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  1. Jun 2024
  2. www.phillytypewriter.com www.phillytypewriter.com
    1. James Norris is the owner and operator of Ex Nihilo 3D Print and Design in Spring, Texas. He has always had a fascination with figuring out how things work and seeing if there was a way it could be better. In late 2016 his wife, a burgeoning writer, purchased their first typewriter. He soon became obsessed with all the amazing parts and mechanisms. From there the typewriter collecting began.​From the first Olympia, to an inherited Olivetti, to his first Selectric, and so on.While repairing these machines he realized that there where a few setbacks. The most immediate being parts availability. So armed with his 3d printer he designed and printed his first part. A Selectric cycle clutch pulley in mid 2021. After showing the 3d printed part to some like minded individuals he was happy to learn that they were as excited as he was. He loves to design new parts and accessories to bring these typewriters back to life.James is thrilled to be working with Philly Typewriter, and looks forward to helping with your current and future parts needs. James lives in Texas, is married with two children.

      https://www.phillytypewriter.com/parts-mfg.html#/

      James Norris does 3D printing of replacement parts for typewriter restoration projects.

    1. Carl Sundberg’s European-made Remington Portable Typewriters by [[Robert Messenger]]

    1. Luhmann uses his joker card as an example of the fact that every autonomous system must contain its own negation. (This may be a reference to Hegel's dialectic, where the developmemt of thought is based on the negation within the system.) So we have a German professor who has built a disciplined note taking system in which each card has its precise address. Except for the joker, which negates all other notecards, moves freely within the system and cannot be found.

      I've always wondered if Luhmann's jokerzettel was inspired by Claude Shannon's Ultimate Machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5rJJgt_5mg

      Luhmann couldn't have worked in systems theory and information for so long without being intimately familiar with Shannon's work. There's direct evidence that he read at least his seminal work: https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/literatur/item/shannon_weaver_1949_communication

      While we're on about the "Cargo Cult of Zettelkasten" and Claude Shannon, his short essay "The Bandwagon" is an infamous article he wrote about the cargo cult of information theory applications in 1956.

      Shannon, Claude Elwood. “The Bandwagon.” IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 2, no. 1 (March 1956): 3. https://doi.org/10.1109/TIT.1956.1056774. .pdf copy at https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=1056774

      Finally, too many Zettelkasten adherents of the Luhmann-artig sort seem to want to forget that Luhmann's system was far from new and that thousands upon thousands had used similar systems for several hundreds of years before him. Many thousands of them also wrote huge amounts of material, many of them producing work far more consequential than anything Luhman wrote.

      reply to u/taurusnoises and u/Filion_Alexandrian at I've always wondered if Luhmann's jokerzettel was inspired by Claude Shannon's Ultimate Machine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G5rJJgt_5mg

      Luhmann couldn't have worked in systems theory and information for so long without being intimately familiar with Shannon's work. There's direct evidence that he read at least his seminal work: https://niklas-luhmann-archiv.de/bestand/literatur/item/shannon_weaver_1949_communication

      While we're on about the "Cargo Cult of Zettelkasten" and Claude Shannon, his short essay "The Bandwagon" is an infamous article he wrote about the cargo cult of information theory applications in 1956.

      Shannon, Claude Elwood. “The Bandwagon.” IEEE Transactions on Information Theory 2, no. 1 (March 1956): 3. https://doi.org/10.1109/TIT.1956.1056774. .pdf copy at https://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp.jsp?arnumber=1056774

      Finally, too many Zettelkasten adherents of the Luhmann-artig sort seem to want to forget that Luhmann's system was far from new and that thousands upon thousands had used similar systems for several hundreds of years before him. Many thousands of them also wrote huge amounts of material, many of them producing work far more consequential than anything Luhman wrote.

  3. www.reddit.com www.reddit.com
    1. This might be a weird question, but does anyone keep memes in your ZK? I'm realizing I download a lot of memes that I particularly appreciate -- but then I usually can't fnd them again if I want them. Anyone have a method for this?

      I only have a few very specific memes indexed in my box: https://boffosocko.com/tag/zettelkasten-memes/ and a few more at https://hypothes.is/users/chrisaldrich?q=zettelkasten+meme

      Historically, Aby Warburg had a large image-based zettelkasten for his work on art which predated Richard Dawkins' conception of meme, but I think qualifies. See: https://boffosocko.com/tag/aby-warburg/ or his Bilderatlas Mnemosyne project: https://warburg.sas.ac.uk/archive/bilderatlas-mnemosyne

      It's digital in nature, but Shawn Gilmore has a large collection of images of string walls, Anacapa charts, walls and floors littered with paperwork by obsessives, etc. for his cultural research. It also includes some popular memes. https://www.vaultofculture.com/nst


      replyy to u/a2jc4life at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1ddhn9n/memes/

    1. Success histories? 4 years into Zettelkasten and not being fruitful

      Let's turn your question around: What exactly are you hoping to get out of it for yourself? Do you have specific goals for your own use?

