But can Hank carry on a proper Victorian dinner conversation? Spending equal time with the persons (or dogs) on either side? Avoiding controversial subjects?

Cory:
Toronto Public Library be launching my next novel, Little Brother...

"Talk Like a Pirate Day" be coming early this year, aye?

So, instead, they built a cog rail tunnel through the Eiger massif to the Jungfraujoch, and an elevator to the Sphinx observatory on top. Probably cost as much, but less problems with wind and icing. My first night in Switzerland I was puzzled by the sodium vapor light in the middle of the face of the Eiger, turns out it was in a window in the rail tunnel. Being Switzerland, there are also artillery emplacements in the tunnel (shhh. no one is supposed to know).

From the Jungfraujoch you can take a hike across the Konkordiaplatz glacier , spend the night in a climbing hut at the top of Europe, and end up in an entirely different part of Switzerland. With a several hour train ride back to your start.

There are lots more than 4 20x24 cameras in the world (it's a standard format for aerial mapping, forex), but there are only 4 (or so) of them that have a carrier for Polaroid instant film, which is no longer made, and was made by Polaroid, not Kodak (natch).

Locking the indicator and having the data move is a bad idea — our brains parse the moving pointer much faster and better.

Of course your joke is just an urban legend, the Fischer space pen was developed over many years, starting before the space program with their own money. It became the "Space Pen" as a marketing ploy, and the pens were given to NASA. The Russians started using the Space Pen as soon as they could get it. Normal pencils can't be used in space, you don't want pencil dust - conductive pencil dust - floating around your spaceship getting into the electrical components or your lungs. Before the fancy pen, they used grease pencils.
Amusingly, it appears that normal unpressurized pens work in space -- stickiness, surface tension, and air pressure is enough to get the ink to continue to wet the ballpoint.