I have much more experience than the average person. Lars seems to invent and conjecture as much historical evidence as some other posters here, but what he does is very impressive. You could accurately classify it as trick shooting, but since archery is now a sport instead of a practical thing...it's all pretty gray.

What's neat is that Lars' technique works significantly better than current common practices...albeit in what are currently uncommon situations, such as riding horseback or running & shooting. There are 2 things that makes these kinds of situations difficult:

1) Keeping the arrow resting against the side of the bow and the handle. If you've ever shot before, most beginning shooters will have their arrow accidentally drop to the ground many times before they fire a successful shot. Even for someone who is more than a novice, a strong breeze can easily knock your arrow away from this notch. Shooting while on horseback or running is a whole new level of difficult.

2) Firing rapidly. Firing off many arrows in succession is a difficult thing, seriously. Despite Anna Maltese's dismissal of Lars' demonstration on why firing on the 'wrong' side of the bow is faster, it truly does remove many of the steps, and speeds up the entire process. In modern archery, Right handed people fire the arrow on the left side of the bow, and left handed people fire the arrow on the Right side of the bow. Reasons for this could be conjectured, but from personal experience, learning how to shoot the arrow from the wrong side of the bow is almost like learning archery all over again...it feels weird. From watching related videos, the way Lars holds many arrows in his hand, making sure to rotate each arrow into the appropriate knocked position each time, is a significant achievement that Anna did not touch on.

What's particularly impressive is that Lars has achieved improvements in both categories simultaneously by firing from the wrong side of the bow. To my knowledge, modern trick shooting is the typical shooting style simply with impressive feats of accuracy, or at best being able to throw an object into the air and hit it with one arrow. In comparison, Lars changed the way he shoots his arrows, and has been able to significantly upgrade the art because of it (throwing an object in the air and hitting it with 3 arrows before reaching the ground). In my opinion, this is beyond regular trick shooting, and warrants a reinvestigation on why modern archery is the way it is.

This was really good! It's pretty obvious now that most or all the history was invented by Lars, instead of studied. However, there are a few points that she didn't touch on or completely dismissed.

She makes a quite unsubstantiated claim that ancient people cannot measure time, and dismisses the entire speed advantage of the technique Lars is using. I would have liked to see how she would have addressed the account on the native american chief's abilities at speedshooting, where Lars pulled (invented?) an account that the chief could shoot 10 arrows into the air before the first one hit the ground, and Lars managed to break that record. Despite that a great deal of historical drawings are indeed poor at describing technique (just look at how many drawings depict the horse's gallop incorrectly), this is a metric that is easily recorded. Unless another modern archer has managed to come close to shooting 10 arrows into the air before the first hits the ground, the chief's technique has indeed been lost, and has potentially been revived through Lars.

Additionally, she mocked Lars a bit, calling out, 'where's his horse?', as if his technique wouldn't work on a horse. But, she then showed videos of people rapidly firing at targets while riding on horseback. Again, Lars' technique has a tremendous speed advantage, and he makes it obvious many times over that this firing technique can be performed during acrobatic stunts. If archery truly is about 'what works', this would work better.

Finally, she did a great job at pointing out how Lars was shooting with relatively little force compared to full draw on heavy bows. Indeed, where Lars shows he can pierce chainmail, he was shooting substantially slower, likely to pull back more weight. However, against unarmored or lightly armored opponents, it may not be necessary to pull back 80+ pounds. Instead of trying to invalidate his entire technique by saying he wouldn't be able to pierce full platemail without extremely high force, it would be more accurate to say that the tremendous speed comes at the price of lower force per arrow.

While Anna Maltese brought up many great points about historical fabrication and showed that Lars is overly sensationalizing his technique, she is committing the opposite sin by entirely dismissing the technique's advantages.

https://www.facebook.com/notes/anna-maltese/yes-ive-seen-the-video-thank-you-for-posting-it-/10152769003622585?pnref=story

