Pat Metheny - Orchestrion

Half Full Glass — Cognitive therapy on the cheap

For the optimist, affirmation.

For the pessimist, annoyance.

For everyone, $11.95.

Mirrored from Book of Joe

Patrick Stewart

Conversation with Patrick Stewart

Star Trek and Dune's Patrick Stewart just appeared on U.S. television in Hamlet, alongside former Doctor Who star David Tennant. And someone asked Stewart why his training as a Shakespearean actor prepared him to do science fiction.

Via: Io9

Sleep Disorders?

This, of course, was perfectly legal in its time. And note the alcohol content - 74% (148 proof!).

And of course the box should warn against operating heavy machinery or using while standing upright.

Via TYWKIWDBI

Laptop Babbage

Curta Mechanical Calculator

I remember this from Scientific American. They were advertised, usually with a quarter page ad, toward the back of the magazine. Way pricy for a ninth grader, almost as much as the electric guitar I was salavating. Around that time, Texas Instruments was making noise about an electronic calculator that could add and subtract, but the prototype remained a year or two away. Come to think about it, my old slide rule is probably lurking in Mom's attic somewhere. (yeah, I have a picture of that guitar in a scrapbook too) Dark Roast Blend has a set of pictures of the Curta, with a teardown sheet and a video of it in action. The blow-up pictures show why German mechanical engineering, at the time, was considered top-of-the-line. Now, amateur machinests make miniature steam engine reproductions as a sort of calling card into the ranks. I wonder if any would try their hand at a Curta reproduction. It would hold the floor at any gathering.

Tiny Foal

Daily Mail, U.K.

This one is for both my neices. (whom I haven't heard from since Christmas..hint)

At three days old, a pinto stallion at Tiz Miniature Horse Farm in Barnstead, New Hampshire weighted only six pounds and was only 14 inches tall. His was named Einstein.Dr Rachel Wagner, Einstein’s co-owner, claims the Guinness Book of Records lists the smallest newborn horse as weighing just 9lbs. Breeders say that unlike the current record holder, Thumbelina, Einstein shows no signs of dwarfism – he is just a tiny horse.

Miss Cellania in Neatorama

Theresa Andersson

Theresa Andersson

Born in Sweden, working out of New Orleans, Theresa Andersson builds up a song using loops (the equipment at her feet) and looks like she's having a good time doing it. Oh Mary is a song from that huge reservoir called trad, but I think it's Mississippi John Hurt's version that most people remember. Go see her before she becomes a "songbird" (i.e. managed, expensive, artistically important, and featured on Behind the Music)