CustomMonkey

Treevolution

2005-11-17T14:22:05Z

I've been fiddling around with tree generation routines for a little while and I've started to actually implement something in Blender.

It's still got a long way to go but I'm fairly happy so far. I've got lots to do regarding randomness of the branches growth. They're all straight at the moment but it's not to bad.

Three trees with different twig factors.

Holiday in Canada

2005-09-25T23:57:05Z

Spent the first two weeks of september visiting my sister in Canada. Might get around to writing about it in a bit more detail some time but here's some photos at least

Taking it easy

2005-08-22T16:21:13Z

My ankle is still niggling me, I did think about not practicing on Saturday. In the end decided that I'd go but only do the kihon practice but skip the ji-gieko. Come the end of the kihon it was quite difficult just to step back and not join in for the rest of the practice, but I do actually want my ankle to get better so I stuck to my guns.

I spent the rest of the practise trying to watch peoples footwork, By the end of the practice I felt I had a fairly good mental template to try and step into, hopefully I can try and use this in my next practice. That's going to take quite a lot of concentration especially as the feel for things I had when I was watching is fading.

Footwork

2005-08-17T17:14:02Z

Tuesday's practice was devoted to footwork. Lots of running up and down the dojo practicing fumikomi-ashi etc. I really quite enjoy this now (I hate running). What it did bring home was how much of a mental block I have over footwork. I can do it fine, but if someone's stood infront of me my feet are rooted to the spot. I'd really like to move, it something I've always admired in other peoples kendo, and I can do, but not when I should do. It's really starting to bug me, ji-geiko is becoming something I dislike because I'm incapable of moving enough to perform an effective attack.

Enjoyed the chance to practise ayumi-ashi in isolation though (Jakob told me I had to write something positive here), oh and my left ankle doesn't feel to bad today (unlike my right heel)

Ups and Downs

2005-08-14T12:36:31Z

I'm starting to think quite a bit about my impending nidan grading (end of october). Definetly more concerned over this one than the last one. What's making this worse is the inconsistency I'm having between practices. One will the good the next will be bad. Thursday's practice at Hizen was good (dispite a stomach bug which saw me having to leave the dojo half way through and left me dehydrated for the rest) I seemed to have much more control over what I was doing and was able to try and execute good cuts. Saturday's practice at Wakaba was a different thing all together. I went into it trying to recapture the feel of Thursdays practice. It didn't work the controlled and considered nature of Thurdays practice ended up as flat and undynamic. I don't know if I can put this down to the recurrence of the ligament indury to my left ankle or just trying to hard to do the wrong things and not concentrating on the simple (simple yet difficult to actually do) things like pushing with my left foot.

On the plus side I seem to be getting better at analysing my apponents kendo and comming up with some idea of how to approach attacking them. Although with more senior kendoka this does seem to just end up with me thinking "I'm stuffed, I'm gonna die". Also in trying to cut smaller men cuts (not something that is actually working at the moment), I finally seem to be seeing do as a target, something which I've never been able to do before.

Terrorists

2005-07-28T10:56:02Z

Watching the news this morning about the arrests of people in Tooting related to the London bombings. Suddenly thought that the road they were in looked very familiar even more so when the camera panned round to show Tooting station. That's the road my sister lives in! Actually it's the next road but still bit weird having terrorists for neighbours.

Break in

2005-07-26T11:32:47Z

Had to pop into the office on sunday morning to pick up Momoe's armour. Got to the office about nine and found that the window at the back of the office had been smashed. Had a look around and didn't seem to be much taken couple of things had been shifted around and a cushion cover taken (probably to use as a bag). Called the police and was told not to touch things to much and to make ourselves confortable as they we're busy and it might take all day for them to get there.

About ten we noticed a man climbing over the roof towards the broken window. Eventually he saw us and started back the way he'd come. Ran out the office to the alley at the back but he'd already gone, however I found him in the next road going through some bins. Eventually he saw me and ran of towards hoxton. Unfortunatly he had enough of a head start that I lost him in one of the estates round there.

Then spent the next six hours waiting for the police to arrive. Then had to wait for Stuart to arrive with some boards to nail across the window.

Brilliant way to spend a Sunday

Kendo Practice

2005-07-25T11:57:38Z

Had my first practice back at Hizen for a couple of weeks due to trips to Paris etc. Turn out to be a really bad practice couldn't get into it and was having real trouble practicing jigeiko with people less experienced than me. I really need to work on just trying to work on the basics and not get annoyed when the block things or run away.

Saturday turned out to be much better being the best practice I've had at Wakaba for a longtime. Concentrated on relaxing and trying not to put force into things and just do my own thing. Worked out much better and I was able to produce a higher level of kendo with the people than I had in previous weeks. My aims for practice now are to really keep my arms relaxed and then to concentrate on my feet. I think having my feet slightly closer together and leaning slightly further forward might help my get the balance right and stop me wanting to shuffle before striking.

Been out tonight to james yoxalls stag

2005-07-20T01:37:23Z

Been out tonight to james yoxalls stag do. Started off with go carting, came third, then went for beers and food then went for more beer and then ended up at browns for more beer and strippers, still think it's a weird place you only have to look at the other men in their.

Doh

2005-07-18T09:34:57Z

Doh, I guess some poor sod should in up and take that down. Spent yesterday walking around Montmartre and up to the Basilica du Sacré Cœur

Just had a call from my sister in canada

2005-07-10T16:07:08Z

Just had a call from my sister in canada. First thing she asked me was what i was doing. I had to answer that i was having a snooze in a part overlooking paris listening to a jazz band :-) it's been a lazy day left the house around 12 and went to the market round the corner to buy cheese, tomato and bread. Rochefort of course and bread with oliver in. We've then spent the rest of the day in the park. Not a bad day ;-)

Notre Dame

2005-07-09T16:47:31Z

So far we've spent the day wondering around paris. Part the arc de triumph down the champs elyses down to the louvre and now where outside notre dame.

