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Don’t get those

Published December 1, 2004 by centaur
centaur 0
Ohayoo, taidoka and fanuka! Today's lesson is, "Why to duck rather than block".



I take Taido, a modern martial art focusing on three dimensional movement. One of its most distinctive features is its combination of offense and defense. For example, a key offensive move is is ebigeri, a "shrimp kick" that moves your body out of the line of attack while firing back with a heel kick powered by the change in body axis. A key defense move is half fukuteki, a ducking maneuver which pops you back from an attack but leaves you coiled to deliver an hip-twisting eji zuki punch.

Taido's strategy values this defense-offense synergy over blocks, which waste energy while exposing you to potential injury. Speaking of which...

CRACK! "Hey ... that doesn't feel right..."

SO, the thirtieth anniversary of Taido in the US will be celebrated with an international tournament, and so we at Georgia Tech Taido are preparing now. Tuesday night, in jissen (sparring) practice, I got nailed in the forearm by a supa supa smooth, perfectly timed ebi geri fired off by one of our black belts and yes, indeedy, my arm was broken.

Kudos to our senior brown belt Shelly and her husband Greg for running me to Piedmont Hospital and providing moral support, and double kudos to sensei Corey for both his excellent technique and great sportsmanship --- he checked over my forearm right away, knew all the right questions to ask, and let me recuperate while keeping the class running smoothly until Shelly rolled me out the door. (And mongo kudos to my girlfriend Sandi, who stayed the night to help out even though she'd been up 24 hours straight.)

And as for the break? Big lesson: if you hear a crack, it feels loose or it looks out of shape, ice it and go get it looked at ASAP. Most breaks heal in 2 months or so. Mine is a classic nightstick fracture --- treatable in kids by setting the bone but in adults by implanting a metal plate, which has a seven times higher success rate. Surgery is tomorrow, and it will probably be 3-4 months before I can fully resume all activities.

SO, and while it will take at least that long for me to try backflips again, I think this is a good opportunity to focus on my footwork! (When Corey suggested to us at the beginning of class that our hand movement and foot movement are too closely tied and we need to break that in jissen, I don't think he meant us to take that so literally! ;-)

Now, I had some time to think about this while recuperating, and this is what I came up with (based on my mental reconstruction of what happened; but since it went very fast, YMMV). Much of this may have meaning only to a Taido student, but here goes:

Face cover and stomach cover work.
While I said earlier that "this is why we duck rather than block", that's not quite true --- I was doing an untai no ski and pulled my hand down in just the right timing to protect my torso. (As it was I was lucky; he pulled it just a bit because this was a friendly match, so I was in no real danger; in a more serious fight, that same maneuver would have traded me a broken arm for a more serious broken rib and maybe a knockout). Corey said it best at the beginning of class: keep your hands up and make them purposeful.

Keep watching!
Corey nailed me because he saw what I was going to do, saw the opportunity and took it. I too saw what he was doing and had a millisecond chance to abort and fukuteki ... and with more practice I will. As Chris says, keep looking.

Duck rather than block.
The real problem was that I haven't trained myself to duck rather than just move in wth more forward attacks. As Chad has said, we need to focus on Taido: ducking rather than blocking or jamming. With enough live defense to offense practice I would have seen the "opportunity" to fukuteki away from the ebigeri and just done it ... just like Brian E. showed us last night how practice can help you instinctively recognize the opportunity to nengi under a senjo and just do it (which he did pretty effectively to me last night). This kind of defense to offense fluidity is Taido.

Anyway, enough karate theory. This little break may mean some changes over at fanufiku.com ... I'm now trying to recruit guest artists to fill in the gaps --- contact me at centaur at dresan dot com if you are interested.

More news as it happens.

-Anthony

And for the record…

Published October 21, 2004 by centaur
centaur 0
... that should have been "where oh where has my fiku gone", because in the f@anu fiku universe Xiao Dreamweaver uses "fanu" to mean her fans and "fiku" to refer to her fiction. Just to be all nitpicky and technical.

Where oh where have my fanu gone?

Published October 21, 2004 by centaur
centaur 0
Hm... f@nu fiku is down.

