Monday 31 August 2009

Google Translate now speaks 51 languages

We spend a lot of time thinking about how information travels around the globe. After all, there are Googlers living and working in dozens of countries — and we're pretty sure our products are used in many more. So we're familiar with the need to translate information across borders, and we've been working hard to build the technology to enable you to do just that. Today, we're excited to announce that we've added nine new languages to Google Translate: Afrikaans, Belarusian, Icelandic, Irish, Macedonian, Malay, Swahili, Welsh and Yiddish. That means that Google Translate now supports 51 languages and 2550 language pairs — including all 23 official EU languages.

The translation quality of these newest languages is still a little rough, but it will improve over time — and we're continuously working to improve quality for all languages supported by Google Translate. We're also working to integrate Google Translate into some of our other products; you can already translate emails within Gmail, webpages using Google Toolbar, RSS feeds in Google Reader and most recently, documents within Google Docs. For more information about Google Translate and these latest additions, check out our post on the Research Blog.

The Return of Victor's Ink

One of my favorite posts last year was my encounter with Victor, whose tattoos were numerous and wonderfully eclectic. The post was one of the first "tatalogs," as I call them, when a subject shares a multitude of their ink.

So, when I had just finished speaking with Austin about his sleeve, and saw a familiar face (and ink) hanging out in front of Fuse at the corner of 32nd and 7th, I ambled on over to say hi to Victor.

He had new tattoos, of course, and I soon had my camera out, adding to the tatalog.

I contacted him later to get the scoop on the work. Although he told me about it on the street, I didn't write any of it down, as I was too busy taking pictures. We've added five more pieces to the record here, and I'll let Victor narrate the rest:


The Divine Tattoo [just above his left wrist] was done by my cousin Ed Bonacore in the poconos. He is the only tattoo artist I really go to know. I trust him, he does good work. He works at this amazing shop in the Poconos called FUNHOUSE TATTOOING. The vibe there is cool from the colorful horror movie atmosphere, to all the artists and the friendly shop girl.

Anyway, I got the JOHN WATERS signature tattooed on [on my outer left forearm] last summer the day after I had met him with my best friend RUBY LAROCCA.


She got the same thing. She got him to sign his name to her arm as well! We make films and John Waters is one of our biggest influences so to have his mark on us for life is a reminder to keep making dangerous art.

I got the John Waters done at RED ROCKET TATTOO in NYC, I had to get it quick and fast so the autograph didn't fade. The artist's name slips my mind, but he was making a guest spot at that shop and he was originally from Texas. Red Rocket is one of the best shops in Manhattan.

So anyway, I got the autograph super big on my forearm, because in his movie Cecil B. Demented, all the characters get the favorite director tattooed on their arm. I though it would be pretty cool, to do that in real life, from the director that created that idea.

Back to Divine. Then I got the Divine tattoo because, how can't you love Divine. One of the greatest actors ever. I saw Pink Flamingos as a youngster, and I remember my parents talking about how this tranny was eating poop at the end of the film, and how they were all gagging watching the film! That got me really interested to say the least. And after Female Trouble, I know I would love anything these people collaborated on. I unfortunately cannot dig up Divine and get him to sign my arm, so [I] did a little portrait of him. He was a true artist, actor, performer, comedian, and I respect that.

Mink Stole, is also from the original DreamLand gang, and is in almost every John Waters film. She is amazing in Desperate Living, and when I met her, she was so sweet, so I figured with John Waters already inked into my arm, I would start the John Waters tribute arm. I met her at a horror convention in Baltimore, and one of the vendors was a tattoo artist, so I got the autograph, then got it tattooed and was able to show Mink by the next day. She was in shock.


The Taxi Driver tattoo [on my inner left wrist] was again done by my cousin Ed Bonacore...I have loved that movie forever, and think Travis Bickle [Robert De Niro's character] is the ultimate Anti-Hero. Its like an oil painting version of the shot at the end after he has killed all the pimps and scumbags in the brothel.

The quote on [the left side of] my ribs was also done by my cousin Eddie, but this is before he was in a shop.


It was done at this house after I had smoked a fat blunt and [was] high as a kite. It hurt a lot, my most painful tattoo. The side of the ribs hurts a lot because there no skin there, and every time the needle hits your skin, your ribs vibrate. It took 3 different sessions to do that tattoo. The quote is from a band called HUNCHBACK, that just split up. And it's from a song called "RED IS THE COLOR OF MY TRUE LOVES HAIR." When I saw the song live for the first time, I was convinced this would be my new favorite band. And I can honestly say, this is the best song ever performed live. It blew me away. And the lettering that was used is the font from THE WARRIORS. Another one of my favorite films!
So, there you have it, folks. Another block of Victor's tattoos! I can't wait to run into him again to see what's new!

