Exhibition: "Mechanical Wonders: The Sandoz Collection," Through November 26, 2011

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This exhibit looks truly amazing! Many of the objects, I am told, come only very rarely to The United States, so make sure to take advantage of this opportunity while you can! I will absolutely be making a personal pilgrimage.

"Mechanical Wonders: The Sandoz Collection"
Presented by A La Vieille Russie and Parmigiani
October 26 – November 26, 2011

Visit ALVR this Fall to see a very special loan exhibition of intricate marvels that jump, sing and act as you never believed jeweled creations could.

Featuring early 19th century Swiss gold and enamel automaton snuff boxes, watches, magicians, and animals, the Imperial Swan Egg of 1906 and the Imperial Peacock Egg of 1908 by Fabergé, as well as contemporary interpretations by Parmigiani Fleurier of watches in the Sandoz Collection. In addition, the catalogue raisonné of the collection will be presented for the first time.

EXHIBITION HOURS (beginning October 26):
Monday through Friday 11am-6pm
Thursday 11am-7pm
Saturday 12pm-5pm
Closed for Thanksgiving Day.

Address: 781 Fifth Avenue at 59th Street
New York, NY 10022
212-752-1727
http://www.alvr.com

You can find out more and purchase tickets by clicking here. Thanks so much to the inspiring Jere Ryder for alerting me to this exhibition!

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Amazing Auction Alert: Bonhams "Objects of the Wunderkammer including an Exceptional Private Collection of European Ivories," London

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Wow. Via Artdaily.org:

LONDON.- On Wednesday 2 November, to coincide with Halloween, Bonhams will hold its first sale dedicated to the Wunderkammer, also known as the ’Kunstkammer’ or ‘cabinet of curiosities’, a collection of fine objects created from the rarest and most exquisite materials and designed to induce excitement and wonder in the viewer.

Comprising works of art ranging from ivory figures and reliefs, early and rare bronzes, fine enamels, chalices and caskets, the Wunderkammer brought together objects produced from the most expensive and highly prized materials of the day, including ivory, tortoiseshell, rhino horn, enamel and gilt bronze.

This unique, one-off sale features one hundred and thirty ivory carvings, including a very spooky South German skull (estimate £10,000 – 15,000); an eerie 17th century anatomical model of an eye (estimate £4,000 – 6,000); and a gruesome relief depicting the martyrdom of Saint Erasmus (estimate £10,000 – 15,000). The top lot is a rare collection of forty four mid 18th century ivory intaglios of Roman Emperors, which has attracted a pre-sale estimate of £20,000 – 30,000. ...

You can read the full article on Artdaily.org by clicking here. You can find out more about the auction by clicking here.

Images of lots, top to bottom:
1) Lot No: 225
An 18th / 19th century North European carved and painted wood skull
possibly from a large crucifixion group, 14cm high

Estimate: £500 - 700, € 580 - 810

2) A rare South German anatomical model of an eye
probably late 17th century
composed of ten individual sections including an iris, pupil, and a section painted with veins, with a turned handle to the reverse and on a turned ivory spiralling stem and foot, together with a small 17th century circular carved wood and painted box which the eye fits into when disassembled, glass lense repaired, the ivory 8.5cm high, the box 8cm diameter (2)

Estimate: £6,000 - 8,000, € 6,900 - 9,200

Footnote:
The exquisite workmanship combined with the use of a rare and prized material in this miniature model of a human eye are typical of the objects that were collected and displayed in the Wunderkammer. Detailed models of eyes, as well as skulls and skeletons that are now associated with the Wunderkammer, were produced from the 17th century onwards and originally conceived as anatomical teaching tools. Ivory carvers such as Stephan Zick (1639-1715) and Johann Martin Teuber were influenced by the anatomical drawings of Andrea Vesalius in the mid 16th century and later George Bartisch who produced a manuscript relating to the eye in 1583. For a similar anatomical model of an eye, see Christies, London, December 4 2008, lot 75.

