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  1. Apr 2025
  2. Mar 2025
    1. Old school repair guys used a lot of different stuff that's no longer available due to being... Not good. Ha. But naphta was one that's still widely available as white gas aka "coleman/camping fuel" Essentially naphtha with stabilizers to keep it from going bad. Mineral spirits works as well, but naphtha leaves less residue in my experience. Lacquer thinner is good for especially stubborn crap and cleaning slugs, but evaporates really fast and the fumes are no bueno. Alternatively; non toxic degreasing cleaners like simple green are usually my preferred method of cleaning up especially gross machines. Typically very safe on paint finishes and internals, just make sure to keep it off the decals. (It can and WILL erase them if it sits for more than 10 secs) Really though, nothing beats air and a long handled "paint" brush. My air compressor and blow out tube are some of my most cherished tools.

      https://www.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1jm7c02/is_it_better_to_use_mineral_spirits_or_lighter/?sort=old

      quote from Nashville Typewriter

    1. It is the fixed nature of caste that distinguishes it from class,a term to which it is often compared. Class is an altogether sepa-rate measure of one’s standing in a society, marked by level ofeducation, income, and occupation, as well as the attendant char-acteristics, such as accent, taste, and manners, that flow from so-cioeconomic status. These can be acquired through hard work andingenuity or lost through poor decisions or calamity. If you can actyour way out of it, then it is class, not caste. Through the years,wealth and class may have insulated some people born to the sub-ordinate caste in America but not protected them from humiliat-ing attempts to put them in their place or to remind them of theircaste position.
    2. These tenets, as interpreted by those who put themselves onhigh, would become the divine and spiritual foundation for thebelief in a human pyramid willed by God, a Great Chain of Being,that the founders would further sculpt in the centuries to follow,as circumstances required. And so we have what could be calledthe first pillar of caste, Divine Will and the Laws of Nature, thefirst of the organizing principles inherent in any caste system.Wilk_9780593230251_all_3p_r1.indd 104 20/6/5 8:28 AM

      Given Wilkerson's introductory chapters on knowing and understanding history, I'm heavily disappointed this is the singular reference in the book to "The Great Chain of Being". It's not even indexed in the end.

      The underlying idea of the scala naturae across a huge swath of western history is really the thing that gives rise to the problems of American history which she is attempting to bring to life here. Missing this part of the bigger picture is a serious flaw.

      Does she skirt it rhetorically so as not to give fuel to the idea that "this is how things have always been?" arguments?

      see also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_chain_of_being

    1. I see no point in bishops or preachers or Christian evangelists just recycling the kind of stuff that you can get from any soft-left liberal because everyone is giving that. If I want that, I’ll get it from a Liberal Democrat councilor. If you’re a Christian, you think that the entire fabric of the cosmos was ruptured when by this strange singularity where someone who is a God and a man sets everything on its head. To say it’s supernatural is to downplay it. I mean this is a massive singularity at the heart of things. And if you don’t believe that, it seems to me you’re not really a confessional Christian. You may be a cultural Christian, but you’re not a confessional Christian. So if you believe that, it should be possible to dwell on all the other weird stuff that traditionally comes as part of the Christian package. I seems to me that there’s a deep anxiety about that, almost a sense of embarrassment…If it’s to be preached as something true, the strangeness of it, the way that it can’t be framed by what seems to be mere reality, has to be fundamental to it. I don’t want to hear what bishops think about Brexit; I know what they think about Brexit, and it’s not particularly interesting.– Tom Holland, “How Christianity Gained Dominion” (interview)

      juxtaposition of "soft-left liberal" and "Liberal Democrat" with "Christian" here....

      not Christian and non-Christian

      something telling in this dichotomy

    2. Longer term, divorce is rarely turns out to be as a great deal for women as they think. Books like Eat, Pray, Love – at least for a while a staple of women leaving their husbands – fill their heads with the possibilities of the future.  The media loves to extol this, creating myths such as the “cougar” (an older woman who dates much younger men) that sell them on the idea that life will be better after they divorce their husbands.

      Women and "possibilities of the future"

    3. Recognize that you have been a victim of injustice. I’m assuming here that your wife didn’t catch you in an affair, that you didn’t beat her, etc. but rather this is the more ordinary case of divorce without due cause.

