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Rose Windows are a feature of Gothic architecture. Gothic architecture began around 1120 in continental Europe. Rose windows are made out of colored glass pieces, held together by lead bars. They make symmetric geometric designs. They have both mirror and rotational symmetry. They can have 6,8,12,16 or even 24 stone-framed spokes. The stone frame is called "tracery"

To tint glass, craftsmen added minerals to melted sand.
geology.com/articles/color-in-glass.shtml lists some of the mineral pigments:

Cadmium Sulfide: Yellow
Gold Chloride: Blue-Violet
Manganese Dioxide: Purple
Nickel Oxide: Violet
Sulfur: Yellow-Amber
Chromic Oxide: Emerald Green
Uranium Oxide: Fluorescent Yellow, Green
Iron Oxide: Greens and Browns
Selenium Oxide: Reds
Carbon Oxides: Amber Brown
Antimony Oxides: White
Copper Compounds: Blue, Green, Red
Tin Compounds: White
Lead Compounds: Yellow
Manganese Dioxide: A "decoloring" agent
Sodium Nitrate: A "decoloring" agent

I tried to make a rose window myself:


Pictures of real Rose Windows:
Current Mood:
annoyed annoyed
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My grandpa came to visit recently. He lives in Russia, so I only see him about once a year. He took me along for a hike in the hills around here.

We hiked up a hill. Instead of trying to find a road up, we scrambled directly up the hillside, through the slippery new green grass, mud, and old straw.

On the way there I found a deer antler. I think, it is a deer antler, because it is shaped like a deer antler and about the right size. At first, we thought it could be an oddly shaped stick, but later we found out it was an antler. The bottom of it had small notches all around and remnants of the dried up soft pad that used to attach it to the animal's head. The tips were rounded, smoothed and looked finished. If it were a branch, they would be broken or very thin, where a leaf could be attached. It is much harder than wood, and weighs more than a stick this size would - as much as a large book. I think the deer who shed it was three years old, because it has three points. The first stretch of the antler (maybe, a trunk of it?) is somewhat curved , round and about an inch and a half in diameter. When it splits in two pointed branches, one of them splits again into two small round tips. The entire antler is a little over a foot long and half a foot between tips of the branches. It is warm dirty white with darker wrinkles. It's general texture is smooth, but it got notches and ridges. The tips are more rough, like large grain sandpaper. When the antlers are on the deer, they are brown. This one was probably shed last February. I think they get whitened from exposure.

Antlers and horns are different: antlers fall off every year; horns stay on the animals head and grow all its life. Rams,bulls, and goats have horns. Deer, elk and moose have antlers. Female deer can also grow antlers, but not always, and they are very small or deformed (or both).

There was a reservoir and a great veiw at the top of the hill. Turned out there was a road leading up the hill. We came down the road, and almost got lost on the way home. Everybody liked my antler.

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Salt (NaCl) is the only mineral that we can eat. Everything else was once alive or produced by something alive. We (all mammals) need salt. We need sodium ions in salt for our cells to function. Food can be preserved by salting. We need salt to live. We use salt in technology. Those who controlled the salt trade had power. Right now USA is the greatest producer of salt.

Early hunters didn't need to think about salt because there is salt in the blood of animals. When people began to settle in one place and farm they needed to get salt elsewhere. One of the places to find salt are dried salt lakes. Herbivores normally find them before people. Early farmers probably tamed animals by giving them salt.

The most plentiful source of salt is the ocean, but ocean water needs to be boiled for hours and fuel is very expensive. A solution is to put seawater in ponds, though it can take a year to evaporate. They do so in the south, where there is more sun.

The Chinese got salt from underground springs. The water in them is much saltier than the water in the ocean so it takes less fuel to boil it out and is not as expensive.

Another source of salt is rock salt. Most rock salt is very pure. There are rock deposits under USA, Spain, Poland and many other places. Rock salt is beautiful. Each salt mine is unique, some black, some red, some striped, some pure white.

The ancient Chinese emperors would control the price of salt to raise money: salt paid for the great wall of China and the Chinese army, but people did not like paying such big money for salt. Many Chinese emperors made themselves unpopular by overcharging for salt.