      You may like the idea of having and using a hammer, but if you don't have a project that requires a hammer, then owning and trying to hammer on random things in an unfocused way is probably not the right tool for your needs.

      reply to u/arealnamestakenreal at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1dko10r/success_histories_4_years_into_zettelkasten_and/

    1. Skyriter

      These have been selling at auction sites over the past several months for $45-$75 plus shipping based only on pictures and without any information at all about their working condition, so all-in you probably got a great deal. I'm just finishing up work on cleaning up a 1951 2Y series Skyriter myself, and I really like its typing action. Don't throw away the spools if it came with them as they're non-standard and slightly smaller than the ubiquitous universal spools. This being said you can buy the standard 1/2" ribbon and manually spool new ribbon onto your existing spools. Mine didn't have spools at all, but I found some replacements (with ribbon) at https://www.ribbonsunlimited.com/. Take note that it's not a bichrome machine, so you can buy a single color ribbon.

      There are two screws that hold the chassis of these into the bottom of their case. They're hiding just underneath the carriage. Once removed, the typewriter lifts back and up and out of the base. You'll find the serial number on the right hand side of the frame underneath the platen and can use it to date your machine with the database: https://typewriterdatabase.com/smithcorona.86.typewriter-serial-number-database. Based on appearance alone, I'd place it as a 1960 3Y series based on the color, the badging and the white keys. You can look at others' individual models and notes at https://typewriterdatabase.com/Smith+Corona.Skyriter.86.bmys. If I'm right about the date, Richard Polt has online manuals available for the 1960 as well as others at: https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/tw-manuals.html.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjumGF9NFE8 is a pretty solid cleaning primer. Searching YouTube will uncover some potential additional advice in addition to what you can find at https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/tw-restoration.html or in his book. I will say that in cleaning mine, the mineral spirits dissolved the glue holding the felt on underneath the typebars, but it was in terrible shape anyway and needed replacing. The foam strip underneath that felt came out unscathed without much effort on my part to be careful with it.

      Most of the mechanics are pretty basic and easy to clean/service. Unless there's something dramatically wrong with it, you could very likely clean and service it yourself. (As an example, I had to re-slot the mechanism for the margin release which was almost too easy.) Even the mid-level repair issues for it can be easily found on YouTube if you're handy with a screwdriver (Joe Van Cleave and Phoenix Typewriter in particular have several model specific videos on the Skyriter). The platen and rollers come out fairly easy with a small screwdriver and removing one half of a spring on the back of the paper tray. This gives you great access to clean the escapement from above as well as to potentially send them off to JJ Short Associates for replacement via https://www.jjshort.com/typewriter-platen-repair.php. If you're less handy, Polt's website has a list of repair shops around the world that could clean/repair it for you.

      Good luck with it. I hope you like yours as much as I like mine. They're one of the most solid and sought after ultra-portables out there.

    1. In Chicago, one catalyst for that growth—as a kind of public sym-bol and tacit approval from the business community—was “the FatMan’s Class,” which had begun meeting in 1942–1943 at Chicago’sUniversity Club. The moniker derived, according to some, from thegroup’s “affluence rather than the girth of its members.” Membersof this class included Chicago notables such as Harold and CharlesSwift, Marshall Field, Jr., Walter Paepcke, Hermon Dunlap Smith,William Benton, Hughston McBain (president of Marshall Field andCompany), and Laird Bell. This group caught the “fancy” of thepopulace, causing the University of Chicago’s University College topartner with the Chicago Public Library in 1944 to set up great bookscourses around the city.43
    2. An anonymous review in The Atlantic touched on the samesnobbish fear addressed by Barzun:Mr. Adler’s notion that “almost all of the great books in every fieldare within the grasp of all normally intelligent men” seems to usto need a deal of sifting. We do not know what he means by “nor-mally intelligent,” but if he means the average run of intelligencein our population, or in the student body of our schools and col-leges, we believe he is deplorably wrong. So also . . . the book’s sub-title, “The Art of Getting a Liberal Education,” savors strongly ofquackery. 39

      Compare this with the ideas of intelligence and eugenics of the time as well as that of class in Isenberg's White Trash.

