Hillerman's Books

I have discovered a wonderful author - Tony Hillerman. He writes mystery novels with a focus on Navajo culture. So far, I am completely enjoying his writing. His books are not just educational regarding the Navajo culture but alos are filled with wonderful poetry! I will retype one in a another post.
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January 27, 2012

I have changed my mind about Hillerman's books. They are interesting but nothing happens. I have heard this from other readers too. Oh well.

Richmond Times Dispatch Article

Nice article on my SMV show. http://www2.timesdispatch.com/entertainment/rtd-entertainment/2011/nov/17/tdweek13-the-art-of-math-and-science-at-the-scienc-ar-1464265/

The art of math and science at the Science Museum

"Fractal 1" by Melissa Holly is part of an exhibit at the Science Museum of Virginia.

By: Times-Dispatch Staff
Published: November 17, 2011

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The Science Museum of Virginia is exhibiting "The Beauty of Math and Science," a series of paintings by Richmond artist Melissa Holly. The artist has studied math and science for most of her life in tandem with art. She notes that the endeavors may seem contradictory but aren't because they share the study of patterns — a subject she finds fascinating.

"The beauty of math and science is everywhere!" she noted in her artist's statement. "When I look at a verdant landscape, I not only see all the wonderful combinations of patterns and colors in the leaves and plants, but also the beauty of the science behind the scene."

The exhibition runs through Dec. 30 at 2500 W. Broad St. Hours are Tuesday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. and Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 5 p.m.

For details, call (804) 864-1400 or visit www.smv.org.

Jo Lord

Women Living Single

The Today show just had a session on about many women choosing to be single. Bravo! It is great if women choose to get married and live a more tradtional life; but it is also wonderful that many women are choosing to stay single and on their careers. Women can contribute as much to this world as men. We have a choice and do not have to be baby producing machines who can only clean and cook. We can choose.

Painting with Acrylic

I am truly beginning to feel like I understand how to use acrylic paint. My current painting, "Fractal 1", required me to use both Liquitex's Heavy Body paint and Liquitex's Soft Body paint. I feel like I now understand when it is best to use the different types of paint for getting certain effects.

Misunderstandings About Our Environment

From a global standpoint, there are many misunderstandings about our environment. Many of the situations not healthy for humans are good for other creatures on this Earth. The EPA seems to focus only on humans which is a very narrow perspective.

Recently the EPA deemed CO2 as a serious environmental hazard. Plants are required to have it in order to produce the nutrients (sugars) they need to survive. Smog is unsightly to us but the NO2 combines with water to form nitrate salts that fall to the ground and are again used by plants as nutrients.

Humans are not alone on this planet and it is important to remember that.

Love Affair

I was about 12 when the love affair started. I thought it was amazing. Although the mystery has decreased over time as the world discovered more about it. Einstein loved it so much it prompted the statement about God does not play dice with the universe. My chemistry book has several chapters devoted to it but as I progress into higher levels of chemistry and physics, more and more will be spent on it and its magic.

Environmental Thoughts

As I peruse the chemistry text, there are periodic sections devoted to the environment. Over the years, my thoughts have not lined up with the more popular ones, and I am realizing why. I have a chemists point of view, not that of a biologist.

CO2 is required by plants. The fact that the EPA declared it a serious environmental hazard is laughable and the current text that I am reading agrees. In fact they even mention that a significant part of the carbon emissions in the air are due to animal farts. Years go Australia even inoculated their cattle with antibiotics so they would fart less (unfortunately tainting the milk and meat that humans ingest). Instead of reducing our carbon emissions, we need to plant more trees and stop destroying the rain forest. This makes so much more sense.

Matching my thinking, the book does mention the serious hazard sulfuric gases produce in our atmosphere. Sulfur based gases as "naturally" produced by hot springs, and volcanoes but it would be prudent if humans reduced these emissions as much as possible.

Another topic the text touched on is the idea of hydrogen cars. It is a ridiculous idea. H2 released into the air would do far much more harm than CO2 could everdo to the ozone layer. We also do not need more water vapor in the air either; and the tanks required for either liquid or gases H2 is an impossible idea.

I am so completely glad to rad a text that my agrees with my mindset!

Reviewing Chemistry

I am thoroughly enjoying reviewing my college chemistry. What an interesting and exciting subject to learn.

It has been nearly 40 years since I went through the complete college course on my own so I was expecting things to have changed. However, the changes I am noticing are much greater than expected. There is more math in the book much to my complete delight!

Life is good! Especially when you are learning.

New Journey

I have begun a new journey to find Inertia and Mass. What are their secrets and why have they been so elusive to scientists?

My journey is taking me into high levels of math, chemistry (physical) and physics (quantum) as I think they will lead to answers.

I am excited. My brain hurts....

Balancing Chemical Equations

Today, I realized one thing I do automaically by instinct that makes balancing chemical equations easier. First, I assess my even number verus the odd ones. In other words if I have a reactant that has an even number of oxygens but the products have oxygen in only water, then it is an even to odd situation. This menas that I must 6 (which is 2 times 3) or 12 (which has 3 times four) or some other even/odd multiplication product. I would put an clear example but Blogger does do allow subscripts. So following is a rough example with "v" used before the number to indicate a subscript.

Unbalanced equation:

NHv3 + Ov2 ---> NO + Hv2O

Note that there are 2 oxygens on the left anf 3 oxygens on the right so there is an even/odd situation. Only one of the products has nitrogen and only one has hydrogen, but they are together without any oxygen in the reactants. I decide to use 12 which gives me the options of 3 times 4 and 6 times 2.

