Traditional technology

Went to see Tanja at Opera Australia joint in Surry Hills the other day. Apart from seeing the backstage of where they make costumes, build stages and create props – I mainly went there to look at her new toy, a 1895 Chandler & Price letterpress.

Weighting “only” around 1 tonne, this 1x1m machine was delivered there on a crane… how else would you even move this thing?

 

Some of it’s mechanism. Very manual, very slow, very strong and apparently you need to watch your fingers.

 

Didn’t get to actually print anything this time, or take photos of any of the finished work, but when someone says they still use traditional technology – this would be a perfect example.

 

You don’t really realise how much we take our current 1,000s of fonts for granted, until you see this. Here you work with what you got. Each font, each size, each letter is separate.  Each needs to be set and I’m not even talking about the fact that most of these letters are second hand, have been used for years and now are not exactly the same height… which means your print won’t come out perfectly clear either. The results that come out are a little random, a little crooked and sometimes unclear, but that’s the beauty behind this machine. Every single print has it’s own personality, it was custom made and you will think twice before throwing it away (well, some would).

Wish I took some photos of the finished work to show, but it’s ok – next time!

ATM

In Australia we have intelligent and stupid ATMS. The rest I couldn’t care less about.

Here is an example of stupidity. We all know that every ATM will not give notes lesser then $20. This has always (in my lifetime) been the case. Sometimes I come across ATMs where to get out $60, you need to press 6000. Common sense? None.

And here is an example of something great that I saw in Gold Coast. Here you can take out not just notes, but even change. You only have $8 left in your account? No problem!

Обновляемся

Обожаю Sony Ericsson и пользуюсь исключительно им, вот уже 12 лет, и пока ни разу не разочаровался.
В этот раз решил купить smart-phone, даже не знаю, говно это или нет, но подумал — а че там, рискну! iPhone мне нравится, но в нем на мой взгляд есть мелочи недостатки, да и сделан он как игрушка… упал один раз — и пиздец! (чехлы я не люблю)

А вот тут ребята его просто разорвали, сделали очень детальное review, которое я нашел уже после покупки (первый раз купил что-то такое без детального исследования)