When it comes to fountain pens and inks, I went down a rabbit hole more than once in the past.
Noodlers makes some unique pens and inks. I have a Noodlers Ahab, for example, that has a very flexible nib. Different than any of the more conventional pens I used before.
But one thing that bothers me about fountain pens is that they are messy. Some of it can be avoided. You don't need a piston filler to dip into your special ink bottle to refill your pen if you don't mind using regular cartridges. But one thing that seems unavoidable is that the "section" (the part where you hold the pen) gets messy when you put the cap on it. I wonder why every fountain pen seems to have this design. One would think that a smaller cap that only covers the nib would suffice.
I wonder if there are fountain pens like this. I feel another rabbit hole calling.
> But one thing that seems unavoidable is that the "section" (the part where you hold the pen) gets messy when you put the cap on it. I wonder why every fountain pen seems to have this design.
FYI, there are fountain pens with a retractable nib that don't have a cap, including for example the:
- Pilot Vanishing Point/Capless/Decimo (there's a cheaper Japanese "Special Alloy" version as well)
- LAMY dialog
- Platinum Curidas
I don't know if they fix your inky fingers issue but if taking the cap on and off is a hassle then these might be worth looking into.
Sometimes fountain pens "spit". This happens more frequently if the ink is low, the pressure changes or the pen get rocked a bit more than their liking.
Carrying pens nib up, in a pocket or bag helps. Also some pens are more resistant to this. From my experience Lamy, Faber Castell and Kaweco makes most spit-resistant and accessible pens. I can recommend Lamy Safari, Kaweco Perkeo or Faber Castell Grip 2011 (basically a Perkeo in a different shell), if you want to explore further.
I think another reason for messy fingers is the way I hold the pen. It's easy to come into contact with the nib or the exposed part of the feed when you're not careful.
Lamy Safari, Kaweco Perkeo and Faber Castell Grip 2011 have triangular grips which forces you to hold the pen correctly. Many people find these uncomfortable, but I love them. Because it allows me blindly open them (i.e.: Oh I need to take note of this, where's my pen?) while looking to the screen or elsewhere.
We all start from somewhere. Using fountain pens is not an instinctual thing. Also, even after trying these and decide that fountain pens aren't for you, that's perfectly OK, too.
From my experience, when you get used to fountain pens, they're not messier than a ballpoint pen.
I wonder: the graphs treat learning with and without AI as two different paths. But obviously people can switch between learning methods or abandon one of them.
Then again, I wonder how many people go from learning about a topic using LLMs to then leaving them behind to continue the old school way. I think the early spoils of LLM usage could poison your motivation to engage with the topic on your own later on.
I learn about different subjects mixing traditional resources and AI.
I can watch a video about the subject, when I want to go deeper, I go to LLMs, throw a bunch of questions at it, because thanks to the videos I now know what to ask. Then the AI responses tell me what I need to understand deeper, so I pick a book that addresses those subjects. Then as I read the book and I don’t understand something, or I have some questions that I want the answer for immediately, I consult ChatGPT (or any other tool I want to try). At different points in the journey, I find something I could build myself to deepen my understanding. I google open source implementations, read them, ask LLMs again, I watch summary videos, and work my way through the problem.
LLMs serve as a “much better StackOverflow / Google”.
I use a similar approach. I tried to experiment going into a topic with no knowledge and it kinda fumbles, I highly recommend to have an overview.
But once you know basics, LLMs are really good to deepen the knowledge, but using only them is quite challenging. But as a complementary tool I find them excellent.
Interesting; can you elaborate? Also could you clarify what you mean by changes that are "not always visual"? How would non-visual information exist in a purely visual medium?
The example I mentioned was momentum. That's not visual information, that's extrapolated information of position over time. It can be represented in line drawings as motion lines in comics, for example. Interestingly, by simply implying motion, I hypothesize that the brain deprioritizes processing detail on the object that is implied to be moving, and focuses instead on the interactions that will follow.
If I were a researcher, my contrived test of this would be to simply have people recreate drawings of "static" objects, and have others recreate drawings of objects implied to be in motion.
Other non-visual information would be emotions. The shape of eyes and mouth lines are highly critical to passing emotion. I suspect that people's interpretation of emotion directly impacts how strong the emotional representation of those parts of the face would be drawn. For example if a test subject is told to draw the face of a model in front of them, but they are told the person is experiencing an emotion, I hypothesize that the group of people who are told the person is happy would more frequently bias their interpretation of the eyes, eyebrows, and corners of the mouth towards a "happy" representation than those who are told the person is experiencing great inner turmoil.
To be clear though, I'm not saying we only draw based on non-visual information. I'm saying the sum total of all vectors has an influence on the drawing. Colors, in my opinion, have as much of an impact as edges. And it would be interesting to compare the drawings of a person with less common color sensitivities to more common color sensitivities.
Noodlers makes some unique pens and inks. I have a Noodlers Ahab, for example, that has a very flexible nib. Different than any of the more conventional pens I used before.
But one thing that bothers me about fountain pens is that they are messy. Some of it can be avoided. You don't need a piston filler to dip into your special ink bottle to refill your pen if you don't mind using regular cartridges. But one thing that seems unavoidable is that the "section" (the part where you hold the pen) gets messy when you put the cap on it. I wonder why every fountain pen seems to have this design. One would think that a smaller cap that only covers the nib would suffice.
I wonder if there are fountain pens like this. I feel another rabbit hole calling.