Sunday, January 2, 2011
Photography and IP
An excellent article by Carolyn E. Wright (of Photo Attorney) from Better Digital Photography: Top 10 Misconceptions about Photography and Copyright. The focus is mostly on photography as art (as opposed to photography as means of sale), but useful information still—not only for photographers but for visual artists of every stripe.
Friday, December 31, 2010
Topology Coffee Mug
How the humor works:
"Intuitively two spaces are homeomorphic if one can be deformed into the other
without cutting or gluing. A traditional joke is that a topologist can't distinguish a coffee mug from a doughnut, since a sufficiently pliable doughnut could be reshaped
to the form of a coffee cup by creating a dimple and progressively enlarging it, while shrinking the hole into a handle. A precise definition of homeomorphic, involving a continuous function with a continuous inverse, is necessarily more technical."—Wikipedia, Topology
Wednesday, December 29, 2010
Jewelry and Storytelling
One of the tips you often hear from indie biz and handmade promoters is to tell (and sell) a story. And with good reason! Aren't our most favored possessions, the ones we really and truly cherish, storied items?
For example, one of my favorite pieces of jewelry that I've ever received has a few different stories behind it! Even if none of them are particularly geeky stories (unless Finnish mythology is geeky?).
My Kalevala necklace
First of all, it was a Christmas gift from my nearly-mother-in-law in 2007 or so. She bought it on a trip she took to Finland to study felting (she has a farm with lots of very very cute sheep and therefore LOTS of wool). How cool is that? I live on the other side of the globe from Finland (at the moment), I wouldn't normally have anything Finnish in my jewelry box. And it's a piece that will always make me think of her and her sheep and her thoughtful consideration & kindness long after she's gone.
Finland Map Pocket Mirror by LiteraryTease
Second of all, the design itself (cast in bronze) is based on a figure from the Kalevala, a collection of Finnish folklore and epic poetry. The two horses' heads represent all kinds of duality, but most importantly they keep watch over the past and the future. The bells that dangle are supposed to scare away evil spirits. Put the whole thing together and it's a protective talisman/good luck charm.
Despite my inclinations towards science, I will totally confess to being a wee bit superstitious and "frou-frou." I wear this necklace whenever I travel, or on occasions where I need a bit of extra good juju. If nothing else, it's a beautiful reminder of someone's love and thoughtful consideration of me. So it's a necklace that's been on a couple adventures!
Adventure Time with Finn & Jake Pins by Pande
My favorite adventure was one in Korea—the third story of this necklace. It was a Saturday, and at that point in my life in Korea, I spent my Saturdays making merry in Hongdae, the party district of Seoul. (I would like to point out that this exhausted me after just six weeks and did not characterize my normal behavior over the entire year!) The cast of characters in this story aside from myself included a Korean girl and a Chinese-Canadian girl, with special guest appearances from drunk Americans and Koreans. The Korean girl in question had been having a little too much fun that night. By four or five in the morning, she was passed out and clearly not on her best game. The Chinese-Canadian girl and I managed to get her out of the club and on to the sidewalk and watched over her while we figured out what to do.
We made quite the spectacle outside. A particularly belligerent Korean twentysomething—one who had been feeding her drinks for most of the night—hung around with hooded eyes, waiting for her to come out of it. Herds of Americans done partying for the night stumbled by and stared. A couple of the drunker ones asked us what we were doing. One such group seemed surprised at our altruism.
"What? You're going to stay here and take care of her?"
"Look at her necklace," their companion slurred, "of course she's going to take care of her!"
Of course by now you all know the necklace in question. :)
Sword and Shield Protection Mojo Bag from BlackCatCurio
I didn't press the fellow on just what the heck he meant by that as he and his gang stumbled away towards the subway, but it does speak to the appeal, power—and dare I say magic? ;)—of a good story; whether that story is one we tell, or hear, or of which we only catch faint glimpses and glimmers.
What's the story behind one of your cherished possessions?
For example, one of my favorite pieces of jewelry that I've ever received has a few different stories behind it! Even if none of them are particularly geeky stories (unless Finnish mythology is geeky?).
My Kalevala necklace
First of all, it was a Christmas gift from my nearly-mother-in-law in 2007 or so. She bought it on a trip she took to Finland to study felting (she has a farm with lots of very very cute sheep and therefore LOTS of wool). How cool is that? I live on the other side of the globe from Finland (at the moment), I wouldn't normally have anything Finnish in my jewelry box. And it's a piece that will always make me think of her and her sheep and her thoughtful consideration & kindness long after she's gone.