For the long time the Romans controlled the western part of the Old World and salt was their key to power. Roman cities were often built near salt works. The Romans believed that everyone should have salt. It was normally served in a seashell, but if a rich man was having a party he would serve it in a silver bowl. Roman emperors tried to control the price of salt and keep it down to make people happy. Sometimes they taxed salt to raise money for army, and sometimes gave it out for free to gain public support.

French prisons were so horrible that many prisoners died before trial. So they were preserved with salt and kept until their court day. One poor criminal was kept salted for seven years before his case was dropped and he was buried.

The French king Louis XIV raised salt taxes so outrageously that people began to smuggle salt, and many were put to death for salt smuggling. Salt taxes were among the reasons for American colonies to rebel. Search for salt and rewards for establishing saltworks helped independent America grow.

For the long time India was ruled by Britain. Britain forbidded the local manufacture of salt and made locals to buy expensive English salt. A man called Gandhi said he would walk to to Dandi on the Arabian sea and make his own salt there.

In the middle of 19th century people found that salt domes indicate the presence of oil. Turned out that salt was plentiful underground, and so was oil.

I liked the book. I found that in this book it was salt that controlled lots of other things, but in another book that was gold, and in yet another it was cod. It sounds like the author makes whatever topic he is writing about to be super powerful.

Current Mood:
tired tired
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Sight: Shaped like a long knife, it is striped like a zebra.

Smell: It smells warm and fuzzy, or maybe better described as grandma smell plus almond smell minus most of the strength.

Taste: It PROBABLY tastes like hair but I'm not gonna find out because I'll get sick if I stick it in my mouth.

Hearing: If you run your finger along it, it sounds like someone slipped while running on a plastic floor in shoes.

Touch: It feels  soft and smooth, but stiff

I got these feathers on a hike at the reservoir: 


* * *
The vital process: Photosynthesis by Jeffrey J.W.Baker

The Greeks thought plants eat dirt. It seemed logical, there were lots of roots in the ground, some have food in them. But where do plants get their food? 2000 years later Van Helmont thought that if plants got their nutrition from dirt, then the dirt would be losing matter. Van Helmont conducted an experiment to test that plants eat dirt: he put a 5-pound willow tree into a 200-pound pot of dirt. In five years he dug up the tree and weighed it again: it had gained over 160 lb while the dirt lost only 2 ounces. Since the only thing Helmont had added to his willow pot was water, it seemed logical to believe that plants eat water.

Actually, his willow was also exposed to air and sunlight, but he didn't realize they mattered. One day a man called Grew looked at the surface of a leaf through his microscope and saw tiny pores. Grew wondered what they were for. First he thought they were for letting out sap, like perspiration. But he considered a second possibility: that pores were for taking in air. Stephen Hales tested this idea. He took two pots with soil, covered them with inverted glass vessels, and put a mint plant in one of them. When he used a syphon to raise water level in the vessels. When he watched the water level for two month. Any difference in water level would mean that plant does something to the air. The water level in a vessel with the plant was higher. It meant that the plant was taking something out of the air. Eventually, the mint plant died. Hales put another mint plant in the same jar (without letting any air in), and it died in several days.

Next was Englishman Priestly. He put a burning candle in the inverted glass vessel, and it shortly extinguished*. He also discovered that a mouse would also die soon under the glass vessel. He also found that a candle wouldn't burn in the container there mouse have died, and a mouse wouldn't live in the container there candle went out. He thought that both mouse and candle "damaged" the air. He thought that mouse "burned" in some way. He wondered how we can still breathe the air after all these thing who breathed for thousands of years and all these fires burning all over the world. Something should be repairing the air.

He found what it was: he placed a string of mint under the inverted jar, but it didn't die. When he placed a candle, and when a mouse in the same jar with a plant. The candle burned and the mouse lived. A man called Jan Ingenhousz repeated Priestly's experiments and found that Priestly was correct but that plants could only clean air
in the light. Ingenhousz dicovered that in the dark plants also dameged the air.
Ingenhousz also found out that only the leaves and young stems could fix the air. Ingenhousz wondered what did they have in comon that the rest of the plant doesn't.  He guessed right: 
they were green.

