The show I am speaking of is The Deadliest Warrior, broadcast on Spike TV on Tuesdays. Each week, the show pits two warriors against each other in the court of television opinion. Some of the contestants are familiar heroes from history, such as a Spartan or a Samurai, and some are more contemporary, such as The Taliban or the KGB. How can they possibly compare warriors of such different abilities, time period, and weaponry? With Science, of course.

The three “judges” of the contest include a biomedical scientist, a doctor with ER trauma surgeon experience, and a computer programmer. The biomedical guy sets up experiments so that they can test the warriors methods and tactics and get quantitative data out of it. The doctor evaluates the simulated wounds that the weapons make, and judges whether an injury is superficial, debilitating, or just plain fatal. And the computer programmer takes all this data and inputs it into a model that runs 1000 simulated battles between the warriors, deciding who the winner is. The show then stages a choreographed battle between actors dressed as the warriors, with the winner of the computer simulation revealed as the winner of this heated battle.

There are many reasons I love this show. First of all, the “experts”. Since the warriors in question often do not exist any more, they get people to come in who are considered experts on the subject, two people per warrior. If the warrior is an Apache, for example, they can get actual Apache to come and talk about the culture and the weapons. However, when the subject is Celtic warriors, they have to just get people who are interested in medieval history and weaponry. All four people are present during all the tests and weapons demonstrations, and all four people must be contractually obligated to trash talk the other team and offer objections to any spectacular display of martial ability. They are always supremely confident that their warrior will reign supreme.

Secondly, the test subjects. Obviously, they cannot test the lethality of the weapons on real people. But they can use simulated people! One the one hand, they can use synthetic people, such as human dummies made of ballistic gel, which has a similar consistency to human flesh. They pour the ballistic gel into molds with simulated (or real??) bone, so that the dummies have skulls and ribs and everything. They also add in bags of fake blood, so that an inflicted wound will bleed messily. But sometimes, that’s just not good enough! They also use pig carcasses (also with strategically placed fake blood bags) to give that extra bit of realism, as pig carcasses (as you may know from episodes of Mythbusters) offer a very close simulation of human flesh.

Thirdly, the test equipment. The biomedicist adds pressure sensors to skulls and armor, and radar and laser detectors to measure weapon velocity. They film the demonstrations with high speed cameras to get great slow motion videos of maces crushing skulls. Did you know it takes about 80 psi of pressure to crush someone’s skull? I do, now.

Fourthly, the weapons. Each warrior gets four weapons to test in battle. Typically, there is one long range, one medium range, one short range, and one “wild card” weapon. It’s always cool to see each culture/disciplines armory. Samurai katana vs. Viking Longsword? Flamethrower vs RPG? Let’s see what they can do to some pigs!

The way the show is set up, it makes for some interesting and sometimes disturbing confrontations. For instance, the first season finale was a battle between the IRA and the Taliban. Experts were basically trashtalking each other about being the better terrorist. The first show that I caught this season was between the Nazi SS and the Viet Cong. It’s really hard to be a cheerleader for SS weaponry and abilities without seeming like a bit of a Nazi.

But finally, the one thing I love is how they always ignore the giant elephant in the room : the computer model. The experts will constantly argue about the efficacy of the weapons. One heavy weapon will demolish fake skulls, and the opposing experts will say something to the effect of “it’s one thing to attack a stationary dummy, but theres no way you would be able to strike a <insert opposing warrior here> with a weapon that slow”. But they will never say “that computer model way overvalues projectile speed over penetration depth.” This central fiction of the show is hilarious. The proprietary model is considered sacrosanct when in reality its the most important factor in all the rankings. No doubt, Slytherin Studios will never offer up the model weightings for public perusal, but one day enough shows will pass that one could probably come up with the ultimate warrior by inferring the weighting based on previous battles. At this point, I will invent a ancient warrior with a specialized backstory and with special weapons that will crush all others in their path. And then finally, I will get the official title of Deadliest Warrior.

