Glass is technology!
I've got a lot to say about Uranium Glass. CLICK HERE to see my new page all about it!
Remington Portable Typewriter - Model 5
Fixing up this 1930s typewriter was a recent weekend project for me, and it was quite rewarding. I've been looking for a fully manual typewriter for a while because I've been recently obsessed with the idea of creating a fully offline/analog zine. As a child of the '90s, I never knew a world without computers. And yet, analog ephemera from yesteryear is all around us. I found a Star Trek fanzine from the '70s at a thrift store. This zine wasn't made with a computer and there is no digital footprint of it anywhere. It's "lost media" in my hand, and I adore its fleeting nature. And so, I've been on the lookout for a manual typewriter (I'm still looking for a hand-crank spirit duplicator! That would allow me to realize my dream of a fully-analog zine).
I found it at a Goodwill near my house for $10, and it even had an extra ink ribbon in the case. One problem though-- the carriage doesn't move at all. After some research, I found that there is supposed to be a string on a spring which pulls the whole carriage along. Sure enough, remnants of that string were inside its case. I cut a new string of approximately the same length, wound it around the spring, and BAM! It (mostly) works now! There is something so gratifying about fixing a mechanism and seeing it work. Typing with it is also fun... in a world of UNDO and BACKSPACE, typing on a manual typewriter really makes you carefully consider each word. I've written a few journal entries with it, and typing feels more intentional and thoughtful than even handwriting.
Elegoo Mars 2 and UV Curing
I bought the Elegoo Mars 2 3D printer to make miniatures for my tabletop RPGs. It is definitely a hobby unto itself, and I've got much more to say about it than I can put in this short review. Suffice to say, I love it and I love the quality of miniatures that it spits out. For those unaware, this uses UV-sensitive resin to print much higher quality models than possible with a traditional extrusion-based approach. It literally has a phone screen part at the bottom of a clear vat, and the phone screen beams UV light onto a moving surface, curing a hairline amount of resin. The result is an ulta-high quality product at the expense of working with hazardous chemicals. Even a drop of uncured resin on my skin will leave me with a chemical burn for months (ask me how I know). The amount of preparation, safety, and cleanup is intense, but the end product is worth it.
Once the models are cleaned thoroughly in IPA, a final cure is necessary. Here is my hack: a $10 UV nail lamp fits perfectly on a takeout container from Triangle Tavern in South Philly (IYKYK). I get that this is a niche product, but commercial UV chambers for finishing off 3D prints cost like $120, so I'm pretty happy with my cheap DIY setup. Plus, it looks like an alien spaceship.
Kobo Clara 2e
The Kobo Clara 2e is an e-ink reader, similar to Amazon's Kindle. Before buying it, I wasn't sure that I would enjoy reading books on an electronic device, but now I'm a total convert. It saves so much space, it's easy to hold (especially as compared with bulky 1000+ page fantasy tomes), and has a built-in backlight with adjustable color temperatures. Evidently, the e-Ink company holds an exclusive patent on this screen technology, so in many ways it is the same as every other ereader on the market. That is to say, the screen looks and reads amazingly. The big difference is the software experience.
I wish that the Kobo was open-source-- I would give it a wholehearted endorsement if it was. Even though it's not, it does feel good to get away from Amazon. Kobo is owned by the same company that owns Libby/Overdrive, so public library integration is seamless. It also allows a wide variety of DRM-free file types to be sideloaded with a program like Calibre (or, honestly, just drag-n-drop right into its storage). There appears to be community-made open source software for it as well, although I haven't felt the need to experiment with that yet. It's a convenient device that does everything I need and nothing more. If you want to get into the world of ereading and avoid Amazon, this is a great mainstream choice.
