Medieval Time

Temperance adjusting a clock. Christine de Pizan, Épître d’Othéa. Paris, c.1406

By the late 14th century, mechanical clocks were common enough to be used as metaphors for temperance in poetry, but the first recorded use of minute as a unit of time is 1392 in French and 1393 in English, although the word had been used to describe a 60th of a degree since Ptolemy in geography and astronomy.  It is probably not a coincidence that the usage appeared not long after clock dials began to appear in Europe.

It's important to remember this if you're doing first person medieval living history. Earlier, men would speak of a paternoster while, the time it took to say a paternoster, for a short period of time. It takes me about 20 seconds to say it.

Love of Gears III

More here.

Brunel's Imperial Walker

Source: b3ta.com via Sydney on Pinterest

Steampunk: so goths can wear brown.

Singing Bird Pistols

A splendid pair of early 19th century automatons. When you pull the trigger of the pistol, a tiny bird, covered with real iridescent feathers, pops out of the barrel to perch there, twisting back and forth while it flaps its wings and sings.

For generations these ingenious devices passed from one wealthy individual to another, who from time to time took them out of their case, wound them up, and heard them sing. Less often, they displayed them to a few friends or acquaintances.

And now Christie's, in their effort to to facilitate a transfer to yet another wealthy individual and profit by that transaction, provide the rest of us with a dazzling video of the amazing mechanisms.

Apparently someone paid $5.8 million to own them. I suspect that this was paid by someone who had an ample surplus beyond essential food and shelter, and so they are happy with the exchange, and why not?

I, on the other hand, paid nothing to hear them sing. And so I am certainly enriched. And so are you.

A Clockwork Monk

A 16th century automaton.

Nothing Says Christmas Like a Knit Amphisbaena Scarf

Isidore of Seville tells us that alone among snakes, the amphisbaena goes out in the cold, so what could be more appropriate for the season than this charming amphisbaena scarf?

If you're trying to find a gift for someone who already has an amphisbaena scarf, perhaps you could get them a jelly wobbler:




And to be completely prepared for the holidays, you may want to watch this instructional video

The Deep

The abyss, populated by metal objects in dreamlike stop-motion animation by PES, who also created the witty short, Moth.

Lego Replica of the Antikythera Mechanism, Difference Engine, and Other Devices

A 2000-year-old analog computing device reconstructed out of Lego.

From the same crazed genius that brought you a Babbage Difference Engine Made From Lego.

Speaking of mechanisms, may I mention the Artoo and Threepio swimuits? Oh, those bickering droids.

Love of Gears II

I have not yet read much of Neal Stephenson's Anathem, although it has insistently dragged itself close to the top of my "read me" list, with only two half-read books ahead of it. I have dipped into it, and can see how the machines in my previous post might, as Steve Muhlberger suggests, evoke the gigantic Great Clocks of the novel, designed to keep time over millennia.

The Long Now Foundation is one of the inspirations for the clocks in the novel, and has produced a prototype for the clock, an orerry and chimes. The foundation hopes to build their clocks on a monumental scale with the works buried underground.

Beautiful machines, but not, I think, as charming as what I think of as Millennium Clock 1.0, the Prague Astronomical Clock or Prague Orloj. It recently celebrated its 600th anniversary, and is more than halfway through its first millennium.

The 600 Years from the macula on Vimeo.

The Orloj has stopped several times since it was made, and each time, it has been repaired. Most recently it succumbed to German shelling during the Prague Uprising of 1945. They fixed it afterward, because it was so wonderful. It has outlived several states that claimed Prague as their capital.

If you want to build for the Long Now, then build something awesome, build something beautiful. Later generations will fix it when it breaks.

Love of Gears

Clayton Boyer Clock Designs

Sweet. I am reminded of Froissart's Horloge Amoureuse, which I commented on earlier.

On a related note, Babbage and Lovelace continues.

Caterpillar Automaton from 1820

The Ethiopian Caterpillar, an amazing little automaton from 1820. 1820!

It's attributed to Henri Maillardet, who created the astounding Draughtsman-Writer automaton now at the Franklin Institute.

Sotheby's catalogue shows the machine in gaudy close-up.

Hat tip to the fascinating Automata/Automaton Blog.

Science!

An awesome, beautiful animation of asteroid discoveries, 1989-2010.

Notice how the pattern of discovery follows the Earth around its orbit. Most discoveries are made in the region directly opposite the Sun. You'll also notice some clusters of discoveries on the line between Earth and Jupiter, these are the result of surveys looking for Jovian moons.

A laser stabbing into the star-spattered sky.

A metrocontextual science map showing scientific disciplines over time in the format of a subway map.

The alarming snakebot.

A cyborg fly controls a mobile robot.

I for one welcome our sock-pairing robotic masters.

The thrilling adventures of Lovelace and Babbage, Victorian crimefighters! And their exhibit at the Museum of the History of Science, lovingly illustrated by the talented Sydney Padua.

And speaking of steampunk, here is a rather sinister artificial arm. One of the few times wearing a black leather glove makes you look less creepy.

And Lady Clankington's Cabinet of Carnal Curiosities, and her Little Death Ray.

Which would be even more steampunky if it was powered by a tiny steam engine.

This blog post brought to you by the steampunk bee.

14th c. Robots II

If you like 14th c. robots (and who doesn’t?) Chaucer’s Squire’s Tale gives us not only a brass robot horse controlled by turning a pin in its ear, but both a satire of the kind of SF where the cool technology and sense-of-wonder marvels completely overwhelm the thin plot and weak characters and of the kind of fanboy who thinks it’s like the coolest story ever, dude.

14th c. Robots

Steve Muhlberger has an interesting post on 14th c. robots, particularly a mechanical angel that greeted Richard II for his coronation in London in 1377. Much as I’d like to imagine the Tik-Tok Angel of London, clockwork seems unlikely in the context. The contrivance had to perform on cue and the moment of Richard’s arrival was unpredictable, so a puppet seems more likely than a clockwork automaton.

So I will try not to imagine Evangelion Genesis Ricardus, in which a team of moody dysfunctional anime adolescents, led by young Richard II, pilot giant clockwork automata in defense of the underground 14th c. complex of New Troy-3 from various alien menaces, periodically ducking behind gigantic mantlets to be rewound at the waterwheel-powered winding stations.

Instead I will cherish Froissart’s Horloge Amoureuse, in which a ticking clock becomes an extended metaphor for measured and enduring love. There’s something tremendously sweet about how Froissart handled this: first the wide-eyed curiosity at the wheels and foliot and whole complex mechanism, then the immediate impulse to turn it into a love-allegory.