Dandelion bonsai

It was not until my adult retirement years that I began to understand that dandelions are perennials.  I have harvested some really deep-rooted ones in the loose soil of a backyard tomato patch (I even pondered entering one such plant into a state fair ag competition).  And it was not until yesterday that I discovered that they can be used for bonsai-type art.

I found enough other material online to be reassured that the image above isn't pure AI.  Whether it is true "bonsai" can be argued; you can read about such viewpoints at Reddit and via the Google AI.

Was the sign designed like this on purpose ?

I bet I could win bar bets with this factoid

Goat tower

If I had goats, I'd want to have a goat tower.  You can read about the (unexciting) history of such towers at Wikipedia.

These windshield dots have a function

Explained at the whatdoesthismean subreddit:

Those little black dots on your car’s windshield are called frits. They are printed on the glass using baked-on ceramic paint and serve several important purposes: Secure the Glass: The solid black band and the dots provide a rougher, etched surface for the urethane glue to bond the windshield to the car frame. Protect the Adhesive: The solid black border acts as a shield to block harmful UV rays from degrading the glue and keeping it strong over time. Regulate Heat: The dots decrease in size as they move away from the solid black band. This creates a gradient that absorbs and distributes heat evenly, preventing the glass from warping, cracking, or suffering from optical distortion when it gets hot in the sun. Reduce Glare: They diffuse harsh sunlight so you don't experience intense contrast between the dark frame and clear glass.

Found in the hair of a trauma victim...

The patient's wife posted this image in the whatisit subreddit, where I learned that this is a modern xray marker.  I spent 30 years reviewing chest xrays, and back in the previous century the xray markers were less elaborate.  Classically the orientation was indicated with a lead "R" or "L" (or full word "LEFT") -

- sometimes with a movable pellet inside to indicate upright, supine, or decubitus positioning...

Nowadays apparently the standard is to have the xray technician's initials incorporated into the marker, which the technician can (?has to) buy from sites like Etsy -

You learn something every day - even stuff you thought you knew.

Storytime chair (Penzance, Cornwall)

Details of the chair's design elements from local folklore are clarified at the Neatorama via.  I presume the colorful discs by the chair are little sit-upon pads for the children.  

How very cool.  I would be delighted to sit and listen to stories read by someone sitting in this chair.

Neolithic trackway in Somerset

This interesting image was in a Guardian article describing and illustrating several of the most ancient pathways in England.  Shown above is the "Sweet Track", "built nearly 6,000 years ago (3806BC) by early farmers who needed access to an island, the collapsed boardwalk was preserved in peat."

It was interesting to me because of the technique used to secure the planks - suggestive of more sophisticated engineering than the most common corduroy roads.

The other ancient paths at the Guardian link are also interesting for different reasons; the article is worth a quick browse if you enjoy walking.

Top image cropped for size from the original, credit Craig Joiner Photography/Alamy.  Lower diagrams from Avalon Marshes.

Odd structure found "in the middle of nowhere"

I was delighted to discover what it is and was impressed to note how well-designed and constructed it is.  Read all about it at the whatisthisthing subreddit.

Very interesting pattern on this rock

Found in a creekbed in Montana and posted in the whatsthisrock subreddit, where there is a detailed explanation of how such a complex pattern could evolve.

Posted for the delightful image, which as an old rockhound I find fascinating.  The explanation about how cracks can form in quartz because of differential strain between hard quartz and soft(er) surroundings is well over my head, and I will never remember that this is "the very first phase of boudinage," but it is a cool image and belongs in the blog.

Addendum:  A tip of the blogging cap to a reader who provided two excellent link in their comment: a detailed explanation of the process of boudinage, and a relevant video on the topic.  Both are well done academic presentations.

"Radiator thing on a basement pipe"

A curiosity posted in the whatisthisthing subreddit by someone who saw it while visiting an open house.  Informed discussion thread at the link indicates that this is in fact a "radiator thing" (properly termed "hydronic heater") in a "fin tube" style, and similar in intended function to a baseboard heater.

I agree with this comment that it looks like an amateur hack:

That's not going to do much to heat the space because a slant fin radiator is meant to move air by convection. The normal installation is down low near the floor, not up high. Also usually below a window. They work by heating the cool air that's coming off the window and falling down on them.

And I find it curious that traversing the same room is what appears to be a hot water pipe wrapped to prevent heat escaping into the basement.

Patches in plywood - Dutchmen or biscuits?

