Paul Graham's reflections on art + other viewpoints @ http://www.paulgraham.com/goodart.html
Monday, August 27, 2007
Due Diligence: Arkady Gaidamak Is Pro-Government
Chaim Even-Zohar profiles Arkady Gaidamak, his business interests in Russia and Africa + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp?TextSearch=&KeyMatch=0&id=24723
Saturday, August 25, 2007
Art 2008
9th International Art Conference on Non-destructive Investigation and Analysis will focus on items of cultural heritage, but will have implications for gem testing.
Useful link:
www.isas.co.il/art2008
Useful link:
www.isas.co.il/art2008
Can You Identify The Stone?
A triplet is composed of poor quality, or colorless material used for crown and pavilion cemented at the girdle with a layer of colored cement. The triplet described is likely to be: emerald; jadeite; corundum; red tourmaline
Greatest Film Directors
31. Tim Burton
32. James Cameron
33. Jonathan Demme
34. Brian De Palma
35. Clint Eastwood
32. James Cameron
33. Jonathan Demme
34. Brian De Palma
35. Clint Eastwood
Looking At Art
Arthur C. Danto writes about Saul Steinberg's artistic and philosophical interpretation of drawings + other viewpoints @ http://artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=2162
Dubai Launches World’s First Fully Automated Color Grading Reports
Chaim Even-Zohar writes about Dubai’s International Diamond Laboratories (IDL) – the world’s only lab where the color grade is established totally by a state-of-the-art spectrograph, or, more precisely, the IDL Color Meter + new B2B concepts for traders + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp
Lines Of Retzius
Anders Adolf Retzius (Stockholm, Sweden) was the first to describe the beautiful markings on elephant ivory known as ‘lines of Retzius’; today gemologists describe it as 'engine-turned' pattern in ivory.
According to Robert Webster, they appear as ‘striae of different shades of cream proceeding in the arc of a circle and forming by their decussations (lines crossing to form overlapping ‘X’ patterns) minute curvilinear lozenge-shaped spaces which appear like an engine turning…..These ‘lines of Retzius’, as they are called, are seen only in ivory from the elephants, and are not apparent in ivory from the other animals….The engine turning (pattern of overlapping X’s) is not seen in the imitations, and provides a certain check on the piece being ivory. The lines of Retzius…are due to the dentine being permeated with fine thread-like canals filled with a brownish gelatinous substance, which in life conducts the nerve fibrils. These fine canals extend outward from the pulp (central nerve and blood vessel) cavity of the tusk in flattened spirals of opposite hands, and it is these dense pores with their gelatinous contents which give to ivory its beautiful polish and exceptional elasticity.’ (Webster, 1983, p. 590)
The experts believe the dentine portion of ivory is roughly 70% mineral matter (mostly calcium phosphate in the form of apatite) and 30% organic matter (collagen, a complex protein), while enamel is roughly 99% mineral matter (mostly apatite) and 1% organic matter, making it durable and hardnest substance produced by the body (human/animal). Elephant ivory from traditional sources + ivory from extinct elephant species such as the Mastodon and Mammoth + the teeth of hippopotamus, walrus, narwhal, sperm (or cachalot) whale, wild boar and wart hog may be used for jewelry and works of art.
According to Robert Webster, they appear as ‘striae of different shades of cream proceeding in the arc of a circle and forming by their decussations (lines crossing to form overlapping ‘X’ patterns) minute curvilinear lozenge-shaped spaces which appear like an engine turning…..These ‘lines of Retzius’, as they are called, are seen only in ivory from the elephants, and are not apparent in ivory from the other animals….The engine turning (pattern of overlapping X’s) is not seen in the imitations, and provides a certain check on the piece being ivory. The lines of Retzius…are due to the dentine being permeated with fine thread-like canals filled with a brownish gelatinous substance, which in life conducts the nerve fibrils. These fine canals extend outward from the pulp (central nerve and blood vessel) cavity of the tusk in flattened spirals of opposite hands, and it is these dense pores with their gelatinous contents which give to ivory its beautiful polish and exceptional elasticity.’ (Webster, 1983, p. 590)
The experts believe the dentine portion of ivory is roughly 70% mineral matter (mostly calcium phosphate in the form of apatite) and 30% organic matter (collagen, a complex protein), while enamel is roughly 99% mineral matter (mostly apatite) and 1% organic matter, making it durable and hardnest substance produced by the body (human/animal). Elephant ivory from traditional sources + ivory from extinct elephant species such as the Mastodon and Mammoth + the teeth of hippopotamus, walrus, narwhal, sperm (or cachalot) whale, wild boar and wart hog may be used for jewelry and works of art.