      Presumably this anonymous author would have been seeing things from a more dominant eugenics viewpoint at this time period of 1940.

      See also: The Eugenics War (American Experience) https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/eugenics-crusade/

    3. McNeill does not specify whether he believed thatcontent or process was more important.

      I can't help of thinking about the debate on nature vs. nurture here. How might we extend it to the idea of content vs. process with respect to cultural anthropology.

      How does a culture vary based on the content they use and produce with respect to the process by which they transmit and use that same content?

      In colonialized cultures the process has been bastardized which then leads to changes in the content as well. Ultimately both switch and are changed from their original. How could a culture hold onto their past which makes it the culture that it was?

      There's some fun stuff going on at these junctures.

    4. Dr. Harry McNeill’s June 1940 assessment in Interracial Review

      Interesting commentary here on conversion of African-Americans to Catholicism as well as self-help nature of reading for improvement. Analogizes African-Americans without Catholicism to Mortimer J. Adler as a Jew.

      Possible tone of colonialism to assimilate African-Americans into Western Culture here? Though still somehow some space for movement and growth.

    5. To extend thisa bit using a term not present in Barzun’s review, the lesson was thateven if by superior reading skills “culture” became attainable by all,uniform conclusions by enlightened readers would not necessarilyresult.35 A democratic culture did not mean homogeneity necessarily,nor conformity.

      How does culture tie us all together? Does shared culture necessarily mean a regression to some mean?

      Compare this with the cultural pressure of religious identity in America which does seem to press toward a particular way of thinking, living, and being.

    6. After graduation Fadiman engaged in various book-related ven-tures. He served as “top editor” for Simon and Schuster’s fledglingpublishing house until 1933, and then as The New Yorker’s book edi-tor for the next ten years. He acquired his greatest name recognition,however, by hosting the Information, Please! radio program, whichbegan in 1938. Fadiman’s work with the Book-of-the-Month Club hasbeen ably traced by historians. Beginning with his appointment toits board in 1944, Fadiman would serve as a senior judge for over 50years. At Adler’s behest his relationship with Britannica began in the1940s, deepened in the 1950s, and lasted through the 1990s. 20
    7. How to Read a Book providedrules for reading. The rules constituted the book’s heart: (1) readingfrom the whole to the parts, designated as the “structural or analyticreading”; (2) reading from parts to the whole, or an “interpretive orsynthetic” reading; and (3) deciding to agree or disagree, the “criticalor evaluative” reading.

      An interesting synopsis of the rules of reading from Adler's text.

    8. To Martin a liberal education meant “the kind of education which setsthe mind free from the servitude of the crowd and from vulgar self-interests.”

      He didn't have the framework to describe it in behavioral economic terms, but Everett Dean Martin's idea of a liberal education in 1926 was to encourage the use of Kahneman & Tversky's system two over system one. It takes more work, but system two thinking can generally beat out system one gut reactions for building a better life.

    9. In his 1926 work, The Meaning of a Liberal Education, heargued that education’s task is to “reorient the individual, to enablehim to take a richer and more significant view of his experiences, toplace him above and not within the system of his beliefs and ideals.”

      Is it possible to be above one's own system of beliefs and ideas? Doesn't the system make them a product of it? Evolving from a base at best?

      The idea sounds lovely, but is it possible anthropologically?

    10. As Leon Fink wrote of that period,“education ranked . . . high on the agenda” of Progressive intellectu-als and reformers. Considering the logic of reformers he added: “Ifthe people were to seize their democratic birthright for the greatergood . . . they must engage their higher faculties of reason” and be“schooled in sense of civic duty.” This would make them a “demo-cratic public.”8

      Check Fink to see where the seeds of this idea of linking education and democracy sprouted...

      TL's references for this:<br /> Leon Fink, Progressive Intellectuals and the Dilemmas of Democratic Commitment (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1997), 13–14; Robert B. Fisher, “The People’s Institute of New York City, 1897–1934: Culture, Progressive Democracy, and the People” (Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1974), 1, 9; Hugh S. Moorhead, “The Great Books Movement,” (PhD diss. University of Chicago, 1964), 110–111.

    11. This book, in contrast to Beam and in spite of Adler’s known flaws,is revisionary in that it rescues Adler from what E. P. Thompson called“the enormous condescension of posterity.” 3

      ref: E. P. Thompson, The Making of the English Working Class (New York: Pantheon Books, 1964), 12.

