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Mill Creek Foundation reveals Junior Golf tournament winners
The Mill Creek tournament is one of 15 national events in the American College Development Solutions Junior All-Star Series.
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The Mill Creek tournament is one of 15 national events in the American College Development Solutions Junior All-Star Series.
Officers said they found a one-pot methamphetamine lab with acid gas generators and chemicals used to make the drug.
While the wedding venue might seem out of the ordinary to most people, it's not surprising for those who know Dale and Barbara Six.
Laurie Karasiewicz-Fuzo, of Cortland, said she was inside Jack Casino when the shooting happened just outside.
The fire chief said the driver was making a left turn onto Market Street from Shields Road.
Police said the driver, who had an arrest warrant, was going too fast around a curve.
D'Aundray Brown, who used to play for the Cavaliers' developmental team, says the championship win gives young players hope.
The state-of-the-art cages have dividers, which reduces stress for the dogs.
Mark Piroch is charged with aggravated trafficking in drugs and possession of heroin in Mahoning County.
Anthony Anderson is wanted by the Youngstown Police Department for a robbery that occurred on June 12.
Police said the landlord confronted Jason Swegan, who was on the landlord's South Heights property, in May.
YOUNGSTOWN, Ohio (WKBN) – A Mahoning County grand jury indicted two men on charges related to the Youngstown PNC Bank robbery in April. Rick…
Underwood was charged in January after investigators said he took several tax checks and tried to cash them. Now, he faces additional charge…
Two children lived in his home on W. Tennessee Avenue, where police said they found several items used to make the drug.
Police pulled their vehicle over after officers said it almost crashed with a 4-month-old baby in the backseat.
Workers say the project should be completed before the end of July.
A man told police he was walking down Parkman Road SW on Monday night when a person driving by shot him with a BB gun.
Paris Wright was charged with rape last year and faced life in prison. He took a plea deal Wednesday on a lesser charge.
Highway Patrol says there were 316 OVI-related crashes last year resulting in 346 people being killed in Ohio.
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I posted this article on my FTC blog about how my mobile phone account was hijacked by an identity thief
I posted this article on my FTC blog about how my mobile phone account was hijacked by an identity thief
I posted this article on my FTC blog about the privacy risks of open police data
I posted this on the Tech@FTC blog this week about why mandatory password changes may be counter productive:
I attended the World Economics Forum in Davos, Switzerland with a group of faculty from Carnegie Mellon. We were there to be the entertainment — we had earned our (otherwise very expensive) Davos badge by agreeing to present a panel session. I brought my camera (Fujifilm X-T1 with 18 mm lens) and took lots of photos. Here is a selection of photos and some thoughts on the whole Davos experience.
We arrived in Zurich and took the bus (provided by WEF) to Davos. It was about a 2.5 hour drive and the scenery got progressively snowier and more beautiful as we went along. We started meeting our fellow attendees on the bus, including McGill University principal, Suzanne Fortier, who was staying at our hotel, and later invited us to Montreal after return flights to the US were being cancelled.
We stayed at Club Hotel, a comfortable ski hotel (at high-end luxury hotel prices) at the far end of Davos from the Congress Center. This was the hotel that many of the academic speakers had been assigned to stay at. Across the street was a building with a big sign that said "Bernina." As an owner of a Bernina sewing machine, I got very excited when I saw it, but it was just an apartment building… no sign of sewing machines. There was a shuttle stop on the corner across from the hotel, and shuttles came by frequently. However, at least once each day I did the 20-minute walk between the Congress Center and the hotel. Most of the daytime events were in and around the Congress Center, but some were in surrounding buildings, and most of the evening events were at hotels around the city.
The walk between the hotel and Congress Center took us past the storefronts and fancy hotels on the Promenade. Many companies (and even UC Berkeley) had rented out store fronts for the week. Some had been turned into Cafes where participants could stop in for a free lunch. Facebook had setup a house with a mini-museum that explained that it takes more energy to make a latte than it does to power one person's Facebook usage for a year. There were police and security guards everywhere, but none seemed to be able to give directions. The best way to navigate was with Google maps, or looking for signposts along the way indicating the direction and walking distance between conference venues.
The weather was fairly pleasant, all considering. The temperature stayed around the high twenties with no wind. It snowed about every other day. My tall, waterproof leather boots (ECCO Babett 45 GTX) were perfect for the snowy weather, and I could wear them inside all day and was able to avoid carrying shoes around to change into. I was glad I brought a long down coat. With insulated tights, I was able to wear dresses comfortably all week without freezing when I went outside. Inside most buildings it was quite warm. We quickly got used to the process of arriving at a building (on foot or by shuttle); having our badges inspected by armed (but very friendly) guards; loading our bags, laptops, and coats onto the conveyor belt for screening; walking through the metal detector; collecting our bags; sometimes heading outside and then back into another building; scanning our badges; checking our coats (or holding on to them to save time); and finally getting to our destination.
On the first evening I attended the opening ceremony with awards presentations and a concert by Yo-yo Ma and a multi-cultural ensemble. Will.I.Am talked about education and Leonardo DiCaprio discussed global climate change While not exactly an expert in climate change, DiCaprio has apparently contributed a lot of money to the cause, and encouraged others to do likewise. I was surprised to see DiCaprio read his remarks, rarely looking up at the audience (the photo here is the only one I took where he is looking at the audience). Yo-Yo Ma's performance was amazing, and worth sitting through the speeches to hear.
Following the opening session I found the shuttle to the InterContinental Hotel for the expert reception. Having just arrived, I was still wearing jeans and suddenly felt under dressed. I did not wear jeans again until I left for the airport to go home. Besides learning about Davos fashion, the expert reception was also a good introduction to eating at Davos, where sit down meals are few and far between for those of us not on the VIP lists. Coffee and alcoholic beverages were plentiful, but food required some foraging. We all got very good at spotting and making a bee line for waiters passing tasty, but small, snacks in the Congress Center or at whatever receptions we were attending.
I joined my colleagues, who were talking to John Green, author of The Fault in Our Stars, and his wife. When I arrived they were having an entertaining conversation about educational videos and it took a while for me to catch on and figure out who he was. John posted a brief video about his Davos experience after he got home.
I spent much of the next day practicing for and being nervous about my own talk. Three colleagues and I had been invited to Davos to do an "Ideas Lab" session, which uses the fun-to-watch but awful to prepare for Pecha Kucha format. We each had five minutes to give a talk with 15 slides (all images, no words), which advanced automatically every 20 seconds. We wrote out scripts weeks in advance and spent hours memorizing the scripts and checking the timing. I give talks and teach classes all the time, so public speaking comes pretty easily to me, but I don't think I have memorized anything word-for-word since high school. Even the TEDx talk on passwords I gave a couple of years ago was easier to prepare. For my Davos, I made notecards, recorded myself reading my script and listened to myself over and over again, and practiced my talk repeatedly on the plane. The group of us did three rehearsals together before finally doing our session at Davos on Thursday, and again on Saturday. Our session was the Promise and Perils of the Connected Sensors. Two of my colleagues presented upbeat promise talks, one introduced security perils, and I finished out the panel with privacy perils. The talks were recorded and available here. (As you may notice in the video, I had two wireless mics attached to my sleeveless dress. The AV crew was used to putting mics on guys wearing suits, and wasn't really sure how to attach the mics to me. They didn't have surgical tape to tape the transmitter to my back so you'll see one of the transmitters attached to the back of my dress with an antenna sticking up. The other one is in my boot with the wire running up my leg and under my dress.) There was also a scribe who made cool drawings while we talked.
The Ideas Lab session went very well, and we received a lot of positive feedback from attendees. Attendees at our session included a nobel laureate, a Microsoft executive, and Kofi Annan (yes, that's him in the bottom right photo below). Connected sensors and the Internet of Things were topics that seemed to resonate with a lot of Davos people. Indeed, the toilets near the plenary hall in the Congress Center featured water sprays and dryers that could be controlled wirelessly through tablets mounted on the wall of each stall.
The CMU President, Subra Suresh, introduced our panel, and the dean of our School of Computer Science, Andrew Moore, participated in another Ideas Lab session that was moderated by NPR correspondent, Joe Palca. Some of our colleagues, including Justine Cassell, got to speak on the big stage in the plenary hall.
I attended a lot of sessions in the plenary hall of the Congress Center. This is where most of the heads of state spoke. In four days I saw the following government leaders speak: the Presidents of Switzerland, Cyprus and Mexico; Prime Ministers of Turkey, UK, Israel, and Canada; as well as John Kerry and Joe Biden (who was interesting, but went on much too long). UK Prime Minister David Cameron was the only head of state I saw speak standing in the middle of the stage with no notes, podium, or teleprompter. Benjamin Netanyahu had the funniest comments when he talked about Israel innovation and explained that Jewish Israeli cows make more milk per cow than any other cows and "every moo is computerized."
