iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 04/10/2026

What can I say? The people cry out for letterpress

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 04/10/2026

Our @skeuomorphpress.org tent & students are all set for live printing at Homecoming with our new Book Beetle press! It’s the Beetle’s first real event

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 03/10/2026

A truly stunning set of children’s books for the book historian or printmaker in your life. We just got a full set for the library @skeuomorphpress.org

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 01/10/2026

Bittersweet to have a colleague share photos from Soybean Press, which folded a decade(ish) before I arrived at UIUC. The Washington Press we’re now refurbishing was in regular use then—what’s painful is all the equipment that went to scrap *just before* I arrived—like a functioning Intertype!

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 30/09/2026

Y’all some of @drtlwagner.bsky.social’s students are testing all the floppy discs folks have donated to @skeuomorphpress.org’s Undead Media Lab, & I am over the moon to report that Zork WORKS!!!!

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 29/09/2026

There’s a square piece of metal soldered to the angled strip, and what feels like a piece of laminated cardboard with the letter glued to the top

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 29/09/2026

I ❤️ the experiments that emerge from @skeuomorphpress.org being housed in the CU Community FabLab One FL staffer has been recreating borders from a 19th century wood type catalog—the early prototypes print well & today I walked in to find a functional, tiny 3d printed composing stick! #dhmakes

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 29/09/2026

A colleague had this Linotype training keyboard in her personal collection of mechanical keyboards—she’s letting me borrow it for my class about lino next week The “keys” are attached to angled metal strips, just to practice typing I am so charmed by this artifact!

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 28/09/2026

oh my goodness I loved PS:T but did not remember this detail—I played it before this became a personal interest, I suppose BUT I found a screenshot after you posted & it does seem to include some kind of printing machine—thank you!!!!

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 28/09/2026

Thanks to y’all’s help & some more research, my list of video games that include printing presses is growing I think I’ve found a student who wants to work on this project with me, so any other suggestions—particularly from the 80s & 90s—would be most welcome I can’t find an existing list anywhere

Sid Meier's Colonization (1994)
* Anno 1404 (2009)
* Deus Ex Human Revolution (2011)
* Dishonored (2012)
* Assassin’s Creed 3 (2012)
* Anno Online (2013)
* Bioshock Infinite (2013)
* Assassin's Creed Syndicate (2015)
* Fallout 4 (2015)
* Civilization 6 (2016)
* Graveyard Keeper (2018)
* Anno 1800, Empire of Skies DLC (game 2019, DLC 2022)
* Hitman 3 (2021)
* Pentiment (2022)
* Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023)
* Esoteric Ebb (2026)
* The Sinking City 2 (forthcoming)
* Stop the Press! (forthcoming)

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 26/09/2026

Today Craig—the retired Iowan printer we bought ~250 cases of type from last year—visited @skeuomorphpress.org with his family. @sophie-rose-reads.bsky.social & I really enjoyed showing them the press & chatting about the history of Craig’s press we inherited & hope to pass on to the next generation

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 25/09/2026

My colleague Carson Koepke has been laser-cutting different woods for printing the full deck of this late-medieval tarot set @skeuomorphpress.org Today we tested a small plate for an upcoming event @illinoisrbml.bsky.social, printing on our Book Beetle—from @josefbeery.bsky.social—it looks great!

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 25/09/2026

Finally couldn’t deal with the longer hair anymore & cut it today Was feeling uncertain about it but then the very GenZ stylist declared, mid cut, “damn bro this is looking dapper as fuck!” I’ll take it

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 22/09/2026

She’s going to get onto me for sharing but I can’t resist—an old teacher sent this picture of me & @eviedc.bsky.social in high school with two of our friends & it’s maybe the most 90s photo of all time Also realizing precisely how much our 15-yo looks like me—it’s a little scary

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 21/09/2026

y’all @sophie-rose-reads.bsky.social wins the award for “smallest type set & used to print @skeuomorphpress.org” For her class book page, she set & printed in 6-point type—I’m not exaggerating when I say I can’t really discern the letters on the type itself pics with my fingers for size reference

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 21/09/2026

I wasn’t able to be there today, but our machinist friends visited & worked with GAs @sophie-rose-reads.bsky.social & Grace on the big 1840-era handpress—while there’s still tinkering to do, here’s the 1st legible print to come off that machine since we inherited it—THAT is progress, friends!

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 17/09/2026

Had to verify. It is in fact still here, despite everything.

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 13/09/2026

Spent early afternoon learning to measure the level of the press bed to within a thousandth of an inch—our machinist friend thinks we’ll be printing in no time—at one point he produced a cooler—“my wife thought we’d need fuel”—& produced individual baggies with cookies for me & our student workers 😭

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 03/09/2026

Found out Turning Point was at our kiddo's campus today, but also that he joined up with the Young Democratic Socialists club to write protest messages around where TPUSA was hanging out so in sum that’s a proud parent moment

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 03/09/2026

Just a perfectly normal email to get from a faculty collaborator on a Thursday afternoon Get you a co-conspirator like @caitcoker.bsky.social y’all

Do you by chance have clamps and a hacksaw? If not I'm pretty sure we might have them in our garage.

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 01/09/2026

Making paper with doctoral students today at Fresh Press Studio on campus So much great energy in the room!

