From The Odd Humor File
What has a mechanical grasshopper, a coffin, and costs more than $1.8 million?
On CBS it is: New Clock Tells Time, But Evokes Mortality
The “Corpus clock” is the brainchild of inventor John Taylor, who used his own money to build it, in part to pay homage to the genius of John Harrison, the Englishman who in 1725 invented the “grasshopper” escapement – a mechanical device that helps regulate a clock’s movement.
Making a visual pun on the grasshopper image, Taylor has designed a fantasy version of a grasshopper at the top of the clock face, and uses this beast – with its long needle teeth and barbed tail – as an integral part of the clockworks.
Its jaws begin to open halfway through a minute, then snap shut at 59 seconds. The oversize grasshopper is called a chronophage, or “time eater.”
“Time is gone, he’s eaten it,” said Taylor. “My object was simply to turn a clock inside out so that the grasshopper became a reality.”
I think it would be a bit unsettling to attempt to use it to schedule appointments, but no one will ignore it.
