@glennf@twit.social
@glennf@twit.social avatar

glennf

@glennf@twit.social

Glenn researches and writes about the history of printing, focused particularly on newspaper comics and printing molds. Pre-order his book How Comics Were Made. He’s a long-time technology journalist, who contributes regularly to Macworld and TidBITS and writes books in the Take Control Books series. A former Amazon employee (1996–97) who used to eat burritos with Bezos, Glenn is more interestingly a two-time Jeopardy! winner.

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clive, to random
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Struggling to remain strong enough not to mouse over onto this clickbait

but I'm losing the battle

i'm losing

glennf,
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@clive WHY HANG PENNIES IN A BAG WHEN ALONE, CLIVEEEEEE

glennf, to random
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The puzzle company The New York Times shows stories on the main page of its app that I, as a subscriber, have to pay extra to read without any marking until I tap on the story. Great strategy.

glennf,
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@jsnell Weirdly, no. Wirecutter, I know there's a monthly limit, but I don't seem to hit it. Cooking, yes, but again, some Cooking stories/recipes are free, too. Baffling—not a consistent experience in notification or use.

dmoren, to random
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Not going to lie: lately I’ve been wondering if any of my work—podcasting, books, tech writing—is really reaching people. But it’s all worth it on those days when some random listener sends an email out of the blue to tell me just how much I’ve affected them.

glennf,
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@dmoren I like what you do, Dan.

glennf,
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@Gte like likes like, as they say

lexfri, to random
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Am I doing release notes right?

glennf,
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@lexfri Better than good

glennf, to random
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Listen, I know the universe doesn’t work this way. But I’m listening to a podcast and someone on the podcast says the word “mat” at the moment I am filling in the word “mat” in the crossword puzzle, it just feels weird! Yes, yes, every other word in the crossword puzzle, they didn’t say.

glennf,
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@kdawson “I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!" —Richard Feynman

glennf, to random
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No matter what you think of Thomas as a jurist, it is clear he is telling the truth when he believes he has done nothing wrong and that everyone else is the problem. He is delusional. Great attribute for his position.
https://mastodon.social/@indivisibleteam/112440656178031628

glennf, to random
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Note to self: when sitting close to the stage and a comedian makes a prostate joke and he looks at you, maybe don't give him two thumbs up.

glennf,
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@overholt cough, please

bruces, to random
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*Where have I seen this before? Something something Japan something Detroit something

glennf,
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@bruces Except that the Chinese models don't conform to U.S. safety standards nor have warranties and safeguards for consumers required by the U.S. government and additionally by various states that have their own rules. And the Chinese government is significantly subsidizing R&D and other expenses, and the renminbi is artificially held to a range of exchange rates. Plus forced labor may be involved: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/interactive/2023/electric-vehicles-forced-labor-china/

glennf,
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@ScotttSee Those aren't the safety rules.

glennf,
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@nus Exactly. The Nissan Leaf is ~$28K before tax and gets ~120–140 miles of range. If it were smaller and more efficient (with new battery tech), something like it could be safe, warrantied, meet the rules, and cost < $20K. A Chinese car of the same sort that went through the same process would be cheaper…because of China’s unlevel playing field with currency and subsidies.

glennf,
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@ScotttSee Fair, and I absolutely agree it sucks—but it’s reality. It means EVs can be more cheaply made in other countries with a more sensible mix of cars and thus different safety rules. But my point would remain the same: the big cars aren't getting off the road soon (let's have $10/gallon gas, though), and the huge number of other safety rules unrelated to that part of them remain an issue for importing Chinese cars.

glennf, to random
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Industry-wide anti-stalking alerts for low-power, long-life Bluetooth trackers now available in iOS 17.5 and rolling out to Android 6.0 and later. https://www.apple.com/newsroom/2024/05/apple-and-google-deliver-support-for-unwanted-tracking-alerts-in-ios-and-android/ This cross-platform approach provides alerts when any tracker, just not ones from the native ecosystem of AirTags/Find My Network (Apple) or Find My Device (Google). Some companies offering non-iOS/Android tracking—Chipolo, eufy, Jio, Motorola, and Pebblebee—have committed to the standard, too.

splorp, to random
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Reinstalling BackBlaze on my father-in-law’s Mac mini because what the heck happened how did he do that I don’t even know how that is possible.

glennf,
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@splorp “I clicked the thing and then the thing said something. Then I clicked that thing.” (Transcript of my dear late mother in law—who used a Mac for THIRTY YEARS PROFESSIONALLY—explaining something that went wrong.)

joesteel, to random
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High tech gadgets coverage from CBS 8 in San Diego https://youtu.be/nwZadMzQIks

glennf,
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@joesteel Fun fact: I used to be on local TV news regularly, as they wanted to go film "the Internet" and I had "the Internet" in my webhosting office. Sadly, video from the local channels from the 90s doesn't seem to have been posted in any archives.

glennf,
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@joesteel I did remember to VCR this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WRgD5StBcys

glennf, to random
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The guy who distorted the impact of comic books on children, Fredric Wertham, leading to a national moral panic frenzy, was not a cardboard villain. A self-proclaimed "anti-racist," he partnered with Richard Wright to open an affordable mental health care clinic in Harlem. Dr Wertham raised money from conservatives from the comic-book scare that fed into keeping the clinic operating. https://daily.jstor.org/fredric-wertham-cartoon-villain/

glennf,
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@njpozner @Gte I had never heard a word about this before! But lots of citations.