Arc De Triomphe

2005-07-09T12:30:35Z

Just so you can tell we're actually here.

We managed to survive our first night i

2005-07-09T10:54:41Z

We managed to survive our first night in paris although we did sleep in very late. We'll be off out in a bit to hunt down some breakfast/lunch. Then probably head into the centre for a wonder around.

We've hit paris and hooked up with Iain

2005-07-08T19:35:23Z

We've hit paris and hooked up with Iain and mel. Making our way out to saint germain en laye

Finally managed to get Momoe home

2005-07-07T18:58:45Z

Finally managed to get Momoe home despite the train problems so hopefully we'll be okay to head off to paris tomorrow.

Bombs

2005-07-07T14:48:29Z

Got to London Bridge this morning to find that the Northern Line was out. Happens quite a bit so everyone just grumbles and gets on a bus. I only found out when I got to work that several bombs had gone off.

I'll cross my fingers that no one I know is hurt and be glad that I'm not.

new phone

2005-07-06T14:41:09Z

Just got a new phone. Since it's got a camera in it i thought it might be cool to setup some code to let me post straight to the blog. Might be fun to use in paris this weekend.

Teaching

2005-06-29T15:04:46Z

Jeff got me looking after the beginners again yesterday. We started out out by stepping forward whilst cutting harai to the right of the opponents shinai and then stepped backwards cutting harai to the other side of the shinai. The idea being no necessarily to open for a cut but to be making a positive action which may help to unsettle to opponent to lead to an opening and also to provide a sense of controlling the opponent rather than just standing passively waiting to be cut.

The first problem was trying to make a harai action whilst stepping backwards. My instinct is now to step forwards and make stamp the right foot when I make and action so trying to step back with the left foot whilst making the cut was a little strange at first. Once I got my head around that I was able to concentrate on what the other people in the group where doing.

Problems I noted in the people within the group where the arms in Chudan no kamae being to stiff and either pushed downward resulting in the very low kamae or outwards in a very high kamae. Both these problems make the harai difficult as they prevent the shinai from moving in a free rolling motion. This means that the action is then carried out using much larger movements of the whole arm, taking the hands away from the centre of the body. Which makes it easier to see, a less sharp action and opens up the kamae providing an opportunity for the opponent to attack.

If however the arms are relaxed the right hand can remain the the centre of the body whilst the left rolls the shinai the left or the right to move the opponents shinai. This makes for a sharper action and means that the kamae is not broken allowing the opponent the opportunity to attack.

Another problem was bending the arms to much in Chudan, which leads to the shinai being waved from side to side without using the wrists. This leads to the same weaknesses as before.

Other problems where cutting to softly and concentrating on the shinai whilst cutting. The former is not so much of the problem as it will develop with confidence, but it's probably important to get into the habit of keeping eye contact with the opponent as this may lead to your eyes flicking the the shinai when under pressure and leaving you vulnerable to attack.

Second part of the session was working from the other side making a harai cut on the left of the shinai whilst stepping forward and then stepping back and cutting down onto the right of the shinai. I kinda like this coz if you get it right you can knock the shinai out of your opponents hands (bit cheeky, but satisfying).

From my personal point of view it was nice to be able to spend time just working with these couple of techniques. By the end of the practise I'd developed a blister on my right middle finger which I think shows that I'm holding the shinai two squarely in the right hand. Some thing to work on I think.

Stuff

2005-06-27T15:23:00Z

Been a bit slack posting stuff, recently. Had a a kyudo weekend a couple of weekends ago. Best part was sitting in our sensei's garden shooting, chatting and drinking.

Kendo's been going quite well, weathers been a bit hotter than I would have like for running around in. Managed to get a bit of heat stroke at wakaba, but things seem to be improving with each practise which is really nice.

The majority of expression

2005-06-13T11:00:27Z

When the majority of expression stored on computer passes at some point in it's history through software licensed(You can't actually own MS software) from Microsoft this sort of news adds more weight to the argument that we are leaving ourselves exposed to abuses of position and power.

Microsoft deletes 'freedom' and 'democracy' in China

Back on track

2005-06-10T10:54:17Z

Had a very good practice yesterday. My toe is finally getting back to normal so I was fairly determined to make use of it and try to arrest the decline of my fitness before it really got started.

Started out the session with usual kihon, which then developed into left-hand only kiri kaeshi. I think I've mentioned before that I perversely quite like this as is really gives you a feel for where the shinai wants to go rather than where you want it to go. Having sed that I was having a little trouble at first as I was using a new shinai for the first time and it has a slightly thicker handle than I'm used to which meant I wasn't able to close my hand around it as normal. This then seems to make your grip squarer and your forearm starts to rotate so that the shinai comes out the side rather than flexing the wrist to make the cut. Started to get it together after a bit so I guess I'll just persevere and hope that I can force myself to cut properly dispite myself.

The practice then moved on to combinations of cuts, kote-men, harai-men etc before ji-geiko which was limited to the techniques that we had been practicing. Personally I like doing ji-geiko in this fashion. It's a lot more considered and you spend the time trying to get the techniques to work rather than just repeating the same comfortable moves, and ending up just slapping at each other.

The practice wound up with lots of running up and down the dojo cutting and finally a kind of piggy in the middle men-hiki-men affair. For someone who has never been that enthused by the idea of running, I quite got into it, although I only had to be in the middle once. I can imagine it being a different story had I had to go through it a couple of times.

