Claire 
historic drystone sheep dykeItโs cool that you can just pick up and read a book from 100 years ago with no special tools or procedures or conversion software
FallsMom ๐ป@hannah Only special tool I need--๐
Allan Chow
Fern Woodsson ๐ฟ@hannah I typically use Glasses to decrypt most paper texts.
ZenobiaVayne@fernwoodsson @hannah sometimes if I canโt find the Glasses utility i just temporarily reduce the user-to-media distance parameter significantly and the effect is similar
Witold Kowalik@ZenobiaVayne
Some people tend to increase the distance, and neither works for me so I'll stick to the glasses tool. But your advice is very sound to begin with, before switching to the glasses tool.
@fernwoodsson @hannah
Some people tend to increase the distance, and neither works for me so I'll stick to the glasses tool. But your advice is very sound to begin with, before switching to the glasses tool.
@fernwoodsson @hannah
dragonfrog@frankboon @ZenobiaVayne @fernwoodsson @hannah that was when my mom switched to Glasses - when the necessary user to media distance exceeded her OEM arm length.
Ash Lassay@fernwoodsson @hannah Glasses adds a bit of latency though. Since data travels slower trough the thick API layer especially if you require heavy decryption. Iโd rather use Contacts. Much more light weight.
Fabien Nicolet โ ๐ณ๏ธโ๐๐ด@fernwoodsson @hannah me too, but I do have to update them every couple of years, tho...
Gorgeous na Shock!@hannah I used to read HG Wells and the Bronte sisters in middle school... they needed a txt to pdb converter to get the files from Project Gutenberg viewable on my Palm IIIe but the process was minimal and well-understood. ๐
pollinator stan@hannah if itโs from really long ago you do start to need a conversion process but itโs much more forgiving than old data
Stygian Lizard
Humper@hannah They'll get more valuable too
Richard@hannah Handwritten stuff from before the 20th century is kind of difficult.
ScriptFanix๐
@richard_merren
Or hand written stuff from a doctor if any century. Imagine when thesis were handwritten!
@hannah
Or hand written stuff from a doctor if any century. Imagine when thesis were handwritten!
@hannah
ฮฮตฮฏฮฑ ฯฮฏฯฯฮฑ ๐ง๐๐ฅ๐
@richard_merren @hannah meh not really, you just need a couple hundred lessons in paleography. On every different language.
@richard_merren @hannah meh not really, you just need a couple hundred lessons in paleography. On every different language.
@stevewfolds@richard_merren @hannah Transcribed a handwritten journal of a woman born in 1890, a 1941 Mexico trip, made copies for her grandchildren. She should have written travel guides.
patrick m.@hannah @YakyuNightOwl I prefer to pick up a book that has been reprinted, so I donโt accidentally tear the 100-yr old paper and binding, but yes itโs totally cool ๐
Esslar2@hannah I like that you don't have to turn off a book when your plane is getting ready to land. You can just keep reading, no problem.
MizzBassie
KayJanes@MizzBassie Nothing more? So many good old novels. @hannah
@MizzBassie Oh, now I understand. I was thinking of Jane Austin and the Brontes. @hannah
Lotโดโน@hannah Also you can loan it to a friend, and maybe even get it back after they've read it.
Karl Auerbach@hannah The US National Archives would violently agree with you. They have to deal with everything from punched cards with round holes (really!) to 7 track magnetic tapes to Zip drives and punched paper tapes (lots of formats.)
It is amazing how unstable a lot of modern media is - like DVDs. I tend to put my longest term stuff onto spinning disk drives with SATA interfaces. I haven't had problems with those (at least not since the old problem with head-to-platter "sticktion" was resolved.)
@karlauerbach @hannah hey archivists need work.
Also the new postgrads about digitization of archives are amazing.
Also the new postgrads about digitization of archives are amazing.
Riley S. Faelan@karlauerbach: SATA is already well on its way of becoming obsolete, to be replaced by PCI Express. @hannah
@riley @hannah I've been shot in the back so many times by interface changes that I can no longer count 'em.
I use SATA for my ultimate backup onto spinning drives because I can get a USB-to-SATA widget and I figure USB will be with us for a long time.
(I use spinning drives because they seem to be one of the longer lasting media types, at least if stored in a decent environmentally protected space. Of course, I also make backups onto other kinds of media and in other locations.)
@hannah BTW, I see from your profile that you are a "aspiring Social Justice Witch" - My wife is sort of the same, she named her car (Tesla) "Social Justice Warrior".
โ
Amy Star โ
@hannah and they're usually out of copyright, so you don't need to pay some shell corp in the Bahamas for the right to read the work of an artist that's been dead since the 1960s
Gregory Hays@hannah I have one printed in 1502 that doesn't even require a login and password!
@aristofontes thatโs super cool, what is it?
@hannah It's a Latin edition of Lucan published by Aldus Manutius. One of the first pocket-sized books.
@aristofontes what a treasure
Semi Sentient AI Cooling Water@hannah Bonus features. Never crashes. Infinite battery life isn't deleted once you stop paying Jeff Bezos. Smells wonderful.
Matti Redsky@hannah Publishers hate this one simple trick
kira :3@hannah this post made a tech bro snap awake in a cold sweat
Christopher Walker@hannah I like how if I enjoy it, I can hand it to a friend to read without being branded a pirate ๐ดโโ ๏ธ.
