I want to thank you for the following reasons: - that's an amazing, mind-opening essay; - I've been looking for this toy (Meccano) for my entire adult life. I remember playing with a set that my mom got me when I was a kid, but I didn't know what it was called, and neither did my mom. And when I describe it to people, everyone kept telling me it was Lego (Lego is a much better-known toy brand in this part of the world). I had pretty much given up on ever finding it, thinking it might have just been a niche toy that had ceased production. Words are not enough to describe my joy when I opened the link and saw images of Meccano pieces!

Very happy to have helped you with this :)

Venkatesh Rao is an amazing writer as well, I invite you to read some other of his posts. One of my personal favourites: Text is All You Need.

https://contraptions.venkateshrao.com/p/text-is-all-you-need

In the U.S., Meccano is known as Erector.

I'm amazed it's not more popular with a name like that!

it's really embarrassing to fail at it