But so are my hosting provider and my domain name provider for that site and at least one other site I control. So it's not just some bandwidth limit thing ....

Hmmm... more news as it happens.

Throw your head at the ground and miss

Published October 13, 2004 by centaur
centaur 1
"I know Taido..." "...show me." (To the tune of Neo vs. Morpheus).

Seriously, I learned to front handspring today. A quick step forward throwing yourself down on your hands, and your body flips over you and just pops back up to a standing position, and, to my great surprise, I can actually do this. Repeatably.

I honestly didn't think it was possible for me getting a such a late start in karate at the ripe old age of 30. I mean, yes, I took karate in my early teens, and yes, I took it for about a year in college, but as far as I'm concerned I really *seriously* got started around 30. Despite that, after all this time I assumed that the young turks doing front flips and backflips and front and back handsprings were just able to do so because they were 15 years younger than me (I am now 35).

But apparently after five years of practice, you learn something.

While I'd been doing a great deal of component practice (handstands, cartwheels, a variety of tumbles, back arches, back wall hand walks, and assisted back flip practice) the first time I ever tried to put a back handspring together was tonight --- and thanks to great teachers and great encouragement from my classmates, it just frickin worked.

Don't try this at home, fanu, but it's just throwing your head at the ground and missing. No, more seriously --- lean forward on to your hands and flip forward over them, using your hands to hold yourself up while you pitch forward onto your butt. Sound easy? Ok, speed that up with a few running steps until you're comfortable flipping forward over your hands and onto your butt. Got that? Now watch the ground while you throw your body over ... your back will naturally arch while you fall on your butt. Ok, now kick your feet up like you're doing a cartwheel ... and surprise yourself when you pop back up onto your feet. Even more seriously don't try this at home --- get yourself a karate or gymnastics teacher and a big mat to practice on --- but once you get the hang of it it's amazing. By the end of the evening, I didn't even need a running start anymore --- I could practically do it in place.

I even found out, but did not get to try, *why* we're doing this insane stuff --- one of the black belts showed us how a front handspring could turn into a superfast (and devastating) ax kick.

So the moral of the story is, if you believe that you can't do something ... OR believe that something's too crazy to do ... OR don't put in the effort to learn all the pieces, you'll see people doing things that *look* amazing which you will *assume* are impossible ... but the reality is that if you assume it IS possible for you, take it on faith that it's worth doing, and put in the effort to build up all the pieces ... why, then anything's possible for you.

Next I plan to work on my hover.

Oh, and I just discovered RSS…

Published October 13, 2004 by centaur
centaur 0
... so sue me. Or just subscribe to the Library of Dresan
RSS Feed.
Actually technically it's an Atom feed, but, hey, they're all the same to SharpReader.

Ok, so now I have to upgrade my Python webcomic script to produce an XML site feed, which I suppose means I have to add XML support to Sangreal for when I switch the script over to Sangreal. Rassen frassen ... yes, I *do* plan to join the 21st century, give me a break...

girls, books and stuffed animals

Published October 9, 2004 by centaur
centaur 0
A new webcomic has popped up, filled with girls, books, and... uh... stuffed animals. Sort of. Anyway, in a show of solidarity with our fellow webcomic artists, check out girls with slingshots, which just started.

In similar powergrrrl vein, I recommend The Devil's Panties ("It's not satanic porn, honest!") and Namir Deiter. And always, I recommend Kevin and Kell, an excellent anthropomorphic strip about differences and the joys they cause.

Run for President, Get Arrested

Published October 9, 2004 by centaur
centaur 1
Apparently there are some hazards associated with not being
in the #1 or #2 party slot. Libertarian Presidential candidate
Michael Badnarik was arrested trying to serve the Commission
on Presidential Debates with papers accusing them of illegally
excluding him from the debate:

Badnarik/Campagna '04 for President


"The first report from St. Louis is in - and presidential candidates Michael Badnarik (Libertarian) and David Cobb (Green Party) were just arrested. Badnarik was carrying an Order to Show Cause, which he intended to serve the Commission on Presidential Debates (CPD). Earlier today, Libertarians attempted to serve these same papers at the Washington, D.C. headquarters of the CPD - but were stopped from approaching the CPD office by security guards."


