Why didn't I spend more time in the library?
That's my regret du jour. I certainly developed a love of reading as a child, and had paperbacks that I read enough to wear the words from the page. But I don't remember actually going to the local public library much as a child: trips were few and far between, and generally tied to school assignments for research papers. Admittedly, our town library was small, and not an easy distance from our home. I actually had to consult a map of my hometown to locate it, and I now realize that it was on the outskirts of town, out by the county high school. Well, no wonder.
Still, what a shame. I made regular trips to our library in grad school when I lived in the Midwest, mostly to rummage through their meager CD collection in the
basement to put together mix tapes for myself for the walk between my
apartment and campus, or to raid their twice-yearly massive used-book sale. I don't think I ever actually checked out a book
from there, though, which is also inexplicable, considering the typical impoverished lifestyle of your average graduate student. I didn't have a lot of leisure time for reading, I remember, typically trying to squeeze in a chapter or two of something at night before I fell asleep.
I'm making up for lost time now, with a monthly trip or two out to the local branch that sits an easy mile from my office. Fifteen minutes to walk out, fifteen back, and that leaves half an hour of browsing time. Since our system is computerized and has many branches, I'm able to tap into the large virtual corpus and request materials to be shipped to my local branch, and am emailed when they arrive, to really maximize that half hour. Today I was back in my old habits, checking out CDs, although this time it's to use for seeding my "songs heard" in the online music streaming service I use at work, and not copy to a cassette tape.
So why didn't I spend more time in the library? Access, I suppose, and general ignorance, and laboring under the false conception that I needed to own something to enjoy it, I guess. I've become a lot more borrow-friendly as I've aged. I still have those old favorite books at home on the shelf -- new hardback editions, most of them -- but I'm kicking myself retroactively for not taking more advantage of the great facilities I've had access to over the years.
Friday, July 20, 2012
Thursday, July 12, 2012
The Magic Touch
Safe travels, old friend. We typed many a word together!
A tip to any other AlphaSmart-hackers out there... Kryon plastic paint does all right, but it's still not optimal for this application. Very soon after this picture was taken, areas of paint started to rub off from the frequent contact with my hands. Either prime first and/or sand the plastic and/or use another product (like vinyl dye?) to personalize your Alphie. I'm leaving the new one alone.
What brought this sudden turnabout on was the fact that I won* Camp Nano this summer, by pulling a Kobayashi Maru and declaring that "winning" meant "transcribing my already-written 2011 NaNoWriMo draft The Ballad of Congo Willy." I'd done some small-scale tests of the Dragon Dictate software before with some success, so it seemed reasonable for me to read the draft into the computer, tackling each day's worth of typing into a day's worth of speaking.
Sadly, me reading my novel aloud into perfectly-digitized prose was not in the cards for a number of reasons:
- It annoyed my wife for a month, since I was in front of the main computer all the time, which meant I was sitting in the kitchen, shushing people as they tried to go about the business of cooking, cleaning, or just walking through the house.
- The draft is very rough in spots, and I wasn't sure what to do about it. Revising as you talk isn't an option, honestly. I eventually gave up trying to fix as I talked, and just read everything.
- Horrible, horrible performance anxiety, if one can get such a thing sitting in one's own kitchen, reading a nasty draft into the computer. I, apparently, can.
For just a 2nd I caught a glimpse of someone else, dressed in gray, questionable or small tables traces of Honda wafted through the air.What is this I don't even.
Worse yet, I realized that I want the main story to be written in present tense, not past tense. That means a stem-to-stern rewrite. And that means digging out the Pro... or choosing a replacement. And as much as I mockingly bad-mouth AlphaSmarts during NaNoWriMo, they have the same dead-simple operation and no-distraction philosophy as the typewriter. (And the 700 hour battery life kicks complete butt, too.)
Most importantly, Mrs. Clickthing approved of the trade-in deal (she who scored our trio of AlphaSmart Pros in the first place.) It's not Another Damn Typewriter coming into our house, after all, despite her enabling ways.
We'll see if the Neo 2 has the magic touch.
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Thursday, June 28, 2012
A Quick Pen Review
In yesterday's typecast, I mentioned getting a bonus prize from Exaclair, the U.S. importer of Rhodia products. This all came about because I entered a drawing to win a Rhodia "dotpad" notebook, which uses a fine grid of dots instead of a lined graph. About ten days ago -- long after the contest was over -- the VP of marketing sent out this email:
Before I go on, I just want to point out what a class act this is, and I'm not just saying that because I've managed to secure great free stuff from Exaclair. This is exactly how customer service is supposed to work, even if your "customer" is some random shlub on the Internet, as I am. A big hand for Exaclair and Karen A. Doherty, their VP of Marketing. You can send me free awesome stuff anytime...
