Back in May, I pre-ordered the remarkable 2 as a gift to myself for getting us moved across the country and as an experiment to see whether reading and handwriting notes on an e-ink screen would cause less eyestrain for me while working. I often suffer from headaches and acute myopia after long days staring into the loving warm colors of the LCD screen, but don’t suffer the same ailments when, say, reading a book. Can an e-ink screen reduce the strain and discomfort?
Some common tasks for me are reading/writing emails, reading/reviewing/signing PDFs, reading/reviewing/signing DOCXs, taking meeting notes, taking research notes, writing code, and tracking my docket. An e-ink tablet with stylus can, in the abstract, address many of those tasks. However, what about in practice?
Unboxing and Initial Impressions
After a few COVID related (or at least they blamed it on the Covid) delays, I finally received my reMarkable 2 in mid-November. I’ve had it for less than a week, but have used it as extensively as I can justify over that time. I have the ability to return it after a trial period, but as I’ll flesh out later on, I think I’ll keep it.
The initial impression, pre arrival, was that this was a damned expensive toy. I bought the upgraded stylus and the folio cover, and was over $400 dollars all in. That’ll buy you a metric ton of notebooks. However, I’m a big fan of e-ink and the alternatives in the market are either just as expensive e-ink tablets or iPads. The technology is niche, thus expensive.
Upon receiving the package, I was impressed with the quality of the hardware. It feels like it’s well built. The seams are perfectly matched. The heft is balanced. The magnet that holds the stylus is freaking strong! Everything hardware related feels well thought out and well executed.
The two biggest aspects you notice upon picking up the remarkable 2 are the insane thinness (4.7mm) and the hefty weight (0.9lbs). These work well together. It’s thin enough to easily grasp and write on like a notebook, but it’s heavy enough that you’re not pushing it around while you write.
One of the big things that reMarkable hypes up is their “real paper feel” when writing. They accomplish this with a combination of a coating on the screen and a graphite tip on the stylus. They send you a dozen replacement tips, so you’re set for a while.
Does it actually feel like paper? No. It’s in the ballpark, though. Best analogy would be a smooth ballpoint pen on resume paper. Definitely better than the writing on glass feeling you get from a traditional tablet. The stylus is a bit more rear weighted than I’d like, but it’s something you get used to in no time flat. Nothing worth complaining about.
Supposedly the battery life is great. A couple weeks of regular use or a month of passive storage. There are some power saving steps that are taken (like shutting off the touchscreen after a certain period of inactivity), but nothing obtrusive.
Writing and Drawing
When you boot up the tablet, it walks you through a barebones configuration, connects to WiFi, updates and dumps you out into a cloud hosted document library. Anybody who has used a cloud storage service will recognize the paradigm. From there, you can fire up a quick note and start drawing. There is a settings bar on the right hand side (somewhat reminiscent of Eyepiece, for better or worse) that allows you to adjust the type of writing utensil that it behaves like, among other things.
Many of these are pretty faithful to their physical counterparts. Ballpoint pen and the pencils were particularly close. There’s also a thickness adjustment that is helpful. My handwriting sucks (as you can see), so the thinner the better for legibility. You can see (especially with the pencil) that there is angle sensing and pressure sensing capabilities in the stylus that are useful if doing more artistic things with this tablet.
The limitations start appearing here, though. The stylus resolution is less than the screen resolution, which introduces ugly jitter into some lines. The eraser is similarly limited, carving out more area than the actual physical eraser covers. That makes for some interesting erasures when you take out half the line above where you swipe the stylus. Are these hardware issues? Software? I lean towards the latter. The eraser issue could be resolved through a simple adjustment to the software, but there’s no setting to do so. The jitter issue? Well, third party styluses don’t have this issue, so it could be hardware, but I’m guessing it’s a software issue.
Connectivity
What’s it worth to be able to write on the thing if you can’t import and export documents? Well, this is really where the flaws of the software become acute. The primary connectivity is to a proprietary cloud storage system with a proprietary file format. PDF and epub files can be imported into the cloud storage and marked up, but some obvious formats are missing like DOCX, kindle, and OneNote. There is a feature where you can import a web page and write on it, too.
Exports are similarly limited. You can export notes as PDFs and as PNGs. Both look awful, in my opinion. There is an email export in both pdf/image and OCRd text formats. I was suitably impressed by the OCR.
Not too bad! By the second attempt, it got it correct.
That said, the OCR is a single bright spot in an abysmal connectivity portfolio. It’s inexcusable that there is no compatibility with the standard cloud storage systems. It’s even more inexcusable that there is no Word or especially OneNote support.
