Home Improvement ? Covet Living

If you read this post or this post, you know I?m on a mission to get our sweet little rental house spiffed up for summer, and for my own sanity. ?I?ve had 99 unfinished projects just hangin? out since I moved in last June. ?So, last night?s weeknights consisted of a lot of painting, sewing, rearranging and tweaking. ?You?ll see these pics and think I spray painted my entire house in gold and decorated in lilac, but they?re just accents. ?The walls are all pale, airy colors with a neutral upholstery. ?Here she blows, en photos:

GUEST ROOM

Wall Color: Sherwin Williams Opaline

Floral Pillow: Schumacher Pyne Hollyhock Print in Tobacco ($92 a yard? ?Yeah right! ?I just used the $5 swatch I ordered and made an 18?18 pillow.)

Otomi Fabric: This was a table runner I got in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. ?Cut it in two, backed in linen, made into 2 oblong pillows.

Charcoal & White Shams: ?Calico Corners Cross Section Charcoal ? $17.99/yard

Bench: ?I reupholstered?this guy I?ve had for awhile (reupholstered = staple-gunned). ?Gold spray paint. ?Lilac Fabric from eBay. ?Duvet from Goodwill, $2.

Bedskirt: eBay burlappy-linen I?ve had for years that I just tucked between the box spring and mattress and hand pleated it. ?Idea via Rachel Halvorson.

COFFEE TABLE UPGRADE

I snagged this sweet gold tray at the Eclectiques Antique Mall for $25 bones in my ?hood. ?She?s PERFECT with peonies in a Ball Jar and plenty o?literature. ?PS, look who just haaaad to be in the shot. ?What up, Gus?!

DINING CHAIRS, RE-DID

Antique Louis XVI Dining Chairs: purchased YEARS ago in Charleston. ?Gold spray paint. ?Cestlaviv Lattice in Raspberry Linen, $27/yard. ?I cheated and didn?t *fully* reupholster these guys; I just upholstery-pinned them in, since I think I was still pinning them as weekend guests were rolling into the driveway. ?#whoops

DINING ROOM PILLOWS SEWN? ?FINALLY.

(Is it sewed or sewn? ??ah whatever.)

Pillow Fabric: Lee Jofa/Threads, via Shannon Darby at Designer?s Attic. ?I made (2) 18?18 pillows out of 1 yard for $50. ?Wanted to use it EVERYWHERE.

Rug: Rugs USA Windsor Overdyed in Violet. ?50% off right now, and also awesome in Turquoise.

Settee: World Market Hayden Linen Banquette. ?Got it on super sale a few months back.

Wall Color: ?Benjamin Moore Hushed Hue. ?It?s a good, pale greige neutral with the faintest, palest hint of green.

OUR FIRST BIT OF PRESS, FINALLY FRAMED. ?IT?S ONLY BEEN 3 YEARS.

I will never forget the day in 2010 when I got the most gracious email from House Beautiful Editor-in-Chief (and now Hearst Design Group?s Editor-in-Chief)?Newell Turner. ?I don?t think I let out a little pee, I think I let out the whole tank of pee when I saw it in my inbox. ?He proceeded to say that he?d just spent 45 minutes perusing Covet Living, and thought it was ?fresh, fun, and original.? ?Then I proceeded to ask him to keep us in mind if they had any upcoming features we could contribute to. ?And so they did (!) ?That entertaining spread is MONEY ? 101 genius ideas from Celebrity Party Planners like Colin Cowie, Celebrity Designers like Kelly Wearstler & Miles Redd, and then Blogger Muggles, like us perched at Tip #59.? I still keep a copy of it in my kitchen cabinet. ?READ ?EM ALL HERE.

ENTRY TABLE

A sweet little addition to the entry table, with the happiest photo ever taken from a wedding last year. ?Notice our tongues are out in unison. ?What a coupla nerds!

Frame: Preppy Patterns Jodie Picture Frame from Joss & Main

Lamps: Vintage Gerald Thurston for Lightolier

Curtains: I made these out of this fabric I saw on Young House Love. ?I called the store and scored the rest of the bolt for $9.99/yard.

It?s gettin? there! ?Hope you guys have a great rest of the week ? Happy Hump Day!

xoxo,

Source: http://covetliving.com/diy/home-improvement/

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'Dancing With the Stars' reveals its final 4

TV

Anna Chan TODAY

15 minutes ago

ABC

It was the end of the road to mirror ball glory for Kym Johnson and Ingo Rademacher on Tuesday.

