Matrixing, to put your fevered mind to rest, is the analysis and handling of force and direction. Everything in the universe has a direction, and everything in the universe has lots of potentials for collision. Thus, the study of Matrixing becomes crucial if one is going to understand things like Shaolin kung fu.

Now to be thoroughly clear, and to set up this article in the proper manner, let me say that the martial arts are taught through the memorizing of random strings of data. This is like somebody memorizing a few songs on the guitar, and thinking he is the next Segovia. Obviously, one has to break through the memorizing process and start finding the structure of music, and how to arrange an art before he can make claim to being a master artist.

So, let’s talk about Shaolin. Shaolin has a few thousand years of history, and this has resulted in every kung fu monk and his brother adding to the mix, and thus the logic and organization of the art has become thoroughly and totally mixed and muddled. There is a mountain of random data, you see, and there is no set of principles with which to define it.

If one studies Shaolin styles like Hung Gar or Choy Li Fut, one thinks that kung fu is deep stance, windmilling arms, and a hodge podge of concepts which pop out at you. One thinks there is a hierarchy of rank up to the head abbot, and one must meditate and beat his fists into heated iron pellets to get the real kung fu. Unfortunately, this is a small subset of principles, and while the true art is touched upon, it is not penetrated.

If one studies Wing Chun, one thinks that he has to stand squarely, achieve balance, and absorb attacks with the antennas of the forearms. Three forms, a wooden dummy, and never the idea that everything is just random strings of data, and not the whole. Thus, Wing Chun is phenomenal, yet it just touches upon the True Art, and never embraces it.

Then, of course, there is the Mantis, if we wish to speak of antenna arms, and circling motions that manipulate an opponent to his destruction, and so on. But, if you look at it, it is almost like Wing Chun and Hung Gar or Choy Li Fut have been combined. Thus, the principles wallow and intermingle and intermarry and interbreed into fresh bastards and the True Art is obscured in a fog of amazing ability and astounding art.

This all said, Shaolin would be easy to matrix, and come to the truth of, as would Hung Gar or Choy Li Fut or Wing Chun. But I chose Karate to present the principle of Matrixing, and to expose the world to the concept of analysis and handling as a logic. Simply, the mountain was smaller, the history was shorter, the cloud of obscuring fog more transparent, and it could be defined.

And here is the blessing, learn how to matrix karate, and you can use that matrixing as a template. All you have to do is plug the basics of Shaolin into the template provided by Matrix Karate, and you have true art. Too much mountain, too heavy a fog, and yet it can all be resolved into nice, tidy, little, easy to learn packages of True Art, and thus assembled into the whole of The True Art.

Here’s the latest newsletter, enjoy!

Monster Newsletter #255–Matrixing Music!

Look at you,
wallowing in that swivel chair,
turkey juice oozing out your pores
and the world expects you to go buy something.
HAH!

Now go the center of the room,
stand there in a pose,
and wait.
Just wait.
Pretty soon an artistic desire will come over you,
your body will shift slightly,
a second posture,
a third,
and,
zingo bingo…
the work out has begun!

Now that you’re awake…
let me say something.
There are a lot of newbies to the newsletter,
and some of them don’t know much about matrixing,
and a lot of times I wander off
talk about other stuff,
so,
today,
to start the Hanakwanmass season off right,
let me tell you something about Matrixing that you didn’t know.

Matrixing is nothing more than the application of logic.
People think it is going to be a deep secret,
but,
it is really a simple secret.

The problem is that the martial arts
are nothing but strings of random data.
Sequences of tricks,
with no regard for logic.

This,
in itself,
is a phenomenal testament
to the power of the martial arts,
and how powerful martial artists are.

That the arts work
though arranged so piecemeal…
wow!

But you knew that,
you have never been able to deny your own power,
or you wouldn’t have found the martial arts,
and you wouldn’t have found matrixing,
but that isn’t what I wanted to tell you.

What I wanted to tell you
was that when you matrix the martial arts,
when you see a logical bit of software
for your head,
then the head,
the hardware,
starts to straighten out.

The head likes logic,
it starts to matrix things on its own.

So I did the martial arts,
then I started in on math,
wrote a book on the subject.
And I attacked English,
grammar,
and the world started getting real easy and simple.

Almost black and white,
if you know what I mean.

And,
I matrixed music.
And here is what I want to tell you.

If you memorized the Moonlight Sonata
by Beethoven,
could you say that you were a master musician?

People might be in awe of your fingers…
but you would know that you weren’t really a master musician.

You’ve got a ways to go
before you’re a master musician.

The point here is that copying strings of random data
does not a master make.

Well,
if you memorize the strings of data long enough,
and have the kind of mind
that can penetrate through
to the structure beneath.

It is not until the person doing the memorizing
breaks through the memorization process
and starts to realize
that there is a whole structure of music
that he can use
to tap into his creative abilities.

Music is a structure of sound
that is mathematically separated into individual notes.
A master musician can rearrange these individual notes
into a variety of harmonies
through a variety of genres,
duplicating or not
other musicians.

This is a limiting definition,
in a way,
but,
once one understands the structure,
it is entirely unlimiting,
and the spirit does soar.

Without the structure,
it soars about as much as a five year old doing fingerpaints.

With structure…
hello moon, hello stars,
I see a quaint galaxy over that way.

Matrixing provides the structure.
It defines the individual arts.

