I posted an update to my origami site at http://zingman.com/origami. The main page now features larger thumbnails and an update image for the Fox. I added a few new models from 2011 including the Inchworm and the Dual Cube. I still have a bunch more new models to add, including some new tessellations, and while I’m at it take better pics of the Fox, and add the CP for Dual Cube. In the descriptions of the model I’ve added links indicating where diagrams for that model have been published.
Category: Software
Technology Is Not Enough
Here’s an article about my ol’ alma mater, NYU ITP:
http://rhizome.org/editorial/2011/dec/15/technology-not-enough-story-nyus-interactive-telec/
‘Tis The Season
Been doing lots of holiday stuff the last couple weeks. A trip to the museum, two family holiday parties, three kid’s performing arts shows, and four work-related parties, town halls and similar functions. Whew.
I took the kids to the AMNH a couple weeks ago, and we had a great time. Spent a long time with the dinosaurs and the frogs, and in the hall of minerals. The Origami Tree is in the south hall this year, since they’re doing renovations in the lower hall on the Central Park side. My elephants were featured in the “folding the museum” display at the base of the tree, and they saved a number of my models from years past, which are in the tree.
I also folded some models – a dragon and a moose – as ornaments for the tree at the kids’ school.
Yesterday was the big family xmas party for Jeannie’s dad’s side of the family. A good time and great to catch up with all for Long Island cousins. Today was a party for her mom’s side. Had to skip that one to get some things done.
Our kids a in this after school theatre program, in which they do singing and dancing and acting. They had two different shows last week, one for the younger kids and one for the bigger ones, and it’s pretty impressive the level of the performance. Later this week there’s some kind of holiday play. Lizzy is an angel and gets to say some lines.
There’s been a lot of end-of year holiday parties, for my immediate team, for the platform group, and for the whole company. Our corporate parties tend to be rather boozy affairs, but I survived alright. I’ve been there long enough that I have friends in all different divisions, so it was good to catch up. Then there was a town hall in which our corporate overlords are telling us out of one side of their mouth how the company had a great year and made tons of money, and out of the other how internet piracy is destroying our business and killing innocent people and must be stopped. Umm, yeah.
All this has been great fun, but it’s really hard to get stuff done. Looking forward to taking a few days off this week and getting caught up.
Any Jobber Got the Sack
The recent death of Steve Jobs has put me in a surprisingly contemplative mood, thinking about how Apple has affected my life and career since 1982 or ’83 when I first programmed on an Apple II. In particular I’ve been thinking about the fall of 1996, when I first arrived in Silicon Valley, just as Mr. Jobs was engineering his prodigal return to Apple. Here’s an article I read last week, an interview from Playboy magazine back in 1985. Might’ve been the Madonna issue. I feel like I read it back in the day, because some parts ring familiar. It’s amazing how on he was about the future of the industry, and also how much everything has changed.
The Adventure Continues
This was the first weekend I’ve been home in a month. So here’s a quick post to bring you up to date. After our big vacation in mid July, we spent last weekend camping with Martin’s and Nick’s. It was a great time, and great weather. Just a bit of rain as we were setting up camp, but then it cleared up. We were lucky; they were predicting a major storm. The whole thing was nice and mellow. Did some hikin, swimming’, barbecuein’, storytellin’, and just hangin’ out. Charlie is bright, well tempered and energetic, and getting big fast. Martin is moving on building his new house, so it’s only a matter of time until asks for his guitars back.
When I’ve been home I’ve been crazy busy at work the last two weeks, staying late and going back to work after the kids were in bed. Friday was our big demo. It was a tree browser for related records in our content management system, with all kinds of complex functionality for auto-expanding the tree and including related records, and managing duplicate records, circular dependencies and other kinds of relationships. I was pair programming with a colleague much of that time, and it was an interesting experience trying to build a huge, complex feature set under time pressure. We didn’t always see eye to eye on the approach, but in the end what we came up with was probably better than what either of us would have done on our own, and certainly faster. Olga is clever at using hash tables to speed things up, and good at low level implementation. On the other hand, her communication skills aren’t great, and I had a better understanding of the feature requirements. So I was focused on the architecture, the classes and methods, and how to keep it forward-maintainable, which often gets sacrificed in these situations. A well-written application should read like a good story. I ended up rewriting a substantial portion of here work to put all the business logic in one place so it could be easily read and (if necessary) modified down the line. Anyhow, we made our deadline and the application looked great and performed fast, so it was a big success and things will hopefully get back to normal.
Next up: I need a new lawmower.
OUSA ’11 Recap
With the 4th of July weekend right on the heels of the origami convention, it’s been a busy few weeks. So here’s a bit of catching up. I had a good time at the convention, and caught up a bunch of friends. I also to a very positive response to the release of my new eBook. I taught my Walrus, which turned out to be a big hit, as well as my Narwhal. I also taught my Stellated Octahedron with Color Change, which turned out to be very challenging to fold. I came up with several new models including my two interlocking cubes (I’ve been working out how to do it with a color change from a single sheet), and some new tessellations including a Quadrose tiling and a Penrose tiling. I bought some nice paper from a vendor from Ohio, Origamido-style but thicker. The plan is to fold a few of my complex models out them, including the Zeppelin, Dragon and War Elephant. I also got an idea to extend my origami-from-space series to include a Space Shuttle. Photos of all this coming whenever I get around to it.
