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Back In My Day we did cuneiform on stone tablets, and were grateful. Postage was a lot less back then too.
I find these articles both baffling and frustrating at the same time. I find it frustrating because I spent recess after recess locked inside to practice cursive. After many months of this, my handwriting had not improved. The teachers finally relented and stopped punishing me because the punishment never actually improved my handwriting. My handwriting is now print only and is still horrible and has never improved.…
Agree 100%! I still regularly write things by hand, but I already stopped using cursive during high school, like most of my classmates. (I think cursive was only mandatory in elementary school and maybe also in junior high school.)
Earlier quoted context omitted.
>becomes tuned to your handwriting I didn't know that, what's the noticeable difference?
As you know, almost all fountain pen nibs (sans some specialty ones) come with some tipping. This is a very hard alloy engineered to resist wear and tear. Some manufacturers have their own formulations and grinding characteristics, and some manufacturers use "default" versions supplied by the nib vendor. As the user writes, this tipping material starts to get polished. This can take from a couple of months (e.g. Lamy…
As a CS student, the way I learned things I needed to memorize was by writing it down / copying / summarizing on paper and studying from that. It’s a little ridiculous to reframe that a significant part of my education was an exercise in copying information over by hand, but it’s just true that this method reliably worked for me. Also: my reading speed was ungodly slow. I think I considered it typical to spend 3 hour…
> it’s just true that this method reliably worked for me It's not just you. My kids didn't want to hear it, but they're coming round to the benefits of writing notes during their learning. Why Writing by Hand Is Better for Memory and Learning https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/why-writing-by-ha... Why writing by hand beats typing for thinking and learning https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2024/05/11/1…
There is only downside in distracting yourself to have to copy everything verbatim instead of, you know, actually focusing on the material being presented
As a CS student, the way I learned things I needed to memorize was by writing it down / copying / summarizing on paper and studying from that. It’s a little ridiculous to reframe that a significant part of my education was an exercise in copying information over by hand, but it’s just true that this method reliably worked for me. Also: my reading speed was ungodly slow. I think I considered it typical to spend 3 hour…
Physically written materials are such a huge part of our archaeological understanding of the human past. In my mind digital materials are always dangerously close to non-existence, even if cloud redundancy and our apparent inability to fully delete things from the internet make us feel digital materials are well protected. The persistence of this data basically boils down to magnetic fields. Without power, these will…
Many of the written works we have remain because Christian monks choose to copy it again and again - we mostly have no idea what works they choose not to copy (there is evidence they choose not to copy some works, but you have to be careful as there were multiple monasteries and one choose not to copy something doesn't mean a different didn't copy it thus it survives anyway). We also don't know which works don't survive because some per-christian civilization didn't copy it - folklore tries to blame Christians but many things didn't survive for them to make a choice. (in other parts of the world it wasn't Christians of course, but same considerations applied to them)
PSA for people with "bad cursive handwriting" but who would like to improve it: Write with FOUNTAIN PENS. Ideally on thicker paper, with something soft below (like more paper for example). Different writing systems evolved alongside different utensils. Cursive evolved to be written with a quill or a fountain pen. Ballpoint pens are an amazing invention and they have their place, but they optimize for price and practi…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
As you know, almost all fountain pen nibs (sans some specialty ones) come with some tipping. This is a very hard alloy engineered to resist wear and tear. Some manufacturers have their own formulations and grinding characteristics, and some manufacturers use "default" versions supplied by the nib vendor. As the user writes, this tipping material starts to get polished. This can take from a couple of months (e.g. Lamy…
Except that the pen keeps failing a lot faster as the ink is depleted and the pen writes different whether it runs nearly dry, has to get the ink fully flowing again, or when there's plenty of ink and it flows smoothly.
The feed buffers enough ink allowing you to change the cartridge or refill the pen before it runs completely dry though.
Also, I tend to use a small cartridge between three weeks and a month depending on the nib size. Considering I fill my notepad in six months, this is plenty of ink. When I write with a gel pen, the ink level is visibly different when I finish the day, so there's that.
If you use a Lamy or use long international cartridges, these durations are at least doubled (6-8 weeks of writing per cartridge).
If you fancy to see the ink level, some pens have windows, and demonstrators are clear all over already. :)
I find these articles both baffling and frustrating at the same time. I find it frustrating because I spent recess after recess locked inside to practice cursive. After many months of this, my handwriting had not improved. The teachers finally relented and stopped punishing me because the punishment never actually improved my handwriting. My handwriting is now print only and is still horrible and has never improved.…
We are all very unique and different.
What's funny is I gave up on cursive as long as I hit the internet in the mid 2000s because I instinctively knew it was fruitless.
Overheard a bank teller the other day saying they're teaching cursive in school again. And she makes her kids hand write thank notes for b'day gifts. Back In My Day we did cuneiform on stone tablets, and were grateful. Postage was a lot less back then too.