540: Parliament

Voting is something democratic societies hold as an important right. Some counties have compulsory voting, most allow citizens to choose whether they want to vote – all too often the result is the same – groups of opinionated, empty-headed people are elected to represent the views of the common people.540Parliament4

Anyone who knows me, realises I take the political piss whenever I can – voting only encouraged politicians to think they are more important than the rest of us, but they are just us, right, paid to argue (usually paid a LOT more that those of us who enjoy a good argument). 540Parliament

We organise candidates into “parties”, “alliances” and “coalitions”, pick “leaders” and rally behind them like their personalities are what really matters. All too often, in the end, we end up with the government we deserve. Continue reading

485: Segway

…so I am a teacher, and I teach senior students:485SegwayTheChaps

I have, on occasions, joked about how cool it would be to own a Segway – my classes are physically far apart and getting between campuses takes time, hence the idea that a PTD (personal transport device) would be cool. I _never_ in my wildest dreams imagined my students would do anything about this pipe dream – let’s face it, we all say things in jest.485SegwayAmbush

It was an ambush, total surprise – I think I was the only one who knew nothing. It still gives me goosebumps thinking about it. I was teaching my year 11 class when the whole year 12 class arrived headed by Tom on a Segway. They had crowd-funded a second hand one as a end of year gift – wow, just wow!.485Segway

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483: Dollar SLR Camera

A work colleague is going on Long Service Leave – lucky bastard!  It appears he had no end of trouble buying a camera for travelling, so I thought I would make him one as an hooroo gift:483DollarCamera

Designed by Won Park, this little SLR Camera is tiny, but has a viewfinder, winder lever, shutter button, pop-up flash and lovely lens all sticking out of a lovely boxy body.483DollarCameraScale

Genius design, if tiny and torturous, I hope he likes it. Continue reading

471: Folding Chair

Needing to clean my brain, I looked for some box-pleating (as that is absorbing, fiddly and it is difficult to to do or think anything else while doing it):

I came across a design for a folding chair, folded in 24ths and decided to give it a go.

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469: Fiddly Folding

My heuristic is that we do not get mail on Fridays – not sure it is always true but mostly. Last Friday I therefore did not check the mailbox. Sunday I discovered my Tanteidan had been delivered on Friday and I had left it for nearly 2 days before opening it.

On the cover, Gen Hagiwara’s violin – a sublime fold that I have seen many fellow paper-benders succeed at folding and I was determined to give it a bash.

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