Editing The Pen Addict 234/transcript (section)

== Ethics Discussion ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right? Someone's got to lay down the law. And Myke, I'm really excited to have you on this episode because we're not just going to talk about blogging and pen stuff. We're going to talk about some, you know, philosophy, some ethics, because you are actually a philosophy teacher. Is that correct?

'''Mike Matteson:''' Yeah, I've been an ethics instructor for, I don't know, 10 or 12 years. I don't know, something like that. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Cool. Yeah, so we're going to talk about some of those, how that relates, you know, to the pen industry, to the pen blogging business, to the videos and all that stuff that we do. So this is going to be an awesome conversation. Plus, you're like an ink professional. So we're going to have like two completely different conversations. I'm going to like pick your brain about ink and then we're going to get into some other cool stuff. So if you allow me a second, Myke, I have a bone to pick with Mr. Hurley. Is that okay?

'''Mike Matteson:''' Yeah, yeah. Pick that bone.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, Michael, I've listened to another show of yours called Cortex and it has come to my attention that your new abode is being nicknamed the Cortex Cottage.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That's correct, yes.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I have a little bit of an issue with that, seeing as who has been with you longer, you know, throughout all your podcast adventures.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's definitely you, Brad. It's definitely you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Than me. And I didn't even warrant consideration for Pen Addict Palace. Okay. Anything like this. So, I mean...

'''Myke Hurley:''' What about the pen pad? Can we go with the pen pad?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We could go with the pen pad. You know, and I think, you know, you could have like the Cortex Kitchen. Like you could sponsor different rooms of the house. I think the overall house should go to the person that's been with you the longest. Okay. Through all your ups and downs. So, the pen pad, you know, the Cortex Kitchen, you know, the Bonanza Bathroom, things like that. So, what are your thoughts on this?

'''Myke Hurley:''' I have to concur and just offer my most humble apologies. You know, I will bow down to you, Mr. Dowdy. And for Hiver Thorfe, it shall be known as the Pen Palace when I'm talking to you.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I'll take it up with Gray.

'''Myke Hurley:''' There is a reason that the Cortex Cottage name is there. I think you're just going to have to work out for yourself what that might be. Okay.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I can figure that out without much thought.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, let's get into other British things. Our good friend Tessa Sowery has opened up her online shop that we talked to her in episode 206 of the Pen Addict Podcast. And we pinned her down. She said, hey, back in January, you know, she mentioned, like, in her upcoming year, she's like, she wants to open a stationery store. And she did it. So, we want to send everyone the link to that, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' We most certainly do. I was very excited to see this. And I bought something immediately.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, you can go to the-stationer.co.uk.

'''Myke Hurley:''' So, the-stationer.co.uk. You can go there and you can peruse the lovely wares that Tessa has curated together, I think is probably a good way to put it. Yes. And I found something there that I was immediately excited about, which was a label maker. A really cool label maker that I bought. And it comes with two different wheels. And one of them is like a funky little, like a funky font. Like, it's not like the traditional label maker font, you know?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' So, is this a- this is not a digital label maker, I'm assuming. It's an analog, like, push the button down, stamp the letter into the tape.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I bought that and it arrived and it was- it came in a regular envelope, right? But I opened it up and there was, like, this beautifully wrapped with string, like, envelope and a little card, like a little thank you card. Tessa- Tessa's got it down. She knows what she's doing. Like, you know, like, you know how when you buy something from CW Pencils, it's like this whole thing, you know? Like, this is like what Tessa's saying. And, I mean, you can go- if you go to the Twitter account, which is at the underscore stationer underscore, I'll put that in the show notes as well, you can see some pictures of some of the stuff that Tessa's been sending out. Yeah, she's- she's taking this- she's taking this serious.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes, so right now she's just shipping to the UK, but she plans on expanding that as she grows the business. And congratulations, Tessa. Tessa, I'm super, super happy for you. This is an exciting development. I love to see it.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep, you can see if you want to. I posted a picture of the first thing that I printed on my label maker.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I did see that. So, a little hashtag Myke was right. Yep. Right on to- with all your other stickers. Um, Myke Madison, are you a sticker guy? Are you a sticker my stuff guy?

