Congratulations to Arnulfo Castorena. The brief video below shows his second-place finish in the 50-meter competition; his response during the medal presentation is heartwarming.
الجمعة، 31 أغسطس 2012
No legs. One arm. Paralympic medalist.
Congratulations to Arnulfo Castorena. The brief video below shows his second-place finish in the 50-meter competition; his response during the medal presentation is heartwarming.
Harvard cheating scandal involves hundreds of students
It happened on an open-book exam (!!!)
Addendum: An interesting followup article in Salon, with one student saying:
After similarities were noticed in up to 20 student exam papers by an examiner, the matter was brought to the attention of the administrative board and an investigation was launched.The course? Government 1310: Introduction to Congress. LOL.
That probe has now found some 125 of the course's final papers were suspicious and has begun contacting students involved.
Possible punishments range from being suspended for a year to an official warning. The class was taken by only 250 students meaning a staggering half are now suspected of cheating.
The newspaper quoted an email sent to students taking the exam that said it was "completely open book, open note, open internet, etc.." but warned them not to discuss it with each other and to treat it as an "in-class" exam.
Addendum: An interesting followup article in Salon, with one student saying:
Harvard chose to go public with this story to first and foremost save their own asses. They wanted to get the version that they wanted out to the public first. Why did they do this? A large number of the students involved had threatened to go public with this unfair process and an even larger number of students have already lawyered up and are preparing to sue the college, professor platt, and every single TF in the course. Myself included.
McDonald's tortilla with use-by date. On the food.
From the discussion thread at Reddit, I gather this is real, but that it is laser-printed, not ink-printed and thus safe for consumption (though it should not have been distributed to the public).
The world's shortest scheduled airline flight
Two minutes in duration, from Westray to Papa Westray (in the Orkneys). The entire flight is documented in this 2-minute video.
Via 22 Words.
Military golf courses
"Welcome to Cole Park Golf Club at Fort Campbell, KY. Cole Park is one of the finest golfing facilities in the Army. Our goal is to provide golfers in our Army community with everything they desire in a top-notch golf facility... We have an 18-hole Championship course that covers over 350 acres of prime real estate..."The description is of Cole Park Golf Club at Fort Campbell, Kentucky, just one of hundreds of military golf courses situated around the world.
Back in 1975, Senator William Proxmire (D-Wisconsin) decried the fact that the Department of Defense spent nearly $14 million each year to maintain and operate 300 military-run golf courses scattered across the globe. In 1996, the weekly television series America's Defense Monitor noted that "Pentagon elites and high government officials [were still] tee-ing off at taxpayer expense" at some "234 golf courses maintained by the U.S. armed forces worldwide."..From a 2008 article at AlterNet (one doubts that anything has changed during the Obama administration). At the Military Golf Course Guide, you can find a list of golf courses sorted by service, by state, and by country.
Take the Eaglewood Golf Courses at Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. In 2004, the Pentagon paid out more than $352,000 to George Golf Design to refurbish its two courses... George Golf Design considerately worked on the courses one at a time, so that local duffers would not be left linkless. This was of critical importance since if both courses were out of commission, Virginia would have been left with only nine military golf facilities (navy, five; army,three; Marine Corps, one) with a total of fourteen courses...
[In 2004], according to DoD documents, the U.S. Army paid $71,614 to the Arizona Golf Resort -- located in sunny Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. A Saudi homage to the American Southwest that claims to offer the "only residential western expatriate golf resort in Riyadh with activities for all ages," the resort actually boasts an entire entertainment complex, complete with a water-slide-enhanced megapool, gym, bowling alley, horse stables, roller hockey rink, arcade, amphitheater, restaurant, and even a cappuccino bar -- not to mention the golf course and a driving range.
Floating caskets
A seldom-discussed complication of hurricanes and flooding.
Photo from Facebook, via Paul Douglas on Weather.
Yarn for an Icelandic shawl
It's too bad there are only 24 hours in a day, because there are so many intriguing and useful hobbies and crafts that one could learn. When I see a photo like the one above, I wish I had the time (and skill) to create things with fabric.
In this kit to make a Icelandic traditional 'Hyrna' shawlthere are 5,2oz (150g) of yarn, 3 colours . The yarn is hand dyed with natural colours from plants from the Icelandic nature, except for the Indígó (blue) that is imported. These green tones Gudrun Bjarnadottír gets from using Lupin leaves and then colouring with Indígó to get the green effect...We have the lupin growing in our yard, hoping to attract a Karner Blue butterfly.
Text and photo from Hespa on Etsy, via A Polar Bear's Tale.
الخميس، 30 أغسطس 2012
"Market by candlelight" (Petrus van Schendel, 1865)
I was stunned by this artist's ability to capture light, both on the young woman's face and the diffused light of the misty moonlit scene. I had not heard of him before, but discovered he was famous for precisely this effect.
Petrus van Schendel (1806-1870), Dutch Romantic painter, etcher and draughtsman. Van Schendel specialised in nocturnal Dutch market scenes, exploring the effects the soft light had upon his subjects, as a result he was named Monsieur Chandelle by the French... Petrus van Schendel also had an important precedent within the art of the Low Countries, Rembrandt van Rijn’s masterpiece The Nightwatch.Twenty-five of his paintings are assembled at Wikigallery.
Image from Bonham's auctions, via Alabaster. Click on the embed above to view it at larger size.
A stunning wall of books
I found the photo at Librarianista, and wondered how material could be retrieved from shelving like that. The caption listed it as "Shiba Ryotaro Memorial Museum," and a quick search yielded an explanation at The Centered Librarian:
Ryotaro Shiba started writing historical novels after World War II and won the prestigious Naoki Prize for his 1959 novel, "Fukuro no Shiro" ("The Castle of an Owl")... The Museum in his honor consists of two parts, his former house and a museum newly built after his death... Inside one sees the huge bookshelf(11 meters high) housing his more than 20,000 books.So it's a sterile museum display rather than a working library. I am less impressed now.
Cow chip deficiency strikes the Midwest
The drought has caused a shortage of flattened, dried cow manure - or cow chips - for the Wisconsin State Cow Chip Throw and Festival, which attracts about 300 throwers and 40,000 spectators to Prairie du Sac, Wis...It's worth remembering that in pioneer days, dried buffalo patties served as handy fuel in woodless plains areas. Herbivore feces are no more nasty than the material you scrape out from under your rotary lawn mower; it's carnivore feces that get nasty.
The hot, dry summer - which has caused crop, water level and other problems across the nation - caused the grass to brown and cattle to stay near their barn for food and to keep cool. That means the manure in the pasture wasn't able to dry and flatten in the sun...
Instead, a few organizers went out sporadically and collected about a third of the usual amount - 200 or 300. Every year they keep the good ones that don't break - so they will dip into the 150 to 200 in reserve barrels for this year's competition...
When searching for chips, they look for them be about the size of a ping pong paddle. "If it looks like it has air bubbles on the top, it's bad chip," Reuter said. "It won't be worth it because it will be light and airy. But if it's thick and solid and grassy, it's a good chip."
Triassic mites found in amber
As reported in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences:
Abundant 230 million-year-old amber from the Late Triassic (Carnian) of northeastern Italy has previously yielded myriad microorganisms, but we report here that it also preserves arthropods some 100 Ma older than the earliest prior records in amber... Antiquity of the gall mites in much their extant form was unexpected, particularly with the Triassic species already having many of their present-day features (such as only two pairs of legs); further, it establishes conifer feeding as an ancestral trait...From the BBC report on the manuscript:
After a painstaking screen of more than 70,000 droplets, Prof Grimaldi and his team discovered three ancient arthropods - including two species of previously undiscovered mite - entombed within these small resinous gems.After screening 70,000 droplets... !!
The new mite species are the oldest fossils of an extremely specialised group called Eriophyoidea. This contains about 3,500 living species, all of which feed on plants and sometimes form abnormal growth called "galls"...
"When flowering plants entered the scene, these mites shifted their feeding habits, and today, only 3 percent of the species live on conifers. This shows how gall mites tracked plants in time and evolved with their hosts."
