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Scott the part time Viking
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| Discoveries This Week on The Science Channel |
[Mar. 13th, 2006|11:29 am] |
I wound up watching Discoveries This Week on the Science Channel this weekend. A neat show if you can catch it. One story was on a new kind of padding by a company in England (d3o). It is being marketed to the sports and professional safety type folks. They talked to a stunt motorcyclist who is testing for them and he loves it.
The material moves like traditional foam or rubber padding (think volleyball pads but thinner) when moving slow or through a consistent movement. But as soon as it is impacted it goes rock hard. They had a small play-do like piece they were playing with. Then they hit it with a hammer. I swear the material did not move. At least not enough for my eyes to see.
Of course my first thought is I need armor made of this stuff. But I'm a dork that way. Seriously though I do want some pads for rollerblading made out of this material.
For more info check out The Science Channel's Discoveries this Week and the d3o website. |
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| Yet again |
[Mar. 6th, 2006|09:56 pm] |
My car was hit yet again. This time someone backed into me while I was driving out of a parking lot. Same part of the car is crumpled again. I am pissed but the guy admited fault and signed a note saying such.
More later... |
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| Prop sale |
[Feb. 28th, 2006|01:49 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | fyi | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | Dramatic | ] |
A friend sent me the following message. It sucks that it is happening over KSAF.
Shakespeare Theatre Company
Costume and Prop Sale
Saturday, March 4, 2006
9 a.m. to 2 p.m.
at the Shakespeare Theatre Company Rehearsal Hall
507 8th St. SE
Washington, D.C. 20003
The Shakespeare Theatre Company will be selling props and costumes from the past 20 years. Productions featured include Peer Gynt, The Merchant of Venice, Volpone, Romeo and Juliet and Henry IV, Part 1 and 2, among many others.
We will also have shoes, hats, masks, jewelry, and many more exciting things. Don't miss it!
Please feel free to forward this to anyone who might be interested.
Thanks and we look forward to seeing you.
Amy Brandenburg
Costume Shop Floor Manager
Shakespeare Theatre Company
507 8th St SE
Washington, DC 20003
202-547-0273 |
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| Deepest Sender test |
[Feb. 20th, 2006|11:06 am] |
| [ | Tags | | | geek | ] |
| [ | mood |
| | geeky | ] |
![[info]](http://l-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) tashadandelion posted in her journal about LJ clients. Someone commented there about a Firefox et all plug in called Deepest Sender. So I downloaded and here is a message to see how it works. |
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| All arts have length and measure. |
[Feb. 17th, 2006|10:43 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  annoyed | ] |
This is the last line of the second stanza in Fight Master Johannas Lichtenauer’s trieste on medieval swordsmanship. Today I learned a new aspect of this central tenant of combat. And it SUCKED!
I took most of the day to work on getting my shield and sword ready for the Tournament of Love and Beauty (SCA event). I did not get everything done I wanted to but I got what I felt I needed to get done. I really need to get better about not waiting until the last minute to get stuff done.
I even got to walk through some of the I.33 plays with my SCA sword and buckler. Other then the sword being on the long side (an easy fix) I was impressed with how it felt. Not as nice as steel or even wood but better then I had hoped.
The changing through done by the Priest in the first play was difficult. I suspect this has to do with the sword being rattan and not wood or steel. Hopefully with practice I will be able to execute this in an SCA fight. It is sexy and I have not seen a lot of SCA fighters do anything like it.
Now how did I learn a new interpretation of the said verse and what did it suck. Because after working most of the day on my gear and getting the chance to walk through things I discover I am not going to be able to fight anyway. I got home and Melanie reminded me that I had wanted to pull in my cote of plates at the shoulder. I put on my cote to begin to see how much to pull it in. That is when I discovered that this was not going to happen.
If I brought the cote up in the front to have it lay across my chest right the back dipped. If I brought the back up the front dipped. And no matter what I did the plates did not wrap around my sides enough. Any blow thrown from or to my sides was going to hit the armor.
