A recollection: my wife and I were touring Alhambra (La Alhambra is what the spanish called it, but 'Al' is apparently the article in Arabic, so La Alhambra is a bit redundant) in Spain, and after walking around the whole thing were a bit tired. We walked out past some vending machines to the benches, and glanced at what was on offer: not only candy bars and fizzy drinks, but sandwiches, which we laughed at... who would eat a sandwich that had been sitting around under the Spanish sun all day; either it was chock full of potent chemicals, or it was already growing a disgusting range of nasties. Relaxing on the bench a few minutes later, we noticed a guy walk past, waving a few of the sandwiches, and exclaiming to his wife in a proud tone that he'd found something to eat. I guess the British deserve their reputation for not being picky eaters?

Maybe these are considered steampunk now?

Am I that old?

Maybe I should be submitting more slide-rule articles. Or, better yet, TMRC's System 2:

http://tmrc.mit.edu/progress/images.tcl?year=2002&month=...

Now that is some awesome old technology. I can't believe the link to the audio file is broken! Thank god I visited TMRC to hear this thing in person before they took it to the museum.

I was inspired by this:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=316820

Plus, I think it's a cool, old idea that could inspire some new business ideas. Obviously some people found it interesting . . . they upmodded it.

If you can reduce McDonald's --or any fast food place's -- costs by X% and/or increase its throughput by Y% by an automated robotic means, you may have a golden business or start up opportunity.

It seems like it should be feasible...

+1 -- why is this here?