I like Mixed Martial Arts

February 25th, 2007

Later today I am going to post a review of a mixed martial arts fighting event that took place last night. I thought that may be a bit weird since I have never spoken about MMA on this blog before. The truth is that it has become my main sports interest, after Cal Football of course, in the past couple of years.

Mixed martial arts fighting is exactly that: a combat sport where the fighters are allowed to use the techniques from a wide variety of fighting styles and schools. Available techniques run the full gamut; punching, kicking, wrestling, submissions, grappling, etc. This is why MMA fights are so interesting to me versus, say, a boxing match. There is such a wide variety of techniques a fighter can use to inflict damage on their opponent or to end the fight that there is always a surprise waiting.

This also puts extremely high demands on the fighters; anyone fighting at the top level in their weight class needs to be extremely well-rounded in all areas of fighting. Otherwise, the star kick-boxer is bound to eventually end up on the ground with a ground whiz and get submitted in a choke hold or armbar.

Many of you have heard of or seen a UFC event; they have become extremely popular in the US after the debut of their Ultimate Fighter reality show on Spike TV. The UFC is one of what most people consider the two top mixed martial arts promotions in the world. The other one is PRIDE FC, based out of Japan. While these two don’t have a monopoly on the MMA talent in the world, between the two of them they have signed the lion’s share of top talent out there.

Anyway, PRIDE 33: The Second Coming happened in Las Vegas last night. It was only the second event put on in the USA by PRIDE. It was full of exciting fights and you’ll hear more about it very soon.

Posted in Entertainment, General | No Comments »

History of the Middle East in 90 Seconds

February 14th, 2007

Middle East Map

Animation demonstrating the empires that wielded influence over the Middle East throughout history.

The title is sort of a joke since watching a 90 second flash animation (well, at the very least this specific flashimation!) will not teach you about the actual history of the Middle East. What it does do pretty well though is give you a rough idea of how many different groups of people have controlled or had lots of influence on the area and its people. Then, while keeping in mind the kind of complex cultural situation this kind of history would give rise to, take a moment to examine the ridiculously simplistic and “black or white” approach many people in politics and the media use to try to characterize this area and its people with.

Although the topic of the Middle East is, well, very topical (when has it not been in the last umpteenth years?), another cool thing you can see in this animation is what’s happening to Armenia throughout this same time period: about 2500 B.C. to 2000 A.D.

You’ll notice that Armenia and the Armenian people, who primarily lived in the area marked in the animation as the Hittite Empire (some argue this was an Armenian society, different story) are pretty much on the edges of most of the empires that came to rule over it. What this meant for us was that we had the wonderful opportunity to be the battlegrounds for superpowers at war at the outskirts of their empires, trying to extend the reaches of their influence. I don’t think I need to explain how being the area where eastern (Persian mostly), western, and Arabic powers fought for influence might have left the people there a bit weary.

On the other hand, what is pretty cool and interesting is that throughout this time, and to a lesser degree after the takeover of the Ottoman Turks, the Armenians did two things which most others who fell under these powers didn’t:

  1. Armenians remained Christian. This despite being ruled by lots of people who were *not* Christian. This wasn’t easy and the trouble started when the Armenian king Trdat declared Christianity to be the “state” religion of Armenians before any other, in 301 or 314 A.D. depending on who you ask.
  2. Armenians typically retained high levels of autonomy even though throughout much of this time period they were “under” the hand of another king or ruler. Ultimately most “emperors” found that it was much easier and more beneficial to them to sort of leave the Armenians to themselves and not try to interfere too much. It should be noted however that Armenians had their independence from these empires, and dynasties of their own, for hundreds of years at a time. With the exception of about a hundred years however under Tigran the Great, Armenian power never really extended beyond their own people; which is why you never see the Armenian Empire anywhere in the flash animation.

Well, now that I turned a simple animation about the Middle East into a lesson on Armenian history, I think my crazy rambling is done. And thanks to Professor Astourian at Berkeley for making sure that none of this stuff was really new to me.

Posted in Armenian, Politics | No Comments »

That’s How We Do It In Washington

February 13th, 2007

Last Saturday night we were out in Seattle and on our way to Joe’s Hot Dog Stand for our customary end-of-the-night hot dogs. I’m driving and we’re getting the usual Seattle sprinkling from the skies. We’re stopped at a traffic light, probably discussing how we need to make it to the hot dog stand before it closes, when all of a sudden I’m shaken and pushed forward. “Hmmmm… there is no way that Matt kicking the back of my seat would have made the whole car shake, so clearly there must be another… DOH! I’ve just been rear-ended.” Of course, it had been way too long since I had to deal with the annoyances of uninsured drivers, filing insurance claims, and shady body shops for the bump to be anything else.