Most thrilling, perhaps, was attending an interactive lunch with Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and several members of his cabinet. You could sign-up online for interactive lunches and dinners, but many of these events were full by the time academic attendees were allowed to sign up. After seeing that the lunch session I wanted to attend was full I noticed that the Canada lunch still had room so I signed myself up. Lunch was setup at banquet tables for a total of about 60 guests. A member of the cabinet was assigned to each table. When I came into the room I spotted a table that nobody was sitting at, with the name card Trudeau, so I sat down. Prime Minister Trudeau arrived late and when he came in he shook hands with Naheed Nenshi, the Mayor of Calgary, who was also seated at my table, and then took the microphone and began speaking. Trudeau gave his whole speech standing next to where I was sitting at the table. I snapped several good photos of him against the hotel's butterfly wallpaper from where I was sitting 2 feet away. He finished his speech and left before I could get a selfie. (I did manage to get a selfie with Nenshi the next day when I ran into him at the Congress Center.) Nenshi was quite entertaining as he MCed the event, inviting the other cabinet members to make brief remarks and asking some pointed questions. I was quite impressed with Trudeau and the other cabinet members, who exhibited an energy and youthfulness that you usually don't see in American politics. And they are incredibly diverse. Other than Trudeau, the cabinet members joked, they hadn't brought with them any straight white guys.
My favorite session all week was a panel on "Progress towards Parity" with Melinda Gates, Sheryl Sandberg, and Justin Trudeau, along with SOHO CEO Zhang Xin and ManpowerGroup CEO Jonas Prising, When asked whether it was difficult to find enough qualified women to make his cabinet 50% women, Trudeau said the only thing difficult was choosing among all the great qualified candidates.
Other highlights included hearing US Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker talk about Safe Harbor on a panel with Microsoft President Brad Smith and others, watching Harvard Law Professor Jonathan Zittrain moderate a panel on the digital economy, and an interactive dinner for women in science. I took some pictures during Zittrain's session and went up to talk with him afterwards. One of his panelists, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki, was eager to get a photo of herself on the WEF stage, so I told her I would send her the photos I had just taken. At the dinner I chatted with Joe Palca and his wife NIH Deputy Director Kathy Hudson, along with danah boyd.
There was a lot of discussion of refugees at Davos, and I attended an interesting simulation session called "A day in the life of a refugee." As we entered the room, women were handed headscarves and we were told that for the next half an hour we were to obey the guards. A sound track of machine gun fire played, the lights went out, and we were eventually ushered into small, crowded tents. As we lined up for bread and water, guards took our jewelry and cell phones. It was an interesting simulation, but I think some of the power of the experience was lost as I was crawling around in tents with business executives wearing expensive suits. After the simulation concluded, we heard personal stories from people who had been refugees themselves or had worked at refugee camps. I found that to be the most compelling part of the session. As they returned our phones and jewelry. the session leader handed us postcards for feedback and asked us to list actions we could take to address the refugee problem. However, there had not been much discussion about what we could actually do.
I was interviewed for the Swiss public radio in a studio in the local public library, which had been turned into a media house.
There were not a lot of sessions related to my research interests. I attended an interactive session in which they talked about the growing number of people who were using ad blockers online. They broke us up into small groups, and I joined the group on "trust and user empowerment." I was amused at this because I was giving talks on this topic as far back as 1997. When the moderator asked us what companies should do to build trust I suggested that companies should actually be trustworthy and actually empower users. This comment did not go over well with the corporate participates in my group. Later I attended a session on privacy that included a lively discussion by panelists who had somewhat limited expertise in privacy. A number of questions came up that the panelists didn't have good answers for. During the audience Q&A I answered some of these questions and received a more positive reception. One of the panelists remarked that I should have been on the panel. I noted that most sessions seemed to follow an unwritten rule that there could be at most one woman or one academic on any panel, so this session was already at quota.
Between sessions we explored the Congress Center and the nearby Promenade. We discovered that the Microsoft Cafe served lunch. The lounges were good places for people watching, but it was sometimes difficult to find a seat. A few times I went into the plenary hall just so I could sit down and check my email. You never knew who you would run into in the Congress Center. If there were a lot of people with cameras, there was probably someone famous. Following the cameras led me to the Prime Minister of France, and IMF director Christine Lagarde.
The most unexpected celebrity encounter was meeting Yo-Yo Ma and his wife in the hallway of the Congress Center. I was introduced to them, shook hands, and mumbled something about being a computer science professor and having enjoyed his concert. Maybe I pointed to my password dress and said something about passwords. I only regret that I didn't tell him I co-founded a company called Wombat Security and ask him about the time he was photographed on the floor with a wombat. Yo-Yo Ma was super friendly, and seemed to actually enjoy meeting all the people who were eager to shake his hand.
No Davos experience would be complete without Bono. I didn't get to meet him, but I did see him on stage from the third row when he appeared briefly to celebrate the 10-year anniversary of the (RED) campaign.
Davos is not a great place for eating or sleeping. Before we arrived we had already received dozens of invitations to evening receptions at hotels around Davos. However, once we arrived we realized that our invitations were to only a small fraction of the parties that were taking place. We were able to talk our way into some of these parties, but many had fairly tight security. There were some interesting breakfast events every day but neither I nor any of my colleagues were able to get up early enough to attend them. CMU sponsored a small party at a local chocolate shop, but big companies and even countries sponsored enormous parties with open bars, food, swag, live music, and robots serving beer. Some hotels had so many parties going on that they posted electronic directories to help people find the parties they were looking for. Friday night I skipped most of the partying to attend the annual (and somewhat hard to get an invite to) Davos shabbat dinner. Sadly, the celebrities were no shows this year, but I did have an enjoyable evening.
The last evening in Davos was a formal soiree with music, a large buffet, and lots of swiss cheese. I wore a floor-length gown and 3-inch heels because I don't have too many excuses to dress up, and how often do you get to wear a ball gown and pose with two St. Bernards? Unfortunately, we had to leave the ball early to rebook our cancelled flights due to East Coast US snow storm.
So how was Davos? The event is crazy and amazing, and not like anything I have ever been to before. The closest comparison I can make is South By Southwest. Only Davos is colder and had fewer artists, musicians, hipsters, and free tee shirts. And Southby is a festival and Davos is a place where heads of state go to talk to each other and everyone seems to have an agenda. I didn't go with an agenda, other than to make it through my talk, take it all in, and help promote Carnegie Mellon. I met some interesting people, heard some interesting talks, saw lots of celebrities, and made a few contacts that may be useful for my research or my career.
Last summer I took photos of a bunch of my favorite paintings by Grandma Gladys (see also this article about her and this TV interview), and then turned them into fabric designs on spoonflower.com. I then turned a couple of my favorite designs into infinity scarves, and when I told Grandma about it, she requested one of each. It has taken me a while to make this happen, but with the help of Jen Primack of Upcycled Designs, I now have a big stack of infinity scarves ready to ship to Grandma. These were all printed by Spoonflower on performance polyester. They each use a half yard of fabric (so you get 2 out of a 1-yard cut). Fabric is folded the long way, sewn in a tube inside out, joined at the ends with a small opening, turned right side out, and the opening stitched closed.
I setup a tripod and took a lot of selfies so you could see all the scarves. Since I had enough fabric for 2 of each, I'm keeping the duplicates of some of my favorites for myself… but so hard to decide!
A few months ago I got a request from the powers that be at CMU to design a scarf based on my Tartan Tango quilt design that they had commissioned when I was on sabbatical back in 2013. I was happy to oblige. I dusted off my Interleave quilt design software and produced a fabric design based on the quilt. After experimenting with the design in both a large and small size, we settled on the smaller version.
But they wanted 50 of them ASAP, which is well beyond what I could possibly sew in a week (or even a year given my current schedule). So I ordered a huge bolt of fabric from Spoonflower and subcontracted the sewing to Jen Primack of Upcycled Designs. Jen cut the fabric and sewed it on her serger, and was able to deliver the first half of the order within a few days, and the second half not long after.
I also learned a bit about scarf packaging, and acquired suitable glossy white boxes and gold "stretch loops" for a finishing touch (yes, that is the proper term for those gold elastic cords, tied in a bow, that decorate small packages… I just learned that).
I have another slightly smaller project in the works that Jen is helping me with, and will sew a few more scarves myself with fabric I designed from Grandma Glady's paintings.
