@glennf@twit.social
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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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glennf, to random
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An AI-generated letter from a friend is a Dicktaphone

https://mrgan.com/ai-email-from-a-friend/

Get it, it's a joke about

never mind, I’m old

glennf,
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@podfeet I was a Kelly Girl one summer! They treated me well

glennf, to random
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How do you tell the difference between someone using the Ticketmaster hack to drain your bank account and the normal and customary Ticketmaster fees? https://mashable.com/article/ticketmaster-data-breach-shinyhunters-hack

glennf, to random
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The Cybertruck is an off-road vehicle in the sense that you can’t keep it on the road.

glennf,
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@jackwellborn fly me to the moon

glennf,
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@SKleefeld Right, it should be………in……………spaaaaaaaace!

glennf,
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Musk: “The Cybertruck is vacuum tight for short periods in Earth orbit.”

glennf, to random
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On September 5, 1946, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch switched the printing of its color comics from relief letterpress to rotogravure. Rotogravure was mostly limited to fancy sections, including fashion, color photography, and advertising. The paper seems to be the only one in United States that ever chose to use the very expensive rotogravure process for comics. In these panels, you can see and compare relief versus rotogravure.

glennf,
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The comics with Dagwood and the chicken are printed by relief letterpress (photos 1 and 3). The comics with Dagwood in his pajamas are printed by rotogravure (photos 2 and 4). Compare and contrast!

Rotogravure is an incised or intaglio process. This contrast with letterpress, which is a relief or raised process. Rotogravure relies on wells of ink, which vary in depths to simulate gradations of color.

glennf,
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The ink is translucent, becoming darker when it’s drawn from more deeply etched wells. The paper is pressed onto the incised roller and it’s transferred out of the wells onto the paper. With letterpress, it’s a direct contact method, with the ink transferred by pressing directly onto raised type or line art or photos.

glennf,
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If you like this sort of thing, consider preordering my book, How Comics Were Made! https://howcomicsweremade.ink/order

daihard, to Seattle
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How much does it cost Sound Transit to opearate the fair compliance program, including staffing? How much money have they recovered from the "fare evaders" since they reinstated the program back in November? In Japan, I think nothing when a train conductor comes to my car and starts inspecting the tickets. Here, as soon as I see a fare enforcement person onboard, I feel like vomiting.

www.theurbanist.org/2024/05/28/sound-transit-platform-fare-inspection/?

glennf,
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@daihard What do you think is the difference? It feels like enforcement (we think someone did something wrong) versus practice (a normal thing on every train)? If you dig into the budget, you can see the smallest part of Sound Transit's revenue is fares (5%, 2017–2046, see “2023 Financial Plan & Proposed Budget," page 2 of 172) https://www.soundtransit.org/sites/default/files/documents/2023-financial-plan-proposed-budget-book.pdf Link is ~75% of rides, and will be 85%+ in coming years. They don't spend much, it turns out—$3m/year on admin. I don't see the staff cost.

glennf,
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@daihard I would like them to work towards eliminating fares and replacing the revenue. I wonder if they floated a plan to increase taxes and made rides 100% free across all of Sound Transit…what would that even look like? It would remove a lot of equipment, avoid having to invest in Orca's tap-and-pay replacement, remove staff, focus on safety instead of enforcement.

glennf,
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@Sablebadger @daihard In Seattle, maybe not so much. The 2016 ST3 $54 billion proposal was a big pill to swallow and it passed by 10 points. A measure that would make all Sound Transit free could be approved for, say, 10 years, cost a fraction, and be advertised as putting money back in pockets. It would also drive ridership up tremendously, reducing traffic and improving equity while taking away the bureaucratic bar for low-income application for free/reduced transit.

glennf,
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@Sablebadger @daihard It’s no infeasible. The Seattle Public Library system had a levy that erased fines—these disproportionately affect low-income people who stop taking out books because they owed money. It didn't increase book loss. Offering free school lunch for all kids also turns out to be popular, b/c people of all income levels like they are not left out even when the money isn't an issue for them.

glennf,
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@Sablebadger @daihard The 18-and-younger free rides statewide was pretty cool—and while it didn't require a vote, there were no serious complaints about it. Partly because of the perception of equity: nobody got something "free”—everybody got something they paid for!

glennf,
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@Sablebadger Also, I'd look at it this: your fellow Washingtonians have voted by clear, sometimes huge majorities to fund transportation again and again and again! I mostly drive but not very much (though have switched to public transit as much as I can and bought an e-bike; hope to be mostly not driving by next year). I was DELIGHTED to pay for transit.

glennf, to random
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When these are gone, there are no more! It’s been exciting to crack open the last box from the binder in Germany that arrived…into the heart of the pandemic back in April 2020. Seattle was shut down, and FedEx delivered 27 air-freight boxes to my doorstep. Weird times.
https://twit.social/@glennf/112355854513671996

Green_Footballs, to random
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I have to wonder how many other women Trump has bullied into having sex or outright raped, then terrorized into silence or paid them off to shut up. I’m absolutely certain he has a long history of getting away with these kinds of crimes.

glennf,
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@shoq @Green_Footballs A great financial investment would be funding those women’s legal bills so they speak out and Trump defames them. Though he won’t have money to pay them soon, I guess.

glennf,
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@shoq @Green_Footballs Oh, interesting. It would be fascinating to have that kind of funding. Like a Peter Thiel of the left…

glennf, to random
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I do, however, light bushels of $1 bills aflame every night.
https://mastodon.africa/@GrahamDowns/112513088671994941

glennf,
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@mcelhearn That’s a great incentive scheme as long as it doesn’t have a lower interest rate.

glennf,
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@mcelhearn Fantastic! 4.x% is feasible here with Apple Savings and a few other institutions that want the deposits.

glennf,
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@JonnyT @mcelhearn Not too different in the US in one sense: some banks have minimum deposits below which you get 0.25% or 0.50% interest; if you have enough money, you can get 4%+. Apple Savings appears to be at least one exception (you get 4+% on dollar one), but you need to have good credit to get an Apple Card and need an Apple Card to apply for Apple Savings, so…

glennf, to random
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Concerned about hidden cameras in a rental property, hotel, or elsewhere? I compiled some non-alarming advice in the wake of Airbnb’s "no cameras inside" policy revision that went into effect May 1. https://tidbits.com/2024/05/27/find-hidden-cameras-while-traveling/

glennf,
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@gglockner Hotels aren't always an option for cost of family size. Find me a hotel that we can afford for 4 to 11 people with adjoining rooms!

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