RANDOM THOUGHTS #42
Steve Cole muses: Just thinking to himself.
1. We wargamers (and I include RPG players in that honored group even if they reject the name) are a unique bunch, and a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the human genome. We're people who get our fun by making our own decisions, and taking responsibility for those decisions. We're risk takers. Most humans want to sit on the sofa, watch a TV show or read a novel or comic book, and be scared out of their minds that the hero is going to be killed (or sent to prison or kicked off the police force or reassigned to Toledo). But there is always the secret and secure knowledge that at the end of the adventure, everything will be right back where it was, with the hero in the same job he was in when the season or series started. Wargamers are perfectly willing to risk the starship captain's life and career, and accept that we'll be starting over as an ensign in the next game if we got it wrong. This has many implications, the worst of which is that the wargame industry is very small with very few customers. If a higher percentage of the human race were instinctive wargamers, the wargame industry would be as big as the comic book industry, and even small game companies like ADB, Inc. would have 20 or 30 employees and annual sales in the tens of millions of dollars.
2. I think we need some new punctuation marks. We need two kinds of periods, one to end a sentence and one to use for an abbreviation. Separate marks would end confusion. We also need two kinds of commas (plus the existing semicolon).
3. The road from the earliest proto-humans to actual humans is one that has long fascinated me. I have always held the view that it was meat that made us human (it allowed our brains to grow) and that it was walking erect that made hunting work for us. Brains use a lot of food, and only the high value meat from hunting made large brains a workable plan. (Because of our large heads, all human babies are born at least six months premature, if you define mature as able to walk beside mommy and keep up with the pack).
A new book (Catching Fire by Richard Wrangham) says that the real turning point was Homo heidelbergensis. His smaller teeth and jaws meant that he was eating (wait for it) cooked food. Cooked food is easier to digest. (Food has the same calories cooked or raw, but raw food passes through the system only leaving half of those calories behind, so you have to eat a lot more of it.) Apes spend half of their day chewing plant food that humans could never eat. (Apes have massive teeth and jaw muscles just for this purpose.) With cooked food, we spent less time chewing, and that gave us more time for tool making, hunting, empire building, and designing Facebook.
Another thing about cooking is that, all over the world, women do most of it. Why? Because it was in their own interest to make sure somebody cooked. Switching a baby from mother's milk to cooked food takes about a third as long as it does to get a baby to eat raw food. With less time spent stuck nursing babies, women can get on with doing things like creating a civil society.
Men went hunting while women stayed in the cave because the first year of taking care of a baby required nursing, which meant that the baby had to be with mommy almost all day. It's hard for mommy to run down a deer while carrying a baby. Even after baby could be left with a sitter, the habit stuck, and that sitter was usually the women at the next campfire who was still nursing her own baby.
4. I very much enjoy the Canadian show MANTRACKER about a cowboy who hunts down people in the woods. (It's sort of a game show.) The two contestants are taking to a starting point and given a map of a destination 25 or so miles away. Mantracker starts two kilometers away (not knowing where they are or where they're going) and tracks them down by observing tracks, stepped-on brush, and (from hills) the contestants themselves. I could never compete on the show at my age or weight. (I would be lucky to make two miles before I had to sit down for an hour or two. Running into woods when I see the horsemen coming is out of the question.) Being a multiple victory map-and-compass champion in the Army and Boy Scouts, it's on my "wish I could do it" list. I think Petrick and I (at age 30) could have given him a run for his money. (We both had escape and evasion training in the Army.) For one thing, I'm more than capable of walking down a trail at night without a flashlight. I'll plan my route to end the first day just off of a road or trail. When it gets dark, I'm going to rest for a couple of hours while Mantracker sets up a tent and builds a campfire, then hit the road and get four or five miles before sunup. I'd carry a lot less of a load than most contestants (no tent or rucksack, just a pocket knife, a poncho, a first-aid kit, some energy bars, and a gallon or two of water in my web gear and a small pack). I did like the one team that used "painter booties" to turn boot prints into blurs.
The "missing" Random Thoughts #41 blog post is on our BBS as it is about bin Ladin.
