Show Posts

This section allows you to view all posts made by this member. Note that you can only see posts made in areas you currently have access to.


Messages - garyn

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 30
1
Everyday Handwriting | Penmanship / Re: More vertical writing
« on: March 17, 2018, 07:20:27 PM »
I found similar.
In doing simple/plain cursive writing with a ball nib fountain pen, my vertical writing is easier to read than my slanted writing.
But the slanted writing looks better, to me.  So I still write with a slant.

2
I used to and still do write with my hand on it's side.  I think it started with my finger writing.

A flat hand is much more difficult to finger write, so this is for arm writing.
After learning and converting to arm writing, I can do flat hand writing easier.  But it still requires practice to do it decently, which I have not done.

If you finger write, it takes a LONG time to retrain the muscles how to write using arm movement.  But it can be done, if you have the dedication or stubbornness to stick it out.

3
Open Flourish | General Discussion / Re: WARNING about Cloud Backup
« on: December 19, 2017, 11:14:32 PM »
Comes from having first-hand experience with the saying...
"It isn't IF your hard drive will crash, it is WHEN your hard drive will crash."

4
Open Flourish | General Discussion / Re: WARNING about Cloud Backup
« on: December 17, 2017, 10:56:32 PM »
For primary backup, I use external USB drives.
About every 3 months, I take a full backup of my computer then take it to the safety deposit box. backup A.
3 months later, I take another full backup of my computer then take it to the safety deposit box.  backup B
3 months later, I take another full backup of my computer then take it to the safety deposit box.  backup C
3 months later, I take another full backup of my computer then take it to the safety deposit box.  backup D
Then I use backup A to take the next backup.
. . .

So I rotate through 4 or 5 drives.
If there is a problem I have 4 generations of backup that I can go back to.

If I do anything major, I will take a backup after that.
Things like completing my tax returns, processing my nephew's wedding pix, etc.

I take FULL backups to the USB hard drive, because I do not want the hassle of recovering with incremental backups.  That hard drive has everything.

The old rule was, if you make enough changes that you do not want to do it over, take a backup.
And if it is REALLY IMPORTANT, take TWO backups, and store the backups in different physical locations.

I use external USB hard drives, because I can copy files to it faster than uploading through the internet.

I also use a cloud backup, which takes a daily incremental backup, and covers me between my USB drive backups.
But that initial cloud backup took several days to upload all the files, which I knew it would take.  So I do not do a FULL backup to the cloud, only selected important files.  Even so, I have had the daily incremental backup not complete running, after 6 hours.  This is because my upload speed is limited by the ISP.

I also do not believe in trusting to only ONE method.  Yeah, belt and suspenders.

5
Everyday Handwriting | Penmanship / Re: If "Reading is Fundamental"...
« on: August 01, 2017, 01:08:53 AM »
So what you're saying @Elisabeth_M is that handwriting is fundamental to successfully landing a job.  ;D Am I right?  ;D

Further to that, when I was a TA in grad school, there were plenty of times that I simply gave up trying to figure out what someone was trying to tell me in an essay question on an exam and they lost points because of it.  Likewise, anyone with good penmanship made me in a much more agreeable mood and anytime I saw someone had really nice handwriting (and I actually remember this one student because he had almost perfect Palmer style penmanship and it turned out he had gone to Catholic school; that was over 10 years ago so you can see the impression it made on me), I would show other TA's and we would admire it.  You really don't want to annoy the people grading your exams because nobody is able to be completely unbiased, even if you are consciously not trying to let it affect you, it absolutely affects you.

Yay, another person who understands the problem of reading bad handwriting when grading a exams.
We should trade war stories.

6
Elisabeth,
There is SO MUCH JUNK coming by email, that people downgrade the importance of email and skip reading "unimportant" looking email. 
The old fashioned letter become "different," and a break from the computer.
But if hand written, it MUST BE legible.

7
Basic writing, even if simple block printing, is IMPORTANT.
Kids and adults won't always have a computer or their phone to record things on.

8
Open Flourish | General Discussion / Re: A cautionary tale on posture
« on: June 25, 2017, 02:20:58 PM »
Elisabeth
Home Depot back belt for the guys  ;-)
And it really helps.

But as you said you NEED to strengthen the core muscles.  The waist cincher or back belt provides support, but it also then creates a situation where your core muscles don't do much work, because of the external support of the back support, and then gets weaker from lack of use.  So you have to limit the time you wear back support, so you can strengthen the core muscles.