I think what killed it for me was when I realized that no matter what I did I would be endangering the top 1/3 of my chest or back. And as much as I want to fight bad blows taken to either area could be painful or even possibly deadly (I am thinking vertebrate here). That is a risk I am not willing (though not happy in the case) to take.
So today I went to great lengths to get ready to fight tomorrow. But in the end the measure was just to far. I guess sometimes the fight is in deciding if you are going to fight. |
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| Almost happening too fast. |
[Feb. 13th, 2006|10:20 am] |
| [ | mood |
| |  cheerful | ] |
Over the last six months or so I have been really buckler… I mean buckling down and working on western martial arts. I have been doing work and study on my own as well getting at least one practice in a month at the La Belle meetings/workshops. These guys are some of if not the best guys I have ever trained with.
Because of al this work and study my knowledge and understanding has leaped about every six or eight weeks or so. In fact at the Winter Gathering in Jan. we were working some I.33 (sword and buckler) stuff on Saturday. I had such a radical shift in understanding that I wound up staying up until 1-2AM reading and re-reading Liechtenaur’s (75 years or so later) verses.
Also while practicing at snolan’s yesterday he showed us something at least I had never seen or thought about before. Setting up an attack from 6th ward had never made any sense to me. Until that is he pointed out if you cut from 5th to 6th ward it sets you up for a thrust. Which could then lead to a whole bunch of possibilities.
snolan thank you very much for that key to better understanding of I.33.
This shift made me start to look at the underlying philosophy of western swordsmanship. Europe does not have the same sort of spiritual traditions around the sword that Japan does. But I am coming to understand that there is more to it then how to effectively kill your opponent. It is hard to put into words and if I were to try I would bore folks with a lot of technical terms. melaniesuzanne gets that enough.
Maybe I should start a filter for all that “boring” sword stuff. If I were to start a filter for it would anyone be interested in being on it? |
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| ... burn me, burn me... |
[Jan. 23rd, 2006|08:40 am] |
| You scored as Monophysitism. You are a monophysite. You do not hold to the idea of a hypostatic union of the divine and human in the person of Christ and instead hold that Christ had only one nature, which is a fusion of the divine and human. Condemned at the Sixth Ecumenical Council in 681.
Monophysitism | | 75% | Pelagianism | | 67% | Nestorianism | | 58% | Apollanarian | | 50% | Gnosticism | | 50% | Chalcedon compliant | | 50% | Docetism | | 42% | Adoptionist | | 42% | Modalism | | 42% | Socinianism | | 42% | Monarchianism | | 33% | Arianism | | 17% | Donatism | | 8% | Albigensianism | | 8% | </td>
Are you a heretic?
created with QuizFarm.com |
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| You know it's not going to be a good day when... |
[Jan. 18th, 2006|03:27 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  bored | ] |
... the boss comes into your office and says "I have a crappy job for you". Fortunatly it was not crappy so much as mind numbingly boring. And I get to do it all over again tomorrow; joy oh joy.
But I am going to catch up on a few real work related things and then go use the steam room at the gym. At least the day will end well. |
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| Book meme |
[Jan. 11th, 2006|08:43 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | Geeky | ] |
| [ | music |
| | The Truth and the Light by Mark Snow | ] |
1. Grab the nearest book.
2. Open the book to page 123.
3. Find the fifth sentence.
4. Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.
5. Don't search around and look for the coolest book you can find. Do what's actually next to you.
This is not important as we don’t plan to use then anywhere on the local system.
Essential System Administration by Æleen Frish |
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| “I will see Valhalla or that things head on a pole.” |
[Jan. 10th, 2006|07:40 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | excited | ] |
I had a wonderful present waiting for me in my inbox this morning. Someone posted the trailer for Beowulf and Grendel to a Dark Ages reenactment list I am on. This may be the high point of my day because few things can top that great Geat.
The quote in the subject line is one spoken by Beowulf from the trailer. While I do not recall any line (or any one like it) in the poem I still think it is cool.