On the night of its 300th episode, "Dancing With the Stars" revealed its season 16 finalists with little fanfare. But what was there to celebrate, really? Just earlier in the day, ABC had announced that next season, the very results show that aired Tuesday night would be a thing of the past, wrapped into a two-hour extravaganza that will take place only on Mondays. (Not that "DWTS" addressed this development.)

But the (existing) show must go on, so the ballroom bash drummed up what little drama it could with the couples it put under the spotlights of shame: "General Hospital" actor Ingo Rademacher and partner Kym Johnson, and Disney star Zendaya and pro Valentin Chmerkovskiy. Yes, Zendaya, the teen who has ruled the scoreboard since the first day of the season, was in jeopardy.

When the in-studio audience heard the news, their boos were long and loud. After all, Monday's senseless scoring had possibly contributed to her current predicament. After delivering a high-speed quickstep that wasn't quite as good as she usually is (and it certainly wasn't bad), Zendaya received a smackdown from the judges in the form of a 25-point score. That was just 1 point higher than Ingo's sloppy samba that happened to be his best dance of the season.

But the teen didn't need to worry for long. As the show prepared to the reveal the results, co-host Brooke Burke noted that the couples awaiting their fates were "not necessarily the bottom two." (You don't say!) The results were as many -- including Ingo -- had predicted: The soap star had fallen just one week shy of the finale.

"If I don?t go home ... somebody else is going to be very upset," Ingo had told the cameras after Monday's performance show.

The soap star was gracious in his exit. "This has been an amazing experience because I thought I?d be done in like, two weeks," he said after his elimination. "Kym has choreographed the most amazing routines and catered them to my two left feet."

As for the final four of Zendaya, Kellie Pickler, Aly Raisman and Jacoby Jones, "I really want to see them battle it out because I think it?s really close competition," Ingo said.

That finale battle next week will have three rounds of competition, including what host Tom Bergeron called a "supersized freestyle," as well as "all sorts of tricks."

Source: http://www.today.com/entertainment/dancing-stars-reveals-its-final-4-1C9928674

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Google's Map Dive takes us on a virtual skydive across seven instances of Chrome (video)

During Google's extended edition opening keynote this morning, there was a distinctive lack of skydiving. However, developers showed off lots of interesting things, including functionality highlighting the easy, real-time syncing of data across multiple instances of the Chrome browser -- whether on smartphone or tablet or desktop. The on-stage demo was a simple slot car racing game but, out on the I/O floor Google had a somewhat more advanced implementation: Map Dive. Running on seven separate instances of Chrome and relying on a 3D camera, Map Dive lets you experience the Maps API from a rather elevated perspective. Join us after the break for an arm-waving demo.

Gallery: Map Dive at Google I/O

Filed under: Internet, Google

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Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/jMFcdd2IZZg/

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Nokia Lumia 925 hands-on (update: video)

At Nokia's London launch event, we've just managed to spend a bit of time with the gray version of the 4.5-inch Lumia 925. If you felt its polycarbonate predecessor was a little unwieldy in dimensions or weight, you might be pleased with what Nokia's crafted here. Its new Windows Phone flagship marks the company's return to metal-bodied smartphones, and in the process, it's become both lighter and thinner. This isn't a marginal shedding of a few grams, either -- there's a noticeable difference when compared to the Lumia 920. Likewise, the smaller frame makes the Lumia 920 feel all of a sudden rather chunky. Despite the slimmer lines, Nokia keeps the internal specifications largely the same, so you're getting an identical dual-core 1.5GHz processor and 1GB of RAM, although this time there's only 16GB of storage -- sacrifices had to be made somewhere, we guess.

Imaging-wise, and yes, it's still all about the camera with Nokia, there's the same 8.7-megapixel camera sensor from the 920 model, although Nokia says it's made countless improvements to noise-reduction algorithms and other inner workings. While the hardware has remained mostly unchanged, the company's gone to town on the camera app, moving beyond the Windows Phone Lens system to craft a new Smart Cam interface. Our favorite part here is the ability to leap straight into it instead of the standard camera app. Once we set it up within the app itself, it launched just as swiftly as the regular option. Performance, in general, was identical to what we've experienced on both the 928 and 920 (the same processor will do that), keeping up with our task transitions and web-browsing tests. We're putting the finishing touches to our hands-on video, but you can find more impressions on the hardware (and that Smart Cam) after our gallery and the break.

