It’s funny how everyone who has seen the Sharpie pens (and figured out how they work…) adores them. We scientists have simple tastes and are suckers for free pens.
Thanks Corie 🙂
Richard P Grant
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I love the Nature sharpies. I want more….
I probably have 2 or 3 of the Sharpies after Corie brought a lot of them to SciBarCamp. I’m not sure how many I have exactly, because they’re not all in the same place, and they tend to wander. I swear I didn’t take them all, though.
Corie’s never given me any Sharpies.
Snif.
Well Corie’s my friend.
Obviously Matt Brown needs to learn how to be more smarmy.
and figured out how they work…
Are they really complicated pens? Generally speaking with pens, you put the pointed end on the paper (removing cap and/or clicking button first) and move it around, producing a line of ink.
You need quite a bit of strength in your thumb to click the clicky bit down. A couple of people I saw tried, failed, then tried something else.
Those of us with Gilson’s Thumb managed quite well.
When used to write
rudeintelligent comments on manuscript cover sheets, these pens really do make their mark. The problem is that the mark sinks through to the sheet(s) below. But oh, the smell: I think many scientists get into the trade after earlier careers as solvent-abusers.We still have buckets of the things left. If anyone wants more drop me a line. Jenny – I’d have thought you’d have picked one up from the pub nights by now.
All the pens went in femtoseconds, Matt. I’ll have all you can ship (not those postcardy-things though, still plenty of them left).
I could definitely use some of the pens. My Biodegradable Green(corn) Pen Click Mater-Bi TM is getting empty.
Raf, you have a Mater-Bi pen? Cool. I went to press junket at Novamont in Milan last year for the mag I was freelancing for, to hear all about, and all I got was a lousy carrier bag.
Matt – save me a few pens for the next drinks sesh.
Do the pens come in red? Surely you can’t correct manuscripts in any other colour, Henry.
Jennifer – a true Mater-Bi pen indeed (standard issue BOKU pen). When it’s empty I’m going to put it in a pot in our greenhouse and see how fast it degrades.
Be sure to do a control with a standard Bic.
Obviously Matt has now got his enticement for keynote speakers at ScienceBlogging. (I hope mine aren’t still the only suggestions, must go and check).
One Nature pen per transAustralian airfare, seems a reasonable deal to me.
OK Maxine. I’ll give you a Nature pen in return for a trans-Australian air fare.
Oh, are you going to have a science blogging conference, then, Richard? Australia 2009!
yeah, all 3 of us.
Raf, we did an experiment with the Mater-Bi carrier bag swag back in the editorial office. 2 square inches of Mater-bi vs. 2 square inches of a standard issue Waitrose bag, buried in the potting soil around Nigel (our potted Aspidistra).
The Waitrose bag seemed to break down, whereas the Mater-bi was untouched, after four months.
Mind you, I doubt Nigel had the proper bugs and worms.
Wow, mail moves fast from Boston to Australia! Jenny, sorry I didn’t send you any pens…it’s not personal. 🙂 But as Matt said, he and Li Kim have tons in London so just ask!
Everyone, if you want some of the swag, just email us your address. You have to promise that you’ll distribute and share the stuff, and not horde it all for yourselves! 🙂
The pens will be making an appearance at the science blogging conference…
My sharpies have been distributed widely, and one of the buttons is prominently displayed in my “geek corner”. I have way more postcards than I know what to do with though.
To get the really good swag you need to work in industry. My days as a marketer scored me the following Nature swag:
a mug
a calculator
a USB key
a piggy bank
a t-shirt (my husband wears it to work)
a fabric frisbee
I tell people they came free with my last paper, but actually they were a thank you for spending lots of advertising bucks.
They have consistently been my most popular give away at conferences I’ve been speaking at recently. Pens vanish in no time, stickers disappear, postcards hang about. T-shirts, now that’d be a different story…
Corie, will there be special Science Blogging 08 T-shirts for the conference?
Oh yes. There must be T-shirts. I’ll wear mine when I see the Dean on my return.
@Cath: Nature Piggy Bank? Did you know that Diane gave hers to Clive when she left marketing? it has a little note to him – ‘so you remember me’ inside it. Was it true that they used to have to put money in it when one of them swore? Kinda amusing that it was a Nature piggy bank…
Yes, it was Di’s swear box!
Mine is currently storing our US currency but may be brought into work soon as a fundraising tool – everyone who comes by my desk can donate their spare change for my next big charity bike riding effort!
@Richard – Surely to prove to your Australian boss that you have been to a Nature Network conference in the UK you will need the Conference Branded Umbrella.
There’s a conference umbrella?
Hot diggety! I can use it when it rains.
bq. everyone who comes by my desk can donate their spare change for my next big charity bike riding effort!
and if you raise enough, you won’t need to do the bike ride?
Or am I missing something?
Forgot to say earlier…we’re looking into the cost of getting tshirts for the conference.
Nope – I’ll add the contributions to my total sponsorship, then I will do the ride and not be able to sit down for a couple of days, like last week. Maybe I can spend some of the money on a cushion, come to think of it.
Heh. How far are you planning on riding?
60km, for the MS Society. I did a 36km ride a couple of weeks ago for the local Cancer Foundation. However I neglected to notice when signing up that I live 12km from the start/finish line. So that turned into 60km. The MS bike route hasn’t been finalised yet, but last year it started and finished about 6km from my house. There’s a big hill on the way home though, so we may be arranging for a friend with a truck to pick us up afterwards!
converts to real money
Not too shabby. Good luck (I did the Oxford & Cambridge bike ride two years running in aid of Action Research, who paid my salary at the time. 45 miles the first year – second year I did the round trip. Which was… exhilarating).
Not too shabby on a hybrid! Almost everyone else in the last ride had a road bike…
90 miles is out of my league – well done! I bet you were walking funny for a few days.
An added complication here is that Vancouver is very hilly. Last time the only downhill section was into a stiff headwind…
bq. I did the Oxford & Cambridge bike ride two years running…
What, Richard, you ran 90 miles? Well, it makes up for Cath cheating by using a car:
@Richard I did the Oxford & Cambridge bike ride… 45 miles the first year. By my map that gets you about as far as Bedford. The round trip is 170 miles, impress me – you did that in a day!
No Brian, it was the ‘Oxford and Cambridge’ bike ride, which is not the same as the ‘Oxford to Cambridge’ bike ride.
I can’t remember the destination of the first, but it was allegedly equidistant. It’ll probably come to me in the middle of the night.
Oh Bob, you’re so silly.
This kind of hybrid
Mine’s blue though.