Priestly tried putting a mouse and a plant in an airtight vessel: they lived.  Further experiments found that plants use Carbon dioxide.  The formula is (CO
2)+(H2O)+light-->+green substance=glucose+O2 
...TBC...


*We (Clem, Rafie, and I) did that experiment with another candle in the open air for control. We repeated it ten times to make sure we got it right.

* * *
I wasn't blogging all summer. We had a co-op today. I had Latin, Radio lab and Shakespeare "reader's theatre": we were reading "Midsummer Night's Dream" aloud.
* * *
I read a book called "Troll Fell" by Katherine Langrish.

Peer's carpenter father just died, at his funeral Peer is token away by "Uncle" Bulgar the Troll Fell miller. Uncle Bulgar has a twin brother named Uncle Grim. Peer makes fiends with a girl called Hilde and nis (house spirt) called Nithing. Peer discovers his uncles wicked plan to sell a matching pair of human beings to trolls for a wedding. Later he runs away and find out that Bulgar and Grim kidnaped Hilde's twin brother and sister, Sigurd and Sigrid. Together Hilde and Peer rescue them. In the end Peer gets adopted by Hilde family.

* * *
* * *
read book called East by Edith Potoow. Summery later.
* * *
 
Over the last 4 weeks, I did a lot but didn't write nuch.  ACtually, I didn't write at all.

Had my STAR Tests (California Standard).  Not much to say about them.  I think they were quite easy.  Met some people I
 knew and new people I liked.

Made an optical illusions sheet in CS3 photoshop:

I read a Pullman trilogy called "His Dark Materials" (#3 in my BBC
 book list)
Book I "The Golden Compass": An orphan girl called Lyra lives in a world were suddenly chidren start disappearing.  They are stolen and taken North.
 At some point Lyra runs away to save her best friend who got caught.  She met Gyptians, Panzerbjorne, witches and her mother and father, organized mass breakout of ths tolen children, but didn't save her friend.  She actually got him killed. 
Book II "The Subtle Knife" Lyra meets a boy named Will in another world, in an empty city of Cittagaze. Together they discover that there are other worlds.  Will gets a knife so sharp it can cut windows between worlds and a soul from a body.  Lyra's father plans a war against the God (who is like the God of Christian chuch). 
Book III "The Amber Spyglass" . Lord Asriell fightes Christian God, and Lyra and Will go down to the land of the DEad to find her friend and say sorry.  They cut a door for the dead to get out of that sad place and just become atoms and parts of everything else.

And I read two books witch are not part of the "His Dark Materials" trilogy but related to it.
 "Lyra's Oxford": Lyra sees a witch's daemon and saves it from the birds attacking him;  later she hardly avoids being killed by enemy witch.
"Once Upon A Time North": An aeronaut called Lee Scorsby lands in a small town in the North -and has some adventures.

I also read a Terry Pratchett's trilogy called "The Tiffany Books"

Book I "Wee Free Men"  Tiffany is a 9 year old shepherd's daughter who wants to be a witch.  She rescues her little brother from and evil fairy queen armed with a frying-pan and a book "Sheep diseases".  Wee Free Men - little fierce drunk blue-skinned sheep-stealing warriors -- help her.
 

Book II "The Hat Full of Sky" Tiffany is attacked by a hiver (a sort of evil spirit that dose not exactly live or think but just grabbs and possess people). It makes Tiffany strong, but mean.  She fights it (again with the help of Nac Mac Feegans).
 
Book III "Wintersmith":  the spirit/god of winter is in love with Tiffany.  She must fight it off, because it would make it winter forever.

And I read a history book called "The Story Of The World" by Susan Wise.   Now I am at the story of the son of  Eric the viking who discovered Canada.

I take archery classes on wednesdays 2:30-3:30.  We had bull's-eye targets which were  labeled 1-5.  We shot 4 arrows at a time at 10, 20 and 30 yards.  My  hits: 10 yards: 2, 2, 1, 0 and 4, 3, 2, 0. 20 yards: 4, 0, 0, 0 and 3, 0, 0, 0. 30 yards: 0, 0, 0, 0. That is, 20 total and I earned the "15" badge! There is no "20" badge and "15" is the smallest.  I had to iron it to a T-shirt, but I lost it and I will probably have to ask for another one. 

