Militarvelo

A 1904 Diary, "Holy Cats!", and The Radium Dance

2006-08-21T22:28:00.000-05:00

[many pages have small drawings at the bottom]

[Willy was an amateur photographer, pasting small portraits on many pages of the journal]

While reading the Something Awful forums, I came upon this thread. "Chaoskitty" collects old, abandoned journals and photographs on Ebay. She has begun scanning and posting pages from a 1904 diary written by William L. "Willy" Tuttle, an eighteen-year-old railroad worker in Boston. Response to the SA thread was so positive that she began a blog about the diary and other historical ephermera that she collects: Holy Cats! takes its name from one of Willy's pet expressions.

The thread itself is worth looking at, as other contributors supply music clips of Dance Hall music referenced in the diary, and unearth census records that give a glimpse of what happened to Willy in the years after the diary. I was driven to locate a collection of Scot Joplin songs as a result of reading this...

DPRK

2006-06-28T19:04:00.000-05:00

[Some sort of sports team - soccer? - mascot]

A riveting set of photos take in the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, arguably one of the worst places on earth in which to live. These photos were taken by a Russian citizen, and feed my slow-traffic-past-the-horrible-highway-accident fascination I have with the DPRK. I'm not sure what interests me about the place; not so much the 1950s time-warp look of the place, but more that it seems like a huge theatrical set. All of the people are playing their assigned parts:

[a traffic policewoman, directing non-existent traffic congestion]

[The tomb-like husk of the Ryugyong hotel]

[The Juche Tower lit at night; with no object to provide human scale, it looks particularly evil in this photo]

[North Korean citizens looking at the photographer: he explains in the forum posted above that they hadn't seen any Caucasian people before him. ]

Haflingers

2006-06-21T19:51:00.000-05:00

One of my favorite books when I was six or seven was Richard Scarry's Cars and Trucks and Things That Go, a book about a pig family who drive across a pseudo-European landscape on a family trip. One of the pages featured an eclectic array of military vehicles cavorting on a beach. As I grew older and commenced my adolescent war-nerd reading, I discovered that the cars in Scarry's drawing were based upon real vehicles, such as the Austin armored car, the Kettenkrad and the A7V.

One vehicle that I never found out the origin of was a small jeep-like car carrying a quartet of foxes; I recently discovered that this car is real also, and is called the Haflinger:

These cars are quite small, have 2-cylinder air-cooled gasoline engines, and aren't geared fast enough for highway travel. They were made in the 60s and 70s by Steyr Daimler Puch, a company known better in the US for their mopeds.

The car's namesake, a small, sturdy horse:

Private Submarines

2006-03-31T23:23:00.000-05:00

"This Whiskey Class Submarine was decommission in 1991. This submarine is open to many possibilities, including adventure tourism or active military service. It was rated to a depth of 200 meters or 650 Feet. VESSEL IDENTIFIER: PI12
Price: U.S. $550,000.00"

The idea of a private submarine is appealing, but I wonder how much it would cost to actually staff and maintain a diesel-electric sub like this. One would have to hire at least a few trained professionals - mechanics, engineers, and people who had spent years operating these vehicles in the military. Also, one would likely have to spend vast amounts of money on maintenance and parts - I expect that specialized parts for an aging 1950s Soviet vessel would be hard to find and expensive to manufacture. One couldn't skimp on maintenance costs, as the price of cutting corners might be catastrophic.

Even taking all this into account, the risk of operating this thing seems ghastly. Think of it this way: a boat, or ship, will float even if it's engine stops, rudder and steering gear breaks, or if all of the on-board electronics fail. Its "default state" is to float and drift - not a desirable situation, and possibly dangerous in a storm on a lee shore, but not immediately deadly. A submarine, on the other hand, uses its machinery and motive power to operate on or between the surface of the ocean and its "crush depth" - the depth at which its pressure hull can no longer withstand the force of the ocean pressing in on it. I can imagine any number of failures that could send a sub careening beneath this 'operating envelope' of safety, and of course this has happened before.

An ocean-going ship needs its machinery to move and communicate. A submarine needs its machinery to function in order for it to avoid being destroyed. Nevertheless, here is a company, or at least a front for a company, that proposes to build "luxury submarines". This seems about as good an idea as those thousands of private commuter helicopters that were predicted in the 1950s.

(Let me qualify this by saying I know nothing about this subject except what I have read in a couple of books. )

NOTE: apparently this sub has been posted for sale before, and is of Soviet design and manufacture.

More of these photos...

2006-03-15T22:03:00.000-05:00

No plastic, no antibiotics.

Even the idea of sending soldiers to a war with no armor but a steel helmet and a wool tunic has begun to seem primitive...

"Old, far-off, unhappy things": French color photographs from the First World War

2006-03-15T21:49:00.000-05:00

These photos have appeared on the internet a few months ago, but I just came across them again while looking for a book title for L. They depict soldiers of the French army during the 1914-1918 war, and are genuine color photographs, not tinted or colorized prints.

Some background on early color photos can be found here, as well as many more of these photographs here.

There is something arresting and spooky about the immediacy of these pictures, like poring over the ghastly photos of Jonestown from 1978. The traditional black and white photos of The Great War have a distant, iconic look to them; they don't pull the viewer in, or cause as much of a reptile-brain response in the viewer.

Rome

2006-02-11T15:52:00.000-05:00

[The guileless Octavia and her mother, the Leona Helmsley-like Atia]

Lisa and I have been watching the 12 episodes of the first season of "Rome", series shown in the United States on HBO. It reminds me of "Six Feet Under" or "The Sopranos", although it has more sex and violence than the latter.

I can't judge how historically accurate "Rome" is, but it made a better impression on me than "Gladiator". The series's attempt to recreate the seedy reality of Roman life is illustrated in the title sequence, during which the camera darts through crowded city streets, glimpsing animated graffiti scrawled on the walls - some of it grotesque or pornographic, like the real Graffiti found on the walls of Pompey.

Tenori-On

2006-02-11T15:38:00.000-05:00

Toshio Iwai's "Tenori-On" is meant to be a musical instrument for non-musicians. When I first saw mention of it on a Something Awful thread, I thought "Ok, yea...". A video demonstration of the Tenori-On here, however, is most impressive. A description can't do it justice, except to say that the device allows one to assemble minimalist-style music with the multiple layers and fugue effects one expects to hear in pieces by Steve Reich and John Adams. I want one.