Update: Now with video!

Gallery: Nokia Lumia 925 hands-on

Filed under: Cellphones, Mobile, Nokia

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Source: http://www.engadget.com/2013/05/14/nokia-lumia-925-hands-on/?utm_medium=feed&utm_source=Feed_Classic&utm_campaign=Engadget

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DiCaprio's wildlife charity auction brings in $38.8 million

By Patricia Reaney

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Actor Leonardo DiCaprio and Christie's auction house raised $38.8 million through a charity art auction and donations, Christie's said on Tuesday, with proceeds to benefit environmental and conservation causes.

The 33 works in The 11th Hour Auction organized by the star of the new film "The Great Gatsby" sold for $31.74 million on Monday evening and set 13 records for artists including Carol Bove, Joe Bradley, Mark Grotjahn, Raymond Pettibon and Mark Ryden among others.

A $5 million matching donation for three of the lots and additional gifts from donors brought the overall total to $38.8 million for The Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation, according to Christie's.

"All I can say is thank you, thank you, thank you," DiCaprio told the audience at the end of the auction.

Many of the works, which were created for and donated to the auction by the artists, sold in spirited bidding in a packed auction house. Art collectors from around the globe also placed bids by telephone.

"Christie's is thrilled with the exceptional results of the sale, which realized $38.8 million," said Loic Gouzer, international specialist at Christie's and the head of the sale.

"The works of art were of incredible quality and range, and highlight the generosity of the many artists who donated," he added.

A panel of environmental experts and the Leonardo DiCaprio Foundation will decide which conservation projects will benefit from the proceeds of the sale.

At the opening of the auction, DiCaprio, who has supported environmental issues through his foundation since 1988 and also produced and narrated the 2007 documentary "The 11th Hour" about the state of the environment, urged the audience to dig deep into their pockets.

"Bid as if the fate of the planet depended on us," he said.

And they did. All of the 33 works were sold and many fetched prices that were three or four times their pre-sale estimates.

The top lot of the sale was an oil on cardboard mounted on canvas by Mark Grotjahn called "Untitled (Standard Lotus No. II, Bird of Paradise, Tiger Mouth Face 44.01)," which sold for $6.2 million as two determined bidders pushed up the price.

Zeng Fanzhi's "The Tiger," an oil on canvas, fetched nearly double its high estimate with a price of $4.8 million, and Bharti Kher's sculpture "The Skin Speaks a Language Not Its Own" went for $1.7 million.

Each of the three works had a pre-sale estimate of $1.5 million to $2.5 million.

DiCaprio donated "Ocean V" by Andreas Gursky, which sold for $600,000, and he bought an acrylic on canvas by Takashi Murakami for $700,000.

A portrait of DiCaprio painted by Elizabeth Peyton sold for $1 million.

Gouzer and DiCaprio had approached the artists and explained what they had hoped to accomplish with the auction, which they have been planning for a year.

"We explained that we wanted great works and they were very reactive because of the cause. The artists are very sensitive to the fact that we are destroying our planet," Gouzer said in an interview ahead of the sale.

(Reporting by Patricia Reaney; Editing by Vicki Allen)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/dicaprio-christies-raise-32-mln-auction-environmental-causes-032022408.html

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Does Your Insect Repellent Repel Insects?

Illlustration by Mark Alan Stamaty

It was a long winter for many of us, so the return to warm weather makes upcoming plans for barbecues and picnics sound all the sweeter. Those outdoor activities, of course, come with an itchy, harsh reality: mosquitoes and ticks, as well as the nasty illnesses they spread. How should you protect yourself? Your well-meaning, chemical-fearing friends may push their 100% All-Natural-Chemical-Free-EPA-Approved! insect repellent on you. These balms sound so safe and appealingly natural, and they may have a fresh scent of lemongrass and peppermint. But do they work? Here?s what you need to know.

In the United States, there are two categories of insect repellents: those that are registered and those that are not. The Environmental Protection Agency regulates the distribution, use, and sale of all insect repellents, along with all other pesticides. For registered products, this means that any company that would like to sell a particular pesticide must hand over a slew of safety and efficacy data to the EPA. If the data are sufficient, the EPA registers a label for that product specifying exactly where and how it can be used.

