I have to confess to a bit of a blogging dry spell as of late. I've had too much travel and more than a few kid events over the last two weeks. I promise to arrange my thoughts into something vaguely coherent in the near future. Until then, I present you with evidence of a (mostly) dead brand and a bit of quaint computing technology.
Not surprisingly, I found this early Mac detritus in a thrift store. Today, we all take 300 DPI laser printed documents for granted. In 1989, not so much. Check out that super sexy mouse!
My favorite bit of advertising puffery: "You don't have to be an artist to use The Print Shop. However, after just a few minutes, The Print Shop will unleash your creativity and make you look like an artist without even trying."
I am impressed at the grammatical accuracy exhibited on this box. It appears that True Nerds were at the helm of the Broderbund empire. You'll have to pretend that the "o" has a slash through it.
I kept the tractor feed paper for typing fun and recycled the box. It was a semi-happy trip down memory lane.
A blog about all kinds of vintage technology from simple mechanisms of the late 1800s through electronics and robotics of the 1980s. Many posts will be typecast and some will be off topic bits from everyday life. The blog will wander and meander with my quasi-evolving and ever changing interests.
Tuesday, December 11, 2012
Tuesday, November 27, 2012
Thoughts on Greenbuild 2012 and San Francisco
Welcome to my post Greenbuild 2012 blog entry! Scroll on down for the typecast...
TED talk on harnessing the problem solving and creativity of gamers to crowd source solutions to difficult problems.
The next speaker is a prominent architect and proponent of regenerative design, William McDonough. Among others, his most widely known project is the redesign of the Ford Rouge Truck Plant. From the perspective of moving towards a Net Zero future, he raised the fundamental question of "What's Next?"
William McDonough has very strong opinions on materials in design. His consulting group has worked with a number of Fortune 500 companies. His TED talk tracks many of the concepts brought forth at Greenbuild.
And the last Greenbuild related photo below is the view from the Google Green Team lair. The food was fabulous as well.
Here are a few scenes from around San Francisco. For anyone who is curious, all shots were taken with a Sony NEX-3 with the kit lens or 16mm f2.8 pancake lens. Many of the street photos were taken by pointing the camera in the right direction without looking at the view screen. The auto-focus is quick enough to shoot from the hip and capture casual scenes.
At the very end of Greenbuild week, I found myself with no meetings or working meals. I hopped the bus to find the Super7 Store. The fact that it is located in Haight-Ashbury was a happy coincidence. The food was great and cheap. The stores were great for browsing and I was able to bring home some Super7 merch straight from the source!
But the main reason I took the bus to Haight-Asbury is the one and only Super 7 Store! Imagine, a store full of giant robot, Star Wars, giant monster and urban vinyl paraphernalia. Nerd heaven!
Unexpected bonus: the first Kid Robot store was just up the street!
And with one last awesome storefront, we shall bid the fair city of San Francisco adieu.
Hmmm...let us see if I can think of something creatively snarky to say about my Copyright to the text and images contained herein this little blog of mine. Well, I own it all! Bwa, ha, ha. Yes, so greedy of me in this open-source world; but that is just the way it is. Images may be used for non-commercial purposes with attribution pointing back to this blog or to my Picasa collection. They may not be utilized for commercial purposes without express permission from the owner - that being Dwayne F. I know: that which can be published digitally can be hacked. Go ahead. Just see what happens. I happen to have a fleet of giant robots and monsters at my command. Remember what happened to poor San Francisco in my last post. I repeat: bwa, ha, ha.
This is probably the most touristy thing I took a photo of other than looking back on the Ferry Building from an adjacent pier. |
This hybrid Fisker Karma is about 3,000 times cooler than my hybrid Prius. Maybe I should buy a lottery ticket. |
TED talk on harnessing the problem solving and creativity of gamers to crowd source solutions to difficult problems.
The next speaker is a prominent architect and proponent of regenerative design, William McDonough. Among others, his most widely known project is the redesign of the Ford Rouge Truck Plant. From the perspective of moving towards a Net Zero future, he raised the fundamental question of "What's Next?"