    12. Lawrence Levine’s The Opening of the AmericanMind (1996). Levine’s Culture Wars intervention is part history andpart polemic, as evident in the title’s refutation of Allan Bloom’s 1987sensation. Levine defended the evolution of multicultural college cur-ricula and was also concerned with the “larger struggle over how ourpast should be conserved, how our memory should function, andwhere the focus of our attention should be.”30

      Lawrence Levine<br /> The Opening of the American Mind (1996)<br /> note the coverage of "how our memory should function"

    13. Overall, this alternate cri-teria of assessment (in relation to Rubin) is indeed tenable because,as Menand noted, by the mid-1960s “the whole high-low paradigm”would “end up in the dustbin of history,” replaced by a “culture ofsophisticated entertainment.”25

      This would seem to be refuted by the thesis of Poor White Trash in which there was still low brow entertainment which only intensified over time into the social media era.

    14. Those larger goals highlighted edu-cation for good citizenship; to them great books were more of anantidote than a contributor to that bland, conformist mass culturefeared by mid-century critics (left and liberal and conservative) anddescribed by cultural historians.

      How, if at all, did the great books idea contribute to the idea of Manufacturing Consent for the 20th century?

    15. By prioritiz-ing a full longitudinal approach to Adler’s life, his intellectual cir-cle, and iterations of the great books idea, one can the see humanweaknesses of great books advocates even while acknowledging theirdreams, goals, and motivations.

      the word "dreams" here along with great books and classical education reminds me of Martin Luther King, Jr.'s education on the classics as seen in his zettelkasten.

      Surely his cultural up brining along with his religious training and his great books education empowered him to critically eye and change the culture around him.

    16. Middlebrow Culture

      this nudges me to ask the question: what sort of culture was John Waters creating in the early 1970s onward?

      He was juxtaposing queer culture with that of the prurient, the comedic and the ideas of "trash" and counter-culture to subtly shift the cultural milieu in which he was living and participating. His satire and subversiveness made his content more palatable for the masses which also allowed him to make more mainstream material which still pressed the boundaries while allowing him greater access to audience.

    17. Human dignity and freedom were subverted with thesereproductions, leaving behind mere conformity, the perverted twinof democratic equality.

      great phrasing here:

      mere conformity, the perverted twin of democratic equality

    18. Advocating for the great booksidea, then, could mean fighting against anti-intellectualism, antira-tionalism (i.e., the reliance on ideology), and “agnotology.”

      definition of agnotology:

      Within the sociology of knowledge, agnotology (formerly agnatology) is the study of deliberate, culturally induced ignorance or doubt, typically to sell a product, influence opinion, or win favour, particularly through the publication of inaccurate or misleading scientific data (disinformation). More generally, the term includes the condition where more knowledge of a subject creates greater uncertainty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Agnotology

    19. Teaching necessarilyinvolves some level of hierarchy and paternalism; teachers pass onknowledge and skills to another group lacking both.

      compare the dominance forms of education to to guides by the side

      ideas of John Taylor Gatto and unschooling...

      also indigenous teaching methods which also pass down culture as part of an overall "package"

    20. . On the one hand, thisincrease placed books in more people’s hands, effecting a democrati-zation of book ownership. On the other hand, the proliferation wassuch that the average person could not, without intense study, moni-tor the quality or quantity of new books published—estimated byone 1881 source at 25,000 annually. Even if incorrect, the estimateconveys a sense of despair felt about keeping up.20

      ref: Charles F. Richardson, The Choice of Books (New York: American Book Exchange, 1881), 6. The publication estimate came from a librarian, F. B. Perkins.

    21. democratic culture is always at risk. It requires an engaged citi-zenry full of informed, critical voters

      evidence?

      We hear this regularly, and it seems intuitive, but... where is the proof of this...

      Just how "informed" ought a person to be? How critical? Everyone is "critical", the internet is full of criticism, but not necessarily in the sense meant here.

      He and others are usually talking about some perceived "perfect democracy" which doesn't really exist in actuality.

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    1. Removing rust from typewriters

      Steel wool can be useful for removing rust from keylevers and other parts on typewriters, but can leave dust/slag behind which can be a bear to clean up especially when used on typebars.

      De-rusters like Evaporust can be useful, but should be tested against causing harm to other parts of a machine. Some rust removal chemicals can strip galvanization from machine parts. Olympia typewriters in particular are infamous for galvanized steel parts.

      Another option can be to use a rotary tool (like a Dremel) with a wire brush head to remove rust.

      Take care and be sure to use proper eye protection against dirt, dust, and chemicals when doing this sort of work. Also make sure you have proper ventilation and/or a mask to avoid breathing in dust and toxic chemicals.

