I found Sungevity's business model very interesting because the web-based system evaluates the solar potential for a given home via satellite data (Microsoft Virtual Earth), provides an estimate of how much the system will save them over 25 years, the prospective increase in the value of their home, and simulated imagery of what their home might look like after solar panels are installed--all that (the calculations for preparing the estimate) in about 10 to 15 minutes.
This is definitely an impulse buy + I liked it.
Useful link:
www.sungevity.com
Tuesday, April 22, 2008
Customer Relationships
I found the new concept in business @ http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5884.html interesting + deeply satisfied employee = deeply satisfied customer = lifelong profit, makes sense.
Half-Moons
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
A Half-Moon is basically one half or less of a round-cut gem, with the straight side deeply faceted to produce a balanced and attractive design. Like other fancy outlines, it must first have been suggested by irregular rough the shape of a half-moon, a shape which was believed to have talismanic powers.
Half-Moons are rare both in surviving jewels and in contemporary illustrations. Clearly, there was little incentive to fashion such a shape, a wide triangle usually being preferred. Nearly all the examples I have seen have been of Italian origin. While this cannot be pure coincidence, I have been unable to discover any reasonable explanation. According to the eminent specialist Basil Watermeyer, the Half-Moon ‘was probably born through being accidentally cleaved in the faceting process. When this happens on a round cut which is already far advanced, there is just nothing else which can be done. Often rough stones have deep fractures through the side and no other cut but the half-moon can be adapted to it....It is essential that faceting designs have a meeting point midway between table rid and girdle so that the meet of the star and top half can link up.’
A Half-Moon is basically one half or less of a round-cut gem, with the straight side deeply faceted to produce a balanced and attractive design. Like other fancy outlines, it must first have been suggested by irregular rough the shape of a half-moon, a shape which was believed to have talismanic powers.
Half-Moons are rare both in surviving jewels and in contemporary illustrations. Clearly, there was little incentive to fashion such a shape, a wide triangle usually being preferred. Nearly all the examples I have seen have been of Italian origin. While this cannot be pure coincidence, I have been unable to discover any reasonable explanation. According to the eminent specialist Basil Watermeyer, the Half-Moon ‘was probably born through being accidentally cleaved in the faceting process. When this happens on a round cut which is already far advanced, there is just nothing else which can be done. Often rough stones have deep fractures through the side and no other cut but the half-moon can be adapted to it....It is essential that faceting designs have a meeting point midway between table rid and girdle so that the meet of the star and top half can link up.’
Realism And Impressionism In France
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
It has often been asked why a statue by Rodin is different from any other statue, and the explanation is simple: instead of copying Greek sculpture as others had done, Rodin did as the Greeks did—he went direct to Nature. ‘Everything,’ he said, ‘is contained in Nature, and when the artist follows Nature he gets everything.’ Rodin taught his contemporaries that distinction in sculpture is obtained, not by selecting a certain type of figure, but by gift and art of modeling. ‘Sculpture,’ he once said, ‘is the art of the hole and the lump,’ and as he went on he proved that in order to present a true appearance of form it was necessary sometimes to fashion the ‘holes’ and ‘lumps’ not exactly as they existed in anatomy, but as they appeared to the human eye. In this way Rodin introduced impressionism into sculpture, showing us heads and figures as they appeared to the human eye enveloped in atmosphere and bathed in light. His famous monument ‘The Citizens of Calais’ is remarkable, not only for the poignant expression of the different characters of the various figures, but also for the truth of atmosphere and movement in this procession winding its way along slowly and sadly. These are no graveyard figures, but living men moving and breathing in the air that surrounds them. Commemorating an historic incident when France and England were at war, this monument has become a happy and lasting token of the Entente Cordiale, for in addition to the monument at Calais a replica of it has been erected on the Victoria Embankment, London, close to the House of Lords, thanks to the generosity of English admirers of the French sculptor.
