Saturday, May 10, 2025
Andrew Weatherall Gear Auction at Soundgas
We are auctioning this collection of vintage synths and effects from Andrew Weatherall's studio on behalf of his family. The Andrew Weatherall gear collection timed auction is now live on the Soundgas site. Very much of interest to fans as well as vintage gear lovers. His brother Ian writes:
"We lost Andrew, totally unexpectedly, a little over five years ago and I know that time can be a great healer, but the massive sense of loss has not subsided at all. He was not only my older brother, but also my hero.
He achieved everything on his own terms.....no compromise!
His creativity was matched by his intelligence and quest for knowledge, whilst maintaining the most wicked sense of humour.
Sunday, January 5, 2025
Greatest Road Hotels in America
CLASSIC MOTOR LODGES ARE IN A COMEBACK ERA, SETTING NEW STANDARDS FOR ROADSIDE HOSPITALITY. THESE ARE OUR 27 FAVORITES ACROSS THE US.
https://www.wildsam.com/stories/best-road-hotels-in-america-motor-lodges
Over the last two decades, a small but growing number of these “motels” have been revived and reimagined by hospitality pros who see potential in the right kind of unfussy motor inn. The evolution has even sparked road lodging options that defy old tags and expectations, blending the best of campgrounds, B&Bs, cabins, and resorts, into a fresh category of what we’re calling the “Road Hotel.”
Wednesday, December 6, 2023
How American Librarians Helped Defeat the Nazis
How American Librarians Helped Defeat the Nazis
Recruited to the war effort thanks to their deft research skills and technological know-how, librarians used microforms to gather and share intelligence with Allied forces.
By: Katie McBride Moench, Accessed on November 29, 2023, JSTOR Daily
https://daily.jstor.org/how-american-librarians-helped-defeat-the-nazis/
In war, as in everything, information is power. And for the United States and its allies in World War II, an epic battle from an analog age, that meant obtaining and transmitting by hand useful intel—like the development of destructive new weapons—before the Nazis could prevent their enemies from getting it.
Enter the librarians, tapped by US government officials to help in this effort. These librarians adopted technology from other fields to photograph an array of documents, including those that were rare and/or archival, and found means of sending them across continents. They used both microfilm and microphotography—technologies that came to play a key role in the wars of the twentieth century.
Saturday, September 23, 2023
Antique book patterns
A collection of antique book patterns from front or end papers. Spanning from 1890-1930.
Ordered by theme.
by Bergen Public Library
Tuesday, September 5, 2023
Where do fonts come from? This one business, mostly
https://thehustle.co/where-do-fonts-come-from/
Ten years ago, Cindy Thomason was walking down the stairs at home when she heard her phone ring.
On the other end was an executive from Warner Bros. Entertainment, calling to let her know that a font she designed would be featured in the upcoming blockbuster adaptation of The Great Gatsby.
“I had to sit down,” Thomason says. “I’m just somebody who decided to design a font on a whim.”
A nurse in suburban Virginia, Thomason began tinkering with fonts in her free time using a software package she bought for $100. She’d listed the font, which she named Grandhappy, on an online marketplace called MyFonts.
That’s where producers from Warner Bros. found it, and bought it to use as Jay Gatsby’s handwriting in the 2013 film.
It should have been a dream come true, a big break for a hobbyist font designer. But Thomason’s cut for her design’s feature-film cameo was a whopping $12 — not even enough to recoup what she paid for her design software.
Saturday, August 19, 2023
How Carl Linnaeus Set Out to Label All of Life
He sorted and systematized and coined names for more than twelve thousand species. What do you call someone like that?
by Kathryn Schultz August 14, 2023 The New Yorker
Sunday, August 13, 2023
https://themorningnews.org/p/how-to-fold-three-great-paper-airplanes
John Collins, who set the Guinness World Record for farthest flight by a paper aircraft in 2012, demonstrates how to fold three planes: a Suzanne (named after his wife), a tube, and a stunt plane called the boomerang.
A database of paper airplanes with easy to follow folding instructions, video tutorials and printable folding plans. Find the best paper airplanes that fly the furthest and stay aloft the longest. Learn how to make paper airplanes that will impress your friends.
, video tutorials and printable folding plans. Find the best paper airplanes that fly the furthest and stay aloft the longest. Learn how to make paper airplanes that will impress your friends.
Wednesday, August 2, 2023
Reading Well by Simon Sarris (July 17 2023)
The Map is Mostly Water
https://map.simonsarris.com/p/reading-well
Reading is alluring. It has a nameless quality beyond satisfying desires for information and pleasure. Despite more colorful and interactive media, reading text somehow remains more refined, more seductive. There is a visceral feeling to good reading. Partly this is because reading is nearly solitary.At the beginning you are alone with just the characters. By the end, you are alone with just the author. To hear him well demands no other distractions. When one reads, or at least when I read, it is always very slowly and in a voice. Perhaps you have already imagined a voice you are reading this in. Say hello for me.
Reading is letting someone else model the world for you. This is an act of intimacy. When the author is morose, you become morose. When he is mirthful, eventually you may share in it. And after finishing a very good book one is driven a little mad, forced to return from a world that no one nearby has witnessed.
Saturday, July 22, 2023
How secret languages thrive behind bars
On a now-private Facebook page, a prison guard in Texas casually joked last month about wanting to “gas” prisoners (throw urine or feces at them). Others in Georgia and Missouri posted about putting inmates in “the box” or “the hole” (slang for sending them to disciplinary confinement).
The incident, which was revealed by local journalists, led to prison officials promising disciplinary measures, up to termination, for the guards. But it also provided a rare window into the language that grows behind prisons walls, as well as the prison culture of casual violence — one reason that this vernacular exists.