Finland Map Pocket Mirror by LiteraryTease
Second of all, the design itself (cast in bronze) is based on a figure from the Kalevala, a collection of Finnish folklore and epic poetry. The two horses' heads represent all kinds of duality, but most importantly they keep watch over the past and the future. The bells that dangle are supposed to scare away evil spirits. Put the whole thing together and it's a protective talisman/good luck charm.
Despite my inclinations towards science, I will totally confess to being a wee bit superstitious and "frou-frou." I wear this necklace whenever I travel, or on occasions where I need a bit of extra good juju. If nothing else, it's a beautiful reminder of someone's love and thoughtful consideration of me. So it's a necklace that's been on a couple adventures!
Adventure Time with Finn & Jake Pins by Pande
My favorite adventure was one in Korea—the third story of this necklace. It was a Saturday, and at that point in my life in Korea, I spent my Saturdays making merry in Hongdae, the party district of Seoul. (I would like to point out that this exhausted me after just six weeks and did not characterize my normal behavior over the entire year!) The cast of characters in this story aside from myself included a Korean girl and a Chinese-Canadian girl, with special guest appearances from drunk Americans and Koreans. The Korean girl in question had been having a little too much fun that night. By four or five in the morning, she was passed out and clearly not on her best game. The Chinese-Canadian girl and I managed to get her out of the club and on to the sidewalk and watched over her while we figured out what to do.
We made quite the spectacle outside. A particularly belligerent Korean twentysomething—one who had been feeding her drinks for most of the night—hung around with hooded eyes, waiting for her to come out of it. Herds of Americans done partying for the night stumbled by and stared. A couple of the drunker ones asked us what we were doing. One such group seemed surprised at our altruism.
"What? You're going to stay here and take care of her?"
"Look at her necklace," their companion slurred, "of course she's going to take care of her!"
Of course by now you all know the necklace in question. :)
Sword and Shield Protection Mojo Bag from BlackCatCurio
I didn't press the fellow on just what the heck he meant by that as he and his gang stumbled away towards the subway, but it does speak to the appeal, power—and dare I say magic? ;)—of a good story; whether that story is one we tell, or hear, or of which we only catch faint glimpses and glimmers.
What's the story behind one of your cherished possessions?
Tuesday, December 28, 2010
Birthday Bash: December
I have been remiss in keeping up the Birthay Bash posts. But what better time to reintroduce the series than near Christmas? My own father has a birthday near Christmas (January 2) and so I'm well-acquainted with the frustration of your private gift-giving holiday coinciding with perhaps the biggest one of the year!
So a happy December 28th birthday to Virginie of Roland Designs!
Virginie has a huge variety of goods in her shop: patterns, finished cross-stitches, jewelry, and cellphone charms, just to name a few. They all have an elegant vintage theme to them, perfect for when you want a little extra dash of class. She's a multi-talented lady, too: in addition to creating her own cross-stitch patterns, she crochets and makes jewelry, too! That's more than I can do...yet.
Pink Rose Hair Pins
These would be the perfect finishing touch to a cute little summertime outfit (even if it's still a cold and snowy December here on the East Coast).
Sterling Silver and Pearl Earrings
I can just imagine wearing these to the opera, or a fancy upscale New Year's Eve party. Cluster earrings like these are among my favorite styles, even though I don't actually wear earrings. So graceful! So classy!
"Le Moyen Age" Cross Stitch Pattern PDF
I actually used to cross-stitch when I was very young. Nothing fancy, but my mom showed me how and would let me work on a few bits of her projects sometimes. Crocheting never stuck, but cross-stitch did. So I have a soft spot in my heart for cross-stitch projects, and doubly-so for the commemorative birth/baptism/etc ones like this. My mom made ones for both me and my brother, and it's one of the few decorations that's hung in my room literally my entire life. Something like this would stay with a child (son, daughter, niece, friend's son, grandchild, whatever you have) forever. Besides, what little kid doesn't enjoy fairy tales about knights slaying dragons and rescuing princesses?
Viking Buttons
These, though, may be my favorite. Virginie is based out of Norway, and what is Norway's number one export? Vikings, of course! And look how adorable these guys are! So much friendlier than the kind that used to plunder and pillage all over the world. My own boyfriend is Swedish, so Vikings and Norse history/mythology has a special place in my heart.
