Is there something out there like Electron, but for apps that run in a terminal window?
The last three or four weeks I’ve been pushing myself incredibly hard to be ready for a presentation that happened this morning. It went incredibly well. I’m simultaneously gratified and exhausted. TGIF!
Free idea for your website: Donnie Darkmode. Like regular dark mode, but it also adds an image of a man in a rabbit costume somewhere on the page.
Shortly I'll begin some restoration work on this lovely machine. Most of the restoration should be fairly easy after cleaning, but the majority of the work will be polishing the metal, most of which seems to be nickel plated. It doesn't seem to be as complex as later machines, so a full disassembly and cleaning should be easy work. If nothing else, it'll be much shinier when cleaned up than it is now.
I didn't expect it at all given the age of the machine, but Richard Polt has an instruction manual/parts list on his site.
Some Basic Research
I haven't done a deep dive on research for this machine beyond the Typewriter Database, The Antikey Chop, Robert Messenger's site, and the excellent history in The Typewriter Gazette. To my knowledge there's only one YouTube video on the machine with some of the functionality delineated at: I've noted that the typewriter journal ETCetera has a few mentions of Odells as well. The December 2002, Issue No. 60 of ETCetera lists the rarity and desirability rankings of the Odell No. 4 as 5.0 and 5.5 respectively.Initial Condition of My Odell No. 4
Against the odds, my typewriter came with the original box, but the paint/labeling on it is faint as to be difficult to read. I can easily make out the manufacturer's name "Farquhar & Albrecht" on the front of the box, but I think it fully reads:Farquhar & Albrecht
[undiscernable]
School and College Textbooks
378-388 Wabash Ave.
Chicago
My Odell No. 4 is missing some of the inking assembly including the inker roller and spring (part #29). It's probably not a huge loss as I would expect that I'd have to replace the roller anyway to have the machine function properly. I'm going to have to fashion some sort of replacement as I imagine a parts machine will be hard (or expensive) to come by. If anyone has photographs and precise dimensional measurements of these parts, I can have a local fabricator make something (or a handful of somethings for later replacement use or parts for others) if I can't manage it in my own shop. Otherwise I'll attempt to engineer some workable parts from photos, patents, and the instruction manual.
Mine has a split Celluloid Alphabet for Key Board (part #36), but I did find the missing piece in an envelope in the box. The broken piece is 5 characters long on the right side and is imminently repairable/restorable. I'll try to make a correct scale color facsimile for the future for those who might need restoration versions in the future. This is my first X J K M V W P L Y O F U R S A T H E I N G D B C Q Z keyboard, which seems to be designed with the most frequently used letters in the alphabet in the center of the index and the less used ones like X and Z at the ends. The information theorist in me will look at the potential mathematics that got them this arrangement.
I suspect that the spring in the shift mechanism is fine, but the others all look rusty/dodgy, so I'll either have to find replacements or fashion them so that the typewriter will work as intended.
Someone removed the bell portion on mine, but from what I can tell from a preliminary look, it appears (?) to be complete, but will take some cleaning and adjustment.
The platen has the narrowest diameter I've seen to date, and while not in great shape, isn't as horrible as I would have expected it to be for it's age. It seems solid and intact. It should be able to type well in its current condition.
In total, it'll take a bit of work to get it working as originally intended, but I should be able to tinker around and get at least a type sample out of it. If nothing else, it is a very interesting and simple, but clever, design for an index typewriter. The nickel-plated cast steel is lovely as a decorative piece, particularly with the Art Nouveau detailing.
https://youtu.be/z-j1uxBmis0
After almost 14 minutes of intro footage, this live recording has some amazing moments in context such as when the Integrity crew named the two craters on the moon, the forty minute “Loss of Signal” (LoS) as Integrity went behind the moon, came back out, then into a solar eclipse, and of course all the very efficient (and competent) communications between the astronauts and Mission Control (with video of both).
And quotes like Christina's “We do not leave Earth. We choose it.”
Lots of long durations of silence as well. Fitting for a recording of video from space. Also great for putting on in the background while working. The crew comms with control competency alone is inspiring.
Note: the #NASA and #SpaceflightNow YouTube livestreams I linked to five days ago are now only displaying the message:
“This live stream recording is not available.”
a different kind of Loss of Signal.
#liveStream #Artemis #Artemis2 #ArtemisII #Integrity #Moon #Earth #Houston #MissionControl #competent #competency
From hence forth, the Recruiting Team will be called “ChatGPT Detectives.”
Also love to see the “multi-year” prefix on the headline. They’ll obviously leave after this season if an elite program throws enough money at them, but this should protect 90% of FBS from poaching.
Shannon Dawson and Corey Heatherman signed extensions today? Best OC/DC combo in two decades. Let’s ride! 🏈 🙌🏻 #GoCanes
I ran into this odd issue when trying to add two Yubico security keys to my Google account on a Windows machine. The process on myaccount.google.com keeps prompting to “Enroll Windows Hello” in order to create passkeys.
If you want to skip the preamble, jump directly to the steps.
Whenever I clicked the “Create a passkey” button in the middle of that page, it opened the special link ms-settings:signinoptions, which opens the Windows OS settings page for sign-in options. My best guess is that Google wants the machine itself to use one of those options, but I prefer not to at this point.
I did some clicking around between the security page, two factor authentication page, and the passkeys page, both with the security key plugged in and without. I don’t remember the exact steps, but I did eventually get to the “Use another device” prompt and was able to set up the passkey on the security key. At that point, I had my first security key and my phone listed as passkeys. I wanted to add my second security key (backups!), but no matter how I tried, I could not get back to that “Use another device” prompt.
I turned to the human internet and found some threads on Reddit. This one in particular had a comment suggesting signing up for Google’s Advanced Protection Program. It is free, so it was possible, but I persisted on mostly in spite because this shouldn’t be so hard!
Fast forward through several more clicking around adventures and here is how I got it to work:
- Visit https://myaccount.google.com/advanced-protection/onboarding and sign in
- Scroll down and expand the section “Passkeys and security keys”
- Select “Create passkey”
- In the popover, select “Use another device” (screenshot below)
- Another popover with a QR code instructs to scan with a phone or tablet. Ignore that prompt and click the “Back” button at the lower left of the popover
- The QR popover will go away and you should see the prompt “Choose where to save your passkey for google.com”. Select “Use an external security key” (screenshot below)
- From that point, follow the OS prompts to enter a PIN and touch the security key
- Done! The security key now shows up in the list of passkeys
Screenshot for step 4
Screenshot for step 6
Man, what a steal. Less than half original sticker, only 27k miles, still has a year left of original warranty, loan is “free money” level APR, cut our monthly cost by half.
