"Diner lingo"

Selections from an assemblage at Wikipedia:

Adam & Eve on a raft & wreck 'em: two scrambled eggs on toast

Baled hay: shredded wheat cereal

Cops & Robbers: Donuts and Coffee.

Customer will take a chance: hash

Don't cry over it: omit the onions

Drag it through Wisconsin: serve with cheese (e.g. a cheeseburger)

Drown the kids: boiled eggs

Fish eyes or Cat's eyes: tapioca pudding

Foreign entanglements: spaghetti

Hockey puck: a hamburger, well done

Mother and child reunion: chicken and egg sandwich

Noah's boy: a slice of ham (Ham was Noah's second son)

Put a hat on it: add ice cream

Shit on a shingle/S.O.S.: minced dried beef with gravy on toast

Two cows, make them cry: Two hamburgers with onions

Zeppelins in a fog: sausages and mashed potatoes 

 Many of these come from a column at Diner Talk.

Lobster tails for hospital patients

Health-care related posts seems to elicit the most vigorous and conflicting comments on this blog, so here's a little grist for the mill, from a column in the New York Times:

The bed linens were by Frette, Italian purveyors of high-thread-count sheets to popes and princes. The bathroom gleamed with polished marble. Huge windows displayed panoramic East River views. And in the hush of her $2,400 suite, a man in a black vest and tie proffered an elaborate menu and told her, “I’ll be your butler.” 

It was Greenberg 14 South, the elite wing on the new penthouse floor of NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell hospital. Pampering and décor to rival a grand hotel, if not a Downton Abbey, have long been the hallmark of such “amenities units,” often hidden behind closed doors at New York’s premier hospitals. But the phenomenon is escalating here and around the country, health care design specialists say, part of an international competition for wealthy patients willing to pay extra, even as the federal government cuts back hospital reimbursement in pursuit of a more universal and affordable American medical system..

A waterfall, a grand piano and the image of a giant orchid grace the soaring ninth floor atrium of McKeen, leading to refurbished rooms that, like those in the hospital’s East 68th Street penthouse, cost patients $1,000 to $1,500 a day, and can be combined. That fee is on top of whatever base rate insurance pays to the hospital, or the roughly $4,500 a day that foreigners are charged, according to the hospital’s international services department...

In Eleven West’s library on a recent Friday, Nancy Hemenway, a senior financial services executive, was reading the paper in a spa-style bathrobe. “I was supposed to be in Buenos Aires last week taking tango lessons, but unfortunately I hurt my back, so I’m here with my concierge,” she said. 

“I’m perfectly at home here — totally private, totally catered,” she added. “I have a primary-care physician who also acts as ringmaster for all my other doctors. And I see no people in training — only the best of the best.”

That last comment reminds me that some years ago a midwestern university hospital (which I will leave unnamed) had an upper floor reserved for wealthy patients, with posh accommodations, special food, and innumerable amenities.  When physicians were on morning rounds, the students and housestaff would stay behind while the attendings went to see their private patients.

However, at night if there was an emergency and the attending was in a distant suburb, the housestaff and fellows were called and had to correct problems with electrolyte imbalance, improve inappropriate ventilator settings, or detect missed diagnoses.  Many of the attending physicians were less procedurally competent (and frankly less practically knowledgeable) than the "physicians in training," who joked (among themselves) that the only good thing for the patients in the top floor suite was that the location was "close to a hospital."

One final salient comment from the Times story:

“These kinds of patients, they’re paying cash — they’re the best kind of patient to have,” she added. “Theoretically, it trickles down.” 

This is all very complicated, re the finances, re the medical implications, re the ethics etc.  I'll defer any additional commentary; there's much more in the Times and in a related story in Salon.

Photo: Marilynn K. Yee/The New York Times

A boy's plaid dress (1854)

Queen Victoria and Prince Albert’s 1851 purchase and subsequent renovation of Balmoral Castle in the Scottish Highlands caused a fad for plaid to sweep the fashion world. Fine tartans in wool and silk became the most desired fashion fabrics for all ages and styles of dress.

From Ye Olde Fashion.