The thing is,
without the structure defined by matrixing,
art is limited.
You can’t define what you know,
so you can’t know more,
and you’re just lost in a cloud of random thoughts.

With the structure defined by matrixing,
the fog dissipates,
shapes become recognizable,
arts become defined,
and,
you become unlimited.

Matrixing.
It limits
so as to unlimit.
It grounds you
so as to soar you.
It binds the body
in a fashion
that unlimits the spirit.

So,
listen…
get yourself a present.
You spend countless hours,
through the weeks and months and years,
working out.

But,
wouldn’t you like to have the hours you spend
be dedicated to the whole art,
and making your spirit soar,
right now?

Instead of
just memorizing strings of random data
and waiting for decades
for enlightenment to happen…

don’t you want it to happen now?

I tell you this,
I spent seven years to enlightenment,
then I spent another fifteen defining the art
and becoming a master,
and,
looking at my whole over forty year career
all I can do
is wish somebody had come up
and hit me with the matrixing two by four
right on the side of the head,
right in the beginning.

If I had only had the structure right from the beginning,
there is no telling where I’d be now.

Well,
maybe there is,
maybe I would be just sitting here,
turkey juice oozing out of my pores,
thinking about going to the center of the room,
and striking a pose…

Okey doke
friends and neighbors,
here’s a link for you…

Matrix Karate

Al
=o)

PS–If you want the latest article, try googling ‘ The Secret of the Three Essentials of the Martial Arts’

I got tired of playing other people’s songs.
Gregg Allman

In the martial arts, I don’t care if it is mma, Pa Kua Chang, Shotokan, or whatever, there are three key ingredients. These three ingredients are what makes an art an art, and they are why people study the arts. Oddly, one of the ingredients is almost totally ignored.

One of the ingredients is the pursuit of strength. Muscle mags are filled with strength advertisements, and everybody obsesses on strength. Oddly, strength is the least important of the three essential techniques of the martial arts.

Another ingredient is technique, and this is the most important of the three essentials. Technique is measured by how little effort you need to make a move work. If you need a lot of strength, then your technique is not very good.

The second most important essential to good martial arts, and the one most people ignore, is speed. Interestingly, at least in the beginning, speed is very necessary to make a technique work. Yet strength is what everybody chases.

Yes, people try to get fast, a little bit, but it is an individual effort, and usually put aside in the pursuit of strength. People believe that strength is going to make them faster, you see. Well, it will, but there are flexibility drawbacks, and the speed gained is not always enough.

Speed must be developed in a fashion which tailors it to the technique. As knowledge of technique rises, so should the escalation of speed. In my over 40 years of martial arts I have found only one technique which develops speed in the proper manner.

The Speed Drill is based on a simple slap and grab motion. It makes all techniques as easy to enter as it is to slap a fly. And every technique can be entered using this slap and grab Speed Drill.

So practice the strength of Uechi, and build the technique of Aikido. Work the sticky hands of Wing Chun and focus your concentration into the great nothingness through Tai Chi Chuan. But if you want sheer, raw, powerful speed…you need to practice The Speed Drill.

Tenía esta entrada en borrador desde hace tiempo pero sólo hasta hoy que me la repito, como por tercera vez, me animo a publicarla formalmente. En fin, peli de John Stevenson y Mark Osborne de 2008, nominada al Oscar como mejor película animada, con doce premios, veinte nominaciones más y ratificando a Jack Black como un héroe de los niños en los Kids’ Choice Awards.

Es una historia sencilla con una moraleja de crecimiento personal y sobretodo de autoconfianza, de fé en uno mismo y en los sueños que lo caracterizan como individuo único. Bonita.

Sin embargo, hay aspectos realmente delirantes en la peli que la hacen particularmente excelente. Lo primero, Dreamworks saliendose del esquema de Shrek, que le dió tantos triunfos y reinventándose con un excelente producto.

Dos, Jack Black como un enorme oso panda llamado Po, un gordo lleno de ilusiones y sueños, su papel de toda la vida, con esa voz de Black tan característica de él, tan entusiasta y llena de falsos logros, de superación y adoración de héroes imaginarios; esta vez con la personificación de un niño de diez años, muy trabajador, muy responsable pero con la cabeza llena de fantasías.

Tres, Ian McShane, actor que recordamos en la exitosa Deadwood, poniendo esa voz profunda, oscura y macabra en el lado antagónico de la historia sobre un tigre de bengala dominado por su orgullo y descarriado al lado oscuro del Kung Fu. Esta voz y la del comandante Vachir a cargo de Michael Clarke Duncan me parecen realmente sobresalientes.

Cuatro, los apuntes de David Cross y Seth Rogen.

Cinco, la dirección de arte a cargo de Raymond Zibach combinado con las cámaras y cinematografía de Yong Duk Jhun (obviamente este dato me lo bajé de IMDb) hacen que la peli sea consistente, interesante, divetida, entretenida, un buen plan para pasar el rato así uno ya se la haya visto.

Seis, la secuencia animada del principio, en una simulación 2D bien interesante. Un sueño de Po describiendo un estado épico del equipo de los 5 Furiosos y El Guerrero Dragón, una secuencia de katas del más fino arte marcial y después contrastado con la caricatura en la que se convierte al final esta secuencia me parece el premio mayor.