I get out of the car to see a sloth of a car behind mine, a 1992 Cadillac Eldorado, with another sloth sitting behind the wheel. I ask the fool for his license and insurance information; a seemingly simple task. I end up waiting a solid three minutes in the rain while he fumbles in his dash and wallet, struggling to coordinate his fingers enough to pull the card out. He can’t maintain eye contact with me and he is a man of few words. Basically, he is drunk.

While I am standing in the rain jotting down the information from his half-legible, copied, and expired insurance card a couple of Seattle’s Finest happen to drive by and slow down to figure out why I am standing in the road. I tell them what’s up and ask them to come check things out. After spending some time talking with the both of us, one of the cops comes over to me and the conversation was as follows…

Cop: So what would you like us to do here?
Me: Uhhh, what do you mean?
Cop: Basically we can do one of two things: 1) We could write him up for a DUI; but he doesn’t look that bad and his eyes aren’t shaking much.
Me: And the other thing?
Cop: Or we could write up a report on the incident and that’s that.
Me: So you’re asking ME to decide whether that [obviously-drunk] guy [who-just-crashed-in-to-the-back-of-my-car] should get written up for a DUI?
Cop: Yeah.
Me: Isn’t that your job? I don’t think I am the one to make that call, am I?
Cop: What do you want from us?
Me: I just want your report in writing so my insurance company doesn’t second guess my story.
Cop: Okay. *walks across the street to his patrol car*

I am utterly bewildered at what just transpired and turn to Matt and Anurag to say so when the cop turns around and yells across the street to Me: “That’s how we do it in Washington; we ask you.”

Apparently that is how they do it in Washington. The question I’m asking the Seattle police is, “Why?”

Epilogue: Everyone in the car was fine and the bump wasn’t that bad so it looks like the damage is confined to the bumper of the car.

Posted in Cars, My Life | No Comments »

You Are Buying Windows Vista, Cancel or Allow?

February 6th, 2007

On last night’s Daily Show I caught a glimpse of a new “Get A Mac” ad from Apple. You know, those fun little 30-second spots featuring John Hodgman as a PC and Justin Long as a Mac.

In this one, PC’s new Windows Vista operating system is serious about security. So serious the it comes with an “agent”. See what I mean…

I thought this was funny since I have heard about the semi-intrusive feature in Vista that repeatedly asks for permission to do simple things. Despite that, and some other egregious user interface and general user-hating flaws in the system, I will probably be the owner of a copy of Windows Vista Ultimate by the end of this day. That’s only because I will be getting it at the extreme discount that Microsoft employees get it for. It can’t hurt to have a copy of Redmond’s latest and greatest around, can it?

…”You are attempting to install Vista on your awesome MacBook Pro, cancel or allow?”

Posted in Apple / Mac, Funnies | Comments Off

Research Catches Up With Me – Prescription Drug Ads Are Bad For You

February 4th, 2007

Do you experience confusion? Anxiety? Feelings that your life is out of your control?

Televised advertisements for prescription drugs may be partly to blame, new research suggests.

The Annals of Family Medicine has published the results of a study that discusses the negative impacts of all the prescription drug advertisements we see on television. I discussed the same in a post I made back in November of 2005, “Here’s a pill, won’t you have another?”

On another note, Super Bowl XLI was incredibly lame. I did not follow the NFL season but I would love to know how the Chicago Bears even got to the national championship game with an offense that plays for the other team.

Posted in My Life, Science | Comments Off

Weathering Seattle Part 3 of 2: Thought it was over but the snow was just beginning

January 26th, 2007

That is what happens when it snows in Seattle. Well, at least its *some* of what happens.

Oh you thought we were through with the freak winter in the Pacific Northwest this year? Not a chance. A couple of weeks ago on a nice (relative) Monday in Bellevue, the weathermen — nay, meteorologists — of the area predicted three inches of snow for Monday evening. Everyone quivered and shook in their Birkenstocks and Uggz and took off early from work to get home before the blizzard and the traffic. Turns out they were wrong as usual and we got maybe 0.1 inches of snow Monday night.

