you know why you stop reading books? Because books require a certain amount of carefree attitude and free time that can become in short supply as you get older. I struggle to read too, but not because I am turning into a babbling cretin who needs sound bites but because I have a baby and every 2 minutes I have to stop what I'm doing to deal with her. The internet can accomodate me easier than a book; I don't lose it, I choose how intense or slow it works for me and I can switch back and forth as needed. WHen I am reading a book and have to put it down every 2 minutes, I'm not going to get very far before I give up in frustration.
But it isn't just having a child that can do that. You get older, your life gets more hectic or full of responsibilities and you just can't seem to sit yourself down and block out the world like you used to. When I was ten years old, I could spend literally 24 hours reading a book if I wanted to. I don't have the stamina to do that anymore really, but its not because my mind has been melted by the freakin internet!

Lyrics:

Mr. President, Distinguished delegates...

[H.I.M. Haile Selassie I dialect]

[Bunny Wailer dialogue]
Since the beginning of modern civilization
Generations have witnessed and inherited the only conflicts of world wars
But behold the marriage supper of the lamb and the bridegroom onto his bride
Then shall the earth's children know the true expression of ONE LOVE
Then mother earth shall honeymoon in peace.
Forever eliminating the aspirations, lust and anguish of wars and rumors of wars...SELAH!

[Verse 1]
See it deh know the innocent going up in vapors
And propoganda spreading inna the sunday papers not even superman coulda save you with him cape cause
Red-a Judgement a blaze, blaze ya
And Babylon a gamble the youth dem life like racehorse
And gi dem a uniform and a shave dem head with razors
And now the clock a strike war, don't be amazed cause
inna dem churches tryin to save...saviours

[Marcus Garvey dialogue 1]
Can we do it? We can do it, we shall do it!

[Verse 2]
Boom!
Tell dem fe uh draw mi out when the world government inna falling out
Only few men survive crawling out
Run left him collegues dem sprawling out
NEARLY DEAD!
Medic haffi haul him out
And give him two tranquilizer fi stall him out
DEH PON BASE!
Can't get no calling out when him hear from the shout last week
Him mistress find a new shoes
Wife can't get no news and lately she starting to doubt
SHE STILL SEARCHING!
And the youth dem bawling out
Working hard not to let it all come out
Well it's not safe to go walk about
A slaughterhouse from Bagdad to Waterhouse
She start to arouse sometime she want a spouse
She start go out, start beat a darker stout
GUNS COME OUT!
Working people funds run out
Keep a show last week and no one come out
BOMBS COME OUT!
Mi gas tank just run out
BOMBO CLATT!
The scotch tape just run out
WEED RUN OUT!
Yuh senses must dumb out, Mi have a pound round a back deh a gwan sun out
NAH COME OUT!
Till the chalice bun out,
NAH COME OUT!
Till the malice bun out, A WAR!

Zimbabwe to Berlin Wall
Blazin' like a burnin' ball, loose ball...dat no work...IN WAR
Sleeping...dat no work..IN WAR
Can't wear jheri curl...IN WAR
No diamond and pearl...IN WAR
Can't drink weh a serve...IN BAR
Gas wi fuck up yuh nerves...IN WAR
Shot wi blood up yuh shirt...IN WAR
Can't go lift up no skirt...IN WAR
Now disease and germs...IN WAR
Can't go release your sperms...IN WAR
Stamina must preserve...IN WAR
Fire constantly burn...IN WAR
RED...IT RED...IT RED...IT RED...IT RED!

[Marcus Garvey dialogue 2]
If you cannot do it, if you are not prepared to do it...then you will die.
You race of cowards, you race of imbosiles, you race of good for nothings
If you cannot do what other men have done
What other nations have done, what other races have done
Then you yourself shall die.

[Repeat Verse 1]

[Verse 3]
SEE IT DEH NOW...Hey!
Now wi fore parents sacrifice enough
Dem blood sweat and tears run like syrup
Any day a revolution might erupt, and the skys over Kingston lighting up
For the new generation rising up, of youths now a days weh dem sighting up
And through reasoning dem biding up,
Searching for the sign and the sign is us,
Searching for the truth all you find is us,
Searching for the troops still behind is us,
The almighty we recruit and we come from the root
We build like roach building boot
Weh just can't done, Rastafari we design tuff
If a the fight for freedom sign me up
Cause you Tell-Lie-Vision can't blind me up
Soldiers and police dem wising up, realizing they're no more right than us
Realizing there's no use fighting us
Realizing their opening their eyes to see the same demoralizing life as us
So we nah tek talk nor smiling up
Cause the word temper tantrum boiling up,and who...
Calling the shots and nah bust none
Controlling the mind of the young, bring down...

