10,000 Matching Annotations
  1. Aug 2025
    1. It's an Olivetti Valentine. An iconic piece of design with mechanicals almost identical to the Lettera 32. Its designer, Ettore Sotsass, was apparently not fond of it ("I worked as an architect for sixty years of my life and all people know is this fucking plastic machine" - or something to that effect) and its first production run was not particularly popular.

      source for this?? interesting, if true

      https://www.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1mxxqkl/dieter_rams_typewriter_model/

    1. https://sustainingcommunity.wordpress.com/2019/02/01/4-types-of-power/#comment-122967

      Given your area, if you haven't found it yet, you might appreciate going a generation further back in your references with: Mary P. Follett. Dynamic Administration: The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett, ed. by E. M. Fox and L. Urwick (London: Pitman Publishing, 1940). She had some interesting work in organization theory you might appreciate. Wikipedia can give you a quick overview. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mary_Parker_Follett#Organizational_theory

    1. Themed logs are still more useful than daily notes<br /> by [[Eleanor Konik]]<br /> accessed on 2025-08-18T09:19:49

      On ordering notes in particular ways. Presumably search and indexing are the important factors here, but potentially also has something to say about context and the immediacy of neighborhoods.

      Personal preference may be the biggest determination.

      She focuses on where she'll search for things rather than indexing them where they start and then searching and concatenating them later (or digitally).

      She uses the "everything has it's place" idea to commonplace more traditionally (or at least in an Obsidian digital context).

      She also tangentially touches on the idea of where to place the work when taking notes. Toss it into a pile or deal with it now and the work it may take to clean up later.

      Some interesting and potentially useful idiosyncratic evidence here, but nothing new or earth shattering.

    1. The moment came in May, when CNBC’s Megan Cassella asked Trump about “TACO,” an acronym for “Trump always chickens out.” The phrase had gained popularity in the financial sector as a derisive shorthand for the president’s penchant for backing down from his tariff threats. During an otherwise routine Oval Office event, Trump sputtered angrily at Cassella, claiming that his shifting tariff timelines were “part of negotiations” and admonishing, “Don’t ever say what you said.”
    1. It depends in my opinion. Many variables with this company and what you seek as well as preferences. Do you want a three bank typewriter? I would go with an Erika 2 for a three bank typewriter. Do you want a more modern typewriter? Perhaps an Erika 10 is a good choice.  Do you want a certain font? Maybe Fraktur? (Good luck finding one for cheap however) Erika 5 would be a good choice for fonts maybe. Do you want a rare and collectable model? Go with an Erika 20. They have basket shift too. I would personally avoid the newer models, such as the Erika 50. They aren't great in my preference, but you decide! There are many different models for different people, but the main company that produced Erikas, which is Seidel & Naumann, also created the "Ideal" brand of typewriters. S&N is responsible for a lot of typewriters.

      https://www.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1mqcu0f/erika_typewriters_i_am_looking_to_potentially_get/<br /> via LeSwiss1886

    1. https://www.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1mp43lf/a_sticky_shift_issue_olympia_sm9/

      Over time, dust and oil can clog up in the bearing and along the track that the segment glides up and down on causing this sort of issue. You can flush it out with mineral spirits (or something similar) while you actuate the shift key to remedy the issue. When you're done, then add back a drop of light (sewing) machine oil.

      While you're at it, most basket shift machines load them with large springs to assist with the weight and to help the return. They're typically attached to metal brackets that can be easily formed with pliers to either increase or decrease the force as necessary to suit your touch and preferred response. (YouTube videos may help here if necessary.)

      If that doesn't remedy it, then take the hood off and look closely at the mechanism to see if something is physically impeding it.

    1. Reply to Joe Van Cleave at https://typewriterdatabase.com/show.21270.typewriter

      It's probably a subtle difference, but is this machine provide the standard 6 lines per vertical inch or due to the taller ascenders/descenders is it a 4 lines per vertical inch machine?

