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25-JUL-2007 John Cross Photography

No Evidence of Steam Power

070725_005P.jpg

I looked all aroound this building but could find no evidence of a steam boiler. I had to conclude it was either electrical or some other form of power running the abacus.

Canon PowerShot S70
1/250s f/5.3 at 20.7mm full exif

other sizes: small medium original auto
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Dave Beedon26-Nov-2007 22:26
I'll bet the pope was steamed over that erroneous accusation!
jCross27-Jul-2007 16:49
Unfortunately, Dave, the Oregon State Abacus Tax has made it prohibitively expensive for field agents to take up permanent residence. When the tax was first enacted, there was a mass exodus to California, increasing the weight of that state significantly, at least on the coast. It was the beginning of a series of earthquakes, like othe one during the world series. The blame was originally placed on the Catholic Church because of a government conspiracy to mislead the public into thinking that it was all Saint Andreas' fault.
John Cooper27-Jul-2007 16:43
Chempilot, the Dingle arm is last weeks technology. After many years of research the Cooper-Dunlop Co. have invented a device that is incredibly cheap, and does the job better. We call it an "Elastic Band", watch out for these devices, I predict they will be available world wide very soon.
Guest 27-Jul-2007 16:06
i've heard that water wheel abaci are more accurate because of floating decimals....
Dave Beedon26-Jul-2007 23:27
I knew Oregon was weird because drivers there cannot pump their own gas. But I didn't know that the state taxes abacuses (abaci?). Even worse---it farms out the collection work to contractors such as this one.

On a less emotional note...Steam boilers are old technology for this application. The abacus might be connected to a windmill or water wheel. Either could be located some distance from the site of the abacus, as both devices lend themselves to remote power generation. Did you notice a large, spinning metal shaft leading into the house?
I just bought an abacus that is powered by hot air. The upside is that there is no power shortage here. The downside is that the beads are subject to deformation from the heat. Gotta upgrade to fratostatic polykevlar beads, available only by mail order from an outfit in Notner.
Dave Beedon26-Jul-2007 23:17
That chempilot strikes me as a genius. Does he have a black belt in science?
Guest 26-Jul-2007 21:54
without steam this abacus will sadly never be able to perform calculus. the Cooper-Weisstein Graviton generator will always have problems until a drawn reciprocating dingle arm is employed to reduce it's sinusoidal depleneration.
John Cooper26-Jul-2007 21:42
This Abacus is powered by a Cooper-Weisstein Graviton generator, they are quite rare at the moment.
Guest 26-Jul-2007 20:22
it's probably produced by the modial interactions of magneto-reluctance and capacitive directance....