The show is filled with so much testosterone that its impossible for any red-blooded male to resist (yeah, that’s right, if you don’t like this show you must not really be a man). After seeing that SS vs Vietcong battle, I went on wikipedia to find out the battles that I had missed. I was really intrigued to see that an Indian Rajput warrior battled a Roman Centurion earlier this year, and that the full episode was online. Hopefully this will stay online, but you can check it out here (no embed, unfortunately, and 40 minutes long). The weapons that are brought to the table in this one are incredible.

So why do I hate Tom Brady? Well, it doesn’t help that he played football at Michigan. My loathing of Michigan football is even deeper than that for Tom Brady. But it’s more than that. You see, I dislike all “good-looking” quarterbacks. Tom Brady is already a quarterback. He plays the most important position for the most popular sport in America. He makes millions of dollars because he’s actually really good at it. He has probably spent his entire life, since high school, as the center of adulation and attention. He should not get to knock up famous actresses and then marry supermodels. It’s just not right. If you’re going to be a successful quarterback, you should be homely. Otherwise, this is all just unbalanced. Booo, Tom Brady. Yeah, Kyle Orton!

Basically, though, my argument is seeded in jealousy and an inapplicable standard of justice. That’s just petty and irrational. Luckily, science has stepped in an gave me a plausible, legitimate reason for my prejudices! I think this study has been bouncing around for a little while, but I was only made aware of it recently. As this Deadspin post summarizes from this WSJ article and also this much older Times article (don’t know how long all these articles will stay up, so I’ll just link to all of them), NFL starting quarterbacks are unnaturally attractive. A group of researchers (David Berri & Jennifer VanGilder) looked at the faces of NFL quarterbacks and measured how symmetric their faces were. Studies have shown that facial symmetry is a measure of attractiveness that spans all races and cultures. It is by no means the only measure of attractiveness, but it’s one that can be easily figured out by computers and image analysis (as opposed to having babies of different cultures look at pictures of faces, and seeing what faces they spend more time staring at, which is seriously how research into attractiveness has been conducted).

There are two interesting conclusions from their work. For one, the symmetry level for starting NFL quarterbacks (I assume this is the 2007 or 2008 season) was always higher than 96%, while an average person has a symmetry of 90%. Unless it turns out that genes for symmetry are the same as for good quarterbacking, this suggests that good looking youngsters are steered towards the quarterback position, or at least the good-looking kids gets more snaps and attention during practices.

The second conclusion was that the more attractive quarterbacks get paid more than they should based on performance. As the Times article states :

To put this result in perspective, we found that a “good-looking” quarterback like Kerry Collins or Charlie Frye earned approximately $300,000 more per year than his stats and other pay factors would predict. Meanwhile, quarterbacks like Jeff George and Neil O’Donnell, who, sadly, were not found to have very symmetrical faces, suffered an equivalent penalty.

But it’s not the Brett Favres — the guys often referred to as “the face of the franchise” — who receive the greatest return on their handsome faces. It’s the QBs clinging to the bottom of the roster who get the biggest pay bump from good looks

So you see, my hate of “good-looking” quarterbacks is completely justified. They use their good looks to subconsciously curry favor with coaches and GM’s, from childhood all they way through to NFL retirement age. My “irrational” hate is merely compensation for the favorable treatment they’ve received all their life.

I’ve read the newspaper and blog articles. To this point, though, they’ve just been articles in the WSJ and the Times, though, and haven’t mentioned anything like “as published in the Journal of Sports Externalities” or anything. So it sure looks like this work has not been published in a peer-reviewed journal yet. Still, it supports what I believe already, so I’m inclined to believe it anyway.

Booooo, Tom Brady!

Well, no more.

