Storyboarding LCDs

The above figure, by David Koski, developed in a Java application called vZome by Scott Vorthmann, shows several polyhedrons (polyhedra) sharing vertexes (vertices).

They are color coded for discernability.

The yellow lines, for example, form the diamond faceted rhombic dodecahedron of special interest to Kepler.

The green lines form an octahedron, the red lines a rhombic triancontahedron (30 rhombic faces).

Their volume ratios are as follows:

• Red rhombic triancontahedron : solid cyan cube :: 7.5 : 3.
• Yellow rhombic dodecahedron : same cube :: 6 : 3.
• Green Octahedron: 4.

These ratios are not in lowest terms and the last "ratio" implies 4 : 1, with 1 being our unit of volume, a tetrahedron of edges 1 CCP ball diameter (the tetrahedron is defined by four inter-tangent balls of equal radius).

These computations relate the above shapes and ratios to an additional set of polyhedrons, three having the same shape as the red one above, but with different relative volumes: 5, 5.00+, and 21.21+.

To have a rhombic triacontahedron (RT) of volume 5, you need to shrink the 7.5 RT's volume by 2/3 and therefore all its linear measures by the 3rd root of 2/3.

The resulting RT's radius is very close to 1 (0.999+), assuming the diameter of any CCP sphere to be 2.

The shaded blue line labeled "mind the gap" is about the tiny difference between the T-modules RT and the E-modules RT, each "module" being 1/120th of its respective rhombic triacontahedron.

:: click for larger view ::

Jitterbug Perfume is an allusion to the book by that title, by Tom Robbins, but also to Fuller's operational adaptation of that word, a dance style, to the twisting-contracting motion whereby a skeletal cuboctahedron might be formed into an icosahedron using six additional equi-lengthed edges.

That icosahedron, combined with its intersecting dual, the pentagonal dodecahedron, its "wife", "give birth" to yet another rhombic triacontahedron, phi bigger than the E-moduled rhombic triacontahedron, or phi to the 3rd power bigger by volume (phi being the golden mean or golden ratio, pronounced "fee" by some, "fie" by me).

Again in terms of our unit tetrahedron of 4 CCP spheres, this larger (or "super") rhombic triacontahedron has a volume of 15 times the second root of 2.

The E-mod rhombic triancontahedron "phi down" from the super one, has a radius (body center to face center) identical to that of the CCP spheres.

To summarize:

Four rhombic triacontahedrons have been discussed, with volumes 5, 5+, 7.5, and "over 21".

The 5 and 5+ are very close to the same volume ("mind the gap") and are each exploded into 120 tetrahedral modules, the Ts and the Es respectively (E for Einstein or maybe "explodes", T for triacontahedron).

The T-module RT has a close relationship with the red one up top, the 7.5. The T-modules have volume 1/24, identical to that of the A & B modules, which build the other shapes (besides the red one) in the top picture.

The E-module RT has a close affinity for the "jitterbug" RT, the one that embeds the 18.51+ volumed icosahedron, with edges equal to the diameter of the unit-tetrahedron-defining CCP spheres.

CCP = closest cubic packing, the same as the IVM or "isotropic vector matrix" when comparing scaffolding or skeletons. Architects may say "octet truss" for the same space frame, studied intensively by Alexander Graham Bell before Fuller got a patent for it.

Motherboard (meeting review)

Nirel's Adventures

Tonight we adjourned to the Linus Pauling House (his boyhood home on Hawthorne Boulevard in Portland, Oregon), to listen to my friend Nirel (whom I haven't seen in ages) recount her adventures from around the world.

She'd started in Calcutta, with her two adult children, a young man and young woman, both beautiful, as she is, and rejoined with her yoga teacher, some hours outside the city, in a truly isolated area. After some weeks of this, they'd traveled to Goa by train, at which point the siblings went back to America, first the daughter, then the son. Nirel stayed on with her colleague. They were to work on a high end art book in Paris, about yoga and the human form.

Her adventures took her onward to Paris then, followed by Athens, the Greek islands, Amsterdam, Italy, Norway and then home (I'm abbreviating the trajectory, which was more of a pinball machine). Her culture shock upon arrival in Paris, after months in India, was severe, though she ended up loving Paris too. Italy, arrived at by ferry from Greece (some stories there), was beyond charming. Milano, where Bruno began, was in full fashion.

Her photography is superb and unvarnished, with special attention to signage, iconography, how they do hygiene. She's an inveterate anthropologist and loves humans enough to not weary of these journeys. This makes her lovely to be with, and it's no mystery why she has so many friends around the world, true admirers and fans (myself one of them; I wave to all of you others).