I close with one of my favorite quotes from Beowulf.
Wyrd oft nereþ
unfaegne eorl þonne his ellen deah
“Fate often saves an undoomed warrior when his courage endures.”
Beowulf lines 572-3 |
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| Scott reenacting himself??? |
[Jan. 9th, 2006|08:56 pm] |
What follows would make a great episode of the X-Files.
Several years ago this picture showed up. It is a picture of some troopers of the Belgian Independent Parachute Company (5th SAS) in England (1943-44). The 5th SAS is the WWII unit I reenact.
It was pointed out by some guys in my unit that the guy in the middle looked like me. It took me a bit to see it but I did after a while. I decided to show it to my Mom and Dad. My Mom asked "what event was that taken at?" That freaked me out more then a little.
Then azpapillion's hubby posted this picture. It is a Van der Wieden picture of the late 15th century and the low countries.
This is all very... strange.
Thank you strawberrykaren for the icon. |
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| And now for something useful |
[Dec. 28th, 2005|11:05 am] |
My last entry was awfully sentimental. So I thought I would offer something useful for the computer inclined people. All of this is stuff I have picked up in the last year.
Sage RSS reader for Firefox. I am a looooong time Firefox user (I started when it was in the .0 releases) but new to blogs and RSS feeds. This little plug in made life much easier on me this year.
7-Zip allows you to open files that were compressed using one of the *nix compression programs. i.e. .gzip, .bz2.
Open SSH for Windows is a ssh client and server MS Windows. I have not personally installed it but another admin at work has and raves about it.
jEdit is a cool text editor like gedit and emacs. But it is available for MS Windows, Linux, and Mac OS to name a few. Thanks to ravenblack666 for turning me on to this.
Not techie related per say but cool anyway. A few months ago Slashdot asked the guys from Mythbusters some questions. Here are their responses. |
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| End of year geek musings |
[Dec. 28th, 2005|10:30 am] |
In late May of this year the admin I was “working with” left for another job. This was good for him as he was not happy here. The prospect of doing both his and my work freaked me out more then a little.
The first month or so was just hell. I had people (engineers) doing stuff behind my back because they thought they could do a better job then I could. Given my knowledge (or lack there of) they may have been correct. But that is not the point. The point is I should have known what they were doing even if I did not understand all the details. Fortunately for me I have a boss who believes in my. Often more then I believe in myself.
Having people doing stuff behind my back, getting thrown in the deep end, having a boss believe in me as well as some other changes in my personal life really kicked me in the ass. So after getting back from the 4th of July vacation with melaniesuzanne’s family I hit the ground running like Steve Prefontaine. A week by the pool does wonders for your mental state.
Since then my knowledge of Linux administration and use has grown by a factor beyond my ability to calculate. I am doing things with computers now that six or seven months ago I did not know were possible. I won’t bore folks with a lot of techie stuff though.
I have been really fortunate to have such wonderful friends and coworkers. Here in no particular order are some honorable mentions:
aelf
boneshard
melaniesuzanne of course.
violentee
ravenblack666
zipmeister
snolan
There are many other co-workers I would love to mention but as far as I know they do not have a web presence and I want to avoid naming folks specifically. But if they are reading this they know who they are.
Why get all sappy like this. I am the introspective type and am prone to this sort of thing from time to time. I have also taken a bit of a break for the last week and a half or so. |
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| Holiday update |
[Dec. 26th, 2005|09:48 am] |
I had a wonderful Christmas with melaniesuzanne and managed to survive in spite of my family.
The good:
Melanie was very happy with her haul. I managed to get her some real surprises. She says I went overboard with what all I got her. But when you are married to such an amazing woman as she is it is hard not to. See her journal for a list of her (and my) goodies.
