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jackOn thursday I cycled out to Ninewell, one of the small nature reserves round Cambridge. It's a tiny wood with a sluggish shallow stream leaking out of a number of chalk wells, supposedly feeding Hobson's Conduit.
It's very strange to cycle up to a layby and get out. Normally I'm either going somewhere, and cycle up to the door, or going for a walk in the country, and go in a car/train.
It's pretty. Walking around nature always gets the creative juices going -- I updated the beetles in my flash game (not online yet) making them face diagonally, which makes them feel considerably more aggressive whilst being about as easy to squish -- and enables a few more levels.
Just the other side of the wood is a national cycle route alongside the railway which I incporporated in my route back. Along the centre were coloured footlong stripes, stretching into the distance, which I wondered about, thinking it was a cycle route thing.
Do you know? See http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/transport/projects/cambridge/shelford_addenbrookes_cycle_path.htm -- it's a commemorative depiction of a section of genome, with four colours for G, C, T, and A.
When I was walking along I wondered if I could tell which direction the pattern went. Not really, and of course, it does have one, but I probably could never have told by examining it. But if you had two (or more) colours of stripes you could use but nothing else, could you indicate a prefered direction?
Using a rainbow pattern is cheating. You can't use a 1,2 pattern because that's symmetric. You could have w,b,ww,bb, but only if you know white comes first :) wbwwbbwwwbbb or rbbgggrbbggg work. But are you sure you'd *which* way it was telling you to go? Is there a better suggestion?
It's very strange to cycle up to a layby and get out. Normally I'm either going somewhere, and cycle up to the door, or going for a walk in the country, and go in a car/train.
It's pretty. Walking around nature always gets the creative juices going -- I updated the beetles in my flash game (not online yet) making them face diagonally, which makes them feel considerably more aggressive whilst being about as easy to squish -- and enables a few more levels.
Just the other side of the wood is a national cycle route alongside the railway which I incporporated in my route back. Along the centre were coloured footlong stripes, stretching into the distance, which I wondered about, thinking it was a cycle route thing.
Do you know? See http://www.cambridgeshire.gov.uk/transport/projects/cambridge/shelford_addenbrookes_cycle_path.htm -- it's a commemorative depiction of a section of genome, with four colours for G, C, T, and A.
When I was walking along I wondered if I could tell which direction the pattern went. Not really, and of course, it does have one, but I probably could never have told by examining it. But if you had two (or more) colours of stripes you could use but nothing else, could you indicate a prefered direction?
Using a rainbow pattern is cheating. You can't use a 1,2 pattern because that's symmetric. You could have w,b,ww,bb, but only if you know white comes first :) wbwwbbwwwbbb or rbbgggrbbggg work. But are you sure you'd *which* way it was telling you to go? Is there a better suggestion?
no subject
Date: 2006-11-30 03:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-30 04:09 pm (UTC)When I looked it up I felt I should have known -- though to be fair I can't imagine how I could possibly have. In fact, I'm amazed I *did* manage to look it up, assuming it was a universal feature of cycle paths rather than something special, and not knowing what it was called or for, but about the first thing I tried was googling for "national cycle route stripes" which popped right up with the "Great Shelford to Addenbrooks cycle path" and ""Addenbrooks to Great Shelford to cycle path" as the first two hits :)
PS. I've been doing some new pooh levels (not finished) and started doing some live action photos which may or may not work long term. I thought of you first for CR or Alice as you were kind enough to be squeeful about it when I first showed people -- but you're never going to have time :)
no subject
Date: 2006-12-01 07:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-04 02:05 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-11-30 03:55 pm (UTC)with three, can you do wbwwbbwwwbbb X wbwwbbwwwbbb X ...
where X is either one stripe (dot) or two (dash) and write a message?
cycle up to a layby and get out. You left your bike in the layby?
You left your bike in the layby?
Date: 2006-11-30 04:14 pm (UTC)Yeah, I was thinking that too. If you wrote, well, anything, you should be able to sense the direction. Work out the encoding (assume it's fairly context-independent so you can start in the middle), and get some letters. The only trouble is you might be led a hundred yards along before you work it out :)
You left your bike in the layby?
Yeah... There was a sturdying sign, and I didn't think it would be a productive hangout for professional bike thieves (or anyone at all). It made sense to me.
Re: You left your bike in the layby?
Date: 2006-11-30 04:42 pm (UTC)Re: You left your bike in the layby?
Date: 2006-11-30 05:24 pm (UTC)That's interesting, actually. Is there a message which encoded in ascii is a bit-palindrome? Other than ZZZZZZZ. I can't be bothered to work it out, but it would be amusing.
Re: You left your bike in the layby?
Date: 2006-11-30 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-12-01 08:49 am (UTC)This radial passes through ever wider patches of yellow and red, and so clearly the sequence ryrryyrrryyy... tells you that you are travelling outwards.
no subject
Date: 2006-12-01 12:47 pm (UTC)