Editing The Pen Addict 480/transcript (section)

== Canalea Manta Collection ==


'''''Brad:'''   I think it's the pen line because this one has the full lineup of pens. Ah, yeah, yeah. Like including like the ballpoint and all the fountain pen shapes, right? There's like several different barrel shapes. So yeah, I think that's what they mean by collection.

''''Myke:'''  But nevertheless, I like that they're expanding the, the inspiration kind of remit as it were.

'''''Brad:'''   Yep. Yep. So it's great.

''''Myke:'''  New field notes just dropped.

'''''Brad:'''   I see that. So what do we have here? The harvest edition. Harvest edition. This is hand drawn from noted American artist, John Burgoyne, if I'm pronouncing that correctly. Great hand drawn illustrations. What's interesting at first glance of these, Myke, is the interior. It is a 70 pound paper for one and they are an all new design. It's a ruled dot ledger. Okay. Okay. So you have your ruled graph paper segmented to where you have a top, almost like a title section that's a double line divided from the bulk of the page. And then you have a left vertical ledger line. So you can have a different type of layout, different type of usage than you normally would. And they're all perforated. And they're all perforated. Yes.

''''Myke:'''  Thank you. So I was looking through this just now. I really love that idea for the page. So you have like a margin, but it's lined, but dot. So it's not truly lined. I think that's kind of cool. I'm intrigued to play around with that layout. I love the white covers. I love the field notes branding. So six, right? They're doing two, three packs. That's what they've done before. They did this with crop and they've done, they did it with the beer, the drink local ones. Right. They've done this before. So it's two, three packs. So six individual designs. I love the color matching of the field notes branding. I'm not too keen on the artwork design for me, for my tastes personally. But I think overall, I think it's a pretty nice, pretty nice addition. Yeah.

'''''Brad:'''   Yeah. So I think what they did, I agree with everything you said. What they did is they went in on a paper difference this time and then have the color as just the covers as just, hey, let's do this artistic theme representation. Right. So the technical part in this book is on the inside and then the artistic part on the outside, which I think is great. I agree with you. Like for me, like the theme doesn't do anything for me, but the interior.

''''Myke:'''  I'm actually super intrigued to get these in because I want to see what, I think this could be a really smart product decision for them. I don't know which part I'm more intrigued about, either it's the perforation or the new layout. So we'll see. I think it looks pretty cool.

'''''Brad:'''   I'm just glad that they change, if they're going to change the layout, make it, made it, they made it 70 pound paper, which I'm happy about. Um, cause I can use more pins with it than I, than I normally would. So I'm most pleased about that. So it's really, really cool. So yeah, I like this to me is like the Shenandoah edition, which I just absolutely loved. And everyone, most people were like, huh, really? Like, it's just kind of okay. Like, you know, from an aesthetic and a style perspective, like I'm not really, don't really have much to say about the aesthetic and style of this, but I'm actually anxious about the paper. So yeah, it'll be good. We'll test it out.

''''Myke:'''  All right. We got something really fun to talk about, but I want to take our final break of the episode and we can get into that. It's a true classic. It's going to be a true classic. This episode is brought to you by ExpressVPN. A few decades ago, it was easy to be a private person. The internet has changed that. Everything you've browsed, searched for, watched, tweeted, all that data can be crawled through, collected, aggregated by third parties. Your private life could be exposed for others to see. This is something that was really only celebrities used to worry about. But in the era when everyone is online, anyone could be a public figure. And to keep your data private, when you go online, you could turn to ExpressVPN. There are hundreds of data brokers out there. Their business is to buy and sell data. And they don't have to tell you who they're selling it to. They don't have to get your consent in some instances. One of these data points can be your IP address. This can be used to uniquely identify you and your location. With ExpressVPN, your connection gets routed through an encrypted server and your IP address is masked. So when you turn ExpressVPN on, you're given a random IP address shared by other ExpressVPN customers. That makes it more difficult for third parties to identify individual people and harvest data. And the best part is how easy ExpressVPN is to use. No matter what device you're on, phone, laptop, or smart TV, all you have to do is tap one button to get protected. I found that to be so easy. Every time I've turned on ExpressVPN on a device of mine, it connects immediately. It's so easy to change the location that my traffic's being routed through, which can be really useful for geolocated type stuff. It really is very, very easy and super simple to use. So if, like me, you believe that your data is your business, secure yourself with the number one rated VPN on the market. Go to expressvpn.com slash penaddict and get three extra months for free. That's expressvpn.com slash penaddict. One last time, expressvpn.com slash penaddict to learn more. One last time. Thanks to ExpressVPN for their support of this show and RelayFM.

'''''Brad:'''   All right, Myke. I want you to lead this segment. All right, so. I'm committed. I'm committed to what's about to take place, but I need you to get there for me.

''''Myke:'''  I wished that we had a, like, definitive, like, this is where you go if you want to learn about the scribble pen. It's not possible. I will put a link in the show notes to, like, two different episodes where we have spoken about this product and also a link to an article that you wrote. Actually, no, it's just you. It's just cease and desist one. There's no point getting into that. This is a product that's been around with us now for basically the entire time of the pen addict's history. And it started out as a Kickstarter campaign, which was, ended up being taken down. I think that might have happened twice. It's popped up as an Indiegogo campaign. It was basically being a pen that you could scan. There's a little scanner in it and identify any color that is being scanned. And then the pen will immediately write with that color. And over the years, whenever this has come up, like, especially the first time, you know, it was like, wait, how does this work? And then you dig into it a bit more. You'd watch videos and you'd see very obvious cuts in the videos. And, you know, Kickstarter was said to them, like, all right, if you can show us a working model of this, then you can go for it. Then they canceled the campaign. It's been a thing which seems to just refuse to die. And now it is back in maybe my favorite iteration since the original.

