1.46.1 🐬🦦 How Animals Sleep, Origami for Kids, Typewriter Art, 1894 Horse Manure Crisis

Welcome and thank you for being here. This week I’ve recast the structure of my Wednesday emails. Instead of 4-5 long stories with links, there are two shorter stories with links. And then a new Bits and Bytes section with additional links on STEM/STEAM topics. This email’s links range from origami projects for kids to how animals sleep. With links for typewriter art, the Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894, and why people build glass skyscrapers. Plus the world’s oldest lightbulb. Let’s get started exploring…

Origami for Kids

Researching last Wednesday’s email story about paper airplanes, I bumped into origami. It’s a neat way to get kids into creating 3D objects without the complexity of 3D printing. Instead, you work with paper and your hands to create objects. Origami might be a fun project to explore with your kids.

Origami principles also have real world uses. They’re used to design space telescopes. And solve interesting engineering problems like folding car airbags for deployment.

Typewriter Art

Manual typewriters can create artwork with only letters, numbers, symbols, and spaces. The results work both at a distance and close up. Far away, the human eye blends characters into lines and shades to form images. Close up, it’s easy to marvel at how each individual character exists by itself. But also blends into the whole image from far away.

You don’t need a manual typewriter to create this sort of art. A text editor works the same on a computer. First, define the width of the artwork you want to create. The width is how many characters per line counted from the left edge of your text editor. Then maybe draw the outline of what you want to create. Then hunt and peck on your keyboard to create the image, line by line.

James Cook, Typer

https://jamescookartwork.com/
https://www.youtube.com/@Mr_Typer

Paul Smith, Typewriter Artist

https://youtu.be/svzPm8lT36o
https://artstormer.com/2012/11/12/just-do-it-typewriter-art-by-paul-smith/

A Visual History of Typewriter Art from 1893 to Today

https://www.themarginalian.org/2014/05/23/typewriter-art-laurence-king

Programming is the art of telling another human being what one wants the computer to do. ― Donald Knuth

STEAM Bits and Bytes

Links I’ve come across recently that might interest you.

Why Skyscrapers Became Glass Boxes. How buildings get made these days, in the US at least. (https://www.construction-physics.com/p/why-skyscrapers-became-glass-boxes)
The Great Horse Manure Crisis of 1894. The technology we use to get around has always caused problems. Cars definitely are less disgusting than horses.
1. https://danszczesny.substack.com/p/the-great-horse-manure-crisis-of
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_horse_manure_crisis_of_1894
3. https://www.historic-uk.com/HistoryUK/HistoryofBritain/Great-Horse-Manure-Crisis-of-1894/
4. https://www.nyhistory.org/community/horse-manure
The World’s Oldest Lightbulb. Switched on in 1901 and still working. It also has a webcam.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Centennial_Light
2. https://www.centennialbulb.org/cam.htm
3. https://www.centennialbulb.org/
How Do Animals Sleep? You would not believe the many different ways animals sleep.
1. https://www.bbcearth.com/news/the-extraordinary-ways-that-animals-sleep
2. https://www.timeforkids.com/g56/power-nappers-g5
3. https://youtu.be/muKuRQ8YnvE (8 Strange Ways Animals Sleep)
4. https://kids.kiddle.co/Circadian_rhythm
5. https://www.tdisdi.com/sdi-diver-news/the-surprising-secrets-of-shark-sleep/
Giraffes have the same number of neck vertebrae as humans? Saw this on a hotel TV show recently. https://www.clevelandzoosociety.org/z/2021/03/02/truth-or-tail-giraffe-have-more-neck-bones-than-a-human

This Week

Our Sunday email this week will have fun often offbeat links about something that may have visited our solar system and rearranged our planets. Like you walk into a room and tidy up. And links that describe how transcendent thinking can boost teenage brains. And an app that helps reduce depression by curbing rumination, revisiting often unpleasant or stressful events over and over. Not to be confused with ruminants like cows. Plus links about mirror life, what cities might be underwater by 2050, and where memories are stored in our brains. Look for the email this Sunday.

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Robert J Lang

The math and magic of origami | Robert Lang