The “autofill” feature of the Google search box was designed as a timesaver, but the suggested searches can also be entertaining. Writing in Slate, Michael Agger compared the autofill of “less intelligent” and “more intelligent” queries, an exercise that has previously been conducted at Digg.
The image above is a screencap of two Google searches conducted tonight using less- and more sophisticated search terms.
A corollary question would be “What searches are most commonly conducted at Neatorama?” The Lijit search engine doesn’t have an autofill feature, but it does offer a list of the most popular recent searches at Neatorama, in descending order of frequency:
“world’s smallest,” mystery sale, halloween, what is it, disney, halloween costume, pumpkin, shop, stories, tattoo, cat, facebook, halloween costumes, pear, game, costume, movie trivia, photography, new species, zombie, bacon, lego, elena desserich, google, anvil cake, costumes, national day, notes left behind, origami, national geographic, videosift, wedding, what is it? game, 6 year old, albert einstein, brain, christmas, chum, hitler, logo, one take, pig, sex, animals, art, batman, brain shot, comic, einstein, shark.
Someone else may want to tackle the sociological implications of that list; I’m not going to touch it.
Origami, the age-old discipline of folding paper into amazing figures, has its own masters, and as this post demonstrates, these geniuses can truly transform paper into any form they desire.
Origami – the traditional Japanese art of paper folding – is something that a geek could really get into. It’s all about visual math, and problem-solving, but with that artistic nuance as well. The origami artists below came up with some very cool designs, which we can definitely appreciate – so check them out!
The Origami Crane Lamp is a chandelier by Michele Varian, a New York-based fashion designer and interior decorator. It measures 58″ long is lit fluorescently.
Kusudama is an ancient Japanese form of paper folding which is still practiced today. As time passed the form evolved in to something that looks similar to origami but has a very different set of rules.
Quazen has some great pictures of both Kusudama and modular origami, into which it evolved:
The form of Kusudama goes back to before written history. The general consensus is that they were used to hold bunches of herbs or flowers as urban culture
took hold. With urbanization the desire for objects with both utility and beauty took greater hold. Before this the plants would have been hung on their own and the kusudama evolved as an aesthetically pleasing receptacle for both potpourri and incense.
Just because you need an emergency tent it doesn’t mean that you have to live in an unstylish one. Here’s the Accordion reCover Shelter, by designers Matthew Malone, Amanda Goldberg, Jennifer Metcalf and Grant Meacham:
There’s nothing flimsy about the intricate folds of the reCover Shelter, which can sustain a family of four following a disaster for up to a month. As you may suspect, the oversized origami structure can be entirely collapsed into not one, but two different shapes (either horse-shoe or flat) depending on which is easier to transport. Plus, it’s composed of polypropylene, meaning no harmful gases go into the production of the shelter and it is 100% recyclable after use. Set-up takes minutes and only requires one person on deck.
The Accordion reCover Shelter was designed as a first response shelter – “something that could be transported to the site when infrastructures such as roads were unusable”. Once the temporary residence is unfolded, the functional ridges can be used to collect drinking water, and local materials or even ground cover can be used to better insulate the structure and keep harsh weather at bay. As a sustainable and inexpensive solution to an unfortunate situation that seems to arise more and more often these days, the Accordion Shelter provides a quick roof over victim’s heads and lets them start planning immediately for better days to come.
Psychology professor Stephen Greenspan recently published a book about gullibility. He also lost a lot of money to Bernard Madoff’s financial shenanigans.
…I was a participant — and victim — of the Madoff scam, and have a pretty good understanding of the factors that caused me to behave foolishly. So I shall use myself as a case study to illustrate how even a well-educated (I’m a college professor) and relatively intelligent person, and an expert on gullibility and financial scams to boot, could fall prey to a hustler such as Madoff.
Greenspan (no relation to Alan Greenspan) explores the social situations and emotions that lead people to invest their money in scams like Ponzi schemes, and how the Madoff situation got out of hand.
