A Recreational Physicist - All Comments

re: Can't bring myself to buy crap

Cindy — Mon, 15 Dec 2008 16:05:38 GMT

It sucks how nutritious food is also more expensive than the cheap, nutritionally-void processed foods.

A lower income family might pass up fruits and vegetables in favor of chips and crackers because of cost. Plus many lower income areas are considered "food deserts" because there are no quality grocery stores -- just fast food.

So here we have a society that pushes cheap, crap to eat and makes it more difficult to find or afford to buy nutritious food.

No wonder more than half of Americans are obese or overweight.

re: The hardest jumping jacks I've ever done

Cindy — Thu, 19 Jun 2008 23:05:12 GMT

Tell me about it... that was a hard workout. My form on the burpees wasn't great, but I managed to keep them up through most of the sets, especially once I got a rhythm going.

re: Kung Fu is cool

andy — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 18:25:00 GMT

anyone mentioned a 'triangle of focus'? It's the trianlge area of the body with the shoulders as two points, with the third point at the abdomen.

I was taught to focus on that area as you will be able so see all of your opponents movements. Also, keeping focused there helps prevent broadcasting with your eyes or head.

I remember a brown belt ( just shy of black belt in my style) doing the slow motion block attack thing with one hand. It was very humbling.

Sparring with a kung fu stylist would be interesting. Karate and kung fu are so different. After I've gotten further into re-learning, I think I'd like to try a local kung fu class.

I might end up setting up a community server for a friend. seems like a good solution for a yoga community with no specific organizational ties.

re: Kung Fu is cool

andy — Mon, 03 Oct 2005 07:05:00 GMT

Yellow is the second belt. It takes about 2 months, and then 2 months until the next belt. 1st brown takes a year, and black takes about 2 and a half years.

Circling helped a bit. Some of the blackbelts I spared with this weekend told me some of my obvious tells like dropping my eyes. It's humbling sparing with someone with that level of experience. One guy literally moved in slow motion and deflected my blows with the sligtest motions and struck me at will.

I'll see what I can do with making the comments better. I spent this weekend setting up commmunity server and testing moving the blog over to that. I've seen other CS blogs with preview so if it isn't an option I should be able to find some code and add it.

re: Kung Fu is cool

andy — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 21:25:00 GMT

What's a yellow belt in kung fu? In my style it is the second belt; right after white. testing is usually every 6 months so it takes a while to move up.

Easiest way to spar better is not technique; it's strategy. Measure your distance and stay on the edge of their range. Then you can move into or out of range easily when needed. Also, positioning yourself to the person weak side or at odd angles making attack more difficult for them. For instance knowing you have trouble with side kicks, I would circle to your side a lot. If one side seemed weaker, I would move to that side.

If someone is particularly fast, I use short combinations or trick moves. Like throwing an change-up or curveball when they're swinging for a fastball. Basically, get them to commit to a move and then go around it.

Could you add a 'Preview' option to the comments?

re: Kung Fu is cool

andy — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 17:42:00 GMT

I'm tall but not exceptionally tall 6' 1".
I was always skinny growing up. When I started college I was 6'1" and 125lbs.

I'm definitely noticing that I have to do different things when I face someone with a height difference, so I tend to pick people with around the same height and build whenever I can, because that feels more natural. The worst move is a puch because at my natural height, I have to punch down for a body hit unless I move in too close and start throwing short punches. The last few times I've been throwing more kicks and keeping shorter opponents at bay controlling the distance between us, but I haven't gotten any advice for my build. I'll definitely ask about it.

Bag work is worse. Given the skill level and size of everyone I work with most of their kicks land at groin level. I normally stand so most of the blows hit my leg, but even through the bag a groin hit is noticable. My wife is taking a woman's sparring class right now and her last class focused mostly on groin hits. I'm a little nervous about sparring with her now. We always wear a cup for full contact sparring, but no special gear for regular class.

Right now though, as a yellow belt I'm just getting my chops down for basic moves like something more then just throwing a bunch of front kicks and punches. I've been working on my side kick because it is really slow and weak due to my total lack of hip flexors.

re: Kung Fu is cool

andy — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 15:01:00 GMT

Are you on the tall side? Just asking cause a lot of kids I knew who weren't that coordinated in sports were also taller than average.

If so, make sure you're kung fu instructors teach you also how to use your height. In karate, I see a lot of tall people who could have a good advantage but it ends up being a disadvantage because they don't know how to use it. Most of the instructors I've seen are average or short and so don't know how to teach using height to your advantage.

If I'm guessing wrong and you're not especially tall then I'm just babbling and you should ignore me.

re: Hello, I'm a Kia salesman.

andy — Fri, 30 Sep 2005 05:12:00 GMT

It's hard when what you love to do brings memories of failure and boredom to the vast majority of people. It's a tough thing to get over in a conversation. It just kills a first impression.

I know where you are comming from with Karate. I get a very similar sense of well being and peace from practicing forms and katas as I did proving theorems. They are both ways to get a better understanding of the beauty and wonder of existence.

It's a real mystery to me why most people don't want more out of life then what they see right in front of them.

Sometimes I feel like I'm missing out on some great conversations, other times I just remember being bored right back by most regular conversations.

re: Hello, I'm a Kia salesman.

andy — Thu, 29 Sep 2005 17:52:00 GMT

Was just checking for new posts and reread this one... I've been thinking about this lately because my wife asks me why I don't want her to tell people I study Karate. And I've been thinking I don't want to tell people what I do for a living.