Mmm, mmm, mmm. Never let it be said that the process isn't
slanted to the top two parties, by the top two parties.
-Anthony

Dreams too big for the sky

Published October 4, 2004 by centaur
centaur 1
f@nu fiku is here.

Right now most of the material on the site is preliminary
(and yes, I know there are broken links; they'll be fixed
after I finish giving a talk this week) but the storyline
for the first arc, Premonitions, begins on Monday.

(... and in case you're wondering why the story
story doesn't begin until next week... it's because I
wanted to get in the habit of forcing myself to finish
at least one page each week so I won't fall behind.
Currently I'm five weeks ahead. Let's see how long
that lasts.)

Enjoy.

Fanu Fiku … aaalmost there …

Published September 30, 2004 by centaur
centaur 0
The Wizard. The Warrior. The Seer. The Saint. The Scientist. The Mystic.
And the young girl who can take them...
...anywhere she can imagine.

Fanu Fiku

Weekly. Starting October 4.

The Gallery is OPEN!

Published September 28, 2004 by centaur
centaur 0
A whole passel of my art can now be seen on the Gallery page.

Kudos to Gordon for pointing out IrfanView, which made building the gallery a breeze.

And in other news, Fanu Fiku: Premonitions starts online October 4th and will run weekly. As I get ahead/behind on Fanu Fiku, I may or may not try to get Death Wish finished in online comic form as well.

Hope yall enjoy!

Okay, OKAY, I *get* the *point*!

Published September 27, 2004 by centaur
centaur 0
SO I'm sitting in a panel atAnime Weekend Atlanta 10 listening to the always delightful Piro talk about how drawing works for him, busy taking notes while sketching faces for practice in the margins.

Then the panel ends ... and a young lady sitting next to me asks me to do a sketch, because she liked what I was drawing so much. Then someone else commented on my t-shirt. And finally, out of the blue, while I was talking to a distributor of the fanfilm "Batman vs. Joker vs. Aliens vs. Predator vs. more Aliens vs. more Predators", he asked, "So, do you have a web site, and is any of your stuff on it?"

So, OKAY, I get the point! I'll put f@nu fiku and my other art online already. The gallery is half done, hopefully to be finished by Wednesday, and the front cover of Fanu Fiku will go up on Monday.

Stay tuned...

Ok, I forgive you…

Published September 20, 2004 by centaur
centaur 1
... "Sky Captain" wasn't that bad.

I saw it again (all of it, this time) with my girlfriend, who wasn't too surprised I didn't like it ... she likes escapism, I want realism. But as time went on the sheer visual beauty of the movie, wooden acting, and tin dialogue faded in my mind, and I was struck by how many beautiful ideas there were in the movie. How many clever touches it had. How many little pieces just fit together. How well, despite its flaws, the overall story was told.

And then I ran across this little snippet on how they made it. and was struck by the love the director had for his subject: the skyhook on the Empire State Building that the Hindenberg III docks on was real ... the Hindenburg III was really on the drawing board ... and many of the other things in the movie were from Mr. Conran's childhood dreams. And so he buckled down, with a cheesy computer and no funds, and made his dream fucking happen. You go with your bad self.

So, I forgive you, Mr. Conran, for the flaws in your movie: you really did turn out an amazing piece of work, and I apologize for my snap judgement. But, please, given the amazing skill you show in every other area, please, please, please write and direct some small plays where you focus on dialogue and work with real actors BEFORE you've storyboarded out your next multimillion dollar movie.

I promise you, if you turn out several small shorts just for you and your friends in a context where it's safe for you to go out on a limb and try and fail, then your next movie will kick "Sky Captain's" butt.

Perhaps I was too hasty…

Published September 18, 2004 by centaur
centaur 0
... for others who just saw "Drek Captain and the World of Stupidity" questioned whether I was seeing the same movie they were. I can't answer that; all I can say is that what I was watching was the moment visual style finally vanquished intellectual substance. Perhaps I was too hasty. Certainly the movie was visually imaginative.

But I guess after September 11 I want a little realism in my escapism: I think wonderful tales told of heroes who save the day for all the little people who can only sit back and do nothing end up with the little people who did nothing ending up dead.

