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Fish Pens

 Let your fish create his (very) little heart out
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For those of us who own fish and/or aquariums, staring at a fish can be a very soothing experience. They just sort of do their thing, coast around...it's therapeutic in a way that normal anti-psychotics aren't.

But what of the fish? What do they think? What do they feel? Is the extent of their thought process "Food. Food. Spawn. Food. Plastic Diver. Food?" Or do they have deeper thoughts, pondering what flowers look like (since they've never seen them) and the very nature of existence itself?

To help fish nurture their creative sides, I present, to the buying public, the Fish Pen.

Ball-point pens are capable of writing underwater, since the water that seeps in around the rollerball can actually be used to thin the ink to a normal consistency. The Fish Pen is basically a very small ball-point pen, glued to the top of a fish's head in such a way that it terminates just a skosh beyond the jaw.

By affixing this pen to the fish, and placing a small section of writing tablet against one wall of an aquarium, fish can finally express themselves artistically, rather than just dangling poop.

EDIT: In response to the link below posted by [normzone]: I think you and I are on different wavelengths. I'm not sure.

—shapu, Jul 21 2004

Fisher Space Pen http://www.allwrite...pace-pen-users.html
The first true space pen, it also writes underwater. [shapu, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Photo and article about some fish pens..... http://www.baja-web...nta-banda/tuna.html
[normzone, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

wagster's link http://www.halfbake...The_20Falling_20Man
you can do this yourself, wagster [po, Oct 04 2004, last modified Oct 05 2004]

Maywa Denki Nonsense Machines http://www.maywaden...products/index.html
Naki Series has 26 machines/devices all revolving around the evolution of fish. [benfrost, Apr 19 2005]

[link]






       “Good God, Dorothy,” Susan said, “why are you wearing those shoes? They're simply hideous!”
“A fish said they were nice.”
Susan laughed. “You mean that stupid husband of yours and his piranhas?”
“No, really. I bought one of those fish pens, and now I talk to the fish, and they write little notes. Darling little notes. Harry didn’t understand...too bad, too bad.”
Susan picked up Dorothy’s glass and sniffed. “What have you been drinking?”
Dorothy shook her head, somewhat sadly. ”You don’t understand either, do you? ” She took a little piece of wet paper from her purse, unfolded it and laid it on the table. “Look what they wrote.”
Susan bent over to read it. “Kill Susan.” She jerked up and saw the gun in Dorothy’s hand.
“The little darlings said to get more fish food,” she whispered, pulling the trigger.
—ldischler, Jul 21 2004
   

       [ldischler]: At least she bought one. Better than stealing it.
—shapu, Jul 21 2004
   

       short term memory - feed me!
short term memory - feed me
short term memory - feed m
short term memory - feed
short term memory - fee
short term memory - fe
short term memory - f
short term memory -
short term memory
short term memor
short term memo
short term mem
short term me
short term m
short term
short ter
short te
short t
short
shor
sho
sh
s
—po, Jul 21 2004
   

       Tabs, brilliant thought. <spits out fly> Yuk!
—po, Jul 21 2004
   

       It's even easier than this. No pen necessary. My algae-eater writes messages in the algae and scum that builds on the glass. Last week, he wrote the messages "wash me!" and "I wish my girlfriend was this dirty".
—musicator, Jul 21 2004
   

       I thought this was going to be an idea for herding fish.
—skinflaps, Jul 22 2004
   

       Well, [normzone] suggested it could be. Funny thing is, I was watching the Discovery Channel just the other day, and they were talking about a family off New Zealand who is trying to farm tuna. I just prefer fish who draw to fish who don't.
—shapu, Jul 22 2004
   

       Could we adapt The Falling Man (http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/The_20Falling_20Man#1089444389) to trace fish pathways in the tank? Sculpture instead of sketching.
—wagster, Jul 22 2004
   

       Oooo...good idea, [wagster]. It'd be hard to attach all those little white balls to the fish, though.
—shapu, Jul 22 2004
   

       Couldn't this be done by positioning 3 cameras on the sides of the tank and plotting the fish's position vs. time?   

       The 3-d path thus created could be rotated and projected onto any plane; this way a message is much more likely to be discovered.
—phundug, Jul 22 2004
   

       //a family off New Zealand who is trying to farm tuna.//   

       How deep should the tuna bulbs be planted?
—thumbwax, Jul 25 2004
   

       You can goes as deep as you want... just don't get them too close together.
—zigness, Jul 25 2004
   

       I thought tuna were like potatoes...if you want more, just cut 'em into smaller bits before planting.   

       Learn something new every day.
—shapu, Jul 26 2004
   

       [ldischler] Sheer darkness... very concerned.
—david_scothern, Jul 26 2004
   

       [idischler] I thought it was excellent.
—Zimmy, Apr 19 2005
   

       Don't be silly. Everywone nows that fish can't speel wel.
—Cedar Park, Apr 19 2005
   

       I'd probably give this idea a nice slice of toast. But [po]'s and especially [ldeschler]'s annos? Brilliant, simply brilliant---big bun for the whole fish pen crew.
—disbomber, Apr 19 2005
   

       Last year I saw the touring Maywa Denki exhibition in Hiroshima called 'Nonsense Machines'. They had a working version on display of a similar thing.   

       Fish swims thru tank, when it passes light beam, breaks the circuit and depending on where/which beam it passes, activates key on analogue typewriter that is slowly feeding out pages and pages of words. 'World's first novel written by a fish' is how they chose to describe it.   

       Maywa Denki is just so out there - a halfbaker's dream - as they have working versions of all this bizarre machines and devices, but they seem to be very litle known anywhere outside of Japan.   

       I have the dvd from the exhibition which goes thru and explains all the machines - amazing and hilarious. see link
—benfrost, Apr 19 2005
   

       [benfrost] I kept looking & the thumbnails & thinking "what the hell (is that) does that do?" I would enlarge, look at it, read the text, & think "Ah, fascinating."
—Zimmy, Apr 20 2005
   

       Dangling poop is better than some of the art I've seen...
—RayfordSteele, Dec 17 2007
   
      
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