Gourmet apples

Excerpts from an article in the University of Cincinnati magazine:

For nearly 200 years, Japanese farmers have fine-tuned the little-known craft of creating gourmet apples. To document their "incredibly labor- intensive efforts," Stevens spent four months in Japan last year photographing how the Japanese cultivate enormous apples with utterly unblemished skins and perfectly tinted on all sides...

The work starts in the spring when farmers thin the apple blossoms. "An average tree has 4,000 blossoms, and they cull them down to 200 to 400," she says. Each flower consists of a set of five blossoms -- one in the center, surrounded by four more, she explains. Farmers climb ladders to carefully pluck the four outer blooms, leaving only the center one. This creates fruit that is 30 percent larger than American apples, the standard size expected in Japan, she notes.

In June, while apples are still less than an inch in diameter, imperfect fruit is discarded, and the best apples are identified as ones to "bag." Farmers go back up the ladders, armed with distinctive bags made of a special opaque paper and lined with a translucent, colored wax paper, she describes. They pull a bag over each apple, pleat it in way to allow room for growth, then wire it shut so the apple receives no sunlight for three months or more. The technique keeps out pests, significantly extends the storage life and flavor of the fruit, and leaves apples a creamy white color. In the fall, farmers again climb the ladders to carefully remove the outer bag without tearing the lining...

When the wax bags are finally removed, farmers take exorbitant steps to increase an apple's exposure to the sun, thereby increasing its sugar content and giving each a uniform color. They trim branches and strip leaves from remaining branches to keep shadows off the fruit. Next, they lay silver or white mats on the ground to reflect sunlight on the bottom of the fruit. Every few weeks, they also hand-turn each piece to give all sides equal sun exposure...

For the biggest, most perfect apples, they also apply sticker-like stencils to create designs on the apples' skin. "The stencils act like a high-contrast negative," the professor notes. "Some have sayings on them, such as, 'Best wishes for a long life.' Some are negatives with pictures. One Japanese pop star put his picture on apples to give his entourage for presents."

More details at the link.  Via Edible Geography, where there is additional information on the history of "branding" and putting stencils on fruit.

How (not) to save money

Because of their fear that public money would be used to fund abortions, Texas legislators decided to save money by stopping funding of public health clinics:

In the fiscal crunch of 2011, the Legislature cut the state’s family-planning budget by two-thirds, with some lawmakers claiming that they were defunding the “abortion industry.” Researchers at the University of Texas at Austin, found that more than 50 family-planning clinics had closed statewide as a result.

Now, amid estimates that the cuts could lead to 24,000 additional 2014-15 births at a cost to taxpayers of $273 million,  lawmakers are seeking a way to restore financing without ruffling feathers. 

How could lawmakers not see that coming?

"Wealth inequality in America"

 

YouTube link.

Test yourself for schadenfreude

 

YouTube link.

This is the trailer for The Queen of Versailles, which I watched last night.  The featured couple, David and Jackie Siegel, were billionaires whose empire collapsed.  A film crew was in the proceess of documenting their life in 2008, when the financial crisis struck.  Siegel's fortune had been built on real estate.  Time share real estate.  Sold to people with limited financial resources.  In Florida and Las Vegas.

The film traces their dizzying fall from building the largest private home in the world...

"The house includes ten kitchens, 13 bedrooms, 23 bathrooms, and a 20-car garage with additional space for limos, a two-lane bowling alley, an indoor rollerskating rink, a video arcade, a fitness center with spa, two tennis courts, and a baseball diamond"

... to reprimanding the children about the expense of leaving the lights on.

It's an impressive movie.  Not enjoyable, exactly, but memorable.

("Schadenfreude" is defined here.)

How to categorize people on Wikimedia Commons

Hi, I'm Vera and I've been helping Susan and the rest of the group out in getting around on Wikimedia Commons, the media database the Wikipedia projects relies upon. I've written here before about how to transfer files from Flickr, and how the OTRS system works, today I'm going to tackle categories. I thought this was a good idea since Susan requested everyone to send in portraits last week.

Just like Wikipedia, files and pages on Commons are categorized, but unlike articles where categories are often an after though, they form the back bone of this project. This because there is no text that can link to other articles, so you often have to rely on the categories to find what you are looking for.

Please note: categories aren't tags. When you've added a file to say “Atheists from the United States”, there is no need to also ad “Atheism” or “Atheist”. The trick is to add the lowest level category as possible. Categories have a structure, for example:

Like this there is a huge tree structure on Wikimedia Commons, making all people in the end categorized in a subcategory of Homo Sapiens, even Kent Hovind.

Aspects of a person that make it possible to put files about them in a category are, for example:

• Year of birth
•  [1989 births]
• Alma mate
•  For this there doesn’t seem to be a consensus for having either [Alumni of University of Florida] or [University of Florida Alumni], try either or look it up by going to the university’s category.
• Occupation
• [Economists from the United States], [Neuroscientists from the Netherlands], [Film directors from New York City]. Again, try to find the lowest level, [DemocraticParty (United States) politicians] is a subcategory of [Politicians from theUnited States]  and [Democrats from Florida] in turn is a subcategory of the former.
•  Place of birth/residence
•  [People of Los Angeles], [People of The Hague]Not all places have such a category. Sometimes from is used instead of of.

Of course, it isn't always possible to add, say, [Atheists from Istanbul] because it doesn't exists. You can also create the category yourself:

Creating categories

Creating a new category is similar to creating a new page, just be sure to start the title with “Category:”. If a category is added to a file that doesn't exist, it will show up read, just like a page would. When you click on it, you will see the option to create it in the top right corner.