To be blunt, the lack of connectivity has made me seriously contemplate sending this back. What they market as distraction free productivity is really feature paucity. I sat and stared at the thing for half an hour before figuring out something I could do with it. Notes are fine, but what’s the improvement over a pen and paper if you can’t do anything with the notes?
Utility
There are many templates available to write on, most of which I’d never use. However, many of them are good and you can design your own and upload them somewhat easily. I really would have liked the notebook functionality to include section dividers. It’s pretty debilitating to not be able to organize related pages in the same notebook.
When you find a good template, it is pretty useful.
Conclusion
I don’t think I’ve ever owned a product with such great hardware and such garbage software. The good news is that it runs some embedded form of Linux and has an open SSH connection. That means that I can replace the software with some of the available open source alternatives or write some myself. I’m motivated to do so, because this is a really cool device that is repeatedly crippled by horrendous software. I can’t recommend buying it, but who knows what the future may hold if people develop halfway usable software for it. It has a lot of potential.
Thanks for this.
I am interested in the “supports PDF and EPUB” because it would be nice to edit on. However, I’m used to editing on the Goodreader app on iPad, which works well for me.
Interesting.
I’m actually a big user of MS OneNote. I create a new OneNote for every project and use it as a notebook.
Thanks, I like the variety of things I read here. I’ve been drawing and painting since I was a kid, and I’ve never found any digital version that I like nearly as much as real paper and canvas. Sounds like this is closer, but still not close enough.
This was interesting for me as well – one of the worst side effects from my multiple concussions is a pretty bad light sensitivity, and I have to be careful what sort of light I expose myself to (i.e., regular blue tinted office lighting sets me off in no time, but amber light seems a bit better. Police lights will blind me for a couple of hours and make it difficult to walk). I have to be careful to properly set up the screen on my computer so I can make it through a full day of work.
About 10 years ago I decided to try going down this route and got one of the first Samsung Galaxy Note tablets. I used this for about 3 years as my work notebook. Really did like having that thing as it made it very easy to move things between my email and daily notes, incorporate pictures into the notes, and marking up documents. Unfortunately, working with the DoD, there were just too many places I couldn’t carry it into, so ended up going back to the regular green notebook.
I really would have liked having one that was e-ink rather than a LCD screen – would have made it even better!
When I started reading this review, I thought “I need one of these.” But with the software limitations you describe, I’ll have to pass. Shame. One of my issues is that I have about 10 notebooks scattered around and I never use the same one, so my notes are all over the place.
For years I tried to use a Franklin planner but never developed the discipline to carry it with me everywhere. I’d probably have the same problem with an electronic notepad (I tried using my ipad for this for a while), but at least all the notes would be in one place and easier to organize.
We have that same situation with calendars. Our family uses a paper calendar that hangs on the wall. Even with the kids we never got into Google calendars or whatever is out there.
I have been using Nextcloud for a few years (and owncloud before that) to provide some common storage and communication facilities for my family and friends, but unfortunately haven’t found a good notetaking app for it.
I write in a journal by hand, and I color code everything. If I make lists of things to do, I just take a picture of it to carry with me.
Writing by hand makes me slow down and think about what I want to say, clearing out the clutter in my head and focusing.
I do eventually destroy my notebooks but I do scan them in. It doesn’t take THAT much time.
I used to write my books by hand and transcribe them later, because I was elsewhere (um, class pretending to take notes and work, pretending to be busy) and all I had was a pen and paper. If I’m stuck somewhere, I might do that if I have a surface to write on, but usually, I will just type it into my phone.
usually, I will just type it into my phone
OMG.
I imagine that, in Hell, I could only write by typing on a phone. I. Hate. Typing. On. A. Phone.
Lawyer hell, all clients ask simple questions which require complex answers by text, and send all documents for review as jpgs.
*closes Paint and walks away from complex email mid-drafting*
To be fair, I’m creating network topology diagrams, so it’s not quite into lawyer hell territory yet.
Don’t you even Visio, brah?
Yeah, it was one of those things that got away from me. It was supposed to be 2 boxes and some text and turned into a Visio worthy explanation of how DHCP works over SD-WAN.
I use Visio a lot and like it. You can appreciate it a lot after trying to use Word to draw charts.
I stand of awe of those who use excel to build detailed topology diagrams.
Well, imagine being in a truck waiting for your kid to finish mowing a lawn, being without pen and paper, and being struck with inspiration.
imagine being in a truck
I’m with you so far . . . .
waiting for your kid
I’m out.
Seriously, that would suck monkey balls.
It did, but when you’re trying to teach a kid how to be an entrepreneur, there are sacrifices that must be made.
So basically, a $1 notepad, a .25 cent pen and a $35 scanner with the free programs available a decade ago that recognized scanned handwriting replaces this all together?
Sure, if you want to spend the time to scan your notes in…
Sounds like that would take less time than fiddling with this thing.
