Geek in Heels - Page 180

Aug 19, 2009 • In Art/Design, Random

Resetting the Hope Diamond

I have always had a fascination with the Hope Diamond – not because I like jewels (I don’t), but for the gruesome deaths and bad luck in its history.

In celebration of the 50th anniversary of Harry Winston’s donation of the Hope Diamond to the Smithsonian Institution, the infamous diamond will be reset into a different necklace design for the first time in over half a century…and the public will decide on the new design!

From August 17 – September 7, you’ll have the chance to be a part of history by voting on one of the three new setting designs. You can vote on the new design here.

To be completely frank I don’t like any of the new designs. The current setting is timeless and classic, and as representative of the Hope Diamond experience as the diamond itself.

Which setting do you like the best?

Fortunately, the change does not seem to be a permanent move. The Smithsonian has announced that the diamond in the chosen setting will be unveiled in Spring 2010, and after a limited-time exhibition it will be returned to its original setting.

I think that the best part of this announcement is that while the winning design is being created, the Hope Diamond will – for the first time in history – be displayed as a standalone diamond, free of a setting.

I haven’t seen the Hope Diamond since a school trip to D.C. in elementary school. I will surely keep tabs on the dates of the exhibitions so that I can make a trip to the National Museum of Natural History to see the famous diamond – naked, alone, and magnificent.

Via the Los Angeles Times.

Put This on Your Office Wall.

Via The Next Web.

Your Online Persona, Visualized

Those crazy folks at the MIT Media Lab have created a web application called Personas which maps out your online persona in the form of a stacked bar chart.

WHAT IS PERSONAS?
Personas is a component of the Metropath(ologies) exhibit, currently on display at the MIT Museum by the Sociable Media Group from the MIT Media Lab. It uses sophisticated natural language processing and the Internet to create a data portrait of one’s aggregated online identity. In short, Personas shows you how the Internet sees you.

HOW DOES IT WORK?
Enter your name, and Personas scours the web for information and attempts to characterize the person – to fit them to a predetermined set of categories that an algorithmic process created from a massive corpus of data. The computational process is visualized with each stage of the analysis, finally resulting in the presentation of a seemingly authoritative personal profile.

I’ve decided to try my name and “Geek in Heels.” Unfortunately, I couldn’t do “geekinheels” since it asks for a first and last name. Let’s see how the internet sees me… (click to enlarge)

Some of the keywords such as “education” and “medical” in my full name persona are surprising. But then again, my name is not truly unique.

The keyword that stunned me in my “Geek in Heels” profile was “aggression.” Do I seem that angry? Perhaps it’s all the exclamation points and the numerous things I find to b*tch about via the web? And how do I have such a large “military” presence on the web?

What is your online persona?

Via Miss Cellania.

Color Blindness Vision Simulator

Perhaps there is something wrong with me, but I think it’s fascinating that some people are color-blind.

Can you see the number in this Ishihara color vision test plate?

I’ve always wondered how different people perceive color – even those with normal vision. Taking this into consideration, a color-blind person would be a treat for me. I want to study them, analyze them, and have one-on-one color study discussions with them. It’s horrible, I know, but doesn’t a small part of everyone delve into morbid curiosities such as these?

Now, with the help of internet technology, I can now have a glimpse into the intriguing world of color blindness.

This Vision Simulator not only lets you see how different images look to those with color blindness, it gives options for the different types of color blindness along with statistics correlating to each instance.

In fact, its parent site Causes of Color is a fascinating read in itself – an orgy of enthralling information for color lovers like me.

Via haha.nu

Our First Visit to the Doctor

We had our first OB appointment today! Before I get to the fun stuff, check out this lovely conversation I had with J en route to the doctor…

Geek in Heels: So are you excited?

The Sperm Donor: Yes!!!

Geek in Heels:

The Sperm Donor: I have one next week, and another the week after that…I can’t wait!

Geek in Heels: What are you talking about?

The Sperm Donor: Fantasy football drafts! What are you talking about?

Geek in Heels: Our first doctor’s appointment.

The Sperm Donor: Ooh…

Geek in Heels:

The appointment itself was quick and painless. I thought I was about 6 weeks pregnant, but I guessed wrong…based on the size of the embryonic sac (that was all we could see), the doctor estimated that I’m only 4.5 weeks along.

We are scheduled for another appointment in 2 weeks, when the doctor should be able to confirm Tater Tot’s age and my due date.

(Per our friend Eva‘s suggestion, we have decided to call the baby “Tater Tot” until we decide on a name. Why Tater Tot? Because J’s nickname is, and has been for most of his life, Potatohead.)

The appointment has confirmed three things:

One
After doing some quick calculations, I discovered that there’s a good chance that the due date will be near or on our 2-year wedding anniversary. How cool would that be?!!

