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An old typesetter once told me about a joke they played on newbies. They told them to closely look for the "lead lice" in a freshly set frame of types. When the apprentices had their faces real close to it, they'd compress the whole shebang together and residual ink would be squirting out from between the individual types. Thus creating freckles or "lead lice".

Hopefully I got some of the jargon right. Typesetters use so many unconventional words and phrases, at least here in Germany.

An old typesetter once told me about a joke they played on newbies. They told them to closely look for the "lead lice" in a freshly set frame of types. When the apprentices had their faces real close to it, they'd compress the whole shebang together and residual ink would be squirting out from between the individual types. Thus creating freckles or "lead lice". Hopefully I got some of the jargon right. Typesetters use so many unconventional words and phrases, at least here in Germany.
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[–] • 1 pt

With the disappearance of an industry, so goes it's terminology. Kind of sad, but what do you do?

[–] • 1 pt

Oh, it's just the way things go. I just think there's usually some story and wisdom attached to jargon, which deserves to be conserved.

After watching the NYT video, it's a sobering thought that some of these people were convinced that they were at the apex of technology and how crude the tech seems nowadays.

1978 was net even 50 years ago, If we had another 50, it sure would be interesting to witness progress or decline. But alas, I think we don't have that long, not even close. The geophysical event will rub out most of our tech in minutes.

[–] • 1 pt

Lin-O-Type was, and still is an amazing piece of machinery. Casting letters on the fly from what's essentially an exotic solder blend.

I can see why the operators thought they would never be replaced.

[–] • 1 pt

Very rewarding watch and Linos are something I've always been interested in because of the stories the old dude (RIP) told me.

But I was talking about the relative crudity of the IT systems the 'modern' process used :)