They're actually electric, but Andy Aaron's aesthetic is all pseudo-late-Victorian:

The assumption behind modern electronics is that smaller is better. So I have set about completely re-thinking and re-building the electronic calculator using old-fashioned heavyweight switches, cranks, and levers mounted in antique chassis.

I turn out only a few Aaron Adding Machines a year. Every Aaron Adding Machine works perfectly and each is unique. I strive to have my pieces look like they are functional, utilitarian, mass-produced devices plucked from some imaginary office of another era. Perhaps the 19th century, perhaps a time that never existed.

Sorry if this post got all Boing Boing there for a second, but these calculators just look really cool.

Aaron Adding Machines via Maria Popova - @brainpicker.

• gadgets

Mister Disc is a portable record player, like a Walkman or iPod for phonographs. There's only 12 easy steps to listening to your favorite LPs on the go.

Careful reading the instructions will assure you of many hours of enjoyment from your new Mister Disc.

Whoever greenlit this thing must have been high at the time. (via episode #59 of Starcade)

• gadgets
• misterdisc
• music

Analysis of a recent New Yorker cover, the one with the guy and girl standing in front of an abstract expressionist painting. "Rather than a couple in love with each other, with art, and with technological possibility, I see a boy with a toy, and a girl with patience. He is much more engaged with the devise; she curves demurely away." The phrase "boy with a toy, and a girl with patience" describes many American relationships, I think. (thx, david)

Update: The NYer cover is a reference to this Jan 1962 Saturday Evening Post cover by Norman Rockwell. (thx, maciej)

• art
• gadgets
• The New Yorker

Female Tech has combined her love of technology and an artistic sensibility to create photos of herself posing with various gadgets: a stratgically placed PSP, Sega Genesis cuddle, and GameCube piggyback. Reminds me somewhat of a certain Palm parody from back in the day. NSFW.

• gadgets
• NSFW
• palm
• parody
• photography
• simplyporn

Las Vegas is testing out some high-tech gadgets, including fully-automated gaming tables with no chips, cards, or dealer. Doesn't sound like much fun...

• gadgets
• gambling
• Las Vegas

The top 10 weirdest USB drives, including drives that look like fried shrimp, a human thumb, and Barbie (her head pops off to reveal the plug).

• best of
• gadgets
• lists
• usb

The 50 greatest gadgets of the last 50 years. The original Nintendo Entertainment System should really be on here...it singlehandedly made video games popular again in the US. (via rw)

• best of
• gadgets
• games
• lists
• video games

Apple introduces the iPod nano, which, wow, it's like a baby iPod. So cute.

• Apple
• gadgets
• iPod
• ipodnano
• MP3
• music

As if Metafilter wasn't blue enough, Matt Haughey officially joins the liberal media conspiracy with his first piece in the NY Times. Matt, why do you and your gadgets hate freedom?

• gadgets
• journalism
• Matt Haughey
• MetaFilter
• NY Times

Whoa, each key on this keyboard is a little computer screen. I'd love to use the typeface of my choosing for my keyboard.

• gadgets
• hacks
• keyboard
• pimped

Getting nostalgic: the Nikon Coolpix 300 was my first digital camera. Eight years later, my phone takes much better photos than this thing does.

• cameras
• gadgets
• photography