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Chris Aldrich

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Musings of a Modern Day Cyberneticist

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Because I often buy index cards in tranches of 5,000 to 10,000 at a time, I’ve noticed that Oxford recently dropped their brick of 500 4×6″ index cards to $6.47, a new low for the past year when they’ve generally been hovering in the $8.50-9.50 range. As a competitive move, Amazon has dropped their competing brick … Continue reading

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Golden Globes: Nominees for Best Typewriter in a Movie or Television Series?

Thing, a disembodied hand, types on a black portable Juwel 3 typewriter.
As I’m watching the Golden Globes, it’s painfully obvious that it is missing some important analog representation. In an effort to remedy the error, shall we collect the nominations for Best Typewriter in a Movie or Television Series? (The only requirement for nomination is that the movie or television show was released in the 2025 … Continue reading Golden Globes: Nominees for Best Typewriter in a Movie or Television Series?

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On Purchasing Typewriters: Condition is King; Context is Queen

A cameo pink 1957 Royal FPP Standard Typewriter on a library card catalog next to a small blue vase of pink and purple flowers.
New typewriter enthusiasts will very often post to Reddit, one of the Facebook typewriter groups or other similar fora, something along the lines of: “I spotted this typewriter at an antique store. Good condition to buy?” and include a picture of some generic typewriter. It bears mentioning and thoroughly understanding that even an expert typewriter … Continue reading On Purchasing Typewriters: Condition is King; Context is Queen

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A clever affordance of card index filing cabinet drawers

A steel desk with several card index filing cabinets and a bookcase in the background. On the desk next to a typewriter is a double drawer of 4x6" index cards with a capacity of approximately 7,000 index cards. The drawer has obviously been pulled out of one of the card index filing cabinets in the background.
Someone recently mentioned to me that the small, portable 1,000 index card capacity cardboard box with lid that they use as a zettelkasten felt more like it was for deep storage rather than daily use. Perhaps it’s a result of the fact that this is how most people have been using these cheaper cardboard boxes … Continue reading A clever affordance of card index filing cabinet drawers

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Ricky Gervis in a black t-shirt pretends to be typing as if at an invisible typewriter
They’ve got a lovely big attic, a typewriter. You’re gonna love it there. —Ricky Gervais in Ricky Gervais: Mortality (Netflix, 2025)

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Typed index card with text: "I've got lots to say. I'm saving it all up." ---Beca Mitchell (portitayed by Anna Kendrick) Pitch Perfect 2 (Universal, 2015) Given as an excuse in a recording studio This is the reason that creatives should keep notebooks, commonplace books, or zettelkasten---so they have material to use immediately when under pressure, or simply to stimulate their creativity. 2026-01-02

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Book Club: Steven Pinker’s When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows

A dyptic photo of Steven Pinker, with gray curly hair sitting in a chari with his arms in his lap split with an image of his latest book When Everyone Knows. The title is the majority of the cover an appears in concentric thought clouds on a black background.
Dan Allosso has been hosting a regular book club since Autumn 2021, centered around sense making, note taking, and topics like economics, history, sociology, and anthropology. (See our list of past books to get an idea of topic coverage.) Our next iteration over the coming month or so will focus on Steven Pinker’s most recent … Continue reading Book Club: Steven Pinker’s When Everyone Knows That Everyone Knows

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Niklas Luhmann’s Zettelkasten Method One Pager (1968)

Wooden table with a Shaw-Walker card index on it surrounded by a copy of Norbert Wiener's Cybernetics book, a pile of index cards, a black fountain pen, and some chrysanthemums in a vase.
The internet is now rife with what I call “zettelkasten method one pagers” that describe what many people rightly (or very often wrongly) think that Niklas Luhmann’s zettelkasten method entails.  While doing some research about Luhmann’s numbering system’s antecedents, I recently came across a “one pager” (typescript) written by Luhmann himself in the form of … Continue reading Niklas Luhmann’s Zettelkasten Method One Pager (1968)

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A burgundy 1964 Sears Cutlass typewriter with white racing strips which has a typed index card in the platen that reads: "Love is so short, forgetting is so long." ---Pablo Neruda | Opening card in All Too Well: The Short Film directed by Taylor Swift

