Author: hsoi

Some thoughts on socialization

/ hsoi

Heather, the Swiss Army Wife, points out an interesting article in Psychology Today magazine.

Here’s a direct link to the article.

The article is about how, at least here in the United States, we’ve built a cultural and social structure that created this thing known as the teenager. A state where they have a lot of freedoms and abilities, but yet they don’t. Where mentally and physically they are capable of many things, yet we’ve put massive restrictions and burdens upon them. As a result, we’ve created a lot of the “teenager vs. parent” conflicts and generalized teenager angst. It’s an interesting read.

One reason Wife and I choose to homeschool is because of the breadth of people our children are exposed to. Our kids are not locked in school rooms with 25-35 other kids about their same age and development level, day in and day out for the majority of their young lives. In fact, much of the time you go through each grade in school surrounded by the same people. Then many of them are involved in after-school activities, and often those involve the exact same people the kids see during the day with perhaps some specific variance but still generally divided by age/grade. So it’s really just this small slice of folks that the kid interacts with, all around the same age and development. It’s the blind leading the blind with sometimes far too often the only external guideance coming from less desirable sources like TV, movies, and other bits of popular culture. Granted you can expose children to folks of other ages and development levels, but “with our busy lives these days” that doesn’t often happen.

Homeschooling tends to lend itself to children being exposed to a cross-section of people of all ages. My children attend Daily Mass, which is mostly attended by elderly. When doing things in their 4-H program, they’re working with kids from ages 8 to 18. Even just in daily schooling the 3 kiddos are with each other, all of their different ages and development stages. There’s much to be learned from this, especially exposing kids to older folks (role models) and allowing your kids to sometimes be the older folks (role models). From the article:

Teens in America are in touch with their peers on average 65 hours a week, compared to about four hours a week in preindustrial cultures. In this country, teens learn virtually everything they know from other teens, who are in turn highly influenced by certain aggressive industries. This makes no sense. Teens should be learning from the people they are about to become. When young people exit the education system and are dumped into the real world, which is not the world of Britney Spears, they have no idea what’s going on and have to spend considerable time figuring it out.

This isn’t to say that homeschooling is the only way to get kids exposed to the right people, but it does show what homeschooling can offer, especially when the biggest concern folks have about homeschooling is “socialization”. Regardless of how your children are socialized on a daily basis (homeschooling, private school, public school, etc.), don’t worry so much if they are being socialized; if the children interact with other humans on a regular basis, they’re being socialized… even us homeschoolers let our children out of the dungeon once in a while. 🙂 Instead, concern yourself more with the quality of the socialization they are getting.

MHI – in progress

/ hsoi

The gun blogger world is all aflutter about Monster Hunter International.

I didn’t get it (it being everyone getting so gah-gah about the release).

I guess I still don’t get it, but I guess if you know who Larry Correia is (and before this I admit I didn’t), then I guess that’s part of the fun. Plus, books like this just aren’t my thing. I’m a geek… I tend to prefer non-fiction. Subjects like in MHI aren’t totally out of the realm of things I’d enjoy, but I just really had no compelling reason to read the book.

Nevertheless, TXGunGeek loves the book and and lent me a copy.

Now I see James Rummel wrote a review of it, probably one that the gun-blog-fanboys will be all up in arms over, so to speak.

I’m only on chapter 5 or 6 (don’t remember, book is in the bedroom), or whatever chapter after Owen shows up at MHI and asks what happened on December 15, 1995 or however it all goes. I didn’t intend to start reading the book yet because there’s other things in my queue that should come first… but man, Atlas Shrugged continues to be unappealing to me. 😉

So far I’ll say the book feels fun. There’s no question Correia knows his guns and this is quite filled with gun geek stuff. The story seems to flow well enough and the reading is fine, but I’ll have to agree with James that even in the few chapters I’ve read Owen does come off like an amazing uber-hero without much of a flaw (other than maybe not telling his Dad the whole truth). I must admit, when they were reading off Owen’s history and said “black belt in two martial arts” I found myself asking “OK, which ones?”. 🙂  Still, I don’t like to get too tied up into things… suspend disbelief a bit and just enjoy the fun.