      Surely there was a cause for divorce, but he seems to be ignoring the man's role in causing his spouse to want to divorce. It's as if it just "happens" for no reason at all...

    4. Nothing better demonstrates that we don’t live in a patriarchy than the statistics on divorce.

      Or maybe it's that women instead have just enough autonomy that they can file and they're trying to flee the patriarchy that exists around them and this is one way they can do that.

      His statement sounds right on hearing, but there's a lot more depth than he seems willing to admit here. There's a difference between broad patriarchy and absolute patriarchy and he seems to be assuming absolute patriarchy.

    5. It’s well established that women initiate the vast majority of divorces – about 70% of them (though the specific number varies by source).  If women filed for divorce at the same rate as men, it would cut the number of divorces in half.

      sources?

    1. you can write your draft in one long, stream-of-thought rant. I call these “splat drafts” — you get everything in your head out on the page at once, without regard for form (hence the “splat”). Then you treat it as the raw material for a second, proper draft. Think of it as the act of dumping the puzzle pieces out on the table so you can sift through them and see what fits together.

      He uses the phrase "splat draft" in the sense that others might call a "vomit draft", but not in the sense of Mozart's peeing cow.

    1. Typewriter 17.2 Blickensderfer Typewriter; the Scientific keyboard 25.6 Burroughs Moon-Hopkins Typewriter/Calculator 01.9 Experiential Typewriter 05.3 Experiential Typewriter 21.0 Henry Mills' Typewriter 17.0 IBM Selectric Typewriter 11.2 Pneumatic Typewriters 45.6 Typewriters, reactionary use of antiquated 21.1 Typewriters: the Comptometer, the Numerograph, the book typewriter 45.2 mechanical typewriter

      https://web.archive.org/web/20190305042816/http://www.deadmedia.org/notes/index-cat.html#tw

    1. The “unit records” here, unlike those in the Memex example, are generally scraps of typed or handwritten text on IBM-card sized edge-notchable cards. These represent little “kernels” of data, thought, fact, consideration concepts, ideas, worries, etc., that are relevant to a given problem… Each such specific problem area has its notecards kept in a separate deck, and for each such deck there is a master card with descriptors associated with individual holes about the periphery of the card. There is a field of holes reserved for notch coding the serial number of a reference from which the note on a card may have been taken, or the serial number corresponding to an individual from whom the information came directly (including a code for myself, for self-generated thoughts).

      Even Doug Englebart was thinking about how to distinguish between the thoughts of others and thoughts he had generated himself.

    1. “In the beginning, it was like, ‘Oh, thank goodness, our house is standing, but this is hard to celebrate because everybody around us lost their house,’” Lambert says. “Then as the time went by, every day you’re realizing there’s more and more unknowns. It’s not as simple as, ‘There was a fire, it’s gone, clean your house, go back.’ It’s so much more complicated.”

      This is one of my big worries as well.

    1. “The library, panels and boxes formed the ensemble of supports on which Aby Warburg’s spiritual work and intellectual creativity were based.” - Benjamin Steiner, Aby Warburgs Zettelkasten Nr. 2 “Geschichtsauffassung”, In: Heike Gfrereis / Ellen Strittmatter (Hrsg.): Zettelkästen. Maschinen der Phantasie (Marbacher Kataloge, 66). Marbach 2013, S. 154-161.

      Aby Warburg used three primary tools for his research: his library, a card index, and panels.

      His panels would be versions of pinboards, chalk boards, dry erase boards, or online versions of things like Canvas in Obsidian. It amounts to the ability to take notes or images on cards and shuffle them around on a table (or affixed to a wall).

  3. Local file Local file
    1. [T]he titles noted down were those which had aroused Warburg’s scholarly curios-ity while he was engaged on a piece of research. They were all interconnected in apersonal way as the bibliographical sum total of his own activity. These lists were,therefore, his guide as a librarian ; not that he consulted them every time he readbooksellers’ and publishers’ catalogues ; they had become part of his system and schol-arly existence. [...] Often one saw Warburg standing tired and distressed bent over hisboxes with a packet of index cards, trying to ind for each one the best place withinthe system ; it looked like a waste of energy. [...] It took some time to realise that hisaim was not bibliographical. This was his method of deining the limits and contentsof his scholarly world and the experience gained here became decisive in selectingbooks for the Library. 5

      via Fritz Saxl, The History of Warburg’s Library (1943/1944), p. 329.

