Charles Babbage's 8,000 parts

Charles Babbage's  Difference Engine #2 has been built (see: 1849 calculating machine; it's like a 19th century hand-cranked computer...très sexi....)  

Wired offers us a little video about it here.

It's on display until May 2009 at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, California, about 45 minutes from San Francisco proper.

Libraries are sexi...

Recently, a friend was telling me that if she does ever decide to get married, she wants to get married in a big library because libraries are her equivalent of a cathedral. Now, this friend often says brilliant things, but this tidbit on wedding locations seemed particularly delicious. People get married in all kinds of lame places (beaches, prisons, bars), why not a gorgeous library surrounded by the great texts of our species? Libraries are locations of a particular kind of atemporality which seems particularly appropriate for a ceremony that is suppose to bind you to another for the rest of time.

And then I happened upon this post from The Nonist.
Libraries are hot. Prepare yourself for some hot hot smut...

Modern Love

this is really excellent.