Every few years it seems someone new arrives on the scene folding amazing stuff. In the last few years it was T.J. Norville and then Dinh Giang. This year it was teh charming Beth Johnson, who has lots of curvy, dimensions models such as a pinecone and sheep that make use of tessellations as a design element. You can see some of her work at http://bethorigami.wordpress.com
My publisher Brian gave a Monday talk about eBook publishing for origami. One topic he covered is the diff between eBooks and apps. After we got to talking, and I realized my Foldinator is almost ready to be an origami app engine (notwithstanding the issue of running a Flash application on iOS). I haven’t worked on it in a while, and when I left off I was getting deep into the heart of the computational problem of mathematically representing and manipulating a folded piece of paper. The whole thing can be greatly simplified by just using pre-rendered graphics for each step. This may be a bit of a cheat, but it’s a good hack, since I’ve had to create images for all the models in me eBook anyway. So soon I’ll be putting together a prototype. Meanwhile, Brain has been dusting off my OrigamiXML spec with an eye toward expanding it for use in ebooks and apps.
Also, now that my ebook is done I’m working on putting together a print book. I’ve been going thru and making page layouts. This well be a superset of the ebook, with 20 – 24 models compared tot eh ebook’s 12. Hopefully when that’s done I can move straight on to a second ebook.
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For the long weekend of the 4th we had out of town guests, a 70th birthday celebration for my father-in-law, a big ol’ barbecue the next day, plus trying to fit music and origami stuff and work around the house and yard. More on that soon. Back to the office today, which almost feels like a break. Lots more excitement coming in the next few weeks, with travel and adventure, so stay tuned.
Web Site Update: Zing Origami
I recently completed an update to my web site, adding a page for theZing Origami eBook and making it the current feature on the home page. Also added a features page so you can go an dig all the previous features. Enjoy!
May Flowers
Back to the ol’ grind grind. Turmoil at work. Ah, the impersonal slings and arrows of working for a large corporation. I lost my private office recently in yet another reorg, and moved to a new location. Which is fine as far as it goes: I’m in an open area now with my actual colleagues, so the arrangement makes sense and is more social and congenial than it was before when people were scatted all over several floors. And we’re on the sunny side of the building. The thing is, my location has a built-in desktop that was several inches too low (I’m 6’6” tall). Before I left on spring break, the building services people came by and said they’d raise my desk, but when I got back they’d done nothing and closed the work order, declaring the problem solved. So I had to go after these people, which was a drag. When pressed they refused to fix it as a matter of policy. Picking up a screwdriver would cross an uncrossable line it seems. So I moved to another location nearby with an adjustable desk, causing lots of annoyance to my neighbors I’m sure.
Some good news: it was a lovely weekend. The first really warm weekend of the spring, with hint of summer. The girls had their dance recital on Saturday, and both did really well. The studio puts on a really nice show every year with acts and costumes and music. Sunday we did some more yard work, planting and edging, and I went skating and took the Mustang out for a ride, and we made a barbecue.
Also: getting used to the new car. At first I was just relieved to be done with the car shopping ordeal, but now I’ve driven it a few times, mainly to the train station and am starting to get a feel for it. It’s certainly much quieter and less falling-apartish than the old car. Plus the color is really nice. Blue with hints of purple and green when the light strikes it the right way. The stereo is weird. It has subwoofer, so the bass tends to be muddy and indistinct. Also all the bass is coming from the back of the car. It took some time, but I adjusted it to sound better. Next up is figuring out how to set the clock and the radio presets.
I figured out “The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald” on guitar. Don’t ask me why. The song’s been stuck in my head since the 70’s. Needed to get it out. Lizzy asked my why all songs about disasters are so long (she’s heard me play American Pie too). I figured out the secret for WotEF: it never resoloves. The first and last chord is an A sus, so you never know if it’s in a major or minor key. There’s not a C or C# anywhere in the tune, just a void.
Origami Site Update
I updated my origami site with some of the pictures I took for my book. Also update the blurbs for a bunch of models.
http://zingman.com/origami/
http://zingman.com/origami/adk_ori.php
http://zingman.com/origami/ori_animals.php#loon
http://zingman.com/origami/ori_animals.php#octopi
http://zingman.com/origami/ori_things.php#balloon
http://zingman.com/origami/ori_things.php#canoe
http://zingman.com/origami/ori_things.php#adk_chair
Origami Site Update
I updated my origami site with some of the pictures I took for my book. Also update the blurbs for a bunch of models.
http://zingman.com/origami/
http://zingman.com/origami/adk_ori.php
http://zingman.com/origami/ori_animals.php#loon
http://zingman.com/origami/ori_animals.php#octopi
http://zingman.com/origami/ori_things.php#balloon
http://zingman.com/origami/ori_things.php#canoe
http://zingman.com/origami/ori_things.php#adk_chair