      If you need a "name" for this machine, I might suggest "Satchmo". In doing some research on Louis Armstrong's 5 series Smith Corona, I'm pretty sure his 5 series also had this same vertical script. None of the features on any of the photos I could find of his machine are subtle enough to distinguish which particular model of Smith-Corona he was using. If we find a good direct photo of the machine itself, I'm sure I could puzzle out which version he used. By 1955 he had at least one machine with a script face (see: https://www.louisarmstronghouse.org/virtual-exhibits/my-fifty-fifth-birthday-celebration-happy-birthday-louis-armstrong/). It doesn't appear to be Smith-Corona's common Script (Artistic) No. 75 , but more like Script No. 46. Based on a version of this photo (https://www.usatoday.com/gcdn/presto/2019/07/15/USAT/d815dddc-c0b8-4c54-b9b5-719886d4a0cc-02_Armstrong_Louis_16.jpg?width=1292&height=1320&fit=crop&format=pjpg&auto=webp) it would seem that it's the Smith-Corona that was the script machine (as opposed to his earlier Remington).

      According to Ted Munk's post on the S-C Vertical script: "Smith Corona is offering the [vertical] typeface as 'Script No. 46', 10 Pitch by 1954."

      Joe's video of his 1952 Smith-Corona this with the same vertical script https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EH6mwmoN_LI

      See also: https://www.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1mo4wbg/what_typewriter/

      Somewhat interesting that Louis Armstrong played cornet, wrote on a Smith-Corona, and lived in the Corona neighborhood of Queens, NY.

    1. https://typecast.munk.org/2011/04/23/1964-nomda-blue-book-olympia-font-styles/

      The following were the available Olympia type sizes as listed in the 1964 NOMDA Blue Book:

      • 10 pitch (2.6 m/m) pica
      • 11 pitch (2.3 m/m) elite
      • 12 pitch (2.1 m/m) elite
      • 17 pitch (1.5 m/m, calculated)

      Not in the NOMDA Blue Book, but found in the wild on a 1971 Olympia SG-3: - 6 pitch (4.2 m/m) with typeface: Basic Writing No. 67

  2. www.reddit.com www.reddit.com
    1. Almost every day here there's at least one person asking where they can find new ribbon.

      There is a seemingly a lot of talk here and on the web about re-inking typewriter ribbon, but the majority of it stems from the fact that people don't see new ribbon in the wild and assume that it isn't made anymore and thus the only way to type is to re-ink it. While it can be done it's a lot of work and effort with modest results and tends to be far more expensive and messy than it's worth in the end. Beyond this, it takes some research to find appropriate types of ink. You can also find advice about re-wetting old ribbon with WD-40 to "rejuvenate" it, but that process is also a lot of work and mess with poor results. Unless you really have to, I don't recommend reinking or rejuvenating.

      Fortunately new typewriter ribbon is easily obtainable and is very inexpensive and easy enough to spool onto your already existing spools after you've removed the old ribbon. Even Tom Hanks has a video about putting ribbon on your typewriter: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBbsNKaVAB0 Scores of similar videos exist covering various makes and models of typewriter, but the process doesn't have a lot of variability.

      Both Baco Ribbon and Fine Line offer black/red bichrome ribbon in most of these materials for a very reasonable price per yard, in the range of:

      • nylon ribbon $0.10 - $0.15/yard
      • silk ribobn $0.33 to $0.40/yard
      • cotton ribbon $0.25/yard

      Most machines with 2 inch diameter spools will take from 18-22 yards of ribbon while ultra-portables with smaller spools will do 12-16 yards.

      If you're going to buy even 3-6 spools of ribbon at individual prices of $9-20 per spool, you may as well make the investment in a half or full reel of inked typewriter ribbon and save yourself some expense.

      Other purveyors exist including those listed at: https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/tw-faq.html#q1

      If you really must, search Amazon or Etsy for smaller shops with larger mark ups on typewriter ribbon.


      reply to u/Admirable_Duckwalk https://old.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1mj5qdg/ink/

    1. Portable Typewriters Today - February 2015<br /> by [[Will Davis]] on 2015-02-10<br /> accessed on 2025-08-05T16:35:48

    1. These assessments push Austen beyond her stereotype as patron saint of marriage plots. As Inger Sigrun Bredkjær Brodey, an English professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, argues in Jane Austen and the Price of Happiness (JHU Press, 2024), the author's rushed and unsatisfying wedding scenes reveal her ambivalence about the convention of marriage. "If marriage is so central to Austen as a novelist, why does she speed through the resolution?" Brodey asks.

