Certainly, click on image.
Postalö Vleeptron
First Day Issue: PizzaQ
Copyright (c) 2010 by Robert B. Merkin, All Rights Reserved
Goodness, I like this stamp. And the Gizmo.
The image of the Gizmo arrived this morning, unbidden and unexpected, from whom, what or where I ain't saying. This is one of those obscure, neglected Spigots of Cyberspace to which I have chosen to maintain a connection.
But this particular Spigot got some Stuff.
As regular readers, and my neighbors in the Shoe Mirrors neighborhood of Ciudad Vleeptron, know, I have an unhealthy intimacy with Machines.
In Regular Porn, younger & more recent is better.
In Gizmo Porn, older is not just better, it is wildly exciting, heart-poundingly thrilling.
If the Gizmo is more than 50 years old, spittle drips from the corner of my mouth. If the Gizmo went extinct centuries ago, and all that remain are sketches and prose descriptions, I have to take my heart medicine.
I don't want to have sex with these machines.
I just want them to move in with me, to live with me, in a corner of my office. So I can Gaze & Gawk at the Wonderful Old Machine.
If it needs occasional dusting or lubrication, if it needs a new vacuum tube (valve -- now they all come from Russia and China), if it needs a new power cord to satisfy code requirements fresher than 1910, I am happy to attend to the Gizmo's needs.
I give the Old Gizmo a wonderful new home, I rescue it from the Transfer Station or the Tag Sale of Ignorance & Doom, and it is safe for the next few decades. Safe, adored, polished, worshipped, soft little lullabyes sung to it.
On special holidays, I plug it in or turn its crank, and the Gizmo makes its Lost, Vanished Magic just for me.
So let's get to it.
What Is It?
(Be pretty specific. No Pizza for evasive, vague answers.)
1 Large white ranch Pizza
with pesto, shallots, shitake mushrooms
EXTRA CREDIT (4 more slices)
Affix a birth year to it, +/- 5 years.
14 comments:
Looks like an altimeter or artificial horizon from a plane or summet. or a radio from a plane from around the 40s ?
Yeah, it's an olde-fashionede airplane instrument ...
How strict should I be?
'Cause I've looked very carefully at it, and compared it to perfectly clear images of plane instruments, and one specific kind of instrument matches this fuzzy image.
It's not the altimeter and it's not the artificial horizon.
The Mystery Nincompoop who sent it to me just called it a "gauge."
HINT 1. He's not a pilot, or he would have been specific.
Anyway, you get the Pizza for the date. It's certainly the 1940s, and from the overbuilt "butch" style I'm guessing it's from a military airplane.
HINT 2. There's something very cool about the instrument, but it's invisible. Guess the Invisible Cool Thing, and 4 more slices with extra mozzarella.
Hey! Where were you flying from and where were you flying to when you flew over Afghanistan? What year?
Hm,reminds me of the old Flash Gordon serials. Radar? You could see the cats strolling around with this old school equimpent. The late great Arthur C.Clarke was a radar engineer for the RAF in the 40s and Geologist Harry Hess started to conduct experimets with Rader and found proof of the idea of plate tectonics. He was with the Navy, stationed in the Pacific and when he got bored he started toying around with the new radar equipment.
I was vititing my godson in Australia, the new routes to Singapore go over Afghanistan and Iraq these days. Maybe Iwill go again this year, definetly 2011. I'll send you some Vegemite/Marmite when I shall be there.
It's a WWII vintage aircraft altimeter, 1935 + or -.
Are you climbing a mountain with it to make it show different measurements?
Oh what fun!
Zois
A gyroscope inside?
Zois
AN 1894 HAND CRANKED TIME MACHINE.
ok, how about a barometer, or, rudder indicator? they're helpful. Lynn P.says Early autopilot. ANd, a hamster is inside, and he's adept at flying blind.
Anonymous up there is Zois.
PLEASE STAND BY
Before awarding the Pizza for the Big Question (PatfromCH gets 4 slices for dating it to the 1940s), The Vleeptron High Non-Junk Science Council has enlisted the services of an Expert to help determine what the hell this Gizmo is.
I know SOMETHING about it for certain (see Hint 2 above), but I need Expert Help to determine EXACTLY what the Gizmo is. Please be patient.
Hi Zois!
Edward, 1 slice plain for Most Imaginative Answer. Let me see if I can dig up an image of my Heathkit TM-23 Vacuum Tube Time Machine. I soldered it together myself and like to take little trips to the near future and recent past.
A positioning / honing indicator ? In any case it must be summet exotic that you can't find in planes these days, but that was cutting edge tech back in the 40s
You ever heard of steampunk ? The people who build i.e. computers that look like voctorians or Samuel Babbage had designed them ? Reckon you might like this sort of activity.
Please go to most recent VleeptronZ post ... uhhh gimme about 1 hour, but then All Will Be Revealed, and the Grand Pizza will be awarded -- thanks to a Special Surprise Aviation Expert PizzaQ Judge!
Yeah, now you can go here:
http://vleeptronz.blogspot.com/2010/08/answer-to-mystery-gizmo-pizzaq-vanished.html
Quite worthwhile information, thank you for the article.
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