I've always thought that my Dad and Harrison Ford had a bit in common, ever since the first time my Mom let me stay up late to watch Star Wars with my Dad and Han blew out the console on the detention level and blamed it on a communication malfunction.
Harrison Ford just always had this way of being the hero in a kind of gentle, quiet, unassuming way. You knew he was the hero, and he'd step in and save the day after everyone else had mucked it up. You knew it, he knew it, that was it. Dad would always save the day, and it would always be no big deal, just a little flip of a switch or a jiggle of this or that, and it would be fine. All my life, I've been able to count on my Dad being able to fix anything and make it look like no big deal.
Harrison Ford appears to be like my Dad. However, he doesn't have the luxury of anonymity like my Dad does, though. Harrison Ford is, well, Harrison Ford. When he flies his chopper around, it makes the front page of CNN. When my Dad does something equally heroic, it doesn't make CNN news. My Dad has the luxury of being better and more awesome than a movie star without having to put up with the flak that someone like Harrison Ford does. I'm sure my Dad would enjoy flying a chopper around the Montana badlands picking up lost hikers from time to time. I'm even more sure he enjoys the life he has built for himself and his family more than Harrison Ford enjoys his life.
My Dad is pretty darn heroic. He's done some really incredible things in my life, an here's what I think I know, but I learn something new about him every day:
Dad started out working wood. He has my curly hair, and I can only imagine what Dad looked like with sawdust all in his hair. Must have been hard on the drains, all I can say. He moved on to radios, and worked for Oklahoma Gas and Electric. He started off as a radio man, and he still knows everything about old radios. It's really fun to ask my Dad to spend a few minutes with an old radio - I have no clue how they work but I actually understand and can follow along and learn something new when Dad explains it. Dad is the hero, after all. I'm not exactly sure what Dad's official position is these days, but I know he's responsible for lots of money that goes into making massive wind farms and the like, so I know its money well spent. There's a phrase: "Find something you love to do, and you'll never work a day in your life." I think Dad is in a spot where he can do something he's really good at and is really passionate about, and I'm really proud and happy for my Dad. When your Dad complains to you about how they're penalizing him for consistently coming in under budget, you know your Dad is worthy of a hero story.
Everyone grows up with this ideal that their Mom is an angel and their Dad is a hero. I was blessed with a heroic father and an angelic mother, and I can't thank them enough.
Friday, January 11, 2013
Interestingly shaped blades
I'm a tad fascinated with the whole "Hunger Games" concept at the moment, probably due to lack of information about the book / movie. Once I actually purchase the item in question, the fascination will fade.
However, one thing I'd like to point out is that the kids on the Hunger Games flicks I've been able to view are armed or have the potential to be armed with very interestingly shaped blades. We're talking Klingon quality steel here.
Klingon:
Hunger Games:
If the movie had been shot at a higher frame rate, perhaps the sexy curved blade that young man is carrying would have turned out better as a still frame. GO TO HECK HOBBIT HATERS!!!
Anyway, having absolutely 0 experience with knives outside the kitchen (and occasionally attempting to open small electronics packages which are nominally coated in a tough plastic exterior that inevitably attempt to slice your finger off once you have cut an opening in the plastic to reach said small electronic), I have a feeling there is a reason why people who actually fight with blades have never, in the history of mankind, fought with blades of the Klingon / Hunger Games artistic shapes. At this point, I'd like to add a standard chef's knife to the mix. This isn't my knife, and I'm not quite yet enough of a knife snob to carry around my own blades in a little case when I go visiting (actually, I have separate knives for visiting, which may or may not make me even more a knife snob than having a little case), but it's close enough:
Let's examine this in more detail and see whether a somewhat "scientific" approach to the Hollywood vs. Real Life problem yields any gems.
(1) The goal of a sharp edge is to remove something (be it a plastic packaging from a small electronic, the rind of a butternut squash, a slice of cucumber for eating, the head of an opponent, etc...) from something else. All these blades appear on first glance to be quite capable of that, so let's ignore the whole "Hollywood foam" and "dulled edges for safety" aspects of all the blades considered.
(2) Typically, in warfare, the problem can be reduced down to "stick the enemy with the pointy end." The pointy end is readily identified on my kitchen knife, it's the end you don't want to pick up accidentally or have, for example, dropped on your big toe. The pointy end on the Hunger Games blade is also easily identified, however, you apparently have to have the cognitive abilities of at least a 7-year-old to figure out which part is the pointy end of the Klingon blade. Actually, if it were unadorned and unsharpened, it would be quite easy to mistake the pointy end of the Klingon blade, and get it all backwards, so..... I don't know how to deal with that.
(3) Let's look at human factors engineering in a little more detail right now. When you engineer something for human use (rather than as a part in a larger machine or something), you want to make it as safe, obvious, and idiot-proof as possible. The kitchen knife is great for this - it has an ergonomic handle that is clearly designed to be picked up, and everything about that knife says "this is the end to pick up, the other end is for separating something from something else." The Hunger Blades knife probably does this to a reasonable extent as well, and it may even have an ergonomically sensitive handle. The Klingon blade.... well... I like Klingons and don't wish to anger them, so let's not talk too much about it.
(4) Now let's examine how well the blades perform given their intended use. To start with, the kitchen blade performs wonderfully given an appropriately sized cutting board and normal-sized food products (try peeling a grape or butchering a deer with only a kitchen knife and you'll quickly begin to appreciate having blades sized to the purpose). I've never tried, but I also imagine that it would perform quite well at the task of separating an enemy's spleen from the rest of their body. I also imagine that the Hunger Games and Klingon blades would equally perform well in this arena. However, because these two blades are curved and people are trained to think in straight lines, these blades would prove remarkably difficult to actually operate in a kitchen, and probably therefore require lots of training and practice to wield effectively in a combat situation. (As opposed to a frying pan, which apparently even a 15-year-old girl, my future grandmother at the time, was capable of wielding effectively in a melee situation.)
