Hermes Heart Surgery
If the included photos feel a bit small, go ahead and click on them. It's always best to look at the big picture, right?
As it is with many used typewriters, the type heads on my newly acquired Hermes Rocket were a bit gobbed up with old, dried ink. Thus, I've always made it a habit to clean the type heads/bars when I get a new machine because I just love that flawless steel look and the clean, crisp text provided by the gunk-free type bars only serves to intensify that love. My weapon of choice to combat the inky hordes? VM&P Naphtha. Dried ink doesn't stand a chance against this cleaning powerhouse. It's easily found at your local hardware store in the paint aisle.
I isolate the type bars as if I was doing heart surgery and, as you can see, the loosened ink is soaking into the rag I slid underneath the type basket just before the first application. When I scrub Naphtha on the bars with a toothbrush, tiny droplets of the stuff tend to splatter everywhere, so I shield my eyes with protective eyewear while covering my workspace and typewriter with cotton rags. A ventilated area is a good idea too, as Naphtha stinks like gasoline. The good news is that the whole process doesn't take all that long because it dissolves the caked-on ink in a matter of seconds. I make a couple of applications, brush all the type heads judiciously, wipe up the excess, and wait for it to dry. Once it's dry, I soak a rag with rubbing alcohol and wipe down each individual type bar, removing any remaining ink smudges. The result:
Wondering how the cleaning has affected type quality? Stop back in the next day or two. The typewriter has been cleaned, lubricated, catalogued, shelved, and is ready for it's very first typecast.
Details Forthcoming
Just give me a little time to break out my cleaning and oiling gear before I put together a typecast on my newest typewriter acquisition. In the interest of building anticipation, you can have a look at the stylishly embossed Hermes logo stamped upon it's case. What a tease, eh?
Viene la Tormenta
Felicia Day posted an article on her Facebook account earlier today from a blog called Charlie's Diary. It's entitled "The Real Reason why Steve Jobs Hates Flash" and pretty much states what I've been thinking for the last couple years, but taps upon a string of current events to add veracity. Granted, I haven't thought about it in this degree of detail, but the underlying theory is the same as mine.
Like it or not, we're careening towards a future that is based on cloud computing. I believe Steve Jobs knows this and is doing everything he can to gear Apple up for these upcoming "cloudy" days. I also believe that other companies know this, but are having a difficult time adapting to the paradigm shift due to rigid business plans. And why not? Desktop computing has been the de facto standard for the better part of three decades. Why would it be in danger of collapse?
That's the problem. Smart companies anticipate changes and adapt their business model to compensate. For example, fuel companies have begun to invest capital in alternate fuel technologies (hydrogen, ethanol, solar, wind, etc.). Think about all of those BP commercials you see on television: "Beyond Petroleum." They know that fossil fuels are not endless, times will change, and they want to be ready for it. Companies such as Microsoft and Hewlett-Packard have not adapted yet. Microsoft is the biggest purveyor of desktop operating systems in the world, while HP is one of the largest producers of desktop computers. They have become fat and happy on the gigantic revenues of the desktop era. Now they see that the desktop market has become saturated and there is a global push to go mobile. I'm guessing that this is probably why HP bought Palm for $1.2 billion. They need to play catch-up.
Do I think the desktop/notebook industry is going to collapse and we're all going to be walking around with iPads and iPhones in five years? No. Cloud computing is not for everybody and it will not be adopted immediately. Heck, even I prefer to keep my personal files on a local backup hard drive. But the promise of perpetual mobile computing certainly sounds fantastic and the allure of convenience has a funny way of reshaping our lives.
Anyway, I'm just paraphrasing much of the information that exists in the above linked article. Give it a read next time you have five or ten minutes of spare time. I think it's a great snapshot of the future of computing.