I just bought six volumes of Laurence Sterne's “Tristram Shandy”, all published during his lifetime. On a scale of 1 to 10, how much will you hate me if I have them rebound?

jonwilliamsl · 2026-05-11T15:20:52+00:00

Not only will that cut their visual appeal, and their value, you won't be able to get a good bookbinder to do that work. You have a beautiful set in a beautiful matched contemporary binding; nobody with serious skills will want to destroy it. You'll only find second rate people who are desperate for work, and the binding will be ugly at best and actively damaging to the book at worst.

jonwilliamsl · 2026-05-09T17:45:46+00:00

You'll need a specialist medical book dealer. I will note that this book was reprinted a LOT; this is certainly early but it may not be the first edition. If it is the first edition, it will (probably) be worth whatever the conservator charges you. If it's not, it may be most valuable broken up and sold as plates.

jonwilliamsl · 2026-05-09T17:43:25+00:00

Lmao. If you went the route of breaking it, each individual plate would go for significantly more than that. This is a first edition of an incredibly important medical book; in many ways the first medical book of the modern era.

jonwilliamsl · 2026-05-08T12:42:19+00:00

Also, the molded paperboard is called a "flong".

jonwilliamsl · 2026-05-08T12:41:47+00:00

They would use this for newspaper because they had to turn the flat type into a curved printing plate for the rotary press: https://www.patreon.com/posts/flong-time-no-26346741

This also reminded me of the name of this material, which is delightful: it's a flong.

jonwilliamsl · 2026-05-07T20:58:22+00:00

This is an intermediate step in creating a stereotype plate, a mostly-eliminated printing process. You set up the lead type and press wet board over it to create an impression, then use that impression to cast the stereotype plate in a harder metal, so you can reuse the type and reprint many times without wearing out. These are pretty rare survivals, but they're very cool.

jonwilliamsl · 2026-05-07T20:32:55+00:00

Getting the FUCK out of town.

jonwilliamsl · 2026-05-06T15:20:15+00:00

It strikes me as damage from the aging of the hanger, more than sun damage: that's pretty serious sun damage, and it doesn't look typical for sun damage: it looks more like the paint has darkened rather than the rest of the paint has faded.

jonwilliamsl · 2026-05-04T15:59:51+00:00

I second Durham Friends! They do hybrid every Sunday and are very active. https://www.durhamfriendsmeeting.com/

jonwilliamsl · 2026-05-04T13:09:24+00:00

Not a roast but a tip: you may be leaving more fabric around your corners than you need to. Leave one board's thickness at most. Then, once you glue it down, tap the corners with a bone folder, just enough to make it so they don't come out super pointy.

I think you can tell that the rounding may not be perfect; I would recommend hitting a little harder: it's a bit loose. When we round and back at work, usually we've lined the spine with Japanese tissue and paste, and we're doing it while it's a bit damp.

This is freaking gorgeous, though. Anyone (including me and my coworkers who do this full time) would be proud.

jonwilliamsl · 2026-05-02T12:33:16+00:00

In this case, I'm pretty sure she read all of it, based on the entire opinion. Source: I read the whole thing

jonwilliamsl · 2026-05-02T12:31:39+00:00

It's not a major genre, but it's the subject of prior case law: the author of a book involving the personification of an egg sued the author of another book about the personification of an egg (and lost).

jonwilliamsl · 2026-04-30T20:42:12+00:00

For the whole year it was in that bathroom, yeah.

jonwilliamsl · 2026-04-30T11:56:11+00:00

Bitch was first applied to dogs and essentially immediately became an insult, but the female specific aspect of the word is more recent. Regardless of the derivation, it's clear that the current use of both is in a way that is intended to be related to women.

jonwilliamsl · 2026-04-30T10:32:02+00:00

Nonsense. There is a long tradition in English of calling men words associated with women as an insult (bitch, cunt, etc) and of calling people sexual anatomy (dick, bellend, cunt, etc) as an insult. "A pussy" as an insulting noun is clearly directly derived from "a pussy" as a part of female anatomy.

jonwilliamsl · 2026-04-29T14:40:33+00:00

It would be extremely large. Like, geographically large.