Pepsi Can Stove / Soda Can Stove

2005-11-15T23:00:00.000-05:00

"The Pepsi Can stove is composed of four parts: three pieces made from soda cans and some foil tape. Two soda can bottoms are the exterior pieces. The upper can is turned upside down and fits over the lower can. The center "bowl" of the upper can is cut out making a large hole for easy fuel filling and lighting. Small burner holes are made around the perimeter of the top section. A cylinder made from the wall of a third soda can serves as an interior wall to the stove, thus the stove has a hollow double wall construction like the Trangia. Heat resistant foil tape holds the two exterior pieces together and prevents flame leaks."

There are several versions of this stove posted online, each made of the bottoms of a pair of aluminum cans filled with Perlite and pressed together into a capsule shape. According to the reviews, they work well using alcohol as fuel. I will make one of these soon. Pictures and updates to follow.

I haven't written much here in the last six months; the reason has been, I think, the disease of perfectionism. I'll try lazy-but-more-often blogging instead. The perfectionism was my '1' wing peeking out...that will be explained presently.

von Krawitz attribution

2005-11-06T10:35:00.000-05:00

Something just reminded me of a proverb I read over a decade ago, but to which I have forgotten the source. I want to believe that I read it somewhere in a John Keegan book, but this may not be true. The proverb was attributed to someone in the Prussian military, possibly in the mid-nineteenth century. My attempt to paraphrase it is:

1. Some use can be made in an organization of stupid, lazy officers.
2. Intelligent, hard working officers, on the other hand, are suited for staff positions of the greatest responsibility.
3. Intelligent, lazy officers are destined for the highest positions of leadership in an organization.
4. Stupid, hard-working officers are dangerous, and must be driven out of the organization as quickly as possible.

I just searched online using what scraps I could remember as keywords, and managed to find a mangled version here:

Field Marshall von Krawitz on war and the kinds of people the are, wrote:
1. Hard working but stupid...they make good soldiers
2. Lazy and stupid...no body wants them
3. Lazy & clever...they make good officers
4. Hard working & clever...get rid of them

...this version mangles the original intent so thoroughly, that it no longer makes sense. "Hard working & clever...get rid of them"? Stupid. As " Field Marshall von Krawitz" does not appear in the first several pages of search results, I suspect he is a phantasm.

This person has attributed the proverb to the 1940s, which I don't think is correct, but he has got the gist right:

Many years ago, the German High Command (GHC) reportedly had a simple, effective model for classifying and assigning officers based on two characteristics: intelligence and industry. Intelligent, industrious officers, for example, were assigned to staff jobs. They were very detail-oriented (translation: anal-retentive/obsessive-compulsive) and would make sure every bit of staff work was done to the last decimal place.

Then there were the intelligent, lazy officers. They made miserable staff officers, because they'd only do the bare minimum expected of them to make things pretty. However, they were ideal as combat commanders because they would achieve their objective with the absolute minimum expenditure of effort and resources. And, because they were intelligent, they would do it correctly the first time so they wouldn't have to do it over.

Stupid, lazy officers weren't much of a threat, providing they were assigned to positions that required a figurehead or were backed up by competent staff. In those days it was easy to sort out the stupid from the intelligent: the stupid ones got killed, unless they were consistently lucky. Those that survived through obvious luck were simply moved so they wouldn't endanger anyone else.

The really dangerous people, however, were the stupid, industrious (SI) ones. Combine industry and enthusiasm with a complete lack of understanding and knowledge and you have a recipe for disaster. It will normally take the combined efforts of many other people to undo the havoc and chaos caused by even a well-meaning "SI."

ISD

2005-08-14T18:22:00.000-05:00

I found this page by accident; it contains links to a series of enormous (3072 x 2048 pixels, 3.5MB) photographs of one of the original Imperial Star Destroyer (ISD) models. Although it doesn't show much in these small copies, the original photos show the stunning amount of surface detail on the model. One can see the light bulbs located in the ISD's engines* (...nacelles? exhaust pipes? What do you call those things?), as well as thousands of technological devices attached to the skin of the hull, most of unknown purpose.

When the photos are viewed at full size, there are small numbers visible over each bit of machinery; I believe that these are a reference to the different model kits "bashed" to create the ISD, but the key to the numbers in on some private page we are not allowed to see. Apparently the author has gone to a great deal of trouble to identify each and every panzer and battleship model piece that was incorporated into this movie prop, in case you want to devote a few months of your life to building a copy.

*Caution: you may not want to click on this link if you have a dial-up modem

Boisvert's Ephemeral Journal of Curiousities

2005-08-14T17:23:00.000-05:00

[BEJoC doesn't appear to have a logo yet, so I've inserted this still from Porco Rosso as a placeholder]

Having just downed a cup of coffee after 5:00pm, it is with great pleasure that I greet Mr. Boisvert to the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is the Internet. As for topics, I'll vote for Current Reading, Buying a Car, and Best Chocolate, in that order. I'll also vote for a comments box of some sort, if logistics and liability allow.

Also, do you think you could do an article on wiring your house for stereo speakers in every room? I'm interested in how this is done...

The City Bicycle

2005-08-14T12:13:00.000-05:00

[An ANT Light Roadster, handmade in Massachusetts]

James, who wrote the comment from the previous post, seems to share my obsessions with utilitarian bicycles, and has started a new blog about the subject, named The City Cycle. His first post is an excellent list "promoting the bicycle as utilitarian art"; one link which incited bicycle lust within my heart was Recycles Online, which has several examples of used Dutch Gazelle bicycles for sale. New Gazelle bicycles are only available in the US at exhorbitant shipping rates...

Swiss Army Bicycle Tires, Part 2

2005-08-14T10:13:00.000-05:00

[The front brake of an MO 05 Condor, a design dating from the advent of the advent of the pneumatic tire]

Sometime back in May, James wrote:

"Do you have a MO 05? The company in arkansas that sells swiss army vehicles has spare tyres listed on their website. A while back I was obsessed with that bike and found a few sources for parts, unfortunately I would have had to have called the shops and I can't understand swiss german."

Sadly, no, I do not have an MO 05, I merely covet one. I decided that if I were to use one for everyday bicycling, I'd have to replace the wheels with some modern size that would fit (perhaps 26"). The tires are available from Swiss Army Vehicles, but they cost $73.33 a piece (!), and don't appear to have any of the advantages of modern touring tires costing a third as much, such as Kevlar-belted Paselas. I thought also of building up 26" wheels around the bicycle's original hubs (the rear hub, as I understand, contains a drum brake), but this started to seem like a lot of work...

