Filed as Geek Stuff, General with Comments Off on Are you Ready Player 2?
(Originally written May 19, 2015)
If you were a child of the console generations which began in the mid-1980s you emerged into a new world; you were raised as a gamer. You are part of a shared experience and perhaps bonded with your brothers and sisters as you took turns jumping, shooting, and running across the digital landscape. These memories are part of a cultural gestalt which defines us just as sports, music, film, and books create a shared consciousness.
My twins were born into a two player co-op experience. Since the beginning they have walked side by side in life and into the digital wilderness experiencing joys, beauty, and frustrations together. They laugh and scream and jump without ever being in doubt that there will always be someone at the other controller to share this life.
In contrast our toddler, Emerson, is a singleton and was born alone. From the sidelines he watched his brothers revel in their play without being able to join. It was clear that he wanted a chance to walk into the frontier he saw before him but how? It was a puzzle that needed an answer.
One evening he made his move as the twins were pulled away from a still warm console for a break. Emerson dashed to the controllers, grabbed one and then looked around. When I walked over he turned up to me and unexpectedly placed a controller in my hand with a look that was clear in meaning. Are you ready player 2? Then he grabbed his own controller and struggled to see what effect he could produce on the screen before him.
In that moment crystallized in a singularly perfect gaze of toddler hope was every father and son since the beginning of time. Will you be with me? Can we do this together? Daddy, will you be my player 2? It was a question filled with hope, trust, love, and uncertainty.
In the last article I described the Spanish True School’s Timing Contexts. (Link)
Here is the table again for reference:
Times and Timings in Spanish True School
Time
Offending Timing
Simple English
Executive\Dispositive
Fencing Context
Before (not in time)
Propio
Get
—
First Intention Action
During (in time)
Apropiado
Give (Given)
Dispositive
Attacks into preparation,
Multi-Intention Attacks
After (possibly in time)
Transferido
Steal (Stolen)
Executive
Parry-Riposte,
Counterattacks
We can easily see these concepts in action by considering the actions of the first two Death Stars.
Propio – The Death Star Attacks Alderaan
Alderaan is at rest and the Death Star strikes in the before time, totally blowing it away with a Propio Medio Proporcionado. It’s evil, but it worked.
Apropiado – The Rebel Fleet Attacks the Death Star at The Battle of Yavin
The Death Star is moving into position to attack and is destroyed while preparing to fire with an Apropiado Medio Proporcionado. You can’t “fire when ready” when you’re dead.
Transferido – During the Attack on the Second Death Star the Death Star Attacks the Rebel Fleet
The attack is underway and the Death Star counterattacks with a Transferido Medio Proporcionado! It’s a Trap!!!
Bonus Transferido – During the Death Star’s counterattack, the Rebels counterattack the counterattack
The Rebels have reversed the Emperor’s Transferido with a Transferido of their own. Yeeee-hawwww!
I have been in the situation where I felt I needed to challenge the conventional wisdom about a sword tradition and there are good ways and bad ways to tackle that problem.
Beware when fighting monsters that you don’t become one yourself.
First:
In my opinion, it is most effective to concentrate on the **work** instead of the **person** in the counterargument. If you have a position there’s a decent chance we want to hear it, hell, we need to hear it if the position has merit.
However, not all positions are good and we have seen plenty of half-baked nonsense in our time. Polish up your argument into its best form, have a friend read it for tone and clarity, and set it out there without assigning intention or motivations to the other researcher or the original author (unless the source definitively tells you, “By this I mean X, Y, Z…”)
Good work can be made better by critical process. I’ve been wrong and errors in my work have been fixed by others. (“There is no such thing as a transversal step backwards.” Oops. Fixed it.) It is not wonderful to be wrong, but I would rather see my stuff fixed than propagate errors.
As an aside, translation is an art. The lovely Dr. Curtis did a presentation on a single passage from Don Quixote and how the translation style changed the outcome of each piece. That’s expected. Multiple translations in different styles is a feature. I think we all want access to the different insights, tone, and flavor that each translator brings to the text. If you want to disagree with a translation it is probably about choices made. You could say, “By making this choice, the emphasis on these keys aspects is missing. Or, “This choice loses this context which I think is essential.” That’s constructive and potentially useful to the neutral observer.
Second:
Take care of yourself first. When you form a critical position, how you do that will make a lasting impression on the people reading your argument. When you use ad hominem attacks, assign nefarious intention, or imply fraud you have gone beyond academic discourse into personal grudges. At that point you’re going to see friends and allies rally to defend the character of the original researcher. Once that starts it can be very difficult, even if you are absolutely correct, to have a productive discussion.
There are ways to challenge existing work without compromising your personal reputation. Sometimes it’s absolutely necessary to do this to foster growth in the community and to correct misconceptions. Maybe that necessary conflict is being driven by you and your work. I’ll be the first to admit that doing this well isn’t easy but if you can thread that needle you’re going to be an asset the community will continue to draw upon going forward.
Consider having a friend read your argument to pull out things with loaded words like “refused”, “obviously”, “clearly”, “ignores”, “deluded”, “recklessly”, and so on. What I want as a reader is the core of your argument presented in its best form. I can make decisions about the personal motivations on my own.
