The audacity of hope.

Using Video Walls as Digital Art Displays

2011-08-16T15:35:00.000-07:00

The use of video wall software as contemporary display art combines technology with either converting traditional art to video images or actually creating art through the medium. This form of art had its beginnings in the 1970s, originally relying upon use of video tape. Today, art is recorded on a variety of digital media including CD-ROMS, DVDs and directly onto computer hard drives. Projection onto a video wall can also take on the form of an artistic expression. For example, a pioneer of Video Art was a Korean-American named Nam June Paik. He was one of the first video artists to use a configuration of video wall units arranging these as sculptures creating large visual environments.

Video Art Uses Surroundings

One of the consistent themes shown through use of video walls displaying art is use of the surrounding environment to make impact upon viewers. Video art typically has no plot, no dialogue and no actors. So, this medium should never be considered as artistic film work. One of the key elements employing multiple units in video walls displaying art is effective use of space. This gives it a three-dimensional edge to presentation. The use of space allows the artist to explore a variety of creativity levels that are contingent upon concepts and goals.

Space Dictates Installation Configuration

Since space takes in a critical element using video walls displaying art, installation can be permanent or temporary - even mobile. This allows for installation in a number of venues including museums, galleries and both public and private spaces. Additionally, this art form is nurtured simultaneously by electricity and darkness making options limitless. As an interactive art form, video wall displays can put to use natural elements combining it with ambient sounds, the Internet, paintings, sculptures, photographs, film and even performance art and, that performance art, can be audience participation initiated by message inclusion in the art form itself.

Famous Video Art

Probably one of the mist famous examples of video walls displaying art is a work called The Crossing (1996) produced by Bill Viola. A man engulfed by flames is introduced to half the screen of a huge plasma television screen. On the other half, this man is shown taking a shower. The artist claims the display creates an understanding of "self beyond our body." Once the body "dies,"

a new "self" appears with a newly created consciousness. Another example is Tall Ships (1992) by Gary Hill. Still, another notable example of video art is Doug Aitken's Electric Earth (1999). The public is "moved" to an airport during the night. An abandoned shopping cart and flaming car appear. Then a "noiseless" rapper glides about a city setting in a presentation of French existentialists that meet in a large American city.

Amateur Access

The advancement of production and editing software that can easily be used when installed on personal computers has led to an explosion of video art creation in recent years. Digital technology, from creation of unique images to the manipulation of existing photographic images, has provided anyone with imagination the crafting tools toward using video walls as display art making it not only a popular, but acceptable form of personal expression.

Managing Costs with House Plans

2011-03-10T23:05:00.000-08:00

There are a huge number of issues that can occur when you set out to build your own home, and one of the main ones is the budget. From the purchase and acquisition of the land, until the construction has been completed and you have moved into the property, the costs can become much more than you expected.

Now there are some useful websites that can help you to create the cost estimation for your house. They can help you to budget more effectively, and stay within that budget.

How to do it?

Cost estimation for house plans requires attention to detail. The first thing you will need when you start to build is a well-designed house plan. This plan should have the basic floor layout along with room for future modification. You can either have an architect design your house plan, or you can get a custom made design for your house.

This, entails time, and spending a significant amount of money. A better way of dealing with it is to purchase a pre-drawn plan. You can then use this plan to estimate the costs of construction. The other advantage of pre-drawn house plans is that they have already been used many times and will have been refined over time. They will be tried and tested, and most, if any, errors eliminated.

This will give you a basic blueprint for construction along with all the estimated costs. The estimate will cover the initial cost of preparing the land for construction, labor and material costs, plus the costs of fittings, electrical and plumbing and many other hidden costs that you may otherwise not consider.

Online estimation

There are now a number of websites that offer an online cost estimator. These can speed up the process of creating your plan and estimating the cost of building. Unlike regular cost estimations, which may take weeks, you can use this option to receive an estimate within a couple of days.

You can use this tool by first selecting one of the many plans available on these websites. Once a plan is selected, you can start using the estimation tool to find total cost of construction.

This tool can come in handy for people who want a streamlined process and do not want to spend beyond their budget. They can also save time on this as the estimation is completed within a few days.