For certain products, there is a loophole?specifically, for those all-natural bug sprays that your well-meaning friend is pressing into your hand at the picnic.

In 1996 the EPA exempted 31 pesticide ingredients from registration, in part to make it easier for companies to bring related products to market. These minimum-risk pesticides, as they?re called, are ?demonstrably safe for the intended use? and mainly include foods and essential oils such as citronella, cloves, and mint. Because the EPA has already deemed these ingredients safe, the agency doesn?t need to see related safety data for each new product that includes them. The trouble is, the agency doesn?t require efficacy data either. ?

Many exempt products boast ?EPA-Approved? on their labels, which is a little misleading. For safety, this is true. But this does not mean that the EPA says the products actually work.

(The EPA has a pilot program to potentially change its efficacy requirements for insect repellents in light of West Nile virus and other deadly illnesses. But an EPA representative told me the program has been in place for at least five years and there is ?no end in sight.?)

Of course, just because the EPA doesn?t require efficacy data doesn?t mean these ingredients fail to repel biting pests. But the science isn?t promising. Take citronella, among the most commonly sold exempt ingredients. Undiluted, citronella oil may repel mosquitoes for two hours. Common products with 5 percent to 15 percent concentrations, however, may last just 20 to 30 minutes, and other studies suggest citronella candles don?t offer much protection at all. Similar patterns show up for many ingredients on the list, if data even exist. While higher concentrations work best for some of these products, they are also more likely to cause irritation of the eyes, lungs, and skin.

Fixatives such as vanillin, which comes from vanilla bean, and encapsulated formulas, which cradle the ingredients in tiny spheres and release them more slowly, might help specific products last longer, as may mixtures of multiple exempt ingredients. Still, there is too much variation from one product to another to know for sure how well it will work and for how long.

You know what does work? DEET remains one of the most effective and long-lasting insect repellents available. The U.S. Army developed DEET in 1946, and it became commercially available in 1957. That means there is research spanning decades demonstrating that it is safe and effective. Most DEET-fearers, who are wary because it is a chemical (what they actually mean is that it is a synthetic chemical, one not occurring in nature), point to a handful of cases in the 1980s in which children exposed to the repellent suffered seizures. The link between DEET and the seizures remains unclear. The EPA reviewed DEET in 1998 and confirmed its safety, and more recent studies provide further support for its safety. (Of course, it is always important to follow label instructions and to not overuse any chemical, natural or synthetic.)

There are other options that may please everyone. Newer EPA-registered (not just approved) alternatives have proved to be nearly or as effective as DEET. One is picaridin, a synthetic version of piperine, the chemical that gives black pepper its kick; another is IR3535, a biopesticide based on the amino acid alanine that Europeans have used happily for many years and that the EPA approved for use the United States in 1999.

For full-on chemophobes who seek a registered product, there is lemon eucalyptus oil, which works as well as low concentrations of DEET and may last for up to six hours. For adventurous chemophobes, there is PMD, the synthetic version of lemon eucalyptus. Both are generally safe, although neither should be used on children under the age of 3 (just another example of the fact that natural doesn?t always equal benign).

Of course, there are those who will still tout the 100 percent all-natural repellents. They?re welcome to it. I, for one, as a resident of a region plagued with both West Nile virus and Lyme disease, will stick with science and use products with the ingredients recommended to protect against mosquitoes and ticks. Biting, disease-carrying arthropods don?t heed the all-natural fad. I won?t, either.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=4a7276a7df10bd9f9b003d95ff7edb79

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iOS 7 and my continued, unrequited desire for a Files.app!

Every year, for the last three years, I've asked Apple to consider what amounts to a Files.app and FilePicker control in iOS. It would be analogous to the Photos.app and ImagePicker control, but allow us to easily find, and easily open, all the documents we use on all our iPhones and iPads, every day. Now, on the eve of iOS 7, the need for better file handling -- not filesystem! -- remains, and if anything has become even more urgent. In a post-iCloud, post Steve Jobs and Scott Forstall world, how can Apple address it?

