Mostly for my own recollection and because it's still quite ikky out and I can't sleep.
Today was a bit of Hope's smallsword. Well, Hope-ish... Well, talking through what I would do from a position.
Despite being mostly left handed, I'm techically ambidextrous. Or something. I'm half and half with longsword (crap with either hand). Right handed with rapier and sabre, although that might change. And ambidextrous with stick (mostly because hand switching is a viable tactic). I think I'm left handed with smallsword. Mostly I used the left hand to help work out lines but when I switched to right handed I just lost all flow and movement. Working with that's going to be fun, since we're quite a sinister class.
One of the things I do when I first start playing with weapons is to find an all purpose move. it's not necessarily pretty, not always effective but more or less does the job. You want this as your fallback move and you want it ingrained. So it comes out when you start to panic.
I've found one, and it's a little counter intuitive. After/as you parry you take a passing step to come offline to your non-sword side, making sure your hand covers their sword/shortest line. Keep like that and twist your sword into the nearest soft thing they have. Works on both inside and outside lines.
Why no kill like overkill? Well, assuming that defence has worked and you keep pressure on them, you can grab their blade/arm pull them off balance and onto your sword while readying yourself for a headbutt/shoulder barge knee to groin/foot stomp combo. This is utterly gratuitous and you don't really want to send a friend sprawling to the floor and then stomp/stab at their prone body. But it's nice to know that the body mechanics allow it.
Quite a few recruitment agencies state their catchment areas in a job advert. This is unacceptable and arrogant. I know my main points of access to any travel system and I am also very aware at how difficult it is to go east/west in my part of the city. I need to be able to decide if a daily commute is viable and I can only do that if I know where I'm going. Some routes may be longer as the crow flies but take hours by morning transport.
Some idiots advertise one role, one job description with a salary range of 25K-40K. Erm... No. Those are two separate jobs- one near entry level and one at middle management/lead tester. If you're doing the same job with the same demands and the same responsibilities at a higher pay band close to twice the entry wage, then the company is foolish and won't last long. (or it's exceptionally brilliant and has a flat hierarchy and people aren't promoted to above their ability which is a major selling point for a company- but still, the starting wage should fall in the 25k-30k block with possibility for rapid advancement)
Recruitment agencies, again, remember that you're supposed to be able to promote me. If you can't get my name right (and really, that's not asking much, it's not as if it's long, complicated or foreign.. FFS it's not that much more exotic than John Smith) then you're probably going to do me more harm than good. Please demonstrate basic grammar. The difference between their, there, and they're is easy to understand so is your and you're. Since any employer will dump you in the bin for such idiocy, I have no choice but to ignore you. My CV will not end up where it needs to be if I've got a semi-literate fuckwit representing me.
If I ask a question, it is because the information was insufficient. One place wanted an undefined "camera expert"... well, that's mostly me. Depending on context. I could sell cameras, teach people how to use them and related software, do basic troubleshooting and repair but I'd be stuffed if the job required programming and dismantling. If you can't give me details about what kind of expert, I can't tailor my CV to demonstrate those skills.
Those frustrations aside, I've had a fairly productive morning. I hope I've succeeded in selling myself to a photographic software house because I know I'm perfect for that kind of role. Expert user, keen photographer, photoshop savvy, decent teacher and competent tester.
I've never met one person in "employment" who was even slightly compatant at their job. it's like the field is full of people who arn't or couldn't get a job anywhere else.
It seems to be the way that apart from headhunters employment seems to be more about doing what you can despite the "help" they give you. Which isn't surprising considering the way employment agencies work nowadays and how the job market is.But then the whole system is flawed right from the point of early education through University and right on into retirement.
The pictures of Nigella Lawson in obvious distress and with her husbands hands on her throat have been big news over here and Charles Saachi has released his statement:
He said in a statement, “About a week ago, we were sitting outside a restaurant having an intense debate about the children, and I held Nigella’s neck repeatedly while attempting to emphasize my point.
