Gentilknight Recommends

gentilknight

gentilknight recommended this 2 years, 7 months ago

Fairly easy to start out and rewards mastery at every level.

Flex nibs and crow quills getting easier to find.
Cons: Inky fingers.

Lost art: infer the ductus from exemplars of an obscure hand. Lost art: harder to find broad nibs.

Vellum cost & availability for illuminators.

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gentilknight

gentilknight recommended this 2 years, 7 months ago

If you dock humor by one and filter out everything but the 5- and 4- score, you have an excellent chance of reading some insightful or informative commentary.
Cons: In-jokes can get tired and obscure. Goatse. Humor gets upvoted higher than it usually merits.

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gentilknight

gentilknight recommended this 2 years, 7 months ago

Advice ranges from the broad to the nitty-gritty of figure drawing. Solid, practical advice, good anatomy, copious illustrations, several approaches. Dense! There's three books' worth of info in 120pp
Cons: Style seems to be dated from the fifties, but the advice is timeless. Organization is a bit random, with one-page lessons grouped into unheaded chapters. No index. No color, though some advi...

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gentilknight

gentilknight recommended this 2 years, 8 months ago

Still have mine from May or March 1984. I can still use it to play Broderbund's Ancient Art of War. Signatures of the dev team cast in the back. lowendmac.com
Cons: Constant disk-switching between applications/data disks. Turned a bit yellowish. No one makes 400K single-sided single-density floppies anymore, do they?

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gentilknight

gentilknight recommended this 2 years, 8 months ago

Living and learning in a community of scholars! Exploration of the unknown! Pitting your mind against the greats! Producing knowledge for the ages!
Cons: Kissinger: "academic fights are more brutal...because the stakes are so low, so the passions are very high." Personal fiefdoms. Grant-grubbing; in a tough economy, even grant-driven research. Teaching

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gentilknight

gentilknight recommended this 2 years, 8 months ago

Light-hearted. Wonderful cinematography and storytelling. Quirky and charming
Cons: Not strictly a fantasy. It has a narrator and it's in French.

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gentilknight

gentilknight recommended this 2 years, 8 months ago

72 Spring St was a beautiful, tasteful space
Cons: New location is not open until later this month (Sep 2009)

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gentilknight

gentilknight recommended this 2 years, 8 months ago

Snark. Usually wonderful commentary. Best of the web, especially if you're interested in culture, arts, lit, and the esoteric. Great place to ask questions if you can pace them two weeks at a time.
Cons: Commentary and news selection skews raaather leftward (hey desjardins). Gets hung up on the weirdest things (BoingBoing "censorship"? I mean, come on!) Snark.

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gentilknight

gentilknight recommended this 2 years, 8 months ago

Housman has some compulsively recitable lines. You can be elegiac and seductive at the same time!
Cons: Second halves of the first and second stanzas always make me stumble.

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gentilknight

gentilknight recommended this 2 years, 8 months ago

Gorgeous prose.
Cons: I have to give up on the idea that my "friend" will ever return my copy.

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gentilknight

gentilknight recommended this 2 years, 8 months ago

Short and sweet.
"Michelle." "In my life." "You won't see me." "Wait." "I'm looking through you." "Girl." "Nowhere man."
Cons: Bit too short?
"Norwegian wood." "Run for your life," catchy, but a bit of a misogynistic downer to end with (He's just a jealous guy); may have been better earlier in the sequence?

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gentilknight

gentilknight recommended this 2 years, 8 months ago

Pithy, snarky, enticing links to diverse range of intelligent articles. Leans a little left for conservatives, leans a little right for liberals. Yay!
Cons: Weekend edition skips a day. Pink pastel color makes it obvious that I am goofing off at work. Ironic description not always caught until after link is clicked.

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gentilknight

gentilknight recommended this 2 years, 8 months ago

Great music. "I'm a werewolf, you're a werewolf...wouldn't you like to be a werewolf, too!"

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gentilknight

gentilknight recommended this 2 years, 8 months ago

Choose the articles from people you trust. Not beholden to one editorial standpoint.
Cons: All over the place. Only one set of local news.

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gentilknight

gentilknight recommended this 2 years, 8 months ago

Many many books. Staff usually leaves you alone but are helpful when asked. (Hey jonmc!)
Cons: Book selection a bit uneven. While it can be said of any used store, it's surprising that 18 mi of books can't supply some basics. Selection is hoovered by hipsters. Rarity section closes too early.

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gentilknight

gentilknight recommended this 2 years, 8 months ago

Free to enter. Main reading room. They probably have what you're looking for or can answer your question(s).
Cons: Can't buy books except from the gift shop. The security guards will not let me live there. The map room people hate me.

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gentilknight

gentilknight recommended this 2 years, 9 months ago

Open sourced (code.google.com/p/blacktree-alchemy/) with a Github fork (github.com/tycho/quicksilver/tree/master) with (sort of) recent commits. Fun to use. Beautiful effects.
Cons: Google hired Jitkoff, so any development on the main branch is stability-oriented. LaunchBar's indexing on my input was better.

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