Is the term anti-Semitism confusing? Probably. But that doesn't mean the word "should" be used in one way or another. Words are what they are. "Anti-Semitism" is an English word, and the meaning of that word is "prejudice against Jewish people". The etymology of a word in no way dictates its modern meaning. Languages, especially English, are filled with words that don't reflect their original meaning. Even in your comment, the second word is "refer". It originally meant "to carry again". Now it doesn't. That's language.>> ^vaire2ube:

semitic refers to language origins and should no longer be appropriated to mean "anti-jewish"
arab peoples are semitic as well.
good day.
"...first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages. This family includes the ancient and modern forms of Akkadian, Aramaic, Hebrew, Arabic, Ge'ez, Maltese, Canaanite/Phoenician, Amorite, Eblaite, Ugaritic, Sutean, Chaldean, Mandaic, Ahlamu, Amharic, Tigre and Tigrinya among others.
As language studies are interwoven with cultural studies, the term also came to describe the extended cultures and ethnicities, as well as the history of these varied peoples as associated by close geographic and linguistic distribution.
...a few Semitic languages today are the base of the sacred literature of some of the world's great religions, including Islam (Arabic), Judaism (Hebrew and Aramaic), and Syriac and Ethiopian Christianity (Aramaic/Syriac and Ge'ez). " -wiki

semitic refers to language origins and should no longer be appropriated to mean "anti-jewish"

arab peoples are semitic as well.

good day.

"...first used to refer to a language family of largely Middle Eastern origin, now called the Semitic languages. This family includes the ancient and modern forms of Akkadian, Aramaic, Hebrew, Arabic, Ge'ez, Maltese, Canaanite/Phoenician, Amorite, Eblaite, Ugaritic, Sutean, Chaldean, Mandaic, Ahlamu, Amharic, Tigre and Tigrinya among others.

As language studies are interwoven with cultural studies, the term also came to describe the extended cultures and ethnicities, as well as the history of these varied peoples as associated by close geographic and linguistic distribution.

...a few Semitic languages today are the base of the sacred literature of some of the world's great religions, including Islam (Arabic), Judaism (Hebrew and Aramaic), and Syriac and Ethiopian Christianity (Aramaic/Syriac and Ge'ez). " -wiki

I remember seeing his Maltese Falcon replica and how totally off he was lol. But still it's the time and effort he puts into his work that amazes all.

Hmmm... Sounds like the Flitcraft parable from The Maltese Falcon.

I remember reading about Kittinger's big jump; he lost pressure in his suit to one of his hands, which painfully swelled-up during his ascent (obviously he didn't abort... badass).


Also, another pressure suit failure blacked him out on a lower (but still insanely high) jump, and he only survived because an automatic parachute opened.

(... oh, this is covered pretty well in his wikipedia entry. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Kittinger#Project_Excelsior )

Apparently on the descent where he was blacked out he started spinning, and built up to 22g's of force on his extremities! Thanks wikipedia!



>> ^dannym3141:

1 blew my balls off. Nearly had a panic attack just placing myself in his position.
Says i, sat in this computer chair eating maltesers.

1 blew my balls off. Nearly had a panic attack just placing myself in his position.

Says i, sat in this computer chair eating maltesers.

Ok, I found out why everyone is confused.

THE ORIGINAL of this was submitted by arvana 2 months 3 weeks ago
http://www.videosift.com/video/Adam-Savage-is-OBSESSED-with-dodo-birds-the-maltese-falcon?noredirect

Arvana then INCORRECTLY called
dupeof= http://www.videosift.com/video/Adam-Savage-Fascination-with-the-Dodo-Bird

Either that, or Zifnab video went dead and he pulled a bait-and-switch and put up a SIMILAR video.

So, yes folks, you are not crazy.. this is kind of a dupe.

>> ^rougy:
That was pretty interesting. Wish it wouldn't have cut off at the fifteen-minute mark because I wasnted to hear the end.


Click the "Watch full program" link in the bottom right corner, then from that page click on "05: One problem" from the chapters list.

If you get around to watching it, lemme know what'cha think. You may get a kick out of Jullianne Moore's role.

Sam Rockwell is the shit! Anyone that plays Zaphod Beeblebrox is cool in my book. Though my favorite role of his has gotta be Chuck Barris in Confessions of a Dangerous Mind -- Love that movie sooo much. Which brings to mind a genius writer (Charlie Kaufman) and an actor/director who is both over and underrated: George Clooney. I love half of his work (inevitably the underrated stuff) and the other half I could do without.

Diane Keaton, Nicholas Cage, Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks, etc. etc. Don't do it for me either. Though Cage Occasionally gets it right. (Or maybe it's the writers.) Mel, Mel, Mel -- what scares me about him is that his true personality may be Martin Riggs, but with a touch of the religious zealot. Definitely not a good combination. I would be careful not to harm his dog.