William McDonough has very strong opinions on materials in design. His consulting group has worked with a number of Fortune 500 companies. His TED talk tracks many of the concepts brought forth at Greenbuild.
This cursive typeface is unique to Royal portables from the 1960s. Mine is a grey on grey Futura 800/ |
And the last Greenbuild related photo below is the view from the Google Green Team lair. The food was fabulous as well.
Here are a few scenes from around San Francisco. For anyone who is curious, all shots were taken with a Sony NEX-3 with the kit lens or 16mm f2.8 pancake lens. Many of the street photos were taken by pointing the camera in the right direction without looking at the view screen. The auto-focus is quick enough to shoot from the hip and capture casual scenes.
Public skating rink at Union Square. The sight of palm trees and a giant Christmas tree together was only a little disconcerting. |
The homeless fleet massing across from the Ferry Building. In my limited experience, I found the panhandlers to be far less aggressive here than in Atlanta, Chicago or Washington, D.C. |
Public protest is a way of life in San Francisco. This is across from the cordoned off entrance to the Federal Reserve building. |
Again, public protest is a common event. However, this guy was angry, loud and semi-intelligible. Even the locals were giving him wide berth. |
This much vacant sidewalk at midday is a rarity. |
Yeah, it was sunny all week while I was in the convention center (sigh). This gives a little bit of the flavor of the area. |
One of the cool specialty stores. Well, cool if you enjoy irony. They even had an Underwood 3-bank portable for sale! |
But the main reason I took the bus to Haight-Asbury is the one and only Super 7 Store! Imagine, a store full of giant robot, Star Wars, giant monster and urban vinyl paraphernalia. Nerd heaven!
Unexpected bonus: the first Kid Robot store was just up the street!
And with one last awesome storefront, we shall bid the fair city of San Francisco adieu.
Hmmm...let us see if I can think of something creatively snarky to say about my Copyright to the text and images contained herein this little blog of mine. Well, I own it all! Bwa, ha, ha. Yes, so greedy of me in this open-source world; but that is just the way it is. Images may be used for non-commercial purposes with attribution pointing back to this blog or to my Picasa collection. They may not be utilized for commercial purposes without express permission from the owner - that being Dwayne F. I know: that which can be published digitally can be hacked. Go ahead. Just see what happens. I happen to have a fleet of giant robots and monsters at my command. Remember what happened to poor San Francisco in my last post. I repeat: bwa, ha, ha.
Saturday, November 10, 2012
Off to San Francisco and Pre-travel Ramblings
Bad Godzilla! Drop that rhino, right now! |
Greetings, all! I'm sorry for the scarcity of posts as of late, but life has been busy and complicated. Tomorrow, I get on the plane for San Francisco! In looking for maps and background information, I ran across this unfortunate story on Google news. It appears that an undersea earthquake caused the usual awaking of giant monsters. Poor San Francisco!
Thank goodness local emergency management officials planned ahead and built up their inventory of giant robots! The battle of the titans will no doubt cause much damage and chaos. However, this is a near montly event in the Bay Area. I have faith that the BART will still be running on time.
As for this beautiful city, I probably won't see a lot of it. I am attending Greenbuild; the main event for everything related to sustainable buildings. The sessions will be great along with four evening receptions and a day spent with the third-party laboratory and certifier I work with. Yes, pity me. I will be trapped inside a convention center from sunup to sundown.
There is supposed to be a really nice typewriter shop in Berkeley. I'll be within a mile or two of it during some Monday meetings, but probably won't make it there. <sigh> I most likely will make it to the Super7 store! It is home to many amazing vinyl monsters and is pretty much Nerdvana.
It will be a week or two before the next entry. The recent event summary goes like this: My oldest daughter has been down with a migraine for several days. We tried to deal with the swirling vortex of leafpocalypse today. The wind is not helping. I did a major garage cleaning and organizing binge last weekend and now have some great rolling racks. The garage work bench is once again clear and I can work on my latest acquisition. I'll blog it later, but here is a little preview. No, you should not be worried - much.