“There was no grip, it was a playful tiff. The pictures are horrific but give a far more drastic and violent impression of what took place. Nigella’s tears were because we both hate arguing, not because she had been hurt.
First thing that comes to mind is.. well, yes, I'd hate arguing if that was the result. The pictures are very uncomfortable viewing and certainly don't help Saachi's case. Neither do words like "playful tiff" when he's admits that his wife was in tears. No tiff is playful at that point. I've never given this guy a thought before now... and now I think he's probably guilty of abuse. I still need to hear from the other side, but just Sacchi's stuff is him digging his own grave. He's also just accepted a police caution (not entirely sure how that works, but he's rich enough to pay really good lawyers, so....)
There's a bit of murmuring about "why didn't anyone step in?" and I've given that a lot of thought. I honestly don't think I would have confronted him. Not because I condone his actions but because abusers are cowardly bullies. I would not have been the person to pay for my intervention. Any impotent rage that should be directed at me would have been taken out on the woman he's got no issue with "playfully holding by the throat" in public.
Another problem with intervening on domestic stuff is that you don't know the internal dynamics. They could be kinky and had a moment of indiscretion, he could be a manipulator and she could end up defending the bastard.
Supporting abused people is very difficult and requires a lot of discretion to help keep them safe while they gather the strength and ability to walk out. Sometimes all you can do is put out a general message that it is wrong and hope that they seek help.
No matter how much you want to punch the abuser in the face. Frequently.
only just caught up wth the news yesterday about this and must say it does look to be entirely cliche and by the books abuse with his standard "abuser responses". Met him briefly once at an opening for some event, seemed a bit iffy and had that controling vibe about him.
This is mindboggling... I kind of get why they're not cutting prices for an early release, it's a bit stupid, but they feel a loyalty to their kickstarter base and they don't want to give the cautious any kind of bonus for their reluctance to buy into a product that may or may not be made.
The game is Planatery Annihilation and it is "alpha released" at a price of £67.99
There are two issues here- the project lead should not be allowed near forums. Devs are only good for PR when they're enthusing about problems they're overcoming or the new sparkly things they are putting into a program. They need an interpreter when dealing with the criticism because the stuff that makes them good with computers makes them bloody awful with grumpy people.
The other issue is more distressing as far as I'm concerned. Apparently there should be a surcharge for the privilege of early access to a game. It's a common thread within the debates about the £70 price point- alpha access and bug submission is an honour, given to those with the thickest wallet and the most interest in the game.
Fucking fuck that you fuckers. Bug finding can be quite tedious, frustrating if you're actually invested in the experience of the software. You've then got to enter into debates with the right people to see if they can replicate it, if it's a game breaker, if you're using a standardised system... if the behaviour is actually a feature. And, when the devs say it's fixed, you've got to run through regression testing.
Just saying "it broke here" isn't enough.
The rule is- if you need me to become an active part of your development cycle, you pay me. (be it a discount or salary). You don't raise the bar to "keep out undesirables", you don't dress it up in "it's alpha... you should be honoured to struggle with buggy software" and, like some fuckwit said "You pay extra for a backstage pass"
And if you think releasing an Alpha game for £70 isn't going to cause a shitstorm, you really have to wonder what level of foresight and wisdom the company has.
I doubt I'll touch this game with a bargepole and if I remember to check the dev company, I don't think I'll touch any of their games- no matter how cheap they are.
2-/3 hours until I need to leave and no class prep to do.
June 12, 2013, 11:25:am
I hate this time before an activity starts. It's close enough that I can't really get into anything because I've got just about enough time to get to that point where you don't notice the hours pass.
TV seems to be on an endless loop, the morning cycle is about the same as the afternoon cycle and it's starting to feel like I've watched certain shows hundreds of times over. The weather's manky so I didn't go on an afternoon's wander with my camera and burn up a little of my excess brainpower there.