Friday, August 24, 2007
Can You Identify The Red Stone?
A red stone shows doubling of the back facets with 10x loupe and a line at 653 nm in the absorption spectrum. It is: synthetic ruby; ruby; zircon; tourmaline.
The Marketing Playbook
Good Books: (via Emergic) The Marketing Playbook by John Zagula and Richard Tong is about how to stay ahead with unique marketing vocabulary + commonsense in any market. It's a good book + you learn to think differently so that you are able to adapt to appropriate business environment (s) no matter where you live.
Jack Covert reviewed the book for 800-CEO-Blog:
There are two basic types of business books - descriptive and prescriptive. I gravitate toward the prescriptive. I like books that give 10 ways to solve a problem. Many business book readers are the same. They want a "how to" book to get them started. The Marketing Playbook by John Zagula and Richard Tong fits into this category perfectly.
While at Microsoft, the authors noticed patterns in the marketing plans the company was implementing. The main thing was there weren't many variations to the plans. In the book, they describe five "marketing plays" that will works for any situation. They have given them easy to remember names (Drag Race, Stealth, Best of Both, High-Low, and Platform). They describe in detail how to run each play, how to identify which play to run, and what play to run if the current one starts to fail.
Publisher’s Weekly wrote about the book (via Amazon):
This engaging primer contends that all marketing campaigns can be boiled down to five basic strategies, a typology distilled from the authors experience as marketing executives at Microsoft and as venture capitalists. The "plays," schematized with football diagrams, are: the "drag race," in which your product squares off against a single competitor in an attention-getting battle for market dominance; the "platform play" in which your product becomes the essential infrastructure for an entire industry (a Windows); the "stealth play," in which you go after markets ignored by larger competitors; the "best of both" play, in which your breakthrough product becomes all things to all men; and the "high-low" play, in which you pit both your deluxe high-end product line and your cheapo down-market line against a rival’s mediocre compromise offering.
The companion blog offers continuing insights on marketing.
Here is an excerpt from The Marketing Playbook by John Zagula and Richard Tong:
It may seem hard to believe, but our experience with hundreds of businesses and their specific challenges has shown over and over that there is always one obvious basic strategy that’s right for the situation. Once selected, your play becomes a starting point; it’s your path, your line of attack. From it, the rest of your in-market action plan comes to life.
Remember that there are only five plays to pick from. Here they are:
Drag Race: In some circumstances, your best bet calls for singling out one competitor and putting the pedal to the metal racing against them to win the category. This can be quite exciting, so it’s a really tempting choice. But you better have what it takes to beat them over the finish line.
Platform: Success can be hell. Once you’ve secured a lead in your category, you have to hold on to it and make the most of it. Standing on your platform at the top of the category, you need to be on the lookout. You must gather allies and defenses. Sounds kind of boring. But it’s essential. Success begets envy and you never know from where a new challenger is likely to emerge.
Stealth: Just because you’re not strong enough yet to win the battle doesn’t mean you can’t win the war. In this play, you undermine the status quo in your market by whittling away at the incumbent’s weak points. And maybe even by making them look foolish. But remember, you still have to stay out of their way and survive. Big, dumb, slow competitors can still squish you.
Best-of-Both: Go ahead, have your cake and eat it, too. While in many cases the smart decision is to focus, requiring a trade-off at the high-end or low-end of the market, in the right circumstances you don’t have to. With this play, instead you gain dominance over the whole of the category by collapsing these two ends. If you appeal to the most important needs of each part of the market, you can win them all.
