• Fizzl (unregistered) in reply to Tsela
    Tsela:
    Salmiak (which really refers to a specific kind of mined salt, ...

    Actually, Salmiakki is ammonium chloride. I don't know if it is mined for any purpose. It is easy and cheap to produce chemically by combining ammonia with hydrogen chloride at room temperature. Delicious! :)

    We made this in some elementary school chemistry class, and any brave soul could try it.

  • Roy (unregistered)

    Some European countries already discarded the 1 and 2 cent coins, and most stores in The Netherlands for instance just round up everything to the nearest 5 cent value.

  • Fizzl (unregistered) in reply to Sami
    Sami:
    keigezellig:
    Seriously Europe, you really need a ¢2 coin?

    Here in the Netherlands (which is btw Europe..), we've already abandoned the 1 and 2 eurocent coins. Everything is rounded to 5 cents, like we did when we still had guilders (ahh old times :) )

    Finland have never used those 1 or 2 cent coins. ...

    Which opens a delicious opportunity for swindling some free food. You can weigh a single small potato for 2 cents, which will be rounded to zero at the register :P

  • Rofa (unregistered) in reply to Jeltz

    Actually, I'm believe the original Sisu is flavor with tar, amongst other things.

    Also, regarding the 1c and 2c euro coins -- Finland, in an astonishing display of rationality, decided not to use those two coins. They are legal tender here, though, but you can't get them anywhere, and stores default to rounding totals to the nearest 5c.

  • Rune (unregistered) in reply to Dan H

    Well, us Dutch people do not use the 1 or 2 Euro cents. Largely because money that small is useless and only makes your wallet unecessarily heavy. As for the 500EUR notes, I know of noone that actually uses them :P But at least it's better than when we used the HFL. there our largest note was hfl 1000,-

    But seriously... Who still carries cash these days?

  • (cs) in reply to A. Z
    A. Z:
    You should really once go to Switzerland... We have notes up to 1000 swiss francs (roughly 908 USD or 620 Euros)

    Yep, and the smallest coin is 5 cts. Should give you an idea how pricey the place is. ;)

  • (cs) in reply to BrownHornet
    BrownHornet:
    Sounds like you could use a 99 cent coin.

    So TRWTF is the US tax system? All I know about your "prices" is that an item costs more than the advertised price, as you still have to add sales tax (WTF?). If something is advertised at $X you should be able to pay $X and get it.

    If something is priced at $2.98 maybe they are trying to undercut the $2.99 players, who are undercutting the $3 people!

  • Henrik (unregistered) in reply to Jeltz

    Salmiak may be an aquired taste (just like tar candy or smoky whiskey), but once you've aquired it salty licorice is hard to live without.

    It seems like salty sweets (or should they be called salts?) are only popular in the Nordic countries and Netherlands.

  • (cs) in reply to Fizzl
    Fizzl:
    Sami:
    keigezellig:
    Seriously Europe, you really need a ¢2 coin?

    Here in the Netherlands (which is btw Europe..), we've already abandoned the 1 and 2 eurocent coins. Everything is rounded to 5 cents, like we did when we still had guilders (ahh old times :) )

    Finland have never used those 1 or 2 cent coins. ...

    Which opens a delicious opportunity for swindling some free food. You can weigh a single small potato for 2 cents, which will be rounded to zero at the register :P

    Must be some cheap food to begin with?!? How much does a small potato weigh? 50g? So they are only 40c/kg anyway? I haven't bought potatoes for a while but they are a lot more than that...

    I remember here in Australia when they first got rid of the 1- and 2- cent coins all the operators had to round down, so even a 4c purchase would be free. :) But now they round to the nearest 5c; EFTPOS and credit cards are still charged to the cent.

  • (cs) in reply to Bruce
    Bruce:
    America seriously needs to abandon both the penny and the dollar bill. Pennies are worth too little to be worth bothering with, and I just hate try to feed dollar bills into vending machines. The new dollar coins are adequate; they're at least visually distinctive from the quarter, unlike the Suzie B.'s.

    The only place dollar bills remain useful is strip clubs!

