EMP and I-N-K

(Talking in sff.net about electromagnetic pulse . . . )


I remember the first big EMP scare in the mid-seventies, Dave. I don't suppose anything has changed except that people got tired of hearing about it and it became non-news.

Since my personal industry can keep going indefinitely on fountain pen ink, I'm in danger of feeling smug. Of course if civilization were reduced to a shambles, fewer people would buy my books. And I'd have to hand-carry my manuscripts to New York.

I wonder how weak an EMP would have to be before everyday design began to protect some products. My hard drive appears to be virtually a Faraday cage, and perhaps my computer is as well – it's a Mac Air, the body made of some lightweight alloy that I assume conducts electricity well enough to function that way.

First actual school day today. I have office hours from 1400-1600, and then class from seven to ten. Think I'll mosey downtown first, though, through the cool rain. Want to go to the Bromfield Pen Shop and get some Noodler's ink – I'm out of my favorite color, a bluish gray-black. Can't remember the exact name, and it's not on Noodler's website. Hope they still make it. My only bottle got disappeared by some hospital staff when I was indisposed last year.

Even if they don't have it anymore, that shop is one of my favorites to wander around. People who don't care about pens and inks are free to wonder why anyone would go our of their way to examine bottle after bottle of slightly different blue inks, and gaze longingly at pens they'll never be able to afford.

Joe