Tales of the Golem; or, the Modern Epimetheus

I'm guided by the beauty of our weapons

I was talking today to an expert who has spent his career developing fiber-optic gyroscopes. I told him that Northrop Grumman wanted $26,000 for their LN-200 inertial navigation system. He said, "$26,000? We promised DARPA that would cost $5,000 ten years ago!"

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The other day Maribeth asked for some gin and I told her we didn't have any. "There's no gin in that bottle?" she asked, and I picked up the empty Bombay Sapphire bottle and waggled it to show that there was nothing in it.

Then I accidentally tapped the Bombay Sapphire bottle against the full unopened bottle of Gerolsteiner sparkling mineral water.

Clink.

And the Gerolsteiner bottle detonated and showered glass fragments everywhere. The bottom half of the bottle was left intact, neatly sheared off at the label. I didn't suffer any ill effects, but I did have bits of glass on my face.

Watch out for that mineral water!

Maribeth thinks we should have a contest and bang all the bottles together to see which one wins.

posted by Richard Mason @ Monday, December 04, 2006