Thanks once again to Victor for his generosity and sharing his ink with us here on Tattoosday!

Sunday 30 August 2009

A.J.'s Floral Ink

I ran into A.J. earlier this month, walking aling Seventh Avenue near 34th Street.

She has seven tattoos, and shared this lovely black and gray floral piece on her upper right arm:

She had been debating on whether to add color or not, but is pretty happy with the way this tattoo looks.

This tattoo was created by Junior at Adrenaline Rush Tattoo in Newark, New Jersey.

Thanks to A.J. for sharing this lovely tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Saturday 29 August 2009

Oscar's Quartet of Tattoos

Born in Costa Rica, a one-time resident of Canada, and now a denizen of the Bronx, Oscar has traveled all over the world.

He expressed his passion for mountain biking to me as we talked in the Amtrak section of Penn Station.

This made sense to me as I had noticed his bike-themed tattoo on his left calf:


The wheel is specific to a mountain bike he owns, and it is connected around the back of his leg by a bicycle chain:


The detail is quite good, almost three-dimensional, and the tribal flourishes up and down the leg add volume to the piece.

This was his first tattoo, inked on his birthday, after many years of thinking about tattoos. He waited until he was ready, so that he could get something with deep meaning for him.

Since then, he has added three other tattoos, all created by Richard at Jent's Tattooing in Yonkers.

He graciously shared those as well. First is a tribal raven:


Oscar spoke of the raven's relationship with God. In the folklore, Raven helps the gods to raise the moon and the stars. He also is known as the prankster, who is always trying to catch the Sun.

In addition, there is a tattoo of Shiva, who Oscar acknowledges as a deity who "destroys ignorance and builds knowledge":


Finally, Oscar wears a Third Eye on his right bicep, which carries its traditional meaning:


Many thanks to Oscar for sharing his amazing tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Kue Kering Istimewa untuk Lebaran

Bingung memilih kue kering untuk suguhan lebaran? Cobalah membuat sendiri kue kering yang berbeda dari biasanya. Seperti cookies krisan pandan ini. Sentuhan aroma wangi pandan membuat kue ini lebih istimewa. Selamat mencoba. Resep/Dapur Uji/Foto/Food Stylist: Budi Sutomo.

Cookies Krisan Pandan
Bahan:
700 g tepung terigu rendah protein/cap kunci
50 g tepung maizena
300 g margarin
400 g gula pasir
4 butir kuning telur
40 g meises cokelat/chocolate chips
1 sdt pasta pandan
50 g manisan ceri, potong-potong
½ sdt garam halus
Cara Membuat:
1. Kocok margarin, mentega, gula pasir, kuning telur, pasta pandan dan garam menggunakan mixer hingga lembut (selama 2 menit).
2. Masukkan tepung terigu, tepung maizena dan meises/chocolate chips. Aduk menggunakan sendok kayu/spatula plastik hingga terbentuk adonan yang menyatu.
3. Satukan adonan, giling adonan di atas plastik dengan ketebalan ½ -1 cm. Cetak menggunakan cetakan bentuk bunga krisan.
4. Atur adonan yang telah dibentuk di atas loyang beroles margarin. Tambahkan atasnya satu potong manisan ceri dengan cara sedikit ditekan agar tidak lepas sewaktu dipanggang.
5. Panggang dalam oven bertemperatur 160oC selama 20 menit hingga kue matang dan berwarna kuning kecokelatan. Angkat. Dinginkan. Kemas kue di dalam stoples. Sajikan.
Untuk ± 1600 g

Tip: Jika tidak tersedia pasta pandan, kue ini bisa diganti menjadi rasa stroberi atau orange dengan cara mengganti pasta pandan dengan pasta stroberi/orange.

Friday 28 August 2009

Gregory's Defenders of the Faith Tattoo

Gregory walked by me on Seventh Avenue in front of Madison Square Garden and I saw a familiar icon from my youth:


As a huge fan of Judas Priest in the 1980's, I recognized the basis for this tattoo immediately: the cover art for the 1984 album Defenders of the Faith.


Gregory has four tattoos and is a fan of Japanese-style art. This album and its predecessor, Screaming for Vengeance, boasted cover art that had a distinct Japanese influence.

He worked with the artist, C-Jay at Rising Dragon in Manhattan, to modify the design slightly, removing the tank treads and other militaristic elements from the original design.


Thanks to Gregory for sharing his amazing tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Thursday 27 August 2009

Translate documents: sharing across languages and generations

My cousin is in first grade and sometimes she writes short stories for class. I try to share the stories with her grandparents, but because Japanese is their first language and they don't speak English very well, it's been tough. Today we're releasing a feature for Google Docs to make this kind of multi-lingual sharing easier — you can now automatically translate documents into 42 different languages.

