Grace
Redemption
Serenity
Tired…so tired…
It is done.
The site is updated, everything is in working order.
New feature: The ability to browse to, and therefore link to, individual posts.
XML files are valid XHTML. If I decide to put this method together with a simple content management system, the files will be a snap to update, as long as the user has a minimal knowledge of HTML.
Alternate styles are much easier to implement, as follows:
Start looking for XSL tutorials in the upcoming weeks. As soon as I wake up.
Great Things Are Afoot
Updates will be few and sparse as I recreate the server-side stuff for es.o. Shouldn’t be more than a week. SO to keep you occupied, here are some games . The guy who makes these is on the short list for Saint-hood.
The list of new es.o features will include the following:
-the option to link to, and therefore bookmark, individual entries.
-full portability to Flash MX
-web-based content management
-email-based updating
-XSL/XPath tutorials
-possible new interface
–GO!
The list goes on, and on. So until next time, keep on truckin’!
A Brief Update
I have been keeping myself crazy busy with restructuring the XML/XSL back-end of es.org. Boy, this stuff isn’t as easy as you might think. Importing XML files and external stylesheets, playing with ISO/Latin characters and unparsed entities… I have begun to speak a language only comprehensible to those poor fools who work in xml and xsl and… and…
*sobs*
On a grander note, I have two personal/collaborative projects coming up soon: First, Master Lee wants a website, and I was volunteered to build it. So Mr. Timmer and I, and possible others, will be building him a site sometime this fall. Also, look for www.fromtheheartyoga.com in the upcoming months. This one I am doing in trade for free coffee.
Can life possible get any better?
Sifu Day
Today is Sifu Day, a sort of Asia-wide Teacher Appreciation Day. My Kung Fu instructor, Master Ly, invited myself and the other assistant instructors over to his house for a small celebration. We lit incense in honor of his instructor, Sigong Chiu Chuk Kai, then meditated briefly, then Sifu Ly and his wife stuffed us full of the best home-cooked Chinese food on the continent.
Being a teacher on a day when I honor my teachers made me think about what it is, that makes a teacher…
A teacher imparts knowledge.
A teacher shows you a path, and lets you decide to walk it.
A teacher understands there are many paths up any mountain.
A teacher says “this is how I did it”
A teacher learns from his students as he teaches them.
A teacher criticizes students instructively, never as punishment.
A teacher takes responsibility for the ways his students use his knowledge.
A teacher will not hold your hand, but may help steady it.
A teacher rewards improvement with more instruction.
The greatest moment for a teacher is when his students take on students of their own.
Happy Sifu day, everyone!
Notes From Saturday Night
So I was with the Usual Gang at a wedding reception and we were trying to decide which male character, out of all of Fantasy Literature, in any media, was the most ‘bad-ass’. Science fiction and superheroes needed not apply. It couldn’t be just strength — personality and ability counted equally. Ultimately it came down to which character would do ‘whatever it took’ to win in situation X. We had to decide, finally, that it was the character that passed the ‘Kidmail Test’.
Huh?
The Kidmail test is as follows: Say Mr Bad Guy has sewed several small children together, alive, to make himself some armor. In order to vanquish Mr. Bad Guy, would Mr. Good Guy be willing to hack through that Kidmail? Upon that question lay the answer to Who Is the Most Bad-Ass Male Fantasy Character.
We finally went with Raistlin. Gandalf , we felt, would not willing hack through children in order to get The Bad Guy. Raistlin might make it a requirement. Also in the running were Elric , Richard Cypher , and Pug/Milamber .
Science Fiction characters will have to wait for another day, as will Comic Book characters. However!!! If you have ever wondered who would win a fight between, say, Moses and Yoda, or a Borg Cube and the Death Star, or even Steve Irwin and Godzilla, check out Electric Ferret’s Comic Book Universe Fight Pages . Comic books and oh, so much more.
