Ukraine's currency is collapsing

As reported in the Washington Post:

Ukraine, to use a technical term, is broke. That's what you call a country whose currency has lost half its value in just two days.

The problem is simple: Ukraine has no money and barely any economy... The hyrvnia fell from 16.8 to 24.4 per dollar, and then again to 25.3 on Friday, on this news that the government wouldn't intervene it in anymore. In all, it was a 50 percent decline in 48 hours...

Why is Ukraine so doomed? Well, it's been mismanaged on a world-historical scale by oligarchs who, for decades, have skimmed billions off the country's nonexistent growth. That last part's not hyperbole. It seems almost impossible, but Ukraine's economy has actually shrunk since communism ended in 1991. Or since 1992. Or even 1993. And now its not-so-cold war with Russia is destroying the little that's left. It's not just that the rebel strongholds in the factory-heavy east have deprived Ukraine of a quarter of its industrial capacity. It's that it can't afford to fight against what's still it's biggest trading partner—Russia. Think about that. You don't usually trade a lot with the country you're going to battle against, but Ukraine's economy is so dependent on Russia's that it still trades more with it than any other. That means anything that hurts Russia, like lower oil prices or sanctions, just redounds onto Ukraine, and puts it in an even bigger financial hole.

TYWKIWDBI gets about 150 visits/month from readers in Ukraine.  I would love to hear your thoughts in the comment thread for this post.

You'll probably never guess the most common job in your state.

NPR used "data from the Census Bureau, which has two catch-all categories: "managers not elsewhere classified" and "salespersons not elsewhere classified." Because those categories are broad and vague to the point of meaninglessness, we excluded them from our map."

As the slider on the (noninteractive) embed indicates, the map at the NPR link is interactive, allowing one to view changes over three decades.  This was the map in 1978:


The "farmer" category shriveled with mergers and corporatization.  "Secretary" receded with the arrival of computers.   As the article notes, the data is markedly influenced by how occupations are categorized and grouped, so this is a blunt instrument at best.  But still interesting.

A modern day "parsley massacre"

I had not heard of the Parsley Massacre until I read about it in The Atlantic:

In October 1937, the president of the Dominican Republic, Rafael Trujillo, devised a simple way to identify the Haitian immigrants living along the border of his country. Dominican soldiers would hold up a sprig of parsley—perejil in Spanish—and ask people to identify it. Those who spoke Spanish would pronounce the word's central "r" with that language's characteristic trill; the Haitians, on the other hand, would bury the "r" sound in the throaty way of the French. To be on the receiving end of the parsley test would be to seal, either way, one's fate: The Spanish-speaking Dominicans were left to live, and the Haitians were slaughtered. It was a state-sponsored genocide that would be remembered, in one of history's greatest understatements, as the Parsley Massacre.

The modern-day equivalent is to sort out true intellectuals from fake ones by their knowledge (or lack thereof) of how certain names are pronounced.

Paul Klee (clay)
Michel Foucault (foo-coe)

Here are some of the other names:

Walter Benjamin
Paulo Coelho
John Maynard Keynes
Joan Miró
Anaïs Nin
Chuck Palahniuk

Many more at The Atlantic.  Brush up before that next cocktail party.  You can argue all you want that language is flexible and fluid, but the same principle doesn't apply to specific people's names.

Count the black dots

Image saved in the pre-blogging era without attribution.

This hat is as wide as it is tall

The width of the brim is the same as the height of the stovepipe top.

You don't believe me.  You're reaching for a measuring ruler.  I'll wait...

Source:  2006, but I don't know where.

A mushroom cap

From the archives of National Geographic:

This hat, shaped from the fibrous interior of Fomes fomentarius, was mailed to National Geographic headquarters by William J. O'Reardon in 1920... According to an eyewitness report in the newsletter of the North American Mycological Association, Fomes caps of Hungarian origin were spotted for sale at the 12th International Fungi and Fibre Symposium in 2005...

