Dec 15 2024 - The Vampire Facial

 

Yesterday's fabled story of Martin Luther lighting up the Christmas tree seems sort-of believable.  It is a simple myth of eternal Christmas.  But it pales in comparison to the myths of eternal youth be found today.  I heard about this on Gavin Crawford's Because News yesterday morning on CBC Radio, and have looked it up.  I had visions of blood smeared all over one's face and then a mask on top of that - a messy horror sort of movie. So the Vampire Facial! Sounds gruesome.  Sounds like blood is involved.  Sounds correct. But very different from my fantasy. Here's the information from the American Academy of Dermatology: "...platelet-rich plasma (PRP) has received so much attention that it may seem as if we’ve finally found the fountain of youth. Despite the hoopla, there’s little evidence to show that it works — or doesn’t work. We all have platelets in our blood. PRP is 3-step procedure that involves having your blood: Drawn from your arm (2 to 4 tablespoons) Placed into a machine that separates the platelets from the rest of your blood Re-injected into you (only the part of your blood that contains a high concentration of platelets).  For the "fountain of youth" it is injected into your face using microneedling.  And in 45 minutes you are done and have spent $1,300 in Toronto. Orthopedic surgeons use PRP to help athletes recover more quickly after an injury.  In dermatology, PRP is being tested as a possible treatment for hair loss. PRP may also speed up wound healing. A few dermatologists are using PRP to give patients younger-looking skin." I don't think it sounds like "a few" - unless you consider a "small number" to be in the thousands or even tens of thousands.  An expression like "art is not just for the few" refers to a minority of people and that could be in the billions on this planet.  But then I can't imagine the American Dermatology Association wants to own this one, given the lack of research conducted so far. What the Association does say is that researchers have found that most patients who get results have 3 or more treatments. That means, you’d have to go to your dermatologist’s office 3 or more times to have blood drawn, treated, and injected back into you.  The results will show up in a few weeks to months.  Expect "a bit of pain, bruising, and swelling afterwards. These tend to go away within a few days."   Sounds definitely like evasiveness on the association's part.  The McGill University Article called the body of evidence "anemic"  and a research review of the procedure  said is was "modestly beneficial." with dark under-eye circles getting the most consistent improvements. So maybe that's why it was covered in the news recently.  It makes for a truly surprising Christmas present.  You can count on me to bring you the best in Christmas-cringe-worthy presents.

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Sep 25 2024 - Wasting Money

 

What do you think?  Should you begin to pay attention to these top money wasting activities? Convenience Stores. Many people don't think about the markup they pay for convenience store items.  Cell Phone Plans. Soft Drinks. Unnecessary Bank Fees.  Magazines.  Annual Credit Card Fees. It seems to me that the advice should be more like" take one less vacation a year, don't buy a new car so often,  stop eating take-out so often," and so on. Dave Ramsey says you will waste $5,000 a year if you spend little purchases of $13.70 a day.  So I guess you could take that second vacation for one person.  The other person will have to save their own $5,000.  There seems to be substantial differences on how we waste money.  Another article says these items  insurance we don't need refinancing home too often making minimum credit card payments when you can afford more giving too much power to emotional spending ... and a few more   We Canadians are known for 10 ways that we waste money.  More ways than U.S. folks. Ours are things like not comparing prices, buying brand name products, eating out, daily coffee trips, overspending on utilities, neglecting home and car maintenance, paying for services you don't use, forgetting automatic charges and renewals, unnecessary bank fees, overpaying for life insurance.  What about this statistic?  Canadians waste over $1,300 per family per year in food waste.  That seems like a lot.  Ad to that articles says that Canadians also produce more garbage per capita than any other country.  More than the U.S.?  Wikipedia says the U.S. produces more garbage per capita.  We both produce a lot.  Here's one of my favourite lily images from Brian's hybridizing field.