Obviamente, un trabajo impresionante de todo ese equipo técnico, tan grande pero que logran resolver de una manera sencilla todo el tema del 3D, el matte painting, los mapas, los esqueletos, las animaciones, los sostenidos, las secuencias, etc… Y sumado al impresionante resto del reparto como son Dustin Hoffman, Angelina Jolie, Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu, Randall Duk Kim, el legendario James Hong y hasta Wayne Knight, hacen de esta obra un paquete sin igual.

Nota. Me volvió a suceder que no encontraba un afiche que me gustara completamente y me tocó hacer el mío. Ojalá les guste.

these last few have been mantid days
and everywhere it seems, are tiny pale
and tender green insect miniatures
posed in attitudes of patient prayer.
insectile pharisees of the fall.

aloe that summered on the porch
(brought inside at the report of frost
in butter tubs and plastic cups, green
pups expecting potting soil and better digs)
brought the first one up to my eye level.
it was clutching a slender young and
jade-pale aloe spike, living jewelry.
etched gold wire legs
body pale spring citrine.
for accent ruby chips

pot plant and insect departed
my warm computer desk
to the chilly sheltered porch
and survival by their own devices,
but I have seen more one inch
monsters since.  one on the door
kneeling to share the word with
its glass reflection, another lit
upon the mailbox, the usps in
its prayers, or perhaps auditioning
for the next commemorative.

frost did come at last as promised
and the only traces left are
filamentous legs still grasping leaves
transparent body empty now
molted, or to answer prayer
relieved of mortal shell.
chitin coat left, a meditation
for the needy.

prompt for a renewable poem, which I read as reduce, reuse, recycle

.

While I hear stories of blizzards and frigid weather in other parts of the country, here in southern Arizona it’s still quite warm.  Unseasonably warm actually.  I had to wear a jacket for a few days a couple of weeks ago, but then it got hot (as in almost 100 degrees!) again.  Luckily for me, this means that there are still a lot of bugs out.  A few days ago, my coworker and I tried to catch some painted lady butterflies when we got back to the office after our field work.  The bird of paradise plants and the other things planted with them are still in bloom, so there are still tons of painted ladies and sulphur butterflies flitting around.  Yesterday, I was on my way out to run errands when I saw this on the wall of my carport:

Mantid

As I always do when I find mantids outside, I ran back into the house and grabbed my camera, snapping some quick pictures of it before I did my errands.  It was still in the carport when I returned, so I scooped him up and brought him in the house to take some better photos indoors where the light was better.  The image above is one of those.

I love mantids.  I think they are amazing and beautiful animals.  Unfortunately, I don’t see them all that often.  It’s hard to find them most of the time.  They are masters of camouflage, or blending in with their environment, so I just don’t notice them.  Mantids are known to mimic all kinds of plants and flowers (to see some amazing mantid flower mimics, see this great blog post from Asia), tree bark, sticks, and other insects, so they are very hard to see if you’re not actively looking for them.  But that’s the point!  If you want to avoid being eaten, one great way to do it is to blend in with the background so effectively the predator doesn’t even notice you’re there.  If you’re an ambush predator (more about this in a moment), it also helps if the things you want to eat can’t see you very well.  I put the mantid pictured above into the bush in front of my house when I was finished photographing it.  It wasn’t the kind of plant this mantid would normally be found in, but it was still a little hard to see:

Mantid camouflage - can you find it?

This particular mantid was bright green against the deep rust color of my carport when I found it, so it really stood out.  It didn’t take much skill to find this one before I put it in the bush!  I have an idea of why this might be, but I’ll get to that later.

Mantids have some very interesting behaviors.  Their amazing abilities to mimic the plants they live on don’t end at their coloration and body shape.  They are also well-known for mimicking leaves and plants blowing in the breeze.  They use their hind and middle pairs of legs to sway back and forth gently every now and again.  If they are living on plants and want to blend in, it’s to their benefit to mimic the plant as much as possible.  This includes moving the way the plant does – the swaying behavior helps them look more like the plant than their coloration and body shape alone.  Whether they use this behavior specifically to avoid detection is debatable, but it helps them blend into their environment regardless of its primary purpose.  The mantid I found yesterday started swaying when I went to grab it in what may have been a rather desperate attempt to avoid detection and capture, so I got to see this behavior in action.  If you’d like to see it too, check out this YouTube video (which I did not take):

Isn’t that fun?  Just picture this mantid swaying on a stick being gently blown in the wind.  I love watching these little mantid “dances!”

Many mantids are ambush predators, which means that they sit and wait for food to come near before darting out to capture their prey.  Because they blend in with their environment so well, many prey animals won’t notice a mantid sitting on a plant or on a flower and walk right by it.  The mantid then uses it’s forelegs to reach out and grab the prey with amazing speed.  Like the giant water bugs I study and have written about in earlier posts, mantids have what are called raptorial forelegs.   These are legs that are specifically designed for capturing prey.  They’re big and bulky and full of muscles, so they’re both very fast and very strong.  They can often fold back on themselves to allow them to grasp things.  People have long thought that mantids have the appearance of praying when they hold their legs ready to grab prey, hence the common name praying mantis.  Mantids also frequently have spikes or other structures that help them keep hold of things they grab.  Check out the raptorial forelegs on the mantid from yesterday:

Mantid raptorial foreleg

This one has bulky forearms and some pretty formidable spikes!  Those spikes help them subdue prey so they can eat them.  And mantids can eat some pretty impressive things including other insects, small snakes, lizards, frogs, small rodents, and even the occasional bird!  If they can grab it and keep a hold of it, they’ll likely try to eat it.  I think this is part of why I like mantids so much – they remind me of my water bugs in their ability to capture, subdue, and consume their prey, and they just look so darned cool doing it !

