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The cheap pen that changed writing forever

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Re: The cheap pen that changed writing forever

#151

Post by gwd »

vagrantJin wrote: post #148
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm right-handed and I would certainly hold the hammer in the right hand.

I was also a bit confused by this. For fine motor control, right handers will use the right hand, not the left. The hypothesis is garbage.

I would think that the "fine motor control" would be in holding the chisel, not the hammer. But you find the same pattern for violin or guitar -- "right-handed" playing has the right hand holding the bow or strumming, while the left hand does the fingerings. The fingering is absolutely more difficult; but I think (from my own experience) the main thing is which hand is in control: The bow and the strumming causes the sound to come out, so that's what the right hand wants to do. That's how I feel about using a chisel too.

Re: The cheap pen that changed writing forever

#152

Post by ascar »

vagrantJin wrote: post #148
Andrew_nenakhov wrote: post #147

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm right-handed and I would certainly hold the hammer in the right hand.

I was also a bit confused by this. For fine motor control, right handers will use the right hand, not the left. The hypothesis is garbage.

You two are right. Reading it again I think I corrected the mixed up hands in my head. While they say the chisel is in the right and the hammer in the left, everything else depicted paints the opposite picture in my head.

If you hold the hammer in the right and the chisel in the left, you swing the hammer from the right to the left with the chisel tilted to the right. Thus the natural writing direction (outward from the swing) would be right to left. Swinging your hammer from the right and moving to the left would mean writing in the opposite direction of the force used to write single letters.

So, if the hammer is in the right hand and chisel in the left means a right-to-left motion and makes a left-to-right motion counterintuitive.

Re: The cheap pen that changed writing forever

#153

Post by adrian_b »

ascar wrote: post #145
orthoxerox wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wonder how Arabs managed writing with a fountain pen.

Right-handed Arabic writers have very much the same problems as left-handed latin writers. That Arabic is written left to right seems to come from chisel based writing. > Although it is hard to pinpoint why Arabic is sinistroverse, it has been theorized that before the papermaking process emerged in China, the Arabs used chisels to engrave the ideas and concepts they wished to manifest on stones. Due to its longevity…

The writing direction in Arabic, Hebrew and other Semitic writing systems has been inherited from the Egyptian.

So any hypothesis about the origin of the right-to-left direction must discuss only how the tools were used for the Egyptian hieratic (written with brushes) and hieroglyphic (carved with chisels) writing systems.

Maybe it was easier to carve hieroglyphs in that direction, but I am not aware of anyone testing this hypothesis in practice.

Re: The cheap pen that changed writing forever

#154

Post by andrepd »

OJFord wrote: post #138
ascar wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, using a fountain pen is incredibly frustrating and exhausting for left-handed people (in a left to right writing system). I had to unnaturally bend my hand above the line I wanted to write so I don't immediately smear the ink. Basically mimiking a right-hand draw position with the left hand while having your hand above the line instead of on the same level. It hurts. We were also forced to use it i…

I remember a left-handed teaching assistant with extremely consistent/neat handwriting; she solved this problem by rotating the page 90deg counter-clockwise, writing 'bottom-to-top' rather than left-to-right, and 'down' the page to the right. I've never seen anyone else do that, but it certainly worked. Though I remember wondering why not rotate it the other way, so 'down' becomes left and hand wouldn't pass over the…

Funny, that unlocked a memory for me. I distinctly remember my middle school crush writing with the page pretty much sideways, top to bottom, like you describe. Now it makes sense why!

Re: The cheap pen that changed writing forever

#155

Post by Andrew_nenakhov »

gwd wrote: post #151
vagrantJin wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I was also a bit confused by this. For fine motor control, right handers will use the right hand, not the left. The hypothesis is garbage.

I would think that the "fine motor control" would be in holding the chisel, not the hammer. But you find the same pattern for violin or guitar -- "right-handed" playing has the right hand holding the bow or strumming, while the left hand does the fingerings. The fingering is absolutely more difficult; but I think (from my own experience) the main thing is which hand is in control : The bow and the strumming causes th…

You need to put chisel in a right place, than strike it with a hammer. So once the chisel is in place, the only thing the left hand does is holding chisel, which is not hard at all.

Think of it as a nail: if you need to hammer in a nail in exactly the right place, you put the nail into exact position holding it with a left hand, then strike it with force using hammer in the right hand. And if you ever did this you know that the tricky part is hitting the nail the right way, so you don't bend it.

