💾 Archived View for zaibatsu.circumlunar.space › ~visiblink › phlog › 20230822 captured on 2024-07-09 at 04:26:17.
⬅️ Previous capture (2023-11-04)
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Hey gopherites! Macro news: There were a couple of rain showers today. The air has cleared up from "smoking a whole pack of Export A cigarettes at once" to "1980s LA smog." Down in the Kelowna area, it sounds like just under 100 houses burned. They haven't announced how many burned in the North Shuswap. Needless to say, more rain would be great. Micro news: I bought a manual typewriter on eBay. It's a Brother. They're very common (over 10 million made between 1961 and 1980), boring, cheap, and apparently really nice to type on. I read a number of forum posts and blogs and many of the self-annointed experts express surprise at Brother's quality. Growing up, we had a couple of Smith-Coronas. I think one was a Silent-Sterling and the other was a Corsair. Later, when I was in university I had a couple of the Smith-Corona PWP word processors. The first had a six-line LCD display. The second was an upgrade with a full amber monochrome monitor. Back then, I used to compose and edit papers by hand and then type up the finished product. That seems like a million years ago. The last typewriter I owned was in the late 1990s. It was a beautiful green Olympia SM4, purchased in the era when there was nothing as despised and useless as a typewriter. It cost $20 and would surely fetch about $800 on Etsy now. It was really nice to type on -- as long as you didn't need to use the shift key. Lifting the carriage involved putting about 800 pounds of pressure on your pinky finger. In any case, I'm looking forward to the new typewriter. There will soon be 'no computer Fridays' at the office. I think I'll bring my transistor radio. - V.