Elli and me made an arch out of the hanging parts of willow branches at "art group meeting". ReChang (she is an artist) just said "lets have an art class".  That time we met at "Lake Temescal" we all swung on the willow branches sometimes we took little enough for them to rip and then we used them in what we were making.   We tried to make Goldsworthy-like something.

I made a bowl out of clay on a kick wheel. The wheel was like a wooden table connected to a bench, with 2 metal projections pointing to the horizontal middle of the structure, that have sturdy short tubes at their ends.  The wheel itself a metal disc about 1 foot in diameter and 1" in thickness.  There is a metal tube connecting the top disc to the bottom disc.  The bottom disc is wooden, 3 feet in diameter and 1 foot  thick.  To spin the wheel you have to kick the lower disk with your feet.  If one uses it they put wet clay on the top disc and spin the bottom weal with their feet so that they can make beter circles and smother spirals.   The larger wheel  is like lever in some way.

Went to co-op 3 times. We had a Russian tea party: everybody had to ask for tea and candy in Russia.   
Pendulum Experiment: We hung washers on the end of strings and changed the length of the string until we got a period of 1 sec. Clem and I worked together on one, one of us would use an watch ad the other counted the periods if by the time 10 s. had passed the counter had counted 10 p. then the task was accomplished.  Turned out the period didn't depend on how far you pull the weight aside and on the weight you use.  Only the string length mattered.  Paperclips had too much air resistance, we used washers.  Turned out, the longer you measure, the more alike your measurements get.

See-saw experiment:  we measured our weights and the distance we were sitting from the middle of the see-saw.  We had to find how we shell sit on a see-saw to balance it.  My weigh  (pounds) times distance (inches) equals Clem's [lesser] weight (pounds) times her [larger] distance (inches).  I cannot find my worksheet with actual numbers .

I skipped co-op one time to go to "Sailing Into Science" class.

Had a class called "Sailing Into Science" about Ecology Physics Mechanics and Sailing,
witch included rowing a "Wale Boat" (in team, two kids per oar, 12 oars), measuring how salty water was, bumping in "Paddle Boats", lifting my friend up on a pulley, capsizing a kayak.  I was  very wet and salty.  They have special words for everything: the back of the boat is stern,  the front is a  bow, but the part that cuts the water is a prow, and all other parts and sides have their own names.  The thing there you put an oar is a rowlock, and if you don't use a rowlock, it's not an oar, it's a paddle.

My two grandmothers and granfather visited us (not all at the same time).  I couldn't go to my grandmother's birthday in LA because of STAR test.  We went to Exploratorium with my grandfather.   I was reading "Physics in cartoons" after that and made my Optical Illusions.  

We went to Rock City to climb and watch.  We caught (and released) lizards.  They have blue tummies.  The bluer the tummy, the more heroic is the male lizard.  Also we sa tremites dropping thir wings and going in pairs like trains, and two sort of ants attacking them.  The rock there is so soft wind and little soft sticks can cut it.  We tried to open ant holes further to see ants better.  We cought a stinky bug and hid in wind caves.

On ballet, we are practicing for the performance.  Also, I camped with my friend's family in Salomon P. Teylor park in Devils Gulch.  There was a wartefall and a great bay tree fallen across it.  We played it was the pirate ship. There was some poison oak, not too bad.

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This is my Fayum portrait work. I painted it with acrylic, but using Tempera technic. It means that my colors were not transparent and layers didn't blend (if I waited for them to dry which is the way to pait in Tempera technic). Actual Fayum portraits were painted in tempera or wax paint (encaustic). Wax paints are translucent, you can't paint over with them but they do not really blend at all.   Fayum portraits were funeral masks generally painted on wood.  Fayum Portraits are called "Fayum Portraits"  because Fayum is an place in Egypt where most of them were found. 

Fayum portraits were made in Egypt under Roman occupation and after the Greek influence. Tempera is Roman and Wax Paint is Greek. Also they used some of the Romans realism.

The Fayum Portrait Wikipedia article: //en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fayum_mummy_portraits

Here are some real Fayum Portraits:







htyy
 
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Negative words: no, not, nobody, nothing, none, never, hardly, scarcely, barely, only.
Using two negatives in the same sentence gives the opposite meaning,
but it does the job awkwardly. Avoid double negatives!