1. We wargamers (and I include RPG players in that honored group even if they reject the name) are a unique bunch, and a tiny, tiny, tiny fraction of the human genome. We're people who get our fun by making our own decisions, and taking responsibility for those decisions. We're risk takers. Most humans want to sit on the sofa, watch a TV show or read a novel or comic book, and be scared out of their minds that the hero is going to be killed (or sent to prison or kicked off the police force or reassigned to Toledo). But there is always the secret and secure knowledge that at the end of the adventure, everything will be right back where it was, with the hero in the same job he was in when the season or series started. Wargamers are perfectly willing to risk the starship captain's life and career, and accept that we'll be starting over as an ensign in the next game if we got it wrong. This has many implications, the worst of which is that the wargame industry is very small with very few customers. If a higher percentage of the human race were instinctive wargamers, the wargame industry would be as big as the comic book industry, and even small game companies like ADB, Inc. would have 20 or 30 employees and annual sales in the tens of millions of dollars.
2. I think we need some new punctuation marks. We need two kinds of periods, one to end a sentence and one to use for an abbreviation. Separate marks would end confusion. We also need two kinds of commas (plus the existing semicolon).
3. The road from the earliest proto-humans to actual humans is one that has long fascinated me. I have always held the view that it was meat that made us human (it allowed our brains to grow) and that it was walking erect that made hunting work for us. Brains use a lot of food, and only the high value meat from hunting made large brains a workable plan. (Because of our large heads, all human babies are born at least six months premature, if you define mature as able to walk beside mommy and keep up with the pack).
A new book (Catching Fire by Richard Wrangham) says that the real turning point was Homo heidelbergensis. His smaller teeth and jaws meant that he was eating (wait for it) cooked food. Cooked food is easier to digest. (Food has the same calories cooked or raw, but raw food passes through the system only leaving half of those calories behind, so you have to eat a lot more of it.) Apes spend half of their day chewing plant food that humans could never eat. (Apes have massive teeth and jaw muscles just for this purpose.) With cooked food, we spent less time chewing, and that gave us more time for tool making, hunting, empire building, and designing Facebook.
Another thing about cooking is that, all over the world, women do most of it. Why? Because it was in their own interest to make sure somebody cooked. Switching a baby from mother's milk to cooked food takes about a third as long as it does to get a baby to eat raw food. With less time spent stuck nursing babies, women can get on with doing things like creating a civil society.
Men went hunting while women stayed in the cave because the first year of taking care of a baby required nursing, which meant that the baby had to be with mommy almost all day. It's hard for mommy to run down a deer while carrying a baby. Even after baby could be left with a sitter, the habit stuck, and that sitter was usually the women at the next campfire who was still nursing her own baby.
4. I very much enjoy the Canadian show MANTRACKER about a cowboy who hunts down people in the woods. (It's sort of a game show.) The two contestants are taking to a starting point and given a map of a destination 25 or so miles away. Mantracker starts two kilometers away (not knowing where they are or where they're going) and tracks them down by observing tracks, stepped-on brush, and (from hills) the contestants themselves. I could never compete on the show at my age or weight. (I would be lucky to make two miles before I had to sit down for an hour or two. Running into woods when I see the horsemen coming is out of the question.) Being a multiple victory map-and-compass champion in the Army and Boy Scouts, it's on my "wish I could do it" list. I think Petrick and I (at age 30) could have given him a run for his money. (We both had escape and evasion training in the Army.) For one thing, I'm more than capable of walking down a trail at night without a flashlight. I'll plan my route to end the first day just off of a road or trail. When it gets dark, I'm going to rest for a couple of hours while Mantracker sets up a tent and builds a campfire, then hit the road and get four or five miles before sunup. I'd carry a lot less of a load than most contestants (no tent or rucksack, just a pocket knife, a poncho, a first-aid kit, some energy bars, and a gallon or two of water in my web gear and a small pack). I did like the one team that used "painter booties" to turn boot prints into blurs.
The "missing" Random Thoughts #41 blog post is on our BBS as it is about bin Ladin.
posted by Federation Commander at 10:57 AM
<< Home