Finished the practice feeling very good, and energised. Let's hope things stay this way for a bit ;)

Today's favourite track

2005-06-07T15:22:41Z

!GET UP,PUNK! 0200 hrs. (joint special operations task force) by General Patton vs The X-ecutioners

Trying to take photos

2005-06-06T10:06:28Z

Tried to take some photo's of the kendo compotition over the weekend. It was interesting coz for part of the day I was using Jacob's Nikon digital camera, which seems to do a much better job of taking picture in doors than my camera does :( it could be that Jacob had set things up better, but I just seems that even when I do select for shutter speed any setting that might actually be useful is just so dark as to useless. The photos I took with his camera weren't to bad, my composition is improving, but with my camera I blow it by getting the settings wrong.

There's probably more that I could do to use the camera properly, I definetly took some shots that would have been really good portraits of people which would have been good had I bothered to set the shutter speed.

I think I need to go out and get some practice shoting people indoors and fiddling with the settings but I does seem to that the camera isn't coping as well as I'd hoped.

Bowden

2005-06-06T09:52:56Z

Got up really early, got on a train to stoke. Got through to the second round as the team we fought only had one memeber. Got knocked out in the second round by Mumeishi A team, rather embaressing lack of anything on my part, best not to talk about it.

Jacob gives a much better description of the days events.

Materialism

2005-05-31T13:15:18Z

Never thought of my self as a materialist, but turns out I am.

You scored as Materialist. Materialism stresses the essence of fundamental particles. Everything that exists is purely physical matter and there is no special force that holds life together. You believe that anything can be explained by breaking it up into its pieces. i.e. the big picture can be understood by its smaller elements.

Materialist - 88%
Existentialist - 75%
Cultural Creative - 69%
Postmodernist - 56%
Modernist - 50%
Romanticist - 38%
Fundamentalist - 19%
Idealist - 6%

What is Your World View? (updated) created with QuizFarm.com

Taikai

2005-05-31T13:13:50Z

Summer taikai was this weekend. I think one of the great things about this is they give us reference point against which to gauge our development. I don't really mean in terms of who we manage to beat within the dojo. But our place within the social structure.

Two years ago it was my second time in armour, I was petrified and ended up being in the first match of the day. At the time I really didn't have a clue what it was all about. A year on and I had a much better understanding of what was happening and what I wanted to achieve. However didn't actually have the ability to do it. The day kinda happened to me.

Two years on, and I'm in a completly place. I pitch up early, (though not the first person there), so when the guy come to open up the centre I take the opertunity to grab a couple of people and organise them to start getting things setup. By the time 10 comes around we've everything sorted, leaving plenty of time for me to go of and get myself ready. The whole thing is a lot more relaxed for me and I'm able to enjoy hanging out with people, rather than worring about my match.

In the end it turns out I'm fighting Yukiko. Oh well can win them all. But it's a good match, both of us spending time feeling what the oponent is doing. However I probably shouldn't have allowed Yukiko to settle her self after her attacks, something which I realised afterwards and used to my advantage when I was fortunate enough to get redrawn to fight again, this time against Seth. I knew seth had good strong and straight kendo, but is still pretty new so I would have been disapointed not to win, but I knew the judges would be looking for me to produce a good cut before they'd let me have the point. Luckly I managed at least one good cut.

Unfortunately for me my team was knocked out in that round so that was my kendo over for the day. Looking back on it I can actually see Micheal was in the position I was in last year. Having and idea of what you need to do to win, and feeling that given your apponents relative level you should win, but not be able to quite pull it together to get the points.

The rest of the event was very relaxed watching the action, chatting and enjoying the atmosphere. Managed to miss the sushi though :(, but made up for it in the pub :)

Injury

2005-05-27T14:11:30Z

My toe is still causing me problems, so I wasn't able to practice yesterday. Went along to the practice (actually got there late) and as is usual when I'm unable to take part I took on the teaching of a beginner.

It's a bit strange taking on an absolute beginner and attempting to teach them. Never really sure where to start. I'm also very concious of the difficulty they tend to have in doing things that I find quite straight forward and leisurely. Make me think about how I far I must have come in the last two years and probably how far I'll have gone in the next.

Mono

2005-05-23T11:54:39Z

After practice on saturday (and after a quick drink in the pub) I went to meet up with Pete to go see Mono play at the garage. I also invited Momoe to join us which she did which was either brave or foolhardy on her part and I was a little worried she might not like it as it's not really conventional music and she'd never heard of them.

Luckly she seemed to really enjoy it. The support band where 65DAYSOFSTATIC, really good, another instrumental act. Can't remember the last time I saw a support act and thought I really need to find out who they are.

The short break was taken up with Pete's friends introducing Momoe to the wonders of british profanity. Luckly Mono came on stage to save us all further embarrassment.

Wasn't really sure what to expect as they're quite different from other bands I've been to see. But they where really good. Seeing them play live just added more to music which is already saturated with emotion. A really good gig, and the only one I can remember where the audiance kept shushing other people so they could hear every little bit.

Pete was working at Slimelight as usual so after the gig we headed down there. Staid a couple hours for Pete's set, (Played error, I'll have to ask if that coz I was there, hmm, maybe the world does revolve around me). Finally left about 2am, due to bad night bus timing and missing bus stop didn't get in 'til 4am. Still feeling knackered now ;)

Two in a row

2005-05-23T10:14:01Z

Very pleased with saturday's practice. I managed to hold on to a good level of energy throughout the practice. Felt much more in control of things and I think I suprised a couple of people that I practiced with by pulling of techniques which I may have been technically capable of for a while, never had the stamina to be able to use them properly in ji-geiko.

Definilty feeling a more confident about my kendo and more in control of the practice. Think I'm still probably relying on the comfort factor of hitting kote, but hopefull if I can maintain my current level of fittness I can ween myself of that.

Toe still hurts though!