I've been collecting images of all the cool things that I and others have made with my bad password fabric. The fabric is available from Spoonflower in three size and both with and without the naughty words. It has a purple background and includes 501 passwords. Spoonflower offers a variety of different kinds of fabrics, including a performance knit, basic cotton, and faux suede. They also will print this design on wrapping paper and wall paper.
Recapping for those who are just seeing this, I designed a series of bad password fabrics based on the most popular passwords stolen in a Rockyou.com data breach. First I made a "Security Blanket" quilt printed on basic cotton fabric in pastel colors. This quilt appeared in Science Magazine and was on display at the residence of the Carnegie Mellon University president for most of last year. Then I designed a purple version of the fabric and made a password dress with performance knit fabric. The dress has gotten some nice press on CNET, the Trib, and the Women you should know blog.
Then my friends started requesting other password apparel. Mary Ellen Zurko commissioned my friend Jen Primack of Upcycled Designs to make her a t-shirt from cotton knit fabric. Then Jeremy Epstein asked for ties, and we found Jen Knickerbocker of LoveCrushDresses and got her to offer regular ties and bow ties in her Etsy shop. The ties are made from cotton sateen.
Then Jen Primack bought an old chair and reupholstered it with my passwords fabric in heavy cotton twill. Doesn't it look great in my living room?
Kristin Briney emailed me to tell me she had made a password dress from cotton poplin. And I just made a password infinity scarf from silky faille (a woven polyester).
Password baby quilts and couch throws made out of kona cotton are coming soon….
In the mean time, I've gotten many requests to wear the password dress to events. I wore it to give an invited talk at the 2014 Grace Hopper Celebration of Women in Computing (where I was referred to as a "password researcher and fashion idol"). I also wore it to a couple of briefings I gave to Congressional staff on Capitol Hill.
And for those wondering about the different types of fabric. The polyester fabrics are much brighter than the cottons. They are all fairly consistently bright with nice saturated colors. My favorite is the performance polyester, which doesn't wrinkle and has a little bit of stretch and a nice drape. But it's not really what you want to use for a quilt or a tie. The kona cotton is a little disappointing because the colors print a little dull. The basic cotton (which is similar to the kona but slightly lighter weight and less expensive), cotton sateen, and the heavy cotton twill produce brighter colors. They aren't as bright as the polyester, but they are noticeably brighter than the kona cotton. The cotton silk also does not produce bright colors. I think the polyester silky faille might work well for ties and some other applications where you might otherwise use a woven cotton but want brighter colors. It's a little slippery and harder to work with than cotton though. I got samples of the polyester faux suede and polyester eco canvas. They are both lovely bright fabrics, but I haven't made anything out of them yet.
1/22/15 update: Von Welch, Director of the Center for Applied Cyber Security at Indiana University Bloomington wore his Password tie for a local TV interview. The reporters loved the tie and commented on it at the end of the interview.
2/6/15 update: Baby quilt in kona cotton finished!
7/16/15 update: I made a password bolster pillow for the CMU ECE department head's conference room.
I haven't had time to quilt in way too long, but I have been enjoying the photos of other people's interleave quilts, based on my instructions.
First Monica emailed me to tell me she was experimenting with interleave quilts. She made some small ones that were lovely. Then she made a gorgeous interleave bed quilt using tartan fabric as a gift for her daughter, who graduated from CMU in May. She even taught a class on interleave quilts for a local quilt store.
Then Melissa emailed me a pointer to photos of her beautiful quilts including an interleave quilt in blue, black, and purple. Melissa says, "I decided to use stabilizer to draw the lines on. It worked really well and I didn't find it took long at all."
I wish I had more time to make more quilts myself. But the next best thing is looking at other peoples' wonderful quilts! Thanks for sharing!
July 2015 update: Julie from South Australia emailed me, "A huge thankyou for your online tutorial on making an interleave quilt. I found your page today, and produced this small quilt, even finishing the binding!"
August 2015 update: Sandie emailed me: "I recently took a class on interleaves and got hooked experimenting in black and white with a slight touch of color. It's been interesting." Sadie said she took the class from Mel Beach in a group with the Santa Clara Valley Quilt Association.
I have two more white whole wheat bread machine recipes to share today: a brown bread and a white bread.
The brown bread is a pumpernickel bread based on one I found on the back of a bag of Arrowhead Mills Organic Rye Flour. The brown color comes from using cocoa powder. Most of us in my house liked the original recipe pretty well, with it's nice tangy flavor. But some in my house are partial to sweeter breads, and liked it better when I used honey instead of molasses. One lone holdout does not like caraway seeds at all and would not eat it until I made the recipe with flax seeds instead of caraway. Sesame seeds would probably be nice too, or you could leave out all the seeds. Download the recipe for Whole Wheat Pumpernickel Bread here.
The white bread is an oatmeal honey bread. This is a basic bread that is simple, but really tasty. I add dry milk for some extra protein and a slightly softer texture, but you can omit the dry milk for a non-dairy version that isn't much different. Download the recipe for Whole Wheat Oatmeal Bread here.
White whole wheat flour has all the health benefits of regular whole wheat flour, but it is made from a different kind of wheat that is softer and has a milder taste. While regular white flour has little nutritional value, white whole wheat flour is actually good for you!
When white whole wheat flour started showing up in stores about 10 years ago, I was intrigued. I followed everyone's advice and started swapping out a third or a half the white flour for white whole wheat to add whole grains to my baked goods. Nobody in my house seemed to notice. Tentatively, I started increasing the whole grain to white flour ratio, and nobody seemed to notice. Thanks to my son's award-winning sixth grade science fair project I gathered conclusive, scientific evidence that swapping out all the white flour for whole wheat in chocolate chip cookies and in blueberry muffins makes no difference to a classroom full of hungry sixth graders.
In January I decided to replace my family's still functional, 20-year-old bread machine with a more modern model. It turns out that the era of bread machine baking has come and gone, and most bread machine manufacturers have not come out with any new models in years. So the Panasonic SD-YD250 we bought is actually the top model of the last decade, but it remains the #1 top seller on Amazon.com. And the new machine turns out to be a big step up from the machine it replaced because it has a bigger pan, warms the ingredients, and doesn't add the yeast until it is time.
Since acquiring the new machine, I have baked bread 2 or 3 times a week, every week. And I have baked only 100% whole grain bread. Baking whole grain bread is trickier than swapping out the white flour in cookies and muffins, because whole grain flour has less gluten than bread flower, and this affects how much the bread will rise. If you are not careful, breads made with whole grain flour can end up pretty dense. There also aren't that many bread machine recipes that have been tested with white whole wheat flour, because white whole wheat flour was not widely available back when new bread machine cookbooks were actually being published.
I've tried some of the whole wheat recipes in the cookbook that came with my bread machine. We've enjoyed the 100% Whole Wheat, Honey Walnut, Whole Wheat Yogurt, and Seven Grain bread recipes from that cookbook. I have followed those recipes as written, except for using white whole wheat flour instead of regular whole wheat, and flax seeds instead of sesame seeds in the yogurt bread. I've also tried the 100% whole wheat with honey instead of molasses for a sweeter bread. So far I've found that any whole wheat bread recipe can be made with white whole wheat flour and the results are excellent.
I've also found some bread machine recipes online, and adapted some bread-flour recipes from some other cookbooks to work with white whole wheat, reduce the amount of fat, and work with my bread machine. In general, bread flour recipes seem to work with white whole wheat if you add gluten or if the recipe includes dairy products (yogurt, cottage cheese, ricotta cheese, or milk). I've also successfully removed the butter and oil in a number or recipes and replaced it with apple sauce. As I perfect these recipes, I will share them here.
The first recipe I would like to share is a recipe for Whole Wheat Ricotta Bread that my family loves. Even when I bake the extra large size, it rarely lasts it more than 24 hours in my house. I baked this bread four times in the past couple of weeks to tweak the amount of liquid and experiment with two different kinds of ricotta cheese. Each time it disappeared very fast.
The key to this bread is the ricotta cheese, which makes this bread moist, slightly sweet, and very rich tasting. Use part-skim or low fat ricotta to cut the calories and fat considerably. In my experiments, I found that the part-skim ricotta I used causes the bread to rise a bit more than the low-fat ricotta (that contained less fat). But it is good either way. I haven't been able to find fat-free ricotta at any of the stores I shop at. I'm guessing that will work well too, but might result in a little bit of a denser loaf. I also made this bread with non-fat greek yogurt instead of ricotta. This was also a lovely bread, but it was not as moist, and did not have the richness or flavor of ricotta bread.
You can download my recipe for Whole Wheat Ricotta Bread here.
I'm really excited that my Security Blanket quilt won honorable mention in the International Science & Engineering Visualization Challenge and is featured in an article in the February 7 issue of Science magazine. No, they don't have a category for quilts, but that didn't stop me from entering (and winning).