4NHv3 + 5Ov2 ---> 4NO + 6Hv2O

Balanced!

Clean Your PC

I am a PC so I do not know how to "clean" a MAC after going out on the Internet. Here is a good idea for PCs:

Every time you finished going out to the net, go to your Internet Options on your Control Panel (I have a shortcut on my Desktop as I follow these instructions OFTEN). On the General tab, under the Browsing History area, I have selected the Delete History on Exit. To clean your PC, click the Delete... button. Make sure the Preserve Favorites Website data is NOT selected, then selected every option on the lower list. Then hit the delete key. Following this procedure helps reduce cookies and trackers installed on your PC by various web sites.

As an additional aside, never ever store passwords for sites on the site. Always type it in every time you go there.

Switching

The poles are switching. The switching process will accelerate as the magnetic pole nears the equator. The storms, earthquakes, etc. are due to the switching process so how bad will it get? Perhaps the Mayan s were correct. We will have to see what this hurricane season is like. My instincts tell me that hurricanes will actually be fewer in number and less intense. We will have to see.

Randomness

James Gleick's book Chaos: Making a New Science is a great book. It is also making me wonder about randomness. Does random behavior actually exists? Or is it actually a complex system with a pattern that is difficult for us to discern?

Prime times Prime

Unable to paint today due to a sinus infection, I have been analyzing prime number patterns. As others before me have already done, I am trying to discern a pattern in the ending digits, which are always 1,3, 7 and 9 (excluding the two 2 "weird" primes of 2 and 5). I realized something fun - not Earth shattering - probably realized before by countless others but still fun for me. All primes multiplied by themselves obviously result in a non-prime number; but what is interesting is that the resulting number always end with either 1 or 9!

Photos Memories

I have been working on a painting from a photo of the Outer Banks in NC that I took back in the 1980s.

Funny how I can still remember that day. My first dog, a Springer, was with me. It was windy, with sand blowing everywhere. It was beautiful and I was so happy being there with my best friend.

Food and Dogs

For years I have known that chocolate kills dogs (and in a very unpredictable fashion) but I just found out that grapes (and raisins) shut down their kidneys. Garlic and onions strip red blood cells from their blood. Macadamia nuts are also harmful.

Poor dogs. No more bits of Pepperidge Farm Raisin and Cinnamon Swirl bread....

Mahjong Scoring

Mahjong Titans scoring is an enigma. Microsoft does not even have much on it. They do state that extra points can be gained by cancelling pairs in the same row. this would explain why my scores are much higher on turtle than nay other layout - there are simply more rows!

Mahjong Spider

As with the crab, the mahjong spider layout can best be won by working the stacks on the spider's "feet" against the stacks on the spider's "body".

Mahjong Crab

In mahjong crab, working the "feet", from top down, against the center stacks on the crab's "body" clears the tiles fairly quickly.

Mahjong Fortress

Similar to the dragon layout, the mahjong fortress layout has a lot of "stacking" of the tiles. Again, same as with the dragon layout, the fastest way to clear all of the tiles is to focus on the tiles at the ends of the long horizontal rows, and the inside tiles of each square.

Mahjong Cat

In mahjong cat layout, the fastest way to win is to play the tiles on the cat's "body" against the "tail" tiles and the "head" tiles. Once all of these pairs have been eliminated, then focus on the body.

Mahjong Dragon

The best way to beat this game is by clearing the tiles at the row ends first. This seems obvious but it is not quite that simple. Rows end tiles are even more important than the top tile as in the stacks. The dragon's "mouth" has three end tiles but only two are very important to clear first - the ones at the top and bottom of the triad.

Mahjong Turtle

The turtle arrangement of computer mahjong can be best,and fastest solved by the following strategies:

• If all four matching tiles are unblocked clear them all in any order.
• If you have a choice, try to match tiles that are in the center stacked area with ones on the edges. this way, both will be decreased as you progress which is required for winning.
• If you can not clear one of the center stacked tiles with an outer edge tile, then clear the center stacked ones first and then wait to clear the outer edge tiles.

Mahjong and Wikipedia

When it comes to computer mahjong, Wikipedia simply has some things wrong! Not all layouts are equal in difficulty! Fortress and Dragon are definitely more difficult than the others. I am not even sure if they all have the same scoring scheme; but perhaps that is because I am slower at some arrangements than others.

All arrangements seem to be solvable 100% of the time if you use CTRL Z to redo until you get it solved. Redoing to a solution requires remembering the arrangement of the tiles and analyzing what is required to win.

I have also figured out that if all four related tiles are unblocked, you might as well clear them out as the order in which you clear them will not matter in reaching a solution. Following posts will cover a possible strategy for each arrangment to increase your score.

Creating Dark Green

During the summer of 2008, I took a painting class at the local community college. At the same time, I was studying the works of John Singer Sargent and noticed that he often used a very dark green background for his pieces such as "Lily, Lily, Rose". I did a bunch of paintings with this dark green background ("Study on Sargent's Poppies" is on the right.)

I am beginning a new painting, "Ketones 1" that will be done similarly to "Study on Sargent's Poppies" but I could not remember exactly what I did to create the dark green. I googled and found a recommendation to add black to the green. I practically never use black, so I was sure this was not what I did. After some thought, I remembered mid-tone green and mid-tone red make charcoal grey. So, if I add a little more green than red, would I have dark green?

It worked! And created a very rich wonderful dark green - much darker in value than each of the two original colors in fact. I will have to experiment with complimentary colors more!