1.Walking to work one morning last fall, I happened to notice an odd gray contraption fastened to a streetlight on Madison Avenue.
2000年秋天的一个早上，我出门上班，在麦迪逊大街上无意中注意到，街灯杆上挂了个奇怪的灰色玩意儿。
2.It was a noisy contraption unlike the modern machines you see these days devouring the golden armies of grain in wide gulps.
这一套东西噪音很大，与我们现在所看到的能狼吞虎咽地收割庄稼的现代机械可是没法比。
3.The contraption held small plates of cattle blood and other substance that were covered by a thin membrane to mimic skin.
这种精密的装置里放了几小盘牛血和其他物质，上面盖有模仿皮肤的薄膜。
4.The transistor, dating from 1947, has shrunk from a kludgy, half-inch-high contraption to a device whose components boast dimensions a few hundreds of atoms in length.
1947年发明的电晶体，从当时一、两公分大的新奇玩意，缩小到目前尺寸号称只有几百个原子的元件。