High-Low: Compromise is for weaklings. With this play, you try to close out the competition by splitting the category and owning both halves. It takes a lot of finesse, but when you need to keep a competitor from establishing a Best-of-Both foothold, you need to appeal to the distinct prejudices of both the elites and the common folk, the high end and the cheap. This is the hardest play to manage, but if it’s done right, you’ll achieve high volumes and high margins at the same time.
In choosing the right play, there are some important questions you will need to ask yourself. Different plays are best suited to different conditions. Different plays require different strengths. Do you have the right ones to pull off your choice? Some plays are riskier than others. How tough are your nerves? Depending on the play, succeeding can take a long time. Do you have the time, patience, and resources? After all that, how big is the goal you’re after? Is it achievable? Is it worth it?
Jack Covert reviewed the book for 800-CEO-Blog:
There are two basic types of business books - descriptive and prescriptive. I gravitate toward the prescriptive. I like books that give 10 ways to solve a problem. Many business book readers are the same. They want a "how to" book to get them started. The Marketing Playbook by John Zagula and Richard Tong fits into this category perfectly.
While at Microsoft, the authors noticed patterns in the marketing plans the company was implementing. The main thing was there weren't many variations to the plans. In the book, they describe five "marketing plays" that will works for any situation. They have given them easy to remember names (Drag Race, Stealth, Best of Both, High-Low, and Platform). They describe in detail how to run each play, how to identify which play to run, and what play to run if the current one starts to fail.
Publisher’s Weekly wrote about the book (via Amazon):
This engaging primer contends that all marketing campaigns can be boiled down to five basic strategies, a typology distilled from the authors experience as marketing executives at Microsoft and as venture capitalists. The "plays," schematized with football diagrams, are: the "drag race," in which your product squares off against a single competitor in an attention-getting battle for market dominance; the "platform play" in which your product becomes the essential infrastructure for an entire industry (a Windows); the "stealth play," in which you go after markets ignored by larger competitors; the "best of both" play, in which your breakthrough product becomes all things to all men; and the "high-low" play, in which you pit both your deluxe high-end product line and your cheapo down-market line against a rival’s mediocre compromise offering.
The companion blog offers continuing insights on marketing.
Here is an excerpt from The Marketing Playbook by John Zagula and Richard Tong:
It may seem hard to believe, but our experience with hundreds of businesses and their specific challenges has shown over and over that there is always one obvious basic strategy that’s right for the situation. Once selected, your play becomes a starting point; it’s your path, your line of attack. From it, the rest of your in-market action plan comes to life.
Remember that there are only five plays to pick from. Here they are:
Drag Race: In some circumstances, your best bet calls for singling out one competitor and putting the pedal to the metal racing against them to win the category. This can be quite exciting, so it’s a really tempting choice. But you better have what it takes to beat them over the finish line.
Platform: Success can be hell. Once you’ve secured a lead in your category, you have to hold on to it and make the most of it. Standing on your platform at the top of the category, you need to be on the lookout. You must gather allies and defenses. Sounds kind of boring. But it’s essential. Success begets envy and you never know from where a new challenger is likely to emerge.
Stealth: Just because you’re not strong enough yet to win the battle doesn’t mean you can’t win the war. In this play, you undermine the status quo in your market by whittling away at the incumbent’s weak points. And maybe even by making them look foolish. But remember, you still have to stay out of their way and survive. Big, dumb, slow competitors can still squish you.
Best-of-Both: Go ahead, have your cake and eat it, too. While in many cases the smart decision is to focus, requiring a trade-off at the high-end or low-end of the market, in the right circumstances you don’t have to. With this play, instead you gain dominance over the whole of the category by collapsing these two ends. If you appeal to the most important needs of each part of the market, you can win them all.
High-Low: Compromise is for weaklings. With this play, you try to close out the competition by splitting the category and owning both halves. It takes a lot of finesse, but when you need to keep a competitor from establishing a Best-of-Both foothold, you need to appeal to the distinct prejudices of both the elites and the common folk, the high end and the cheap. This is the hardest play to manage, but if it’s done right, you’ll achieve high volumes and high margins at the same time.
