The Ghost Map

(via Emergic) Rajesh Jain writes:

Jason Kottke wrote in a review of the book on his blog:

The Ghost Map is a book about:
- a bacterium
- the human body
- a geographical map
- a man
- a working friendship
- a household
- a city government
- a neighborhood
- a waste management system1
- an epidemic
- a city
- human civilization

You hooked yet? Well, you should be. As the narrative unfolds around the 1854 London cholera epidemic, author Steven Johnson weaves all of these social, geographical, and biological structures/webs/networks into a scientific parable for the contemporary world. The book is at its best when it zooms among these different scales in a Powers of Ten-like fashion (something Johnson calls The Long Zoom), demonstrating the interplay between them: the way the geography of a neighborhood affected the spread of a virus, how ideas spreading within a social context are like an epidemic, or the comparison between the organism of the city and the geography of a bacterial colony within the human colon. None of this is surprising if you've read anything about emergence, complexity, or social scale invariance, but Johnson effectively demonstrates how tightly coupled the development of (as well as our understanding of) viral epidemics and large cities were across all of these scales.

The New York Times wrote in a review:
There’s a great story here, one of the signal episodes in the history of medical science, and Johnson recounts it well. It centers, figuratively and literally, on the infamous Broad Street pump. That pump, which was public, free and previously considered a safe source of drinking water, drew from a well beneath Golden Square, home to some of London’s poorest and most overcrowded people. In the last week of August 1854, many residents of Golden Square suddenly took sick and began dying. Their symptoms included upset stomach, vomiting, gut cramps, diarrhea and racking thirst. Whatever the cause, it was fast — fast to kill (sometimes within 12 hours of onset) and fast in spreading to new victims. “Hundreds of residents had been seized by the disease within a few hours of one another, in many cases entire families, left to tend for themselves in dark, suffocating rooms,” Johnson writes. Seventy fatalities occurred in a 24-hour period, most within five square blocks, and hundreds more people were in danger. “You could see the dead being wheeled down the street by the cartload.”

Johnson goes beyond the immediate details of the 1854 epidemic to consider such related matters as the history of toilets, the upgrading of London’s sewer system, the importance of population density for a disease that travels in human excrement, and the positive as well as negative aspects of urbanization itself. Never before Victorian London, Johnson reminds us, had 2.4 million primates of any species lived together within a 30-mile perimeter.

By solving the cholera mystery, Johnson asserts, John Snow and Henry Whitehead helped make the world safe for big cities. And cities are “where the action is” (he really does use that phrase, alas), being “centers of opportunity, tolerance, wealth creation, social networking, health, population control and creativity.”

A final word from Fred Wilson:
Woven into the story is a textbook on cholera, microbes, biology, society, urbanization, epidemics, sewers and cesspools, and much more.

It is the way I love to learn—by stories that mean something as opposed to dry textbooks or lectures that put me to sleep.

Useful link:
www.theghostmap.com

If you are fascinated by technology and its impact on society, you should read this book.

Common Opal

Common opal refers to opal which shows no play of color. There are many different varieties, but few are ever seen in jewelry and are cut mostly for the sake of collectors.

- Cachalong opal
This variety is very porous, bluish white in color and similar in appearance to porcelain.

- Chrysocolla in opal
A blue material with finely scattered chrysocolla which gives it its color.

- Geyserite opal
A porous glassy opal which forms near hot springs and geysers.

- Girasol opal
A type of opal which is almost transparent and which shows a moving billowy light effect. The body color is milky white or very light tones of other colors.

- Hyalite opal
A transparent colorless, white or gray variety with a glassy appearance.

- Hydropane opal
This variety is light colored and usually opaque. It is extremely porous and will stick to the tongue. When immersed in water it shows play of color and becomes transparent.

- Jasper opal
An opaque reddish brown opal which resembles jasper.

- Liver opal
A variety which is opaque and gray to brown in color.

- Menilite opal
An opaque gray to brown opal with a concretionary structure.

- Moss opal
A white to brownish variety which contains dendritic inclusions.

- Potch opal
Common opal of any color.

