@oschene@mastodon.social
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oschene

@oschene@mastodon.social

Not from around here, but a real square little fellow.

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oschene, to origami
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

Nothing Gold Can Stay @origami

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

I've been reading some history books about Europe in the middle ages. The matter of the education of kings is incredibly interesting. It seemed nearly universally recognized that an excellent education is essential to a family holding on to power. And even in the controversies of the day (such as religion) children of the ruling class were exposed to a surprisingly wide range of ideas. Including those treated as heresy for the general population.

oschene,
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

@futurebird Are you familiar with The Once and Future King by T.H. White? A good chunk of it is on the education of Prince Arthur. If memory serves, Merlin teaches the prince about authoritarianism by making him an ant for a few hours.

oschene, to origami
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

Further in Summer than the Birds –
Pathetic from the Grass –
A minor Nation celebrates
It’s unobtrusive Mass.

Emily Dickinson 895 # @origami

johncarlosbaez, (edited ) to random
@johncarlosbaez@mathstodon.xyz avatar

Lately I've been obsessed by Paul McCartney's song Jet. Pop music critics focus on lyrics because they're writers and they understand words better than music. So there's a lot of talk about what the lyrics mean in this song - though they're essentially nonsense designed to sound great - and not nearly enough about the startlingly abstract descending melodic line that's the centerpiece. You'll hear it in the first phrase:

I can almost remember their funny faces

and then, in a more elaborated form, in the second:

That time you told them you were going to be marrying soon

If you try to sing these lines getting the melody and rhythm exactly right, I think you'll find it hard! Or maybe I'm just bad at singing... but I don't think so - I think they're rather slippery. And so he put this melody in several extremely catchy frames:

  1. Starting the song, a repeated ominous 4-note theme. This should remind you of the phrase "band on the run" from the title song of this album.

  2. A recurring bump-and-grind thing on rhythm guitar, which anchors the whole piece. This is actually reminiscent of a reggae rhythm, since it plays the 3rd and 4th beats while leaving the 1st and 2nd silent.

  3. Most obviously, the shouted chorus of "Jet!" The whole band sings this, and its intense while still sounding cheery. They do it 3 times before the main lyrics come in with that descending melody. From then on, the first 2 of the 3 are followed by an insanely catchy "woo-oo-oo-oo-oo-oo". This instantly grabs everyone.

  4. A chorus with a different type of melody:

Ah Mater want Jet to always love me
Ah Mater want Jet to always love me
Ah Mater, much later

(1/2)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwRXxtwcJus

oschene,
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

@johncarlosbaez I think it possible that the music and the lyrics are informed by the Bowie song which came out the year before, Suffragette City. Say, a old-fashioned rocker comments on the glam rock scene.

ZachWeinersmith, to random
@ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social avatar

One of the disappointing things about living in this sci fi future is that nobody wants a heads-up display. They're annoying with basically no upside in most contexts, but when I was a kid I always imagined needing data readouts or whatever.

oschene,
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

@ZachWeinersmith Had a bike helmet once with a rearview mirror periscope, a curved bar just above eye level. So looking ahead, you could always see behind you. After a few days, that gets internalized and if you put on a regular helmet, it feels really weird, like you're missing part of your field of vision.

oschene, to origami
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

Twisting Down the Walk of Fame @origami

From a regular pentagon, hexagon and heptagon.

oschene, to origami
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

17-year Cicada @origami

A traditional model with an embedded sound file.

Since every child I see these days is weaned straight onto a smartphone, I thought it might be interesting to have origami paper connected to sound files. You know, pink paper for a piglet which would oink when you pointed a phone at it. It's an idea. And it's fifteen seconds the child wouldn't be doomscrolling for tiktoks on which are the tastiest household poisons.

Wikimedia:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/A_Magicicada_chorus_containing_M._septendecim,_M._cassini,_and_M.

Minimus, to random
@Minimus@archaeo.social avatar

fabula murina (mouse story) CIII
Minimus et Silvius duos nummos Romanos scrutantur (Minimus and Silvius are examining two Roman coins). obliqua imago Neronis muribus non placet; inhumanus videtur (The mice don't like Nero's profile; he looks mean).

oschene,
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

@Minimus Ostendite mihi denarium cuius habet imaginem et inscriptionem?

ernie, to random
@ernie@writing.exchange avatar

You know those Redbox kiosks? Turns out nobody is using them and the company that runs them is getting sued because it isn’t paying its bills. https://www.lowpass.cc/p/redbox-cvs-sheetz-lawsuit-711-kiosk-removal

oschene,
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

@ernie Now there are little libraries to fill that niche:
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/03/21/arts/free-blockbuster-dvd-movies-box.html

oschene, to origami
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

Hexagonal Box with a Dome Closure. A Shuzo Fujimoto twist box with a curved surface twist on top.
@origami

GerardWestendorp, to random
@GerardWestendorp@mathstodon.xyz avatar

I was at the G4G (maths, puzzles, gadgets etc) conference this week. This was one of the “exchange gifts”. I don’t know the creator, if someone knows, please let me know.
It is a torus tiled by 5 squares. I was surprised this is possible, so I figured out a fundamental polygon. This also turns out to be a square, which is possible because ( 5 = 2^2 + 1^2) .

oschene,
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

@GerardWestendorp Susan Goldstine, perhaps?

oschene, to origami
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

https://penntoday.upenn.edu/news/penn-sas-kamien-mechanics-knitting

@origami @knitting

oschene,
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

@Danpiker @origami @knitting Excellent! I was thinking there must have been something behind that interview. And having more pictures makes the idea much more real to me.

