Libb

joined 2 years ago
[–] Libb@jlai.lu 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Hmmm analog nudes and porno

  • With another person(s), that would actually be called having a sexual relationship :P
  • With pictures, well, if I recall correctly one has found erotic paintings in Pompeii (destroyed in 75 AD). So, yeah, pornography or at the very least eroticism is kinda older than your average youporn clip watched on a phone ;)

Not as old as Pompeii, not by much some could say, people used to read erotic magazines when I was kid (I knew where my dad kept his hidden) and used to watch video tapes which were like the modern youporn but offline, without ads, without tracking and without any need to use a VPN or to be able to prove your age...

[–] Libb@jlai.lu 2 points 1 week ago

You're welcome. And happy reading in that train ;)

[–] Libb@jlai.lu 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The default home feed: out of the box, it puts too much shit in the face of newcomers.

Once filtered out, it's great but one must first learn to filter the noise out which, I'm pretty sure, is dissuasive to a lot of non-geek users like myself.

[–] Libb@jlai.lu 1 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Merci!

Effectivement, y aurait peut-être moyen de moyenner qqe chose. Pour ce qui est de ma 'suggestion' (qui n'en n'est pas encore vraiment une: j'ai parlé de ça en passant, perdu dans un commentaire), y a pas vraiment eu de réactions... à part la tienne ;)

Peut-être ça mériterait un post dédié? Mais je reste persudé que bcp de monde pourrait apprécier de recevoir (et envoyer) une carte postale ou même une lettre... à l'ancienne, avec un joli timbre même. Sans rien de digital, quoi. Un bête objet... mais qui serait chaque fois unique.

J'ai pas encore trouvé de moyen (France-friendly, pour ainsi dire) de préserver la vie privée des uns et des autres. SI seulement on pouvait facilement ouvrir une boîte postale, la question ne se poserait plus trop.

[–] Libb@jlai.lu 3 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

Each genre has so many... sub-genre it's hard to be specific.

Horror: a great pick would be Stephen King (the dude is both a popular author and an great author, a rare mix), a more classic choice would be Lovecraft (a lot less popular nowadays but most people hating on him have never actually read him so...). King writes both short stories and very thick novels, so you should be able to find something that will suit you. I would say: Bag of bones, The plague, It, Dark Tower (long, but impressively good... Thinking about it, I realize I would not mind rereading it soon), Pet sematary,... he wrote so many great books. Even a few of those he wrote as Richard Bachman were exciting read, at the very least. The last one I read from King was Cell, which is not his best but it was still real good read: people getting zombified and becoming enraged through their cellphones, in the hands of King it can't be bad :p

If you like haunted house stories, I would suggest Shirley Jackson's 'The Haunting of Hill House', a true classic but that still works wonders. Another woman writer I like a lot, a little more disturbing though: Lisa Tuttle.

And then there are a lot more disturbing authors but, us chatting publicly online and risking to awaken a crowd of self-proclaimed censors that like nothing more than to hate (heck, even suggesting Lovecraft is already enough to risk waking them up) and then me not knowing you personally, I would not feel confident suggesting any of those author as they can be really disturbing (like, really) and not suited to younger readers either. Which is sad, because a few of them are also amazing authors that could make anyone fall in love with great writing.

Scifi:

'Ubik' by P.K. Dick is my first suggestion, always is. Dick is the author that inspired so many successful movies and other scifi writers. From Blade Runner to the Matrix, also the (imho, shitty & spineless) series adaptation on Amazon 'Master in the High Castle'. Cyberpunk as a genre is hugely influenced by Dick. Ubik is both funny and smart read, Dick uses it to masterfully play with a few of his favorite themes.

'Dune' by Herbert (the first volume, the following ones are, well, following ones).

Classic: 'The cave of Steel', by Asimov (crime story in a future world with robots, Asimov is the author of the 3 laws of robotics and his robots novels/short stories have been used in so, so many movies). Another one by Asimov: 'Foundation' so much more interesting than the meh adaptation by Apple. 'Martian chronicles', by Bradbury (such a great book, like a lot of what Bradbury wrote).