Teddy Roosevelt's chest xray
While Roosevelt was campaigning in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, on October 14, 1912, a saloonkeeper named John Schrank shot him, but the bullet lodged in his chest only after penetrating his steel eyeglass case and passing through a thick (50 pages) single-folded copy of the speech he was carrying in his jacket. Roosevelt, as an experienced hunter and anatomist, correctly concluded that since he was not coughing blood, the bullet had not completely penetrated the chest wall to his lung, and so declined suggestions he go to the hospital immediately. Instead, he delivered his scheduled speech with blood seeping into his shirt. He spoke for 90 minutes. His opening comments to the gathered crowd were, "Ladies and gentlemen, I don't know whether you fully understand that I have just been shot; but it takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." Afterwards, probes and x-ray showed that the bullet had traversed three inches (76 mm) of tissue and lodged in Roosevelt's chest muscle but did not penetrate the pleura, and it would be more dangerous to attempt to remove the bullet than to leave it in place. Roosevelt carried it with him for the rest of his life.
According to documents found on [John] Schrank after the attempted assassination, Schrank had written that he was advised by the ghost of William McKinley in a dream to avenge his death, pointing to a picture of Theodore Roosevelt.The bullet, designated by the arrow in the lower left of the image, overlies the anterior end of the right fourth rib.
Interesting ancient coins
A set of ten gold coins from the Harborough Museum, in Leicestershire:
As the museum puts them on public display, curators have dated the coins to around 50 or 60 BC, made of a style symbolic of north-west France and the Low Countries, which were given the Latin name of Gallo Belgica during their Roman occupation at the time.I think the design is fascinating. Although it must (?) be culturally unrelated, the stylistic horse on the obverse looks similar to me to the Uffington White Horse.
These origins suggests that the inhabitants of Leicestershire, known as the Corieltavi, had French connections, although the lucrative value of each piece would have made them the stuff of elite tribe members...
“You don’t normally find imported coins this far north – this is the most northerly example so far. They are usually found in the south-east of England, maybe because the area is closer to the continent, or perhaps because they had strong trade links with the Gallo-Belgic tribes.
“We think they may have been considered special because they were imported. They may have been hoarded because they were better quality gold than local coins.”
Creating a Stained Glass Look by Embossing Transparency Film Free Tutorial By Laura Carson of Artfully Musing Blog
I just love stained glass and would like to learn how to create beautiful stained glass creations. That's not going to happen anytime soon, but in the meantime I can learn how to create stain glass looking mixed media creations using transparency film. With this in mind I was happy to see that Laura Carson had a wonderful tutorial on her Artfully Musing blog showing you how to create a beautiful stained glass look by embossing transparency film. How beautiful is Laura's creation? I'm looking forward to learning how to do this. How about you?
Here's what Laura had to say about her tutorial: In November I posted a tutorial on “Creating a Stained Glass Look Using a Glass Slide”. Embossing transparency film is another option to creating the look of stained glass although I don’t think is sparkles quite as nicely as real glass. But with transparency film, you can print and emboss any digital image, whereas with glass, you are limited to rubber stamps.
The base of the ATC below is an image of an art nouveau stained glass window that I printed on transparency film and embossed. So that you could better see the colors on the transparency, the first image of the piece is photographed on white paper. The second image is photographed with the light behind the piece. Be sure to click on the image to see all the details.
Please respect Laura's TERMS OF USE: My tutorials are protected by U.S. & International copyright laws. Do not copy, duplicate, alter or reproduce in anyway. Please use for inspiration only. ALL NAMES, LOGOS AND DESIGNS ARE THE PROPERTY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS. ©2012 Laura Carson (Artfully Musing), All Rights Reserved
Laura's Bio: After retiring from the computer software industry where I spent my career designing, building and marketing software, I needed a creative outlet. A few years ago I discovered Mixed Media Art and have had a love affair ever since. I’ve taught classes in Altered Books, Handmade Books, Collage Art and Mix Media Art. I currently design for Alpha Stamps and I enjoy trading in various art groups. Starting this blog is a way of sharing my art and the wonderful art I have received from others. I specialize in very detailed multi-layered and textured pieces. I live in Anthem Arizona with my husband Kevin, dog Sandy, and cat Tigger.
Copyright © 2011 - All Rights Reserved - Laura Carson of Artfully Musing.
Please visit her Artfully Musing blog at http://artfullymusing.blogspot.com/.
Copyright © 2011 - All Rights Reserved - Written by Laura Carson of Artfully Musing.
Here's what Laura had to say about her tutorial: In November I posted a tutorial on “Creating a Stained Glass Look Using a Glass Slide”. Embossing transparency film is another option to creating the look of stained glass although I don’t think is sparkles quite as nicely as real glass. But with transparency film, you can print and emboss any digital image, whereas with glass, you are limited to rubber stamps.
The base of the ATC below is an image of an art nouveau stained glass window that I printed on transparency film and embossed. So that you could better see the colors on the transparency, the first image of the piece is photographed on white paper. The second image is photographed with the light behind the piece. Be sure to click on the image to see all the details.
Please respect Laura's TERMS OF USE: My tutorials are protected by U.S. & International copyright laws. Do not copy, duplicate, alter or reproduce in anyway. Please use for inspiration only. ALL NAMES, LOGOS AND DESIGNS ARE THE PROPERTY OF THEIR RESPECTIVE OWNERS. ©2012 Laura Carson (Artfully Musing), All Rights Reserved
Laura's Bio: After retiring from the computer software industry where I spent my career designing, building and marketing software, I needed a creative outlet. A few years ago I discovered Mixed Media Art and have had a love affair ever since. I’ve taught classes in Altered Books, Handmade Books, Collage Art and Mix Media Art. I currently design for Alpha Stamps and I enjoy trading in various art groups. Starting this blog is a way of sharing my art and the wonderful art I have received from others. I specialize in very detailed multi-layered and textured pieces. I live in Anthem Arizona with my husband Kevin, dog Sandy, and cat Tigger.
Copyright © 2011 - All Rights Reserved - Laura Carson of Artfully Musing.
Please visit her Artfully Musing blog at http://artfullymusing.blogspot.com/.
Little Flowers In Salt Shaker Vase Free Tutorial By Karen Bailey of Todolwen Blog
I just love paper creations - especially when they are combined with another one of my loves which is floral crafts. So, I was pleased to see that Karen Bailey had a wonderful tutorial on her Todolwen blog showing you how to make little paper flowers in a saltshaker vase. They are just too adorable to resist.
Here's what Karen had to say about her tutorial: My First Tutorial. Hello my dear Friends. As I mentioned yesterday, I was working on a tutorial for the little flowers in the salt-shaker vase. Well, it is ready. So, here we go!
Please respect Karen's TERMS OF USE: Please do not copy my tutorials in full and/or claim them to be your own and/or post them on your blog without my permission. Furthermore the sale of my tutorials is prohibited. All my designs are protected under copyright.
Karen's Bio: My name is Karen Bailey, and I am the wife for over 20 years to a now retired british serviceman and a Mum to two beautiful daughters. For many years we traveled and lived all over the world whilst serving in the army. After leaving the army we now live in Ontario, Canada. My passion is antiques, especially victorian unrestored furniture and household items and creating/crafting. For me there is nothing better when I have a moment to sit down and make something beautiful. My blog is 'Todolwen' which is an anogram made up from 'old to new' which is what I love to do ~ take something old and give it a new life. I hope you enjoy my makings as much as I enjoy creating them.
Copyright © 2011 - All Rights Reserved - Karen Bailey of Todolwen Blog.
Please visit her Todolwen blog at http://todolwen.blogspot.com/.
LITTLE FLOWERS IN SALT SHAKER VASE
Copyright © 2011 - All Rights Reserved - Written by Karen Bailey of Todolwen Blog
Copyright © 2011 - All Rights Reserved - Written by Karen Bailey of Todolwen Blog
Here's what Karen had to say about her tutorial: My First Tutorial. Hello my dear Friends. As I mentioned yesterday, I was working on a tutorial for the little flowers in the salt-shaker vase. Well, it is ready. So, here we go!
Please respect Karen's TERMS OF USE: Please do not copy my tutorials in full and/or claim them to be your own and/or post them on your blog without my permission. Furthermore the sale of my tutorials is prohibited. All my designs are protected under copyright.