Some of the other “little goodies” mentioned in Melanie’s journal include two pilgrim badges. One is for Edward the Confessor (the last legit Anglo Saxon King of England) and who was the inspiration for my reenactment name. The other badge is of the elephant from Fiore’s 1409 fighting manuscript. Perhaps in wearing this my elephant will become stronger so I can focus on my lynx.
An amusing story for the reenactors reading this. I spent a good portion of the morning going through The Bedford Hours, A Parisian Book of Hours and the Gothic Art book looking for pictures of underwear. I now have a lot more pictorial evidence for cut, and variety or underwear from the late 14th through 15th centuries. I just need to track down written info on them and I will be set.
I will probably have a complete article done later this winter. I will be posting info, drafts and ramblings in my fourboars journal. I will be making them friends only until the full article comes out. So if you want to be added just let me know.
The Bad:
Being stressed about what bullshit my family was going to pull. Add on top of that the pea soup rain and moronic drivers. Misting and raining and idiots driving grey cars with no head lights on. Grrr.
The Ugly:
In short my family. I am not going to go into details because I don’t want to emotionally go through that again by writing it here. Suffice to say that I don’t want to see them any time soon.
Traffic sucked driving home. In fact when we got on the beltway (off Rt. 50) we saw traffic backing up; as in standing still. We dove off onto Rt 450 and decided to go home by way of the Wilson Bridge. I think the Gods may have had their hand in making us take the long way home.
It gave Melanie and I a chance to talk about my relationship with my family, where I am now and the future. I am still processing some of what was said. But it really helped.
By time we got home I was calm, if emotionally wiped. We watched a couple of episodes of Creature Comforts and I went off to read a bit of A Book of Middle English an then to sleep.
I woke up this morning still feeling a little funky. I’ve been doing some research and messing around online. I am going to see if the YMCA’s yoga class is still on for tonight. |
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| Morning driving angst |
[Dec. 16th, 2005|08:28 am] |
| [ | mood |
| | annoyed | ] |
| [ | music |
| | Mix of soothing music... | ] |
This morning here in the Baltimore/Washington DC metro area the roads are really icy. For more details including one accident involving a Fed Ex truck going off an overpass check out WTOP news.
Anyway despite what I was hearing on the radio I decided to venture into work. I have a habit of doing this sort of thing. I took the long but very flat and pretty safe route in. For the locals Rt. 28 to the Toll Road to 7100 on to Fair Lakes. Given the road conditions I was driving very conservable. Keeping 1.5-2 car lengths between me and the car in front of me and driving at a slower but steady speed.
What this means is I was driving just under the posted speed limit. On the longest stretch of road I was on (7100) the posted speed limit is 50MPH and I was going between 40-45MPH. Normally people (myself included) do 60MPH+ on this road.
Now here is where the angst comes in. The roads are not only icy but VERY icy and there are accidents ALL OVER THE AREA because of it. So why do the morons in SUV’s, Lexus’s, and BMW’s insist on driving aggressively and F*(T%()*^^$$&*$$^&*&^ing tailgating tail gating me. We should be legally allowed to get out of our cars at red lights and BEAT the crap out of people like this.
It was so bad at one point I started wondering what I would get from the insurance company if (or when) my car got totaled. What would I replace it with (the wait for a new Prius is too long for to get another one)? Also I decided if/when I got hit that when I called 911 to have them send a fire truck as well in case the drive batteries (behind the passenger side back seat) rupture. These are not the sort of things on wants to think about while driving into work on a Friday and a pay day at that.
But I got to work ok, if a bit frazzled. I got into my office, closed the door and watched a bunch of Foamy cartoons. I feel better now. All is peaceful in my world of work where the engineers for once are smarter then I am; they stayed home. While I will get some things done this morning.
Breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. Breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. Breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. Breathe in through the nose and out through the mouth. |
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| Fear the mouse |
[Nov. 18th, 2005|09:07 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| | amused | ] |
http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn8337&feedId=online-news_rss20
Gene turn-off makes meek mice fearless
* 17:00 17 November 2005
* NewScientist.com news service
* Stu Hutson
Deactivating a specific gene transforms meek mice into daredevils, researchers have found. The team believe the research might one day enable people suffering from fear – in the form of phobias or anxiety disorders, for example – to be clinically treated.
