Luxury Car

Dog with newspaper

Boat

Moody day

Seaside

Wolf

Purple Romance

Garden

House

Green cliff

Sakura

Flower field

Purple little flower

Night scene

Riverside

Butterfly and flower

Building

Romantic hill

Red moon

Moutain and tree

Folklore, Myth & Legend-Rose mythology

In Greek and Roman mythology, they were symbolic of love, protection, and rebirth. At funerals, the Romans would scatter roses to symbolize resurrection. "The rose is the flower of love" It was created by Chloris, the Greek goddess of flowers, out of the lifeless body of a nymph which she found one day in a clearing in the woods. She asked the help of Aphrodite, the goddess of love, who gave her beauty; Dionysus, the god of wine, added nectar to give her a sweet scent, and the three Graces gave her charm, brightness and joy. Then Zephyr, the West Wind, blew away the clouds so that Apollo, the sun god, could shine and make the flower bloom. And so the rose was born and was immediately crowned Queen of the Flowers" (Pickles, 88). The first red roses were supposed to have sprung from the blood of Adonis, Aphrodite's lover. Due to this, the rose became a symbol for love transcending death, and resurrection. Sub rosa, under the rose, meant under the seal of secrecy. Another myth, tells that on the wedding day of Cupid (love) and Psyche (soul), roses were scattered over the land. Here, the rose serves as a symbol for the union.

Folklore, Myth & Legend-The origin of chinese surnames

The Chinese have had surnames long before the period of the Three Emperors and Five Kings, that is, during the time when recognition was given only to one's mother and not one's father. Hence, the Chinese character for surname is made up of two individual characters----one meaning woman and one meaning to give birth. That is to say, the surnames of the early Chinese followed the maternal line. Before the three dynasties of Xia, Shang and Zhou (2140-256 BC), the people in China were already having surnames (Xing) and clan-names (Shi). The surnames originated from the name of the village in which one live or the family to which one belonged, while the clan-name derived from the name of the territory or the title granted, sometimes posthumously, by the emperor to a noble for an achievement. Hence, only nobles had surnames as well as clan-names.
A man and a woman of the same clan-name could marry each other but they could not if they were of the same surname.
This is because the Chinese had discovered, long ago, that marriages of close relatives would be detrimental to future generations.
In any solemn ceremony or important celebration, the Chinese have their clan-names written on lanterns which are hung high in a prominent place, such as the main entrance of the house.
As a clan-name indicates the ancestral home, it is also carved on a man's tombstone to indicate a hope that he will return there.
This went on for 800 years until the rule of Emperor Tang Tai Zong (627 AD). Gao Shi Lian, a government official, made a survey and found that there were a total of 593 different surnames.
He then wrote and published a book called "Annal of Surnames" which became a reference for selecting qualified personnel as government officials and for arranging marriages.
The book, "Surnames of a Hundred Families", which was popular in China during the old days, was written more than 1,000 years ago during the Northern Song Dynasty (960 AD).
It records 438 surnames of which 408 are single-word surnames and 30 were double-word surnames.
According to the latest statistics from China, Chinese with the surname Zhang alone number more than 100 million, making it probably the surname which the most number of the Chinese have.
Another set of statistics compiled in 1977 reveals that the number of the Chinese with the first 10 major surnames make up 40% of the Chinese population. The 10 major Chinese surnames are: Zhang, Wang, Li, Zhao, Chen, Yang, Wu, Liu, Huang and Zhou.
Below are the next 10 major surnames. The Chinese with these surnames make up over 10% of the Chinese population: Xu, Zhu, Lin, Sun, Ma, Gao, Hu, Zheng, Guo and Xiao.
The number of the Chinese in the third category of 10 major surnames make up just about 10% of the population:Xie, He, Xu, Song, Shen, Luo, Han, Deng, Liang and Ye.
The following 15 surnames form the fouth largest group of the Chinese surnames are:Fang, Cui, Cheng, Pan, Cao, Feng, Wang, Cai, Yuan, Lu, Tang, Qian, Du, Peng and Lu.
A total of 70% of the Chinese population have one of the surnames above. The surnames of the remaining 30% are comparatively rare. Some of these surnames are: Mao, Jiang, Bai, Wen, Guan, Liao, Miao and Chi.

What is Isometrix pixel Art?

Isometric Pixel Art is a modern form of digital art created through the use of raster graphics software, where images are edited on the pixel level. Graphics in most old (or relatively limited) computer and video games, graphing calculator games, and many mobile phone games are mostly pixel art.
History
pixel art was first published by Adele Goldberg and Robert Flegal of Xerox Palo Alto Research Center in 1982. The concept, however, goes back about 10 years before that, for example in Richard Shoup's SuperPaint system in 1972, also at Xerox PARC.


Where it can be found/ used
Pixel art was very often used in older computer and video console games.With the increasing use of 3D graphics in games, pixel art lost some of its use. Despite that, this is still a very active professional/amateur area, since mobile phones and other portable devices still have low resolution and then require a skillful use of space and memory. Sometimes pixel art is used for advertising too.

Example of Pixel Art
Einstein in the Swiss patent office:

Lovepixel

Pixels gone mad. Jason Huang, a designer and illustrator from Taiwan has created a… well, unusual splash-page for his portfolio web-site. The “size” of this pixel city is over 10 Mb.

URL/Link:

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/05/05/pixels-go-mad-the-celebration-of-pixel-art/

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pixel_art

http://www.19.5degs.com/element/832.php