"Beer oyster" explained

This question was posed at Reddit:

At an engagement party last weekend, my husband enjoyed a Beck's. He decided he would like to enjoy another and so opened this bottle, took a sip and cringed. His beer tasted awful and he wiped off what looked like dirt from the bottle cap. He held the beer to the light and the liquid was murky through the green glass there was something floating in it. We go in to the kitchen, pour the beer down the sink and something slipped out. I turned it over and it kind of looked like a mushroom and smelled a whole lot like shit. This image is the bottle and the offending object.

Answer below the fold (it's not offensive - just giving you a moment to ponder...)

Selections from the November "Harper's Index"

• Amount employees of private-equity firm Bain Capital have donated to the campaiign of its co-founder Mitt Romney: $69,500

• To the Obama campaign: $119,900

• Percentage of all Americans who consider themselves part of the top 1 percent of U.S. earners: 13

 

• Miminum number of U.S. colleges that offer courses in unmanned-drone operation: 5

• Portion of the Veterans Health Administration's budget devoted to veterans with mental-health or addiction problems: 1/3

• Chance that a U.S. worker is of normal weight and without a chronic health problem: 1 in 7

• Number of working-age people for every person  over sixty-five worldwide in 1950: 11.7

• Number today: 8.6

• Projected humber in 2050: 3.9

The President gets mail

A pair of items from this month's Harper's Index:

• Number of letters from Americans President Barack Obama reads each evening: 10

• Number of staffers in the Corespondence Office responsible for seelecting those letters from the 11,000 received each day: 7

There's a lot to ponder there.  First of all, it's not a Democrat/Republican thing - the same must have been happening since the office of the presidency was established.  But look how it must have ramped up - now 11 thousand letters every day.

And seven staff persons just to sort through that mail.  One knee-jerk reaction would be that this is an example of how government has become bloated.  But on the other hand many of these letters are from people with genuine concerns, and probably the staff forward items to relevant congressmen or government agencies.

Still - 11,000 letters every day.  And how many emails?  Interesting to think about.

Addendum:  A hat tip to Chuck for finding this relevant story at ABC News.

New USDA plant hardiness zone map

I had heard that a revision was in the works, and it has been eagerly awaited by gardeners.

The 2012 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map is the standard by which gardeners and growers can determine which plants are most likely to thrive at a location. The map is based on the average annual minimum winter temperature, divided into 10-degree F zones.

The embed above is a static image, but if you go to this USDA page, you can access an interactive map with detailed state maps.

Most locations in the US are now in warmer zones; we've gone from 4b to 5a in just the last ten years.

Buying/selling something on Craigslist ??

Why not meet your seller/buyer at the police station?  The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel explains:

After a recent rash of robberies involving people trying to sell items on the web site Craigslist, Milwaukee police on Monday encouraged people to conclude their transactions at perhaps one of the safest places in town - the local police station...

A 33-year-old man wanting to sell a cell phone met a suspect at the gas station. The suspect got into the victim's car and forced him drive to the back of the parking lot, where he threatened the victim with a small revolver. He went through the victim's pockets and took $40. After a fight, the robber and another suspect stole two cell phones from the victim. Other robberies of people wanting to sell iPads and vehicles happened Jan. 15 and 19...

"This is nothing new. It's happening all over the country," police officer Lisa Staffold said Monday. "The media has deemed it 'robbery by appointment' because you're posting ads, you're selling your iPhones, your iPads, your vehicles, and when you go to a meeting location, you're being robbed."

The crimes are done by either pretend-buyers who show up to rob the seller of the advertised item, or pretend-sellers, who want to steal money from the buyer.

Police hope to put a stop to the robberies by having sellers and buyers meet at a safe place. "If they don't want to meet you at a safe place, if they don't want to meet you at a police district, that should be a red flag, an indicator: Don't do business with that individual," Staffold said.

Very clever idea, found at The Consumerist.

Iceberg

Photographed in the Antarctic near Peterman Island by Kseniia Maiukova (Caters News), via The Telegraph.

A new life form discovered in Canada

The Burgess Shale continues to produce amazing fossils.  PhysOrg has a summary:

Officially named Siphusauctum gregarium, fossils reveal a tulip-shaped creature that is about the length of a dinner knife (approximately 20 centimetres or eight inches) and has a unique filter feeding system.

