How Basic Are Behavioral Biases? Evidence From Capuchin Monkey Trading Behavior

A recent study published by a group of researchers at Yale University, titled, 'How Basic Are Behavioral Biases? Evidence From Capuchin Monkey Trading Behavior' is interesting + educational. Jewelers/gem dealers/gemologists/art dealers may want to read the report @
http://www.som.yale.edu/Faculty/keith.chen/papers/Final_JPE06.pdf

Hollywood Takes Action Hero Jesus To India

(via The Guardian) Randeep Ramesh writes about the Aquarian Gospel + a $20m movie, which portrays Jesus as a holy man and teacher inspired by a myriad of eastern religions in India + a fantasy action adventure account of Jesus's life with the three wise men as his mentors + commercial and spiritual gains from the concept + other viewpoints @ http://film.guardian.co.uk/news/story/0,,2213087,00.html

Net Gains

Carly Berwick writes about interactive, computer-based artworks + a general acceptance of the genre + other viewpoints @ http://artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=1226

A Swashbuckling Tale Of 10th-century Adventure

Ishaan Tharoor writes about 'The Adventures of Amir Hamza' + its Persian/Arabian roots + the blending of Sufi Islam and the mythological repertoire of the older strains of Hinduism + the religious element + other viewpoints @ http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1684204,00.html

Mon Oncle d'Amérique

Mon Oncle d'Amérique (1980)
Directed by: Alain Resnais
Screenplay: Jean Gruault
Cast: Gérard Depardieu, Nicole Garcia

(via YouTube): Mon oncle d'Amerique
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7AfY-ux7Ds

It's entertaining + illustrative + experimental + a form of movie fun.

Ancient Jade Study Sheds Light On Sea Trade

Tan Ee Lyn writes about ancient jade artifacts in museums across southeast Asia + the sea trade patterns dating back 5,000 years + analytical studies via X-ray spectrometers + other viewpoints @ http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20071119/sc_nm/jade_asia_dc

Nay Win Tun: Burma's Gem Stone Tycoon

Wai Moe writes about Nay Win Tun, the CEO of Ruby Dragon Jade & Gems Co Ltd, a young businessman in his early 40s, who controls Burma’s largest gem trading business + other viewpoints @ http://www.irrawaddy.org/article.php?art_id=9164

A Rare Red Diamond

According to the Christie's, a rare purplish-red diamond ring has sold (British jeweler, Laurence Graff, bought the ring) for 2.97 million Swiss francs ($2.6 million), setting a world record for a red diamond. For photo and details see Christie’s and Reuters.

The Birth Of Modern Painting

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

4

In the expression of feeling, the most famous follower of Fra Angelico was Fra Filippo Lippi, but if unable to attain the etheral spirituality of Angelico his art was full of humanity and delicacy. His Madonnas belong to Florence rather than to heaven and reveal the painter’s fine feeling for feminine beauty more obviously than his piety. He was a genial painter, and in his comfortable satisfaction with the things of this life he shared with Angelico a love of flowers. ‘No one draws such lilies or such daisies as Lippi,’ wrote Ruskin. ‘Botticelli beat him afterwards in roses, but never in lilies.’

Lippi’s geniality is very evident in his ‘Annunciation’. The figures are human, the scene is homely, characteristics generally suggestive of the Dutch painters of a much later generation.

