Slashdot Mirror
When Word Processors Are Out: What's The Best Pen?
chensonny writes "Recently I was in a situation where there was no word processor, and several of us had to write, copy and sign a big amount of paper. It was then I re-realized the need for a good and comfortable pen. I saw some friends using a Mont Blanc, others like me using a felt pen or cheap ball-point pen. What does the geeks of Slashdot use for writing?" My favorite pen is an aluminum Lamy fountain pen -- can anyone recommend a good place to order Lamy ink in the U.S.?
What is this pen device you speak about?
I prefer the old mechanical pencil whenever possible. Besides being erasable, it has such perks as:
-- Use it to label disks, and play the fun game of getting conductive pencil shavings in your disk drive
-- Graphite + Wall Socket = Fun
-- Get to shake it when your one stick of lead finishes so the next one will catch, until you open it up to insert the lead in backwards (through the tip) because its not catching, and then when you open it the lead falls out and snaps
-- Injecting graphite into people
They even have photographic emulsion in a spray can so that you can expose images on 3d objects. It's way cool.
Ooh! now I can take pictures of four-dimensional objects and they will be projected properly!
Karma: Meh (Mostly from meh.)
* You are in the bank depositing a bunch of checks from Indonesian gardeners, and you find yourself inexplicably without a pen. There is a little ballpoint pen on a steel chain at a table inside the bank. You would:
1. Leave and return the next day;
2. Run to the nearest Wal-Mart and buy a Montblanc;
3. Use the ball pen, but sign someone else's name on the checks;
4. Not know what the ballpoint pen is.
* Have you ever been in an argument over the actual derivation of the trade name "Duofold"?
* When watching old movies on video, do you find yourself freeze-framing to try to get a closer look at the pen Humphrey Bogart is using? Do you in fact know what pen Humphrey Bogart was using? Would you be willing to tell me?
* Do you own any of the following items:
1. A pocket protector (and you're not an engineer)?
2. A glass eyedropper?
3. More than one bottle of household ammonia?
4. Blotter paper
* Do you keep a bottle of ink in your carry-on luggage? More than one bottle in different colors?
* Do you find yourself sniffing at the end of pens (to tell whether or not they are made of hard rubber)?
* Are your pens cleaner than your kitchen?
* Can you identify the pens shown on the boxes of various word processing software packages? Do you feel resentful when you don't find any of those pens inside the boxes?
Pen Geek Check
Or should that be "inertia" instead of "momentum"? I forgot I was on /. where most of the world's physics experts seem hang out...
I use a cheap fountain pen and human blood. (v v)
I use their ball point and roller ball pens. Damned fine pens. Everything else may as well be carving in stone or painting with animal blood on cave walls. Those who are recommending Bic's and similar have obviously never used a Mont Blanc. I assume they also don't understand the point of fine automobiles, having never driven anything better than a second hand Toyota.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
How much more geeky can you get?
Blood. No one breaks those contracts.
Love,
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Rock!
From TruthOrFiction.com via Google cache
"When NASA first started sending up astronauts, they discovered that ball-point pens would not work in zero gravity. To combat this problem, NASA scientists spent a decade and $12 million developing a pen that writes in zero gravity, upside down, underwater, on almost any surface including glass and at temperatures ranging from below freezing to over 300C.
When confronted with the same problem, the Russians used a pencil."
I love it already! Who could resist a pen with an ID number of fourty two?
When life gives you crap, Make Crapade.
Sluggy Freelance.
I used to own a janitorial service. You wouldn't believe the stock of pens I collected. If it was on the floor, behind a desk, it was trash. It was mine.
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Where do you get these pens? I have been searching for a pen with those properties all my life, but to no avail!
well actually, there was a little presentation ceremony where I got a really cheezy brass plaque, and an IBM coffee mug too. Yeah, they were cheap sonsabitches.
It's ironic that the dorkiest discussion ever held on slashdot is about not using a computer. ;-)
It writes decently, and you get a pack of twenty for $.99 if you shop around. I end up losing a lot of them, but it's OK, because at $.05 each I don't miss them.
I've had (and lost) $50.00 pens. The Bic seems to work just as well. And, when they don't, you can snap them in half and throw them away. Great stress relief.
Gee, if only there was some kind of searchable, massive collection of computers that were all hooked together somehow, and contained this kind of information. If businesses were a part of it, it would be even better.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.