Rover’s Collision Avoidance is Working!
(1/22/2010)
We managed to get a very clean test of the RoverLORD today.
RoverLORD & The Cube of No Return
Here is a link to my Technical Blog
God Responds to Pat Robertson
God and Robertson
Yesterday, Pat Robertson claimed that God was punishing the people of Haiti with a devastating earthquake. In an attempt to be fair and balanced we contacted God and offered him a chance to respond.
Interviewer: I want to welcome you to the interview and give you a chance to address Mr. Robertson’s claims that you want to punish the people of Haiti. Is this earthquake an expression of your displeasure?
God: First, I want to be very clear to everyone that earthquakes are a natural process of the planet’s normal tectonic motion. When two large solid bodies slowly collide it creates a shearing and buckling effect which can occasionally result in a violent release of energy when two colliding bodies rapidly slip.
At this point in the interview God held his hands together and demonstrated a rapid sliding action by moving his hands in different directions.
When the pressure between two objects overcomes the friction a rapid slipping motion can occur.
God: As shown this week, it can be quite a lot of energy and it can be very destructive. On the other hand, tectonic motion is actually vital to all life on earth because it helps to maintain the balance of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. I use the same process to create mountains and move continents around. It is very handy.
Interviewer: What is your response to Mr. Robertson’s claims of divine vengeance?
God: I heard that yesterday Pat implied that I have some kind of grudge or vendetta against the people of Haiti and nothing could be further from the truth. Making this kind of claim is on par with saying that I’m using gravity to punish plane crash victims or diseases to punish the sick.
I want to make it very clear that these are natural processes and not any sort of value judgment. I’m afraid that some people feel like they have a unique provenance over morality and try to incorrectly assert ownership by interpreting a terrible natural tragedy as a directed act of malice to justify their own beliefs.
It is not my place to protect humanity from the world, but if you can help each other in times of need, showing compassion and respect for others, that is no small thing. You will find a few notes about compassion and other useful advice in my books which are available in stores now.
Interviewer: I’ll look forward to reading them.
God: Thanks. Would someone mind passing this information on to Pat? He doesn’t seem to be listening to me much anymore.
Interviewer: You can always try sending a letter to the Christian Broadcasting Network:
The Christian Broadcasting Network
977 Centerville Turnpike
Virginia Beach, VA 23463
God: I may have to give that a try.
Pacheco’s Destreza Curriculum
(12/16/2009)
Don Luis Pacheco de Narváez
With the Ettenhard translation rolling out we have been getting some requests on what material a fencing instructor should teach during a Destreza class. Rather than provide my own answer, it might be useful to look back to the living tradition. In 1625 don Luis Pacheco de Narváez wrote a document that provides us with this information. It was considered important enough that it was later republished in 1658:
Modo facil y nvevo para examinarse los Maestros en la Destreza de las Armas (Easy and New Way to Examine the Maestros in the Art of Weapons)
folios 81v-85v
The book is written as a conversation with a Maestro testing a student’s knowledge. Presented here for the first time in English is Mary’s translation of Pacheco’s recommended curriculum:
Pacheco’s Curriculum
- Teach the theory before the practice
- Theory
- Explain “the simple movements and the mixed ones that can be done with the arm and those that can be done with the swords” (f. 82r). (See Article.)
- Tell him about “the six general lines, the simple ones and the mixed, in which it is possible for the opponent to assume his stance, and show him how the line of the right angle has the greatest reach and defense” (f. 82r). (See Article.)
- Explain “the vertical, collateral and diagonal lines envisioned on the body, and how the strikes should be executed along them” (f. 82r).
- Next, the footwork—”simple and compound steps, to which foot each belongs and which are common to both feet” (f. 82r-v). (See Article.)
- “Afterward, [explain] the circle that is imagined between the two combatants with the transversal and infinite lines envisioned in it along which the steps are made” (f. 82v). (See Article.)
- “Give the student very detailed information about the angles that are created by the contact of the swords, and how (whether to place atajo or to do what is called the gaining) it is necessary that there are four and either all of them are right angles or two are obtuse angles and two acute. The right angles (the swords touching in the middle of their lengths) only serve for the defense and offense” (f. 82v). (See Article.)
- “Tell him how there are only two ways to do the techniques, the one with the positioning of the sword and the other gaining the degrees of profile” (f. 82v-83r).
- Tell him “that in the art of defense there are only five techniques—the Circular cut and reverse, the thrust, and the half cut and reverse—and explain to him the movements that compose each one whether the sword is free or subjected” (f. 83r).
- “Prove to him also that there are not detaining parries, that the deflections are harmful, and that the subjection is what one should do instead of them” (f. 83r).
- Practice
- “Teach him how to hold the sword in the hand and how it is advisable to hold it tightly in the hand so that the strength of the body can be communicated to the sword by means of the arm…and the movements can be strong and fast” (f. 83r-v). (See Article.)
- Explain “that one always assumes one’s stance in the right angle, the arm straight, without the arm nor the hand participating in any of the four extremes—low, high, to one side or the other” (f. 83v). (See Article.)
- Explain “that he should have the body profiled, equally over both feet, and the feet with one heel in front of the other and not further apart than half a foot in such a way that if the tip of the left was turned it would arrive at the heel of the right” (f. 83v).
- “Teach him the four general techniques” (f. 83v).
- Show him “the opposition that the some techniques make to the others and the particular techniques over which each one has control” (f. 83v).
- “And finally [explain] all the materials that have been dealt with here” (f. 83v-84r).
Links
I have linked some of the previous Destreza articles from the blog relevant to each of Pacheco’s points.
Ettenhard and More
Reading through Ettenhard’s work you will see that he follows this curriculum very closely. Pacheco has more to say and you can expect to see his advice here once we have it in English.
~P.
Davis Fencers Article in the College Paper
(12/2/2009)
The local college paper called us up over Thanksgiving wanting to run a story on our historical fencing program.
California Aggie Article
The picture shows visiting fencer Antonie Dvorakova who trained with us for two weeks last month during her WMA pilgrimage. I think it turned out pretty well.
~P.
Rover Construction
(11/17/2009)
I’m building a rover as a test platform for our Wi-Fi embedded controller.
Puck's Rover which might soon conquer the earth.
Here is the assembled chassis with four-wheel-drive installed for the little guy. You can see each tire has an independent motor with control lines in red and yellow. With each tire operating independently, we should have a much greater range of mobility including stationary turns and spins.
The little circuit board I am holding up is our 16-bit Rabbit computer with integrated Wi-Fi. I will probably use it to serve a web page with controls for the device. (Here is a link to the RCM5600W.)
My next work project is putting together a blog on this project so at some point in the near future I will post a link to it. The blog will be written informally with an engineering focus but hopefully in plain enough language that a non-engineer can follow it.
As a professional computer engineer, I cannot confirm or deny that this project is the creation of a robot overlord. He may or may not be designed to dominate humankind in an empire ruled by sentient machines drinking large amounts of coffee.
- Breaking News - ObamaCare Enacted by Executive Order
- Spanish Fencing Notation Part 5 - Strength of the Weapon
- Italian Rapier Flowchart
- Spanish Fencing Notation Part 4 - The Position of the Hand
- Swetnam’s Postulate
- Fencing Blogs
- Spanish Fencing Notation Part 3 - Fighting Distance
- Spanish Fencing Notation Part 2 - Footwork and the Circle
- Spanish Fencing Notation Part 1 - Vector Notation
- The Public Defenders Will Execute People!!