Learn You A Origami!

November 11th, 2010

I’ve set up a new site called Learn You A Origami!, which features video tutorials from YouTube of how to fold several different models. I’ll be adding new models periodically.

Pentagonal Gift Box origami picture

The site uses my StepReplay software, which is a JavaScript library that puts “steps” in any YouTube video using the YouTube API. The problem with most origami video tutorials is that they go too fast for people just learning a new model, and you have to pause and rewind the video frequently. StepReplay will automatically pause the video when it reaches the next step, and with one click you can also replay the previous video. It also has an option to loop through a single step over and over.

This can be used for any instructional video on YouTube. StepReplay is released under a BSD license.

Learn You A Origami! main site.

StepReplay can be downloaded here.

Book Review: “The Evolution of Cooperation” by Robert Axelrod

November 6th, 2010

Practical, insightful, and delightful. (5 out of 5 stars.)

Axelrod’s “The Evolution of Cooperation” delivers ideas that are at the same time obvious but surprisingly insightful to human nature. It is a small and readable book which every chapter left me thinking, “Of course, why didn’t I think of it like that?”

The core of the book focuses on a computer simulation tournament of the Prisoner’s Dilemma. The Prisoner’s Dilemma is a simple game as follows: two convicts have been arrested and are interrogated separately. If they both remain silent, they only get three (or some other nominal amount) years of prison. But if one snitches on the other, he goes free and the other serves ten years. This gives both of them the incentive to snitch, however if they both end up snitching on each other, then they both get life sentences.
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Lua Cheat Sheet for Programmers

November 1st, 2010

If you don’t know Lua, the popular programming language often used as a embedded scripting language, but you do know how to program, here’s a cheat sheet that covers the basics of the language’s syntax.

The cheat sheet itself is an executable program. You can download the file here: lua_cheat_sheet.lua

For quick viewing, here it is on Pastebin

For printing, here it is as a PNG:
Lua Cheat Sheet

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