Re: What is yoyodyne? :)

[Tyler]

On Tue, Jul 13, 2004 at 07:02:20AM -0700, address@hidden wrote:
> > My question is historical. I am a Tomas Pynchon fan and I meet first
> > time 'yoyodyne' word in his book called "V". In his book 'yoyodyne' is
> > a name of hi-tech corporation. Next time I see this word in CVS manual
> > (as an example of path ?yoyodyne/tc?) I want to know is CVS autors
> > Pynchon fans too? Or it is some kind of coincidence?
> 
> I've always knows 'Yoyodyne' as a Buckaroo Banzi reference.  I'm thinking
> you are right about Pynchon, as this seems to predate the film.
> 
> Here are references for you:
>   http://www.figmentfly.com/bb/q40.html
>   http://www.figmentfly.com/bb/q31.html

Yoyodyne also appears in Pynchon's _The Crying of Lot 49_. Both novels
predate BB (GR: 1963; CoL49: 1966).

Yoyodyne is a propulsion systems company in each case.

I also enjoy this definition:

"
YOYODYNE:

the amount of force required
to impart an acceleration of
one centimeter per second per second
to a yo-yo with a mass of one gram (cm/g/sec). 
"
--http://wso.williams.edu/~cwilliam/stomach/yoyo.html


So anyway, were the cvs documentarians John Lithgow fans or Oedipa Maas
fans or neither or both? Surely there's someone on this list grizzled
enough to remember.

tyler