oil_lamp is a repository for the embedded systems controlling a pair of DHR gimballed oil lamps that have been modified and augmented into (1) a wave-induced boat-motion recording device and (2) a proprietary playback device.
Screwed at its axis against the side, a swinging lamp slightly oscillates in Jonah’s room;
and the ship, heeling over towards the wharf with the weight of the last bales received,
the lamp, flame and all, though in slight motion, still maintains a permanent obliquity
with reference to the room; though, in truth, infallibly straight itself, it but made obvious
the false, lying levels among which it hung. The lamp alarms and frightens Jonah; as lying
in his berth his tormented eyes roll round the place, and this thus far successful fugitive
finds no refuge for his restless glance. But that contradiction in the lamp more and more appals him.
The floor, the ceiling, and the side, are all awry. ‘Oh! so my conscience hangs in me!’ he groans,
‘straight upwards, so it burns; but the chambers of my soul are all in crookedness!’ (83)
Herman Melville; Moby Dick (1851).