Photo credit: Charles Martin (National Geographic Stock)

Elaborate stage illusion - updated

An illustration from an 1897 book "Stage Illusions and Scientific Diversions, including Trick Photography."  (with a hat tip to reader S. Norma for that online fulltext link)

Found at Vintage Blog, where no further explanation is offered.   I'll bet the participants sit in the group swing, which swings back and forth, and then the "room" surrounding them is rotated the opposite way, to give the illusion of near-inversion.

Clever.  I wonder if any modern amusement parks incorporate this idea into their rides.

Addendum:   In the Comments section, several readers have noted that this type of illusion still exists in amusement parks - for example the Villa Volta in the Netherlands and a Dutch Wonder House in Pennsylvania.

This type of ride is often referred to as a Madhouse ("designed to be an optical and physical illusion, consisting of several rows of seats attached to a swaying gondola within a rotating drum. The ride creates the impression that the rider is turning upside down, whereas it is actually the room that is moving around them.  The ride is a modern implementation of a haunted swing illusion.")

I may have given the impression while writing the post that I am totally unfamiliar with amusement parks.  Au contraire, mon frere.  I grew up in a Excelsior, a suburb of Minneapolis, home to the Excelsior Amusement Park.  Built in the 1920s on the shores of then-pristine Lake Minnetonka, it was an attraction for Minneapolis city-dwellers who arrived at the park via a (long) streetcar ride.  The featured attraction was this roller-coaster (cropped for size from the original at Minnesota Reflections):

Photographed in the 1920s, when it had a field of grain on the shoreward side.   I last visited the park in the 1960s when the field of grain had replaced by suburban homes and businesses.  The roller-coaster was constructed from wood, which had survived 40 years, but pieces of it were scattered on the ground underneath, and as I recall I opted out of testing its integrity.

The coaster was demolished in the 1970s (memoriam here) and the lakeside amusement park replaced by the inevitable condominiums.  I've not been to an amusement park since then; I don't suppose they've changed much...

More than you would ever need to know about beaver testicles

My curiosity started with the above image, from a bestiary quiz at Medievalists.net.  The creature depicted is identified as a beaver, but why is he biting his testicles?

I found a lengthy discussion of the use of the beaver in heraldry at the website of the Norton family, whose coat-of-arms depicts three beavers.

In Christian symbolism the Beaver represents chastity and the willingness to sacrifice anything that hinders one's walk with God. This icon is also a symbol of vigilance and self-sacrifice, and was often used in Heraldry as a symbol of protection and dedication...

The beaver is hunted for its testicles, which are valued for making medicine. When the beaver sees that it cannot escape from the hunter, it bites off its testicles and throws them to the hunter, who then stops pursuing the beaver. If another hunter chases the beaver, it shows the hunter that it has already lost its testicles and so is spared. The allegory is that those who want to live a proper life should cut themselves off from sin, so that the devil, seeing nothing he wants, does not pursue.

They also provide the full image from which the top one is cropped -

Among the many citations there is this one -

Sir Thomas Browne - Of the Bever.
(1646; 6th ed., 1672) Pseudodoxia Epidemica III.iv (pp. 124-127) CHAP IV.
THAT a Bever to escape the Hunter, bites off his testicles or stones, is a Tenet very ancient; and hath had thereby advantage of propagation. For the same we find in the Hieroglyphicks of the Egyptians[,] in the Apologue of Æsop, an Author of great Antiquity, who lived in the beginning of the Persian Monarchy, and in the time of Cyrus: the same is touched by Aristotle in his Ethicks, but seriously delivered by Ælian, Pliny, and Solinus: the same we meet with in Juvenal, who by an handsome and Metrical expression more welcomly engrafts it in our junior Memories...

- documenting the antiquity of this belief.