So for my cousin's latest story, I helped her type it up in Google Docs and then clicked "Translate document" from the "Tools" menu. In a matter of seconds, Google Docs has translated the whole story into Japanese using Google Translate's technology.



You can replace the original document with the translation or make a new translated version. I like keeping an English version for friends here and creating a separate Japanese version for her grandparents. All the formatting and layout is preserved no matter what language it's in — translations aren't perfect, but we are continuously working on improving translation quality over time. We hope this new feature helps you more easily share information without worrying about language barriers.

Merci Celebrates Female Empowerment with a Classic Image

I spotted Merci in Penn Station with this familiar icon on her calf:


The tattoo is based on this famous poster from World War II:


This image is identified with the character of Rosie the Riveter, and was introduced by Westinghouse to rally the home fires in support of the troops abroad. The image has transformed, through time, to take on a greater meaning, that of female empowerment.

This tattoo, one of three that Merci has, was created by Chris Dilworth at Tough Luck Tattoo in Lewes, Delaware.

Thanks to Merci for sharing her amazing tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Five years of introducing students to open source

We've just concluded our fifth Google Summer of Code, our flagship global program to introduce college and university students to open source development. Once again, the results this year have been impressive. Nearly 2,000 mentors from 64 countries participated in the program. They worked to bring 1,000 students from 69 countries into the communities of 150 free and open source projects. We're particularly excited this year to have introduced several students to open source development that has a direct impact on social causes, from microfinance software to global educational initiatives to making government data more transparent and accessible. Three months and hundreds of thousands of lines of code later, 85 percent of our student participants have successfully completed their projects. We'll be publishing more extensive program statistics and wrap up reports in the coming weeks on the Google Open Source Blog, so stay tuned there for more news about Google Summer of Code.

We'd like to congratulate all of our student participants for their hard work and tremendous achievements this summer. We're excited to hear that many of our students have planned out the next few months of their coding work with their chosen open source project. Finally, our sincerest thanks to all of our mentors for volunteering their time and expertise to help these students more actively engage with open source development.


More books in more places: public domain EPUB downloads on Google Books

Try doing a search for [Hamlet] on Google Books. The first few results you'll get are "Full View" books — which means you can read the full text. And, because the book is in the public domain, you can also download a copy of Hamlet in PDF form.

Starting today, you'll be able to download these and over one million public domain books from Google Books in an additional format. We're excited to now offer downloads in EPUB format, a free and open industry standard for electronic books. It's supported by a wide variety of applications, so once you download a book, you'll be able to read it on any device or through any reading application that supports the format. That means that people will be able to access public domain works that we've digitized from libraries around the world in more ways, including some that haven't even been built or imagined yet.

We founded Google Books on the premise that anyone, anywhere, anytime should have the tools to explore the great works of history and culture. We began digitizing these books because we thought it was important for people to be able to find and read them, and we want them to be able to do so anywhere — not just when they happen to be at a computer. This feature takes us one step closer towards realizing that goal by helping support open standards that enable people to access these books in more places, on more devices and through more applications.

To find out more, check out our post on the Google Books blog.

Wednesday 26 August 2009

Tattoos I Know: Avital's Ink

It seems odd and yet is not beyond comprehension that, at the last two bat mitzvahs I have attended, I came home with tattoo pictures.

The first time (documented here) was a pleasant surprise. On Saturday, August 8, however, I had no expectations, as it was my daughter's bat mitzvah.

However, much to my amazement, I noticed that one of my sister's closest friends, Avital, has two small tattoos. I was more surprised, considering that Avital is a cantor, and that whereas tattooed Jews are not as rare as they used to be, an inked cantor is still an unusual sight.

Granted, her two tattoos don't jump out at you. The om on her right ankle:


and the slender "b+" on her right wrist


are discreet enough to be overlooked by a discriminating eye, and yet these two small tattoos are large with meaning.

Avital gave me a synopsis the day I took the photos, summing up that the "b+" was a personal message to herself to always "be positive," and that it is her blood type, but she has since offered up a lengthier, more thorough explanation, which I'll share here:

" [The b+], though it is very small (1/2") represents many important parts of my life: past, present and future. When my college friend, Erica died in December from Leukemia, I was devastated. Throughout her illness, she managed to have good spirits and enjoy time with her friends and family. Her battle against cancer put life in perspective for me. I have struggled with depression most of my adult life, and when she died, I made the conscious decision to turn my life around, completely. The morning after her death, my father was diagnosed with Glioblastoma, an aggressive brain cancer. Double whammy. My sister and I had both been contemplating a tattoo for several years, but Jewish guilt always managed to turn me away. After several hours in the ER with our father, we ventured down to Kingdom [Tattoos] and got our matching b+ tattoos. It's incredible how much strength I find from this little symbol on my wrist.

