Saturday, August 04, 2007
Slides And Prejudice
Linda Yablonsky writes about new generation artist's concept (s) based on photo-based painting (s) + the new technology + other viewpoints @ http://artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=2020
De Beers At The Mall Of The Emirates
Chaim Even-Zohar writes about Dubai and the Mall the Emirates + wholesale vs retail market sector + De Beers and DTC supported brands + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp?TextSearch=&KeyMatch=0&id=25546
Heavy Liquids
For the purpose (s) of identifying gems it is not usually so important to obtain an exact SG determination because most gems have a plus or minus range of SG. An approximate value is just useful as an exact value. For this reason, heavy liquids offer the gemologist what is considered by most to be the best overall method of SG determination available.
When a gem is put into a liquid of lower density than its own, it will sink. If the stone’s density is less than that of the liquid, it will float. Or if the stone’s density is exactly equal to that of the liquid, it will suspended, neither sinking nor floating. So it can be seen that by using a range of liquids with known densities it is possible to estimate the specific gravity of a gem. By noticing the speed with which a gem sinks or floats in a liquid, an accurate estimate can be made regarding the difference between the specific gravity of the liquid and the stone.
Types Of Heavy Liquids
The heavy liquids today consist of methylene iodide (pure SG=3.32) diluted with varying amounts of benzyl benzoate (pure SG=1.12) to obtain values below 3.32. The main advantage of using benzyl benzoate to dilute the methylene iodide instead of xylene (toluene), which was used in the past, is that the evaporation rates for methylene iodide and benzyl benzoate are nearly equal and so the density of the mixture is fairly constant and does not need to be adjusted as often as mixtures using xylene.
Methylene iodide: 3.32
Bromoform: 2.89
Benzyl benzoate: 1.12
Xylene (toluene): 0.87
Clerici’s solution: 4.15
Clerici’s solution is a concentrated solution in water of thallium formate and thallium malonate. It is expensive, poisonous and rather dangerous to handle compared with other liquids, but with a density of about 4.15 it is easy to forget about these shortcomings. Many find it useful to dilute Clerici’s solution (with water) to about 4.00 which is the SG of corundum.
Of all the heavy liquids, methylene iodide is undoubtedly the most useful. With a pure SG of 3.32 and of equal importance, an R.I (refractive index) of 1.74, it can serve two purposes: testing SG and immersion. Upon exposure to light, methylene iodide has a tendency to turn brown or black, but if a small piece of copper is kept in the bottle this darkening process can be reversed.
When a gem is put into a liquid of lower density than its own, it will sink. If the stone’s density is less than that of the liquid, it will float. Or if the stone’s density is exactly equal to that of the liquid, it will suspended, neither sinking nor floating. So it can be seen that by using a range of liquids with known densities it is possible to estimate the specific gravity of a gem. By noticing the speed with which a gem sinks or floats in a liquid, an accurate estimate can be made regarding the difference between the specific gravity of the liquid and the stone.
Types Of Heavy Liquids
The heavy liquids today consist of methylene iodide (pure SG=3.32) diluted with varying amounts of benzyl benzoate (pure SG=1.12) to obtain values below 3.32. The main advantage of using benzyl benzoate to dilute the methylene iodide instead of xylene (toluene), which was used in the past, is that the evaporation rates for methylene iodide and benzyl benzoate are nearly equal and so the density of the mixture is fairly constant and does not need to be adjusted as often as mixtures using xylene.
Methylene iodide: 3.32
Bromoform: 2.89
Benzyl benzoate: 1.12
Xylene (toluene): 0.87
Clerici’s solution: 4.15
Clerici’s solution is a concentrated solution in water of thallium formate and thallium malonate. It is expensive, poisonous and rather dangerous to handle compared with other liquids, but with a density of about 4.15 it is easy to forget about these shortcomings. Many find it useful to dilute Clerici’s solution (with water) to about 4.00 which is the SG of corundum.
Of all the heavy liquids, methylene iodide is undoubtedly the most useful. With a pure SG of 3.32 and of equal importance, an R.I (refractive index) of 1.74, it can serve two purposes: testing SG and immersion. Upon exposure to light, methylene iodide has a tendency to turn brown or black, but if a small piece of copper is kept in the bottle this darkening process can be reversed.