So back to why I think this bug was in a strange and very conspicuous spot.  If you have a weak stomach, this is where you should stop reading.  I went out to the bush where I had released the mantid this morning to see if it was still there and was sad to see that it had died overnight.  Because I’m an entomologist, my first thought was, “Wow!  It’s sad the mantid died, but it would make a great addition to my collection!”  So, I brought it inside and started pinning it.  Much to my horror, as soon as my pin hit the abdomen, I disturbed the mass of maggots that were growing inside the mantid and feasting on its living flesh.  They burst out of the mantid and spewed onto my counter.  Now I’m not a very squeamish person, but maggots spewing out of anything is enough to make me queasy.  I ended up preserving the maggots in alcohol (why collect one type of insect when you can add two to your collection?) and will figure out what they are later, though I know they are a type of parasitic fly.  An adult fly likely deposited its eggs inside the mantid a month or two ago and the maggots slowly consumed the living mantid as they developed.  Parasites are known to alter the behavior of many insects they infest so that they are better able to infest other organisms.  It’s quite possible that the maggots altered the behavior of this mantid when it was near death so that it made itself conspicuous enough to come into contact with another animal that the maggots could use as food.  Alternatively, it could simply have become delirious as its body was hollowed out and mistakenly crawled up a surface it would normally avoid.  Whatever the reason, it didn’t matter that it was in a conspicuous place – it was dying anyway.  And I’m happy I got to see it before it did.  A mantid will always brighten up my day.

_______________

Text and images copyright © 2009 DragonflyWoman.wordpress.com

Por último e não menos importante o Mantis.

O Mantis não é exatamente uma ferramenta .NET, assim como nenhum destes.

Eu apenas estou trabalhando com estes em .NET, mas note que nenhum dos mesmos tem restrição.

Todos podem ser usados em qualquer plataforma de desenvolvimento.

O mais restritivo é o NUnit, mas este é portado para Java e .NET.

Temos também o SandCastle com restrição ao .NET.

Bom vamos ao Mantis

Bom, este é o momento de algumas ferramentas .NET.

Mas não serão ferramentas que o ajudarão no desenvolvimento, bom, de certa forma sim.

Mas exploraremos uma região do software que quase nenhum desenvolvedor olha: Os testes e a documentação final do sistema.

Como o número no título indica este post é o primeiro de uma série que falará das seguintes ferramentas.

NUnit – Desenvolvimento de Testes Unitários

BadBoy – Ferramenta para os Testes Sequenciais, ou de Regressão

SandCastle – Ferramenta para documentação do seu sistema .NET

Mantis – Ferramenta para testes, integração entre a area de testes e desenvolvimento.

Bom, descrevemos as ferramentas e em breve deixarei um post começando com o NUnit.

Obrigado a todos.

So, I don’t know about you, but I find myself being very interested in Mantids. I don’t know exactly what it is, but it probably has to do with the fact that they can good hiders. I know that they are common, but it not that often that you see one. That would probably be the case with this Mantid called the Orchid Mantis (Hymenopus Coronatus). They are native to humid climates, such as the rainforests of Malaysia, Indonesia, and Sumatra. Both males and females are pretty small, about 3cm for the male and 6cm for the female. Both sexes have white and pink colorations on their body so they blend into Orchids, making them even harder to spot in the wild. The adult’s diet consists of eating anything it can catch, including small lizards, flies, moths, and butterflies. Although they have a carnivorous diet, they have been observed eating bananas, probably to balance out their diet. I was surprised to find sites on how to take care of these Mantids as a pet! I guess I am not surprised that people keep them as pets, since they are so beautiful and exotic.

This video shows a male mantis.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pL7BTkh3gHU

Note how small the insect is relative to the flower and the fingertip of the recorder. Also, watch how fast they can jump. This mechanism might have developed to aid in escape of the nymphs before they develop fully functional wings.

Here are some interesting photos I found. All photos are from http://37signals.com/svn/posts/1115-orchid-mantis

Today I was drawing the X-Men and I was looking at back issues for inspiration.   I kept returning to the issues drawn by the late great master Dave Cockrum. There’s just something fascinating about his linework!  I couldn’t ask for a better artist to emulate. Here’s some images that I found from his tribute website.  I encourage you check out more of his work.  Here’ some of my favorites below!

The whole gang is here in this classic look at the X-Men. Now that I think about it, I think my favorite X-Men from this era are the top three in this image.

Avengers Assemble! Well, at least three of them took the time to show up. Hawkeye, Goliath and Black Widow look positively dynamic in this piece. I’m not keen on the random shape behind them, but I’m sure Dave had his reasons.

Once upon a time, Mantis and the Swordsman were newlyweds! Now Mantis is green (Does anyone know how that came about?) and a member of the Guardians of the Galaxy. Swordsman is no longer among the living. There’s that distracting shape in the background again. Grrr.

The Vision and Captain America arrive late to my Avengers Assemble call. Better late than never as they say. I’m loving how haunted the Vision looks and Cap’s expression is priceless.  I think the circle works better here than the amputated triangles shown in the two images above.

It’s a Knight! Of horses? Or maybe he’s the Rook! Could he be the Rook Knight? Does he have special chess powers? I don’t know. However, I really love the design of this character from his winged helmet to his science fiction boots. Cockrum knew how to design a costume, sometimes merging seemingly disparate elements into a cohesive whole!

