Early Morning Madness

For some strange reason I woke abruptly at 2am this morning (perhaps it was the fact that I forced myself asleep at 9:40pm??) and had this undeniable urge to write up a shorthand system for recording origami directions. What the??!! (FYI the REM stuff had nothing whatsoever to do with origami)

Even more astounding is the fact that I did exactly that, instead of revising for the GEO101 exam or trying to get back to sleep! Pure MADNESS!!!

So, 7 pages of notes, 3 hours of scratching, 2 test models, and a gazillion versions of code later, I actually came up with a shorthand system that does the job. Fancy that. Not that I'm going to type it all out now, with exams coming up tomorrow...but here are the finished codes for the two models I worked on:

Traditional Crane
>BB. X180 [3-4] Y180 @ IR(3, Y120) @ IR(pp, Y30) MF-lv1!X90 @< Talking Frog (picked randomly from a book)
>PD. (3,1) (2-3,1) FP-DH2 (1-1,pp) D2 FL-D2 SQ-pl (3,1) Y180 (2-3-4):df1 a1a2-DV2 RF-a3-[1-2,3] FL-lv1-(1,2)@!#:df2 MF-[3,5]!Y90 ly2-(df2,df1)<

Oh. And the result of all this madness was that I totally blew my newly established circadian rhythm and slept in til 2pm. Bummer :(

A Whiff Of Yuletide

Thursday night, way past bedtime. "Christmas is approaching" I lay musing, "but what shall we do for a tree?" I had scoured the shops for a decent-looking tabletop tree earlier, to no avail. Then the long-dormant origami master in me stirred, and spit out, "we shall fold one, of course."

I had searched for Christmas tree origami models before. They were disappointing. Either they're flat, vaguely tree-like shapes, or modular structures resembling pagodas more than trees. So I set about devising an alternative method.

Being the strict purist I am, that would mean folding an entire Christmas tree out of a single sheet of paper. Yes I'm bonkers.

But I only realised that after hours of fruitless attempts, during which I worked out a solution to the decimal counter, revised the structure of the solar system clock, invented a 3D board game, to name a few things.

Needless to say I succumbed to pressure and tried modular origami instead X( My final method is based on one of the pagoda thingies plus the "Fortune Teller" fold. Somehow the two unrelated folds came together in a moment of glorious Eureka!!

This is partly due to my curious gift of "space awareness": presented with any simple enough fold or warped continuous structure (e.g. drapery and certain garments), I can mentally reconstruct their original state and folding process. So the whole thing was worked out lying in the dark, with mental images as reference. I resisted the enormous urge to creep out of bed and start folding one straight away, and was determined to do so first thing in the morning.

I woke on Friday feeling distinctively perky, and set about making this promising model. First the theory was tested out on scrap paper, just to get an idea of the proportions. It turned out pretty well! You can see how the finished model retains the elegance of pure origami without resembling a pagoda or using up 250 pieces of paper. The whole thing consists of 17 squares of paper, and holds together entirely by friction (except the topmost cap, which is optional and purely for aesthetic reasons).

Love love love love love it. 'Nuff said.

Altador Cup III - Poll

The Altador Cup is an annual Yooyuball tournament held in Neopia. 16 teams compete against each other for the ultimate prize - the title of AC champion. Previously I couldn't get the hang of Yooyuball and thus didn't really participate in the games. Not anymore this year! Count me as a devoted supporter.

I scored goals, slung slushies, made lots of noise, and - being me - did a poll on the boards. Couldn't resist! It was titled "AC III Preferences Poll", and here are the results:

Total participants: 46

Direction of play:
Left to Right - 26
Right to Left - 21*

Formation:
3+1 - 17*
1+3 - 19
2+2 - 11

Best Yooyu:
Darigan - 2
Faerie - 8
Fire - 40*
Mutant - 0
Normal - 1
Snow - 0

Worst Yooyu:
Darigan - 9
Faerie - 7*
Fire - 0
Mutant - 25
Normal - 1
Snow - 9

*these were my choices.

The stats that I was really after were the left/right preference ones. One bit of regret: forgot to ask whether the participents were normally left handed or right handed....drat...

Umbrella Survey

It's been raining ever since we got back from the picnic. Not the heavy kind, more like a fine drizzle that goes on for ever and ever. It can drive one insane.

Anyway fearless people like us are unaffected by a bit of drizzle. We cycle every day to school, rain or none. So one arm has to do the job of holding up the umbrella. The question is, which one?

You'd think that would be easy. The stronger hand steers the bike while the weaker one does the easier job of brolly-holding...therefore most people should hold the umbrella in their left hands, right?

Think again.

According to a brief (and whimsical) survey conducted by me in the rain on Thursday 3rd of April during the lunch rush:

of the 94 people on bicycles holding an umbrella, 43 (45%) did so using their left hands, while 51 (55%) did so using their right hands.

That's almost neck-and-neck. Perhaps it matters so little that it's entirely up to statistics. In that case, I'd bet 50/50.

I'll put it up for further pondering.

---

For your information/curiosity: I hold mine in my right hand.

And yes, I DO do such weird things on impulse.

Hither we set sail

Mariner's Handbook is a notebook modified by me. Its former self was ugly beyond words.

The real thing: