Kyle Rankin @kyle@librem.one

It's so profitable to sell customer data that Vizio now makes 2x as much from that than selling TVs. Until the govt outlaws this data collection, your only recourse to protect your ⁨#privacy⁩ is to buy things from the few companies left that respect it. https://gizmodo.com/welp-vizio-now-makes-twice-as-much-from-advertising-as-1848034943

@sohkamyung I admit that it's finding out about the Jacquard loom as I was researching the history of mechanical calculators that is partially responsible for my wanting to take up weaving.

@GirthyChode@fosstodon.org I can do some basic hand-sewing, just enough for simple repairs really, but don't know my way around a sewing machine. I do know how to crochet though and have made large blankets that way, although it's been many years.

New hobby: I'm taking up weaving! The pun possibilities are looming in my warped mind.

@yaelwrites Oh no! Do you write/type notes as a backup normally?

Apple's talking about sideloading this week to shift the discussion away from App Store competition. If it had to compete with other secure iPhone app stores (like ones dedicated to gaming) it would have to lower its fees and improve its policies. It's about control not security.

@th Any recommendations for someone thinking about getting started with weaving? Please loominate me.

@th I could really see myself getting into weaving...

@HalvarFlake Welcome back!

@yaelwrites Wish I knew more than just the basics. While I've geeked out on plenty of other parts of history (and currently in the middle of Durant Vol III in the hopes that by the time I read all volumes I'll at least have a reasonable foundation), I haven't given this period the same deep dive yet.

Division aside though, this is my favorite lever style adding machine in my collection to use, due to the subtraction key and overall key placement that enables one-handed operation. I could actually see myself using this to balance a checkbook if I still did that sort of thing.

Division is repeated subtraction while counting your lever pulls and watching the register for underflows, which is a pain to do, and to demo on this type of adding machine.

Multiplication is repeated addition, shifting left for each digit in the multiplier, like other lever adding machines. By pressing down the repeat key the keys stay depressed after you pull the lever so you press the Correction key to release them and shift left. Here is 12 x 12.

You can hold down the subtotal button and pull the lever to print the current total without clearing the register, or you can hold down total to clear the register and print the total. This design is nice in that you can do it all one-handed.

This machine does have one fancy feature: a subtraction button! Instead of the complements method, you can just enter the subtrahend, hit the subtract key and pull the lever. Subtraction prints in red ink! Here I perform 31342 - 42 slowly so you can watch the counter.

Back to the Model 75. To add, enter the first number in the keyboard and pull the lever to add it to the register and print on the paper tape. Then enter the second number and pull the lever again.

It wasn't until the 1950s that trends changed and popular office machines started having green and grey hues, like this early 1950s NCR 11-EN. One big exception was the Comptometer, which kept its brown tones until the 50s when it too shifted to the green/grey aesthetic.

The Burroughs Class 3 I showed earlier in the thread is an example of rebranding a machine originally made by the Pike company. But when 90% of a market looks a certain way, competitors (like this Monroe Model G from 1918) mimic the design. So even in 1946 RC Allen followed suit.

At one point Burroughs controlled about 90% of the adding machine market. It accomplished this like companies today: it bought up its competitors and rebranded their products. That meant painting them black, and instead of felt, they just painted the spot under the keys green.