The rugged technique by which Rodin obtained his wonderful effects of atmospheric reality was long in establishing itself in public favor, yet there have been few sculptors animated with a more profound respect for the material of their art. It was Rodhin’s love of marble itself which led to a new development of his art, in which he would leave rough the matrix from which his sculpture was hewn, so that delicate heads and figures seemed to grow like flowers out of the marble of their origin. A memorable example of his work in this style is ‘Thought’, in which a feminine head of exquisite refinement and spirituality emerges from a rough-hewn block of marble.
Rodin reached his extreme limit of impressionism in sculpture with his colossal statue of ‘Balzac’, which, when exhibited in the New Salon of 1898, threw the world of art into a condition bordering upon frenzy. The man who twenty years before had been declared too skilful to be genuine was now accused of not knowing the elements of his craft. Yet the sublime simplicity of this figure, loosely wrapped in a dressing-gown, with the upturned face, the lion-maned head of genius, soaring, as it were, to heaven, revealed Rodin at his highest not only as a master of impressionist modelling, but also as a psychologist who could conceive and create an unforgettable expression of the very soul of genius.
It has often been asked why a statue by Rodin is different from any other statue, and the explanation is simple: instead of copying Greek sculpture as others had done, Rodin did as the Greeks did—he went direct to Nature. ‘Everything,’ he said, ‘is contained in Nature, and when the artist follows Nature he gets everything.’ Rodin taught his contemporaries that distinction in sculpture is obtained, not by selecting a certain type of figure, but by gift and art of modeling. ‘Sculpture,’ he once said, ‘is the art of the hole and the lump,’ and as he went on he proved that in order to present a true appearance of form it was necessary sometimes to fashion the ‘holes’ and ‘lumps’ not exactly as they existed in anatomy, but as they appeared to the human eye. In this way Rodin introduced impressionism into sculpture, showing us heads and figures as they appeared to the human eye enveloped in atmosphere and bathed in light. His famous monument ‘The Citizens of Calais’ is remarkable, not only for the poignant expression of the different characters of the various figures, but also for the truth of atmosphere and movement in this procession winding its way along slowly and sadly. These are no graveyard figures, but living men moving and breathing in the air that surrounds them. Commemorating an historic incident when France and England were at war, this monument has become a happy and lasting token of the Entente Cordiale, for in addition to the monument at Calais a replica of it has been erected on the Victoria Embankment, London, close to the House of Lords, thanks to the generosity of English admirers of the French sculptor.
The rugged technique by which Rodin obtained his wonderful effects of atmospheric reality was long in establishing itself in public favor, yet there have been few sculptors animated with a more profound respect for the material of their art. It was Rodhin’s love of marble itself which led to a new development of his art, in which he would leave rough the matrix from which his sculpture was hewn, so that delicate heads and figures seemed to grow like flowers out of the marble of their origin. A memorable example of his work in this style is ‘Thought’, in which a feminine head of exquisite refinement and spirituality emerges from a rough-hewn block of marble.
Rodin reached his extreme limit of impressionism in sculpture with his colossal statue of ‘Balzac’, which, when exhibited in the New Salon of 1898, threw the world of art into a condition bordering upon frenzy. The man who twenty years before had been declared too skilful to be genuine was now accused of not knowing the elements of his craft. Yet the sublime simplicity of this figure, loosely wrapped in a dressing-gown, with the upturned face, the lion-maned head of genius, soaring, as it were, to heaven, revealed Rodin at his highest not only as a master of impressionist modelling, but also as a psychologist who could conceive and create an unforgettable expression of the very soul of genius.
Random Thoughts
According to Tony Tan, GIC's deputy chairman, the world could be facing a recession which is longer, deeper and wider than any recession we have encountered in the last 30 years, if swift actions are not taken.
Useful link:
www.gic.com.sg
Useful link:
www.gic.com.sg
Origin, Ceylon Sapphire
I think the initiative by the Sri Lankan Gem & Jewelry Association to promote their colored stones, especially sapphires is a great idea + it will definitely popularize Sri Lankan sapphires worldwide but also position Sri Lanka on top of the pyramid provided the origin certification is done by a laboratory that is well-known, trusted and recognized worldwide + I don't think the local gem testing laboratories have the same luster like the international laboratories + my view is it makes sense to certify good quality stones of 1 carat and above.