    I frequently receive Sacajawea and George Washington dollar coins in place of quarters as change. They are only visually distinctive if you take a moment to look at them in good lighting. Not that I'm really complaining though... it doesn't bother me that people are always giving me an extra $0.75 in change. What does bother me is buying NJTransit tickets and ending up with a pocket full of dumb, heavy dollar coins instead of a few dollar bills that fit nicely in my wallet. I've noticed that retailers generally don't like to receive dollar coins. I sometimes save them up and make large purchases with them, but more frequently I pass them off to the toll booth attendants on the Garden State Parkway. They usually have to do a double take to realize I'm not just giving them a quarter.

  • Phaedo (unregistered) in reply to Dan H

    Indeed, all UK money is blind-friendly (as above). We also have £2 coins. These are worth about $4 at current exchange rates. I believe a couple of them is enough for a house in the US these days. wink

    I have to admit, I doubt I'd have ever learnt what an equilateral curve heptagon was unless I'd grown up in England...

  • Chrissy (unregistered) in reply to Chancy

    Well, you don't seem to be able to buy the tasty cakes from www.drakescake.com and you can buy them from www.drakescakesonline.com, which made my boyfriend happy since he got a couple boxes o' the tasty treats for Christmas. And by the way Alex, that Drakes Cakes On-Line jar opener came from me, Chrissy in Illinois. Thanks for the stickers!

  • Thursday's Geek (unregistered) in reply to WhiskeyJack
    WhiskeyJack:
    webhamster:
    Zygo:
    Funny, last time I asked the nearest Canadian (myself), we called the $2 coin a Twonie.

    The $2 coin followed shortly thereafter. Since it was worth exactly two Loonies, it became known as the "Twonie."

    I remember the "name-the-coin" contest when it came out in 1995. I was always partial to "Bearly" since it was "barely" worth a dollar $US at the time (61 cent dollar).

    I was always partial to "doubloonie", myself.

    I have never actually seen it spelled "twonie" other than in this thread. Everywhere else I've seen it as "toonie" like Alex wrote.

    I've heard toonie and doubloonie, but my favorite name for the $2 coin is "moonie". That's because it's the Queen with a Bear (bare) behind.

  • Paolo G (unregistered) in reply to Bruce

    Actually, yes, the EU does need a two-cent coin. Many, if not all, of the currencies of the countries that now use the euro had coins for 2 subunits of the main currency unit, and some had 20 (and even 200) as well, so a two-cent coin makes for continuity.

    Now answer me this one: why does the US need a dollar coin that it hardly never uses, hm?

    Banknotes are not made of paper, by the way - they are made of cotton or plastic.

  • (cs) in reply to Harrow
    Harrow:
    The big round aqua rubber thing with the Drakes Cakes addy on it is meant to be wrapped round a screw top for a better grip. It is most commonly known as a "tool used to increase torque", or TUIT. These tools are made in many shapes, usually of soft elastic rubber, and most have some kind of promotional text on one side and the letters TUIT on the other.

    You are very fortunate that your TUIT is a round one. You see, any shape TUIT can be used to open a stuck jar, but a round TUIT can also enable you to rake the leaves in your yard, wash your car, take out the garbage, or even call your mother. In fact, there's probably no end to the tedious work you can do, once you get a round TUIT.

    -Harrow.

    Please stay where you are, the firing squad will be there shortly.
  • Corporate Cog (unregistered)

    Salmiakki rocks! I wish it was available in the states (other than via overpriced Internet orders).

  • PAG (unregistered)

    http://blogmiel.blogspot.com

    Wooden table = 50$ Nice Souvenirs = 11.54$

    The chance to rip off some innocent sticker junkies with my own stickers!

    =

    Priceless :)

  • David (unregistered)

    Thanks for that link. I never knew what a "Devil Dog" was before seeing that picture, though I knew they existed because they're mentioned in the Beautiful South song, "I Love You (but You're Boring)".

  • Tommy J. (unregistered)

    Did anyone else follow the Drake's Cakes link? OMG.

    Warning: Do not look at the cake site if you are prone to seizures.

  • Chris (unregistered) in reply to Brother Laz

    I agree - it is hardly understandable how they could let this design for the coins slip through. Every single day, I see people at shops having a hard time differentiating between the different coins.

    Interestingly enough, the Euro coin project features two interesting mistakes often made in software development projects:

    -They let a software engineer do the (graphical) design ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Luc_Luycx )

    • That designer reused a previous design that already had the same problem (the Euro coins look quite similar to the previous Belgian coins that were notably hard to differentiate).
  • Pepijn Schmitz (unregistered)

    Actually, no we don't really need 1 or 2 eurocent coins, and in fact some countries (like my own, the Netherlands) have abandoned them. When you pay by cash in my country, the amount is rounded to the nearest multiple of € 0.05.