Yesterday, I got my T-Mobile G1, and I’m totally basking in the glow of the future now. Why didn’t I get an iPhone? Well, truth be told, it turns out I’m a Google fanboy and not an Apple fanboy. I’m asssuming that the G1 will be a sort of technological gateway drug for me. I’ll start out with a 3G smartphone, and pretty soon I’ll be signing up for elective bionic implants. I have no doubt that I’ll soon become addicted to having the internet and all the glory (and cat pictures) that it entails at my fingertips, so much so that I’ll get wifi installed in my cerebrum so that I’ll never be too far from the Hive Mind. Where will Ranjeet end, and Mecha-Ranjeet begin? That’s a question we’ll have to leave to the philosophers.

What will this mean for this website? Probably not much, although with constant location information and a 3 MP camera, I’ll be much more likely to explore fearlessly and document diligently. And the internet will never be the same.

How soon is the future? Well, consider this : I’ve been composing this post from my phone. I’ll let you go get a paper towel to wipe off your ears, since I’ve just blown your mind. Meanwhile, I’ll be over here, going through your stuff.

The two movies are quite similar. Amazingly enough, both of their plots can be described as : A future Los Angeles Police Department is faced with a dilemma when a psychopathic killer from the past improbably escapes and gets out on the loose. While the escape seems mysterious and accidental, further detective work reveals a more sinister “inside job”, where a seemingly benevolent person has orchestrated the breakout. This psychotic killer kills people just for fun, and as the death count rises, the police department is forced to turn to the killer’s previous nemesis, a former cop who is now incarcerated. The cop clashes with the current administration, but between him and his female partner, they are finally able to bring the killer to justice. And by justice I mean death.

I guess this is why Netflix suggested both of them at the same time (I assume, since they were next to each other in the queue).

Demolition Man has more explosions, a more imaginative (cliched, but imaginative, if that makes any sense, which is kind of doesn’t) image of the future, and much much better one-liners. Wesley Snipes is a much more amusing villain, and Stallone pulls off the improbable victory over an insurmountable enemy with lots of style. Kudos, Demolition Man! You get four stars from me!

Not so much with synchronized diving.

I’ve been watching the Olympics the last few nights, and really, synchronized diving seems pretty worthless. It seems that you perform exactly the same dives as you would in individual diving….but you just copy someone else as well. There’s really nothing special about it, and frankly I’m just stunned that it’s a medal worthy sport when, say, cricket isn’t.

The only nice thing about synchronized diving that I can think of is that it’s fairly steroid and cheater proof, unless someone out there uses Siamese Twins or something.

But still, it pains me to see companies doing stupid things. For instance, I recently decided to start doing the online rental thing. I liked Netflix‘s independent nature, but the first DVD they sent me on my free trial was the wrong one — bad move. I closed my free trial and moved to Blockbuster, because frankly, it was a better value. The plans were the same price, but in addition to having one DVD out a time, I could have unlimited exchanges; I could get a DVD in the mail, watch it, then go to a brick-and-mortar Blockbuster and exchange it for another movie. They would record my mailed DVD as returned, so I would get the next one faster, and I would have a movie to watch tonight. However, my intuition was correct — it was such a fantastic value, that Blockbuster was forced to change their pricing about a month after I signed up, a decision that was met with much outcry. Outcry that was unnecessary, I thought, since you were getting more for your money with the exchanges. Oh, Netflix had the “Watch Now!” thing going, with online viewing to supplement your account, but the selection of things to watch online was uninspiring to say the least. It was clear that Blockbuster was trying to crush Netflix into the ground by outspending them, but in response Netflix merely lowered prices, not once but twice. To top it off, they pledged to improve customer service by employing more real-live people and giving them the power to make the customers happy. After the latest price increase announcement by Blockbuster, I decided to let Netflix take me back (perhaps not-so-coincidentally, the day after I got the price increase e-mail from Blockbuster, I received a please-come-back letter from Netflix with an offer for free popcorn), and I have to say, I’m impressed with the current service. The Watch Now section has selections that I had in my queue, like seasons one of Heroes and 30 Rock and Red Dwarf, along with some classics. And their response time for receiving movies has been eerily fast — I dropped a DVD in a mailbox on Saturday after the last posted pickup time, and Netflix notified me on Sunday night that they had received my DVD and were sending the next one. Just creepy, man. It just seems clear to me that Netflix obviously has a much more efficient process, but rather than Blockbuster trying to improve their processes, they’re just gonna jack up prices and work hard to piss people off, and hope that Netflix fails. Ah well. At the moment, I will say Netflix has impressed me enough to be :