Raven Hill, A Novel About Kung Fu
I have studied martial arts for 13 years; two bouncing around from school to school, and the last eleven as a student of Master Lee, Hoa Yen. Having studied one style for so long, I sometimes lose track of what else is out there, so now and then I will spend a few hours surfing, seeing what Google has to say about the state of the Martial Arts in America.
While surfing yesterday I rediscovered Raven Hill , a site which I first came across a couple of years ago. Back then, it was just a link to a story. Now it is a full-blown martial arts website, put together by someone who wields at least a little mojo.
I was delighted to find that the original story is still up, and has been added to significantly. Basically one of the students of this school sat down and wrote a historical/fantasy novel about a group of 17 young men who go off on their own to learn 17 different styles of kung fu, then from what they learn create a new style. Someone put a great deal of time and thought into these stories. The writing is decent; not Pulitzer material but better than most anything you will find on the New York Times rack at the local McBookstore. Where these stories truly shine is in the descriptions of the training these young men go through in the course of learning their kung fu. As a serious martial artist myself I can say that the methods used in the stories make good sense, and to utilize them for eight, ten, fourteen hours a day, as the characters do, would indeed create martial artists of the highest calibre.
So if you feel like being inspired to practice hard, read these stories. The first, Chu Jeng, can be accessed from the link above. The rest can be found linked to the resource page of the Raven Hill site.
Now, if you will excuse me, I need to go stand in horse stance for a few hours.
I Am Armed
Spent several hours on Sunday down at the Silver Leaf Renaissance Faire. I couldn’t bear the thought of dressing up in Renaissance Garbe this year so I did the tourist thing, armed with camera and money, and just wandered around staring at the sights. Just before I left I made an impulse purchase:
The axe was made by Christian Michaels Arms and Armour , makers of beautiful, high quality, expensive weapons.
In other news I went bowling for the first time in seven years (bachelor party) and discovered a disturbing event called “extreme bowling”.
In an effort to make bowling interesting to the younger generations it has been combined with a techno club atmosphere to make for an environment conducive to neither bowling nor dancing.
Picture, if you will, a bowling alley. Turn off the overhead lights. Turn on blinking runner lights along the lanes. Then turn on blacklights so the silly-putty colored bowling balls glow like miniature suns, difficult to look at. Now turn on the laser light show and spin stars and squares and mushrooms across the length and breadth of the bowling alley.
Then try to hit the pins. Unless you have the concentration of Musashi you will be lucky to break into the double digits.
I should have brought the axe.
MythoPoetica
And Jesus was a sailor
When he walked upon the water
And he spent a long time watching
From his lonely wooden tower
And when he knew for certain
Only drowning men could see him
He said “All men will be sailors then
Until the sea shall free them”– “Suzanne”, Leonard Cohen
Until the sea shall free them.
Math.sqrt(-e)
Train of thought. Stream of consciousness. Randomness. Turbulence. Complexity. Dimension as metaphor for movement. Movement as metaphor for entropy. Entropy as metaphor for ennui. Pattern. Predictability. Ordered chaos. Chaotic order. Heirarchical programming. Holarchical philosophy. Genetic drift as metaphor for luck. Luck as metaphor for perception. Reptilian brain. Artificial evolution. Potential energy. Kinetic art. Faith in the scientific method. Magic (square/cube/tesseract). Width–height–depth–time–alternity. Zero one infinity. Infinite universe==infinite possibilities. Eternal universe==infinite repetition. Thought invalidates thought. If magic is to exist magic will create the conditions necessary for magic to exist. Self-fulfilling prophecy. Return to luck. Perception alters reality. Meditation increases perception. Magic is to the interior what mysticism is to the exterior. Bounded space and unbounded time? Bounded time and unbounded space? Branches forward, straight road back. Are we in space, on space, or of space? What is PI rotated on it’s side? What if we perceive things that don’t exist? Probability. Flow. Grace. Consciousness of streams. Language as degraded poetry. Poetry as elevated language. Chuang-Tzu’s butterfly. Kafka’s cockroach. Karma as metaphor for irresponsibility. Metaphor as metaphor for metaphor. Sleep as pipe dream.