      Jane Austin as patron saint of marriage plots

    2. Among them: the smash-hit 1940 Pride and Prejudice film with Greer Garson and Laurence Olivier; Ang Lee's Oscar-winning Sense and Sensibility from 1995; the cult-classic Clueless (1996), based on Emma; and the 2016 mash-up of genres—romance meets sci-fi meets horror—in Pride and Prejudice and Zombies, where heroine Elizabeth Bennet takes on a new role: slayer of the walking dead.
    3. The book's title also suggests abolitionist sentiments, given its connection to William Murray, the 1st Earl of Mansfield who served as Lord Chief Justice of England from 1756 to 1788—and was known as Lord Mansfield. In 1772, Mansfield ruled on a court case involving James Somerset, enslaved in colonial Virginia and brought to England by his master. After escaping and being recaptured, Somerset faced sale to a Jamaican plantation. A London abolitionist network intervened, and Mansfield ruled that Somerset—chained on a boat in the Thames—be freed.
    4. Midway through Jane Austen's 1814 novel Mansfield Park, a few lines of prose rouse readers into a debate that still rages. The heroine, Fanny Price, known for both her timidity and strong moral backbone, broaches a controversial topic among relatives: the presence of slaves on her uncle's sugar plantations in Antigua, then a British colony. Fanny's inquiry goes unanswered—or as she describes it, a "dead silence!" cuts through the air, as her cousins sit idly by "without speaking a word or seeming at all interested in the subject."
    1. For installing ribbon on almost all machines, it's recommended you set the ribbon selector to the "red" position and then simultaneously press the H and G keys so that they meet in the middle and temporarily "jam" in the up position. This holds the ribbon vibrator in its highest position making the vibrator easier to access and thread.

      Reading manuals for your particular machine can help with respect to whether the ribbon should come off the front or the back of the spool: https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/tw-manuals.html


      Reply to u/Smurf404OP at https://old.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1mifdaw/why_is_it_so_damn_hard_to_thread_ribbon_through/

    1. https://www.instagram.com/p/DLuS7PJs6xx/

      Place names in Irish with anglicizations:<br /> Rath - ráth = earthen ringfort accent on a Kill - Cill = church<br /> bally - baile = home of <br /> Bally - Bealach = way to / passage / direction to Bell = béal = mouth of<br /> Carrick - carraig = rock<br /> Clon - clúin = meadow<br /> Don - domhnach = church Drum - droim = back of <br /> Ennis - Inis = Island<br /> Letter - Leitir = hillside<br /> Lis - Lois = ringfort<br /> Mullagh - Mhullach = big hill/summit<br /> Tulla - tullach = heap

    1. Start here: https://typewriterdatabase.com/imperial.76.typewriter-serial-number-database Try to identify your particular model from the links at the bottom of the page to see specific examples. You can look through individual galleries to find a serial number and that may allow you to find the range of serial numbers made in particular years to narrow down your year. Looks like it's a "standard" from the late 30s or 1940s, possibly an Imperial 50.

      Next find a manual (or something close): https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/tw-manuals.html

      Learn how they were used: https://boffosocko.com/2025/06/06/typewriter-use-and-maintenance-for-beginning-to-intermediate-typists/

      Consider whether it will be cheaper/easier to have someone service it for you or to do it yourself: https://boffosocko.com/2025/06/23/typewriter-repair-costs-and-valuation-professional-shops-versus-collectors-versus-first-time-buyers/

      Go crazy: https://boffosocko.com/research/typewriter-collection/

      Good luck!

      reply to u/Pleasant-Ad9620 at https://reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1mgg7xv/helping_dating_this_imperial_typewriter/

    1. Use and maintenance

      The use and maintenance details you might be looking for: https://boffosocko.com/2025/06/06/typewriter-use-and-maintenance-for-beginning-to-intermediate-typists/

      Typewriter Manuals

      In case you need a manual: https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/tw-manuals.html Your specific manual may be helpful for the tiny specifics like where the carriage lock is or how to properly thread your ribbon, but all the "good" stuff may be in much older manuals for other machines, especially in the 1920s by which time most typewriter technology and features were roughly standardized. Later manuals became less dense as it was assumed that newer users had friends/family/teachers to show them the "missing manual" portions for how to use them.

      Typewriter repair

      If you need to or decide to (for fun) go down the repair rabbit hole: https://boffosocko.com/2024/10/24/learning-typewriter-maintenance-and-repair/

      from reply to u/FarInsect3003 at https://reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1mggp8g/olivetti_lettera_32_uppercase_smudge/

    1. reply to u/MirageAnne at https://reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1mgmwkq/remington_rand_17/

      There are two general types of "sticky keys": 1. sticky going up 2. sticky coming down

      Sticky going up

      For stickiness slowing down the typebar (on the way up or down), it's likely that you've got oil, dirt, dust, or other sludge in the segment of your machine. You'll want to flush out your segment with some solvent and potentially blow things out with compressed air to remove the source of the friction.