Cockrum’s creation, the amazing Nightcrawler, is having a bit of a hard time in this last image.   Dave obviously had a great sense of humor.  The inclusion of the vulture is simply too funny!

Thanks for checking out Dave’s art with me! I hope it inspires you like it has me!

I don’t care if you study Uechi ryu or shotokan or kenpo, or whatever, you’re going to need a powerful fist. I don’t care if it is boxing or Krav maga or tae kwon do, you’re going to need a fist that knocks them down the first time! Even if you’re in Aikido or Tai Chi, you’re going to need some kind of real power, or at least know what power is so you can properly handle it.

The funny thing is that a powerful punch is easily attained if you follow a couple of easy steps. You don’t have to bash your hands against a telephone pole. You don’t have to spear your fingers into boxes of sand.

As with most things in this world, once you know the knowledge behind something, that something is easy to understand and do. Thus, the first thing you need to know in developing a killer punch is simple. That one thing you need to understand is…weight.

This universe has only objects flying through space. When objects collide there is the sensation of weight. The more weight involved in the collision, the more effect there is going to be.

You hit somebody, and your fist flies through space and collides. Now, if the body your fist is colliding with weighs 200 pounds, then you are going to have to have a two hundred pound fist. Well, you could multiply the 20 pounds of your fist by ten times the velocity, but there is an easier way.

The easiest way is to get your body behind the punch. Your arm may weigh 20 pounds, but if you can add your legs and your torso and even your head to the equation, you can weigh, especially when you times your weight by velocity, 200 pounds. Heck, if you can get a hundred pounds of body weight into a punch, and then multiple it by a simple ten, you are going to have a thousand pound punch.

First, do lots of push ups, and when your arms get strong, start jumping your push ups into the air. Second, examine your form slowly, looking at the pieces of your body and how to assemble them into one intention. Three, set up a six foot tall box, make it weigh 200 pounds, pad it, and practice shoving it across the floor with your punch.

The funny things is that this method is so simple that everybody overlooks it. And, to be truthful, nobody really understands the importance of gauging weight in the martial arts. But, whether you do tai chi chuan, pa kua chang, Chinese Kenpo, tae kwon do, or any of the forms of classical karate, you need to understand weight, and you need to implement some form of the training method I have detailed here if you want The Most Powerful Punch in The World!

Dentro de las herramientas de seguimiento de errores existe un amplio abanico que va desde las más simples, o más centradas en su funcionalidad original, como Bugzilla o Mantis (ambos OpenSource), hasta las más evolucionadas como Redmine (OpenSource), JIRA o FogBugz (ambos comerciales), que complementan su funcionalidad original de seguimiento de errores con un conjunto de funcionalidades adicionales, que les permiten saltar un nivel y convertirse en herramientas con las que poder efectuar el control y la gestión de un proyecto.

TRAC (OpenSource) es originalmente un sistema de seguimiento de issues, esto es importante porque se posiciona no como un sistema orientado principalmente a la gestión de bugs, como Bugzilla o Mantis (aunque luego hagan más cosas), sino que busca ofrecer los mecanismos básicos para poder efectuar la gestión de un proyecto, y en este sentido se aproxima a lo ofrecido por JIRA o FogBugz.

TRAC es flexible, no impone ninguna metodología, simplemente ofrece un conjunto de herramientas para que se puedan hacer las cosas, algunas de estas herramientas son:

• Sistema completo de gestión de Tickets, que permiten establecer y asignar las funcionalidades que se desarrollarán en el proceso (nuevas características, errores, tareas…)
• Wiki, como repositorio común de información/documentación para el proyecto (estructura del proyecto, dónde están los servidores, cómo configurar los entornos, guías de estilo y codificación…tooodooo)
• Integración con el sistema de control de versiones (Subversion y Git…entre otros)
• Roadmap, o calendario de versiones, que permite ver el grado de avance y cuándo se preve que sean liberadas las nuevas funcionalidades
• Timeline, o lugar en el que se registran y se pueden revisar todas las operaciones realizadas en el proyecto desde el cambio en una página del wiki hasta el último commit en el repositorio de código.
• RSS como mecanismo de seguimiento en casi todos los módulos de TRAC
• … otras muchas…

Solamente con estas características sería una herramienta interesante ya que ofrece varias cosas importantes en un proyecto:

• Medio de comunicación con el cliente, en todo momento puede ver la marcha del proyecto.
• Punto común de recogida del conocimiento asociado al proyecto.
• Información al momento de la situación del proyecto en cada momento.

