RT McMahon’s Neighborhood

First off, I need to apologize to the guy who claimed he watched the Tekken 6 Nationals over the weekend.  He was right.  They did happen over the weekend.  I was wrong about that.  However, I won't apologize for the claim he made about the top three players being Bob users.  That was flat out wrong.  Not only that, but he was being a total couch warrior about the matches, saying how boring they were to watch and uninteresting.

I hate couch warriors.

The top place finisher was an old schooler from the Tekken Tag days named ChetChetty, a really phenomenal Paul user.  Second place went to Mr. Naps, a very excellent Bryan user and Street Fighter player.  Third went to another Tekken Tag player (who coincidentally is a former National champ for the U.S.) named Insanelee.  He used Julia. 

Congratulations to all the placers.  Good luck in Japan guys; take home the world crown for the U.S.!

Youtube user Nyawu has a ton of match vids up from the event, which I'd recommend over the UFragTV stream.  The UFragTV stream has 10 hours worth of coverage, but there's no timestamps around to tell you what exactly you're looking at, if you happen to skip around a bit.

Here's a sample match vid between Antonio and JTChinoi, a super-impressive Xiaoyu player:

The meeting at Copenhagen ... is a battle between two world views. The angry men who seek to derail this agreement, and all such limits on their self-fulfilment, have understood this better than we have. A new movement, most visible in North America and Australia, but now apparent everywhere, demands to trample on the lives of others as if this were a human right.

The angry men cannot find the words for the constraints they hate. They accuse those who would impede them of communism, fascism, religiosity, misanthropy, but know at heart that these restrictions are driven by something far more repulsive to the unrestrained man: the decencies we owe to other human beings.

This is from an interesting column in the SMH (from the Age, and possibly the Guardian), which I think succinctly points out what is going on in the world today.

James Cameron talking to the troops

I was reading up the latest issue of Wired at Barnes and Nobles today, and I glanced across an article for James Cameron's Avatar.  I never knew James Cameron used to be a trucker.  That blew my mind.  And his inspiration for getting into movies was Star Wars.  Didn't know that either.  But what really impressed me about him was the fact that he was so passionate about making a movie that would rival George Lucas's creations that he quit his steady job and plunged head-first into cinematography.

Made me think about my own life again, and how much dedication I have (and haven't) put into life. 

On a different note, my sister finally graduated today.  Was pretty awesome.  It took her roughly 10 years to do it, but she got it done and I'm super proud of her.  Grats, sis.

Not too many links this week; I've been a bit of a mess, juggling all kinds of stuff.  Didn't help that it was kind of a slow news week...

CANABALT

One of the most common refrains when talking about people's wait is "I've got a diet for you, eat less and exercise more! herr herr herr", This is often followed by something along the lines of: "it's a simple equation, calories in - calories burned equals weight gained". The idea behind this is that everyone's metabolism is the same and a thinner person is just more strong-willed and disciplined than a heavier one -- although I've noticed this incredible discipline rarely spills over into other aspects of life.

The problem with these flat-earthers is that their position just isn't supported by science. There are the genetic disorders and thyroid problems which cause people to be heavily overweight, although these are a minority. However, at least 60 genes have been identified with variations that affect weight, and researchers feel there's a lot more to come. Each gene might only cause a difference of a pound or so, but when they're all added together there's a big effect: "About 70 per cent of body size and shape was determined by genetic inheritance". That means body shape is affected by genetics more than intelligence is. Of course, there still is that 30 percent so people have some lee-way...

Being overweight is not always unhealthy in terms of cardio-vascular fitness, if the food intake is mostly fruit and vegetables -- although if it's saturated fats and chocolate then it's going to be unhealthy no matter what you weigh. The good news is that as these genes become better understood they should be able to tailor exercise and diet regimes to individual types of people.

(The article is based on a paper published in Nature on a particular genetic issue, which may get debated back and forth as new evidence comes in, but it seems there's enough evidence of enough genes to give the general issue credence. Oh, and the "I" in the title is rhetorical.) 

Source: SMH

I've seen one of those remarkably good suggestions that make you wonder why it wasn't done before, and what forces could possibly muster to prevent it happening in the future. This SMH article led me to this op-ed piece by Andrew Leigh. To summarise, a paragraph from the SMH:

The people and corporations running our prisons should be paid in proportion to the number of their inmates who don't re-offend. That could turn prisons into rehabilitation centres instead of schools for crime, slash recidivism rates and reduce considerable direct and indirect costs of crime - everything from insurance claims to police, courts and victims' expenses, not to mention the very costly business of keeping people in choky and the tendency of prisoners' and their families to be more frequent social welfare customers.

In addition it stops them being criminals, of course, which is what society wants. It gives prisoners a better opportunity for a second chance at a decent life, which should please the left, and will be a more cost effective way to run the prison and detention systems, which should please the right. Leigh notes that "ex-prisoners are disproportionately high users of other government services, such as counselling and income support", so reducing recidivism and providing a better start once out of prison will save even more money.

How can this possibly fail? Apathy. It's the only thing I can think of: Apathy.