Tag: Patient things
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Electrotyping, part 1 of 3
August 2026: bringing this series up to the front to celebrate a smart decision by Kansas City. As pointed by Robert Bryce, the KC planning commission rejected a proposal to replace the Kellogg bldg by a tall AI data center. GOOD. Ansel Kellogg built a HUMAN data center specifically to keep small country papers alive…
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Electrotyping, part 2 of 3
[August 2026, bringing this series to the front to celebrate KC’s decision to keep the Kellogg Building.] = = = = = Part 1 showed the essential process of electrotyping in a small-scale experimental setup. Real factories like Kellogg’s Patent Insides used bigger machines in mass production. Here again is the Kellogg building in KC,…
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Electrotyping, part 3 of 3
[August 2026, bringing this series to the front to celebrate KC’s decision.] After the type is set into a form, suitable for ordinary printing, the electrotype process begins by smashing the form into a thin layer of wax on a metal plate. The metal plate will become the negative electrode in the plating vat. The…
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Taking back lost territory
It’s good to see one publication returning to the RESOURCES of paper and press. Other RESOURCES are unused in recent decades. Printers allowed digital to capture those tricks and didn’t try to take them back. 1. NYTimes has started using its especially talented presses and pressmen to print full-page or triple-page works of art. A…
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Makes me wonder
May 13 is Root Canal Appreciation Day. Without mentioning the date, New Scientist published an article about amazing ancient dentistry. Neanderthals were drilling teeth to get rid of decay 59000 years ago. = = = = = START QUOTE: In the Altai mountains of southwestern Siberia – where Neanderthals migrated from Europe about 70,000 years…
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Third Shift Workers Day
Today is Third Shift Workers Day. I often worked the graveyard shift, and worked it reliably and solidly. I was completely useless on 8-5. This oil clock was developed in the 1600s as a timer and light for scribes and illuminators working through the night. It provided light for scribal work, and simultaneously measured the…
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Altman’s little suckers
People are asking whether AI systems will be able to design themselves by next year. Will that be The Singularity? Should we head for the bunkers? No. Programs have been writing other programs since 1960. Creating a function to do a job, running the function, then deleting it from memory. Object-oriented programming like C++ is…
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Tab-ulation
This item was spawned by thinking about Tabs, Tabulations and Tables. I’m leading toward a specific point, but first need to spit out some Graphic Juice that I’ve been holding during this long unimaginative ADA work. = = = = = For several months I’ve been making and testing courseware blind-style, using only the keyboard.…
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Repurposing Ludlow
American Radio Library has added a collection of old RCA magazines aimed at employees. One of them shows how the magazine itself is printed. Most of the steps are familiar; one is an unusual transitional technology. These panels show (1) Photographs (2) Varityping (3) Fototype, the unusual gimmick (4) Offset layout. The Fototype uses a…
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It wasn’t just a fucking idea.
Gizmodo features a rebirth of the nickel-iron battery. About goddamn time. Unfortunately the authors totally miss the real history. Their headline says Edison tried to build an EV battery in 1901. Scientists just made it work.: = = = = = START QUOTE: Great minds often think ahead of their time. This was certainly true…
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Kedit is still alive… updated
Reposted for latest update. Every now and then I check the webpage of Mansfield Software, the maker of Kedit. For 20 years they’ve been trying to give up the ship, and each time they decide to keep supporting and selling just a little bit longer. I’ve never needed support because Kedit has never shown a…
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Anniversary
Jan 20 is an anniversary for me. This year isn’t a round number, but for some reason the day wants to be marked this time. Jan 20, 1970 was the day I started housekeeping on my own. I got out of prison on Dec 19, then STUPIDLY followed expectations and returned to college at OSU.…
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More on cursive
Mentioned in previous item, also worth a reprint. = = = = = START 2016 REPRINT: Wandering through KSHS again, found this collection of documents left over from the founding of Bluemont College, which became K-State after Isaac Goodnow finagled a state purchase. Goodnow was an IPO man in modern terms, picking up capital by…
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Double significance
Today is Braille Day and also Dimpled Chad Day. Braille is interesting since I’m in the middle of adapting courseware for blind students. After I finish the required but dubious verbal descriptions, I’ll run up a far more useful braille version, making the images directly tactile. There is a (somewhat) standard coding method to feed…
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Year-end recharge
Trying to recharge my purpose batteries after a deep discharge this year. Reprinting the basic Foy Rebellion piece written in 2022 when the Bush-Trump torture chamber was still running full speed in the demon-owned states, including here. = = = = = START 2022 REPRINT: Yesterday I was discussing the cultural IMPERATIVE to re-employ ordinary…
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