Because there are no heroes.
If you want to save the world, stand up and do it yourself.

My First APL Program

Published September 17, 2004 by centaur
centaur 0
As a side project right now I'm investigating computer languages --- not just experimenting with Perl vs. Python but trying to expose myself to different families of languages, such as functional, logic, imperative, object oriented, and obfuscated.

Most recently, someone mentioned that array languages are the least
widely known family --- perhaps because the founding language in the group,
APL, was written with a nonstandard character set. Perhaps the most terse
of all programming languages, APL spawned a series of children, like J and K,
which, even though they can be written in a normal alphabet, retain APL's
essential terseness --- or, dare we say, obscurity?

I plan to learn J. However, before I did so, I committed myself to learning
at least a smidgen of the original APL, so I could see how the language was
originally intended to work and look.

Here's my first APL program, designed to produce a Vigenere tableau:



Note the code isn't in the standard ASCII character set, so I had
to represent it as an image file.

The heart of the code is the central box of the next image. This should read as: 



disclose (( -1 rotate (indexList (shapeOf Y)))

   (outerProduct rotate) (enclose Y))



and executes right to left:



To translate into pseudocode: 


// Assign the alphabet to the variable Y

Y = "ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ"

 

// Now perform the following:

(unbox

 ((outerproduct rotate)

  (rotate -1 (enumerate (length y)))

  (box y)

  )

 )

 

// This is the moral equivalent of:

// (1). Treat array Y like a "scalar" variable

boxedY = box(y)

 

// (2) Find the length of Y - in this case,26

lengthOfY = length(y)

 

// (3) Get an array from 1 to the length of Y

//     We will use this (1 2 ... 26) later to

//     rotate the alphabet to the side

list1toY = enumerate(lengthOfY)

 

// (4) Rotate list by one so that the first

//     row is a "no-op" rotation: (26 1 2 ... 25)

//     (I should have just have subtracted one

//     from each list to get (0 1 .. 25), but

//     it's just my first APL program!)

rotateAmounts = rotate(-1, list1toY)

 

// (5) Create a "mapping rotate" function that takes

//     a list of integers as its first argument and

//     rotates each element of its second argument

//     by the supplied integer.

//     We had to "box" Y earlier because APL by

//     default treat each of its elements as a one-element

//     array.

mapRotate = outerproduct(rotate)

 

// Now create 26 copies of Y, each rotated by the amount

// specified in the rotateAmounts variable, and collect

// them all into a list.  This is morally equivalent to:

// list(

//      rotate(26, boxedY),

//      rotate( 1, boxedY),

//      ...

//      rotate(25, boxedY)

//      )

rotatedY =  mapRotate(rotateAmounts, boxedY)

 

// Now "unbox" the rotated list, which takes the

// list of lists of rotated Ys and turns them into

// a matrix or grid rotation

return unbox(rotatedY)


The idea in my mind was to take an input array and print
a diagonalized rectangle with it. With the alphabet, this
becomes a Vigenere table --- once the "indecipherable cipher",
now a trivial matter for any modern computer.

With a different string, like "01" or "_[]" (reading the two
brackets as the APL Quad character), and a suitable change
in length of the output, it becomes instead a checkerboard:



Deciphering that is left as an exercise to you, dear fanu.

Cut me some SLAC!

Published September 14, 2004 by centaur
centaur 0
I just had some pictures developed and found these gems from my November 2003 trip to the Stanford Linear Accelerator:



Some of the other pictures developed are so old that, well,
let's just say that half the couples in one Christmas shot are
either getting divorced or have been for some time now.

Oy, do I need a digital camera.

Resident Evil 2: Aqualitylapse

Published September 13, 2004 by centaur
centaur 0
I and my old high school buddy William just came back from seeing "Resident Evil 2: Apocalypse".

And while there were many things I enjoyed about the movie, and even think it had the skeleton of an interesting plot, both William and I had the same reaction.

Simultaneously, we *tried* to excuse its suckitude by dissing it as a "B" movie, but immediately realized it was at best a "C" movie.

"Aliens vs. Predator", how we miss thee.