Ngah!

[JaxRhapsody]

Then there's the point that I hadn't even heard the word "Internet" until 1997 when I was informed that, as my office's product officer, I was going to have to start moving an international news agency to Internet communications. I had bought and shelved a whole hell of a lot of print books by 1997. I still haven't managed to read all of those yet.

Ya know what; I'm too busy collecting all the In Death books, to actually read them. I haven't even finsjed the last one, and I'm probably but a few pages away from the end.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

Well, If the power goes out,
there's always the fall-back method: Pencil & Paper.
(never been know to fail).

As long as you have a way to sharpen it, but then there's probably a cave somewhere, right?

 

[TxRad]

As long as you have a way to sharpen it, but then there's probably a cave somewhere, right?

A piece of sandstone makes an excellent pencil sharpener.

 

[JaxRhapsody]

Not quite! This one gets told a lot as an illustration of government profligacy, but the truth is very different.

Initially, both US and Soviet space programs used pencils of one variety or another. (NASA used high-quality mechanical pencils that cost $128 a unit, which does seem excessive, especially for the 1960s.) But pencils of any kind are a menace in space. They shed little bits of graphite that float around and get in people's eyes, or drift into important electronics and short them out, or they catch fire in the high-oxygen environment. After Apollo 1, NASA did their best to avoid having anything flammable in their craft.

The Fisher Pen Company saw a business opportunity, spent about a million dollars of their own money (not public funds) and developed a pen that was safe for writing in space.

NASA bought four hundred of them, at a bulk rate that ended up about $2.40 per unit, about a fiftieth of what they'd been paying for pencils. And not just NASA; the Soviets bought a hundred for their space program, because they didn't like pencils either.

Meanwhile, Fisher got a great marketing angle, and I assume they made their investment back by using the publicity to sell their pens to the public. It was a big success all round, and it's sad that it got distorted into a caricature "wasteful government spending" story.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-nasa-spen/
http://mentalfloss.com/article/13103/russians-didnt-just-use-pencils-space

I always assumed they were pressurized, though I%m not paying $50 bucks for a pen that writes in blue.

 

[sr71plt]

"In Death" books?

 

[Ewobbit]

As long as you have a way to sharpen it, but then there's probably a cave somewhere, right?

Just do what we used to do. Rub it on a rock until it comes to a point.

Actually, oddly, I can remember sitting at my desk and peeling the wood back on a No.2 pencil with my thumbnail during... er... ACTs? SATs? GRE? One of those infernal, interminable "how good can you fill in a bubble" tests anyway.

 

[Hypoxia]

When all else fails there's always a nail and blood...

 

[JaxRhapsody]

"In Death" books?

JD Robs...*ahem-Nora Roberts-cough* -In Death series of books.

 

[sr71plt]

JD Robs...*ahem-Nora Roberts-cough* -In Death series of books.

OK, thanks. Because I have a series of "Death in" books.

 

[oggbashan]

Not quite! This one gets told a lot as an illustration of government profligacy, but the truth is very different.

Initially, both US and Soviet space programs used pencils of one variety or another. (NASA used high-quality mechanical pencils that cost $128 a unit, which does seem excessive, especially for the 1960s.) But pencils of any kind are a menace in space. They shed little bits of graphite that float around and get in people's eyes, or drift into important electronics and short them out, or they catch fire in the high-oxygen environment. After Apollo 1, NASA did their best to avoid having anything flammable in their craft.

The Fisher Pen Company saw a business opportunity, spent about a million dollars of their own money (not public funds) and developed a pen that was safe for writing in space.

NASA bought four hundred of them, at a bulk rate that ended up about $2.40 per unit, about a fiftieth of what they'd been paying for pencils. And not just NASA; the Soviets bought a hundred for their space program, because they didn't like pencils either.

Meanwhile, Fisher got a great marketing angle, and I assume they made their investment back by using the publicity to sell their pens to the public. It was a big success all round, and it's sad that it got distorted into a caricature "wasteful government spending" story.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/fact-or-fiction-nasa-spen/
http://mentalfloss.com/article/13103/russians-didnt-just-use-pencils-space

Thank you for correcting my understanding of 'pencils in space'.

 

[Handley_Page]

Dresden file time is never wasted time!

Sorry; Erm . . "Dresden" ?
German city ?

 

[Ewobbit]

Sorry; Erm . . "Dresden" ?
German city ?

Sorry. "Dresden Files". Series by Jim Butcher. In my ... er, well not so humble opinion, one of the better thought out melding of magic and non-human crossovers into detective and mystery. DON'T watch the abysmal series they tried to make of it however. Why they buy the rights to a bestseller and then change everything and are surprised when it doesn't do as well still escapes me.