Crazy Jobs At All-Time High

Canine Haberdasher may not be as obscure a job title (or as cool a band name) as you might think: commercial insurers are having trouble fitting these narrow job descriptions into their rate tables. When I worked for an insurance company and gave a presentation on disability rates, I found examples using the oddest job descriptions I could find -- 'knifemaker' and 'missile operator' were about the most obscure; I can imagine those rate calculators are twice as big today as so many people find themselves in the long-tail of employment.

Difference Engine And Coming To America

Some people recreating Babbage's Difference Engine, an early theoretical programmable machine that led to all computing today, have finished their project -- the second one in existence:


It'll be at the Computing History Museum, starting in May, if you want to go see it.

Pseudo-Antique Adding Machines

In their own steampunky way, these adding machines look like something a surveyor woul've carried while plotting the transcontinental railway:

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