Sapphirine
Chemistry: Silicate containing magnesium and aluminum.
Crystal system: Monoclinic; small tabular pseudo-hexagonal.
Color: Transparent; dark blue to intense blue, blue, brownish green, purplish pink.
Hardness: 7.5
Cleavage: Indistinct: 3 directions.
Specific gravity: 3.51 (3.4 – 3.58)
Refractive index: 1.705 – 1.718; biaxial positive; 0.006-0.007
Luster: Vitreous.
Dispersion: -
Dichroism: Strong.
Occurrence: In metamorphic rocks; gem quality: Sri Lanka, Thailand, Australia, Madagascar.
Notes
Rare metamorphic mineral; named after its sapphire blue color; faceted.
Crystal system: Monoclinic; small tabular pseudo-hexagonal.
Color: Transparent; dark blue to intense blue, blue, brownish green, purplish pink.
Hardness: 7.5
Cleavage: Indistinct: 3 directions.
Specific gravity: 3.51 (3.4 – 3.58)
Refractive index: 1.705 – 1.718; biaxial positive; 0.006-0.007
Luster: Vitreous.
Dispersion: -
Dichroism: Strong.
Occurrence: In metamorphic rocks; gem quality: Sri Lanka, Thailand, Australia, Madagascar.
Notes
Rare metamorphic mineral; named after its sapphire blue color; faceted.
Friday, August 03, 2007
How To Grade Wine
Grading wine requires unique insight + knowledge + interpretation skills. It's a gift. You start with:
1. Appearance
2. Color
3. Aroma
4. Bouquet
5. Volatile Acidity
6. Total Acidity
7. Sugar
8. Flavor
9. Body
10. Astringency
11. General Quality
It's amazing to note the similarities to colored stone + diamond grading. I mean the concept. I think it's fun experimenting with the idea (s) because to me there is a link + I like to synthesize different concepts, especially when they are subjective because you create a unique language to communicate with people.
1. Appearance
2. Color
3. Aroma
4. Bouquet
5. Volatile Acidity
6. Total Acidity
7. Sugar
8. Flavor
9. Body
10. Astringency
11. General Quality
It's amazing to note the similarities to colored stone + diamond grading. I mean the concept. I think it's fun experimenting with the idea (s) because to me there is a link + I like to synthesize different concepts, especially when they are subjective because you create a unique language to communicate with people.
The Go Point
Good Books: (via Emergic) Here is how the book, The Go Point is described [via Amazon.com]:
The Go Point: the moment of truth when you have to say yes or no when it’s time to get off the fence.
Michael Useem through dramatic storytelling shows how to master the art and science of being decisive. He places you smack in the middle of people facing their go point, where actions or lack of them determined the fates of individuals, companies, and countries.
- Why on earth did Robert E. Lee send General George Pickett on an almost suicidal charge against the Union lines at Gettysburg?
- How does the leader of a firefighting crew make life-or-death decisions, directing his people with little information about weather patterns to guide him to go up or down the mountain? One direction means safety, the other danger.
- You’ve just assumed responsibility for a scandal-wracked corporation, a company teetering on the brink of disaster. What you decide over the course of the next several days will have consequences for thousands of employees and investors. How do you fulfill your responsibilities?
Michael Useem makes you feel as if you are there, right in the center of the action. He was there: tramping up and down the mountain where firefighters made their momentous decisions; walking the battlefield at Gettysburg to see for himself just what General Pickett faced before making his ill-fated charge; going into a trading pit where million-dollar buy-and-sell decisions are made that affect fortunes of both the firm and the person making the call.
You’ll discover why some decisions were flawless, perfectly on target, and others utterly disastrous. Most of all, you’ll learn how to make the right calls yourself, whether you’re changing your career, hiring an assistant, launching a product, or deciding on a potential acquisition or merger.
Smartly written and offering unusual insights into the minds of decision makers such as General Lee, The Go Point will provide the guidance for you to move with confidence when it’s your turn to get off the fence.
