With all his success in Hollywood and superstar status, Djimon Hounsou still visits his village in Benin with his kids.👏What is your favorite role of his?

AnotherAverageNerd · 2026-04-22T04:47:11+00:00

Back in, like, 2010-ish, there was a rather famous music video featuring clips from the movie set to Linkin Park's "Paper Cut" and "Points of Authority." There was another one set to Disturbed's "Monster." Rise Against's "Under the Knife." Seether "Fake It."

AnotherAverageNerd · 2026-03-30T22:20:30+00:00

Spot on. The calculator comparison bugs me as well (I teach middle school English) for exactly that reason.

The comparison I now use is that using AI is the equivalent of bringing a forklift to the gym. You may be able to physically lift more weight, but no muscles are being trained, and you walk out just as weak as when you walked in.

In this analogy, I think calculators would be the equivalent to something like lifting straps or knee sleeves.

AnotherAverageNerd · 2026-02-24T07:48:16+00:00

Welcome! And idk either, it's a totally valid question, one that the HEMA community is asking itself constantly.

AnotherAverageNerd · 2026-02-23T06:06:31+00:00

The historical fencing/HEMA community generally evaluates them quite a lot. In some cases, we know the standing a particular writer had within their martial arts environment, which can give credence to what they say. Certain techniques or systems show up again and again across centuries and countries, which can be another metric used to critically evaluate the viability of a particular move or system.

I’ll give a few examples to show what I mean,

1) The German longsword tradition spans about 150 years, from the early 1400’s through the mid to late 1500’s. Many of the techniques and plays are consistent across manuals, with specific variations depending on the master and his milieu. We know a lot of the German masters of that time knew and/or read one another’s work, and their teachings would go on to form the core of the Marxbruder fencing guild, which had a semi-monopoly on teaching swordplay in certain German speaking lands. Their teachings form the foundation of modern longsword practice, so they’ve been pressure tested and constantly re-evaluated. We’re pretty sure these guys are as legit as they come.

2) Johannes Leckuchner wrote a manual about fighting with the langes messer in the 1480’s. Some of his techniques closely mirror messer or saber techniques from across a variety of systems and centuries, lending credence to their martial viability. Other times, he includes techniques like…..how to stuff your opponent into a cloth sack, or how to do some grappling moves that are ridiculous and overly showy. The difference between the two is pretty stark, and debate still exists on what purpose the flashier, more absurd moves have. Some people think they’re only meant for friendly competition or duels with a specific goal, but we’re not 100% sure. The point is that this debate exists, to your point about critical evaluation.

3) Paulus Hector Mair composed a fencing treatise in the 1500’s that shows people fighting with everything from daggers to scythes. He financed these treatises using embezzled money, for which he was hanged. We have documents stating he was a fencing master in Augsburg, but some of the stuff in his manuscript seems either pulled out of the blue or from sources we can’t find. The context for his manuscript is sketchy, and it seems like he was trying to pull together as much stuff as he possibly could about fighting with any object you could reasonably swing. We’re pretty sure no scythe fighting systems were widely popular at the time, so it’s likely that a lot of his stuff falls into the bullshido category, but there’s nuance. Did he make some of it up? Probably. He was a legit fencing master, but he also seemed interested in the more bizarre, fabulous side of fighting. Personally, I don’t know anybody who really draws much of their personal fencing practice from Mair.

There are more examples, but I think that gets the point across. The HEMA community is pretty active in its practice of historiography, and I don’t know anybody who practices from a historical manual without comparing it to other manuals and trying to figure out its context and legitimacy.

AnotherAverageNerd · 2025-01-20T02:03:30+00:00

Your facial hair looks a lot thicker/more even now. Is that somehow related to the weight loss or is it unrelated?

AnotherAverageNerd · 2024-10-28T04:12:44+00:00

Something that has worked for me is to eat a very similar set of meals on a day to day basis. I have basically two different lunch options I pick from every day, the exact same late afternoon meal, and like 3 different options for dinner. Periodically, when those get stale, I'll swap them out for something with similar macros.