Fra Angelico and Fra Lippi stand for the imaginative development that followed the death of Giotto. In the other direction, the first great advance in the rendering of physical nature is found in the painting of Paolo Uccello, who first introduced perspective into pictures. Uccello was far more interested in the technical problems of foreshortening and perspective than in anything else. Uccello represents the scientific spirit in the air of the Florence of Cosmo de Medici, where not only artists, but mathematicians, anatomists, and great scholars were congregated. Among his achievements must be reckoned the recommencement of profane painting by his invention of the battle picture, a subject in which he had no predecessor and no successor till a century later. His early battle piece, the ‘Sant Egidio’, amuses us by the rocking horse appearance of the horses. In his absorption with technique, Uccello was indifferent then to realistic accuracy. Truths of color did not interest him—he painted horses red. The third dimension in space, which Giotto could only suggest experimentally and symbolically, was conquered by Uccello, who clearly separated the planes in which his figures move and have their being. Roses, oranges, and hedges were drawn with botanical precision, and no pains were spared to draw branches and even leaves in correct perspective. The splendid realism to which Uccello ultimately attained is best represented by the intensely alive animal and its rider. Uccello’s equestrian portrait of the English mercenary John Hawkwood in the cathedral of Florence is a milestone in the history of art.

The Birth Of Modern Painting (continued)

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier’s Travels In India

Rule for ascertaining the proper price of a diamond of whatsover weight it may be, from 3 up to and above 100 carats
(via Jean-Baptiste Tavernier’s Travels In India / V Ball / Edited by William Crooke)

I do not mention diamonds below 3 carats, their price being sufficiently well known. It is first necessary to ascertain the weight of the diamond, and next to see it is perfect, whether it is a thick stone, square-shaped, and having all its angles perfect; whether it is of a beautiful white water, and bright, without points, and without flaws. It if is a stone cut into facettes, which is ordinarily called ‘a rose’, it is necessary to observe whether the form is truly round or oval; whether the stone is well-spread, and whether it is not a lumpy stone; and, moreover, whether it is of uniform water, and is without points and flaws, as I described the thick stone.

A stone of this quality, weighing 1 carat, is worth 150 livres or more, and supposing it is required to know the value of a stone of 12 carats of the same degree of perfection, this is how it is to be ascertained: square the 12, this amounts to 144; next multiply 144 by 150, i.e the price of 1 carat, and it amounts to 21,6000 livres—12 x 12 x 150 = 21600. This is the price of a diamond of 12 carats.

But it is not enough to know the price of only perfect diamonds, one must know also the price of those which are not so; this is ascertained by the same rule, and on the basis of the price of a stone of 1 carat. This is an example: suppose a diamond of 15 carats which is not perfect, the water being not good, or the stone badly shaped, or full of spots or flaws. A diamond of the same nature, of the weight of 1 carat, would not be worth more than 60 or 80 or 100 livres at the most, according to the beauty of the diamond. You must then square the weight of the diamond, i.e 15 carats, and next multiply the product 125 by the value of the stone of 1 carat, which may for example be 80 livres, and the product, which is 10000 livres, is the price of the diamond of 15 carats.

It is easy to see from this the great difference in value between a perfect stone and one which is not so. For if this stone of 15 carats had been perfect, the second multiplication would be by 150, which is the price of a perfect stone of 1 carat, and then it would amount not to 10000 livres, but to 33750 livres, i.e. to 23750 livres more than an imperfect diamond of the same weight.

According to this rule, the following is the value of the two largest among the cut stones in the world—one of them in Asia belong to the Great Mogul, the other in Europe belonging to the Grand Duke of Tuscany—as will be seen by the subjoined figures.

The Great Mogul’s diamond weighs 278 9/16 carats, is of perfect water, good form, and has only a small flaw which is in the edge of the basal circumference of the stone. Except for this flaw the first carat would be placed at 160 livres, but on that account I do not estimate it at more than 150, and so calculated according to the above given rule it reaches the sum of 11,723,278 livres, 14 sols, and 3 liards. If this diamond only weighed 279 carats, it would have been worth 11,679,150 livres only, and thus these 9/16ths are worth 47,128 livres, 14 sols, 3 liards.

The Grand Duke of Tuscany’s diamond weighs 139½ carats, is clear, and of good form, cut on all sides into facettes, and as the water tends somewhat to a citron color, I estimate the first carat at only 135 livres, from which the value of the diamond ought to be 2.608,335 livres.

In concluding the remarks which I have made in this chapter, I should say that in the language of the miners the diamond is called iri; that in Turkish, Persian, and Arabic it is called almas, and that in all the languages of Europe it has no other name than diamond.