Quite possibly. I hate spending time on maintenance activities; I want to get shit done. Which is weird because many years ago I had a thing for maintenance, loved spending time maintaining and upgrading my computers, tools, etc. Now I want to avoid that and accomplish things. Not sure what’s changed, but it *feels* better.
Maintaining and upgrading is accomplishing something.
It’s hard to quantify. You could spend your whole day maintaining and upgrading and never feel like you’ve gotten anything accomplished.
Such things are why I keep a “dun-did” list and try to account for my time in detail, so I can show myself I actually did get something done.
That doesn’t always work when I have bookkeeping to do and a client also needs his work finished. As a result, my bookkeeping piles up until tax time when I have to ditch everything and get it all done in one shot.
To a degree, yes, and not doing any maintenance is foolish. But it isn’t interesting…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUHECxS6IEU
I met a guy once, about 12 years ago, who had a folder he would carry around that had a real paper notebook with a scanner underneath–he’d place a piece of paper over the scanner plate (not sure what tech it used–it wasn’t an optical scanner) and it would make a .pdf out of every page he wrote. So he had a paper version and an electronic version. Cool idea, but I never followed up on looking at getting one. It was before the days of ubiquitous connectivity, so it had to be plugged in via USB to transfer files.
The good news is that it runs some embedded form of Linux and has an open SSH connection. That means that I can replace the software with some of the available open source alternatives or write some myself.
Which means other people can have fun it too.
https://www.reddit.com/r/RemarkableTablet/comments/k7fb8o/classic_mac_os_and_hypercard_running_on_remarkable/
The All New 2020 Apple Newton!
Hypercard was what our HS “programming” class taught in the early 90s. I was able to port much of Macromedia ActionScript into and do some cool stuff. Teacher was a Fortran nerd and by far the best class where I did not turn in a single assignment.
Hi trshmnster,
Got an aquarium question for you. I hit the sack the other night and didn’t get a chance to reply about your aquarium. First, your tank looks nice, I have never had any luck growing grasses. I have read Barr and about the EI method and tried using liquid ferts. Grew lots of algae, switched to root tabs. Now my question, how do measure the light without using a hi dollar PAR meter? I can adjust the brightness on my LED with a knob, I just don’t how to determine how bright it needs to be. Looking for tips…..
I remember the old days of watts per gallon and stuff like that.
Honestly, I had gotten away from caring too much about light, as long as I erred on the side of too much. Much like the philosophy behind EI fertilizing, too much is fine as long as you find the right balance of inputs and you change your water regularly.
Essentially, in that tank I posted, I was running a light that was rated for bigger tanks, added as much fertilizer as I could, and cranked my CO2 as high as the fish could bear. If I started getting algae, I’d adjust the lighting intensity or period down a click and adjust the ferts down a bit. Since you have the ability to adjust intensity of your lights, I’d just overdo it and reduce it back down until you’re not seeing any signs of algaepocalypse. Oh, and RO water (or some ratio of RO to tap) makes all the difference in controlling algae. You can always add hardness back into the water column if you need, but too much hardness usually invites algae.
Liquid ferts are expensive and difficult to control. I gave up on them after blowing through a few bottles and not getting amazing results. I’ve always done a combo of root tabs (especially good for cryptocorynes, swords, and grasses) and powder ferts. Epsom salt, saltpeter, and some micro fertilizer like CSM+B is all you need, and my wife is still working through the 10lb bag of Epsom salt I bought last year for the tank that I don’t have anymore. I can’t wait until we buy our next place and I can build out the big tanks that I want.
I tried the PPS system (perpetual preservation system), ordered a kit of ferts that you mix with distilled water. DIdn’t do much for me. It included CSM+B. When I crank up the intensity on my LED it gets super bright, worried about how it might affect my fish. Apparently you need a special PAR meter for LED lights and those are several hundred bucks. Reef supply will allow you to rent a PAR meter for a week for $70, might give that I go. Or do the trial and error approach as you mentioned. Any issues with blinding your fish with too much light? I use eco-complete as my substrate, seems to work but it’s a PITA to root plants in, especially those with shallow roots. I religiously do water changes ever 2 weeks, my fish typically die of old age.
Any issues with blinding your fish with too much light?
I’ve heard stories here or there of fish with sunburn, but I’m skeptical. Maybe with a halide bulb, but I don’t think LEDs would have that problem.
When it comes down to it, as long as you have some plants and some hard scape, they have an escape from the light.
I never had the full light blasting for a super long time on that latest tank (and that was my first true high light aquarium). It was at 100% for maybe 2 hours a day, if that. Mostly it was in the 70% range to keep the algae at bay.
