Kyle Rankin @kyle@librem.one

More than 26,000 PG&E customers were without power in the Bay Area today because of fog and mist. Fog. and mist. https://www.nbcbayarea.com/news/local/over-28000-customers-experiencing-power-outages-due-to-fog-mist-pge/2660562/

This is the carry mechanism for the Monroe. The bars form a wave and the last few move, but were completely seized up. A few hours with some oil, pliers, a screwdriver, and ultimately a heat gun, and it finally loosened up. Subtraction finally underflows all the way to the left!

Yesterday I spent a few hours restoring this Monroe Model G calculator. It was only after putting everything back together that I discovered the accumulator is only underflowing half the digits when doing subtraction/division, so I get to take it apart again today and fix that.

To elaborate, this is a disposable VM just for opening random, possibly untrusted links other people send me. I do most of my own browsing in a different VM with ad and javascript blocking in place. It's always jarring to see just how bad the web is without all of that in place.

How do regular folks stand browsing the modern web? I have a VM for opening random links with no javascript or ad blocking. When I open certain news sites my laptop fans spin 100% loading all the ads, and it's almost impossible to read the actual story.

People subtracted on adding machines w/ a neat trick: the complements method. Convert a number to its complement, add it, and discard the extra "1" on the left. Many calculators with subtraction functions use this method under the hood: https://www.mathsisfun.com/numbers/subtraction-by-addition.html

Of course if you can add repeatedly you can multiply, so this machine has a "repeat" button in the bottom right corner. Once pressed, any number you enter stays pressed down after you pull the addition lever, so you can add over and over just by pulling the lever.

The Burroughs is a true adding machine--it can only *add* numbers. Notice the limited buttons on the keyboard. If you ever heard someone refer to a modern calculator as an "adding machine" it derives from the fact that originally that's all they could do back in 1908.

This adding machine has a carriage at the back so you can add a paper spool or even a sheet of typing or ledger paper, with tab stops you can set to speed the process of filling out forms.

This is my Burroughs Class 1, Model 7 Adder/Lister made in 1908. The glass sides and front let you watch the mechanisms as it's adding.

These antique calculators have a funny way of multiplying...

There is something special about the first phase of a new hobby. So much to learn, new skills to master, deep rabbit holes full of discoveries around every corner.

If only you could take this carbon capture tech, make it solar powered, shrink it so it fits it in your back yard, self-replicating so it could cover thousands of acres of land, and have it double as wildlife habitat, and you would have invented trees. https://gizmodo.com/the-world-s-biggest-plant-to-suck-carbon-dioxide-from-t-1847636362

Who would have thought that a tech company would use a feature marketed as being for security to exert remote control on their customer's computers instead? https://arstechnica.com/gaming/2021/09/riot-games-anti-cheat-software-will-require-tpm-secure-boot-on-windows-11/

You may be laughing now, but after the zombie apocalypse wipes out the grid and you are calculating cryptocurrency with pencil and paper, I'll be laughing (and cranking) all the way to the (probably by then barter-based) bank!

I dusted off my limited Python skills and modified Nitrokey's "Qubes OEM" installer to add support in anaconda for changing your LUKS passphrase at first boot. With that in place, we can now offer Qubes as a preinstall option: https://puri.sm/posts/qubes-now-a-preinstall-option-for-librem-14-and-mini/

In addition to calculating dozens, the rightmost wheels were apparently primarily intended for adding/subtracting feet/inches/fractions of an inch.