Architectural Salvage

2005-02-28T00:32:00.000-05:00

[1. a rack of ceramic doorknobs, looking somewhat like a package of white mushrooms in the produce aisle. 2. ornate hinges of indeterminate age.]

Nor'east Architectural Antiques is an architectural salvage business, a sort of Salvation Army store for bits and pieces of old houses. Lisa heard about this place from Bill and Jennifer, and it turns out to be just a short walk away from our house. We visited the store a few days ago, to browse at benches and transom windows. I found a venerable "Bezzera" espresso machine, a dystopian copper monolith which looks like a misplaced prop from David Lynch's Dune:

The heraldic crest of a snake devouring a man is connected to the city of Milan. It also appears on half of the Alfa Romeo badge.

[Ex-ter-mi-nate! EX-TER-MI-NATE!]

Downtown Picture

2005-02-19T16:59:00.000-05:00

I took this picture two weeks ago, a few days after a snowstorm. The photo looks downhill, towards the Powow river (not visible behind the buildings). An organic bakery with passable corn muffins is right behind the bank building on the left. The chimney in the background protrudes from an old carriage factory, which now contains offices and a charter school.

The train used to pull into a station behind the grey building in the center of the photo; the former tracks are now a paved bicycle path. What is striking about old photos of the town is how bare the landscape was - very few trees were left standing in the vicinity of the town, whereas now the countryside seems to be "greening up" again.

Howl's Moving Castle

2005-02-18T15:01:00.000-05:00

Howl's Moving Castle is the English title of the new Hayao Miyazaki film. Miyazaki is the director responsible for Spirited Away, Kiki's Delivery Service, and several other excellent animated films. If you haven't seen a Miyazaki film yet, I highly recommend his work.

I don't know much about Howl's Moving Castle yet, except that it features a monstrous fort that walks about on chicken's legs, like Baba Yaga's hut. I'll write an update when we get a chance to see it...

EDIT: The New Yorker magazine published a good article on Hayao Miyazaki in its January 17th issue. The reporter managed to talk to Miyazaki for a bit, which is, apparently, a rare thing. Unfortunately, the New Yorker does not seem to have published this aticle online. They have posted an interview with the interviewer, Margaret Talbot.

Colorblindness

2005-02-18T11:05:00.000-05:00

[This circle is supposed to contain the number '6'. I can't see it.]

A friend of ours has periodic "game nights" at her house in Cambridge. Last Saturday Lisa and I went to one of these, and ended up playing a board game that relied on a scheme of colors connected to trivia cards. The game also had a die, with colored triangles printed on each face that corresponded to the game board. The die colors were not exactly the same shades as those printed on the cards or on the board; indeed, some of them were several shades off. The die's "yellow" side appeared to be a very solid orange. The "blue" and "purple" seemed almost indistinguishable to me, and in the dim light, I even had to look at a face for a couple of seconds in order to decide if it was green or red.

I have a "red/green" colorblindness, a very common type that is said to afflict about 1 in 12 males of European descent (women have it much less frequently). My brother has also tested positive for colorblindess, back when he was in the service - we just had an email conversation about the subject. I was first tested for it at about age 11, but I didn't believe the results until I found an online test involving the colored dots you see on this page. The web-pages from which I stole these images are here and here.

While there are some people whose color-deficiancy is so severe that they cannot distinguish between red and yellow traffic lights, and still others who see the world only in monochrome, "colorblindness" may not be a good term for this condition. When I mention it to people, most will start pointing at articles of clothing or upholstery, asking "what color is that? Do you see any difference?". I suspect that I can see 95% of the same colors as a normal person could; I usually have trouble discerning close shadings, especially when the lighting is poor.

There are some sites that attempt to show how the world looks to people with different kinds of colorblindness. It seems that the mildly colorblind see some colors as more "bleached out" than the normally-sighted, like a old magazine cover left in the sunlight, or how things look when you open your eyes at the beach, after laying in the sun with them closed.

[I can see what looks like a '5', or even a warped sort of '6' in the above circle. The real number is '8'.]

Interestingly, it seems that those with color-deficiency can see some things that the normally-sighted cannot; they can pick out patterns from complex backgrounds, and are said to be less confused by camoflauge. I'm not sure if this is supposed to be some inate effect, or whether the colorblind have simply become more adept at discerning shapes and patterns. I found a couple of online sources that talked about this:

"most color deficient persons compensate well for their defect and may even discover instances in which they can discern details and images that would escape normal-sighted persons. At one time the U.S. Army found that color blind persons can spot "camouflage" colors where those with normal color vision are fooled by it. "-- from here.

and

"On the positive side, there is some evidence that colour-blind people are much better than average at certain jobs. They are very good at finding green things hidden against green backgrounds - for example grass or leaves. They tend to find things by shape and get less confused by camouflage. Because of this, colour-blind entomologists still catch lots of bugs and in wartime, armies prize their colour-blind snipers and spotters."--from here.

[I can see a very obvious '2' in the above circle, in what looks like an old newspaper font. I'm told that, if you have normal color vision, you can't see the 2, but rather a 5 instead.]

Old Bike

2005-02-13T17:28:00.000-05:00

This is the bike I have been riding since 1993. I bought it at a yard sale in Marblehead for $75, from a woman who had bought it new 10-15 years before. It is a old Trek sport-tourer with a Chromoly steel frame made of Ishiwata tubes. I don't know the exact age, but I suppose I can look up the serial number here to find out.

Since 1993, I've replaced everything on this bike except the shifters, brakes, seat-post, and front derailler.

For anyone interested in bicycle minutia (likely very few if any people who read this), it is equipped with the following:

46cm wide Nitto bars with black cloth tape (width as recommended by Rivendell's Grant Peterson). I once tried Nitto moustache bars from Rivendell, but found them to be uncomfortable on long trips.
8cm Nitto dirt-drop stem, which puts the handlebars up at the level of the seat.
27" Weinmann wheels (replacements) with Conti Top Touring tires (the most flat-resistant bike tires I have ever used).
SKS fenders
a Sugino crank, 46 and 34 tooth chainrings
cheap-o Alivio rear derailleur, which seems to work fine.
Nitto platform pedals with toe-clips and straps (the toe-clip bracket of one broke shortly after the above picture was taken, yet to be replaced).
a Tubus Cargo rack
a Busch and Muller 6-volt Dymotec 6 bottle generator (now living on the Biria bike, as mentioned below), running a Lumotec Oval Plus headlight and a DToplight Plus tailight. Both of the lights have LED "Standlights" which remain illuminated when one is stopped at an intersection. Also, battery back-up lights both front and rear.
a Carradice Nelson longflap canvas saddlebag, which sits on the Tubus rack.
a Brooks Conquest saddle. This saddle is a leather Brooks B17 but with springs. Previous un-sprung saddles would cause me discomfort after about 60 miles or so. The Brooks soaks up almost all road vibrations.
a Sigma odometer (cheap one).