@hannah If only you could do that with books written nowadays. :( Now, all the books are locked down with DRM and it's extremely difficult to own anything, get it unprotected, or read it in a reading environment that you want to use. @jaybird110127
Seรกn Fenian@hannah at 500 years it starts to be a bit of a problem. ๐
PeterD ๐ฉ๐ช ๐จ๐ฆ@hannah High Tech is failing us - Big Time.
royal@peterdeppisch @hannah paper is incredibly underappreciated technology.
Texan Tally@hannah I'm clinging to my paper and cardboard with ink all over my shelves in my library with everything in me. I imagined the censorship that could happen with digital works or simply making them "disappear" because of some b.s. reasons by the companies. Once it's been printed, it's out there for the enterprising, determined person who wants to find it and take it home to read. Not two clicks and something on your "saved" list is abruptly gone.
AmgineGeorge McDonald's various romances are amazingly challenging, with dialogues in the many contemporaneous dialects of Scots English/Gaelic, often multiple in a single conversation.
Which is not unlike real life today, at times.
VrimjUnfortunately 100 years old books might be subject to the acid paper issue so you can still have a permanent data retrieval error. 1800s or older though and it is probably safe.
Rita Singer@Vrimj Ugh. 1920s brittle book pages are the worst! They literally snap in half like a filo pastry wafer.
๐ผk ๐โด๐ ๐๐ซรค๐ญ๐ญ๐ข๐ซ๐๐ข๐ฏg@hannah funny all that grad school training in theology, that years of squinting at old german script and fifteen years of academic history -- all that, and i still cant "just pick up an old book"
Oblomov@hannah (unless it crumbles in your hands as you turn the pages ;-))
hapbt@hannah shhhh donโt say that online
varx/social@hannah Amazing how at least half the replies are BUT WHAT ABOUT THIS WEIRD CORNER CASE.
Ah yes, my tribe. ๐
chris@hannah @lanodan Well, you probably
can't if you're blind. The oldest braille book I've seen was a copy of
the Gospel of Matthew from the early 1930s. It wasn't in good shape
circa 1990 when I found it. Braille on thermoform has even less of a
lifespan.
OTOH I can download a book from Project Gutenberg produced 40 years ago
and read it with `less`.
can't if you're blind. The oldest braille book I've seen was a copy of
the Gospel of Matthew from the early 1930s. It wasn't in good shape
circa 1990 when I found it. Braille on thermoform has even less of a
lifespan.
OTOH I can download a book from Project Gutenberg produced 40 years ago
and read it with `less`.
Haelwenn /ัะปะฒัะฝ/ 
@lanodan @hannah Wouldn't be surprised
if there are some fairly old phonograph records with audio books on them.
Or magnetic wire spools. Open tape reels. Etc.
But probably no or few full-length books from before the 1930s or so.
I stumbled on some ancient 78-RPM records as a kid in the 1980s. These were
thick and heavy. Like, the size of a standard 33 and 1/3 RPM record,
but the thickness and weight of a glass dinner plate. One was from 1901,
and it had a few minutes of comedy recorded on it.
Assuming the media are properly preserved, you still need the technology
to play them.
In the late 20th century, audiobooks for the blind were typically made
in special formats. In the US: 4-track cassette at 15/16 inches per
second (half of standard speed), phonograph records at 8 RPM. The 4-track
meant separate recording on each of the two stereo tracks of a side of a tape.
One track would be recorded forward and the other reversed. With a computer,
a standard tape deck, and the sox utility, anyone can decode these things.
After the rise of Audible, all bets are off. Unless someone pirates an
audiobook and strips the DRM, no way will anyone be able to decode those
at some unspecified point in the future. One good reason to pirate all the
things. DRM is an attack against culture akin to book burning.
if there are some fairly old phonograph records with audio books on them.
Or magnetic wire spools. Open tape reels. Etc.
But probably no or few full-length books from before the 1930s or so.
I stumbled on some ancient 78-RPM records as a kid in the 1980s. These were
thick and heavy. Like, the size of a standard 33 and 1/3 RPM record,
but the thickness and weight of a glass dinner plate. One was from 1901,
and it had a few minutes of comedy recorded on it.
Assuming the media are properly preserved, you still need the technology
to play them.
In the late 20th century, audiobooks for the blind were typically made
in special formats. In the US: 4-track cassette at 15/16 inches per
second (half of standard speed), phonograph records at 8 RPM. The 4-track
meant separate recording on each of the two stereo tracks of a side of a tape.
One track would be recorded forward and the other reversed. With a computer,
a standard tape deck, and the sox utility, anyone can decode these things.
After the rise of Audible, all bets are off. Unless someone pirates an
audiobook and strips the DRM, no way will anyone be able to decode those
at some unspecified point in the future. One good reason to pirate all the
things. DRM is an attack against culture akin to book burning.
xrvs@hannah they likely turned yellow and got partly eaten tho
14mission@hannah Just 100? I got a look at an 1000-year-old book once, and it still worked. They wouldn't let me pick it up though!
Torbjรถrn Andersson@hannah This seems like a good time to re-watch "Medieval helpdesk": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pQHX-SjgQvQ
Medieval helpdesk with English subtitles
Helpdesk support back in the day of the middle agewith English subtitles. Original taken from the show "รystein og jeg" on Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK)in 200...