In these sentences, underline each correct word in parentheses..

 
 

1. She couldn’t eat (anything, nothing).

 

2. I didn’t see (nothing, anything).

3. We (could, couldn’t) hardly see through the fog.

4. She did not have (anything, nothing) to read.

5. I could not see (no, any) way to help.

6. I cannot find my money (anywhere, nowhere).

7. You (can, cannot) scarcely recognize her.

8. The children do not need (no, any) candy.

9. We barely had (any, no) money.

10. William (could, couldn’t) hardly wait.

11. Jim was not carrying (no, any) packages.

12. The tear in his shirt (was, was not) barely noticeable.

13. The lecturer did not say (anything, nothing) interesting.

14. Of all the cars I tried, I did not buy (none, any).

15. The baby (cannot, can) hardly walk yet.

16. Isn’t there (nothing, anything) you want for Christmas?

17. Haven’t you (any, no) size 10 dresses?

18. We did not meet (nobody, anybody) at Jane’s party.

19. I could not find my purse (nowhere, anywhere).

20. The wind was so strong I (could, couldn’t) hardly stand.



* * *



 This is the back of the quilt we are going to make.  It is back-up because we pinned it together to sow it together.  Each one of us had his own stencil and color, and we took turns printing it on the same piece of fabric.  This is a quilt for my future cousin in Moscow.


a quilt



* * *
I just tried once and going to do more of it soon. These are some links to actual Goldsworthy movies:

www.artofproblemsolving.com/Books/AoPS_B_Recs.php

www.youtube.com/watch

Here are some images of what Goldsworthy did:

images.google.com/images



This is my try at Goldsworthy art:

 natere art
* * *
Did


 
Fraction
Mixed Fraction
Decimal
Percent

Ratios
 
 
Fractions
All Mistakes Corrected
 
 
thatquiz home
math tests

 
 
 
 
 
 

* * *
* * *
I did triplets in www.thatquiz.org:

Length: 100
Level: 12
Score: 95% 
Right: 95
Wrong: 5
Sec per problem: 53


* * *
 Тест на логическое мышление:  30 logical problems (in Russian).

It goes like this:
Shmudrik  is afraid of mice as well as coackroaches.  So:

  1. Shmudrik isn't afraid of coackroaches
  2. Shmudrik is afraid of mice
  3. Shmudrik is afraid of mice, but more of coackroaches, 
You have to pick the right conclusion out of three.  I scored  15 out of the 15 I wanted to do.

* * *
A list of equipment for a hiking trip.

For two people:


(weight capacity: ~100 lb together)
  • 2 person tent ( ~3 lb)
  • water, gallon bottle for each person ( ~20 lb together thats if one plans to go in civilized places where you can refill them)
  • clothing, pants including extra pants for both people ( ~3 lb), extra shirts (together ~1 lb) sweaters ( ~2 lb) (altogether ~6 lb)
  • Food,
 
 
 
  • 2 person tent
  • sleeping bag(s)
  • water
  • food
  • spoon(s)
  • pocket knife(s)
  • matchbox(es)
  • extra clothing
  • cup(s)
  • bowl(s)
  • pot
  • waterproof boots
  • extra cold-wether clothing
  • walking stick(s)
  • water filter
  • foam pad(s)
  • map
  • binoculars
  • camera(s)
I need to calculate total weight of equipment to see how much food we can carry.  Next, I'll plot the route and plan supplies.
 

* * *
 Yesterday, we went hiking up the Deer Hill.  
Today we went to the Mount Diablo. The weather was fair, but there was dust in the air, so we couldn't really see very far.
We saw a movie about rock formations in the visitor center.  It said that part of the rock Mount DIablo is made of is made out of shells and sea creatures skeletons.
I made "shambols" out of pieces of string and grass.  Shambols are witch's tools from Terry Pratchett's "Wintersmith" book I just finished.
After that I fenced with my mother and my brothers.  We use foam swords, which don't hit hard.  It is still  rather scary.
Tags: ,
Current Mood:
irritated irritated
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