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Filing Index Cards with a C-Line Document Sorter

View down onto a table with a C-line index card sorter with alphabetical tabs full of index cards. There are 31 various flaps labeled with letters of the alphabet, the months of the year, days of the week, and days in a month which can be used to quickly file index cards.
Not surprisingly, I don’t always file away my index cards as quickly as I probably ought to. Every now and then I go through my deck of unfiled cards and try to sort them into my card index/zettelkasten. The end of the year seems like a pretty good time to clear the decks. Because I … Continue reading Filing Index Cards with a C-Line Document Sorter

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Close up from above of a burgundy Sears Cutlass typewriter with white keys. A Christmas tree with red and green lights is in the background.
A red typewriter for Christmas! And it was hiding the uncommon Sears Futura typeface (aka Smith-Corona Numode No. 61) for its American 88 No. 423 keyboard which also features the Change-A-Type functionality. (Sadly it’ll be a slog to try to find matching Numode typeface slugs to match, though some of my math slugs may work … Continue reading

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A comparison of A5 sized notebooks with 4 x 6 inch index cards on a cost per square foot basis

Three notebooks stacked up next to three separate piles of 1,300 index cards.
Notebooks Product Sheet width (inches) Sheet height (inches) pages price Area sq. ft. $/sq. ft. Hobonichi A5 Graph 5.8 8.3 288 $23.00 96.3 $0.24 Leuchtturm 1917 A5 5.8 8.3 251 $25.95 83.9 $0.31 Moleskine Hard Cover 5 8.25 192 $20.00 55.0 $0.36 Travelers Notebook 4.3 8.3 128 $11.90 31.7 $0.38   4 x 6 inch … Continue reading A comparison of A5 sized notebooks with 4 x 6 inch index cards on a cost per square foot basis

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A 4x6" lined index card with the title: A Christmas Zettel. It has a Luhmann-artig number identifier: 1225/Fa1a2a/1aLaLa/1a2a1a which looks suspiciously like the Fa La La portion of a famous Christmas song. The body of the note reads: Deck the halls with boughs of holly.
Wishing all my friends and fellow note takers a happy holidays!

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In part because of the Eaton Fire, I've been way behind on filing my index cards. Today I blew through a massive stack of about 300 index cards!

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Card catalog trays full of 5,000 index cards in salmon, blue, green, buff, and ivory.
Stocking stuffers anyone? Santa brought 6,000 index cards down the proverbial chimney today. Should have enough now to index all the books in the house? 

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The rear of a white car with Black and Yellow California license plates which read "HOBOGUY"
I know what Japanese planner this guy uses.

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Breaking News: Brodart No Longer Manufactures or Sells Library Card Catalogs

angle on a row of oak drawers with brass drawer pulls in a library card catalog
With no advance notice or apparent fanfare, Brodart, one of the major library supplies and furnishing companies in the United States, has quit manufacturing, distributing, and selling library card catalogs and library charging trays. This seems sad news for analog library enthusiasts coming just two days after Melvil Dewey’s 174th birthday on December 10th.  I’ve … Continue reading Breaking News: Brodart No Longer Manufactures or Sells Library Card Catalogs

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Photo from one home to another across the street at night. Of note is an 8 foot inflatable blue and white unicorn with candles from it's horn to the nape of it's neck making a menorah. The unicorn horn is the shamash candle.
No, you’re not dreaming, that is a blue Menorahcorn decoration on the lawn across the way. 🕎🦄🤩

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Lochby Field Folio A6 with Hobonichi A6 notebook, pens and pencils on a wooden table with some ceramic Christmas tree decorations on a nearby lazy susan
I recently asked the kind folks at Lochby “if the Folio A6 will comfortably fit 25-50 standard 4 x 6″ index cards which are slightly larger than an A6 notebook? If not, is it something you might consider for some of us ‘Hipster PDA’ tribe members in the future?”   Erring on the side of caution … Continue reading

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Brodart has recently discontinued their salmon card index cards with pre-drilled holes #23-188-218. This has been a shift since the summer of 2025, though they’re still carrying the standard salmon index cards (without predrilled holds for card catalog rods). A conversation with their customer service team seems to indicate there aren’t plans for discontinuing their … Continue reading

