This is one of my favourite paintings, which was studied at my favourite research class at university some time ago - Hans Holbein the Younger's "The Ambassadors". The painting is the property of the National Gallery in London, and where it is also for display.Painted in 1533, the painting shows Jean de Dinteville on the left (at the age of 29, French ambassador to England), and his friend Georges de Selve (at the age of 25, who was Bishop of Lavaur and who acted on several occasions as ambassador to the Emperor, the Venetian Republic and the Holy See).
The composition of this painting is incredibly complex, and there are countless clues and innuendos incorporated. The globe next to Jean de Dinteville's arm, for example, is set to about the location of Rome (and not London, where the scene is set).
The most striking element in this painting is the anamorphosis of a skull. When viewing the painting from the front, it isn't evident at once that it is a skull. However, the painting is supposed to once hung so that people approaching it would actually see the skull in its real proportions.
There are some excellent books about this painting, and I would like to suggest this one for first reading:
Also, there are some very good websites that are worth reading. To begin with, you'll want to view this painting at the National Gallery's website, as well as the discussion of some of the elements in it.
Wikipedia, of course, has an interesting article about it (and some more good literature resources), and I would also like to recommend Dr. Allen Farber's elaborate web project on The Ambassadors.
The middle column, headers and small things on my blog, that is. So that means there's been a new release. Things are looking good and organized (if you're a fellow beta tester, then you, too, see the dashboard). Nice!
And look ye! When you mark something [this is good!], you can now also do it in Hebrew! Oh yes, and anyone having problems with the term chosen, please don't beat up the Vox team. Instead, kick me, because I suggested it.
Fellow Etsy seller "athaclena" made a treasury honouring Israel's Independence Day (יום העצמאות), showcasing some, but bu far not all, sellers and talents from Israel!
Here is a screenshot of it - click it to see all the Israeli talents in big size.
Sellers in the list are (starting from top left):
ellik7 :: tamishvat ::rutharrango :: kseNYA :: netamir :: papafork :: ayeyet :: Lanita :: sueki :: post :: leiaka :: handmadebyNoa
But yes, do check out these sellers, too:
threegreenapples :: ZBMDiamond :: Mory :: Dekel :: LaraLake :: HandMaid :: ililziv ::
Happy 59th, Israel! We'll be over for the big 60 next year!
I didn't notice it at first, but when I had a closer look at thisnext.com's newsletter in my inbox ......
Hahaha. Funny guys. :) It actually means that someone over there is having a look at users, what they do and like, and who they are. Sweet.
This one isn't really new anymore, but I crack up each time I see it. I used to watch Erez Nehederet's clips at Keshet, but since Microsoft and Firefox is more a hate than a love relationship, I was happy to find that a lot of the clips are to be found on youtube as well.
This one features Luba, a supermarket cashier, whose origins are not to overhear (in times of "Domino", it would have been Masha, the raving kindergarten teacher). Luba is so awfully terrible, it's hilarious again. And it's really not too far from reality! I once got talked up by such a woman trying to sell me another cream than I was looking for. It was a nightmare; like they had reworked grammar rules overnight without me knowing.
Damn, I am craving Bisli za'atar now.
April 22 is Earth Day. ThisNext are currently having a competition in honour of Earth Day - recommend an eco-friendly find and they will plant 10 trees for each recommendation tagged Earth Day.
Well yes, I am not a resident of the US (that's the usual crux with competitions at non-German / non-European sites), but nevertheless, the producst and finds I post receive attention, and since thisnext.com is a shopping guide....I happily plug away! It's also good for my finds' web stats. ;)
If you use thisnext.com, then why not make a list and recommend or re-recommend some eco friendly finds? It's the best PR producers and institutions can get.
Lastly, have a look at my Earth Day list (and this is the pool for the Earth Day tag). I started it only yesterday, and my recommendations so far are mostly Germany-based companies, but there's a lot to learn from each other, isn't there.
How do you support our planet? What do you do to preserve natural resources, and do you care for healty food?
A week-end filled with travelling, meeting good friends, hanging out at favourite coffee bars, and roaming antique markets in the region. Oh, and taking photos.
I have put two sets of antique monogram medallions into the shop; I have far too many to ever being able to use them all. They are the hype in Japan.
1890-1920年代に、スイスのＳｔ．Ｇａｌｌｅｎで作られた美しいモノグラムのアップリケ。フランスやドイツへも、スイスから輸出されていました。
Hehe. =^_^=
Testing Vox's new embed feature. Looks good! It now allows to embed widgets and snippets and script content, although for posts only and not in the sidebars. I would like to see customizable sidebar modules, though, as this would allow for a better and visually more permanent placement of my own widgets (i.e. they'd stay where I put them and not disappear into archives).
Problems with this feature:
- the embedded script appear aligned to the left side, though, when especially with image thumbnails, a centered alignment would be preferred, as Vox renders a 1px box around the embedded content. Makes it look a bit off.
- during composing, I cannot see how the script will look once a post is published, but by having to choose a size (i.e. small / medium / large), I have to set the size of the box that will contain the script content. In the case of the widget above, having chosen "medium" cut off parts of the visual content, and switching to "large" actually made the widget look badly placed. Whatever the case, a preview function and not having to choose a box size would be preferred.
And since I just noticed -- problems with Etsy's feature:
Etsy's widget script fetches all starred listings first and only then gets the regular listings in consecutive order. This is problematic.
Starring items in one's Etsy shop: a seller has the option to star listings, which thus get pulled into the "featured in shop" module. Within the module, the starred listings can be put in any order the user wishes. The top three items are pulled into the top row in the store front, as this is the "featured items" section.
Now, a lot of sellers, myself included, like to star more than three listings. This is handy to economize clicks and steps when rotating featured items (which is especially handy when Etsy is slow due to monster traffic peaks). Moreoever, a lot of sellers star items that have bumped from the first page, or they pull up items from the last pages. This way, these items are given more exposure. Likewise, visitors who normally would not click through more than an average two or three pages, would be taken to where they would otherwise not end up.
While the featured items option is wonderfully nifty within one's shop, I think it disturbs in the widget. The widget would excel and be a better marketing tool if it displayed the real latest additions to one's Etsy shop, instead of the list of starred items first. I would think that a lot of users would choose a 1 column - 4 rows or 2 columns - 4 rows widget. Makes between four and eight thumbnails. The script would display at least 3 starred items, since there are three slots in the feature module. Makes up to 5 photos left.
Given one used the widget to also visualize how many new items make it into the shop daily or weekly, then the widget would not be the right tool to do so, because it makes no sense to star and feature latest additions to the shop -- and besides, my guesstimate is that this would even render double thumbnail in the widget.