Bear famine, no rain nah fall from London to Dadeland mall
All the son of the virgin bawl, institute of the church IN WAR
Preaching and researching WAR
Practice and rehearsing WAR
Teaching and dem learning WAR
Instigating and urging WAR
Always keep alert in WAR
Cause man will jump out a swerving car
Now bees and birds IN WAR
And the freaks and nerds IN WAR
And the straight and curves IN WAR
Forward and reverse IN WAR
RED...IT RED...IT RED...IT RED...IT RED.

[Marcus Garvey dialogue 2]

Well she has good stamina and volume in her voice, but the sound isn't particularly good.

Comment hidden because you are ignoring dag. (show it anyway)

You sir, know your Halo.

In reply to this comment by Shepppard:
/sigh, do i seriously SERIOUSLY have to prove my nerdliness?

Alright, Master Chief A.K.A. John, taken as a child, raised for military, in his teens he and the other spartans were injected with controversial enhancements, those who made it would have incredible strength, stamina, bones that would nearly never break, and were made into super soldiers in the first place.

later on in I believe their twenties, they came out with the Mjonlir mark I.
The suit at the time did not have shields, only technology to enhance human performance (Running, jumping, lifting) which when tested on a regular human was so powerful and fast that just snapping a salute shattered his arm.

Later on, the suits were upgraded with shields once jackal shield technology was captured on the battlefield all the while improving the Mjonlirs capabilities, and by the time halo 2 rolled around, they were up to I believe Mjonlir Mark V.

Now, take all that into consideration, and realise the only think he ever dual weilds are pistols, alien weapons, and sub machine guns. Now, correct me if i'm wrong, but half the SMG's we can use now (Usi, Skorpion, ect) are small enough that they COULD actually be dual weilded and used...well, in some cases effectively.

So keeping that in mind, and the fact that halo takes place in the year 2517 onward, i'm sure there would have been vast advances in the sub-machine gun technology, making them lighter and more user friendly.

Now, i'm done. and yes, I am potentially the biggest nerd on the planet.

/sigh, do i seriously SERIOUSLY have to prove my nerdliness?

Alright, Master Chief A.K.A. John, taken as a child, raised for military, in his teens he and the other spartans were injected with controversial enhancements, those who made it would have incredible strength, stamina, bones that would nearly never break, and were made into super soldiers in the first place.

later on in I believe their twenties, they came out with the Mjonlir mark I.
The suit at the time did not have shields, only technology to enhance human performance (Running, jumping, lifting) which when tested on a regular human was so powerful and fast that just snapping a salute shattered his arm.

Later on, the suits were upgraded with shields once jackal shield technology was captured on the battlefield all the while improving the Mjonlirs capabilities, and by the time halo 2 rolled around, they were up to I believe Mjonlir Mark V.

Now, take all that into consideration, and realise the only think he ever dual weilds are pistols, alien weapons, and sub machine guns. Now, correct me if i'm wrong, but half the SMG's we can use now (Usi, Skorpion, ect) are small enough that they COULD actually be dual weilded and used...well, in some cases effectively.

So keeping that in mind, and the fact that halo takes place in the year 2517 onward, i'm sure there would have been vast advances in the sub-machine gun technology, making them lighter and more user friendly.

Now, i'm done. and yes, I am potentially the biggest nerd on the planet.

^arsenault

(2)I had never heard of the up-right stance exposing people to less UV-radiation (as Buzdos mentioned), but I do know UV-radiation plays a big role in one common difference between people, melanin aka skin color. The closer you get to the equator (or areas where the ozone layer is naturally weaker) the darker the native inhabitant's skin becomes. UV-radiation has always been around, a thicker atmosphere will block more of it, but not all of it.

(3)Usually changes evolve out of the existing form. Though different ape and human morphology are very similar. Slight changes in the structure of the pelvis, legs, feet and arms are more likely to happen over time than say sprouting two more pair of arms. Between people there are very slight differences in the morphology of these structures. Not enough to make any readily noticeable difference, but they're there. The only instances I'm aware of where people have had extra limbs involves unborn children failing to separate during fetal development.

