Category: Uncategorized
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Fingerpaintings of the Gods
I’m working through Graham Hancock’s Fingerprints of the Gods right now. It’s “work” in the sense that I have to do a lot of mental sparring with Hancock. His hypothesis is that there was some hyper advanced civilization in the distant past, possibly existing before the last interglacial, which had high-tech astronomy, math, and other…
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While the Hong Kong Style Withers…
Someone on the Stunt People Discord recently posted this: I noted that I think it’s easier to import the Japanese style of movement (“Japanese Punch”) into American action cinema than it is to import “Hong Kong Punch.” It all has to do with the historical development of warfare and theater, side by side. Japan perfected…
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Off-Topic but Important: The Caffeine Epidemic
Beginning mid-2023 I began brewing and drinking a quad shot of espresso every morning, using the Natural Grocers Organic fair trade dark Espresso Roast, an Arabic bean which has 1.2% caffeine by weight. Filling my Mr. Coffee espresso maker to the 4-level, that was approximately 400mg of caffeine daily. It produced a significant laxative effect…
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Reading 25,000 Pages Per Year: Unimpressive
Halfway through 2025, I finished approximately 45 books, around 14,000 pages total. Average book length: 322 pages. Average reading week: 534 pp/wk. By end of year I might get through 100 books, depending on their length. Since 2018, when I began seriously researching violence and anthropology, and whatever related topics, I’ve read a total of…
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It Just Hits Different
My interview with IGN where I discuss motion capture and my book, If These Fists Could Talk: A Stuntman’s Unflinching Take on Violence.
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Buddhism as Empire Consolidation Plug-in
In general, I’m finding that Buddhist legends in Japan and China are very low quality. They are too praiseworthy of their saints, and the resolutions to story crises are too hand-waivy. In the story below, the monk reveals that a human is actually a were-fox. There’s nothing particularly wise in the story, other than a…
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Dennis Ruel, the Best We Had
Dennis was a brother to me, a best friend, the perfect coworker, a man you could joke and cry with. He was like a fully functioning eco-system all to himself. He could write, direct, edit, shoot, AD, choreograph, stunt coordinate, fight coordinate, and produce a feature film all on his own. He was an incredibly…
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Cut Stones as Ancient Medium of Exchange
I’ve written previously about how ancient handaxes might have originally been modified stones for the purpose of exchange, not for utility. If reciprocal, object-based aggression (ROBA) is the base system of human combat, then every stone is a potential weapon, every person a potential combatant, and the entire world a potential graveyard. The original act…
