Book return

The library asked for
The Routes of Man: How Roads Are Changing the World and the Way We Live Today - Ted Conover back before I finished it. Either I've A: been to tired from returning to work to read...or B: it's not holding my attemtion.

I expect its a bit of both.

I will need to create a new book list - started, not finished. The Routes of Man: How Roads will be in good company, I can add it to GEB

What he said

Krugman

Books

Picked up a couple of new books recently. The first while on a road trip to Rhode Island:
The Edge of Physics: A Journey to Earth's Extremes to Unlock the Secrets of the Universe
I've read several pages From it in a wonderful independent bookstore while waiting for Martha and this book definitely has promise....looking forward to reading it; I think it may keep me from finishing "The Routes Of Man - Ted Conover" before I have to return it to the library.

The other book:
The Golden Ratio: The Story of PHI, the World's Most Astonishing Number

Haven't cracked this one yet. picked it up at a local borders that was closing as a present to myself to celebrate my new hip.  290 pages on the  graphic that serves as this blog header has to be a good thing.

Lang on origami - math, insects, space telescopes and the power of dead people

I seldom if ever visit YouTube land, but somehow the iPad has increased the amount of time I cruise the intertubes. Hopefully not entirely time wasted.

Today I found this 18 minute Video Lang made at TED. Art, Math, Origami, insects, Space telescopes and "dead people".

(edit....for those who are not origami enthusiasts Dr Lang is a pre-eminent origami artist whose background is that of a physicist and engineer among others things...)

Rehab transitions....Road Trip

The origami rehab project seems to be phasing out - that is, now that I'm able to go out and am attempting to return to my old routine, origami projects have lagged.

But reading has increased and road trips as well.

Yesterday we went on a great trip to the Green Mountain Spinnery. For those who visit from Ravelry no explanation is needed , but for the rest of you the Spinnery creates yarn and my wife is a consummate knitter. I love to drive, she loves to look for just the right yarn and hence we love trips to places like the Spinnery. I can usually read a chapter or two while we visit as well...

I wish I brought a camera because unlike any other yarn store we visit the Spinnery manufacture their yarn on site. In fact the store is tiny - the yarn making machinery takes up the bulk of the building. Did I mention I love old machinery lately? We didn't realize the Spinnery allowed visitor to tour the place or that they used old equipment so it was a great treat and surprise when we arrived and were shown each machine and given an explanation for it's purpose.

The Spinnerys web site has a nice virtual tour which includes all the steps involved in creating the yarn; the history about each machine is also nicely documented. perhaps next time we go I'll get images; till then enjoy their site.

Administrivia

I've made some changes to the blog this week which hopefully are improvements.
One was I standardized the links for the books. Amazon makes it extremely easy to link to their pages if you join the affiliate program and the results, I think, are good.

I wanted to be able to present an image for each book from a location where it could be bought and the links now consistantly do that. I had planned to go with borders but they don't have tools to make it simple - and seeing I don't expect to spending alot of time maintaining this blog simple is good.

I don't expect to make anything from the links, but on the off chance you find one of the books I've read interesting by all means click thru and buy!

Adding the slideshow was an attempt to make images posted long ago and forgotten in the archives come alive again.

Now I just need to get back to posting about rehab and origami

Duh!

After months of linking to this blog I noticed this week that if I entered it's name 123581321 I couldn't get to it. Hmmmmm. But if I googled it along with the word blog it was found.

Whats up with that?

What's up with that is that when I created the blog I left out (or blogger helpfully suggested a URL without) the 5. I do recall thinking it was astounding that no one had taken 123581321 when I started. So the dilemma is whether to leave the screw up which sort of defeats the point or leaving it as is so the thousands (hundreds, dozens?) of followers I have accumulated don't have to change their links.

Hmmm

guess I'll leave it as it is...

Almost Origami

SunBurst

This is not the creation promised in previous posts - those thirty components are still waiting to be assembled.

This is a design from "A kids Guide to Origami"  - it required tape though, which seems to make it more of a paper craft then true origami. And its big, the largest model made to date. Each "ray" of the sunburst is made up of three sheets, two 6x6 and one 3x3. each "ray"of sun is taped to the adjacent one. So each individual ray would pass as origami.

This would look much better with solid colors but i didn't have enough of the correct colors to make it - hence the patterned paper. It actually will look good in the living room though - the colors work with our decor.

So far so good

So the Origami portion of this blog started shortly after i had my left hip replaced and this week was the follow up visit.  The xrays looked good! The image to the right is my new hip...all metal and cement-less.

The manufacturer product page has the details on the hip including details of the tools and methods used to install it. Pretty fascinating stuff.

I'll return to origami posts once I get the next model  finished, I still have those 30 components to assemble.