Eco is a pain to root in, but I collected some of those flexible lead strips and used them on new plants. Alternatively, I’ve just let them float for a week until their roots were long enough to stay in the substrate.
Thanks for info. My other lighting limitation is that my tank has decorative wooden canopy that fits over the top of the tank, so the light is only a few inches from the water line which limit dispersion.
How do you like the canopy? I’ve always done open tops (or those crappy covers that come with the tank), but I’d like to do a canopy with the next one.
Here’s a picture before I filled it.
https://flic.kr/p/pTiNw1
I got this tank from, my sister, she did not want it anymore so I bought for $250. The inside front was all scratched up from when they emptied the tank of gravel. Looks like they just tipped it on its side and scraped it out. I bought an acrylic polishing kit and Flitz buffing ball got it looking as good as new. It’s uniquarium with a built in sump/trickle filter in the rear. I love it.
I have a 90-gallon extra tall aquarium that’s been sitting empty for 15 years.
I need to fill it up one of these days.
Looks nice, how may gallons? I used to have a 150 gallon a long time ago. No fancy stands like that, it was just a metal stand.
It’s a 100g acrylic tank. This is another pic after I set it up with the new LED light and CO2 and shipment of plants. Most of the plants died…. 🙁 I have mostly crypts, some java fern and other easy to grow plants in it now. I added my big Fluval canister filter to supplement the built in trickle filter – you can see the intake tube and outflow nozzle). It would probably look better without it and probably not needed but I like having extra filtration as I have lots of fish.
https://flic.kr/p/AHSgMn
“Most of the plants died”
I had success with a few kinds, but I started to prefer the plastic ones, lol.
I struggle getting plants to grow, I keep buying then and then slowly killing them. One of these I will figure it out. I’ve never had any luck with various types of Anubias, supposed an easy to grow low light plant. All they do is get covered in algae and then slowly die. It just takes longer for me to kill them off. I gave up on those. Had good luck with all different types of crypts, though.
Thanks for the write up. I love e-ink as well.
Since we are on this topic, does anyone here have any experience with using handwriting recognition on an iPad or with a Windows 10 tablet/notebook? My dad is hopeless with a keyboard. I ran across an article recently about how the new iPad has improved handwriting recognition support. I had never thought about something like that because I can type far better than I can write by hand.
For the old coot, though, this could be a game changer. If he could write his emails on an iPad or tablet and have it work would be huge.
If anyone has done much with handwriting, I’d love to hear about it. How hard is it to use? How good is the recognition? Does it really integrate with other apps (like a browser) as it does in the demo videos?
if you don’t want a Samsung tablet your Android tablet options any kind of quality tablet approaches zero. As a result I have an Android phone, but a new Apple iPad Air Gen4.
For my use case in the pre-COVID world an iPad was the ideal reading and surfing device on the train to and from work. The new iPad has similar capabilities with the crazy priced Apple Pencil or the more reasonable $20 clones that aren’t pressure sensitive. Fine for writing and OCR not as good for artwork.
Interesting but probably something that I would never use.
I’ve always had poor handwriting. My sixth-grade teacher recommended that I learn to type. Dad pointed out that in 1965 there weren’t too many typewriters that would fit in a shirt pocket. I took typing in high school and in the service a teletype with a 100wpm keyboard was often too slow. When I took engineering in collage I used the block print that I still use today.
Flash forward to The Future and I *do* have a typewriter that will fit in my pocket. If I need to write a letter I will use my computer (no 100wpm limit). I can still use pen and paper for notes but never need to store them electronically.
Trivia: Both “typewriter” and “computer” used to be job descriptions, not machines.
When I was in high school (early ’80s) kids who were going to college were encouraged to take typing. Computers were just getting started. When I took typing as a soph, I managed to shatter the first knuckle on my left hand just after the drop date. So I developed a weird typing style where I used my middle finger on my left hand for both finger that were in the cast.
That habit is gone now. Too much time spent banging away on a keyboard.
My father regularly calls it “keyboarding” because it isn’t typing to him. Which is weird because he can’t use a typewriter either. He spent his entire career dictating memos for secretaries to type up for him. I’m amazed at his ability to compose a memo/letter in his head and dictate it out in one stream of talking. It is completely the opposite of how I work. When I have to write something, I just start typing everything I am thinking of. Then I use the word processor to edit the garbage into something readable.
That has always amazed me, too. I, also, depend upon the word processor to edit letters and the like.
Interesting glitch just showed up. I was trying to copy text from Jimbo to quote and I find Iam unable to copy/paste on this page.
I wonder how much cognitive ability we lose by not having that sort of day to day disciplined mental exercise anymore?
Obligatory
What the Bearded one says goes for me, as well.
