Remembrance of things past

Can you tell what this thing is? I couldn’t either, but it looked cool. I was spending the afternoon with a friend at the University of Michigan Property Disposition Department, 41 million square feet of warehouse space filled with a few odds and ends.

There were the expected 16 dozen used clay-colored steel case files (I guess professors swap them out for NEW clay-colored steel case files every year or so), desks, old computer CPUs, and such.

But the big kahoona of finds was the scientific equipment room. Talk about the mother lode of stuff you have no idea what it is (or was, 49 years ago) used for. Like this highly-calibrated, brass thing-a-ma-gig, complete with fun house reflections. I want one!

Curiosity’s like a fun friend you can’t really trust. It turns you on and then it leaves you
to make it on your own.
~Haruki Murakami~