Pero lo que caracteriza y diferencia fundamentalmente a TRAC del resto es su sistema de plugins, o mecanismo que permite extender TRAC todo lo que permita la imaginación y lo convierte casi-casi en una plataforma, y el soporte de la comunidad al mismo. Una lista completa de los pulgins disponibles para TRAC puede encontrarse en Trac Hacks, y una lista un poco más corta:

Gestión de usuarios

• Administración de cuentas (AccountManagerPlugin)
• Autenticación HTTP (HttpAuthPlugin)
• Integración con Active Directory (ActiveDirectoryAuthPlugin)
• Integración con CAS (TracCasPlugin)

Integración de la administración con Subversion

• Integración de administración con SVN (SvnAuthzAdminPlugin y TracSvnAuthzPlugin)

Extensión del sistema de Tickets

• Gestión de campos personalizados (TracCustomFieldAdminPlugin)
• Gestión de workflows para tickets (WorkflowEditorPlugin y Workflows personalizados)
• Dependencias entre tickets (MasterTicketsPlugin)
• Soporte para la estimación de horas en tickets (TracHoursPlugin, TimingAndEstimationPlugin, EstimationToolsPlugin y SchedulingToolsPlugin)

Integración con otros sistemas y extensiones

• Integración con Hudson (HudsonTracIntegrationPlugin)
• Integración con Git (GitPluginForTrac)
• Integración con Agilo-SCRUM (AgiloForScrumPlugin)

Otros

• Gestión de parámetros de inicialización de TRAC (IniAdminPlugin)
• Personalización del Timeline (TimelineCheckinFilterPlugin y TimelineUserFilterPlugin)
• Sistema de Tags (TagsPlugin)

Interoperabilidad

De todos los plugins existentes para TRAC el más interesante de todos es el XML-RPC Plugin porque expone al exterior toda la funcionalidad de un servidor TRAC para que pueda integrarse con cualquier lenguaje y para cualquier cosa. Por ejemplo se podría:

• Construir un sistema simplificado para la entrada de tickets-bugs solamente con los datos estrictamente necesarios.
• Realizar la alimentación inicial de issues en un proyecto a partir de un MS Project
• Generar la descripción inicial de tareas a partir de una definición funcional decente
• …

y todo ello en el lenguaje y la forma (desktop, web…) que mejor nos venga. Espero poder terminar en breve TRACdrops, y poder disponer de TRAC desde Java con toda su potencia de una forma simple…

People’s Republic of CHINA

stamp: 2 yuan

year: 1992

insect: mantis – Tenodera aridifolia sinesis

Nature.  It never ceases to amaze me. 

I found this praying mantis on our deck last week. 

She accidentally stepped into the edge of this web, owned by this spider.  It was also accompanied by two huge egg sacks.  I watched her struggle for a little while.  Meanwhile, the big spider didn’t even know she was there.  Her web was very big and the praying mantis was stuck in the part that was attached onto the deck railing. 

She was able to free herself and if not, of course, I would’ve helped.   Afterwards, I watched her cruise away.  At one time she turned her head to look at me.  Probably because I practically had my lens touching her head.  I’ve got a nice blurro shot of her alien-like face against a clear background.  Still working on the use of the macro on the new camera.  I’ll figure it out soon.

On Sunday, October 25th before heading to the yoga retreat I noticed these jet streams that had crossed one another.  They made a huge X pretty much dead center in our picture window.  My camera was at the studio, so I told Frank to grab his.  Isn’t this cool?  This was taken around seven or so in the morning, facing east.

The day before yesterday, I was up early as I have been lately because my body goes by the the sun.  I don’t adjust well to daylight savings time and neither do our animals.  So at 4:30 a.m. I’ve been up feeding them because they know it’s 5:30 a.m.  The moon was huge out back and the yard was flooded with light.  So what the heck.  I grabbed a cup of coffee and my camera.  I took this around 6:00 a.m. and I love it. 

The trees look so spooky and the moon is so bright.  I took several, but this one where the zoom is tight is the best.  I love this time of year.

The truth of Tai Chi is inherent in a symbol that nobody understands. If you read to the end of this article you will understand that symbol, and it will enlighten your practice of the martial arts. I am speaking of that grand terminus, the yin yang symbol.

The Yin Yang symbol is two fishes swimming is night and day is good and evil is…poppycock. The Yin Yang symbol has nothing to do with those poetic but truncated observations possible to our short lived species. The Ying Yang symbol is actually a quite mechanistic approach and empirical observation to our universe.

Everything in the universe is a motor. A motor is defined as tension between two objects. Doesn’t matter whether the tension is push or pull, just that the tension is, and that is what holds our universe together and…keeps it apart.

An atom, with electron and proton, forever chasing and never catching, is a motor. A cell, with potassium and sodium bubbling their happy little lives away, is a motor. And this dichotomous viewpoint of the universe can be extended through all the combined motors, which are called machines, up to the attraction and repulsion of celestial bodies of the most intense and largest magnitude.

When you do Tai Chi you are pulsing energy up the legs, across the generator, and down the legs. Back and forth, alternating current, causing the generator, called the Tan Tien, to bubble its unique energy, called chi. Imagine the generator as a little cup of tea, being swirled, not to slosh, but to be mixed in yin yang motorific fashion, just enough to froth just a bit of steamy chi.

As you do Tai Chi you become aware of the space that your body occupies in space, and awareness hollows out the receptacle for this chi. Eventually the golden elixir, summoned far more efficiently and efficaciously than any ancient alchemist might believe, fills the body, becomes responsive to the wish and desire of the student/philosopher. Good health, strength and endurance, mental clarity, all are the product of a body made to function the way it was designed to be functioned.

Animals do Tai Chi, and wonder why we don’t. Babies are possessed of Tai Chi, and robbed of it through the cultural expectations which accompany the aging process. And, the space of yourself being attained, you know the answer…who you were before you were born, and who you are after you die.

I sell nothing with this article, I only search for friends, and give away my knowledge. Can you have it? Can you have yourself, the eternal you that all love and none see?

Happy happy!
It is just so gorgeous out there…
got to work out.
You know?

