It's worth noting that that's not all types of podcasts.
Just like you get radio shows that are talk radio or on a specific subject you get podcasts that are more akin to radio plays, like welcome to night Vale.
To all the people who keep asking why we would bother write with a fountain pen, a few reasons I do:
People are less likely to walk away or accidentally steal your fountain pen
I can write in the exact colour I want
I know scribbles or notes are mine without even looking at the writing
My colleagues know which pieces of notes are mine without asking
My notebooks never wander far
I don't feel like I'm constantly killing the planet by binning my pen when it runs out of ink, I can just use the piston cartridge to constantly refill from a glass ink pot
Yes - this is one thing that I really didn't realise until much later in age - writing with a fountain pen is less fatiguing.
I used to press down hard with fountain pens, like I did with ballpoints, which used to cause blotting and damage my nibs. As soon as I started buying expensive fountain pens, I changed my style completely to use virtually no pressure on the page, and I am enjoying writing so much more.
At least for that purpose (can't argue with the aesthetics of a fountain pen), there is a large selection of "post-ballpoint" pens that keeps the ink flowing with no effort. The Pilot V5 and Uni-Ball Eye are both ubiquitous classics in the space. Much cheaper and much easier to deal with than fountain pens.
Uni-Ball Signos live in my pencil case and my pockets, and a Pilot Metropolitan lives at my desk.
I agree 100% that the rollerball is cheaper and easier to use. There's much to be said for not having to clean the pen, being able to take it on an airplane without fear, etc. It's also much more pleasant to use than a ballpoint. For whatever reason, though, I find I can still write for longer without discomfort, and maintain a higher quality of penmanship, with the fountain pen.
(That, or I'm just a hopeless nostalgic. I also exclusively own wristwatches that contain no electronics.)
For what it's worth, those Sharpie felt tip pens also draw ink with capillary action. This is what I use and it definitely reduces fatigue as compared with a ballpoint.
Having used both: Sharpie felt tip pens drag on paper a lot more than fountain pens do. It makes controlling the pen easier, but overall there's more effort that goes into writing with them.
It is subjective - they feel smoother, glass-like. One factor is most cheap Chinese nibs are not cut exactly at the middle. This can be seen with a 10x+ loupe. The metal is not as hard. Different metal types have different surface tension so it affects ink flow. It works without adjustment while most Chinese nibs need adjustment, alignment and polishing (which is fun in itself to do).
The original Jinhao pen nib is quite usable, but the other parts of e.g. a x750 pen are much better, so it is a popular mod to change the nib for a German one, or a Japanese Zebra G flexible nib.
I have recently bought a Lecai Chinese pen and the nib seemed to be flawless. These guys in the right track on making a 100% Chinese upper quality pen.
Both of the sibling comments, plus good nibs don't have any rough edges which touch the paper. They've been ground/sanded down so smooth that they effectively hydroplane on the ink they're depositing.
You can improve some inexpensive nibs by simply "writing" on a high grit sandpaper or sharpening stone, but if the metal is too soft you can quickly wear away the writing surface entirely. I'd do this with the pilot disposable fountain pens with good results.
I’d prefer my Chinese products to be honestly Chinese. Write clear marketing copy, give a specification written in decent English without random Chinese characters interspersed, and you’ll have some happy English-speaking customers.
I agree to an extent, but I think it's mostly an issue of branding. Consider that Japanese brands were once associated with poor quality, but as their quality improved their brands became better known.
Chinese pens have been greatly increasing in quality for a few years now. Today, I recommend the Wing Sung 698 and 608 for new fountain pen users.
Noodlers xfeather black, haven't had any issues, but I also haven't compared it to other inks. It's just been good enough and one bottle has lasted me years (since I first got a fountain pen).
Maybe a fountain pen would help me with my painful cracked fingers during the winter. My only fear is that my handwriting is so bad that my notebooks would look like something by Ralph Steadman.
I used to have bloody hands too but started using Lush's king of skin product about ten years ago. I buy one bar in the late fall and use it on my hands a few times a day. It's not lotion and will fix your hands.