So Roland Designs has something for everyone, crafter or buyer alike. Stop by and take a gander when you're in the mood for a little old-fashioned elegance!
So a happy December 28th birthday to Virginie of Roland Designs!
Virginie has a huge variety of goods in her shop: patterns, finished cross-stitches, jewelry, and cellphone charms, just to name a few. They all have an elegant vintage theme to them, perfect for when you want a little extra dash of class. She's a multi-talented lady, too: in addition to creating her own cross-stitch patterns, she crochets and makes jewelry, too! That's more than I can do...yet.
Pink Rose Hair Pins
These would be the perfect finishing touch to a cute little summertime outfit (even if it's still a cold and snowy December here on the East Coast).
Sterling Silver and Pearl Earrings
I can just imagine wearing these to the opera, or a fancy upscale New Year's Eve party. Cluster earrings like these are among my favorite styles, even though I don't actually wear earrings. So graceful! So classy!
"Le Moyen Age" Cross Stitch Pattern PDF
I actually used to cross-stitch when I was very young. Nothing fancy, but my mom showed me how and would let me work on a few bits of her projects sometimes. Crocheting never stuck, but cross-stitch did. So I have a soft spot in my heart for cross-stitch projects, and doubly-so for the commemorative birth/baptism/etc ones like this. My mom made ones for both me and my brother, and it's one of the few decorations that's hung in my room literally my entire life. Something like this would stay with a child (son, daughter, niece, friend's son, grandchild, whatever you have) forever. Besides, what little kid doesn't enjoy fairy tales about knights slaying dragons and rescuing princesses?
Viking Buttons
These, though, may be my favorite. Virginie is based out of Norway, and what is Norway's number one export? Vikings, of course! And look how adorable these guys are! So much friendlier than the kind that used to plunder and pillage all over the world. My own boyfriend is Swedish, so Vikings and Norse history/mythology has a special place in my heart.
So Roland Designs has something for everyone, crafter or buyer alike. Stop by and take a gander when you're in the mood for a little old-fashioned elegance!
Monday, December 27, 2010
How does this stuff work?
One of the comments I get most often online about my math jewelry is that, even if they like the piece, people "don't understand what [I] do with the numbers." This is an unfortunate reality of the nature of being primarily a digitally-based operation; when I explain the work to people in real life, it's very easy to tactilely and visually explain the math. It's much more difficult to do in text! So I whipped up a quick visual guide to my math jewelry.
The example piece is Feigenbaum's Alpha Constant, sometimes called Feigenbaum's Second Constant. It's a constant based on the relationship between tines in a bifurcation diagram. But you don't need to know that! What you need to know is the number itself: 2.502907875095892... (Note the ellipsis: both Feigenbaum constants are irrational numbers, so they never terminate or repeat but continue on into infinity.)
Because irrational numbers are a source of (literally) endless randomization, I can use as many or as few digits as I want in a piece. I truncated this bracelet early on; it only has six digits in it (which I bolded below).
α = 2.50290787509...
And what words obfuscate, images make clear! Hopefully. If you still don't see it, think on it some more and consider these factors:
The example piece is Feigenbaum's Alpha Constant, sometimes called Feigenbaum's Second Constant. It's a constant based on the relationship between tines in a bifurcation diagram. But you don't need to know that! What you need to know is the number itself: 2.502907875095892... (Note the ellipsis: both Feigenbaum constants are irrational numbers, so they never terminate or repeat but continue on into infinity.)
Because irrational numbers are a source of (literally) endless randomization, I can use as many or as few digits as I want in a piece. I truncated this bracelet early on; it only has six digits in it (which I bolded below).
α = 2.50290787509...
And what words obfuscate, images make clear! Hopefully. If you still don't see it, think on it some more and consider these factors:
- I omitted the decimal point for aesthetic purposes.
- The beads that are crossed out with red X's are the spacer beads that separate the digits. Don't count them!
- You start counting at the "male" end of the toggle, with 2 in the front, and loop around until the 0 in the back.
- In the case of 0, I simply put two spacer beads next to each other, using a lack of beads as a placeholder the same way that 0 acts as a placeholder in the number.
Sunday, December 26, 2010
Subatomic Poll And Giveaway!