Siphusauctum has a long stem, with a calyx – a bulbous cup-like structure – near the top which encloses an unusual filter feeding system and a gut. The animal is thought to have fed by filtering particles from water actively pumped into its calyx through small holes... Most interesting is that this feeding system appears to be unique among animals.

And some additional details from EarthTimes:

Siphusauctum gregarium looked like a tulip, about 20cm (or 8ins) long, filter feeding from the floor of the sea. The body or "calyx" is enclosed by a sheath, with six small filtering holes and a terminal anus. It has a large stomach, followed by a conical gut and straight section of intestine. Six radially-symmetrical sections contain the filtering combs... Only the stomach, and anus of the digestive tract show any phylogenetic relationships, but exactly which relationship is up in the air. Hence the new family, new genus, new species, in fact, new everything.

TL;DR - it's like a tulip with an anus.  Next fossil, please.

Reconstruction image artwork: © Marianne Collins.

DeBeers settles a class-action lawsuit

DeBeers has announced a settlement of a class action lawsuit.  Here are the allegations:

The lawsuits claim that the largest suppliers of diamonds in the world—De Beers S.A. and its associated companies—violated antitrust, unfair competition, and consumer-protection laws by monopolizing diamond supplies, conspiring to fix, raise, and control diamond prices, and disseminating false and misleading advertising...

And the company will pay millions of dollars -

...the Settlement provides that the Defendants will pay a total of $295 million for the benefit of Class Members plus up to $7 million for the costs of providing notice of the Settlement terms to the Indirect Purchaser Class.. The Settlement provides that $22.5 million will be paid to Direct Purchaser Class Members who submit valid claims, and $272.5 million will be paid to Indirect Purchaser Class Members who submit valid claims.

The payments go to resellers and customers, the latter defined as -

All persons located in the United States who purchased any diamond or diamond jewelry or other products containing gem diamonds for personal use and not for resale between January 1, 1994 and March 31, 2006. For example, Consumers include people who purchased diamond jewelry to wear or to give as a gift. 

However, while the "sightholders" (companies reselling the diamonds) get an estimated US $173,000 each, consumers fare less well -

"...consumers are estimated to receive US $1.15 each... But here is the real insult:  The court agreed that any payout under $10.00 does not have to be paid..."

The funds designated for consumers ($135 million) but not paid out reverts to the general settlement fund, 25% of which goes to the lawyers in legal fees.

Class-action lawsuits really suck (unless you are an attorney).  I wasn't involved in this one, but I've been a "participant" in a couple during my life, and they are never worth the time and effort.

Via the newsletter of the Madison Gem and Mineral Club.

The "crooked forest" of Gryfino (Poland) - updated

The link for the embedded photo was sent to me by Jennifer Fox, with a request for an explanation, since her web search had not proved satisfactory.

Several possibilities come to mind.  It's obvious that the trees were bent when very young, then recovered.  Those who live near large lakes with prominent ice heaves will have seen trees affected in this manner, and a similiar effect could occur after a blowdown by straightline winds.

I get the sense that this forest is a tree farm, because of the uniformity of age of the trees, and I suspect this is a man-made curvature, because of the similarity of all the trees involved.  If that's true, then my best explanation would be that these trees were trained as "compass timbers" for shipbuilding or as material for other woodworking.  See this post from last fall on that subject.

This blog gets about 500 visits a month from readers in Poland; perhaps someone can offer a definitive answer.

Photo credit: tapenade.

Addendum January 2012.  One of the curious aspects of blogging is that you never know which posts will be popular or produce sustained interest.  I posted the above about a year ago, and it has continued to accumulate hits (40,000 so far!) and comments, so I thought a repost with an update was warranted.

One of the early comments included a link to Discovery News, with a map showing the location of this forest:

The bent trees are in a small suburban area, surrounded by normal trees (evident in some of the photos in the gallery at this link).

Re the etiology, my original postulate was that they were bent by humans for shipbuilding timbers or other woodworking.  Others chimed in with suggestions of "gravity anomalies," crop circles, the Tunguska Event (!!), "evil," and tank maneuvers.

