Well at least we don't have any coins with holes in them...mfb said:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_yen
Today I Learned
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_yen
rsk
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Oh! There used to be a spanish coin with a hole in it pre €uro days. Maybe the 25 peseta coin, if I remember rightly.
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Historically, the dime, or 10 cent coin, was made of Silver, while the 5 cent coin is made of Copper and Nickel.mfb said:
Coinage pretty much disappeared during the Civil War, and it wasn't until after it that the US started minting coins again, starting with Bronze 1 and 2 cent coins. They then minted a 3 cent Copper-Nickel coin.
The five cent "nickel" was minted based on the earlier success of the Copper and Nickel 3 cent piece. It ended up replacing the earlier Silver half-dime.
DaveC426913
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Canada has/had a 50 cent coin - but the only time it was ever seen in the wild was at the Canadian National Exposition. All the games cost 50 cents and the barkers would give you back a 50 piece from your dollar.mfb said:
Keith_McClary
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diogenesNY
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The term dropping the dime, in criminal parlance, has long meant to (usually anonymously) rat out a fellow criminal (whether an accomplice or an enemy). The phrase (most likely) refers to an anonymous tip placed by dropping a dime (as was the cost throughout much of the latter 20th century) into the slot of a payphone, and then making a quick anonymous call to the police, tipline, DA or whomever.berkeman said:
Additionally, a 'dime' is also a ten year prison sentence.
--diogenesNY
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Two kinds of things are celebrated in Today I Learnt. One is the striking or curious interesting fact the writer didn't know and probably you didn't either. The other is the more rueful discovery where the surprising fact is that the writer didn't know it. Maybe these need another thread called "Only today I learnt".
I have known something about Whistler since age 9 or 10. This came from one of the phenomenally successful 'William' childrens' books by Richmal Crompton aimed at a readership of about 9 to 12 range. Which sold over 12 million copies and are still in print if rather dated and. The equivocation on which the line of the story where I learned (and of which I don't remember much else) depends is that a very prosperous member of the local community has acquired a Whistler which is the talk of the town, but the anarchic and rather ignorant antihero William supposes that a Whistler is some kind of machine that whistles. Instead it referred to a valuable painting.So thanks to the book I knew what a Whistler was early on, but I didn't know much more for a long time. I don't remember reading about him in books about painting I read, nor in books of reproductions of famous painters I once had. Many decades later I did come directly across some works – Whistler's most famous and striking painting of his mother in the Orsay museum, Paris https://www.wikiart.org/en/james-mcneill-whistler then some other works in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow. https://www.gla.ac.uk/whistler/ https://www.gla.ac.uk/whistler/thehunterian/ And every now and then in general reading over the years, mostly I guess in cultural pages of newspapers, I stumbled across mentions of Whistler. Yet I often had a uncomfortable feeling, a cognitive dissonance , there was something not quite right I could never put my finger on. Might it be him being called an "American painter"? An American painter? Like there was more than one?
Sorry folks, in Europe we hardly know of a single one before about 1930. And the categorisation 'American' is problematic - he was indeed an American citizen but he spent fairly few years in the USA, though he did attend West Point, where he was a total misfit. Most of his painting was done in Britain and France. Unusual but there was still something else uncomfortable though… I was always very uncertain about his dates and things said soeti sounded incongruous (I didn't even know till today much of what I've said or linked to above).
Now, if you haven't heard, there has broken out in Britain over about the past year acutely a massive movement in the arts, museums and heritage curation sector, around public monuments, in culture the arts and in the universities, the sciences by no means exempt, broadcasting, and journalism, to revise, revalue, and change everything in the names of e.g. 'decolonising the curriculum', awareness raising, wokeism, revising, re-relabelling, re-evaluating, BLM, 'culture wars', re-examining our national identity, history, and self image. After this movement has washed over many more obvious targets, in about the last fortnight the immorality of Isaac Newton and George Friedrich Handel who held investments in companies involved in slave trading have in their turn been brought into focus by this movement (it is no merit of Sir Isaac's that he lost a lot of money over it) and it will probably become obligatory to mention this in University lectures when Newton's discoveries are explained. In the very last days another piece of heritage to now give offence after having been in place for about 100 years are the Whistler murals in the Tate gallery in London. To see this sort of discussion Google rex whistler tate mural.