And Avital added:

"And the B in the b+ tattoo is a flat. in music. since I'm a musician. I can't believe I forgot that part! flats are most commonly associated with minor, "sad" keys. so, there is a bit of sadness in the tattoo. too."

As for the om, she elaborates:

"One of the major changes I made in my life after E died was a regular Yoga practice. An unfortunate encounter with a sharp blade left a 1" scar on my inner right ankle. After about 3 months of drawing an OM over the scar with a sharpie (so tedious!) I decided to make it permanent. The OM, like my b+, centers me, calms me, and reminds me of the simpler, more important things in life."

Much thanks to Avital for sharing her tattoos and the powerful stories behind them here with us on Tattoosday.

Finding great stuff to read with Google Reader

I only followed a handful of blogs when I first started using Google Reader, but was always on the lookout for more great stuff to read. Over time, I discovered that my friends followed lots of interesting sites, and my reading list grew from 4 to 34 sites and blogs as I incorporated their recommendations.

Since then, Reader has launched several sharing features that make it easier to find and subscribe to feeds that your friends like, and we thought that recommendations could make finding good stuff to read even easier. This time, instead of asking our friends, we approached leaders across a variety of fields and asked them what they read online. We received lots of great responses, which we've collected into our second edition of Power Readers. In this edition, we've expanded from Power Readers in Politics to include journalists, techies, fashion critics, foodies and more. We hope this will be a good place to find great things to read, whether you already have an extensive reading list or are totally new to Google Reader.

Plus, now we can answer some questions that have interested us for years: Where does Arianna Huffington go to get different perspectives on the news? When Paul Krugman surfs the web, what are his favorite economics sites? What blogs do tech, foodie and fashion bloggers read? Visit www.google.com/powerreaders to explore and subscribe to any of their reading lists, or to any individual items that they recommend.

A big thanks to all of the contributors who shared their reading lists with us.

In the future, everyone will monetize their 15 minutes

(Cross-posted from the YouTube Biz Blog)

We first launched the YouTube Partnership Program (YPP) to help some of our more popular users make money from their videos on YouTube. While we've focused on accepting prolific users who regularly produce videos that reach a wide audience — like Fred and ValsArtDiary — we've occasionally extended the program to include some of the site's more unforgettable videos, such as the Battle of Kruger, David after dentist and Otters holding hands. These individual video partnerships recognize the role popular "one-off" videos play on YouTube, and have helped many people earn thousands of dollars a month as their videos went viral and endured over time.

We decided it was time to spread the wealth. Today we're excited to announce that we're extending the YouTube Partnership Program to include individual popular videos on our site. Now, when you upload a video to YouTube that accumulates lots of views, we may invite you to monetize that video and start earning revenue from it. To determine whether a particular video is eligible for monetization, we look at factors like the number of views, the video's virality and compliance with the YouTube Terms of Service. If your video is eligible for monetization, you will receive an email and see an "Enable Revenue Sharing" message next to your video on the watch page, as well as in other places in your account:


Once you've chosen to enable revenue sharing, YouTube will sell advertising against your video and pay you a revenue share into your Google AdSense account each month. (If you don't have an AdSense account, you'll have the opportunity to create one.) Individual video partnerships will not be eligible for many of the benefits of user partnerships, like enhanced channel features or the ability to monetize other videos in your account, so we encourage you to apply to be a member of the YPP. We'll consider your individual video partnerships when reviewing your YPP application. For now individual video partnerships are available only in the United States, but we hope to roll these out internationally soon.

It's taken us some time to build out the YouTube Partnership Program, our content management tools and other infrastructure to handle expanding the YPP to so many individual users and videos. Now that we're ready to share these opportunities with a wider audience, we're excited to see how individual video partnerships will help even more people make money from their success on YouTube.

Tuesday 25 August 2009

The bright side of sitting in traffic: Crowdsourcing road congestion data

This post is the latest in an ongoing series about how we harness the data we collect to improve our products and services for our users. - Ed.

What if you could do a little something to improve the world during your daily drive to work? Here are a few ideas: tell everybody in the city when you're stuck in slow-moving traffic; warn the drivers on the freeway behind you that they should consider an alternate route; tell the people still at home that they should spend another ten minutes reading the morning news before they leave for work; tell your city government that they might want to change the timing of that traffic light at the highway on-ramp. Of course, you can't just get on the phone and call everybody, and your one traffic report from your one spot on the road might not help much anyway. But if everybody on the road, all at once, could tell the world how fast their car is moving, and we could make it easy for anybody to check that information on their computer or cell phone, well — then we'd be getting somewhere.

