https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nb1prondhhk
If you want to see the tour force of modern technology and design, you don’t need to visit a Silicon Valley showroom. Feel the area around the desk for a while. Put your hands down sooner or later. Primal Space Video above “Perhaps the most successful product ever made.” Shortly after its introduction in 1950, crystals became ubiquitous all over the world. Ideally, it was not very old, and was tailored to human needs at prices that seemed incredibly cheap.
Of course, at the time it was of little use to the illiterate majority of humanity. It began to change with the invention of the fountain pen. This was certainly more convenient than Quill, but it was clearly expensive for most people who could read it. It was only at the end of the 19th century, the head of American ingenuity that an inventor called John Loud came up with the first ballpoint pen.
Although rough and unrealistic, the design of the loud planted seeds of the technique that was then grown by others. Laszlo BiloThose who have understood the benefits of using traditional water-based inks and not traditional French manufacturers, but oil-based inks. Marcel Bicciand had access to technology that allows you to make a ballpoint pen into its final shape.
Bich (the foreign pronunciation of that surname inspired the brand name Bic) found a way to mass-produce small stainless steel balls to accurate specifications using a Swiss watchmaking machine. He chose to manufacture the remaining pens from molded plastic, a new technology of the time. The crystal clear body was always able to see the ink level, and its hexagon stopped rolling off the desk. That polypropylene lid doesn’t break when dropped and doubles as a start-up clip. What was this “game changer”? Avant la lettre Will it cost to reach the market? It’s worth $2. As an industrial product, BIC Cristal is in many respects, even the ultra-high technology mobile phones and tablets reading this post, in many respects (over 100 billion people have been sold so far). Next time you’re struggling with one, keep that in mind and zigzag patches on the page with patches to remove any ink you’re sure you need to be somewhere.
Related content:
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In a lengthy interview with Tim Ferris, Neil Gaiman dreams about the fountain pen, notebook and the writing process
Based in Seoul Colin marshall Write and broadcasting stationTS about cities, languages, and culture. His projects include the Substack Newsletter Books about cities And the book The Stateless City: Walking through 21st century Los Angeles. Follow him on social networks previously known as Twitter @colinmarshall.