The real mystery in the Madoff story is not how naïve individual investors such as myself would think the investment safe, but how the risks and warning signs could have been ignored by so many financially knowledgeable people, ranging from the adviser who sold me and my sister (and himself) on the investment, to the highly compensated executives who ran the various feeder funds that kept the Madoff ship afloat. The partial answer is that Madoff’s investment algorithm (along with other aspects of his organization) was a closely guarded secret difficult to penetrate, and partly (as in all cases of gullibility) that strong affective and self-deception processes were at work. In other words, they had too good a thing going, for themselves and their clients, to entertain the idea that it might all be about to crumble.
Giving up fast food for your New Year’s Resolution? You can still have it – since it’s made out of paper, it’s much healthier for you. I probably wouldn’t recommend eating it, though. For $6, you get 16 pieces of paper that will allow you to make two burgers, fries, a soda and a tray to put it all on.
Day of the Dead was about a month and a half ago, but I’ve just discovered a neat post by BibliOdyssey about papel picado (perforated paper) papercuts in the theme of the festival:
"In Mexico, papel picado (perforated paper), refers to the traditional art of decorative cut paper banners. Papel picado are usually cut with sharp fierritos (small chisels) from as many as fifty layers of colored tissue paper at a time. Designs may incorporate lattice-work, images of human and animal figures, flowers, and lettering. Many papel picado are made especially for the Mexican festival of the Days of the Dead and include skeletal figures engaged in the everyday activities of the living." (Source)
Now you can easily re-cycle your old sticky notes and turn them in to fun 3D models. Each one of these new note pads from Suck UK has instructions for 10 different shapes.
Instructables has step-by-step directions for making an origami cube from six New York City Metro cards -or any other type of cards you may have. It might not be all that useful, but it could be a fun project or a way to display souvenirs. If street vendors aren’t already selling these to tourists, they will be soon. Link -via Geek Like Me
In her project Fold Loud, artist JooYoun Paek created a very neat "musical origami," where by folding a piece of paper, you’d be making electrical contacts to control the music:
Each fold is assigned to a different human vocal sound so that combinations of folds create harmonies. Users can fold multiple Fold Loud sheets together to produce a chorus of voices. Opened circuits made out of conductive fabric are visibly stitched onto the sheets of paper which creates a meta-technological aesthetic. When the sheets are folded along crease lines, a circuit is closed like a switch.
Link [auto-playing video with music demonstrating Fold Loud] – via Craft, thanks Becky!
Flickr user origami_madness created that awesomely simple yet brilliant "crumpled" paper origami titled "Frustration" – I wonder how many pieces of paper got tossed before just-the-right expression was successfully folded?
Freaking News has a neat photoshop contests where the faces of celebrities are mashed up with those of national figures on money. Some look so dead-on they’re freaky!
This origami cube is more than just an LED paper lantern. Its circuitry is made of flexible aluminum foil fused to the paper! You can make it yourself with instructions from Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories, and you can adapt the shape to your favorite origami project. Link
In the Japanese paperfolding art of origami, cutting the paper is frowned upon. But in 1981, Masahiro Chatani, professor of Architecture at Tokyo Institute of Technology proved that papercutting could indeed produce stunning pieces of art.
Along with his colleague Keiko Nakazawa, Chatani developed Origamic Architecture, a variation of kirigami (itself a variation of origami where cuts were allowed), where you only needed an X-acto knife and a ruler to create complex 3-dimensional structures out of a single sheet of paper.
Origamic Architecture sculptures range from (the relatively simple) geometric patterns to famous buildings’ facades. It’s like 3-D pop-up greeting cards, but much, much more complex. While looking at the examples below, keep this in mind: everything’s done with the simple cuts of the knife.