This, then, in a few words is all that I have been able to discover with my own eyes in regard to this subject during the several journeys which I made to the mines; and if by chance some other has written or spoken of them before me, it can only have been from the reports which I have made of them.

What Do I Want From A Gemstone?

I want surprises in my gemstones. A beginning and end. I don't want clarity. I like peaks and valleys. Good gemstones, bad gemstones, the perfect and flawed. Every gemstone is a story.

Bag Lady

Megha Bahree writes about Anita Ahuja, the creator of Conserve, a Delhi nonprofit organization + other viewpoints @ http://members.forbes.com/global/2007/1126/029.html

Dizzy In Boomtown

The Economist writes about the boom in emerging economies and their stockmarkets + pros and cons + the alarming memories of the early 1990s + other viewpoints @ http://www.economist.com/finance/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10136509

I think the analysis should be a wake-up call for emerging markets like India and China. Vast capital inflows can harm economies in several ways. Not only can they inflate asset bubbles and spur excessive borrowing, but they can also cause a steep rise in the exchange rate, damaging the competitiveness of export sectors.

Persona

Persona (1966)
Directed by: Ingmar Bergman
Screenplay: Ingmar Bergman
Cast: Bibi Andersson, Liv Ullmann, Margaretha Krook, Gunnar Björnstrand

(via YouTube): Persona - Ingmar Bergman
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeehCG9oF4c

A Bergman masterpiece. A great scene.

Tutankhamun's Treasures

(via The Guardian): Egyptologist Zahi Hawass introduces the new Tutankhamun exhibition at London's O2 @ http://arts.guardian.co.uk/video/2007/nov/14/tutankhamun.arts

How Our Critics Spoke

(via ARTnews correspondents): Different viewpoints @ http://artnews.com/issues/article.asp?art_id=1215

Madagascar's Sapphire Rush

Jonny Hogg writes about the town of Ilakaka in Madagascar + it's reputation for being one of the most dangerous places in the country because of sapphires + other viewpoints @ http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/from_our_own_correspondent/7098213.stm

Raising Awareness And Helping The Coral

(via Bangkok Post, November 18, 2007) Corals are now like plants: cuttings can be grown in a nursery, then transplanted elsewhere. Transplanting coral is exactly what conservation-minded people will be doing at Phi Phi Lae on December 3 as part of the celebrations to mark the 80th birthday of His Majesty the King. Organized by the Phuket Marine Biological Center, the celebrations also include an exhibition on marine conservation, reef cleanup and rubbish collecting on the beach at Phi Phi Don, the only populated island in the Phi Phi group, off Krabi.

‘Coral reefs at Phi Phi Lae were among the worst hit by tsunami in 2004,’ Dr Nalinee Thongtham, who heads PNBC’s coral reef rehabilation programmes, said. ‘We grew tiny coral fragments in floating nurseries off Phi Phi Lae and now they are big enough to be transplanted. Volunteer divers from local diving companies will help us transplant them on December 3.

‘The advantage of growing coral fragments in nurseries and transplanting them on natural substrate is that you don’t introduce a lot of foreign matter to the sea floor. What’s more, taking small fragments causes little effect on donor colonies.’

Phi Phi Lae is a small, uninhabited island, popular with tourists because of its clear blue waters and coral reefs. ‘It’s not the first time that we are planting coral in the area to replace that destroyed by the tsunami,’ Nalinee said. ‘In October last year we transplanted 1200 fragments at Phi Phi Lae, again with help from local diving companies as well as volunteer divers from Bangkok and elsewhere.

‘Growing coral fragments in floating nurseries is part of a research programme we started two years ago. The transplanted coral that was part of that research programme is now thriving. Organizing the activities at Phi Phi Lae and Phi Phi Do n on December 3 is one way of getting the public involved in coral and reef conservation, and increasing environmental awareness.’