''''Myke:'''  They did. Okay. So I need to. This is a video. By Scribble. By Scribble. So YouTube account set up by the Scribble pen people of an unboxing and demonstration of the Scribble pen in use. Now, there's two things I'm going to put in the show notes. One is a 15-minute video, which is just the actual unboxing. The second is a 20-minute video, which is a clip of Brad's Twitch stream where he watches it live. I recommend and gives these live reactions. I recommend watching that. And I will say, we're going to talk about this. We'll try and explain it as much as we can. It would behoove you to watch this video, I think, before coming back to the episode. Yes. I think it would just be helpful. Now, what I'll say straight up is the issue that we always have with this product is it clearly could never be done, right? It was just an impossible thing, which has been asked for, like that they are attempting to do. And, you know, we'd say it's a scam, right? Because you can't make it. Now, what I will say now is they made something, right? And I think what we're looking at is a... Because I was expecting when you sent me this of like, oh, here we go, right? Yeah. They're going to have a product and they're going to scan it. And then one's going to just like pop out the frame and it comes back in. And it's like, oh, how fantastic. Like it's working. They didn't do that. Like they have made a product that functions, but the function is abysmal. Yeah. It's catastrophic. So you have this huge pen. It's massive as it would have to be. It has a battery in it. Apparently it has a scanner in it. All that kind of stuff, right? It has a mini USB charger or micro USB, which is hilarious anyway, because like why not do USB-C? So they have this product. I'm assuming it's a prototype, right? Like would be my assumption. I don't think they're ready for mass production on this thing right now. Are they ever? And you get like these four needles of ink, which I don't. Yeah, syringes. Which is hilarious. And you have to like, also the video is just so funny. Like I recommend watching Brad's version because he's just losing it over watching like the person who is actually doing the unboxing and demonstration is wearing like these really weird gloves, which makes everything so much harder for them. To the point of like, why are you doing this? So you like take off this little shield and you dump in like these four inks and it's like printer ink, right? Yeah. So in theory, you would think, well.

'''''Brad:'''   Yeah, it's like a little mini printer scanner.

''''Myke:'''  And by that logic, it should work because printers find a way. Like again, we have to kind of divorce ourselves from reality a little bit. But like this is how a printer works, right? A printer has CMYK colors in it and you just print and it will work every time, right? Like if you print something red, it prints red. If you print something blue, it prints blue. That's just how a printer works, right? But I think what this pen has shown me is printer technology is very complicated, right? And, you know, I don't know how printers work. I feel like I should watch one. I'm sure there's a YouTube video that could show me how a printer works. Because effectively what happens here is, I love this, by the way, this little detail. They have like a color swatch of 199 colors in the swatch with the thinking that you could replicate any of them. But the one that they actually draw colors from is four very basic colors, right?

'''''Brad:'''   Red, blue, green, and yellow. Yeah.

''''Myke:'''  It's like, why did we not go for like orange and like maybe we'll get like a nice dark green in there? You know, we've got to go very specific. So they take the pen, they scan it. And then they start writing. There's a lot of stuff in the middle. Do they? It takes a while. It takes a while. Because, you know, the voiceover is also just hilarious. Every time the voiceover says something, it's gold. Every single time. It's just like, oh, like the first time you use it, there's going to be a little extra ink. But don't worry, you just have to dry it out. And it's like, and as you said, you just lost $5 there in the amount of ink that pours out of this thing. And then they start, I mean, I would like to call it like writing, but it's scratching something against something. It sounds horrific. Yeah. The ASMR is. And they start scribbling on the page and it's coming out God knows what color. And then it changes, kind of, in a way, to blue. Eventually. And then they do it, like here's red. And they start scribbling again. And it's blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue, blue. And then it eventually gets to some muddy red. Ish. Ish. And so it's like, okay, like, and they do this like four times or whatever, three or four times. And it will eventually change to a approximation of the color. And it's like, you know, we've all been here. If you change ink on a fountain pen for a while, you need to like, you're going to get some amalgamation of the two. And so it's like, this is the thing that surprises me the most is like, they actually made something that does a version of what they're trying to do, but have now hit upon all of the issues that we knew would exist, which is like, it is not possible to flush the ink out. Although there is one moment, which I died, where the guy goes, we're making a attachment that will fix this. It's like, no, you're not, you liar. An add-on, an add-on. An add-on that will stop the need for changing the color. Like, basically, you will never ever get to a point where you're able to change color and keep the ink in it. Like, it's just, this is abysmal. No one, I can't imagine any human being who sees this video that wants to buy this product. You would be out of your mind if you want to own this thing.

'''''Brad:'''   This was the greatest day of my life. It's so good. When we watched this live, I hadn't seen it before, so I was just giving my live commentary, so I got a few points on that. You actually, you did a really, really good job. There's a few things to point out as you go watch this video. The lack of rehearsal, the lack of knowledge of the product as they're attempting to use it. There's the person with the shipping gardening gloves on, and then there's someone holding the camera who sometimes chimes in when they're not muting him to tell the other person what to do when they make a mistake.

'''''Brad:'''   It's astonishing that you don't have, like, we have show notes when we do this show. Like, we're not always good. We don't always follow them, and sometimes we mess up. But we have an idea, right, of what we're about to do. They had no idea what they're about to do. They really did, like, a literal unboxing to the point where the pen isn't even charged, so they have to do the whole video with the charger plugged in.

''''Myke:'''  Well, Brad, that's because it doesn't work otherwise. I don't think that that was a mistake.