Fountain Pens. What's the attraction?

On Mon, 07 Apr 2008 12:53:43 GMT, Barutan Seijin
wrote:

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.

There are idiots everywhere--that is true. But at least on the usenet
you can blast them without having to deal with some idiot moderator or
administrator.

Idiiots abound on FPN. But an idiot like SamCapote wouldn't last a
week on the 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.

I've been there before but didn't think much of the place. Everybody
with some sense needs to come back to the usenet.

(Aaron Hsu) writes:

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

Aw, shucks--I see you've dropped the one that you were using back in
November.

To bring the topics back together: do you ever read lispmeister.com?

I really liked the rationale that he gave, a few years back,
for using both lisp and a fountain-pen:

[from http://lispmeister.com/blog/iLife/meisterstueck.html]

"I bought the Meisterstueck No 149 at age 20, and it served me well
during all my travels throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, America and
the Pacific Islands. It's a remarkable and beautiful piece of
engineering. During the same timespan I worked through more than
30 keyboards. People keep asking me: "Why do you keep a journal in
longhand using a fountain pen, isn't that a bit archaic?"

People have been asking me the same kind of questions about
Lisp. The answer is:

You can't leave a legacy using ephemeral technology."


I've noted a few other lispers, including yourself, sporting
Montblancs; I don't have one myself, but maybe I should look into
getting one.... How /do/ the correlations run, I wonder, between the
pens & paradigms of programmers?

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

Joshua Judson Rosen wrote:

(Aaron Hsu) writes:

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

Aw, shucks--I see you've dropped the one that you were using back in
November.

Are you referring to my signature? I tend to change those up every so
often, but inevitably I'll get back to oldies eventually. :-)

To bring the topics back together: do you ever read lispmeister.com?

Hrm, sounds vaguely familiar, but I am sure that I have not read it much
lately.

I really liked the rationale that he gave, a few years back,
for using both lisp and a fountain-pen:

[from http://lispmeister.com/blog/iLife/meisterstueck.html]

"I bought the Meisterstueck No 149 at age 20, and it served me well
during all my travels throughout Europe, Asia, Africa, America and
the Pacific Islands. It's a remarkable and beautiful piece of
engineering. During the same timespan I worked through more than
30 keyboards. People keep asking me: "Why do you keep a journal in
longhand using a fountain pen, isn't that a bit archaic?"

People have been asking me the same kind of questions about
Lisp. The answer is:

You can't leave a legacy using ephemeral technology."


I've noted a few other lispers, including yourself, sporting
Montblancs; I don't have one myself, but maybe I should look into
getting one.... How /do/ the correlations run, I wonder, between the
pens & paradigms of programmers?

Ah, great question, and one that I can answer for myself. :-)
Montblanc's Meistersteuck design goes perfectly well with the Lisp
paradigms, IMO. That is, programming as an art and expression, the more
elegant and concise the better. I have some ``fancier'' designed pens,
but the Montblanc feels like the better workhorse, simply for its sleek,
elegant design. It is the same reason I go for a Spencerian script in my
writing. There are more embellished hands out there, but Spencerian
expresses beauty in art through elegant simplicity.

Also, I would note that Lispers tend to have code which lasts a good
deal longer than other languages, which is another reason they seem to
go well with fountain pens. :-) To draw out my version of a quick list:

* Lisper/Schemer Montblanc or custom hand-painted LEs
* PHP Company branded Push-to-retract Ballpoints
* Fortran Mechanical Pencil
* Assembly VERY sharp knife and chisel
* C Charcoal
* C++ Multi-func. clock pen with five ballpoints and a
pencil
* Perl Expedient, Cheap throwaway ballpoints
* Python Shiny metallic Gel Pens
* Ruby A collection of rubber stamps
* Java Big box of colored crayons

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

On Mon, 07 Apr 2008 12:53:43 GMT, Barutan Seijin
wrote:

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

Yep, that is true enough. I agree with you that there are idiots
everywhere. But idiots have protected status on FPN, like they were
an endangered species or something, and because they are protected on
FPN, they multiply and thrive on FPN, like rats in that Hindu temple
were killing rats is not allowed.

Take a look at this post:

begin quote
I was just curious if anyone knew how much is saved in the way of
refills by using a fountain pen? Specifically with Noodlers ink. I
have been unable to figure out the amount of mL in my Lamy Safari and
the amount of mL in for example a uni-ball Vision Elite. It would be
nice to get the figures.
end quote
http://www.fountainpennetwork.com/fo...howtopic=58920

The topic header included ball points:

"Cost Effective, Fountain Pen refills vs. ballpoint, rollerball, and
gel pen refills."