800-CEO-Read writes:
[Useem] is the author of some of the best books ever written on leading, particularly Leadership Moment from the late 90s, a book which uses examples of people leading while confronted with real world situations. Yes, his credentials are impressive, and his view on leadership above par, but what also sets him apart from the pack of business book authors is his storytelling ability. Michael Useem is a damn fine writer.
The Go Point continues his look at leadership, but focuses on that crucial decision-making point where we have to go and move forward.
I found the story about the Colorado forest fire to be intense and riveting. To understand what the firefighters went through and to understand the decisions that were made, Useem walked the landscape with one of the survivors. He tells the tale and then points out the decisions and the errors that were made with too little information. He describes the tremendous stress of battling a raging forest fire and how that affects decision-making.
Knowledge@Wharton interviewed Michael Useem, the author of The Go Point. Here are some excerpts:
We all make decisions all the time and most of them are highly personal -- [such as] what we put on this morning when we got up and got out of the house. A small subset of our decisions, though, has ramifications for people around us, and sometimes those are people we are responsible for. They work for us, we command them, and they may be in our community in some way.
There is a strain of thinking that is probably summed up with the psychologists' clinical term "decidophobia"; some people, [in considering] even what color clothing to put on in the morning, just simply balk at that decision. If it's highly personal, that's OK. The consequence is you don't get out of the house on time. But when it affects other people, you cannot suffer from that particular clinical syndrome, because you are going to ultimately cause others around you distress, maybe even harm.
Decision making and leadership can be difficult, but it can be learned. And I think the basic premise that underlies the book -- I think it just underlies reality -- is that decision making as a skill is learned really by making decisions. Critically though, [it means] looking back on those decisions, to make certain we don't make the same mistake twice, that you have some sense for what went right as well.
By way of example: I interviewed the chief executive of Lenovo -- which is of course China's big PC maker -- on this very topic for a couple of hours recently, and I put the question in summary this way (his name is Liu): "Mr. Liu, you came out of a state owned and operated research center. The government of China funded you, that was where your budget was from, but 22 years back you broke off with a couple of friends to create what is now the world's third-largest PC maker. How did you learn to make decisions along the way -- the decisions being how to market, how to brand, how to price, how to hire -- when you were doing none of those, making none of those decisions before?"
The answer really has stuck with me. At the end of every week, going back now more than 20 years, on Friday afternoon, he sits down with his direct reports, his top team, the five or six people he's closest to. They take time to review everything they've done that week -- what decisions were good, which ones were terrible. He has no MBA degree, no formal training in decision making, leadership, or management.
I say all that by way of coming back to the main point, which is decision making is a learned skill. You've got to make decisions and look back on them.
But in addition to that, becoming more self-conscious about getting the right data, having the right timing, talking to people who you know will not provide a biased read or filter through which they're going to pass their advice -- these are among what I would end up calling in the book the tools of leadership. So on the one hand, intuition is very important.
On the other hand, a set of tools is quite important also for helping all of us make good decisions. And just to come back to the main point: they're all learned.
I am in a start-up mode and going through my go points. A single wrong decision can bring nasty surprises. I always wanted to be an entrepreneur + good books have been an inspiration all my life.
The Go Point: the moment of truth when you have to say yes or no when it’s time to get off the fence.
Michael Useem through dramatic storytelling shows how to master the art and science of being decisive. He places you smack in the middle of people facing their go point, where actions or lack of them determined the fates of individuals, companies, and countries.
- Why on earth did Robert E. Lee send General George Pickett on an almost suicidal charge against the Union lines at Gettysburg?
- How does the leader of a firefighting crew make life-or-death decisions, directing his people with little information about weather patterns to guide him to go up or down the mountain? One direction means safety, the other danger.
- You’ve just assumed responsibility for a scandal-wracked corporation, a company teetering on the brink of disaster. What you decide over the course of the next several days will have consequences for thousands of employees and investors. How do you fulfill your responsibilities?
Michael Useem makes you feel as if you are there, right in the center of the action. He was there: tramping up and down the mountain where firefighters made their momentous decisions; walking the battlefield at Gettysburg to see for himself just what General Pickett faced before making his ill-fated charge; going into a trading pit where million-dollar buy-and-sell decisions are made that affect fortunes of both the firm and the person making the call.