      While you're flushing out the segment with your solvent of choice (lacquer thinner, paint thinner, mineral spirits, alcohol, etc.), actually move the typebars using the keys or by other means. This will help to get them moving and allow the solvent and subsequently compressed air to help flush the oil, dust, hair, etc. out of your machine. You've already got a mechanical cleaning device of sorts (the typebar itself) inside the segment, so move it while you're flushing it out!

      It may take a few repeated treatments/attempts to get it all clear for all the keys, but it's far easier than taking everything apart.

      When you're done, it's common wisdom that one should NOT oil the segment.

      Sticky going down

      If your typebar(s) are sticking due to friction at the typing point, then they need some gentle forming to the right or the left to prevent them from rubbing on the typing point so that they can fall back down to the type rest. The two videos below will help describe and demonstrate the symptoms as well as the repair. - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrlt6VyC8D0&t=485s - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Arspyq1w4Iw

      Other considerations

      It's much less common, but once everything is clean and properly aligned, if you're still seeing sluggishness, it may be the case that the spring on the individual key has broken or become disconnected which prevents it from returning back to the type rest.

    1. Earlier this morning, I said to someone who was worried about typing topless:

      You'll be joining a log line of typists, including Wood Allen, who liked to type "naked" or "topless".

      I've even seen a few typewriter shops selling typewriters without the external shells. I'd a lot harder to keep them dust free, but it can certainly be fun. It's an fun, easy, and fascinating way to sell off a machine that's missing some screws or has dented/damaged panels.

      reply to u/stiff_peach at https://reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1mf2seo/typing_without_panels/

    1. Godrej & Boyce's Milind Dukle tells the Business Standard: "From the early 2000 onwards, computers started dominating. All the manufacturers of office typewriters stopped production, except us. Till 2009, we used to produce 10,000 to 12,000 machines a year. "We stopped production in 2009 and were the last company in the world to manufacture office typewriters. Currently, the company has only 500 machines left. The machines are of Godrej Prima, the last typewriter brand from our company, and will be sold at a maximum retail price of Rs 12,000."

      The World's Last Typewriter Factory Closes in India - Business Insider<br /> by [[Gus Lubin]] for Business Insider accessed on 2025-08-01T09:26:55

      Godrej & Boyce manufactured typewriters to 2009 and were selling off their final machines in 2011.

    1. The final typewriter manufacturers still out there: - Shanghai Weilv Mechanism Company (you really don't want one: https://boffosocko.com/2025/06/09/the-typewriter-you-probably-dont-want-to-buy/)<br /> - Nakajima still puts out daisy wheel word processors - Swintec still makes machines, but primarily clear bodied ones for prisons

      The last of the serious manual typewriter manufacturers included: - Brother, who stopped manufacturing machines in Wrexham, Wales in 2012 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-20413234 - Godrej Typewriter quit manufacturing in 2009 and was finishing out the last of their stock in 2011 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/world-s-last-typewriter-plant-stops-production-1.1090626

      Reply to https://reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1meum7j/new_typewriters/

  3. Jul 2025
    1. reply to u/Impossible-Dance7442 at tk

      Looks like a portable 4 bank B model Underwood from 1926 (see also: https://typewriterdatabase.com/underwood.4.typewriter-serial-number-database).

      Appears to be in reasonable cosmetic condition with good decals, but the internal condition is going to be the biggest determinant of value. In unknown condition they sell regularly for $20-50 in online auctions, but cleaned, oiled, and adjusted from a professional repair shop they might go as high as $400, or perhaps $550 if you've had the rubber on the platen re-covered. Thinking that fair market for this in even the most pristine condition is $800 is pure folly unless it was used by someone famous. (The lack of interest from antique shops is a solid indicator here.) It assuredly is not going to make you rich, unless you bought the house from a famous author.

      You might find some useful advice from some of the articles at: https://boffosocko.com/research/typewriter-collection/#Typewriter%20Market They're written with first time buyers in mind, but you could also view them from the first time seller perspective.

      A local repair shop might give you a few bones for it and give it a new life: https://site.xavier.edu/polt/typewriters/tw-repair.html

      You could also donate it to a local thrift shop.