- Prase opal
A translucent to opaque yellowish green or green variety which is similar in appearance to chrysoprase or jade.

- Resin opals
A transparent to opaque yellowish or brownish variety which is similar in appearance to resins.

- Rose opal
A translucent to opaque pink opal.

- Tabasheer opal
A variety of common opal which has formed in the joints of bamboo.

- Tripoli opal
Fine-grained, powdery masses of opal. It is often used a polishing compound.

- Vermilion
An opaque, red variety of common opal.

Importance Of Inclusions

Edward Gubelin and John Koivula are considered god fathers of inclusion studies + their views should be an inspiring note (s) for newcomers in the field of inclusions studies.

Edward Gubelin / John Koivula writes:

From the tiny grains of beach sand the pebbles under out feet…to the glittering gemstones found decorating museums worldwide…..they all have something in common. They have a story to tell. The story of earth formation.

Through the microscopes this story unfolds as the kaleidoscopic world of gemstone inclusions comes to life. Solid crystal inclusions, glowing under polarized light, blink and change color as their host is turned in the field of view. Trapped in voids of crystallization called negative crystals, gas bubbles, propelled by thermally generated convection currents, shrink, swell, and even disappear as they dance about in small volumes of liquid, millions or even billions of years old. These solid and fluid inclusions, together with such additional internal features as twinning, cleavage, fracture, zoned growth and strain, like the components of a complex puzzle, help inclusionists to piece together a gemstone’s life history.

The study of gemstone inclusions is a fascinating and highly educational tangent in the field of gemology. A great deal of information on the paragenetic birth of a host gem can be learned from a single microscopic inclusion. Often times, to a trained eye, an internal inclusion pattern will yield valuable information on the physical and chemical environment of the host at the time of its growth. This will lead in turn to a greater knowledge of that particular type of gemstone deposit, and other localities at which the host has been found. Information on gemstone environments gleaned from the study of inclusions may lead eventually to the discovery of new gem deposits.

In many cases, inclusions in certain gemstones from particular localities are characteristic for that gemstone and locality. Natural and synthetic stones can often be identified by their characteristic inclusions. Many possess inclusions common only to them. If these inclusions are recognized the gem can be identified and often times, if natural, even the locality may be determined.

Mineral formational sequences at a particular locality may also be learned from a study of the inclusions found in the gems from that locality. Thank to research work on crystal and fluid inclusions, one can for instance exactly identify the inner and outer generational paragenesis of quartz from alpine clefts, of emeralds of hydrothermal origin from Colombia, and of metamorphic rubies from Mogok in Burma.

Since the advent of synthetic materials in the gemstone market, inclusions have been playing a major role in the field of gemstone identification. This role is becoming increasingly important as new and better synthetics, simulants and treatments are discovered, commercially developed and placed on the market. However, in spite of their importance, many gemologists still consider inclusions as undesirable flaws, and do not recognize the true beauty of mineral inclusions or the important information they provide.

In the world of gemology, thousands of dollars may hand in the balance where the identity of an inclusion pattern as to natural or synthetic—or even as to its source—is the only deciding factor. A knowledge of inclusions is vital in the jewelry industry today.

The gemologists of the future will be greatly dependant on a very strong knowledge of inclusions. As the synthetic materials become more sophisticated, and the laboratories find that they can duplicate nature very closely, the microscope will become the gemologist’s first line of defence, and a sound working knowledge of the various types of inclusions in gems will be of utmost importance.

Will Diamdel Become A Mini-Enron?

Chaim Even-Zohar writes about a potential Enron-type situations at Diamdel + behind the scene actors at De Beers + Mark Colao + revision of policy decisions at De Beers + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp

Everything Is Miscellaneous

(via Emergic) Rajesh Jain writes:

Cory Doctorow wrote in a review of the book:
David Weinberger's "Everything is Miscellaneous" is the kind of book that binds together innumerable miscellaneous threads and makes something new, coherent, and incontrovertible out of them. Weinberger's thesis is this: historically, we've divided the world into categories, topics, and hierarchies because physical objects need to be in one place or another, they can't be in all the places they might belong. Computers and the Internet turn this on its head: because a computer can "put things" in as many categories as they need to be in, because individuals can classify knowledge, tasks, and objects idiosyncratically, the hierarchy is revealed for what it always was, a convenient expedient masquerading as the True Shape of the Universe.