3) Lot No: 174Y
An 18th century South German ivory skull
carved with an entwined crown of thorns, with a snake above, later mounted on a perspex rectangular plinth, the ivory 10.5cm high

Estimate: £10,000 - 15,000, € 11,000 - 17,000

Footnote:
For a comparable ivory skull see the Robert and Angelique Noortman Collection: Paintings and Works of Art from Chateau De Groote Mot, sold at Sotheby's, Amsterdam, December 17, 2007, lot 557.
A similar skull monogrammed by Josef Konrad Wiser (1693-1760) but lacking the snake was sold at Sotheby's, London, July 9, 2008, lot 92, £37,250.

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Progress Launch Boosts Soyuz Confidence Level

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Photo: Progress Reentry As Seen From The International Space Station

@astro_aggie (Mike Fossum) "Enjoy this picture I took #fromspace of the Progress cargo ship burning up after undock on Saturday."

Successful Progress Launch Sets Stage for Soyuz Flight

"The following is a statement from Bill Gerstenmaier, associate administrator for Human Exploration and Operations at NASA Headquarters in Washington, on Sunday's launch of the Progress 45 spacecraft to the International Space Station. The rocket lifted off from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan at 6:11 a.m. EDT (4:11 p.m. Baikonur local time). ..."

Time lapse: Crater Lake | Bad Astronomy

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Crater Lake, Oregon, is an ancient volcano caldera that is filled with water. If you’ve never been there, words really cannot convey the magnificence of the view. I was there in 2006, and was so struck by the awesome beauty of the place that I did what I could to relay how I felt at the time.

So I was thrilled when I found out that photographer Ben Canales had also visited Crater Lake, and made this lovely (and far too short!) time lapse video of it:

See what I mean? I want more! But did you see, in the first few seconds of the video, the dark band across the horizon? That’s called the Belt of Venus, and is actually the shadow of the Earth on the sky! I see it all the time, and it’s easy to get good pictures of it, too!

My only regret about visiting Crater Lake was not being able to see the stars that night, but it looks like Ben made the most of his experience there. Sometime, I’ll have to go back, and spend the night. It looks cold, but wonderful.

Credit: Ben Canales on Google+.

Related posts:

- Time lapse: IRIDIUM
- Well, at least light pollution makes for a pretty time lapse
- The stars above, the luminescence below
- The lines in the sky are stars
- Trailing the sky


Florida: No Space Pork Here – Only In Virginia

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NASA should put KSC first, opinion, Florida Today

"The push by some members of Congress who might secure jobs from new development in Virginia is just a pork project."

Keith's note: Utterly hilarious. I guess this means that there is no "pork" involved in decisions affecting KSC. Pot - Kettle - Black, y'all.

- Florida Vs Virginia Food Fight In Space Update, earlier post
- Virginia's Invisible Spaceport (Updated), earlier post
- Florida's Sneaky Business Tactics, earlier post

Huge News!! Wider group of Islamists involved in the 9/11 attacks than first thought

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Al-Awlaki implicated

by Eric Dondero

Pro-Liberty/Anti-Islamist Republican Congressman Peter King, is opening up a whole new line of investigations into the Islamist attacks on the United States on September 11, 2001. Al-Awlaki, killed by a U.S drone attack in September, is a major target of the investigation.

From Fox News "Congressional Investigators Want 9/11 Suspects Questioned About Awlaki":

In the first letter, Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, wrote to Lt. Gen. Ronald Burgess, director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, which is responsible for directing interrogations of detainees in military custody at Guantanamo, including the self-described architect of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

King asked the agency to question detainees involved in plotting 9/11 about the possible roles of Eyad al-Rababah of Jordan, Daoud Chehazeh of Syria and Awlaki in the terror attack.

"I understand that these detainees have not been interrogated in several years, and certainly not since Awlaki's role within Al Qaeda became widely acknowledged in 2009," King wrote.

It also presented new and compelling evidence that Awlaki was an overlooked player in the Sept. 11 plot who slipped through the FBI's grasp after the attack.

