ghiotion

Old school quality shit posting all the way down. I appreciate you man.

Exactly. I spent a decade plus in a job where emails came in routinely until 9-10 at night and often the CEO would send out something on the weekend. Even if I wasn't required to respond or the response was short, this is _absolutely_ work. Over and above that, spending a decade being literally unable to get away from work in that way is like arsenic poisoning. It was like "I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm fine. I'm dead." It's insidious and terrible.

Haha. Fair. I've got this morbid curiosity about right wing authoritarian conspiracy fiction. Apparently Ben Shapiro has several novels in the same vein. Genuinely curious... why'd you read it in the first place? Are you part of the worst book club in history or something?

Oh goodness. Thank you for introducing me to Shadow Wolves. It sounds positively dreadful. I want to read it but I don't want to pay for it. Either monetarily or cognitively.

Yeah, I think that's exactly right. And it's hard to reach for a weapon when you can't move your arms.

It's a really interesting question. Jiu-jitsu unquestionably works in "uncontrolled" environments. I'd wager large money that if more police officers trained in grappling and submission techniques there'd be far fewer shootings.

I don't have specific experience with Krav per se, but the self-defense I learned getting my Karate BB was kravesque. Krav is fine, but I think of it a little like crossfit; it's mostly a marketing thing. In my estimation, krav can be great for self-defense. But anything where you focus on one or two practical defense moves is great for self-defense. Get good at one or two things and drill it 10,000 times.

I earned a black belt in Karate last year, have messed around with TKD, Judo, and Kali, and this year got reasonably serious about BJJ by starting in a belted program.

It's impossible to overestimate the role MMA/UFC has had on martial arts in the past 20 years. The internet has allowed that knowledge to spread far and wide, but UFC #1 dramatically changed the face of martial arts forever. Before that, you could argue about which one was the "best". After UFC #1, it was pretty clear how dominant Gracie jiu-jitsu was if you wanted to win a fight.

All the traditional martial arts have a place. Simply analyzing the phrase "martial art" should give you some indication of its intent: discipline and beauty. Most traditional martial arts schools are on the decline and, for those that aren't, the caliber of student they get is nowhere near as high as it was 25 years ago. Point sparring tournaments are a shell of their former selves.

MMA and, to a lesser extent, BJJ are more a fighting system than a martial art. There's no bowing, there's little formality, there aren't any forms, and it's ruthlessly focused on the practical.

Toward that end, if you want to learn how to fight, study american boxing for punching, muay thai to lean to kick, and BJJ to learn how to grapple.

If you want a "martial art", then you're probably looking for something more traditional. You can learn decent self defense in them, but there's a lot of non-practical stuff you learn as part of the package.

Wow. That is really neat.

I've always believed that spoken languages that are constructed/contrived are doomed to failure (esperanto, klingon, etc). I'm not saying that Korean itself is contrived, but it's fascinating that the alphabet was created like that.

That's really neat. Cool use of the twillo api.

His issue doesn't seem to be with computers _per se_, but rather the interaction of all the junk that comes either on a new Windows system or via the default installation process for new software. Even a well maintained Windows machine accumulates crapware over time. It's just the cross you have to bear if you want to run Windows.

While I disagree fundamentally with the heavy-handed approach Apple has taken with the iPhone, I think part of their motivation is to protect the phone's ecosystem from threats. Imagine a world where we have malware infection rates on cell phones equal to, or greater than, the infection rates on personal computers. It would be ugly indeed.