Saturday, June 21, 2008

Bizarre Career Advancement

I just seriously got into "The Difference Engine" by Doron Swade. It's
the story of Charles Babbage's quest to create a calculating machine.
I'm currently trying to figure out how the following will make it into
next fall's lectures:

"With the guillotining of the aristocracy, the hairdressing trade,
which had tended the coiffures of the elite, was in recession. The
elaborate hairstyles had become a loathed symbol of the defunct pre-
revolutionary regime, and many hairdressers turned their hand to
rudimentary arithmetic."

I love it! Arithmetic as a fallback job!

Sent from my iPhone

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