War of the Arrows

Best Korean movie of 2011. Set during the 2nd Manchu invasion of Korea in 1636. Excellent. I, for one, am glad to see more archery in warfare and less sword fighting. Hollywood likes swordfights for their action and drama. They are thrilling, but they are basically stupid. Remember Agincourt? (Okay, you weren't there, but you have heard of it, right? If not, go read.) Remember the black cloud of arrows in 300? And our plucky heroine in The Hunger Games?

Some of the drama was a little much, but then I suppose it is an adequate stand-in for Korean incompetence during the invasion. I mean, criminently, the enemy is at the gates and everyone is standing around wondering what to do? With that kind of discipline they deserve to be enslaved.

The best parts are the running bowfights. There is one where we have a bunch of baddies chasing our hero through a forest. Straight, tall trees, minimal undergrowth, so there is no impediment to running, but with all the trees and everyone running, it is extremely difficult to get a clear shot. There is another where our hero has managed to jump a chasm, but the baddies have him pined down behind a rock. They cannot cross without exposing themselves to his shots, but he cannot shoot without exposing himself to theirs. But it takes time to knock another arrow after making a shot, so there is a brief window of opportunity after a fusillade where you can return fire.

I am not sure of the historical accuracy of some of the armor these guys were wearing. Chain mail in the 1600's in Korea? Could be, I suppose, and somebody went nuts with the brass studding, but hey, it could have been that way. Some of the close ups of archery techniques struck me as Hollywood-ish. I don't think there is any reason to twist the arrow and the bowstring once you have the bow at full draw, or pull a bit of the bowstring below the arrow another inch or two back, unless you want to show how impossibly strong your fingers are. I guess you have to give the movie makers some license, they did do a hell of job overall.

There was the "half-pounder", a chisel tipped arrow that weighed a half pound. I think the translation got a bit garbled here, probably doesn't weigh more than a couple of ounces. A fearsome missile in any case, if your were close enough to shoot it. There was also the whistling arrow, used to communicate on the battlefield. That was new to me.

Grass

So I'm looking over the latest posts on Graham Hancock's website, and I come across one talking about "Mysterious Fairy Circles" [Dead Link]:

Walter Tschinkel may not have solved the mystery of the fairy circles, but he can tell you that they’re alive. Tens of thousands of the formations — bare patches of soil, 2 to 12 meters in diameter — freckle grasslands from southern Angola to northern South Africa, their perimeters often marked by a tall fringe of grass. Locals say they’re the footprints of the gods. Scientists have thrown their hands up in the air. But now Tschinkel, a biologist at Florida State University in Tallahassee, has discovered something no one else has.

Hmmm, somebody has figured out something new. Let's take a look, so I do and I see green grass [Dead Link]:

Fairy Rings

Well, something like that ought to visible from a satellite, so I look up NamibRand Nature Reserve on Google Maps:

NamibRand Nature Reserve

Area shown is about 75 miles by 50.

That doesn't look like grass, that looks like sand. I poke around for a bit and I find some scrub brush, but I don't find anything that looks like grass, so I complain to the author, who promptly replies with this useful tip: "zoom down to about 300 m eye altitude". Could that really be? But I do as I am bid, and the "fairy circles" do indeed appear:

Red grass. Hmmph. Where are we? Mars?

Update December 2016. Added this line so anyone searching for Namibia will find this post.

Update November 2021 replaced missing map.

Update November 2025 replaced missing image, removed dead links.

100 Year Starship Project

Looks like someone has finally taken my advice and gotten serious about going to the stars. DARPA (US Defense Advanced Research Project Agency) has awarded a half million dollar grant to an outfit in the UK to figure out how to do it. They are looking at a 100 year timeline. Via Graham Hancock.

Mystery Lights

From I Love effing Science. (I'm sorry, I still think curse words are for anger, or at least irritation, not just for emphasis, at least not in public.) Anyway, what's with the lights between Norway and Great Britain? Are those all oil rigs? Or aliens? Google shows nothing. Wikipedia shows how the North Sea oil has been carved up:

There are over a hundred active rigs in the area, and another couple dozen inactive ones.

Road to Riches

California Bob writes:

I always thought that saving pieces of string and old milk cartons was the way to get rich,  but I have been dragged away from the notion that wealth is achieved through frugality. As I told Andy, if an ascetic lifestyle was the path to riches, then Bangladesh would be the richest country on earth.  The recent experiences with austerity programs sort of support that theme. Be careful about being penny wise and pound foolish.  If you can get an ounce of gold for $100, don't refuse it because they make you pay $100 for the shopping bag.  Another way of putting it: don't turn down a tenfold increase in revenue just because you have to take a 1% increase in taxes (Grover Norquist, I'm looking in your direction). Then I came across this quote by Keynes (arguing for stimulus programs): "The engine which drives Enterprise is not thrift, but profit.  Were the seven wonders of the world built by thrift?   I doubt it." Now I still believe in thrift but it is a secondary issue of wealth management, not a driver of wealth creation.  I guess the best strategy is to invest yourself into a wealth-creating activities or environments, then practice thrift within that context.  End of transmission.

Oh, wait! There's another message coming in over the ether:

Thrift is a LOT of fun.  Some of my life's greatest triumphs (solely in a qualitative sense) were in thrift stores, on Craigslist, etc.

Plus, thrift gives you absolute control -- you know that soda can you found is worth 3 cents cash, you don't have to guess whether the market is accurately valuing the soda can, or whether the soda can's management is lying about their revenue recognition. Moreover, thrift generally gives you a ton of margin -- that espresso machine you get for $10 at the thrift shop, and sell for $80 on eBay, gives you 800% return, vs. trying to sweat out 4% gains on GE shares.

But the nominal values are, of course, pretty meaningless.

Quote of the Day

Romney, Obama -- they're different faces of the same guy. Oh, their masks wear different shades of lip gloss but they're both gleefully shoveling tomorrow's babies into the fire to fuel the engines of bread, circuses and power for the sake of power and they don't realize -- or care -- how near the precipice they dance or how far the fall will be, just as long as they can keep on keepin' on. After all, the Feds have been dancing on the brink for a long, long time, and they've never fallen over it yet. Never, ever happen, right up unti-- Whups! - Roberta X

World Affairs

Tam points at Miss D, and Miss D points at Toomas Hendrik Ilves, President of Estonia. I tried to read Mr. Hendrik's essay, but it is a little long, and I gave up near the end. I think I got the gist of it. Times, they are a changin'.

P.S. I'm reading more of On a Wind and a Whim and Miss D mentions Smyrna. That name sounds familiar, where have I heard it before? Miss D is talking about Smyrna, Tennessee, but there is also a Smyrna, Turkey, now called Izmir.