Karen's Bio: My name is Karen Bailey, and I am the wife for over 20 years to a now retired british serviceman and a Mum to two beautiful daughters. For many years we traveled and lived all over the world whilst serving in the army. After leaving the army we now live in Ontario, Canada. My passion is antiques, especially victorian unrestored furniture and household items and creating/crafting. For me there is nothing better when I have a moment to sit down and make something beautiful. My blog is 'Todolwen' which is an anogram made up from 'old to new' which is what I love to do ~ take something old and give it a new life. I hope you enjoy my makings as much as I enjoy creating them.
Copyright © 2011 - All Rights Reserved - Karen Bailey of Todolwen Blog.
Please visit her Todolwen blog at http://todolwen.blogspot.com/.
Autumn Blessing Free Quilt Pattern By Kaaren Johnston of The Painted Quilt
Just when I think I couldn't possible add anything else to my Fall decorating "to do" list along comes another mini wall quilt that is just too charming to resist. Kaaren Johnston has yet another charming pattern on her The Painted Quilt blog showing you how to make an "Autumn Blessings" mini quilt. My husband may divorce me, but this is definitely going on my Fall "to do" list.
Here's what Kaaren had to say about her pattern: It sure would be nice to be posting this month’s First Friday Freebie on a cool, crisp Autumn day but that’s not going to happen until tomorrow. For the last four days, we’ve been experiencing record breaking temperatures for this time of year in the mid to high 90’s and along with the oppressive humidity, it’s been brutal.
This month’s FFF is an Autumn-inspired mini quilt called Autumn Blessings. It combines both pieced and stitched blocks with some wool appliquéd elements. I had the best time not only creating it but also when adding the embellishments. I could easily have gotten carried away and found that I really had to restrain myself. I hope you have fun making it your own.
Please respect Kaaren's TERMS OF USE: The use of my pattern/design and tutorials is limited to individual and personal use only. Distributing or selling my pattern or tutorials in any form is not permitted. They may not be used for commercial purposes unless written permission is granted. Credit for my pattern and tutorials should be included if displayed in any manner. Individual users may enlarge or reduce the size of the drawings for their personal use but may not alter them in any other way.
Kaaren's Bio: I am an artist and have recently retired from actively designing, publishing and travel teaching in the decorative painting industry. A short while later, in December of 2010, we moved from Eastern Ontario to the beautiful Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia. Quilting, stitching, applique and most recently rug hooking have become my new passions. Oh, and did I mention that I love to make and collect pincushions and needlecases! Join me on the First Friday of every month when I release a new Freebie design for you to make and enjoy.
Copyright © 2009 - 2012 - All Rights Reserved - Kaaren Johnston of The Painted Quilt.
Please visit her The Painted Quilt blog at http://thepaintedquilt.blogspot.com/ and her The Painted Quilt Etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/kaarenjohnston.
First Friday Freebie #13 - Autumn Blessings
Copyright © 2010 - All Rights Reserved - Kaaren Johnston of The Painted Quilt
Here's what Kaaren had to say about her pattern: It sure would be nice to be posting this month’s First Friday Freebie on a cool, crisp Autumn day but that’s not going to happen until tomorrow. For the last four days, we’ve been experiencing record breaking temperatures for this time of year in the mid to high 90’s and along with the oppressive humidity, it’s been brutal.
This month’s FFF is an Autumn-inspired mini quilt called Autumn Blessings. It combines both pieced and stitched blocks with some wool appliquéd elements. I had the best time not only creating it but also when adding the embellishments. I could easily have gotten carried away and found that I really had to restrain myself. I hope you have fun making it your own.
Please respect Kaaren's TERMS OF USE: The use of my pattern/design and tutorials is limited to individual and personal use only. Distributing or selling my pattern or tutorials in any form is not permitted. They may not be used for commercial purposes unless written permission is granted. Credit for my pattern and tutorials should be included if displayed in any manner. Individual users may enlarge or reduce the size of the drawings for their personal use but may not alter them in any other way.
Kaaren's Bio: I am an artist and have recently retired from actively designing, publishing and travel teaching in the decorative painting industry. A short while later, in December of 2010, we moved from Eastern Ontario to the beautiful Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia. Quilting, stitching, applique and most recently rug hooking have become my new passions. Oh, and did I mention that I love to make and collect pincushions and needlecases! Join me on the First Friday of every month when I release a new Freebie design for you to make and enjoy.
Copyright © 2009 - 2012 - All Rights Reserved - Kaaren Johnston of The Painted Quilt.
Please visit her The Painted Quilt blog at http://thepaintedquilt.blogspot.com/ and her The Painted Quilt Etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/kaarenjohnston.
An Autumn Sampler Free Quilt Pattern By Kaaren Johnston of The Painted Quilt
I can never get enough of wall quilts - especially those for the Fall season. So, I was delighted to see that Kaaren Johnston had a wonderful pattern on her The Painted Quilt blog showing you how to make an autumn sampler. Given my love of Fall this is definitely going on my "to do" list.
Here's what Kaaren had to say about her pattern: After four days of rain and an unseasonal ‘nor-easter thrown in for good measure, we have our fingers crossed for blue skies and sunshine today. Although yesterday dawned bright and cool, we had to fire up our furnace and build a fire in the wood stove for the first time this season. We even had a few wet flurries of the white stuff. Yikes! I think that autumn has officially arrived!
To celebrate the season, this month’s First Friday Freebie was designed to showcase the fading days of summer and the start of autumn…my favorite season! Watermelon, sunflowers, crows, wasps, pumpkins, birdhouses, flowers and of course the alphabet are included in this sampler.
Please respect Kaaren's TERMS OF USE: The use of my pattern/design and tutorials is limited to individual and personal use only. Distributing or selling my pattern or tutorials in any form is not permitted. They may not be used for commercial purposes unless written permission is granted. Credit for my pattern and tutorials should be included if displayed in any manner. Individual users may enlarge or reduce the size of the drawings for their personal use but may not alter them in any other way.
Kaaren's Bio: I am an artist and have recently retired from actively designing, publishing and travel teaching in the decorative painting industry. A short while later, in December of 2010, we moved from Eastern Ontario to the beautiful Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia. Quilting, stitching, applique and most recently rug hooking have become my new passions. Oh, and did I mention that I love to make and collect pincushions and needlecases! Join me on the First Friday of every month when I release a new Freebie design for you to make and enjoy.
Copyright © 2009 - 2012 - All Rights Reserved - Kaaren Johnston of The Painted Quilt.
Please visit her The Painted Quilt blog at http://thepaintedquilt.blogspot.com/ and her The Painted Quilt Etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/kaarenjohnston.
First Friday Freebie #22 - An Autumn Sampler
Copyright © 2011 - All Rights Reserved - Kaaren Johnston of The Painted Quilt
Here's what Kaaren had to say about her pattern: After four days of rain and an unseasonal ‘nor-easter thrown in for good measure, we have our fingers crossed for blue skies and sunshine today. Although yesterday dawned bright and cool, we had to fire up our furnace and build a fire in the wood stove for the first time this season. We even had a few wet flurries of the white stuff. Yikes! I think that autumn has officially arrived!
To celebrate the season, this month’s First Friday Freebie was designed to showcase the fading days of summer and the start of autumn…my favorite season! Watermelon, sunflowers, crows, wasps, pumpkins, birdhouses, flowers and of course the alphabet are included in this sampler.
Please respect Kaaren's TERMS OF USE: The use of my pattern/design and tutorials is limited to individual and personal use only. Distributing or selling my pattern or tutorials in any form is not permitted. They may not be used for commercial purposes unless written permission is granted. Credit for my pattern and tutorials should be included if displayed in any manner. Individual users may enlarge or reduce the size of the drawings for their personal use but may not alter them in any other way.
Kaaren's Bio: I am an artist and have recently retired from actively designing, publishing and travel teaching in the decorative painting industry. A short while later, in December of 2010, we moved from Eastern Ontario to the beautiful Annapolis Valley of Nova Scotia. Quilting, stitching, applique and most recently rug hooking have become my new passions. Oh, and did I mention that I love to make and collect pincushions and needlecases! Join me on the First Friday of every month when I release a new Freebie design for you to make and enjoy.
Copyright © 2009 - 2012 - All Rights Reserved - Kaaren Johnston of The Painted Quilt.
Please visit her The Painted Quilt blog at http://thepaintedquilt.blogspot.com/ and her The Painted Quilt Etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/kaarenjohnston.
