Red Bull BC One 2008 Results

The Red Bull BC One began streaming from Paris promptly at one o'clock Central time today, with impressive live editing and the general pomp and polish that Red Bull always puts into their event. The MC for the show was Rakaa of Dilated Peoples, who was rocking not one but two Zulu Africa medallions around his neck. The judges came to the stage with brief demos. Ivan seemed all through the event, as usual, to have had several too many Red Bulls himself, jumping around and coming to the stage to spin something when bboys were standing off for too long.

I made my predictions about twelve hours before the start of the event, and I was almost completely wrong, except for Taisuke's battles. Let's see how it went down. Winners in bold.


Round One (round of 16)

JUST DO IT / CICO
I had picked Just Do It against Cico's power game, but in the battle JDI came too slow, really not matching Cico's energy at all, even dragging his feet a little when he went for his own power. I agreed with this win for Cico.

LIL G / TAISUKE
Lil G came to the stage wearing a black full-face ski mask, as if he was in a bad crime movie. He was also wearing a Venezualan flag. Hopefully his country will be inspired to step up in the future. Lil G did bring some nice and fairly original power, but he seemed to crash multiple times per round. Taisuke was able to win even though he looked to be holding back. Amusingly, "Lil" G is actually taller than Taisuke.

LIL CENG / KID DAVID
Kid David came out first, with several brief throwdowns. After his second, Lil Ceng exploded onto the floor, cutting him off from continuing. Kid David yelled that he wasn't done, but it was too late to stop Ceng. Lil Ceng came with crazy power, almost totally clean... and Kid David didn't do much in his third round... Lil Ceng took the battle 3 to 2. Worth notice: Kid David had a nice four beat freeze combo in his second round. I wanted to see Kid David advance, but Lil Ceng did impress me.

PELÉZINHO / BAEK
The Brazilian Pelézinho came rocking a lot of Red Bull gear, and raw energy. Baek came with a lot of difficult handstand freeze sequences, but stumbled a little bit on one air baby set. Pelézinho scored the minor upset victory with a 3 to 2 judges' decision.

BENNY / WING
Benny came out looking obnoxious and effeminate. His whole third set was hand hops. Easy win for Wing, but one judge did go to Benny.

MOUNIR / NASA
Nasa looked a bit like Kid David with his hat and forward-slung neck. Both came hitting beats, but Mounir brought more energy and snap. Nasa also stumbled considerably in round two. Emphasizing the difference in speed and energy, Mounir left his can of Red Bull at the feet of Nasa at the beginning of his run. The judges went unanimously for Mounir.

LIL KEV / MENNO
Lil Kev should win some sort of award for swagger, especially as a young kid, for redirecting Menno around the platform disdainfully, and then coming out fire before Menno has a chance to get started. I did have to scratch my head at one point when Kev did a headspin flexibility variant that I thought Brahim originated, and in the end he did too many headspins, with something of a stumble in his third round, and the judges supported Menno unanimously.

RONNIE / KOLOBOK
Kolobok looked a little clumsy and slow compared to Ronnie. Ronnie did hesitate once in his second round, but I was very surprised to see the judges go 3 to 2 for Kolobok. I had to disagree myself, and think this is probably the upset of the event.


Round Two (quarterfinals / round of 8)
They did move down the brackets as I guessed, but I only picked three of the eight initial battles. Wow, worse than flipping a coin.

Cico / Taisuke
I named this "the battle of bad hair" as the bboys came out to battle... As the battle progressed, Taisuke used the power of music, and Cico used all other power - and he repeated a bit from his first battle. In his last round, Taisuke put his foot through Cico's legs as he stood there, and Cico snapped his legs together, holding Taisuke for a second. Not a cool move, Cico. Judges went all for Taisuke, bringing one of my picks to the top four.