Image edited for size, color, brightness, and contrast from a garish photo at the whatisgthisthing subreddit.  The discussion thread is reasonably focused and includes an explanation of termionology:

"They’re called Dutchmen, they’re shaped like footballs to cover long knots or splits.... That’s not a Dutchman. Dutchmen are also called bow ties because that’s what they are shaped like.  This is a biscuit.... No. It’s a Dutchman. A Dutchman can be any shape and is used to hide blemishes. A bow tie is a Dutchman key and is used either for decoration or to stop cracking. This may be the same shape as a biscuit but it’s not a biscuit because of how it’s used. Biscuits are for joining wood... Can confirm, I work maintenance at a fulfillment center and if a conveyor belt suffers damage one of the options is to cut out the damaged section across its entire width and then lace in a length of new belt to fill the gap.  We commonly do 8 ft Dutchmans to allow the entirely of the patch to be inside the pulleys of the main drive and still have both lacing visible and accessible, should the lacing fail then the Dutchman isn't all wadded up in the drive..."

And as to why one would cut knots our of plywood: 

"Knots in wood are much more dense than the stringy, normal wood. When they make plywood, they layer thin strips (plys) of wood together and glue them to one another like a wood-and-glue sandwich. The problem arises when there is a dense, brittle knot on either of the two exposed plys on the plywood sheet. Shaving a slice of a dense knot gives you a super brittle portion that often ends up crumbling out in crumbs.

Think of it like having a sheet of paper with a small section of equally as thin glass embedded into the paper. You can bend the paper portion, cut the paper portion easily with scissors, but the little glass portion has different properties. It's more dense, but you can't bend it or stress it or else it will shatter."

Hat tips to the commenters.  More at the link.  I know this is TMI, but I'm desperately trying to keep my mind off that clusterfuck of the U.S./Israel/Iran war ruining the world economy.

Addendum:  As I continued on this topic, I found an entire Wikipedia page on Dutchmen.  Evidently the term is used regarding replacement/repair material in a wide array of otherwise unrelated professions: woodworking, masonry, shipbuilding, railroading, theater, boilermaking.  The etymology and connection to the Netherlands remains unexplained in what I've read (maybe it's an allusion to putting a finger in a leaking dike).

Some elevators have "Yes" and "No" buttons

I probably should travel more, because I've never seen an elevator panel like this.  The rationale is explained in a lucid and fairly concise comment thread at the whatisit subreddit.

An "art car" parade (Houston, 2025)

The video is almost two hours long - a thorough documentation of the parade, apparently without any commentary, best approached for casual viewing by clicking along the scrubber bar at the bottom.  Here are a couple screencaps:

I found the video after reading about the phenomenon in The New York Times:

This was not just a car. It was an art car — a vehicle transformed into a kinetic sculpture, built from imagination and, often, from what others had thrown away.

“I can’t drive past trash without pulling over,” said Mr. Polidore, 50, a longtime elementary school art teacher who writes art curricula for the district. “When I’m stuck in that hellacious Houston traffic, I’m scanning the side of the road for any parts of cars that have gotten thrown off in wrecks and I’m grabbing them.”...

The rules remain minimal. “Whether it’s been painted, welded, sculpted, dropped, chopped, beaded, smashed, crashed, lit or lifted, art cars come in all shapes, sizes and forms,” read this year’s brochure. “The only rule is that it must roll!” And across the city, in garages, driveways and schoolyards, artists have been working for months to ensure that theirs will.

But what might make Houston’s art car parade so special is the fact that many of the artists are children... Over 50 of the cars that roll on Saturday will have been made in Houston classrooms, a striking fact at a time when arts funding in schools continues to shrink...

In Houston, where driving is nearly unavoidable, the art car offers a kind of inversion, a reminder that even the most ordinary object can be remade into something strange, expressive and communal.

Or, as Ms. Soto put it: “Art cars are chaos. Good chaos.”

TL:DR - People having fun.  Something this world needs more of.

Addendum:  If this topic interests you, I encourage you to browse some of the art-car-related posts at Just A Car Guy, including this video of the Houston art car parade.

Worldwide toilet paper consumption

I'm not particularly surprised that the U.S. leads the world in this metric, but the numbers are unexpected.  Per capita usage of 141 rolls per year would mean 2-3 rolls every week.  How many squares are people using???

"Funeral bread" explained

Cinnamon bread. Cheez Whiz. Green olives.

These are the sole ingredients of a potluck offering that’s popular in some parts of Minnesota and North Dakota. Some people use breads with a little less flair, like pumpernickel or rye, but the cinnamon version has its die-hard fans, especially in Roseau, Minn...

“When you go to our local grocer — we only have one in town — on the Super One display is fresh baked, in-house cinnamon swirl bread with a pyramid of Cheez Whiz displayed next to it,” said Sinnamon Krings, Roseau promotions director. “To someone not from here you might wonder why but to a local it’s as common as peanut butter and jelly.”