      Where does the work reside? Goes to the idea of zettelkasten coherence.

      See: https://boffosocko.com/2024/01/11/on-cohesion-and-coherence-of-the-zettelkasten-where-does-the-work-reside/

    1. LogInternational2253 0 points1 point2 points 2 hours ago (0 children)Chandler AZ https://typecast.munk.org/2025/03/23/type-in-report-chandler-public-library-local-author-fair-type-in/?unapproved=214363&moderation-hash=308ce10a9ad2d68dea04b55046cf88e1#comment-214363

      Based on this comment and link,

      u/LogInternational2253 is Jared C Riddle from Arizona.

      Be sure to invite to Los Angeles type-ins.

    1. There's a few things going on here. Generally at SGW a gray Olympia SM3 in excellent "looking" condition like this one will go for $120-150. This one is also hiding a script typeface which will usually add another $110-150 of value, which would put it at the $300 mark. I'm sort of surprised that the original winner didn't actually pay for it at this price as that's likely what someone would honestly pay for one like this. (It's also possible that they forgot they won or didn't know and didn't pay for it in time too.)

      On today's listing, it's far, far more likely that someone wants it and either couldn't get it or pay for it now at the price that it was going to go for in a reasonable auction. They used a throw away accout to make an outrageous bid in hopes that in a week it'll be relisted and no one will notice the script typeface and it'll go for well under $200. (It won't.) This happens incredibly frequently for some of the less common typewriters. Usually it's machines with script or uncommon typefaces or uncommon character sets. Recent auctions for a gold plated Olympia SM3 and a Yellow Royal FP with a Gothic typeface come to mind. I've seen this also happen four or five times in a row before someone ultimately pays for a machine at some reasonable price.

      Honestly, SGW should have a policy that the second and third runners up for auctions that don't get paid for by winners should have the right of last refusal on auctions like this to prevent this sort of "gaming" of the system. If you search back in this sub, you'll see this topic coming up every couple of weeks with the same discussions over and over. The common wisdom is that a SGW auction isn't gone until the machine doesn't pop up anymore and actually "sold". And even then, if you wait a week or two, you'll usually see the exact machine pop up less than a month later on eBay being listed by the winner for an exorbitant amount (almost always without having done any additional cleaning or restoration work on it aside from maybe dusting it out.)

      Maybe we should add the tag #SGWgaming to all these conversations to make them easier to find?

      reply to https://old.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1jift5r/listing_on_the_right_was_a_month_ago_listing_on/

    1. The long, thin spring-loaded metal flap labeled the "paper conductor" on the SM3 and SM4 and labeled the "erasing table" on the SM2 are all the same part. They serve a few functions.

      They can be used for erasing mistakes certainly and help to keep dust and debris from going into the carriage and rollers.

      The "paper conductor" description sounds like a fun translation of something from German into English, but this part also prevents the paper which goes under the paper bail and forces it up and back to the paper table and the paper support. Presumably without it, a slightly curved piece of paper might be misrouted to go right back into the platen a second time as the paper advances.

      This sort of paper conductor/dust shield can also be found on some later 1960s+ Smith-Corona (SCM) machines. For example, see the Galaxie II which calls that part the erasure table.

    1. Jim Riegert, now in his 70s, remembers what it used to be like. "Back then, typewriters were pretty big. Typewriters and adding machines," he says, referring to desktop calculators. "It got really difficult in the typewriter business about 25 years ago," he says. "The internet was coming on and killing us, too." He runs Typewriters.com and, despite a decline in sales in recent decades, he still shifts four or five electric IBM typewriters every week.
    2. The factory is in Indonesia, he explains, and is run by a team from Nakajima, a typewriter manufacturing firm from Japan. Every year, Royal still sells around 20,000 new electric typewriters and more than double that amount of mechanical typewriters. The latter have become desirable partly as decoration – a librarian might buy one for a display at the front of their library, for instance, suggests Althoff. The mechanical and electric models Royal sells cost between $300 (£238) and $400 (£317).
    3. In 2013, jaw-dropping details emerged about the extent of US intelligence agency surveillance programmes. This prompted the Russian Federal Guard Service (FSO) to revert to typewriters in an attempt to evade eavesdropping. German officials were also reported to be considering a similar move in 2014. (During the Cold War, Soviet spies actually developed techniques for snooping on electric typewriter activity, a form of "keylogging" technology – where the keystrokes inputted on a keyboard are captured. US operatives also reconstructed text from typewriter ribbons – meaning that even typewriters aren't completely safe.)
    1. Royal Typewriter Family by [[Joe Van Cleave]]

      In Typewriter Video Series Episode 321 Joe and Kevin explore the Royal Heritage, Empress and Safari.

