Collaborating With Andrew
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@CollaboratingA
Collaborating- to work together especially in an intellectual endeavor. Together as we all increase our knowledge & hopefully have a few laughs along the way
In 3 yrs this #solar installation at an Arkansas high school turned the district’s budget from a $250K deficit to a $1.8 million surplus. They're using the surplus to pay teachers more We have the solutions. Implement them. #ActOnClimate #ClimateAction #climate #NoWarNoWarming
The Oldest Known Book in History Was Written on Gold Plates Most people assume the world’s oldest books were written on paper or animal skins. But history has something even older — and it’s on gold. Archaeologists uncovered what is often called the Etruscan Gold Book. It is a set of six gold plates bound together with metal rings. Some scholars consider it the oldest known multi‑page bound work, or book, in the world, because the gold plates are connected in a manner similar to a codex. The plates are inscribed with Etruscan characters and symbolic figures. Experts explain that this is not a random collection of metal sheets. The gold plates form a structured, continuous record or document, dating back to around 660 BC, long before many of the oldest known paper manuscripts. Here’s what makes this especially fascinating: the Etruscan Gold Book was discovered around 1943 (or possibly 1955) in the Struma River area of Bulgaria, and its existence became publicly known when it was donated to the National Historical Museum in Sofia in 2003. That is remarkable because Joseph Smith described a similar record on gold plates over 100 years earlier, in 1823. At the time Smith made this claim, no archaeologist, historian, or collector had ever found anything like a bound book made of metal plates. In the early 1800s, some people were aware that ancient civilizations sometimes wrote on metal. However, the vast majority of known inscriptions were brief — typically one line or just a few words — rather than extended narratives or bound records. There is no record of anyone in 1823 — scholars, collectors, or the general public — being aware of multi‑plate metal books. Some early books also discussed gold artifacts from ancient American civilizations like the Aztecs, Maya, and Inca, describing jewelry, figurines, and ceremonial objects. However, none mentioned narrative writing on gold plates or bound plate records. Since Joseph Smith’s claim, archaeologists have uncovered other examples of writing on metal plates. The Pyrgi Tablets, three gold plates inscribed in Etruscan and Phoenician, were discovered in 1964 in Italy. Another notable find comes from Persepolis in Iran, where gold and silver foundation plates with inscriptions in Old Persian, Elamite, and Akkadian, attributed to King Darius I (522–486 BC), were retrieved from stone boxes during excavations in 1933–1934. These plates were intentionally placed in stone boxes as part of a foundation ritual, paralleling Joseph Smith’s description of his plates being buried in a stone box. Only in the mid‑20th century did scholars find a real ancient example of a bound multi-plate record — the Etruscan Gold Book. Scholars describe this artifact not as a loose set of metal objects, but as a structured, book‑like object. Multiple plates are joined by rings in sequence, with inscriptions reflecting organized content. This type of record‑keeping was not part of the known archaeological record in the early 1800s. In other words, Joseph Smith described a bound record on gold plates long before such an artifact was known to historians. Now we know that the format he described really did exist in antiquity, even though it wasn’t discovered until decades after his death. That’s more than coincidence. Written: the bronze serpent #BookOfMormon #JosephSmith #GoldPlates #AncientRecords #EtruscanGoldBook #OldestBookInHistory #BiblicalHistory #AncientArtifacts #HistoricalMysteries #Archaeology
Let me explain exactly why every new subdivision in America looks like the top photo, because the math is wild. A mature tree increases a home's value by 7 to 19 percent. On a $400,000 house, that's $28,000 to $76,000. A single shade tree produces the cooling equivalent of ten room-size air conditioners running 20 hours a day. One tree on the west side of a house cuts energy bills by 12 percent within 15 years. The bottom photo is worth more, costs less to live in, and sells faster. This has been documented by the University of Washington, Clemson, Michigan State, and the USDA. The data is not in dispute. Removing those trees saves the builder roughly $5,000 per lot. Concrete trucks need twice the dripline radius of every standing tree. Utility trenches need flat ground. A bulldozer flattens 200 lots in an afternoon. Preserving trees adds weeks and thousands per home. So the developer pockets $5,000 in savings and the buyer eats $50,000 in lost value for the next two decades. The person making the decision and the person paying for it have never been in the same room. The Woodlands, Texas is the proof of what happens when they are. George Mitchell bought 28,000 acres of Houston timberland in 1974 and preserved 28% as permanent green space. He forced McDonald's to build behind the tree canopy. That McDonald's became one of the highest-volume locations in Texas. The first office building, designed to reflect the surrounding forest so you couldn't see it from the street, leased completely. The Woodlands median home price today: $615,000. Katy, a comparable Houston suburb that clear-cut: $375,000. Named #1 community to live in America two years running. Fifty years of data. The trees are worth more than removing them saves. Developers clear-cut anyway because they sell the house once and leave. You live in it for 30 years.