You can complete an online form with the basic details and measurements of the house plans to start the process. The estimation could be available in as little as 48 hours, in a detailed format with labor costs, material price, location considerations, and other features.

So if you are planning to build a house and have a strict budget, you can use cost estimation for house plans as the best way to make sure everything has been factored into the final cost. With this cost estimate in hand, you can build your dream home with confidence.

Got an Idea to Save Spirit? Mars Rover Engineers Are All Ears

2009-07-24T13:52:00.000-07:00

Today, NASA is offering a chance to go one-on-one with the team of engineers who are working to free the stuck Mars rover Spirit.

So if you've got an idea for how to liberate the Martian rover from its sandy trap on the red planet — or have a question for how the engineers are working on ways to get the rover out — today's NASA webcast is the time to ask. Call it Operation: Free Spirit.

Spirit has been stuck in Martian dirt up to its hubcaps since May 6, when it became mired in a dirt patch (now called "Troy") while driving backward.

Because they don't want to damage Spirit while trying out ways to get the rover out of its sand trap, mission engineers are using a replica model here on Earth.

Two members of the engineering team — John Callas, project manager for NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers, and Ashley Stroupe, deputy lead for "Free Spirit" testing — will talk about their efforts in a live webcast from NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, Calif. at 6 p.m. EDT at the following web address: http://www.ustream.tv/channel/nasajpl

Questions can be submitted via Ustream or Twitter (to @NASAJPL using the hashtag #FreeSpirit) during the webcast and in advance to chatquestion@jpl.nasa.gov.

The team has already received suggestions from fans of the hard luck rover, including using the robotic arm to hoist the robot out of the sand. But the arm doesn't have enough force to lift the hefty rover, Callas said.

"The rover's far too massive, far too heavy," Callas said. Spirit and its robotic twin Opportunity are each the size of a golf cart.

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Other suggestions have included using the robotic arm to push sand away from the wheels, or underneath them for better traction. "And that's an interesting idea," Callas said, but would have to be looked at much later in the testing process.

At the end of June, the test rover was set up in a plywood rig in a dirt pit at JPL. The rig is filled with a dirt concoction mixed to mimic the properties of the sand in which Spirit is stuck. It is also tilted at a 10-degree angle - the same angle of the slope that Spirit is stuck on.

Engineers also placed a rock underneath the test rover's belly because images taken last month by the microscopic imager at the end of Spirit's robotic arm. After analyzing the image, mission managers determined that a dark blob in the middle was a rock positioned underneath the rover.

Mission engineers finally began testing out possible maneuvers on July 6. So far, they have tried out driving forward, backward, and then a series of crab-like moves. They have also tried out pivoting around the rover's bum right-front wheel, which has been inoperable for three years.

"We're looking at all the kinds of motion we can try," Callas said.

Some of these tests will be played during the live webcast.

Mission operators have found evidence that the dirt in which Spirit is stuck isn't uniform: the sand on the right side of the rover seems to be more compacted and have better traction than that on the right," so we want to try and exploit that," Callas told SPACE.com.

To better simulate Spirit's situation, the engineers plan to take out the mock Mars sand under the right side of the test rover and replace it with dirt that has properties closer to the stuff under Spirit.

After the team has run through their series of test moves with the new dirt mixture, they hope they'll have an idea of what maneuver might work best.

"We want to try the very best thing the first time," Callas said. "Our first chance will be our best chance" to get the rover free.

"We do want to start trying things on Mars fairly soon," Callas said. But since the rover has plenty of juice and is doing science in its current spot, the team isn't in any hurry.

"We have time on our hands," Callas said.

Home Loan Modification Will Help Stop Foreclosure

2009-05-27T13:59:00.001-07:00

Home Loan Modification Will Help Stop Foreclosure

Wikipedia defines foreclosure as the legal and professional proceeding in which a mortgagee, or other lienholder, usually a lender, obtains a court ordered termination of a mortgagor’s equitable right of redemption. Usually a lender obtains a security interest from a borrower who mortgages or pledges an asset like a house to secure the loan. If the borrower defaults and the lender tries to repossess the property, courts of equity can grant the borrower the equitable right of redemption if the borrower repays the debt. While this equitable right exists, the lender cannot be sure that it can successfully repossess the property, thus the lender seeks to foreclose the equitable right of redemption. Other lienholders can also foreclose the owner’s right of redemption for other debts, such as for overdue taxes, unpaid contractors’ bills or overdue HOA dues or assessments.

