Free trip to PARIS. Well, yes, there was a bit or work involved. My task was to make sure the students successfully made their connection in Paris. However, it was more work than met the eye. With a 720AM flight, it meant getting on the buses at 130AM. To facilitate this, we had the students and host families at a final dinner the night before......and it turned into a drunken fest for many of the students and pukefest for a select few. Getting the students successfully on the bus, checked in and onto the plane was how I earned my free two days in Paris. Not much sleep, but after seeing the students through the boarding gate at CDG it was off to central Paris for a second visit within a month. On Marlene's STRONG recommendation, I headed to the Musee des Arts et Metiers, the Museum of Arts and Crafts, which preserves the historical development of machines, scientific methods and inventions.
The first set of items was "measuring tools", I was particularly fascinating by this adding machine.
Which then lead to a machine that performed multiplication.
Here's the "pin" which facilitates multiplication.
A development in multiplication machines.....it's smaller.
And the super computer.....the Cray.
I find looms amazing.
After kind of wandering the museum in a daze of being half asleep, I kind of woke up when I got to this room with this beautiful press.
At this point, I started identify these machines also as amazing pieces of art. How art and function can come together. It's a paradigm shift. I guess that's why Apple products are so......just the awesome.
And when a museum displays typewriters as historical artifacts.....I feel old.
Oh my, the Commodore 64. Back to the early 80's my friends. Remember 7th grade and programing the TRS-80's?
The "Steam Car"
Who know a simple engine could be so beautiful
Near the end was a room that had displays of gears and you could watch them in action. Amazing.
This one called is a logarithmic gear. I wonder what purpose it serves, maybe for timing?
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