have to do the foundation exercises though, along with several drills and training methods to bring out the flavor of the style. And then someday, I have to learn how to be able to transmit it to someone else.
I have not finished anything of note at all, to be honest...
I believe the following clips are leading me to a breakthrough in my practice. Sharing them here so I won't forget, and so that someone may benefit from them as well.
I remember watching a documentary about my country's police force. A cop was responding to a report of a mugging. He was late, so he tried to do patrols around the general area perps usually frequented on the off-chance he might find the criminal. By a stroke of luck he found the criminal, who bolted. Mr. Cop gave chase, all the way into shanties - think like the old Kowloon Walled City, but wide instead of tall - in the dead of night.
Now, Mr. Cop might be a lot of things but he has my respect for being brave enough to go into the dark where knives and drug addicts and professional criminals and cop-haters abound, at night without backup other than a cameraman.
What he was not though, was possessing of mighty endurance. He had to stop and the perp disappeared around a corner. For a while, it seemed like a clean getaway. But lo! Our intrepid authority figure spied lounging against a wall, a man who could have been in his twenties or forties. Mr. Cop put a hand on him, asking who he was, where he lived. The man was calm, even after our policeman put the handcuffs on him. It seems like our hero has caught his man.
I remember distinctly, wondering why the "perp" wasn't even breathing hard or sweating after an extended chase. He didn't have anything on his hands, no jewels or money or weapons. He had already outrun the cop, why then would he suddenly decide to stop and pretend he was a bystander, in his own turf?
Mr. Cop had a cameraman shadowing him; he elected to chase after a criminal; he couldn't have ended the adventure empty-handed. The bystander was convenient. Most likely, he was wanted for something or was about to be wanted for something - that's usually the way things go with people from the slums. The poor sap was there. That was all our cop needed.
I have come to understand that apologizing does not indicate the admission of guilt. It is a social ritual, a tactic by which people can restore harmony to strained relations with those of their group. You make a demonstration of recognizing that you have hurt someone, for the purpose of showing that you either did not mean to cause hurt or that the hurt that was caused was something you did not want.
There is a strategic dimension to apologizing. It is a quick and painless way to get over the current situation so that you and your people can refocus on the greater concerns. Before industrialized times this might mean working together to get the harvest done or taking down that big prey. The one being apologized to accepts the apology to get things back into the status quo. There might be lingering feelings and the offended party might not want to forgive the offender, but the former accepts the apology because there are bigger fish to fry and a mutual concession will get things over with quicker. Plus, if he doesn't accept the apology he risks looking like the douche in the exchange, and might end up being blamed for the group's continued disharmony.
Eventually the bad feelings are forgotten, because in a true group - at least, one that isn't dysfunctional - the more intense feelings die out while each member continually displays value the others find they could not live without.
The point is that apologizing isn't about forgiveness or making any individual feel better. It's about the group and the group's continued survival. By my definition, apologizing is a social construct for small, tight-knit, non-dysfunctional groups. Apologizing as I define it would not work when one is doing it to loose groups of slacktivists or immature governments. When people want to see the flaws, no one is perfect; when someone falls off the pedestal they crow in delight because they were "correct" - not much else matters.
When one side can hold your future hostage by affecting your livelihood, and this side has no actual incentive to accept your apology and instead can continue to put the squeeze on you - to "ruin" you, I believe the term is - apologizing doesn't work. But - and here's a thing I learned at no small cost to myself - if they can't get organized enough to endanger your livelihood or freedom, if they don't really matter to you as individuals, when the only thing the monkeys can damage is your own monkey mind, then it's fine not to apologize.
Let's say you work in a company, and rumors about you begin to spread and a faction forms that wants to "teach you a lesson". Well, many of these people will move on because "teaching you a lesson" ultimately doesn't raise their pay or put food on the table. The faction's members really won't even be that close to each other; the most that will come out of it are a handful of Facebook connections. Facebook connections whose only real value are to fluff out newsfeeds and like pretentious selfies.
But what if you were in an environment where backlash of any kind can endanger your prospects? What if you were a public figure or an artist whose income is derived from the patronage of fans? I must admit that I don't have an answer for it, but I do know apologizing isn't the answer.
It was recently after I graduated that I got to work for a company fielding customer service calls. In the office there was this one person who liked to wear short skirts. While there was a dress code, it wasn't strictly enforced - shorts were fine, even pajamas were okay too.
She had friends in the office; most of them were male, or at least those I saw gravitating to her were. There were two lesbians she was close with too. This subgroup of the greater circle that was her office acquaintances, used to call her "Easy Access" - because presumably her short skirts provided that convenience.
There was one time I was talking to another co-worker about their computer station layout or whatever, I forget. But for some reason or other I remember saying something was for easy access; turned out she was close and had overheard. She gave a quick glance, then went back to her work.
I wonder how long it took before she stopped thinking people were referring to her when someone said "easy access." And I hope she found a better circle of friends.
Recently I saw on TV a mother being interviewed. Her family is dirt-poor, their house is such a hovel the crew filming couldn't get in and the interview had to be done outside. She has nine children, each about a year apart from each other. Her husband works as a carter while she does laundry on the side to get money. Minutes into the bit the husband walks in on the interview; he'd just woken up from a night spent drinking. Further questioning reveals the family has not even gone to consult about family planning methods.
Those with gainful income are supposed to pay tax so the government is able to improve the country and help people climb the ladder of social classes. The government is supposed to provide tools and opportunities for people to rise up, to change their lot in life if they were dealt a bad hand. But what are we supposed to do about people like this, who seem to can't stop making the hole they are in deeper? How are you supposed to wish for health and good education for your family in the new year with those circumstances?
The interviewers ended the segment by giving the family food and money. I hope they will be able to use this to turn things around, because they won't get another opportunity like this again.
