Author: hsoi

Rangemaster May 2013 Newsletter

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

I’m famous now. 🙂

The Rangemaster May 2013 newsletter has been published, and they reprinted my AAR for the Rangemaster Instructor course from a couple months ago (with permission, natch). Thank you, Tom.

But what I want to know is… who wrote that song? 🙂

Well-said

/ hsoi

From Karl Rehn:

Self-defense training is about risk reduction. Those making choices based on Y chromosome-induced testosterone poisoning, rather than logic, reason, and data analysis, deserve whatever problems their stupidity leads them into.

(posted in a FB comment about the SERPA holster).

Circular Piracy

/ hsoi / 2 Comments

Game developer, Greenheart Games, created a game about creating games called Game Dev Tycoon. It’s a familiar game genre, a sort of “Sims” about being a software game developer. I haven’t played it, but it seems cool.

But what I thought was really cool? What they did to make a point about piracy:

In a curious social experiment, the developer deliberately uploaded a full, cracked version of its game to the most popular torrent trackers. The cracked version is nearly identical to the real thing except for one detail. As players spend a few hours playing and growing their own game dev company, they will start to see the following message, styled like any other in-game message:

“Boss, it seems that while many players play our new game, they steal it by downloading a cracked version rather than buying it legally. If players don’t buy the games they like, we will sooner or later go bankrupt.”

Slowly, the player’s in-game funds will dwindle, and every new game that they create has a high chance to be pirated until they eventually go bankrupt. There is no way to fight it, in an ironic twist, players of the cracked version of the game are doomed to constant failure due to rampant piracy.

I thought that was pretty clever. It’s an old argument and issue for sure, but I like that because they granted the realities of the game they were making and that they were making a game, they had an avenue to make a point and they chose to make that point. So why make that point?  From their own website:

Game Dev Tycoon was created by two brothers. They invested all their savings to start a company and develop the game. They truly enjoy tycoon and simulation games and after seeing many of the new social and pay-to-play games where buying coins is more important than good gameplay, they wanted to bring some true simulation games back. Their motto is less social, less ville, more game and they believed that there is a market for real simulation games but as independent game developers it’s difficult to survive and the reason why so many companies create pay-to-play or coin-driven games are because they make more money with them.

If you like the look of Game Dev Tycoon and you want to see more games like these then you should really think about buying a legal copy of the game. The price of the game is reasonable (7.99USD), you get legal copies for Mac, Windows and Linux, free service updates and you can even install the game on a couple of your personal computers.

If you don’t care about all of this and just want to get a cracked and illegal version then we can’t do anything about that, but if years down the track you wonder why there are no games like these anymore and all you get to play is pay-to-play and social games designed to suck money out of your pockets then the reason will stare back at you in the mirror.

I’ve been writing software for 20-some years. I complete understand. I mean, I dealt with piracy before Napster and torrents. I do sympathize with any artist and person that wishes to make their living on “digital data”, be it software, music, movies, books, whatever — something that’s easy to copy and distribute. I sympathize because that’s how I earn my living and feed my family! I don’t sympathize with the way “Big Media” has gone about trying to enforce things because I learned long ago that pirates will always pirate and good people eventually will pay up, so long as they understand and are given reasonable terms. Since I have limited resources (time, money, energy), I can either work to make my product better or fight the people that I’ll never win over anyways; so why not please those willing to be my customers? Draconian DRM that hampers and just pisses off your legit customers isn’t the right way to go (witness: SimCity 2013’s rollout).

What it really takes to improve this situation is for the public to be educated.

The Klug brothers are right: if you want good things, you have to support those willing to make good things. If you like games like this, support them so they can keep making these things that you like. It’s pretty simple. It doesn’t matter if it’s your favorite music artist, movie studio, game developer, book author… whomever and whatever. These people have worked hard to produce something, something that you now enjoy and has made your life better. Is it fair for you to take and not give anything in return? Would you appreciate someone doing this with the fruits of your labor? Is the way we should get people to pay by forcing them with ugly DRM and shitty experiences (think about this next time you try to play a Blu-Ray and are forced to sit through FBI Warnings)? is that high quality? is that how you want things to be in life? Or would you rather be willing participant in the process and support those that make your life better?

Which way do you want it?

 

2013-05-03 training log

/ hsoi

295 – PR. But 300 will have to wait.

