Kyle Rankin @kyle@librem.one

(Apologies to Rick Astley)
We're no strangers to hacks
You know the column, and so do I
A full published book's what I'm thinking of
You wouldn't get this from any other guy

I just wanna tell you what I've written
Gotta make you understand

It's the Best of Hack and /
It's a Linux admin class
You can order and real fast send to you
Hardback's awesome I won't lie
Paperback is a close tie
With the ebook you can buy on Lulu

https://www.lulu.com/spotlight/kyle_rankin

#SelfPublishing #writing

@cavaughan I have a Comptometer manual that goes into how to do more advanced things like roots, but it seemed complicated enough that I'd never know if I got the right answer.

@cavaughan Once you know addition and subtraction, then multiplication is just repeated addition, with shifts to the left for each digit in the multiplier. Division is similar, but starts at the left of the dividend, and you subtract repeatedly until it underflows (the machine will ring a bell!) and then you add one back and shift right. Repeat until you have enough digits of precision to suit you.

@cavaughan I have a pinwheel calculator just like that! But not a Russian model, it is a Brunswiga.

@Konqi For Comptometers in particular, professionals received training very similar to professional typists. They touch typed without looking at the keys (eyes and other hand was on the document with the figures).

For speed, they not only chorded the keys (an advantage to full-keyboard calculators versus ones that only had a single set of 0-9), they also only pressed 1-5 to keep their hand on "home row" and to make, say, 7, would type 3 then 4. Pros were *very* fast at this.

Back in 1918 machines were designed to tell humans when they made a mistake. Over a hundred years later the roles have reversed. How times have changed.

#AI #VintageAds #calculator

This Monroe Model G mechanical calculator was made some time between 1918 and 1920, and is the one I used on the cover of my new book. I also featured non-blurry pictures of it as the background image on each chapter, and in those cases left a little easter egg for keen-eyed readers.

#calculators #writing

@cavaughan Hmmm, if it's been awhile since you checked, check in with support again. We recently went through a lot of old stock of parts that couldn't be used for refurbs and it's possible we might have something.

@ljs @jebba Tell me about it. I'm chatting here instead of working on my new book right now!

@ljs @jebba This is why I like the LaTeX workflow. If you are using a publisher's Word/LibreOffice template, the temptation is to write the book directly in the formatting tool, so your writing ends up being interrupted by formatting.

With $text_editor + LaTeX, I can focus on the writing first (I do basic formatting hints in markdown). This lets me write the full draft and keep my focus on the writing before I worry about layout and formatting.

@ljs @jebba With the help of a few macros (which I'm sure you also set up in EMACS), it is *very* fast to format a book compared to GUI tools or Word/LibreOffice templates. Most of the text for this book was already written other than some front material and chapter intros. Learning LaTex, iterating through formatting, editing, indexing, and waiting for page proofs to arrive took less than 4 weeks from start to book launch.

@jebba I used vim and LaTeX.

Thanks to the excellent suggestion from @agx, I have created a sample chapter for the book. A link is available on the product page for each version of the book, or you can check it out directly here:

https://kylerank.in/bohs_lacc_sample_chapter.pdf

#writing #linux #publishing #SelfPublishing

@cavaughan Thank you!

@agx Thank you. That's a great point about the sample chapter. I will get one together and update my timeline here when it's ready (shouldn't take too long).

@daniel I am so happy you are pleased, and I really appreciate your saying that. We have all worked so hard on the Librem 5 and it is gratifying to see people get and enjoy theirs.

OK this is neat, a protocol for hosting a website around the globe that distributes traffic based on which server has the most solar energy: http://solarprotocol.net/

@jordanerickson Thank you!