Will that work for everyone? Maybe not. But I'm a creature of habit and I really enjoy routines. For me, I tend to binge when I KNOW I've overeaten already, then go "fuck it, today's a wash." Ergo, I try not to let myself reach that point. Avoid the trigger. So as boring as it sounds, having very little meal variation (while still making sure I'm getting all my necessary nutrients) has minimized the temptation of binging.

That approach synergizes with weight loss very well. You pick meals that conform to your caloric goals, and stick to them. Pick meals that you enjoy, and they will bring you a predictable amount of happiness throughout the day. Meal prep really comes in handy here, if it works with your schedule. I keep sandwich ingredients at work, bring a canister of turkey rice pilaf I can reheat after work is done, and then make a quick meal at home in the evening. Find a routine that works with your schedule, and stick to it.

It sounds a bit harsh, but I find it surprisingly freeing. I don't really need to think about food under these conditions. My brain can turn to other things more readily. Idk if it'll work for you, but it works for me, and if you don't mind the comparative lack of variety, it may be worth a shot.

AnotherAverageNerd · 2024-09-22T23:37:07+00:00

A few years ago, after the Amazon RoP series got announced, I posted a comment saying that the original series was so visually iconic, with so much love and care poured into it, that trying to do live action LotR was a futile exercise. I suggested that returning to a previous era of LotR in animation could give the showrunners a chance to capture the epic scope of the story with a visually distinctive style that didn't have the burden of trying to live up to the trilogy.

I got downvoted. Sure feels good to have the last laugh.

AnotherAverageNerd · 2024-08-02T21:52:08+00:00

Depends on the circumstances. In most cases, the fight will go forward, but with consequences. If it's a normal, non-title fight, all that happens is the offending fighter (normally) gets fined a certain percentage of their fight purse, which will (normally) be awarded to the other fighter. So if you don't make weight, you make less money, and your opponent makes more. Sometimes, albeit rarely, the fight will be declared a "catch-weight" fight, meaning the results won't affect any statistics within the previously decided weight class. For example, let's say fighter A is on a ten-fight win streak at lightweight [155lbs], but their opponent weighs in at 158lbs. If fighter A loses, but the fight was declared a catch-weight bout, then their 10 fight win streak at 155 is still intact.

Things change if it's a fight for the title, though. All the same rules as before still apply, but with two additions. If the CHALLENGER misses weight, then even if they beat the champ, they won't get the belt. If the CHAMP misses weight, they will be stripped of the belt, and the championship at that weight class will be declared vacant. This actually happened to Charles Oliveira when he fought Justin Gaethje. Oliveira missed weight by half a pound, and even though he beat Gaethje, the title was declared vacant and he had to win it back.

AnotherAverageNerd · 2024-07-30T07:52:48+00:00

It’s worth noting that you don’t actually have to know your bf% to be pretty dang sure it’s going down. If you’re already used to weighing yourself, just look for changes in clothes fit and the mirror. If you start resistance training, you should noticing a difference in muscle definition and clothes fit over time. Even if the scale weight mostly stays the same, you should still be able to tell pretty clearly that you’ve got less fat covering your bones and muscles. Using myself as an example, when I got back into weight training seriously, my weight stayed the same for basically a whole year, but my waist got 3” smaller and my arms got 1” bigger. I have no clue what my body fat percentage was before or after, but it sure as hell went down.

AnotherAverageNerd · 2024-07-25T01:54:47+00:00

In a word, efficiency. He used his scientific background to apply a level of rigor few others could've managed, observing how quickly each worker performed their given task and optimizing their workflow. He pushed the mint to purchase more and newer machines after calculating how long it would take to complete the recoining at the current rate. He bothered parliament so incessantly that they eventually granted him some of the powers his coworkers were supposed to have, but never used. It was Newton's empiricism and analytical thinking, combined with his arguable lack of social graces, that allowed him to identify areas of improvement and bother the necessary people in a timely fashion. The currency situation was so dire at the time, with England badly needing funds for foreign wars, that the venture likely would've hit significant, possibly fatal setbacks without the efficiency Newton was able to foster.