Al-Rababah and Chehazeh, who had direct contact with al-Awlaki at his mosque in suburban Washington D.C., helped the hijackers settle in Virginia and eventually drove them to Paterson, New Jersey -- the hijackers' final stop before the attacks.

(Emphasis added)

Predator Drone attacks on Islamists justified even further

The House Special Investigations Committee into the attacks in 2004/05, criticized by many on the Anti-Islamist Right for putting political correctness over national security, refused to consider evidence of a wider involvement of Islamist terrorists.

Former NYC Mayor and an ally of King's Ed Koch takes it a step further. He posits that more than 200 Islamist operatives may have been planning follow-up attacks but were impeded successfully by ongoing FBI investigations.

From thealgemeiner "What if?" Oct. 17:

What if the government and U.S. law enforcement authorities had not impeded by prosecution the “more than 200 individuals” referred to in the report, and they had successfully carried out their terrorist acts? How many Americans and resident aliens would have been murdered and how many would have been injured? Thank God the government and law enforcement successfully intervened.

If Koch is right, this has enormous implications for national security. In retrospect, Bush's actions in Iraq are even more justified. Of course, ongoing predator drone attacks on Awlaki and other top Arabist leaders by the US Military are justified, as well, despite the vociferous protestations of hard leftists, pacifists, 9/11 Truthers, and even the antiwar faction within the libertarian movement of Ron Paulists and other non-interventionists.

No doubt, typical deniars that they are, they'll write off this new evidence as some "NeoCon conspsiracy" to "protect the Jews."

They love libertarian Republican Governor Paul LePage in Maine

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From Eric Dondero:

Overwhelmingly strong approval numbers for Maine's Republican Governor Paul LePage

From Critical Insights (via Hedgehog):

GOVERNOR PAUL LEPAGE – MAINE – JOB APPROVAL (Critical Insights)
Approve 47%
Disapprove 31%

Note - A great many libertarian Republicans were active in the LePage campaign in 2010 (including myself as a volunteer for 2 weeks). He was endorsed by the ME Republican Liberty Caucus. ME RLC Vice-Chair Stravos Mendros of Lewiston remains a top unofficial advisor to the LePage administration.

Mona Charon verifies Palestinians balked at deal with Israel

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Time for Israel to decide its own Borders

by Clifford F. Thies

In the National Review, columnist Mona Charon verifies the outright rejection of the peace offer made by then Israeli P.M. Ehud Olmert during the Clinton Administration. The deal was eminently fair. It was all the Israel could ever offer. There could never be any further concession. Most significantly, a divided city of Jerusalem would be the capital of both Israel and Palestine, and an international commission would oversea the Old City.

It is, at this time, absolutely clear that there will never be a negotiated settlement with the Palestinian Authority. Mahmoud Abbas, who may actually be in favor an end to the conflict between Israel and Palestine and willing to negotiate, is today merely a figurehead propped up by U.S. foreign aid. He does not represent the majority of the people of Palestine. Instead, Hamas, which doesn't even recognize the legitimacy of Israel, represents the majority.

So, what is there to do?

We suggest the method employed by the late Ariel Sharon for Gaza: Israel decides what the borders will be, with some help from third parties to try to make this as fair as possible, and that's that. In a show of generosity, Israel and the third parties could offer to leave the Jewish settlements on the Palestinian side of the borders intact to facilitate the return of Palestinian refugees scattered throughout the Middle East and the world, offer crossing rights to connect the two parts of Palestine, and offer an international commission to govern the Old City, in return for acceptance of the offer by the other side. The offer will, of course, not be accepted. Then, Israel should bulldoze the settlements to be abandoned, deny crossing rights, and declare sovereignty over the Old City.

Evolutionary imperialism | Gene Expression

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So there’s a slick new webzine coming out, Evolution: this view of life. It’s another one of David Sloan Wilson’s projects. I don’t agree a lot with the specifics of David’s theories, but I admire his ambition. James Winters pointed me to the fact that they’re trying to raise money for this webzine via KickStarter. Their goal is $5,000. Having run much more bare bones websites for years this seems like a really modest amount in relation to their aims. I admire David’s attempts in this area enough that I gave some money. He tries a lot of things, many of which don’t succeed, but that’s science….