It's a powerful idea: from org charts to science, from music to retail theory, from government to education, every field of human endeavor is tinged with hierarchy, and every hierarchy is under assault from the Internet. One impact of this change is that it reveals the biases lurking underneath the editorial carvery of our systems. From the Dewey Decimal system's laughable clunkers (mentalist bunkum gets its own category, but Islam has to share a decimal with a couple competing "Eastern" faiths) to the Britannica's paring away at "old" biographies to make way for the new, Weinberger makes a compelling case for a new kind of knowledge that more faithfully represents the messy, glorious hairball of the real world. ... Weinberger's conversational style, excellent examples, and extensive legwork (the places he visits and people he interviews can best be described as wonderfully miscellaneous) give this the hallmarks of an instant classic. And unlike many business/tech books, whose simple thesis could be stated in a single New Yorker article, but which are nevertheless expanded to book-length for commercial reasons, every chapter in Everything is Miscellaneous brings new insight to the subject. This is a hell of a book.

Here is an excerpt from the book's prologue:
-The alternative universe exists. Every day, more of our life is lived there. It’s called the digital world.
-Instead of atoms that take up room, it’s made of bits.
-Instead of making us walk long aisles, in the digital world everything is only a few clicks away.
-Instead of having to be the same way for all people, it can instantly rearrange itself for each person and each person’s current task.
-Instead of being limited by space and operational simplicity in the number of items it can stock, the digital world can include every item and variation the buyers at Staples could possibly want.
-Instead of items being placed in one area of the store, or occasionally in two, they can be classified in every different category in which users might conceivably expect to find them.
-Instead of living in the neat, ordered shelves we find in the Prototype Labs, items can be jumbled digitally and sorted out only when and how a user wants to look for them.

Those differences are significant. But they’re just the starting point. For something much larger is at stake than how we lay out our stores. The physical limitations that silently guide the organization of an office supply store also guide how we organize our businesses, our government, our schools. They have guided—and limited—how we organize knowledge itself.

From management structures to encyclopedias, to the courses of study we put our children through, to the way we decide what’s worth believing, we have organized our ideas with principles designed for use in a world limited by the laws of physics.

Suppose that now, for the first time in history, we are able to arrange our concepts without the silent limitations of the physical. How might our ideas, organizations, and knowledge itself change? ... As we invent new principles of organization that make sense in a world of knowledge freed from physical constraints, information doesn’t just want to be free. It wants to be miscellaneous.

I liked it.

Microscopic Art Fetches Millions

An inspiring story. I wish someone could do the same with gemstone inclusions.

Todd Jatras writes :

ABC News has a great video interview with British micro-artist Willard Wigan, who uses a high-powered microscope and claims he has to slow his heart down in order to work between beats, creating the world's smallest sculptures. Wigan uses tiny homemade tools and paints with “a hair plucked from a fly’s back.” Check out works of his such the eye-of-a-needle Wizard of Oz scene (pictured left), dolls the size of a human blood cell and Charlie Chaplin balanced on a human eyelash. Wigan turned to micro art as a young child humiliated at school because of learning disabilities and says that he still can’t read or write. A major collection of his work recently sold for $20 million.

More info @ http://blog.wired.com/underwire/2007/06/microscopic-art.html

Opal Star Triplet

Star opals also exist and are similar to the cat’s eye opals. This is not true asterism, but instead results from fault planes within the opal. Two kinds of stars are seen—three-rayed stars and six-pointed stars. The material is used in the making of triplets and comes from Idaho (USA).

U.S. Tax Officials: Biting Without Teeth...

Chaim Even-Zohar writes about diamond industry specific anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism financing legislation (AML/CFT) + the practical difficulties in the implementation + U.S government's lack of skills, manpower, expertise and the tools to audit the diamond and jewelry industry + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp?TextSearch=&KeyMatch=0&id=27001