Contemporary authors: I will happily read anything by Paolo Bacigalupi or Ted Chiang to name just two. Hard science: Greg Egan is my go to.

and anything in between

A bit too vague, I'm afraid ;)

[–] Libb@jlai.lu 2 points 1 week ago

if you self-censor, probably ;)

[–] Libb@jlai.lu 4 points 1 week ago

Thx for the clarification.

[–] Libb@jlai.lu 1 points 1 week ago (4 children)

what do you usually like to read?

[–] Libb@jlai.lu 2 points 1 week ago

OK, merci :)

oui qui ne soit pas jlai.lu. C’est impossible de garder le meme nom de domaine pour PieFed car ça va poser des problèmes le fédération.

Dommage, mais on va trouver un autre nom, je sais: 'jlaivu' :p

[–] Libb@jlai.lu 3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The two big things for me are 1. I don’t want to use the command window for everything, or really much of anything, at least at the start. and 2. I currently use Proton VPN and I’d like to use it on this new laptop too. Unfortunately, based on what I saw on the Proton website, if I want to use it on linux it looks like the only way is to get it on Ubuntu, Debian, or Fedora using the console.

  • Complexity: have been using Linux Mint for a few years and I'm not an expert at all (50+ years old lifelong ex-Mac user, to give you an idea I got my first computer in the early 80s and it was an Apple). Everything worked out of the box (including my Airpods, and back then at least it was the only version of Linux that was able to connect to them). I don't think I never was forced or expected to use the command line... but I slowly started to use it out of curiosity and I learned to appreciate it's efficiency and now I love using it but that's by choice, not out of necessity ;)
  • Proton VPN: you need to understand that most distributions (version of Linux) are 'clones with a few variations' based upon a very few limited 'originals' distributions. Ubuntu is one clone that has become very popular but in reality it's based on Debian, and therefore it uses Debian installer package (DEB). MInt being based on... Ubuntu also uses Debian installer. And so is Kubuntu. So, if there is a DEB installer, there is a real chance it will work on most Debian-based distributions.

Proton: it's command line. I use it too (I'm a paid subscriber to their service, just not their VPN, which is good), but the VPN I use is Mullvad... which is at least as good and has a graphical installer ;)

Just for reference, uhhh how easy is it to fuck up the process of trying and then installing a linux distro? Like completely-make-the-computer-unusable fuck up? Because that’s my biggest fear

  1. Testing from the Live CD/USB, there is zero risk of damaging anything. That's one fo teh first thing I fell in love with testing Linux myself ;)
  2. Installing Linux on the computer, well, shit can happen. They are not usual but they can happen. Hence the importance to test it live before to see that most things are working all right. Using a distribution like Mint things should dead simple just following the graphical installer. The last time I installed Mint, it took me less than 10 minutes total (from the first click to me booting on the new installed system) and most of that was the installer downloading packages and installing them while I was drinking my coffee) But that's the exception if you use something like Mint (I preach for my own chapel here because I know how reliable it is) with its integrated graphical installer. You simply click a few buttons and answer limited few basic questions like what will be your user name, what is your time zone and do you want to encrypt the disk (you probably want that at least on a laptop so if it's stolen your data will be safe from thieves). It's real quick process. That also was impressive coming from macOS (installing any new Mac takes way too much time, a lot more than it used to back in the old days.
  3. No matter what version you decide to use ALWAYS BACKUP your personal files before installing a new operating system. It's a bit like opening someone's chest and removing their heart before putting an new one. It's... well, better be safe than sorry. Do you value your personal files at all? Then you should have backups, and not just during install. At any time.

Also, I’m kind of confused about how updating things works on linux

With Mint, you regularly will get a little pop signaling there are updates. If you don't like Notifications (I don't), you can simply ask it to deal with updates for you and to not bother you (I almost never have to update anything myself). Then, from time to time there is a 'major' upgrade, from one version of Mint to the other. Here again, Mint will kindly let you know when everything is ready for your computer (which will not be the exact same day the new version is announced to the world, there is no hurry), it will tell you if anything needs your attention (and why) and do the upgrade for you (reboot required).