If you use Google Maps for mobile with GPS enabled on your phone, that's exactly what you can do. When you choose to enable Google Maps with My Location, your phone sends anonymous bits of data back to Google describing how fast you're moving. When we combine your speed with the speed of other phones on the road, across thousands of phones moving around a city at any given time, we can get a pretty good picture of live traffic conditions. We continuously combine this data and send it back to you for free in the Google Maps traffic layers. It takes almost zero effort on your part — just turn on Google Maps for mobile before starting your car — and the more people that participate, the better the resulting traffic reports get for everybody.


This week we're expanding our traffic layer to cover all U.S. highways and arterials when data is available. We're able to do this thanks in no small part to the data contributed by our users. This is exactly the kind of technology that we love at Google because it's so easy for a single person to help out, but can be incredibly powerful when a lot of people use it together. Imagine if you knew the exact traffic speed on every road in the city — every intersection, backstreet and freeway on-ramp — and how that would affect the way you drive, help the environment and impact the way our government makes road planning decisions. This idea, which we geeks call "crowdsourcing," isn't new. Ever since GPS location started coming to mainstream devices, people have been thinking of ways to use it to figure out how fast the traffic is moving. But for us to really make it work, we had to solve problems of scale (because you can't get useful traffic results until you have a LOT of devices reporting their speeds) and privacy (because we don't want anybody to be able to analyze Google's traffic data to see the movement of a particular phone, even when that phone is completely anonymous).

We achieve scale by making Google Maps for mobile easy to install and use, and by making it easy for people to provide information about their own vehicle speed. There's no extra device to plug into your car and no extra software to buy. Google Maps is free and works with most cell phones, and the number of cell phones with GPS is rising every day. Some phones, such as the T-Mobile myTouch 3G and the Palm Pre, come with Google Maps and traffic crowdsourcing pre-installed (the iPhone Maps application, however, does not support traffic crowdsourcing). Google is fortunate to have a lot of people using our products, and that scale helps make our products better.

We understand that many people would be concerned about telling the world how fast their car was moving if they also had to tell the world where they were going, so we built privacy protections in from the start. We only use anonymous speed and location information to calculate traffic conditions, and only do so when you have chosen to enable location services on your phone. We use our scale to provide further privacy protection: When a lot of people are reporting data from the same area, we combine their data together to make it hard to tell one phone from another. Even though the vehicle carrying a phone is anonymous, we don't want anybody to be able to find out where that anonymous vehicle came from or where it went — so we find the start and end points of every trip and permanently delete that data so that even Google ceases to have access to it. We take the privacy concerns related to user location data seriously, and have worked hard to protect the privacy of users who share this data — but we still understand that not everybody will want to participate. If you'd like to stop your phone from sending anonymous location data back to Google, you can find opt-out instructions here.

We've already been able to provide useful traffic information with the help of our existing mobile users, but we hope that is just the start. As GPS-enabled phones and data plans get less expensive, more people will be able to participate. Crowdsourcing traffic gives us a way to harness bits of location data from our users and give it back to them in a form they can use to make impactful decisions that affect their free time, their pocketbooks and the environment. The more people use it, the better it will get. So next time you're sitting in morning traffic, turn on Google Maps for mobile and let someone else know they can hit the snooze button one more time. Tomorrow morning, they might do the same for you.

Ben Commemorates the Cat and the Tree

Ben recalls wandering off one day when he was four years old. He was up in Wells, Maine with his family and no one knew where he'd gone.

Fortunately for Ben, someone did know: the family cat. A la Lassie, the feline led his parents straight to Ben, who was sitting under a tree, munching on blueberries.

To this day, Ben regards this as a crucial moment in his life when he was saved by the cat.

He collaborated with Brendan Rowe at Pins and Needles Tattoo in Portland, Maine to come up with a commemorative tattoo to honor this animal:


Brendan is now working out of Unbreakable Tattoo is Studio City, California.

The tree nearby on his left forearm, was inked, in part, to complement the cat:


It is, however, also a nod to Gustav Klimt's "Tree of Life".
Not an imitation, but a variation.

Thanks to Ben for sharing these tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Monday 24 August 2009

Cara Membuat Show-Hide Komentar/Expand-Collapse Comment


Membuat Show-Hide Komentar/Expand-Collapse Comment.Tutorial pada pelajaran blog kali ini,adalah salah satu belajar tentang menghias kotak komentar.
Tapi disini bukan akan membahas bagaimana cara memodifikasi komentar tersebut,melainkan mempelajari script kode menampilkan dan menyembunyikan komentar yang telah ada,hanya dengan satu klik.

