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Comment by vinaypai | Hacker News Reader

Given the level of radioactivity, it's safe to say you should not eat an excessive number of these tiles.

I don't think I'd worry about that from a radiation standpoint. Natural uranium is only around 1000 times more radioactive than natural potassium, it's really not very bad in that sense and it wouldn't have survived from the birth of the solar system to the present day if it was.

On the other hand, it is a toxic heavy metal so please, please don't eat it.

Oh, that's right. Sometimes containers full of bananas will set off radiation alarms at shipping ports.

And you'll get a lot more of that potassium into your body than uranium. So long as you don't eat such low-level things they're not a threat. (And, personally, I'm not convinced there's any threat. All of our estimates of the threat of radioactivity are based on high level exposures. IIRC it's about 100 Sieverts = 1 death. We project that linearly into the lose dose realms that are effectively impossible to test, but we have some data points that suggest the linear projection is not accurate and low level exposure is of much lower or possibly even negative threat--that the body's reaction to the low level radioactivity actually is protective. There is no relationship between cancer and background radioactivity. The threat of radon noted in uranium miners only shows up if they're also smokers--huh??)

> And you'll get a lot more of that potassium into your body than uranium.

And your body needs potassium. In fact most humans don't get enough.

I think that type of glazing was once somewhat popular for dinnerware. Gladly that got solved by the colors becoming quite unpopular after the 70s.

(I'm aware that I'm writing this on "the orange site"…)

Yes, Fiestaware. Where the most popular color was red, which originally used natural uranium oxide as the pigment in the glaze. It was actually WWII that saw the US government confiscate their stock of uranium in 1943. They used depleted uranium from 1959 to 1973 when the finally discontinued the red color. And an estimated 2 million pieces sold between 1959 and 1969. [1]

And people collect them. I remember being a kid and looking at my grandmother's display of plates and being told they were radioactive. But only a little. You can also still find them on eBay easy enough.

[1] https://www.orau.org/health-physics-museum/collection/consum...

A family I knew in Montgomery County, Maryland, dumped the pepper out of its Fiestaware shaker and took it to a fire station's test-your-stuff day. My recollection is that the pepper was not hazardous.

Vaseline Glass[0] is pretty common to find in antique stores if you want your own uraniumware

[0]https://www.orau.org/health-physics-museum/collection/consum...

chuckles

glancing at my living room and seeing second-hand 70s orange antiques, glasses and dinnerware everywhere

A lot of glassware had uranium and other radioactive materials in too.

Here's a good subreddit for it in the wild: https://www.reddit.com/r/uraniumglass/

People will leave them alone, as long as they're not filled with jelly.

hahahaha

For those not in the know, JFK immortalized the pastry from Berlin in his famous "Ich bin ein Berliner" speech.

"Ich bin Berliner" -> I'm a citizen of Berlin

"Ich bin ein Berliner" -> I'm a jelly donut.

> There is a widespread misconception that Kennedy accidentally said a malapropism that he was a Berliner, a German doughnut specialty. This is an urban legend which emerged several decades after the speech, and it is not true that residents of Berlin in 1963 would have mainly understood the word "Berliner" to refer to a jelly doughnut or that the audience laughed at Kennedy's use of this expression.[2]

Especially because in Berlin they are known as "Krapfen" and not as Berliner.

Pfannkuchen in Berlin not Krapfen, I think?

Yes, Pfannkuchen is the name used in Berlin.

That's what someone who grew up in Berlin would probably say, but the city being what it is it genuinely depends on which shop you're standing in. I've seen it every which way.

I've seen them sold here in Berlin under the names "Pfannkuchen" (not to be confused with pancakes), "Krapfen" (not as rude as it sounds in English), "Amerikaner" (not to be confused with an oversized iced soft cookie), and "Berliner" (not to be confused with the alcohol).

Sometimes they're even sold as "Donut".

Indeed, Pfannkuchen in Berlin

Buying a Berliner in Germany can be very challenging if you travel a lot. There are so many words for it depending on the region. At least: "Berliner", "Krapfen", "Pfannkuchen", "Kräppel", "Küchli" and probably others I don't know..

Try buying a hogie, sub, hero, Italian, grinder, wedge, or spuckie in the US.

Ich bin ein Hoagie

For all its faults, we can thank Subway for partially solving this problem.

Spuckie?

Apparently from spucadella, an italian-american word for a type of bread.

I've never heard anyone use it myself, but then I've never tried to order the sandwich otherwise known as a sub in the parts of the country where that name is used.

Wedge will get you a salad most places in the us. Hero might get you a gyro or ask for clarification. Grinders seem specities in much of the us.

A 'hero' is just a gyro with bastardized spelling.

