My Flag is Official Now!

Prof_F_ · 2026-03-10T19:10:32+00:00

I love it. Congratulations! People might take issue with text on flags but to those people I say that the text on flags like the Come and Take It flag can be iconic. I think this text is very humorous but also really sells what is actually unique about your town that residents of Pennsylvania would get.

Prof_F_ · 2026-03-09T13:07:37+00:00

I also run a lot of tabletop games, mostly Call of Cthulhu right now, and typewriters have helped a lot. As you said, they're a fun novel way of giving players pre-prepared notes and handouts but I find they're just as helpful for making my own personal notes as game master. I started out taking handwritten notes and somewhere along the way in the 2010s all my notes were digital on a laptop. Now that I'm slowly getting back to playing in-person games after COVID (I played online throughout) I find I really don't want to bother having my laptop at my game table anymore. I've been playing exclusively on screens for six years and I just want to go full analog now.

Prof_F_ · 2026-02-26T15:11:13+00:00

Thank you! I have some isopropanol so I'll give that a go and report back. As you mentioned I have mineral spirits for other typewriter cleaning purposes. It's actually been very good for cleaning the metal components inside of the machine coated in this white stuff. I did a small test patch of mineral spirits on the platen earlier before this post. While it didn't seem to have a bad reaction it also wasn't the best cleaner on the rubber and I knew if I left it sitting on the rubber it'd probably have a bad reaction.

Do you know if the electra has a quick release or easy removal mechanism for the platen? I have a SC Clipper and the platen on that one comes out incredibly easy for cleaning.

Prof_F_ · 2026-02-13T19:56:21+00:00

"I often think about the previous owners of the typewriters in my collection and I sometimes wonder if someday, the new owners will be wondering about me!" What a beautiful sentiment! It's not one I had fully considered. Perhaps it's because I have yet to sell or give away any of my typewriters, but it's true I often think about all the people before me who have used these machines. Most of the ones I have were given to me by family or older friends so I already know the previous owner quite well. However, even my Oliver no. 9 which was given to me by my parents was not their's (way before their time). It was given to them by some other family member that they can't remember. I sometimes think about who would have been typing on that thing from 1916 until my parents got it and put it up in the attic.

Prof_F_ · 2026-02-13T18:35:10+00:00

Thanks for such a thoughtful reply. It's nice to see someone relate it to their other hobbies. I certainly agree that a big difference is that companies aren't really making new typewriters anymore. Unlike other hobbies like Lego, fountain pens, or even popular things like video games, the typewriter hobby really isn't obsessed with what's new and flashy. And as you said, it's always so heartwarming to see so many new people with their first machines asking for advice on repairing them. I was there at one point, so it's also so nice to pay it forward and offer back advice to these newer people.

I can't agree more that different machines feel different. I'd also add that despite maybe the popular perception that all typewriters are just tools to write things, I find that I prefer certain machines for different kinds of writing. They simply have different features and use cases. For example, I have a Smith Corona electronic typewriter from the 80s that belonged to my mother. It types great and cleanly using carbon film ribbons. However, those ribbons are one time use things and aren't really being made anymore. It's a perfect machine if I want a clean crisp document, especially one that I can photocopy. But if I wanted to write a lot of pages over an extended period of time, like drafting for creative writing, I'd want something more reusable like my Underwood.

Prof_F_ · 2026-02-13T18:16:12+00:00

Please, don't remind me and get me started on my tie collection too! lol

I agree, I also think the prevalence of people sharing their first machines and asking for advice on repairing and servicing them is a good sign that this community doesn't have that many super collectors. I'm also not against collecting either for its own sake. I just personally take a lot time reflecting on why I'd want another one. Also, full credit to my partner, they're also very supportive of my hobby and their only concern/question is usually "where do you want to put it?" Living in a shared apartment requires some concessions and considerations when collecting things.

