Fountain Pens. What's the attraction?

On Sun, 6 Apr 2008 11:16:05 -0400, MatthewK
wrote:

* The Drunken Lord wrote:
On Sat, 5 Apr 2008 21:31:28 -0400, MatthewK
wrote:

* The Drunken Lord wrote:
On Sat, 5 Apr 2008 15:23:28 -0400, MatthewK

So you've seen that FPN is a bunch of dip****s and assholes, and not
very interesting dip****s and assholes either--but rather, mostly
idiots.

There is really no nice way to put it.


I just read the "baystate blue post" and can't believe it.

Yeah, I guess when you read what I copied here, I guess you thought
that stupidity was just too unbelievable and that I was making that
up. And that guy really doesn't stand out on FPN, and the moderators
and the administrators are just as stupd.

Can you imagine being a moderator on one of those boards and have to
read every post those dip****s write? Of course, the moderators are
dip****s writing some of the stuff, so they probably don't know the
difference.

And while FPN might be building up a very small group of people who
are devoted to using fountain pens, overall they're probably helping
speed the extinction of fountain pens, because let's face it--when
average Joe goes there to learn something about fountain pens, he
winds up being sorry he asked. Average Joe is not prepared to pour
thousands on top of thousands into ink pens and doesn't care anymore
about high priced pens than he cares about having a gold plated toilet
seat.

Any research
on inks at all will lead one to learn high dye content inks often stain
pens. So far, the only noodlers I've had luck with is hunter green...and
it stained my hero. I expected that though and will be refilling that
pen soon.

Of the Noodler's--and I've got way more Noodler's than I should
have--almost every one--of the Noodler's, the only ones that I'd rate
as required are Hunter Green, Black, and Baystate Blue, but he has a
lot of other really good ones. Nathan puts an eternal or bulletproof
element in all of his inks, which is good, I suppose, but it has the
effect of making his inks duller. The Noodler's ink won't wash
completely off the page. The Private Reserves, a lot of them, will.

I think the last thread I contributed on was correcting someone that was
blaming the ink instead of a cheap pen construction. One of the fountain
pen "iron galls" that has been used for years in many pens was blamed
for almost instant corrosion...other people knew it was cheap pen
materials too.

One of my problems with fpn and other forums is they tend to promote
rampant comsumerism. There is always a pen or notebook of the day.

Yeah, but that's because FPN is not only full of idiots, but the
idiots--many of them--are financial wizards. An FPN financial wizard
is someone who has maxed out their credit card on pens, or just thrown
away a lot of money. I read some post on there awhile back by some
guy who had bought a $400 pen online and he was gonna have to hide the
pen and credit card statement from his wife. If I ever find out my
wife is spending $400 repeatedly on junk like fountain pens, you
better pray for me and for my wife.

I wish I could find that post by that guy who was hiding pens from his
wife, because he'd be worthy of an "FPN Idiot of the Day" citation.

On Sun, 06 Apr 2008 15:08:58 GMT, Barutan Seijin
wrote:

I'm registered at FPN but haven't been there in months....I rarely get
along with forumites in any venue. It's too much like the
highly-censored mailing lists back before forums became popular. You
have a small group of posters that dictate all content.

I think the potential for control is one reason people set up web
boards. The people who run the board set the boundaries of discussion,
and can ban people, enforce or not enforce their rules on friends or
foes. Of course, once you get a fracturing of the community, then
things begin to get chaotic again.

That said, i don't think the pen boards are all that bad once you start
ignoring the assholes. And FPN isn't the worst of the pen boards.

You mean there are worse boards than FPN that have dumber
administrators and moderators and bigger dip****s posting?

What might those be?

The only censored boards I know of on FPN is that board where they say
you can talk about anything. The moderators on that board let people
promote religious and political causes they agree with and censor
people who express opposing views. I've had a post censored on that
board, but never on a pen or ink board.

I'd say FPN needs some censorship in the pen and ink boards. A lot of
that stupidity should be censored.

Am 6 Apr 2008, The Drunken Lord schrieb:


You mean there are worse boards than FPN that have dumber
administrators and moderators and bigger dip****s posting?