The PNBC will also transplant coral grown in nurseries at Panwa Bay at a later date. ‘It will be a pioneer project using a coral species that can better tolerate turbid waters and sediments,’ Nalinee said.

The Birth Of Modern Painting

(via The Outline of Art) William Orpen writes:

3

The most considerable figure in Florence after Orcagna was the Dominican monk Fra Giovanni da Fiesole, known as Fra Angelico (1387-1455), who belonged essentially to the psychic or spiritual school, and only approached the physical in his loving observation of nature. Here he was an innovator, for his eye dwells on gentle aspects, and in his landscape backgrounds he introduces pleasing forms of mountains and verdant meadows multicolored with the budding flowers of spring. Indeed, all his paintings is flower-like, but this delicate naturalism does not determine its character. It is the soulful quality of his work which gives it supreme distinction. The unworldliness of his art is explained partly by his cloistered existence and the fact that he lived until his fiftieth year in the little hill towns of Cortona and Fiesole. He led a holy and retired life, and like St. Francis, was a little brother to the poor.

If Fra Angelico had his excellencies, he also had his limitations. His angels are so beautiful that, as Vasari wrote, ‘they appear to be truly beings of Paradise’. But his devils inspire us with no terror; they are too harmless and self-evidently ashamed of their profession to be anything but ludicrous. His frescoes in San Marco at Florence and in the Vatican at Rome remain the most enchanting visions of the heavenly world, a world he decked with bright joyful colors culled from the flower gardens of earth.

The Birth Of Modern Painting (continued)

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier’s Travels In India

The different kinds of weights for weighing diamonds at the mines; the kinds of gold and silver in circulation; the routes by which one is able to travel; and the rule in use for the estimation of the prices of diamonds
(via Jean-Baptiste Tavernier’s Travels In India / V Ball / Edited by William Crooke)

I come now to some details as to the traffic in diamonds, and in order that reader may understand this easily—believing that no one has previously written of this matter I shall speak in the first instance of the different kinds of weights which are in use, both at the mines and in other places in Asia.

At the mine of Rammalakota they weigh by mangelins, and the mangelin is equal to 1¾ carats, that is to say, 7 grains. At the mine of Gani or Kollur the same weights are used. At the mine of Soumelpour in Bengal they weigh by ratis, and the rati is 7/8ths of a carat, or 3½ grains. This last weight is used throughout the whole of the Empire of the Great Mogul. In the Kingdoms of Golkonda and Bijapur mangelins are also used, but the mangelin in these places is only 13/8 carats. The Portuguese use the same weight name in Goa, but it is then equal to only 5 grains.

I come now to the kinds of money with which diamonds are purchased in India. Firstly, in the Kingdom of Bengal, in the territories of the Raja of whom I have spoken, as they are included in the dominion of the Great Mogul, payment is made in rupees. At the two mines in the Kingdom of Bijapur, in the neighborhood of Rammalakota, payment is made in the new pagodas which the King, being entirely independent of the Great Moghul, coins in his own name. The new pagoda does not always bear the same value, for sometimes it is valued at 3½ rupees, sometimes more and sometimes less, according as it is raised or lowered by the state of trade, and according as the moneychangers arrange matters with the Princes and Governors. At the mine of Kollur or Gani, which belongs to the King of Golkonda, payment is made in new pagodas of equal value with those of the King of Bijapur. But one has to buy them sometimes at from 1 to 4 percent premium, because they are of better gold, and because the merchants do not accept others at this mine.