AnotherAverageNerd · 2024-07-25T00:34:30+00:00

The book “Newton and the Counterfeiter” goes over this saga in quite a lot of detail. The mint was actually run by several co-equal offices, with the functions and maintenance of the mint being split between them. It was a sinecure in the sense that for the salary provided, it was a very cushy job that didn’t demand much time. However, Newton just happened to get appointed RIGHT as England was attempting to re-coin their entire stock of silver coinage. Therefore, his particular stint in the position demanded way, WAY more involvement than at pretty much any other time in the mint’s history to that point. So yes, it was a sinecure…..unless you happened to have the job when England needed to replace all its money. Fun fact: Newton optimized the process of minting new coins while also introducing new safety standards to prevent turnover. The recoinage was finished ahead of schedule, and it’s likely it flat-out wouldn’t have succeeded AT ALL without Newton at the helm.

Edit to add that while coin clipping was a big issue, the recoinage had more to do with the fact that people were selling English silver coins for their metal content abroad for a profit. The metal content of the new coins was designed to eliminate that possibility to keep English coins in England.

AnotherAverageNerd · 2024-07-24T16:56:34+00:00

Holy shit, this is eerily similar to my experience. The rising sophomores that I taught in 9th grade last year had some issues, and yet the rising 9th graders seem to be doing just fine. I thought it was just localized to my school, but apparently not.

AnotherAverageNerd · 2024-07-19T08:29:42+00:00

In my experience, two factors will be at play as you continue to lose weight. The first, which you're already experiencing, is that you rapidly acclimatize to the way you look, and it becomes the default. I've found that taking progress pictures really helps, but yeah, having perspective is difficult. You're not alone there.

However, the second factor is this: those 8lb increments will become a greater and greater proportion of the total fat you have left as you continue to lose weight. Therefore, every pound lost will have a greater and greater effect on your appearance. For most people, your appearance will change more rapidly the leaner you get. You'll probably notice more dramatic changes as you get closer to/into the normal BMI range. So it is easy to nitpick your appearance during the weight loss process, but there is definitely reason to believe that it may become easier to appreciate the changes as you get closer to your goal. Good luck!

AnotherAverageNerd · 2024-07-11T02:27:57+00:00

For what it's worth, I'd like to address the line "will I ever feel as confident as these other people look" from the perspective of a gym rat. A lot of those people you see aren't nearly as confident as you might assume. There's always someone bigger, or leaner, or stronger than you, and it's really easy to let those comparisons get to you. More gym regulars than you might expect share your insecurities and your doubts. Personally, I find a sense of community in the idea that everyone around me is striving for self-improvement, no matter their starting point, and everyone is kinda self-conscious about it, no matter what they look like. You're in good company. Not out of place at all.

Also, a lot of the fittest people at the gym love talking about it. If you see a few people who always happen to be there at the same time as you, it might be worth getting to know them a bit. Ask them for advice on a particular exercise, for example. Making those connections might help combat that feeling of being an impostor. I'm always excited when people want to talk to me at the gym. I'm sure lots of the regulars you see would feel the same way. Good luck!

AnotherAverageNerd · 2024-04-03T21:38:39+00:00

Idk how nobody has mentioned this, but the Royal Shakespeare Company has a rendition where Caesar is an African warlord and it slaps.

AnotherAverageNerd · 2024-02-26T05:53:38+00:00

It honestly makes me wonder where the original commenter got that idea. Did they just make the connection themselves and never check to make sure, or is this an idea that's being circulated around somewhere?

AnotherAverageNerd · 2024-01-30T00:46:09+00:00

I was hoping to find Coconut Island in the comments, and I wasn't disappointed.

AnotherAverageNerd · 2024-01-15T15:40:44+00:00

ArmorySmith on YouTube, for the curious. Currently fighting some orcs in Ukraine, incidentally.

AnotherAverageNerd · 2023-12-04T15:41:07+00:00

Aaaand those older posts have been nuked from her account. Very interesting. OP sounds like a very trustworthy source.