I’ll see how things come out whenever I finish the book.

Updated: Tweaked a few things in the above text, and look… Larry Correia responded to James’ review.

I will say. As I read this, I can’t help but think the book would be a lot of fun if it was made into a movie. Sure I like seeing character development, I like seeing more deeply fleshed out and realistic characters (even Superman had problems). But I also know that sometimes just mindless fun is good too. Sometimes movies without much of anything except a loose story for an excuse to provide lots of on-screen action is good stuff. Frankly, MHI (so far of what I’ve read) could really lend to that.

More thoughts on snub ammo

/ hsoi / 3 Comments

I was headed to Cabela’s last night to get some hunting stuff and realized that I should probably look for some ammo for the snub. I must admit, I’m still not settled on what ammo to use for self-defense. I’ve got this pull towards wanting to use the Gold Dot 135 grain +P’s, because I like Gold Dot and know they make solid stuff, plus there’s something about carrying and handling unjacketed lead that bugs me (probably the health-aspect of it all) so I’d like to carry some sort of jacketed ammo. Yet, as I look at ballistics data on a lot of your JHP rounds for .38’s (as shot out of snubs, regardless if the load is specifically designed for short barrels or not), they tend to get the expansion but not always the penetration. I think that’s perhaps one thing that bugs me about Hornady Critical Defense is that part of its design is to not penetrate more than 12″. If 12″ is considered the FBI minimum, to not go more than 12″ by design feels faulty to me. I can only guess why Hornady made such a decision (risks of overpenetration, since primary consumers are civilians?). But, all this data is partially subjective.

The thing is, expansion is certainly desirable, but if you don’t get it deep enough to hit vitals then expansion doesn’t matter. You want both depth and width, but given a choice between the two I’d say depth comes out as slightly more important because vitals are buried down deep and you need to ensure you get to them. Given that, while I don’t want to carry LSWCHP’s I think that’s really the only way to go for a .38 snub. The main reason? They get the penetration, and some expansion. Granted they may not expand as much as a JHP round, but they get the penetration and seem fairly reliable at doing so… then some expansion as a bonus.

I just look at data such as brassfetcher’s, and while it may be a single point of reference it’s still useful info. Look at this (but note the barrel lengths). Even consider this:

2-inch .38 snubs
There seems to be no JHP bullet cartridge that is capable of providing a reasonable balance of adequate penetration and reliable expansion. A bullet that expands will not penetrate deeply enough, whereas a bullet that does not expand will probably overpenetrate.

As a result, we feel the best cartridge for .38 snubbies is the 148 grain wadcutter target load. (MacPherson, Duncan: Bullet Penetration, Ballistic Publications, El Segundo, California, 1994. p. 247, Figure 10-2 Cylinder Bullet Penetration Depth.) The sharp-edged shoulder of the full wadcutter design provides the best penetration and wounding efficiency for this gun/cartridge combination.

Take that as you wish, as that was printed 11 years ago, but did include the Gold Dot in the testing.

I still don’t think I’m settled on what ammo to use, and I reserved the right to change my mind. But for now, I think I will stick with LSWCHP’s, and presently the Buffalo Bore 20c/20 stuff since that’s what I have. Didn’t see any for sale at Cabela’s (the only place in town I’ve seen Buffalo Bore for sale).

The quest continues….

The Bill of Rights – Amendment 4

/ hsoi

The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

Source: The National Archives and Records Administration, “The Charters of Freedom” exhibit.

Kuk Sool and cross training

/ hsoi

There’s a discussion going on in the Kuk Sool forum at Martial Arts Planet about “Hypocritical aspects of WKSA” and one of the larger themes coming out of the discussion is about cross-training.