The quilt is currently on loan to Carnegie Mellon University, and is being displayed in the home of our university president. My daughters and I stopped by a couple of weeks ago to check it out.
Science also did a little profile of me in their Career Magazine.
And for those of you who want to make your own security blankets, pillow, ties, curtains, or dresses, I now have a few different versions of purple "bad password" fabric available by the yard at Spoonflower.com (update: you can get ties made from this fabric too!). You can order it on wrapping paper or wall paper too. I have small and large versions of the print, with and without the naughty words. (The quilt includes all the naughty words for authenticity.)
My Interleave quilts are pieced using a quilt-as-you-go technique in which thin strips of fabric are sewn to batting and backing. The interleave design results from cutting these strips from two panels of fabric and piecing alternate strips from each panel. In my quilts, some of the panels are pieced and some are photos printed on fabric. For added interest, I often shift my strips in a wave pattern. The result of this process is a complex-looking quilt that can be pieced quickly from thin strips sewn in straight lines.
Here is a quick tutorial on how I make a small Interleave quilt. I put this together for a 1-day workshop. We will be making a roughly 18 inch square interleave quilt with .5-inch stripes that can be used as a wall hanging, placemat, or pillow top. You can make a smaller sample if you prefer, but I would not suggest going any larger for the class project.
Select four fat quarters of four fabrics for the quilt top. They should be fabrics that go well together, but have some contrast between them.
Next elect the style of interleave you want to try. The most basic shape would be straight, with no shifting. If you follow the instructions below and do not shift your fabrics, the result will be something like what you see here to the right. If you want to try this, just join your pairs of fabric on one edge rather than making tubes and skip the part about templates and cutting open the tube.
In the instructions below I used a vase shape (shown here on the left) to shift my interleave design, but there are lots of other designs you might choose.
Below are example of the following shapes: sine wave, mirrored sine wave, skewed sine wave, hour glass, helix, and marquise. These shapes are all based on sine waves of differing frequencies and amplitudes. I generated them all using a computer program that I wrote. But once you have a feel for how this process works you can adapt these designs yourself without the aid of a computer.
Once you select the shape you want to use, you will need to create a paper template. I have prepared templates for the designs you see here. You can enlarge, reduce, or adapt them to suit your needs. This template is a PDF file designed to print on 11×17 paper.
The next step is to prepare the foundation for your quilt. Since this is a quilt-as-you-go technique, we will be layering the batting with a backing and a foundation. I like to use a fusible batt so I don't have to baste it. I also find it makes things easier if you mark your foundation fabric with parallel lines. After marking several foundations by hand with pencil, I designed a grid fabric and had it printed at spoonflower.com on basic combed cotton. I know it is a little pricey for fabric you will never see in the finished piece, but it does save a lot of time and effort. If you would prefer, you can use any white or light-colored fabric and mark it with parallel lines, .5-inch apart.
After your foundation is prepared, follow the instructions below to cut your fabric and assemble your quilt.
You can achieve some interesting effects by starting with fabric panels that include interesting shapes. For example, you might cut your fabric into right triangles instead of strips, and interleave them without shifting.
You could use the same panels shown above, form them into tubes, cut them open on a curve, and produce one of the designs below, depending on the shape of the curve you use.
You might also start with panels that have three or more shapes and interleave them as shown on the right below.
I used this approach to make Interleave #1.
For Interleave #2 I assembled five diagonal strips on each panel. Instead of cutting 1-inch strips for interleaving, I used 1.5-inch strips so that they would end up 1-inch after accounting for seam allowances. In order to keep everything lined up nicely with proper spacing, I had to cut a .5-inch strip after cutting every 1.5-inch strip. These narrow strips are not actually used in the quilt, but they do make for some colorful ribbons. This approach requires more cutting, but a lot less sewing, so the quilt assembly goes faster.
Finally, interleaving large prints or photos printed on fabric, results in all sorts of interesting possibilities. Below are examples of using wavy striped fabric in Interleave #4, plaid fabric in Interleave #5, and photos printed on fabric in Interleave #6.
Have fun, and let me know how you use this technique!
February 17, 2014 Update!
I've been so excited to see the quilts created by some of my workshop participants as well as by a quilter in the San Francisco area, Monica Tong, who found my blog post and followed the instructions to make two quilts. Monica adapted the instructions to use three fabrics in each panel instead of two — which is exactly the idea.
I will be giving a lecture and teaching a workshop for the Pittsburgh-area "Quilt Company East Guild" later this month. If you are interested in attending either of these events, please contact Sally Janis <firstname.lastname@example.com>.
Info on both events below from the QCE newsletter.
QCE Guild Meeting
Monday, January 20, at 7:00 pm, Beulah Presbyterian Church
Lorrie Faith Cranor
Engineering with Fabric
Question: What happens when you combine the mind of an engineer with the soul of an artist and turn them loose on fabric?
Answer: Magic!
Quilt artist Lorrie Faith Cranor has been exploring design, form, and color since she taught herself quilting as a distraction from her engineering and policy graduate studies in the mid-1990s. Her work is a treat for both the eye and the brain.
She is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University where she is director of the CyLab Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory (CUPS). During the 2012-2013 academic year she spent her sabbatical as a fellow in the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University where she worked on fiber arts projects that combined her interests in privacy and security, quilting, computers, and technology.
Lorrie has won a number of awards in local and national quilt competitions. Several of her quilts have been featured on the covers of books and journals. She had a solo exhibit at the Pittsburgh Children's Museum in the Summer of 2013.
January Workshop
Interleave Technique
Tuesday, January 21, 9:30—2:00, First Baptist Church in Monroeville
Here's a chance to learn Lorrie Cranor's original Interleave technique. Lorrie's Interleave quilts are pieced using a quilt-as-you-go technique in which thin strips of fabric are sewn to batting and backing. The images above show one of her finished quilts (left) as well as a close-up (right). The interleave design results from cutting these strips from two panels of fabric and piecing alternate strips from each panel. In Lorrie's quilts, some of the panels are pieced and some are photos printed on fabric. For added interest, Lorrie shifts her strips in a wave pattern. The result of this process is a complex-looking quilt that can be pieced quickly from thin strips sewn in straight lines. In this workshop, Lorrie will break down her process into easy steps. Participants will create their own unique interleave wall hanging.
Non-member Workshop fee is $30 payable to QCE. There is also a $12 materials fee.
For more information on Interleave quilts see the blog posts on Interleave 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, and 7.
While I often imagine myself making homemade gifts for everyone on my list, that doesn't actually ever happen. This year I got a fun idea for one special gift, and liked it so much that I decided to make several more on a similar theme. This year was the year of the infinity scarf (a scarf with the ends sewn together in a loop). But not just any old infinity scarf…. this year I designed three original fabrics, had them digitally printed at spoonflower.com, and turned them into infinity scarves.
The first scarf was inspired by a colorful painting that my grandmother made earlier this year in her art class. The painting is framed and on display on a shelf in my kitchen. I love the bright-colored swirls and spirals, reminiscent of my own doodles, and thought it would look lovely on a scarf. I took a digital photo of the painting and loaded it into Photoshop. I played with it a bit and realized that all I needed to do was tile it in a mirror-image pattern to create an absolutely stunning design. The shapes in the painting combined with their mirror images to form new shapes and an intriguing pattern.
I uploaded the design to spoonflower and ordered two yards of performance knit fabric, a washable polyester knit. Then I waited about a week for my custom fabric to arrive in the mail (the worst part of using spoonflower is the wait!).
Two yards is enough fabric to make three infinity scarves using the free pattern from Sewn Studio's Jersey Infinity Scarf Tutorial. The tutorial was super easy to follow. The hardest part is cutting two yards of this slippery fabric into three 24-inch pieces. I made my first scarf in less than an hour and was quite pleased with the results. The scarf can be worn long, or looped around twice. It can also be knotted in various ways for a different sort of look – although one of the great features of infinity scarves is that you don't have to mess around with tying them. I made three scarves – one for Grandma Gladys, one for my mother, and one I kept for myself.
I decided to try my hand at some more fabric design. I went back to the Processing computer program I had used to design my Interleave quilts and adapt it for fabric design. My first design is based on my Interleave #3 quilt. I used the same pattern and color scheme, but added gradients so each bar is a lightly different color. The addition of the gradients adds dimension to an otherwise flat design, and makes it almost appear to glow.
My second design was based on my Interleave #4 quilt. Here I completely changed the colors and used gradients to not only add dimension, but also to introduce more colors. I love the way the colored stripes mix to produce the illusion of additional colors. Here you can see the fabric pattern, as well as the scarf being modeled by me as well as by my mother-in-law.
