This is the familiar “magic snake” toy, which has been around for many years. The most common version of it is made of 24 right triangular prisms. It can be twisted into many different shapes.
Of course, me being me, I wanted to make polyhedra with these snake-toys. Here are three of these standard-sized toys, twisted into rhombicuboctahedra.
While it isn’t easy, it is possible to find longer variants of this toy. I found one on Amazon which is made of 72 prisms, making it three times the standard length. In this picture, the extra-long snake appears on the top, while below it are the three smaller ones, laid end-to-end.
When I started playing with the longer one, I tried to make it into a symmetric polyhedron, and found doing so quite a challenge . . . but, in the end, I prevailed, by twisting it into a hollow octahedron.
This longer version may be found here on Amazon, in case you’d like to get one of your own. The smaller ones are easy to find (just search for “magic snake toy math”), and cost a lot less. I’m glad to have both sizes in my collection of geometric toys.
I turn 57 years old today, so here is a 57-pointed star to mark the occasion. It’s actually 3 stars, each of which has 19 points, which works because (3)(19) = 57. The individual stars here are {19/9} enneadecagrams — a blue one on the bottom layer, with green on the top, and red for the in-between star.
You can’t tell it from the web-address, but this is a WordPress blog, and I’ve recently run into a new problem here. The WP user interface has started volunteering to write my blog-posts for me, using a $#@%ed A.I.
Of this I am certain: I have no intention on ever having an A.I. write anything for me, and find the suggestion both insulting and offensive. If you like the writing here, or if you find errors, you can give the credit and/or blame solely to me.
In the “credit where credit is due” department, the angry-face drawing above was made by me, using MS-Paint, but it’s based on a drawing by an artist friend of mine named Rebecca Lemley McGraw. When I use, or reference, the work of others, I give credit. It’s the right thing to do.
As I write this, the new year, 2025, has already come to parts of the world. It arrives here, where we’re on Chicago time, in about four and a half hours. This new year is the first perfect-square year since 1936, and there won’t be another one until 2116.
Since 45 = (9)(5) = (3^2)(5), and 2025 is the square of that, the prime number factorization of the new year is (3^4)(5^2).
Amazon workers are on strike against Amazon, for unfair labor practices, in multiple locations across the USA. While the strike continues, it is important that we support these workers and their unions, by doing these three things:
Don’t buy anything from Amazon.
Don’t buy Amazon’s stock.
If you already own shares of Amazon, sell them.
Since Amazon does most of its business on the Internet, the concept of a “picket line” has to be updated for the 21st Century. If you go on the Internet and buy anything from Amazon while the strike is in progress, you’re crossing this picket line.
How long should we boycott Amazon? At least until the strike is over — no matter how long that takes. Solidarity among and between unions and workers is essential . . . because if we don’t support each other, no one else will.
Just when inflation was getting back to a reasonable level, we have this idiot, Trump, about to bring it back.
Inflation ending doesn’t mean that prices go back to where they were — it merely means that prices stop climbing rapidly. If prices returned to, say, pre-COVID levels, that would be DEflation, which has its own set of problems we don’t want or need. The Great Depression was marked by deflation in the USA.
Tariffs could bring us the worst of both worlds — inflation and recession at the same time. This is called stagflation, and it last happened here in the 1970s, which is far enough back that the majority doesn’t remember it. I remember it, but I’m 56 years old. My memories from those days involve odd/even gasoline-rationing days, and the prices of comic books and silver climbing dramatically.
Anyone who earned a decent grade in Principles of Macroeconomics knows these things. It isn’t brain science . . . or even rocket surgery.
I’ve been a coffee drinker since I was 19, but have recently acquired a taste for this particular tea, as well, which is shown in the picture above, which I “screenshotted” from Amazon. After guzzling it for several weeks, I decided to look up reviews of it, and found them at (where else?) http://www.teacritic.com. I then registered, at that website, so that I could add my own, raving, review. It’s currently the top comment on this page: https://www.teacritic.com/tea/779/tension-tamer.html. You don’t have to follow that link to see my review, though, since I took a screenshot of it for this blog-post. (You can click on it to make it bigger.)
