DarthPenguin

I have a group of friends who all also have either an M.A. or and M.S. We often joke that higher degrees do not make you intelligent, but actually sap your intelligence. We become experts in one field and the price is general knowledge about other things In relation to this individual though that doesn't quite hold. I'm an actuary (As she is) so my job involves financial mathematics and statistics. She held undergrad, masters and Phd in maths so she should theoretically have been an expert in her own field and was very much not!

I have a group of friends who all also have either an M.A. or and M.S. We often joke that higher degrees do not make you intelligent, but actually sap your intelligence. We become experts in one field and the price is general knowledge about other things Definitely - I think it is a common mistake many make that education guarantees intelligence. I will accept that there is a significant correlation but there are a lot of other factors at play too. I know plenty of stupid people with degrees and conversely the cleverest person i have ever met in my life doesn't have one (I work with a lot of people who have 1st class degrees from Oxford and Cambridge etc : i don't though) and he was orders of magnitude cleverer! Personally i liken intelligence to horsepower in an engine. Some people have a 'lower horsepower engine' and optimise it's performance maximally; some have a 'high horsepower one' and don't use it's full power output - though may be applied in other ways.

Thanks - was a lot of fun but (I think this may be a Scottish only phrase) i was left feeling a little like a burst couch afterwards! All fine now though Couldn't do my usual scheduled deadlift day at the weekend either as didn't want to interfere with the grading and seminar in any way so going to blend it together with overhead press day today

I think Isami used to sell tops and bottoms separate. I had a quick look on th chokesports site and they still have them as separate options for some items. Hirota will also individually tailor a gi to your measurements if you provide them - won't be cheap but that is another option

Sunday 18 June BJJ Seminar Attended a BJJ seminar at my academy with Jon Thomas ( a well known American BJJ instructor). Seminar was covering open guard, collar and sleeve particularly. The day before was double sleeve which i had to miss due to grading. Seminar was split into 2 x 2hr blocks with a lunch break in between. Really enjoyed it, material was good and he delivers things very articulately. Only slight negative i would say is that his superb online videos are sometimes easier to follow as he runs through the techniques quite quickly in person. He did say though that he tries to get through as much material as possible in a seminar so that people have something to work on and have ideas of what can be done in each position rather than a huge amount of detail on one technique. He gave quite an interesting speech on the benefits of a system as opposed to principles, which meshed really well with my mathematical mind (i think he has a mathematical background too and it showed). He believes that having a system of in this position i can do moves X,Y and X, opponent has moved in this manner so no i can do X, Z and A etc is much easier to utilise in practice. Took a couple of techniques from it that i will try to make use of in future which i liked a lot. Overall an excellent seminar!

Saturday 17 June Grading and pre-grading course Course Course was excellent (as usual) lots of details and little suggestions which i always like. Was pretty tough as i ended up having to hold kiba dachi for ages while the black belts were being given pointers on their kata and we were all going through them to a count Grading Hall was absolutely boiling and very humid so it was a tough one. Passed fine though so was pleased. Was also happy that in his post grading feedback he didn't pick up on a couple of things he has mentioned in the past (which i worked on a lot for this grading) so they must have improved. Couple of useful comments from him which made perfect sense and i will try to implement straight away. Thats me back to brown belt (3rd kyu) now, so gradually working my way back through the grades Am enjoying the learning and (most importantly) i can feel like i am gradually improving again with each belt level and regaining prior skills - regrading from scratch was definitely the right decision to make!

Excellent! Hope you guys had fun!

interesting, i 'll need to look into it. Currently i am on Diablo 4 and then i will see when i am mostly done with it if there is time to get Ragnarok (some good deals appearing now) or if it is too close to Spiderman 2 time!

Thanks for the info Patrick, it was a really interesting read - totally hope i didn't inadvertently offend! Actually my personal view is that education is a very nuanced subject - getting good grades does not mean that the teacher is good (the pupil may have got them regardless) and the same for poor grades. Tbh I have also met plenty of people with 'good' degrees that were not the cleverest (one surprising example was a former colleague who had a Phd in Maths from an excellent ivy league university and was so inept that she eventually was let go as clients wouldn't let her work in their buildings - even for free!). I can see a lot of benefits to home schooling actually - sitting the SATs as you both did seems to be a sensible idea as i assume it means that there are no glaring holes or omissions in the variety of areas that have been covered. Home schooling allows the learning to be tailored to the needs of the learner too i imagine, so weak points can be easily addressed and areas of strength identified Again, hopefully there was no accidental offence - totally wasn't my intention, i didn't even think of that as a possibility!

Wednesday 14 June Karate Session Extremely warm (for Scotland) today (27 Degrees C) so we trained in gym gear Warm ups Same as usual Kihon Went through grading kihon as needed for Saturday. Everything seemed to go smoothly Kata Ran through a lot of kata today. Several run throughs of Tekki Shodan before grading. Also did all of the Heian katas once each and Kihon kata too. Kumite I did multiple rounds of the grading required ippon kumite. Myself and two black belts worked together with them rotating in so i did lots of reps. Good comments and one useful tip, on the yoko geri i am being too nice and leaving the kick out a little longer than needed to give them a change to block it nicely, was suggested i should snap it back faster and if that causes them an issue then thats their problem! Final session before grading on Saturday so hopefully all good. Am attending a BJJ seminar on the Sunday too so this will be a hectic martial arts filled weekend!

