training

Some times, I have been tempted to write about training, but I stop myself on the grounds that I am unlikely to say anything new or particularly profound. It could only last so long though... [that is my reluctance, as opposed to novelty or profundity] :/

In the club the word basic is attached to certain exercises- most of them, really. It does not take long to appreciate this is a blatant misnomer.

I find the skills constituting martial arts mastery- mastery of the body too, I suppose- are horribly simple. Inconceivably simple.

The modern human body is broken. Most of us sit around in offices, in front of TVs and chalkboards, completely unfamiliar with physical motion. I think of myself as pieces- two arms, two legs, shoulders, chest, torso, hips, and the list goes on. Little wonder everything I do is so complicated (and wrong), I am concentrating on moving lots of parts simultaneously.

Martial arts, yoga, dancing, among other things change the perception of the body from one of pieces to a single thing. No more worrying what moves when, it just happens. Simple.

In conclusion, there is nothing simpler than being a master. Nothing more difficult either.

I had a dream... rant

Saw the inauguration speech. Amazing stuff, I was overcome by positive feelings for the future. He has a rich voice. He evoked powerful imagery. He said all the right things with jaw-dropping eloquence and smoothness. Fantastic stuff.

He has my sympathy.

Anyone else coming after Bush would have a cakewalk, but he carries a messianic burden. Nothing but perfection will be lauded. Considering the hand dealt, perfection will have to be more perfect than usual.

Good luck Obama!

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[EDIT: after sleeping on it. This little ditty really does not paint me in a nice light at all. So I changed bits and pieces to seem nicer]

Went to my first room-viewing. On the walk over it struck me that a viewing is like a date. After a pause, I pffffed derisively at myself. Any social interaction is like any other. One illustrates by action, word and appearance the values one wishes to represent and provoke or evoke in others. [EDIT: We do like to be liked]

The viewing went well, it is the kind of place I would like to live- lots of space, friendly housemates and a choice of white walls to shine the projector on. 8D

I believe: "If you can't be rude to your friends, you can't be rude to anyone"

At Salsa last week, I bumped into one of the lads I know by name. To be friendly, I offered an opinion about the current meteorological state of Dublin, with which he agreed.

Three years ago an American exchange student and I spent a lot of time together. We were in Dublin for the summer away from our families and our classmates had more groups than us vying for their time. Once, walking down Henry st, Courtney commented on the weather. I met this with stony silence. She knew my stance on idle banter.

The word bastard has been used in reference to me, and I will admit that the above anecdote supports the malediction. I have a reason.

Idle banter is far from idle. When idle banter is brandished, somebody is probing, testing, either consciously or unconsciously, obliquely checking for common ground and appeal. It is amazing how much we give away by word choice and mannerisms.

I think conversation serves a purpose- it teaches, entertains, informs or instructs.* I think idle banter is proto-conversation, a precursor, a prelude and other things pre-.

I was affronted when Courtney brought idle-banter to bear on me. Since that summer, I am less irked by idle banter amongst friends. Some have trouble with silence. Depending on how entertaining- some people babble**- and sensitive- my mother doesn't care for it-they are about being met with silence, I'll accommodate them [and we dip back into the bastard region]. But I feel justified in loosing a bolt of it at a stranger. So I ain't a hypocrite, but maybe a sophist. :|

I concede that appearances can be misleading. Apparently idle banter can be pregnant with subtext, be it flirting or some kind of verbal fencing, which of course is not idle at all and lots of fun.

I dealt Gleb a bout of silence today, I've seen brooks that babbled less :P

*It is an idea my junior certificate English teacher mentioned with regard to written compositions. I figure it holds for all media, except maybe the internet.

**In the Discworld books based in Ankh-Morpork (Guards, Guards, Feet of Clay, Jingo, The Truth, Going Postal, etc.), the Patrician's favoured interrogation technique is silently letting babble run rampant

What is the "411"?

I freely admit that I have little if any discernment when it comes to the TV shows I watch. My current shame is Gossip Girl.

• Finally a TV show about the idle rich and the trials they suffer
• Typical class-wars, middle class family in it for a good education, rich families just in it
  
• It is easy to forget that these people are supposed to be 14-17 years of age, they drink like fish and no one, not even their parents say a thing
• The leading lady (Blake Lively) is incredibly irritating, a moaning-Mavis of a magnitude once reserved for that one from Grey's Anatomy
• People have horrible falling-outs: making public who died because of who presence, etc and then talk about their feelings and how the "squabbling" was nothing more than transference of some other stress in their lives

But it is not all bad.

• The people are petty, shallow, materialistic & melodramatic
• There is Chuck Bass & Blair Waldorf- manipulative, abusive, self-centred- and- and manipulative

Were this an unweighed pro-con additive-subtractive decision... I would stop watching now, but really to borrow a fabulous in the tone of Kevin, the horrible people in it are- well you know- fabulous.

Weekend Armageddon

Had a dream last night, one of the first one I remember since the last chronicled...
It was a first person dream, accompanied by a narrative at times (I blame TV for my predictable story type) :/

[Fade in]
I'm part of a mass-exodus [sounds good, but I fear it redundant- since exoduses are massive things any way- though I don't fear enough to remove it].

The narrator informs us of an impending revolution by disenfranchised anarchists and others with a similar distaste for the money driven nature of the world. A time for the global revolt was circulated, the internet is a marvelous thing. Being a big secret, everyone knew about it- hence the running away and whatnot.