Unfortunately, the current housing crisis has greatly increased the number of foreclosures in many of the bubble states. California, Nevada, Las Vegas and Florida have all seen steady increases in the amount of foreclosures. When an individual or family cannot find a way to make their mortgage payment for several months, foreclosure is almost inevitable. I think we all have friends and family who have been through this troubling time and it is not a pretty sight.

Is there anything you can do to stop foreclosure? There are numerous resources on the internet to help stop foreclosure. Ultimately, the best thing anyone can do is educate themselves on what their options are. I have several close friends who would rather pay off credit card debt than make their mortgage payment. This is a VERY bad idea. If you default on your mortgage payment, it is going to be extremely hard to ever build your credit to a respectable level. If you cannot pay a credit card, your credit score will get hit but not nearly as much as with a foreclosure.

Therefore, your number one financial priority should be to make your mortgage payment each and every month. What if I don’t make enough money to make my mortgage payment? This is all to often the case with the amount of salary reductions and layoffs during the current recession. If you do not make enough money to pay for your mortgage you can look into the Making Home Affordable Plan and see what the government can do to help you out.

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No matter what you may think, the government wants to keep you in your home. The more homes that are foreclosed on the worse the economy is going to get. That is the exact reason that President Obama created the Making Home Affordable plan. He wants you to stay in your home, make your mortgage payments and live happily ever after. With that being said, you must find a way to budget your money to make your mortgage payments.

The Making Home Affordable Plan mandates that your mortgage is only 31% of your monthly salary. This is the case if your mortgage loan is backed by Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac. Almost 70% of home loans in America are backed by these two companies. If only 31% of your monthly salary is going towards your home loan then you should definitely have enough money to pay for it. One of the hardest things you may have to do is to sit down and write out all the money you actually spend. I mean write down every single penny you spend for a month’s period. If you buy a $1.49 pack of chewing gum before work every Monday, you need to write it down. You do not realize how bad you get nickel and dimed until you actually write down every single purchase.

After you have figured out how much money you spend in a month, you are likely going to need to cut out some habits. Do you really need to buy three drinks every time you go out to eat. For that matter, do you need to go out to eat as much as you do? Is it mandatory that you get your nails done at the most luxurious spa? These are questions you need to ask yourself and be honest. There is a fine line between being happy and being wasteful. If something makes you extremely happy and you can afford it, by all means continue to do it. If you cannot pay for your mortgage, you might want to reconsider some of the things you feel makes you happy.

Another way to get through this troubling time is a home loan modification. This has been extremely important with stopping foreclosures. If you can find a way to get a lower mortgage rate then you are going to pay much less in a monthly mortgage payment. With this, you will also pay much less over the entire lifetime of your home loan. If you can save just $50 a month, that could lead a long way to stopping foreclosure on your home.

Getting a home loan modification is also all about educating yourself on what your options are. There are an unlimited amount of resources available on the internet to research home loan modification or mortgage refinance. Make sure to get information from relevant sites as there are a great deal of spam sites out there. If you need any help, just do a quick google search for mortgage refinance or stop foreclosure and I am sure you will get some great resources.

Ultimately home loan modification will help stop foreclosure. This is exactly what the President wanted and he will make sure it happens. Hopefully the number of foreclosures greatly declines through the next several months as this has been a hinder on the recovery of the economy. Having lower mortgage payments and more money to stimulate the economy will help us on the road to recovery. For more information on home loan modification and stopping foreclosure, make sure to come back to Subprime Blogger for future articles.

Canseco faces super heavyweight in MMA fight

2009-05-27T13:27:00.000-07:00

Canseco faces super heavyweight in MMA fight

YOKOHAMA, Japan — Jose Canseco is pumped up for his debut in mixed martial arts even though he’s not sure what he’s getting into.

The former Oakland A’s slugger is fighting seven-foot-two 330-pound super heavyweight Hong Man Choi of South Korea on the Dream 9 card Tuesday night at Yokohama Arena.

