The Explanation
(for those who require one)

And, of course, that is what all of this is -- all of this: the one song, ever changing, ever reincarnated, that speaks somehow from and to and for that which is ineffable within us and without us, that is both prayer and deliverance, folly and wisdom, that inspires us to dance or smile or simply to go on, senselessly, incomprehensibly, beatifically, in the face of mortality and the truth that our lives are more ill-writ, ill-rhymed and fleeting than any song, except perhaps those songs -- that song, endlesly reincarnated -- born of that truth, be it the moon and June of that truth, or the wordless blue moan, or the rotgut or the elegant poetry of it. That nameless black-hulled ship of Ulysses, that long black train, that Terraplane, that mystery train, that Rocket '88', that Buick 6 -- same journey, same miracle, same end and endlessness."
-- Nick Tosches, Where Dead Voices Gather

The City: Philadelphia #5


Original Caption:

Puts Numbers to Work.

Philadelphia -- A magical mechanical brain, the Universal Automatic Computer (UNIVAC) goes to work for Uncle Sam at the Eckert-Mauchly Computer Corporation in Philadelphia, while scientists and government officials look on. The eight-foot-tall electronic wizard, which will be used by the Census Bureau, can calculate in 28 minutes work that formerly took a battery of employees three or more days to compute. Looking on while inventor J. Prespee Eckert operates the equipment, are Dr. Roy V. Peel, director of the US Census; Secretary of Commerce Charles Sawyer; and Albert Greenfield, president of the Philadelphia Chamber of Commerce. (1951)
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1 comment:

plainwater said...

And only 29,000 pounds!

January 15, 2009 3:08 PM

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