Here’s something to think about…
the reverse punch in karate
was designed to go through the lacquered armor
of the japanese samurai.
Not break it,
but go through it.
Leave a hole.
Interesting, eh?

It was pretty successful,
but the secrets have been pretty much lost.

The secret of that punch,
however,
was screwing the feet into the ground,
keeping the hips low,
and generating
power, power, power.

Snap the whole body like a fist.

I always chuckle
when I watch head hunters.
The head is bobbing and moving around.
The body is a bigger,
more fixed target.
And,
the old saying,
kill the body
and the head dies.

I usually call the body the life support system,
and the head the computer,
and,
the life support system is really nothing but a pond of water.
You can cause a big splash
if you think of it this way.

I don’t hit bodies,
I slap bodies of water,
and watch the waves tsunami
through the body.
Gets amusing.
I tell students to place their hands
on the back of a fellow,
then I strike the fellow on the front,
lightly,
but with the intent to move water,
and the students can feel the shock waves on the back.

Be real careful with this one.
It’s too easy to hurt people.
You get an organ between the slap on the front
and the shock on the back,
and you can mess a guy up
pretty easy.
Bodies are so-o-o-o fragile.

Here’s a win…

I found your ad in the dec 09 issue of inside kung fu and it was just what I was looking for!  I have always known that it didn’t take as long as 20 years to master a martial art.  otherwise in ancient china the arts wouldn’t have been passed on to future generations.   You have shown me what I was looking for!

I apologize,
I don’t have the name
of the guy who sent me this one,
but thanks.

And,
no,
it doesn’t take 20 years,
it just takes the right data,
and a little seriosity.
I mean,
give yourself up to the art,
and the art will overwhelm you,
with no delay.

Now,
if you want a good, solid punch,
an elephant squashing fist of dire import,
then go to Monster Martial Arts,

scroll to the bottom,

and  click on The Punch!

You know,
I keep forgetting about
The Kick.
but it is here

The Kick

I never wrote the ad for this,
but it is the companion book to The Punch!
You can order it separate,
I don’t know why it is so inexpensive,
but it is,
I should raise the price.
But,
heck,
I have a few extra copies.
Order The Punch! by Friday,
and I’ll throw The Kick in for free.
Three day window.
Take advantage.

Well,
that’s about it.
Except,
check the home page out for a good sale.
And…
here’s an article I wrote.
They are all over the web,
but this one is pretty Matrix,
just google…

The Three Necessary Stages to Immaculate and Perfect Martial Arts!

Should pop up pretty quick.
If it doesn’t,
let me know.

Thanks
guys and gals.
and have yourself a Work Out Day!

Al
=o)

Behind it all is surely an idea so simple, so beautiful, that when we grasp it – in a decade, a century, or a millennium – we will all say to each other, how could it have been otherwise? How could we have been so stupid?
John Archibald Wheeler

Using Karate, are you able to crush a coconut just by squeezing it? With Kung Fu, can you take a shoot of bamboo and twist it until it breaks? With Shaolin, can you grab a man by the arm and, with a light squeeze, bring him to his knees?

If you can’t do the things I have just listed, and you study any of the martial arts I have mentioned, or other similar arts, then you should be wondering what is wrong with your martial art. After all, martial artists of other centuries could do these, and other tricks, and make them look simple. That said, let me introduce you to an Iron Grip…they way they used to train.

One would think that an Iron Grip depends upon fantastic muscle, but, there aren’t many muscles in the hands. Truth, the muscles that activate the hands are usually in the forearms. And, yes, you are going to need iron muscles in the forearms.

To begin this method, make sure that your body is in good shape. I would recommend doing Sanchin Kata the old way, with lots of dynamic tension and sinking the weight into the ground. The power of the imagination must be strengthened through this simple discipline.

Now, this exercise is incredibly simple, but must be done every single day, and for long, boring hours. If you want the Iron Grip, you’ve got to be willing to pay the price. So if you are one of these weak willies who think that going to a class makes you an expert, cease and desist.

You must schedule at least an hour a day for this exercise, and you must complete the hour without fail. Second, you must be able to find a certain fascination of intent during that hour. You must fall in love with the long, slow breaths, and you must trust your goal, and the method I am about to prescribe.

Stand in a Sanchin stance and hold two mason jars in front of you. Your arms should be slightly bent, and you should use only the fingertips for gripping. For the first month, hold empty jars, for the second month, add an inch of sand and hold a high horse stance. Add an inch every month after that, and lower the stance until you are in a low horse stance.

And, when you have filled the jar, start again with an empty jar, but in a deep stance, and grease the lip of the jar. Now, some of you think I am kidding, and you are the ones who are going to talk about the mysteries of the art, and never discover them, or fulfill your potential. For those of you who are willing to find the depths of The True Art, and through such simple vehicles as Karate or Kung Fu or Shaolin, I offer this profound article.

Monster Newsletter #247–CBM, Matrixing and Mushin!

Happy Halloweenie!
You can take off your mask now.
Heheheh!
Sniffle, snork, snarf!
Ain’t I funny?

I met one of my long time students in a bank.
It was halloween
and some guy was standing in line
with a mask on.
Hmmm.
Needless to say,
a guard came up and asked him to take off his mask.

Makes you think,
eh?

Makes me think that halloween
would be the best day in the world
for robbing banks.

Right?

Anyway,
there are actually three things
that happen in the martial arts.