What I didn’t put in the review, though, was my method of preparing this tea, for fear I’d be branded a tea-heretic, on the tea-critic website. I will, however, describe my method here. I get a large mug — 710 mL (that’s 24 fluid ounces, for most Americans), and drop two teabags in the empty mug. I then fill the mug with cold tap water, stick it in the microwave, and “nuke” it for three minutes. As soon as I can drink it without burning myself, I guzzle it (the way I used to guzzle beer), throw two more teabags on top of the used two bags, fill it with water, and microwave it again. After drinking this four-teabag tea, I throw away all four teabags before starting the process over from the beginning. I don’t do this at work, for I don’t have time for all of that while teaching, but I do it, on “repeat,” when I’m at home, before or after work, on the weekends, and on vacation. (Right now, it’s “Fall Break” vacation in my school district, so I’ve been doing this all day.)
I am aware that you’re “supposed to” make tea by boiling water in a kettle, and then pouring the boiling water over the teabags in a proper tea cup, but (A) I don’t have the patience for that, for my way is faster, and (B) I get a kick out of doing things my own way, rather than the “supposed to” way. Also, (C) I’m not British.
Three cheers for Celestial Seasonings Tension Tamer Tea! (No, they didn’t pay me to write this — it’s an unpaid advertisement.)
Like many people, I’ve lately become sick of so many things. It isn’t just Donald Trump and Trumpism, nor toxic forms of religion, nor anti-science attitudes, nor Elon Musk, nor the website X (formerly known as Twitter), nor Facebook, nor Mark Zuckerberg, nor billionaires in general, nor political parties, nor the war on women, nor anti-vaxxers, nor fascists on the far right, nor Communists on the far left, nor mass incarceration, nor the wars at home and abroad, nor people who hate friends of mine just because they want to change things about themselves, such as their own bodies and names. I’m sick of people trying to destroy public education and teachers’ unions. I’m sick of all these things, and more.
Quite frankly, if you’re friend-requesting me on Facebook just to immediately send me a private message, which I call “flirtspam,” I’m sick of you. I’m married, and am not looking to change that. I’m sick of people posting advertisements on my Facebook wall, without even asking for permission first. I’m sick of of Trump and his MAGAs. I’m sick of proselytizing, for or against religion. Frankly, if you’re part of any of these problems, I’m sick of you.
It’s all these negative things, and more, that I want to leave behind. There’s poison in all this hatred, and I don’t want to die from it. Therefore, just like I left the toxic practice of drinking ethanol behind (hopefully for good, this time), on July 20, 2023, I am now leaving my negative social media exposure, with this post.
This is my last post on Facebook and on X. I’m not going to deactivate them; I just won’t be posting anything new on my own FB-wall or Twitter-feed any more. My blog is staying right where it is, at http://www.robertlovespi.net. You’re welcome to follow it, “like” my posts, or comment on them. I usually respond to my blog-comments, especially if I’ve been asked a question. More blog-posts are coming; they just won’t be shared on Facebook or X any more. My blog even has a tip jar, if you’re so inclined, but it’s completely optional and voluntary. You can see everything there for free.
You can also interact with me, if you’re seeking to form or maintain honest, healthy friendships, in one other way, on a new social media website. If you’re also sick of all this toxic hatred, which is literally poisoning our minds, our society, and our world, I will let you know where you can find me. I’ve got a lot of friends on Facebook, after all, and a few on X/Twitter, and I invite those friends to join me in the mass exodus away from those two sites, and toward the new social media platform known as BlueSky. It’s a little bit like Twitter, and a little bit like Facebook, except that it is, so far, not infected with any terminal disease. My profile page there is at https://bsky.app/profile/robertlovespi.bsky.social. All I ask is that you be willing to “give peace a chance,” if you look me up there.
RobertLovesPi.net 