(4)It was the lack of trees that made being upright and advantageous trait (as far as seeing is concerned). During the earliest stages of human evolution the jungles and forests started receding and gave rise to open grasslands/savanna. Some apes continued to live in what was left of the forests and jungles, being upright wasn't adaptive there so uprightness never evolved in them. For those in the savanna environment where trees were few and far between being able to constantly be upright did prove beneficial.

On the issue of hunting:
Gorillas can move quickly and they are powerful, but this form of behavior is for defensive purposes and not adaptive to hunting. Most prey animals are also very quick, and have the stamina to maintain that quickness longer than a gorrila.

Humans are not exceptionally quick, but they do have the stamina. In modern hunter gatherer societies a common strategy for hunting is to cash an animal into exhaustion. Wolves actually often use a similar strategy. In open grassland the animal can use a quick burst of speed to get away, but the people can still see it and chase after it. Now with most of us our hearts will blow out like the sides of old tires if we run more than 2 miles distance, but we live an extremely sedentary life compared to hunter gather groups. So its easy to look at yourself and say 'there's no way I could run a gazelle into exhaustion', and you'd be right, but if your way of life required you run for long distances, instead of sitting behind a computer, for your survival I can guarantee your body would be in much better shape.

I believe the current theory of why we initially evolved uprightness doesn't include hunting. The ability to see better in a grassland environment and the ability to carry things and move reasonably well at the same were the early motivators. The possibility to hunt, successfully, became more important later on. I'd liken it to ape hands, great for swinging about in the trees but also pretty good for picking up and manipulating things.

On another note I'd like to say I hope nobody takes the things I've said as ridicule, I've been trying to respond to points of contention/criticism by explaining things as I understand them. And if I seem long winded its not because I'm trying to prove how superior/right I am, it is simply because I enjoy talking about the subject.

Being that a shark is cold blooded and operates on feeding by means of short bursts of energy. A probable explanation for their unwillingness to go toe-to-toe (fin-to-fin) with an animal such as the dolphin that has far more stamina and rarely travels alone is a simple case of risk assessment and conservation of energy on the shark's behalf.

...there's plenty of other fish in the sea

woah, I was exhausted just watching them.
interesting to learn about pace setters.
damn, talk about stamina, that was amazing, I can't believe that one guy was ONLY 20 yrs old!

Deathcow is right on. Yoga can make you as strong as an ox, with amazing stamina.

I do yoga on the hard sand at the beach, in the park and near a boardwalk at the beach. It's a really cool feeling, with the ground beneath your feet, doing some of the poses, like some of the inverted poses. When there's a strong wind blowing, you have to really maintain your balance, like in cow pose.

People pay big money to do beach yoga lessons at ritzy retreats here. I can do it for free.

BTW This guy is doing Chi Gung. He's feeling the Chi between his fingers as he holds them in the triangle position. It's a pretty cool exercise when you know how to.

> If I believed that yoga actually did anything for me, other than
> make me look like a fool?

Doing it once or twice a week for a sustained period will certainly improve your flexibility and stamina. You will also become stronger and more durable overall. I love yoga. I personally would keep it at home though...

I see that you have quite a bit of MMA knowledge, rembar. I guess time will only tell if Kimbo is a great fighter, they cancelled the fight with him and Tank Abbott so it will be a while before we see him in a professional fight. I wouldn't compare him to Bob Sapp though, Bob's all muscles with no stamina, after a minute of every fight he looks like he's going to pass out with his heavy breathing. There's something about Kimbo, more then just the skills he has(or lack of) (punches, muay thai kicks, grappling holds) he has no sense of fear or hesitation that you see in other fighters, he's almost like Iron Mike of the 80s (for me anyways).

...911, y'mean.....like dag suspects...the perks come with hoops.....

if i have to jump to the middle....or the end....its a down-vote, baby.....

"Start out slow, and increase in volume and capacity, until yer' stamina is called upon by strangers!" (or spoken of, in foreign lands...)

*sigh*.

While it is true that the Gracie family made submission attacks famous by representing Brazilian jiu-jitsu (BJJ) in mixed martial arts (MMA), everything you just posted is - and I almost never say this - completely ignorant of the sport and martial arts as a whole.

