My favourite gadget
The astrolabe.
In related news, I'm thinking of using it somehow in the design of my Doctor Who RPG website "The Matrix" - http://matrix.curufea.com
Although that's mainly because Gallifreyan, or at least Time Lord, language seems to consist of astrolabe hieroglyphs. Or it does to me, anyway.
If you would like to build your own, there's a nice site for it here-
http://www.eso.org/~ohainaut/bin/astrolabe.cgi
And there is a very cool java applet that does 4 different kinds of astrolabe and computes the times for you here-
http://www.autodidacts.f2s.com/astro/index.html
And if you want to read Chaucer's treatise on the astrolabe, you can find it here-
http://www.chirurgeon.org/treatise.html
In related news, I'm thinking of using it somehow in the design of my Doctor Who RPG website "The Matrix" - http://matrix.curufea.com
Although that's mainly because Gallifreyan, or at least Time Lord, language seems to consist of astrolabe hieroglyphs. Or it does to me, anyway.
If you would like to build your own, there's a nice site for it here-
http://www.eso.org/~ohainaut/bin/astrolabe.cgi
And there is a very cool java applet that does 4 different kinds of astrolabe and computes the times for you here-
http://www.autodidacts.f2s.com/astro/index.html
And if you want to read Chaucer's treatise on the astrolabe, you can find it here-
http://www.chirurgeon.org/treatise.html