Useful links:
www.facetssrilanka.com
www.srilankagemautho.com
www.ips.lk
Useful links:
www.facetssrilanka.com
www.srilankagemautho.com
www.ips.lk
Second Life Art And Jewelry Show
The First Annual Second Life Art Exhibit & Jewelry Show (April 19 - 20, 2008) via http://www.pr.com/press-release/81473 is an interesting concept + I think it must be the largest art exhibit/jewelry show to date in cyberspace by enthusiasts from both cyber and real worlds.
Brilliant!
Useful links:
www.monogramvirtua.com
http://secondlife.com
Brilliant!
Useful links:
www.monogramvirtua.com
http://secondlife.com
Monday, April 21, 2008
The Father Of Emissions Trading
I found the article on Richard Sandor, a practical visionary, who invented a financial technique of capping and trading pollutants @ http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1732518,00.html interesting because I think his tools, models and ideas may be our best hope for beating climate change.
Useful link:
www.chicagoclimatex.com
Useful link:
www.chicagoclimatex.com
Heard On The Street
The thing you are looking for won't occur until you are so discouraged that you stop looking.
Millionaire Fair
The Moscow Millionaire Fair held in Moscow, Russia is an annual fair for the exclusive Russian millionaires of today + it's perceived as the most famous luxury exhibit in Europe, if not the world + the fair is not just for the very rich, it is open for everyone to enjoy, but I think it's the millionaires who buy the real thing (s).
Useful link:
www.millionairfair.ru
Useful link:
www.millionairfair.ru
Chinese Rhinoceros Horn Carvings
I found the article on Chinese Rhinoceros horn carvings @ http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/18/arts/raahorn.php interesting because they are stylistically different through various periods influenced by changing scholarly tastes + the value factor = size + color + rarity + quality (signed by known and recognized carvers), just like paintings, jewelry and gemstones.
Useful links:
www.christies.com
www.sothebys.com
Useful links:
www.christies.com
www.sothebys.com
Personality Not Included
Personality Not Included: Why Companies Lose Their Authenticity And How Great Brands Get it Back by Rohit Bhargava is a great book that leads you through the process of properly building a company personality + he explains it all in a practical, understandable way.
I liked it.
Useful link:
www.personalitynotincluded.com
I liked it.
Useful link:
www.personalitynotincluded.com
Hearts
(via Diamond Cuts in Historic Jewelry:1381-1910) Herbert Tillander writes:
Gems which would today be classified as ‘triangular with rounded corners’ or ‘drops’, were at one time described as being heart-shaped. This is clear from many descriptions in French inventories dating from the middle of the seventeenth to far into the eighteenth century. It is quite possible that the term had a long tradition behind it. Another old French term for Heart was chapeau, meaning a tricorne hat.
Gradually, the conventional representation of the human heart became the standard outline. The earliest diamond of this shape that I have come across is in a portrait, A Gonzaga Princess, painted around 1605 by Frans Pourbus the Younger. The large piece of jewelry on the princess’s left sleeve contains a great variety of different cuts. The small Table Cuts and Hogbacks were especially shaped to fit very exactly into the scrolls. The pearly appearance of the small gems at the top of the jewel is puzzling. They may be pearls, but they could equally well be diamonds, like the half-moons in the brooch close to the neckline of the Princess’s dress. If they are diamonds, they are unique in having no facets at all; they must all have been bruted and polished by hand! Of course, they may well be cabochon-cut opaque gems of some other kind.
In August 1968, I analyzed the historical diamonds in a number of collections in Vienna. One of the stones, originally described as a Heart, was a tiny, flat-bottomed, multi-faceted pendeloque set in an oval mount on the Burgundian Court Goblet. Multi-faceted diamonds were not fashionable before the early seventeenth century. It is this fact that has, up to now, led people to believe that it was the final mastering of extensive fashioning that actually created the fashion for Rose Cuts and Brilliants.
E B Tiffany of Henry Birks, the Toronto jewelers, once sent me a photograph of a Heart which is in the Iranian Bank in Tehran. This diamond, said to weigh 22.93 ct, looks very like a Brilliant Cut. It is engraved on the flat end with a text in Persian, which indicates that it was fashioned in 1591 or 1592. It cannot, at that early date, have been an actual brilliant; perhaps it could best be described as a multi-faceted Table Cut.