CitizenWald, to books
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The Complicated Ethics of : Literary treasures are too often hidden away from the public—but the world of private collecting isn’t all bad. - The Atlantic

https://www.theatlantic.com/books/archive/2024/05/rare-book-private-collection-ethics/678254/?utm_campaign=books-briefing&utm_content=20240503&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=The+Books+Briefing

Not sure it's as complicated as all that 😀 (especially compared with other fields), the more so as it's from a collector and in effect answers its own question (attached). But good to put the issues out there. Also nice that features local collector Lisa Baskin

Many rare books, manuscripts, and items in the collections at these institutions are donated by or purchased from private collectors. In other cases, a donor supplies the funds for an institution to make general or specific acquisitions. If you've visited the permanent “Polonsky Exhibition of the New York Public Library’s Treasures,” you might have seen one-of- a-kind items on rotation, such as an early manuscript draft of Oscar Wilde’s 7he Importance of Being Earnest, a lock of Mary Shelley’s hair, and a page from the manuscript of an unpublished chapter of 7he Autobiography of Malcolm X. These pieces were “acquired through the generosity of” a donor or were donated by a collector.
Collectors tend to donate or sell their collections to institutions if they don’t put them back into the marketplace via auction houses or rare-book sellers. “Collecting isn't mere shopping,” Heritage said. “The best collecting requires vision, passion, knowledge, and creativity—and, above all, persistence.” Collecting, for Heritage, has the capacity to be a form of advocacy through the creation of knowledge and the ability to tie together strands of knowledge that otherwise couldn’t be done unless one has a lifelong devotion to a particular subject. Some collectors have honed niche collections that have since been deposited in libraries (either wholly or partially). Walter O. Evans collected Black artwork and literature that now constitute mainstay collections—such as the Walter O. Evans Collection of Frederick Douglass and Douglass Family Papers and the Walter O. Evans collection of James Baldwin—at Yale’s Beinecke Rare Book & Manuscript Library. The Douglass papers in Evans’s collection have been digitized so that scholars, students, and the public can access them.

glennf,
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@bookish I tried to watch the Age of Adaline, which was cute, but had to stop when the rich guy semi-stalking her says he won't donate the rare books to the library at she works unless she goes on a date with him! BLEAH.

glennf, (edited ) to random
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I am down to 30 copies (as of May 18) of Six Centuries of Type & Printing, a letterpress-printed book in an edition of 425. The book traces printing with type before Gutenberg through the present day across all technological developments. Typeset in hot metal in North Yorkshire, printed in London, bound in Germany, the hardcover book is covered in green cloth and comes in a slipcase of the same fabric. https://glog.glennf.com/tiny-type-museum-time-capsule-and-more/six-centuries-letterpress Some copies remain with Tiny Type Museum slipcase stamping.

glennf,
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@Sylvhem Thank you so much! It was a wild ride, as I wrote it in late 2019 and then it was printed and bound into the face of the pandemic. I had the most amazing time designing the endpapers, which I drew by hand, adapted in Illustrator, send to the printer, who then made a photopolymer plate for letterpress printing them. The interior is hot-metal type; just the endpapers are digital-to-analog.

glennf,
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@Sylvhem It was a bit of a stretch to make it happen. It's possible to get hot-metal typesetting from a number of people (in the U.S.; fewer elsewhere). But none of them will print a book from it. There are letterpress book printers I could contract who typically work with photopolymer—but I'd done a book like that. Phil at Hand & Eye works with a former employer who bought his Monotype hot-metal gear! So they are maybe unique.

glennf, (edited ) to random
@glennf@twit.social avatar

Pre-orders are now available for How Comics Were Made!
• Order the ebook or print edition
• Upgrade rewards if you pledged in the campaign
• Get some of the exciting high-tier rewards in limited supplies while they last

Go to https://howcomicsweremade.ink/order to place your pre-order or upgrade! Slated to start shipping in October. (The book will be printed in a limited quantity.)

https://twit.social/@glennf/112004543167309282

glennf,
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You can also get one of my last 35-or-so copies of Six Centuries of Type & Printing, for $25 off if you pre-order How Comic Were Made as a print edition (or a higher tier). https://howcomicsweremade.ink/order Read more about Six Centuries at https://glog.glennf.com/tiny-type-museum-time-capsule-and-more/six-centuries-intl

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