It takes practice, and small adjustments to your writing style, but it is possible to get there. My handwriting went to heck after years of using keyboard only, but after a few months of practice, I got it to a stage where I could reasonably expect myself (and other people) to read them. https://twitter.com/dsabar/status/728060728930799616
If you're leaving the tip open, i.e. the cap is not on for more than some seconds while you aren't writing, then the ink in the feed may dry. Another possible reason of these problems is low quality ink, nib and/or pen, and yet another is fibres of paper sticking into the cut in the middle of the nib.
edit: and dirtying your hands might be because you're a messy pen user. I definitely am, no matter if I use a ballpoint, a rollerball, a fountain pen, a marker, &c, I get my hands dirty. Personally I'm fine with that.
I don't know if this is still accurate, but during my time in school (finished in 2009) we had to use fountain pens from grade two and most teachers stopped caring what we were writing with in grade 7. From that point on most of use used ballpoint pens.
Huuuge communities online exist though. You might be surprised - check out fpgeeks forums or fountain pen network - both forums list local gatherings and pen shows.
Agree with all, but I would add a really important one that in itself could already justify using a FP.
- because (good) fountain pens are like good watches. You love your FP, you take care of it and you enjoy every moment you see it and use it.
Mechanical watches also have downsides, but a mechanical watch owner just loves the watch for a lot of other reasons that compensate by far the downsides.
I happen to think my fountain pens are quite a bit more work than a ballpoint and at times downright annoying to use, but you're right I just love using them.
See, I have opposite problem, my Vanishing Point is fantastic pen and reliable, but I am worried that someone might swipe it, because it is so beautiful and it is not cheap.
I had a nice fountain pen that I had turned myself stolen at university, but rather improbably ended up finding it on the ground a week later. I guess the thief was clumsy.
Depending on the pen, it is also smoother when writing, offering less resistance. Useful to sketch diagrams quickly with smooth lines or have a nice regular writing.
Con: I have been using Lamy fountain pens for a while, and Lamy owners can recognise each other's in the firm to the traces of black ink on their fingers.
Obviously, the plural of anecdote is not data, but I've been using a Lamy (Logo; fine nib) for years now, and I've yet to have more than the (very occasional) weak smudge of ink on the part of my pinky and ring fingers resting against the paper.
I'm a leftie, even. (Mostly using Parker Quink, which dries very fast - occasionally using Diamine inks, too.)
Across multiple models but with broad nibs. Usually it leaks into the cap when closed and then the part of the pen the closest to the nib is covered with ink.
I need to take a look at this. Are you sure that you're not gripping from the lip which locks and creates an air-tight seal? The grip would make it very uncomfortable though.
I have a medium Lamy which writes broad-ish (because of production tolerance + well smoothed nib due to long writing sessions) and wets its sealing lip, but even that one never stained my hand.
Which ink are you using? Is it extremely wet and eager to flow? Do you fly with the pen? Temperature around the pen?
I've been using only Lamy pens for the last couple of years, my kids too. We have about 10 of them, and we usually use the cheapest ones. The ink is also made by Lamy. And we have no such problems.
One of the rules is to never offer your gold nib fountain pen to anyone. Gold nibs are soft and adapts to your writing style over the time that people who are not familiar with fountain pens but biros usually press too hard to the paper that alters the soft nib.
True, I use my nice pens in the office or at home. I've a Baoer 388 I carry around, apart from the lacquer that seems almost indestructible and writes very well.
I think I read a while ago that fountain pens don't wear to your writing style, that's an old tale. Pressing too hard will usually damage one though.
Depends on the nib. A 18K nib is soft enough to develop flatter surfaces over the time, based on the owner's writing style. It is also mentioned on one of the premier fountain maker's (and OEM nib maker) page: https://www.pelikan.com/pulse/Pulsar/en_US.CMS.displayCMS.25...
I can't see where on that link it talks about the nib developing flatter surfaces. The nib is flexible and with long term use and excessive pressure can alter the angle of the tines. That can affect the ink flow through the slit affecting how the ink is laid.
The tip, the only part which touches the paper, is made of iridium[1], or similar, which is very hard. As far as I can tell that doesn't wear. Some very old or specialise/custom nibs may use softer metals and perhaps wear would be a possibility on those but in any instance I can't see you wanting a flat spot to develop.