Lil Ceng / Pelézinho
I didn't pick either of these guys to be in this round. Lil Ceng smoked Pelézinho, and took his (own) shirt off while doing a headspin. Whatever, Lil Ceng. Pelézinho seemed to be repeating a lot, and the judges ruled unanimously for Ceng.

Wing / Mounir
This battle started with an annoying stand-off resolved by hyper Ivan. Mounir went to the wrong side after his round in defiance of Wing. So, two points for swagger, negative twenty points for losing the battle. (Total: -18 points.) Judges all went for Wing, but not the French crowd... This brings Wing to the top four, as predicted.

Menno / Kolobok
Menno waves off Ivan's proposed spin for priority, winning points with me. I thought he'd battle Ronnie here, and I had Ronnie winning. The judges give the battle to Kolobok 3 to 2, maybe because Menno did so many of his similar baby catch power variants. Kolobok did look better than he seemed against Ronnie here.


Round Three (semifinals / round of 4)

Taisuke / Lil Ceng
These two seemed to be friends, and both sides were having a lot of fun. Lil Ceng came with mad power but stumbled ever so slightly on his last run. Notably, in his second round Taisuke came over the top of Lil Ceng's run perfectly.

Wing / Kolobok
I think Kolobok repeated a move from an earlier round exactly, first thing out in this battle. Wing took it despite doing a lot of similar forarm spin and freeze stuff.


Round Four (finals / round of two)

Taisuke / Wing
I had predicted it'd be Taisuke against Ronnie here. The Japan vs. Korea match-up was probably meaningful to some. Taisuke seemed pissed off through the four rounds, but the consequence was lethargy rather than fire. Music also didn't seem to suit him, consistently changing just as he came out. I think if he had brought more energy and longer sets, Taisuke would have had the win, but as it was, a majority of judges went with Wing, adding to his recent Circle Prinz win.

Red Bull BC One 2008 Bracket

This year - just twelve hours from when I'm writing this - the Red Bull BC One international one-on-one bboy battle is being webcast live from Paris. Yesterday they released the first-round battle match-ups, and I thought I'd put down my predictions. It's like March Madness, except I actually have an interest in it and there isn't really time to start a pool. So here we go! Round winners in bold.


Round One (round of 16)

JUST DO IT / CICO
I think the judges (Ivan, Extremo, Hong 10, Lilou, and Storm) will be a bit power-friendly for my taste, but even so, Cico is a blunt instrument. The power Italian used a 90 as a whole round against RoxRite in a previous BC One. His 90s are some of the best in the world, but he'll have to show more bboy elements to make it here. If he comes off clean, the Nike slogan from Holland can make it to round two.

LIL G / TAISUKE
I haven't seen much of Lil G, but he seems kind of like a Venezualen Cico. Taisuke comes close if he doesn't completely match G for power, and the bleach-blond Japanese Zulu certainly has the well-rounded chops to win his first round.

LIL CENG / KID DAVID
I didn't realize Flying Steps was still around! I'm rooting for RoxRite's musical crewmate here, but I acknowledge the German's power may win out.

PELÉZINHO / BAEK
How many times has this Brazilian guy been to BC One now? Korea takes this one.

BENNY / WING
And... Korea takes this one too. Especially fresh off his Circle Prinz win, I don't expect any surprises from the South African entrant. I have a lot of respect for bboys coming from smaller, isolated communities (thinking Brasil and South Africa) but I don't think the conditions produce the internationally competitive bboys that win BC One. We'll see if the evidence supports my hypothesis.

MOUNIR / NASA
Who are these guys? Mounir at least has video on the Red Bull site. Looks like he's battled Extremo, one of the judges. Nasa is repping Australia and some crews that I generally like (Zulu/Fresh Sox). They both seem to have kind of goofy hyper attitudes. I like Nasa's name more.

LIL KEV / MENNO
I haven't seen anything from Lil Kev in a while, but I remember him as the boy who was so "Blond, Blond, Blond" in Planet Bboy. I may be wrong to discount him because of his youth, but Menno seems like an easy choice here.