So Tuesday comes around and they once again predict doom and gloom for the Seattle area and multiple inches of snow. Fool me twice? Pshaw, I say. So I’m at work typing away around 4:30 as I hear the half-conversations of the people on the phone around me. “No kidding… the roads are all blocked up in Kirkland?… That much snow on the ground?…” Of course I glance outside from where I’m sitting and I see nothing but cloudy skies and oncoming sunset. A piddling fifteen minutes pass, the sun sets of course and we have nighttime darkness at 4:45, and I take a second glance outside to see… snow! Snow coming down probably as hard as I have ever seen snow come down. Well I try to pack up and get out of there as soon as I can but by the time I got to my car in the garage and got out, there was already a good half an inch to an inch of fresh powder covering the ground. I did okay driving around the outside portions of the parking lot but as soon as I took the left onto the slightly uphill street, my car didn’t make it more than 25 feet before going into spin city. Granted, I drive a rear-wheel drive sports car with ultra-low-profile summer performance tires on it, so this was not a big surprise to me (or those watching for that matter). I probably would have done better if I had waited for some of the snow to compact, harden, or melt off in an hour or two as cars drove over and past it. Anyway, I reversed over to the side of the road leaving my car for the night, and walked back up to the office, very much defeated by the weather gods.

Luckily for me my boss lives very close to my place and he offered to give me a lift home. He did not however spare any opportunities to make fun of the many more 3 Series or other similar vehicles also stranded on the side of the road as we took our 10-minute-turned-1.5-hour drive home. Thanks Mike. All I have to say to that is, “Yay, Armen!”

The events of that Tuesday weren’t all though; we got more snow again on Saturday and again a couple of days after that. Suffice to say that some side and back roads were well and frozen for over a week. This all gave me the opportunity to score what I think are some pretty photos.

Note, the roads seem snow-free because I didn’t snap this shot until Thursday morning, and this is a very high traffic road. Click through to my Flickr photostream to see a few more shots of the snow around my place. Unfortunately I do not have a picture of my poor car stranded on the side of the road for you to make fun of.

The last few days we have seen some conciliatory gestures by the weather around here; mostly clear days with some very light sprinkling tossed in. A few years ago I might have complained; this year I consider that a blessing. And please, if you live in an area where it snows, ever, learn how to drive (or when to pull over) in those conditions; unlike the idiot in the video up there.

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Five Reasons to Keep Scientists Around

January 25th, 2007

Hey those guys in the white lab coats can sometimes be as boring to me as for anyone, but you’ve got to hand it to them when they cook up some really fun stuff. Fluids that become solid when you hit them (dilitants), auxetic materials that get thicker when you stretch them out, superfluids that have no friction and can flow right up the sides of a container, and ferrofluids that are liquids with tiny metals in them and can float in magnetic fields.

If you’d like to see videos of these crazy materials in action, check out The Stuff of Dreams by New Scientist. Here is a teaser video of ferrofluids in action to get you started…

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Weathering Seattle Part 2 of 2: Wind decides to throw a tantrum at the Pacific Northwest

December 17th, 2006

In case you haven’t heard, a little storm hit the Pacific Northwest and Seattle last Thursday night. It brought rain, hurricane-force winds of over 70mph, and hundreds of fallen trees and downed power lines. Enough to leave over a million people without power on Friday.

On Thursday night the power flickered off/on several times until it finally died around 10pm. I knocked out early and woke up in the morning to find the power wasn’t back yet. I had no idea the extent of the damage around the area, and since the power at my place has gone out during almost every remotely hard storm we’ve seen, I had no reason to assume that it would be as bad as it was.

I headed to work on Friday morning. No, strike that, I tried to go to work. I spent about 45 minutes dodging a bunch of nut-jobs darting across intersections with dead traffic lights. These imbeciles will gladly flash a piece of plastic at you as proof that they know how to drive. When it comes down to it though, they prove their mental capacity mimics that of a banana slug. Do you really think that trying to just force your way into the middle of the intersection with your giant SUV is speeding up anyone’s, including your, commute? If people would take turns sending one car from each lane in each direction in a counter-clockwise or clockwise fashion, things would move quickly and smoothly. Instead what happened was a cluster that backed cars up for as far as the eye could see. Getting back home was no easy task either; trying to dodge backed up lines of cars as well as the numerous blocked roads and downed trees allowed me to find a new roundabout route from work to home.