      Richard Polt's site has additional resources for typewriter restoration: https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/tw-restoration.html

      Reply to https://www.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1da2zg6/how_do_i_remove_rust/

    1. Hahaha you’re going to have to start slipping the UPS guy a $20 to keep it on the hush hush. “Don’t worry honey, I am getting them to fix up and sell”

      reply to u/baxter1207 at https://www.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1da0voq/repairsclean_ups/l7jg8nl/

      I'm pretty sure those exact words have escaped my lips...

      Her: "I know you've got five typewriters already, and I'm not counting the one I know you're hiding underneath the bed. Which ones are you going to sell??"

      Me (in my head): Where am I going to stash the 12th machine when it arrives later today? At least it's an ultraportable, so it won't take up as much space. Why is my least favorite machine that I want to sell her favorite machine? Will selling it upset the delicate typewriter balance in the house? I can always say that the typewriter coming on Tuesday is a parts machine that I'm using to repair two of the others so I can sell them. Is this how all typewriter repair shops began?

      Me: I'm trying to finish up refinishing the two executive tanker desks and the filing cabinet in the garage first so I can get them out and make some space.

      😁

    1. Not sure if it may help your Typewriter Typefaces Bible project or not, but I'll mention that Marcin Wichary used the Internet Archive to collect a lot of the materials for his massive 3 volume 2023 book "Shift Happens: A Book About Keyboards": https://archive.org/details/wicharytypewriter

      In addition to lots of material which he found and collected on the Archive, he added a huge number of resources, catalogs, and books which are either rare or incredibly difficult to find by uploading them to the Archive for others to potentially find and use. You and others may find it valuable and or useful to follow his pattern of uploading and storage there.

      syndication link

    1. Swiss-made Hermes (3000, Media 3) seems to top the list of the most sought after vintage manuals with script fontAnother popular choice among collectors is the script typewriter debuted by Olivetti Lettera in 1963.Other typewriter manufacturers that offered the script font were Olympia (SM3, SM7, SM8), Adler (Tippa, J4, J5), Royal (Safari, Sahara), Remington (Deluxe 5, Personal Riter), Smith-Corona (Classic 12, Sterling 5A, Galaxie Deluxe 10, Galaxie 11, Galaxie 12, Silent Super), Torpedo 18, Blickensderfer (with cylinder) and IBM (Selectric with typeball)

      unreferenced here, so treat as colloquial

  4. illuminate.withgoogle.com illuminate.withgoogle.com
    1. https://illuminate.withgoogle.com/

      via

      Interesting experiment from Google that creates an NPR-like discussion about any academic paper.<br><br>It definitely suggests some cool possibilities for science communication. And the voices, pauses, and breaths really scream public radio. Listen to at least the first 30 seconds. pic.twitter.com/r4ScqenF1d

      — Ethan Mollick (@emollick) June 1, 2024
      <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>

    1. I don't see the relevance of @chrisaldrich's mention of how "people are slowly adding small atomic pieces of information" to Wikipedia: that is about text editing, not about text structure and purpose. People do the same with any document in Google Docs, for example!

      @Andy

      Perhaps Wikipedia's underlying zettelkasten nature is hiding in the more narrative nature of the ultimate pages, but it's definitely there. The "standard" web user interface view of Wikipedia pages makes it less obvious that the added pieces are atomic in nature, and that Wikipedia in fact is a group zettelkasten being built in the public/commons. However, if you've customized your own specific view of Wikipedia; are using an Atom Subscription (and yes, it's actually called this!); watching recent changes; or are using the history functionality (example: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Zettelkasten&action=history), then you're getting closer to the sorts of views of atomic additions I was speaking of. Some of this is also the reason that there is a checkbox for "minor edits" to take account of typos and minutiae which are sub-atomic and filters out or cleans up the stream of the updates one could receive.

      Viewed from this perspective, Wikipedia is a distributed zettelkasten of the highest order. Intellectually all this traces back to the original zettelkasten of Konrad Gessner, who uncoincidentally is one of the most famous and prolific encyclopedists in history.

      One could easily take small notes made in their own zettelkasten and add them on a 1-1 corresponding basis (including the note, the references, and even a unique identifier chosen and applied by Wikipedia; here's an example with the identifier 1118181304 as a demonstration) to a variety of Wikipedia articles. For certain topics I'm interested in watching, this can be a great boon to my own zettelkasten as I can reverse this process and subscribe to/watch additions at the smallest level and not only excerpt them directly into my zettelkasten, but I can usually locate the original source and excerpt directly from it as a means of verification/fact checking. As a result this zettelkasten being built in the commons on a daily basis can be imminently more useful to me. (Sadly, I don't think that many others are using it the same way or if they are, they're not doing so at the rate/speed/facility that I am.)