“I’m not gonna lie to you: I’m scared. This guy is huge,” Canseco said Monday at a news conference to promote the fight. “I’m a 44-year-old rookie and have had a lot of challenges in my baseball career and hopefully, I can do well tomorrow.”

Canseco, who hit 462 home runs over 17 seasons in the major leagues, has had several fights inside the ring since leaving baseball but has never taken on professional fighters like Choi, who has a 1-2 record in MMA.

“I have a lot of respect for these guys,” said Canseco, who stands 6-foot-4 and weighs 240 pounds. “A lot of baseball players are fans of mixed martial arts and so am I.”

He boxed Danny Bonaduce, a former “Partridge Family” child star, to a draw in a celebrity match in January. The 1988 AL MVP, who named alleged steroid abusers like himself in his two books, lost to former Philadelphia Eagle Vai Sikahema in his first foray into celebrity boxing.

Mixed martial arts is hugely popular in Japan and organizers are expecting a sellout crowd for Tuesday’s event. Former NFL lineman Bob Sapp is also on the card.

By his acknowledgment, the baseball outcast needs the money. It’s one reason why Canseco has accepted a wide variety of offbeat jobs to make ends meet.

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Diamonds pile up worldwide as consumers finally realize their worthlessness.

2009-05-15T14:07:00.000-07:00

Diamonds pile up worldwide as consumers finally realize their worthlessness.

By ANDREW E. KRAMER May 11, 2009

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Each day, the contents of the bags spill into the stainless steel hoppers of the receiving room. The diamonds are washed and sorted by size, clarity, shape and quality; then, rather than being sent to be sold around the world, they are wrapped in paper and whisked away to a vault — about three million carats worth of gems every month.

“Each one of them is so unusual,” said Irina V. Tkachuk, one of the few hundred people, mostly women, employed to sort the diamonds, who sees thousands of them every day.

“I’m not a robot. I sometimes think to myself ‘wow, what a pretty diamond. I would like that one.’ They are all so beautiful.”

It could be years before another woman admires that stone. Russia quietly passed a milestone this year: surpassing De Beers as the world’s largest diamond producer. But the global market for diamonds is so dismal that the Alrosa diamond company, 90 percent owned by the Russian government, has not sold a rough stone on the open market since December, and has stockpiled them instead.

As a result, Russia has become the arbiter of global diamond prices. Its decisions on production and sales will determine the value of diamonds on rings and in jewelry stores for years to come, in one of the most surprising consequences of this recession.

Largely because of the jewelry bear market, De Beers’s fortunes have sunk. Short of cash, the company had to raise $800 million from stockholders in just the last six months.

The recession also coincided with a settlement with European Union antitrust authorities that ended a longtime De Beers policy of stockpiling diamonds, in cooperation with Alrosa, to keep prices up.

Though it is a major commodity producer, Russia has traditionally not embraced policies that artificially keep prices up. In oil, for example, Russia benefits from the oil cartel’s cuts in production, but does not participate in them.

Diamonds are an exception. “If you don’t support the price,” Andrei V. Polyakov, a spokesman for Alrosa, said, “a diamond becomes a mere piece of carbon.”

In an attempt to carefully calibrate its re-entry on the global market, without forcing prices still lower, Russia is relying on two things: the Soviet-era precious gem depository — created to hold jewelry confiscated from the aristocracy after the 1917 revolution — and capitalist investors, whom Alrosa hopes will buy diamonds as an investment, like gold.

Russia is taking a leadership role in other ways, too.

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Sergei Vybornov, Alrosa’s chief executive, said that he had helped persuade the central bank of Angola — which, like Russia, is still relatively flush with oil money — to buy 30 percent of the production of Angola’s diamond mines, keeping these stones off the market.

And last fall, Alrosa began what it called the St. Petersburg Initiative, along with De Beers and other large producers, to invest collectively in generic diamond advertising, akin to De Beers’s promotion of the slogan “Diamonds are forever.” Russia assumed the task as De Beers has principally shifted to promoting its own branded gems.

Still, it is a precarious time for the Russian diamond company to assume leadership of the industry.