Re: The cheap pen that changed writing forever

#156

Post by andrepd »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #125
godelmachine wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the name was certainly not a giveaway, at least to me. Looking at the pictures on the catalog [0] I thought it was Japanese. Later on when the product arrived, I wished to check if I could order refills in bulk from their website. Upon visiting their website, realization dawned upon me that it’s Chinese. And in my perspective, it’s unfair to compare Baoke to Huawei. The latter is in the news since months now, and…

> it’s unfair to compare Baoke to Huawei. The latter is in the news since months now, and has become synonymous with nefarious snooping activities of the Chinese Sure, Huawei has been in the news for months. But Baoke is still a company whose name is in Chinese . We're not talking "Tencent" here. Then again, if you were able to recognize whether a word was or wasn't Chinese, it's possible you'd feel differently about…

Your last sentence is a classic diversion tactic. It's obvious that GP doesn't have a problem with Chinese persons, but with the Chinese government and regime. That's like when people criticise Putin and someone replies "oh so you hate Russian people?"

Re: The cheap pen that changed writing forever

#157

Post by godelmachine »

andrepd wrote: post #156
thaumasiotes wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it’s unfair to compare Baoke to Huawei. The latter is in the news since months now, and has become synonymous with nefarious snooping activities of the Chinese Sure, Huawei has been in the news for months. But Baoke is still a company whose name is in Chinese . We're not talking "Tencent" here. Then again, if you were able to recognize whether a word was or wasn't Chinese, it's possible you'd feel differently about…

Your last sentence is a classic diversion tactic. It's obvious that GP doesn't have a problem with Chinese persons, but with the Chinese government and regime. That's like when people criticise Putin and someone replies "oh so you hate Russian people?"

Exactly.

From here onwards I am going to use "CCP", so that there's no scope for confusion about being acrimonious towards the Chinese people or their glorious culture.

It's a great civilization, rich in its heritage, but Mao has made things go south.

Re: The cheap pen that changed writing forever

#158

Post by lmilcin »

kaonwarb wrote: post #2

One side effect not discussed here: how the shift to ballpoint pens increased hand strain [0]. Writing with a fountain pen is relatively effortless - not to deny it has several other drawbacks. I imagine this is part of why, as an elementary school student in France, I was required to write with only fountain pens. [0] https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/08/ballp...

I think the problem is only with people who never learned to write with fountain pain in the first place.

Fountain pen teaches to not press on the paper and keep correct angle while you write. When you don't need to press the pen you don't need to have a tight grip on it and it allows for relaxed grip.

Once you learned to have a tight grip on your writing instrument you transfer it to other instruments. So if you've learned incorrectly with ballpoint pen, you will have hard time figuring out what the fuss about fountain pens is all about.

That's why my kid who is currently actively learning writing is writing with fountain pen exclusively until he learns relaxed grip and good posture while writing. I assume then it won't matter much what he is going to write with.

Re: The cheap pen that changed writing forever

#159

Post by wombatmobile »

dbtc wrote: post #94
wombatmobile wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I love fountain pens too, and recently tried to switch back to my classic Parker 45. Sadly, the plastic lining of the reservoir had perished, so the pen wouldn't suck ink up. I tried a replacement reservoir, but it didn't work. So I tried a different type, with a screw based impeller mechanism, and got ink all over my fingers and desk. Some of the ink went up into the reservoir, but wouldn't flow back down through th…

Lamy converters and cartridges fit in my Parker 45. You can also use a syringe to clean and refill disposable cartridges from an ink bottle.

Thanks for this tip, dbtc! I just ordered a 3ml syringe from eBay. I think this will solve the problem!

Re: The cheap pen that changed writing forever

#160

Post by debunn »

godelmachine wrote: post #29
m463 wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My favorite pen is the pentel energel 0.7mm. It will write smooth dark lines just the right thicknes without blobbing or cutting out, and is the most effortless pen to write with. But yes, it does write at a higher angle than a fountain pen. I had a fountain pen years and years ago, and it was something you had to want to use. I can't help but think of it like vinyl records, straight razors and film cameras.

>> pentel energel 0.7mm. Thanks for mentioning this I am currently on the lookout for new pen to make my standard usage pen. My prime requirement is that it should be 1.0mm, or at a minimal 0.7mm, since I love the thickness. Secondary requirement is that it should be smooth. I bought Baoke gel from Amazon and while I loved it a lot, was greatly disappointed to find it was of Chinese make. Am now searching for somethi…

I really like the Pilot G2 pens - they use a nice flowing ink and are available in larger 1.0mm and 0.7mm sizes. They are also pretty easy to find (Amazon has them, I'm sure other stores would as well), so you shouldn't have troubles picking a pack up!
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