What might those be?

I think Pentrace brings out the snottiness in some folks. That makes it
worse in my book.

As to control of discussion, one needs to register, and some folks are
banned. Other folks get a break with the rules against commercial
postings because they are chummy with the admins.



--

The Drunken Lord writes:

MatthewK wrote:

The Drunken Lord wrote:

There is really no nice way to put it.

I just read the "baystate blue post" and can't believe it.

Yeah, I guess when you read what I copied here, I guess you thought
that stupidity was just too unbelievable and that I was making that
up. And that guy really doesn't stand out on FPN, and the moderators
and the administrators are just as stupd.
[...]

http://www.xkcd.org/386/

Don't forget, after reading it, to hover your cursor over the image
for the meta-punchline.

--
Don't be afraid to ask (Lf.((Lx.xx) (Lr.f(rr)))).

On Sun, 06 Apr 2008 12:00:17 -0500, Barutan Seijin
wrote:

Am 6 Apr 2008, The Drunken Lord schrieb:


You mean there are worse boards than FPN that have dumber
administrators and moderators and bigger dip****s posting?

What might those be?

I think Pentrace brings out the snottiness in some folks. That makes it
worse in my book.

As to control of discussion, one needs to register, and some folks are
banned. Other folks get a break with the rules against commercial
postings because they are chummy with the admins.

I couldn't give a damn if they're snotty. For one thing, somebody
who's snotty can stop being snotty, but if you're as stupid as most of
the posters and the admins of FPN, there's nothing that can be done
about that.

I don't agree with FPN's censorship, but if I was in charge, I'd
probably ban that guy SamCapote just for being too stupid to
post--either that or I'd say it was open season on him when he posted
stuff like that stuff that won him the FPN Idiot of the Day award.

There's help for people who are snotty, but not much help if you're
stupid.

And as far as pentrace goes, I thought the whole site was commercial.

Joshua Judson Rosen wrote:

The Drunken Lord writes:

MatthewK wrote:

The Drunken Lord wrote:

There is really no nice way to put it.

I just read the "baystate blue post" and can't believe it.

Yeah, I guess when you read what I copied here, I guess you thought
that stupidity was just too unbelievable and that I was making that
up. And that guy really doesn't stand out on FPN, and the moderators
and the administrators are just as stupd.
[...]

http://www.xkcd.org/386/

Don't forget, after reading it, to hover your cursor over the image
for the meta-punchline.

This is so classic. :-)

--
Aaron Hsu | Jabber:
``Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to
live at the expense of everybody else.'' - Frederic Bastiat

In ,
Joshua Judson Rosen wrote:

http://www.xkcd.org/386/

Don't forget, after reading it, to hover your cursor over the image
for the meta-punchline.

Ja.

Don't be afraid to ask (Lf.((Lx.xx) (Lr.f(rr)))).

I'm asking..?

Brian
--

Am 6 Apr 2008, The Drunken Lord schrieb:

There's help for people who are snotty, but not much help if you're
stupid.

What can you do? There are idiots everywhere, including Usenet.

And as far as pentrace goes, I thought the whole site was commercial.

It is in a way. It's one of the reasons i don't visit often. It seems
to be getting less traffic anyway.

--

"Brian Ketterling" writes:

Joshua Judson Rosen wrote:

Don't be afraid to ask (Lf.((Lx.xx) (Lr.f(rr)))).

I'm asking..?

It's a programmer's lambda-calculus pun

(Lf.((Lx.xx) (Lr.f(rr)))) is an important but controversial
combinator. It's often written as "(Lf.((Lx.f(xx)) (Lx.f(xx))))"--I
think that form is googlable. It also has a single-letter name that
works, phonetically, with the rest of my .signature .

--
Don't be afraid to ask (Lf.((Lx.xx) (Lr.f(rr)))).

Joshua Judson Rosen wrote:

It's a programmer's lambda-calculus pun

And I thought the people who enjoyed those were a dying breed. :-) Glad
to see there are a few more of us alive. ;-)

--
Aaron Hsu | Jabber:
``Government is the great fiction through which everybody endeavors to
live at the expense of everybody else.'' - Frederic Bastiat