Morrick's old scrapbook

Morrick's now dormant tumblelog, waiting for a good idea to wake up again.

[morrick]

Third micro test.

[morrick]

Second micro test.

[morrick]

Micro test.

[morrick]

Meet the Minoltas

It all began about a month ago. The 50mm lens you see attached to the Minolta XG1 originally came with another, non-working Minolta. So I said to myself, Let's look on eBay for a cheap Minolta body, and after a while I found this XG1 in great shape and working condition. I won the auction and the camera cost me... $1.04.

Then I thought about looking for a wide-angle lens, and I saw that 28mm f2.8 Beroflex lens in excellent condition you see attached to the Minolta srT 101 above. The lens eventually cost me less than €9... And the camera was included as a bonus. It has some dings on the body, and I wasn't holding my breath regarding its working condition, but turns out it works. It even has the appropriate (now discontinued) battery.

So now I have two working Minoltas that, including shipping, cost me a total amount of approximately €40. Not bad!

[castemelijn-deactivated20230714]

[winesburgohio]

Feeling really frustrated right now.

There are a lot of conversations about white privilege happening in all of my feeds/worlds/friend groups these last few days. It’s a conversation that has always been necessary, is now achingly relevant, and one that — I think — is especially important for…

[buzz]

I totally agree with this post. While I was in college, I read and was really influenced by Neil Postman’s book “Amusing Ourselves to Death,” which argued that television hurts our culture by turning all public discourse into a form of entertainment. In that same vein, I’ve been thinking for a long time now that part of what bothers me about social media is that it makes everything (from an untimely celebrity death to an unjust grand jury verdict) about *you* and your reaction. Obviously I think everyone should be informed and have opinions on current events, and I would never suggest people shouldn’t be able to express those opinions publicly, but the way these sorts of discussions play out on forums like Twitter feels increasingly fraught. Lately (partly inspired by the Internet cult around certain real-life murder case players in the true crime podcast “Serial”) I’ve even been tempted to go a step further in my hypothesis and say that social media turns everything into the worst kind of fandom, with a powerful sense of group identity and “otherness” reinforced through glib memes, cults of personality, self congratulation, and righteous pile-on attacks on wrong thinkers. It’s not that I disagree with those who are trying to speak truth to privilege, and I think it’s fantastic that the Internet seems to be forcing these issues into the public consciousness like never before. But I agree with

@winesburgohio that there is a growing tinge of polarizing grossness and mob mentality to the way important cultural topics are discussed on social media.

[morrick]

And I in turn agree with Buzz's every word.

[morrick]

Aral Balkan nails it:

There is a reason why we respect people’s data in Europe. We do it because we respect people. Privacy is not a luxury. It is a basic human right enshrined in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

There are no such thing as digital rights — digital rights are human rights. What you see as failure, I see as a triumph of humanity.

I sincerely hope that we will not make the same mistakes in Europe that you have made in Silicon Valley. Ind.ie and other initiatives are working hard to avoid that fate and to create a future where our freedoms, human rights, and democracy are protected.

[morrick]

The most important takeaway of this overall great article:

Generally speaking, experts agree that 95 percent of adults need to sleep 7 to 9 hours each night to function optimally.

[morrick]

Carey Dunne:

In this mini-documentary by Terry Hemphill that tells the story of the revolutionary software, designers like Jessica Hische, Ron Chan, Bert Monroy, and Dylan Roscover, as well as Adobe co-founder John Warnock, recount the pivotal moment when computers became indispensable design tools.

[morrick]

How we made the compact disc Interviews by Dave Simpson, theguardian.com

Jacques Heemskerk, research scientist: ‘When the CD came in, I got rid of all my old Rolling Stones and Beatles vinyl. It still hurts’

[transitmaps]

Historical Map: Unpublished Proof of H.C. Beck’s London Underground Diagram, 1932

A printer’s proof of the first card folder (pocket) edition of Beck’s famous diagram, with edits and corrections marked in his own hand.

[morrick]

When technology companies look at goods that are built from the outside in, they generally see irrationality and inefficiency, a broken market just waiting to be corrected and “disrupted.” They believe that they can engineer so much value into these items that people will be swayed to buy goods built from the inside out, that the promise that drives hardware and software—“adopt this and benefit from its utility”—will convince people to upend their sartorial habits. This is how you get products like Google Glass, which assumes that consumers prize utility so much that they’re willing to look like they have no interest whatsoever in having intimate relations with another human being.

Khoi Vinh, Wearables, Fashion and iWatch

[morrick]

From: Monogram Logo book — designed by Leterme Dowling

(via typetoken®)

[vp-magazine]

I’m finally, officially launching my new project, Vantage Point magazine, a compact digital publication available on Apple’s Newsstand platform and produced by the great folks at Type Engine.

[morrick]

(Follow the link to read more, or read the article on my main website.)

[writersnoonereads]

Some quotes from The Guardian’s obituary for Rosemary Tonks (1928 – 2014) via ayjay.tumblr.com. 

The poet Rosemary Tonks, who has died aged 85, famously “disappeared” in the 1970s. The author of two poetry collections and six published novels, she turned her back on the literary world after a series of personal tragedies and medical crises which made her question the value of literature and embark on a restless, self-torturing spiritual quest.

[…]

Living for the next four decades as the reclusive Mrs Lightband in an anonymous-looking old house tucked away behind Bournemouth seafront, she cut herself off from her former life, refusing to see relatives, old friends, or publishers like me who hoped she might change her mind and allow her poetry to be reissued. As far as the literary world was concerned, she “evaporated into air like the Cheshire cat”, as Brian Patten put it in a BBC Lost Voices half-hour feature, The Poet Who Vanished, broadcast on Radio 4 in 2009.

[…]

Moving into the Bournemouth house in 1980, she completed the obliteration of the person she had been, consigning an unpublished novel to the garden incinerator…

From The Sofas, Fogs and Cinemas via:

On my bad days (and I’m being broken At this very moment) I speak of my ambitions…and he Becomes intensely gloomy, with the look of something jugged, Morose, sour, mouldering away, with lockjaw….

I grow coarser: and more modern (I, who am driven mad By my ideas; who go nowhere; Who dare not leave my front door, lest an idea…) All right. I admit everything, everything!

Oh yes, the opera (Ah, but the cinema) He particularly enjoys it, enjoys it horribly, when someone’s ill At the last minute; and they specially fly in A new, gigantic, Dutch soprano. He wants to help her With her arias. Old goat! Blasphemer! He wants to help her with her arias!

No, I… go to the cinema, I particularly like it when the fog is thick, the street Is like a hole in an old coat, and the light is brown as laudanum…

***

Some links: one, two, three, four.

Photo: “Rosemary Tonks in the 1960s…Photograph: Jane Bown”

[morrick]

Map of the Italian Colonies

I love old maps. I found this while going through the vast amount of materials I inherited from my late grandfather. The map has no evident print date, but it should be from the mid-1930s. It was in a bad state, mostly ripped across the folds, and I've restored it the best I could with the help of my wife. 

The photo isn't great, and a scan would have been a better option, but not viable since the map measures 100×75 centimetres. So I resorted to taking a snap with my iPad hovering over the table. In the future I may post scans of some parts of it, because the typeface design is really beautiful. 

[morrick]

Sidetrack — by Marcin Wolski

Earlier today I discovered by chance the portfolio of Marcin Wolski, a graphic designer and illustrator from Poland. I really like his work, especially the paintings and watercolours. Check it out!