Glittered Pumpkins Free Tutorial by Pamela Kellogg of Kitty and Me Designs
I know I've told you a zillion times that I love decorating for the Fall. Well, what would Fall decorations be without a few pumpkins. If you agree then you'll be pleased to know that Pamela Kellogg has a tutorial on her Kitty & Me Designs blog showing you make glitter pumpkins. Enjoy!
In the meantime, mom & I did a fun little project yesterday. Glittered pumpkins:
I was driving to the Post Office yesterday, and decided to stop at the farm market on the way back for some squash. Those little tiny pumpkins always catch my eye! I already had a few but decided to get some more and suddenly, I had this idea to glitter them and add some dried flowers to the top. So I bought 8 pumpkins and drove over to mom's house! (Ya'll know I love my glitter!)
Please respect Pamela's TERMS OF USE: I like to share Craft and Embroidery Tutorials on how I do a variety of projects and techniques and helpful hints. I add to this list regularly. Please feel free to download the directions and if you try them, please let me know if you enjoyed the project!
Pamela's Bio:Designer, Textile Artist and Instructor. Although I love all forms of needlework and embroidery, my true passion is Crazy Quilting. I enjoy a quiet life in our little cottage by a lake in Northern Illinois. I frequent flea markets and antique shops looking for do-dads that I can sew on to my stitching projects. I offer some of my handmade items, along with my mom's and my sister's, in my Etsy shop. I enjoy baking and share many of my recipes here. And did I mention glitter?
Copyright © 2005 - 2012 - All Rights Reserved - Pamela Kellogg of Kitty & Me Designs .
Please visit her Kitty & Me Designs blog at http://kittyandmedesigns.blogspot.com/ and her Kitty & Me Designs Etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/kittyandme.
Glittered Pumpkins & Pumpkin Biscornu Designs
Copyright © 2009 - All Rights Reserved - Written by Pamela Kellogg of Kitty & Me Designs.
Here's what Pamela had to say about her tutorial: Well, my new Kitchenaid has kept me quite busy! I've made 3 batches of cookies this afternoon. I also made some fudge and another candy. I'll have photos soon and I'll share my fudge recipe. It's so easy!Copyright © 2009 - All Rights Reserved - Written by Pamela Kellogg of Kitty & Me Designs.
In the meantime, mom & I did a fun little project yesterday. Glittered pumpkins:
I was driving to the Post Office yesterday, and decided to stop at the farm market on the way back for some squash. Those little tiny pumpkins always catch my eye! I already had a few but decided to get some more and suddenly, I had this idea to glitter them and add some dried flowers to the top. So I bought 8 pumpkins and drove over to mom's house! (Ya'll know I love my glitter!)
Please respect Pamela's TERMS OF USE: I like to share Craft and Embroidery Tutorials on how I do a variety of projects and techniques and helpful hints. I add to this list regularly. Please feel free to download the directions and if you try them, please let me know if you enjoyed the project!
Pamela's Bio:Designer, Textile Artist and Instructor. Although I love all forms of needlework and embroidery, my true passion is Crazy Quilting. I enjoy a quiet life in our little cottage by a lake in Northern Illinois. I frequent flea markets and antique shops looking for do-dads that I can sew on to my stitching projects. I offer some of my handmade items, along with my mom's and my sister's, in my Etsy shop. I enjoy baking and share many of my recipes here. And did I mention glitter?
Copyright © 2005 - 2012 - All Rights Reserved - Pamela Kellogg of Kitty & Me Designs .
Please visit her Kitty & Me Designs blog at http://kittyandmedesigns.blogspot.com/ and her Kitty & Me Designs Etsy shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/kittyandme.
الأربعاء، 29 أغسطس 2012
Users love simple and familiar designs – Why websites need to make a great first impression
I’m sure you’ve experienced this at some point: You click on a link to a website, and after a quick glance you already know you’re not interested, so you click ‘back’ and head elsewhere. How did you make that snap judgment? Did you really read and process enough information to know that this website wasn’t what you were looking for? Or was it something more immediate?
We form first impressions of the people and things we encounter in our daily lives in an extraordinarily short timeframe. We know the first impression a website’s design creates is crucial in capturing users’ interest. In less than 50 milliseconds, users build an initial “gut feeling” that helps them decide whether they’ll stay or leave. This first impression depends on many factors: structure, colors, spacing, symmetry, amount of text, fonts, and more.
In our study we investigated how users' first impressions of websites are influenced by two design factors:
- Visual complexity -- how complex the visual design of a website looks
- Prototypicality -- how representative a design looks for a certain category of websites
We presented screenshots of existing websites that varied in both of these factors -- visual complexity and prototypicality -- and asked users to rate their beauty.
The results show that both visual complexity and prototypicality play crucial roles in the process of forming an aesthetic judgment. It happens within incredibly short timeframes between 17 and 50 milliseconds. By comparison, the average blink of an eye takes 100 to 400 milliseconds.
And these two factors are interrelated: if the visual complexity of a website is high, users perceive it as less beautiful, even if the design is familiar. And if the design is unfamiliar -- i.e., the site has low prototypicality -- users judge it as uglier, even if it’s simple.
Wedding dress made from a parachute
This wedding dress was made from a nylon parachute that saved the groom's life during World War II. Maj. Claude Hensinger, a B-29 pilot, and his crew, were returning from a bombing raid over Yowata, Japan, in August 1944 when their engine caught fire. The crew was forced to bail out... He kept the parachute and used it as a way to propose to Ruth in 1947. He presented it to her and suggested she make a gown out of it for their wedding.Via The Museum of Ridiculously Interesting Things. And since my newly-installed widget probably won't find it, I'll manually insert a link to Carol Burnett's famous "Went With The Wind" sketch.
She wondered how she was going to make "this voluminuous item" into a dress. Seeing a dress in a store window that was based on one that appeared in the movie Gone with the Wind, she patterned her dress after that. She hired a local seamstress, Hilda Buck, to make the bodice and veil. She made the skirt herself; she pulled up the strings on the parachute so that the dress would be shorter in the front and have a train in the back. The couple were married in the Neffs Lutheran Church in Neffs, Pennslyvania, July 19, 1947.
How machines rule the financial markets
Excerpts from what is, to my mind, a scary story at Salon:
In today’s stock market, humans have largely been reduced to interested observers. The algorithms own the market now. Dow Jones and Bloomberg offer news services that are written specifically for the trading bots. These stories would be incomprehensible to a human, but make perfect sense to an algorithm...The Salon story is in turn excerpted from a book that will be published later this week.
The competition between warring Wall Street algorithms has become so bizarre that there are days when 40 percent of the trades on all U.S. exchanges, from the Nasdaq to the NYSE, are made by just two midwestern companies that most people, even those who work in finance, have never heard of. One of them, Getco, is located in Chicago; the other, Tradebot, is in Kansas City. Both firms employ world-class hackers and engineers who are focused on clearing profits of often less than one cent per share. Getco and Tradebot deploy thousands of algorithms to scour the markets for the tiniest of opportunities...
When a mutual fund company, be it Fidelity, Vanguard, or T. Rowe Price, makes a trade to add to a position or subtract from one, it’s inevitably a very large order. Trading a million shares of a stock, even a heavily traded one such as Apple or ExxonMobil, can move the market against the large seller or buyer. If other traders know that an order to buy a million shares is coming through the pipe, they will do whatever they can to get in front of it and buy up available shares. That way, they can repost their newly acquired shares for sale at a higher price knowing that they’ll get sucked into the mutual fund order. When a mutual fund has to pay more for its shares, it costs the owners of that fund—normal people saving for retirement—money...
Wall Street leaders have acknowledged that a rogue series of algorithms could spark a string of colossal losses that their owners can’t cover. Because some high-speed trading algorithms are able to trade on margin with leverage, it’s conceivable that a series of bad trades, all conducted in seconds, could lead to a liquidity crisis, bankrupting a trader’s broker and the clients he trades for. Such incidents have nearly happened before. In late 2009, Chicago’s Infinium Capital Management, one of the more secretive and powerful trading houses in the United States, twice lost control of an algorithm that began selling S&P 500 futures as fast as it could, dropping the market...
