(2023-10-23) Several new things and my first impressions about them
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Today, I want to share my experience with some of the new things I'm in
contact with right now. The first thing is that my work conditions finally
got fully stabilized, and now I can announce which C replacement language I
started to learn. You might think it's Go, but no, it's Nim. I got over the
fact it's using transpilation via C, as it still proven to be rather
efficient and allows to use a lot of various backends (not to mention an
independent JS backend as well, which I'm still yet to find a good use for).
Of course, the best learning path is via practice, so I decided to rewrite
one of my existing C projects in Nim. I had a hard time choosing which one,
but then the choice turned out to be the nne text editor. So yes, the
current nne version development has stopped, and the next one will be a full
rewrite and it's going to have a bit different name. I'll announce which one
when I have at least a beta version of this new editor to showcase. Don't
expect fast progress though as I still have much to learn about Nim, but I
definitely expect the new editor to have much less SLOC count than the
original 777-line nne. The language itself does look like Python to some
extent, but actually not as much as I thought at first. My overall first
impressions are positively positive and I as of now I think Nim has a
humongous potential as a universal, all-target system programming language
of the future. Let's see if these impressions hold over time when I finish
rewriting my text editor in it.
The other two things I got on the past week were two Parker pens I already
told you about in the previous post: the Jotter SS BP and Jotter CT FP F,
where BP and FP stand for ballpoint pen and fountain pen respectively. The
ballpoint Jotter is an all-time classic, and I can understand why. Even
though the body is made of stainless steel, it does have some plastic parts
internally, although this fact doesn't bother me at all. It takes ISO
standard G2 refills (not to be confused with Pilot G2), and although the
black QuinkFlow refills I bought are not bad, they are not great either, so
I've yet to find the best ones that work for me. As for the fountain pen
version, although I said I wasn't planning on using any disposable
cartridges, I did start with the long black one included with the pen itself
(and I'm also probably going to refill it too from time to time, besides
using the converter). The writing experience with the fine nib is totally...
well, fine, I think it's a decent replacement for my seemingly neverending
one-time-use Aihao AH-2005 needlepoint rollerball pen. Although you have to
be mindful of the nib position all the time, e.g. you can't rotate it like a
normal pen, this is pretty much the only (and small) inconvenience that
doesn't outweigh its advantages. Now, I'm pretty much EDC-ing it alongside
the Jotter BP, and haven't been dissapointed with it ever since.
Another thing that's not new (I've had it for quite a while as of now), but
was hardly ever used due to various reasons, is now in my EDC rotation as
well. And that's a Zippo lighter, the cheapest one with a classic shape and
a stock liquid fuel insert. I don't even know what this finish is called —
"street chrome", "satin chrome"? Whatever. I only collect watches and
featurephones (although now even that's debatable), not Zippos. I also have
a small can of genuine Zippo fluid, but the main reason I hadn't been using
it was because it evaporates too quickly for my very infrequent usage (on
the contrary, my disposable isobutane Bics seem to last forever). However,
as I stumbled upon a video on how to properly repack the wick and use some
plastic packaging to seal the bottom of the insert, I decided to give it a
try too. The repacking part boils down to the following tips: unscrew the
flint (don't lose it!), remove the felt, remove the cotton and the wick,
bend the wick in the S-shape leaving only the tip straight, reinsert the
wick with the straight tip up, straighten the cotton and then repack it in a
way so that the wick sits exactly in the middle of the case. Then, you can
return the felt to its place, or just omit it if you use the plastic bag
trick (I used a scotch tape for the first tryout). Essentially, you fill the
cotton with the fluid and then seal it off with a piece of a plastic bag or
tape. You can wrap some more tape around the insert, just make sure it still
fits tight in the casing. All this leads to much less fluid evaporation and
much better wick saturation so that it lights at the first strike every time.
And now, to end all this on a bit more philosophical note, I'll answer your
possible concerns that, for an anticonsumerist and an LPC afficionado (what
a word...), I talk too much about various material stuff: watches, phones,
pens, lighters, calculators, slide rules... Well, that might be true,
probably too much. Moreover, I wholeheartedly agree with the famous saying
from the Fight Club: "the things you own end up owning you". But the real
and pretty much horrible truth is, we live in a world saturated with crap.
And the world's gigantic marketing machine is working 24/7 to make you buy
this crap over and over again. And, unless you become enthusiastic at least
to some extent even about the simplest everyday things like pens, unless you
deep-dive into the topic and learn to distinguish that crap among the goods,
you are going to be fooled into buying it, just to have to pay even more in
the future. And it's not like the realm of software, where almost everything
becomes clear just by the fact whether the source code is open or not and
whether normal OSes are supported or not; here, the low quality is concealed
with much greater effort in order to be able to sell you more and more. So,
whatever I'm writing about those material things here, is a part of my
honest pursuit of everyday goods that would last a lifetime and perform
their functions well enough to not be further replaced with anything else,
exactly to *stop consuming* in that particular direction. It is not in any
way the philosophical foundation of my life, but merely an important part of
it.