(5) I'm getting a tad tired of the topic, so this will be the penultimate arena examined: manufacture. If you want to just make a pointy end to stick the enemy with, you'll put a pointy end on a stick. Seriously. There's nearly no benefit to making the blade curved from a scientific / engineering perspective. Unless the material is a unique form of carbon / water only encountered on planet Delta X, there's no real reason to make a blade in any shape other than linear with the pointy end opposite the handle end.
(6) The only reasons I can imagine for having a Klingon bat'leth or a Hunger Games curved blade are (a) riding a horse, e.g. the scimitar, or (b) making really hard for an enemy trained on a different blade to pick up the weapon of a fallen comrade and use it against you.
So maybe these blades aren't so ridiculous. I started off this post thinking they were, and convinced myself that they actually have a purpose, as weak and silly as that purpose may be. Go figure.
I still think my kitchen knife works pretty well at the "stick them with the pointy end" objective, and that grandma was hardcore for taking out the foe with a cast iron skillet.
However, one thing I'd like to point out is that the kids on the Hunger Games flicks I've been able to view are armed or have the potential to be armed with very interestingly shaped blades. We're talking Klingon quality steel here.
Klingon:
Hunger Games:
If the movie had been shot at a higher frame rate, perhaps the sexy curved blade that young man is carrying would have turned out better as a still frame. GO TO HECK HOBBIT HATERS!!!
Anyway, having absolutely 0 experience with knives outside the kitchen (and occasionally attempting to open small electronics packages which are nominally coated in a tough plastic exterior that inevitably attempt to slice your finger off once you have cut an opening in the plastic to reach said small electronic), I have a feeling there is a reason why people who actually fight with blades have never, in the history of mankind, fought with blades of the Klingon / Hunger Games artistic shapes. At this point, I'd like to add a standard chef's knife to the mix. This isn't my knife, and I'm not quite yet enough of a knife snob to carry around my own blades in a little case when I go visiting (actually, I have separate knives for visiting, which may or may not make me even more a knife snob than having a little case), but it's close enough:
Let's examine this in more detail and see whether a somewhat "scientific" approach to the Hollywood vs. Real Life problem yields any gems.
(1) The goal of a sharp edge is to remove something (be it a plastic packaging from a small electronic, the rind of a butternut squash, a slice of cucumber for eating, the head of an opponent, etc...) from something else. All these blades appear on first glance to be quite capable of that, so let's ignore the whole "Hollywood foam" and "dulled edges for safety" aspects of all the blades considered.
(2) Typically, in warfare, the problem can be reduced down to "stick the enemy with the pointy end." The pointy end is readily identified on my kitchen knife, it's the end you don't want to pick up accidentally or have, for example, dropped on your big toe. The pointy end on the Hunger Games blade is also easily identified, however, you apparently have to have the cognitive abilities of at least a 7-year-old to figure out which part is the pointy end of the Klingon blade. Actually, if it were unadorned and unsharpened, it would be quite easy to mistake the pointy end of the Klingon blade, and get it all backwards, so..... I don't know how to deal with that.
(3) Let's look at human factors engineering in a little more detail right now. When you engineer something for human use (rather than as a part in a larger machine or something), you want to make it as safe, obvious, and idiot-proof as possible. The kitchen knife is great for this - it has an ergonomic handle that is clearly designed to be picked up, and everything about that knife says "this is the end to pick up, the other end is for separating something from something else." The Hunger Blades knife probably does this to a reasonable extent as well, and it may even have an ergonomically sensitive handle. The Klingon blade.... well... I like Klingons and don't wish to anger them, so let's not talk too much about it.
(4) Now let's examine how well the blades perform given their intended use. To start with, the kitchen blade performs wonderfully given an appropriately sized cutting board and normal-sized food products (try peeling a grape or butchering a deer with only a kitchen knife and you'll quickly begin to appreciate having blades sized to the purpose). I've never tried, but I also imagine that it would perform quite well at the task of separating an enemy's spleen from the rest of their body. I also imagine that the Hunger Games and Klingon blades would equally perform well in this arena. However, because these two blades are curved and people are trained to think in straight lines, these blades would prove remarkably difficult to actually operate in a kitchen, and probably therefore require lots of training and practice to wield effectively in a combat situation. (As opposed to a frying pan, which apparently even a 15-year-old girl, my future grandmother at the time, was capable of wielding effectively in a melee situation.)
(5) I'm getting a tad tired of the topic, so this will be the penultimate arena examined: manufacture. If you want to just make a pointy end to stick the enemy with, you'll put a pointy end on a stick. Seriously. There's nearly no benefit to making the blade curved from a scientific / engineering perspective. Unless the material is a unique form of carbon / water only encountered on planet Delta X, there's no real reason to make a blade in any shape other than linear with the pointy end opposite the handle end.
(6) The only reasons I can imagine for having a Klingon bat'leth or a Hunger Games curved blade are (a) riding a horse, e.g. the scimitar, or (b) making really hard for an enemy trained on a different blade to pick up the weapon of a fallen comrade and use it against you.
So maybe these blades aren't so ridiculous. I started off this post thinking they were, and convinced myself that they actually have a purpose, as weak and silly as that purpose may be. Go figure.
I still think my kitchen knife works pretty well at the "stick them with the pointy end" objective, and that grandma was hardcore for taking out the foe with a cast iron skillet.
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