How to build a newsroom time machine. Some pessimists predicted ALL ON PAPER would be an exercise in futility. It’s proven to be a lesson in humility – for both the student journalists struggling with the old tech for the first time, and for the veteran journalists trying to recall how it all worked a few decades ago. A college paper makes an issue the old-fashioned way.
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posted by shakespeherian
on Aug 4, 2011 -
52 comments
Do you like manuals? Do you like Wikis? Do you like open source software? Check out
FLOSS Manuals for wiki-fied manuals for popular and fun open source software, including
PureData,
Inkscape,
Blender,
Ardour, among others. Taking a page from programmers, the group endorses "
book sprints", where creative writers, editors and artists work closely together to complete an online book in a short, intense burst of effort.
posted by Blazecock Pileon
on Oct 1, 2010 -
6 comments
Be forewarned that somewhere, sometime, someplace, some enterprising young man who seems to know ten times what you do about computers is going to try to convince you that his program will make a jug of cider jump off the table and turn ducks' eggs into solid gold. Look this man straight in the eye and ask him for names of people who are successfully using his program. DO NOT, under any circumstances, bet him that he can't do it. There's no telling what someone might be able to make a computer do. A journey through the whimsical computer manuals of the Franklin Ace.
posted by shakespeherian
on Feb 24, 2010 -
8 comments
The San Francisco Maritime National Park operates the
USS Pampanito (SS-383), a World War II Balao class Fleet submarine museum and memorial that is open for visitors daily at San Francisco's Fisherman's Wharf. The Park website also hosts
"The Fleet Type Submarine, Navpers 16160", the first in a series of submarine training manuals that was completed just after WW II. The series describes the peak of WW II US submarine technology.
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posted by KokuRyu
on Jan 3, 2010 -
14 comments
The Manual (How To Have a Number One - The Easy Way). Both light-hearted and thorough, the Timelords, aka the KLF, wrote this tongue-in-cheek manual in 1988 following their own novelty pop No. 1 "
Doctorin' the Tardis". "If you are already a musician stop playing your instrument. Even better, sell the junk. It will become clearer later on but just take our word for it for the time being." Oh and apparently have lots of tea on hand.
posted by yeti
on Jul 12, 2007 -
35 comments
Do you know what to do
with a stick and a clutch?
Only 15% of new car buyers in the US say they'll consider buying a car with manual transmission, and by 2012,
only 6% of cars will be offered with a stick.
Is it because it's a difficult skill to
learn?
Or is it really because it's too hard to shift when you have a
cell phone in one hand and a Starbucks coffee in the other?
Or is a manual transmission simply
an outdated system
with new fangled technology like
CVT,
DSG,
SMG,
and super-fast,
100 msec shifting automatic transmissions available?
posted by jaimev
on Jun 15, 2006 -
267 comments
Buy a Flight Manual, Get a Grand Jury Subpoena? A guy qualified to fly and instruct on the Boeing 737 buys a CD on Ebay that contains the ground course for the same plane. Then the FBI gets involved, and, courtesy of section 501 (d) of the "USA Patriot Act", he can no longer even discuss the issue. [more inside]
posted by Irontom
on Dec 23, 2002 -
24 comments
The Beginner's Guide to Effective Email is such a great resource that it should be required reading for
everyone before they ever send a single email message. I first read this in 1996, and thought the author sounded like an old crank. That was back when 10 emails a day was a lot for me. Now in 1999, I'm getting 150-200 a day and every word in this Guide is gospel. I especially hate it when people don't reformat their quoted messages when replying. Why do email clients allow for typing above the original message? Why not default a reply message to new entries below the original?
posted by mathowie
on Nov 6, 1999 -
0 comments