Both my PT and back doc told me to use the back belt as little as possible.  IOW, only when I am in pain, or when I know I will do something that may strain the back, but NOT as regular wear.

Caution, wearing the cincher or back belt too much may create another problem.  My mid-back began to hurt.
It turned out the mid back was just above the top of the back belt.  Since my lower back could not bend, I was doing most of my bending at mid-back, and thus working those joints and muscles more than normal, thus the pain there.

9
Open Flourish | General Discussion / Re: A cautionary tale on posture
« on: June 20, 2017, 11:50:21 AM »
From discussions with my PT.

- He told me that you can hold a proper position for about 10 minutes, then you forget and go back to your usual slouch.
The only way to beat that is to pay attention and check yourself often enough that good posture becomes a habit, just like slouching became a habit.  Easier said than done.

- You need to sit so that you are sitting on the bottom of the hip bone, not on your tail bone, so the spine is not curved back.  If you rotate your hip and sit on the tail bone, like when you slouch, you are pulling your back out.


I found that the chair makes a BIG difference. 

- If the pan of the chair can be tilted forward, it counters the slouch and helps keep your back straight. 

- Another is to sit back into the chair, so that the backrest of the chair supports your lower back, so that you can't slouch.  Slouching many times happens when there is no support for the lower back, so when you are not paying attention to your back, the back curves out.

- A 3rd is for chairs that you cannot adjust the pan angle, like when you are at a restaurant.  Sit on the front of the pan, so that your thigh angles down.  This makes it easier for those of us, with short ham string, to not rotate the hip bone.

Per the insurance guys that I used to work with, "back injury is cumulative."  It is the result of all the years of bad treatment that one day, you bend to pick up a pencil from the floor, and your back gives out.  It wasn't picking up the pencil that caused the back injury, that was just "the straw that broke the camels back."


And for those of you on the computer a lot, pay attention to your posture there.
It was my wife that caught me hunched over looking at my monitor.  It seems that I position my head level with the middle of the screen.  So with a low monitor, I lower my head and hunch my back.  To counter that I now raise my monitor to get me to lift my head, and thus straighten my back.  This rankled all the ergo people in the offices I worked at.  They said my monitor was too high, and wanted to lower it down.

10
To me, printing to me is a mandatory writing skill. 

Following on that is any hand that is similar to printing, which includes cursive italic.

But after that, should be American Cursive (or similar), so she can read the stuff that has been written in the past and present.
In preparing to do a seminar on "fix your handwriting" for the SF Pen Show, I discovered that what I learned in grade school was not Palmer (as I had thought), but D'Neilian, which is similar to American Cursive.  IMHO, there is too much stuff written in script/American Cursive and similar to ignore it.

11
Tools & Supplies / Re: Treats from Europe
« on: June 15, 2017, 12:46:55 PM »
Nice.
I think that is the LE, Al Star, Pacific Blue.

I used to stay in Heidelburg when in Germany on business.
Too bad I wasn't into pens back then.
I was just looking for the model train stores.

12
Tools & Supplies / Re: Question about fitting nibs to holders
« on: June 06, 2017, 05:10:21 PM »
I "think" there are 4 sizes for most nibs.  If you go to John Neil's web site, you can see what nibs fit the same size holders.  They sell pre-sized oblique holders.

The 354 is a crow quill.  Yes a very small nib that needs yet it's own sized holder.
I do not remember, but I think one of the Paper Ink Arts oblqiue can fit a regular nib and a crow quill.  I think it is this one.
http://www.paperinkarts.com/hourgl.html
I have that holder but have not tried to use a crow quill nib in it.

13
I was at FLAX Oakland yesterday, and no Hunt 101  :-(
But they did have sealing wax, bought 4 sticks.

14
Nicky,
I hope you find enough of what you want.

Gary

15
I won't say good, as calligraphy supplies is just part of the larger store.

Oakland = FLAX.  flaxart.com     1501 Martin Luther King Jr Way, Oakland, CA 94612     But I do not know what the Oakland store stocks.
San Mateo = FLAX.  flaxart.com     3600 S El Camino Real, San Mateo, CA 94403
Redwood City = University Art.  www.universityart.com     2550 El Camino Real, Redwood City, CA 94061

Dip pen nibs are rather short of stock.
- FLAX in San Mateo has some Japanese nibs.
- University Art in Redwood City has the more traditional nibs.  But the last time I was there, many of the nib drawers were empty or low.

Pages: [1] 2 3 ... 30