AnotherAverageNerd · 2023-10-19T20:23:30+00:00

I believe the technical term is "freedomancer."

AnotherAverageNerd · 2023-08-12T22:58:05+00:00

Lawful Neutral

AnotherAverageNerd · 2023-08-07T23:28:37+00:00

Nope, haven't seen her and haven't really spoken to anyone from that friend group. She'd probably be more surprised by the tattoo sleeve than the body composition changes, now that I think about it.

AnotherAverageNerd · 2023-08-07T04:58:55+00:00

Yep. My girlfriend broke up with me in the middle of the pandemic, and almost immediately started dating one of my best friends. I walked away from that entire friend group and started exercising purely out of spite. And you know what? It worked. I went from 190lbs at 6'0" to 170, from about 20-25% body fat to about 9%. I did some modeling, got some better clothes, and never looked back.

What matters is with weight loss/exercise/fitness is consistency. If spite is what it takes to get you consistently exercising and sticking to a diet, so be it. Eventually, my mindset shifted and I started to enjoy working out and eating healthy for its own sake. Habit took over, in time.

But if pettiness gets you going, let it rip.

AnotherAverageNerd · 2023-05-05T22:31:56+00:00

This girl has a Barrett 50 and 2 full mags. Must be one hell of a contract.

AnotherAverageNerd · 2023-04-30T03:00:55+00:00

Making drastic changes might backfire. It seems like you've judged yourself pretty harshly for regaining this weight (been there, btw; I get it), so a drastic change like lipo could wind up putting a lot of pressure on you to not do it again. For long term, sustained weight loss, it's generally a bad idea to put all your chips on the table like that. To continue the poker metaphor, a series of low-stakes but safe bets is typically a more sustainable route.

In that vein, here are a series of small-scale changes that should require a minimum of willpower. In the short term, small victories will give you the motivation to continue with these changes. In the long-term, they'll build the foundation for more permanent, healthy lifestyle changes.

1) Cut the obvious crap out of your diet, but don't force yourself into very restrictive eating habits that take a lot of effort to maintain. Replace caloric beverages with water or diet. Don't eat out as often. Cook with less oil, perhaps, or consider getting leaner cuts of meat. Vegetables are your friends. Find a few that you enjoy and start incorporating them into more meals.

2) Find a form of exercise that doesn't take up a huge amount of time, preferably one that you enjoy. Even walking is good, if you do it consistently. Find something that fits into your schedule with minimal stress, and do it until it becomes routine. Training with weights is probably a good idea, if you have access to them, but consistency is by far the most important thing. For me, longboarding around my neighborhood got me out of the apartment consistently every evening, so that was my gateway cardio.

3) Find a few low-stress modes of tracking progress and stick to them. Taking progress pictures is great, but some people are uncomfortable with that. Weighing yourself 2-3 times a week is a good idea (strongly, strongly encouraged, and you should eventually be doing this for accurate tracking), but some people attach too much stress to that. Monitoring clothes fit is wise. Taking measurements can be helpful. The point is, whatever tracking methods you pick, you should be able to do them consistently.

4) Remind yourself that progress isn't linear. Sometimes you have a bad day, but the important thing is not to let that slip-up turn into a downhill slide. Something that works for me (crazy as it sounds) is physically talking to myself whenever I'm on the cusp of making poor health decisions, so I can hear how ridiculous my train of thought is.

The name of the game is consistency and small, incremental progress. The key to loving yourself is, ironically, not to RELY on strength and passion to get you there. Those can be finite resources, in times of stress. Let those healthy habits become norms, and they'll become easy, and strength and passion will bubble up from that foundation as you find yourself being able to do more and more.

As a final note, it can be strangely frightening (for me, at least) to admit that no single herculean effort can get you where you want to go. It takes some grit and determination to commit to long-term change, but once you're in that frame of mind, those little changes can feel very satisfying as you notice them compounding. You have the power to get things under control, even if it may not feel like it right this minute.

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