The infinity scarves were big hits. Here you can see them modeled by my grandmothers and by my mother. Grandma Gladys, second from the left below, made the painting that is featured on the fabric. (Did you guess that we all like purple?)
These fabrics are all available for sale from my shop at spoonflower. You can have them printed on your choice of fabrics (or even wallpaper or gift wrap).
This is old news, but just now getting around to posting it. I made a password dress to go with the password quilt. I wore it to the opening of the Computers, Quilts & Privacy show and to give my artist's talk. I also wore it to a faculty meeting and disrupted the meeting.
As with the Security Blanket quilt, I generated a Wordle from the RockYou password set, and then edited it in Adobe Illustrator. I selected brighter colors for the dress and had it printed at spoonflower.com on performance knit polyester fabric (UPDATE: You can purchase similar fabric on spoon flower that I created and ties made from this fabric on Etsy.) I made my own pattern by tracing a store-bought dress I own that fits me well. It is just two pieces of fabric. The only tricky part was finishing the neckline and arm holes. I bought a double needle and used it to do the hem. This was my first foray into sewing with knit fabric.
And here are some more photos from the Computers, Quilts & Privacy show at the Frame. There is also a video of my talk that I will post after it is edited.
Quilts from my staybatical will be on exhibit at the Frame Gallery on the Carnegie Mellon campus October 24-November 3, 2013. The Frame Gallery is at 5200 Forbes Ave., Pittsburgh, PA 15213, on the corner of Forbes and Margaret Morrison.
Artist's talk
Friday, November 1, 12:30-1:30 pm
STUDIO for Creative Inquiry, College of Fine Arts Room 111
Lunch provided, please RSVP to email@example.com.
Join us for a talk by quilt artist Lorrie Faith Cranor. Lorrie is an Associate Professor of Computer Science and of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie Mellon University where she is director of the CyLab Usable Privacy and Security Laboratory (CUPS) and co-director of the MSIT-Privacy Engineering masters program. During the 2012-2013 academic year she spent her sabbatical as a fellow in the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at CMU where she worked on fiber arts projects that combine her interests in privacy and security, quilting, and computers. In this talk she will discuss these interests and how she combined them during her sabbatical. For directions or more information contact Marge Myers at 412-268-3451.
Opening Reception
Friday, October 25, 2-5:30 pm
Gallery Hours
Thursdays: Oct. 24 + 31, 5-9 pm
Fridays: Oct. 25 + Nov. 1, 2-7 pm
Saturdays: Oct. 26 + Nov. 2, Noon to 5 pm
Sundays: Oct. 27 + Nov. 3, Noon to 5 pm
As I've been thinking about quilt ideas related to security and privacy during my staybatical at the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry all year, the title for this quilt was obvious: Security Blanket. Less obvious was the design of a quilt that would fit this title. Ultimately, I took inspiration from the research on the security and usability of text passwords that I've been working on with my students and colleagues. While this quilt started out as an art project inspired by my research, what I learned from creating it will likely influence my future password research.
Our research group has collected tens of thousands of passwords created under controlled conditions as part of our research. Among other things, we have compared these passwords with the archives of stolen passwords that have been made public over the past few years. Perhaps the largest such archive consists of 32 million passwords stolen from social gaming website RockYou and made public in December 2009. These passwords are notably weak, having been created without the requirement to include digits or symbols or even avoid dictionary words. Security firm Imperva published an analysis of these passwords. More recent analyses of stolen passwords have found that passwords stolen in 2012 are pretty similar to those stolen in 2009.
The media had fun publishing the most common passwords from the RockYou breach. As with other breaches, password and 123456 figured prominently. But after you get past the obvious lazy choices, I find it fascinating to see what else people choose as passwords. These stolen passwords, personal secrets, offer glimpses into the collective consciousness of Internet users.
I asked my students to extract the 1000 most popular passwords from the RockYou data set and provide a list to me with frequency counts. I then went through the list and sorted them into a number of thematic groups. I assigned a color to each group and entered the passwords with weights and colors into the Wordle online word cloud generator. I then saved the output as a PDF and edited it in Adobe Illustrator to rearrange them in a shape that I liked, with some pairs of words purposefully place in close proximity. I designed a border, and had the whole thing printed on one large sheet of fabric by Spoonflower. When the fabric arrived, I layered it with batting and quilted it. I bound it with matching fabric from Spoonflower that I designed.
Sorting 1000 passwords into thematic categories took a while. While a number of themes quickly emerged, many passwords could plausibly fall into multiple categories. I tried to put myself in the mindset of a RockYou user and imagine why they selected a password. Is justin the name of the user? Their significant other? Their son? Or are they a Justin Bieber fan? Is princess a nickname for their spouse or daughter? The name of their cat? Their dog? (It shows up frequently on lists of popular pet names and a recent surveyfound that the most common way of selecting a passord is using the name of a pet.) Is sexygirl self referential? What about daddysgirl? dreamer? genius?
When I didn't recognize a password I Googled it. Most of these unknown passwords turned out to be ways to express your love in different languages. For example, I learned that mahalkita means I love you in Tagalong. Love was a strong theme in any language; there seems to be something about creating a password that inspires people to declare their love.
Not surprisingly, the top 1000 passwords list includes a fair share of swear words, insults, and adult language. However, impolite passwords are much less prevalent than the more tender love-related words, appropriate for all audiences.
There are a couple dozen food-related words in the top 1000 passwords. The most popular is chocolate and most of the others are also sweets (and potentially nicknames for a significant other), but a few fruits and vegetables, and even chicken make their way to the top as well. Among fruits, banana appears in both singular and plural.
Animals are also popular. While felines appear on the password list in a number of forms and languages, monkey is by far the most popular animal, and the fourteenth most popular password. I can't quite figure out why, and I don't know whether or not this is related to the popularity of "banana."
Fictional characters are also popular, especially cartoon characters. The twenty-fifth most popular password is tigger (which might also be on the list because it is a popular name for a cat). A number of super heroes and Disney princesses also make the list, as well as another cartoon cat, hellokitty. Real life celebrities also make the list, including several actors and singers. While at first I thought booboo might refer to the reality TV star Honey Boo Boo, I realized that the date of the password breach predates the launch of that TV show.
A number of passwords relate to the names of sports, sports teams, or athletes. Soccer-related passwords are particularly popular. There are several cities on the list that I'm guessing were selected as passwords because of their sports teams, especially soccer teams.
Besides the obvious lazy password password, and also PASSWORD, password1, and password2, some more clever (but nonetheless unoriginal) variations included secret and letmein. And I love that the 84th most popular password is whatever.
Some passwords puzzled me. Why would anyone select "lipgloss" as their password. Why not "lipstick" or "mascara"? Perhaps it refers to a 2007 song by Lil Mamma? Why "moomoo"? Why "freedom"?
Even more popular than the word password were the numbers 123456, 12345, 123456789. Other numbers and keyboard patterns also appear frequently. When I laid out the 1000 passwords on the quilt, I scaled them all according to their popularity. The most popular number sequence was chosen by more than three times as many people as the next most common password and was so large that I decided to place it in the background behind the other passwords so that it wouldn't overwhelm the composition.
I made a few mistakes when designing the quilt that I didn't notice until I was quilting it (quilting this quilt provided an opportunity to reflect on all the passwords yet again as I stitched past them). One problem was that when I transferred the top 1000 password list to Microsoft Excel while categorizing the passwords, the spreadsheet program removed all the zeros at the beginning of passwords. As a result there are three passwords that are actually strings of zeros (5, 6, and 8 zeros) that are printed simply as 0. In addition there are three number strings that start with a 0 followed by other digits are printed without the leading 0. Another problem was that the color I selected for jesus, christian, angel, and a number of other religious words blended in with the background numbers when printed on fabric, making those words almost invisible (even though they showed up fine on my computer screen). I had carefully checked most of the colors I used against a Spoonflower color guide printed on fabric, but had inadvertently forgotten to check this particular color. I reprinted about half a dozen of these words in a darker color and sewed them onto the quilt like patches that one might add to repair a well-worn spot.
There are also some passwords that I colored according to one category, and upon further reflection I am convinced more likely were selected for a different reason and should be in a different category, but we'll never know for sure. I invite viewers to discover the common themes represented by my color-coded categories and to speculate themselves about what users were thinking when they created these passwords. Zoom in on the thumbnail images above to see all of the smaller passwords in detail.
The colors, size, and format of this quilt were designed to be reminiscent of a baby quilt, which I imagine might become a security blanket. Like the passwords included in this piece, a security blanket offers comfort, but ultimately no real security.
