Origami: Four linked Triangles

Four linked triangles

Four Linked Triangles, designed by me

This is an original design that I made in 2019.  The instructions are lost to time.  I usually at least have some messy digital sketches, but I got nothing here.

Well, I recall a bit from memory.  This is one of those designs that follows a fairly braindead design pattern: throw lots of pieces of paper at it.  Each triangle?  Six separate sheets of paper.  I’m sure part of the reason I didn’t preserve instructions is that I was not so impressed with the design.  If I gave it another shot, I’m sure I could do better than that.

How did I think of linking four triangles?  Well, that’s nothing new.  There’s a very famous origami model called Four Intersecting Triangles by Tung Ken Lam.  (That model only uses three sheets per triangle.)  So, I just have a hole in each triangle.  It’s neat to assemble, because when you only have three linked triangles, they lie flat, and have a valknut topology.  Once you put in the fourth triangle, it is forced into a 3D configuration.

I later took this design, and made a 10 intersecting triangle version.  That design… was not terrific.  Maybe I’ll show it at some point.

It’s the economy

When playing the blame game for the 2024 presidential election, a lot of people point towards social issues. Not to dispute the importance of white identity politics, but polling suggests that the largest concern among voters was the economy, so let’s at least give that issue the time of day.

The funny thing about the economy is that it tends to lag behind economic policy, or just do its own thing based on external factors. During elections, people blame current economic conditions on the current president, even though those economic conditions might have little to do with the president’s actions, or could even be blamed on the previous president. The nightmare scenario is people blaming Biden for the consequences Trump’s bad policies, and then later crediting Trump for the consequences of Biden’s good policies.

This is why it might help to understand what good or bad economic policy looks like. In general, this is hard. But Trump makes it easy, with his very obviously bad economic proposals.

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The cultural practice of community agreements

How many readers are familiar with the practice of community agreements? This was a widely extant practice in my experience with queer student groups and queer conferences in the US in the 2010s. At the beginning of almost every discussion, the moderator would establish some ground rules, usually using catch phrases as titles, written on a black board.

For example, “One mic one diva” cautions against interruption, while “step up step back” cautions against dominating the conversation. “Oops, ouch, educate” outlines appropriate steps when someone makes a mistake. “Don’t yuck my yum” cautions against derogating what others love. “Use ‘I’ statements” asks people to avoid generalizing their personal experiences. And there’s often a “confidentiality” agreement, which doesn’t have a catch phrase but is still obviously important. The particular choice of agreements may vary, and sometimes the same agreements go under different names.

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No apology

Imagine, if you will, using a public restroom.  After about a minute, a stranger that you were barely paying attention to, pipes up unprompted.  “I’m sorry I haven’t been a proper conversational partner.  I’m just not in the mood for small talk today.”  Awkward silence…

A bit of wisdom from over 15 years hobby blogging: never apologize for an absence.  While I might have a personal commitment to write this or that much, barely any readers will be aware of my commitment, and none will care that I’ve missed it.  Apologizing for absence is a form of self-centeredness–and it’s natural to be self-centered on a personal blog, but let us not express self-centeredness in a way that only serves to make ourselves feel bad.

And that’s not to invalidate feelings of inadequacy.  I have two or three more hobbies than I can reasonably sustain, the pain is real.  But publicly and uncritically expressing those feelings will only reinforce them.  So this is me giving voice to those negative feelings, while being highly critical of same feelings.

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What does it mean that AI is “remixing existing work”?

Marcus reminded me of the common claim: “AI is just remixing existing works”. Or the more colorful version, “AI just regurgitates existing art”. This is in reference to creative uses of AI image generators or LLMs.

While there may be a grain of truth to the claim, I have difficulty making sense of what it’s even saying. It’s basically an unverifiable statement. I think both pro- and anti-AI folks would be better served by a more technical understanding.  So, instead of being stuck at an impasse, we might be able to actually find answers.

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Link Roundup: January 2025

This month, I wrote a history of color symbology in ace and aro flags.

Atheist group faces backlash after publishing, then removing, anti-trans article | Friendly Atheist (via) – If you’re interested to know how atheist organizations deal with trans issues, Hemant provides a pretty good summary, through the lens of one recent incident.  Some orgs are better than others, but it’s frustrating how even trusted orgs can’t seem to maintain a consistent trans-positive stance.  Thankfully there were enough trans-positive voices to pressure FFRF to retract.  But I think atheist orgs have likely suffered from evaporation, with many trans-positive folks simply opting to leave (like me!).

Matthew S. Burns on AI, Empathy, and the Making of Eliza | Circuits & Synapses – As people become broadly familiar with AI chatbots, most old fiction about AI has not aged very well.  After all, the fiction was never about AI, it was about exploring humanity.  Eliza is a visual novel about using AI for talk therapy, and I think is one of the few works of fiction that has aged very well, because it was grounded in the realities (and pitfalls) of tech.  This is an interview with the author, looking back at Eliza.

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