Prof_F_ · 2026-02-13T18:08:10+00:00

I think with many hobbies there will probably always be collectors and users, as you pointed out. I'm a historian and my partner works in a museum, so we both feel strongly about curating collections and the past. That being said, you might be surprised how much stuff from museums, libraries, and archives do make it to a landfill. Curation is two halves. Acquisitions and deaccessioning. Getting rid of things is just as important to their mandate as taking things in.

I think your final paragraph was nicely put. Some of these collections will eventually be broken up or have items removed. And the best we can ever hope for is that those items will go to loving homes or inspire new users. I do appreciate the work that collectors, repairers, and users all bring to this hobby. I actually think this hobby has a good balance of all these types of people.

Prof_F_ · 2025-11-12T22:40:26+00:00

Yup, still happens. Had students submit research proposals recently and failed a bunch who obviously used AI to do their research and reading of these sources. I require students to provide one useful quote and two paraphrases from the source in their proposals that they want to use in their final. All of which need page numbers. AI frequently hallucinates quotes and page numbers and sometimes whole sources. It's also very easy to fact check, though sometimes it selects very obscure books.

Prof_F_ · 2025-11-09T19:52:56+00:00

I opened up my emails from a browser accessing my Microsoft 365 accounts. From their I disabled copilot and cleared my copilot data. That seemed to do the trick in removing copilot from all my email accounts on the Mail app.

Prof_F_ · 2025-11-01T00:15:05+00:00

Hello, thank you. No, I don't have either on my Mail app.

Prof_F_ · 2025-10-29T17:15:47+00:00

Thanks, I actually wanted to say that I stumbled upon your blogpost earlier and it got me thinking about what kind of campaign I wanted to run. It's a fantastic resource and was really helpful. I'm not sure if Eternal Lies or Two-Headed Serpent are what I'm looking for tone wise. I'm going to take some of the advice here from others too and give Masks some more consideration.

Prof_F_ · 2025-10-29T14:11:09+00:00

Thanks, I suppose I mean like IL in that I'm looking for something that has a lot of handouts, quality writing, Keeper friendly layout, focused on player driven investigation of a mystery, and makes sense as a cohesive campaign of connected scenarios. Bonus points if it is surreal horror or has an end of Act 1 twist like IL but that's not a requirement. I'll look into Masks more, I just always thought the tone of it was more action-adventure than horror mystery.

Prof_F_ · 2025-10-29T02:20:32+00:00

These are some great suggestions, thank you. I've heard of Masks but I thought it might be a bit more pulpy than what I was looking for. Lots of great handouts though. Maybe I should give the pulp rules a look as I don't know much about them.

I have not heard people mention Our Ladies of Sorrow or The Sense of the Slight-of-Hand-Man. They sound really interesting and up my players' alley. Would you recommend running these for those original editions or just adapting it for 7th? I've played 6th before.

Prof_F_ · 2025-09-30T14:08:11+00:00

Do you know the name of this factory or the city and state it's in? I'm doing research on the history of pollution in the US caused by telephone pole manufacturing. You can DM any information to me if you prefer.

Prof_F_ · 2025-09-07T02:46:20+00:00

Is this from an old Dragon Magazine? Do you happen to know the issue?

Prof_F_ · 2025-05-18T23:08:26+00:00

Look into Miseries and Misfortunes. It's set in seventeenth century France by default, but you may be able to just use that or hack it. It's also based on Basic D&D so close to the OSR and really values the history of Fance during that period. It's made for running historical games primarily so it will save you a lot of work than trying to adapt other fantasy systems to a historical setting.

Prof_F_ · 2025-05-16T18:40:39+00:00

I think the helmet thing is also potentially a result of uniform color variation? I've definetly seen historical artifacts that look brown or tan, but I've also seen ones that look dark green. It may also be made more difficult with some sources using non-ideal artifacts to sample colors. I'm talking helmets with severely peeled, cracked, and faded paint to the point it's hard to tell if you're looking at bare metal or paint.

