alt.hn

5/16/2026 at 9:25:07 PM

Twilight of the Velocipede: Typesetting Races Before the Age of Linotype

https://publicdomainreview.org/essay/twilight-of-the-velocipede/

by benbreen

5/17/2026 at 7:55:35 PM

Any mention of typesetting should work to include Mark Twain's quote about his relationship with the inventor James Paige, who worked on a never quite working as well as could be wished typesetting machine that Twain invested heavily in.

"Paige and I always meet on effusively affectionate terms; and yet he knows perfectly well that if I had his nuts in a steel-trap I would shut out all human succor and watch that trap till he died."

by hackeraccount

5/17/2026 at 1:13:12 PM

From the last image:

> No Type. No Distribution. No "Pie"-ing.

> Self-spacing. Self-justifying.

Looks machine-composed.

by nemetroid

5/17/2026 at 10:50:02 PM

Ha, ha! I thought the same thing: LLM slop. But soon I remembered having seen this Linotype ad before. It's a genuine image. Almost 140 years ago, some human writer came up with short, punchy copy.

Look what these AI companies have done to us. We see the shadow of slop everywhere.

by ripe

5/18/2026 at 12:39:04 AM

The poster didn't use "quietly", so I knew it wasn't slop! (Seriously, what's the deal with "quietly" in AI writing?)

by ahartmetz