For all my life I thought in terms of simplicity Apple was the way to go. That was until I tried GNU/Linux Mint ;)

P.s. I’m sorry to make another “what distro do I use” thread, but I had some questions that I didn’t see answers for in the other threads. And honestly, I’ll feel a lot more comfortable with switching if I feel like I’ve actually talked it out with people who know what they’re doing.

Don't apologize. The best thing to do do would be to:

  1. test the the live CD and
  2. keep using a 'noob' friendly distribution like Mint (there are obviously others, I'm just totally bluffed by how well Mint worked out of the box, and how reliable it has been for the now 4 or 5 years I've been using it. And, yep, I tried quite a few other distributions before settling on Mint ;)). Being 'noob friendly' doesn't mean they're a lesser kind of Linux, say, not as complete as Arch (which is another kind of amazing distribution, just less easy to begin with). It just means that the technical part, at least most of them, have been taken charge of one way or the other. The moment you need the more advanced/powerful tools, they're already there, waiting for you to start using them: it's 100% full GNU/Linux just less intimidating ;)
[–] Libb@jlai.lu 4 points 2 weeks ago

I sit at my desk, at 4/4.30 in the morning and I start writing, longhand, in silence (my spouse is sleeping in the next room, so is the entire city around us, and so are our noisy neighbors who will have turned off their stupid blaring box, aka their TV). Later on, I will start hearing a few birds singing, which feels amazingly good and motivating, and then a little later I will start hearing the roaring of engines vehicles invading the streets—which feels a lot less pleasant to me, and is the signal I should quit writing. Then I prepare breakfast for the two of us, probably picking up some fresh croissants at the nearby bakery.

So, not much of a ritual for me beside waking up early (which is something I've always done) and enjoying an almost undamaged silence.

[–] Libb@jlai.lu 2 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

Super!

Compet créé sur Zulip. Byebye, Matrix.

Aucun souci pour passer sur piefed en ce qui me concerne. Par contre, 2 questions cons:

  • J'ai déjà un compte piuefed, est-ce que je dois faire quelque chose autre chose?
  • Si on migre allons-nous perdre nos posts/commentaires? J'ai tenté d'importer mes données depuis jlai.lu sur ce compte piefed et, sans surprise, ça a importé ma block list mais ni les posts, ni les commentaires. Du coup, s'il faut les considérer comme perdus lors de la migration je préfère le savoir tout de suite pour déjà migrer mon compte principal sur piefed que je n'utilsie pas pour le moment, pour éviter de perdre davantage de contenu ;)

Sur Zulip, nous avons ouvert une discussion pour trouver un nouveau nom pour l’instance piefed. Des idées ?

Un nom de domaine tu veux dire, qui ne soit pas jlai.lu? Désolé si c'est (encore) une question con, mais je suis pas vraiment doué pour la technique ;)

 

Just noticed that post on our Simple Living cousin from Reddit and I was wondering if that was even an option to most of us?

Alas, the OP doesn’t share much context on why and how they did it, how they manage their daily activities without using any email.

I know I could not.

I mean, I can live without social networks (the only one I use being Lemmy, it was reddit before that) but I could not not use email.

I would even go as far as to say that removing email from my toolbox would make my life a more complicated and for what gain?

The OP mention not receiving spam. I don’t see much spam, simply because I use a spam filter. They also mention having better conversations than through email. Sure, I can understand that. But I can also have both without any issue. I never discussed much through email—save maybe in the early 90s, when I started really using email and quickly quit using snail mail in which, back then, people used to heave discussion that could go on for... years. With email I do things like create online accounts and stuff like that. I don’t exchange idea, I don’t even chat much. But while I do use email I can still discuss with people by other means.

Maybe email for me is a bit like the smartphone? I seldom use mine and only for practical purpose.

