Ibex found a comfy place to rest

Via.

Swedish "plate money"

Yesterday I had the opportunity to see and handle an example of 18th-century Swedish "plate money" ("platmynt").

Platmynt or plate money was minted in Sweden between 1644 and 1809 where it both helped and confused the Swedish economy. Sweden's currency system was based on silver, but Sweden produced no silver and traded its copper to get silver for coins. In the early 17th century Swedish copper mines produced two-thirds of Europe's copper. Most of that copper was exported to Spain for small denomination coinage...

Meanwhile Sweden's Falu copper mine had been producing large ingots of unrefined copper, some being several inches thick and weighing as much as 43 pounds. With the placement of a circular seal on each corner showing the date, the Swedish crown and the initials of Queen Christiana, the plates became coins.

Each plate was stamped with a denomination. The largest, the 10-Daler plates, were struck in 1644 and 1645 and only 10 of those 26,774 plates exist. Weighing 43 pounds, they were too large for circulating coins and in 1646 the Swedish Government decreed that the largest denomination would be the 8-Daler plate, a 35-pound coin.

More details at the New York Times and at Past and Present.

Embedded photo via.

1926 Rolls Royce

And today I learned:

Back then you didn't actually buy the whole car, Rolls supplied the engine, chassis etc. and a coach builder custom-made the bodies and interior to the owners' specifications; there are probably no two alike from this period.

Exterior and interior of another one at the always-interesting Just A Car Guy blog.

"Reading away" library fines

Some library systems are modifying their long-standing policies on fines for overdue materials.  I thought this innovation was particularly apt:

So on Thursday, Leilany went to the East Los Angeles Library, a county facility, to read off $4 in late fees. Students can eliminate debt at a rate of $5 an hour under a program that took effect in June...

In an era where screen time dominates the lives of children, librarians and others haven't given up on instilling a love of books and libraries. They also want to make sure there isn’t a “library gap” between the more prosperous and the poor. The program for “reading away” library debt is especially important because the cost of damaged or lost materials can be high.

A library debt of $10 results in suspended borrowing privileges. Since “Read Away” went into effect, the county library system has cleared 3,500 blocked accounts, said Darcy Hastings, the county’s assistant library administrator for youth services.

Even fines of 15 cents a day per book can push children away.

“When charges accrue on a young person’s account, generally, they don’t pay the charges and they don’t use the card,” Hastings said. “A few dollars on their accounts means they stop using library services.”

Further details at the Los Angeles Times.

An "all-natural baby"

Via the insanepeopleFacebook subreddit.

The "Temple burn" is not an ordinary bonfire

Apart from the size of the pyre, this event at the Burning Man festival was remarkable because so many viewers were in tears - and not from the smoke...

People spent months on it with zero infrastructure, just living in the desert. They did it to make a place were visitors could say goodbye to grief that had been plaguing them - literally every inside surface was covered in painful tributes to lost loved ones. When it was set on fire, the entirety of the city stood there dead silent and watched it burn... The Temple is different, though. It's what people visit to let go of things, usually loved ones who have recently died. By the end of the week, it's covered in Sharpie writings saying goodbye, photographs, possessions of the deceased, and sometimes even ashes. Literally covered. It's a very, very heavy place to visit, and a really useful ritual in processing grief... Not just loved ones but mementos of memories you need to let go of. Think pictures from abusive relationships etc. I heard that it gets very, very quiet as everyone is experiencing their own very personal moment.

Anti-populism cartoon

What I find amusing about the cartoon is that the sentiment depicted/mocked in the cartoon could apply to either of the major political parties.  The cartoon has also been roundly criticized for presenting a false equivalency.  But it is still thought-provoking - which is one of the purposes.

The cartoonist and the style looks like New Yorker content (it wasn't attributed in the BoingBoing discussion thread where I encountered it.

Is overpopulation a self-correcting problem?

Excerpts from an article in GQ:

Last summer a group of researchers from Hebrew University and Mount Sinai medical school published a study showing that sperm counts in the U.S., Europe, Australia, and New Zealand have fallen by more than 50 percent over the past four decades. (They judged data from the rest of the world to be insufficient to draw conclusions from, but there are studies suggesting that the trend could be worldwide.)...

The Hebrew University/Mount Sinai paper was a meta-analysis by a team of epidemiologists, clinicians, and researchers that culled data from 185 studies, which examined semen from almost 43,000 men. It showed that the human race is apparently on a trend line toward becoming unable to reproduce itself. Sperm counts went from 99 million sperm per milliliter of semen in 1973 to 47 million per milliliter in 2011, and the decline has been accelerating. Would 40 more years—or fewer—bring us all the way to zero?..

The results, when they came in, were clear. Not only were sperm counts per milliliter of semen down by more than 50 percent since 1973, but total sperm counts were down by almost 60 percent: We are producing less semen, and that semen has fewer sperm cells in it. This time around, even scientists who had been skeptical of past analyses had to admit that the study was all but unassailable...

Testosterone levels have also dropped precipitously, with effects beginning in utero and extending into adulthood...

