A couple weeks back I watched Malcom Gladwell's TED talk on David and Goliath. More recently, I've been making my way through A History of Weapons which is a mostly-hilarious take on weaponry from the beginning of time until around 1900. The TED talk is excellent, here watch it:
And what, you may ask, was my take away from this talk and the book I'm reading?
Was it the inspiration that small entities (be they individuals or organizations) can topple large ones (be it in business, politics or anywhere else), not out of luck, but out of their inherent and often overlooked skills? That *of course* David beat Goliath, looking at the facts, it would almost be hard for him to lose.
Nope. All this I know. In fact, it's essentially my day job (except instead of slaying giants, I write software that helps individuals and small companies slay the competition. OK, maybe not slay, but at least outperform.)
No, my big take away was this? Why haven't I learned to sling?!
You're telling me I can make a deadly weapon out of little more than some rope and a bit of fabric? What a hack. I'm in!
Luckily, there's Slinging.org, which is exactly what you think it is: a site that covers old-school slings (versus say, sling-shots) in great detail.
There's a wonderful collection of articles worth reading. Two useful places to start (from what I can tell) are: Making a Simple Sling and Slinging Advice for Beginners.
Of course, YouTube has a plethora of videos on the topic. Including videos like this one, that actually show how slinging may be useful for something other than putting out your or someone else's eye.
This all looks terrifically fun. The big challenge: finding a large 360 degree area where I can experiment with this wannabe hobby of mine without destroying life or property. Still, as soon as I find such a location, I'm totally in.
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