I’m one of those people who worry about how much radiation I’m absorbing (especially into my head) via my cell phone. As such, I have been thinking about a good way to study how dangerous (or not) cell phones and two-way radios and the like are to humans. Well, I think I have a good study group.

Police officers.

Based on my experience, the average police officer has roughly 47 gadgets that emit radio waves in their cars and/or on their person. They’re usually simultaneously using like 8 of them.

What better group of people to study for long-term effects of radio waves shooting through the body? I’m thinking — the effects to their short and long-term memory, cancer rates, etc. They could do a large study: tons of cities, and tons of granularity in the data collected. Number of devices, type of device, radar detector in the car? What kind? Cell phones? What band do they operate on? How long were they used? Were headsets used? What kind of two-way radio was used? The lower 400 Mhz range, or the newer 800 band? Etc, etc.

The idea here is that this would be the group that’s guaranteed to show ill-effects from this radiation — assuming there is any ill-effect. Or, to put it another way, if this group does not show long-term, tangible side effects associated with radio-based radiation, then I think we can safely conclude that casual use of similar types of devices/frequencies is probably not overly dangerous.

Anyway, just a thought.

I’ve figured out something major about generating power when looping in Table Tennis. I touched on it briefly in a previous post, but wanted to tighten my thoughts with a follow-up.

The failure to generate true power when looping comes from a simple, catastrophic mistake — performing a loop motion rather than simply coiling and swinging.

This distinction cannot be overstated.

I have briefly been exposed to this fact a couple of times in the past, but I never “got it” for some reason. I never realized what people meant when they said “let go”. Now I do.

Essentially, a true power shot has no boundaries or form when being executed. It ends up having a form, but it doesn’t follow one.

That’s the key. When an expert looper executes a powerful spin attack, they are really just coiling their body and releasing that energy into the ball. They aren’t “doing” a loop stroke, which is what 95% of players do (including myself up until last week).

The moment you try and “do a motion” or “perform a stroke”, you completely confine yourself in terms of power. A person doing this is restricted, tight, and wholly lacking in spin and speed.

What you have to do is coil and swing, but in a disciplined, technical way. That seems like a contradiction, but it’s not; the trick is that none of the discipline or technique is actively applied during the shot; at that point it’s already muscle memory. So during the shot it’s simply a coil and uncoil; the loop form that so many strive for comes naturally.

On The Table

So the next time you want to practice looping, try this:

• Get a picture of a good loop stroke looks like, i.e. a Waldner or Liquin example with the excellent body turn and weight transfer. Let the image soak in, then put it out of your mind.
• Tell yourself that for the rest of the night you’re not going to “loop”, but instead just “swing” at the ball.
• For the swing itself (we’re not calling it a loop yet), do these simple steps:

1. Coil the body fully. You want your shoulders roughly perpendicular to the end of the table.
2. When the ball comes, just unload on it. Don’t “loop” — just uncoil on it at full speed. Whip your body all the way around (almost violently) while transferring your weight forward to your front foot and grazing the ball. Think raw. Think wild.

It will seem completely uncontrolled and very different from your regular “loop motion”. That’s good. And you’ll probably miss a lot. That’s fine too.

Keep it up, and focus on staying raw. Within a few shots you’re going to land one of them, and when you do you’ll see the surprise on your opponent’s face. Your ball is going to have a silly amount of spin on it compared to your normal shot, and it’s going to come at your opponent a whole lot faster as well.

True looping requires a relaxed, loose movement and feels completely different from “trying to follow a loop motion”. Once you experience it you’ll see a night and day difference between it and what you were doing before, and at that point you’ll be looping.

In “Life on the Scales,” Science News recently wrote that some simple mathematical equations, known as quarter-power scaling laws, can explain the metabolic rates of living organisms. For example, “an animal’s metabolic rate appears to be proportional to mass to the 3/4 power.” And this “3/4-power law appears to hold sway from microbes to whales, creatures of sizes ranging over a mind-boggling 21 orders of magnitude.”

“We’ve found that despite the incredible diversity of life, from a tomato plant to an amoeba to a salmon, once you correct for size and temperature, many of these rates and times are remarkably similar,” says Gillooly.

