I have two slide rules and know how to use them. I last used them a while back when I was doing some gaming design in GURPS Vehicles, and I needed to take cube roots and had misplaced my calculator. (I can compute square roots on paper, which I suppose is also something of a lost art-but I don't know of an elegant algorithm for cube roots.)
Your essay on the history of hair care is totally fascinating. The technological issues are interesting in themselves, but the social history growing out of it is cool too.
I remember the guys who proudly carried around their slide rules back in high school. Sadly, I was never able to figure it out, though I probably could now--in a limited way. I didn't "get" algebra until I was in my mid-thirties.
Not exactly heirlooms, but my mother recently passed on to me her set of Pyrex mixing bowls. It's the primary colors set from the 50s (when she was first married), which is something of a collectors' item by now. I had to replace the smallest bowl, which she had broken at some point. I just used one of them to mix my birthday cake.
Fascinating post, and great photos--I'm glad you have them!
No material goods / artifacts to pass down from either side of my family except for a few old photos, none older than my parents' own childhoods. Too much migration and rupture.
I have my great-grandmother's laundry basket. It is actually a small, waist-high (on an average-sized American woman) cupboard with woven rattan sides, and both a door opening in front and a lid that opens on the top. The household's dirty laundry would be stacked in it, and once a week or more often, the laundryman would come by and take the whole thing away for everything to be washed.
I also have my grandmother's crumb-brush, which is a ceramic figure with a coconut husk fibre brush attached, used to brush crumbs from the table after each course.
They are both still in use, though the laundry-basket is just a repository for dirty clothes now, since I have a washing-machine.
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Your essay on the history of hair care is totally fascinating. The technological issues are interesting in themselves, but the social history growing out of it is cool too.
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I remember the guys who proudly carried around their slide rules back in high school. Sadly, I was never able to figure it out, though I probably could now--in a limited way. I didn't "get" algebra until I was in my mid-thirties.
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Happy birthday!
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The remaining bowls are as good as ever, except that some of the color has worn off.
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No material goods / artifacts to pass down from either side of my family except for a few old photos, none older than my parents' own childhoods. Too much migration and rupture.
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I also have my grandmother's crumb-brush, which is a ceramic figure with a coconut husk fibre brush attached, used to brush crumbs from the table after each course.
They are both still in use, though the laundry-basket is just a repository for dirty clothes now, since I have a washing-machine.
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http://www.knock-on-wood.asia/?portfolio=laundry-cabinet
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