Show off your printer 🖨

[YukKevChuHau]

@FrenchPress

I also have to ask the same question to @YukKevChuHau
Because I type all time and rarely write by hand, I am losing a memory of how to write some Chinese characters. Yet at the same time, I now can read way more Chinese characters.
Is it not funny that we lose some but we gain some.

I grew up, mostly, in the US, so I never had any official Chinese language lessons or anything taught in Chinese. Everything in Chinese reading and writing, and speaking/listening to Mandarin/Putonghua were self-taught.

My family speaks Cantonese and Shanghainese at home because of our background. We grew up enforcing it when we were still in the US. English is something we'll always learn in school then, so it's up to home to teach our ethnic roots and language.

So my real penmanship in Chinese is poopoo and worse than a normal elementary/primary school kid over here in HK. But, I'm alright with writing using old school computer handwriting tablets or modern tablets/smartphones. I see Chinese every day over here, so it's hard to forget it.

I learned cursive writing back in elementary school in NYC. But, with years out of practice, it's poopoo now. Regular block writing in English, and the limited High School Spanish, is okay and better than most people.

[FrenchPress]

@YukKevChuHau

I grew up, mostly, in the US, so I never had any official Chinese language lessons or anything taught in Chinese.

Ah, I see.
I grew up in Japan and apart from what was taught at school (mainly grammars) my English is self taught.

[swarfendor437]

They make the best plastic erasers too!

[YukKevChuHau]

@FrenchPress

Ah, I see.
I grew up in Japan and apart from what was taught at school (mainly grammars) my English is self taught.

It's a good thing you did. The more languages you know the better advantage you have. Now that you're in France, so you should know some French too, right?

It's sad how I know some immigrant parents in the US force their kids to ignore everything about their original heritage. It's good to assimilate into where you're living, but you'll lose the advantage of understanding multiple cultures by ignoring your origins, especially in the modern age where globalization is still the norm.

[YukKevChuHau]

@swarfendor437

They make the best plastic erasers too!

I agree. They're the best and quite famous over here in HK.

[FrenchPress]

We love it so much and hate losing it all time, we got one for each room now This one is from my office.

@swarfendor437

They make the best plastic erasers too!

[swarfendor437]

When I was at school we had these:

Monday afternoons after lunch at school was important to be first in the queue outside Typewriting class - to get on to the electric Adler machine (top photo nearest I could find), or the Olympia electric machine:

My dad refurbished one of these:

Not exactly the same - was an early model with a drop handle for carriage return (hung in front of face plate) and even managed to find a matching cover! Had to help my sister write her thesis on 'Under Milkwood' by Dylan Thomas.

When I worked for a catering company as an Accountant, I had to change roles as a Menu had not been prepared - had to telephone the typist on how to use one of these:

There were a number of golf balls with different typefaces - I had to change the one in the machine and was warned I had to be careful as they would crack if not handled correctly!

[swarfendor437]

Nice find!

[swarfendor437]

Forgot we used to have one of these as kids:

[swarfendor437]

My early colour printer - can't find original that was about 36 crayons in very long plastic popper stud case:

There's even a pencil museum here in the UK!

The Pencil Museum - Keswick, Cumbria

[Aravisian]

@swarfendor437

There's even a pencil museum here in the UK!

I wish to attend it...

The Cumberland Pencil Museum in Keswick is the home of the famous Lakeland pencil.

Never heard of it.

Visitors are treated to a fun packed day of interactive experiences and hands on activities.

With pencils?

Interesting exhibitions, a cafe and gift shop make this an ideal all weather attraction.

You can buy pencils in the gift shop.

It's probably not as goofy as it sounds, but they certainly get credit for creative writing to Market themselves.

[dasjdoom]

I learned typing on one of those old an electric typewriters with ten fingers guess its called blind typing (typing without looking down for the buttons). I still do this while using a computer. I only look for down when I type a special character (shift key in combination with a number)

Now with the age of mobile phone, I hardly use a pencil or pen.
I see this with my children who were also educated to write the alphabet with those nice curls. But they are grown up and they hardly use a pen/pencil but their mobile phone or keyboard. And when they do write something down, I find it difficult to decipher.

[StarTreker]

@zabadabadoo

you learn something new every day.

And you shall continue learning new things as long as I am around. LOL Good stuff

[Frog]

Finally got my cell phone hooked up so I can take photos .... it worked rather well .... anyway here is my Brother DCP T500W ... nothing fancy just printer and scanner ....
Years ago I used to buy them with all the bells and whistles but found out I didn't ever use but the printer and scanner never did use the Fax .... LOL ... I did get the extra large ink tanks those little cartridges seemed to run out at the most inopportune times .... LOL

[StarTreker]

Whats up Frog?

It looks like a Brother printer is up. It says, "Feed me some paper, and let me print something for you, ooooo, I like to print!"

Well, that escalated quickly, right into the paper shredder.

And don't worry about it, nobody uses FAX anymore, the last time FAX was actively used was maybe early 2000's? Truth is, email pretty much replaced FAX, there just wasn't no need anymore. Then phones came out and replaced email lol.

[Frog]

Nope not mine I recycle my paper .... after all there is a whole other side that didn't get used .... LOL

[StarTreker]

Yep, most printers can print dual sided. I know that my laser printer can, I just have that feature disabled, cause I have 0-need to print dual sided in my use case. Keep in mind, shredded paper can be recycled as well.

[FrenchPress]

@StarTreker

shredded paper can be recycled as well.

Unfortunately, not here in France
Apparently shredded paper has very short fibres which make them difficult to recycle. Well, that is their excuse.

[zabadabadoo]

It can be put in green waste here, so goes to composting. It is important not to include any plastic.

[swarfendor437]

It's called touch typing. On a manual typewriter of the Imperial and Royal Ilk when you are a young teenager (13 and 14) you don't quite have the stretch needed to reach those top keys whilst your concentrating on keeping the essential fingers on the home keys:
asdf, jkl;
For those who want to learn there is Type Faster and TypeFaster-Accessible:
https://sourceforge.net/projects/typefaster/files/
These are Windows executables and run under WINE. For UK users to use the accessible version you also need to install the basic TypeFaster app too as the accessible version does not contain the UK keyboard layout. The accessible one is good for someone with low vision - you have the option of having either the keyboard enlarged or the output enlarged or a compromise between the two.
I know there are native linux apps but they aren't as good, particularly for low vision users.