Gimana? dah maksud yang saya maksudkan (ngomong oopo aku iki :D)?
Yup! anda betul sekali,kali ini kita akan mempelajari lebih dalam bagaimana cara membuat komentar show and hide/expand collaps comment pada blog.

Biar langsung kelar,kita langsung ke topiknya yuk,yuuuk...!
Pertama,pergilah ke Dashboard,lalu Tata Letak,kemudian pilih tab Edit HTML.
Lalu contreng check box tulisan Expand Widget Templates,lalu cari kode berikut:


]]></b:skin>
Setelah ketemu,tepat diatasnya,letakkan kode berikut:

.commenthidden {display:none}
.commentshown {display:inline}

Setelah itu,masih di HTML area (aaaalah!),tarik scroll kebawah cari kode:

</head>
Setelah ketemu letakkan kode script di bawah ini tepat diatas kode </head> tersebut.

<script type='text/Javascript'>
function togglecomments (postid){
var whichpost = document.getElementById(postid);
if (whichpost.className==&quot;commentshown&quot;){
whichpost.className=&quot;commenthidden&quot;;
}
else{
whichpost.className=&quot;commentshown&quot;;
}
}
</script>


Setelah itu cari kode berikut:

<dl id='comments-block'>
Untuk mempermudah pencarian kode gunakan Ctrl+F pada keyboard anda.
Jika sudah ketemu,lalu hapus kode tersebut,dan gantilah dengan kode dibawah ini:

<a aiotitle='click to expand'
href='javascript:togglecomments
(&quot;comments-block&quot;)'
rel='nofollow'><strong>Show or Hide Comments/Tampilkan atau Sembunyikan Komentar</strong></a>
<dl class='commenthidden'
id='comments-block'>

Lalu Simpan Template,Selesai!!

Ket:
Untuk tulisan "Show or Hide Comments/Tampilkan atau Sembunyikan Komentar" gantilah sesuai keinginan anda.
Semoga Bermanfaat :D

Baca Juga Yang Ini..

Liza's Inuit Owl

Liza had been researching a design she wanted for her next tattoo and had found the one she wanted.

On Christmas Eve, she walked in to Halo Tattoo in Syracuse, New York and met Chris Chisholm who, as you'd imagine, didn't have a full schedule on December 24, and he inked this wonderful tattoo on her upper right arm:


This is, of course, an owl, whose design origins come from the Inuit culture.

Owls are symbolic as guardians and are therefore highly popular tattoo designs. Owls have appeared previously on Tattoosday here. But if you really like owls, check out our friends over at
http://owltattoos.blogspot.com.

Work from Halo has appeared previously on Tattoosday here.

Thanks to Liza for sharing her amazing owl tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

Sunday 23 August 2009

Tuck's Bridget


I met Tuck near Borders on Penn Plaza and she talked to me about this unusual tattoo on her right shoulder:


The piece was tattooed by Didi, a Brazilian tattoo artist working out of Angelic Hell Tattoo World in London.

Tuck didn't know the source of the artwork, but did work with the artist to modify the design to fit her body.

The changes were subtle, having the tattooed girl she refers to as Bridget standing, as opposed to crouching. They also altered the movement within the piece.


This is one of five tattoos that Tuck has, not counting additional stars and characters that are also part of her body's canvas.

Thanks to Tuck for sharing "Bridget" with us here on Tattoosday!

Two Feathers, Their Story Still Untold

Several weeks ago, near the corner of 86th Street and 5th Avenue in Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, I passed a couple sitting at a bus stop.

The woman had some words inked on her left arm and, as I paused to consider talking to her, I noticed a colorful tattoo peeking out from under the man's left shirt sleeve.

I told them about Tattoosday and the woman indicated that she had tattoos as well, but she would have to take her clothes off in order for someone to see them. I was intrigued as she implied that she had a relatively large piece that covered a significant part of her body.

However, the man was accommodating and pulled up his sleeve to reveal this bright, colorful tattoo:


And that, my friends, is where this story sadly ends. I had been watching the B63 bus slowly approaching from several blocks away and, no sooner had I snapped the photos, the bus crossed 86th Street and pulled up to the stop.

I handed him a flier and asked him to please e-mail me so I could finish interviewing him. But he never did. Oh well. If only I had been carrying a Metrocard, I could have boarded the B63 with them and talked with them briefly on the bus.

At least we have the photo of the cool tattoo to appreciate and hopefully, some day, our paths will cross again.

The moral of the story: shoot first and ask questions later. Also, always carry a metrocard!

Saturday 22 August 2009

Nick's Rocking Leg Tattoos (Van Halen and Aerosmith)

At the end of July, while searching for Green Day tattoos, I met, perhaps, the ultimate Van Halen fan.