One possible explanation:

When a chemical affects your hormones, it's called an endocrine disruptor. And it turns out that many of the compounds used to make plastic soft and flexible (like phthalates) or to make them harder and stronger (like Bisphenol A, or BPA) are consummate endocrine disruptors. Phthalates and BPA, for example, mimic estrogen in the bloodstream. If you're a man with a lot of phthalates in his system, you'll produce less testosterone and fewer sperm.

More at the longread link.

So, does this egg have varicose veins ?

This is an egg with a wrinkled shell (via)  More about egg oddities.

A list of notable Norwegian Americans

James Arness
James Cagney
Jimmy Fallon
Bob Fosse
Peter Graves
Melanie Griffith
Gypsy Rose Lee
Virginia Mayo
Robert Mitchum
Marilyn Monroe
Priscilla Presley
Sally Struthers
Robert Wagner
Renee Zellweger
The Andrews Sisters
Beck
Jackson Browne
F. Melius Christiansen
Peggy Lee
Grace Slick
Tom Waits
Lance Armstrong
Sonja Henie
Sonny Jurgensen
Knute Rockne
Jan Stenerud
Lindsey Vonn
Babe Didrikson Zaharias
Jeff Bezos
Conrad Hilton, Jr.
Matt Groening
Charles M. Schulz
Eric Sevareid
Hubert Humphrey
Walter Mondale
Al Quie
Ole Evinrude
Sally Ride
Eliot Ness

Extracted from a huge list at Wikipedia.

Calling a spade a shovel

Melania Trump's recent participation in a gardening event at the White House provides a teachable moment about garden tools.  Properly speaking, a spade and a shovel are quite different tools:

	Shovel	Spade
Blade Shape	Bowl-shaped (concave) with a rounded or pointed tip	Flat (or nearly flat) with a straight edge
Handle/Shaft	Long, straight shaft	Shorter shaft, may have a “T” or “D” handle
Blade Size	Larger	Smaller
Best Uses	Digging, breaking up, and turning soil	Slicing through soil and roots, moving soil and loose material

A shovel [left in the embedded photo] has a broader blade that is curved inwards from left to right and is rounded or pointed at the tip. Blade length and shape can vary, depending on the intended use – you’ll find shovels with extra long blades, saw-tooth edges, and ledges down the sides. The shovel blade tends to be larger than that found on spades.

A spade [on the right] generally has a relatively flat blade with straight edges. It’s smaller than a shovel (although size does vary, depending on use) and the blade tends to be in line with the shaft, rather than angled forward.

You may also notice that a spade tends to be straighter than a shovel from handle to blade tip. Whereas the shovel blade is usually angled forward, the spade blade is not.

It’s that angle that makes the biggest difference in functionality between the two tools. The angled shovel blade makes it efficient for digging. The straighter spade can be used for digging but is better used for slicing through and lifting sod, edging lawns and beds, skimming weeds and opening straight-sided holes or trenches.

Further explanation and photos here.

TYWKIWDBI has absolutely no objections to someone wearing a $4,000 skirt while gardening, or for opting to aerate the soil with 4-inch heels.  Those aspects are commented on at NDTV.

Photo credit AFP Photo.

Too clever by half

Dinner served on a cake stand at The George, at Stockton-on-Tees provides an excellent example of why there is a We Want Plates subreddit.

RBG

YouTube link.

I read somewhere (?where) recently that adults this summer are choosing documentaries rather than standard Hollywood fare when they visit movie theaters.  This film was one example cited.  The other one was Won't You Be My Neighbor (about Mr. Rogers).

This was a nicely-crafted movie that will be appreciated especially by anyone with an interest in the history of women's rights.

Jobseeker

At the source discussion thread it is noted that his resume history includes product marketing manager in the medical industry.  Whether or not he actually did wash windows (or set this up as a publicity stunt), he seems to be doing well at marketing himself.

Social unrest and xenophobia in Sweden

Excerpts from an article in The Spectator:

Around Gothenburg, the attacks have been far more dramatic: in mid-August, 80 torched vehicles made the city’s normally dull boroughs seem more like Aleppo. Videos are being circulated showing explosion after explosion going off. Groups of masked and black-clad arsonists blazed cars and caravans. Smoke plumes above the Gothenburg skyline could be seen for miles around...

Twenty years ago, such scenes would have shocked Sweden to its core. Now they are a prelude to a general election which is being fought amid bitter debates about immigration, integration, crime and populism. The Sweden Democrats, a party that was for years regarded as a sinister group of far-right cranks, looks like it may end up as the largest party in parliament. Even now, Sweden’s established -parties aren’t sure how to respond...

The governing Social Democrats are faring even worse. They, too, would in ordinary times be reaping the harvest from a broadly successful economy and what has been a boom time for the middle class. Unemployment is almost nonexistent among native Swedes and, with interest rates on mortgages still ultra-low, the average household seems more worried about Elon Musk delivering its new Tesla on time than making it through to the next pay day. State spending on schools, hospitals and social security has surged — and yet the government is running a big surplus...

Under the old rules of politics, this would guarantee a feel-good election win for the incumbent government. Instead, Stefan Löfven’s Social Democrats are heading towards their worst-ever result and seem to know it, looking and sounding like a defeated force in Swedish politics. Like the Moderates, they are being punished for failing to control what most concerns Swedes: law, order, immigration and integration.

More at the link.