Talk:Tempest Prognosticator

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	Tempest Prognosticator is a former featured article candidate. Please view the links under Article milestones below to see why the nomination failed. For older candidates, please check the archive.
	An entry from this article appeared on Wikipedia's Main Page in the Did you know? column on April 1, 2007.
March 15, 2007 Featured article candidate Not promoted

[edit] April Fools

Hmm... april 1st eh? Hazza 14:20, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

This definately has to be an April Fool's joke. Almost had me! —Preceding unsigned comment added by Chokosabe (talk • contribs) 2007-04-01 16:28:37

Nope, totally true, On wikipedia our april fools joke is that our 'joke' material is actually completely true, although totally weird. --Gmaxwell 17:14, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

Excellent! Gotcha! This article is indeed 100% true - but just flakey enough to convince people it's an april fool joke. SteveBaker 23:02, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

I'm rather happy with how this worked out! violet/riga (t) 15:55, 5 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unusual honour

This article must be the only one I have ever come across that appeared on DYK more than two weeks after failing the FAC process! violet/riga (t) 07:08, 1 April 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Leech survival

I don't understand how the leeches survive in this? Surely they would starve to death, thus requiring the continuous replacement of the leeches with new ones? Or would the owner of the prognosticator have to feed them occasionally by putting them on his body? It would be nice if the article made that clear. howcheng {chat} 18:05, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Interesting points. I've not seen any sources that discuss this and could only guess at the answer. I would assume that leeches were somewhat more available back in the day (due to their medical usage) and that Merryweather would replace them when needed. I wouldn't have thought that the device was in continual usage, at least not for a significant length of time. violet/riga (t) 20:00, 3 January 2008 (UTC)

Sadly, you may well have hit on the reason why we do not all have Tempest Prognosticators in our living rooms. Not all inventions pan out in the face of real world practicalities! Leeches can probably survive a long time without a meal - we humans get cranky if we don't eat every few hours - but cockroaches can go for a year without eating - crocodiles manage quite well for six months without food. Perhaps leeches can also survive for long enough to make changing them out no worse than swapping out the batteries on your MP3 player. But I think it's obvious from the article that this was never a practical machine. SteveBaker (talk) 20:33, 3 January 2008 (UTC)