Which brings me to the last item of note….read about this recently. The summary of the summary is that Circuit City came up with the brilliant idea to save money by firing all their most well-paid salespeople (i.e. senior staff who actually knew what they were talking about or at least knew how to sell stuff), and hiring more entry level people who cost less. The result : a 75% drop in the share price, as sales have plummeted. But don’t worry, folks; the genius executive vice-presidents who approved this idea got $1 million retention bonuses to make sure they don’t leave, as I’m sure they are highly pursued by other companies. Seriously, the only reasons you should go to a brick-and-mortar store are if

• You need the product right away
• You need to see/hold the product before buying it
• You have gift cards
• The store had some expertise that could come to bear on your buying decision

That’s just about it. You shouldn’t go because of price, because it is very rare that you can’t find a cheaper price online, unless shipping is prohibitively expensive, but even then it’s usually offset by a lack of sales tax. So, basically, Circuit City took away one of the only reasons that a person would shop there — to talk to a knowledgeable person who knows what they’re talking about. Or at least a slick salesperson who makes them feel good about making the purchase. But at least they saved all that money so they could give it to their executives. I guess it doesn’t make sense to me — but hey, I’m no businessman.

One thing that’s always amazed me about the Internet is about how simultaneously terrifying and fascinating it is. I am a strong proponent of John Gabriel’s Internet…uh… Bad Person Theory (language warning). Give otherwise normal people a keyboard and some anonymity, and it’s quite unbelievable what they’ll come up with.

For me, you can put “deal sites” into the fascinating category. Put simply, if you’re shopping for a something like a computer/laptop or electronics, you are doing yourself a disservice if you don’t visit sites like Slickdeals or Fat Wallet. There are people dedicated to finding and sharing the best deals on products out there, so really, it’s no use trying to keep deals from people. The savvy, deal-obsessive internet users out there will make you pay.

My current obsession is Woot. Besides being the latest word of the year, Woot is the name of a popular shopping site who’s tagline is “One Day, One Deal.” Which, most of the time, is exactly what it is. One item for sale each day, selling until midnight or until they’re out of stock. Usually a pretty good deal. Even if you don’t want what they’re selling, I love checking in because the product descriptions are usually pretty hilarious. Sometimes they mock the product. Sometimes they mock Woot.com. Something they mock the type of person that would buy such a thing. Sometimes they just write fairy tales. Sometimes they mock classic literature. Customer service, while limited, is refreshingly upfront.

Woot embraces the crowd. Every day, each item can be discussed, and the comments always involve people pricematching and saying how much the item sucks. It’s all good. But the most glorious moments are those special days when you go to Woot and see flashing sirens — it’s a Woot-Off! Instead of just one item, there will be multiple items, each new item appearing when the old one has sold out. If you want something, you better snatch it quick. Everyone is anxiously waiting, hovering over the refresh button, looking for the bag of crap. A grab bag of random goods, usually only $1 a bag. Why would you want a bag of junk? Because it might randomly be not junk, like a big screen tv or something. Typically speaking, a few thousand bags of crap sell in less than a minute.

I love it. Take the crowd, whip them into a frenzy by the promise of a random awesome gift for cheap, sell lots of items. And all the while, entertain them with an irreverent attitude. Woot is Jeet-approved. I’ll have to thank Jesse for introducing it to me.

Update 12/26/2006: A great suggestion, anonymous commenter. As of now, Woot is Jeet approved!