RC Dean: I posted on the morning links the following, and am interested in your take on what liability a company may have with regard to mandating vaccination for employees, both if people get sick from the disease if not mandated, and if people get sick from the vaccine, if mandated.
Zero liability for an employer because people get sick after refusing the vaccine. The plaintiff’s bar is trying get organized to sue businesses if people catch the ‘Vid, but hasn’t yet. I think it will be very, very difficult indeed for them to win any of those cases.
Liability for the employer if it mandates the vaccine and people get sick after taking it is muddier. We’ve been mandating flu vaccines forever, and I don’t think there has been any liability from that. Of course, the flu vaccine side effects are pretty mild. I’m really not very worried about it for the ‘Vid vaccine. Much turns on how bad the side effects are – feel crappy for a couple days, and that’s it? Eh, we paid you for sick leave, so you don’t have any economic damages. More serious/persistent/permanent side effects that could actually support damages are where the risk really is, and I haven’t heard about those from the trials. I think the lack of information on that front is one of the reasons nobody that I know of is actually mandating the ‘Vid vaccine at this point. For once, we may actually get a handle on the risk (and thus the risk of liability) before we do something. I haven’t really thought too much about what our defenses might be if we mandate it and somebody has actual side effects serious enough for a non-nuisance suit.
You can’t really mandate a vaccine that is offered under an Emergency Use Authorization, anyway, is my read. Drugs under EUAs can only be administered after what amounts to an informed consent process, so I think a mandate would run into problems until the vaccines are out from under the EUAs they will initially be offered under. I have no clue how long that will take.
Not to argue in favor of FDA procedures, but the vaccine hasn’t existed, much less been tested, for long enough to have any real idea what long term effects it might have. Now I do not think it is terribly likely that there are hidden long term effects, but I think it is extremely likely that the class action bar will create some ‘syndrome’ out of ordinary hypochondriac reactions to the world and suits will happen. But then I am skeptical about a lot of the great illnesses of the past decades. Gulf War syndrome, Agent Orange and others seem to end up as “I was in situation X and now am sick therefore X caused my sickness” catch alls.
Thanks, I appreciate the reply. As I mentioned the other day, the FAA is still considering whether or not having the vaccine would invalidate a pilot’s medical certificate, and that will be a huge issue for airlines, I’d think. Also, if something would happen with any long term effects invalidating medicals, it could be a complete clusterfuck.
I hadn’t thought about that. Good point!
It’ll probably be about as “informed” as the “informed consent” forms signed by citizens of Wuhan for the big study there where lik 99.9% of people consented.
I doubt anywhere near 90% even participated in that “study”. Leaving aside China’s repeated lying and manipulation of everything covid related, the numbers and time frame are obviously fraudulent but hey, it reinforces biases, so cite away!
Of course, but I think it creates a road block for “mandating” the vaccine.
Workers comp claim > Employer direct liability > CICM
is my layman’s read of a potential claim process, with increasing threshold for each. That’s before Congress and the states step in to offer liability shields for mandates.
They’ll have zero liability because pandemic, emergency! Otherwise, malpractice attorney’s would be lined up around the block in every village right now.
Rushing a vaccine of an entirely new never before tried type is a recipe for disaster. I’m perfectly fine with anyone who volunteers to take it. But forcing a vaccine on people while it’ still in clinical trials should allow the enforcers of that policy to be sued for every last dime they have when something goes wrong.
So when the government mandates it we can sue them for every last dime they can print?
It’s unconstitutional and unenforceable. Instead, they have to put pressure on employers, airlines, etc, to enforce it. And those entities can be sued.
All they need to do is look to the National Firearms Act of 1934. They can’t amend the Constitution to ban those firearms, so institute a prohibitive tax on them. The Constitution allows for the power of taxation, right? Why can’t they tax our movements, employment, and other liberties to discourage us from exercising them?
Hah. No, thanks to OWH and the rest of the progressives, government can directly mandate a vaccine.
Roll your sleeve up.
And CICP will be the sole remedy for government and drug manufacturer compensation for vaccine side effects.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacobson_v._Massachusetts
A large sample of progs are anti-vaxxers. Just like everything else, it’s not about logic with them, it’s about muh feels. Most of the anti-vaxxers are lefties. And polls are seeing that 40-50+% are saying they’ll refuse it. I don’t think the feds will even try it, they’ll rely on employers to push it.
Interesting. Not my wheelhouse but interesting nonetheless.
My issue is I cannot keep a list or notebook consistently to justify getting something like this.
Plus, its fun to find a post-it or notpad or notebook with the following
0730 Standup:
And the rest of the page just doodles. Which if you must know my preferres doodle is either the impossible triangle or boxes of various sizes.
Failing up.
I am honored to receive the 2020 Edward M. Kennedy Institute Award for Inspired Leadership.
