I wear wrist watches, and the occasional pocket watch. A timepiece is far, far more acceptable in spite of its anachronism than a walking stick, Rym.
You'll actually see a fair number of canes in New York if you attend an evening show at Lincoln Center. Not a majority by any means, but a half-dozen or so is common.
Canes? Do I need to post some "this is what you think you look like/this is what you actually look like" up in here?
There's a difference between a cane and a walking stick. Observe: (Start second video at 5m 09s. I can't seem to get timestamps to work with Vanilla's embedding)
Still outmoded. You'll have plenty of time to show off your taste in walking sticks when your legs begin to fail in old age. Unless you're dancing in a Broadway show, don't get a walking stick.
I looked at it before I looked at the price. I thought to myself "hey, this is probably worth several hundred dollars or so to me, so I'll FUCK IT'S $9000?"
Granted, AUD, but still.
So, about Ten thousand USD?
I had a nice wooden cane, with a stainless steel head, and a good Irish Blackthorne. The latter is in storage, and the former was stolen at a particularly raucous party. Made it myself, it was just a lathed down hardwood spade handle, smoothed, painted with a few layers of satin black, then a ferrule and a head(again, I lathed myself, but that was simple) mounted to it.
Aw dude! Imagine a 'duino cane with a little GPS chip an accelerometer, and a Bluetooth shield. Tap it on the ground with a certain amount of force, and it uses your phone and Yelp's database of place locations to tweet, "I'm at [place] right now!"
Well, an arduino doesn't have that much processing power. A more practical (and less expensive) method would be for the cane to only have an arduino, accelerometer, and bluetooth. It could then simply send a "NOW" command to a partner application on the smartphone over bluetooth serial. The application would then use the phone's built in geolocation API (letting the OS decide on GPS, cell towers, or wifi, depending on what is powered up), sending that data to the Yelp API to derive the most likely location.
Of course, the arduino portion would be trivial to program. And I'm sure even the android app would relatively easy to write for someone who knows how. The problem arises with a. making the hardware (arduino, accelerometer, bluetooth module, battery) small enough to fit inside the walking stick b. making sure the hardware can withstand the constant jarring that being inside a walking stick would entail. c. having a battery that would be able to power it all day. d. charging said batter without an ugly socket ruining the aesthetics. (Induction charging?)
I think I put a little too much thought into this idea...
I looked at it before I looked at the price. I thought to myself "hey, this is probably worth several hundred dollars or so to me, so I'll FUCK IT'S $9000?"
Granted, AUD, but still.
So, about Ten thousand USD?
I had a nice wooden cane, with a stainless steel head, and a good Irish Blackthorne. The latter is in storage, and the former was stolen at a particularly raucous party. Made it myself, it was just a lathed down hardwood spade handle, smoothed, painted with a few layers of satin black, then a ferrule and a head(again, I lathed myself, but that was simple) mounted to it.
But see, you can pull off a cane. Most people definitely cannot.
But see, you can pull off a cane. Most people definitely cannot.
I disagree, I think most people can. It's just a matter of attitude and how you behave with it. The problem is that most people give up during the "Novelty" phase, when people are saying they look a bit silly, because they're always fidgeting with it, playing with it, poking things with it, and so on. Once you get used to just having it with you and not futzing with it, along with the weight, balance, and how to move it around without clocking anyone in the ankle, knee or bollocks, on most people, it's fine.
We have an antique can collection that I inherited from my Grandfather (Rym, you've probably seen it in our dining room). It is pretty sweet. I actually prefer finding them in antique shops, ect., but I enjoy antiquing and I doubt that most do.
We have an antique can collection that I inherited from my Grandfather (Rym, you've probably seen it in our dining room). It is pretty sweet. I actually prefer finding them in antique shops, ect., but I enjoy antiquing and I doubt that most do.
Y'know, I also enjoy antiquing. I know I'm not "supposed" to, but fuck the establishment.