      The Royal Futura and subsequent Royal Heritage were successor machines to the Royal Quiet De Luxe.

      The Empress and the Safari have a sort of Jetsons (1962-1963) aesthetic.


      Colloquial collection of typewriter fan names by Kevin and Joe:<br /> Cult of Hermes<br /> Royal Family<br /> Remington Rebels<br /> Smith-Corona Silent Superiors

      2025-03-21: edit (spelling)

    1. KoponewtPelicram ❤️ Slug Goblin 3 points4 points5 points 3 hours ago (3 children)Do you know what's the serial number on that? Some manufacturers had special models mostly for export purposes with extra keys. For example Royal 11 is a 10 with extra keys, Underwood No. 46 is a 5/3/6 with extra keys. Remington No. 9 is an 8 with extra keys.

      via https://old.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1jgg4kh/royal_kmm_extra_column_of_keys/miyumvn/

    1. “When you see important societal actors — be it university presidents, media outlets, C.E.O.s, mayors, governors — changing their behavior in order to avoid the wrath of the government, that’s a sign that we’ve crossed the line into some form of authoritarianism,” said Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard and the co-author of the influential 2018 book “How Democracies Die.”
    1. Sybil Davis—who put the machine up for auction after receiving it from her mother, Jean Vounder-Davis—shared this with me in e-mail correspondence after the auction: He was not a “touch typist.” He preferred the “hunt and peck” system using only his two index fingers I … observed him using it on a daily basis.

      Raymond Chandler was not a touch typist.

    2. The machine was produced in four different versions: Series I with a beige body and black round keys borrowed from its more portable sister machine, the Olivetti Lettera 22 Series II with beige body and black ergonomic keys intended to conform better to the user’s fingers Series III with light blue body, grey-blue keys and knobs Studio 44 L with body from former competitor Underwood (Olivetti bought a controlling interest in Underwood in 1959, and completed a full merger in 1963)

      variations of the Olivetti Studio 44

    1. If you're a more serious writer, you're sure to find a smoother and better experience with a standard typewriter, but they're slightly larger and heavier (~30 pounds vs. ~15-22 pounds) than the portables. These are usually the ones I recommend if you're writing for several hours and have a dedicated space for your writing. Standards aren't as popular with most collectors, so they also tend to be less expensive.

      I really love my Royal KMG, HH, and FP and my Remington Standard and Remington 17 which are all serious machines. Here are some of the other more common standards for serious writers: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3r3533cSZ38


      Reply to u/RetailThrowAway69 at https://old.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1je4owq/new_typewriter_for_a_keyboard_warrior_of_20_years/

    1. Almost every portable and ultra portable typewriter made from the 1930s onward came with a case that the typewriter locked into. On almost all of these the top of the typewriter case was easily removeable from the base with a spring loaded locking mechanism of some sort. This allowed the user to sit in almost any chair and use the typewriter on their lap. The thin case bottoms prevent dirt and oil from soiling one's clothes.

      Beginning in the late 60s/early 70s some manufacturers began making plastic tops that clipped onto the typewriter bodies, but often these are more brittle and prone to breaking/shattering due to the type and age of the plastic. (I'm looking at you Remington Streamliners...)

      Our cat used to love "hiding" in the wooden case tops of my 1940s and 1950s Smith-Coronas (Clippers, Sterlings, Silents, Silent Supers).

      It's really only the larger and much heavier standard machines that didn't come with cases at all.