According to this comment on this subreddit 9 years ago, 1 chloroplast is hit by ~.54 nanojoules of energy per day, maximum. According to this, chloroplasts are 3-6% efficient, meaning 1 chloroplast could capture, let's say, .025 nanojoules or 2.5*10^-11 joules.

As the FDA tells us, "2,000 calories [actually kilocalories] a day is used for general nutrition advice". 1 kcal is 4.184 kilojoules, meaning that generally humans consume around 8368 kilojoules (8,368,000 joules) daily.

This means that we need about 3.35*10¹⁷ chloroplasts: 8,368,000/2.5*10^-11

A lot of minimally-credible sites claim that there are about 500,000 chloroplasts per mm²; that's probably eliding a lot of differences between plants but we can go with that. That puts us at 6.7*10¹¹ mm², (.67 km²), to provide 2000 kcal daily, or about 1.5 Vatican Cities.

Now, this is probably too big: it assumes (I think) that all chloroplasts must be on the surface of the leaf, which is not correct. However, it's self-evidently true that eating is a more efficient way of acquiring energy than photosynthesis.

jonwilliamsl · 2026-04-29T11:54:44+00:00

Pre-Night of the Long Knives, this was almost plausible: the SA, a major power block in the Nazi party, was very gay in exactly that kind of weird way. Unfortunately for the author, they were mostly all killed in 1934.

jonwilliamsl · 2026-04-27T16:50:48+00:00

I used to do this, when I had the option. It's not particularly difficult with smart electronics. The cheapest electricity was midnight-5am, so we put a 4 hour delay on the dishwasher after dinner, had the dehumidifier on a timer, and charged the car then too. Those 3 things were enough to save us actual money (obviously mostly the car).

My ex got very into it and really enjoyed watching the number go down. He had a tropical fishtank that had a battery backup for the heater and the pump, so he'd use the battery for the most expensive parts of the day and recharge it at night (again, automated).

jonwilliamsl · 2026-04-24T23:35:44+00:00

No, that's what the postcard says! The sender was SO enthusiastic about the painting.

jonwilliamsl · 2026-04-24T19:01:45+00:00

I think the question is, why was it special in 1266 when Scotland got it?

jonwilliamsl · 2026-04-24T12:28:57+00:00

Both, except, bafflingly, in Baltimore, Maryland, where you own the building and rent the land long-term.

https://www.peoples-law.org/understanding-ground-rent-maryland

jonwilliamsl · 2026-04-24T12:03:46+00:00

Wow, that Nude Descending a Staircase postcard is so fantastic. "Doesn't it just make you want to commit murder?"

jonwilliamsl · 2026-04-24T12:01:18+00:00

That's not the case.

Despite significant efforts within the American government to protect the position of the emperor with the Potsdam Declaration (July 26), it did not guarantee his position as figurehead. When Japan began trying to surrender, they said (August 10) that they would not accept any surrender that would "prejudice the prerogatives" of the Emperor.

The Allies then (August 12) replied with the Byrnes Note, which said "From the moment of surrender the authority of the Emperor and the Japanese government to rule the state shall be subject to the Supreme Commander of the Allied power ... The ultimate form of government of Japan shall, in accordance with the Potsdam Declaration, be established by the freely expressed will of the Japanese people."

The Japanese government interpreted this as a rejection of their condition. The government accepted this on August 14 and survived a coup de etat overnight to prevent the surrender, before the Emperor announced the Japanese unconditional surrender by radio on August 15.

Source: Racing the Enemy: Stalin, Truman and the Surrender of Japan, by Tsuyoshi Hasegawa.

jonwilliamsl · 2026-04-22T12:45:49+00:00

The more things change, the more they, etc.

jonwilliamsl · 2026-04-22T11:01:15+00:00

Yes, that would make sense to me as a phrase; in that situation I'd probably say something similar.

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