[1] It turns out that modern iridium nibs probably aren't made of iridium. I was looking into wear on them and found, amongst others, this https://www.nibs.com/blog/nibster-writes/wheres-iridium which does into detail analysing the composition of a fair number of nibs. Down the rabbit hole!
“As the material is soft enough to adapt to your handwriting with time.”
Not every nib is flexible. My Duofold and Meisterstück certainly aren't, my cheap Noodler's Ahab just to a limited extent (but it is a special steel flex nib).
On one hand I do agree that she walked into the situation (living by herself, accepting that wage) with eyes wide open. But on the other there are a few valid points in both Talia's and Stefanie's letters that are, well, valid and useful observations and suggestions.
However, they're both lost in the entirely immature way both of these people went about expressing them. Both of these letters are full of erratic bursts of emotion, irrelevant sidelines and unbacked up statements.
They're both just rants, one a little more refined and sanctimonious than the other, but rants none the less.
Microsoft being a software company is amazing. There are plethora of issues with MS core products like Edge, OneDrive, Store not to mention the release of Windows 10 mobile in alpha state for some of their phones. It's just mind-boggling how broken software can a software company ship and show no signs of caring at all beside the generic responses.
I was thinking about this earlier, and while I've been in the industry ~8 years, I've only worked at two companies, and they've both had some pretty fundamental dysfunctions from a strategy/leadership/management perspective (e.g. projects building software that no one likes/uses, major flaws in delivered products, huge delays/delivery slips), that I want to see what a "successful" company looks like.
But then I thought some more, and I don't know if any companies actually do this correctly.
Do companies exist that can deliver on projects at a fairly steady clip with teams that build solid products generally on time and within budget? Or are we all just floundering around, making buggy apps that take forever to release and don't solve any problems, except for the lucky few who can get everything to harmonize out of sheer statistical happenstance?
The few companies I worked in and with, and all the code I've seen, points to the latter case - most of us are delivering utter disasters, thanks to the mix of technical errors, management errors, shifting priorities, internal politics and time constraints.
Agreed and same. It's my opinoin that this issue is underdiscussed and that the mess that is often delivered is rationalized by "methodology" and "it's not our fault our requirements force us to deliver this".
But whatever the reason or rational, every time a story breaks about another security exploit or privacy exploit I read that as a condemnation on our profession.
In other professions, part of the certification process is gaining a basic level of understanding of the ethics one is judged against when associating one's work with that of the larger trades group, guild, or association. Often it is well understood that, to some extent, the topic is simply being paid lip service. But,it is also understood that those ethics draw a bright line which those the association serves will not tolerate when openly crossed. Take for instance investment professionals. Everyone knows insider trading happens and it's not uncommon to put profit before fiduciary duty, but when those lines are openly or egregiously crossed it is not tolerated under threat that the understanding between the client and advisor that minor infractions will be tolerated will no longer be honored.
The software engineering profession lacks this basic ethical covenant with its customer. Just look at the utter lack of product warranties. Sure there are SLAs, but there are virtually no warranties. And it shows.
As software begins to function more and more as the linchpin of our society, this issue will morph from technical debt to an Achilles heel. We complain about anachronistic laws. What about anachronistic code? We complain about absurd laws. What about absurd code? It's just as dangerous.
I'm not so sure about that. Almost every time I update IDEA I get an annoying bug. For example, on last major update something broke and dialogs/popups wouldn't display. I couldn't close the editor because of this. When I tried to close the windows a confirmation popup should show up, but due to the bug nothing was happening. To me, being able to close an application without having to kill the process seems like a critical feature, yet it somehow was not noticed during testing.
What I'm trying to say is that if you're serious about finding issues no project/product is safe from you :)
I experience ridiculous bugs in Microsoft, Apple, and Google products. It's happened at different rates, but quality control for all three companies has really plummeted in my limited experience.
Hangouts, iOS, Win 10, and Android (on a Moto X) have all been surprisingly buggy for me. If there were a company that prioritized stability and QA over anything else, I'd certainly switch to that for my phone. I thought buying a Google-made or Apple device would solve that problem, but I was wrong.