I favor the later suggestion that the trees were intended to be used for furniture making in the "German Jugendstil style (1900/30), which is noted for its numerous curvilinear features."  Another reader offered a link to this photo of a sledge with curved wooden runners:

Government limousine numbers soaring

The number of limousines owned by the federal government has risen by 73% during the first two years of the Obama administration, as reported at the Center for Public Integrity's IWatch website:

Most of the increase was recorded in Hillary Clinton’s State Department.

Obama administration officials said most of the increase reflects an enhanced effort to protect diplomats and other government officials in a dangerous world. But a watchdog group says the abundance of limos sends the wrong message in the midst of a budget crisis...

According to General Services Administration data, the number of limousines in the federal fleet increased from 238 in fiscal 2008, the last year of the George W. Bush administration, to 412 in 2010. Much of the 73 percent increase—111 of the 174 additional limos—took place in fiscal 2009, more than eight months of which corresponded with Obama’s first year in office. However, some of those purchases could reflect requests made by the Bush administration during an appropriations process that would have begun in the spring of 2008...

“The categories in the Fleet Report are overly broad, and the term 'limousine' is not defined,” adding that “vehicles represented as limousines can range from protective duty vehicles to sedans.”..

The department said it defines a limo as a vehicle that carries a VIP or “other protectee,” rather than by the type of car, but said most of its limos are Cadillac DTSs, which cost the taxpayer more than $60,000 for a 2011 base model...

If the data is [sic] correct, some federal employees who once rode in style now face more proletarian transportation options. The Department of Veterans Affairs, for example, ran a fleet of 21 limousines in 2008 under George W. Bush, according to the fleet report. It now makes do with only one.  The Government Printing Office also lost all of its six limos between 2009 and 2010. The VA and the Government Printing Office did not respond to calls for comment.

More at the link.  Photo credit AP.

This is a "shinplaster"

Found at the Hennepin County Library's tumblr, the above is -

- a type of emergency currency issued in the Northwest following the start of the Civil War. Issued at Minneapolis October 10th, 1862. Name of issuer is R.J.Mendenhall. Denomination is 5 cents.

Wikipedia has more on shinplasters, including a suggestion re the etymology - 

According to the Oxford English Dictionary, the name comes from the quality of the paper, which was so cheap that with a bit of starch it could be used to make paper-mâché-like plasters to go under socks and warm shins.

- and a description of similar local currencies in Canada and Australia (where they were also called "calabashes)."

In some places they formed the core of a company shop economy (Truck system), circulating as private currencies. They were often of such low quality that they could not be hoarded, and shopkeepers off the property would not take them, as they would deteriorate into illegibility before they could be redeemed.

There are tales of unscrupulous shopkeepers and others baking or otherwise artificially aging their calabashes given as change to travelers so that they crumbled to uselessness before they could be redeemed.

"Truck system" - twice in one week.

Your blog may someday be your résumé

From a story in the Wall Street Journal:

Instead of asking for résumés, the New York venture-capital firm—which has invested in Twitter, Foursquare, Zynga and other technology companies—asked applicants to send links representing their "Web presence," such as a Twitter account or Tumblr blog...

Companies are increasingly relying on social networks such as LinkedIn, video profiles and online quizzes to gauge candidates' suitability for a job. While most still request a résumé as part of the application package, some are bypassing the staid requirement altogether...

The world's largest carved emerald

The emerald, discovered at Carnaiba, in the emerald-producing province of Bahia, Brazil, in August, 1974, made its way to Palo Alto via a local gem trader with whom we had worked and partnered for many years. He took it to Hong Kong for carving, where a team of four carvers was commissioned to sculpt the design of Tao Heaven...

The original weight of the emerald was 62 pounds, or over 140,000 carats. Its dimensions then were approximately 16 1/2" high, 14" wide, and 7" deep... the final weight after carving is 86,000 carats, or 38 pounds. The excess material ended up as dust on the studio floor...

From the owner's website, via the newsletter of the Madison Gem and Mineral Club.

The vegetation is changing in Siberia

As reported by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration:

The pair of images above shows a site on the Siberian tundra near Russia’s Yenisey River in the summers of 1966 (top) and 2009 (lower). In the 43 years that passed between the first image and the second, shrubs colonized virtually all of the previously open tundra surrounding a cluster of lakes...

