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Chris Aldrich

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Musings of a Modern Day Cyberneticist

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Angle on the segment of a 1954 Royal HH typewriter featuring Pica Double Gothic typeface
Acquired via thrift on 2026-02-06. This machine continues my typewriter collection theme for 2026: hunting for great machines with less common typefaces. Gothic was an older word meaning san-serif. The “double” portion means that it’s two sets of capital letter forms. (Sorry James…)

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1936 Royal KHM standard typewriter sits on a gray felt typing pad which itself is sitting on an oak Gaylord library card catalog
After my note earlier about progress on restoring my 1936 Royal KHM typewriter, a colleague reminded me that a KHM makes an appearance in the Taylor Swift song Fortnight. Then they asked if I was just collecting machines from her videos? While I fully expect to pick up a Royal Ten one day, it’s a … Continue reading

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Yellow index card with red ruled lines featuring a type sample of a 1936 Royal KHM typewriter in Royal Pica typeface
Wiped off the worst of dust and grime on the exterior of my 1936 Royal KHM standard typewriter. Cleaned up the carriage a bit and did a light oiling. Cleaned out the paper tray and platen area. Spooled up some new ribbon. After a few quick tweaks, this typewriter is now at least minimally usable. … Continue reading

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Green crinkle painted Olympia SG1 standard typewriter sitting at an angle on a wooden library card catalog.
2026-01-31 Acquired at thrift for a very reasonable $70.  I was really hoping to get a Modern Elite No. 66 or an Elite No. 8 as my first SG1, but finding this with a Congress Elite No. 84 typeface was a reasonably acceptable alternative, particularly in usable condition. Initial condition assessment This 70 year old … Continue reading

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Grand Opening of Typewriter Muse

Typewriter Muse's typewriter showroom with 4 wire shelving units covered with about two dozen typewriters of various makes and models. Underneath the shelving is a row of typewriter cases. On the side of the room opposite the shelving is a table with space for three typewriters for typing tests.
For about 7 years Typewriter Muse has been operating out of a home-like space, but this weekend they opened a lovely brick and mortar location in Riverside, CA in a nice sized business park with plenty of Doris Day parking right out front.  Their Instagram account has been documenting some of the move and set … Continue reading Grand Opening of Typewriter Muse

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Rest in Peace: Typewriter Repair Legend Duane Jensen (August 21, 1961-January 25,2026)

Duane Jensen in a blue collared shirt sitting in his typewriter repair space in his garage
Just a few hours ago, Faye shared some sad news. Most of us might only be able to recognize his voice, his patient hands, and his preference for lacquer thinner, but all of us are richer in typewriter knowledge because of Duane Jensen’s kind sharing of his craft by way of his spectacularly helpful Phoenix … Continue reading Rest in Peace: Typewriter Repair Legend Duane Jensen (August 21, 1961-January 25,2026)

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Green metallic personal document file sits on a library card catalog next to a sandstone yellow Royal FP typewriter
Purchased at Acts Thrift for $2.20.  The green paint is almost an exact match for our vintage Stanley thermos and my 1958 Olympia SM3 typewriter.

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Typed index card that reads: On Which Typewriter is the "Best" | It's all subjective. Some days you want apples. Other days you prefer oranges. | This is why one has a collection of 50 or more typewriters—to have a machine that will suit your mood on any given day.

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Congratulations on getting this back to life. I’m a big fan of typing on index cards myself. If you need inexpensive, US-made typewriter ribbon, try Baco Ribbon or Fine Line which can be had for pennies on the dollar (and it’s usually where most shops or re-sellers of ribbon are sourcing theirs). https://boffosocko.com/research/typewriter-collection/#Typewriter%20Ribbon Most know … Continue reading

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Typed index card that reads: REASON #58 FOR KEEPING A COMMONPLACE OR ZETTELKASTEN | THE OFFICE, "Performance Review", Season 2, Episode 8 | Context: Hapless branch manager Michael Scott is under the gun from corporate to demonstrate his value and show his work and share his ideas, which he hasn't done and can't provide. | MICHAEL: Pam, I have ideas on a daily basis. I know I do. I have a clear memory of telling people my ideas. Um, is there any chance that you wrote any of my ideas down in a folder---like an idea folder? PAM: Sorry. MICHAEL: That's unfortunate. How about the suggestion box? There's tons of ideas in there.

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TIL: Moon+ Reader Pro has RSVP technology hiding in it’s settings! This is going to dramatically help my inspectional reading this year.

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I’ve just noticed that Zotero update 7.0.31 added specific fields for Original Place, Original Publisher, and Original Date for books. Even better, the books for which I had defined an “Original-date” in the Extra section automatically sucked in that data and updated my database! Good work development team!

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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. 🕎🦄🤩