Tavernier wrote that in 1665, among the treasures of the Mughal Emperor Aurung-Zeb, he saw a ‘trinket’ with a heart-shaped Rose Cut diamond (probably a regular Mughal Cut) weighing 35 ct. The French Blue diamond, when it had been recut in 1673, was also described as heart-shaped. The Blue Heart (31 ct) in the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, is another example of a Heart, and there are another two in a shoulder-knot by Diessbach in about 1673 and now in the Grünes Gewölbe, Dresden.
Gems which would today be classified as ‘triangular with rounded corners’ or ‘drops’, were at one time described as being heart-shaped. This is clear from many descriptions in French inventories dating from the middle of the seventeenth to far into the eighteenth century. It is quite possible that the term had a long tradition behind it. Another old French term for Heart was chapeau, meaning a tricorne hat.
Gradually, the conventional representation of the human heart became the standard outline. The earliest diamond of this shape that I have come across is in a portrait, A Gonzaga Princess, painted around 1605 by Frans Pourbus the Younger. The large piece of jewelry on the princess’s left sleeve contains a great variety of different cuts. The small Table Cuts and Hogbacks were especially shaped to fit very exactly into the scrolls. The pearly appearance of the small gems at the top of the jewel is puzzling. They may be pearls, but they could equally well be diamonds, like the half-moons in the brooch close to the neckline of the Princess’s dress. If they are diamonds, they are unique in having no facets at all; they must all have been bruted and polished by hand! Of course, they may well be cabochon-cut opaque gems of some other kind.
In August 1968, I analyzed the historical diamonds in a number of collections in Vienna. One of the stones, originally described as a Heart, was a tiny, flat-bottomed, multi-faceted pendeloque set in an oval mount on the Burgundian Court Goblet. Multi-faceted diamonds were not fashionable before the early seventeenth century. It is this fact that has, up to now, led people to believe that it was the final mastering of extensive fashioning that actually created the fashion for Rose Cuts and Brilliants.
E B Tiffany of Henry Birks, the Toronto jewelers, once sent me a photograph of a Heart which is in the Iranian Bank in Tehran. This diamond, said to weigh 22.93 ct, looks very like a Brilliant Cut. It is engraved on the flat end with a text in Persian, which indicates that it was fashioned in 1591 or 1592. It cannot, at that early date, have been an actual brilliant; perhaps it could best be described as a multi-faceted Table Cut.
Tavernier wrote that in 1665, among the treasures of the Mughal Emperor Aurung-Zeb, he saw a ‘trinket’ with a heart-shaped Rose Cut diamond (probably a regular Mughal Cut) weighing 35 ct. The French Blue diamond, when it had been recut in 1673, was also described as heart-shaped. The Blue Heart (31 ct) in the Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC, is another example of a Heart, and there are another two in a shoulder-knot by Diessbach in about 1673 and now in the Grünes Gewölbe, Dresden.
Realism And Impressionism In France
(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:
5
By the first principle of Impressionism, the substitution of simulataneous for consecutive vision, sculpture was affected as well as painting. From the time of Louis XIV France had always had talented and accomplished sculptors at her command, but it was not until the era of Impressionism that she produced a great world-sculptor whose name was worthily coupled with that of Michael Angelo. Among the earlier French sculptors Jean Baptiste Pigalle (1714-85) was a pioneer of Realism, his vigorous and fertile imagination giving his sculpture a certain accent of life and origanility. Jean Antoine Houdon (1741-1828), his pupil, was famous for the power and truth of his portrait busts; Francois Rude (1784-1855) was a still greater liberator of French sculpture from a cramping classicism which slavishly imitated the antique. His famous group ‘Le Départ des Volontaires de 1790’ on the Arc de Triomphe shows Rude’s realism and the nobility of his expression of patriotic feeling. Antoine Louis Barye (1796-1875), both painter and sculptor, the contemporary and friend of the Barbizon landscape painters, achieved high distinction by his lifelike sculpture of animals, and his small bronze are still eagerly sought after by collectors.