Until last year, De Beers produced about 40 percent of the global rough stone supply, and Alrosa 25 percent. But De Beers, which is prohibited under its European Union antitrust agreement from stockpiling, closed mines in response to the glut in rough stones. Russia is loath to do that, as authorities in Moscow, gravely concerned about potential unrest by disgruntled unemployed workers, try to keep workers on the payroll.

In the first quarter, De Beers reduced output by 91 percent compared with the previous year. The diversified mining companies Rio Tinto and BHP Billiton also curbed production.

Meanwhile, the market for wholesale polished diamonds, worth about $21.5 billion, is expected to fall to about $12 billion in 2009, according to Polished Prices, an analytical service for the industry.

Rough diamond prices have fallen even more, as much as 75 percent since their peak last July at some auctions.

The two markets are distinct. Typically, about 60 percent of a rough diamond is lost as dust or shavings in the cutting process.

Mr. Vybornov blames diamond traders who pledged diamond stocks as loan collateral for part of the world glut. When credit dried up last fall, banks and other creditors seized those gems and sold them, he says, flooding the market. By December, his company decided to withdraw entirely from the market rather than further erode prices.

Russia historically remained mostly a behind-the-scenes player, perhaps because Soviet authorities would have had to perform some ideological gymnastics to promote a product consumed principally by the rich of the capitalist world.

Instead, twisting politics, the Soviets concluded a semisecret agreement with apartheid-era De Beers to sell Siberian diamonds in a way that would not undercut the market.

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After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the Russian diamond industry created a formal alliance with De Beers, selling the South African company half of each year’s production at a discount intended to subsidize De Beers’s generic diamond advertising undertaken in the 1990s, mostly in the United States.

Now, the Russians are in the driver’s seat.

Charles Wyndham, a former De Beers evaluator and co-founder of Polished Prices, said Russia had thus far managed the transition well: withholding gems to make more money in the long run rather than further depressing the market.

“Whatever one wants to say about the Russians, they certainly aren’t stupid,” Mr. Wyndham said.

Alrosa is seeking to jump-start demand by selling gems under long-term contracts to wholesale buyers in Belgium, Israel, India and elsewhere. Under these contracts, six of which have been signed, prices are set at a midpoint between the peak last August and this winter, and fixed for a period of several years.

“A diamond ring should not cost $100,” Mr. Vybornov said. “We don’t want that type of client.”

Alrosa is also working with a Moscow investment bank, Leader, a subsidiary of the Russian natural gas monopoly Gazprom, to market diamonds to investors. Under the plan, investors would buy diamonds but the gems would not be released to jewelers for several years.

It is a program, essentially, of outsourcing the stockpiling function to investors in exchange for the chance to profit from a possible recovery in the market.

At one of Alrosa’s cutting shops in one of Moscow’s outer districts, Aleksandr A. Malinin, an adviser to the president of Alrosa, showed a typical collection that might become the basis for such an investment vehicle.

The gems fit in a felt box about the size of a laptop computer.

The larger stones, a circular-cut 10 carat flawless white and a princess-cut yellow, were estimated at about $400,000. The smaller ones ranged from $16,000 to $100,000. But the value of the box, while surely several million dollars, is something of a mystery just now given the depressed market.

How the buy-in price for the stones will be set, and how the company will determine when the price goes up and down, is unclear, Mr. Malinin said.

“We have to tell people that diamonds are valuable,” he said. “We are trying to maintain the price, just as De Beers did, as all diamond producing countries do. But what we are doing is selling an illusion,” meaning a product with no utility and a price that depends on the continued sense of scarcity where there is none.

At the Alrosa unit that receives diamonds, called the United Selling Organization, where about 90 percent of the output of the Siberian mines arrives for processing, Elena V. Kapustkina pours about 45,000 carats of diamonds though a stainless steel sieve every day to sort them by size.

“It’s just a job,” she said.

When asked whether diamonds had lost their romance for her, Ms. Kapustkina paused, looked down at the pile of gems on her table and blushed.

In fact, she said, her husband, a truck driver, gave her a half-carat ring 22 years ago. “Of course I love it,” she said. “It’s from my husband.”