bookofjoe

U.S. Dollar Inflation Calculator

At least once a week I ask Perplexity AI how much in today's dollars something from the past would cost.

I finally woke up and smelled the coffee today and added the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis's Inflation Calculator to my bookmarks bar.

Way better than other sites that do the same thing: "The Minneapolis Fed maintains historical tables of inflation rates from 1913 to the present... and estimated rates back to the year 1800 using various pre-1913 measures.

You can too!

Bonus: there's an iPhone app.

'Si tacuisses, philosophus manisses' (If you had kept silent, you would have remained a philosopher) — Boethius

Best quote of the month — maybe even the year.

I suspect it's the basis for more commonly encountered contemporary iterations, for example: "Before you said anything, I thought you were stupid. Once you opened your mouth, I knew."

I've heard them all at one time or another.

The illustration up top is an Initial depicting Boethius teaching his students and is from folio 4r of a 1385 manuscript of the "The Consolation of Philosophy."

Read "The Consolation of Philosophy" — published in 524 in Latin — here in its entirety.

Free, the way we like it.

Inset Salad Servers — Clever Variation on a Theme of Spork

I love these.

From the website:

Tired of overstuffed kitchen drawers?

I don't know about you, but my kitchen drawers are filled with things that I don't even know what they are.

Save some space with these Inset Salad Servers.

The large salad fork sits inside the salad serving spoon, making it the perfect space-saving device.

The Perfect Combination

The problem with most utensils is they take up too much room in the drawer and fit awkwardly.

It's almost impossible to make sense of it.

Inset Salad Servers are easy to pull apart for use.

When you're done, wash them and put them back together.

Features and Details:

• Stainless steel

• 11" long

$14.99.