      Your best bet for time and money invested though, is to gift it to a kid or teenager you know who's interested in writing, perhaps as a birthday present along with a copy of either: (1) Polt, R. The Typewriter Revolution: A Typist’s Companion for the 21st Century, 1st ed.; Countryman Press: Woodstock, VT, 2015. (2) Flint, W. D. The Distraction-Free First Draft; One Idea Press, 2023.

      Good luck with it.

      Alternate version of this with heirloom push is also at: https://www.reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1mbf185/comment/n5mdydi/

    1. When I started out back in 2014, I would print out artworks by Paul Smith and study them under a magnifying glass to better understand how he tackled certain subjects or material textures, be it fabrics, water, grass, reflections and along the way, I have developed my own techniques as well.
    2. Paul Smith, an American artist who lived with cerebral palsy and created extraordinary artworks using a typewriter. As a child, Paul was given a typewriter by his parents. Because of his condition, he couldn’t hold pens or pencils, and like any parent, they wanted to help him learn to write. The mechanical control of a typewriter not only allowed him to do that with precision, but also unlocked a way for him to express himself artistically.
    1. For when thy labour doon al ys, For when your labour’s all doneAnd hast mad alle thy rekenynges, And you’ve made all the accountsIn stede of reste and newe thynges Instead of rest and other thingsThou goost hom to thy hous anoon, You go straight homeAnd, also domb as any stoon, And as dumb as any stoneThou sittest at another book Sit at another bookTyl fully daswed ys thy look. Till your eyes are fully dazed

      In The House of Flame, Chaucer complains of "looking at screens all day" as if he were an office worker in 2025.

      "Making all the accounts" here is akin to staring at an accounting spreadsheet all day.

    2. Notandum,A rat had gnawn my spur-leathers; notwithstanding,I put on new, and did go forth: but firstI threw three beans over the threshold. Item,I went and bought two tooth-picks, whereof oneI burst immediately... and at St. Mark’s I urined.

      I've had a rat similarly chewing on my conveyance-related items: the wires of our Mercedes-Benz. I think I'll throw three beans.

      Quote from Ben Jonson’s 1606 play Volpone and an entry in Sir Politic's diary/journal - the first appearance of a journal in a work of English drama/fiction.

    3. The shaded afterlife of Leonardo’s notebooks – ‘without parallel in theintellectual history of word and image’, as Kemp describes them – stands insharp relief when we light it with the long, powerful burn of Pacioli’sposthumous – albeit near-anonymous – career. There’s no doubt thatLeonardo was the greater thinker, but his creative achievements madescarcely any impression compared to the impact of the universal adoptionof his friend’s Summa.

      So much value hiding in da Vinci's notebooks because he failed to publish and share his knowledge

    4. up Isabella d’Este’s portrait, complaining of Leonardo’s ‘haphazard andextremely unpredictable’ routine. This frustrating restlessness was, ofcourse, integral to the obsessive creativity. Pacioli had been able to draw aline under a piece of work and consider it done, but for Leonardo thisrepresented a mental hurdle that he frequently failed to clear. He leftpaintings unfinished for decades – Lisa del Giocondo sat for the Mona Lisawhen she was in her early twenties, and was thirty-nine when Leonardodied, still working on it – and he evidently felt similarly about hismanuscripts and notebooks
    5. Why did Leonardo not go to Venice to publish when Pacioli did? Had hetidied up the texts in his notebooks, he would have had no difficulty findinga patron and printer, and could have seen several books into print at thesame time as his friend.

      Like many, da Vinci didn't publish much from his copious notebooks. He had huge volumes of material, but really not much to show for it in the end.

    6. In 1540 a Venetianprinter named Domenico Manzoni excerpted them, without attribution(Pacioli himself had acknowledged most, but not all, of his sources) butusefully adding hundreds of worked examples which illustrated Pacioli’spoints. Tellingly, Manzoni retitled the work Quaderno Doppio, ‘the doubleledger’. Selling even better than Maestro Luca’s original, it went throughsix or seven editions and prompted a wave of adaptations and translations.
    7. This habit of drawing engaged one of his most important analyticaltools: analogy. Drawing from nature in detail forces the artist to understandboth underlying structure and surface detail, and this close examination ledLeonardo to make surprising connections, noting the resemblances betweenthe curls of hair and the movement of water, a sprouting seed and thevessels around the human heart, ropes and levers and tendons and bones.These connections would prove distracting – ‘lateral thinking at apathological level’, as Kemp puts it – but the result was that ‘he couldalways see further possibilities’.
    8. Over six thousand leaves (which is tosay, thirteen thousand pages) survive, and experts estimate that thisrepresents about a quarter of the original total. This implies that Leonardofilled his notebooks at the rate of about a thousand pages a year, allobsessively covered with drawings, diagrams and idiosyncratic mirrorhandwriting. ‘I worked out at one point that he must have written aboutfifty academic-length books, if you put them all together,’ says Kemp. ‘Hewas never at rest.’
    9. In short: Book ix of the Summawas the nearest thing to an MBA textbook that the fifteenth century had tooffer. And one of the first lessons that its aspirational readers digested wasthat every business needed at least four blank books – the memoriale, orday book, the giornale, or journal, the quaderno, or general ledger, and abook for correspondence – and maybe even a fifth, the squartofoglia, or