The notion of cross-training is an attempt to overall improve something towards meeting your goals. That one avenue may get you part of the way there, so you want to also add another avenue to get you all the way there. In martial arts, the classic situation is handled in today’s mixed-martial arts (MMA) environment. If you just study striking, you may be a great striker but what happens if someone takes you down to the ground? If you just study wrestling, do you know how to deal with someone that wants to stand up and throw punches? If you know how to fight on the ground, can you handle avoiding going to the ground in the first place? There’s a desire to be well-rounded because you cannot predict where a fight will go. Sure in a sport competition environment you can have rules and that dictates what will and won’t happen, e.g. in a boxing match you can be sure people will only be throwing punches. But in combat, you don’t know what you’ll be up against so the trend with MMA today is to be well-rounded and study all aspects so you can handle whatever situation may come your way.

One appeal of Kuk Sool as an art is that it is fairly comprehensive, even at higher levels supposedly teaching healing arts. Nevertheless, as you get into Kuk Sool study you start to discover that it does have some holes. One notable point is the ground game. The Wah Ki set of techniques are “defense from a recumbent position”, and while they may be sufficient to help one defend themselves from an untrained attacker, they barely scratch the surface of what can be accomplished on the ground. Other parts of the Kuk Sool curriculum come across in a similar way: it’s there, it’s something, but it’s not much. Kuk Sool’s “cane curriculum” is a whopping 10 techniques. If one examines more typical Hapkido cane curriculum, there is far more involved and available in terms of the study of a cane as a weapon. Dan bong curriculum is 3 meditations and 2 forms, no formal technique work (tho you can do things such as apply it to Maek Chi Ki or Ki Bohn Soo and see where it takes you); no real application of the weapon.

One could assert that the formal curriculum is but a start. I would agree with that. Many times packed within those few techniques is a great deal of information. One shouldn’t limit their focus to just the performance of the rote technique, but one should break the technique down to see what’s being discussed and demonstrated by the technique. From there, one should explore and see where you can go and how to find yourself in the art. For instance, as I explored dan bong on my own I went through all of my empty hand techniques seeing where or how or if a dan bong could be used in such a situation. What helps is having a good teacher that works to encourage this exploration, but I fear that Kuk Sool Won (WKSA) far too often emphasizes memorization and regurgitation of “textbook curriculum” and just adhering to the formal book techniques. You watch demonstrations and far too often every move you see is a rote move; that’s fine to some degree, but why can’t people branch out beyond that to make their art alive?

Consequently, a lot of people that study Kuk Sool want to cross-train. They feel there’s something that Kuk Sool isn’t providing them. They don’t want to leave because they feel there’s something Kuk Sool is providing, but it’s just not taking them 100% of the way to their goals. The unfortunate thing is, WKSA frowns upon cross-training. I’ve heard numerous reasons as to why. Some say it’s a quest to keep the art pure. This is understandable because if people start to add more and more of their own outside knowledge and flair, eventually that will change the art (like playing the telephone game). Part of Kuk Sool’s “charter” is a study and preservation of traditional Korean Martial Arts heritage, and if they wish to preserve history then they must work to preserve how things are. Fair enough. The trouble then becomes that the art can never change, it can never evolve. Of course, anyone that really knows WKSA history from the past 50+ years knows things have in fact changed, but whatever… we’ll take SUH In Hyuk at his word. Another reason for no cross-training is that Kuk Sool is a complete art and there’s no need nor reason to cross-train; the system is perfect as it is. I’m not sure about that, because it depends upon who defines it as perfect. To SUH In Hyuk, it’s perfect. To me, it wasn’t perfect. I see nothing in Kuk Sool’s curriculum about the study of firearms, despite the assertion that Kuk Sool preserves Korea’s martial history and KJN Barry Harmon’s book, 5000 Years of Korean Martial Arts, saying Koreans did use gunpowder. In the MAP thread, one school owner even said:

YES! Here’s why, I had a student (yellow belt) been with me for six months he started training combat firearms. His firearms instructor told him that his MA training was limiting his performance in his target shooting. He told him his stance was all wrong and it was effecting his ability to hit the target. So he insisted in changing his stance in Kuk Sool to fit his firearms training because he wanted to be consistant. I of course insisted that he do the stances correctly. It came down to him having to make a choice. He did and left on good terms. Thats why I don’t allow any cross training at my dojang. It’s a simple business decision it saves alot of hassle and things like that spread like wildfire throughout an organization as you can see in WKSA right now.

I think it’s a shame that WKSA/KSW demands such rigid adherence to how things must be. It assumes we’re all the same, with the same goals, same abilities. That this small elderly woman can do things just the same as this large young man. Now, I do know they aren’t that rigid about things, but the above and my own experiences do show that depending who you are working with, the organization really wants things done their way. That’s certainly fair of them to require. I’m just not sure how good it is for the longevity of the art and the organization.

In order to survive, all living things must evolve. If you don’t evolve and change and adapt, you will die. Kuk Sool is a great art in and of itself, but it needs to determine what it finds more important: what is the goal of Kuk Sool? If it is to unwaveringly preserve the martial history of Korea, then to remain static is mostly acceptable as history doesn’t change. However, every day Korea adds to its martial history; why shouldn’t modern evolutions of Korea’s martial history also be preserved? If the modern Korean military is studying X, shouldn’t Kuk Sool Won consider incorporating X to also maintain that history?  But if Kuk Sool’s goal is to allow people to find themselves, to provide them with an effective martial art, wouldn’t it too want to evolve? That as new discoveries are made, as things are found to work and not work, wouldn’t the art want to grow and evolve to keep meeting those needs? Or perhaps WKSA’s goal is making money, but I don’t want to digress into that discussion.

Perhaps we can see why people that study Kuk Sool often want to cross-train: the art refuses to evolve, but these students wish to evolve. The art and those in control of it are free to do as they wish, just as those that study ought to be free to do as they wish. If WKSA wants to prohibit people from freely exploring and learning, I suppose they can try to do that… but it can’t stop us from leaving when we get tired of being held back for no good reason.

In the end, it’s all about satisfying goals. So long as you are being true to yourself, you being the martial arts student or you being the head of a martial arts organization, so long as you’re satisfying the goals you have and are being honest about them, that’s all you can do.

The Bill of Rights – Amendment 3

/ hsoi

No Soldier shall, in time of peace be quartered in any house, without the consent of the Owner, nor in time of war, but in a manner to be prescribed by law.

Source: The National Archives and Records Administration, “The Charters of Freedom” exhibit.

I am not tech support

/ hsoi / 6 Comments

… but everyone thinks I am.

Just because in my professional life I’m a computer programmer, that doesn’t mean I know everything about computers. Heck, I’m a Mac guy and haven’t really touched a Windows box in ages. I know Vista sucks, but that’s about it. 😉  And yet, all my Windows-using family and friends call me for help with Windows, always starting out with “I know you’re a Mac guy but I was hoping you’d know…”

But yet, because “I do stuff with computers” I have various people always calling me and asking for help. I don’t have any idea, but this flowchart summed up my strategy perfectly:

Flowchart courtesy of xkcd.

Austin Water implements Stage 2 water restrictions

/ hsoi

The Stage 2 water restrictions for City of Austin officially starts today.

For a list of what this means, click here.

If you live in Austin or a surrounding community, please stick to this. Actually, I shouldn’t have to ask… it’s city ordinance and failure to comply will be a Class C misdemeanor punishable by a fine up to $500.

The time to conserve is when you’ve got it… by the time you’ve not got it it’s too late to try to conserve. If this drought continues (we’re at almost 2 years now), we’re going to be in a world of hurt.

Spreading the word that the restrictions are in effect.