No filesystem but no real alternative

At the risk of making it obnoxiously clear, I don't think iOS needs a filesystem. Dropbox is a filesystem and while it's fantastic at what it does, it's the past, not the future. Apple doesn't seem to think iOS needs a filesystem either, but they haven't provided what's needed to make filesystems obsolete yet either. Hence, Dropbox. From Stuck between the Dropbox that was and the iCloud that isn't yet:

The [current iOS] architecture is unnecessarily dependent on apps. If I create a document in Text Editor 1, not only do I have to remember the document I created but, if I want to access it again, I also have to remember the app I created it in. If I later switch to a much better Text Editor 2, my document doesn't switch with me. I have to either copy and paste every document from Text Editor 1 into Text Editor 2, or keep a list of which documents are where. That's a non-trivial amount of cognitive overhead. If at some point I move on to Text Editor 3, or delete (or switch devices and don't re-install) Text Editor 1, it gets even worse. I have to track my documents over multiple access points, and perhaps even re-install old apps just to get back to the documents locked inside. It's a mess.

Decoupled, documents that present themselves to any app that supports editing their type, and apps that simply pull any document whose type they support, would be much simpler and better. A smart version of a document picker would remove the cognitive burden from users and let the system do all the heavy lifting.

Apple doesn't seem to think iOS needs a filesystem either, but they haven't provided what's needed to make filesystems obsolete yet either.

In a world with a Files.app, you'd just tap its icon on the Home screen, tap the type of document you want (the way you tap an album in Photos.app), and go to your document. Then you tap the document and choose where you want to open it. Conversely, you could open any document app -- text editor, presenter, spreadsheet, etc. -- tap the open button, and FilePicker would present you with every file (including iCloud files) that can be opened by that app. Again, with the ability to quickly filter to help with longer lists.

Faster still, you'd just type something in a search box and Spotlight would filter right to whatever you want.

Mapping Files to Photos

Back before iOS 6 launched, I did a series of mockups on how Files.app could map to Photos.app, FilePicker could map to ImagePicker, and File Stream could map to Photo Stream. From How Apple could provide direct document access in iOS 6:

We didn't get better file handling in iOS 6, however. We got Passbook, a repository for tickets, cards, coupons, boarding passes, and more. And not without reason. From iOS 6 and why we got Passbook instead of Files.app:

It's easy to see why Apple gave Passbook that attention as well -- mobile ecommerce is going to be huge. Billions of dollars huge.

It's already in use everywhere from Starbucks to Delta airlines, and it's built in such a way that when/if Apple embraces radio transactions (be it via NFC or something else), Passbook should handle it as gracefully as CoreLocation handles GPS vs. Wi-Fi mapping. It's good now and could be terrific in the future.

But file handling on iOS isn't even good now, and needs to be terrific. It's far more personal, and will drive far less revenue, but great file handling is the difference between an operating system being truly useful and truly frustrating. Android has intents and sharing, Windows Phone has contracts. There's whole levels of app interoperability that iOS lacks at the moment.

Finding the future

I've evolved my thinking on Files.app and FilePicker somewhat since the pre-iOS 6 days. A flat repository with search, for example, is more future-proof than any single layer of folders or albums. A much better, more robust, and more useful version of Spotlight that has "just type" functionality similar to what webOS had, and BlackBerry 10 is rolling out, with the ability to see into iCloud and Files.app, would go a long way to making things easier and faster.

Apple could no doubt figure inter-app communication and file handling and do just enough to provide that functionality without compromising security.

The same way Apple knew "I want multitasking" was really "I want Pandora, Skype, and TomTom to work while I'm on the phone or browsing the web", and did just enough to provide that functionality without compromising battery life, Apple could no doubt figure out "I want inter-app communication" is really "I want to open and send my files where and when I want to open and send them", and do just enough to provide that functionality without compromising security.

Multitasking had a small group of different API, and inter-app communication would certainly require similar to truly address current pain points. Files.app and FilePicker would just be part of that, but an important, highly user-facing part. BackBoard, XPC, there are a lot of ways Apple could choose to handle these problems. I just hope screaming fast, ubiquitous file access is front and center come keynote time.

Bottom line

Six years into the mobile revolution iOS started and we're still stuck at the gates when it comes to file handling on iPhone and iPad. With iCloud, the need only grew greater. With fresh blood in control of the product, perhaps this year we'll see some movement. Perhaps rolled into more robust inter-app communications, perhaps on its own. Either way, I've been asking for it for a long time, other technologists have been asking for it for a long time, and other apps have tried to fill the gap that only system software can really fill.

What say you? Will iOS 7 finally be the time and version when great file handling comes to iOS? And if it does, will it be in the form of Files.app and FilePicker, something more, or something else?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/TheIphoneBlog/~3/Z6t0V0I6dHc/story01.htm

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