PTPL 214 · Hand-Typed Progress Bars, plus a New Plain Text Discussion Zone

Because typewriter-style graphics are cool and the algorithmic internet is not Goodie 1 - The Progress Bar Someone kindly gave me a typewriter last month. Playing with it has reminded me of the creative ways we used to use monospaced fonts, because at one time that’s all there were. Progress bars and charts could be represented with nothing other than good old text-based characters. People with a little more patience and ambition drew pictures with varying detail on their typewriters. Today we have computer-generated ASCII art ranging from simple line drawings to stylised photographic images. So! Progress bars. Little graphics that illustrate your current position on a pre-defined journey. Productivity apps can do it, Emacs can do it, Obsidian plugins can do it. As long as all the component parts are up to date and working as they should, your progress bars will do their thing. You will be able to see at a glance how far you have come and how far you have yet to go with the thing…