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 19, week 3

  • Work Set – Squat (working max: 305#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x125
    • 1x5x155
    • 1x3x185
    • 1x5x230 (work)
    • 1x3x265
    • 1x2x295 (PR)
  • Assistance – Squat
    • 3 x 10 x 135
  • Assistance – Pulldown Abs
    • 4 x 25 x 60
  • Foam Rolling

All time personal record: 295# squat. Huzzah. Only got 2 reps out of it tho. Went down for #3, then I got stapled and coming up didn’t happen. Dumped the bar. No big deal.

And really to me, that’s more what mattered — that it was no big deal.

Again, I don’t love squat (OK maybe just a little now), and while I don’t hate it any more, there’s still stuff to overcome. I cannot deny that the 295# intimidated me, tho it also excited me because it’s almost 300# and that’s a cool milestone (and it meand 3 wheels isn’t too far away either). I still had some fear about what would happen if I couldn’t do it… what if I couldn’t do it… and that sort of FUD. But the first time I got stapled and dumped the bar, it broke through that barrier. So today wasn’t a big deal. I would do it or I wouldn’t, and if I didn’t, whatever… you move on.

I mean…

Brandon Lilly just benched 500# again

I was seriously more nervous before this bench than any other lift I can remember in my life. I was so worried about “what if”? Then I kinda stepped back and realized I could be hurt doing anything… So then I got really excited about being “back”. I laid down, and as soon as the bar was in my hand any worry, or doubt left me. I just wanted to smash it, and I feel like I moved the weight pretty well. It wasn’t 100% but I now know I can do it, and I’m only going up from here.

Eric Lilliebridge just totalled 2182.5# at the UPA Nationals:

and look at his 3rd squat (@ 3:21) and bench press (@ 6:20) attempts. He went for it, but missed. Did the fear of missing stop him? or was his motivated to be awesome and just accepts that missing happens but you keep going?

In a comment on that video, someone asked Eric why his competition deadlift went up only 26# over 4 years. Eric’s response:

A PR is PR, by 10 pounds or 1 pound. Doesn’t matter to me as long as I’m making progress. No one got strong over night. This shit takes years.

And then there’s CT Fletcher, about giving your all:

And that’s what I told myself today. Just give it your all. CT tried 700# bench press, missed, but he knew he gave it his all.

So today… that’s what I did. I did my best to put all the bullshit of work and life out of my head, and just lift. Put on some Slayer, and squat.

And so I only got 2 reps. I still hit a PR, and the only thing it means is I will NOT increase my weight next cycle but will stay here and push for rep PR’s. I also think I will stop the 20 rep squat assistance work and instead try pause squats because while I dig what 20 rep squats are doing, I want to see if pause squats will more directly address my needs.

Yes. Listened to Slayer the whole time.

R.I.P. Jeff Hanneman

So what are you teaching our children?

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

They claim that schools are places to teach… for students to learn.

So what lesson is being taught — and consequently learned — from this?

If the story told is facts and truth…

Yes, he brought a shotgun onto school grounds. It was a mistake. The kid’s an Eagle Scout, and he’s human too (i.e. makes mistakes, just like you do, just like school adminstrators do). The moment he realized his mistake he secured the shotgun and went to the school office to try to contend with it (have Mom come pick it up, or some such solution). He was really left with no options, because if he left school grounds that’d be cause for punishment, so what he could he do? He tried to handle it in a responsible manner, but instead he got suspended and turned over to law enforcement.

The school system is standing by their decision.

“Administration reacted promptly and the proper procedures and protocol were followed,” Jones said. “The situation was turned over to law enforcement immediately. As a result of our investigation, it is our best determination that students and staff were safe at all times.”

They were always safe and never in harms way.

But this is what “zero tolerance” policies do. In fact, it’s what policy tends to be about: something to hide behind.

There is no thinking.

There is no consideration.

There is is no accountability because you can just point to the faceless “policy” and wash your hands of everything. Even those that made the policy, if they are still around, aren’t accountable.

It’s bullshit.

Whatever happened to understanding that youth is a period in our lives rife with mistakes? Thus youth should also be a life period rife with learning and forgiveness. But alas, we’re not allowed to make mistakes anymore. What sort of society are we building?

And what lesson is Cole Withrow and the other students supposed to learn? Thinking is bad? Shirking responsibility is what you do as an adult? Because that’s certainly what “school administrative officials” are doing… all because Cole Withrow made a mistake, and sought to do the responsible thing in correcting it.

Mr. Withrow, no matter how this falls out, don’t let the actions of a few unthinking individuals color and tarnish your view of the world. Yes you made a mistake, but you handled it as right and responsibly as you could.

