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The Future Of Pens?


senzen

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I don't take selfies, I don't like selfies and fountain pen forums are the only online communities I belong to. But from time to time I find it useful to have a possibility to take a selfie with ease. Yesterday I was cleaning my pantry and a paper bag with a small amount of flour (carelessly placed at the edge of a shelf) landed on my head. My hair is dark and long and I was nearly ready to leave, so I was really unhappy with the vision of some flour on my head. I brushed my hair neatly, but having just one mirror, I couldn't tell if I stopped looking like a drug dealer. This is why I took a few 'selfies' of the top and the back of my head, they were really useful. Selfie-takers, you're doing it wrong ;)

 

I know a few people who take selfies because they live in long-distance relationships and rarely see each other, but it is only a small percentage of selfie-takers.

 

In my humble opinion, most of the young people who take loads of photographs of themselves, can be divided into two groups. The first one is a group of people who are truly narcissistic and appreciate their own look. But the second one - and, I think, larger - is a group of people who try to build their self-confidence, make other youngster like them, become more attractive. Many girls which I know are really frustrated with their acne, pimples, blemishes and so on. They try to cover them under a thick layer of makeup, but it is not always enough (for them). By taking a photograph, carefully selected and set by themselves, exposing their advantages and hiding the imperfections, they can create a more appealing version of themselves. And they can also show the others a bit of their social life. They send a message - hey, I'm pretty/handsome (as boys do it as well), I can have some good fun, I am cool, trendy and self-confident. Many of my school mates, who take and post selfies online, seem to be a bit 'lost', they seek attention, love, awe.

Of course some just need to show off.

 

People care a lot about the way the others see them on the Web. I am not surprised, because I see how hard it is to keep some relationships alive. Children (and young people) don't spend hours and hours playing together in the backyard. They have more homework, endless number of extra lessons, they move houses and schools, they participate in different projects, they live far away from their schools. I think that selfie is just a new option of marking their existence among the others and making new friends. All animals do it ;) People have always been doing stupid things to impress the others. Think about the selfies like about a marketing strategy.

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I could do a selfie with a regular fountain pen if I had sketchpad and a mirror.

 

Oh, and I'd have to learn how to draw. Minor detail. ;)

"So convenient a thing it is to be a reasonable creature, since it enables one to find or make a reason for everything one has a mind to do."

 

- Benjamin Franklin

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Ahhh ... just wait for the "iPen". It's only a matter of time.

It will be designed in Palo Alto, California by Jony Ives but it will be manufactured in China.

It will be completely white, very shiny and will be made from an extruded tube of high tensile strength "super glass"

 

 

Made me think of. . . http://gizmodo.com/a-gorgeous-inkless-pen-that-never-needs-a-refill-1516493741

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Haha ... I love one of the comments on that about "The crushed unicorn paste and pixie dust that the metal is baked in ensures that it will always write, no matter how old the pen is."

Andy sang as he watched and waited 'til his billy boiled ...

(With apologies to Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson)

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I saw in a movie someone in a board meeting using a nice pen that had a built in voice recorder. I don't know about taking selfies, but a voice recorder fountain pen, I can make use of of that.

 

Now how about a Yard-O-Led Viceroy Victorian Grand with a built in voice recorder? What a concept.

 

One of my students has a hearing disability and uses a pen that has a built in recorder and more. He takes notes on special paper and when he drags the pen back over his notes it can replay what was being said in class when he was taking that specific note.

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One of my students has a hearing disability and uses a pen that has a built in recorder and more. He takes notes on special paper and when he drags the pen back over his notes it can replay what was being said in class when he was taking that specific note.

yup, very cool. I have seen this too.

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cave paintings were forms of selfies

 

I don't see what the big fuss is

 

artists have been depicting themselves from all sorts of angles for centuries

 

how many of you walk past reflective surfaces without looking at yourselves, especially when you were younger?

 

and photobooths?

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One of my students has a hearing disability and uses a pen that has a built in recorder and more. He takes notes on special paper and when he drags the pen back over his notes it can replay what was being said in class when he was taking that specific note.

Wow, that is quite something. I didn't know that kind of technology existed. Glad to see new technology merging with the old to create something truly useful and helpful!

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cave paintings were forms of selfies

 

I don't see what the big fuss is

 

artists have been depicting themselves from all sorts of angles for centuries

 

how many of you walk past reflective surfaces without looking at yourselves, especially when you were younger?

 

and photobooths?

Yup, never understood folk looking at themselves in windows or using photobooths.

 

My Website

 

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Cave paintings were not selfies, they were depictions of the prey that the early humans needed to survive. No one is sure whether it was to try to capture needed prey in images, to commemorate particularly successful hunts, or to "create" a super class of animal to hope was out there (i.e. a mammoth which would feed the whole tribe for a month). There are very few images of people among cave paintings. There are a lot of handprints done by blowing pigment through a reed around an outstretched hand but that lacks the self congratulatory/approval of the average "selfie". No one knows whether that was a commemoration of a mighty hunter, a "blessing" of a gifted shaman, or why they were done. The early European painters of these things did spend a great deal of time curating their paintings, and to great effect. Try to find the virtual tour of the Caves of Lascaux, well worth the trouble.