I'm excited to finally reveal Interleave #6: Porto, which was presented to Ed Frank and Sarah Ratchye at a reception before the Grand Finale dinner of the Carnegie Mellon Inspire Innovation! fundraising campaign last night. I was commissioned to make this quilt to thank Ed for serving as chair of the Inspire Innovation! campaign. (The campaign was incredibly successful, raising well over the $1 billion goal. As a faculty member at a terrific university that has a much smaller endowment than most of our peer institutions, I really appreciate how this infusion of funds will benefit the university.)
I felt truly honored to be asked to make this gift, and somewhat nervous about whether I could produce something that would live up to expectations. Ed and Sarah are art collectors, and Sarah is herself an accomplished artist. The folks who approached me about making the gift were hoping for a piece that would represent the interplay of art and technology, consistent with the mission of the STUDIO. Having spent a good part of the past year working in the STUDIO, I am personally grateful to Ed and Sarah for their financial support of the STUDIO as well.
I did not have a lot of time to produce this quilt, and it involved a number of new techniques I hasn't tried before. It all came together fairly well until the end. Last weekend I finished the binding, and when I put it up on my design wall for a photograph I realized the corners were not square. Really not square. It was a lovely rhomboid parallelogram. Because I have different prescriptions in each lens of my glasses, when I take my glasses off the world looks a bit un-square (which drives my OCD side nuts). But my glasses were on. I checked the quilt corners against the grid on my cutting mat, and there was no denying it. The quilt was not square. This was the widest Interleave quilt in the series and I realized that the longer the strips, the more room there is for the fabric to stretch as I sew – and I hadn't noticed until that point that there was actually quite a bit of skew. I pondered the problem over night and the next day ended up removing the binding and vertical borders so I could square it up. Fortunately, I had used Aurifil 50 weight thread for piecing, which made the un-piecing a snap (my new favorite (un)piecing thread – really nice thin thread with low lint that doesn't break while sewing but so easy to rip out without tearing your fabric when the situation calls for it). I reattached the borders and the binding and finally could declare it finished.
I already wrote up a little artist's statement, which the CMU advancement folks had a designer incorporate into a little booklet to accompany the quilt. I will just include the statement here for those of you who want to learn more about the quilt. I've also included some bonus images so you can see how it was made.
Artist's Statement
At first glance the Frank-Ratchye STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University appears like a good place for a computer science professor, but an odd place for a quilter. I am both a quilter and a CMU computer science and engineering professor who is spending my sabbatical as a fellow at the STUDIO.
While other faculty and students in the STUDIO spend the day creating new concepts from behind computer screens, I set up shop with an old sewing machine, an ironing blanket, a cutting mat and a huge pile of colorful fabric. At the beginning of my fellowship, I smiled politely every time someone suggested ways of attaching the old sewing machine to a robotic arm, and spent days with needle and thread hand quilting colorful lines.
Hand quilting is a process that offers one a lot of time to think, and I did spend a lot of time thinking about the art and craft of quilting, and how I might use technology in my work. For most of my piecing and quilting, I use a sewing machine, which was fairly sophisticated technology when it was invented about 200 years ago. My most recently purchased sewing machine is actually called a "sewing computer" by its manufacturer, and it has some innovative features such as a sensor that can detect the speed at which the operator is moving a piece of fabric so that the machine can automatically adjust the speed at which the needle goes up and down.
I appreciate the added value that technology can bring to my art, enabling me to create in ways that would be difficult or impossible for me unassisted. But it is not my goal to use technology to eliminate the need for me to participate in the fabrication process. Part of my attraction to quilting and fiber arts is the tactile nature of the medium. For me, part of the fun is manipulating fabric and thread with my hands. I want to use technology to enhance my skills – let me sew straighter, faster, better – or, better yet, to let me create in ways I otherwise could not.
STUDIO director Golan Levin suggested the use of digital technology that was necessary for me to create this quilt. When I started my Interleave series of quilts, I sketched the quilt designs in pencil and did some design experimentation with scissors and paper. As I started to design the third quilt in the series, I began using Microsoft PowerPoint to sketch out some ideas involving sine waves. It was a tedious process as PowerPoint was really not the right tool for the job.
Golan saw what I was doing and suggested I write a program using an arts engineering toolkit called Processing to draw my design. As a computer scientist, I wasn't previously familiar with Processing, which was developed by artists, for artists, and is taught in CMU's undergraduate art classes. The program I wrote allowed me to generate the sorts of designs I had been struggling with, and it included sliders to allow me to experiment with sine waves of different frequencies and amplitudes. Using this program, I was able to rapidly iterate through large numbers of design possibilities before selecting one to actually fabricate. I did some engineering to figure out how to actually construct the quilt I designed, and then adapted my program to produce full-scale templates that I could print on paper and use to cut out my fabric.
Each quilt in the Interleave series uses a variation on the technique I described, but each includes a new twist on the approach. For Interleave #6, the new twist was the inclusion of a photograph digitally printed on fabric. After considering a variety of photo ideas, I chose a photo I took in Porto, Portugal in 2009 while on a short trip with some of my colleagues to attend a meeting for the Carnegie Mellon Portugal program. Although I was there for less than three days, I managed to meet the Prime Minister José Sócrates as well as experience the city's São João festival. Walking around the city, I took lots of pictures with my DSLR camera.
Porto is a wonderfully photogenic city, full of hundreds-of-years-old apartments with bright red-orange roofs. The city also has amazing staircases, some of which appear on maps as roads. The Duoro River runs through the city, with tall bridges stretching across it. The view of the Ribeira district from across the river is particularly spectacular, and affords a view of layer upon layer of buildings built into the steep hillside. It is a photo of this view that I selected for the Interleave #6 quilt.
Before printing the photo on fabric, I manipulated it in several ways, including increasing the color vibrancy and saturation. Additionally, I created three versions of the photo at varying degrees of pixilation. Then I used my Processing program to interleave the three versions in a sine wave formation and to leave space for splicing in batik fabrics. Next, I adjusted the end result so it could be printed on fabric complete with guides for cutting and splicing. Since I wasn't entirely sure I had calculated everything properly, before having the fabric printed at spoonflower.com, I did a trial run with paper to reassure myself that it would work as I envisioned. When the fabric finally arrived in the mail I cut it up and sewed it back together, layered with a foundation grid, batting and backing fabric. The final touch was some hand embroidery for added texture and emphasis.
The quilt is designed to show a view of Porto at various levels of focus, granularity, and abstraction. If you look at the quilt up close the pixelated sections appear mostly as abstract regions of color. On the other hand, you can see the un-pixelated sections most clearly, although they are rippled, as if reflected off water. The ripples are both a design choice, and an artifact of the medium – fabric stretches as it is sewn, so perfect alignment is difficult to achieve.
Step back from the quilt until you are too far away to see the un-pixelated sections clearly, and now the pixelated sections start coming into focus. Step back further and the larger pixelated sections convey meaning. The batik fabric sections appear as regions of color taken from the scene: the most abstract representation, color without meaningful shape. I began playing with pixelated images in my earlier quilts as I explored visual representations of privacy, and have continued to use this technique, even when privacy is not the main focus of a piece.
I've got a thing going with these Interleave quilts, and now I even have a source of fabric with (almost) precise quarter-inch grid lines for easy foundation piecing of long thin strips. After a couple of unsuccessful attempts to find commercial fabric with precise quarter-inch or half-inch stripes or checks, I gave up and created my own on spoonflower.com. You can buy it too. At $17.50/yard for basic combed cotton it is a bit pricey for fabric you will never see in your finished quilt. But if you want to piece narrow strips, this will save you hours of time. Full disclosure: if you buy it I get some royalties. All proceeds will go to support my spoonflower habit. You can see how I used the grid fabric as I pieced the quilt in the photo below. The orange fabric at the bottom is the backing fabric. It was one of the striped fabrics I auditioned and rejected for being too far off from quarter-inch stripes.
For those of you who are wondering why I care so much about precise quarter-inch stripes, quilters tend to piece their quilts with quarter-inch seam allowances. That means the stitching is always a quarter inch from the edge of the fabric. I have a special foot for my sewing machine with a guide that makes easier to do. So if you cut one-inch strips of fabric and piece them with a quarter-inch seam allowance on each side, you get a precise half-inch strip of fabric showing on the front of the quilt. This turns out to work out really well for the Interleave series because the alternating strips occupy the space of the turned under seam allowance of the adjacent strips. You can do this piecing without a foundation and just line up each strip by aligning it with the previous strip. However, I find that cutting long thin strips with perfect precision is difficult, so I am much better off if I align the strips to a pre-marked grid.