I learned about humanity, leadership and putting people first from the great Senator Ted Kennedy.
Congratulations to my fellow recipient Gov. Charlie Baker.
That explains a lot.
This, as much as anything else, explains that politicians and their hangers on populate a completely different universe than the rest of us peons.
https://twitter.com/MZHemingway/status/1337029732089683974
In the tweets below:
I have to give Donny Junior Scoops some credit for being sufficiently brutal.
Lolol
Good god…
Nicee.
https://redstate.com/nick-arama/2020/12/10/breaking-trump-pulls-off-yet-another-peace-agreement-n292212
OMB still hard at work.
Biden and his lackeys will destroy that at light speed and the ME will be in flames inside of a year from now.
My money is on less than a year.
I think you’re right about that. Trump seems to see the essential point to a peace deal as instilling in the Palestinians the thing that so much of the diplomatic community says is poison – hopelessness. The Palestinians have long taken a maximalist position. They had what can fairly be called too much hope. Their hopes were so great that they believed that, if they just held out, they could eliminate the state of Israel and replace it with a Palestinian state. But, no sensible person ever believed that was ever going to happen. The only way you’ll bring the matter to a resolution is for the Palestinians to accept that Israel isn’t going to go away. When that happens, there can be peace.
My guess is the new administration will reverse course on this. The diplomatic bromide of the necessity of hope will come back into play. And the Middle East will be drawn into the another round of the Palestinians destructive “hope”.
The administration may reverse course, that doesn’t mean everybody will go along. They seem to be tired of Palestine’s shit, and are ready to move on.
OT: A few days ago someone posted a link to a site that sold mesh masks. Neither Google nor DDG can find it. Can someone point it out?
Hayek knows the link, I think she posted it for the first time here.
https://www.minimallycompliantmasks.com/shop
Real opportunity to fire up your own business and call it Maliciously Compliant Masks. FREE MARKETS!
Thanks!!
Congrats on being able to read your own handwriting. I can unless I wait a few hours and then it’s illegible. For me, handwriting is a lost art, that ship sailed more than a decade ago, as I’ve only used it maybe to write 5-6 checks in that time. That’s what a keyboard if for.
Back in the day, my elementary school report cards had a section for letter grades in subjects and then a section with a bunch of behavioral-type observations – works without disturbing others, uses time wisely, etc. An ‘S’ was for satisfactory, an ‘X’ was for needs improvement.
I got an X for handwriting in every report card I ever received.
My brother learning to be an architect gave me real examples to build my writing style off of. But now it depends if I am writing quickly or deliberately on what style comes out.
This. I remember having it beaten into me in drafting class that I needed to go slow and deliberate when hand sketching designs. I was proud of some of the results. Closest thing to art that I’ve ever done.
Never had such classes. My father has awful handwriting too, and my sister as well – least “girly” looking script you’ve ever seen – so maybe it’s in the blood.
On the other hand, my grandmother was very artistic and could do beautiful calligraphy. My aunt is a retired art teacher and my uncle can draw a perfect copy of just about any cartoon you can name, so dad just missed out I suppose.
My handwriting was very good 30 years ago. Not any longer.
Politics aside, this is cool AF.
I wish. For having fallen down and crumbled, the MSM are still valid enough to get 10s of millions of people to vote in a senile old corrupt fool.
I think what happened was that the center of gravity for the internet shifted to social media (also YouTube), and social media aligned ideologically with the MSM. Social media amplified the MSM narrative (and suppressed competing narratives). I give more credit/blame to the the Tech Lords (not overlooking Google’s manipulation of search results) than I do to the legacy MSM.
I just can’t get it. These people are in fact, capitalists, and so everything they’ve achieved has depended on Western capitalism, but now they want to destroy that in favor of the left, which is focused on improving society through social engineering instead of innovation and technology? Oh well, the left also took to calling themselves liberals when the left has always despised liberalism and it’s cousin individualism.
They’re technocrats. Social engineering through the use of technology turns them on.
From my e-mails. At what point do they stop calling it a “high interest savings account?”:
The Federal Reserve recently announced an emergency cut in the fed funds rate by 0.50% in response to market volatility. As a result, the new rate on your Savings Account will be 1.45% APY1 effective March 10, 2020.
As of May 27, 2020 the rate on your High Interest Savings Account will be 1.35% APY1. Your account has already been updated to reflect the new rate.
As of June 19, 2020 the rate on your High Interest Savings Account will be 1.15% APY1. Your account has already been updated to reflect the new rate.
As of July 20, 2020 the rate on your High Interest Savings Account will be 1.05% APY1. Your account has already been updated to reflect the new rate.
As of August 17, 2020 the rate on your High Interest Savings Account will be 0.90% APY1. Your account has already been updated to reflect the new rate.
