Indy Telecom & Industrial Media

Sorry for the lack of updates, folks. Here are some interesting pictures that I’ve been meaning to post for a while.

First, some pictures of Delana’s rather interesting costume from this year’s Halloween.

And then of course, certain muggles have asked for pictures of kittens and here are a few.

A couple of weeks ago, I was at Chicago and was at the Signature Room. Their hot chocolate pixie is a fantastic drink — a must try. Anyway, here are some pictures from there.

And finally, Delana and I drove to Oklahoma and back. The way back, of course, was hell with us following a snow-storm/rain-storm front. Fun, fun, fun.

One of the things that I keep meaning to write about is Bathsheba Grossman’s amazing sculptures.

She creates some very interesting artwork and I have been a fan of her work for the longest time. For the most part, she creates sculptures that are inspired from math and science.

To that end, she has a math sculptures collection which features various “topologically-inspired” artwork. My personal favorite is the Soliton, which is simple, elegant and simply too beautiful to resist!

And there is also her math models collection, which, as the name suggests, has various math models. And since I do have a thing for minimal surfaces, I really like her Schwarz D Surface.

And as a (former, now dormant) graphics geek, I was also very impressed by her 120-Cell Sculpture. The only thing that could make that sculpture better is if one could play around and change the inner reference points for each inner layer.

Other than these, she also has an impressive collection of science and math inspired 3d models etched inside glass crystals. All the models are inspired from math or science and are just as fascinating.

Sadly, my favorite (the menger sponge, displayed above) is no longer available; however she has made available that and several other models as downloads.

I am rarely impressed by a lot of art-work trying to portray science, but Bathsheba’s work is truly awe-inspiring. Of course, that could be because she is someone who studied mathematics but became an artist.

So all you fine folks now know what to get me for Christmas!

The NYT has an excellent article by Professor Tyler Cowen on how a falling USD is not all bad news. The WSJ also has a related article that talks about how the USD may actually rebound.

The crux of both the articles is this that while the USD may have had a significant fall (~19.8%), it still isn’t grounds for fear. For one, it has definitely helped bridge the trade-deficit gap because imports coming into the US are becoming more expensive while exports going out from the US are becoming cheaper.

In fact, some of the people hardest hit by the falling USD are European businesses. As the USD falls, it becomes harder for them to compete in their own local regions because it is a lot cheaper to buy American stuff paid for in USD than it is to buy European stuff paid for in Euro.

Secondly, the WSJ talks about a 30% fall in the USD to equalize the trade deficit — and we’re almost at 20%. Now whether the USD falls another 10% remains to be seen, but once again, that need not necessarily be a bad thing all around.

Also, other economies in the world are in just as bad a shape (or worse) than the US economy. British, Canadian, German and French economies are also struggling, and the falling USD isn’t necessarily helping them, either.

Now, the Chinese are whole another story. That’s a mixed bag — while they have over a trillion in dollar-dominated assets, they aren’t too particular about dumping it all overnight, simply because of what it might do to their assets. It is in their best interests to have a strong dollar, especially since we are their largest consumer.

The biggest problem that’s likely to arise from a falling USD is of course worries about volatility. A shaky currency is not good for any economy, and ours is no exception. And of course, the middle-east, who make money off oil, no matter which way things go.

I think that over the next quarter or so, the USD will slowly stabilize, and that the fall in the USD that’s happened is not necessarily a bad thing for us.

So my friend Rebecca is one of those people who beats up people for fun (I use that term loosely, of course). She’s been trained in Judo, Jiu-Jitsu, Muay Thai, Wrestling and an assortment of other beat-your-opponent-to-pulp martial arts.

She’s probably the only Computational Linguist I know who threatens to beat anybody up who doesn’t agree with her theories on the evolution of language (namely that people being clubbed on their heads developed speech as an evolutionary mechanism to scream and distract the guy with the club).

Anyway, this past weekend, she had her very first Mixed Martial Arts fight in Dalton, Georgia. Not surprisingly, she won, wiping the mat clean against her opponent.

So here are all three rounds of that fight on video. I am so very proud of her! (She made me say that, though).

Round 1

Round 2

Round 3