    Sometimes you pay a bit more, sometimes a bit less, but on average it works out correctly. We used to do the same thing when we still had Guilders. Then the Euro came, and at first we had to walk around with masses of little copper coins but a few years ago we came to our senses and reintroduced the scheme.

  • Thinkcat (unregistered) in reply to Jeltz

    As far as I know, the darker red box (Sisu Xylitol) on the right is mostly tar-flavored. They may have some ammonium chloride in all their flavors, but they do have separate ammonium chloride flavor too (Sisu Salmiakki). It's been a while since I had some. But if you ever visit Finland, look for "Terva Leijona" (literally Tar Lion) candy.

  • Shakespeare (unregistered)

    "The only place dollar bills remain useful is strip clubs!"

    You just deconstructed your entire argument.

  • maykel (unregistered) in reply to Brother Laz
    Brother Laz:
    TRWTF is that the three lowest value Euro coins have the exact same design, colour, and almost the same size.

    After seven years I still have to check the numbers on the damn things, because the 2 cent coin in particular becomes arbitrarily similar to the 1 and 5 cent coins as store lighting decreases to zero.

    I assume all the committee funding went towards the neat two tone 1 and 2 euro pieces.

    Oh, and the big 500 euro note is purple and lavender. I know we're Europeans and we're supposed to be artsy and metrosexual, but... come on.

    [image]

  • leon (unregistered) in reply to Brother Laz
    Brother Laz:
    TRWTF is that the three lowest value Euro coins have the exact same design, colour, and almost the same size.

    After seven years I still have to check the numbers on the damn things, because the 2 cent coin in particular becomes arbitrarily similar to the 1 and 5 cent coins as store lighting decreases to zero.

    I assume all the committee funding went towards the neat two tone 1 and 2 euro pieces.

    Oh, and the big 500 euro note is purple and lavender. I know we're Europeans and we're supposed to be artsy and metrosexual, but... come on.

    [image]

  • Pete from Perth (unregistered)
    it's a seven-sided coin. Seriously Britain, what's up with that?
    You haven't seen Australia's 12-sided 50c coin yet ;-).
  • Pete from Perth (unregistered) in reply to Zemm
    BrownHornet:
    All I know about your "prices" is that an item costs more than the advertised price, as you still have to add sales tax (WTF?). If something is advertised at $X you should be able to pay $X and get it.
    Could be worse. Australia's bank fees have gotten so out of hand now that the National Australia Bank (NAB), and probably others, charge you a fee if you cash a cheque written by one of their customers.

    To me, there's something hideously broken in a banking system when you have a cheque in your hand for $X which won't pay out that amount.

  • Vidar Hokstad (unregistered) in reply to Tsela

    The Scandivian "innovation" here - it's not only in Finland - isn't so much putting "salmiakki" (ammonium chloride - also used to wash floors) it in liquorice as much as it is using it in all kinds of candy.

    Frankly, the liquorice variations are usually the mildest ones. The more "interesting ones" include things like a powder that is a mix of salt, ammonium chloride, licquorice and sugar, and various hard candy (the most "famous" being "Turkish Pepper", which is very popular across Scandinavia).

    In recent years they put out another variation which has hard-candy with fruit tastes combined with chilli and ammonium-chloride powder inside...

    I've so far only met a single person from outside Scandinavia who actually liked any of the candy I've brought with me from Norway... :)

  • whosjack (unregistered) in reply to gary k

    I agree with you they are the greatest around I am eating a Yodel right now as I typed this. I went to the site and have been ordering ever since. The priority mail service a little expensive but in 2 days i have my product and enjoying it. They also gave me extra samples of their products for me to try as well. and the rubber jar opener along with a chip clip.

    Great Stuff...

  • kim david (unregistered) in reply to leon

    I want to call with you in the subway

  • Piipster (unregistered)

    Although I grew up in Canada, with my Finnish heritage I was raised on Salmiakki. Although there are many salted liquorice varieties out there none taste quite the same as Salmiakki. You can even get a syrup, or cordial, of Salmiakki. It tastes great mixed with vodka, served icy cold.

    I admit, it's an acquired taste, but I absolutely love it.

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