As Claire noted, it is extremely beige. I'm thinking it will need to be repainted dark gray. Isn't this a nice look?
Source |
I look forward to sharing some pics from San Francisco and the Greenbuild Expo. My employer is exhibiting, but I stopped working the booth a couple years ago to immerse myself in the education and networking activities. This year I get to check out the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory and Google's Green Team lair. Nice.
Tuesday, November 6, 2012
A Typogram Received! Election Avoidance on the Blog of the Beast
It's election night. I am a serious political junkie and need a temporary distraction. I have interrupted my MSN, CNN, Politico, Wonkette and Twitter feeds to bring forth a wondrous Typogram received from Ryan Adney of Magic Margin!
Behold, the envelope! Yes, Ryan used his Royal Navy "radio mill" for the envelope. As a typeface junkie, I very much appreciate this kind gesture.
The hand drawn desert landscape reminds me of warm, sunny places. I love the actinic glare of the Valley of the Sun.
This great greeting card was inserted in the envelope. What a great graphic!
The real prize was tucked inside. This postcard is pretty much awesome. Repeat after me... we must worship the Sholes. It is mightier than mountains and cranks out words more potent than edged weapons. Besides, according to Robert Messenger, Mark Twain got pretty ornery about the Sholes' offspring.
Ryan, thanks for the spiffy Typogram. Thanks also to Anna of A Machine for the End of the World for creating The International Correspondence Initiative.
Here is the back of the postcard, also by way of the Royal Navy mill. Sweet.
As for my oblique reference to the "Blog of the Beast", I was referring to the page count as it appeared when I opened my Blogger dashboard: 24,666. Given that it is election night, there is a certain irony in the fact that my pageviews are equal to the last digits of a zip code in Topeka, Kansas. This nearby hamlet is home to our state capitol and the infamous Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church.
So, from election avoidance central, I wish you all a pleasant evening.
Behold, the envelope! Yes, Ryan used his Royal Navy "radio mill" for the envelope. As a typeface junkie, I very much appreciate this kind gesture.
The hand drawn desert landscape reminds me of warm, sunny places. I love the actinic glare of the Valley of the Sun.
This great greeting card was inserted in the envelope. What a great graphic!
The real prize was tucked inside. This postcard is pretty much awesome. Repeat after me... we must worship the Sholes. It is mightier than mountains and cranks out words more potent than edged weapons. Besides, according to Robert Messenger, Mark Twain got pretty ornery about the Sholes' offspring.
Ryan, thanks for the spiffy Typogram. Thanks also to Anna of A Machine for the End of the World for creating The International Correspondence Initiative.
Here is the back of the postcard, also by way of the Royal Navy mill. Sweet.
As for my oblique reference to the "Blog of the Beast", I was referring to the page count as it appeared when I opened my Blogger dashboard: 24,666. Given that it is election night, there is a certain irony in the fact that my pageviews are equal to the last digits of a zip code in Topeka, Kansas. This nearby hamlet is home to our state capitol and the infamous Fred Phelps of the Westboro Baptist Church.
So, from election avoidance central, I wish you all a pleasant evening.
Saturday, October 27, 2012
Halloween Horror: The Keychopping Edition
This image from ebay auction 271090064838 looks ominous. I've seen worse. The often seen polished keys perched merrily on top of a beautiful machine on etsy are a bit much. |
In all honesty, this is not a fabulous or particularly rare machine. However, I've seen plenty of uncommon machines meet the same fate.
The photo below is from another ebay auction that I didn't bother to credit. This pretty well sums up the supply and demand aspect of key chopping.
Thursday, October 25, 2012
The Terror of the Violin Master Class
Seventeen years and many thousands of hours of practice and the bow hold can still be improved upon. |
Our oldest daughter is a violinist in her high school chamber orchestra and in the Olathe Youth Symphony. Her private instructor plays with the Kansas City Symphony in the new and fabulous Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts. Your sincerely non-musical blogger has happily been immersed in a world of music. As a matter of fact, Hannah is practicing in the living room as I write this.