I used to use this bike to commute (18 miles/28km round trip), and have gone on a couple of longer rides (70 miles/112km was the most I have ever done, from Roslindale MA to Stratham NH). The idea behind building up this bike was always long-distance light touring, commuting, and perhaps randonneuring. Hopefully its ragged appearance will discourage theft.

This picture was taken in October, during a ride/picnic to Maudsley park. In the background of this picture you can just see Lisa, standing behind her new Breezer commuter bike.

Detente

2005-02-13T06:08:00.000-05:00

The creatures in a moment of peaceful coexistance. Taken in the spring of 2004, back at our old place.

Busch & Mueller 6 Dynamo

2005-02-12T18:01:00.000-05:00

I have ridden the Biria in the snow several times now, and also at night. The Nokian tires work fine, even on packed snow or ice patches. The bottle generator that was supplied with the bike - a Basta or similar brand - had slippage problems in rain or snow. The stock generator didn't have a way to adjust its tension against the tire, and the driven wheel was serrated plastic.

I swapped out the stock generator with a Busch and Mueller Dymotec 6, which I had installed on another bike. The Dymotec 6 has a small knob near the base that allows one to tighten the tension when riding in rain, which works well. The standard Dymotec wheel has a notched rubber "tire", and this can be replaced with a wire wheel for use in rain or snow (shown in picture above). The wire wheel works passably well, but can still slip when the tire becomes encrusted with ice. Also, it is visibly wearing away at the tire sidewall after a few nighttime trips. Dymotec 6's have become much more expensive since I bought mine - I suspect because of the weak dollar (Busch & Mueller is a German company).

The ideal solution to night-time winter riding would be a Shimano generator hub built into the front wheel.

New Bike!

2005-02-11T11:26:00.000-05:00

Lisa got me a new bike for Christmas, and here it is: a Biria TC Top-3 city bike, which I had been coveting ever since I saw it in a Cambridge bicycle shop last September. The bike is an aluminum-framed three-speed with a SRAM internal hub. It has front and rear hand brakes, and a coaster-brake in the rear hub.

In this picture, it is outfitted with winter tires: studded 700cx35 Nokians. The regular tires are much larger, 700x47 or so. The step-through frame is useful when one has a bag of groceries on the rack. Eventually I'll get a pair of rear baskets.

I keep it locked to a post outside our house - the whole idea of this kind of bike is that it lives outside, requires minimal care, and is always ready to go.

Thanks, hon!

Eartha Kitt

2005-01-11T22:21:00.001-05:00

I didn't know who Eartha Kitt was until a couple of weeks ago. Many people know her as the actress who played Catwoman in the 1967 season of the Batman and Robin television show. Only after I had read Pat McClendon's article, discussed below, did I look Kitt up in the omnipotent imdb, and discover that she was none other than the mysterious Madame Zeroni, from the 2003 film Holes.

I found a paper about Eartha Kitt posted online by Pat McClendon, who wrote her essay as a diagnosis exercise for her coursework in clinical social work. McClendon reviews Earth Kitt's autobiographical book, "Confessions of a Sex Kitten" after her curiosity is aroused by seeing Kitt interviewed on television. She writes:

In the television interview, [Kitt] spoke of being abused as a child and if I recall correctly her voice changed to that of a small child at one point in the conversation. As the interviewer asked her questions, it was evident to me that she was listening to an internal dialogue before answering some of his questions. I told a friend who was watching the program with me that Eartha Kitt is a multiple (that she has MPD, multiple personality disorder or some variant of MPD). "Watch her dissociate, look at her having a conversation with herself, and listen to the changes in her voice", I told my friend. After the interview was over my friend said, "You could be right. I saw what you were talking about." Now, I really wanted to know her better.

McClendon proceeds to mine Kitt's book for evidence that the actress is actually a "high-functioning individual who has used her dissociative skills creatively". Apparently, people with a dissociative disorder can sometimes experience episodes of "depersonalization" -- i.e., they are unaware that they or their body has done some act, such as driving a car home from a party. It is as if they are a part-time tenant in their own body, checking in at intervals to see what has been happening in their absence. McClendon also explains that people with MPD often have little sense of time:

Eartha Kitt lacks of any sense of time. One of the men who admired her brought her a watch because he noticed that she didn't wear one (p.208). For some people with dissociative disorder, a watch makes them more aware that they are "losing time" and this increases their anxiety about what happened in the meantime. A logical way to reduce this anxiety is to not wear a watch. For other people with dissociative disorders, time has no significant meaning to them because of time distortions. Of course, the other extreme is possible too. Some people with dissociative disorders wear watches that tell them the date, the day of the week, and whether it is a.m. or p.m. because not knowing this information might expose their multiplicity.

Kitt experienced a truely ghastly childhood, which makes her subsequent persistance and courage more remarkable: in 1968 she was invited to a White House luncheon, at which she confronted Lady Bird Johnson about the immorality of the Vietnam War, driving the First Lady to tears. Lyndon Johnson retaliated by blacklisting Kitt, preventing her from finding work in the United States for years.

Three Speed Bicycles

2004-11-28T14:28:00.000-05:00

Three Speed Bicycles is a paen to the english bicycles that were popular in the United States in the two decades before the "Bike Boom" of the early 1970s. These internal-hub geared bicycles can still be found in garages and yard sales, but are becoming scarcer and more coveted in recent years. The author opines:

Once upon a time there were bicycles that seemed to invite you to go for a ride. They had fenders to keep themselves and their riders clean. They had a chainguard to protect their rider's trouser cuff. They had a saddle that, though not as comfortable as an easy chair, at least didn't seem like it was on the attack. They had few enough gears for the correct one to be easily chosen, (3, 4, or 5), and yet there were enough to make the bicycle easy to ride. They had tires that were just wide enough to go just about anywhere except in the rough and mud. They had handlebar grips that were padded well enough that gloves were usually not needed by their rider. It was easy to hang bags and baskets on them if your travel required that you take luggage and such with you. Their parts, except for cables and brake blocks, seemed to be almost permanent.