A couple people asked for my impressions of my bonus prize pen -- as you do -- so here's an impromptu what's-at-hand review for you.
This is not a very expensive product, but it's still a first for me, as I don't own any pens of this style: a ballpoint that accepts a fountain pen ink cartridge. Strictly speaking, this would not be a pen that you'd be heartbroken to lose, if only because it's almost entirely plastic, except for the clip, a decorative metal ring where the cap snaps on, and the point itself. I'd put it in the league of the Pilot Varsity, which is a disposable plastic fountain pen (although it can be refilled.)
Here they are side-by-side:
The weight is almost identical, making this pen very light and easy to carry around. It's also about 3/4 of a inch shorter than the Varsity. There's a definite feeling of "smallness" to the ink roller, which, again, makes it very portable and pocketable, but may be awkward to hold in larger hands if you don't post the cap on the back of the pen, like so:
Even posted, it's noticeably shorter than the Varsity, but not awkwardly. Conclusion: this is a pen meant to be used posted, or by the tiny-handed. Again, since it's all-plastic, it's not like you're doing damage to a valuable writing instrument, but like a Space Pen (which I also own) posting the cap feels necessary.
The feed in the roller is visible, just like that of the Varsity. They're very similar, and cleaning between inks may be an issue. To refill the Varisty, you pull the whole feed out, making it available for rinsing.
The roller takes standard "short" international-end cartridges, which always makes me happy, since those are pretty easy to come by, often masquerading as calligraphy pen refills. Long cartridges -- like Waterman -- will not fit in this pen, alas. There's a gap once the cartridge is pushed into place, but it's still not enough of a gap to get a long cartridge in there.
Because I am impatient, I gave the cartridge a little squeeze to get the ink into the feed. I don't know if this is necessary, but it's part of the ritual I have with my fountain pens, and bad habits die hard. Of course this splooged ink into those nice, clean feed fins.
Oh well. At least we know it's mine now, right?
There appears to be a very, very tiny breather hole in the end of the pen, down near the writing point. The ink leaving the cartridge needs to be replaced with air for everything to keep flowing. I don't know if you can see it in this photo, but it's there, right about at the 12 o'clock position.
The dedicated pen hacker (or ink lover) could easily convert this into an eyedropper pen. The cap seals tight with a click, and there are no holes in it that I can detect: the clip is affixed to the outside.
The back of the barrel has a tiny hole in it, which may just be leftover from the molding process. A drop or two of hot glue or clear nail polish would probably seal it up tight.
So, how does it write?
Not bad at all. You're writing with a very fine ball, obviously, so it's not going to be as smooth as a fountain pen, but using the same water-based ink makes it seem slipperier to me. And since it's using a thinner ink, you can also get shading as seen above (and seen better in-person.) Plus, you get the advantage of being able to use all the colors and styles of real inks. There was a blue cartridge inside the pen when it arrived which I used for this test, and Karen thoughtfully added a tiny tin of six dark-green cartridges to use when this one is gone. That's probably the best part of the whole thing: replay value!
Dear Friends,
I am sorry for the delay.
We did not like the original batch of orange dot pads so I didn’t send them out to the winners. I have been waiting for the 2nd batch to arrive from France and they finally did. I am now waiting to receive them from our warehouse. I will have them out to the winners, plus a surprise for your wait and time and trouble early next week.
Before I go on, I just want to point out what a class act this is, and I'm not just saying that because I've managed to secure great free stuff from Exaclair. This is exactly how customer service is supposed to work, even if your "customer" is some random shlub on the Internet, as I am. A big hand for Exaclair and Karen A. Doherty, their VP of Marketing. You can send me free awesome stuff anytime...
A couple people asked for my impressions of my bonus prize pen -- as you do -- so here's an impromptu what's-at-hand review for you.
This is not a very expensive product, but it's still a first for me, as I don't own any pens of this style: a ballpoint that accepts a fountain pen ink cartridge. Strictly speaking, this would not be a pen that you'd be heartbroken to lose, if only because it's almost entirely plastic, except for the clip, a decorative metal ring where the cap snaps on, and the point itself. I'd put it in the league of the Pilot Varsity, which is a disposable plastic fountain pen (although it can be refilled.)