Feeling better

2005-05-20T09:52:50Z

Had quite a good practice lastnight, seems that I'm finally getting some level of fitness, I actually had some bounce in me during ji-geko, which make a real change from the last couple of months where I've felt that every movement was an effort. Not quite sure what to do with the energy, really need to get men-hiki-men working for me again, though I still think I'm worring about my left ankle so it's difficult to really get that one going.

Tried to work in the techniques from Tuesday's practice with variing degrees of success. Not always easy when your oponenent won't keep a good centre. Would have been cool to try killing the shinai (stepping to the side and cutting down on the opponents shinai, not sure of the correct term). But forgot about it, though it's quite possible that the opertunities wheren't there, people where at least trying to go through. Maybe one for saturday.

Did manage to hurt my toe, woke up to see it was going purple and was nicely swollen. Don't think it's broken just bruised. Hopefully the swelling will go down for Kyudo on Saturday.

Talking behind my back

2005-05-19T11:47:15Z

Today I received an email (not for the first time either) from findthedirt.com a site which allows people to request information regarding a person from other people who may have had dealings with that person.

The email I received was informing me that someone was asking for people with information about me to send it to them. This feels a really bizare situation. It's the internet equivelent of someone talking about you behind your back except that you then have someone come up to you and tell you that someone is talking about you, but you can know what they are saying.

The whole thing is setup to be anonymous and the information is passed privatly between the to gossiping parties with the sight acting purely as a broker. It's all a bit wierd and makes you feel like your being watched. I can't say that I've got much to hide but it does seem a little impolite.

Kendo Demonstration

2005-05-16T10:44:25Z

A group of us from Hizen where invited along to the 50th Aniversary of the Inception of Aikido by Kenshiro Abbe Sensei in the UK.

Aparently 720 (not all watching us though, think it was lunchtime) people participated in the event at Crystal Palace Sports centre. Quite cool to go in the representing Kendo. I had a nice sense of pride tinged with terror as we all made our way out infront of the crowd. However Kendo does teach you to be focused and the preparetory routinue meant that it wasn't to difficult to block the spectators out and consentrate on the Kendo. Although it would have been nice to be able to relax and enjoy the adoration of the crowd ;)

The actual demo was pretty routine for us, men cuts, kirikeshi, kagarigeko and ji-geko followed by kagarigeko with Jeff to give him a chance to play Sensei, or as Jeff put it "Every Kendoka's greatest nemisis" (Maybe we should get him a top hat and red tail coat and he can train as a ringmaster)

Quite glad when we'd finished, and my heart finally slowed to a more confortable pace. The Aikido people seem quite impressed with out performance and the representative from the Japanese embasy apparently Appreciated it which was very cool.

Then is was time to packup, sprint across london for the last half hour of practice at wakaba. Then of the the pub.

So quite a successful day really.

Remebering two things at once

2005-05-13T12:45:27Z

Had quite a good practice yesterday, kihon was pretty much as usual, no great suprises. Although I did quite like the one handed kihon, tough as it is. It does force you to work with the shinai rather than using brute strength to force it do what you want.

During ji-geiko I was trying to apply some things that Satoshi had been explaining to me earlier in the week about using the shinai to feel what the opponent is doing and controlling when they attack. Although not something I can really do, it did give me an better idea about where I should be concentrating and a bit more confidence that I'm not just standing there repeating the same mistakes as before.

On the downside, I realised after the practice that in doing this I wasn't consentrating on pushing forward with my left foot, which is something I'm really trying to get sorted for ages. I also started to feel quite nausious after the practice, but I've woken up feeling okay, if a bit tied so I'll just have to put it down to too much kendo. Problem is the only cure for that is more kendo.

Teaching kendo kata

2005-05-11T13:08:25Z

As with a lot of tuesday practices at Hizen, I spent the practice teaching other people the kata. I've done this many times before, but today it really struck me that a deeper understanding of the actions in the forms is needed to teach them passed just the basics of, step forward here, raise your left arm now type of thing.

In trying to explain an action to someone it's really necessary to provide some sort of justification as to why such and such action should be performed in a particular manor, and to do this you need to start developing some consistent logic regarding, the actions.

It may not even be necessary for the person your teaching to remember the justification, but it helps them to be confident in what you are telling them and also provides a basis for answers to questions to which you have never been explicitly told yourself.

Going home

2005-05-09T15:25:53Z

Spent most of sunday driving around Bucks trying to show a Japanese friend a little bit of the area rather than just where she is working and Gerrards Cross station. Seemed to go quite well, not to boring for her (either that or she's a very good actor with a high tolerence for quiet english villages).

Because she's not from Britain it was easier to show her some of the little things that interest you rather than just the geography of the area. You get a chance to explain some of the history behind things. I think this forced me to look at the area I'd grown up in through new eyes and seem some of the beauty. By the end of the day I felt quite privileged to grow up in that enviroment.

Still think it can be a brain numbingly boring place to live but on a nice day it's a good place to hangout.

Hands and Feet

2005-05-09T15:08:49Z

Just read Jakob's blog about last Thursdays practice. And whilst he was having trouble with his thighs, my biggest problem was my arms. I'm whilst practicing the kote-surage-kote (think that's what I should be calling it) my left forarm was really killing me. Think this is due to my more general problem of not being able to relax my arms properly, I'm sure making quite heavy wooden cuts.

Anyway I should probably just put that to one side and try to forget about my arms (maybe they'll relax if I stop thinking about them.) And concentrate on what's really becoming a problem.

My foot work, is becoming something of a mental block to the point where I feel totally unable to initiate an attack. The more I think about it the more I think that a successful attack comes from the movement of the body by the feet. Actually that's not an original thought everyone keeps telling me this, but I'm now seeing this as a clear weakness in my kendo and not as just something people talk about, without being able to see the problem in yourself.

I some ways it's probably good that I've started to understand the problem, but it's now in the fore front of my mind which makes it a very frustrating that I cannot get seem to make any real progress in addressing it.