It was a pupil of Barye, an even greater modeller than himself, who was to achieve the greatest fame won by any sculptor since Michael Angelo, Auguste Rodin was born at Paris in the same year as Monet, 1840. He was of humble origin, and in his youth had to earn his living by working in a mason’s yard, where he became familiar with the material he was destined to master. For years his only studio was his humble bedroom, and it was here that he modelled his early bust, ‘The Man with the Broken Nose,’ which, when exhibited at the Salon, was acknowledged to be a masterpiece of realism, modelled with a power and truth unknown for generations. When his beautiful statue, ‘The Age of Bronze,’ no in Luxembourg, was exhibited in the Salon of 1877, the authorities were so astonished by its masterly modelling that the sculptor was accused of having taken a cast from life. To prove the falsehood of this accusation Rodin made his next statue, ‘St John the Baptist’ rather more than life-size, and again the modelling was miraculous in its perfection. If the ‘Age of Youth’ with its polished rendering of the graceful form of adolscence reminds us of the best Greek sculpture, this second powerful and lifelike rendering of a mature man is comparable to the figures by the master-sculptors of the Renaissance.
Realism And Impressionism In France (continued)
5
By the first principle of Impressionism, the substitution of simulataneous for consecutive vision, sculpture was affected as well as painting. From the time of Louis XIV France had always had talented and accomplished sculptors at her command, but it was not until the era of Impressionism that she produced a great world-sculptor whose name was worthily coupled with that of Michael Angelo. Among the earlier French sculptors Jean Baptiste Pigalle (1714-85) was a pioneer of Realism, his vigorous and fertile imagination giving his sculpture a certain accent of life and origanility. Jean Antoine Houdon (1741-1828), his pupil, was famous for the power and truth of his portrait busts; Francois Rude (1784-1855) was a still greater liberator of French sculpture from a cramping classicism which slavishly imitated the antique. His famous group ‘Le Départ des Volontaires de 1790’ on the Arc de Triomphe shows Rude’s realism and the nobility of his expression of patriotic feeling. Antoine Louis Barye (1796-1875), both painter and sculptor, the contemporary and friend of the Barbizon landscape painters, achieved high distinction by his lifelike sculpture of animals, and his small bronze are still eagerly sought after by collectors.
It was a pupil of Barye, an even greater modeller than himself, who was to achieve the greatest fame won by any sculptor since Michael Angelo, Auguste Rodin was born at Paris in the same year as Monet, 1840. He was of humble origin, and in his youth had to earn his living by working in a mason’s yard, where he became familiar with the material he was destined to master. For years his only studio was his humble bedroom, and it was here that he modelled his early bust, ‘The Man with the Broken Nose,’ which, when exhibited at the Salon, was acknowledged to be a masterpiece of realism, modelled with a power and truth unknown for generations. When his beautiful statue, ‘The Age of Bronze,’ no in Luxembourg, was exhibited in the Salon of 1877, the authorities were so astonished by its masterly modelling that the sculptor was accused of having taken a cast from life. To prove the falsehood of this accusation Rodin made his next statue, ‘St John the Baptist’ rather more than life-size, and again the modelling was miraculous in its perfection. If the ‘Age of Youth’ with its polished rendering of the graceful form of adolscence reminds us of the best Greek sculpture, this second powerful and lifelike rendering of a mature man is comparable to the figures by the master-sculptors of the Renaissance.
Realism And Impressionism In France (continued)
Sunday, April 20, 2008
Caught Up In The Drama
The title of the article is great: Put a Diamond Under Stress, and You Might Crack -- the actors in the drama include: Ralph O. Esmerian, 68, a collector of American folk art and precious gems who owns the Fred Leighton jewelry company + Merrill Lynch Mortgage Capital, a division of Merrill Lynch & Company + Peter E. Bacanovic, the former Merrill Lynch broker who was sentenced to five months in prison for his role in the Martha Stewart stock case + François Curiel, the director of Christie’s jewelry department + read the full story @ http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/20/fashion/20jewels.html
The following comments are great lessons in (jewelry) business.