I like antiquing, but it depends on the kind of antiques. The overwhelming majority of antique shops specialize almost exclusively in furniture. I have no interest in furniture whatsoever. It's when you find the antique shop that has other weird curiosities that it gets interesting.
The other thing is that antiquing has this buying and selling element to it. I really have on interest in actually owning antique stuff at all. What could I possibly find in an antique shop that I will buy and use? So I end up treating antique shops like museums. In the end, I'm just really better off going to a museum in the first place since most of the stuff worthy of being in a museum is there already.
What I love the most is those antique shops that always have one box of comic books, records, toys, or something else geeky buried under a table somewhere. There isn't going to be anything in there that's actually valuable. But there is still usually something kitschy and fun.
I enjoy browsing and finding things I need or that would make great gifts. I try to limit myself as far as collections go, but I do hope to add to the portion of my Grandfather's collection that I inherited (my cousins got a few, including the awesome snake skin covered sword cane).
I'm a book collector at heart. I get lost in bookstores for hours. I also have a penchant for usable antiques, like Nuri. A new Dovo cutthroat razor is $250. An antique with a stainless and ivory handle and a blunt blade is $25 at some shops, and restoration by Classic Shaving is only $25 on top of that.
Go with a shillelagh style cane. Why have a cane-sword when you can have a cane-it's-also-a-club-for-knockin'-in-the-skulls-of-boy-o's.
I can't tell about that one specifically. That's an Irish blackthorne style, much like mine, though I can't tell if that's polyurethane or wood. Not that it matters, Bataireacht makes no distinction.
We have an antique can collection that I inherited from my Grandfather (Rym, you've probably seen it in our dining room). It is pretty sweet. I actually prefer finding them in antique shops, ect., but I enjoy antiquing and I doubt that most do.
Y'know, I also enjoy antiquing. I know I'm not "supposed" to, but fuck the establishment.
We should go antiquing some time.
I really want to see the front of that album cover.
We'd hate to explain the joke because it's a rookie mistake and nobody wants to see that, but it's a friendly jab about what happens when you call an Irish man Scottish, normally they'll take polite offense and say something like "If I were a violent man, I'd punch you", in the appropriate brogue, of course. A large chunk of my family is Irish, just like shillelaghs and blackthorn canes. Another large chunk being Scottish doesn't come into it.
Also, I knew pretty much that entire clip before I even hit play. Gotta give it credit for showing the proper way to eat haggis, though.
Comments
What you actually look like:
(Start second video at 5m 09s. I can't seem to get timestamps to work with Vanilla's embedding)
I had a nice wooden cane, with a stainless steel head, and a good Irish Blackthorne. The latter is in storage, and the former was stolen at a particularly raucous party. Made it myself, it was just a lathed down hardwood spade handle, smoothed, painted with a few layers of satin black, then a ferrule and a head(again, I lathed myself, but that was simple) mounted to it.
Of course, the arduino portion would be trivial to program. And I'm sure even the android app would relatively easy to write for someone who knows how. The problem arises with
a. making the hardware (arduino, accelerometer, bluetooth module, battery) small enough to fit inside the walking stick
b. making sure the hardware can withstand the constant jarring that being inside a walking stick would entail.
c. having a battery that would be able to power it all day.
d. charging said batter without an ugly socket ruining the aesthetics. (Induction charging?)
I think I put a little too much thought into this idea...
We should go antiquing some time.
EDIT: Also what Pete said.
The other thing is that antiquing has this buying and selling element to it. I really have on interest in actually owning antique stuff at all. What could I possibly find in an antique shop that I will buy and use? So I end up treating antique shops like museums. In the end, I'm just really better off going to a museum in the first place since most of the stuff worthy of being in a museum is there already.
What I love the most is those antique shops that always have one box of comic books, records, toys, or something else geeky buried under a table somewhere. There isn't going to be anything in there that's actually valuable. But there is still usually something kitschy and fun.
Also, I knew pretty much that entire clip before I even hit play. Gotta give it credit for showing the proper way to eat haggis, though.