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July 6 2024 - Twin Facts

 

Twins usually are born one after the other and so on for multiple births.  Here are some of the circumstances that occur: Twins born minutes apart - on different days Twins born minutes apart - on different days, different months Twins born minutes apart - on different days, different months and different years The longest interval between the birth of twins is 90 days.   One was born on January 1st and the second on March 30th, 1996.  There are a few times that such long stretches have happened in the U.S.  Did you know that two children born within 12 months of each other are derogatorily  called Irish twins. That's an historical saying when the Irish Catholics emigrated to the U.S. For three born 3 years apart Irish triplets.  I guess it could go on.  Here are the "Short-and-Sweet Quotes About Twins" Definition of twin: two bodies, one heart Born with a built-in bestie Twins are double the work and double the joy BFF: Born Forever Friends Twins are a wish that came true twice And there are the twin jokes: My sister had twins, a boy and a girl, and asked for help naming them. She liked my suggestion of calling the girl Denise, but had second thoughts when I suggested calling the boy Danephew. Amal and Juan are identical twins. Their mom only carries one baby photo in her wallet. Because if you've seen Juan you've seen Amal.     This is the Ontario Regional Lily Show this weekend.  Here's one of the really pretty pink lilies, Elodie.

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Apr 6 2024 - Alien Implants

 

There have been continuing reports for decades of alien abductions.  Last night one show included alien implants that the abducted people said they received. There was a NOVA article in 1996 about alien implants investigating what they were.  They did not get to document even a single case - not one person who claimed abduction would agree to x-rays, MRIs or similar test to investigate the evidence.   There still are so many headlines on alien implants.   Whitley Strieber is an author whose book Communion is about this alien abduction and implant.  There doesn't seem to be any further investigation or evidence around his implant - just the story. It is all so interesting and mysterious, and then goes no further.  What has been noted is by Joe Nickell,  an investigator who says that what has been described as implants turns out to be shards of glass, jagged pieces of metal and carbon fibre.  And then go to Wikipedia - Wikipedia's entry is short and sparse.  There isn't much to say without evidence.This is the stuff of story and opinion.   That summarizes all of our experience with aliens so far.  But it remains tantalizing and compelling - we really do want to know if we are alone in the universe.   This hand-painted plate was sent off to the lily auction a few years ago  - can you imagine the skill of painting on a plate?  It seems amazing to me.

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Mar 29 2024 - Chocolate Crisis

 

We are short 374,000 tons this season, way up from a shortfall of 74,000 tons last season.  Chocolate prices have tripled.  West Africa is having the problem.  Ghana, specifically.  There is a virus that kills the trees.  Illegal mining pollutes the water and kills the trees.  But mostly the virus.  Some headlines call this a "chocolate meltdown."  The hope is Latin American countries will be able to step up production.  That will help Easter stay afloat. But what about a crisis that could happen daily?  That's the banana pandemic.  We only eat one variety of the thousands of bananas that grow - the Cavendish banana.  Every single Cavendish banana grown is a clone so they aren't adapting to conditions or becoming resistant to viruses.  Panama disease is a fusarium wilt, and just a few spores can lead the way to blighting an entire plantation.   Could it be possible that we will be eating something that looks and tastes like banana but is artificial?  There's a long way to go to get artificial banana flavours that taste like bananas.  Isoamyl acetate has been criticized widely for not tasting like bananas.  Or it tastes like a banana that we don't normally eat, given we only eat Cavendish.   Science Daily says the day will come (that was in 2008) when scientists will fine tune enzymes responsible for flavours in fruits and vegetables.   I guess there should be hope on this one too.  Or we'll be eating all colours and textures of bananas - sort of like the many carrots that are available again. Look up "Can we simulate bananas" and you get a lot of video games  - roblox banana simulator, simulation of giant banana orbiting the earth, turning people into bananas, and banana (pet simulator).   Is there a possible best banana joke in the world?  There certainly are claims for the best banana bread recipes in the world. Maybe the headline is the joke:  "45 banana jokes to get your whole bunch laughing" or "25 banana jokes for a bunch of laughs"   Q - What do you call the period of time between slipping on a banana and landing on your butt?  A - A bananosecond    We won't see a display like this one again at the Niagara Showcase greenhouse.  All that forcing of bulbs and probably not a long-lived display.   The last few years have seen the showcase greenhouse closed most of the winter and open in May.   This year, it is back to festivals all through the seasons. When I went a few weeks ago, the orchids on the white twig trees were artificial. Despite that  it was very beautiful.  That was part of a Cyclamen show and the replacement plants are all real for the orchid show on now.  I got my seasonal parking pass - it was a bit shocking last month to pay $25 for an hour's visit to the greenhouse.