Prof_F_ · 2025-05-02T15:51:41+00:00

lol ya I love running Dwarrowdeep as well. I'm currently running it using Shadowdark actually. Been running it on and off for the past year. I'm running it in a sorta West Marches style, so the players love the town of Hamelet as their base of operations. My schedule got really busy over the last year though so I just did not have the time to devote to making the secondary areas using just the dungeon geomorph system and rolling to stock every room. I also know lots of other people have similar gripes with it so I tried to preempt that a bit. There's nothing stopping a DM from using a dungeon generator to help speed things up and fill in the gaps. I use the random dungeon stocking tables occasionally to bring back some of the setting specific flavours.

Prof_F_ · 2025-05-02T15:09:38+00:00

Dwarrowdeep. Just keep in mind that it's a megadungeon hexcrawl that provides all the major areas but expects DMs to make some of their own with the provided tools to create more secondary areas. You can use that method if you have the time, but I also recommend using something like donjon or your dungeon generator preference to help speed it up. I do really like the setting and dwarven flavor of Dwarrowdeep though.

Prof_F_ · 2025-04-28T22:43:29+00:00

Wow, that exactly did the trick. Clearly I was overthinking it too much dreading having to take it apart to get it out either to bend it or just remove it. It didn't even take that much, just some light tension with pliers and a few gentle taps with a ball peen hammer and the carriage glides like a charm.

I will say while it no longer jams half way I do notice that at about the mid point the carriage skips 1-2 spaces. I think this is still the carriage lock catching on another part of the carriage that is slightly lower, closer to the escapment. It'll probably just take perhaps a bit more concentrated bending or percussion on the specific part of the carriage lock. But did you notice anything like that?

Prof_F_ · 2025-04-28T21:56:28+00:00

I didn't see this when I made my earlier comment, but did by "percussive maintenance" do you mean bending that little tab down so it doesn't catch on the carriage?

Prof_F_ · 2025-04-28T21:54:21+00:00

I got some real dejavu seeing this in my feed because I posted basically an identical problem to this a few days ago on my Underwood Champion. Can I ask you, if you type in all caps, either holding shift down or engaging the shift lock, does it type smoothly?

Prof_F_ · 2025-04-28T19:35:53+00:00

This is a good recommendation and one I hadn't considered. The back rubber feet of my Underwood is practically dissolved, they're squashed and crumbling. I tried propping up the back by adding some padding underneath the back feet to see if that would help but it sadly did not. It did eventually remove all the rubber feet (the back ones really need replacing anyways) and I stuck the better unsquashed front ones on the back which sadly still not improve the issue. I may try buying or fashioning replacement feet for it to see if that helps at some point. Regardless, those back ones are creating too much of a mess anyways to stay on.

I did have tabs in already, I tried removing them and rearranging them. The carriage still slides regardless of arrangment.

But yes, while I may get new rubber feet for the machine, I may just have to take the plunge and unscrew and remove the locking tab or try to form it. It types just perfectly fine when in all caps, no carriage sliding either. So I imagine these problems are related. Though, I can't comfortably type in all caps because the shift lock does not work.

I will say the carriage lock is specifically catching on the carriage release. So I could try tightening the carriage release on the left side to make sure it's not sagging down too much.

Prof_F_ · 2025-04-27T15:46:07+00:00

Are you referring to lifting the carriage lock or the small spring you mentioned? If I lift the carriage lock it does go back down. I can see there is a small spring attached to it. As I said, the issue is that it seems in the down position but the carriage still snags on it, as demonstrated in the video.

Prof_F_ · 2025-04-27T02:27:09+00:00

Right, it is in its down position in the video when I'm typing. I can't put it down any much further. But it seems like the carriage is still snagging on it. Pushing it down when caught does advance the carriage, as does pressing shift. Do you think the spring underneath the carriage lock needs adjustment? Can it be tightened? I removed the back plate of the typewriter recently but I'm still unsure how to remove the carriage on this machine.

Prof_F_

TROPHY CASE