Larry’s Pretty Good Journal

A few links of note:

Various cool facts about colors. For example, Homer never mentions the color blue, and in the evolution of languages most came up with a word for “blue” last of all primary colors (Egyptian being the biggest counterexample).

Flying a huge-ass paper airplane. (via)

A walk around iron-age hill-fort Maiden Castle in the early morning mist.

---L.

Subject quote from Chorus from Atalanta: “When the hounds of spring are on winter’s traces”, Algernon Swinburne.

Three links of stunning beauty:

MOCEAN: slow-motion oceans, with an emphasis on breakers. Whoa. (via)

Robert Lang illustrates 11 levels of complexity in origami using successively more complicated models of cicada. Level 7 is already a little past my technical skill (and I learned several things just from watching that segment). Disclosure statement: Robert Lang fanboy here. (via, which has more Lang links)

Solo dulcimer cover of “I Wanna Be Sedated”. (via, where more covers are highlighted in comments)

---L.

Subject quote from The Sea and the Hills, Rudyard Kipling.

Universal links to paper and sand, all of equal importance:

Paper Airplane Designs, a database of paper airplanes with easy to follow folding instructions. Filters for what performance you want to optimize, difficulty, and whether scissors allowed, plus printable instructions/templates for everything. (via)

Tessellated origami sculptures by Goran Konjevod.

Sandscript: A Beachwalker’s Guide to Ripples, Trails, Dimples, and Other Curious Markings. (via)

---L.

Subject quote from To Jane: The Invitation, Percy Shelley.

It's been a while since I showed off posted about origami.

( Cut for multiple pictures of solid geometry, though exposing this teaser pic: )



Because everyone needs a dollar bill giraffe to brighten up their day.

After that big one, I think I need a break from modulars. Maybe I'll do some Kawasaki roses.


* Which is to say, it wasn't in the book I was working out of and I couldn't find what I wanted online, so I developed this version myself. Given how old the unit is, it can't be the first time anyone's folded it, though.

---L.

Subject quote from “Nothing Without You,” Vienna Teng.

Further advances in linkage:

Advances in origami: applying statistical machanics to the Miura-ori fold. (via)

Astronomy after GW170817: what's next? (via)

Feathered dinosaurs: fluffier than we thought. (via)

Colons: useful rhetorical device.

---L.

Subject quote: "Reynard the Fox," John Masefield.

This weekend's origami workshop wasn't my best ever (I picked models that were too difficult for half the people that showed up -- and didn't have a backup plan) but aside from the boy who cried, it was generally fun. The models were organized around an interesting problem: ye standard origami crane doesn't fly, because the weight isn't balanced right.


Thanks, Wikimedia

Specifically, as a rule of thumb, you want roughly 1/3 of the area of the wing in front of your airplane's center of gravity. The standard crane is symmetric, with the wings centered over the center of gravity.

There's two possible ways to adjust the model: move the wings back or move weight forward. I was planning to teach two models that did one each:


Designed by Jun Maekawa, folded by Stephane Gerard


Designed by Yoshihide Momotani, folded by myself

We did only the first before running out of time, and I forgot to photograph an example. The second pic is my demo version of the second model -- you can't tell from looking, but extra paper is folded over inside then squared off, and the results is folded into a standard crane that's front-weighted exactly right. Neither model has a brilliant glide-path angle, but they do glide, unlike the tumble of the standard crane.

TBD came to the workshop and, with Janni's guidance/assistance, successfully folded a somewhat messy standard crane -- the concept of folding an edge to an edge has clicked, even as fine motor skills aren't precise yet. Later, they asked me to teach them a simpler model, so I demoed a traditional whale while they followed along using their own piece of paper:



I was impressed.

As far as my own folding lately, aside from experimenting with bird-shaped airplanes from a couple different books, I've mostly been doing modulars, to the amusement of the engineers I work with. Details, though, are for another post.

---L.

Subject quote from "Drought," Vienna Teng.

How ladybugs fold their wings, including a recreation using origami of part of the collapse. (via)

Drone shots of cherry blossom petals fallen into water. (via)

How a professional climate change denier turned into a climate change advocate, with a specialty of convincing other deniers. (via)

---L.

Subject quote from "An Hour of My Youth," Aleardo Aleardi, tr. William Dean Howells.

“When you’re trying to change the world, sometimes the roof collapses,” [Pasternak] said. “It’s normal. It’s absolutely normal.”

As quoted in "Helium Dreams," a profile of modern airship builders.

Viking ships had woolen sails -- large woolen sails specially woven and treated, which required a lot of sheep. Without sheeps, no ships. (via)

Tiny origami on fingertips for scale. More, including "nano-origami" (spoiler: is really more milli-origami). (via)

---L.

Subject quote from "Calls from Springfield," Hillary Scott.