100 years? The Tate? As I said I had been vague about Whistler and vague about dates, but had uncomfortable feelings. So I thought I must look into this at last.
And not before today I learnt that there have been two famous painters called Whistler.
The first was the one discussed above named James Whistler (which is cutting a long story short actually). The second, who occasioned the present furore was Rex Whistler. He "painted many members of London society, including Edith Sitwell, Cecil Beaton and other members of the set to which he belonged that became known as the "Bright Young Things". "
The general idea of Bright Young Things is obvious, and I knew that it was rather attached to the interwar period, but only today I learnt that it originally referred to a very specific group. And there is no doubt that the Whistler of the William story would have been Rex. Williams's older brother and sister, Robert and Ethel who come into the story would surely have wished or affected to be Bright Young Things.
I really do not know why the painting contains the things objected to. I first thought it might be irony, and ironic comment on the sources of wealth of the better off Bright Young Things or perhaps of the philanthropists who financed the Tate. But it is possible that he merely found the fantasy, the conceit, of 'The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats' amusing. The Bright Young Things were fashionable and bohemian, but they were not progressive and were seriously unserious. And snobs. Supercilious and superior, finding everything and everyone perfectly amusing. One can even find much to condemn in them if one wants to take seriousness towards the opposite extreme.
That said one should not forget that Rex Whistler died fighting in the war against Nazism.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-has-the-tate-cancelled-its-own-restaurant-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tate_Britain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_Whistler
https://artuk.org/discover/artists/whistler-rex-19051944
I have known something about Whistler since age 9 or 10. This came from one of the phenomenally successful 'William' childrens' books by Richmal Crompton aimed at a readership of about 9 to 12 range. Which sold over 12 million copies and are still in print if rather dated and. The equivocation on which the line of the story where I learned (and of which I don't remember much else) depends is that a very prosperous member of the local community has acquired a Whistler which is the talk of the town, but the anarchic and rather ignorant antihero William supposes that a Whistler is some kind of machine that whistles. Instead it referred to a valuable painting.So thanks to the book I knew what a Whistler was early on, but I didn't know much more for a long time. I don't remember reading about him in books about painting I read, nor in books of reproductions of famous painters I once had. Many decades later I did come directly across some works – Whistler's most famous and striking painting of his mother in the Orsay museum, Paris https://www.wikiart.org/en/james-mcneill-whistler then some other works in the Hunterian Museum, Glasgow. https://www.gla.ac.uk/whistler/ https://www.gla.ac.uk/whistler/thehunterian/ And every now and then in general reading over the years, mostly I guess in cultural pages of newspapers, I stumbled across mentions of Whistler. Yet I often had a uncomfortable feeling, a cognitive dissonance , there was something not quite right I could never put my finger on. Might it be him being called an "American painter"? An American painter? Like there was more than one?
Sorry folks, in Europe we hardly know of a single one before about 1930. And the categorisation 'American' is problematic - he was indeed an American citizen but he spent fairly few years in the USA, though he did attend West Point, where he was a total misfit. Most of his painting was done in Britain and France. Unusual but there was still something else uncomfortable though… I was always very uncertain about his dates and things said soeti sounded incongruous (I didn't even know till today much of what I've said or linked to above).Now, if you haven't heard, there has broken out in Britain over about the past year acutely a massive movement in the arts, museums and heritage curation sector, around public monuments, in culture the arts and in the universities, the sciences by no means exempt, broadcasting, and journalism, to revise, revalue, and change everything in the names of e.g. 'decolonising the curriculum', awareness raising, wokeism, revising, re-relabelling, re-evaluating, BLM, 'culture wars', re-examining our national identity, history, and self image. After this movement has washed over many more obvious targets, in about the last fortnight the immorality of Isaac Newton and George Friedrich Handel who held investments in companies involved in slave trading have in their turn been brought into focus by this movement (it is no merit of Sir Isaac's that he lost a lot of money over it) and it will probably become obligatory to mention this in University lectures when Newton's discoveries are explained. In the very last days another piece of heritage to now give offence after having been in place for about 100 years are the Whistler murals in the Tate gallery in London. To see this sort of discussion Google rex whistler tate mural.