I am taking the leap into subatomic and quantum jewelry! There's a lot of numbers involved, though. A lot of constants and measurements, and I'm unfamiliar with most of them. I need your help in deciding which subatomic constant is most worth enshrining in beaded form!
But you said giveaway!
That's right, I did. After you vote up here, leave a comment with two and a half things:
1. Email address or some other means of contact (in case you win!)
2.What you voted for
2.5 Why you voted for it (optional)
You also get up to three "bonus" entries by leaving a comment with a link to a Facebook link or Tweet back to this contest!
A post will be randomly selected via random number generator after the poll expires on February 24th, 2011. The winner will get their vote—regardless of whether or not it won—in a free necklace/bracelet/anklet (their choice). It's my way of saying "thank you," since I am terrible at making decisions myself.
Even if you're not interested in the giveaway, I still would love your vote. So go on and click that button!
Edit!: Since there's been overwhelming response to this (good on all of you for your passion for quantum mechanics!), I will draw three winners when the poll closes. Your chances of winning something just tripled! Vote & post!
Friday, December 24, 2010
Geo-Shopping!: Mookaite
The tried-and-true color analysis always pegs me as a fall, and true to that I do love warm, rich colors. No surprise, then, that I have a bunch of mookaite (also spelled mookite, moukite, mookalite, mookerite, moukalite, mouakite, or mooakite) in my beadbox!
Mookite Beads from A Bead Sea
Mookaite is a kind of jasper, which is itself a subcategory of the larger chalcedony category. (Protip: you pronounce chalcedony "kal-SID-nee," with a hard "k" sound and the emphasis on the second syllable.) Like agates, rhodonite, and amethyst, chalcedonies are silicates, composed primarily of silicon dioxide. Chalcedony is both the name of a species of minerals (of which members include the jaspers, the agates, onyx, sard, bloodstone, etc) and the name of a specific kind of mineral, a light blue and gray stone that resembles Blue Lace Agate.
Scientists put jaspers in their own grouping within the chalcedony family on account of their very grainy structure (as opposed to the agates, which are more fibrous in nature). Mookaite is a specific variety of jasper found only in Australia. The name derives from the place where it was first discovered: near Mooka Creek in western Australia. "Mooka," in turn, is an Aboriginal word for "running water." It's no surprise, then, that the sediments in mookite contain bits of aquatic life (even small fossils!), on an itty-bitty, microscopic and fragmented level.
Mookaite comes in a variety of warm, rich colors, ranging from a mustard yellow to mauve to brown to a pale kind of salmon. It's very easy to spot mookite and very difficult to confuse it with any other gemstone. The unique coloration of mookaite is due to iron and iron oxide inclusions (in the form of hematite and Goethite, mainly).
Root 2 Bracelet, with large mookite beads
You can see images of an actual mookaite mining operation at Outback Mining. There's also loads of neat stuff on Etsy, too:
Mookite Beads from A Bead Sea
Mookaite is a kind of jasper, which is itself a subcategory of the larger chalcedony category. (Protip: you pronounce chalcedony "kal-SID-nee," with a hard "k" sound and the emphasis on the second syllable.) Like agates, rhodonite, and amethyst, chalcedonies are silicates, composed primarily of silicon dioxide. Chalcedony is both the name of a species of minerals (of which members include the jaspers, the agates, onyx, sard, bloodstone, etc) and the name of a specific kind of mineral, a light blue and gray stone that resembles Blue Lace Agate.
Scientists put jaspers in their own grouping within the chalcedony family on account of their very grainy structure (as opposed to the agates, which are more fibrous in nature). Mookaite is a specific variety of jasper found only in Australia. The name derives from the place where it was first discovered: near Mooka Creek in western Australia. "Mooka," in turn, is an Aboriginal word for "running water." It's no surprise, then, that the sediments in mookite contain bits of aquatic life (even small fossils!), on an itty-bitty, microscopic and fragmented level.
Mookaite comes in a variety of warm, rich colors, ranging from a mustard yellow to mauve to brown to a pale kind of salmon. It's very easy to spot mookite and very difficult to confuse it with any other gemstone. The unique coloration of mookaite is due to iron and iron oxide inclusions (in the form of hematite and Goethite, mainly).
Root 2 Bracelet, with large mookite beads
You can see images of an actual mookaite mining operation at Outback Mining. There's also loads of neat stuff on Etsy, too:
'Mookaite' by Kokoba
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