Nick was hanging out at the side of Madison Square Garden, talking with a friend, and I spotted several rock-themed tattoos on his legs.

Nick has seven tattoos and let me photograph three of them. His outer right calf has this Eddie Van Halen piece:


This was done by a visiting artist at one of the Tattoo Lou's locations on Long Island. Work from Tattoo Lou's has appeared on Tattoosday previously here.

The better of the two Van Halen pieces (in my opinion), on his inner right calf, is this one, inked by Thom at Tattoo Frenzy, in Lindenhurst, New York.


The detail on the guitar is incredible:


Nick says, with certainty, that he has seen Van Halen in concert 394 times (as of July 2009).

He also shared this other tattoo, from his left leg:


This piece is based on the cover art from Aerosmith's Just Push Play album:


Thanks to Nick for sharing his rocking tattoos with us here on Tattoosday!

Jordan's Lush Tattoo Takes Him Back in Time

I ran into Jordan at the laundromat and we chatted about his tattoo:


He was living working in Champaign, Illinois and, on his lunch break, wandered into New Life Tattoos.

The shop had flash with the Seven Deadly Sins and Lust was easily changed to his nickname "Lush".

The drawing, he said, "looked like me with a shaved head, screaming".

This piece on his left forearm represents a different time and place from his past.

Thanks to Jordan for sharing his tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

1/2 Done But Complete

It was a Hellraiser Pinhead tattoo that first prompted me to approach Travis, but that was not what I ended up discussing with him.

Rather, he offered up this interesting piece on his left leg:


The design depicts a man trying to break through bars, to force his way out of prison.

If something looks off about this, it is because it does not appear as it was originally envisioned by Travis or the artist.

The artist was Travis' brother-in-law, but something unexpected happened halfway through the process.

Travis' sister got divorced, and the brother-in-law tattoo artist was no longer in their life.

Initially, he wanted to find another artist to finish the piece but, as time passed, he decided that he liked it that way, that the initial tattoo's meaning became charged with additional symbolism.

Thanks to Travis for sharing this cool tattoo with us here at Tattoosday!

Friday 21 August 2009

Dani Helps Tattoosday Celebrate 50 Years of Statehood

Today is the 50th anniversary of Hawaiian statehood.

As a former resident of the Aloha State, I thought we could honor the occasion with a Hawaii-themed tattoo:


This cool tiki is on the right forearm of Dani, who estimates she is 60% covered in ink.

Dani and I met near Penn Plaza and had a lovely chat about tattoos. This tiki is one of her favorites.

Don Lussier at Artfreek Tattoo basically free-handed the design on her. Don is the ex-husband of Doris, who is a friend of Dani's. A piece from Artfreek appeared last month on Tattoosday here.

She has the tiki as an acknowledgment of her heritage, being part Hawaiian, with ancestors two or three generations back.

She loves the detail Don put into the piece, especially the heart inked on the tiki's left arm.


Mahalo nui loa to Dani for sharing this great tattoo with us here, and helping Tattoosday celebrate Hawaii's Golden Anniversary!

Snack Sehat Untuk Anak

Membuat makanan kecil untuk anak memang memerlukan kecermatan khusus. Selain penampilan menarik, mengandung unsur gizi esensial, rasa juga harus enak agar meningkatkan napsu makan anak. Banana Stick Honey Star adalah salah satu snack sehat untuk sibuah hati. Selamat Mencoba. Resep/Dapur Uji/Foto/Food Stylist: Budi Sutomo.

Banana Stick Honey Stars

Bahan:
40 gr nestle honey stars
200 gr pisang kepok/raja
100 gr dark cooking chocolate, potong-potong
50 gr margarin
Stick ice crem secukupnya
Cara membuat:
1.
Kupas pisang, potong membulat. Sisihkan
2. Panaskan margarin, masukkan potongan pisang. Masak sambil dibolak-balik hingga pisang matang. Angkat
3. Tusuk pisang dengan dengan ctick ice cream. Lakukan hingga habis
4. Tim potongan coklat hingga meleleh. Celupkan pisang ke dalam cokelat tim hingga permukaan pisang terselimuti cokelat. Gulingkan pisang ke atas nestle honey stars. Dinginkan 15 menit di dalam kulkas hingga cokelat mengeras. Atur di dalam piring saji. Hidangkan.
Untuk 3 porsi
Tip: Dark cooking chocolate bisa diganti dengan white cooking chocolate.
Nutrisi per porsi:
Energi
: 461 kkal
Protein: 2,9 gr
Lemak: 16,8 gr
Karbohidrat: 53 gr