The research found that mice lacking an active gene for the protein stathmin are not only more courageous, but are also slower to learn fear responses to pain-associated stimuli, says geneticist Gleb Shumyatsky, at Rutgers University in New Jersey, US.
In the experiments, the stathmin-lacking mice wandered out into the centre of an open box, in defiance of the normal mouse instinct to hide along the box’s walls to avoid potential predators.
And to test learned fear, the mice were exposed to a loud sound followed by a brief electric shock from the floor below them. A day later, normal mice froze when the sound was played again. Stathmin-lacking mice barely reacted to the sound at all.
Neural responses
In both mice and humans, the amygdala area of the brain serves as the control centre of basic fear impulses. Stathmin is found almost exclusively in this and related brain areas.
The protein is known to destabilise microtubule structures that help maintain the connections between neurons. This allows the neurons to make new connections, allowing the animal to learn and process fear experiences, Shumyatsky says. Without it, the neural responses are stilted.
The lack of the protein does not appear to affect other learning experiences, as both sets of mice were able to memorise the paths out of mazes equally well. “This is a good sign for an eventual clinical application that could let people deal with their fears in an entirely different way,” Shumyatsky says.
In 2002, Shumyatsky and colleagues published a study on a similar gene encoding for a protein called GRP. But this protein seems only to be associated with learned fear, and would therefore only have clinical implications for conditions such as post-traumatic stress disorder.
Stathmin, on the other hand, seems to affect both learned and innate fear, which could lead to treatments for a much broader range of phobias and anxiety disorders, Shumyatsky says.
Journal reference: Cell (DOI: 10.1016/j.cell.2005.08.038)
Related Articles
* Terror is the best remedy for phobias
* http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg18224421.800
* 10 April 2004
* In the shadow of fear
* http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg17924114.400
* 06 September 2003
* Shyness linked to brain differences
* http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn3853
* 19 June 2003 |
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| Quote of the day from yesterday |
[Nov. 16th, 2005|07:40 pm] |
| [ | mood |
| |  thoughtful | ] |
Science is organized knowledge. Wisdom is organized life.
Immanuel Kant (1724 - 1804) |
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| If only I had stayed in school... oh well |
[Nov. 16th, 2005|07:22 pm] |
Ansax-l (academic Anglo Saxon listserv) I am on strikes again. The following was posted today.
Tenure-track position at Catholic University
Assistant / Associate Professor - Old English and Medieval Literature
The Department of English at The Catholic University of America (Washington, DC) invites applications for a full-time, tenure-track position in Old English and medieval literature at the rank of Assistant or Associate Professor to begin in Fall 2006. Secondary specializations in other medieval vernaculars, periods, or fields are especially desirable. The successful candidate will be able and willing to teach a diverse range of courses at all levels, from undergraduate surveys to Ph.D. thesis direction. Salary will be commensurate with experience and qualifications.
Send letter of application and c.v. including a list of references to Dr. Stephen Wright, Department of English, Marist Hall 323, The Catholic University of America, Washington, DC 20064. We will begin reviewing applications on December 1, 2005. Interviews will be held at the MLA Conference.
The Catholic University of America is sponsored by the Roman Catholic bishops of the United States as a national university and center of instruction and research. Its faculties are composed of scholars from diverse backgrounds and religious traditions, but members and associates of the faculties are expected to respect the mission of the university and to be supportive of its aims and ideals. |
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| Updates and new info |
[Nov. 10th, 2005|09:23 am] |
I know I have not posted here much of late. Work has been keeping me really busy and when I get home I rarely want to sit in front of the computer and think. Wait I feel like that at work sometimes to. :-)
In other news I have created another journal. The fourboars journal is for my projects and thoughts on experiemental archeology. See the bio for more information.
More later... I hope. |
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