OK, not everything was perfect the first time around, and I am guessing things aren't perfect now, either, but it's good enough. Still working on things like backfed interactions using Brid.gy and fiddling with webmentions, but I'll figure it out later.
If all goes well, this will be the very first production post on the new site.
Boom! After a lot of battling ESPHome, I've got my microWakeWord model deployed and responding with "Hey Demerzel." So cool :)
In the background, I've got my M4 Mac Mini training a microWakeWord model with 50 samples of me saying "Hey Demerzel" along with 50,000 TTS generated samples. Not super confident about this part, but its worth a try. I've gotta say, the M4 is impressively powerful, even at its lowest spec.
Progress on my OpenClaw HA Voice PE device! First pass used a proxy to pass the speech-to-text output into `openclaw agent` on the CLI, await a response, and then send it back to HA, which would use TTS to speak a response. Working on updating the proxy to use WebSocket for streaming responses.
Rad. I got my OpenClaw assistant hooked up to Home Assistant Voice! Now I can talk to her in my office. Next up is training a custom wake word using openWakeWord so I can say “Hey, Demerzel” 🤖
The Orenznero has an automatic feed mechanism so you always have *just* the right amount of lead. No more clicking, no more broken lead. It rules. It’s just… too light!
This is your regularly scheduled over-engineered Japanese mechanical pencil update! The Rotring 600 feels the best in the hand, but the Pentel Orenznero is easily the best to actually write with.
The new site project is getting so close! Working through webmentions support, responsive design on mobile, CI/CD, and tests. After that, it’s migration time! I have a decent backlog of future improvements, but they can wait. Ready to be free of PHP and MySQL 😄
I just learned that Apple is adapting Mistborn for TV and Brandon Sanderson has been given complete creative control. One of my all time favorite series! 🤘
My birthday is in July, just after this new LEGO set is released...
Are you sinking your teeth in during Eternal Caturday?
Coming up for the next few weeks, the Dan Allosso Book Club will focus on Cesar Hidalgo's new book, out this month in the United States:
Hidalgo, César A. 2026. The Infinite Alphabet: And the Laws of Knowledge. New York: Penguin.
The first session will be on Saturday, February 21, 2026, and will recur weekly from 8:00 AM – 10:00 Pacific. Our meetings are welcoming and casual conversations over Zoom with the optional beverage of your choice. We'll cover the first two parts in the first meeting.
To join and get access to the Zoom links and the shared Obsidian vault we use for notes and community communication, ping Dan Allosso with your email address.
Happy reading!
My website has been hobbling along for about two weeks now. Sadly I've either been away or too under the weather to clean things up. Hopefully a bit of work this morning has improved things. We'll see how stable things are going forward.
After my about progress on restoring my , 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 total coincidence. She's obviously got great taste in vintage typing machines.
Wiped off the worst of dust and grime on the exterior of my . 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. This has one of the cleanest and crisp typing actions of any of my machines despite being one of the dirtiest and worst conditioned machines in my fleet. It has a reasonable carriage return speed, but may be one of the fastest typers I've got. I can't wait to see how well it does once it's had a full COA. The tabulator is going to require some heavy work.
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 standard typewriter is in reasonable condition, but will require a full clean/oil/adjust as well as the following repairs:- left shift key broken off and key lever bent
- blow out old desiccated foam
- 5-6 sticky keys; remainder are slower than they ought to be
- broken paper support (surprise!)
- de-rust some of the internals
- replace ribbon and poorly matched spools
- recover platen
- carriage grinding on return
- new feet (old, hard, chipping)
- replace foam with new felt
- the aligning scales for the Perspex card holders aren't functioning properly (broken or missing a spring?)
- polish keys and spacebar
- brights all need attention and polishing
Repairs on 2026-02-02
With some of the quick repairs listed below, I've got this machine up to the level of pretty good acceptable daily use condition. It'll definitely be a serious member of the rotation once the C/O/A is finished. If it had a more standard typeface it might have a shot at replacing my elite Royal KMG.- basic wipe down of dirt, dust, etc.
- fixed carriage grinding on return
- replaced spools and ribbon with nylon blue/green
- blew out old foam as well as other internal dust and cobwebs
- basic cleanout of segment to get keys unstuck and working well enough
- basic oiling of carriage rails and one or two additional spots
Typesample and Slugs