Finally I turned to Wikipedia for a modern take on the topic:

Both beaver testicles and castoreum, a bitter-tasting secretion with a slightly fetid odor contained in the castor sacs of male or female beaver, have been articles of trade for use in traditional medicine. Yupik medicine used dried beaver testicles like willow bark to relieve pain. Dried beaver testicles were also used as contraception. Beaver testicles were used as medicine in Iraq and Iran during the tenth to nineteenth century. Claudius Aelianus comically described beavers chewing off their testicles to preserve themselves from hunters, which is not possible because the beaver's testicles are inside its body. European beavers (Castor fiber) were eventually hunted nearly to extinction in part for the production of castoreum, which was used as an analgesic, anti-inflammatory, and antipyretic. Castoreum was described in the 1911 British Pharmaceutical Codex for use in dysmenorrhea and hysterical conditions (i.e. pertaining to the womb), for raising blood pressure and increasing cardiac output. 

I presume the internal position of the testicles (as in the hippopotamus, which is notoriously difficult to castrate) is what originally gave rise to the legend of the animals self-castration.

And finally, this -

The activity of castoreum has been credited to the accumulation of salicin from willow trees in the beaver's diet, which is transformed to salicylic acid and has an action very similar to aspirin.

- which (assuming it's true) is to me the most interesting item of the day.

Some Vikings filed their teeth

The Viking practice of filing their teeth has only been recently uncovered. A study from 2005 discovered 22 males from Viking Age Sweden who had filed teeth. Archaeologist Caroline Arcini wrote that “the marks are skilfully made, and it is most likely that the individuals did not make the marks themselves, but that someone else must have filed them.”

Most Vikings did not have such dental work done, which is perhaps not unsurprising considering that the filing of teeth would have been an extremely painful procedure. The filings were done on the top set of the teeth in the front, and in her study Arcini notes that they were generally similar in design. She adds that to show off the teeth the Viking male would have had to smile broadly. Furthermore she speculates that they may have even coloured their teeth as well, explaining “Maybe they mixed some color with fat or wax before putting it on the teeth, e.g., fat and charcoal to get a black line."

Via Medievalists.net, citing Caroline Arcini’s article ‘The Vikings bare their filed teeth’ in the American Journal of Physical Anthropology, Volume 128, Issue 4 (2005)

"Deflagration" demonstrated by "fire-breathing" using cornstarch

YouTube link.

The video and the source link at fuckyeahfluiddynamics casually suggest "not to try this at home."  I would like to emphasize this point, not because of the fire risk, but because of the posibility of asphyxiation.  Especially in a child, a mouthful of cornstarch poses a potential risk to the airways if it is accidentally inhaled. 

btw: Deflagration (Lat: de + flagrare, "to burn down") is a term describing subsonic combustion propagating through heat transfer; hot burning material heats the next layer of cold material and ignites it. Most "fire" found in daily life, from flames to explosions, is deflagration.

Anti-vaxxers of the 1930s

Via.

In related news, this Salon article: "GOP senator: Don’t make employees wash their hands after going to the bathroom, because freedom."

"Went With The Wind"

YouTube link.

YouTube link.

A classic comedy sketch, with the famous line "Thank you. I saw it in a window and I just couldn't resist it" (funny only in context).

Reposted - again - from 2008 because I needed something cheerful.

An ant-mimicking treehopper

That's not an ant attacking an insect, as explained in an article entitled "Myrmecomorphomania" at Current Biology:

The insect was quickly identified to be a treehopper of the family Membracidae by the name of Cyphonia clavata — a species that lives in Middle and South America, and looks more like a creature from Greek mythology than a product of natural selection. At first, you see what looks like an ant; only on the second look, it becomes evident that the supposed ‘ant’ is actually not an ant at all, but an illusion created by a curious protrusion extending from the insect's pronotum. The main body of the treehopper is almost buried under the large ant-like shape and because of its pale colouration, much less obvious than the dark-coloured ‘ant’. The protrusion's general likeness to an ant is remarkably accurate, and, with the ‘propodeal spines’ found on the ant imitation, the similarity to the aggressive and stinging ants of the subfamily Myrmicinae is striking. Notably, the ant-mimicking structure seems to be inverted, with the imitated head facing towards the back of the treehopper. That way, as the treehopper moves forward, it probably creates a rather good impression of a reversing and agitated ant in erect defensive posture, deterring any would-be predators. To complete the illusion, the terminal segments of the treehopper's hindlegs, coloured like the ‘ant’, most likely serve as the ‘ant's’ forelegs, which provides the static protrusion with the illusion of movement.

More pix at the links.  Embedded photo by Andreas Kay, via The Ark in Space.

Previously on TYWKIWDBI:  Treehoppers and Thorn Treehoppers.

"Smart gun" explained

A world-class gun designer has invented one that would be safer to own. 

UNTERFÖHRING, Germany — In nearly 30 years at Heckler & Koch, a legendary German gunmaker, Ernst Mauch designed some of the world’s most lethal weapons, including the one that reportedly killed Osama bin Laden. A state regulator once called him a “rock star” in the industry...

Mauch’s assault rifles and grenade launchers become coveted by armed forces­ around the world, including the United States. He was the first foreign-born winner of the Chinn Award, an annual prize from the National Defense Industrial Association honoring achievement in small-arms weaponry. He still consults regularly with the U.S. Army Research Laboratory.

Now the gun world sees him a different way: as a traitor. The target of their fury is the smart gun Mauch designed at Armatix, a start-up near Munich. The very concept of the weapon has been attacked by U.S. gun rights advocates even as it has helped Mauch resolve a sense of guilt that has haunted him his entire career...

Mauch’s solution, the iP1, can be personalized so it only fires if the gun’s rightful owner is wearing a special watch connected wirelessly to the weapon. It has not been the hit he imagined for the multibillion-dollar U.S. market. Second Amendment advocates, fearing the technology will be mandated, launched angry protests this year against stores in Maryland and California that tried to sell it. The industry that once revered him now looks at him with suspicion. ..

“My best partner is our Lord,” he said. “More or less, I think He is supporting my life.”

“I would ask them to give us a chance to tell them about the potential for a modern gun,” Mauch said. “I don’t know why they are scared of this.”  He is not anti-gun, he wants them to know. Told that there were more than 300 million guns in the United States, Mauch smiled and said, “I like that.”

More at The Washington Post.

Buddy Holly had 20/800 vision

A Wall Street Journal story highlighted the history of his iconic glasses:

As one of the few optometrists in this West Texas town, J. Davis Armistead reckons he saw some 10,000 pairs of eyes over a four-decade career. But the doctor, now 96 years old and retired, still remembers one lanky youth with a vexing vision problem.

The kid couldn't see—his vision was 20/800 in both eyes, meaning he couldn't read the top line of the eye chart. But he didn't want to put on glasses for fear they would spoil the rebellious image he was trying to project as a musician. His name: Buddy Holly...

Mr. Holly had tried going without glasses, but the move backfired when he lost a guitar pick on stage, according to an account from the late Holly historian Bill Griggs. Mr. Holly also tried an early version of contact lenses, but they were so large and uncomfortable that he couldn't tolerate wearing them through a long audition, says Mr. Armistead.

So Mr. Holly started wearing glasses with a plastic-and-metal frame that were chosen precisely because of their nondescript design, the doctor recalls. All that changed when Mr. Armistead watched "The Phil Silvers Show" one night on television. The doctor noticed how Mr. Silvers, playing the role of beleaguered U.S. Army Master Sergeant Ernest G. Bilko, used his heavy black frames to accentuate his everyman persona. "The next morning I got up and said, 'This is what Buddy Holly needs.'"

More at the link.  If that's behind a paywall for you, here is the archived version.

Photo via Ordinary Finds.  Reposted from 2011 for "the day the music died."