Craft work

This ornate butterfly is an anti-maccassar. It is one of many in a set of Lepidoptera-themed craft work. Clicking on the image will take you to the rest. It is not my work. I can knit. Poorly.

Crocheted butterfly

Although the image description says "crochet", I think this resembles embroidery or needlework, as it is so finely detailed. It is beautiful, especially those curled antennae.

Anti-maccassars are those little covers on the arms rests and backs of chairs. They aren't doilies. I tried to find a less arcane sounding word, to no avail. Alternative word suggestions are welcomed as comments!

Short Storage Story

Napkin Story: How sMash works

Via The IBM Curiosity Shop, CC/by-nc/2.0/

This is so sweet! I don't know what sMash (SMASH?) is. As a first guess, I would infer it to be a storage protocol rather than database-type software. Perhaps it is a new way to organize data, an alternative to DB2, CICS and IMS. Each use different block sizes and partition types, among other things.

I will try to get a definitive answer, and return¹ with an update.

I hope to see new items in The IBM Curiosity Shop set, Napkin Stories on Flickr. It doesn't seem likely though. This friendly drawing was uploaded on 22 December 2010, yet no others have joined it in the interim.

¹ Flickr-to-Blogger did not offer the option of "publish to draft", else I would have prepared this post more thoroughly.