I'd possibly run through lesson plans, do some class prep, but at the moment the plan is "turn up, fight and record if the light is good enough" All advice is going to be based on what happens in the fights and how the knowledge goes in. I could do with revisiting the book for a few bits, but since it's in olde english, that takes a while to get your eye in. (I have got the class almost to the point where it can function without me, which is pretty good because it gives me more sparring time).
Days in the office when you're watching the clock are bad enough, but at least you are occupied by the fact that you should be doing something- and you're either concentrating on that or on appearing as if you're working.
When you're just counting the seconds until you finally get to do something fun and worthwhile? That's a real drag.
I have very strident opinions on modern feminism. I think a lot of it is made up of entitled misandrists who devalue the natural (or predisposition or social conditioning or... or ... or...) place of women to the point where anyone (regardless of gender) who thinks that their children are more important than money is ridiculed/vilified depending on their gender. I know my father well enough to hear a certain catch in his voice when talking about my childhood. He did the "manly" thing and worked harder- and to me, that justifies the pay difference. A man who is a Man works harder and supports his Wife when she gives birth (choose your own gender biased pronouns for the statement, and it also works if you're gay and adopting/being inseminated)
Personally I think that a "woman's role" is undervalued and it is being rapidly devalued by the push to be treated "just like men". I think we're now at that point where, to gain ground, feminism needs to understand exactly how important the traditional gender roles are, and how you can mix and match it without being less of a person.
And to the last century. The thing about history is that everyone thinks they were someone famous. I wasn't. My legacy from the Evil Patriarchy is a surname that is a job.
100 years ago- I'd like to think that I'd be teaching bartitsu to suffragettes. I'd like to think lots of things, but the facts just don't support it.
The reality is that I would have been forced to join a war that I had no say over and I'd have been pissing on my feet in a desperate attempt to stave off gangrene. That's assuming I wasn't executed for having PTSD (much more likely if I lied about my age because "men" go to war) Or fumbling for my gasmask as the gas grenade fills the trench. Or listening for the diggers... Or....
And what did the Suffragettes do after years of chaining themselves to unimportant railings and trying stupid things like pinning banners to horses? That ended with some MPs finding a loophole so that they could release any woman who went on hunger strike.
When WW I started, some women were posting white feathers to every man who would rather stay at home than die. The Suffragettes dropped their trivial methods of protest, rolled up their sleeves, and did "men's work". Making and packing explosives so people like me aren't going completely unarmed into a world that's intent on killing them.
Times have changed, it takes a very strong man to say that he'd rather stay at home and look after his children while his wife works. And yet not learning to sew or cook is a sign of "independence".
100 years of Suffrage. It's my turn to post white feathers.
Mum won an embroidery machine ages ago and we've never really done anything with it. It's taken on that same kind of role as a sandwich toaster. Sits there, gathering dust for ages until you get this craving..
Now, the problem (amongst many) with home embroidery machines is that the software is shit. There's no polite way to say it. It's mostly rearrange the "clipart" to get what you want. That's just not the point of having this kind of thing. You're supposed to be able to digitise your own artwork and then use the machine like a thread fuelled printer.
You can, but it's a real pain in the arse to do- Most software is a nightmare, no matter how friendly the image is, it just doesn't seem to be intuitive and quite often you end up tracing over paths that you've already put into the system and there's a lot of unnecessary duplication of labour. Anyway, after a long search and a lot of jiggerypokery, I've managed to find something that actually does what I want.
The club has some existing artwork and it's terribly pretty. It's a sword wielding heraldic dragon and it would be very nice to have this on our fencing jackets/club stuff. Setup fees are ridiculously expensive unless you order amounts that would take years for us to shift. Once the setup fees are done, it becomes fairly cheap for small bulk orders.
After hectoring some software and doing my thing. I've managed to get somewhere at long last. Refinements need to be done and there's still things to be aware of when I'm doing the actual printing, since sewing machines really aren't my thing. But, for now, these are the sleeve patches for my fencing jacket. (The pink one is club, the red one is historic)