I was on a train. By the time we got to the picket line- manned by the army to make sure no unsavoury characters got on the other side- it all kicked off. There was gunfire and screaming farther back from the picket. The firefight catches up to where I was and there is complete mayhem. Fortunately I get away from it and onto an evacuation train. [I'm pretty sure that the soundtrack to 28 days later was playing for these harrowing moments of flight.]

It brought us to a station outside at a carnival celebrating the mockalypse [mock apocalypse]. The entire thing was a hoax. No one got injured. It was all in aid of blowing-off steam for everyone. The theme of the fair was "Surviving in a Post-Apocalyptic World", inhabited by Mad-Maxian punks and degenerates and less apocalyptically adjusted denizens. I got to beat up two guys at the same time in a bit of well humoured rough-housing.

Left the carnival, got on a departing train. Some considerate individual had organized the disgarded belongings of the run aways, so picked up my stuff without any hassle. Went home to bed.

[Fade out]

Currently I think that it means it is possible to go nuts for a while an return to normalcy- something I have been sceptical about.

Keynote, you hold the key to my Ire

I watched the Macworld Keynote presentation. I did not enjoy it.

No Steve Jobs this year. But the people there could well have been channelling him, Keynote Bingo is still applicable.

Now. The presentation... [shudders]... had: poor use of repetition, Halting speech, Cringing drawn-out statments- "... I don't know about you, but when I look at this photo and I look at this big gorgeous glowing Apple up in front of it and I think 'what other company's logo could be there' - could you ever imagine. And I can't. I can't think of one company in the world that could have a store that beautiful. Such incredible customers bringing all their energy and love to-to visit with our stores and talk with the sales consultants, get help with the genius..."

Mr Shiller is senior vice president of Worldwide Product Marketing, is it unrealistic of me to expect good presentation practice from him? [I do feel like I am kicking a puppy saying this, since they guy is so earnest about all things apple]

They said they had 37.7% growth in 2008, whereas PC only grew 15.2%. Mac hold 5-10% of the US PC market. Using raw-ish numbers PC growth cited above is 4 times greater than this. Data normalising is sneaky. >:( [wags finger] It is easier for a small things to double-up, or some fraction thereof, than for large things to do so.

[Warning tenuous sequitur beyond this point!]
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In a way, market size and relative growth are an example of the square-cube law. Thinking of this reminded me of other examples.

An ant and man fall from 100 times their respective heights. The ant can scuttle away with ease. Our hitherto screaming man ["Aaaaaaaaaaaaarrrrrrrrg-"] can't. The larger the relative area the impact is spread over the less damage it does. The small ant had a surface to volume ratio of x. The man, being ["ummmmm"] 200 times larger had a surface to volume ratio of 0.015x [assuming they are both spheres, Mairtin scrunches face trying to voice justification for this].

Another example of the phenomenon is the elephant and the stilettoed woman: Using P=m*g/a, where P is pressure exerted on an area and g is gravity [9.8 m/s²]...

• me, Male African elephant mass supported on one foot, 1750 kg [~quarter of his mass]
• ae, Size of an elephant foot 410 cm² [0.0410 m²]*
• Pe=1750*9.8/0.0410~420,000 Pascals
• mw, Little Woman mass supported on one foot, 28 kg [half of an arbitrary and hopefully uninsulting weight]
• aw, Area of a stilleto heel 1 cm² [0.0001 m²]
• Pw~2,740,000 Pascals
• More than six elephants would have to be stacked to exert a similar as the "Little Woman" in question

The significance of the result is that it is more appealing to be throd on by an elephant than a woman. However, on balance I would sooner be gored by a woman.
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I feel so much better after doing some calculations** that I don't feel like giving-out*** about the irritatingly presented Apple's Keynote anymore :)

*The total "slipper area" is 1640 cm²- Biology, Medicine, and Surgery of Elephants, Murray E. Fowler, Susan K. Mikota

**Assumptions in my calculations make the result less than rigourous

1. Assumed weight of the elephant is evenly distributed between its feet
2. The half of the woman's weight went into the heel only and ignored the ball of the foot
3. Pressure was calculated long after stamp: weight only, no muscle assistance

*** Giving-out an patently Irish thing to say. It is a direction translation of the Irish for chastising, "ag tabhairt amach"

Oh, *idiot*! In Latin Jehovah begins with an "I"!

Back to regular working hours this week. It follows that I am back to regular training hours too...

I was training in the tennis court of my estate last night. Walked there across damp grass. I trained for hour and a half- 2 hours. Starting off my hands felt cold, but by the end they were comfortably warm. I crunched back from the court. The world had frozen in my absence [smacks lips at gravitas of statement].

This morning, I left the house to an unexpected drizzle. More surprises were in store for me... the frost was replaced with ice. Many a comical near fall was to be had. As I bounded from puddle to puddle on the square paving of UCD, doing my level best to avoid the treacherous "dry areas", I pondered on the similarities between my predicament and Indiana Jones when he was embroiled in the Last Crusade. Particularly, the scene from which, I lifted the titular quote.

Now. All I need are cute female undergrads writing messages to me on their eyelids... and a whip... and a Doctorate...

[sighs] Never mind.

My mood is lifted with the memory of the Simpsons lampoon of the Raiders of the Lost Ark opening scene... what a classic piece of entertainment 8D