      A similar example can be seen in the topically arranged group zettelkasten created for The Great Books of the Western World which was lightly edited into the book form of The Syntopicon (volumes 2 and 3 of the 54 book series). One could certainly try to argue that The Syntopicon isn't a zettelkasten because it is in edited book form, but in fact, it's just an easier published and more portable form for me to have a copy of Adler and Company's physical zettelkasten as the end product is a 1-1 version of their card index with some introductory material added for readability and direction. The sad part here is that Adler's zettelkasten has ceased updating in 1952 while Wikipedia continues apace.

      For the "fans", one might say Wikipedia is even more closely related to Luhmann's variation of a zettelkasten as the user adding a particular idea doesn't need to add explicit links to other external ideas (though they certainly could), but by placing it on a particular page in a particular paragraph, they're juxtaposing it to a specific location that closely relates it to nearby ideas which already exist in that particular page (train of though/folgezettel).

      Certainly Wikipedia has a hypertextual nature as well as a text and document editing capabilities and dozens of other interesting and useful affordances, but at it's core, it's true soul is that of a (digital) zettelkasten.

      Reply to @andy at https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/comment/20462/#Comment_20462

    1. And David McCullough is not typing on a computer. He’s using the pre-digital dinosaur that requires a considerable force of those digits called fingers: the typewriter. Not even a zippy electric version, but a 1940s vintage Royal manual typewriter that he bought second-hand in the 1960s. So if you want to know how it is that David McCullough’s books always hit the New York Times bestseller lists, capture Pulitzers, and have never gone out of print, it just may be this old machine.

      too many people want to attribute the accolades stemming from the work of a person and their process to the tools they use....

    1. Also are the key caps supposed to be that yellow or is that from cigarettes.

      For yellowed glass keys on typewriters, there's usually a key top covered by a piece of paper with the key glyph on it which is sandwiched in with a small piece of glass and a metal ring that holds it down with several metal tabs underneath the key to hold it all in place. There are custom keyring pliers for quickly removing and replacing the papers which needs care not to crack the glass. Otherwise you can manually bend the metal tabs on all your key rings to remove them and replace the papers. (This is generally a LOT of work either way.) See: https://www.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1csni4d/neat_find_on_clients_kmg/

      I prefer the yellowed patina of the older key papers, so I tend to leave them versus spending the time and effort to replace them.

    1. The Four Hobbies, and Apparent Expertise by [[Marc Brooker]]

      Most hobbies, sports, and areas of interest can be split into four quadrants by an individual's particular sub-interest along the lines of doing/discussing versus the activity/gear for the activity. Many people will self-select into one of the four at the expense of the other three and this can affect the type and tenor of communities around that particular activity.

      Excellence in one area doesn't imply excellence in the others. "True" fanatics ought to attempt to excel in all four quadrants.

    1. While the ratio of wine to water is up to the drinker, when sold by an establishment, by law, schorle (pronounced “SHORE-luh”) must be at least 51 percent wine. “But we also have customers who say they want less wine,” he said. With lunch earlier that day, he’d made one with 10 percent wine, “just to give the water some aroma.”

      Schorle is a minimum of 51% wine (or juice) and sparkling mineral water

    2. The wine should be fruity, acidic and aged in stainless steel tanks, not wood (mineral water can bring out off flavors when mixed with wood barrel-aged wine), and they should be relatively low in alcohol content. “Not a wine with 13 or 14 percent alcohol, this is not the wine for Schorle,” Wegner said. Also important: temperature. “Schorle has to be cold, refrigerated,” he said.
    1. Time, Work-Discipline, and Industrial Capitalism - Author(s): E. P. Thompson - Source: Past & Present, No. 38 (Dec., 1967), pp. 56-97 - Published by: Oxford University Press on behalf of The Past and Present Society - Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/649749

      <small><cite class='h-cite via'> <span class='p-author h-card'>Dan Allosso (@danallosso)</span> in Howard Zinn's A People's History, Part 1 (YouTube) (<time class='dt-published'>09/16/2021 09:28:56</time>)</cite></small>