What I've recently finished since my last post:

Poems of Places volume VIII -- there's not enough last bits of Scotland to fill out a volume, so miscellaneous Scandinavia was tucked into the remaining space like packing material. The Iceland section is particularly thin, starting with a burst of American cultural imperialism ("We claim thee kindred, call thee mother, / O land of saga, steel, and song!") plus only one local poet in translation -- the other countries manage a bit more than that. OTOH, this is an amusing bit of fairy lore, where the mortal price for interrupting a night-long fairy revel is -- to be tired from pulling an all-nighter. Ooo-kaythen.

Mushoku Tensei ("unemployed transmigration") volume 1 by Rifujin na Magonote ("irrational backscratcher" -- is there a pun I'm not getting or is that just an obvious pseud of silliness?), in which 34-year-old hikikomori at the end of his rope dies saving the lives of some strangers and is reincarnated as a newborn infant in a fantasy world with memories intact, whereupon he resolves to reverse the mistakes of previous life and do things right this time. A self-published web-novel picked up for print, and I see why it's popular. I can't actually recommend it, though, as much of the humor comes from the incongruity of a small boy with the knowledge and attitudes of a thirtysomething otaku perv -- which often means being deliberately offensive for the funnies, including a backstory rape being treated as only marginally problematic. I may try the next volume to see whether deepens this schtick or abandons it as part of character growth.

Gakusen Toshi Asterisk volume 5, which picks up with the battle interrupted by the end of the previous installment and finally completes the first tournament arc. Plot all too predictable (very few tournament arcs use original plots) but the story was enjoyable nonetheless. Excellent teamwork.

What I'm reading now:

Mandan no Ô to Vanadis volume 9, also picking up mid-battle. I'm not in love with the amnesia plot, mostly because we spend too much time outside the amnesiac's head -- as one of the primary POV characters, to boot. Needs more of title characters.

Shadow Unit season 4 by Emma Bull, Elizabeth Bear, et al. As usual, of all the co-authors, Bear's stories pulls their punches the least, but Bull's are consistently the best-written, making them the most effective. It is probably just as well the original 5-season structure was aborted modified, given the dialation of deadlines. Will see how well they wrap up the mystery, which I have hopes of given the slow movements by episode of the myth arc.

The Jolliest School of All -- yes, stupid title, but I found a stash of unread Angela Brazil novels and decided the day was as rainy as any other. This one is set altogether outside Britain, in a boarding school in Naples catering to the daughters of Anglo-American families there on business. Just as popcorn as the rest of her schoolgirl stories, and so far just as more-or-less successful.

Poems of Places volume XXIV: Africa. Oh dear, this one's dire. As in worse than Asia. That it's two-thirds ancient Egypt neither rescues nor redeems the exoticized slaves and noble savages that otherwise abound (sometimes, in the abolitionist tracks, both at once). The 1870s were not, it seems, a good time for sensitive handling of the region, even by those who considered themselves enlightened.

Continuing through Dragons and Other Fantastic Creatures in Origami by John Montroll -- less of these will become part of my standard repertoire than Mythological Creatures, but there's still enough good ones to make this a clear go-to book. Plus I also started folding from Kusudama Origami by Ekaterina Lukasheva (which may not have a Cabbage Rose but it does several other interestingly swirly and spiky shapes) and Origami Animal Sculptures by John Szinger (not yet published but advance copies were available at Origami USA).

What I might read next:

More light novels and poetry would be the obvious guess, based on past experience. Possibly Emily of New Moon since that's perked my interest a little.

---L.

I'm back from Origami USA 2014, three days of folding and more folding in New York. It was, indeed, interesting to see how that fandom is similar to and different form SF, anime, and comics fandoms. Because all participants are being in some measure artistic/creative, the line between creators and consumers is much more blurry. As symbol of this, the hospitality area was a large hall filled with tables, where everyone congregated when not in a session -- folding, socializing, networking, teaching each other models and techniques, all activities that also blur together.

A very strong ethos of sharing and teaching other. Passing it on. Yes, SF writers do this, but teaching is the fundamental interaction between folders. Also: many, many children. Roughly twice as many boys as girls, but the proportions were roughly the same for both pre-teens and teens. Adults, roughly equal men and women -- it was hard to judge exactly, as the non-participating guardians for younger children were overwhelmingly mothers rather than fathers.

Speaking of teaching, I attended formal sessions for learning six models, which I will share ( under a cut because many pictures )

Oh, but I do have to share this one photo from the exhibit hall: "witch girl" by Mitsugu Otani:



I think Studio Ghibli fans can supply names to that witch and that cat. And all of us, several superlative adjectives to the designer for folding this from a single (very large) square of paper.

---L.

Subject quote from "Atalanta in Calydon," Algernon Charles Swinburne.