“Metabolic rate is, in our view, the fundamental biological rate,” Gillooly says. There is a universal biological clock, he says, “but it ticks in units of energy, not units of time.”

Mind-boggling stuff. I got this off Reddit, by the way. Get into it if you haven’t already.

A visitor to the blog recently asked the following of me:

“Please whip up a generic letter that people can send to webmasters why they should stop being such a gay turd head.”

I thought that was particularly poignant, so I wrote up the following as a standard response to send to webmasters whose sites are all borked up in browsers other than IE.

I encourage anyone who gets treated badly, i.e. the site looks like ass when visiting a given page, to send this (or something like it) to the webmaster. It’s like the voting thing; we can’t complain if we don’t at least make an attempt to be heard.

(Edit: My writing authority (Jason) is going to comment that I need to reduce this to roughly half its length, so if you have any editing ideas on how to clean this up I’d appreciate it.)

Dear Webmaster,

Upon visiting your site I noticed that it is not fully compatible with the Firefox web browser. This in itself isn’t such a bad thing, except it’s an indication of a larger problem, i.e. that the site is not compatible with W3C standards.

In the past it has been common, and almost forgivable, to code a website for Internet Explorer exclusively. Up until the last year or so, so few people were using other browsers that it didn’t make much sense to spend extra development time ensuring that a given site worked in anything other than Microsoft’s browser.

That time has passed.

A significant percentage of users are now surfing the web using a browser other than Internet Explorer, and this trend is only going to increase as more and more people are exposed to options such as Firefox, Opera, etc. As such, I would offer to you that it would be in your best interest to bring your site into the age of standards compliance. Not compliance with Firefox or Opera, mind you, but compliance with the W3C standards themselves.

In fact, the reason that your site does not work properly in Firefox (which is one of the most standards compliant browsers out there) is because in developing for Internet Explorer your site has been literally “broken” in terms of standards. Microsoft has, for whatever reason, steadfastly refused to make Internet Explorer render code in an accepted way.

As such, sites that are developed for Internet Explorer alone don’t tend to work correctly in non-IE browsers. But a careful eye will notice that the trend is to move away from this sort of “hobbled” website. Look at Bank of America’s site, or E-Bay, or Amazon. They all code according to the standards first — and then add any code they have to to make it look the way it’s supposed to in Internet Explorer.

When properly developed, Internet Explorer users will still see the site as they always have, but the site will not be broken (as it is now) for non-IE users. Ultimately this approach will take very little time and energy relative to the benefit you will gain from the effort. By allowing everyone to view your site in a seamless manner you will quite simply have a larger number of happy users.

Below is some information about the W3C, and some information about how you can go about making your site compatible. I enjoy your site and very much would like to return. Please make it easier for me to do so by welcoming standards-compliant browsers rather than offering them a sub-par experience.

Thank you,

The W3C Website: http://www.w3.org/

The Web Standards Project: http://www.webstandards.org/about/

A standards-compliant checklist: http://www.maxdesign.com.au/presentation/checklist.cfm

If you are into drumming and/or things that are cool, you must check this out:

Video: 12-year-old Drum Solo

“If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby.”

The problem with pointing out stories like the reporter turned Kennedy assassin as proof that Wikipedia is trash is that it doesn’t take into account what’s good about it.

So what if 1 out of 1000 entries have some sort of error in them? You have to think about what kind of errors those are likely to be, and what most people are using Wikipedia for. I find it hard to believe that it’s doing even 1/10 the evil that it’s doing good.

What’s the worst case scenario? Some high-school student makes a crazy claim in a report for school that was spawned by a Wikipedia article? Big deal. Lesson learned. The next 1000 times that student goes to Wikipedia they’ll likely get great information. And don’t say it could be a college student or someone making life or death decisions; anyone in that role should know what Wikipedia is, i.e. what makes it great (hence what its weaknesses are).

The upshot is this — Wikipedia, when used properly, is an incredible asset. It’s sort of like Open Source software — sure, you can have a few bad apples that cause a temporary disturbance, but overall the beauty and power of the system is too great to ignore.