First of all, this guy is too dumb to do the calculations he's
referring to even if somebody told him the amounts.

But only somebody too dumb to make the calculations would even
condsider making the calculations. A bottle of Noodler's costs at
least $9.50 and you can get about 95 decent disposable ballpoints for
that price.

And most all of the people on FPN spend hundreds on a single pen and
some spend thousands.

Let's face it, Baratan, idiots of the proportion that we see on FPN
could never make it on the usenet.

The Drunken Lord writes:

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

Isn't there those ignore features? Feel free to use them and stop that
whining.


--
Juhapekka "naula" Tolvanen * http colon slash slash iki dot fi slash juhtolv
"Boku wa ongakuka dentaku katate ni. Ta****ari. Hiitari. Sousa ****e.
Sakkyoku suru. Kono botan oseba ongaku kanaderu." Kraftwerk

On Sat, 12 Apr 2008 17:10:28 +0300, Juhapekka Tolvanen
m.invalid wrote:



The Drunken Lord writes:

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

Isn't there those ignore features? Feel free to use them and stop that
whining.

Damn, you'd be ignoring 98% of the FPN population, the biggest idiots
on the internet.

Juhapekka Tolvanen m.invalid wrote:

Isn't there those ignore features? Feel free to use them and stop that
whining.

There are indeed, but they're not available if you're banned.

--
_Deirdre web: http://deirdre.net blog: http://dsmoen.livejournal.com/
"Memes are a hoax! Pass it on!"

On Mon, 14 Apr 2008 23:01:38 -0700, Deirdre Saoirse Moen
wrote:

Juhapekka Tolvanen m.invalid wrote:

Isn't there those ignore features? Feel free to use them and stop that
whining.

There are indeed, but they're not available if you're banned.

If I was banned, it would be easy enough to get another ID.

As I remember it, the FPN killfilters are horse****, like the rest of
FPN. Or most all of the rest of it.

FPN is about 1% useful information and 99% pure horse****, horse****
such as people posting about microwaving ink to remove microorganisms
or that idiot posting about how ink stained his pen.

Those dip****s on FPN need to follow Nathan Tardif's advice and go buy
food coloring and water it down.

(Aaron Hsu) writes:

Joshua Judson Rosen wrote:

(Aaron Hsu) writes:

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

Aw, shucks--I see you've dropped the one that you were using back in
November.

Are you referring to my signature? I tend to change those up every so
often, but inevitably I'll get back to oldies eventually. :-)

Yes--the sexpr-formatted one

I've noted a few other lispers, including yourself, sporting
Montblancs; I don't have one myself, but maybe I should look into
getting one.... How /do/ the correlations run, I wonder, between the
pens & paradigms of programmers?
[...]
* Lisper/Schemer Montblanc or custom hand-painted LEs
* PHP Company branded Push-to-retract Ballpoints
* Fortran Mechanical Pencil
* Assembly VERY sharp knife and chisel
* C Charcoal
* C++ Multi-func. clock pen with five ballpoints and a pencil
* Perl Expedient, Cheap throwaway ballpoints
* Python Shiny metallic Gel Pens
* Ruby A collection of rubber stamps
* Java Big box of colored crayons

The lisp, PHP, Fortran, Perl and Python (and maybe even C++)
descriptions actually sound about right. I actually did develop a
thing for shiny metally gel-pens after getting into Python

When I was really into Java, I think I had a thing for mechanical
pencils and maybe Pilot's V5.

These days, I have a few of the later made-in-USA Sheaffers, a
Pelikan, a Parker, a Waterman, a broad-tipped Levenger Samba (with a
broken cap--d'oh!), a .3-mm mechanical pencil, and a set of
sketch-pencils.

I think one of the remaining languages probably most-realistically
maps to "lead-holder"--I'm not sure which one, though.

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

Joshua Judson Rosen wrote:

These days, I have a few of the later made-in-USA Sheaffers, a
Pelikan, a Parker, a Waterman, a broad-tipped Levenger Samba (with a
broken cap--d'oh!), a .3-mm mechanical pencil, and a set of
sketch-pencils.

I have always heard such great things about Pelikans, but I have not yet
taken the chance to get one. That could be because my budget doesn't
allow me to get pens too often, but I hear that the nibs are great on
Pelikans, and I do want to try that out. I have a Waterman that I like a
lot, but it's pretty "wet" and tends to feel sticky when i write with it
(not quite crisp) so I tend to prefer my Montblanc.

I do not do well with pencils. :-)

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