Software, hardware, art – a blog of process and findings
Sometimes I consider myself a fisherman. Computer programs and ideas are the hooks, rods, and reels. Computer pictures are the trophies and delicious meals. A fisherman does not always know what the waters will yield… Often the specific catch is a surprise.
This beauty, found in a random dump of Internet Archive books: a set of practice texts for (I think) reading shorthand, this one from 1851. Like alien language mixed with steampunk curly lettering.
An “image dissector tube” from the Farnsworth Pickup Camera, 1936. Via archive.org.
A few interesting images, via this great-looking show “Data (after)Lives: The Persistence of Encoded Identity” at the University of Pittsburgh.
Above, Francis Galton’s notation for fingerprints from this book; below, his own fingerprints arranged in a paw-like formation.
Can’t get enough of this cover from Beginner’s BASIC, from 1979.
Two library checkout punch cards, found in books in the Bell Labs library.
Images from a wonderful booklet put out by Speedball in 1940, demonstrating hand-lettering techniques. There are lots of different styles in the book, but particularly wonderful are the Gothic ones with ghost-pens.
Download the full booklet as a PDF.
In 2nd grade, I participated in an after school mentoring program and learned some Logo. I found this gem recently, a workbook that I filled out as I wrote code. I really like the mix of printed page, code, and hand-drawn… a lot like my work now, actually.
Here’s the full workbook, if you’re interested.
I gave in and bought this amazing box set of solar forecasting maps. Contained in two cases with 18 portfolios in each, they include reproductions of hand-drawn maps from 1957. Amazing attention to detail, superb printing quality, and overall just a beautiful (albeit heavy) object.
A machine for generating paths like the ones below. From 1851, via Kinematics Of Mechanisms From The Time of Watt by Eugene S Ferguson on Project Gutenberg.