Notes on comments | Gene Expression

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I dislike cluttering this site with administrative notes, but I want to put this post up as a reference for the future. It’s not really aimed at regular readers/commenters, who know the explicit and implicit norms.

1) If you use quotation marks, make sure that you’re actually quoting something your interlocutor said, rather than adding them for effect (yes, believe it or not, people have quoted me, where the “quotes” were actually their own interpretation of what I intended)

2) It is generally not best to paraphrase someone else’s argument in your own words as a prologue to your own comment. Just quote the appropriate sections of text in your reply if you want it to frame your response. If you are engaging in paraphrasing to distill the argument of your interlocutor down to a pith, understand that subconscious tendencies are such that you’ll reshape that argument to better suit your response. In other words, you’re probably arguing with your own conception of their argument, not their argument as such. More maliciously some people just paraphrase because it makes setting up a straw man so much easier. That’s not nice. I have wasted a fair amount of time rereading posts to try and figure out how commenters came to a particular perception of my argument. I don’t take kindly to people telling me what I obviously really think, when I point out that their perception was wrong.

3) From that you can gather that inferring “between the lines” isn’t appropriate in most cases. It is part of normal human cognition, and you can’t help it to some extent. But being too liberal about the practice means that you’ll just distort the argument of the other person, who then has to waste their time correcting your misunderstandings. This gums up the exchanges because people have only a finite amount of time. Read as plainly as possible.

4) There’s no presumption here of symmetry. If the host asks you a direct question, answer and don’t evade. If the host tells you to drop a topic, don’t make the case for why you shouldn’t drop the topic. Wasting time trying to argue these issues is a banning offense.

5) I’m busy, and getting busier. I don’t respond well to people wasting my time. Some of the other commenters are busy too. It’s important to make exchanges “count.” Excessive posturing, and an obvious fixation on “winning” arguments with clever ripostes, are bannable offensives.

I’m not taking comments on this post, because as I said this post is more a placeholder so I don’t have to have the same stale argument over & over.

Note: See this companion post.

Adult Stem Cell Therapy Following Heart Attack and Stroke – Video

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Mort Farina is a clinical compound pharmacist who received adult autologous stem cell therapy at Regenerative Medicine Institute at Hospital Angeles Tijuana, a Bioheart Stem Cell Center of Excellence. For more information contact a Health Travel Guide toll free at 866.978.2573 Note: Patient testimonials are not indicative of all results. Regenerative Medicine Institute at Hospital Angeles is among the first international stem cell treatment centers to be accepted in the accreditation program of the nonprofit consumer safety watchdog organization International Cellular Medicine Society (ICMS)

Excerpt from:
Adult Stem Cell Therapy Following Heart Attack and Stroke - Video

A New & Efficient High-Speed Rotorcraft

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I have invented a new type of VTOL aircraft; please see tiltplane.com. It takes off with its fuselage vertical but it tilts over as it picks up horizontal speed to cruise with its fuselage horizontal. I have BASIC programs for it written by Ray Prouty. Might someone want to work with these programs

Cost of metal in Mexico

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Hello, I recently moved to Mexico and got out of my manufacturing buisness in Canada. I thought the retired life was gonna be great but I am extremely bored and looking to start up another small plant. I was wondering if anyone knows the if there is a difference in price in raw metal between Mexico

Gary Johnson campaign – "We screwed up"

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From Eric Dondero:

Lack of staff, and serious disorganization has been rumored for months with the Gary Johnson for President campaign. Now, the rumors have proven true.

From MSNBC:

Gary Johnson -- who failed to file by proxy today while he was campaigning in Arizona -- is taking a red eye to New Hampshire and will file in person first thing in the morning at the State House in Concord.

"The technical term is that we screwed up," Johnson's communications director Joe Hunter told NBC by phone last night.

Editor's note - We report on the good, bad and ugly here at LR. We like Johnson. But this is a major fail.