'''Mike Matteson:''' Uh, no. But, uh, that's just because I don't have a label maker. I keep meaning to get one. And I keep going, oh, no, this one's cool, but it costs, I don't know, 60 or 100 bucks. I'm like, I don't know, do I need to know what's in a thing? Because I'm going to label everything. I'll label lamps lamp. It's going to be nuts if I get one.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But- I'm with you there. Yeah. But, uh, that's tempting. Just to, you know, I feel like I have to battle Hurley when he does something like that. I'm like, oh, God. Except I get these emails that say, you know, Myke actually was right. And I'm like, you guys are killing me.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's true, though. I mean, the hashtag exists for real reasons, you know? I have been, and was, and will continue to be right about things. It's a true statement.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' You know, luckily for you, you are up in, like, the 95th percentile of rightness, you know?

'''Myke Hurley:''' There was something I was wrong about, though. And I'm willing to admit that. Mm-hmm. Last week, when we were talking about those SpaceX notebooks, and I kind of questioned, I called into question the potential legality of using the SpaceX posters for those notebooks. Right. Well, it turns out that they were published under a Creative Commons Zero license, which basically means people can do whatever they want with them, including put them on notebooks and sell them. Wow. So, I apologize to the back pocket people for that.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, so it's essentially the unlicensed license means you can actually make money off of these things, right? Usually, it's, okay, you can use my stuff, give me credit, you can't profit off of it, blah, blah, blah, blah. This is the zero license.

'''Myke Hurley:''' This is the, like, this is free. Free reign. Yeah. Go crazy. This is public domain.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, so we talked about that, and Ian from Pen, Papers, Pencils sent me a link. He said, it's funny you guys are talking about that. I have a review coming this week, and it just dropped this morning. So, I haven't had a chance to read it, but I saw it this morning, so I linked it in the show notes. Y'all can go check that out, see how these notebooks are. I haven't read it yet, though.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I am just going to say, though, like, I want to close this thread off without trying to be mean, but, like, these notebooks are relatively expensive for artwork the company didn't create. Like, there's 12 pounds for a three-pack, which is, that's expensive, right? Like, you know, you kind of, you're in field notes territory at that point, right? Like, I can buy a three-pack of field notes for cheaper because they're 12 bucks, right? And I don't know. Like, I know that this stuff isn't easy to do, but it's like, the artwork and the design is surely one of the things that actually costs quite a bit of money, and this doesn't do that. So, I don't know. I don't know. There's something weird to me. It's like taking this Creative Commons stuff and then just, I know you can legally do it, but I don't know. There's just something about it which is strange to me, I've got to say.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. This is a good question for Myke. What's the correct ethical thing to do here, Myke? Look, I am not a lawyer.

'''Mike Matteson:''' But, I mean, it seems that if a company or a group puts something out as a free license like that, then they want other people to use it. It could probably only be good for SpaceX as long as they're, you know, using it for notebooks and not using it for, I don't know, something terrible. I'm not sure.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right.

'''Mike Matteson:''' SpaceX bullets. I don't know what they would use it for.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Yeah. So, it's interesting.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, I don't think the price is egregious at all, but I'm also, you know, not totally into this work. I think they look cool. It's not something I'd ever purchase, but just because I have so much paper with it, they look pretty cool. And I'll have to read Ian's review, see how they perform.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' All right. A couple more things.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' We've had just a wonderful amount of firepower. Follow up on this whole shower writing pencil situation.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' It's unreal. It's the gift that keeps giving. Myke, do you write in the shower? Do you have a shower writing set up at all?

'''Myke Hurley:''' Well, I think that this... Oh, no. Oh, I did it again. There we go. It's the first one. Mark it down. That's the first time. I will say, no, I don't. Now, why don't we actually ask the question to the person that the question was asked of? Yeah.