For example,
I think there is real value in considering this alternative which I think better reflects X,Y,Z…
By considering how the images were chosen we can gain insight into X,Y,Z…
I think this is an error based on this <citation>. Based on that consider this alternative which allows us to…
Each of those methods helps the reader understand there is potential value in at least considering your position. By buttressing the argument with citations and avoiding loaded language you open up some space in the dialogue and you preserve and protect yourself by avoiding self-inflicted wounds.
Third:
Don’t be an authority and instead be a resource. I’ve seen multiple examples of individuals trying to be an authority (Maestro-cop to the universe) and their work collapses underneath them as their attempt to assert authority is outpaced by the increased knowledge of the growing community. Having had the benefit of watching these implosions I made a commitment to myself not to walk down the same road.
By refusing to own the tradition but rather trying to build and restore it, I permit myself the necessary space to be wrong and correct the work as I gather new evidence.
Finally:
If you have done enough research to disagree with an established interpretation, you have value whether you are right or wrong. By encouraging you to argue well, I hope to preserve your place in the community for my own selfish reasons. Critical feedback and challenging of existing work is essential to what we do. I hope you’ve got something useful and can present your work effectively.
This is how we built a two-handed 3-headed flail trainer with parts you can find at your local hardware and sports store. The method described here isn’t the only way to build a flail and the training weapon here is experimental. If you build it there is every chance you could injure yourself with it if you get as crazy as my brother might. So… I warned you.
The parts list:
6-foot closet pole (1.8 meters)
2 matching screw-mounted rope hooks
2 bolts with matching nuts
Nylon paracord
Duct tape (of course)
3 racket balls
Flail parts laid out
The Measurements
Our flail has a 3-foot handle and three approximately 3-foot “chains” including the heads.
Instructions
1. Cut the closet pole down to size. (For our first flail we tried a length of 3 feet (0.9 meters). It worked fine but we’re thinking of making the next handle slightly shorter by about 4 inches for a total haft length of 32 inches (0.8 meters).)
2. Use the rope hook as a guide for marking your drill target. We chose to bring the hook as far down into the pole as possible to increase the strength of the trainer.
Use the Rope Hook as your Stencil for your Drill Guide
Marked and Ready for Drilling
3. Slowly drill all the way through the pole and remove any frayed edges.
4. Align the two Rope Hooks facing each other to form the “chain’s” looping anchor point on the flail. At this point you may want to remove some stock from the pole to ensure a snug fit by marking the end of the shaft and using a round file to remove the extra.
Marking the Head of the Flail to Remove Extra Stock
We will file that out
Filing out the Extra. (It’s easier if you use a vise.)
Stock Removed. Also, now it looks like the Bat symbol. (Batman would be proud to train with us.)
4. Now that you’ve created a perfect fit, fasten both Rope Hooks onto the shaft with the bolts so that they face each other to form a looping “chain” anchor point.
Two Rope Hooks makes a good loop.
Fastened Down Tight.
5. At this point you have created something dangerous with the exposed metal bolts. I recommend using a hacksaw to cut the exposed bolts off and then cover anything with sharp edges with a layer or two of tape. You want to minimize the possibility of cutting yourself if you accidentally hit yourself in the head.
6. Next, drill a hole through each of three racket balls.
Yep… That’s a hole clean through a racket ball.
7. Run your nylon paracord through the hole. To do this, we used fishing line.
Push a loop of fishing line through the holes and then insert your paracord into the loop on the far side. Pull it through and, “Tada!” it is threaded.
9. Tie it to the anchor point using the same bowline knot. (Repeat the process for all three flail heads.)
10. We used duct tape on the edges of the Rope Hook to avoid any grab on the nylon rope “chains”.
It doesn’t have to be beautiful.
The Completed Flail Trainer
Congratulations… you have given birth to a baby flail with a 3-foot shaft and 3-foot chains.
This is much lighter than an actual flail when you swing it around but you still get a scary amount of force with it such that hitting people is probably a terrible idea. While exercising the flail we found that swinging it at high speed didn’t seem to cause any problems with the racket balls but striking solid targets caused cracks around the drilled holes which would be eventual failure points.
I’m building a rover as a test platform for our Wi-Fi embedded controller.
Puck's Rover which might soon conquer the earth.
Here is the assembled chassis with four-wheel-drive installed for the little guy. You can see each tire has an independent motor with control lines in red and yellow. With each tire operating independently, we should have a much greater range of mobility including stationary turns and spins.
The little circuit board I am holding up is our 16-bit Rabbit computer with integrated Wi-Fi. I will probably use it to serve a web page with controls for the device. (Here is a link to the RCM5600W.)
My next work project is putting together a blog on this project so at some point in the near future I will post a link to it. The blog will be written informally with an engineering focus but hopefully in plain enough language that a non-engineer can follow it.
As a professional computer engineer, I cannot confirm or deny that this project is the creation of a robot overlord. He may or may not be designed to dominate humankind in an empire ruled by sentient machines drinking large amounts of coffee.