Needless to say, at this point the magnitude of the disaster was becoming clear to me. There was no power at work which meant there was no work. I spent most of the day Friday doing a bunch of stuff around the house that needed to be done anyway and didn’t require electricity. I tried to run some errands, but the power was out everywhere, even in Redmond. Trying to leave Bellevue headed south, to where there was power, was an exercise in patience I was not up for.

Later that night Matt and I did make it out to Renton to find the area jam-packed with more people than have probably ever been in the area. Every fast food place, gas station, and grocery store had lines spilling out of it. After recharging ourselves and my car we headed home to find that Matt had power but I did not. I braved the cold in my apartment for one more night but when I woke up Saturday morning freezing in my own bed, I knew I had to get out of there. I grabbed my things and headed over to Matt’s place Saturday morning; and I’m still there as I write this post.

Its certainly been an interesting weekend. You may be wondering why I labeled this post part 2 of 2. Well, there is another crazy Seattle disaster story I’ve been meaning to retell here which I haven’t gotten around to yet. I will try to do that soon though. It involved me, a plane, and a lot of white stuff.

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Verizon Can’t Make Cents of Math

December 13th, 2006

If you have seen stronger and funnier evidence than this phone call that a high school degree from a public school in this country proves little to nothing about a person’s intelligence, I would love to see it.

This poor sap spends an hour on the phone (20 minutes recorded below) with no less than 5 Verizon Wireless reps trying to explain to them that $0.002, which is what they read from their screens and papers, is not the same as saying something costs “0.002 cents“. Not a single one of them is able to see the difference. I know, you don’t believe me. Just listen to the thing right below.

Hello people!? Just because it came after a dollar sign and a decimal point doesn’t mean you can read it “cents” willy nilly. I didn’t know whether to cry or laugh as I listened to this recording. Of course I erred on the side of fun and I laughed uncontrollably throughout the call. Here’s hoping that you do too.

Epilogue: According to the blog this guy set up, VerizonMath, after several days, hundreds of thousands of people learning of the incident, and no doubt hundreds of them writing or calling to Verizon, VZW has finally admitted their mistake, refunded the guy’s money, and promised to edit their reference materials to make things clearer for their 2nd-grade-educated reps.

Let’s be clear. I have no beef with you if you answer support calls for a living. I do think you’re incompetent if you don’t know how much money $0.002 is.

Posted in Funnies | Comments Off

Stranger than Dry Weather

December 11th, 2006
forecast

It’s always so encouraging to look at the weather forecast and see a week of rain coming your way. That’s just a little taste of the typical Seattle winter week. There are still plenty of things to do to keep busy though. Last Friday I attended the Leopard Tech Talk by Apple on the latest developer tools and features of the upcoming Mac OS X 10.5 a.k.a. Leopard. I’m particularly looking forward to being able to use Dashcode to help with some Dashboard development I might be doing in the near future. Also, while sitting in one of the sessions, I had an idea for a widget that is such a no-brainer that I have no idea how I didn’t think of it until now. I’ll tell you all about it if I actually get around to finishing it.

This weekend I saw the movie Stranger than Fiction which I thought had looked interesting since the first time I saw the trailer. Although I wouldn’t call the film revolutionary, it is at the very least a little different than most of the drivel in theaters today. It is a fun little story about a non-descript IRS agent Harold Crick, played by Will Ferrel, who is a character in a book being written by a famous author. One day he starts hearing the author’s voice in his head as she narrates the story of his life “accurately, and with a better vocabulary”. Turns out that Harold is not just a character in the unfinished book, but a real person. I won’t spoil the rest of the plot for you but suffice to say that while it was enjoyable, I think the original book ending would have suited the movie better as well.

Oh and speaking of Hollywood drivel, a blog called Drivl has a post about ten things that software code does in movies that it never does in real life. I love this list because it points out how the computer interaction in most movies is so very silly. My favorite of course is #9: “People who write code use mice”. For years, running on decades now, computer users in films and television have been banging away frantically at keyboards while performing all manner of tasks that would be impossible or extremely difficult to accomplish without the aid of a mouse or other pointing device. CSI agents touching up photos using their keyboard? Not likely. I guess clicking a mouse is not as dramatic as banging away on a keyboard.

Posted in Entertainment, My Life | 1 Comment »

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