So, armed with a couple of yards of "quarter-inch-grid" fabric, I made another Interleave quilt last week. Unlike the other quilts in this series, for this one I made two panels with different numbers of vertical fabric strips. For example, Interleave #4 and Interleave #5 both started with four vertical strips in each panel, while Interleave #3 started with five. Using the same number of strips as well as the same amplitude and frequency for the sine wave shift provides a nice, regular pattern. For Interleave #7, I went for a more chaotic approach and used five strips in one panel and four in the other. There is still an illusion of curved shapes, but these shapes are all different sizes and an interesting five-four rhythm.
This quilt is made entirely from commercial batik fabrics. These are all multi-colored pinks, yellows, and oranges, which provide a rich texture. Two of the fabrics are cool ombre gradient fabrics that change color intensity from top to bottom (look for the yellow wave on the left that starts medium yellow, shifts to pale lemon, and then to cheddar; to the right is a pink wave that starts out cherry red near the top and fades to pale pink).
With the exception of Interleave #2, I did not add any quilting beyond the quilt-as-you-go quilting that is part of the piecing process (since I piece these quilts by sewing the strips directly to a foundation fabric layered over batting, layered over backing fabric). But this time around I decided to add free motion machine quilting as well as a bit of hand embroidered stipples and french knots. The quilting ads some additional depth and also highlights some of the shapes that emerge from the chaos. Click on the photo to the left to see the quilting up close.
Some of you may have observed that I haven't said anything about Interleave #6. Quite true! Interleave #6 is still a work in progress. I started working on #7 while waiting for some Spoonflower fabric to arrive for #6. Also, #6 was commissioned as a gift, so I won't be blogging about it until after it is presented to the recipient later this month.
Some time in April a VIP visitor came to the STUDIO to talk with Golan, accompanied by an entourage of folks from CMU public relations and our central administration. While Golan entertained the visitor, members of the entourage wandered around the STUDIO, where they happened to find me surrounded by bright colorful things, working on Interleave #4. I introduced myself and showed them what I was doing. They were intrigued by the Processing program I was using to generate quilt designs, as well as the dozen or so colorful printouts of candidate quilt designs scattered on my desk. They started asking questions. Could I design a quilt like this with a CMU theme? I assured them I could come up with something. They told me they might be interested in commissioning such a quilt and would get back to me. A couple weeks later they sent me email, and asked me to describe a CMU themed quilt I might design with the Processing program. Then they asked for a mockup. They liked what they saw and I got the commission – with a very tight deadline. I got to work right away.
I had promised an Interleave quilt that would represent art and technology being woven together into the fabric of Carnegie Mellon. My design featured sine waves and CMU's tartan fabric, which appears on graduation hoods and all sorts of official university paraphernalia. Plaid is a tricky fabric to work with, and many a hideous design has been created with CMU's tartan plaid. I was determined to conquer the plaid. I headed to the campus store to purchase some. It turns out they sell both wool and flannel versions by the yard. I bought a yard of each. I could always make a kilt or pajamas out of whichever fabric I don't use for the quilt.
I assembled panels of tartan and "solid" batiks and prepared to construct the quilt. From the previous Interleave quilts, I had learned that it really helps to to draw half-inch lines on a foundation fabric and line the strips up with the fabric for quilting. But it is difficult and tedious to draw so many parallel lines on fabric, so I tried to find striped fabric with half-inch or quarter-inch spacing. I asked for advice from some of my favorite online fabric stores but ultimately came up empty handed. I'm sure such a fabric is out there somewhere, but I have been unable to find it (but stay tuned….). So I marked the foundation by hand, and layered it over a sheet of batting and a cute apple print fabric I had in my stash.
The quilt construction proceeded similarly to the previous Interleave quilts. I decided to give this one a border, like a picture frame. I added a half-inch black border and a 1.5-inch tartan border. The tartan border was overwhelming so I trimmed it back to an inch for a much more pleasing effect.
After completing the quilt I photographed it. Fran Flaherty in the CMU Digital Arts Studio made 50 prints of the digital image on 11×14 archival paper. Perry Beck at the CMU art store cut 50 mats. And I hand numbered and signed 50 prints. And then Fran made 50 certificates of authenticity and I signed those too.
This past weekend the quilt was presented to Maureen Cohon, wife of the outgoing CMU president. Mrs. Cohon gave the matted prints to the partners of the board of trustee members who participated in her "partners program."
After I finished this project (a few days early even), I took some of the scraps from the tartan quilt and some other recent projects and improv pieced a couple of small quilts for my two graduating PhD students.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Search for "Candy" Sweepstakes
Found 6 total
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So grab your phone or camera and get snapping—you may just be our next winner! #vitamincandy #JAKEvitamincandy
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Disclaimer: "Sailor Moon", "Silver Surfer", and other genres belong to their respective owners.
Note: This is a semi-fusion, crossover story.
Special note: This "universe" combines the BSSM with that of the DC Comics and Marvel Comics worlds (as the main ones).
In a different time and place, a man would be chosen to sacrifice his very identity and existence to prevent the devouring of his homeworld by Galactus, "The Cosmic Destroyer". Norrin Rand, re-made by Galactus, he would become his herald. This herald, known as "The Silver Surfer", would lead his master to other worlds. Only the kindness of a blind woman named Alicia Masters, and Earth woman, and friend to the costumed adventurers "The Fantastic Four", would allow the 'Surfer to reject his programming, and thus become a champion of all sentient beings in the universe.
But what if Galactus had come to Earth earlier, before Norrin had became the herald of Galactus? What if the Cosmic Destroyer had arrived during the time of the Silver Millennium?
Let's find out, shall we?
Queen Serenity of the Moon Kingdom sat on her throne. Her court advisors had given her the bad news about their "guest".
"Your Highness," Sailor Pluto said, as she stepped forth. "There is very little we can do to stop this 'Galactus' without risking the safety of our people."
Serenity sighed.
"Then, I have no choice but to use the 'Silver Millennium Crystal'."
Oh, no! Princess Serena said, as she overheard her mother and Pluto from behind the throne room. She knew that if her mother the Queen used her crystal, it could mean her death, even though it was one of the few objects in the universe that could defeat Galactus. She had to do something to prevent her mother's death.
"Princess, you shouldn't be here," said a voice.
Serena turned to see her mother's advisor, Luna d' Mus. At the moment, Luna was in her humanoid form.
"I…I'm just worried about the situation with the Cosmic Destroyer," Serena replied.
"Come, let us go to your chambers and wait for your mother's decision."
Serena nodded, as she turned to leave. She was determined to figure out a way out of this situation.
Late that night, Serena rose from her bed. She was dreaming about the death and destruction of her people. She dreamt about how her advisors and protectors would be forced to sacrifice their lives for her. Most importantly, she dreamt that both her mother and her beloved Prince Endymeon of Atlantis would die a horrible death.
"No, there has to be another way," Serena said to herself. "There has to be."
And with that, Princess Serena left her chambers, and took the royal space craft that was moored near the palace. Maybe she could make an appeal to Galactus to seek sustenance elsewhere.
A short time later…
Galactus sat on his throne with amusement. Here was a slip of a girl trying to plead for the lives of her people. He wondered why he didn't just consume her right then and there, since the girl was a living battery of power.
"Please, sir, spare my people!" Serena begged. "Take me for compensation if you must."
Galactus thought for a moment.
"I CONSTANTLY NEED TO FEED ON PLANETS," Galactus boomed. Being 60 feet tall made the entity an imposing figure. "STILL, YOUR ENERGY WILL BE SUFFECIENT ENOUGH TO SPARE YOUR HOMEWORLD."
"Then for sake of my people, I will sacrifice my life."
If Galactus still had a heart, he would have been touched by the girl's willingness to sacrifice her life. Maybe, just maybe she is the one who can redeem him.
Serena thought for a moment.
"I agree to your conditions…sir."
Serena found herself floating in the air before Galactus. Galactus then, gently, cupped the Moon Princess in his hands. He then began to link his life force with that of the girl's.
Serena felt her very self being transmogrified. Everything about her was being transformed, as she became one with the Cosmic Destroyer. And when it was over, Serena was transformed into…
…the SILVER SAILOR MOON!
The 'Moon appeared to appear all in shiny silver, including her hair. Her hair, tied in a dumpling style, was like silk. However, instead of flesh and hair, the Moon's "skin" was made out of an alloy of Galactus' choosing. A small crescent moon glowed on her forehead, while a large crescent was etched on the girl's chest, while roses were etched on her forearms. On her back, wings were etched on her skin, giving Serena an elaborate tattoo.
(A/N: Basically, Serena looks like a silver version of a television Emmy.)