Like, there is no social, no games, no YT, not even… email is configured on my phone. It’s merely more than a phone (to pass and receive phone calls, I don't message) with a big screen and the very few apps I’m expected to be able to get access to (passwords, 2FA, finances, IDs), and that’s it. But as limited as my use case is not using that phone would make things uselessly and much more complicated for me.

What about you? Can you imagine going email free?

 

Si ça se confirmait (on va attendre de voir, avant de réclamer des têtes), il semblerait que nous ne pourrons (très bientôt) plus télécharger nos ebooks sur ordi pour les transférer par USB : Amazon’s killing a feature that let you download and backup Kindle books (merci linuxfr.org).

Ça change quoi? Ça change que vous ne pourrez plus les archiver (edit: plus aussi facilement, car ils supprimeraient la seule façon 'officielle' et simple de le faire, mais ça restera possible pour les bidouilleurs) sur le support de votre choix (genre une clé USB, un DD externe,...) et que Amazon pourra à nouveau décider de les supprimer de votre liseuse, comme elle l'a déjà fait par le passé.

Ça ne me concerne plus vraiment personnellement car ça fait bien plus d'un an que je n'ai plus acheté un seul ebook sur Amazon (et que la montagne d'ebooks que j'ai acheté chez eux est à l'abri de ce genre de caprice), mais ça me semble intéressant à partager comme info.

Ça me confirme aussi dans mon choix de me barrer loin, le plus loin possible, des grosses librairies en ligne et revenir au livre papier, quand c'est encore possible.

D'ailleurs, si ça vous intéresse et que vous avez pas peur de vous farcir la prose d'un Frenchie qui écrit in English, j'explique plus en détails mes motivations sur mon blog perso. Le lien est dans mon profil Lemmy.

13
submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by Libb@jlai.lu to c/journaling@sh.itjust.works
 

So much this (link to Reddit).

Don't worry about not looking great, or clever, or whatever you consider a flattering image of yourself when you read back your journal in a few days, months, years, or decades—yep, I'm that old.

That's fine. No, that's great.

Believe me, no matter what, as long as you wrote honestly about it (not in the sense of writing some supposed indisputable deep truth, in the sense of honestly writing what you were thinking and feeling back then, at that time, no matter how silly) it's worth it and it will be worth reading back.

You have no idea how dearly I miss my old journals were I wrote about my first true love, as a little boy, and later about my second true love, as a young teen. And also, no matter how unflattering it is for me, all I may have written about my many crushes and my countless failed attempt at flirting. Thinking about it, I must have been in love every single day at that time and it must have been a real pain for my best friend who endured all of it—we're still best friends all those years later ;)

Some forty+ years later, I still remember V. wonderful blue eyes and how she smiled and her eyes too, and how badly I wanted to impress her. And how fucking terrorized and excited I was the day I rang her door, completely out of the blue, because it was the last opportunity I could ask her out. I was 14, I had long hair, flowers in one hand (like, really) and my face was tomato red. I still remember how stupidly I smiled when the door opened to let her dad out. He was about to leave for his job, wearing his... cop uniform. He looked at me for more or less an eternity, and the more he looked at me the more I was dying inside.

You can believe me when I tell you that, he was not happy to meet me, and that V. and I did not end up getting married :P

17
submitted 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) by Libb@jlai.lu to c/journaling@sh.itjust.works
 

The question doesn’t mean much if you're a digital journaler as you probably already have a synced copy available on your phone. But for the analog journalers out there this can mean mean the difference between having a journaling and having... lost our journal. Every single page of it.

There is no such thing as syncing and rarely any backup of our notebooks. So, carrying it everywhere we go is a real risk.

I don’t carry my journal with me because I know I will lose it. That's a scientific fact based on personal experiences (way too many of them) of losing a lot of things, from my keys and countless umbrellas, up to a brand new laptop (yeah, that's me, and would you believe it when I went back to get the laptop back it was not there anymore) as well as, you guessed it, my journal.

So, my journal stays at home.

