Machines

In this Electronic Age, I always get a kick out of seeing the old mechanical machines.

Nowadays the computer interface for printing Chinese characters makes it so easy. But it wasn't always so.

The learning Chinese characters are hard, but how about learning them backwards?

Here's the simply machine that takes a slug of dough and flattens it into a pancake for Zhuabing or Youbing.

Here is a rigid 4 arm linkage, it is the single cross member that makes it rigid.

Here is the machine the isn't that old, only invented some 5000 years ago. Chinese claim 5000 years of history, so maybe there were Chinese who never knew what a wheel was.

Here is a modern incarnation of the wheel, beer bottles used as water containers.

One the streets of Taipei, there are a group of street vendors that selling Mochi, a dessert of beaten glutenous rice. They don't use a bell or a speakers to announce their product. They only have an electric motor rotating and it makes a clicking sound. I don't know the history of how this old dessert from Japanese time keeps on going and going. Here is a picture of the machine, the motor rotates and alternately raise and drop their plungers.

Here is the machine in action.

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_yIUEvEeH7-eE8zY0dmN2hKQWs/edit

I hear that their are some young people who don't know how to 'dial' a phone. They only know how to 'punch' an iphone.  here's the machine they don't know how to work.

And what is this thing with a crank on top. (No fair if you know the Chinese character.)