      waste book.

    10. And buried deep inside,Book ix of the Summa presents a concise and surprisingly readable coursein double-entry bookkeeping, spelling out exactly how a business should berun – and why the Florentine-Venetian system of double entry was the bestway to do it. ‘Without double entry, businessmen would not sleep easily atnight’, he writes. ‘Their minds would keep them awake with worry.’
    11. An ambitious synthesis of all the mathematical knowledge he could find,Pacioli’s Summa de arithmetica, geometria, proportioni et proportionalitais a baggy monster of a book. Six hundred and fifteen pages long, nearlyhalf a million words, full folio in size, closely printed on fine paper, itcomprehensively sums up the state of European mathematical knowledge,and was intended for a wide audience – Fra Luca wrote informally, inTuscan, not Latin, making it accessible to anyone with a basic education.The book combines a general treatise on theoretical and practical arithmetic– including the Liber Abaci of the then little-known Fibonacci, whichPacioli had discovered on a monastery bookshelf – with an introduction toalgebra, currency conversions, multiplication tables, weights and measuresof the Italian states, a summary of Euclidean geometry, and accounts ofArchimedes, Euclid and Piero della Francesca.
    12. But LHD 244 is unique in how it captures an art form evolving overa long period, and shows how it was transmitted from musician tomusician. This formal study of musical theory shows us how classicalmusic evolved out of liturgical chanting and towards the harmonicsophistication that Bach, Mozart and Beethoven would master
    13. It documents the English harmonic innovation known as the gymel,in which two or more voices singing a part in unison suddenly split intopolyphonic harmony, producing rich, textured chords before returning tothe melody in unison.

    Tags

    Annotators

    1. reply to u/VampySiren on https://reddit.com/r/typewriters/comments/1m7yz1m/silveretti_ribbon_vibrator_getting_stuck_in/

      On most machines, the ribbon vibrator is meant to slide up and down freely and it typically returns with just gravity. 9 times out of 10 the reason that the vibrator doesn't go back down because it's either dirty/gummy or has been slightly bent. Put a few drops of mineral spirits or similar degreaser on it and give it a light scrub with a toothbrush. If it doesn't move freely after a round or two of this, is it bent and hanging on something? If so, bend it so that it moves freely.

      The other 1 of 10 times, it's the ribbon that's been installed correctly.

    1. In this context, Trump’s Truth Social page is little more than a rapid-response account that illustrates a world that doesn’t actually exist: one in which POTUS looks like a comic-book hero, is universally beloved, and exerts his executive authority to jail or silence anyone who disagrees with him. This sort of revenge fantasy would be sad coming from anyone. That it is coming from the president of the United States, a man obsessed with retribution, who presides over a government that is enthusiastically arresting and jailing immigrants in makeshift camps, is terrifying.
    1. Moyers tells it in the first person: We were in Tennessee. During the motorcade, he spotted some ugly racial epithets scrawled on signs. Late that night in the hotel, when the local dignitaries had finished the last bottles of bourbon and branch water and departed, he started talking about those signs. "I'll tell you what's at the bottom of it," he said. "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."

      https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/lbj-convince-the-lowest-white-man/

      See also: Moyers, Bill. "What a Real President Was Like." The Washington Post. 13 November 1988. https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1988/11/13/what-a-real-president-was-like/d483c1be-d0da-43b7-bde6-04e10106ff6c/

    1. Historically, he writes, colleges and universities aimed to imprint capital-C Culture—especially a familiarity with a nation’s great texts and intellectual traditions—on young people. Today, however, students more often are seen and see themselves as consumers who are buying diplomas in order to signal their employability. In this model, the values that animate higher education are job preparation, skill building, and networking, not intellectual engagement or humanistic fulfillment. The University in Ruins