Anyway I'll just have to keep going and hope that people don't give up on me and get bored telling me that I'm getting it wrong.

My First Yumi

2005-05-09T10:16:25Z

My Yumi (Kyudo Bow), arrived from Japan so was waiting for me when I got the club on saturday. It's arrived much sooner than I was expecting and it was quite exciting finally having it.

What was even better was the effect it had on my shooting I had been expecting that as with the previous times I've had something new to handle when shooting, that I'd be all over the place and that it would take me a week or so to ragain my composure and compensate for the change. But not this time. Despite being a stronger bow than I've been using for a while I found it more comfortable to hold. I put this down the the grip being a better fit in my hand. This lead to a more relaxed grip on the bow and for the first time the bow rotating on the release of the arrow. This is a significant improvement in my technique as it means I'm getting the tensions correctly balanced within my left hand. The other thing is that the bow almost feels like it is alive when the release is made which really adds to the whole exprience and was really satisfiying especially as my shooting seemed to be a lot more controllable. This could also be down to having my own arrows, so that each arrow flies in the same was as the previous one allowing me to guage what my actions are doing rather than differences in the equipment between shots.

The downside is that being over two metres in length I can't take the bow on public transport which make maintenance more difficult. I'll probably hve to live with doing this in the break, whilst everyone else is having a coffee or a fag. Oh and for some reason the bow has a lavender coloured grip, which makes it look gay.

We also tried to different styles of taihai (the formal manor in which archers prepare to shoot). The first involved holding the arrows in the right hand with the heads exposed rather than hidden as we usually hold them. This is a much easier way of holding them as your not fighting the whole time to stop them slipping out of your hand. The other change was in the way the feet are placed when taking the shooting stance. Normally the archer looks at the target with their feet together and then places the left foot towards the target then looks at the right foot a moves that to the right so the feet are a bit more than shoulder width apart. In the new style the archer looks at the target moves the left foot to the target then bring the right foot together with the left then sweeps it to the right so the feet are now sholder with apart. The tricky bit with this is that it is done whilst looking at the target so your not quite sure where your right foot is. But it does feel a bit more elegant than the normal way, especially when people fidget around getting comfortable.

The other style of shoot was compation style which means that all the archers a stood infront of the target at once and when one is shooting the next is getting the arrow ready to shoot. This makes shooting a more rapid event, rather than the usual glacial pace.

Jakobs Kendo Journal

2005-05-04T09:58:57Z

Just came across the blog of a friend of mine from Hizen it's nice to be able to see things from his perspective and I hope he keeps on posting to it. Make me think I need to be putting more of my thoughts down/up.

Kyudo Web Site

2005-04-12T10:28:00Z

For those not in the know Kyudo is the art of Japanese Archery. It differs from western archery in that it is focused on the whole process of shoting the arrow not just hitting the center of the target. I suppose the idea is to make the archer a better person, not just a better shot. What this means in practice is the process become very ceremonial and concered with the asthetics of shoting, which generally means making each step as difficult as possible. But I do find it fun and very challenging.

When was the last time you saw someone looking this cool, whilst dressing as Robin Hood

For the last six months every saturday morning I've been going to a (Kyudojo) Kyudo club in south east london. Cause I know some of the guys from Kendo I was asked to help update the website.

Under 5s Boxing

2005-03-21T10:28:00Z

Started a new hobby recently Under 5s Boxing I think it could really take off.

Under 5s Boxing

2005-03-21T09:28:00Z

Started a new hobby recently Under 5s Boxing I think it could really take off.

Gimmick

2005-03-11T10:28:00Z

It's a bit of a cheap trick but I quite like it anyway. With a bit more practice I can like to think I can move this from a technical excersse to an artisting one. But maybe that's just me deluding myself that I have any artistic ability by hiding behind gimmicky technical trickery.

Gimmick

2005-03-11T09:28:00Z

Posters

2005-02-25T14:53:00Z

Suddenly got dumped with the task of producing some posters for a trade show the company was exhibiting at. Amazing how people think these things happen instantly and never allow any time for me to actually do the work before they are due at the printers. It does take me a bit longer than a profesional designer would take but that's because I'm a programmer not a designer. They're a bit rushed and there are some things that could be tidied up, but they're not to bad.

Maven sucks

2005-02-23T13:37:00Z

Back again going in circles, i've been trying to get activemq to install on my box so I can try it out. Incresing these days I have a policy of trying to create rpms for things that I install so I can easily reproduce the install else where. Ideally you'd build from the source code. However the people at codehaus in there wisdom desided that they needed to use maven as the build tool not just plain ant. This is really not good as maven is nearly a real pile. Just look at all the shite you need to get it to install.