You’ll discover why some decisions were flawless, perfectly on target, and others utterly disastrous. Most of all, you’ll learn how to make the right calls yourself, whether you’re changing your career, hiring an assistant, launching a product, or deciding on a potential acquisition or merger.
Smartly written and offering unusual insights into the minds of decision makers such as General Lee, The Go Point will provide the guidance for you to move with confidence when it’s your turn to get off the fence.
800-CEO-Read writes:
[Useem] is the author of some of the best books ever written on leading, particularly Leadership Moment from the late 90s, a book which uses examples of people leading while confronted with real world situations. Yes, his credentials are impressive, and his view on leadership above par, but what also sets him apart from the pack of business book authors is his storytelling ability. Michael Useem is a damn fine writer.
The Go Point continues his look at leadership, but focuses on that crucial decision-making point where we have to go and move forward.
I found the story about the Colorado forest fire to be intense and riveting. To understand what the firefighters went through and to understand the decisions that were made, Useem walked the landscape with one of the survivors. He tells the tale and then points out the decisions and the errors that were made with too little information. He describes the tremendous stress of battling a raging forest fire and how that affects decision-making.
Knowledge@Wharton interviewed Michael Useem, the author of The Go Point. Here are some excerpts:
We all make decisions all the time and most of them are highly personal -- [such as] what we put on this morning when we got up and got out of the house. A small subset of our decisions, though, has ramifications for people around us, and sometimes those are people we are responsible for. They work for us, we command them, and they may be in our community in some way.
There is a strain of thinking that is probably summed up with the psychologists' clinical term "decidophobia"; some people, [in considering] even what color clothing to put on in the morning, just simply balk at that decision. If it's highly personal, that's OK. The consequence is you don't get out of the house on time. But when it affects other people, you cannot suffer from that particular clinical syndrome, because you are going to ultimately cause others around you distress, maybe even harm.
Decision making and leadership can be difficult, but it can be learned. And I think the basic premise that underlies the book -- I think it just underlies reality -- is that decision making as a skill is learned really by making decisions. Critically though, [it means] looking back on those decisions, to make certain we don't make the same mistake twice, that you have some sense for what went right as well.
By way of example: I interviewed the chief executive of Lenovo -- which is of course China's big PC maker -- on this very topic for a couple of hours recently, and I put the question in summary this way (his name is Liu): "Mr. Liu, you came out of a state owned and operated research center. The government of China funded you, that was where your budget was from, but 22 years back you broke off with a couple of friends to create what is now the world's third-largest PC maker. How did you learn to make decisions along the way -- the decisions being how to market, how to brand, how to price, how to hire -- when you were doing none of those, making none of those decisions before?"
The answer really has stuck with me. At the end of every week, going back now more than 20 years, on Friday afternoon, he sits down with his direct reports, his top team, the five or six people he's closest to. They take time to review everything they've done that week -- what decisions were good, which ones were terrible. He has no MBA degree, no formal training in decision making, leadership, or management.
I say all that by way of coming back to the main point, which is decision making is a learned skill. You've got to make decisions and look back on them.
But in addition to that, becoming more self-conscious about getting the right data, having the right timing, talking to people who you know will not provide a biased read or filter through which they're going to pass their advice -- these are among what I would end up calling in the book the tools of leadership. So on the one hand, intuition is very important.
On the other hand, a set of tools is quite important also for helping all of us make good decisions. And just to come back to the main point: they're all learned.
I am in a start-up mode and going through my go points. A single wrong decision can bring nasty surprises. I always wanted to be an entrepreneur + good books have been an inspiration all my life.
Gained In Translation
Glenn D. Lowry writes about a new generation of artists from the Islamic world using the language of contemporary art to convey their deeply personal and broadly meaningful concepts + morphing psychological and metaphorical space + other viewpoints @ http://artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=2006
Rough Times Ahead
Chaim Even-Zohar writes about cyclical downturns + challenges in the diamond industry + the stagnant jewelry retail markets + other viewpoints @ http://www.idexonline.com/portal_FullEditorial.asp?TextSearch=&KeyMatch=0&id=25566
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