An Egyptian "paddle doll"
"Paddle dolls" earned their nickname because of their resemblance to modern Ping-Pong paddles. They all show exaggerated depictions of female genitalia. Some are decorated with rudimentary drawings of couples engaged in sexual intercourse, and others have images of birth gods. The iconography of birth and reproduction suggests that the Egyptians believed "paddle dolls" enhanced fertility for the living and probably also for the dead.From the collections of the Brooklyn Museum, where I had to search for other examples of paddle dolls to decipher how this image depicts female genitalia, even in exaggerated form. Apparently the small triangle at the very bottom of the carving is thought to represent the pubic region.
Via A London Salmagundi.
"Tappers" at paralympic swimming events
One of the most important aids to the blind swimmer is the tapper. Standing at each end of the pool is a person holding a long pole with a soft circular ball on the end. As the swimmer approaches they are tapped on the head.
There are several more interesting aspects of the paralympics detailed in an article at the BBC today.
It is a sign to the swimmer that the end of the pool is approaching, and the confidence gained by the tapper's presence means the swimmer can move at full pelt without fearing a painful crash at the end.
"The pole looks a bit like a fishing rod," says Marcelo Sugimori, one of two tappers in the Brazilian Paralympic team. Sugimori used to tap for his sister Fabiana, who won gold in the 50m freestyle in Athens 2004. He now works with the team's two other blind and partially sighted swimmers.
"We tap the swimmer when they are between two and four metres from the end of the pool," he adds. "It takes a lot of training together, and a lot of trust."
The nonsense of "zero tolerance" in schools
Here is yet another in a seemingly-neverending series of incidents in which schools rigidly enforce "zero tolerance" of sex/drugs/violence/etc related matters. In this case a three-year-old child deaf child who signs with his hands has been told to change his name sign because the hand gesture resembled the pointing of a gun.
Addendum: I just noticed that the boy's name is "Hunter," which may explain the hand sign he was taught to use. Also this comment from the Reddit thread -
Hunter Spanjer says his name with a certain special hand gesture, but at just three and a half years old, he may have to change it.Source link, via Neatorama."He's deaf, and his name sign, they say, is a violation of their weapons policy," explained Hunter's father, Brian Spanjer.
Grand Island's "Weapons in Schools" Board Policy 8470 forbids "any instrument...that looks like a weapon," But a three year-old's hands?
"Anybody that I have talked to thinks this is absolutely ridiculous. This is not threatening in any way," said Hunter's grandmother Janet Logue.
"It's a symbol. It's an actual sign, a registered sign, through S.E.E.," Brian Spanjer said. S.E.E. stands for Signing Exact English, Hunter's sign language. Hunter's name gesture is modified with crossed-fingers to show it is uniquely his own.
Addendum: I just noticed that the boy's name is "Hunter," which may explain the hand sign he was taught to use. Also this comment from the Reddit thread -
...the boy is using SEE instead of ASL. Read through to the related article, and you'll see that the school district teaches to deaf children with ASL instead of SEE (the former is much more common). What most likely happened is that the school is just trying to teach the boy ASL, perhaps starting with his name, so the parents ran to the news to create the story that the school is trying to change his name due to their gun policy, when it's actually because their teachers don't speak SEE.- which, of course, would put the story in a different light.
الثلاثاء، 28 أغسطس 2012
Google at UAI 2012
The conference on Uncertainty in Artificial Intelligence (UAI) is one of the premier venues for research related to probabilistic models and reasoning under uncertainty. This year's conference (the 28th) set several new records: the largest number of submissions (304 papers, last year 285), the largest number of participants (216, last year 191), the largest number of tutorials (4, last year 3), and the largest number of workshops (4, last year 1). We interpret this as a sign that the conference is growing, perhaps as part of the larger trend of increasing interest in machine learning and data analysis.
There were many interesting presentations. A couple of my favorites included:
- "Video In Sentences Out," by Andrei Barbu et al. This demonstrated an impressive system that is able to create grammatically correct sentences describing the objects and actions occurring in a variety of different videos.
- "Exploiting Compositionality to Explore a Large Space of Model Structures," by Roger Grosse et al. This paper (which won the Best Student Paper Award) proposed a way to view many different latent variable models for matrix decomposition - including PCA, ICA, NMF, Co-Clustering, etc. - as special cases of a general grammar. The paper then showed ways to automatically select the right kind of model for a dataset by performing greedy search over grammar productions, combined with Bayesian inference for model fitting.
A strong theme this year was causality. In fact, we had an invited talk on the topic by Judea Pearl, winner of the 2011 Turing Award, in addition to a one-day workshop. Although causality is sometimes regarded as something of an academic curiosity, its relevance to important practical problems (e.g., to medicine, advertising, social policy, etc.) is becoming more clear. There is still a large gap between theory and practice when it comes to making causal predictions, but it was pleasing to see that researchers in the UAI community are making steady progress on this problem.
There were two presentations at UAI by Googlers. The first, "Latent Structured Ranking," by Jason Weston and John Blitzer, described an extension to a ranking model called Wsabie, that was published at ICML in 2011, and is widely used within Google. The Wsabie model embeds a pair of items (say a query and a document) into a low dimensional space, and uses distance in that space as a measure of semantic similarity. The UAI paper extends this to the setting where there are multiple candidate documents in response to a given query. In such a context, we can get improved performance by leveraging similarities between documents in the set.
The second paper by Googlers, "Hokusai - Sketching Streams in Real Time," was presented by Sergiy Matusevych, Alex Smola and Amr Ahmed. (Amr recently joined Google from Yahoo, and Alex is a visiting faculty member at Google.) This paper extends the Count-Min sketch method for storing approximate counts to the streaming context. This extension allows one to compute approximate counts of events (such as the number of visitors to a particular website) aggregated over different temporal extents. The method can also be extended to store approximate n-gram statistics in a very compact way.
In addition to these presentations, Google was involved in UAI in several other ways: I held a program co-chair position on the organizing committee, several of the referees and attendees work at Google, and Google provided some sponsorship for the conference.
Overall, this was a very successful conference, in an idyllic setting (Catalina Island, an hour off the coast of Los Angeles). We believe UAI and its techniques will grow in importance as various organizations -- including Google -- start combining structured, prior knowledge with raw, noisy unstructured data.
The beheading of Lady Jane Grey
She was only 16 or 17 years old, and had been de facto Queen of England for nine days.
Painting by Paul Delaroche (1833), via Rob's Webstek.
Holes in beach sand explained
From Naturespeak, a detailed explanation of why one sometimes sees a line of holes in the sand at a lakeshore...
In places where the shorebird and hieroglyphs met, a third type of marking evidenced where the birds were working these wiggle marks with systematic thrusts of an open bill. They were starting at one end and poking millimeter by millimeter down the line until – whatever it was – was found, escaped, or the hole turned out to be dry. I opted to try the same tactic...Those interested in the identity of this burrower-in-the-sand can find the identity and a drawing of the creature at Naturespeak.
Taking my finger and collapsing the tiny ridges, I became a giant sandpiper on this day. Many of the tunnels yielded nothing except, well, collapsed patterns in the sand. A fascinating few of the tunnel investigations resulted in a tiny explosion near the terminal end. In a motion quicker than the eye could catch something would erupt out of the tunnel – spreading a small shower of sand grains and leaving an opening.
Not only were they micro-sized but also cryptically colored to blend into the speckled sand... Their surprising trajectory took them well beyond expected range to about 4 or 5 inches from their starting point...
If this were an ocean beach I’d be talking about “sand fleas” at this point but this was an inland sea beach [Lake Huron]. These things looked like grasshoppers but nothing about this scenario, except the jumping, smacked of grasshopper...
Ambergris
From a story in the Bournemouth Daily Echo:
Via Nothing to do with Arbroath.
See also This wasn't used to poison Charles II.A schoolboy has stumbled across a rare piece of [ambergris] which could be worth £40,000... the substance is highly sought after and is used to prolong the scent of perfume. Eight-year-old Charlie Naysmith made the discovery at Hengistbury Head near Bournemouth in Dorset, much to the amazement of his parents.
His find doesn’t look very exciting and most people would probably walk straight past it, mistaking it for a stone. But Charlie was curious enough to pick it up and, after a bit of research, he and his family discovered it is worth between £10,000 and £40,000...
Via Nothing to do with Arbroath.
