On his first day back to work after the birth of his son, Randy's supervisor said, "I understand you have a new youngster at your house?"
Randy glanced around apprehensively, "For heaven's sake, you can't hear him all the way out here, can you?"
Jacques de VaucansonDied 21 Nov 1782 at age 73 (born 24 Feb 1709). 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. |