These pagodas are made by the English and Dutch, who have obtained from the King, either by agreement or by force, permission to manufacture them, each in their own fortress. And those of the Dutch cost 1 or 2 percent more than those of the English, because they are of better quality, and the miners also much prefer them. But as the majority of the merchants are influenced by the false reports that the people at the mine are unsophisticated and almost savages, and that, moreover, the routes from Golkonda to the mines are very dangerous, they generally remain at Golkonda, where those who work the mines have their correspondents to whom they send the diamonds. Payments are made there with old pagodas, well worn, and coined many centuries ago by different Princes, who reigned in India before the Musalmans gained a footing in the country. These old pagodas are worth 4½ rupees, i.e. 1 rupee more than the new, although they do not contain more gold, and consequently do not weigh more; this will be a cause of astonishment if I do not explain the reason. It is that the Shroffs of Changers, in order to induce the King not to have them recoined, pay him annually a large sum, because they themselves thereby derive a considerable profit; for the merchants never receive these pagodas without the aid of one of these Changers to examine them, some being defaced, others of low standard, others of short weight, so that if one accepted them without this examination he would lose much, and would have the trouble to return them, or perhaps lose from 1 to even 5 or 6 percent, in addition to which he must pay the Shroffs 1/4th per cent for their trouble. When you pay the miners, they will also receive these pagodas only in presence of the Changer, who points out to them the good and bad, and again takes his 1/4th percent. But to save time, when you desire to make a payment of 1000 or 2000 pagodas, the Changer, when receiving his dues, encloses them in a little bag, on which he places his seal, and when you wish to pay a merchant for his diamonds you take him, with the bag, to the Changer, who, seeing his own seal intact, assures him that he has examined all the coins, and will be responsible if any do not prove good.

As for rupees, the miners take indifferently those of the Great Mogul and those of the King of Golkonda, because those coined by this King would have been the coinage of the Great Mogul if these monarchs had remained on good terms.

The natives of India have more intelligence and subtlety than one thinks. As the pagodas are small, thick pieces of gold of the size of the nail on the little finger, and as it is impossible to clip them without it being apparent, they bore small holes in them all round, found whence they extract 3 or 4 sols value of gold dust, and they close them with such skill that there is no appearance of the coins having been touched. Moreover, if you buy anything in a village, or if when you cross a river you give the boatmen a rupee, they immediately kindle a fire and throw the rupee into it, from whence if it comes out white they accept it, but if black they return it; for all the silver in India is of the highest quality, and that which is brought from Europe has to be taken to the mint to be recoined. I say also that those are very much deceived (as merchant tried to make me believe on my first journey) who imagine that is answers to take to the mines spices, tobacco, mirrors, and other trifles of that kind to barter for diamonds; for I have fully proved the contrary, and am able to assert that the merchants at the mine who sell the diamonds require good gold, and the best too.

Now let us say something as to the routes to be followed to the mines. Some modern rather fabulous accounts represent them to be, as I have said, dangerous and difficult, and frequented by tigers, lions and barbarous people; but I have found them altogether different from what they were represented to be—without wild beasts, and the people full of good will and courtesy to strangers.

As for Golkonda, one need know but little of the map to be aware of its position; but from Golkonda to Rammalakota, where the principal mine is, the route is less known, and this is the one which I followed. The measure of distance in this country is the gos, and a gos is equal to 4 French leagues.

From Golkonda to Canapour, 1 gos; Canapour to Parquel, 2½; Parquel to Cakenol, 1; Cakenol to Canol—Candanor, 3; Canol—Candanor to Setapour, 1; Setapour to the river, 2. This river is the boundary between the Kingdoms of Golkonda and Bijapur.

From the river to Alpour, ¾ gos; Alpour to Canol, ¾; Canol to Raolconda, where the mine is, 2½. Thus in all it is 17 gos, or 68 French leagues from Golkonda to the mine. From Golkonda to the mine of Coulour, or Gani, it is 13¾ gos, which amounts to 55 of our leagues. From Golkonda to Almaspinde, 3½ gos; Almaspinde to Kaper, 2; Kaper to Montecour, 2½; Montecour to Nazelpar, 2; Sarvaron to Mellaserou, 1; Mellaserou to Ponocour, 1¾. Between Ponocour and Coulour or Gani (Kollur) there is only the river to cross. I come now to an important subject which is little understood in Europe.

Jean-Baptiste Tavernier’s Travels India (continued)