I left pretty early after the talk, wanting to buy Tara some tea. The venue was packed, as one would expect. This was a highpoint of 2010, I have to confess. I wish Tara could have come (she was definitely invited), and Lindsey too.

Walker got hit by a car again, at night in a crosswalk, light in her favor, and is pulling yet another all nighter at the DIY bike shop, getting the tractor bike back into shape for the big adventure. The front wheel was destroyed.

As some Cult of Athena guy, let me just say I feel surrounded by enlightened souls, praise Allah. These are amazing human beings (among other animals).

Speaking of other animals, they're kind to cows in India, but not to dogs so much. Bhutan seemed friendlier to dogs to me as well. Lots of anthropology here. Lets show Best in Show in Calcutta sometime (note to ambassador), also Goa?

Happy Thanksgiving

:: TG 2010 (CIO, CTO depicted, photos by CMO) ::

We're closing shop for a few days.

I've got some business meeting notes tacked on to the end of this post to Synergeo, in case you're looking for more CSN history.

Welcome back Nirel. I'm pleased they're planning to make that movie of your adventures.

I'll be staying with our CIO and his family unless the roads are impassable.

A Belated Happy Halloween

:: click for larger view ::

Family and friends, including businessman / adventurer Sam Lanahan and chairman of Python Software Foundation Steve Holden, shared a Halloween dinner on Hawthorne Blvd (aka Asylum Avenue). We then adjourned to our respective digs. Kids came to our door.

Say, that Visible Warrior campaign and/or student exercise at Cleveland High, was enticingly relevant to our digital portfolio/transcripts, where you log what you're for (pro) and against (anti) -- not that those are the only two possibilities (segue to "precession" in Synergetics).

Imagine a transcript that said you were "checking out" (as in "examining") an issue or cause. That doesn't define whether you're pro or anti, just that you cared enough to delve into it. In terms of game play, instead of a high score, you might just have a "played it" check box (a short experience of some kind, perhaps interactive).

Yes, I'm somewhat implying your transcript is human-readable, which for the most part it probably would be. That doesn't mean you can have encrypted parts, or levels of access. You have some control over who sees what, a feature of the environment called privacy which we value in other contexts as well.

Since my last entry, I've been attending GOSCON, which was some about the new Electronic Medical Record. I yakked about my NoSQL "scrap book", with lots of meta records by doctors in "connect the dots" mode.

What I noticed at Free Geek was a paucity of open source fund accounting software. You'd think a Foundation or two would have gotten together and made it a reality by now. It'd save so much on charities, if they didn't have to keep buying the same bookkeeping software over and over. There's probably a lot of political pressure to keep an OSS solution from gaining traction, d'ya think?

Anyway, we're getting there. Launch date is still quite a ways away and we're already connected to plenty of game companies.

Subscriber Channels

The edupunk movement uses open source course / curriculum materials as raw input to make these hacked, value added, channel streams.

I'm on the lookup for a channel suitable for such as Laughing Horse Books (and video collective): Obey Giant type material is part of the mixins (ala Shepard Fairey), plus recycling posters for past and upcoming music events.

A channel needs a good VJ sometimes, someone to break in with allusions and timely reminders. We're not just running what was stuffed in a can for this time slot, days or weeks back, even though many clips are golden oldie. The mix gets remixed.

I'm not against auto-mixing algorithms as some readers know though. The hypertoons archive comes with segue / bridge nodes organized by connecting-edge scenarios. These partially overlapping animations and/or live action streams of consciousness have a seamless quality, especially if tightly crafted to organize a namespace / reality, such as Uru. Geometry lends itself to teaching by hypertoon, as does Geography (a specific terrain).

My sources tend towards cartoon, some circus material. This relates to the carnival atmosphere of the original geekdom. There's also the underground comix aspect, the idea of superheros, goddesses, archetypal beings. Geography + Geometry. There's also the Martian Math angle, mixed with RBF's bluer lagoon (more Polynesian, with lots of dolphins and mermaids).

:: js inspects art book near Remote, Oregon::

A Fifth Tetrahedron

A family of space-filing tetrahedra fill this triangular prism (as well as those next to it). Another vZome by David Koski based on research by Michael Goldberg and others.

This family is in addition to the four space-filling tetrahedra cataloged by D.M.Y. Sommerville in 1923: the Mite, Rite, Bite and 1/4 Rite (using Bucky Fuller's nomenclature).

Dr. John Belt, SUNY, Oswego