RONNIE / KOLOBOK
This Kolobok guy seems to have some foot-grabbing moves kind of like Ronnie... But he's not Ronnie...


Round Two (quarterfinals / round of 8)
I don't know if they'll just collapse the brackets like this or rearrange match-ups, so this is all even more speculative...

JUST DO IT / TAISUKE
I think Taisuke will come off cleaner here.

KID DAVID / BAEK
Predicting Baek's arsenal gets tired before Kid David's.

WING / NASA
No-name vs. increasingly big name.

MENNO / RONNIE
I like Ronnie's tops more. Not that I like either's very much, but I have to pick somebody.


Round Three (semifinals / round of 4)

TAISUKE / KID DAVID
I want to see an international final.

WING / RONNIE
Ronnie comes cleaner.


Round Four (finals / round of two)

TAISUKE / RONNIE
Ronnie wins again.


Hmm... It'll be fun to see if I'm right about anything. I'm not particularly excited about how I predict it coming out. It seems like it would be more fun for somebody else to win. If I just pick who I want to win from the list of 16, I'd pick Kid David, Taisuke, or maybe Menno. I'm not sure Taisuke has a sufficiently original aresnal to draw from. Who knows, some of these bboys I don't know as well may totally surprise me. Should be a good show.

Midwest Bboy Adventuring, October 17-25, 2008

I traveled these nine days throughout Wisconsin, Illinois, and Minnesota, following bboy events and practices and having a fantastic time. A conservative estimate is 1,746 miles driven, which neglects travel within cities. Thanks to all those who came with me, who practiced, cyphered, and battled with or against me, and especially to those who helped out with a much-needed place to sleep in the night.

2008 October 17 Friday
Menasha to Milwaukee 104 miles
Dinner at the restaurant where my sister works, Cafe Centraal, and then the Veggietales live show with my little sisters. They did not do Barbara Manatee.
Milwaukee to Madison 80 miles
Audre Lorde Cooperative Unveiling featuring UW-Madison bboy cypher/performances, as well as a devastating show from Uniiq Funk.

2008 October 18 Saturday
Madison to Chicago 148 miles
Nine Soul Hydrauliks soldiers and one American Rythm Attack/ENI member went and battled at Hellaween 2, held at Alternatives in Chicago. We also ate some tasty food in Chicago's Viet Town.
Chicago to Madison 148 miles

2008 October 19 Sunday
Madison to Minneapolis 270 miles
A small Madison delegation made it to Mona Lisa's breast cancer benefit, carrying about $1,000 raised dancing on the street in Madison. We missed the Warriors' show but made it in time for some burlesque dancers and cyphers. Chilled afterward at a nice spot called Azia, and slept a few hours at the Minnesota Joe Mega-Plex.

2008 October 20 Monday
Minneapolis to Madison 270 miles
Madison to Milwaukee 80 miles
Dope practice session at UW-Milwaukee, hosted by Tuy. Many people there, and a photographer too.

2008 October 21 Tuesday
Milwaukee to Madison 80 miles
Dope practice session at UW-Madison, hosted by Tony and the club there. A Badger Herald photographer was there too. Two days in a row of photography. Crazy.
Madison to Milwaukee 80 miles
Staying with my cool sister in Milwaukee.

2008 October 22 Wednesday
Holy crap, I didn't have to drive anywhere far away! Session at UW-Milwaukee again. Also saw possibly the worst movie of the year, Max Payne.

2008 October 23 Thursday
Milwaukee to Madison 80 miles
Another good UW-Madison practice session. First two hours at Humanities, then another hour at the SERF. Caught the Dumate show at High Noon and crashed at Jarius' place.

2008 October 24 Friday
Madison to Chicago 148 miles
Battled with MoG at the second Free Soul battle at Zentra. Afterward hit up Stone Lotus thanks to Aaron Dorsey's hot connections, and then finally The Weiner Circle, which I recommend.