Menu Sehat untuk Penderita Penyakit Hipertensi


Judul: Menu Sehat Penakluk Hipertensi
Penulis: Budi Sutomo, S.Pd
Editor Ahli: Dr Gatot Ibrohim
Penerbit: Demedia Pustaka
Harga: ± Rp. 57.000, an
Informasi & Pemesanan: 02178883030
Resensi:

Hipertensi, dikenal sebagai darah tinggi, merupakan salah satu penyakit yang banyak di derita masyarakat. Hingga saat ini di dunia, penderitanya hampir 1 miliar orang. Sementara pendataan hipertensi di Indonesia sangat memprihatinkan. Data nasional tidak tersedia. Hanya daerah-daerah tertentu saja yang memiliki data hipertensi sehingga sebagian besar penderita hipertensi tidak terdeteksi. Meskipun terdeteksi, mereka umumnya tidak menyadari kondisi penyakitnya.

Angka kesadaran hipertensi Indonesia hanya 50%, lebih rendah dibandingkan angka kesadaran hipertensi di Amerika yang mencapai 69%. Dari angka tersebut, hipertensi yang terkendali dengan baik masih dibawah 10% dari seluruh penderita di Indonesia. Rendahnya kesadaran masyarakat dipengaruhi oleh pemahaman yang salah tentang darah tinggi. Banyak yang mengganggap, timbulnya hipertensi hanya akibat kebanyakan mengonsumsi garam dan kegemukan.

Garam tidak bisa selalu disalahkan. Penderita hipertensi yang sensitif garam hanya 30%. Hal ini berarti ada banyak kemungkinan faktor penyebab tekanan darah tinggi. Pada hipertensi esensial (90% dari seluruh hipertensi), penyebabnya tidak diketahui pasti. Peningkatan tekanan darah bisa disebabkan oleh satu atau lebih faktor, seperti pergerakan pembuluh, sekresi hormon, keturunan atau lingkungan. Sedangkan pada hipertensi sekunder, penyebabnya lebih jelas seperti penyakit ginjal, kelainan hormonal atau pemakaian obat tertentu.

Hipertensi tidak bisa disembuhkan. Penderita tidak perlu kuatir karena mereka bisa memiliki kualitas hidup yang normal asalkan hipertensi terkendali. Caranya dengan melakukan perubahan gaya hidup dan rutin menggunakan obat-obatan. Dengan terkontrolnya hipertensi, komplikasinya berupa kerusakan organ bisa dicegah.

Perubahan gaya hidup berupa diet, olahraga teratur, dan menghindari konsumsi alkohol/rokok. Ada beberap jenis pola diet, yakni diet rendah garam, diet DASH-natrium, diet rendah kolesterol dan lemak terbatas, diet tinggi serat, dan diet kalori. Diet yang diterapkan bisa disesuaikan dengan kondisi hipertensi. Dengan pengaturan makanan yang tepat, tekanan darah bisa turun lebih cepat. Bukan tidak mungkin, penggunaan obat-obatan tidak diperlukan lagi.

Buku ini mengulas seluk-beluk hipertensi, termasuk cara mengatur menu. Ada puluhan jenis resep diet khusus hipertensi untuk mengendalikan tekanan darah, mulai dari makanan utama, lauk pauk, makanan kecil hingga minuman. Dengan buku ini, penderita hipertensi lebih mudah mengatur menu makanan sehari-hari. Mereka pun tetap bisa menyantap hidangan sehari-hari yang lezat tanpa kuatir tekanan darah melonjak.

Selain menu diet rendah garam, buku ini juga membahas scara tuntas fakta terbaru penyakit hipertensi, salah benar hipertensi, makanan pantangan dan yang dianjurkan, penyebab dan pengobatan hipertensi, tabel komposisi zat gizi bahan pangan serta ramuan herbal penumpas hipertensi. Dengan berbekal buku ini, diharapkan penderita hipertensi dapat menjalani hidup sehat dan benar sehingga terhindar dari serangan darah tinggi.

Demo Masak

LG Indonensia dan Majalah Inspired Kids akan menggelar acara LG Culinary Journey. Acara akan diadakan pada Hari Sabtu, 25 Juli 2009 di Sekolah Citra Alam - Jakarta Selatan. Selain demo masak oleh Budi Sutomo, acara ini juga dipandu oleh Shanaz Haque yang akan membawa anda dan anak-anak mengenal seni kuliner Negeri Italia lebih dekat.

Ada tiga masakan khas Italia yang dipraktekan oleh chef Budi. Diantaranya pizza, salad buah dan penne saus ayam. Peserta cukup antusias mengikuti jalannya acara. Peserta tidak hanya kaum ibu dan anak, namun para ayahpun ikut serta dengan acara yang berlangsung meriah ini.