The Kansas City Symphony is working hard to engage the public. The master class is a unique way for a large audience to watch accomplished, rising musicians be critiqued by even more accomplished professionals. Our professional for the day is none other than Vadim Gluzman.
Vadim Gluzman telling Michael Stern and the audience about the history of his bow. It was used for the debut of one of the pieces played in class, conducted in the mid-1800s. |
As for the master class, I might have exaggerated slightly about the terror. Mr. Gluzman was gracious and professional. Hannah said that the session looked like one of her lessons. Except for the part about being on a stage... in front of an audience... with one of the best violinists in the world.
No pressure, right?
It works like this: the young violinist plays and the master follows with a critique on everything from rhythm to technique to presentation. Many of his tips were related to making the violin sing smoothly as would a vocal artist.
One of the pleasures for the audience was getting to hear the master play an instrument with pedigree: the 1690 'ex-Leopold' Stradavari. Words cannot adequately describe the sound this partnership has achieved.
Note the chin rest mark of the violinist or violist. In theory, this is partially dead tissue from extended blood flow impairment. |
At any level, teaching is about the relationship formed between the teacher and the student. This particular student has been playing for 17 years. At this level, four-plus hours of practice a day would not be unusual. It takes a very strong ego to accept coaching in front of a crowd.
The master class was followed by a question and answer period. Hannah has been been playing since fifth grade and started to develop the permanent violinists' "hickey" where the chin rest hits back in seventh grade. One of the dads in the audience had a daughter that was just starting out and inquired about the spot so prominent among the performers onstage. He left with a better idea of how much commitment and hours of practice are ahead.
Also during the question and answer period, a member of the audience presented a piece of music retrieved from the National Archives. The piece was by the composer of one of the student performances. It was in the composer's hand and otherwise unknown. Mr. Gulzman and Mr. Stern studied it; the latter commented "This isn't music! It's torture!". The former promised to give it a chance.
For an interview from a local TV station, visit http://kcstage.blogspot.com/2012/10/vadim-gluzman-interview-on-fox-4.html
As always, thanks for reading! In case you are curious, these photos were taken with a Sony NEX-3 outfitted with an adapted Olympus PEN-F 100mm f3.5 lens (circa early 1960s). Shots are handheld, manual focus, shutter priority with manual exposure adjustment by the brightness histogram. My Canon 60D is too conspicuous and the shutter is too loud for this kind of session.
Wednesday, October 17, 2012
We Obviously Need More Fountain Pens
After viewing a Master Class at the Kauffman Center, MEK, the nerdlings and I dropped by the Pen Place at Crown Center in downtown Kansas City. Yeah, that was probably a mistake. But we came for ink and we left with ink. Except for the Retro 51 glow-in-the-dark robot roller pen I picked up. I'm a sucker for robots.
Anyway, here are some examples of the temptations of Pen Place.
How about an entire wall of ink?
I have also been known to get into total guy mode. These Porsche pens are overstated, but I'm still in like with them.
As with watches, selling nice pens is all about the presentation.
Enter if you dare. Pen Place is waiting for you.
Here is the new Retro 1951 pen. It isn't a fountain pen, but it is heavy and rolls well. It glows in the dark and is probably radioactive. Did I already mention that I am a sucker for robots? The notes are from a talk at TEDxKC 2012 and are the subject of recently released book on the subject of the half life of facts. I recommend the talk and the book is getting solid reviews.
Anyway, here are some examples of the temptations of Pen Place.
How about an entire wall of ink?
I have also been known to get into total guy mode. These Porsche pens are overstated, but I'm still in like with them.
As with watches, selling nice pens is all about the presentation.
Enter if you dare. Pen Place is waiting for you.
Here is the new Retro 1951 pen. It isn't a fountain pen, but it is heavy and rolls well. It glows in the dark and is probably radioactive. Did I already mention that I am a sucker for robots? The notes are from a talk at TEDxKC 2012 and are the subject of recently released book on the subject of the half life of facts. I recommend the talk and the book is getting solid reviews.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)