Two
I need to find a new OB. The doctor looked and sounded so much like the Asian doctor from the movie Knocked Up that we couldn’t help but snigger. How would you feel if this scene kept running through your head?

In addition, the staff was a bit rude. When I asked if I could keep the ultrasound picture, they said, “Why would you want to keep that? You can’t even see anything!” and just brushed me off.

Three
I need to really start taking care of myself and the baby. Everyone’s been telling me that I need to be careful, but I didn’t take much heed. I continued to climb up stairs, lift heavy objects, and even clean the bathroom while inhaling harsh chemicals. Seeing my baby on the screen was exactly what I needed. It’s time to start eating healthy, watch every step I take, and accept the fact that I will not be able to do a lot of activities I once so enjoyed. (And yes, cleaning the bathroom is something I enjoy…don’t judge me!)

Can you believe it? I’m going to be a mommy! Please keep me, Tater Tot, and J in your thoughts and prayers for the duration of this pregnancy!

Knit Your Own Baby Link Outfit

Remember the adorably geeky baby Link outfit I wrote about last week?

Well, there was much rejoicing in the geeky craft world today as the knitting pattern was released at Happy Seamstress!

You can download the detailed PDF here.

The bad news is that my knitting abilities are limited to simple scarves. The good news is that I have 9 months (or less…will find out tomorrow) to hone my skills, or to bully someone else into making it for me.

Via Joystiq.

500 Pencils

Does anyone else lay out their art supplies – whether it be tubes of paint, pastel sticks, or colored pencils – and organize them by color? And after they’re all prettily arranged by their color families, then hue, then shade…do you ever just sit back and admire your collection?

Because I don’t.

The Felissimo Design House has launched the 500 Pencils service, which delivers 25 colored pencils a month for 20 months – until you have acquired all 500 colored pencils in their collection – for $33 a month.

Forget wine-of-the-month, cheese-of-the-month, heck – even beer-of the month clubs. This is the perfect monthly collection subscription service for me!

Not only does the 500 Pencils service provide this visionary service, they also carry marvelous display cases for your pencils. Check out the Orchestra, which mounts the pencils in sets of twenty…

Its big brother Aurora…

The flexible, bendable Color Wave…

And my personal favorite, the Flower Vase.

“Why do two colors, put one next to the other, sing? Can one really explain this? No. Just as one can never learn how to paint.”
-Pablo Picasso

Via Luxist.

Qubic – Frame Your Music

Back in the early 90s, I had heard of CDs but dismissed it as an expensive fad…

…until one day when I visited a friend. Her parents had bought her a CD player for her birthday, and I quickly became enthralled at its superior sound quality over cassette tapes. The best part? You could skip to the next track.

I quickly began a campaign for a CD player as my upcoming birthday + Christmas gift. I joined Columbia House and BMG (remember those?). Over the next decade, I managed to accumulate quite a CD collection. I believe I had over 1,000 CDs at my last count which took place one lonely Saturday night back in 1998.

Then came the era of digital music. My massive collection of CDs now sits untouched in my parents’ basement, doing no more than gathering dust.

Yesterday, Yanko design posted the Qubic. Designed by Kenneth Lylover, these combination-frame-slash-storage-devices may be the solution to my unused CDs…at least the pretty ones.

Now, if only someone were to provide a solution for my MiniDiscs…

xkcd Does ‘The Oregon Trail’

How many times have I read the words “Jenny has died from dysentary” in my formative younger years?

Well, my favorite web comic xkcd has done it again with their interpretation of 19th century Oregon:

Do you remember playing The Oregon Trail when you were younger? Did you love it as much as I did?

Windows 7 Desktop Backgrounds

Yesterday, Wired Gadget Lab pronounced Windows 7 to be “Microsoft’s best OS yet.”

This isn’t saying much when you consider the unreliability of XP and the epic failure of Vista. Microsoft has yet to create a decent OS since Windows 2000, and even that is inferior to Mac OS X and Linux.

However, I could not help but be wowed by the screenshots included in the article. No, not the features of the OS, but rather the colorful desktop backgrounds that are simply full of joie de vivre.

According to Microsoft’s Engineering Windows 7 blog, “Windows is for the whole world” and thus – “we wanted to recognize the global audience of Windows by seeking out illustrators with varied backgrounds and styles with the intention of representing and appealing to people all around the world.”

They say that Apple is the prefered OS for creative types, but these backgrounds blow Apple’s proprietary backgrounds out of the water!

Resetting the Hope Diamond

You may also like:

Put This on Your Office Wall.

You may also like:

Your Online Persona, Visualized

You may also like:

Color Blindness Vision Simulator

You may also like:

Our First Visit to the Doctor

You may also like:

Knit Your Own Baby Link Outfit

You may also like:

500 Pencils

You may also like:

Qubic – Frame Your Music

You may also like:

xkcd Does ‘The Oregon Trail’

You may also like:

Windows 7 Desktop Backgrounds

You may also like:

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