java-sun
ant >= 0:1.6.2
ant-antlr >= 0:1.6.2
ant-apache-bcel >= 0:1.6.2
ant-apache-bsf >= 0:1.6.2
ant-apache-log4j >= 0:1.6.2
ant-apache-oro >= 0:1.6.2
ant-apache-regexp >= 0:1.6.2
ant-apache-resolver >= 0:1.6.2
ant-commons-logging >= 0:1.6.2
ant-commons-net >= 0:1.6.2
ant-jai >= 0:1.6.2
ant-javamail >= 0:1.6.2
ant-jdepend >= 0:1.6.2
ant-jmf >= 0:1.6.2
ant-jsch >= 0:1.6.2
ant-junit >= 0:1.6.2
ant-nodeps >= 0:1.6.2
ant-swing >= 0:1.6.2
ant-trax >= 0:1.6.2
junit
aelfred
antlr
anttex
ashkelon
aspectj
avalon-framework
avalon-logkit
batik
bcel
jakarta-cactus
castor
checkstyle
classworlds
clover10
clover-ant
cpptasks
odmg = 0:3.0
dom4j
fop
forehead
httpunit
hibernate >= 0:2.1.4
java2html
jakarta-commons-beanutils16
jakarta-commons-betwixt
jakarta-commons-cli
jakarta-commons-collections >= 0:3.1
jakarta-commons-dbcp
jakarta-commons-digester
jakarta-commons-graph
jakarta-commons-grant
jakarta-commons-httpclient >= 0:2.0
jakarta-commons-io
jakarta-commons-jelly >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-ant >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-antlr >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-define >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-dynabean >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-html >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-http >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-interaction >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-jsl >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-log >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-swing >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-util >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-velocity >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-xml >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jexl
jakarta-commons-lang
jakarta-commons-latka
jakarta-commons-logging
jakarta-commons-net
jakarta-commons-pool
jalopy
ant-jalopy
jaxen >= 0:1.1
jcoverage
jdom
jdepend >= 0:2.6
jdepend22 = 0:2.2
jdiff
jext
jfreechart
jing
jsch
jtidy
junitdoclet-jdk14
isorelax
mysql-connector-java
nekohtml
netbeans-vcs
oro
pmd
regexp
rhino
servletapi4
simian
statcvs
tjdo
vdoclet
velocity
velocity-dvsl
werkz
xalan-j2
xerces-j2 >= 0:2.6.0
xercesjarv >= 0:20030225
xml-commons-apis
xml-commons-which
xpp3

What's even worse is that about a dozen of these are not opensource and you have to go an get them from various places across the net, which negates the whole bloody point of using packages.

Eventually I gave up trying to use a 3rd party install of maven and just tried to get the on from apache, in the mistaken belief that whilst it would totally screw the software management on my box it might at least install. However it doesn't run...

I've come across this problem a number of times now. Software that I might otherwise like to run is rendered impotent by the monolithic pile of junk know as maven.

Please don't use maven whilst you may think it's cool to have it generate a pretty website for you and spew out loads of meaningless metrics showing how cool your code is. It is at the end of the day a millstone that makes your project unbuildable for a lot of people. Just use ant it's much easier to handle and doesn't take two days to download and install.

Maven sucks

2005-02-23T12:37:00Z

java-sun
ant >= 0:1.6.2
ant-antlr >= 0:1.6.2
ant-apache-bcel >= 0:1.6.2
ant-apache-bsf >= 0:1.6.2
ant-apache-log4j >= 0:1.6.2
ant-apache-oro >= 0:1.6.2
ant-apache-regexp >= 0:1.6.2
ant-apache-resolver >= 0:1.6.2
ant-commons-logging >= 0:1.6.2
ant-commons-net >= 0:1.6.2
ant-jai >= 0:1.6.2
ant-javamail >= 0:1.6.2
ant-jdepend >= 0:1.6.2
ant-jmf >= 0:1.6.2
ant-jsch >= 0:1.6.2
ant-junit >= 0:1.6.2
ant-nodeps >= 0:1.6.2
ant-swing >= 0:1.6.2
ant-trax >= 0:1.6.2
junit
aelfred
antlr
anttex
ashkelon
aspectj
avalon-framework
avalon-logkit
batik
bcel
jakarta-cactus
castor
checkstyle
classworlds
clover10
clover-ant
cpptasks
odmg = 0:3.0
dom4j
fop
forehead
httpunit
hibernate >= 0:2.1.4
java2html
jakarta-commons-beanutils16
jakarta-commons-betwixt
jakarta-commons-cli
jakarta-commons-collections >= 0:3.1
jakarta-commons-dbcp
jakarta-commons-digester
jakarta-commons-graph
jakarta-commons-grant
jakarta-commons-httpclient >= 0:2.0
jakarta-commons-io
jakarta-commons-jelly >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-ant >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-antlr >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-define >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-dynabean >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-html >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-http >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-interaction >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-jsl >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-log >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-swing >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-util >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-velocity >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jelly-tags-xml >= 0:1.0-0.b4.6jpp
jakarta-commons-jexl
jakarta-commons-lang
jakarta-commons-latka
jakarta-commons-logging
jakarta-commons-net
jakarta-commons-pool
jalopy
ant-jalopy
jaxen >= 0:1.1
jcoverage
jdom
jdepend >= 0:2.6
jdepend22 = 0:2.2
jdiff
jext
jfreechart
jing
jsch
jtidy
junitdoclet-jdk14
isorelax
mysql-connector-java
nekohtml
netbeans-vcs
oro
pmd
regexp
rhino
servletapi4
simian
statcvs
tjdo
vdoclet
velocity
velocity-dvsl
werkz
xalan-j2
xerces-j2 >= 0:2.6.0
xercesjarv >= 0:20030225
xml-commons-apis
xml-commons-which
xpp3

What's even worse is that about a dozen of these are not opensource and you have to go an get them from various places across the net, which negates the whole bloody point of using packages.

I've come across this problem a number of times now. Software that I might otherwise like to run is rendered impotent by the monolithic pile of junk know as maven.

Kangeiko

2005-01-11T13:37:00Z

Started the new year with a bang, or rather a nasty popping sound. The plan was to take part in four days worth of kendo practices. However it was cut short on the first day when I damaged my ankle. So I spent the remaning three days taking pictures of everyone else training. I'm currently working on a more details version of preceding for the club website so I'll link to that later.

Kangeiko

2005-01-11T12:37:00Z

Degredation

2004-12-06T16:37:00Z

I had some other things that I was going to write up about, but they've slipped my mind, think they where something to do with the ex-husband of a friend of mine dressing up as Father Christmas and climbing up the Scotish parelement with a fathers for justice banner. My sister pointed out he'd have been better of dressing up as Father Christmas to entertain his kids.