2008 October 25 Saturday
Chicago to Madison 148 miles
Exhausted, sore, and caffeinated, I returned the speakers for one more Madison practice session.
Madison to Menasha 110 miles
Home sweet home.

Total: 1,746 miles driven

That was a dope nine days! Now I'm taking a few days up here with my fam. I'll be back in Madison for Halloween weekend for sure. It means a lot to me, seeing everybody in these last couple weeks before I leave for Korea. Much love.

How water is heated does not affect how it cools

Hypothesis: Water heated in a microwave oven cools more quickly than water heated on a stovetop range.

The two filled glasses were not actually involved.

Experimental apparatus:

• standard candy thermometer
• iPhone stopwatch
• two identical tumblers
• pyrex measuring cup
• microwave
• tea kettle
• gas range

Experimental procedure:

For the microwave test, about two cups of tap water were heated in a standard microwave for about six minutes. The water was observed boiling inside the microwave before heating was stopped. The water was removed from the microwave and a measure of it was poured into a tumbler on a standard dining room table protected by a thin fabric runner. The room was determined by consensus to be at room temperature. Temperature readings were taken at one minute intervals for the first eleven minutes, then intermittently up to 48 minutes, for a total of 22 readings. The initial reading was 85ºC.

For the stovetop test, a tea kettle was half filled and left to boil on a gas burner at high heat. Heating was stopped after the kettle was heard to whistle and let off steam. The water was presumed boiling. A measure of water was poured out just as for the microwave test, and temperature readings were taken at one-minute intervals for the first fifteen minutes, then intermittently until a final reading at 50 minutes, for a total of 21 readings. The initial reading was 186ºF (85.56ºC).

Experimental issues: The thermometer used was intended for cooking, not science. It was only marked to five-degree increments. I read degrees Fahrenheit in the second (stovetop) test in hopes of benefiting from the relative "smallness" of degrees Fahrenheit and then converted to Centigrade.

Analysis: The cooling curves do not appear different for water boiled by microwave versus gas burner.

As you can see, microwave temperatures seem just a bit above those for the stovetop throughout. This distinction is certainly smaller than the error of the instrument, and should be regarded as insignificant. The graph shown adjusts time by one minute so that the samples were at 85ºC simultaneously. If this is not done, the stovetop graph rides just perceptibly above the microwave graph, and just as negligibly.

Observations:

• The temperature initially measured for the fire-heated water was about one half degree Celsius hotter than that for the microwaved water. This may be because I measured it with less delay, or perhaps a tea kettle really can get water one half degree hotter. Even if so, it does not seem a significant victory for the tea kettle.
  
• No temperature was measured even as high as 86ºC. The water did boil in both cases, and the temperature at which water boils is (by definition) 100ºC. This seems odd at first. Perhaps it is due to some combination of lower air pressure (the elevation of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, is around 634 feet above sea level), impurity of the water, and delay between last boiling and first measurement.

Conclusion: Water cools at the same rate regardless of whether it was boiled by microwave or convection from burning natural gas.

Commentary: This hypothesis was offered by Dylan Carlson, based on anecdotal experience with microwaved beverages cooling more quickly than desired. It was speculated that the different mechanisms of heating, microwave excitation versus convection of heat through a metal container, leave the heated water differently configured at some level; a different liquid crystallography leading to different cooling properties. Similarly disappointed with microwaved beverages from time to time, I became intrigued and then excited to carry out an experimental test of the hypothesis. It is not difficult to become excited about science.

It would have been very interesting to find evidence of different cooling behavior, but alas it seems there is none. The familiar experience that lead to the initial hypothesis may be explained by the difference in volumes of liquid typically heated by microwave versus range. Generally only small amounts of liquid are microwaved, which then cool quickly compared to large volumes. It is not unusual to boil a large volume of liquid on a stovetop, which cools more slowly for its larger mass and is kept warm also by its hot metal container.