A lot of time, the subject of work goes like this...

person: So what do you do?
me: I'm a computer programmer
person: oh. [short pause] I have a computer, but I can hardly turn it on. [changes subject]
OR
person: oh. do you know about web sites? can you help such-n-such make a website, but he doesn't have any money ... blah blah blah

The Karate thing used to go like this...
person: oh so you do karate
me: well, I study it.
person: laughs/snickers/sneers
OR
person: think you're tough huh? let's just see about that.
OR
person: Do you know Chuck Norris (or something else really stupid.)
OR
person: so do you fight like in tournaments like in that Karate kid movie.
me: no, I don't like fighting or violence.
person: [confused, walks away]

Oh, B.S in Math. Loved Diffy-Q, Interpolation, etc.
So I pretty much don't talk to people. Maybe I should switch to kung fu and become a shaolin priest.

re: I've done a few rides in the past couple of weeks

andy — Wed, 21 Sep 2005 05:00:00 GMT

I'm still riding about once a week now. Mostly just hitting the street with my wife. I haven't gone off road for months. There are tons of great trails to ride all over the city and further out. I've ridden walnut creek and the green belt mostly, but I've heard that bull creek was the best trail.

I'm studying at a place called Shaolin-Do http://www.swshaolin.com/about_more_history.asp in Austin. I'm not sure exactly what style it is exactly, but I've never enjoyed getting my ass kicked more. It's a lot of fun.

re: I've done a few rides in the past couple of weeks

andy — Tue, 20 Sep 2005 17:24:00 GMT

Still riding? I've heard Austin has some cool trails. What style of Kung Fu are you studying? How's it going?

btw, I came here from codeproject.com

-j

re: Hydrino state

andy — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 12:47:00 GMT

Sorry - rushed that response - I meant to give the links to peer-reviewed papers that reported on spectroscopic confirmation of inverse Lyman etc.
- the point being, even if the theory is nonsense, if there are experimental results that are confirmed time and again, then an effect must be acknowledged - as it was for superconductivity. Mills' mistake may have been to push forward a questionable theory which distracted attention from the highly interesting results.

Comparison of Excessive Balmer/Spl Alpha/Line Broadening of Inductively and Capacitively Coupled RF, Microwave and Glow-Discharge Hydrogen Plasmas with Certain Catalysts, Mills, R.L.; Ray, P.C.; Nansteel, M.; Chen, X.; Mayo, R.M.; He, J.; Dhandapani, B. - 06/26/03 IEEE Transactions on Plasma Science, Vol. 31, Issue 3, June 2003, pp. 338-355. Found at: http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpl/tocresult.jsp?isNumber=27155

Extreme Ultraviolet Spectroscopy of Helium-Hydrogen Plasma, R. Mills, P. Ray - 06/23/03 Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, Vol. 36, (2003), pp. 1535-1542. Found at http://www.iop.org/EJ/toc/0022-3727/36/13">http://www.iop.org/EJ/toc/0022-3727/36/13

Stationary Inverted Lyman Population Formed from Incandescently Heated Hydrogen Gas with Certain Catalysts, R. Mills, P. Ray, R. Mayo - 06/23/03 Journal of Physics D: Applied Physics, Vol. 36 (2003), pp. 1504-1509. Found at http://www.iop.org/EJ/toc/0022-3727/36/13">http://www.iop.org/EJ/toc/0022-3727/36/13

Spectroscopic Study of Unique Line Broadening and Inversion in Low Pressure Microwave Generated Water Plasmas - 06/18/03
NASA NIAC Phase I Study (05/01/02-11/30/02):The BlackLight Rocket Engine - FINAL REPORT - Posted 06/13/03

Emission in the Deep Vacuum Ultraviolet from a Plasma Formed by Incandescently Heating Hydrogen Gas with Trace Amounts of Potassium Carbonate, H. Conrads, R. Mills, Th. Wrubel - 06/05/03 Plasma Sources Science and Technology, Vol. 12 (2003), pp. 389-395. Found at: http://www.iop.org/EJ/toc/0963-0252/12/3

re: Hydrino state

andy — Fri, 02 Sep 2005 12:08:00 GMT

> it hasn’t been discovered in around 100 years of electrical and collision experiments

Rubbsih! - the point about the Hydrino experiments is that they work - the NASA Blacklight Rocket study as well as several other universities have confirmed an excess heat effect. Also, there have been peer reviewed papers reporting on spectroscopic measurments on these special plasmas that find lines at the right energy.
See, e.g. Water Bath Calorimetric Study of Excess Heat Generation in "Resonant Transfer" Plasmas, Journal of Applied Physics, Vol. 96, No. 6, (2004) pp.
3095-3102. Found at http://scitation.aip.org/getabs/servlet/GetabsServlet?prog=normal&id=JAPIAU000096000006003095000001&idtype=cvips&gifs=yes
Finally, it seems that Hydrino states can explain some stellar or solar spectral lines for which an explanation had been lacking. Thus 'it' has been discovered in the last 100 years.

re: Exceptional programming is pessimistic programming

andy — Fri, 13 May 2005 06:11:00 GMT

You'd be surprised who you get read by :)

I know i always am.

re: Exceptional programming is pessimistic programming

andy — Fri, 13 May 2005 05:43:00 GMT

Wow, I never thought I'd get a response out of this.

Sorry about the comment about C# doing things wrong. That was too strong a statement. The point I was trying to make is that there are oportunites for exceptions lurking behind even the most innocent looking statement. Programming with return codes doesn't protect your code from that, neither does using exceptions, but since you always have to deal with exceptions at some level, it makes sense to treat them all the same way.