What I do carry everywhere I go, outside as well as from one room to another in our apartment, is a pocket notebook of some sort and a pen where I quickly write stuff down. I don’t try to write great literature not even full sentences, it’s merely a few key words and symbols that have zero meaning to anyone but me and that work (wonders) as a reminder when I’m back at my desk and I write whatever I was thinking about when I jotted those down in that pocket notebook. And that small notebook, I don’t care much losing it.

For years, I used to get those free but real handy small notebooks with a tiny but decent ballpoint pen attached to it, from the pharmacy next street. It was their gift around New Year, knowing I quite enjoyed them, they would let me pick a bunch of them (not enough for a whole year but still, that was nice. This year, they gave me a... pencil pouch. It's an odd pharmacy, I suppose ;)

 

Je ne suis pas sûr que ça me fasse plaisir qu'une seule nuit (ok, c'est quatre nuits) par an soit dédiée à la lecture, mais ça me fait toujours plaisir qu'on encourage à lire ;)

C'est bientôt: du 23 au 26 janvier 2025 et cette année le thème c’est le patrimoine.

Pour plus d'infos et pour trouver si des événements sont organisés près de chez vous.

 

I never kept a journal consistently because writing my thoughts felt like giving anyone access to them, and thus, I felt pressured to write like an eloquent Socratic philosopher just in case anyone DID read it.

An interesting discussion on r/journaling about being honest, or not, in one's journal. And how the OP found it to be tiring.

What do you think?

And do you lie or simply make yourself look better in your journal, just in case some would read it?

I tend to agree with the OP. But, I also understand that desire to please and to be liked (and to not be judged) just in case someone would read that journal, even without our consent.

I also think that when one stops being honest in their journal there is a very real risk to lose interest in journaling altogether. Which I would not want to happen.

I did lie for a while in y journal, openly I mean. I called that being 'hypocritical' but it was only me lying to myself and to that hypothetical and very unwelcome reader. It did not last long, it was during a very challenging time with a lot of self-doubt... not that long ago as a matter of fact. I stopped doing that soon after I started as it was exhausting and not very helpful. And not fun at all.

Also, there are much simpler way to tell lies to an audience. Being an actor or a politician are two obvious ways of doing it. Or be a writer and write (or sketch) stories in which you lie. Not all stories are lies, but many are and that's perfectly OK.

Stories are great as in them one can pretend absolutely anything. And they're also much simpler to share than a journal, if that's what you're wanting to do. I mean, beside traditional publishing in books or magazines there are many places and communities one could share their ~~lies~~ stories to an audience more willing to believe them ;)

 

This year, I wanted to start keeping a reading journal.

That’s certainly not a revolutionary idea, but I still managed to get stuck on a simple technical consideration: should I use a dedicated journal? Or write them in my existing journal, next to my usual entries? But then, how would I be able to easily spot my reading entries and distinguish them from the journal entries?

In the end, I decided I would do everything in my existing journal but that I would write reading entries in a different color from standard journal entries. It’s simple enough while still making it very easy to instantly tell them apart.

What would you do?

 

Have you decided on a New Year resolution related to journaling? Maybe to start journaling? Or to journal more, or more regularly? Or you want to start sketching in your journal, or to decorate it in some other fashion? Something else?

And have you decided on a backup resolution, in case your main resolution does not go as planned?

For 2025, I’ve decided on two things related to my reading journal. They are not huge or radical changes, mind you. They’re stuff I want to get better at because I know they will help a lot my readings.

  1. I want to read less randomly. So, I have made a six month worth reading list (6 months to begin with, to see how well it goes) that I will stick to no matter what. My issue is that I have a real tendency to drop whatever book I’m reading and start reading whatever new or shiny book I can get my hands on, which doesn’t help me move forward in the other book(s).
  2. To systematically—systematically, like in ‘making it into a true habit to’—write down a short review (summary + comment) for every book I’ve read. Was well as for anything else I will watch or listen to during that same 6 months time frame. I’ve been doing that for essays and for other serious stuff already, but I've recently realized I could not remember that well old novels and short stories I've read. So, I think it’s worth doing it for those too.