In choosing the right play, there are some important questions you will need to ask yourself. Different plays are best suited to different conditions. Different plays require different strengths. Do you have the right ones to pull off your choice? Some plays are riskier than others. How tough are your nerves? Depending on the play, succeeding can take a long time. Do you have the time, patience, and resources? After all that, how big is the goal you’re after? Is it achievable? Is it worth it?
Portrait Of A Prince
The Economist writes about Raphael (1483-1520) + its quality and historical significance + the price war among collectors + other viewpoints @ http://www.economist.com/research/articlesBySubject/displaystory.cfm?subjectid=7933608&story_id=9461335
EU Wants To Foster Anti-Cartel Popular Class Action Culture In Europe
Chaim Even-Zohar writes about the EU Antitrust Commissioner + the methodology that favors consumers + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp?TextSearch=&KeyMatch=0&id=25031
Study: Why Girls Like Pink
CoCo Masters writes about human color vision + why women like the color pink + color selection experiment results + other viewpoints @ http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1654371,00.html
Brilliant!
Brilliant!
Topaz Blue & Déjà Vu
(via JCK) Robert Weldon writes about irradiated blue topaz + Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) licensing requirements + radiation sources + other viewpoints @ http://www.jckonline.com/article/CA6471137.html
Tasmanian Gemstones
Gemologists interested in gemstones and ornamental materials of Tasmania (Australia) should visit the website of Mineral Resources Tasmania @ http://www.mrt.tas.gov.au
Latest info on the gem mineral deposits of Tasmania (Australia) @
Occurrences of Gemstone Minerals in Tasmania (Eighth Edition) (April 2006)
Latest info on the gem mineral deposits of Tasmania (Australia) @
Occurrences of Gemstone Minerals in Tasmania (Eighth Edition) (April 2006)
Thursday, August 23, 2007
Can You Identify The Stone?
Six red stones are known to be ruby, spinel, garnet, zircon, paste and tourmaline. Only one stone will not sink in methyelene iodide, therefore it is tourmaline.
Gemstone Buying Lessons
- You must have patience and discipline.
- More money is lost by players who know what the right thing to do is, but don't do it, than for any other reason ( Ken Warren)
- Buying gemstone (s) is a game of incomplete information.
- You must understand probablities.
- You must understand human nature (especially your own). Gemstones don't cheat, it's the people who cheat, all the time.
- You must control your emotions.
- We have met the enemy......and he is us (Pogo).
- You must have the best eye, best hand, or get out.
- Regret, anger, self-pity may not be good for your health.
- Always do the right thing.
- The purpose of buying gemstone (s) is to make money.
- You must learn by analyzing your mistakes.
- More money is lost by players who know what the right thing to do is, but don't do it, than for any other reason ( Ken Warren)
- Buying gemstone (s) is a game of incomplete information.
- You must understand probablities.
- You must understand human nature (especially your own). Gemstones don't cheat, it's the people who cheat, all the time.
- You must control your emotions.
- We have met the enemy......and he is us (Pogo).
- You must have the best eye, best hand, or get out.
- Regret, anger, self-pity may not be good for your health.
- Always do the right thing.
- The purpose of buying gemstone (s) is to make money.
- You must learn by analyzing your mistakes.
What Great Managers Do
Good Books: (via Emergic) The One Thing You Need to Know : ... About Great Managing, Great Leading, and Sustained Individual Success by Marcus Buckingham is a real gem. The way he analyses the real world situation (s) makes sense. Sometimes we see, but don't see; sometimes we listen, but don't listen. Managing people requires special skills + insight + passion to find solutions. It's a good read.
The March 2005 issue of Harvard Business Review has an article by Buckingham based on the book.
Buckingham writes: Great leaders tap into the needs and fears we all share. Great managers, by contrast, perform their magic by discovering, developing, and celebrating what’s different about each person who works for them. This is the central premise of the book.
Brand Autopsy has a few excerpts from the HBR article:
Great managers play chess, not checkersAverage managers play checkers, while great managers play chess. The difference? In checkers, all the pieces are uniform and move in the same way; they are interchangeable. You need to plan and coordinate their movements, certainly, but they all move at the same pace, on parallel paths. In chess, each type of piece moves in a different way, and you can’t play if you don’t know how each piece moves. Great managers know and value the unique abilities and even the eccentricities of their employees, and they learn how best to integrate them into a coordinated plan of attack.