ZachWeinersmith, to random
@ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social avatar

9 year old is into mythical epics. She knows Beowulf. Got her a kids Iliad, Odyssey, and Ramayana. What else?

oschene,
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

@ZachWeinersmith D'aulaire's Book of Greek Myths. D'aulaire's Book of Norse Myths.

mcc, to random
@mcc@mastodon.social avatar

There has been a lot of talk about the problems with so-called "AI" but one I don't feel gets enough attention is that "AI" products are surveillance products. "AI" is inevitably run in a cloud service, and in order for the AI to know what to generate some amount of the context within your application— usually it's not clear to the user what context, or how much— has to get sent to the cloud. The more of my local app state that gets transmitted over the Internet, the less comfortable I am.

oschene,
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

@mcc You can run these things locally -- only way I'm comfortable with it. Slower, but not a pipeline to the advertisers and whoever else is interested.
https://simonwillison.net/2023/Nov/29/llamafile/

oschene,
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

@mcc Don't know -- I figured, if I was in a position where I have to use an LLM, a work thing for instance, I'd rather have it in a sandbox where it won't be leaking prompts and results. No network connectivity is needed.

oschene, to medievodons
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

A Christmas Eve tradition migrated from that other site,
Hrodulf readnosa hrandeor.

@medievodons

Lo, Hrodulf the red-nosed reindeer — That beast didn’t have unshiny nostrils! The goodly nose-cartilage glittered and glowed. The hoof-bearers taunted him with proud words; The comrades wouldn’t allow wretched Hrodulf To join the reindeer games. Then, on Christmas Eve, bound in storms Santa Claus remembered that, spoke formally to him: “Dear night-sighted friend, nose-bright one! You, Hrodulf, shall lead my adorned rapid-wagon!” Then the sky-flyers praised their lead-deer — There was gladness and music; one of the horned ones sang: “Lo, Hrodulf the red-nosed reindeer, Your fame spreads broadly, you are renowned!”

clive, to random
@clive@saturation.social avatar

Pierre-Carl Langlais custom-trained a version of ChatGPT on English texts from the 17th century and earlier ...

... so that it speaks like a 17th-century learned monk ...

... whose factual knowledge of the world ends in the 17th century

It's called "Monad-GPT"

Here's a sample of the dialogue

Item #1 in my latest "Linkfest" newsletter, here: https://buttondown.email/clivethompson/archive/linkfest-13-17th-century-chatgpt-the-merovingian/

oschene,
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

@clive Wow!
It needs a Sir Thomas Browne component, to debunk its wilder flights of fancy.

ZachWeinersmith, to random
@ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social avatar

This relates to me arguing about space stuff, but actually I'm just interested: lots of people (self included) assert "everyone said humans would never fly prior to the airplane." But the people saying this are never named. Is there a historiography? Guess is it's actually a lot more nuanced.

Like even the story about Goddard being shamed for saying we could go to the Moon is vitiated by him just being a really weird dude.

oschene,
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

@ZachWeinersmith Did anyone have to say it? I'm not sure what we call flying would even be recognizable as flying to an 18th century person. It would be closer to ballistics, wouldn't it?

ZachWeinersmith, to random
@ZachWeinersmith@mastodon.social avatar

Was doing a joke about a modern Jacob and Esau but I think the reference is too obscure?

oschene,
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

@ZachWeinersmith Druther have a mess of pottage, but go ahead.

futurebird, to random
@futurebird@sauropods.win avatar

I regret to inform you shirt stays (not collar stays the other kind) are
1 comfortable
2 incredibly effective
3 make you look suspiciously neat and tidy

Nothing that looks this stupid should work so well. If you have some suspicious little neat nick in your life whose shirt is always magically tucked in? I regret to inform you they probably have them on.

It’s all very disturbing.

oschene,
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

@futurebird Surely, you remember Dill in To Kill a Mockingbird:

Dill was a curiosity. He wore blue linen shorts that buttoned to his shirt, his hair was snow white and stuck to his head like duckfluff; he was a year my senior but I towered over him.

Minimus, to random
@Minimus@archaeo.social avatar

19 Sisyphus thought himself astutior deis (cleverer than the gods), betrayed Jupiter's commissa (secrets) and fraudavit (cheated) Pluto. He's doomed to roll a saxum rotundum (round rock) in adversum clivum (uphill) in Tartarus (the Underworld) for ever.

oschene,
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

@Minimus
Sisyphus wrote the first version of Dies otii Mors gaudet (Death Takes a Holiday).

ernie, to random
@ernie@writing.exchange avatar

Not going to lie, my Steve Urkel post is performing better than I thought it would

oschene,
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

@ernie

Minimus, (edited ) to random
@Minimus@archaeo.social avatar

13: Arachne, perita textrix (a skilful weaver), challenged Minerva to a weaving certamen (contest), but stulte gloriata est (stupidly boasted) of her victory. Minerva turned her into an aranea (spider)!

oschene,
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

@Minimus Sing, Muse, the sad tale of Nyctimene, consort of the faultless Minerva.

ernie, to random
@ernie@writing.exchange avatar

Help, I need tungsten to live! Tungsten!

oschene,
@oschene@mastodon.social avatar

@ernie Have you read Uncle Tungsten? Good stuff.

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