English three speeds are relatively heavy, compared to modern racing bikes, but are extremely durable and practical vehicles. The author (I can't seem to find his name on the site, only a photo) reproduces vintage owner's manuals, parts diagrams, and picture galleries of tantalizing machines.

First-Person Shooter

2004-11-21T22:34:00.000-05:00

My dad forwarded me an email about this. At first I thought LIVE-SHOT(tm) was one of those hunting computer games. I don't understand the appeal of computer games about hunting or fishing. I have never hunted and rarely fished, but I would think that most of the appeal of either activity would be to smell and see things around you, to be out-of-doors, talk to friends, etc.; but no matter: LIVE-SHOT(tm) is far weirder than this.

When you subscribe to LIVE-SHOT(tm), you are able to schedule target-shooting sessions on a real shooting range somewhere in Texas (of course). An actual rifle is pointed at an actual target down range. The real-life rifle is mounted on a servo-controlled platform, which you, the customer, control with your computer mouse. For about half-a-dollar per shot, you hear the sounds and see the results of your shooting by webcam. Whatever.

By far the most demented part of this scheme, however, is the LIVE-SHOT(tm) company's plans to introduce hunting-by-webcam. In the near future, captive animals will be brought within view of one of these webcam-controlled rifles, whereupon a customer can shoot the animal by clicking a mouse button. LIVE-SHOT(tm) touts this as a way for disabled or handicapped people to hunt, but it reminds me of those pictures of an Egyptian Pharaoh smashing a line of captives with his mace, one-by-one. "Hunting" corralled animals for entertainment is tasteless enough, but to do it remotely, from one's home office? How freaking stupid.

As an aside, the technology used to control and aim the rifle should appear in the next season of 24, Alias, or some other appropriate work of fiction. A character could set one of these devices up in a hotel-room window, and conduct an assassination from an internet cafe several time-zones away. You read it here first.

Hoplites

2004-11-20T18:16:00.000-05:00

Reg has starting teaching Yoga at my old school again. He emails this interesting link, and writes

Have you read Steven Pressfield's "Gates of Fire" or Ernle Bradford's "Thermopylae:The Battle for the West"? One of the students wanted my opinion on whether the stand of the Spartans and their allies was an act of heroism or folly. My inclination is toward heroic self-sacrice but I'm going to read up so I can make an informed argument.

How discussion of people transfixing each other with spears affects the mellow environment of a yoga class, I do not know. Nevertheless, while I have not yet heard of Bradford, I did read Pressfield last year. His book is entertaining - sort of like a Patrick O'Brian novel, but with spears and sandals instead of floggings and grapeshot.

Pressfield's book does a good job of making the Thermopylae story plausible, and even humane. His Spartans are not mirthless automatons or gods who shit marble (to quote Amadeus), but fairly three-dimensional human beings. While Pressfield does address aspects of Lacedaemonian society that might be uncomfortable to modern readers, such as the helot-hunting death squads, his overall sympathy towards the Spartans is evident.

The battle at Thermopylae itself is often hyped by others, as a "stand of 300 against an army of 2,000,000". Pressfield describes a more down-to-earth, believable conflict - a positional defense by several thousand Spartiates and Allies against several divisions of Persians. Many on the Persian side are somewhat unmotivated allies, and even the best Persian troops, the Immortals, are fundamentally ill-equipped to face what is to them a novelty: heavy infantry.

Reading Pressfield's battle descriptions, one can see that he is heavily influenced by Victor Davis Hanson's The Western Way of War: Infantry Battle in Classical Greece. Hanson's book does for the Hoplite battle what John Keegan's The Face of Battle did for Agincourt, Waterloo, and the Somme: to attempt to answer the questions, what did it feel like, smell like, to be standing there in this horrible event, in the dust and sweat? Hanson describes in detail what, at that time, was a new and strange type of warfare: two tightly-packed groups of humans pushing against each other with spears in a sort of bloody rugby scrum. When one side tired and turned to run away, they were set upon in a murdurous frenzy by the victors.

Elsewhere in the world, warfare was more tentative, indirect, closer to the game-like ritual battles of 'primitive' tribes. The Greeks were the first soldiers who would have understood the stated purpose of a 20th century company of Marines: to "close with and destroy the enemy ". According to Keegan in his History of Warfare, an Asian army of this same era would have been bewildered by the idea of "closing with" the enemy, and so was unready to face the bronze-encased, turtle-like Greeks. This mismatch eventually leads to the whole Alexander thing - the Greek method of war was like a big boulder sitting on a ledge, waiting to roll down on everyone else. Indeed, once can argue that this kernel of unrelenting fierceness the Greeks introduced travels all the way down to us, through the Romans, the colonial wars of Europe, all the way to Hamburg, Dresden, and Hiroshima.

George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh plan to make a film of _Gates of Fire_, but I am having trouble imagining Bruce Willis in the role of Leonidas, as has been rumored. The role of Leonidas as depicted in the novel should, without doubt, be played by Jürgen Prochnow. I do hope, also, that they do not depict the Thermopylae-era Spartans with the upside-down "V"s on their shields - that detail is from the Peloponnesian War , two generations later (unfortunately, Frank Miller's graphic novel 300 makes this mistake).

The site Reg sent has a nice page on equipment. We are used to seeing crusty greenish-bronze objects from antiquity underneath the cases of a museum, and so it is a shock to see how the panoply was originally intended to look: highly polished to a mirror sheen. To us, this effect looks strangely artificial and cheap. Shiny objects are easy to obtain in our world, such as a two-dollar roll of tinfoil. However, 2500 years ago the look of polished metal must have been startling; in a world of coarse-spun wool and pottery, a burnished cuirass signified fabulous wealth. It would be nice to own some of this stuff, but I might be mistaken for a Goldwing-riding, sword-collecting sysadmin.

For those that do enjoy looking at pictures of gleaming ancient weapons, let me recommend Peter Connolley's book Greece and Rome at War. There is a painted depiction of a Spartan in the book that looks suspiciously like Sean Connery.

Did the failure of the Persian attempt to invade Greece have any real long-term effect on western history? Did the Greeks "save" civilization? Pressfield's book implies 'yes', but I am not sure this is true. I'm still thinking about it. Comments and opinions are welcome.

I bet they have some diabolical machine. I wonder what it looks like?