 It's for Yew!bastardchildlil.jpg

 

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Cave paintings were not selfies, .... There are a lot of handprints done by blowing pigment through a reed around an outstretched hand but that lacks the self congratulatory/approval of the average "selfie". No one knows whether that was a commemoration of a mighty hunter, a "blessing" of a gifted shaman, or why they were done. The early European painters of these things did spend a great deal of time curating their paintings, and to great effect. Try to find the virtual tour of the Caves of Lascaux, well worth the trouble.

Thanks, I have looked at these many times. And it was those "hands" that I was referring to, those most human of signatures, that symbolic declaration of "here I was." Rather than leave the signature (reference to human artistic creator self) out, they included them, deliberately, magnificently.

 

I have a broad understanding of "selfie," and this is what I meant by "form of selfie" when I made my claim. Novels, too, are "selfies," for example (not just autobiographies). Every single one of them.

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Does it say $1350 on the label? US$? :yikes:

 

$1350 very devalued Mexican Pesos, or about $74.50 USD... Exactly $74.50 too expensive for me as I also frown upon selfies: grin in the most unnatural way, take shot, share with the whole world so they see your pathetic little life, repeat: You're a web star now! Eeew.

"The trouble with the world is that the stupid are cocksure and the intelligent are full of doubt."

 

B. Russell

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Haha ... I love one of the comments on that about "The crushed unicorn paste and pixie dust that the metal is baked in ensures that it will always write, no matter how old the pen is."

 

Reminds me of an ad on TV from a few years ago (I think it was for IBM) where there's a meeting and one guy is explaining how the computer is powered by pixie dust. Part of the ad copy went something like this:

 

"Pixie dust?"

"Yes, it's a renewable resource!"

 

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

"It's very nice, but frankly, when I signed that list for a P-51, what I had in mind was a fountain pen."

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Yup, never understood folk looking at themselves in windows or using photobooths.

 

Someone once said (don't know who, and am sure I'm not quoting it exactly right), "Years from now, people won't remember what you say. They will, however, remember how you made them feel." I've got a picture with three friends crammed into a photobooth. The picture was taken 35 years ago. It evokes feelings of happiness and being carefree. In other words, looking at that picture makes me feel good. I wish that I had more pictures of myself with my family and friends (NOT just pictures of myself alone), for the feelings that they evoke. On the other hand, many people have family and friends that they don't wish to remember because of the pain they feel. It seems to me that, although things will never be as they once were, snapping a selfie (with family/friends) is a chance to catch a tiny feeling of what you're experiencing at the moment, and trying to bring it with you into the future.

 

Having said that, I agree that selfies for selfies' sake are narcissistic. And I don't really care for selfies, unless there's somebody in the picture with me, and we're sharing a good moment.

Franklin-Christoph, Italix, and Pilot pens are the best!
Iroshizuku, Diamine, and Waterman inks are my favorites!

Apica, Rhodia, and Clairefontaine make great paper!

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On the off-topic topic of selfies ...

 

It is only the Internet and smartphones which have combined to make selfies a "thing".

My late father was a keen photographers and I remember one of his old cameras.

It would have been made in the 1930s or 40s, had bellows and like most modern cameras, the shutter had a "self-timer" ... a feature designed specifically to enable the photographer to include themselves in the picture.
Selfies have existed since well before Vincent van Gogh ... but we called them self-portraits, not the Internet vernacular "selfie".

Edited by AndyKeir

Andy sang as he watched and waited 'til his billy boiled ...

(With apologies to Andrew Barton "Banjo" Paterson)

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Numbskullie.

"Don't hurry, don't worry. It's better to be late at the Golden Gate than to arrive in Hell on time."
--Sign in a bar and grill, Ormond Beach, Florida, 1960.

 

 

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Does the pen send tweets too? A random sentence from whatever you've written over the past hour...

 

Or maybe a joint platform thing...send a tweet, post a selfie, upload the sounds...the possibilities are endless.

Edited by proton007

In a world where there are no eyes the sun would not be light, and in a world where there were no soft skins rocks would not be hard, nor in a world where there were no muscles would they be heavy. Existence is relationship and you're smack in the middle of it.

- Alan Watts

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I would rather just have my fountain pens to write with. They were designed to write, not to take selfies or whatever people would like to do with it..

I was in a fountain pen shop lately where the seller told me that fountain pens are getting more and more popular today, since people are beginning to want something personal to write with when they are not using a computer or any other electronical devices. So I don't think we'll have to worry: real fountain pens (you know, the ones that are designed to write with, not to make selfies with) will remain existing for a couple of decades more. Personally, not knowing what technology will give us, I will use my fountain pens for the rest of my life and try to hand over the virus to my kids.

When people ask me how I designed my signature I can only tell them one thing; ''Find the right fountain pen and it will do so for you''

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