'The estimates are disastrously low. It’s a fire-sale presentation. These are special pieces that deserve some respect. It’s like a magnificent Fifth Avenue mansion being offered for the price of a Third Avenue condo.'
- Ralph O. Esmerian
'Ralph is an artist, not a businessman. In his world, being a week late on a payment is nothing. When he sells a million-dollar piece of jewelry the client might walk out of the store without paying for it. He understands that it takes time for people to liquidate assets. People don’t have money sitting in cookie jars.'
- Helen Davis Chaitman
The following comments are great lessons in (jewelry) business.
'The estimates are disastrously low. It’s a fire-sale presentation. These are special pieces that deserve some respect. It’s like a magnificent Fifth Avenue mansion being offered for the price of a Third Avenue condo.'
- Ralph O. Esmerian
'Ralph is an artist, not a businessman. In his world, being a week late on a payment is nothing. When he sells a million-dollar piece of jewelry the client might walk out of the store without paying for it. He understands that it takes time for people to liquidate assets. People don’t have money sitting in cookie jars.'
- Helen Davis Chaitman
What Do Hedge-Funders Do With All That Money?
(via wsj) According to Alpha Magazine the top 25 fund managers earned US$16 billion in 2007, and what do hedge-funders do with all that money? They spend + according to Prince & Associates, most hedge funders spend their millions on art, jewelry, watches, hotels and spas.
As they say in business, if you have got it flaunt it.
Useful links:
www.alphamagazine.com
www.russalanprince.com
www.exoticexcess.com
As they say in business, if you have got it flaunt it.
Useful links:
www.alphamagazine.com
www.russalanprince.com
www.exoticexcess.com
Green Websites
I found the Green Websites via Time informative + useful.
- Grist
http://grist.org
- TreeHugger
www.treehugger.com
- Dot Earth
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com
- climate conversation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climatechange
- RealClimate
www.realclimate.org
- Environmental Capital
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital
- No Impact Man
http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog
- EcoGeek
www.ecogeek.org
- Ecorazzi
www.ecorazzi.com
- Switchboard
http://switchboard.nrdc.org
- Mongabay
www.mongabay.com
- ClimateEthics
http://climateethics.org
- Climate Progress
http://climateprogress.org
- WorldChanging
www.worldchanging.com
- PlanetArk
www.planetark.com
- Grist
http://grist.org
- TreeHugger
www.treehugger.com
- Dot Earth
http://dotearth.blogs.nytimes.com
- climate conversation
http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/climatechange
- RealClimate
www.realclimate.org
- Environmental Capital
http://blogs.wsj.com/environmentalcapital
- No Impact Man
http://noimpactman.typepad.com/blog
- EcoGeek
www.ecogeek.org
- Ecorazzi
www.ecorazzi.com
- Switchboard
http://switchboard.nrdc.org
- Mongabay
www.mongabay.com
- ClimateEthics
http://climateethics.org
- Climate Progress
http://climateprogress.org
- WorldChanging
www.worldchanging.com
- PlanetArk
www.planetark.com
Random Thoughts
The brush can capture in a single stroke the entire tragedy of a life.
- Philippe Pasqua
- Philippe Pasqua
Alchemy Of Glass
A must-visit: The upcoming exhibition at the Corning Museum of Glass in Corning, New York, 'Glass of the Alchemists: Lead Crystal-Gold Ruby, 1650-1750,' will explore how alchemists contributed to the creation of colorless crystal and gold ruby glass, two advances of fundamental importance in the history of glassmaking + the museum is home to the world's most comprehensive collection of glass from all periods and cultures over the past 3,500 years.
Useful links:
www.cmog.org
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/18/arts/raacorn.php
Useful links:
www.cmog.org
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/18/arts/raacorn.php
Christian Louboutin
I found the article on Christian Louboutin @ http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1731871,00.html interesting because beautiful shoe designs = posture and proportion, just like well-cut gemstones, good proportions, symmetry and finish = total internal reflection + no wonder his shoes are like jewels.
Useful link:
www.christianlouboutin.fr
Useful link:
www.christianlouboutin.fr
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