Identifying a person’s strengthsTo identify a person’s strengths, first ask, What was the best day at work you’ve had in the past three months? Find out what the person was doing and why he enjoyed it so much.
Remember: A strength is not merely something you are good at. In fact, it might be something you aren’t good at yet. It might be just a predilection, something you find so intrinsically satisfying that you look forward to doing it again and again and getting better at it over time. This question will prompt your employee to start thinking about his interests and abilities from this perspective.
Great Managers find ways to amplify a person’s style. Great managers don’t try to change a person’s style. They never try to push a knight to move in the same way as a bishop.They know that their employees will differ in how they think, how they build relationships, how altruistic they are, how patient they can be, how much of an expert they need to be, how prepared they need to feel, what drives them, what challenges them, and what their goals are. These differences of trait and talent are like blood types: They cut across the superficial variations of race, sex, and age and capture the essential uniqueness of each individual.
ManyWorlds adds:To become a great manager, Buckingham says, you need to know three things about each of your person: their strengths, so that you can focus on those while helping them overcome their weaknesses; the triggers that activate those strengths, recognition being the primary recommendation; and how they learn so you can tailor your management style to fit those who analyze, those who do, and those who watch.
In an interview with ComputerWorld, he said:
The job of the leader is to rally people toward a better future. It's externally focused, optimistic, ego-driven. Leaders see the present, but the future is even more vivid to them. The key skill is to cut through individual differences and tap into those things all of us share: fear of the future and the need for clarity.
The role of the manager is very internally focused: to turn one person's talent into performance; to ask, "Who is the person? What is his or her unique style of learning? What unique trigger must I squeeze to get the best out of him?" The challenge is to find what's unique and capitalize on it. It's really different but hugely important in a company. It's a role that's been undervalued.
People think of managers as leaders in waiting, but these are two very different abilities. The manager's role is catalytic. A great manager speeds up the reaction between the talent of people and the goals of the company. When that role is not valued, reactions are slowed down. If you want to know the future of a company, look at the quality of the managers.
Many IT managers would love it if all programmers thought alike, but a great manager knows that's absolute bunkum. A great manager figures out who's the knight, the queen, the pawn. He coordinates all those very different abilities and contributions into the service of the overall plan. He builds a team out of individuals.
Great managers talk about strengths -not things you can do well, but things that strengthen you. They're appetites as much as abilities - things you're drawn toward. A weakness isn't something you're bad at; it's something that drains, bores or frustrates you. An IT manager ought to be able to find out, for example, that this person loves to pull together and stay till midnight to meet that deadline. That urgency, passion, camaraderie makes him feel alive. Others need to go step by step and see the timeline and stick to it very religiously - never get behind the eight ball.
In the IT world, where it's "Do it for me yesterday," it's pretty important to know which of your people love that pressure and which are drained by it. If crunch time weakens you, you can't learn to love it. You can do it once or twice and then you'll quit -- psychologically or physically.
Watch to see what people are drawn to. Managers more often focus on weaknesses, but great managers know that will get you incremental improvement. If you invest in strengths, you get exponential improvement -- a much better return on investment.
This is what Buckingham has to say about learning styles:
Analyzers crave information. They love preparation and role playing. They take a task apart, examine the pieces and put it back together. They want to absorb all there is to know about a subject before they begin. They hate mistakes. Don't expect them to wing it; give them the time and the tools to prepare.
Doers learn by trial and error. Preparation bores them. They want a quick overview of the desired outcomes and then they're good to go. Start them with a simple task and gradually increase the complexity until they've mastered their roles.
Watchers like to see the total performance so they can learn how each part relates to all the others. Formal education and preparation leave them cold. Let a watcher shadow a successful performer so he can see the big picture.
The March 2005 issue of Harvard Business Review has an article by Buckingham based on the book.
Buckingham writes: Great leaders tap into the needs and fears we all share. Great managers, by contrast, perform their magic by discovering, developing, and celebrating what’s different about each person who works for them. This is the central premise of the book.