My favorite self-improvement guru, Steve Pavlina, just put out a most excellent post about how normal people act when extraordinary people set out to do extraordinary things. Here’s a sample, taken from the end of his post where he describes what happens to naysayers after interacting with him:

“Critic goes home and ponders what it might be like to live as something other than a cowardly lion for just one day. Critic obeys previous conditioning by flipping on TV to help eliminate such socially disruptive thoughts and feelings. Critic begins feeling “normal” again (ca. 1984) after noticing that friendly TV characters universally agree that people like Steve are broken, anti-social, and wicked.”

You really need to read his post; it should serve as an inspiration to everyone who’s wanted to try something risky (but with great reward) only to have “convention” quell the idea.

Steve Pavlina: Rules Are No Obstacles for Committed People

So there’s a new G4 build of Firefox out. I am particularly interested in the widgets — even moreso than the performance gains (which I didn’t even notice, by the way).

The question then becomes whether or not this is enough to get me to come back to Firefox (I’ve been using Safari for the last month or so).

Reading about cool FF extensions hurts my soul. It goes like this:

1. Read about badass Firefox extension.
2. Get excited.
3. Realize I run Safari.
4. Get depressed.
5. Review my reasons for running Safari.
6. Decide to say with Safari until Firefox looks like Safari does.

I just can’t get over how clean Safari is, and how tight it is with OS X. The widgets and beauty with which it renders pages is unsurpassed. But I know Firefox can emulate that long before Safari can do what Firefox has done in terms of overall functionality.

So I wait.

Only time will tell whether or not this FF mod will finally let me dump Safari for good.

As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, I’m back playing Table Tennis. The group I’m playing with now is the best I’ve ever been exposed to, and my drive to improve my game has never been stronger (it’s hard to get motivated to excel at technique when no one can even return your serve). With this group I get beat more often than not; it’s an excellent environment for me to grow in.

Anyway, my main focus now is on properly generating power, i.e. using the correct technical movement to do so. The study of how to do this is precisely why I love the sport so much. Effectively generating speed (and especially spin) is euphoric.

My latest realization, or re-realization actually, is that tension kills power.

This is a “re-realization” because this is the sort of concept that I already “know”, but am unable to transfer into action. Basically, when I see my serve come back long with underspin (just how I wanted it), I immediately tense up as I get into position to loop.

After I execute I realize immediately that my shot was neither that fast nor that spinny. Why? Because I was all tight and restricted. I know this, I kick myself for it, but the next time I get back a return where I want it I do the same damn thing.

I have the same problem in Golf, actually, which makes this more than a post about Table Tennis. It’s natural for people to associate power with tension. I find with my Golf shots that when I “don’t try” — especially with my short irons — I can hit some incredible shots. I am at the point now where I tee off for most par 3’s with no more than a pitching wedge. That’s roughly 150 yards or so (the tee helps) with ease. I am not tight, I don’t swing hard, I just do the motion.

When I do this it feels absolutely amazing. I get the perfect Titleist click with no vibration in the club and my ball goes flying like I wound up and swung as hard as I could. Of course when I try to swing hard, I can’t get half of that power. But over and over I have to remind myself of this. I go for entire days struggling with consistency and power until I force myself to “start over” with the basics and relax.

So that brings me to Table Tennis. I am doing the exact same thing there, only my loop form probably isn’t even as good as my 9 iron shot — which is sad since TT is my favorite sport.

Ultimately the problem is simple — I’m still associating power with tension.

Once I can break this mental link I’m going to become very dangerous. I am starting to see the power of a relaxed grip in practice, but once I get into a match I tighten up to generate power. I simply have to figure out how to make a full turn, a full uncoil motion, and remain loose during the entire process.

The frisbee throw is really a good analogy for the backhand. Imagine trying to throw a frisbee a long distance if you kept your throwing hand tight and controlling. You couldn’t. The power of the throw comes from the ability to release fully from the coil. Once I subconsciously make that connection in Table Tennis my rating’s going to jump by a few hundred points almost overnight.