Those who love the combination are often nostalgic about it and remember eating it as a kid after church services or funerals. In some circles, it’s called “funeral bread.”..

The company debuted Cheez Whiz in 1952, first in Britain, where Kraft marketed it as an easy way to make the sauce for Welsh rarebit.  When the product landed on U.S. supermarket shelves the next year, Kraft already had the perfect way to introduce it to shoppers — on the company-sponsored television program Kraft TV Theatre... On Sept. 8, Sasser wrote that during that week’s program, Kraft TV Theatre demonstrated a recipe that is very close to funeral bread: Melba toast spread with Cheez Whiz and topped with sliced olives. Could this be the dish’s origin?

This may have been a standard sandwich in northwestern Minnesota, but not where I grew up in the southern part of the state.  The closest sandwich to this that I can remember eating regularly from the 1950s used cream cheese and olives (not Cheez Whiz), and we ate it on puffy white slices of Wonder Bread, not cinnamon toast.  

But this "funeral bread" looks yummy  I'll give it a try.

Image credit Erica Pearson via the Minnesota Star Tribune.

"Stool inspection shelf" illustrated

The discussion thread at the WeirdToilets subreddit includes extensive discussion as to whether a "stool inspection shelf" is a common feature of toilets in various European and worldwide locations.

Additional discussion at this archived article and in the "washout toilet" section of the Wikipedia page on flush toilets.

"Washout, or Flachspüler ("shallow flush"), toilets have a flat platform with a shallow pool of water. They are flushed by a jet of water from the back that drives waste into the trap below. From there, the water flow removes it into the sewage system. An advantage of the design is that users will not get splashed from below. Taking of stool samples is also simplified. Washout toilets have a shallow pool of water into which waste is deposited, with a trapped drain just behind this pool... Washout pans were among the first types of ceramic toilets invented and since the early 1970s are now only found in a decreasing number of localities in Europe.[citation needed] A washout toilet is a kind of flush toilet which was once predominantly used in Germany, Austria and France. It was patented in Britain by George Jennings in 1852 and remained the standard toilet type in Britain throughout the 19th century..."

Why did sand fall out of this old book?

"Today I looked at a handwritten account book from 1717. It listed a series of expenses paid by the city of Leiden (the Dutch city where I live) to various suppliers - of books, papers, pens. Being a medieval book historian, any source made after 1500 is alien. Because I am used to handling parchment books, it was odd to handle a book that was made out of paper - and a lot of it, for that matter. Also new to me was the fact that related materials were held together by needles and to see dozens of rare actual receipts, small slips that were crossed out when paid. The biggest surprise, however, was the material that came falling out of the account book: sand..."

Some readers here will already know the explanation for the sand; others can find the answer at Erik Kwakkel.

Reposted from 2015 because I encountered it while searching for something else.  Sadly, the Erik Swakkel link is dormant now (but the link is still accessible).  The site is a treasure trove for those interested in medieval books.

The Bernese bear will keep his red penis

I heard the story reported on the March 10 broadcast of As It Happens, and found confirmation and the image at SwissInfo:

The bear on the coat of arms of canton Bern will continue to display its red penis, the cantonal government has ruled... The cantonal government was responding to a written question from Liberal Green parliamentarian Thomas Brönnimann, who wondered whether it would not be more appropriate to depict the bear without its masculine attributes, so that the population as a whole would feel better represented... The bear has a tradition that goes back at least 600 years and has been represented in this way since the 15th century...

The bear has always been depicted on official documents with a red phallus. In view of this tradition, the cantonal government believed that it was reasonable to continue to depict the bear in this way. Nor did it wish to conduct an online survey on the bear’s future appearance. In its view, such a survey would not be representative and would have little informative value.

Seeking help from my readers

Lots of stories this week about Olympic skater Alysa Liu, including a feature article in The Atlantic on "The Alysa Liu Effect."  The article focuses on her hairstyle ("raccoon head") and clothing, but didn't mention her teeth (photo cropped from a source somewhere else).

This old guy wonders what's going on here, because these look like dental implants rather then stick-on ornaments.  I'm quite aware that children getting braces can now have their braces painted, or can use colored rubber bands, as a cosmetic compensation for what is otherwise perceived by their schoolmates as unattractive (similar to "pimple patches" I suppose).  

So is this a new body modification that will become more common?  Do the arrows represent something from comics or a meme I haven't seen?  I'm turning to my readership for answers because it will be faster than looking this up.  Thanks in advance.

(Well, that didn't take long.  A dozen replies within an hour.  Thanks again.)

Question answered.  Comments now closed.