As TEKNA2007 pointed out, Bletchley Park figured prominently in Cryponomicon, which was the reason that we included it as a must see when we visited London a few years back. We of course toured the computer museum since a sign like that begs to be ignored or followed depending on your interpretation (as long as it means you take a look). I still have a punch card I made on one of the leftover machines there.

I remember some interesting conversations with the gentlemen that were building the exhibit Colossus, Back then they hadn't completed the thing. We attended a lecture in the mansion and a guided tour of the facility before we set off on our own. We were embarrassed to already know much of the history due to our obsession with the subject at that time. I had a cult of personality attack walking around and peeking into some of the same huts that Alan Turing and the other code breakers had worked in.

Colossus was actually the first programmable digital electronic computer, but no one knew about it until many years later. The site was so little known back in the day because those that had worked there kept there silence for decades and decades after the war. They took their duties and the secrecy of their work very seriously. It all seems very British.

You are such a geek for buying this, but I cannot point fingers as I purchased one myself when I was there a few years ago. After playing with it awhile I decided I liked this flash version since the computer turns the wheels for you.

I have taken many a trip to the Hagley museum. It was the first headquarters and manufacturing site for the DuPont company, 200 years ago when all they made was gunpowder.

These are the most beautiful photos I have ever seen of the machine shop. My super amateur pictures always turn out horrible because of the bad lighting in there. Harold Ross must have an in with the guys demonstrating the shop to have taken such great pictures, good for him.

This machine shop originally ran on water power like the rest of the powder mills but was eventually converted to that new fangled steam power. They run all of those pulleys with an electric motor now for demonstrations but I am sure it could be converted back to water. That is why Hagley Mills machine shop is on my apocalypse team. If civilization falls and we need to bootstrap ourselves up to 19th century technology, this machine shop is the place to go. Forget steampunk, this place was waterwheelpunk.

"Quality, thy name is blank" is a reference to the favorite phrase "Vanity, thy name is woman" usually attributed to Shakespeare. But the line in Hamlet is "Frailty, thy name is woman!" Hamlet (I, ii, 146) which Hamlet says because he is mad at his mother for remarrying his father's brother within a month of his father's death.

Wikipedia has a short article on "Thy Name is" which has the same reference. Plug in whatever you like to make a new phrase. I doubt you could find the first use of "Irony, thy name is ..." in particular, because I am sure people have been appropriating and remixing Shakespeare's phrase for about 400 years, it's a good line.

Kudos not just for tchotchke but more importantly for Moai. Now if only these came in volcanic stone with LED's that would be perfect.

Maybe get one of these and do a little paper mache with netting soe the LED's shine through magic to make my own glowing talking Moai.