The terms are unrelated [a sandwich named hero predates the appearance of the Greek item]; though they may sound the same depending on how they are pronounced. A hero is just a submarine sandwich by another name. A gyro is a pita-wrap --mostly pronounced like the 'gyro' in gyroscope but also like /yirou/ or /hirou/

I have seen Heroes that are much more like hoagies and I am seeing Heroes like the Greek rap depending on where you are in the countrymy point overall is there doesn't seem to be definitive things or just a lot of regional uses and spellings of these differentfood types by region so if you're cleaning that there's only one it probably means you haven't traveled enough

Weird, I always have seen them in my nearest Rewe advertised as “Berliner”. Never thought it was a problem in other stores.

Has anyone made a map, like they do for eg soda/pop in the US?

Interesting. I have heard about this famous speech many times but I have never made the connection to the pastry "Berliner" (or heard anyone mention this association).

Also, as a native German speaker, saying "Ich bin ein Berliner" is not unusual if you are talking about being a citizen of Berlin.

I don't think that was a common association at the time as well. Especially since (pastry) "Berliners" are not called "Berliners" in Berlin but "Pfannkuchen" instead.

It's just an urban legend. Most people don't speak German so you can tell them anything you want :-).

Speaking of which, good thing Kennedy never visited Hamburg.

Well, you're in luck, he did visit Frankfurt.

And Wien... (Vienna)

Oh, if he’d only made it to Denmark, it’d be deliciously confusing.

Or Frankfurt!

I suppose that raises the question, if people from Berlin do indeed call themselves Berliners - do people from Hamburg call themselves Hamburgers? (genuine question)

I don't see why not. Hamburger means "of Hamburg". If you're thinking about the food item, it isn't a funny coincidence or anything, its name is derived from Hamburg.

I'm not German nor a linguist, YMMV.

Yes.

Compare "Danish" as an American term for a Viennese pastry, "he's Danish" doesn't sound odd.

We don't generally abbreviate foods named after places, but:

"Cheddar is 200 miles from both Sandwich and Stilton."

These are all places in England.

Yes. Hence also the names Frankfurter and Wiener (Wien is Vienna, in German).

Berliner and Pfannkuchen are very different pastries (at least in the Northwest of Germany). Pfannkuchen literally implies it is made in a pan, whereas a Berliner is typically deep fried. It often has a fruit jelly filling, but you will also find those without a filling.

I agree that no native speaker would think of the pastry when hearing "Ich bin ein Berliner." Just like I wouldn't think of a sausage if someone were to say "Ich bin ein Frankfurter."

Can you not propagate urban legends please.

Actually, the traditional stuffed donut-shaped fried pastry without hole is called pancake (Pfannkuchen) in Berlin whereas at other places of Germany a Pfannkuchen is the sweet soufflé-like thing you make yourself in the pan called Eierkuchen in Berlin and elsewhere. Just saying, as native Berliners won't understand or take orders for "Berliners".

Edit: what chiki said

This isn't true.[0] The difference between "Ich bin Berliner" and "Ich bin ein Berliner" is that the former says that you literally are from/living in Berlin, and the latter means you are figuratively speaking as like a Berliner. "Ich bin Clown" means that your job is to entertain people with face-paint on, whereas "Ich bin ein Clown" means that you sometimes behave clownishly.[1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ich_bin_ein_Berliner#%22I_am_a...

[1] https://language.mki.wisc.edu/essays/ich-bin-ein-berliner/

The source [1] is misleading to the point of being wrong. It is perfectly valid German to say "Ich bin ein Student" meaning that one is indeed a student. "Ich bin Clown" is not grammatical at all.

It's funny how (presumably) native speakers make judgments about their own language.

Of course you can say "Ich bin Clown" just as you can say "Ich bin Kaminfeger" or "Ich bin Physiotherapeut"

Du liegst falsch.

Dit heest Pfannkuchen

OP here.

FWIW, I'm not a native speaker but I did study German in high school and college, and used my moderate proficiency extensively while traveling in Germany (including Berlin in 1990), and Austria, and living in Prague. I've laughed with native Germans about the JFK speech (which story was first related to me by my hs German teacher), and regardless of its provenance / veracity, it makes for an interesting discussion. :)

There's also a European liquor, bright blue in color, aptly named "Blau" (which word, "blau", is slang for drunk or intoxicated).

As for varieties of sausage, "wieners" (Wien/Vienna), and Frankfurters (Frankfurt) were referred to as "hot dogs" by Parisian college students jokingly(?) describing their mysterious ingredients... (citation needed, but I did read that in a seemingly-reputable magazine.)

That station is quite filthy, the glazing is the least of your problems.

What if I were to scrape those tiles and snort it?

It would be very bad for you.

You know, because of all the silicates in your lungs. The radioactivity would probably not be very significant.

Other people at the station will start taking pictures of you

Unlikely at U Rosenthaler Platz

Hello there, fellow collector-but-not-eater!

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