Favorite actors... Oh my, where to begin. So many decades of cinema to recall! To avoid a carbon copy of your list -- all noteworthy thesbians -- I'll fill in some of the missing pieces: The Marx Brothers (I love them all equally), Hepburn's flame, Spencer Tracy, the other Hepburn, Audrey (mostly because of those eyes), Cary Grant, Humprey Bogart (Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon are films that I can watch from any point and be satisfied completely for every second the films goes by), Lauren Bacall (Ze Big Sleep; dear lordy, more top ten material), Clark Gable, Gary Oldman (You said it, but he's too good and far too underappreciated to not mention), Helena Bonham Carter (another one I CANNOT avoid mentioning -- a dark favorite of mine: Morgan le Fay, Elizabeth Frankenstein, Ophelia, Anne Boleyn -- dear GOD, she's a even a freakin' death eater. She has to be a reader.), Elliot Gould (More noir favorites), Michael Gambon (brilliant), Alan Rickman, Edward Norton, Tim Roth, Brad Pitt, lil' Dakota Fanning, Kyle MacLachlan, Isabella Rossellini, and Dennis Hopper -- I think that's the cast of Blue Velvet, another potential top ten movie with top ten actors lol. Maybe we should make lists of the people we DON'T like... on second thought... (Sorry, this got long.)

Yes! Mothersbaugh, of course. Wes Anderson's pocket composer and devolution advocate. Don't forget Sigur Ros, either. That's the part of the movie where yer supposed to cry. I heart those Icelanders. A Bowie fan too. David Bowie is my best friend's father.

Make up a top 5 real quick. (No pressure.)

In reply to this comment by thepinky:
You're right. I have about 15 or so that are floating around in my favorites list. My top movies are not neccesarily the best ones I've seen. Like you said, they are the ones that I have an emotional connection to.

Wes Anderson is awesome but I haven't seen all of his films yet. My favorite so far is also The Life Aquatic. I love those covers. The Mark Mothersbaugh numbers are awesome, too. The scene where Steve introduces his boat and crew, accompanied by Mothersbaugh's "Let Me Tell You About My Boat" is one of my favorite scenes. I also really liked The Royal Tenenbaums.

Oh, underappreciated and overrated actors. It is relatively easy for me to rattle off some of my favorite actors. Paul Newman, Marlon Brando, and Ingrid Bergman are definitely in the top 5. Other actors I love off of the top of my head: Gary Oldman, Anjelica Huston, Gregory Peck, Katharine Hepburn, Bruce Willis (most people love him for the wrong reasons), Bill Murray, Charlie Chaplin, Helena Bonham Carter (I love how much her older stuff contrasts with her more recent roles. She's great.), John Goodman (I have always had a thing for this guy. He is a pleasure to watch.), James Stewart, Topol (I've only seen him in Fiddler but it is one of my favorite performances EVAR), Henry Fonda, Peter Sellers, George C. Scott, Oliver Reed. This list was about 5 times as long before I cut it down. You're welcome.

I'm sure you're the same way that I am with actors. Sometimes I love them because they are truly great actors and sometimes I love them because they are good actors and you just enjoy watching them for whatever reason. I admit that one of the reasons that I love Newman, Brando, and Bergman is because they are all incredibly sexy. They also happen to be exceptional actors. Who are your favorites?

Severely overrated: Meg Ryan, Diane Keaton (used to be okay, now I can't stand her), Nicolas Cage (liked him in Matchstick Men...which reminds me that I love Sam Rockwell), Keira Knightly, and there is something about Mel Gibson's acting that seems...is it insincere? Affected? All I know is that something is off with him and I'm not a fan.

I'll rent The Big Lebowski one of these days.

In reply to this comment by poolcleaner
In reply to this comment by thepinky
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I think I may have just discovered a very powerful tool...

In reply to this comment by kronosposeidon:
I despise blackmail, yet it worked. Never do this to me again, or I'll be forced to do....nothing.

In reply to this comment by nomino:
I promise I'll change my avatar if you don't upvote this
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Maltese-Falcon-Greatest-Most-advanced-Yacht-Ever

try this for $150-$300 million
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Maltese-Falcon-Greatest-Most-advanced-Yacht-Ever

If you like the wallypower, you'll fall in love with this
http://www.videosift.com/video/The-Maltese-Falcon-Greatest-Most-advanced-Yacht-Ever