Here they are side-by-side:
The weight is almost identical, making this pen very light and easy to carry around. It's also about 3/4 of a inch shorter than the Varsity. There's a definite feeling of "smallness" to the ink roller, which, again, makes it very portable and pocketable, but may be awkward to hold in larger hands if you don't post the cap on the back of the pen, like so:
Even posted, it's noticeably shorter than the Varsity, but not awkwardly. Conclusion: this is a pen meant to be used posted, or by the tiny-handed. Again, since it's all-plastic, it's not like you're doing damage to a valuable writing instrument, but like a Space Pen (which I also own) posting the cap feels necessary.
The feed in the roller is visible, just like that of the Varsity. They're very similar, and cleaning between inks may be an issue. To refill the Varisty, you pull the whole feed out, making it available for rinsing.
The roller takes standard "short" international-end cartridges, which always makes me happy, since those are pretty easy to come by, often masquerading as calligraphy pen refills. Long cartridges -- like Waterman -- will not fit in this pen, alas. There's a gap once the cartridge is pushed into place, but it's still not enough of a gap to get a long cartridge in there.
Because I am impatient, I gave the cartridge a little squeeze to get the ink into the feed. I don't know if this is necessary, but it's part of the ritual I have with my fountain pens, and bad habits die hard. Of course this splooged ink into those nice, clean feed fins.
Oh well. At least we know it's mine now, right?
There appears to be a very, very tiny breather hole in the end of the pen, down near the writing point. The ink leaving the cartridge needs to be replaced with air for everything to keep flowing. I don't know if you can see it in this photo, but it's there, right about at the 12 o'clock position.
The dedicated pen hacker (or ink lover) could easily convert this into an eyedropper pen. The cap seals tight with a click, and there are no holes in it that I can detect: the clip is affixed to the outside.
The back of the barrel has a tiny hole in it, which may just be leftover from the molding process. A drop or two of hot glue or clear nail polish would probably seal it up tight.
So, how does it write?
Not bad at all. You're writing with a very fine ball, obviously, so it's not going to be as smooth as a fountain pen, but using the same water-based ink makes it seem slipperier to me. And since it's using a thinner ink, you can also get shading as seen above (and seen better in-person.) Plus, you get the advantage of being able to use all the colors and styles of real inks. There was a blue cartridge inside the pen when it arrived which I used for this test, and Karen thoughtfully added a tiny tin of six dark-green cartridges to use when this one is gone. That's probably the best part of the whole thing: replay value!
Wednesday, June 27, 2012
Dot's Life
Finding the Signature 100 in the wild (recreation)
Surprise! It's a typewriter. Never expected to see that around here, did you?
Something unexpected (but not at all unwelcome)
Typed on the recently Silver Surfer-ized Kmart 100
Tuesday, June 26, 2012
Silver Satisfaction
Thank goodness for eBay.
The local craft store turned out to be no help at all for a 2mm bead to replace the missing ball bearing that somebody stupidly lost when stripping the paint from this machine. There's a hobby store nearby, and they sell parts for model cars and planes, both of which appear to use 2mm bearings in some elaborate mechanisms, but I didn't relish forking out a chunk of cash to buy one just to pull it apart, never mind trying to find a suitable replacement in the first place.
eBay came through, though, with a domestic seller "toolsupply" offering a bag of 100 2mm balls for a very reasonable price, plus free shipping. The parts arrived yesterday, and I set them aside after playing the usual round of Inappropriate Joke Time with my family ("Hey! Dad's balls are here!" "Honey, did you mail-order balls?" "Oh thank goodness: now I have lots of spare balls." etc.)
The replacement fits perfectly. And no wonder I couldn't find them locally: 2mm is a tiny little bearing, far to small for any application that I can think of, even for a bike, as recommended in the discussion in the last topic. It's seated exactly right in the opening, and the small tang that holds the ball in place now properly locks the return arm, as above.
Here's a shot of the inside of the return mechanism, just for completeness and archive purposes, in case I get a bright idea to take the arm off again and forget how it goes back together.
So, the arm is back in place at long last. I dropped in an old ribbon just to make sure I hadn't made any other horrible mistakes (I didn't) though I think I'm going to need to address that broken backspace sooner rather than later. It appears that the backspace is not only loose, but sometimes also hangs up the escapement which only a certain amount of jiggling can resolve. I might be getting back on eBay, checking out toolsupply's selection of springs, once I know what I'm looking for. Luckily, the backspace is accessible by removing the bottom plate alone, which is easy.