    1. Why don't sellers include type samples in their ads? I mean, it's the core function of a typewriter. It's the reason for this machine to exist in the first place. Are these people so ignorant that they only see the decorative aspect of typewriters? I've even seen machines in "perfect working order" for horrendous prices without a type sample. This is so ridiculous. How on earth could I find a machine with a nice typeface? How do I see if a machine is well aligned? And most of these strange people don't even bother to send a type sample on request, because "the ribbon is dry". Dang!

      reply to u/andrebartels1988 at https://reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1jcsp6t/rant_over_online_sellers/

      No, they're either ignorant or actively trying to hide the fact that their machine was bought for $5 at a yard sale and they're trying to match the pricing of pro shops that have cleaned, oiled, adjusted and repaired a machine which far exceeds the misery they're selling because they have absolutely no idea what goes into a good machine.

      People doing the work to show type samples and video of their machines are usually far, far more legitimate. These people are also going to give you $2 of new ribbon for free with purchase.

      Without a type sample or video, all but the rarest machines aren't worth more than $20.

    1. I found on etsy: TheModernTypewriter that sells ribbons. Are they any good?

      I've never used them. They're probably alright. Looks like they're specializing in engraved spools more than anything. My guess is that they're buying ribbon in bulk from Baco or Fine Line and passing along the cost and adding some additional profit.

      Here's typical bulk pricing:

      nylon ribbon $0.10 - $0.15/yard silk ribobn $0.33 to $0.40/yard cotton ribbon $0.25/yard If you can get a spool's worth of nylon ribbon (16 yards) for about $1.50 to $3, do you really want to pay $8 or more plus shipping? If I'm going to do this (usually for small quantities of custom colored ribbon), I'm going to buy it from a local shop to help support them and keep them open.

      There are obviously lots of options you can choose from, ultimately you'll do what works best/quickest/cheapest for you.

    1. Tested 100s of heavy desk typewriters, Here is the top 5 revealed. by [[Mr & Mrs Vintage Typewriters]]

      Top Five Standard Typewriters:<br /> - Imperial 55 - Imperial 70 (after this they went to cheaper plastic parts); removable carriage, swappable typefaces; removeable core - Hermes Ambassador - removable carriage - Underwood Standards, esp. 5 - Royal 10 (carriage shift); (and subsequent incarnations like the KH, KMM, KMG, HH, FP) - Olympia SG1 (the "crown jewel" of desktop typewriters)

      Also rans: - Olivetti Lexicon, Olivetti Graphica - Contintental m40 & m20 - Mercedes

    1. Here is one from page 102: The beauty of a thought is based on an intuitive assessment of its quality. It enables a "golden link" to my Zettelkasten to the entry point "Concepts of beauty". Today I found a beautiful quote that underlines this concept: We may talk about the elegance of an equation, but we forget to find value in the beauty of a thought. — Marilynne Robinson

      related to Eddington quote?

      First quote from p 102 is Sascha Fast's 2nd edition of zettelkasten book


      Reply to Edmund at https://forum.zettelkasten.de/discussion/comment/22841/#Comment_22841

      @Edmund I'm intrigued by your note about beauty with respect to information, about which I've got a small tranche of notes forming. You might appreciate this quote from Arthur Eddington in 1927: https://boffosocko.com/2013/09/26/entropy-beauty-melody/

    1. https://www.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1j7jv3x/things_found_inside_a_typewriter/

      via u/NisKildegaard:

      Bobby pins, staples, safety pins, paper clips ... Postage stamps, coins... Pencils and erasers... Notes, business cards, shopping lists... A dental X-ray -- I think it was a molar. And the other week, a firecracker. One machine I bought for a bargain price, listed as parts/repair, turned out to be nonfunctional because a toothbrush was stuck inside the mechanism. I'm guessing it was originally intended as a cleaning tool, but ended up gumming the works entirely.

    1. Nate Fischer is a venture capitalist in Dallas whose current projects include a rural real estate development in Tennessee and Kentucky that he has marketed to conservatives. (Mr. Isker has said he planned to move there.) Mr. Fischer has been reading Mr. Renn’s work since around 2019. He asked Mr. Renn to have a drink with him in Manhattan when Mr. Fischer was there taking a weeklong course in “real world risk” organized by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, a thinker both he and Mr. Renn cite frequently.

      Influence of Taleb on a certain flavor of white guy. in America.

    2. Mr. Renn’s description of the contours of “negative world” range widely, and include the spread of sports gambling, legalized drug use and even tattoos. But the framework might not have electrified evangelical America if not for the perception on the right of a new secular orthodoxy around sex, gender and race. When you ask someone who embraces the term to discuss their own experiences in “negative world,” the answer is almost always connected with this cluster of issues.
    3. “These guys have cracked the code on reaching young men, and they’re actually giving a lot of practical advice,” Mr. Renn said. “And by the way, some of the things that the church is telling these guys is just wrong.”