"Ecce reparationem" - updated
You can read the rest of the story (and see a video interview of the woman) at the BBC.An elderly parishioner has stunned Spanish cultural officials with an alarming and unauthorised attempt to restore a prized Jesus Christ fresco.
Ecce Homo (Behold the Man) by Elias Garcia Martinez has held pride of place in the Sanctuary of Mercy Church near Zaragoza for more than 100 years.
The woman took her brush to it after years of deterioration due to moisture. Cultural officials said she had the best intentions and hoped it could be properly restored. Cecilia Gimenez, who is in her 80s, was reportedly upset at the way the fresco had deteriorated and took it on herself to "restore" the image.
She claimed to have had the permission of the priest to carry out the job. "(The) priest knew it! He did! How could you do something like that without permission? He knew it!"
Addendum: Reposted from five days ago to add this most interesting information from a writeup at The History Blog:
City officials are bringing in professional restorers Monday to see if Cecilia Giménez’s “restoration” can be undone. Prospects are grim. The original work is a hundred years old and it was done directly on the unprepped wall with oil paints. There’s a reason frescoes are made with pigment applied to wet plaster; oil on wall tends to flake right off.
If it can’t be re-restored, that might be a boon for the city. “The world’s worst restoration” has a growing fan club now. It has become a major tourist attraction and subject of a Change.org petition to keep the new version rather than allow restorers to revert it back to the original. As the petition puts it: The daring work of the spontaneous artist in the Ecce Homo of the Sanctuary of Mercy of Borja is an endearing and a loving act, a clever reflection of political and social situation of our time. It reveals a subtle critique of creationist theories of the Church...I understand there are suggestions that the church will opt to leave the restoration in place, and place on the wall a photograph of the original painting. All of which raises some interesting questions about the nature of art and how we value it.
Anyway it’s not like the original is a masterpiece, despite what some of the more sensationalistic headlines said when the story first broke. It has more sentimental value than artistic or historical significance. Elias Garcia Martinez was a fairly well-known local painter of traditional-style popular works in the late 19th and early 20th century. He was a professor at the Fine Arts School of Zaragoza from 1894 until his retirement in 1929, and he and his family used to vacation in Borja during the summer break. One of those summers he spent two hours painting Christ with a crown of thorns on a church wall...
Photo of tourists via Peregrino.
Ribbon eel
Like many eels, the ribbon eel is sometimes thought to be angry or aggressive, because its mouth is often open, appearing ready to strike. In reality, the eel is simply breathing. In the wild, the ribbon eel buries itself in sand or hides in rocks or reefs, dashing out to feed on shrimp and fish.
The Wikipedia entry also notes that a ribbon eel can live to be twenty years old, and is the only moray eel that is protandric (born a male, but changes to a female during its lifetime).
Filmed in the ocean off Lembeh, Sulawesi, Indonesia. Video found at Neatorama. To me, the creature looks like a piece of living Christmas candy.
Are these Bible passages self-contradictory?
Where in the Bible are we told in one verse not to do a thing and in the next to do it?‘Answer not a fool according to his folly, lest thou also be like unto him.’--Prov. xxvi. 4.‘Answer a fool according to his folly, lest he be wise in his own conceit.’---Samuel Grant Oliphant, Queer Questions and Ready Replies, 1887.--Prov. xxvi. 5.
I don't know the answer to the question I posed in the title; there may be a subtext or translation subtletly that is not evident in the brief excerpt. Someone with a theological training or a better understanding of Proverbs may be able to explain this apparent discrepancy.
Found in the Futility Closet.
الاثنين، 27 أغسطس 2012
Three-horned sheep are real
Ovis aries - Old Norway Sheep (anomalous, three-horned)
As explained at Biomedical Ephemera:
Three-horned sheep legitimately have more than two horns... As a result, the extra horn locations can deform the skull shape of sheep who develop them, resulting in…"special" sheep.Text and image from an eighteenth-century German nature book.
Thankfully for farmers, most of the time, the extra horn and semi-deformed skull/face has no influence upon brain development, and the sheep are no more dull than average.
LinkWithin added to the blog
Today I added a widget called "LinkWithin," which adds internal links to other posts on TYWKIWDBI. I did this not to increase pageviews, because I don't have any click-related revenue, but to try to enhance the experience by steering readers (especially new readers) to relevant past posts, rather than having to search for and link to those posts while I write the text.
At present I seem to have placed the widget within the body of the post, which is not what I wanted; I would prefer that it come at the very bottom, after the social media links and the "labels" information. I found this information -
It's also too small. I installed the three-thumbnail-wide version, then wanted to change to the five-thumbnail-wide version, but haven't successfully been able to alter it.
Most importantly, it's not currently linking to "relevant" past posts, which was my goal. It seems now to be linking to random past posts. My understanding is that it takes time for LinkWithin to "prowl" the blog and categorize the relevance of past links based on keywords. I'll give it a few days to see how it goes.
At present I seem to have placed the widget within the body of the post, which is not what I wanted; I would prefer that it come at the very bottom, after the social media links and the "labels" information. I found this information -
Modify your HTML template to add the code below at the place where you want the widget to appear:- but I'm understandably nervous about even opening my template for fear of screwing something up (I minimally modified the blog format from a preset template).
It's also too small. I installed the three-thumbnail-wide version, then wanted to change to the five-thumbnail-wide version, but haven't successfully been able to alter it.
Most importantly, it's not currently linking to "relevant" past posts, which was my goal. It seems now to be linking to random past posts. My understanding is that it takes time for LinkWithin to "prowl" the blog and categorize the relevance of past links based on keywords. I'll give it a few days to see how it goes.
Guard your ginseng carefully
The English word ginseng derives from the Chinese term rénshēn... Rén means "man" and shēn means a kind of herb; this refers to the root's characteristic forked shape, which resembles the legs of a manThere are malefactors who will steal it from your woods:
The theft and destruction of valuable wild ginseng growing in Wisconsin has alarmed wardens in the Department of Natural Resources to the point that a warning was issued last week for landowners and others to be on the lookout.Cody Adams, a DNR warden in Crawford County, said camouflage-dressed thieves illegally ripping the root from the ground leave little chance of its long-term survival...The motive is money, and grabbing the slow-growing plants now before the ginseng season opens on Sept. 1.Ginseng, which sold for $200 per pound last year, could rise to $500 per pound this year, the DNR said.According to the Mayo Clinic, ginseng has long been used in traditional Chinese medicine as a natural energy booster. A recent study showed the herb relieved fatigue in cancer patients. Animal studies also show ginseng helps with inflammation.
The DNR is reminding ginseng harvesters that they need a license (cost is $15.75) and permission from the landowner. Also, harvesters must immediately bury the plant’s berries to ensure the plant grows back.Another reason it is so expensive:
One study in laboratory animals showed possible effects of ginseng or its ginsenoside components on the central nervous system and gonadal tissues and another on penile erection. Ginseng is known to contain phytoestrogens and may affect the pituitary gland to increase the secretion of gonadotropins. Other mice studies found effects on sperm production and the estrus cycle.
The first written words of the English language
I didn't know that the earliest known example of written words of the English language are preserved not in a book or manuscript, but in a medallion - the Undley Bracteate, which dates to the 5th century:
Believed to have been made in southern Denmark and brought to England by some of the earliest Germanic-speaking settlers, the Bracteate features a helmeted head, a she-wolf suckling Romulus and Remus and a runic inscription…Found by a farmer plowing a field.
It says "maegae medu" – the word "medu" is well known in old English, it means reward or gift. "Maga" certainly means kinsman or colleague or chief or something like that. The thing that nobody knows is another word from the inscription – gaegogae. What on earth does that mean? The a and e are actually a symbol – it’s pronounced ga-go-ga. The Library are guessing that it might mean she-wolf or it might just be some sort of magical incantation – it sounds a bit like that...
Guess the identity of this famous self-educated man
I selected these extracts from a biography at infed:
Malcolm X, born as Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska in 1925.
...he “stumbled upon starting to acquire some kind of homemade education”. He became extremely frustrated at not being able to express what he wanted to convey in letters that he wrote...Answer below the fold...
He got himself a dictionary and began painstakingly copying every entry. It took him a day to do the first page. He would copy it all out and then read back aloud what he had written. He began to remember the words and what they meant. He was fascinated with the knowledge that he was gaining. He finished the A’s and went on to the B’s. Over a period of time he finished copying out the whole dictionary...