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 31/08/2026

Not how I wanted to start the week

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 30/08/2026

Saw a colleague on another app posting it & verified: As of this morning, Google has already conceded to the ridiculous “Lake America” nonsense but Apple has not—But they did eventually cave on the Gulf so it’s just lag Interesting to think about how dynamically-updating maps aid fascist bullshit

Google surrendering to fascist nonsense by calling Lake Ontario “Lake America” in Google Maps

Apple still naming Lake Ontario correctly in Apple Maps

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 30/08/2026

Finally sitting with all the Dolly Tributes this weekend & thinking about one of our most joyful memories from Newport Folk Festival, during her surprise performance in 2019 when pretty much every artist there joined her singing “9 to 5”

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 28/08/2026

Adding this reply by @rossolson.com to the thread because fig. 1 in this book about @gutenberg.org seems to be the machine that’s now @skeuomorphpress.org—there’s been more wear since that photo was taken but the handwritten tape reading “DIAL" matches precisely www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/6...

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 28/08/2026

My fancy phone camera would not take good pictures of the eclipse—it adjusts the light so much, even with night mode disabled, that it doesn’t even look eclipsed But I spent some time just looking & then got out my daughter’s old telescope for a better view—& took some good-bad photos through it

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 27/08/2026

Ok I can share—today MSLIS student Nadja Robot donated a teletype machine to @skeuomorphpress.org’s Undead Media Lab But this is not just any teletype—it’s the one Michael S. Hart used to digitize the Declaration of Independence & Alice in Wonderland—the 1st texts in what became Project Gutenberg

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 27/08/2026

They took exercise & asked themselves the hard questions, such as: How can we make this much, much worse for people?

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 25/08/2026

A very exciting mail day for @skeuomorphpress.org today, with some beautiful borders from @bowerbox.com & including our very own cheese type, which is every bit as magnificent as I’d hoped!

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 19/08/2026

Today is training for the new @skeuomorphpress.org GAs & practicum students. I’m thrilled at the best print we’ve ever pulled of a historical skull diagram image

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 19/08/2026

I’m going to take this refusal of parental aid as the clearest sign yet that the kiddo will be just fine at college

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 14/08/2026

The BG article is behind a paywall but I did find some images of this statue so we can assess Herman’s hotness together This is too important a story to live behind a paywall

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 14/08/2026

This 1935 illustration of a gent enjoying his books at home via microfilm & the 1980 Maxell cassette “blown-away guy” advertisement have some intriguing visual echoes Just two dudes enjoying their media, 45 years apart it’s giving @drtlwagner.bsky.social ideas for the Undead Media Lab’s logo

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 11/08/2026

It’s the fit twins’ college stuff into one minivan challenge

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 10/08/2026

Any local folks following me here, come celebrate the end of summer with my band, The Anxious Bench! We’re playing the Americana Happy Hour at the Rose Bowl Tavern in Urbana, this Thursday 8/13 from 5-7pm. We’re planning a nice mix of originals & fun covers for y’all! tockify.com/rbtevents/de...

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 06/08/2026

Will English & DH grad students revolt if I ask them to read Ada Lovelace’s notes on Babbage’s Analytical Engine directly? There’s a lotta math in there—mostly skimmable?—but also prescient moments like this for thinking about C19 automation, labor, etc. en.wikisource.org/wiki/Scienti...

The operating mechanism can even be thrown into action independently of any object to operate upon (although of course no result could then be developed). Again, it might act upon other things besides number, were objects found whose mutual fundamental relations could be expressed by those of the abstract science of operations, and which should be also susceptible of adaptations to the action of the operating notation and mechanism of the engine. Supposing, for instance, that the fundamental relations of pitched sounds in the science of harmony and of musical composition were susceptible of such expression and adaptations, the engine might compose elaborate and scientific pieces of music of any degree of complexity or extent.

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 01/08/2026

This years’ vintage tattoo Newport Folk poster is one of my favorites in recent memory. Got it up with the collection on the wall this afternoon! Next year will require a more thorough overhaul I think…

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 30/07/2026

Random fb market score today: a late 19th-century scrapbook, mostly blank but with an 1894 almanac & a *Neighborhood Gossip & Dream Book* tucked inside—going straight to the @skeuomorphpress.org teaching collection for whenever we talk about commonplace & scrapbooks

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 27/07/2026

Post a perfect album from the 90s that isn’t Nirvana, Soundgarden, Pearl Jam, or Alice In Chains I had to do 2

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 26/07/2026

I was thinking we live in an increasingly hellish capitalist dystopia, but then I saw an small plane (not visible) pulling a banner that said “SOCIALISM SUCKS!” & it really made me rethink things

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 24/07/2026

Heading into my happiest place. No work chat for awhile.

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 23/07/2026

Back yet again at the baseball field with @eviedc.bsky.social, this time for the Newport Folk All-Stars Game. Time to watch folk musicians try to play softball! Such a joy

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 23/07/2026

Listen, I don’t mean to brag but our AirBnB has that

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 22/07/2026

TIL that *Hell’s Heart*, described as “a sapphic Moby Dick in space,” exists. I of course 1. texted @transbookhistory.bsky.social immediately 2. Bought it

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 22/07/2026

Came to this bird sanctuary in Newport for a hike & they lent us binoculars and…they may have unlocked something in my middle age soul

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 20/07/2026

Another beautiful evening for baseball. Slightly different setting this time. Love seeing the @newportgulls.bsky.social when we’re in town

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 20/07/2026

Newport bound with @eviedc.bsky.social for our 10th proper Newport Folk Festival (there was no 2020 fest). Will spend a few days puttering around town befor the music kicks off Friday

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 19/07/2026

A beautiful afternoon for a ballgame

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 18/07/2026

Welp, it’s official. If anyone at SHARP needs a primer about tornado watch vs tornado warning, I’m enough of a midwesterner now to offer one

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Ryan Cordell @ryancordell.org · 18/07/2026

Leave Illinois with our 170+ tornados, suddenly there’s a chance of a tornado in Philadelphia???!!???

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