      An evangelical saying that what the church is telling guys is "just wrong"?!? This requires some self-reflection on the part of the speaker...

      I'm curious what is the right thing in his framing?

    4. What he does write about with some frequency is the fact that women initiate a distinct majority of divorces.

      I'm curious why he should be doing this? Is he anti-woman? Is he irked that women now have some power and autonomy? He apparently writes a lot about masculinity according to earlier in the article. Is masculinity only defined in contrast with femininity and control over the feminine?

      What about Gods design that women should be equals? Link to Genesis story about not naming the woman until after the trouble.

    5. He sought out a church in Chicago and settled in, following a trajectory described by the 20th-century sociologist E. Digby Baltzell: The typical American is born a Baptist or Methodist, becomes a Presbyterian once he is educated, and then, after ascending to the heights of economic success, “joins a fashionable Episcopal church in order to satisfy his wife’s social ambitions.”
    6. About a decade ago, around the time that the Supreme Court’s ruling in Obergefell v. Hodges made same-sex marriage legal nationwide, Mr. Renn says the United States became “negative world."

      Why can't Renn point to a more specific issue that actually impacts Christianity directly? How someone else chooses to identify and live, particularly people who are frequently Christian, shouldn't effect Christians in the sort of way he's proposing.

      Besides "power over" others, what sort of Christianity is he really espousing? Where is the "love your neighbor?" or "do unto others?" in his religion?

    1. method and madness by [[Alan Jacobs]]

      via In which I describe my writing “methods." by [[Alan Jacobs]]

      reply:

      @ayjay Thanks for sharing this. My method is often very much like yours. Lots of internal distillation, slowly over time. I remember hearing a story that Mozart wrote music "like a cow pees" (in one giant and immediate flood and then done). I feel like large works of writing, composing, etc. springing, as if fully formed from the head of Zeus is more common than is acknowledged. Cory Doctorow hints at a similar sort of method in his own work in The Memex Method. I'm also reminded of bits of what neuroscientist Barbara Oakley calls "diffuse thinking" or a more internalized version of Michael Ondaatje's "thinkering" described in The English Patient.

    1. reply to u/bethcano at https://reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1j3z646/whats_a_fair_price_these_days_for_a_hermes_3000/

      In the US I've been seeing them go for around $250 based only on photos without any additional information about whether they work or other condition.

      Platforms like eBay and ShopGoodwill.com will allow you to search for actual sales (see the advanced settings) and this will give you a much better picture of what the prices are versus people listing them for several hundred more (usually to match the prices of professional shops that are listing theirs in cleaned, oiled, and adjusted condition). (Remember when shopping: Condition is king!)

      See:

      Keep in mind that prices may be dramatically different in your country based on how ubiquitous they were when they were originally manufactured.

      Expect to add $150-200+ for script or rarer typefaces, and another \~$150 if the platen has been recovered.

      $550 would not be uncommon if purchasing a pica or elite Hermes 3000 with a standard typeface in generally good cosmetic shape that's been professionally cleaned, oiled, and adjusted by a shop.

    1. Anne-Laure Le Cunff - How to Design Tiny Experiments Like a Scientist ‪@neuranne‬

      • generation effect
      • definitions of success: did you learn something new as a mode for preventing failure (-10:00)
      • curiosity as motivation (-12:30)
      • George R. R. Martin's essay on "architects and gardeners" (and librarians) (and students (via Tiago Forte)).
      • did they miss the prior versions of gardening?
      • Pareto principle for 80% gardener and 20% architect

      • ME: reading fiction can be used as a means of diffuse thinking in combination with combinatorial creativity

    1. A furtherrefinementinmaking two-colourribbonsisthe useofacentreliningmachine, which automatically drawsathininsulatinglineon theribbon.A transparentgumsolutionispumpedbyairpressure througha stainless needle whichpreventsthecolours from running.

      Center lining machines are used to make bichrome typewriter ribbon. It operates by drawing an insulating line on the ribbon and transparent gum solution is pumped through a needle using pneumatic pressure to keep the two colors from running into each other.