Brand Autopsy has a few excerpts from the HBR article:
Great managers play chess, not checkersAverage managers play checkers, while great managers play chess. The difference? In checkers, all the pieces are uniform and move in the same way; they are interchangeable. You need to plan and coordinate their movements, certainly, but they all move at the same pace, on parallel paths. In chess, each type of piece moves in a different way, and you can’t play if you don’t know how each piece moves. Great managers know and value the unique abilities and even the eccentricities of their employees, and they learn how best to integrate them into a coordinated plan of attack.
Identifying a person’s strengthsTo identify a person’s strengths, first ask, What was the best day at work you’ve had in the past three months? Find out what the person was doing and why he enjoyed it so much.
Remember: A strength is not merely something you are good at. In fact, it might be something you aren’t good at yet. It might be just a predilection, something you find so intrinsically satisfying that you look forward to doing it again and again and getting better at it over time. This question will prompt your employee to start thinking about his interests and abilities from this perspective.
Great Managers find ways to amplify a person’s style. Great managers don’t try to change a person’s style. They never try to push a knight to move in the same way as a bishop.They know that their employees will differ in how they think, how they build relationships, how altruistic they are, how patient they can be, how much of an expert they need to be, how prepared they need to feel, what drives them, what challenges them, and what their goals are. These differences of trait and talent are like blood types: They cut across the superficial variations of race, sex, and age and capture the essential uniqueness of each individual.
ManyWorlds adds:To become a great manager, Buckingham says, you need to know three things about each of your person: their strengths, so that you can focus on those while helping them overcome their weaknesses; the triggers that activate those strengths, recognition being the primary recommendation; and how they learn so you can tailor your management style to fit those who analyze, those who do, and those who watch.
In an interview with ComputerWorld, he said:
The job of the leader is to rally people toward a better future. It's externally focused, optimistic, ego-driven. Leaders see the present, but the future is even more vivid to them. The key skill is to cut through individual differences and tap into those things all of us share: fear of the future and the need for clarity.
The role of the manager is very internally focused: to turn one person's talent into performance; to ask, "Who is the person? What is his or her unique style of learning? What unique trigger must I squeeze to get the best out of him?" The challenge is to find what's unique and capitalize on it. It's really different but hugely important in a company. It's a role that's been undervalued.
People think of managers as leaders in waiting, but these are two very different abilities. The manager's role is catalytic. A great manager speeds up the reaction between the talent of people and the goals of the company. When that role is not valued, reactions are slowed down. If you want to know the future of a company, look at the quality of the managers.
Many IT managers would love it if all programmers thought alike, but a great manager knows that's absolute bunkum. A great manager figures out who's the knight, the queen, the pawn. He coordinates all those very different abilities and contributions into the service of the overall plan. He builds a team out of individuals.
Great managers talk about strengths -not things you can do well, but things that strengthen you. They're appetites as much as abilities - things you're drawn toward. A weakness isn't something you're bad at; it's something that drains, bores or frustrates you. An IT manager ought to be able to find out, for example, that this person loves to pull together and stay till midnight to meet that deadline. That urgency, passion, camaraderie makes him feel alive. Others need to go step by step and see the timeline and stick to it very religiously - never get behind the eight ball.
In the IT world, where it's "Do it for me yesterday," it's pretty important to know which of your people love that pressure and which are drained by it. If crunch time weakens you, you can't learn to love it. You can do it once or twice and then you'll quit -- psychologically or physically.
Watch to see what people are drawn to. Managers more often focus on weaknesses, but great managers know that will get you incremental improvement. If you invest in strengths, you get exponential improvement -- a much better return on investment.
This is what Buckingham has to say about learning styles:
Analyzers crave information. They love preparation and role playing. They take a task apart, examine the pieces and put it back together. They want to absorb all there is to know about a subject before they begin. They hate mistakes. Don't expect them to wing it; give them the time and the tools to prepare.
Doers learn by trial and error. Preparation bores them. They want a quick overview of the desired outcomes and then they're good to go. Start them with a simple task and gradually increase the complexity until they've mastered their roles.
Watchers like to see the total performance so they can learn how each part relates to all the others. Formal education and preparation leave them cold. Let a watcher shadow a successful performer so he can see the big picture.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)