Note: The word "how" is used in two slightly different senses in the title of this report. It is the author's belief that the small chance of misreading is compensated for by the snappiness of the title.

The unity of nature and nurture

I wrote this essay as part of my application to teach English in Korea. As usual, being forced to write is not so far off from being forced to think, and I was generally pleased with how I formulated an idea that had been rattling around for a while. I think it could be better exposited at greater length, but here it's already over 500 words.


Prompt: "With respect to the nature versus nature debate, compare and contrast the roles of intrinsic and environmental factors in human development."


For some time it has been generally accepted that both nature and nurture play essential and intricately entwined roles in our development. Recent and current research attempts to specify only the extents to which genetic and environmental factors determine human outcomes. However, the historical understanding of the two sides of this debate as separate entities clouds an underlying unity. Analyzing the modern understandings of nature and nurture reveals a false dichotomy and motivates a choice in interpretation that emphasizes an internal locus of control.

Ridley's 2004 The agile gene: How nature turns on nurture gives an excellent exposition of how environments can interact with genetics rather than stand wholly apart. An individual's DNA and the systems that express specific genes form a massively complex system. Even with identical genes, certain traits may or may not manifest themselves depending on the environment an individual experiences. Contrariwise, studies of identical twins find that their genetics do determine in large part their adult traits - even when they live their whole lives apart - so the environment cannot be said to completely override genetics.

Modern medicine does make attempts to override genetics, as it were, by controlling the DNA developing into new humans. Prenatal testing is being used to determine whether a fetus will have genetic disease. Some tests are even designed to allow parents to choose whether their child will be male or female, and testing of this kind will only become more sophisticated. Men and women have always chosen their mates with some conscious or unconscious consideration for genetic fitness, but now engineered "designer babies" are moving from the realm of speculative fiction into reality. If we control nature, then nature itself is subsumed by nurture; the two categories collapse into one.

If we define nurture to be those circumstances under some measure of human control and nature to be not only genetics but any unchangeable element, it can quickly seem that circumstances of nature bleed into what we conventionally think of as nurture. For example, if a mother lives in a country wracked by poverty and famine, we cannot justly claim that the failure to nurture her child is her failing. The child born in this natural environment suffers malnutrition as surely as a child born with an extra twenty-first chromosome suffers Down syndrome. And the physical sciences constrict the range of circumstances in which humans are truly free to choose to a zero point. There is no room in science for free will, and if this is so then it is nurture eaten up by nature; everything is determined, nothing is chosen.

Pragmatically, then, we feel that we can weigh the benefits of two competing world views: either a deterministic universe in which everything is completely dictated by external circumstance and unfeeling physical law, or a world of self-made individuals cooperatively creating reality. From the former emerges helplessness and hopelessness. The latter promotes feelings of freedom, purpose, and self-determination. Presented with this ultimatum, it is more rational to operate as much as possible from the assumption that attempts to nurture our fellow humans are justified and meaningful.

Springtime in the city

Means flowering trees!

Planet B-Boy

There is a very good documentary about b-boying, centered around the Battle of the Year, called Planet B-Boy. I saw it for the first time at the Tribeca Film Festival. It's now having a limited release in theaters. It was showing this weekend (2008 March 21-23) in New York City at the Landmark Sunshine on the Lower East Side.


I recommend you go see this film. Go to the web site and see if it's playing near you. It's in Chicago, for instance, the weekend of 2008 April 4. It follows bboy crews from the USA (Knuckle Head Zoo), Japan (Ichigeki), France (Phase T), and Korea (Last for One, Gamblers) as they make their way and compete at the International Battle of the Year in Germany. Regardless of how you might feel about Battle of the Year, it's a great film for b-boys, b-girls, and everyone else. Go see it already!