wintermute: http://www.stim.com/Stim-x/9.2/fries/fries-09.2.html seems to be about the best history I can find.
Bourne has entered.
wintermute: BOURNE!
Bourne: wintermute!
TalkingDog: Hey, Bourne!
* Brunnen-G reads the opening line and gacks at it.
* TalkingDog too.
Bourne: TD! BG! And other abbreviations!
Maryam has entered.
TalkingDog: Hey, Maryam!
Bourne: Hi Maryam!
Brunnen-G: I mean the opening quote. Now I'm thinking of lamb's fry and trying not to make a horrible pun about that.
Maryam: Hi!
Bourne: When did "gack" change from onomatopeia to verb?
TalkingDog: MAKE TEH PNU
Brunnen-G: Bourne: Since the internet corrupted me.
wintermute: MARYAM! HUZZAH!
TalkingDog: Verbing weirds language -- Calvin
Brunnen-G: I really hate it when people tell you something like "The ancient Incas used potatoes for telling time" and then don't explain how they did that.
TalkingDog: LOL. Yeah, I hate that.
TalkingDog: Oh, by the way, did you ever look up that theory on the Universe or whatever it was that was mentioned on that sign?
TalkingDog: *BG:
wintermute: I made a digital clock out of potatoes once.
Bourne: Usually I just end up trying to imagine how they would have done it. With suitably surreal results.
* TalkingDog looks it up.
Brunnen-G: No, I never found out about that.
TalkingDog: Well, I'll post a URL when I find something.
wintermute: Well, it used potatoes as the power source, technically, but I imagine that's what the Incas did.
Brunnen-G: Bourne: I was picturing something like an Inca snoozing in the sun and then BAM somebody throws a potato at his head and yells "Hey! Wake up! It's time to go to work!"
TalkingDog: LOL!
Brunnen-G: You can use potatoes for that? I thought it was just acidic fruits like lemons.
wintermute: BG: Maybe they carved miniature sundials out of them.
wintermute: BG: Worked for me.
Bourne: BG: Well, they never say what timescale they use it for. They could just leave a potato sitting on the table - "Hrmmm. Black and shrivelled. Must be Thursday."
Brunnen-G: That rules.
Brunnen-G: True. That would work too.
TalkingDog: Maybe there's a guy peeling potatoes forever and they use the size of the pile of shavings pile to tell time. And they reset it every midnight.
TalkingDog: Gah.
TalkingDog: Redundant pile.
Bourne: I wonder what the electrolyte inside the potato is that lets you use it as a battery.
* TalkingDog shrugs.
wintermute: Bourne: Potatoe juice?
Bourne: No thanks, I'm not thirsty.
* TalkingDog is reminded of Blank Check.
Brunnen-G: LOL
Bourne: Actually, I'll go hunt out the science for kids thing we got from the Glasgow Science Centre.
wintermute: Maybe they measured the hight of the sun above the horizon in potato widths.
Maryam: You people are awesome.
Bourne: wm: some potatoes are wider than others, though.
wintermute: Bourne: Well, it would average out, I suppose.
Bourne: So they measure it in standard potato widths, as recorded in their ancient Inca texts?
TalkingDog: Huh. BG's USA trip page is the first result of my search.
TalkingDog: Yaargh.
[RinkChat] The chat room's topic has been changed to 'Hey kids! It's potato science day!' by Brunnen-G.
TalkingDog: LOL
TalkingDog: This chatroom rules.
* TalkingDog wishes Beakman was still on.
Brunnen-G: I've always thought so, myself.
wintermute: Well, if you have your potatoes at a standard distance from the observer, say 10 feet, then the number of potatoes needed, would have an averaging effect.
wintermute: And you could use new potatoes for smaller divisions.
Bourne: Ah! It's phosphoric acid in the potato, rather than the citric acid in lemons.
* Brunnen-G will be back in about half an hour. That's 58.25 potato widths of light at 10 feet, for those of you who aren't scientifically minded.
Maryam: Heheh.
TalkingDog: LOL. Bye!
wintermute: LOL
Brunnen-G has left.
Bourne: And here was me thinking potatoes were neutral.
wintermute: No, they're Chaotic Good.
* TalkingDog licks a potato and gets electricuted.
TalkingDog has left.
Maryam: Chaotic good is always an interesting combo.
wintermute: Or perhaps I mean Chaotic Tasty.
Bourne: Chaotic Tasty - a better name than Maris Piper anyway.
Loryc has entered.
Loryc: Heello.
James has entered.
Bourne: Apparently there's a potato battery powered server - but the page won't load. http://world.std.com/~fwhite/spud/
Maryam: JAMES.
Maryam: STD.com?
wintermute: JAMES!
Loryc: Bourne: Maybe the potato went dead?
James: Hey.
Bourne: No clue. That was the link I found.
* James sighs.
Bourne: I think it'd be really cool if potatoes could just build up electric charge and zap people as a defence mechanism. Kind of like little vegetable Pikachus.
Bourne: Or self-baking potatoes. That would rule.
wintermute: Yeah. That would make farming more fun.
wintermute: What we need is self-harvesting potatoes, so that they climb out of the ground and into sacks all by themselves.
wintermute: And people say GM food is bad.
Bourne: GM food that can leave you convulsing with 50% of your total skin area burnt crispy is bad.
Bourne: At least, that's the reason they gave for refusing to fund my nuclear carrot crops.
wintermute: Well, maybe. But what if we limit it to 20%?
Bourne: That's well below government limits. You can get petroleum-filled tomatoes in most good stores these days.
wintermute: Cool. I thought those were still limited to the military?
Bourne: Only the armour piercing varietes.
wintermute: Huh. So no pineapple grenades, yet?
Bourne: Well, I told the head research dude to keep them under his hat. Unfortuneately, he did.
Bourne: Damn those literal-minded academics.
Bourne: They blew it all to hell. DAMN THEM!
Bourne: "Planet of the Literal-minded academics" wasn't as much of a success, really

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