2004-11-18T22:42:00.000-05:00

Thank you for the introduction, Jennifer. A new example of the Bloomin' Onion(tm) Slicer can be had for $350 retail at "The Peanut King". This is an industrial-grade piece of restaurant equipment, which should give good service in the home kitchen.

One can read about the Bloomin Onion(tm) slicing procedure in detail at topsecretrecipes.com. Note the onion pictured in the machine itself, looking somewhat like a hapless hobbit head clamped into some infernal machine of Sauron's.

Museu de Física da Universidade de Coimbra

2004-11-17T00:03:00.001-05:00

I found this site back in 1998. It is published by the Portugese University of Coimbra's physics museum, and contains photos of the museum's collection of small machines. These machines appear to be demonstration models of primitive engineering and mathematics tools. Some of the crane designs remained static for centuries; if I am not mistaken, many of the models themselves were built in the 18th century. There are several excellent model cranes, devices, and other artifacts.

I researched these engines for a project that would show objects from the barren windswept plateau of Lugubria Major, a graduate-school short story by L.

Brick wallpaper

2004-11-17T00:03:00.000-05:00

For a few days in October, the rising sun would shine directly into the narrow alley between our building and the next. This would only last for a few minutes, and would light up the brick texture of the neighboring wall in a spectacular way. This picture was taking looking out the office window at about 7:30am.

1997 Ford Aspire hatchback...

2004-11-16T23:51:00.000-05:00

...manual transmission, radio, new EGR valve. A couple of dents...a bit under the grill is held together with duct tape, but you don't notice that unless you look hard at it. This is my brother's car, which he left behind when moving to Florida. Listed on craigslist here.

I took the picture at the Maudsley Arts Center a couple of weeks ago, before the first snow. This is where L and I got married in 2002.

2004-11-16T23:47:00.000-05:00

A last bit of Swiss Army bike pornography, complete with leather satchel case, and handlebar bag with blanket. You could go camping on this bike. You'd have to walk it up the largest hills, though.

Arrrrrrr!

2004-11-14T00:26:00.000-05:00

I like this soap very much. I first learned about it through Grant Peterson's Rivendell catalog. L was kind enough to purchase some of this soap last week, and it has put me in a happy mood ever since. The cake of soap itself is very dark green, almost black. It has a pungent creosote odor, and can be used for shaving. Barbara, our previous landlady, once smelt a bar of Grandpa's Pine Tar Soap and recoiled in horror.

Entrances To Hell

2004-11-13T23:31:00.000-05:00

Entrances To Hell is a site that Bill (the same Bill who is trying to have me sent to a cork-lined cellar underneath Nebraska Avenue) sent to me almost a year ago. I wish I had thought of it. So far, the Bill Masheen entry is the only one I have found with an accompanying sound file:

As the Battle of Epping Forest neared its climax, Winston Churchill siezed a unique opportunity and actually managed to capture the devil with his bare hands. In the frantic struggle to escape, the devil bit off his own left arm before returning in a great fury to his underworld home via Bill Masheen. While he waited for the missing limb to grow back Satan made numerous phone calls to the British Government in a vain attempt to seek compensation. Bill Masheen repels wildlife for unknown reasons and emits clouds of thick black smoke in the early morning (approx 5am GMT).

I am sure such entrances exist in Eastern Massachusetts, but I have not yet had the time yet to catalogue them.

Lastly...

2004-11-13T23:09:00.000-05:00

...One of the best musical themes in the film, the Rolling Stones' "I am Waiting", does not appear on the soundtrack album. Max, during the somber sequence that this music accompanies, is dressed in Dickies, a brownish jacket and a Leonid Brezhnev hat, which for some reason always reminds us of our friend Ian.

2004-11-09T20:38:00.000-05:00

In case anyone reading this blog has not yet seen this movie (and I suspect this number is small), I recommend Rushmore (1998, Wes Anderson) enthusiastically and without reservation.

Update: We watched it again tonight for the first time in a couple of years. The film is set in 1997, and yet I have always had the sense that the date of the film is ambiguous, and is meant to take place about ten years earlier.

The protagonist, Max Fischer, is 15 during the action of the film. Max attends Rushmore from 1985 until 1997, gaining admittance at age 3 or 4 for writing "a little one-act play about Watergate". His mother dies in 1989.

If we subtract ten years from all of the above dates, the background of the film seems to make just as much sense. Max would have written the Watergate play soon after the event, instead of during the Reagan administration. Note the paper that Herman Blume is reading his speech from in the chapel scene: it appears to have been typed on an electric typewriter, not printed on an ink-jet printer. The cars and bicycles shown in the film seem to fit into a late-80s setting, and I don't remember seeing a single computer screen or laptop in the whole movie.

Herman mangles Max's sport-touring bicycle, and Max reverts to riding a woman's three-speed bike with an internal hub gear and a child seat on the back - his mother's old bike, and of a style common to the late 60s or early-70s. Dirk Calloway's bike is a red racing-style bike, something one would expect an eight-year-old to have in the mid-1980s, but would be unusual by 1997.

"Unlock It!"

2004-11-09T20:35:00.000-05:00

Rich kids = bad?
Rushmore = best school in nation?
This guy = best chapel speaker _I have ever seen_.

Bicycles on Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge

2004-11-02T22:37:00.000-05:00

This picture was taken about 1/2 mile from the bicycle racks outside building #5 at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The MIT racks were festooned with hundreds of student's bicycles, almost all of which were mountain bikes: "sporty"-looking, knobby tires, no fenders, no integral lights or cargo-carrying equipment. These are the typical city bicycles one finds in an American city or college campus, and yet their owners would be better served by a purpose-built utility bike, such as the Biria TC Top-3 below.

Why am I posting all of these bike pictures? Cycling has become much more popular in the United States in the last three decades. Yet, despite the racing-"bike boom" of the early 1970s and the mountain-bike wave of the 1980s, true utility bicycling has yet to catch on in the United States. Most bicycles are sold in the US without mudgards, racks, or generator lights, and few owners think to add these items afterwards. Recreational bicycling is relatively successful here, but many recreational users thing of the bike not as an everyday tool, but as a piece of specialty equipment to be donned for a episode of physical training, like a pair of skiis. American city bicyclists persist in carrying cargo in backpacks, using LED blinkers at night in lieu of headlights (or no lights at all), and riding in the rain without fenders. It is as if one decided to go grocery shopping using a VW sandrail instead of a Honda Civic.

