What Is It? Game 115

Alex

This week's collaboration with the What is it? Blog brings us this unusual scale. It has a very specific function - can you guess what it is used to weigh?

Place your guess in the comment section. One guess per comment, please. You can enter as many guesses as you'd like. Please post no URL or web links - doing so will forfeit your winnings.

Two prizes this week: the first correct guess and the funniest but ultimately incorrect guess will win a cool ice tray from the Neatorama Shop.

For more clues, check out the What is it? Blog. Good luck!

Update 11/13/09 - the answer is: A Reliable Automatic Dial Egg Scale and Candler, there is a light bulb in the cylinder at the right, the egg was placed on the hole and was illuminated to monitor the development of the embryo and to identify infertile eggs. The numbers represent ounces per dozen.

Congratulations to Edward who got it correct and to John the Third who made me chuckle with the "methane measurement device."

Comments (42)

Newest 5
Newest 5 Comments

In the shakespearean era, many people wished to correctly measure their eggs while they "watched" a show, so at the end, they can save the best eggs for the worst actor.
As an added bonus, the king never figured it out. Kept him busy.
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No problems.
I do have fun when the cashier apologizes for the extra time they require to read. I tell them that I understand, since the chip contains a photon that is quantum-entangled with another photon at the National Institutes of Standards and Technologies in Washington, DC. The extra time taken is because the quantum state of both photons are being compared, to ensure that both are identical.

I further 'explain' that in Europe, entangled photons are in Saint Cloud, France, where the International Standard Kilogram is stored. The British, of course, keep theirs at the Royal Observatory.
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For anyone outside of the US who doesn't understand this problem, it's not so much that chip card readers are difficult to use. There are two main issues: 1) right now, it's about 50/50 as to whether the store you're going to can actually *use* the chip reader (even if the machine has a slot for it), so unless you frequent that place and remember how it is there, you ALWAYS have to ask, "Do I swipe or insert the card?"; and 2) in my experience, it takes *so* much longer for the chip reader process to complete than it did for a simple swipe of the old-fashioned credit card.

Once all retailers in America are able to use the chip reader, and once (or, "if") it starts going a lot faster, then no worries. Until then, it's just an annoyance for everyone involved, cashiers included.
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Classic trade-off issues between security, ease-of-use and legal liability. Ever try to use the "self-checkout" system? Notice that there is always someone around to make sure you are not stealing anything?
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Just an observation, but I sort of feel like many cards are less physically protected when using the chip reader. Why? Because swiping means the card usually doesn't leave the customer's hand; with the chip most folks pop it into the reader and it hangs there til the transaction is finished. Easier to grab than a bag hanging on someone's shoulder.
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I still don't like 'em. As previously mentioned, it's a crapshoot whether the reader is enabled or not, and more importantly, the two main sources of card fraud (online and gas stations) are not affected by having a chip or not. At least, I've never seen a gas station with a chip reader. You can still get your number stolen and they can still buy 50k worth of crap on amazon with it, whether there's a chip in the damn thing or not. It's just an annoyance, as far as I'm concerned.
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