Editing The Pen Addict 2/transcript (section)

== Feedback Topics ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right, right. I did get a couple emails for feedback for show topic ideas, more questions on episode one. So I did want to share these just so people know that we would love to have your feedback and love to hear your ideas for the show going forward. But let me go through a couple of them here that we got. First one's from Jim, and he was talking about the glossary subjects that we covered in episode one. And let me just, I'll read a little bit of it here. And he said, you touched on it in the first episode, but I think it should be discussed in more detail. I love pens and consider myself a pen addict, but I'm still confused at the differences and when I try to explain those differences to others. And what Jim's referring to is all the different types of pens and different, you know, breakdown between ballpoints, fountain pens, gel ink pens, what type of ink particular pens use. And he says it's such a confusing topic that it warrants a lot of time. And Jim, I could not agree more. That's something, you know, I'm going to elaborate on some of those topics today. After we finished last week's episode, there was so many things I had in my head, just even basic stuff that I didn't cover that. Well, while this won't be a glossary episode, I think a lot of the topics we're going to talk about today are going to hopefully help elaborate and expand on some of the topics we covered the first time around. And, you know, it's an ongoing thing. A lot of this stuff I didn't learn right when I started doing this. I had to, you know, figure it out as I went and try to figure out the differences between certain pens and why they were different. So, you know, I think the more you listen, the more you hear the same topics, the more you hear examples of what these terms are. I think it'll start coming easier. And today's episode, I think, is going to help a lot with that, too.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Cool.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The second mail was from Lucas, and Lucas is looking more on the lines of a recommendation. He says, I'm a computer science student. A lot of math stuff is written faster by hand, so I write a lot with pen and paper. But I think my pens would make you cry, Brad. I think that you'll present better choices for that everyday use very soon. And, Lucas, definitely. We're going to work on that. I will give you a quick recommendation, though. And we get this, and this is a new thing for a lot of math students. You know, they're traditionally pencil users. You say you write a lot with pen and paper. A lot of math students have turned to an erasable gel ink pen called the Pilot Friction. And erasable pens have been a joke for decades, pretty much ever since they were introduced. But Pilot has finally come out with a pen that writes really nicely, erases very well, and is perfect for math and science students. We get a lot of compliments on that pen. So, Pilot Friction, Lucas, check that out. And then Lucas also had a recommendation for a future episode. He gets into paper prototyping, and what he means by that is sketching interfaces for applications and webpages with pen and paper. I think a lot of our listeners are probably in that same boat. So, we'll work on some suggestions for that. I have some ideas for wireframing and design layouts and user experience sketching and things like that. So, that's a really good topic, Lucas. And we will – hopefully, we can devote an episode to that pretty soon because there are some good products you can check out for that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I've used Pilot Friction.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, have you?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, and they are pretty cool.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. I mean, it's not a pen for everybody. I will admit that.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They're a pen for a purpose. I mean, you wouldn't want to use this pen as your pen, like your day-to-day pen just for general use. And it would be cool that it also has an eraser. Right. You would use it because it has an eraser. Does that sound right?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, exactly. And from my personal perspective, it's not a daily writing pen for me because as part of the ink properties that gives it that erasability, it's not a super dark ink. And I like very dark inks like the black.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's – you can tell it's black. But when you put it next to like a Pilot G2, it looks gray.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, it's got a peculiar coloring to it.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And same with the blue. And then, I mean, there's a rainbow of colors now. I think there's about 24 friction colors actually now.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They do marker pens as well. Yep.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' They started doing markers. Yeah. And the cool thing is you can have some fun with the friction pens. They do disappear in very hot heat. So if you're not careful and leave your notebook in the back of your car on a hot summer day, especially where I'm at in Georgia and where your internal car temperature gets to be about 140 degrees, you'll look in that notebook and your ink will be gone. But it's not gone permanently. You pop it in the freezer and that ink comes right back. What?

'''Myke Hurley:''' You've just blown my mind a little bit.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's the truth. It's the truth. How? Why? We'll do this. I have a good video to share. Okay. That'll show it's a drawing done with a friction. It's put over the steam of a tea kettle. You watch the ink vanish. And then you take that same sheet of paper with the ink disappeared. You throw it in the freezer and it comes right back.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That is incredible.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So that's the fun side of the friction. But a lot of students like that pen just for math and science for the erasability.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Because there are some things where you don't want to be writing in pencil because it's not good really in the long run. But they're the types of things where you want to be able to have the ability to erase because it's very easy to make mistakes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right, right. And you're not going to want to use it for notes, not for any type of permanence, right, for obvious reasons. You know, the science students who have to keep a lab notebook where those lab notebooks are very protected and have to use specific types of inks and dated and noted and signed. You're not going to want to use a pen. But for general studying, it's a great pen.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Indeed. So, Brad, what are we going to talk about today? Oh, before we do get into that, sorry. I just wanted to mention, we've mentioned a couple of pens already. In the show notes for each episode, which we've mentioned before, you can find, you know, if you're not using an iOS device, you can find them in the app of choice that you use. Or you can go to 70decibels.com forward slash the pen addict. You can go to the show that you're on. And in the show notes, we include links to all of the pens that we discuss as well as just general cool links like the video that Brad's talking about with erasing with the heat and using the freezer to bring the ink back. That will be in the show notes. But we also have the pens and the paper sections, which have links to all of the pens and paper that we discuss.