At the site Frost studies, the tundra is often patterned with bald spots—circles of bare ground where seasonal frost heave can uproot plant seedlings. These frost circles, sometimes called “frost boils,” give the tundra in the top center of the images its speckled look. The bare spots create an open canvas for shrubs to colonize, presuming they can withstand the seasonal frost heave. At this site, the colonizing shrubs are usually alders...

The conversion of tundra to dense, tall shrubland triggers a cascade of changes in how the ecosystem functions. Observations from Europe, Alaska, and Siberia in recent decades have shown plant communities became less diverse as mosses, lichens, and other shorter-growing plants disappeared under the shade created by shrubs. The loss of lichens, in particular, could pose a problem for caribou and reindeer, which forage on them extensively.

The change from tundra to shrubland can also affect the thawing of permafrost...

More at the link.  Via NASA's Earth Observatory.

The double tragedy of Sarah Burke

While training on that halfpipe slope, Canadian freestyle skier Sarah Burke suffered a torn vertebral artery in her neck that caused bleeding in her brain, an injury that she would die from...

That's the first tragedy.  The Center for Public Integrity explains the second:

...her family will be laying her to rest in her native Canada — and pleading for money to help cover the estimated $550,000 they owe for the medical care she received at University of Utah Hospital over nine days.

The irony is that had the accident occurred in Canada... her care would have been covered because, unlike the U.S., Canada has a system of universal coverage...

It is clear the family needs help. Not only are they grieving, they are facing financial ruin, simply because Sarah Burke’s accident was in the United States of America. 

And, in case you are wondering about who pays for Gabrielle Giffords' rehab, that is discussed at ScienceBlogs' Pump Handle public health blog -

"Congresswoman Giffords was injured while she was on the job and her rehabilitation is covered by workers' compensation under the Federal Employees' Compensation Act."...

The type of acute rehabilitation she receives - involving speech, occupational and physical rehab - costs about $8,000 a day, according to the Brain Injury Association of America. Post-acute rehabilitation can range in cost from $600 to $2,500 daily. The expenses leave the treatment options well out of reach for most patients whose insurers won't pay for the services. 

Photo: Doug Pensinger/Getty Images.

World's largest opal matrix (55,000 carats)

"The opal is about 30 cms in length with a height of 15-20 cms and a 4 cm thickness. Its estimated value is at least 1 million dollars USD... Historically, the largest opal found so far was just 6,100 carats in size. The current one is nearly ten times that size."

Photo and text via JustLuxe.  I often see opals at rock and mineral shows, but have never owned one or understood their geology, so I had to look up the details -

Matrix opals are a type of boulder opal and are found as part of a host rock, called Boulder ironstone.  They contain opal randomly distributed through the rock. The boulder ironstone with the precious opal inclusions are cut as one piece, giving an appearance similar to what you see when you look at the night sky, except that the ‘stars’ in this case are flecks of glories opal color.

Different types of matrix opals come from a variety of fields.  Boulder matrix comes from the Queensland fields in the northern part of the opal regions in Australia. There is another form of matrix opal from Andamooka in South Australia which is treated to give it a darker background. The specimen is soaked in sugar solution and boiled in acid, which causes carbon to get deposited in the spaces in the rock, giving it a dark or black opal appearance.

From Opalmine, which has pix of examples for sale.  Rock and mineral collecting has changed a lot since I was a kid in the 50s; nowadays much of what is available for purchase has been altered chemically or with heat or with radiation.  But with worldwide transportation much improved, there are now some amazing finds and products available.

Via the newsletter of the Madison Gem and Mineral Club.

Marine accused in Haditha killings makes plea deal

From the Los Angeles Times:

Prosecutors and defense attorneys in the court-martial of Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich, accused in the killing of 24 unarmed Iraqis in 2005, announced an agreement Monday to settle the case.  Wuterich will plead guilty to a single count of negligent dereliction of duty. Other charges were dropped. No announcement was made on what kind of discharge Wuterich would receive...