Submissions were not brought into "the sport" - and by this, I assume you mean MMA - by the Gracies. The Gracies, as I wrote in my BJJ sift, took the judo/jujitsu taught to them by Mitsuyo Maeda and developed the newaza groundwork into a new system, focused on establishing positional improvement and dominance before the application of submissions. It was this conceptual change from the general judo mindset of throw-and-fall-or-scramble-to-position, rather than the submissions themselves. Judo, for the most part, has all the submission BJJ does, it just generally doesn't train them as much or as well. So really, the submissions were brought into the sport by judo, which was brought into creation by Kano through adaptation of the teachings of jiu-jitsu. If you want to argue about fighters using the submissions, sure Royce Gracie made use of them famously in UFC 1, but the first UFC tournament was set up to ensure no other submission grappling styles, including judo, was entered to make a clearer differentiation of style versus style, among other reasons. When such fighter picking was stopped, submission fighters from many styles sprung up in MMA competition.

If you're not talking about modern MMA, then consider the fact that pankration from Greece in 648 BC was the first Western MMA competition, and chokeholds and joint locks were widely displayed and documented.

Consider that catch wrestling can be traced in nearly every culture, from Lancashire catch-as-catch-can wrestling to the US hook wrestling to the Indian pehlwani.

Or you might even be referencing the infamous gong sau of China, where kung fu masters would challenge each other for the rights to open schools in villages or cities, matching style versus style, starting from millenia ago and continuing to the present day. Of course, dubious as the documentation surrounding those matches were, and as stupid as kwoon-storming is, there have been accounts of Chin na masters defeating other strikers through armbars and rear naked chokes.

As for "ruining the sport", I can only assume you're talking about the present version of MMA, as represented largely by the UFC and Pride FC (which have recently been merged as one organization. The UFC and Pride, as you may know, evolved out of the Vale tudo competitions in Brazil and Japan, which when brought to the US were imitated and televised. Of course, you should also be aware of the fact that vale tudo tournaments were largely organized by Helio Gracie, the original creator of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, and his descendants. The UFC was created largely as the brainchild of Rorion Gracie, Helio's eldest son and BJJ black belt, as well as Art Davies, one of Rorion's student. In fact, according to many inside sources who were present for the UFC's founding, it was created in a large part to showcase BJJ for the US, just as Pride FC was created in a a large part to showcase Rickson Gracie, another one of Helio's sons, versus Nobuhiko Takada, a famous Japanese shoot-wrestler and mixed martial artist who also trained in a form of submission wrestling. So how exactly do you figure that modern MMA, which exists largely because the Gracies wanted to showcase the effectiveness of submission fighting versus pure striking styles, is somehow ruined because it did exactly that?

And finally, you have absolutely no idea about submission grappling. If you think getting a submission hold is a "basic skill" that can beat anybody, and the sport now revolves around using and avoiding those holds, then how do you figure that only one of the five current UFC title holders is a well-known submission specialist, and even HE won his title fight two days ago by knockout? If it's such a get-out-of-jail-free card, why doesn't everybody just use those magical subs? How come sprawl-and-brawl and ground-and-pound are becoming such dominant strategies of fighting in MMA fights? Oh, and what did you mean by "strength, skill, stamina or fighting spirit" having no effect on submission grappling? Superior skill, strength, stamina, and fighting spirit is what submission grappling is all about. The fighter with the greatest combination of all four will win, just as with any other art in MMA. Look at Yuki Nakai, the grappler who continued a fight despite being eye-gouged illegally to the point of complete blindness and yet continued on not only win his fight by submission but also fight AGAIN the SAME night against the most feared grappler in the world at the time, Rickson Gracie. Look at Ronaldo de Souza, aka Jacare, who had his arm broken in a fight but continued to fight and win. Heck, look at Rickson Gracie, who is well-known for having an insane cardio routines involving sandy beaches and mountain running. Or any of the MMA athletes at the top of the sport, who train and spar and weight lift and run and work out for hours on end each day and every day so they can become strong and build up endurance and improve their skills, all thanks to their fighting spirit and determination to be the best.

If you doubt me on any of those facts, just get yourself to a real, honest-to-goodness MMA gym, and tell the first MMA fighter you see that submission holds are ruining the sport. Seriously. I'd like to know what happens.