100 years? The Tate? As I said I had been vague about Whistler and vague about dates, but had uncomfortable feelings. So I thought I must look into this at last.
And not before today I learnt that there have been two famous painters called Whistler.
The first was the one discussed above named James Whistler (which is cutting a long story short actually). The second, who occasioned the present furore was Rex Whistler. He "painted many members of London society, including Edith Sitwell, Cecil Beaton and other members of the set to which he belonged that became known as the "Bright Young Things". "
The general idea of Bright Young Things is obvious, and I knew that it was rather attached to the interwar period, but only today I learnt that it originally referred to a very specific group. And there is no doubt that the Whistler of the William story would have been Rex. Williams's older brother and sister, Robert and Ethel who come into the story would surely have wished or affected to be Bright Young Things.
I really do not know why the painting contains the things objected to. I first thought it might be irony, and ironic comment on the sources of wealth of the better off Bright Young Things or perhaps of the philanthropists who financed the Tate. But it is possible that he merely found the fantasy, the conceit, of 'The Expedition in Pursuit of Rare Meats' amusing. The Bright Young Things were fashionable and bohemian, but they were not progressive and were seriously unserious. And snobs. Supercilious and superior, finding everything and everyone perfectly amusing. One can even find much to condemn in them if one wants to take seriousness towards the opposite extreme.
That said one should not forget that Rex Whistler died fighting in the war against Nazism.
https://www.spectator.co.uk/article/why-has-the-tate-cancelled-its-own-restaurant-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tate_Britain
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rex_Whistler
https://artuk.org/discover/artists/whistler-rex-19051944
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DaveC426913
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The standard phrase is "I was today years old..."epenguin said:
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TIL about "Cigar Box Guitars"!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigar_box_guitar
https://www.thaliacapos.com/blogs/blog/cigar-box-guitars-the-history-of-a-folk-instrument-phenomenon
https://www.roadiemusic.com/blog/five-alternate-tunings-for-the-3-string-cigar-box-guitar/
I was listening to a group Misty Blues and one of the guitarists played a 'Cigar Box Guitar'. It has a distinctive tune.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cigar_box_guitar
https://www.thaliacapos.com/blogs/blog/cigar-box-guitars-the-history-of-a-folk-instrument-phenomenon
https://www.roadiemusic.com/blog/five-alternate-tunings-for-the-3-string-cigar-box-guitar/
I was listening to a group Misty Blues and one of the guitarists played a 'Cigar Box Guitar'. It has a distinctive tune.
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Vaccines apparently lower the risk of getting a disease the vaccine targets.
https://komonews.com/news/coronavir...s-in-king-county-are-from-unvaccinated-people
Almost all new COVID cases in King Co. are from unvaccinated people, experts say
https://komonews.com/news/coronavir...s-in-king-county-are-from-unvaccinated-people
Almost all new COVID cases in King Co. are from unvaccinated people, experts say
rsk
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Oh, what a coincidence! The same happened in NW Englandnsaspook said:
kyphysics
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https://www.yahoo.com/lifestyle/known-carcinogen-found-popular-sunscreens-130300895.html
Known carcinogen found in some popular sunscreens, tests show
Keith_McClary
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Klystron
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TIL that the electronics term wobbulator is spelled with 2 b's. Many years ago I worked with some terrific engineers where security concerns required mainly verbal (even whispered) instructions; so, I did not see the word in print. We modified pulsed radar transmitters to wobbulate output in such a manner to defeat enemy counter-measures (ECM); i.e., ECCM. I meant to study the subject after returning to university but was stymied by lack of information due to my spelling error.