My backup plan is kinda cheating as it's there to help me not fail in my main resolutions (to read less randomly, and take more notes about the books I read):

  1. Take reading notes with every single book (or podcast). Not summarizing or analyzing it in any ways, just jotting down stuff and impressions as they occur to me. Like I used to do much younger, writing down in the margins or underlining passages save that this time I will not be doing it in the book itself (most of what I read is borrowed and when it is not I will give either give it away or resell it after reading). Doing that, even if I fail to write the short review in time I should still be able to quickly read through my notes and make something out of them.
  2. The reading list itself contains more books than I can read in six months. That is on purpose as I want to be able to switch book if I realize I can’t read one or another. For example, in that list there is Proust À la recherche du temps perdu one I’ve already tried (and failed) multiple times to read in the last 30 years. I still want to give it a chance but I know there is a high probability I will fail again and since I certainly don’t want to turn reading into a chore, if it happens once more Proust doesn’t suit me I still want to be able to switch to another author. The only thing that matters here is that I stick to the reading list.

Btw, let me know if you're interested in looking at that list or if it's something you would like to discuss more?

It comprises both English and French books but should cover a wide range of topics, from essays (philosophy, sociology, stuff like that) to fictions, spirituality, poetry, as well as plays. Starting with my undisputed favorite French playwright next to Racine: Molière). But fear not, if there are indeed quite a few classics in that list (some older than Molière) there is also a few more recent authors... and don't forget it's just for 6 months, so the second half of the year could easily and entirely be devoted to our contemporaries ;)

 

A nice and welcoming place to discuss anything related to keeping a journal, a diary, a planner, a bullet journal, art/junk journal.
Paper and digital alike.

!journaling@sh.itjust.works

 

A fountain pen, plus a notebook, plus some ink can make for a very much appreciated gift.

The issue is that it can cost a fortune—what about a 465$ notebook and this estimated 1 million dollars diamond incrusted fountain pen?

The good news is that it doesn’t have to cost a fortune to get a great starter (and more) journaling kit.

The following prices are indicative and based on the prices in my region (Paris, France) and on the prices of the EU online shops I generally use. No idea how much those cost in your region of the world but, in any case, don’t be afraid to compare from one shop to the next, as prices can vary widely.

  • Approx 9€, for the Art Creation sketchbook, from Royal Talens. 
The model in the photo is A5 but they’re available in A6, A4, and square formats too. It has a rigid cover available in a few flashy colors (or in black). It’s sturdy but it will lay flat when opened. It comes with a smooth ivory-colored 140gsm paper that’s great with a fountain pen and can also be used for light watercolors wash. Note that it’s a sketchbook, not your standard notebook, which means it’s plain paper and there is no lines, no dots, no nothing to guide your handwriting (it’s a matter of a few hours to get used to it).
  • Approx 5€, the Platinum Preppy fountain pen with an Extra Fine nib (also available in Fine, Medium). 
It’s the cheapest quality fountain pen I know while still being a really good writer! It’s that good that despite owning much more expensive models the Preppy is one of my three daily drivers.
  • Ink option 1: approx 5-6€ for a pack of official Platinum cartridges. Cartridges are easy to use but offer a limited selection of colors. Note that each new fountain pens already come with one ink cartridge.
  • Ink Option 2: the official ink converter from Platinum, 5-10€ (the 'Silver' and 'Gold' model will both work, here again price can vary depending where you buy).
    A converter allows to use bottled ink instead of the standard cartridges and it’s a single time purchase since you can easily refill it with your ink of choice.
  • Add to that a bottle of fountain pen ink (never put non-fountain pen ink in a fountain pen). The Waterman Serenity blue I suggest is a classic but there is an almost endless number of inks available. It’s also among the cheapest at 5,50€ for a 50 ml bottle on Amazon Fr. For comparison, a cartridge will contain between 0.6 to 1.2ml. So, 50 ml will go a long way.