Any way the more I think about it the less I like shiny technology. I don't like the feel that a lot of websites give of of a perfect vacuum molded enviroment. That's partly why I've started to add currupted headings to entries, though I feel there's a lot more work to be done in allowing more random events into the process.

Degredation

2004-12-06T15:37:00Z

Number Plates

2004-11-29T16:37:00Z

Number Plates

2004-11-29T15:37:00Z

Sailing

2004-11-01T11:56:00Z

The management at mkodo decided that it would be a good idea to get everyone out of the office and doing something together. So we all ended up getting up a 5am to head down towards Portsmouth to go sailing. We spent a really good day sailing about on the Pazienza. Weather turned out to be pretty much perfect for what we where doing, blue skies light breeze. Started of the trip with bucks fizz, eggy bread and bacon. Fantastic ;).

Even managed to remember my camera and took these pix

Sailing

2004-11-01T10:56:00Z

Even managed to remember my camera and took these pix

Shodan

2004-10-18T08:00:00Z

Passed my kendo shodan over the weekend. Pretty darn chuffed suppose I need to start thinging about nidan first chance to get it is only a year away.

Atheism

2004-10-12T08:00:00Z

Overheard a conversation in the office today, discussing the varied religious beliefs of the people in the office. The thing that struck me as interesting was the shying away from describing anyone as being an atheist. The closet thing was the term agnostic. Personally I'm an atheist as feel that I should be described as such. I have no belief. I actually find it a little insulting that my lack of belief should be brushed under the carpet as if it was something rather embarrassing which is probably best not mentioned. That's not to say that I take pride in my atheism and feel the need to let everyone know about it. But I do feel that my lack of conviction if a fact and as such it should not be hidden, in order to spare people the embarrassment of admitting they know an unrepentant ATHEIST

Zen

2004-10-06T00:00:00Z

I keep coming back here again. Wish everyone would pay attention.

Armour finally turned up. Now I just need to retrieve it from my parent house.

Must remember to step forward with my left leg whilst making the Do cut as uchdachi in the 3rd kodachi kata.

Kyudo

2004-10-04T00:00:00Z

Over the last couple of weeks I've been going to an introductory course in Kyudo I all went pretty well so this weekend I went along to the White Rose Kyudojo had a pretty good time despite only getting 3 hours sleep that night. So it looks like that's my Saturday mornings accounted for from now on. Bit of a pity it makes it difficult to go along to Wakaba as I did like meeting the people up there. Might still be able to sprint from one to the other though if I'm organised (and unusually motivated).

Fotos

2004-09-29T00:00:00Z

Well it's my 32nd Birthday today, really tired. Just upgrade the picture gallery I've been using and added to new galleries. Some pictures I took of flowers over the summer. Pictures of my visit to the Thomsons in Scotland.

Got some fuzzy pix of cats to go up sometime to ;)

Again

2004-09-14T00:00:00Z

Well Lesley's done it again, child number 5 has hit the streets. This one nicely rounds of the set being a girl, and will be known as Stephanie. Lots of black hair apparently, though luckily on her head.

Trolls

2004-08-24T00:00:00Z

Spent the weekend in Scotland visiting Alasdair, Lesley and their trolls

Shochukeiko

2004-08-06T00:00:00Z

From this saturday I've got a week of kendo training sessions. 4 hours on saturday & Sunday and them 2 hours a day until Friday. That's a lot of kendo and it's gonna be blinkin' hot running around in armour for hours.

Atom

2004-07-22T00:00:00Z

Just added an atom feed to the conglomerate web site, so now it's easy to keep up with release announcements and other project news. (Actually I still need to sort out the other stuff)

Class Depends

2004-07-12T00:00:00Z

I've been having a lot of fun recently trying to put together RPMs for the apps we write at work. One of the big problems is working out which jar files are required for which application. To help with this I've written this. I'm hoping I can get it to a place where it will not only tell you which jars you need but also help divide up you classes into jars containing either app specific or shared classes.

Gotta think of a catchy name for it though.

Ring

2004-06-21T00:00:00Z

Been playing around with one of the xscreensaver apps called xanalogtv. Basically it's a screen saver the acts like an old busted TV, all static and blurred. Had the idea to stuff this image into it. The resulting screensaver looks something like this (actually a lot better), your own personal copy of the Ring video. Just waiting for my call now!

More Kendo

2004-06-16T00:00:00Z

We had some interesting exercises at kendo yesterday. Not stuff we'd not come across before but we we're just given a bit more time to get to grips with things and worked with bokken without armer which made it a bit easier to get our heads around the technique. I'm starting to try and write these things down to help me remember them better so I can actually apply them in the future.

Moving the opponents shinai to the left by pushing forward and twisting the shinai to use the shonogi to move the shinai.
Moving the opponents shinai to the left by hitting the shinai from the side. This should use both hand to move the shinai not just slapping the it to one side.
Moving the opponents shinai to the right using the reverse of the previous technique.

In all the above techniques the shinai must return the the centre before making any further attacks. A slight pause should also be taken to ensure that the action was successful before just piling in.

As the opponent cuts men you step back and to the right with the left foot, whilst catching the men cut with the shonogi and deflecting the shinai to the right away from your men. As the opponent passes you pivot around the left foot to follow the opponent either into chudan to to perform a men cut.

As the opponent cuts men you step across your body with your right foot (this moves your head from it's targeted position). Whilst stepping across make a sharp cut to the opponent's kote, to do this you need to angle the shinai to the right.

Raytheon

2004-06-03T00:00:00Z

Had a mail today from a guy working for a US defence contractor called Raytheon. He wanted to know my full name so he could screen me against lists published by USG regulatory agencies. Bit dubious about giving my details to defence contractor especially a US one that seems to be responsible for building Cruise, Tomahawk and Patriot missiles. Did a little more digging and found amongst other bits of info these. Raytheon Watch and Tomahawk Missiles, Raytheon, Campaign Money, And the US Air Attacks: What You Need to Know. They also seem to be involved in the usual corporate activities of spying and bribes (Not in restricted to their own government).

