Suitable for calculating the velocity of your airship ascent.

P.S. I love that thing, and I don't even really know what it is.

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Very cool. When do you meet the ex CIA guy drinking himself to death in a trailer?

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I call those days "weekdays".

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Someone read the same book I did.

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Two someones.

And here I was hoping I would get to the ref first. A fool's hope.

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Three.

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Jesus Christ, people. It's not like it's EVEN REMOTELY OBSCURE.

Can we just take it as a given that everyone who reads my LJ has also read every science fiction novel that has made the New York Times Best Seller list in the last twenty years?

Because I think we can.

You are not a unique and beautiful snowflake because you read science fiction. Certainly not around these parts.

Edited at 2008-05-22 02:33 am (UTC)

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Actually, due to certain logistical problems, Pattern Recognition is the only Gibson novel I've read, ever. I can't even read the Dark Tower without crossing an ocean or selling a kidney.

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I for one, I believe, have never touched a sci-fi publication, for good or ill..

But I love the peppermill(!) - Will sliding the sideknobs vary the grind-coarseness? - I almost expect that they've embedded that kind of detail into it.

..The pictures alone makes one cringe in mad disassembling fever.

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Heh, I was always wondering how one of these worked since I read that...

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Ten minutes ago, I didn't know this device existed. Now, I can't imagine life without one.

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Exactly.

MUST. HEAR. THE NOISES. MUST! jwz please to make with the samplings!

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iawtc.

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If you take it apart, for your own sake, you should shoot good, closeup video of the process. That will help you put it back together.

You should also shoot video of yourself putting it back together. That won't help you any, but it will be HILLARIOUS for the rest of us.

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Jealous, so very jealous. Wanted one of these for years.

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If you ever meet somebody who wants to talk to you about TSD rallies, don't let them. Those people are crazy nuts.

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FIE, I say! FIE!

Crazy for TSD rallies, maybe!

Um.

Jameson and LJ.
These things do not mix.

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Ha! I was just wondering if jwz was planning on taking up rallying or not. The thought of a TSD rally in in San Francisco though just seems... bad.

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TSD rally's are cool... but I'd rather be dodging cones. And more than that I'd rather be on the track :)

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Oh, cruel mechanical lust, you return to haunt me again.

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but.. does it vibrate?

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This is truly nifty.

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raychoo was going to get me to make her a Shrinky Dink necklace of one of those a couple of months ago, but at the last second she changed her mind and went with some kind of mathematical wave form.

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Nice pictures too. I've wanted one of those for years myself.

You are now so ready to go out and do TSD rallies.

P.S. I never read the aforementioned Gibson novel. Does that make me a rare and special snowflake?

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No.


I haven't read it either.

:P

I haven't read any Gibson, for that matter.
Nor have I ever read anything by Phillip K. Dick, and yet, I somehow wound up with a NEXUS SIX license plate.

Take that, nerds!

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...are you sure that's not a hand grenade?


It looks an awful lot like a hand grenade. Not only that, but a futuristic, steampunk (yeah, I said it) hand grenade.

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A dial-a-yeild&effect hand gernade. Heck, why not, the US military has nukes you can do that with.

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Yeah, the combination of ringpull and numbers made me think of a variable grenade.

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Did you get a chance to see The Difference Engine in action at the computer history museum in Mountain View, yet?

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Not yet, though that is pencilled in to my Secret Agenda.

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Hey, let me know when you're going. I've been meaning to go see it also.

And, I'm expecting a curta GL screensaver soon.

(The disassembly of that thing makes watch repair look like a snap.)

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That, sir, is truly exquisite. I'm jealous.

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Mechanical calculator is only expensive if your time is valuable.

(amiright?)

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Liechtenstein's only significant export aside from (looks up Wikipedia) masonry drills and false teeth!

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I approve. I'd love to hear audio of the Curta in action... something tells me it could be sampled to make a killer rhythm* section. Hell, held next to a microphone it could be used in a live performance.

I wonder if NASA's ever sent these into space. It'd be perfect... it works as long as the meat robots do, and is completely radiation resistant by design. Hmm.

I remember seeing a documentary a while back on the Apollo 13 mission. When the astronauts were stuck in the lunar lander module, trying to figure out how long to fire the module's thruster, they had to do it by hand on paper. This would have been so much cooler.

* I can never remember how to spell this. Thank you, Livejournal, for adding spell check!

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Do not test with the TSA.

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Just got all excited thinking this was an antique camera. Then realized it had no recognizable camera parts and thought that was EVEN COOLER.

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And suddenly the blogosphere* is full of links to Curta. The jwz effect in action.

* sorry, I will now go drink pesticide to absolve me of this heinous crime.

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Yeah, I was thinking, JWZ singlehandedly doubled the value of every Curta calc. out there. When I someday finish college(many years and counting still), this is the graduation present I require from my parents.

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