Could I come up with a secret to send in? Probably, but I’d feel like a doofus because it’s just not as haunting or poignant as the ones that make it in. I mean, I would just feel like a crybaby if my deep, dark secret is not shocking enough to make the front page.

However, I have been impressed with the outpouring of support and adulation that this edition of my birthday has brought forth. There’s pretty much no one I can make feel guilty for forgetting my birthday. Actually, it kind of reminds me of a birthday I had a number of years ago, when Yusuke secretly e-mailed a bunch of people telling them it was my birthday and that they should e-mail me to congratulate me. I was pleasantly surprised by the response, until one guy actually put in his e-mail “Yusuke told me to e-mail you”, which kinda broke the spell. And made me forever mistrustful.

Don’t think I’m not onto you.

Actually, rooting for your alma mater to do well in sports is just natural. I mean, you have a lot invested in your memories of an institution, and you want to see the place that gave you your diploma do well on the national stage. If I walk into a random, crowded room somewhere in the U.S., I want to be able to look someone in the eye and say…uh…that a bunch of young adults that I have never met and will probably never meet, and who probably view their academic responsibilities far less seriously than I do mine, bested another similar group of people from another academic institution. Hmmm…when I put it like that, it doesn’t sound as impressive. And that’s for the case that’s natural!! I’ve never really understand what it is that makes it so important for a city to have a sports team. What makes a team so important that a city’s taxpayers will give a bunch of owners half a billion dollars to build a large stadium so that these same taxpayers can have the honor of spending more thousands of dollars to attend those games? It just doesn’t make sense.

Now, Illinois has rarely had a good football team since I’ve been here…only two winning seasons, not even in a row. But those two seasons! They were glorious! I figured out when I was an undergraduate at UIUC that basically whether or not the team won on Saturday made or broke my weekend. If they won — elation. If they lost — depression. It was, in a word [or two], incredibly stupid. The events of September 23rd, 2000, as I have explained previously, still taunt me(Edit: And now I’ve found some video documentation of the atrocities. My Anger Still Burns). But still I rooted for the team. I decided to displace my emotions, move them over to the basketball team. They still seemed to be doing well. Bill Self had arrived! But then he jilted us, and Bruce Weber came, and took us to even higher heights! But now it appears that Bruce Weber could not convince a starving man to eat a sandwich, and is having even worse luck convincing promising basketball players they should come to Illinois. A turning point came the weekend of October 14th, 2006 when Ohio University came to town. Disenchanted with going to the games, I still found myself listening to the game on the radio while at home…and as usual, Illinois found a way to lose. Attempting a game-winning drive in the fourth quarter, a wide receiver fumbled a simple out pattern, giving Ohio the ball on Illinois’ 16 yard line with less a minute to go, allowing Ohio to kick a game-winning field goal. That same weekend, a prized basketball recruit decided to go back on his word and sign with Indiana instead of Illinois. At that point, I realized that I had had enough with Illinois sports kicking me in the nuts. I handed my basketball and football tickets to one of my coworkers and told her to disperse them as she saw fit. I deleted links to the Illiniboard; I would be free of the parasite that is my Illinois spirit! By banishing these sports thoughts, I would become more efficient, surely graduating in a few weeks. I proclaimed it my “boycott”. And by doing so, I would prove that I could rise above the arbitrary conventions that say that I should root for the teams most local to me, and that such rooting is virtuous.

That brings us to today. I was a fool to think that I could really overcome this sickness. We’re about three days from Wisconsin, the #5 team in the country (kind of by default), coming to Champaign, a week after we knocked off the #19/#21 ranked team in Penn State. Once again, Illinois sports is on the brink of potential greatness respectability. Despite my “boycott”, I attended last week’s game, and chances are I’ll be at this weekend’s game (but-but-but I didn’t pay for the tickets, so it’s like I’m still boycotting!). Sigh. If I can’t beat it, I might as well enjoy it.

GO ILLINI!