Do you know why I'm annoyed by your comment, Enzoblue? I'm annoyed because training submission grappling is not fucking easy. It is hard, painful work to train. It is expensive as hell, in terms of money as well as time and effort. I am shit-awful at it, and my only goal each day I step on the mat, which is every damn day, is to suck a little less than the day before, and sometimes, like today, I don't feel like that's happened, and I haven't been able to move my neck in certain directions for days because of a neck crank that got cranked on too hard. And yet tomorrow, I'm going to put on my smelly, sweaty gi, get in my friend's carpool, and go roll around on a mat with large, sweaty men who outweigh me by over 50 pounds on average for several hours, and come back tired and sore and cranky. (Hah, pun, get it? It's a joke because my spinal column isn't functioning properly.) And I'm happy with all of that, from the musty gym smell to the same old jokes my friends make about me being gay that they've made for years, because through my training I know I am acquiring a skillset that is not available or acquired in the general public, and yes, I do take pride in what I do because it is a part of my life and part of who I am, and also there's the fact that my training and dedication can and have helped me to choke fools out who are deserving of it, just as those things have saved the lives of friends and acquaintances who were attacked in ghettos and Iraqi villages. And yet here you come to say that I, along with every other MMA competitor who has devoted far larger amounts of their life to perfecting the art of submission grappling, am ruining the beautiful sport of mixed martial arts, a sport that I am, as well as those competitors far above me, dedicated to as well and one that I do my best to represent well in the public eye. No. I'm sorry, but I'm not going to let you say that, because you're wrong.

Consider this: the UFC and modern MMA changed what "one would actually consider fighting". People used to think those flicky, chambered TKD kicks would hurt, or that they could just avoid a takedown attempt with elbows to the spine, or even in later years, they could just fight out of guard. The sport has evolved, and anybody who has a half a brain can see that a good MMA fighter needs to train to fight out of the three ranges that have been established through the test of the fight, standup, clinch, and ground, as well as be able to strike, grapple, and submit from all three ranges if necessary, as well as defend against an opponent's attempts to do so to oneself. Submission grappling is part of the sport out of necessity, not because it's what people (and by that I mean Westerners) think of when they think about fighting, or because it looks pretty - it's in the sport because it works. The skills and abilities trained in sub grappling allow a more skilled fighter to beat a less skilled opponent, given reasonable size comparisons, just as with every other martial art that has been used with success in MMA. The concept of MMA is the extension of Bruce Lee's philosophy of Jeet Kune Do - take what works, and lose what doesn't. So in reality, sub grappling being used to win fights in MMA is really part of the evolution and development of martial arts, in fact it embodies what MMA and the development of effective martial arts is all about. And if that simple fact offends, then perhaps you don't understand quite as much about MMA as you might like to think you do.

For those who aren't in the know, submissions are special holds that get a persons arm or leg in a position where you can either break your opponents arm or leg, or choke a person out. They were brought into the sport by the Gracie family of Brazil.

It has ruined the sport because anyone who learns the basic skill of getting a good submission hold can take out any opponent regardless of that opponents strength, skill, stamina or fighting spirit. It's like a get out of jail free card, and now the sport revolves around avoiding the holds more than it revolves around what one would actually consider fighting.

i think we are talking about 2 seperate things i was making the piont that A fps game has as mutch to do with real world shooting as picking my nose has to do with swimming. the best you could ever do with an FPS is creat a metafor for shooting. thats why Tying to simulate Shooting using a keybord mouse ore pritty mutch all avalable controler interfaces is piontess. mutch of what shooting and ground troop bassed warefair is about human movement stamina enviromental awarness manny aspects of whitch canot be trnslated when using a keybord and mouse ore evan a light gun. (unless like i sead before you belive once sumone is emerced in a game thay have trancended the controle system evan so the game would still be missing manny core aspects that are intrensick to warfar)

aditoinaly i wouldent blame the develpers. making a half decent fps let alone a Simulatoin fps that actualy works and is @fun@ is quite a dificult process as you probably know. personaly i would not risk making a simulatoin fps as the market is to unpredictable evan if u created the best sim fps interms of logicly folowing all the rules of what would best translate and provide the player with an exsperance of Warfar. it is likely the game would not sell unless u are very lucky ore happen to get a big publisher to push it for you(evan then its quite likly the majorty of the market ore enough to make a profit would ignore the game ). most gamers are simpletons (when it comes to games) and unfortunatly that degrades the qualty of games that are made add to this the exspence of making a 3d simulatoin game the risk to cost ratoi is far to high. unlike in cinima where you can test new ideas resnably cheeply ore at least put forwardas a proof of concept very cheeply. over time gamers and and the game industry will mature with people actualy talking about games in a meture and deep way. at the moment the majorty of games players dont understand the fundimentals of what makes games what thay are. yet just about everyone watching a film understands the basics of editing and plot development and varouse other film techneeks. whats evan worse with games, is due to there interactive nature gamers intrinzicly have to understand the machanics of game worlds to progress within them. where as a retarded 4 yearold could sit through a complex film and still enjoy it for its astheticks alone.