As of September 1, 2020, the rate on your High Interest Savings Account will be 0.80% APY1. Your account has already been updated to reflect the new rate.
As of October 1, 2020, the rate on your High Interest Savings Account will be 0.70% APY1. Your account has already been updated to reflect the new rate.
As of November 2, 2020, the rate on your High Interest Savings Account will be 0.62% APY1. Your account has already been updated to reflect the new rate.
As of December 10, 2020, the rate on your High Interest Savings Account will be 0.52% APY1. Your account has already been updated to reflect the new rate. This change in rate means that for every $1,000 in your Agility Savings Account, you’ll earn just $1 less in interest over the course of a year.
Just wait for the negative interest rates!
Should have invested in ammo.
Can’t pay my quarterlies back to the IRS in ammo. I’d try some other vehicle, but low risk for this sort of thing is kinda necessary
Can’t pay my quarterlies back to the IRS in ammo.
Have you looked into high-speed delivery?
What you did there. I seed it.
Whoever _is_ the FBI plant around here, his ears just perked up. 🙂
I’ve been looking at I bonds from TreasuryDirect or Schwab/Vanguard short-term bond funds to start putting away for my next house’s downpayment, but I haven’t decided if doing all that for 1.5-2% is worth it. I bonds wouldn’t be an option though if you need to withdraw quarterly.
I remember getting 4% in my online savings account back in 2006/2007.
Something was very familiar about that handwriting, and I’ve figured it out – Trashy is the Zodiac killer.
Trashy is Ted Cruz?
Let me be the first to say, you look much better with the beard.
My wife agrees!
Oh, you were talking about Ted Cruz.
Unciv…cp2077 worth ot or wait?
I’m wondering the same thing. I’m mildly proud that I didn’t pre-order it and kept that streak alive. But I did find a game I think you’d appreciate:
Journey to the Center of Hawkthorne
It’s a platformer based on the Digital Estate Planning episode of Community.
Heh will have to look at that later.
I did a shift of OT and decided to purchase the game for my personal bday/xmas gift to myself.
I’m about 2 hours into it. Completed one mission wandered around for the remaining time. So far I say it’s worth it. Its running well on my machine, I haven’t encountered any bugs yet. Normally not a fan of bullet sponge games, due to the lack of tactics and realism. CP manages to make it fun and keep you moving. Warning, the inventory system can get a bit overwhelming. And ammo is very valuable so you have to watch your levels before going into battle.
Ted Cruz wins the internet today.
More than once, I’ve said “screw the Chinese communists.”
Little did I know how closely Swalwell was listening.
https://mobile.twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1337116123289038849
Toss up between this and Trumps quip. Of course the media is burying this and all of a sudden its kosher to talk about H Biden now.
In any sane environment, Swalwell’s best case scenario would be forced to resign from congress and a permanent ban from government.
I’m still wondering if this has anything to do with his divorce.
There are some power moves going on.
I noticed that they lifted the media veil from Feinstein this week as well. They’re openly talking about her dementia now.
I wonder how much of this is related to the Obama machine prepping to move back into power,
Or the equivalent of Friday night news dumps. Get rid of it in December and it’s “old news” for inauguration.
the Obama machine prepping to move back into power,
It’s sad, but this may be the best news possible, assuming the Bernie/AOC wing of the party gets completely fucked over.
Those two wings don’t actually disagree all that much except about the speed with which they intend to impose Marxism.
I haven’t really been keeping up much lately. Aside from an earthquake in SF, what did I miss.
I accidentally heard about Duke Nukem’s Chinese collusion.
Yesterday I met three cousins I have never met before in person. My son and I went together and had the most pleasant day I have had in a long time.
I am kicking myself for not doing that 20 years ago but it is just one of those things you will do ‘soon’. I need to go back soon. They are all in their eighties and have health problems.
The rules are so important we can change some of them for Monday Night Football.
Curfew has been extended until January 2nd.
Happy Holidays all you bastards.
Gauleiter Northam just dictated a curfew until Jan 31 for us, along with gatherings of “no more than ten people, except for religious services, employment settings, or educational settings”…..because everyone knows the virus only infects people having a good time after midnight. Motherfucker.
On the other hand, I’ll have that much more fun at the Christmas party we’re going to on Saturday – BREAKIN’ THE LAW, BREAKIN’ THE LAW!
*chuckle*
Goes without saying, but anyone making a movie or TV show can just ignore all this nonsense.
I saw that too. The curfew and limits on gatherings are the most concerning infringements to me. The constitution might as well be toilet paper at this point.
I am not sure what relation a curfew has to convid-1984, so I assume the intention is unrelated.