First is the concept of CBM.
Coordinated Body Motion.
Classical artists say
‘Move the body as one unit,’
but they don’t tell you how,
except in the most general terms.

Done their way it takes three years.
Getting my data and it take a couple of months.

The concept is not hard,
you see.
I mention it often,
show people how to do it.
And,
it works.
A little practice,
and intention starts to move through the body.
Easy squeezy.
You know?

Begin all motion at the same time.
End all motion at the same time.
Figure out proportionate ranges of motions
and energy input for appropriate masses of body.

Sort of like a mathematical formula.
Probably could make one pretty easy.
And I’d do it,
except you can just trust yourself
and be intuitive
and CBM comes pretty fast.

Now,
the second thing is matrixing.
And,
virtually nobody in the history of the world has done matrixing.
Logic just wasn’t wide spread,
so people memorized routines,
tried to get the big picture.

Got a heck of a lot fine and big martial artists,
but it takes them so long,
and then they can’t get anybody to do what they did.
So the myth of DNA starts.
It’s in the blood, man.

Poop.

Intuition can be learned,
you just have to overcome the blank spots in your mind,
you have to matrix,
fill in the pieces of the puzzle,
make sense out of the thing,
then…
whamo bamo,
you have instant ability.

Now,
interestingly enough,
the third thing has been achieved,
but not by many,
almost by accident,
and
in spite of the fact
that they had no matrixing.

That,
alone,
is testament to the magnitude and quality
of the martial artists of planet earth.

The third thing is usually referred to Mushin no shin
in the japanese.

Mind of no mind.

Simply,
the fellow has jumped out of his mind,
is responding in the now,
with no distractions
or hesitations,
or mistakes.

I sometimes call it
Time of No Time.

Simply,
something happens in a combat situation
you sort of jump out of your body a little
and let’s say a fist is moving faster than the eye can see,
faster than the mind can register,
but…
you see it.
You see it,
and it can even be slow,
but there is no lapsing of perception,
no moments when you can’t see it,
and,
further,
you track it and handle it without effort.

Believe me,
if you efforted,
you aren’t in Mushin no shin
Time of no time
mind of no mind
and in the now.

Now,
matrixing opens the door instantly
to the potential of Mind of No Mind.
No blank spots
to interfere with your perception.

But,
it still takes discipline.

A guy with lots of martial arts
and lots of data aligns
and the picture that suddenly makes sense,
it quite large
and encompassing.
And,
he hits Mushin no shin
like a fng freight train,
absorbs it
and…
WOW!

Now,
a guy with little experience
lacks sufficient data,
and when the pieces are assembled
and the puzzle revealed
and the now presented
and the picture isn’t big enough.

Most of these fellows
don’t think badly of me,
and maybe they understand
deep down in their souls
how easy the martial arts are going to be
and how different they are going to be,
but they lack the data
and therefore the comprehension
of what has happened.

The really odd thing
is going to be when everybody in the world
is matrixing.

And,
believe me,
it will happen.
People learn by osmosis.
Enough people start matrixing,
and the others will pick up on it,
and then,
people will wonder what it was like
to have reaction time
and to be in mystery
as to what technique they are going to use,
and,
totally unappreciative
of how intuition protects them,
and how the art develops intuition and therefore
the art protects them.

Now,
one last thing,
how much matrixing does a fellow need
for it to blast off in his mind?
I find that an intriguing question.
Everybody is different
with different experiences
and the answer is going to be different
for everybody.

But,
maybe a fellow has a realization on Matrix Karate.
Another guy is going to have to
do every course I have,
and then ask for help.

Generally speaking
most people realize
in accordance with the amount
of accumulated martial knowledge they have.

Still,
it is a crap shoot.
Depends on your mind
and its willingness to accept
the fact that the ‘software’ I propose
is so smooth and easy to absorb.

Still,
I would guess that one to four courses
is the norm.

That sort of fits
with the data I get
from people who order the courses.
Still…
no guarantees,
except for one.

Matrixing has never been on this planet.
Not even the Boolean figurers
had an idea
where I would go with this stuff.

Anyway,
CBM,
Matrixing
Mind of No Mind…

Look at the price I charge
and know that it is a gift.

And,
know something else…
that I hope you have sufficient martial arts
that you can fend off the ghosts and goblins
you try to throw you down
and steal from your sack of sweets
this weekend.

Happy Halloween,
my friends.
Boo.

Al

BIG SALE!
GO TO HOME PAGE AND SEE!

=o)

Humor is reason gone mad.
Groucho Marx

New image in the camouflage photography contest

…
Mantis photography picture

It appears mother’s mantising skills have stood her in good stead, judging by all the wishes and comments coming in. Thank you to all! It is heartening – not only to ma, but us as well – to hear what you have to say.

And of course, we shall impose on your further by asking you to help disseminate ma’s blog. The more people it gets to, the more ma gets to meet people and inspire them with her story – and of course, if you know ma, you know how she delights in BEING IN TOUCH and meeting new people.

Also if you know of anyone with the same or similar condition – particularly anyone in Sri Lanka and India – please forward mum’s blog to them and encourage them to get in touch if they wish to. As detailed in the first entry, we want to start a community that can act as a source of support and encouragement for each other.

Many thanks for all your help.

On a Tokyo Metro platform, I saw some small children and their mothers gathering around and pointing. On the harsh pavement of the train platform was a praying mantis. The children began screaming and running. I don’t think I had ever seen a praying mantis so far removed from plant life.