  5. May 2024
    1. The phrase “great books idea” arose to capture the evident diversityin thinking about the topic—the who, what, where, when, and howassociated with the notion of a great book and great books. The word“idea” allows for the abstraction from material circumstances: lists,institutions, book production, particular debates, people, et cetera.
    2. In his renowned essay,“Battle of the Books” (1698), Jonathan Swift celebrated these texts asmore excellent than moderns realized—and he bequeathed a phraseto describe the honey of the ancients that Matthew Arnold wouldlater make infamous: “sweetness and light.”

      note the "honey of the ancients" description here with a tangential nod to the commonplace tradition

      see: <br /> - https://hypothes.is/a/mCsl9voQEeuP3t8jNOyAvw<br /> - https://hypothes.is/users/chrisaldrich?q=tag%3A%22jonathan+swift%22+tag%3A%22commonplace+books%22

    1. To be more specific on solvents for beginners, potentially try mineral spirits (white spirit in UK), paint thinner, naphtha (lighter fluid), kerosene, varnish remover, PB B'laster, or carburetor or brake cleaner. Be careful as many of these are flammable and some can remove paint or decals; use all of them in a well ventilated area. You may see some recommend household variations of alcohol, but these do contain water and generally aren't very effective solvents for the types of oil/grease/dust you'll probably want to remove; professional typewriter repair shops would not use alcohol on a machine. And for those in the back, no one but a psychopath would use WD-40 on a machine's internals.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjumGF9NFE8 is a pretty solid cleaning primer. Searching YouTube will uncover some potential additional advice in addition to what you can find at https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/tw-restoration.html

      Good luck. That's a lovely machine!

    1. Don't feel bad. Your not the only one. This misconception has been going on for years simply because no typewriter repairman has stood up and said " Now wait a minute! " The collectors have done all the talking and publishing while the typewriter man isn't heard. Consequently, it's the big typewriter collectors that are heard. They never talk about how many times they had to reclean a machine. They often have several and may only use 1 or 2. Also there isn't that many of us real typewriter repairman left to do the talking.

      Due to the nature of online communication, it may often be the case that typewriter collectors and their colloquial advice may drown out the more experienced and professional typewriter repair people.

    2. Most typewriter shops did not use alcohol as it was ineffective and contained water. Industrial alcohols contained keytones and acetones that will melt plastic and remove paint.

      Solvents for typewriters used in repair shops: - White mineral spirits with a squeeze bottle. (Sometimes also called Varsol, Stoddard's Formula, and possibly Inhibisol) - Naphtha (aka lighter fluid; used in Zippo lighters, and frequently seen in Europe). PB B'laster is essentially pressurized naphtha in a can. - Auto carb and brake cleaners, usually pressurized in a can. These usually have acetone in them and will melt plastic. Will remove WD-40 if accidentally used on a typewriter.

      For cleaning typeslugs, one can use naphtha or mineral spirits with a brass bristle brush.

      For platen cleaning try mineral spirits or fedron.

      Only oil the carriage rails for the bearings or trucks.

      (This is all colloquial advice, albeit with experience, so check specific facts about what certain products contain.)

    1. I’ve seen plenty Royal Dreyfuss Quiet DeLuxe typewriters that are the gold metal plated anniversary edition.

      Example of a typewriter repairman calling a 1954 model a Royal Dreyfuss Quiet De Luxe.

      While they did have some of the general design elements of Henry Dreyfuss' 1948 redesign, would one really still call them a Dreyfuss?

    1. Holacracy is a system of corporate governance whereby members of a team or business form distinct, autonomous, yet symbiotic, teams to accomplish tasks and company goals. The concept of a corporate hierarchy is discarded in favor of a fluid organizational structure where employees have the ability to make key decisions within their own area of authority.
    1. Nabokov’s working notecards for “Lolita.”

      Nabokov used index cards for his research and writing. In one index card for research on Lolita, he creates a "weight-heigh-age table for girls of school age" to be able to specify Lolita's measurements. He also researched the Colt catalog of 1940 to get gun specifications to make those small points realistic in his writing.

      syndication link

    1. Congratulations on that beautiful machine!

      Don't listen to the nay-sayers who likely have very different priorities and esthetics. If this is your machine, and you love it, then "own it".

      It does look like a standard (as opposed to portable) typewriter. (Standards are often better and more robust typers due to their size and design.) Likely a Model 1 or Model 2, but I don't have specific knowledge beyond a cursory glance at the typewriter database. You can start by looking at examples of machine types and bodies at https://typewriterdatabase.com/smithcorona.86.typewriter-serial-number-database.

      From there, the Model 1 says "Electric Serial Numbers Concurrent with Standard", so scroll down the page and see if you can identify a year based on a serial number you should be able to find underneath the hood. You can try https://typewriterdatabase.com/Smith+Corona.Standard.86.bmys, but I don't see any later models there, so perhaps no one has documented one before and you could be the first.