Yep, it’s pretty clear that the imposed restrictions have nothing to do with Covid. It’s why I find little value in articles pointing out the worthlessness of masks, models, social distancing, models, etc. These all miss the point and frame the conversation about Covid when it’s really about the political class seizing power.
The Monday Night Football thing is even more galling because it only exempts the fans going to see it at the stadium. Everyone else who would go up to the local bar can go pound sand.
except for religious services, employment settings, or educational settings
Arbitrary horseshit is arbitrary and horseshit.
have that much more fun at the Christmas party
My Christmas party is lying somewhere in the bottom of the James as a result of a tragic – oh wait, I am supposed to use that line for something else. Carry on.
It is not a party, it is a business meeting with refreshments. Now, go away. Governor Fuckhead specifically gave us permission to be here.
Speaking of man-made things, this has got to be the most astonishing non-sequitur that I’ve ever encountered.
They calculate that the Eiffel Tower weighs around as much as the world’s remaining 10,000 white rhinos.
This in the context that man-made things represent more mass than all biomass. Our species needs to learn it’s place apparently – which of course is entirely defined by, our species.
*hits bong*
That’s deeeeep dude.
Build that strawman!
Errmm… are we some sort of synthetic creation made from extra-dimensional matter?
*checks pants*
I’m going to go with yes.
I meant the denial. Other than Gaiaist worshippers, I don’t think anyone was denying that man isn’t central to the natural world.
I gotcha. But our ability to control and change our environment is bad… mkay.
*does Benny Hill salute*
Given the empirical evidence on the accumulated mass of human artifacts, we can no longer deny our central role in the natural world
Merely looking out the window during a flight across the US will disabuse you of the notion that human artifacts predominate.
There is no such thing as man-made. We take things we find that already exist then manipulate them to make our lives safer and better.
By their definition cutting a tree into short sections, piling the sections up and burning them to keep from freezing to death doesn’t mean man made. Implied in their arguments is that we conjure things up out of nothing, mostly poisons and abominations and unleash them on the natural world, what ever that means.
An termite mound, a bird’s nest, any animal’s burrow, or ant’s enslaving aphids are all animals taking what they find that already exists and manipulating it for their advantage. We are no different, just more sophisticated.
Watermelons are lying, misanthropic, evil fuckers on par with gun grabbers.
My favorite of all time was the loon that commented in the NYT that we should take every ounce of everything we have mined from the earth and rebury it to ‘heal the earth’. I am not sure how anyone could top that insanity.
take every ounce of everything we have mined from the earth and rebury it to ‘heal the earth’.
I am not even sure how to make fun of this. That person is far too stupid.
It’s a good thing I’m not emperor. I might be inclined to weed out some idiots form the gene pool.
Zardoz approves of your plan.
Although, if they got the Neolithic world these idiots pine for, they would likely be, ahem, evolutionary dead ends, as it were.
Classic definition of punching down, intellectually and comedicly speaking.
It’s sort of like the left’s freakout over GMOs. When practically everything we have eaten for the past 100 years had already been genetically modified I guess that when it’s done by a guy wearing a white lab coat instead of a rags wearing peasant in a dirt field, that suddenly makes it evil. Their sense of morality is warped as fuck.
So…landfill?
That’s Different! For Raisins!
Yes but how many manatees is the Empire State Building?
If you got the funding, we’ll get the answer!
Pretty sure I can get a grant for that.
Rand Paul nukes Luz Cheney and her forever war bullshit.
https://mobile.twitter.com/LibertyCliff/status/1337109523673337860
Anyone else still remember when the left was all against war? Lol, was that really THAT long ago?
The idiots in the replies seem to only care about party. They couldn’t care less what the actual policies are.
It’s twatter. Most of twatter replies are from around 10% of the same people, the twatter bots.
was that really THAT long ago?
eons
Liz Cheney or is it LULZ Cheney…
The real news is that Rob Schneider is leaving the Golden State.
https://mobile.twitter.com/RobSchneider/status/1336707811359657987
Rand can disappoint sometimes, but I do think he stays pretty faithful to his core issues.
this is probably way to late, but:
I have a remarkable 1 tablet. I like it specifically for my work(criminal defense law). good for taking notes for jail interviews and handwriting notes on docket sheets. good for handwriting notes in general. It replaces my mess of 6 different legal pads im using at a given time with organized notebooks. feels enough not like glass to not be super akward to write on. I think emailing out individual notebooks becomes faster than manually scanning my notes. theres some third party software you can use to make templates and customize but nothing major. it’s useful to have templates of common orders and things you need signed which can be exported as a pdf to the device and then copied on the device for sheet you need marked up.
it’s definitely a unistasker though. it’s a passable e-reader which is nice in a no wifi jail waiting for the deputy to bring your guy out but I also have a crossword app for that.