If the gift is for a child, cartridges are the best choice since they’re much simpler and quicker to use, and because it’s way too easy to accidentally spill your brand new (aka full) bottle of ink on your dining table and watch it drip on your carpet—don’t ask me ;)

Any downside to this combo? Two minor ones, both related to the fountain pen itself:

  1. The plastic the Preppy is made of seems more fragile. The cap can easily be damaged. Which is real sad because it also must be the best cap I have ever encountered, no matter the pen price (capping is essential with any fountain pen, otherwise they will dry real quick and you really do not want that to happen).
  2. The Preppy looks a lot more like your standard and cheap gel pen than like a nice fountain pen.
    I don’t care about that for my own use, but as a gift it may be worth considering.

If that bothers you, check the next bundle which includes the same sketchbook and the same bottle of blue ink, plus:

Illustration: A Lamy fountain pen with its accessories and a bottle of ink

  • Approx 25€, for a Lamy Safari fountain pen.
    The Lamy Safari is the full plastic model, not to be mistaken with the similar looking but aluminum Lamy AL-Star. Like with the Preppy, you can chose a nib, this time ranging from Extra Fine to Broad.
  • Approx 5€ for the official Lamy converter (either the Lamy Z26 or the Lamy Z28 will work) + you choice of ink in bottle.
  • Or the official Lamy cartridges. I don’t give a price here because it will vary a lot, so do some comparison. Each pen comes with one blue cartridge.

The Lamy Safari is now considered a classic but it is still unique, with its simple blocky design and its bright colors. What’s great with that fountain pen is that it was designed for kids. Why does it matter?

First, the pen is sturdy (ABS plastic is solid) and, like most beginner fountain pens, its nib is steel which makes it… reliable and able to endure even the clumsier hands. That said, like all nibs, they don’t like at all being dropped on a hard surface.

Then , it’s not just fancy design. It was developed to help kids learn proper fountain pen handling. Hence the triangular-ish shape of its grip which makes sure one can only grip it right and put the nib at the correct angle to the paper. For beginners, it's a real advantage that can remove a lot of frustration when the fountain pen is not hold correctly.

Free bonus: picking the right nib size

There si a lot to be said about picking a nib, from its size and its width, to the alloy it is made of, it's flexibility and smoothness, and so on. But a beginner should only worry about its width, aka the fatness of the line it will write.

It goes from Extra Fine, to fine, to Medium, to to Broad. There are others, those are the most common.

One issue is that there is no standard agreed upon. Which means a Fine from brand A may be a Medium with brand B. Funny, right? What's even funnier is that some brands will even not use a single standard for all their products.

To hep you chose, you can keep those two simple rules of thumb in mind:

  • The smaller the handwriting, the thinner you will want you nib to be.
    Note that the thinner the nib the less smooth it will often also feel. So, it's always a matter of finding the right equilibrium between various factors.
  • It's admitted Japanese nibs are thinner than their German counterparts. Meaning a Fine from Germany will be larger than a Fine from Japan.
    Why does it matter? Well, most nibs will either be Japanese or German-made. How can you tell where it comes from? You need to do some reasearch but in our case: Preppy is Japanese brand and Lamy is German brand (Pilot is Japanese too, while Twsbi although being Asian uses German-made nibs). So a Fine from Lamy or Twsbi will be a tad larger than a fine from Preppy or Pilot.

If it is for a child, I would go with a Medium nib for the Preppy and the Lamy (maybe a Fine for Lamy if the child write real small). Why? A Medium nib will be the smoothest to use and probably the more able to withstand poor handling.

For an adult, I would pick depending their handwriting. In doubt, I would still go with a Medium but, really, having an idea of the handwriting can help a lot.

To give you an idea, I happily use an Extra Fine from Lamy and it's OK-ish to use their Fine (it's already a bit large for my tiny handwriting) where I can use Extra-Fine and Fine from Preppy without any issue, and I can even use their Medium when I don't have a choice.

Other recommandations?

The two fountain pens I mentioned are part of my daily drivers (and that is despite owning much, much more expensive fountain pens). And since I started using the Art Creation sketchbooks, I quit using all other notebooks... Here again, that is despite having access to much more expensive brands and even having learned, a few decades ago, how to bind my own notebooks using my paper of choice.