2013-05-01 training log

/ hsoi

Solid

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 19, week 2

  • Work Set – Press (working max: 160#)
    • 2x5x45 (warmup)
    • 1x5x65
    • 1x5x80
    • 1x3x95
    • 1x3x115 (work)
    • 1x3x130
    • 1x5x145
  • Assistance – Press
    • 5 x 10 x 80
  • Assistance – Pull-ups (band assisted)
    • 5 x 10/10/5/5/5 x BW
  • 100 reps of front plate lifts, rope-handle triceps pushdowns, hammer curls
  • Foam Rolling

Not much to say, really. A solid workout. I strove to leave something in the tank on my last work set, but I did push my assistance work. Everything just felt solid and good.

What gets me?

The next 4 sessions are the 5/3/1 sessions. Every single one will be going for a PR. Bench, Squat, Deadlift will all be for full PR’s, lifting a weight I’ve never lifted before in my life (for any reps). Press will be matching weight, so it’ll be a rep PR.

It’s a bit intimidating, but also very exciting. I think I’m most excited about Friday’s squat session: 295#… almost 300. Next cycle.

Avoiding Conflict

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Best fights are the ones we avoid.

– Mr. Han (Jackie Chan, the 2010 remake of “The Karate Kid”)

Whenever people dole out self-defense tips, it tends to be under the guise of you being in the fight. The fight has started, or the fight is inevitable, and how can you manage the fight. Granted, sometimes this is how it goes. But what might be better is if we could avoid the fight in the first place.

There are good techniques for this, like SouthNarc’s Managing Unknown Contacts (MUC) techniques, or just following the Insights Training ABC: Always Be Cool. Marc MacYoung knows a lot about the subject too, and when he posted this article I thought it was one worth sharing.

The article is titled “Eight Self-Defense Tips for Men to Avoid Violent Conflicts“. I would argue these are good self-defense tips for everyone to follow, but I can see the author’s point towards men because I get reminded of LowTechCombat‘s examination of Alpha vs. Predatory.

Here are the 8 points, without elaboration (you can find that in the article):

  1. Forget what you see on the screen
  2. Live, love and be happy
  3. Know yourself
  4. He’s human too
  5. Get over yourself
  6. Leave
  7. Peyton Quinn’s rules
  8. Stick to the mission

Notice there’s no tips on how to punch him just right, how to shoot more effectively, none of that. It’s about mindset, it’s about mental approach and tactics for situations — before they become situations. This is more important.

It’s also about humility. There’s so much bravado, so much macho about fighting and self-defense. I recently saw a posting on Facebook, of a picture of a bank holdup scene and captioned basically “and what would you do”. The comment thread was full of big talk, heroics, fantasy, and few posters acknowledged realities involved (tho it was cool to see Rog mention the Beer & TV Maxim; one of the few rational comments on the picture). I think about #8 of “stick to the mission” which is basically:

Every time I leave the house, my mission is to return to it and my loved ones safely and unharmed so I can live a long and happy life with them.

So does your macho, your bravado, your fantasy, your heroics, do they permit you to fulfill your mission? Granted, your mission may be different, but then at least you know your mission. You do clearly know your mission, right? If you don’t, if you cannot stop right now and state it clearly aloud, then perhaps you should take a moment to define what your mission is. It will guide you and your decisions, which may be critically important when the flag flies.

Give the whole article a read. It’s quite good. In fact, most of these tips will apply beyond “violent encounters”. I mean, we have conflict on the job or in other interactions in our daily life. Tips like Peyton Quinn’s rules will help you manage those just fine too.

2013-04-29 training log

/ hsoi

Leaving more in the tank

Wendler 5/3/1 program, cycle 19, week 2

  • Work Set – Deadlift (working max: 385#)
    • 1x5x155 (warmup)
    • 1x5x195
    • 1x3x235
    • 1x3x275 (work)
    • 1x3x310
    • 1x4x350
  • Assistance – Deadlifts
    • 5 x 10/10/8/8/8 x 185
  • Assistance – Side Bends
    • 3 x 25 x 40

Physically I felt good. Nevertheless, when I finished that 4th rep and set up for #5 my body said “stop”. I’ve been pushing further, where that “leaving 1 in the tank” might actually be a real struggle of a rep, instead of a good 1-2 reps. That’s not the right way to do things. So today I truly left some in the tank and opted to make sure I got some good assistance work in. So I dropped the assistance weight to 185 and made sure I got more reps. My lower back hates me. 🙂 But that’s good. Given more reading, analysis of my form and technique, I’m pretty sure abs and lower back are weak. So I gotta do more assistance deadlifting with strict form, lighter weight, higher reps, build that up. And yeah, abs twice a “week” in some fashion. Stick with it, see what happens.