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Mar 11 2024 - All the Moments you missed

 

All the moments you missed - what is the assumption?   We dozed off, went off for a while or just tuned out, and even possibly never tuned in.   It looks like there is a big highlight this year.  It turns out to be Ryan Gosling who delivered fun.  That would be compared to 2022 where there was a definite  'no fun' moment.   The subtitle is: He’s not just Ken.  "In one of those rare instances of a telegraphed event that actually lived up to the anticipation and hype, Ryan Gosling crushed his performance of “I’m Just Ken” with gusto, after a truly amusing bit that involved him riffing on the “Barbenheimer” rivalry with Emily Blunt. He might be No. 2 to Barbie, but give Gosling this year’s Oscars MVP award." Guns N’ Roses guitarist Slash, who composed the guitar instrumentation on the song, made a surprise appearance on stage for a "rollicking" guitar solo. "At one point, Gosling stepped out into the crowd and found his “Barbie” co-stars, America Ferrera, Margot Robbie and director Greta Gerwig, who all helped Gosling sing his song when he pointed the mic toward them. And as he passed by his “La La Land” co-star Emma Stone, he gave her the mic to sing a line – which she did, impressively, word-for-word." Ryan Gosling has been dancing forever.  At least since 1992. Here's a video clip of him HERE. he's in shiny purple and silver.    It ends in a video unavailable screen.  There's a string of these videos - he's an all dancing sort of actor.  There is one with him and Justin Timberlake when they were children.

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Jan 28 2024 - Dessert Day

 

What do you think the most popular dessert is in Canada?  I see a listing that says Nanaimo Bars.  That gives you an idea of how much bad information is on the internet.  Or maybe that's misinformation - a plot to demean Canada with a very pedestrian "square". So I found my way to Vikrant Singh's slide show of the top desserts.  Apple pie is presented first, then Tiramisu, Baklava, Creme Brûlée,  Cheesecake, Creme Brûlée, Panna Cotta, then an ad, then click to keep going to a Flan, Gulab Jamun, and a few more.  But that all doesn't make sense with the front picture  a tall layer cake, stacked like a wedding cake, and yet cake seems to me to be extraordinarily popular.   And where is ice cream and gelato?  What about chocolate something?  Those two alone make all of the articles suspect. The most eaten desserts are ice cream, cookies and chocolate - that's from an American survey.  There doesn't seem to be much chocolate represented in the dessert listings.  This is some sort of blind spot, given the great love for chocolate. That is 73 million metric tons yearly.  The average American consumes 9.5 pounds annually.  Look at the Swiss - they consumer 19.8 pounds per person a year. There are some yummy looking candidates as one asks various questions.  What about Georgia Peach Pie with Bourbon Whipped Cream.  Double Chocolate Bundt Cake with Ganache Glaze?  These desserts are presented by Food and Wine with all the words capitalized as though they are writing in German.  That's the old world, though.  We're coming up to the new world with themed 3D cakes and plant-based cakes and desserts.  I saw something called a cronut - a combination of croissant and donut.

For this picture I had to become acquainted with brushes in Photoshop to make the dark edges around the petals.  What a lot of brushes! Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

Dec 22 2023 - Around the Clock

 

Do clocks seem simple to you?  Do you wonder why they are round, and why they divide time into two 12 hour chunks and not a full 24 increments? Sundials come in different shapes - round, square and "neither" - there are odd compositions- they all contain the "gnomon" - that's the pointy thing that casts the shadow.  There are vertical and horizontal sundials.  There are declining-reclining and declining-inclining dials.  There are a lot of variations.  There has been many thousands of years to figure these out and develop new variations.  Clocks have to be round for a scientific reason: It turns out to be because the circle is the most efficient shape for measuring time.   "This is because a circle has a constant circumference, which means that each point on the circle travels the same distance in the same amount of time. In other words, a clock with a circular face can accurately measure time regardless of where the hands are positioned." And what about the 12-hour clock? I had no idea that when the darkness came, a water clock was used for night-time.  What is a water clock?  It uses the flow of water to measure time.  Water clocks are old - 16th century BC old.   "There are two types of water clocks: inflow and outflow. In an outflow water clock, a container is filled with water, and the water is drained slowly and evenly out of the container. This container has markings that are used to show the passage of time. As the water leaves the container, an observer can see where the water is level with the lines and tell how much time has passed. An inflow water clock works in basically the same way, except instead of flowing out of the container, the water is filling up the marked container." How interesting our everyday things are.  Science project 101:  Build a water clock to show the drip, drip, drip of time. And humour and sundials? Queen Elizabeth and Sir David Attenborough are walking through the gardens at Buckingham Palace, when they come across a sundial in the shade of a tree. The Queen: Maybe we could move it...  Attenborough: Depends whether you want to know the time or not.  The Queen: Best leave it be then, as a joke. The best jokes are timeless, after all.