They are what I consider an excellent compromise between price and quality and ease of use (nothing beats binding your own notebook with the paper you love the most, you just won't be doing it as quickly (or as cheaply) as you can enter a shop, or click Buy).

There are many others to pick from.

  • Be it for notebooks. Brands like Leuchtturm 1917, Rhodia, Clairefontaine, Tomoe River,...
  • For fountain pens: Twsbi (edit: check their Twsbi Eco, this one doesn't even use cartridge and oes not need a convert: it uses its internal piston filling mechanism), Pilot (check 'Pilot Metropiltain*, even if I do not use thine one (I'm a fan of other Pilot fountain pens) a lot people like it for good reasons),...
  • Inks: Pilot (my favorites inks are from Pilot), Pelikan, Parker, Herbin,... And that is not even considering special inks, like fountain pen water-resistant inks:

3 bottles of waterproof fountain pen ink
De Atramentis Document ink, Roher & Klinger Sketch Ink, and (in black only) Platinum Carbon Black are three brands selling waterproof inks I use (mostly Platinum and DeAtramentis Document, but I have no issue with R&K either). One can also find a few from Noodler's, USA but I have not been their customer for almost 2 decades so I have no idea what's available anymore.

My questions, to you

Do you have any favorite fountain pen or other writing device, notebook or ink you would recommend or would use as a gift? Feel free to tell us what they are, and why you like them!

Also, let me know if this the kind of content you're interested to read more often, or if you think it doesn't belong here.

edit: typos. Re-edit: added a few references I forgot to mention for alternative fountain pens.

 

I have not. Not a single line written since the 6, and I write this on the 16.

All I have is a shaky pencil note saying 'Jeudi 12. Malade.' as for the last four days, I was simply too sick to be able to sit at my desk, and I was exhausted from the lack of sleep.

But even if I could not find any good excuse, that would still be fine with me to not be constantly writing in my journal. I have been keeping a journal of some sort for almost 50 years and during that time I have made many pauses. Some of which lasted a year, or two. That's part of the process as far as I'm concerned.

What I have recently started doing when such a break happens is to write down a quick summary for the concerned days (it has been a while since I have had a break lasting more than a week or two), writing down the few the things I consider noteworthy, or the ones I can remember. Like how I almost suffocated to death yesterday laughing so hard and coughing and trying to catch my breast at the same time, because of that silly joke my spouse was telling me ;)

Are you OK with breaks/interruptions in your journals, or are you trying your best to be consistant?

 

I've recently started trying to revitalize a niche community (!journaling@sh.itjust.works) that had been silent for a year or so, simply by posting more content. I have been made a moderator by the instance owners (so I could do any cleaning/maintenance if that was needed).

I have been posting for almost a month and got my very first new post, by another user than me I mean, in the last 24h. That was so effing cool! And it also was real good content for our niche.

That said, I still want to post more stuff.

And I would like to also renew the old banner and icon which I think is meh. I even made a mock-up I wanted to put online and then see if members liked it. That's when I started worrying it might be a very stupid idea.

I don't want members to feel like I'm taking hold of anything. My sole objective is to encourage more people to post more, and to help make the community as welcoming and alive as I can. But by doing too much I'm afraid I would only make members feel I'm making it 'mine'.

Instead of doing that, I considered asking all members their opinion about renewing the banner, and invite them to submit their own propositions. But, here again, I'm worrying:

  1. They could feel bombarded by my too many posts and/or intimidated by my invitation to participate.
  2. And then, if we were to organize some friendly competition, how would I (and why me?) pick the winning proposition? By a vote? Sure, but then I'm afraid people would encourage their friends to vote for them which would not be fair to people with fewer friends.

So, here I am. A bit naive and afraid I could do more arm than good.

What do you think? Do I worry too much?

Do you have any practical suggestion? Should I post less? Should I give up on that banner idea? (I really think a new and less serious banner could help but it's also not an obsession, so...)

view more: ‹ prev next ›