Princess Sparklefists

Tonight in class we watched this documentary called Farewell, Etaoin Shrdlu about the last night of hot metal typesetting at the New York Times. (It was in 1978; after that they started using computers.) We've all heard how print newspapers are dying, which I think is a shame, so I thought it was pretty cool learning how the type was produced and put together to print the pages of the paper. Yeah, I'm a big nerd. I know it.

"etaoin shrdlu" is a pre-qwerty character string from the keyboard on a linotype machine. Apparently there is an operational one at a museum in Baltimore that they'll let you play with if they're not busy. I kinda want to go there.


Photo by splorp on Flickr.

In other news, I've been in the new apartment for a week and things are going well. We got internet (and cable) hooked up and it's sooo much faster than the DSL I had before. To celebrate I've been watching lots of 30 Rock and Merlin when I should actually be working on my final paper for History of the Book. I'm sure it'll come together though. These things always do. Now if only this cold/sinus/allergy thing I've got would go away!

Also, new layout! I liked the old one, except the text was too small and too light, and I got tired of trying to fix it. I'm debating changing the color scheme, and maybe the font, but I don't know.