..."every free moment I had, if I was not reading in the library, I was reading in my bunk. You couldn’t have gotten me out of a book with a wedge”... [he] read and read and read. He devoured books on history and was astounded at the knowledge he obtained... His reading was not limited to history, however. He read about genetics and philosophy. He read about religion... He never stopped wanting to learn. Just before his death in 1965, he maintained that one of the things he most regretted in his life was his lack of an academic education.
Malcolm X, born as Malcolm Little in Omaha, Nebraska in 1925.
Learn not to burn
The photo shows a house that was not burned by the wildfires near the city of Cle Elum in Washington. The photographer, a member of the family, said it looked like a force field surrounded the house, but as a Reddit thread indicates, this escape is a result of following proper preventive procedures in wildfire-prone areas, including -
"In rural areas, clear a fuel break of at least 3 times the fuel length around all structures."In other words, clear the brush and trees around your dwelling to a distance of 3X the height of the trees or brush. By that criterion, virtually every cabin I've ever seen in northern Minnesota and Wisconsin would be doomed, because the ethos here is to preserve as many trees as possible. I grew up in a home that was sited after plotting the location of the trees so that the house could be fitted among them with branches overhanging the roof; as a kid my annual autumn job was to crawl to the roof edges to clean out the leaves that had fallen in the gutters.
How to escape a whitewater river vortex
The guys in this raft do not escape during the minute of the video, but this suggestion is proffered at Fuck Yeah Fluid Dynamics:
One of the perils of whitewater sports is getting stuck in what paddlers call a “hole” or a “hydraulic”. This river feature forms just downstream of large obstacles like rocks or low-level dams. As water pours over the obstacle and into its shadow, the flow forms a recirculating vortex-like zone. Immediately next to the obstacle, water is pulled upstream toward the obstacle and then down toward the bottom of the river. This makes the hydraulic very dangerous and hard to escape. Note in the video how the raft is held in place by the upstream motion of the water at the surface of the hydraulic. The rafters are preventing their craft from flipping over by weighing down the side experiencing the upward flow of the vortex. Escaping a hydraulic usually requires getting near its edge, where its current is weaker. If swimming, the best way to escape is to swim toward the bottom of the river and then downstream with the current of the hydraulic rather than against it at the surface.It would take a braver person than me to shed a life preserver and dive to the bottom of a vortex in order to escape it.
Flexible burial shoes
Laced in back to facilitate fitting them onto a corpse. I presume the idea in 1916 was not that the deceased regular shoes couldn't be wiggled onto the feet, but rather that it would be a shame to bury a decent pair of shoes with mom or dad when these cheap substitutes can be interred instead, and the good ones reused by someone in the family.
Image from the Flickr set of eye heart, via Sutured Infection.
الأحد، 26 أغسطس 2012
We Got Your Wiki Back in Portuguese - Jerry Andrus!
I received a lot of kudos over the six pages I just launched last week, that was a lot of work and took a ton of time. I'm very proud of those pages, but I think this announcement tops that. Our first World Wikipedia project is completed.! The editor is Nix Dorf who lives in Brazil and has never written a page before. He contacted me a few days after TAM 2012 when he saw a 2 minute video of me talking about needing foreign language editors.
Nix completely understood what the goal of the project was, and started right in. He forged ahead and just started editing. I wasn't quite sure how this all would happen, and thought it would move a lot slower, but guess that wasn't Nix's plan.
Several of the videos we are using for references on this page are now captioned in Portuguese. Other videos are pure Andrus's illusions and need no translating. Which is one reason I decided to start with Jerry Andrus. Optical Illusions are universal.
Now we have several other pages started and I'm really enjoying watching them learn. Every question they have helps me improve how I explain things and train. This is great fun and very exciting. Browsing through pages in Portuguese I can't find anyone in the skeptic universe that has a nicer more detailed page than Jerry Andrus has now.
The plan was to use Jerry Andrus as a starting point. One page on skepticism that was well written that we could branch off of, hopefully, someday all the names and topics on Andrus's page will have a blue hyperlink to another Portuguese page.
Now the Portuguese editors can move on to other skeptical spokespeople and topics. I'm really hoping that we won't just concentrate on Americans, but try to focus on people that are relevant to that language's pages. Skeptics that appear on TV, radio, print media in Portuguese. I don't know who these people are, but hope that the team will identify them and get started.
So here is the link to our first Wikipedia World new page. Thank you again Nix!
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Andrus
Nix completely understood what the goal of the project was, and started right in. He forged ahead and just started editing. I wasn't quite sure how this all would happen, and thought it would move a lot slower, but guess that wasn't Nix's plan.
Several of the videos we are using for references on this page are now captioned in Portuguese. Other videos are pure Andrus's illusions and need no translating. Which is one reason I decided to start with Jerry Andrus. Optical Illusions are universal.
Now we have several other pages started and I'm really enjoying watching them learn. Every question they have helps me improve how I explain things and train. This is great fun and very exciting. Browsing through pages in Portuguese I can't find anyone in the skeptic universe that has a nicer more detailed page than Jerry Andrus has now.
The plan was to use Jerry Andrus as a starting point. One page on skepticism that was well written that we could branch off of, hopefully, someday all the names and topics on Andrus's page will have a blue hyperlink to another Portuguese page.
Now the Portuguese editors can move on to other skeptical spokespeople and topics. I'm really hoping that we won't just concentrate on Americans, but try to focus on people that are relevant to that language's pages. Skeptics that appear on TV, radio, print media in Portuguese. I don't know who these people are, but hope that the team will identify them and get started.
So here is the link to our first Wikipedia World new page. Thank you again Nix!
http://pt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerry_Andrus
السبت، 25 أغسطس 2012
Acorn Mushroom Ornament Free Tutorial By Lisa Jordan of Lil Fish Studios
Every Fall when I look at all the acorns on the ground I always wonder what I could make out of them. Well, now I know. You see, Lisa Jordan has a wonderful tutorial on her Lil Fish Studios blog showing you how to make mushroom ornaments out of acorns. Enjoy!
Please respect Lisa's TERMS OF USE: When sharing my tutorials, photos, or content, please link back to my Lil Fish Studios blog @ http://lilfishstudios.blogspot.com/ and give proper attribution. It's just the right thing to do.
Lisa's Bio:Living under the poplar and pine in rural Minnesota I find inspiration in the nature that surrounds me. I'm especially drawn to mushrooms, moss, and the oddly lumpy and beautifully textural bits found on the forest floor.
I'm especially enthralled with wool and wood. Sustainability is important to me and is reflected in the materials and processes I use.
Copyright © 2006 - 2012 - All Rights Reserved - Lisa Jordan of Lil Fish Studios.
Please visit her Lil Fish Studios blog at http://lilfishstudios.blogspot.com/, her Lil Fish Studios Big Cartel shop at http://lilfishstudios.bigcartel.com/, and her Lil Fish Studios Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/lilfishstudios .
Acorn Mushroom Ornament Tutorial
Copyright © 2009 - All Rights Reserved - Written by Lisa Jordan of Lil Fish Studios.
Here's what Lisa had to say about her tutorial: Here's an earthy little ornament project for you to try. The boys and I had fun making these up yesterday and wanted to share them with you.Copyright © 2009 - All Rights Reserved - Written by Lisa Jordan of Lil Fish Studios.
Please respect Lisa's TERMS OF USE: When sharing my tutorials, photos, or content, please link back to my Lil Fish Studios blog @ http://lilfishstudios.blogspot.com/ and give proper attribution. It's just the right thing to do.
Lisa's Bio:Living under the poplar and pine in rural Minnesota I find inspiration in the nature that surrounds me. I'm especially drawn to mushrooms, moss, and the oddly lumpy and beautifully textural bits found on the forest floor.
I'm especially enthralled with wool and wood. Sustainability is important to me and is reflected in the materials and processes I use.
Copyright © 2006 - 2012 - All Rights Reserved - Lisa Jordan of Lil Fish Studios.
Please visit her Lil Fish Studios blog at http://lilfishstudios.blogspot.com/, her Lil Fish Studios Big Cartel shop at http://lilfishstudios.bigcartel.com/, and her Lil Fish Studios Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/lilfishstudios .