      Then start with Richard Polt's site https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/ where you may likely find a manual and if you're lucky a repair manual. Surely there will be a few manuals for similar 50s standard S-C manual typewriters which should at least get you started. His site has a wealth of other information to give you pointers. His book The Typewriter Revolution (2015) has good intro chapters on cleaning, basic repair, and restoration. YouTube may have some useful videos as well. The typewriter database will have some later model S-C electric machines which you might try searching for on YouTube as well and it's highly likely that the design changes weren't so drastic that those may help you significantly.

      For basic cleaning, try https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xjumGF9NFE8 which has some solid advice. Obviously take care with respect to getting the electrical portion of your machine wet.

      I've not done any electric machines before, but if I recall, I seem to have read/heard (maybe from Tom Hanks who I know has a 50s electric Smith-Corona) that the early electrics only went as far as doing power for the keys, so it should be reasonably repairable if it doesn't work out of the box.

      I'm sure you'll love it. With any luck, you'll also get some serious enjoyment and sense of accomplishment out of cleaning it up. If nothing else, it'll give you a wealth of experience in making the attempt and you can apply that to other machines if you continue collecting and typing. Some of my first machines weren't immediate "successes" until after I'd been able to tinker with others and was able to come back to them with a more experienced hand.

      Have fun with it!

      reply to https://www.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1cuzy04/please_can_someone_identify_this/

    1. Blank tabbed 4x6 cards (self.Zettelkasten)submitted 1 day ago by SpacePatricianTrust me when I say this query is Zettelkasten-related. I've adopted the Voroscope method of organizing as per the Encyclopedia Propaedia, but it involves creating a lot of tab cards. I could make things go faster if I had white, blank, unruled tabbed index cards that I could set up a printer template for, but there don't seem to be any on the market in bulk. Any ideas of where I could find them off the beaten path?

      I've looked and looked for such a template and printer method to no avail myself. Your best bet here is probably either Avery Multi-use labels (maybe 5418 or 5428 depending on your card tabs) which have templates you can print a sheet at a time, or buying a labeler like the Brother P-touch which has a variety of different colored labels available. A third method is to line up multiple tabbed cards in your typewriter and do 3-4 at a time.

      Tabbed cards are significantly more expensive than standard index cards, so if you're all in on this, I'd recommend contacting one of the manufacturers directly and buying in bulk to drive the price down. Alibaba can also be your friend here for a bulk order too. Last year I got a bulk order of 15,000 4x6" index cards for well under $0.005 per card, while the current going rate on Amazon or most office supply stores is $0.02 - $0.03/card.

      Let me know if you find someone manufacturing inexpensive tabbed dividers in 1/5, 1/6, 1/7, or even 1/8 cut tabs. I'd love to buy a couple thousand of these in bulk as well.

      Knowing the extra work involved in this method, I HIGHLY recommend you try it out by hand for a bit to see if it's something you'll do for more than a few months before going all-in. I've read some of Joseph Voros' work, which I understood to be theoretical only. Did he ever fully implement it himself? Before you try, you might want to read up on others' earlier work like that of Paul Otlet, Mortimer J. Adler, et al. Many here will lionize Luhmann's method, but recall that S. D. Goitein managed to take a 1/3 of the notes that Luhmann did while creating a published output a 1/3 larger than Luhmann all while using a method similar to that of Adler and company which is also very close to the method recommended by almost all academics from Jacques Barzun to Umberto Eco.

      Definitely think about what you're hoping to accomplish before going straight down the rabbit hole too far.

      If you do go all-in, then buying a big storage box upfront can save you a lot of time and expense, try https://boffosocko.com/2022/12/26/the-ultimate-guide-to-zettelkasten-index-card-storage/ for some ideas. My daily driver now is a 60,000+ card index from Steelcase that I picked up on the used market for $125.


      LIFE. “The 102 Great Ideas: Scholars Complete a Monumental Catalog.” January 26, 1948.

      Eco, Umberto. How to Write a Thesis. Translated by Caterina Mongiat Farina and Geoff Farina. 1977. Reprint, Cambridge, MA, USA: MIT Press, 2015.

      Barzun, Jacques, and Henry F. Graff. The Modern Researcher. 6th ed. Belmont, CA: Thomson/Wadsworth, 2004.


      Reply to u/SpacePatrician at https://www.reddit.com/r/Zettelkasten/comments/1ctsu78/blank_tabbed_4x6_cards/