Tuesday 13 June Lifting Session Bench Press 20kg x 5 40kg x 5 52.5kg x 5 60kg x 5 67.5kg x 5 52.5kg x 5 52.5kg x 5 52.5kg x 5 KB Swings 24kg x 18 24kg x 18 24kg x 18 24kg x 18 24kg x 18 24kg x 18 24kg x 18 24kg x 18 Banded Triceps Pushdowns 25kg x 14 25kg x 14 25kg x 14 25kg x 14 25kg x 14 Banded Pull Aparts 12.5kg x 10 12.5kg x 10 12.5kg x 10 12.5kg x 10 12.5kg x 10

Sounds interesting - i assume having parents with a broad education / level of knowledge makes a massive difference. I can imagine some people really struggling to teach maths/physics/computer science without a related background. Sounds like it worked out well for you though (i think you have mentioned you have a masters degree before so they must have done a good job!)

I feel you on this one Aurik! Have had multiple instances of someone suddenly having a fright when they spar and realise weight classes exist for a reason!

Pardon the tangent but i am curious about the homeschooling (it is something that rarely happens over here) . How does it work? Does the education board give an ideal list of topics that would need to be covered for exams or do your parents just teach as they see fit? I assume you still get to register for exams etc though? Apologies for the nosiness!

I have also been playing it since the original - i liked how they included the way you took on the gem at the end of the first game into the plot of the second game too.

Thats good that you got it and you are happy with the product itself. Hopefully you can get back the speedy shippings costs

It isn't cheap but i think it's worth it - is a lot bigger than diablo 3 and i think plenty of replay value etc.

Yeah i would agree that the main difference for me is training volume. It is something i have had to mentally adjust to also as you do keep saying "..but i used to do XX" and it takes a while to make the adjustment mentally. When younger i used to train twice a day most days, combination of martial arts, weight lifting and conditioning sessions. Managed it fine, didn't get hurt etc. Now i know that would break me! I found the best way to do it is accept the reality that life (kids etc.) will interfere and plan classes etc accordingly. I track my class attendance and set personal targets etc but i try to factor this in - eg instead of saying i will go to class X 2 times per wk i make it an avg of 1.5 etc. Setting some targets / goals that you can meet help too i find. Sounds like you are being sensible though - not just running into things gung ho and wondering why you get hurt / injured. Best of luck for starting back!

Thats been almost a week now (or longer for anyone with early access). How're you guys finding the game? Myself i think they have done a really good job with it - enjoying it a lot. Only thing i would have liked added would be the old rune system - making rune word items was cool (and items sets too - i liked them a lot!)

Friday 9 June Lifting Session Squats 20kg x 5 40kg x 5 65kg x 5 75kg x 5 85kg x 5 65kg x 5 65kg x 5 65kg x 5 65kg x 5 65kg x 5 These felt good. Knees felt fine too. Really concentrated on 'pushing them out'. When doing it i realised i might have been being slightly lax on it near the end of a rep (i felt a slight difference on way up) so maybe that was the issue! Single handed standing KB press (L+R = total reps) 20kg x 12 20kg x 12 20kg x 12 20kg x 12 20kg x 12 KB Swing 24kg x 18 24kg x 18 24kg x 18 24kg x 18 24kg x 18 Banded Triceps Pushdowns 25kg x 13 25kg x 13 25kg x 13 Banded Pull aparts 12.5kg x 10 12.5kg x 10 12.5kg x 10 Really trying to concentrate with these on feeling the rear shoulder doing the work.

thats an interesting idea - i might play with that idea for out of class training. I can think of ways that this may help. Good suggestion!

Wednesday 7 June Karate Session Warm ups same as per usual Kihon Slightly different to usual as one of the other 3rd dans was filling in to teach the class. Very much focusing on technique and breaking things down. Some nice drills for kicking technique that i will do at home i think too Kata Ran through several kata. Each time half speed first to focus on technique then full speed. Heian Shodan, Heian Yondan and Tekki Shodan. Got some useful feedback on Tekki that for the knee lift and stamp i need to pull it more in front of my torso. I was deliberately pulling it out to the side so this was fine to adjust. Other feedback was good so pleased with that Kumite Just did a few 5 step drills, punches and mae geri. Instructor made us emphasise blocking everything (even the kicks) rather than evading as he wanted us to work on forearm conditioning which he thinks we should do more of! Don't really disagree tbh Overall was a good class - week and a half to go now until grading!

Tuesday 6 June Lifting Session Seated overhead press 20kg x 5 25kg x 5 32.5kg x 5 37.5kg x 5 42.5kg x 5 32.5kg x 5 32.5kg x 5 32.5kg x 5 KB swings 24kg x 16 24kg x 16 24kg x 16 24kg x 16 24kg x 16 24kg x 16 24kg x 16 24kg x 16 Rack chins 7 reps 7 reps 6 reps going to video my form on these and double check. Felt like i might have been slightly too horizontal for final few reps Triceps banded pushdowns 25kg x 13 reps 25kg x 13 reps 25kg x 13 reps rear delt banded pull apart 12.5kg x 10 12.5kg x 10 12.5kg x 10 12.5kg x 10

I've started a frost sorcerer. Really enjoying the game so far. Tried a druid in the beta which was good too. Game seems a lot bigger than the previous ones too. I'm liking the enemy level scaling also - keeps it a challenge!

Yeah the stadium thing in North American sports has always puzzled me. For a capitalist country the sports leagues seem to run on a very socialist model. By way of comparison i can't imagine any football team over here receiving funding for building their own stadium from the public. They are always built with club money or private investment - though we do have a lot of older stadia as a result. Have never understood why it is down to the city to provide any financing at all tbh. If they all refused it would hopefully stop soon!