'''Mike Matteson:''' Thanks, Hurley. So, yeah. No, I definitely don't. I don't ever write stuff in the shower. I do occasionally listen. I listen to podcasts and that sort of thing while I'm in the shower and getting ready. I'll yell out responses to podcasts, but I haven't taken it writing things yet.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' But, so, yeah, this is definitely an awesome topic. And we got another email from a product that we had forgotten. And I was like, oh, that's a pretty good idea. But that pen show from the P-E-N-X-O, we never got the official pronunciation, but that's what I'm going with, from Kickstarter, which is just an aluminum lead holder. So you just have the aluminum and the graphite. That could be a good option. I'd be worried about dropping that. If you drop that, your lead is gone. I mean, it's just going to break. But pencil seems to win the day in the shower, so you just have to get the aqua notes or write in the rain or expedition edition field notes and find you a good pencil. And Matthias from Blystift also said, like, some of the really, really cheap mechanical pencils like we mentioned last week, Myke, were a good idea. He said anything under $2 is probably going to be fully plastic, so you don't have to worry about rust or anything getting all messed up in there.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And last thing, last thing before we get to our guest and get into all his inky goodness, I want to talk about the new Black Wings real quick. Like, I didn't plan on it this week, but Myke, but you put them in. Did you have any thoughts on these? You don't have a subscription to this, right?

'''Myke Hurley:''' No. No, I don't. Okay. I looked at these, and this seems super boring to me, man. I'm not going to lie. Like, I don't get the appeal of this one at all.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. I mean, I'd say that's about right. I do like them better than the 24, which is the all black edition, surprisingly, because they have the same graphite cores that they have the firmer, firman dark, the new core that they invented for this product lineup. They remind me when I opened these up, they reminded me of those pencils I got as a kid with all the football teams. You know, they had like the silver and the gold paint jobs and had all the team logos on them and things like that. I don't know. It just looked like, I think the pinstripe around the ferrule kind of made it look like a football pencil to me. And that's what I think of. So, I mean, yeah, it's fine. I mean, it is what it is. No big deal. I don't really love it. I don't really hate it. I'll use it. That's what I actually picked before I even saw this in the show notes. This is what I'm using for my show notes today to write with just because I got them yesterday and wanted to try them out because I do like the core.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I probably like it better than the 24, which was the first one to use the core. But I still like some of the other editions better.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yeah, this one doesn't float my boat, I've got to say. There's a couple of them where I said to you, I was like, oh, that looks interesting. But this one, I know it's trying to evoke something, but what it's evoking doesn't stir up anything in me.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Right.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Yep. I'm with you. All right, let's take our first break and then we'll get into talking to the mic that everybody wants to talk to today, which is not this one. But first, I want to take a moment to thank our friends at Foot Cardigan for supporting this week's show. Have you ever wanted to be known as the best gift giver in the world in the holiday season? Do you want to be the envy of everyone you know? Do you want to be able to walk down the street and people will stop you and be like, whoa, where did you get those socks from? If the answer to any of these is yes, then Foot Cardigan is here to make that happen. Foot Cardigan delivers fun socks every single month to your doorstep. They ensure that your feet never have to be seen out in public again with just those boring plain white socks. And the best part, you don't need to choose what pair you get because every month you'll get a surprise pair of socks in the mail from Foot Cardigan. And their subscription plans start at just $9 a month. Foot Cardigan socks are a fantastic holiday gift or a birthday gift or just something for yourself. I treat myself to a Foot Cardigan subscription. I'm wearing some Foot Cardigan socks today that are pink and blue and have a robot on them. Now, you need those. Everybody needs pink and blue robot socks. Yeah, totally. So that's why you need a Foot Cardigan subscription. They have socks for men, women, and kids in a bunch of different styles. Go to FootCardigan.com and you'll get 10% off with the coupon code PEN, P-E-N. That is FootCardigan.com, promo code PEN at checkout, and you'll get 10% off any subscription to any of their socks. Whether you want to go for the regular socks, the no-show socks, or the luxury socks, you're going to get 10% off. Thank you so much to Foot Cardigan for their support of this show and Relay FM. Yeah.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' The code definitely works because I did go get my no-show subscription after last time they sponsored the show. Yeah, you did. They look pretty cool. So I'm excited to see what happens here in my mailbox very soon. All right, Mr. Madison, you ready?

'''Mike Matteson:''' Yeah, let's roll.