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Comment Re:What a surprise. (Score 1) 582

I do believe you, but Czech republic seems to be different so it was very helpful to learn a bit Czech - especially the part that differes with Russian. That really helps to transform a Russian sentence into a sort of broken Czech that was, in my experience, better understandable for them, than English.

Romanians often speak decent English, and, obviously, French (that is one language I, for one, struggle with). Poles are also fine with English.

Comment Re:Bombing a city is ok ? (Score 1) 582

And what's your explanation for why the Ukrainians would want to inflict civilian casualties?

Sheer primitive tribalism. The guys who have burned people alive in Odessa had a lot of fun doing it. And they were cheered at by several local politicians.

There was nothing murderous or repressive about the government

Well, shelling civilians and arming neo-faschist thugs surely counts for murderous. And as for repressive, they banned an oppositional party few days ago.

Comment Re:What a surprise. (Score 2) 582

I wish they would actually do that. Czech are notoriously bad when it comes to foreign languages. I live in Germany and visit Prague every now and then.When I ask for directions in English, I get something unintelligible as reply. When I try in German, they give me blank stares. When I repeat my question in Russian (yes, I speak Russian as well), they either reply in Russian or they reply in Czech but it is often close enough to understand - Slavic languages are like that.

Comment Re:All software is full of bugs (Score 5, Funny) 150

But we don't do that. We never do that. As developers, we hide our head in the sand until we absolutely can no longer ignore then problem, and then we say "Whoops! My bad!" As consumers we assume that professionally published software should be reasonably free of bugs or exploitable code. And people start being held accountable by law for their shitty software, the status quo will never change.

I was demonstrating to a shitty software developer the other day how all his input sanitizing routines were in the javascript front end to his web application and anyone bypassing the javascript could essentially have their way with the back-end database, and he told me "Oh you're making a back-end API call, no one will ever do that!" No one except the guy who's hacking your fucking system, jackass. People like that make me want to sign on as Linus' personal dick-puncher. Whenever someone writes some shitty software that pisses Linus off, I will find that person and I will PUNCH THEM IN THE DICK. Because I swear to god, that's what it's going to take. Congress is going to have to WRITE A LAW allowing me to HUNT PEOPLE DOWN and PUNCH THEM IN THE DICK over the SHITTY SOFTWARE they write. And when that day comes, with God as my witness, I will PITCH A TENT outside MICROSOFT HEADQUARTERS, and that will be the LAST TENT EVER PITCHED at MICROSOFT HEADQUARTERS!

Comment More on MA (Score 1) 160

That translated into martial arts is roughly the equivalent of a 4th DAN, but for that you need longer due to 'regulations regarding examinations', waiting periods between 2 examinations.

Depends on the martial art. The most modern practice recognizes natural talent while incorporating considerable traditional technique; I assure you, everyone does not walk into their first day of training on an equal basis -- I've been teaching for decades and I think I've seen about every level of beginner skill there is. Some people are simply gifted. Certainly from there on in we see the difference between the shows-up-once-a-week and the person who seems to be there every hour they can possibly manage.

Also, more on topic, I can definitely assure anyone who is curious that you're not doing high level thinking when executing advanced martial arts techniques.

All you really need to do to understand this is think about bike riding. When you learn, you learn, you think like crazy. Which does you very little good. But eventually, you internalize the process (that's what I call it, anyway) and you can do it while carrying on a conversation with someone else, paying almost no attention at all to the activity of riding the bike. Those near-instant balance corrections, the precise amount of handlebar control and lean for cornering, all of that comes from "underneath." Same thing for advanced MA.

That whole business about finding your calm center and holding it -- that's a real thing. If you start thinking under threat or pressure, your performance will drop like a stone. The best technique comes from a relaxed, centered condition, accepting of whatever comes.

Comment Is There A Lot More Activity (Score 1) 160

Is there a lot more activity somewhere else in his nervous system? Perhaps we distribute the processing load as we learn the moves. IIRC I've read a couple of papers that suggest that more processing than we realize takes place in our retinas when we do object recognition. I'd guess if you measured the brain activity of someone who's been driving for a couple of decades while they're driving, you'll find a lot less brain activity than someone who's just started. Maybe that's why the newbie has so much trouble with it -- it's an activity that requires a lot of reflexive movement and the newbie hasn't learned those yet. I've noticed that when I get in a car where the controls are a bit different, my eyes don't know where to go to gather the information that I need right now and I actually have to think about it. Could be a symptom of that...

Comment Re:Whelp. (Score 2) 139

You can always take the So Long and Thanks for All the Fish view:

Mrs E. Kapelsen of Boston, Massachusetts was an elderly lady, indeed, she felt her life was nearly at an end. She had seen a lot of it, been puzzled by some, but, she was a little uneasy to feel at this late stage, bored by too much. It had all been very pleasant, but perhaps a little too explicable, a little too routine.

With a sigh she flipped up the little plastic window shutter and looked out over the wing.

At first she thought she ought to call the stewardess, but then she thought no, damn it, definitely not, this was for her, and her alone.

By the time her two inexplicable people finally slipped back off the wing and tumbled into the slipstream she had cheered up an awful lot.

She was mostly immensely relieved to think that virtually everything that anybody had ever told her was wrong.

Or the obligatory: http://xkcd.com/1104/

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