Wuterich, 31, was accused of manslaughter, assault and dereliction of duty for allegedly leading his squad on a bloody rampage on the morning of Nov. 19, 2005, after a roadside bomb killed one Marine and injured two in the Euphrates River town of Haditha.

When the smoke cleared, Wuterich's squad had killed 24 Iraqis, including three women and seven children, in a fruitless effort to find the gunmen that the Marines believed was firing on them from a house near the bomb blast.

Wuterich's case is the last to be settled among the eight Marines accused in the killings: four enlisted Marines accused of firing the fatal shots and four officers accused of not investigating thoroughly. Six cases were dropped, one officer was acquitted at court-martial...

The hearing officer at Wuterich's preliminary hearing in 2007 predicted the prosecution would fail because of inconsistent testimony from witnesses and poor forensics.

The maximum sentence is three months in the brig. 

More on the Haditha killings.  I'll withhold comment, but not block them for the post.

Make your own mineral water

Edible Geography notes that the ratios of the ingredients are prominently listed on each product "so that you can easily find the total dissolved solids in such premium sparkling waters as Perrier, Badoît, and Vichy."

So... you can make your own.

Lersch has created a mineral water calculator — a handy downloadable spreadsheet into which you simply enter your tap water composition (optional, but recommended for best results; your water company should provide this upon request) and select your preferred mineral water, in order to generate a printable ingredients list of minerals and salts.

Some ingredients ("food grade sodium bromide") are difficult to find, but then all you need to do is carbonate the mineral water (which affects the pH).  Details at the link.

When did the earth have two moons?

The last time was in the autumn of 2006.  But after orbiting the earth for less than a year, it departed.  Details via PhysOrg:

Temporary satellites are a result of the gravitational pull of Earth and the Moon. Both bodies pull on one another and also pull on anything else in nearby space. The most common objects that get pulled in by the Earth-Moon system’s gravity are near Earth objects (NEOs) — comets and asteroids are nudged by the outer planets and end up in orbits that bring them into Earth’s neighbourhood...

They found that the Earth-Moon system captures NEOs quite frequently. “At any given time, there should be at least one natural Earth satellite of 1-meter diameter orbiting the Earth,” the team said. These NEOs orbit the Earth for about ten months, enough time to make about three orbits, before leaving.

One implication is that the study of the cosmos can be facilitated by visiting/sampling these temporary moons rather than trying to access more distant bodies.

"Crab into kick" crosswind landing technique

YouTube link. 

The airplane approaches the runway at a "crabbed" angle, to offset the wind -- then at practically the last instant before touchdown the pilot uses the rudder to "kick" the plane into alignment with the runway, so when the wheels make contact they are pointed straight ahead.

Discussion and an additional video in James Fallows' Atlantic column.

"Have no truck with..." explained

According to World Wide Words:

For the genesis of the term we must go back to medieval England. Truck had been borrowed from Old French troquer, which meant to obtain goods by barter or to give in exchange. It still does in expressions such as truck farm for a market garden, because its produce was often bartered rather than sold. Truck here has nothing to do with vehicles; that sense comes from a different source, a Latin word meaning the sheaf of a pulley, later a small wooden wheel.

In order to barter you had to negotiate with the person you were dealing with and truck later extended to refer to dealing or trading in all sorts of commodities. By the seventeenth century it had broadened and weakened into the idea of communication in general or of being on familiar terms with another person.

I had always assumed the term "truck farm" referred to vehicles used to transport the produce.  You learn something every day.

This is a "Schnee bath"

The Schnee Four Cell Bath was used for treating general rheumatic conditions and painful joints. A patient would be seated with an individual bath for each limb. Each bath had its own current, which could be varied independently.  In this treatment patients could bear a much stronger current than with electrodes on small areas, because of the large skin area exposed to the current in each bath. There was no danger of electric shock as in a full bath as the porcelain tubs were not connected to water pipes and were well insulated from earthing. The quantity of water required was not great and did not depend on a nearby water supply. It also allowed the person to be treated without undressing, speeding up treatment times and proving much more comfortable and convenient than a full body bath.

Text from the Sacred Medical Order of Hope.  Photo from Edward Reginald Morton and Elkin Cumberbatch’s Essentials of Medical Electricity (Third Edition) (1916), via A London Salmagundi.