Decided that I didn't really want to be giving them more help than was necessary so I told them I couldn't provide them any more info than the stuff I would normally give MockObjects users using my code.

Found this in some of their advertising material "The battle for peace is waged on many fronts. Including the one right in front of you." Glad to be doing my bit ;)

Kendo

2004-05-28T00:00:00Z

Passed my ikkyu grading for kendo, quite a relief to get it out of the way, so I can move on. Probably end up going through the whole process again in a couple of months for 1st dan. Though I'm more than likely to fail that first time which will take a bit of the pressure of.

Any way, since we could stop concentrating so hard on the kata forms them selves, we had a bit of time to play with things. Part of this was to invent some of our own kata to try and help us see them as actual sword play rather than a series of unrelated movements. The kata I worked on with Paul Gray came out rather well so I've written them up so I don't forget them.

More IE crapage

2004-05-03T00:00:00Z

Fiddling about with some javascript to change between different style sheets dynamically and I found out that in IE if you use <script/> instead of <script></script> it will completely ignore any content you have in your page and display an empty white page. Both are valid XHTML but IE is to half arsed to understand what an empty tag is.

Picture Hack

2004-05-02T00:00:00Z

Finally found a half descent solution to the problem of IE not handling the alpha channel in png images correctly. MS claimed to have added support for png a number of years ago but this seems to have been purely marking support so it's not any use. Managed to find this page describing how to use javascript hack to fix the background colour. Seems to work quite well although the best solution is probably not to use MSIE! it's just not as good as it should be.

Photos

2004-04-27T00:00:00Z

Bought a new digital camera last week so I went out and started taking some photos with it. Maybe not the best pix but it's a start. Also set up a picture gallery so here's the pix plus some other ones from mkodo's history

X Factor

2004-02-20T00:00:00Z

X Factor has been chucked of Source Forge, someone else requested the name and I wasn't concentrating enough to stop them. So the project will now live here.

X Factor

2004-02-19T23:00:00Z

X Factor has been chucked of Source Forge, someone else requested the name and I wasn't concentrating enough to stop them. So the project will now live here.

Python

2004-02-17T00:00:00Z

More fiddling about with python scripts. Came up with this little one which monkeies around with your input text to create a slightly bumpy effect.

Probably just makes every thing hard to read.

#!/usr/bin/python

import sys, random

print ""
print ""
for line in sys.stdin:
    print ""
    for c in line:
        r = random.randint(0, 20)
        if r > 10:
            sys.stdout.write(
                '%s' % (r, c))
        else:
            sys.stdout.write(c)
    print ""
print ""
print ""

Python

2004-02-16T23:00:00Z

More fiddling about with python scripts. Came up with this little one which monkeies around with your input text to create a slightly bumpy effect.

Probably just makes every thing hard to read.

#!/usr/bin/python

import sys, random

print ""
print ""
for line in sys.stdin:
    print ""
    for c in line:
        r = random.randint(0, 20)
        if r > 10:
            sys.stdout.write(
                '%s' % (r, c))
        else:
            sys.stdout.write(c)
    print ""
print ""
print ""

Conglomerate

2003-12-03T00:00:00Z

Made some changes to conglomerate website to make it valid XHTML

Conglomerate

2003-12-02T23:00:00Z

Made some changes to conglomerate website to make it valid XHTML

Patents

2003-11-25T00:00:00Z

For the last few years the European Patent Office (EPO) has, contrary to the letter and spirit of the existing law, granted more than 30000 patents on computer-implemented rules of organisation and calculation (programs for computers). Now Europe's patent movement is pressing to consolidate this practise by writing a new law. Europe's programmers and citizens are facing considerable risks.

Patents

2003-11-24T23:00:00Z

OpenJMS

2003-04-29T00:00:00Z

Started putting together RPMS for the OpenJMS project. Still a long way to go before there 100% (or even 99%) but if anyone is interested you can get them here:-

These are experimental files an are not guaranteed to run and may even trash existing installations.

SVG

2003-03-28T00:00:00Z

Been mucking about with SVG a little bit a came up with a little script which generates random squiggly images like this.

Eventually I'd like to get it so shapes can be evolved.

SVG

2003-03-27T23:00:00Z

Been mucking about with SVG a little bit a came up with a little script which generates random squiggly images like this.

Eventually I'd like to get it so shapes can be evolved.

Kendo

2003-03-03T00:00:00Z

It's been a long time since I changed things here so I thought I'd mention that I've started going to Kendo lessons at the Hizen dojo in London. So far it's been a lot of fun but quite hard work, lots to remember and nice sore legs the following day.

Kendo

2003-03-02T23:00:00Z

Baby

2002-04-22T00:00:00Z

Lesley Thomson gave birth to her fourth child, Mark

Job

2001-09-09T00:00:00Z

Well I've got a new Job working at mkodo. I'll be churning out large amount of code along with Jon Wingfield, Iain Scott and Stuart Godfree and Sue Parker will be doing the other stuff.

Wedding

2001-06-04T00:00:00Z

On the 2nd June 2001 Lesley Hannah married Alasdair Thomson at Callander Kirk, they are currently on honeymoon in Bali, where we hope they're having the time of there lives.

Moving

2001-05-25T00:00:00Z

Just a quick note to say that Alasdair is now not working at JP Morgan so his only contactable through Gzunk.com and Tim Bacon has left Sila so you need to use his Yahoo mail address.

New Wiki Mock Up

2001-05-20T00:00:00Z

Started mucking around with a layout for wiki pages so when we finally get the server up we can have the wiki running