I don't think I've written about it on this iteration of m' website, but I like collecting and restoring old typewriters. If you like disassembling intricate things and cleaning tiny parts, it's good fun. And oh, the tiny mechanisms to observe. It's incredibly plain why companies that built these switched so easily to building things like rifles in WWII. I guess the neatest one is the American Expeditionary Force-issue Hammond Multiplex about which I wrote on the last website, which used to belong to my great-grandpa, like so, but they go from the late 1800s to the Selectric II.

Anyway, I thought I'd write about one I found the other day. It's a 1930 (I think) Underwood. These are generally worthless, because they were cranked out by the millions (one per minute in the '20s and '30s). They're also not really interesting per se, because they were the equivalent of the Selectric, or a beige Windows XP box -- they were just the common standard. Sure, Robert Howard had one, but they were what you'd do your crappy office job on. They're also indestructible, so there's no shortage of supply (despite what Etsy sellers might think). Anyhow, I picked it up because it had an interesting parkerized finish, which I hadn't seen on one of these before, and because sometimes it's fun seeing what used to be normal. This went into a box in 1959, came out of the box a couple days ago, and hasn't been cleaned up at all (yet). So, here's the Toyota Camry of inter-war word processing.

Hmmmm...

The Terror Grill may seem like a common-or-garden labor operation, but observe the careful disregard for the safety of the stoker, coalman, meatmaster, and hoister, and the way in which they are kept in a unitary tower well-away from the director and his or her guests. This allows for each worker to do their job in a most efficient manner, as well as providing for good visibility for the director, not to mention easy control of insurrection. The meat elevator, center-weighted for stability, is generously-sized, and can accommodate 10 cows, 30 pigs, or 60 birds. Provision of the lifting chains is sufficient for this weight, and the sealed geartrain means that the hoistman can make minute adjustments to the meat elevator's level with minimal effort. Also note how the provision of a stoker leaves the coalman to concentrate on provision and distribution of fuel, without needing to be distracted by concerns regarding airflow. Truly, the Terror Grill represents a new frontier for the gustatory dictator. Alternatives, like the Stanislaus Webelo's Delight, overwork the coalman and put the director in a much more vulnerable position, while not having the meat accommodations of the Terror Grill. ~ Ah, I have built the terror-grill using Science, which is worse than Art for drawing barbed wire and loudspeakers and a proper four-corner lift mechanism and bracing and the machine gun, but conveys scale better. Note how the backside of both the fuel platform and meat platforms are slanted, for ease of dumping-into using the truck. That nonchalant man in the sweater and khakis could be you. ~

I like to imagine that this is an off-day -- maybe the grill servants have been conscripted to help with the construction of an aqueduct or subterranean vault. So he has some free time to spend with his kids, and they're like "Can you take us to see the Terror-Grill?" And he wants to, sure, because of course in this society direction of grill operations will be their job one day, too. So he goes ahead to clean up the place, make sure there's diesel in the dump truck, and hide the bodies of any stokers who couldn't make it through the last night's feast-preparation. So he finishes up with the big stuff, and starts dinking around with the Grill -- making sure the geartrain is oiled, sighting the guns, and so on. But then the rickshaw with his kids in it pulls up and he can see their faces pressed up against the glass, looking up at the sheer height of the Terror Grill. It's the best thing in the world to them. And he can appreciate that, because it's the best thing in the world to him too. So this is more of a "Casual Vacation Day Terror Grill Director" look, like out of a detergent commercial.

This was on my mind a while ago, but I just remembered it while my bicycle was being crashed into by an extremely short Korean girl on another bicycle, who was on her phone and didn't see me: there should be a Kinect San Francisco racing game. There are two parts to this frankly incredible idea. The first is a cable car racing segment where you have to work the levers, and the soundtrack is "Choo Choo Ch'Boogie" on infinite loop. You would stand there pulling on your floor while being surrounded by jump blues and the screams of those caught in the path of your runaway cable car. You could decouple the cable to skip down hills or through parks, reconnecting at the bottom. The second part, which is even more frankly incredible than the second, is an overhead-wire electrified bus racing segment. This would be the mostest coolest, especially once you leveled up and unlocked the articulated buses. So you'd be drifting in two simultaneous directions over the crest of a hill, smashing cars away with the tail segment, while desperately trying not to unhook the pantograph. And you'd be doing this by sitting there without a controller, waving your arms around like a nincompoop. The music will be a selection of the most avant-garde Ecuadorean ragechip that has yet been crafted in the boopmines of Saumarez.

The Queen walked in wearing oily overalls, holding a fancy baby. "I'm a great-grandmother now. But team, we gotta get this sucker wavin'. The status quo will not do." Ten functionaries in lab coats rushed forward, gently hoisted the child aloft, and marched into the next room. The sound of air tools permeated the palace for the next few hours while the Queen enjoyed a snifter of the finest Châteaux Soirée.

I thought this was mildly-interesting enough to write about. I bought a third-party-refurbished fifth-generation iPod Nano from Woot.com. They're the last Nano with real buttons, which is a lot better for using while driving or at night. Anyway. It got here, and it's pretty curious. The company that refurbished it seems to have dropped it in a plastic case which is pretty close to the original metal one. However, the interface is unusably slow. It just won't scroll, or anything. My first thought was that it was a fake Chinese iPod. However, it plays Apple Store DRM'ed files, it takes Apple software updates, and it talks fine to iTunes. If it's a fake, it's really good on the iTunes integration front!

  So, I wondered why it was so junky. These things are so simple that there isn't much to break. There's a Samsung ARM processor, a Cirrus audio chip, an Apple-branded power manager, and most of the rest of the space is occupied by a single chunk of Toshiba memory. Was the memory replaced with something crappier when it was refurbished? One way or another, the only way to tell is to pull the thing apart. But then I'd be out eighty bucks. So I benchmarked it instead. Here's what the Woot Refurb iPod got:

Okay then. There are two more 5G Nanos in the house -- I have one, which I use with my headphone amp, and R. Monkeys has another. So I tested them both. Here's mine:

  They're similar in some ways, but check out how much slower the refurb's reads are. Of particular interest are those 4k random reads. Little random reads are what make any computer feel snappy, and the Woot iPod's 4k random reads are majorly off the OEM Apple one. Let's see the same category on R. Monkeys' iPod:

  It's not quite as fast as mine, but it's close -- and way ahead of the Woot iPod. It seems as if the Woot iPod's memory is just too slow to keep up with system functions. I wish I had the $80 to pull it apart, though.

There, solved.

Ollie when he was found six years ago. He was stuck between the transmission and body of a Ford Explorer. Which explains the expression. Now he just uses it when we don't give him all the attention.