How To Recycle A Magazine Free Tutorial By Alma Stoller
Have you ever thought about recycling a magazine? If so Alma Stoller has a wonderful tutorial on her Alma Stoller blog showing you how to do this. Enjoy.
Here's what Alma had to say about her tutorial: I wrote about this technique in the May/June 2007 issue of Cloth Paper Scissor Magazine. Here is a quick recap.
Please respect Alma's TERMS OF USE: I encourage you to link back to my post. Please give credit where credit is due. Unless otherwise noted, all photos, text, ideas, tutorials and artwork on this blog are the property of Alma Stoller. I'm happy to share with you, but please do not copy, reproduce or use without permission. Thank you.
Copyright © 2003-2012 - All Rights Reserved - Alma Stoller of Alma Stoller blog. Alma is an artist, designer, and blogger.
Please visit her Alma Stoller blog at http://www.almastoller.blogspot.com/, her Alma Stoller Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Alma-Stoller/179752818769188 , and her Alma Stoller Tutorials ETSY Shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/AlmaStollerTutorials.
Copyright © 2010- All Rights Reserved - Written By Alma Stoller of Alma Stoller blog.
Here's what Alma had to say about her tutorial: I wrote about this technique in the May/June 2007 issue of Cloth Paper Scissor Magazine. Here is a quick recap.
Please respect Alma's TERMS OF USE: I encourage you to link back to my post. Please give credit where credit is due. Unless otherwise noted, all photos, text, ideas, tutorials and artwork on this blog are the property of Alma Stoller. I'm happy to share with you, but please do not copy, reproduce or use without permission. Thank you.
Copyright © 2003-2012 - All Rights Reserved - Alma Stoller of Alma Stoller blog. Alma is an artist, designer, and blogger.
Please visit her Alma Stoller blog at http://www.almastoller.blogspot.com/, her Alma Stoller Facebook Page at https://www.facebook.com/pages/Alma-Stoller/179752818769188 , and her Alma Stoller Tutorials ETSY Shop at http://www.etsy.com/shop/AlmaStollerTutorials.
Flower Tutorial By Thespoena McLaughlin of Vintiquities Workshop
I know that I'm mentioned a thousand times that you can never have enough flowers. Or, flower tutorials. Especially if they're being taught by a master at mixed media. If I've piqued your curiosity check out the flower tutorial that Thespa McLaughlin has on her of Vintiquities Workshop. They're just beautiful.
Here's what Thespa had to say about her tutorial: I was working on some flowers this weekend and I thought I would show you a step by step on how I made them...
Please respect Thespa's TERM OF USE: My patterns & tutorials are for personal use ONLY. Not for resale. If you want to share it online please give full credit complete with a link to Vintiquities Workshop at http://vintiquitiesworkshop.blogspot.com .
Thespa's Bio: I am a mixed media artist living with my family in the Ozarks. I love aged turquoise, faded cream, and lots of romantic layers. I dig rusty things and found objects and frequently use them in my art.
Copyright © 2012 - All Rights Reserved - Thespoena McLaughlin of Vintiquities Workshop.
Please visit her Vintiquities Workshop at http://vintiquitiesworkshop.blogspot.com/. You can also follow her on Pinterest here.
A free Flower Tutorial...
Copyright © 2012 - All Rights Reserved - Written by Thespoena McLaughlin of Vintiquities Workshop.
Here's what Thespa had to say about her tutorial: I was working on some flowers this weekend and I thought I would show you a step by step on how I made them...
Please respect Thespa's TERM OF USE: My patterns & tutorials are for personal use ONLY. Not for resale. If you want to share it online please give full credit complete with a link to Vintiquities Workshop at http://vintiquitiesworkshop.blogspot.com .
Thespa's Bio: I am a mixed media artist living with my family in the Ozarks. I love aged turquoise, faded cream, and lots of romantic layers. I dig rusty things and found objects and frequently use them in my art.
Copyright © 2012 - All Rights Reserved - Thespoena McLaughlin of Vintiquities Workshop.
Please visit her Vintiquities Workshop at http://vintiquitiesworkshop.blogspot.com/. You can also follow her on Pinterest here.
Sunflowers In Silk Ribbon Embroidery Free Tutorial By Carol Daisy of Embroideries From Daisy's Garden
I LOVE just about any kind of silk ribbon embroidery flower and was was thrilled to see that Carol Daisy had a wonderful tutorial on her Silk Ribbon Embroidery blog showing you how to make sunflowers in silk ribbon embroidery. Enjoy making your flowers.
Here's what Carol had to say about her tutorial: Hi Everyone, Sorry it has been so long. You know what it is like, not enough hours in the day. You have your day planned out and then *** bingo, it takes a whole new direction. These days most of my time seems to be taken up with administration and not so much time actually doing SRE. It is so peaceful to just spend the time working with Silk Ribbons, sometimes I even get withdrawal symptoms.
I took some photos of these brilliant Sunflowers while in Brisbane earlier this year. So large bright and cheery, even with showers threatening overhead.
Please respect Carol's TERMS OF USE: The patterns and designs are available for your private use only & remain the copyright of "Embroideries from Daisy's Garden". Ribbon Embroidery Supplies are available from our Website " Embroideries From Daisy's Garden."
Carol's Bio: My life is at the stage that I can indulge in my interests of Embroidery and Crafts. Ribbons,beads,threads, laces and trims all have a special place here in my studio.
My childhood was spent on the family dairy farm in Toowoomba, Queensland. When I was about 12 years old, my Grandmother (nicknamed Daisy – hence the name Daisy’s Garden) introduced me to the joys of needlework. I am so thankful to her for giving me a skill that I could enjoy and build upon for life. After the chores were done, whenever I had some spare time, I would sit quietly on the front porch and stitch away. I remember these times so fondly. When I retired, and finally had some time to myself, I had the desire to do embroidery again. I didn’t get far with the fancy work tablecloth however, once I discovered Silk Ribbon Embroidery, I became addicted!
Copyright © 2012 - All Rights Reserved - Carol Daisy of Embroideries From Daisy's Garden.
Please visit her Embroideries From Daisy's Garden website at http://www.daisysgarden.net.au, her Silk Ribbon Embroidery blog at http://www.caroldaisy.blogspot.com/, and her Create-Enhance blog at http://www.create-enhance.com/.
Sunflowers In Silk Ribbon Embroidery
Copyright © 2010 - All Rights Reserved - Written by Carol Daisy of Embroideries From Daisy's Garden.
Copyright © 2010 - All Rights Reserved - Written by Carol Daisy of Embroideries From Daisy's Garden.
Here's what Carol had to say about her tutorial: Hi Everyone, Sorry it has been so long. You know what it is like, not enough hours in the day. You have your day planned out and then *** bingo, it takes a whole new direction. These days most of my time seems to be taken up with administration and not so much time actually doing SRE. It is so peaceful to just spend the time working with Silk Ribbons, sometimes I even get withdrawal symptoms.
I took some photos of these brilliant Sunflowers while in Brisbane earlier this year. So large bright and cheery, even with showers threatening overhead.
Please respect Carol's TERMS OF USE: The patterns and designs are available for your private use only & remain the copyright of "Embroideries from Daisy's Garden". Ribbon Embroidery Supplies are available from our Website " Embroideries From Daisy's Garden."
Carol's Bio: My life is at the stage that I can indulge in my interests of Embroidery and Crafts. Ribbons,beads,threads, laces and trims all have a special place here in my studio.
My childhood was spent on the family dairy farm in Toowoomba, Queensland. When I was about 12 years old, my Grandmother (nicknamed Daisy – hence the name Daisy’s Garden) introduced me to the joys of needlework. I am so thankful to her for giving me a skill that I could enjoy and build upon for life. After the chores were done, whenever I had some spare time, I would sit quietly on the front porch and stitch away. I remember these times so fondly. When I retired, and finally had some time to myself, I had the desire to do embroidery again. I didn’t get far with the fancy work tablecloth however, once I discovered Silk Ribbon Embroidery, I became addicted!
Copyright © 2012 - All Rights Reserved - Carol Daisy of Embroideries From Daisy's Garden.
Please visit her Embroideries From Daisy's Garden website at http://www.daisysgarden.net.au, her Silk Ribbon Embroidery blog at http://www.caroldaisy.blogspot.com/, and her Create-Enhance blog at http://www.create-enhance.com/.
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