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Fundamentals Of Hypercomplex Numbers | UCLA Extension

Majestic green tree in front of the 3 story brick building that is part of the Math Sciences Building at UCLA
Dr. Michael Miller, a retired researcher at RAND, has been teaching upper level undergraduate/graduate level math courses for fun at UCLA Extension for over 50 years. This winter, he’ll be introducing hypercomplex numbers to those interested in abstract math: Fundamentals Of Hypercomplex Numbers. His courses are thorough and rigorous, but geared toward lifelong learners and beginners … Continue reading Fundamentals Of Hypercomplex Numbers | UCLA Extension

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I now have definitive written proof of a numeric indexing system (delineated in a popular textbook for secretaries, and published by a company which did significant business in Germany) from the mid-1920s with increasingly more detail into the 1940s and a fifth edition published in 1950. It’s exactly like, but notably predates, Niklas Luhmann’s alphanumeric … Continue reading

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Twenty Four Correspondence Filing Systems
While digging about in indexing and filing systems, I ran across this chart created by the Oxford Filing Supply Company for a special Filing Supplies section of the May 1934 issue of Office Appliances magazine (Volume 59, Issue 5). It delineates the broad characteristics of most of the major commercially available filing systems of the … Continue reading

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Zettel of the Year Awards

A black granite "index card" sits on a desk in front of a two drawer Shaw-Walker card index.
In preparing for some of my end-of-the-year review from my card index, I thought it would be interesting to choose the “Best Note of the Year”. Then it thought it might be worth choosing a “Best Insight”, “Most Surprising Note”, and a “Best Folgezettel” as well.  And if you’re going to give out an award, … Continue reading Zettel of the Year Awards

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Banner that reads IWC San Diego IndieWebCamp 2025
This has been one of my favorite events for the past two years, and after a rough 2025, this is a great way to cap off the year.  Even better, Tantek has already suggested a session on card catalogs that’s right up my alley: https://indieweb.org/2025/SD#Session_ideas. 

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Wooden table with a green hardcover copy of Principles of Indexing and Filing on top of a copy of the fourth edition featuring a filing clerk on the cover. Next to the books is a yellow library catalog card for the first edition of the books.
The first section is on the rules of alphabetization and indexing to standardize the space of ordering cards for both people’s names and company names. The second section covers some history on basic filing techniques and then goes into alphabetic, geographic, numeric, and subject indexing methods. The final sections cover the L.B Automatic (Library Bureau), … Continue reading

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Portion of a book page featuring an image of a card catalog tray full of index cards. In the front is a tab for November followed by 1/5 cut tabs numbered 1-31 followed by tabs for the months December - October.
Watching people online chat, ask questions, and generally get excited about their planners for 2026, I thought I would spend a few minutes to set up my Memindex-inspired planner version using 4 x 6″ index cards and tabbed dividers. It’s amazing how useful a $2.50 block of 500 index cards can be for planning out … Continue reading

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Yellow library index card with red lines and typed book details for Principles of Indexing and Filing.

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You’re Invited to Another Southern California Type-In!

View of the front street entrance of Vroman's Bookstore. An elegant purple lettered sign hangs over the door. In the foreground is an artistic and quirky plastic red "chair" in front of a Little Free Library box. On the adjacent wall is the window for Tepito Coffee with a yellow lettered sign. Beside this is a painted wall mural featuring a typewriter painted in red with a page coming out of it that reads: I will forever be in love with you. And that's not fiction.
“Like a jam session for people who like typewriters. You had unions do sit-ins and hippies do be-ins, so I thought, ‘We’ll do a type-in.’” —Michael McGettigan, 56, bike shop owner who coined the phrase With attendees from 8 months old to over 80, our Spring type-in was so successful, we’re hosting another one before … Continue reading You’re Invited to Another Southern California Type-In!

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There’s so much interesting to like in this post, but of particular interest to me is Gloria Steinem’s use of Wilson’s Memindex as her diary/to do list in 1960! Special thanks to my new friend Julian O’Shea who tipped me off to this little bit of history.