Billie Holiday

'No two people on earth are alike, it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music.'

In Russia, Red Art Turning To Green

David Holley writes about the new trend (s) in Russia (where the rich are paying top prices for paintings of Socialist realism) + other viewpoints @ http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/columnone/la-fg-sovart23apr23,1,6865553.story

The Strategy Paradox

Good Books: (via Emergic) Michael Raynor's The Strategy Paradox via an interview with the author of AlwaysOn.

Here are a few more excerpts from the AlwaysOn interview by Guy Kawasaki:

Question: Why can’t companies predict the future better?
Answer: Companies might be able to predict the future better than they can now, but for me the question is whether they will ever be able to predict the relevant future accurately enough for the purposes of strategic planning, and so avoid, or at least mitigate, the strategy paradox. I don’t think that’s going to happen anytime soon for some deep, structural reasons.

For example, randomness. Prediction requires the identification of a pattern that repeats, because a pattern is what allows you to use what has happened to infer what will happen next. Randomness is the enemy of pattern-based prediction because randomness means that there is no pattern, no way to use the past to predict the future.

Question: What’s the proper role in strategy formation for each level in a hierarchy?
Answer: I’ve found that it helps to think about strategy in two halves: the commitments that all successful strategies entail, and the uncertainties attendant to those commitments. Commitments and uncertainties are only half the answer. The rest of the solution lies in calibrating the focus of each level of the hierarchy to the uncertainties it faces. It is common sense if not common practice that the more senior levels of a hierarchy should be focused on longer time horizons. What hasn’t been as widely recognized is that with longer time horizons come greater levels of uncertainty, and strategic uncertainty in particular. This fact has some profound implications for how each level in an organization should act.

Question: How does your answer change with respect to a start-up?
Answer: Start-ups tend to be enormously resource constrained. Typically they are not able to devote money and time to the problems of strategic uncertainty. As a result, start-ups tend to be bet the farm propositions: high risk, with the potential of high reward. Such firms don’t manage strategic risk, they accept it.

I am in a start-up mode; perhaps, in the coming weeks, months + years ahead I will have more to share so that I am able to see the fruits of my vision, commitment + surprises (as I learn more) + strategies may also teach you something more: the highest probability of extreme success may also bring the highest probability of extreme failure.

Jonathan Oppenheimer Repeating Great-Grandfather’s Subsidy Demands

Chaim Even-Zohar writes about Jonathan Oppenheimer's views on Botswana's Bushmen + the concept of individual rights + community rights + constitutional rights of the government + government subsidies to cutters + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp

Gem Testing

(via The Journal of Gemmology, Vol.10, No.1, January 1966) A E Farn writes:

Recently, a rather rubbed brown cabochon stone in a ring with a reasonable ray to the stone came in for test. At first glance the stone looked a quartz cat’s eye, by the coarse nature of the ray. However, as the stone was worn by bad usage, it could be partially the reason for a poor chrysoberyl looking like quartz. The stone was backed; this prevented one looking at the back of the stone for a hint of quality.

However, the very useful distant vision reading methods of taking a refractive index soon solves the question of quartz or chrysoberyl cat’s eye. Maybe I am going a long way round to bring the point home, but the telephone rang whilst I was looking at the stone in question, and having dealt with that matter I returned to the stone, put a spot of liquid on the refractometer and took a spot reading. I saw quite a reasonable changeover light bar at 1.74 which seemed reasonable enough—completely divorcing it from quartz. Automatically, I turned the spot intensity lamp on and tried to see the chrysoberyl absorption spectrum and could not. I was not surprised; there was a lot of glare from a reflected light (the stone was backed). Something did not seem quite right, so I took the distant vision again and got a good quartz reading.

Then the penny dropped—after answering the telephone I pulled the refractomete towards me and put on methylene iodide as a contact liquid (I have two dropping bottles and two refractometers). The methylene iodide gave a good spot pattern for itself and the quartz being rubbed it did not react as strongly as it should.

There seems to be some sort of moral here about keeping bottles separate, but actually at the moment of writing we are threatened with a telephone strike at night. Well, all I say is, let us have it by the day and get our testing done without interruptions.

Lazulite

Chemistry: Magnesium aluminum phosphate.
Crystal system: Monoclinic; pointed pyramids; often twinned or granular masses.
Color: Transparent to translucent; medium to dark violetish blue/greenish blue; massive: translucent to opaque, often mottled with white.
Hardness: 5.5
Cleavage: Indistinct: 1 direction; Fracture: brittle, uneven to granular.
Specific gravity: 3.1 – 3.2
Refractive index: 1.62 mean; Biaxial negative; 0.03
Luster: Vitreous.
Dispersion: Low
Dichroism: Strong: colorless to dark blue
Occurrence: Granite pegmatites; Brazil, India, Madagascar, USA, Australia.

Notes
Faceted stones may look like blue apatite; translucent stones may be confused with azurite, lapis lazuli and sodalite; faceted (rare).

Sweet Smell Of Success

Memorable quotes from the movie:

J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster): What's this boy got that Susie likes?

Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis): Integrity - acute, like indigestion.

J.J. Hunsecker (Burt Lancaster): What does that mean - integrity?

Sidney Falco (Tony Curtis): A pocket fulla firecrackers - looking for a match! It's a new wrinkle, to tell the truth... I never thought I'd make a killing on some guy's integrity.

Robb Report

Robb Report, announced the launch of the Robb Report Global Luxury Index to track the market performance of a representative group of public luxury goods and services companies listed on public exchanges all over the world. More info @ http://www.robbreport.com