For general category, like Stroopwafels at Wikimedia meetups, are usually 2 parent categories. In this case:

[[Category:Stroopwafels|Wikimedia meetups]]
[[Category:Food at Wikimedia meetups]]

to the page and safe.

The section I colored here is a way to sort the category in its parent category, allowing for instance to have Skepticism in the United States to be sorted under U in its parent category Skepticism by country 
.

Optionally you can link to the Wikipedia article about the category you've just created. This is done the same way any Wikipedia page links to the same article in another language:

[[it:Independent Investigations Group]]
[[en:Independent Investigations Group]]
[[en:Independent Investigations Group]]

 On Wikipedia you can link back to the category by Commonscat template at the bottom of the page:

 {{Commonscat|Categoryname}}

Will result in something like this:

If you've made a spelling error

You can always go back and edit a category in order to change its parent categories,  I added Obama to the category left-handed people only last year for instance. You can't change its name through a simple edit though. If you've made a spelling error in its name, create the correct one following the above steps and replace the content of the wrong category with:

 {{bad name|Category:New category name}}

 Don't forget to move all the files in the bad category to the new category.

Creating a category for one individual

As the list of possible categories a person can be put in can quickly grow, it is often easier to create a person-specific category.  The categories that would otherwise be added to every file would then be added to the category page. 2 thinks are specific about these categories than other: The category People by namehas to be added and you have to add the defaultsort template:

{{DEFAULTSORT:Surname, Firstname}}

The category Greta Christina, for instance, looks like this:

[[Category:People by name]]
[[Category:1961 births]]
[[Category:Reed College alumni]]
[[category:Skeptics from the United States]]
[[category:Atheists from the United States]]
[[category:Bloggers from the United States]]
[[Category:People from San Francisco, California]]
[[Category:LGBT activists from the United States]]

{{DEFAULTSORT:Christina, Greta}}

[[en:Greta Christina]]

Extra tools

There are some extra tools, gadgets they're called, I like to use when categorizing files. In order to activate them, go to Preferences > Gadgets

•  Cat-a-lot: A tool that helps with moving multiple files between categories or adding categories to search results.   [documentation] 
• HotCat: Easily add / remove / change a category on a page, with name suggestions.   [documentation / example] 

And I've changed my interface slightly by checking this option: 

• Place categories above content, but below image on file description pages. 

This way you don't have to scroll all the way down the page. I hope this was of help. If you have any question, you can contact me in our Facebook group or down in the comments. 

Can you explain this hollowed-out die? - answered

Presented as a challenge to retired dungeonmasters and ninth-level paladins.   The image is presented without further explanation in an Archaeology article about excavations in Naples, Italy.  Ancient Romans were well known for their propensity for gaming (type "Roman dice" into Google Images), but I've never seen a die hollowed out in this fashion.

It looks to have been made of ivory or bone, and unless it was created or adapted for some decorative purpose, the hollowing-out must have been intended for some functional purpose.  The two affected sides are for the 3- and 4-pips, with the latter evident on the image around the edges of the cavity, so I think it was still used as a six-sided die, not as a four-sided one.

One might assume that the hollowing was done to prove that the die was not asymmetrically weighted, but would it then still be a fair die?

And if it would not be a fair die on a throw, does that revert us back to the other option - that this was decorative, perhaps worn as a ring on a finger?

See also: A 20-sided die... from the 2nd century A.D.

Photo credit Pasquale Sorrentino.

Addendum:  An anonymous reader found this (unfortunately unsourced) similar die at The Cartographer: 

This one was "deliberately carved from a large animal bone with the marrow channel as a feature," and on the 3-pip side the hole became the central pip.

Addendum #2:  A big hat tip to MacGregor Historic Games for what appears to be the definitive answer to my question:

This was actually a fairly common technique to make larger dice out of marrow bones of sheep from Roman times and even later. This one is simply missing the two plugs or end caps that would be glued in place to cover the holes. The book "Face to Face with Dice" (ISBN: 90-76953-88-0) discusses them and has several pictures and illustrations. It explains that a sheep or goat metatarsal bone could be ground into a square "stick" and then cut into several cubes. The faces with three and four were usually placed on the caps.

There have been some writers who have thought that these might be "loaded" dice with a bit of lead glued inside to favor one number, but X-rays of complete examples have yet to find any weighted versions of this type of hollow dice. I assume the thickness of the end caps might compensate a bit for the balance being a little off, or that they may not be "off" enough to be reliably predictable as loaded dice.

Here are some pictures of some complete examples.

Equilibrium

YouTube link.

Via Reddit, where the comment thread included some biographic information:

Mädir Eugster: 1977 – 1981 education in Paris: Ecole Nationale du Cirque, Ecole de Mîme Etienne Decroux, Ecole de Mîme Jaques Lecoq. Co-founder of Rigolo. Co-directs with Lena Roth the "Circus Rigolo", then "Rigolo Tanzendes Theater" (Rigolo Dancing Theatre) and now "Rigolo Nouveau Cirque" from 1978 to the present. Alternating roles in 20 Rigolo productions as a performer, stage director and set designer (art objects/props). Implements through the Balance Trilogy his vision of high-caliber dance theatre to which he also adds his strength in the visual arts. For their 30th anniversary Lena and Mädir entirely dedicated themselves to the production and tour of Beautiful Turns, a manifestation of the Nouveau Cirque concept.

If you decide to skip through because you don't have time to enjoy the full 12-minute display of skill and strength, be sure not to miss the very end.  Another performance is recorded here.