Damian’s notes

Takahē: A new ActivityPub server, written in async Django. Still in early stages but I find the outline of the architecture interesting in how it contrasts with what has become conventional web-app design.

Printing Films: an archive of industrial films about printing, typography, & journalism. Including ‘Farewell etaoin shrdlu’, about the last night of hot metal typesetting at The New York Times.

Specimen Books of Metal & Wood Type is a catalogue of digitized typeface specimens available online from various institutions. I didn’t know there were specimens dating as far back as 1567!

I’ve built my third Quefrency keyboard, but alas! for the first time managed to break a kit while building it. Luckily the affected keys are ones I don’t normally use, but I am sad not to have a perfect build to show off. 🥲

The Teenage Engineering Choir is a collection of eight stylized wooden dolls, each with its own voice and vocal range. They can perform solo or in groups, and can be controlled via MIDI over Bluetooth LE.

They don't have a permanent page for this: it’s on their home page.

I rather wish every logging framework had at the top of its web site landing page a prominent link to the effect "Are you working on a project that already has SomethingLog4J logging? Maybe you want a _recipe for adjusting logging levels of a particular class_!"

Almost always I do not want the 10-page tutorial that starts with explaining the concepts of loggers, appenders, etc.,— I just want to be told where to find and how to tweak the config of an existing system.

If you are the sort of person who has a customized mechanical computer keyboard and also fond memories of the ZX Spectrum computer from the 1980s, you may be amused to learn of KAM Wraith, an evocative keycap set in thick dye-sublimated PBT.

MD Polychrome is a retro-futuristic type family inspired by the 1960s typefaces inspired by Magnetic Ink Character Recognition (MICR) symbols.

Here’s an article in the Financial Times about the Digital Benin project and its implications for the restitution of cultural objects held in foreign museums.