A man says to his friend: "My wife's credit card got stolen last week."
"That's a shame," says the friend: "have you told the police?"
"No way," says the man: "the thief is spending less than she did!"
Jacques de VaucansonBorn 24 Feb 1709; died 21 Nov 1782 at age 73. French inventor of automata - robot devices of later significance for modern industry. In 1737-38, he produced a transverse flute player, a pipe and tabor player, and a mechanical duck, which was especially noteworthy, not only imitating the motions of a live duck, but also the motions of drinking, eating, and "digesting." He made improvements in the mechanization of silk weaving, but his most important invention was ignored for several decades - that of automating the loom by means of perforated cards that guided hooks connected to the warp yarns. (Later reconstructed and improved by J.-M. Jacquard, it became one of the most important inventions of the Industrial Revolution.) He also invented many machine tools of permanent importance. |
