WillAdams

Not a PDF, the ePub --- each Amazon Kindle has associated with it an e-mail address, which when a file is e-mailed to it, will be automatically converted and loaded (once the sender is white-listed) --- that way, each new issue would just automagically appear.

I just noticed that too.

Do they offer a facility for automatically mailing the epub file to a specified e-mail address (I'm thinking the Amazon Kindle conversion e-mail) --- that might push me over into a subscription.

There are two sorts of folks working in the trades: the ones who claim to have multiple years of experience, but in truth have the same year of experience repeated, and those who for each year they have worked, have applied the past towards learning and improving their mastery of the craft.

See: https://rainfordrestorations.com/category/woodworking-techni...

Yeah, my great aunt's bridge partner's husband had a cabinet shop which I used to hang out in after school when I missed the bus --- learned a lot by osmosis just hanging out and helping and doing odd chores.

When he passed away, his wife rented the shop out, to a drug addict who pawned off all the tools he could sneak out in his car.... when there was eventually an auction, not much was left, but I did at least get to buy an (empty) toolbox he had had me assemble from scrap lumber (which I still have on my workbench as a remembrance).

That said, for a flip side look at this sort of thing, consider the case of Charles Babbage trying to get his Analytical Engine made and the dispute over who owned the tooling, him or Joseph Clement, with the latter winning because at the time, a workman owned his tools, even if they were specifically constructed for a customer's project.

I dunno about fulfilling career, but I have to admit that I often use BlockSCAD:

https://www.blockscad3d.com/editor/

to rough out designs as well as simple algorithms for OpenSCAD and ultimately, PythonSCAD for my current project:

https://github.com/WillAdams/gcodepreview

Obviously I need to start with a far simpler and more basic text.

A notable context where the the on-curve node placement rules do matter is font design where the node placements interact with hints and are useful for ensuring consistency and consistent rounding when filling in pixels.

Further, these rules facilitate using the shift key to constrain off-curve node placement to in-line w/ the matching on-curve node horizontally or vertically.

A more interesting question might be, "What would homesteading independence look like in the 21st century in terms of sustainability and so forth?"

An interesting extension on this is that the pencil manufacture which made his family wealthy is now workable on a small scale (allowing for the input of materials):

https://bridgecitytools.com/products/pp-1-pencil-precision

I have been reading:

https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/192405005-hypermedia-sys...

and still having a hard time wrapping my mind around all of this.

The thing which I would really like to see is a stand-alone IDE with a straight-forward "Hello World" as an on-ramp.

The thing is, the problematic curves often violate the rules put forward as best practices:

- place nodes at extrema (top/bottom, left/right)

- place nodes at points of inflection (middle of an _S_ curve)

- where possible/appropriate observe the "rule of 30" and place off-curve nodes not quote one-third of the way towards the other on-curve node

If one expected (or enforced) those rules, does the problem/math become easier?

Where possible, there should be keyboard shortcuts/navigation.

Where appropriate, the labeling of fields and so forth should be such that it will work for a screen reader.

Often, the expedient option is to use an HTML front-end so that one can off-load most of that to the user's selection of web-browser (and where possible, things should be engineered so that Lynx is a valid option).

That said, I use OneNote and Macromedia Freehand and so forth w/ a stylus --- horses for courses.

Agreed.

This is the stuff of magic and folklore, and neatly resolved by Ursula K. LeGuin in _A Wizard of Earthsea_.

The thing which I kind of miss is the Stardate calendar app, which made managing class schedules more fun and less of a chore.

Yes, I'm familiar with his work --- it's very nice, but it's not the on-line and animated/interactive thing I was trying to describe/specify/ask about.

One of my favourite sites! and an interesting example of that class of sites which are book made into sites with animations/interaction --- the another classic and notable example is:

https://mathcs.clarku.edu/~djoyce/java/elements/elements.htm...

Really wish that the folks doing the 507 Mechanical Movements would finish the balance of the animations.

Curious if folks are aware of other similar text/website combinations which are still extant (many others such as Bembo's Zoo are no longer available, and of course at one point in time, this sort of thing was the province of CD-ROMs such as Leonardo).

Classic example of Gate's avariciousness at the expense of others is:

https://www.folklore.org/MacBasic.html

The clickthrough behaviour used to be the default in NeXTstep (and it was one of the things which I misliked not having when switching from my Cube to my work Mac and ThinkPad portable ages ago).

The apps it works in are probably written in Cocoa née "Yellow Box" (allegedly so named because Bill Gates stated that rather than write apps for NeXT APIs he would instead....)

The way I fix it when using my Mac these days is to only use apps written using Objective-C and so forth.

Yes, but aside from novels (in Japan), not much is written/created on cell phones --- an OS presumably would've had a development environment which might have caused the OS to continue on after education was done.

Well, there used to be nxhosting back in the NeXT days, which I _really_ miss.

Unfortunately, it relied on Display PostScript and Quartz née Display PDF isn't architected to allow that sort of remote display/access on a per application level.

For more of the same (though I wish source was available) which actually does something useful, see the various small utilities at

https://www.grc.com/freepopular.htm

The classic example of writing tight and efficient code is:

https://folklore.org/Negative_2000_Lines_Of_Code.html

Which is something I argue against constantly (and at least my local library tries hard not to) --- discarded books are placed on tables near the children's area usually and folks are free to pick them up (it might be that a few of them are sold, I certainly get a lot of ex-library books when buying on Thriftbooks and Better World Books).

A partial solution there is of course a larger budget and a "last copy" policy where the last copy of a text at least is stored away in deep storage against a future loan.

The local libraries also accept book donations for an annual fund-raising sale.

At a minimum, it was set by the Japanese Ministry of Education to be used on all computers in schools from primary through college --- if implemented there would have been an entire generation of Japanese students who grew up with that OS.

"Whoever destroys a book destroys a link in the chain of human knowledge"

-- Thos. Jefferson

Twist on that was the fake immunization campaigns run in Pakistan so as to find relatives of Osama Bin Laden.

Or, just check Strom Thurmond's list of children on Wikipedia.

As a slightly different take on this, a pervasive rumour in the pen computing circles is that one of the reasons Jobs killed the Newton was that the USMC had just had a very successful test of the Newton MessagePad and some sort of wireless communication system and was looking to get Apple registered as a defense contractor so that they could implement them service-wide.

Unfortunately, this story was playing out in _Pen Computing Magazine_ and so forth, which doesn't seem to have a digitized/searchable archive --- anyone have any links or insights?

Yeah, Rob Blessin of Black Hole Computing bought the Cubes and Slabs (sans hard drives) when the CIA moved on to white hardware. At the time, I didn't have the need/funds for a spare, but did grab a NeXT-branded Canon inkjet printer.

I wonder if one can do the reverse? Turn in a physical check and get an account?

Unfortunately, one no longer gets physical checks, instead, one gets an account in The Bank of the Island of San Seriffe:

https://www-cs-faculty.stanford.edu/~knuth/boss.html

(unfortunately, I have yet to find another typo since getting my $2.88 for _Digital Typography_)

For an example of this, see:

https://www.reddit.com/r/openscad/comments/1p6iv5y/christmas...

(a blind person using OpenSCAD to create 3D models using an LLM and also by direct programming/editing)