Naturally, I banished the crummy, stinky soundproofing foam from the bottom and side panels, and replaced it. This time I cut up a large piece of wool/nylon blend that I found in the remnant rack at eh craft store. It's held in place with automotive gasket silicon from the dollar store next door. The black looks pretty nice, what of it you can see.
I also lined some panels that weren't originally done, like the inside of the ribbon cover, and the inside of the panel that runs behind the paper table (behind the margins.) I also lined the inside of the knobs, since the paint bubbled up there. I like the effect of the red and black together, as you can see in the above pics. It's a repetition of the bicolor ribbon, and looks very typewriterish to me.
I did this mainly so I would not need to completely strip the inside of all the panels. I was pretty tired of the power tools by that point -- everything was done hand-held, since I don't have a proper workbench -- and more than once I wasn't paying attention and abraded some of the skin from my hand or arm with a tool. Ouch.
I think it was all worth it, though:
I'm still not convinced about the aesthetic quality of the plain silver. I did try affixing some art-tape racing stripes to the machine, but the tape was never meant to affix to bare metal, and peeled right off. The panels are steel, so magnets will stick to them. Perhaps I will go for magnetic stripes, or flames, or some other decoration. I'm not sure yet. But that's what makes projects like this so much fun: it's a blank canvas, and there's tons of room for customization.
The local craft store turned out to be no help at all for a 2mm bead to replace the missing ball bearing that somebody stupidly lost when stripping the paint from this machine. There's a hobby store nearby, and they sell parts for model cars and planes, both of which appear to use 2mm bearings in some elaborate mechanisms, but I didn't relish forking out a chunk of cash to buy one just to pull it apart, never mind trying to find a suitable replacement in the first place.
eBay came through, though, with a domestic seller "toolsupply" offering a bag of 100 2mm balls for a very reasonable price, plus free shipping. The parts arrived yesterday, and I set them aside after playing the usual round of Inappropriate Joke Time with my family ("Hey! Dad's balls are here!" "Honey, did you mail-order balls?" "Oh thank goodness: now I have lots of spare balls." etc.)
The replacement fits perfectly. And no wonder I couldn't find them locally: 2mm is a tiny little bearing, far to small for any application that I can think of, even for a bike, as recommended in the discussion in the last topic. It's seated exactly right in the opening, and the small tang that holds the ball in place now properly locks the return arm, as above.
Here's a shot of the inside of the return mechanism, just for completeness and archive purposes, in case I get a bright idea to take the arm off again and forget how it goes back together.
So, the arm is back in place at long last. I dropped in an old ribbon just to make sure I hadn't made any other horrible mistakes (I didn't) though I think I'm going to need to address that broken backspace sooner rather than later. It appears that the backspace is not only loose, but sometimes also hangs up the escapement which only a certain amount of jiggling can resolve. I might be getting back on eBay, checking out toolsupply's selection of springs, once I know what I'm looking for. Luckily, the backspace is accessible by removing the bottom plate alone, which is easy.
Naturally, I banished the crummy, stinky soundproofing foam from the bottom and side panels, and replaced it. This time I cut up a large piece of wool/nylon blend that I found in the remnant rack at eh craft store. It's held in place with automotive gasket silicon from the dollar store next door. The black looks pretty nice, what of it you can see.
I also lined some panels that weren't originally done, like the inside of the ribbon cover, and the inside of the panel that runs behind the paper table (behind the margins.) I also lined the inside of the knobs, since the paint bubbled up there. I like the effect of the red and black together, as you can see in the above pics. It's a repetition of the bicolor ribbon, and looks very typewriterish to me.
I did this mainly so I would not need to completely strip the inside of all the panels. I was pretty tired of the power tools by that point -- everything was done hand-held, since I don't have a proper workbench -- and more than once I wasn't paying attention and abraded some of the skin from my hand or arm with a tool. Ouch.
I think it was all worth it, though:
I'm still not convinced about the aesthetic quality of the plain silver. I did try affixing some art-tape racing stripes to the machine, but the tape was never meant to affix to bare metal, and peeled right off. The panels are steel, so magnets will stick to them. Perhaps I will go for magnetic stripes, or flames, or some other decoration. I'm not sure yet. But that's what makes projects like this so much fun: it's a blank canvas, and there's tons of room for customization.
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