In short, I hope to attract some attention to the idea of using roadsters, city bikes, and utility bicycles for everyday trips. They are nice to look at as well.

Kronan with Front Carrier

2004-11-02T21:43:00.000-05:00

A fetching blue Kronan outfitted with a front cargo carrier. The carrier's weight is attached to the bicycle frame, not the fork, which is perhaps a superior design. The Kronan front rack is available in North America for $50.

Kronan "Classic" Men's Bicycle

2004-11-02T20:40:00.000-05:00

The Kronan is a Swedish bicycle, in production since 1996. It is a reproduction (or, an interpretation) of an army design from 1942, put back into production by a Swedish entrepreneur when surplus stocks of the original Kronans ran out. The Kronan is a heavy, slow, single-speed utility bike with a coaster brake (a three-speed version is also available). It is available in a variety of bright colors, as well as a step-through "female" version. The Kronan is sold directly through the manufacturer, is inexpensive ($359.00 for the single-speed), and seems to have attracted the attention of various design publications.

The "men's" Kronan has a pleasing, chunky design, while the step-through version is somewhat less attractive. The rear rack is wide and substantial. The optional front carrier is especially useful-looking. While I don't like the idea of a bike with only one rear coaster brake, a front cable caliper brake could be added.

I considered a Kronan as a utility bicycle - something to chain to a light-post in front of the building, and use for grocery runs. The women's Kronan uses standard 700c tires (47-622), but the men's version is inexplicably outfitted with the 54-584 tire - a obscure size used for french utility bicycles that would be difficult to replace in the United States. A good utility bicycle should be able to accept Nokian studded tires in the winter and the invincible Conti Top Touring tires in the summer. The men's Kronan can use neither of these, which is a major drawback.

An example of the original Kronan can be found here.

Original Raleigh DL-1

2004-11-02T20:38:00.000-05:00

This is the bicycle upon which the Indian Eastman Roadster is based. Extraordinarily laid-back frame angles and a Brooks saddle sprung like a box-spring are intended for unimproved rural roads. The thought of changing a rear flat on this bicycle fills me with dread, but I have read that the trick is to only take out the part of the tube that is punctured, patch it, and reinsert it betwen the rim and tire (tyre?). No SPD clipless bicycle shoes or Spandex are required to ride this machine, but the rod brakes-on-steel-rims are purported to have problems in the rain.

Eastman (Indian) Roadster Bicycle

2004-11-02T20:05:00.000-05:00

This is a picture of a Indian-made roadster bicycle, a clone of the venerable English Raleigh DL-1. The bike has a full chaincase, a highly-sprung saddle, and somewhat marginal rod-operated brakes. It weighs 50 pounds unloaded.

The design is many decades old, and this style of bike represents over half of the bicycles ever made. Many people in China and India still use "heavy" roadsters for primary transportation, although in both countries their use is in decline.

I have not yet ridden one of these monsters, but I hold them in a certain awe. I did see my first one up-close - a green "mens" model - in a bicycle rack at Columbia University last month. Apparently some underground business person is assembling and selling these bikes through the New York City Craigslist - no check, no credit cards, just $150 cash and the bike is delivered on a Sunday morning anywhere on the island of Manhatten. Tempting.

Picture, once again, from Yellow Jersey.

Biria Touring City TC-Top 3

2004-10-26T23:42:00.000-05:00

While not as well-known as the strange "EZ Boarding" series, this is an excellent utility bicycle. It is a purpose-built utility, not a hybrid with fenders and rack attached as an afterthought. It has an aluminum frame, 700c wheels with large 45c-wide tires (road bikes usually have 22-35c tires), a generator light set, metal chainguard, sprung seat, and handlebars well above the seat. The Birias have relaxed frame-angles, similar to an old roadster or english three-speed. The wheelbase (the distance between the front and rear axles) is long. Compared to a modern road- or mountain bike, riding a Biria feels like driving a truck, but in a good way. This bike makes one feel like a 12-year-old perched on a parent's three speed.

While the step-through frame is seen as a "woman's" bike style, it is useful when carrying large cargo on the rear rack. Mounting a "man's" bike frame with a large box tied onto the rack is not convenient - one has to sort of jump up over the top tube, instead of kicking a foot around behind the seat. Also, a step-through frame is easier to ditch out of during winter riding.

Lisa almost chose this bike, but decided on the Breezer Citizen instead.

I Heart Huckabees

2004-10-24T12:34:00.000-05:00

When I first heard mention of the title of this movie, I assumed I'd hate it. L and I went to see it with no expectations, and I was pleasantly surprised. Despite its chaotic plot and loose ends, I liked this movie more than any other I have seen since Rushmore.

What sort of bike is Jason Schwartzman riding? I don't recognize it. It seems to have a Busch and Mueller 6 or S6 bottle dynamo affixed to the left-front cantilever boss, and a B&M oval headlight. The bike also appears to have an internal hub gear and 700c wheels. Note also that, whenever the Huckabees "logo field" appears, there are always at least one or two icons of a bicycle visible.

Waterbear Movie Clip

2004-10-22T23:15:00.000-05:00

Above, another 'photomicrograph' from Martin Mach's website about Waterbears. I beseech all readers to go here and click on the image of the waterbear in the center of the page. This will load a 12-second long, 1.06MB video clip of an eight-legged tardigrade walking across the screen. The creature you see is under 1.5mm long, and yet moves like some strange, full-sized creature one would stumble across in a mangrove swamp, snuffling at tree-roots.

Mach describes the video clip:

I think this one will be nice to look at in particular for children because they will see at once that some water bears in fact look like living sweets. The clip shows an Echiniscus mediantus water bear from an old roof in southern France. I have downsized it from my original 70 MB avi. There is some loss when compared to the original; the eyes in the original have a more intense red and the "body jelly" looks more fascinating.

...ah, yes, children will want to eat the waterbears when they see them. A summary of Tardigrade habitats:

The most convenient place to find tardigrades is roof mosses, where they live in the water films around lichens and mosses. Other environments are dunes, beaches, soil and marine or freshwater sediments, where they may occur quite frequent (up to 25,000 animals/l). Scientists have reported their existence in hot springs, on top of the Himalayas, under layers of solid ice and in ocean sediments. Many species can be found in a milder environment like lakes, ponds and meadows, while others can be found in stone walls and roofs. It is possible to spend some time in mushroom-smelling forests, scrutinizing mosses on rotten trunks in a search for water bears until coming to the conclusion that they can be found virtually everywhere.

