It's once again time for our collaboration with the always amusing What Is It? Blog. Can you guess what the pictured item is? Can you make up something interesting?
Place your guess in the comment section below. One guess per comment, please, though you can enter as many as you'd like. Post no URLs or weblinks, as doing so will forfeit your entry. Two winners: the first correct guess and the funniest (albeit ultimately wrong) guess will win T-shirt from the NeatoShop.
Please write your T-shirt selection alongside your guess. If you don't include a selection, you forfeit the prize, okay? May we suggest the Science T-Shirt, Funny T-Shirt and Artist-Designed T-Shirts?
For more clues, check out the What Is It? Blog. Good luck!
Update: dj2kenne was the first with the correct answer: the object is a TV antenna rotator. A lot of people knew the answer, and a lot of people made up great meanings for the letters N-E-S-W-N -you really should go read them all! The prize for the funniest answer goes to amanderpanderer, who said:
Back when the internet was a more clearly defined series of non-searchable tubes for conveying information, people were bombarded with information shooting out of the pneumatic delivery devices and into their offices, living rooms and school dorms. Being less savvy at identifying the sorts of information being sent to them, internet users often relied on external devices like this one to help them distinguish between the relevant and irrelevant materials being delivered. This is the 1953 InternetIdentificationIdentifyer, or III, in stunning bakelite brown. This device sat near the pnuematic exit and served to classify and catagorize the material presented.
The catagories are:
News, Entertainment, Sex, Wikipedia, and (of course) Neatorama.
Now we have RSS feeds, so I never miss a Neatorama posting. Ah, progress!
T-shirts will go out to both winners.
Who Are These Kids? 2Xl
Who Are These Kids? 2XL
Who Are These Kids? 2XL
Control box for an outdoor, rotating TV antenna. The dial indicates the current direction and is driven by a motor at the same time as the motor on the antenna. Toggle at the bottom rotates both the antenna and the dial.
I Heart Robots, Black, M
Bat Van Gogh 2XL
Wacky answer? It's a steampunk GPS.
And if I were ever to win a shirt, I would want the thesaurus one in Medium.
Naan
Egg
Salami
Wurst
Naan
Math puns are the first sine of madness, Size L
Med, light blue....when life gives you mold.
It was at grandpa's house.
When we needed to rotate the antenna at my house, I had to go outside to turn the antenna pole while somebody watched the tee vee and yelled "GOOD!"
neener.
N-no
E-extermely unlikely
W-we will see
S-sure when pigs ply
N-nononononono
Come to the darkside we have cookies xxl pink
Love Bug, Royal Blue, Large
Look out Schrodinger's Cat XXL Dark Grey
Big weiner - xl
The catagories are:
News, Entertainment, Sex, Wikipedia, and (of course) Neatorama.
Now we have RSS feeds, so I never miss a Neatorama posting. Ah, progress!
Thesaurus, XXL Grey
but here is a shot.
Radio brainwave detector......
med, light blue....wehn life gives you mold.
Pink Freud
Large
They had some problem with the brown case, so the release had to be delayed... a bit.
Wizard of Oz, Short Version - Ladies Fit T-Shirt, Large, Military Green. :)
As others have said, it's an old-style TV Antenna rotator control box.
The reason it has 2 N(orth) positions is because it would spin probably ~370 degrees and hit a stop, this to avoid winding the antenna cable up.
How it worked:
Inside the box was a geared motor with the dial and a rheostat attached to it. The control lever would power the motor in the desired direction until you got the dial where you wanted it.
In the antenna drive unit there was also a (much larger) motor and a matching rheostat.
When you changed the dial position, the rheostats would no longer have matched resistance, allowing current to flow, which triggered a relay providing power to the motor.
Once the motor had turned to the correct location, the rheostats would match again, stopping the current flow and releasing the relay.
On second though, this style may have controlled the rotator motor directly, with the dial being controlled by the slave motor.
The later styles that had a large dial on the control box simply had the rheostat on the back of the dial.
The comment about changing the controller and then watching the antenna move implies a delayed reaction that you would find if the antenna motor was the slave. This was the case with the later styles, but I don't know if they were talking about this style.
For whiz-bang marketing, I would build it as I first described! The second option might be cheaper to build but wouldn't have the "high-tech" pizazz I would expect from that era.
The ever elusive 'Ambiguous Lie Detector'
Attach wires to the perp...ask question, the machine tells you what it "thinks" about the answer.
N = "NO !" (2 N's...see how this thing was a tad biased)
S = "Somewhat"
E = "Evidently"
W = "Whatever"
It took a lot of specialized training to become an expert operator of this device.
Pink Freud
Large
p.s. Man, I gotta win me a Pink Freud shirt......!!!!!
Look out shroedinger's cat - lrg - blk
protect your nuts 2 xl
protect your nuts,2xl
Protect your nuts 2 xl
Pink Freud- XXL please.
"Come to the Dark Side" - XXL, please.
N- Never
E- Ewwww!
S- Shut up
W- What? Are you nuts??
N- No Way
Pink Freud- XXL
Oh yeah. Shave, Rock, in L.
T: If you're not part of the solution 2x
My size is XL T: if you're not part of the solution
N is for "Nude"
E is for "Exposed"
S is for "Stripped"
W is for "WOW !!!"
N is for "Nude" (duh)
Pink Freud
Large
If I win, I'd like a velociraptor skull t-shirt, please, in men's x large, for my 20 year old son.
I'd like the Pink Freud shirt, Large. Thank you.
Bad Chewie - Royal Blue - XL
It was featured prominently in Neal Stephenson's Cryptonomicon. Of course Wikipedia shows that those machines looked way more complicated, so the antenna finder in the other comments are more probable.