Editing The Pen Addict 110/transcript (section)

== Pen Selection ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' I do, I do have one, one, one more, uh, comment on your, on your trip. I want to know, tell me, tell me the pen and paper loadout. Those are the kinds of things I'm interesting, interested in. And maybe it's, you know, in this instance, it's nothing. And I, and I like to know that. So tell me what you brought, um, pen addict related on your trip.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Uh, so the Rotterfaden Taschenberg Leiter naturally. was with me. Uh, I got a bunch of questions about it. Like people were like, what is that thing?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So I had to explain it. Um, I told one guy what it was and he was like, what? I was like, just take a picture of the brand name and Google it. Cause you, I, it would take me too long to spell it. Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um, uh, and I don't take any fountain pens with me. Yep. Like still. So I had in there, uh, my field notes, obviously. Um, and I had Sharpie pen and the, what is it? Um, hang on. I'm going to, I've forgotten what it was now. I'm literally going to check. Myke, where are you? I had the Autographic liner as well. Ah, yeah. They're, they're two pens that I can, I can just, I know they're good to use. They're going to be fine. They're going to last me. Yep. Um, and I know they're going to be great. I'm really falling in love with the Sharpie pen when I'm traveling.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's a great, it's a great pen. I love that pen. It's, it's got a great line. So I use the, the metallic one. Cool. Yeah. And the heavy duty one. Yeah. Refillable.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I can't remember what it's called though. I'm going to find it and put it in the show notes. It's the stainless steel pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I think, I think that's all it's called. It's the Sharpie pen, stainless steel barrel.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep. And I'm a big fan. Excellent.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Good choice. Good choice. Well, I don't know if, uh, your Twitter feed or your mailbox was as filled up as mine with two, two, two items this past, I guess, week and a half that we've shown that have just been the rising to the top of the, uh, the topic list.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Remind me, I have a story about the second one. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Okay. So the first one, and I'm assuming you've seen this. We haven't talked at all.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I haven't seen this in detail. It was, I saw it. Uh, I saw it when I landed. Okay. Uh, Twitter streams blew up so much, which is kind of half of the story that I'm going to tell. I'll save most of the, most of the, for in a moment. So I've kind of, I went onto the page, but I've not actually checked this out anymore. It's completely, it completely escaped my brain until just now. Cause I was, I was kind of like a zombie.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Well, I'll bring it to the forefront. So this is the scribble pen that, you know, a bunch of people, you know, sent to us. Have you seen this? What do you think about this? And, and things like that. So basically what it is before we really get into it, it's a pen that it basically one end of the pen has, gosh, I didn't read all the technical details. One, one end of the pen, the rear end of the pen can basically, you point it at a color and it can read the color and then it will match the color. Say like on their scribble page, they pointed at an orange and then coming out the tip is orange ink that matches up this orange color. Um, and we'll have the, obviously the link in the show notes at, at five by five dot TV slash pen addict slash one 10. And you can, if you haven't heard of this, you can go click the details. Um, so yeah, it's an RGB color sensor on the end of the pen and then it has ink cartridges in the middle. And then this color sensor reads the color you pointed at. Um, it's got a button on the clip. That's like the capture button. So there's, it's not like on all the time. So you point it and then you click the button and capture and then the ink I'm guessing mixes to match that color. And then it comes out, it gets mixed in a mixing chamber. Then it comes out of the, they're calling it the nib.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I'm so confused.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's really interesting idea. So what, what confuses you? Cause I have a lot to say about this.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, cause it kind of, oh, so they have an ink version and a stylus version. Cause their copy on their website is so bad. It's very, okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' That's part of my problem. It's really part of my problems related to that. Yes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' First coloring device of its kind. It can take the world of color around you and transfer it directly to either paper or your favorite mobile device. The scribble pen and stylus pairs with a scribble plus mobile app to instantly sync every color and scan directly onto your iPhone, iPad or Android. Your colors become more useful when they're organized. It just doesn't make, it doesn't delineate that there's two different types of pen. I'm like, I was about to say, Brad, Brad, you've got this all wrong. This is a stylus. There's no ink. And then the images that they've used are like super low res and clearly photoshopped. Yep. Um, hmm. This is a bit dubious to me. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So you're, you're tracking in the same way that I am.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I just can't see how this is technologically possible and or cost efficient to somebody to have ink in a pen.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. So, so my problems are, and you've, you've definitely, you've hit on it. So my problems are they, they did the PR push last week or whatever, right? When they got everybody writing about it, you know, Gizmodo, CNET, you know, everybody, you know, I think everyone who sent me the link sent it from a different site, right? Mm-hmm. So there's two major red flags for me. Number one, this is a pen that matches colors and outputs the page and there's no video available.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And nobody seems to have used one.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And no one knows.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Just press shots everywhere.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yep. Just press shots and not a single video on their FAQ page. They actually have a link. I looked everywhere for a video, one single video showing this product in action. You think if they push this hard for PR that they would have show it in action. And for them to go through all this effort to push this pen and not have that available is a little, as you say, dubious to me. They actually, in the FAQ, the very last item after, you know, is the ink recyclable? Is it safe for children? Do you ship worldwide? The very last one, do you have a demo video available? It says, yes, we have upcoming videos showing the pen live in action and click here to subscribe to our YouTube channels. Guess how many videos are on that page?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Zero.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Zero. So I'm sure they're coming. But if I'm going that hard, as hard as they went right out the gate, they got nothing right now that can show anybody anything on how this pen works. The second thing, not just the copy, the picture of the girl holding the pen, it actually looks like she's had it in use and it looks horrible.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, that's what I think is photoshopped. I don't think that's real.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I mean, she's got these, it's basically like not even a crayon. It's like the giant pre-K crayons where the kids have to use like their whole fist to hold on it. That looks like the output.

'''Myke Hurley:''' If you look at it, there's different resolution blurs throughout this whole image. Like they tried to put focus blur on the pen. I don't think she's actually holding it. I don't think that's a real picture.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Maybe not. I see her hand looks a little bit funny.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah. The benefit that I have maybe is I'm looking at this on a retina Mac. So maybe I can see these details a little bit better, but that totally looks like a stock photo with the pen jammed in there. Yeah. And they've just used like paint to put images in. Because that doesn't look like they're drawn by somebody anyway. The lines are too perfect.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. So, I mean, this is not going to be like a high tech C type of line that people are that you're getting out of this pen. And I think that's people understand that it's going to be a hugely wide line. It's going to be like a two millimeter line, I'm guessing. So I don't know, like they put this shot in about these birds on here. It looks like a colored pencil drawing. There's this bird drawing. There's no way the output of this pen can do that. This is a very.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Way more questions than answers so far. And I just, my opinion is, if you're going to PR it this hard, you got to answer more questions.

'''Myke Hurley:''' And it kind of seems dumb to PR before the Kickstarter. Maybe they've had some sort of delay. Yeah. But I don't know. So this is one of those things that me and you pick up all the time where we both are really dubious about it. So I'm really, this is what I'm excited to see how it works. I mean, as well for what? $150? Right. I mean, for the sake of the show, I'd put the money down.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Would you?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I think so.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You're braver than me.