Wackington

2004-10-21T21:01:00.000-05:00

Lisa has made her own blog debut with Wackington, an erudite journal about Sanrio, cats, dogs, and sundry other topics. See the link on my sidebar. Do visit. Expect to see cat pictures.

Waterbears!

2004-10-21T20:41:00.000-05:00

The Waterbear, or Tardigrade, is a miniature animal which

— moves smoothly like a bear, has legs, claws, eyes, skin and muscles
— has the colour and surface texture of one of those sweet bear gums loved by children
— doesn't need to carry along a knife and fork as it has two in-built knives
— can revert to an "instant coffee"-dry state which resists storage in
liquid nitrogen, contact with mineral acids, organic solvents, radioactive radiation and boiling water. After this kind of brute "scientific" scrutiny the miraculous creature is still able to return to normal life—it needs only a small droplet of water!

More about these extraordinary animacules later...

Swiss Condor Tires

2004-10-21T19:52:00.000-05:00

Detailed information about the pre-1995 Swiss Army bicycles is scarce on the web, at least in english. I wanted to know what size tires the bicycle used, to see if it was possible to purchase them in the United States. Stefan Schäfter is a former Swiss militiaman, and he has written one of the only articles about these bicycles that appears online in english. He writes:

The original Militarvelo tyres were produced by a company called Maloya using a bead system dating back to the end of the 19th century. They stopped production years ago. You can buy a Chinese Maloya clone, but the rubber feels like cheap plastic.

Andrew Muzi of Yellow Jersey, Ltd., a bicycle shop in Madison, Wisconsin, was kind enough to write to me to explain the Swiss Condor tire situation in detail:

That bike, like most of its era, uses true 'clinchers' ( the tire has no wire edge, it wraps fully around the tube and locks under the rim edge). It's a 26x1.5 clincher.Modern MTB series tires have wire edges and are 'demountable wire ons', not clinchers. The diameter is different. Please also note the commonly available Chinese 1.5 clincher tires are several mm smaller than the Swiss ones, and cannot interchange. The 1946 issue machine also uses 3/16" roller chain. Other equipment is generally standard to modern bikes.

Not very encouraging, but useful information. Yellow Jersey carries a variety of excellent European-style utility bicycles, from Kettlers to Birias. They even carry the archaic Eastman roadster bicycles, Indian-made clones of the venerable Raleigh DL-1.

1960 West German Army Bicycle

2004-10-21T19:28:00.001-05:00

The machine has a generator light set, a chaincase, and a toolkit hanging behind seat. The bicycle appears to have an internal drum brake inside the front wheel hub. Compare to current German civilian city/utility bicycles, such as the Kettler "Jan" (http://www.kettlerusa.com/bikes/delta.gif).

1960 West German Bundeswehr bicycle

2004-10-21T18:19:00.000-05:00

This would make an excellent utility bike. Note the large, tubular rear rack. Note the insignia on the rear fender. Picture from http://www.flmvpa.org/.

The Weblog of Peter H. Cropes

2004-10-19T18:56:00.000-05:00

Chapter 4
Dimitri was flying down the country lane. Corn plants were on
either side of him. They were blurred, he went so fast.

Suddenly, he ran over a body.

Thump-thump.

Dimitri knew better than to go back and see what was going on. Often
times such a situation is a trap where a body is thrown into the road and you
run over it, then when you go back a third person kills you.

He threw up a big rooster tail of dust and went tearing down the
lane. Soon he had arrived at his cousin's house and they ate corn bread and
spicy stew.

"How was your concert," said his cousin.

"It was good," said Dimitri. "Thank you for the food."

Meanwhile, on the country lane, an unseen hand pulled the body slowly back into the corn plants.

2004-10-19T16:40:00.000-05:00

Mercedes Unimog 421 4-cylinder Diesel, available from www.swissarmyvehicles.com for $13,500

2004-10-19T16:35:00.000-05:00

A Steyr Puch Pinzgauer 710k Radio Truck, availabel for $15,500 from www.swissarmy vehicles.com

Pinzgauers and Unimogs

2004-10-19T16:31:00.000-05:00

Bill points out that while Unimog is a more sinister-sounding name, the Pinzgauer vehicles actually look cooler. I concur. When I have a spare $13-15,000, I shall get one of these. I have read that they have circuit-breaker panels instead of automotive fuses, which by itself it enough reason to want one.

The Car Talk guys hate both of these vehicles equally.

Momovelo

2004-10-19T15:52:00.000-05:00

Momovelo has been in existance for several years now, but I only discovered it last week. The site is cryptic and takes some getting used to, but is worth the effort. Kai, the proprietor, decided that he wanted to see people in Berkeley riding Japanese and European-style utility bicycles, instead of the fender- and light-less bicycles so common in the United States. He has imported at least one shipping container of discarded mamachari , or Japanese city bikes, and has reburbished and resold them as "momochari" to American customers.

Lisa has ordered a chattybell for herself, and an telephone orange bell for myself. It is orange! It is shiny! I can't wait.

Dots

2004-10-19T15:49:00.000-05:00

I see that I have chosen the same blog design as Phillipe. Are rows of different-colored dots prevelent in today's web designs?

I am not five.

UPDATE: I can hardly see the background dots of this template on my laptop screen . If they do indeed look horrible, please say so.

Militarvelos

2004-10-19T15:28:00.000-05:00

I have found a company in Arkansas that imports surplus military vehicles from Switzerland - wonderfully boxy Pinzgauers and Unimogs, exactly the sort of trucks I remember from the beach scene of Richard Scarry's "Cars and Trucks and Things that Go". That was a great book.

In any case, I found this company while looking for sources of surplus Swiss Militarvelos, or army bicycles. I'm not looking for the version made after 1995, but rather the old single-speed bikes. The design is more-or-less unchanged since 1901, when "safety" bicycles were a relatively recent innovation. The front brake is a block of rubber pressed down onto the tire by a lever, the saddle is highly sprung leather, and the unladen bicycle approaches fifty pounds. Oh yea.

Swiss Army bicycle, pre-1995 type

2004-10-19T15:25:00.000-05:00

A Swiss Army "Condor"-type bicycle. The first version was made from 1901 until the end of the Second World War. This is likely the version produced from 1946 until 1991. Several Swiss manufacturers made these machines under Army contracts. I forget where I stole this picture from. The original caption said that the bike was bought for 195 Euros.

2004-10-19T13:45:00.000-05:00

A Condor Swiss Army bicycle