Here's a lily lover's Christmas card. Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

July 19 2023 - Good Habits

 

Remember Stephen Covey with the 7 habits of highly effective people?  That was in 1989 and it was standard business training at the time.  I don’t remember the 7 habits now.  At the time, it was tremendously popular.  I remember doing a lot of exercises in the training sessions. Wikipedia says that he coined the phrase abundance mentality - that there are enough resources and successes to share with others.   From a Forbes article come these 10 quotes - all remarkable: 1)      The key is not to prioritize what's on your schedule, but to schedule your priorities. 2)      The main thing is to keep the main thing the main thing. 3)      Live out of your imagination, not your history. 4)      Trust is the glue of life. It's the most essential ingredient in effective communication. It's the foundational principle that holds all relationships. 5)      Most of us spend too much time on what is urgent and not enough time on what is important. 6)      I am not a product of my circumstances. I am a product of my decisions. 7)      You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage—pleasantly, smilingly, nonapologetically, to say “no” to other things. And the way you do that is by having a bigger “yes” burning inside. The enemy of the “best” is often the “good." 8)      I teach people how to treat me by what I will allow. 9)      Love is a verb. Love – the feeling – is the fruit of love the verb or our loving actions. So love her. 10)   Live, love, laugh, leave a legacy. While he is no longer with us, his son, Sean, carries on his legacy and has written a few books - a version of the 7 habits for teens.  And  the 6 most important decisions you will ever make.  That’s an interesting legacy to build on. Proves the power of quote 10.

This was my favourite design class at the lily show - floral purses.   So on we go to the picture of the day - a collage of images from the Design competition in the Lily Show.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

July 17 2023 - AI Generated Art

 

I read a blog post from Sebastian Michaels cautioning about AI Art.  He showed the images below that were generated by AI Art based on the single term “woman”.  I took those images and searched the Google image feature which looks for similar images.  And that got me to AI Art - the website selling AI Generated Art.  And there were more like the ones below.  All kinds of art.  Even an AI Art Generator for us to use.  Their proprietary AI algorithms have carefully selected and managed images by their team of art experts.   Will we all be intermixed on Fine Art America?  Real people works of art and AI generated art?  Will I say in my profile “I am a real person.”  How might I prove this?  How curious it seems. Here are the AI generated images below.

How did the AI software get to choosing this version/interpretation? It seems to me that there is a a gathering of collective intelligence.  If one is scanning all the literature or pictures and then creating from that wealth of infomation, then won’t a dominant view prevail?  I don’t know how artificial intelligence assembles the result.  I know this seems a strange interpretation of “woman.” Here’s a retrieval of images that match the AI-Generated one on the left.  Ever so similar - which is by a real artist and which isn’t?  So on we go to the picture of the day - a collage of images from the Design competition in the Lily Show.   Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca

July 16 2023 - Lily Show Weekend

 

It was the Ontario Lily Show yesterday at the Royal Botanical Gardens in Burlington.  RBG is again under renewal.  I can’t help but contrast the funding in the U.S. and in Canada.  I expect that it isn’t that the US receives more government funding. It is that there are more super-rich people there who support and fund their favourite institutions.  Brian was recently in Chicago and commented that the Chicago Botanical Gardens were large and  perfect with immaculate maintenance.   That’s not the case with RBG.  It isn’t that I want immaculate gardens, but when gardens are presented as ornamental display gardens, then they end up with the expectations of an ornamental garden. That means weeding and caretaking that matches with this ornamentalist approach.  It is like having a lawn and then maintaining it poorly - not mowing it regularly and having major weed infestations.   With that, there still is great delight in the Royal Botanical Gardens displays.  The lily ponds are beautiful and the rose garden is a showplace.  Its renovation a few years ago make it more inclusive of all kinds of plants and has been very successful.  The Lily Show has decilned in numbers of lilies each year.  Members are growing older, the lily beetle has diminished interest in growing and showing lilies, and competitive flower shows have dwindled in numbers and interest. - young people have other inclinations.   It still remains a wonderful show and in particular, the floral arrangements are creative and beautiful.

Isn’t the black water of the RBG lily pond so amazing!    Read more daily posts here: marilyncornwellblogspot.com Purchase works here: Fine Art America- marilyncornwell.com Redbubble - marilyncornwellart.ca