Serena's eyes glowed softly, as the 'Moon resigned herself to her fate. Still, with her life force linked with Galactus's, the Cosmic Destroyer doesn't have to feed on planets as often as he usually does.
However, there was one more thing that the Moon Princess had to do…
"Where is she?" Queen Serenity yelled, as she frantically searched for her daughter.
"It's my fault," Luna lamented. "I should have been there for her-"
Standing before the Queen was the silver form of the Silvery Sailor Scout.
"Mother," the 'Moon said, as she floated down to the queen. "I've come to say good-bye."
"What happened to you?" Serenity asked.
"Galactus will no longer be a threat. You all will be safe."
Sailor Pluto steps forth.
"Princess, you cannot do this. You will be needed in the future."
"Perhaps, but Galactus is a bigger concern. I'm sorry."
And with that, Serena disappeared in a flash of light.
"Serena? Serena!"
For the next five thousand years, the Silver Sailor Moon performed her job as the herald of Galactus well. She saved countless lives, as she scoured the universe looking for planets for her master to consume. She did meet some people from her old home over the years, like the Evolutionary, the Celestials, Hercules of Olympus, Thor of Asgard, , the Justice League, the Avengers, the Fantastic Four, Superman, the Green Lantern Alan Scott and Hal Jordan, Adam Warlock and many others. She has helped these heroes as much as she could, so long as they did not interfere in her missions. In turn, she would be invited to visit Earth. However, Serena was reluctant to go home for a visit, out of a sense of shame and guilt.
Sadly, Serena was unable to prevent the destruction of the Moon Kingdom after all. Queen Serenity, distraught over her missing daughter, was not strong enough to prevent its destruction at the hands of the Negaverse. In effect, her people had died, leaving only the so-called "Blue Side of the Moon" as the only sign that the Moon Kingdom has ever existed.
Sigh, Serena thought, as she admired the view of the pulsars. She was lonely, even though Galactus was her only constant companion.
"Princess Serena…"
Serena blinked, as she stared at the holographic image of Sailor Pluto. Pluto had been watching over Serena for years, until it was time to actively intervene.
"Pluto, it's been a while."
"That it has," Pluto responded. "Princess, you are needed on Earth."
Serena turned away.
"How could I? I'm all alone."
"No, you're not."
Serena looks at Pluto.
"What do you mean?"
"Our people have been reincarnated. And the ones who destroyed them have returned."
Serena thought for a moment.
"Then, I guess I have to return home, then."
And with that, Sailor Pluto's image disappeared.
Serena stood up from her asteroid. Since she has just fed Galactus, then she'll have some time for herself. Perhaps…perhaps she can make amends after all. Thus, the Silver Sailor Moon took off for home.
At the same time, in the netherworld, an old enemy looks his foe through a viewing globe.
So, Scout, Mephisto the Deceiver thought. You decided to pay a visit your old world after all.
Mephisto was an entity from a time when "the Old Gods" roamed the cosmos. In fact, both he and Gaia, the Earth guardian, were members of this illustrious group, having survived the destruction of what would one day become "New Genesis" and "Apocalypse", the homes of "the New Gods". Mephisto has been trying to collect the souls of his victims for years, using various guises to do so. That is, until he ran into the Silvery Sailor Scout. So far, Mephisto has received one defeat after another at the hands of the Moon Princess.
"I think it's time to be a bit more pro-active," Mephisto says with an evil grin. "I would think that my sister Metallia will need my help in resurrecting the supremacy of her Negaverse."
Earth: New York, New York.
Steve Rogers, also known as "Captain America", was working out, when Jervis the Butler informs him that he has a visitor. Steve was shocked as to who that visitor was.
"Moon, I didn't think you would accept the Avengers' invitation to join us," Steve says.
"I am not," Serena replied. "However, I am willing to be at your disposal while I am here on Earth."
"Fair enough. So, what can I do for you?"
Serena asks Steve if he could arrange to have a secret identity during her stay, so that she could best interact with humans.
"Well, that could be arranged, but based upon your appearance-"
Serena now appeared to be a normal looking girl. Her cosmic level powers allowed her to alter her appearance at will.
Steve smiles.
"I'll see what I can do."
A week later, Serena Moonchild arrives at Narita International Airport. It's been arranged that she would live with the Tsukino family as a foreign exchange student from New York.
"Hello!" Ken Tsukino says, as he greeted his guest, along with his wife and son.
"Welcome to Japan!" Ikuko, Ken's wife, exclaims.
Serena smiled. Maybe her mission will be a success after all.
Tbc? Basically, this is Sailor Moon as "the Silver Surfer", set during the first season of Sailor Moon. Also, who should be Serena's love interest? Remember, even though she is 5000 years old, her experiences with humans are limited (think of her as a mature teenager). Later!


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"From wherever you stood, the opposing side offered respectable, credible views. In today's fractured culture the evening struck a blow for civility."
- The Huffington Post
By Benjamin Wittes — September 11, 2011
On September 7, 2011, Intelligence Squared held a debate at New York University on whether it was time to "end the war of terror." Given the ten year anniversary of… more
By Christopher Robbins — September 09, 2011
What does "The War on Terror" mean? Is it the legal authority granted to the president by Congress to use all "necessary and appropriate force" against the people, countries or… more
By Asad Hashim — September 08, 2011
Is it time to end the 'War on Terror'? That was the motion under debate on Wednesday night in New York City, as the Intelligence Squared Debate series brought experts… more
By Max Boot — September 08, 2011
As the war on terror—or whatever we're calling it this week—approaches its tenth anniversary, much of the popular analysis is founded on the premise that, following Osama bin Laden's death… more
By Morning Joe — September 07, 2011
Former CIA director Michael Hayden and the Boston Globe's Juliette Kayyem hold opposing viewpoints on the value of continuing the War on Terror. They both join Morning Joe to discuss… more


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I am not African because I was born in Africa but because Africa was born in me
– Kwame Nkrumah
We at Justice Africa are working with African institutions, interest groups
and individuals with the common aim of seeking solutions to the continent's governance challenges.
Justice Africa was founded in London in 1999 by four longstanding advocates for peace and human rights: Tajudeen Abdul-Raheem, Yoanes Ajawin, Paulos Tesfagiorgis and Alex de Waal. Their vision was to undertake research into the underlying causes of human rights violations and to campaign for policy changes.
Justice Africa established an innovative approach, looking beyond documentation and legalistic prescription; it built on the work of a series of existing and previous organisations. READ MORE
A collection of thoughts, opinions, and ideas expressed by various South Sudanese citizens, members of civil society and government bodies. Read More


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Amirim Vacation Packages
Amirim is the perfect place to stay while you are in Tiberias - Galilee as a large number of the area's most popular attractions are within easy reach. Two attractions that should top every visitor's to-do list is the fabulous Mount of Beatitudes and the much-loved Tabgha. If you have time, don't miss Capernaum and Tel Hazor.
Sports fanatics vacationing in Amirim should get tickets for Doha Stadium, Akko to see the Bnei Sakhnin playing visiting rivals. On match days follow the sea of red and white, to the stadium, then after the full-time hooter blows, join fellow sports lovers in the nearby pubs and relive the action over a friendly drink or two.
After spending the day taking in the sights around Amirim, stay the night in one of the area's popular bed-and-breakfasts, hotels or short-stay apartments. For a good night's sleep check out the Leonardo Plaza Hotel Tiberias, the Leonardo Hotel Tiberias, and the Astoria Galilee Hotel.


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Maritime Today
The Maritime Industry's original and most viewed E-News Service
Today the Baltic Shipyard in St Petersburg (part of United Shipbuilding Corporation) laid the keel of Ural, Project 22220's second series-produced nuclear icebreaker.
Russia's sixth Yasen-class nuclear submarine will be laid down at the Sevmash ship-building company in the city of Severodvinsk on July 29, reports RIA Novosti.
Marking its seventh ship delivery in the span of just over a year, General Dynamics NASSCO has delivered the newly built ECO Class tanker Garden State for American Petroleum Tankers.
Radio Holland, a global NavCom and service company in the maritime industry, said it has concluded a maintenance and remote monitoring agreement with The China
BMT Designers & Planners, a subsidiary of BMT Group, an international maritime design, engineering and risk management consultancy, is leading the effort to repower the historic U.
With an increasing trend for thruster and rudder manufacturers finishing their products with self-cleaning protective hard coatings, Antwerp headquartered Subsea


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This question has to do specifically with the flumph from the Monster Manual. Its Tendrils attack applies a damaging effect that remains until it is saved against. My question is can the effect be applied multiple times or is it restricted to the simple 1d4 acid damage? If it can be applied multiple times, are the saving throws applied individually like most effects or does one successful save remove them all?
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