Bill in Detroit - you took the ideas for a ball joint
into electronics with idea B - something even Arch
didn't mention in his musing about interdisciplines/
muiltimedia posting.

Interesting idea. Could add a three legged dowel
pyramid to the top of the rim of the bowl, a ball
and socket half bead at the top - blue ball
suspended from it on piano wire if the piano wire
were thick enough. If the wire were thin enough
the ball and socket wouldn't be required at the
top of the pyramid.

Could also skip the ball and socket joints for the
"rocking" beads around the inside and outside of
the bowl if they were held on with fine piano wire.
Interesting.

Was showing a friend the idea of the bowl, ball
and swivel joint. He'd recently seen a show about
Chinese technology that was 3-4000 year old.
They used a similar idea for a seismograph. An
earthquake would cause an articulated joined arm
of a bowl to move and hit a ball inside. The ball
would then fall into a hole in the bowl and then into
a tube which would take it to a depression no the
back of one of many bronze or brass frogs around
and beneath the bowl. The device would give not
only the direction to the epicenter but, depending
on how far the ball had been moved, an indictation
of the magnitude.

"There's nothing new under the sun." may be true,
But there may be new uses for an idea that's
been around for several milleniums.

More please.

charlie b