Simple cuts can result in stunning geometric shapes – from Gerry Stormer’s gallery (click the artist’s name for more):
Stairs to Paradise by Gerry Stormer (Photo: Carl Uetz)
Diagonal Steps by Gerry Stormer (Photo: Carl Uetz)
From the master himself, Masahiro Chatani’s origamic architecture creations:
Here are some MC Escher inspired designs, from the fantastic gallery of Ingrid Siliakus:
By Ingrid Siliakus, based on Escher’s Ascending and Descending (comparison)
By Ingrid Siliakus, based on Escher’s Cycle (comparison)
Some are very artistic, like the Origamic Architecture sculptures by Maria Victoria Garrido (Marivi):
Marivi’s Heraldy is also a very creative use of Origamic Architecture:
Some Origamic Architectures sculptors took it a step further: creating a fully 3-dimensional sculptures that "pop" out of the card when opened. For example, take a look at Keiko Nakazawa’s art:
Rat by Keiko Nakazawa
The Hare by Keiko Nakazawa
If you have any more noteworthy examples, please let me know!
Thirteen Kawasaki Roses, made from a single square of elephat hide (two-sided paper with a smooth, marble-like appearance). Photo: thiomor [Flickr]
Fractured flower, a 3D tessellation. Photo: thiomor [Flickr]
If you look closely at this one, you’ll see a familiar video game character. Can you see what it is? Photo: thiomor [Flickr]
I am awed at John McKeever’s origami tessellations, some of which look straight out of an M.C. Escher artwork. It seems unbelievable, but the intricate paper sculptures are all made from a single sheet of paper.
See the whole photoset here: Link - Thanks Philip Chapman-Bell! (By the way, Philip himself is a master of origami whose work have been featured on Neatorama twicebefore)
Blue Tea blog has a neat round-up of unusual origamis (lots of neat pictures, too!). We’ve featured a number of the artists here on Neatorama, but it’s neat to rediscover their work again and again while browsing the Net.
Physicist Dr. Robert Lang took up origami as a hobby (featured previously at Neatorama). Who knew his hobby would lead to breakthroughs in astronomy, heart surgery, and consumer safety? You’ll be surprised at all the ways intricate paper-folding can be applied to modern technology. Damn Interesting has the story. Link
Here’s an example of how they are so into Starcraft: origami of dozens of Starcraft characters and ships, lovingly folded by a South Korean otaku. Link
If you’re giving a CD or a DVD as a Christmas present, here’s a nifty trick you can do to make the gift wrap just as interesting as the actual gift. Sent in by Neatorama reader Philip Chapman-Bell, who wrote:
This is the instructables.com tutorial for the Spiral Data Tato, a curiously complex origami CD or DVD case that can be made from one sheet of A4 or Americadian letter paper. The paper is folded into two double helices and zipped up with a single helix along the rim. It makes a delightful zipping sound when opened (see the ten second video in step 8). The perfect thing for a mix CD or a Christmas present for the unattainable beauty in your Calculus section.
We’ve featured a number of money origami websites on Neatorama before, but Hasegawa Yosuke’s folded currencies are something else: he focused on the faces of presidents, national heroes, and royalties that adorn many of the world’s currencies.
Link [in Japanese, but TONS of cool pics of folded bills] – via Random Good Stuff and thanks bactac!
Superb dollar bill origami. Unlike most other similar stuff they’ve managed to integrate the imagery on the bills into the final pieces to make faces and other features.
Origami artist Eric Joisel created these Lord of the Rings sculptures of the Three Hunters (Gimli the Dwarf, Aragorn, and Legolas the Elf) out of single uncut pieces of papers. Link – via Spluch
The “autofill” feature of the Google search box was designed as a timesaver, but the suggested searches can also be entertaining. Writing in Slate, Michael Agger compared the autofill of “less intelligent” and “more intelligent” queries, an exercise that has previously been conducted at Digg.
ueue
Psychology professor 
What do you do with that tear-off flap from your NetFlix mailings? Rather than throwing them away, how about making … a Netflix origami instead?
In her project Fold Loud, artist JooYoun Paek created a very neat "musical origami," where by folding a piece of paper, you’d be making electrical contacts to control the music:
Freaking News has a neat photoshop contests where the faces of celebrities are mashed up with those of national figures on money. Some look so dead-on they’re freaky!
Blue Tea blog has a neat round-up of unusual origamis (lots of neat pictures, too!). We’ve featured a number of the artists 
Here’s a step by step guide on how to fold your own origami Star Wars X-Wing Fighter from a 15 x 15 cm (about 6 in x 6 in) paper.
Superb 
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