Radar transmit/receiver (TX/RX) tracking devices synchronize operation via common distributed timing pulses. Aggressor aircraft learned to read (clock) the timing pattern and spoof receivers with bogus but powerful returns at critical interval before we locked on weapon systems. Wobbulating the local synchronizer isolated the radar in a sense from the enemy RX/TX spoofers. The radar synced as usual and presumably the enemy recognized an RF source in the vicinity but an attached O'scope and the enemy saw a wicked sliding series of incoherent RF pulses.
I thought of this modified synchronizer circuit as wobbulating time. Different wobbulators alter wavelength and thus bandpass, particularly of klystrons; mentioned in the attached articles.
Radar transmit/receiver (TX/RX) tracking devices synchronize operation via common distributed timing pulses. Aggressor aircraft learned to read (clock) the timing pattern and spoof receivers with bogus but powerful returns at critical interval before we locked on weapon systems. Wobbulating the local synchronizer isolated the radar in a sense from the enemy RX/TX spoofers. The radar synced as usual and presumably the enemy recognized an RF source in the vicinity but an attached O'scope and the enemy saw a wicked sliding series of incoherent RF pulses.
I thought of this modified synchronizer circuit as wobbulating time. Different wobbulators alter wavelength and thus bandpass, particularly of klystrons; mentioned in the attached articles.
Gold Member
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Gee. And all this time I thought you were a real person.Klystron said:
Gold Member
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Forensic facial reconstruction on a skull shaped vodka bottle:
Full sequence here.
Eyes don't come with bottle.
Full sequence here.
Eyes don't come with bottle.
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Well that is one theory.fresh_42 said:
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It made sense to me. We have a similar expression that is used in daily language and almost nobody knows that it stems from the military. We use 08/15 as an adjective with the meaning 'quick and dirty' for any occasion when simple solutions or answers are used that are not necessarily reliable.pbuk said:
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Today I learned the word querulant, meaning someone who persistently complains about minor injustices, often increasing demands as their requests are met so that it is impossible to satisfy them. They are something of a problem for complaints departments, since they suck up time with no possibility of a successful outcome.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Querulant
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Querulant
Klystron
Gold Member
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While previously familiar with the word querulous, TIL from @Ibix 's reference that paranoia querulans appeared in medical publications as a valid psychiatric diagnosis. Originally restricted to members of Karenus Complainus Americanus, the term now embraces a considerably larger swath of the population. /humorIbix said:
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Congrats, you learned a German word.Ibix said:
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The wiki article actually comments that querulant was retired from official use for some time because the term got broadened to mean "anyone who complained about anything", where it originally meant "someone who obsessively complains far beyond the point a normal person would". The context I learned it in was the same thing happening with "Karen" (with the added bonus of Karen being a gendered term with no male equivalent with anything like the popularity).Klystron said:
Congrats, you stole a Latin word, I think...fresh_42 said:
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Yes, but it doesn't feel like it. Queruant is not as exotic as it is in English, it is part of common language. And we also have quer as a regular adjective, meaning: perpendicular to a given direction.Ibix said:
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I think that there is a rule somewhere that forbids native English-speakers from becoming querulant about any such perceived offense. Something about glass houses.Ibix said:
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A funny word is window. While the English word is from "wind-open" and of Nordic and therewith Germanic origin, we use Fenster which is fully Latin: Fenestra.
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We have queer, which has its roots in the German quer. It used to mean out-of-kilter or strange before being adopted as a term for homosexuality (it was used as a euphemism of sorts, but got "reclaimed" as an accepted term).fresh_42 said:
Oh sure, English doesn't so much borrow words from other languages as mug them at gunpoint.jbriggs444 said:
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I was trying to work a "schadenfreude" gag in there somewhere but I couldn't see it. You may enjoy my discomfort at my failure in any language you please.Ibix said:
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My personal favorite is Torpenhow Hill. It's etymology is like all of English history in a nutshell. Kind of like a core sample but for language. Also worth a good laugh!