Tomorrow, a 100 year old mysterious package will be opened in a museum in Norway

http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/artikkel.php?artid=10060184

by sindhiparsani • 14 years ago

142 98 14 years ago

Apropos of nothing, looking at the inscription on the outside of the package, I'm struck by how beautiful handwriting was in 1912.

I'd like to get that back somehow.

repiret• 14 years ago

I don't remember the full context, but once my uncle said: "It must be an old person, because the handwriting is so pretty."

To which my grandfather replied: "you had to write like that with a fountain pen"

I've never used a fountain pen, but I gather you have to maintain a fairly constant speed as the pen moves along the paper. If you want that handwriting back, I think you have to get rid of ball-point pens and pencils. Although while pretty handwriting is nice, I'm not convinced its worth the time to learn. (Which isn't to say legible handwriting isn't worth learning)

ams6110• 14 years ago

There's something about a fountain pen. I have a few, and without fail I write more neatly, and make fewer mistakes, than when using pencil or ball-point. I think it's that they demand slightly more concentration on mechanics to make them work, and that's enough to make a big difference in the writing quality.

ciupicri• 14 years ago

I used both fountain pens and pencils when I was in school and I had similar results, regardless of the tool. Though my writing wasn't exactly beautiful, but it was pretty readable.

Regarding the ball-point pen, when I switched to it, I had to write fast, so the writing might have deteriorated from both the speed and the tool.

robin_reala• 14 years ago

I was required to use a fountain pen at school (late 80s UK). Needless to say as a left handed person my enforced writing style one word, blot, one word, blot was anything but fluid.

josephcooney2• 14 years ago

I think even if your handwriting is crap a fountain pen just looks better, or at least more auspicious. Horrible for lefties of course, but very nice to use if you're right-handed.

kamaal5• 14 years ago

Handwriting is an amazing thing.

But please for heaven's sake do not consider great handwriting to be a sign of intelligence or greatness as a value in itself. This sort of thing destroys kids in their early days. During my days in school(In India). Good handwriting was considered a mandatory trait of good, brilliant and hard working students. Any body who didn't have good hand writing was automatically considered a bad student.

The net result was kids with genuine brilliance, appetite for hard work but with a bad handwriting struggled. Some times forced to imitate their class mates in a bad way. I was a big victim of it. In fact the head mistress called my mom and told her, every thing was brilliant about me and if only I could have great handwriting I could score higher than everybody else. The worst part of it was I took it seriously, I had convinced myself no matter how hardworking or intelligent I was I didn't deserve to score well as I didn't have a good handwriting.

It was not until a couple of years later. During my pre university days. My uncle cleared my mind of all this. He convinced me that good handwriting discipline is nothing great in itself. Although its good to have one. But greatness lies in what you write and not how you write it.

Later I developed how to write in script with separate letters without joining them as in cursive writing. It greatly increased readability. But people around me used to find that strange and some even suicidal for a student.

Its basically what Leo Tolstoy said:

What a strange illusion it is to suppose that beauty is goodness.

tsieling• 14 years ago

Beautiful Tolstoy quote. And I do see the irony in saying that. But still.

zwischenzug• 14 years ago

The same thing happened to me in a UK school in the 1980s.

I was told off repeatedly - and my parents told - about my poor handwriting, my tendency to "rush" work, and even that I went to the toilet too often. Of course, the reality was that I was bored and the teacher was a vindictive fool.

I remember saying to my mum at 8: "I'm worried about my 's'es", and she said "it's hardly likely you'll be sacked from a job because of your 's'es is it?".

mistermann• 14 years ago

Interesting. One thing that's always jumped out at me over the years, for no particular reason, is the sometimes horrendous handwriting (and sometimes even spelling) of extremely skilled engineers. Sometimes their writing looks like they are holding the pencil vertically in their hand with 4 fingers wrapped around it.

johnx123-up2• 14 years ago

  "Bad handwriting is a sign of imperfect education." - Gandhi

Ironically Gandhi's handwriting http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/f/f4/Gandhi_ha...

cafard• 14 years ago

Damn. I had bad handwriting as a kid--and haven't great handwriting now--and the bad grades did bother me. But somehow I survived w/o carrying scars into later life.

bglusman• 14 years ago

It is strange and not so strange, and not always such an illusion... perhaps we can blame nature, but though form should follow function, and much good is hidden and much ugliness made pretty, but it's a mistake to think that they are entirely separate and unconnected. http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html

soperj• 14 years ago

For what it's worth, I have (older)relatives in Sweden who still write like that, with a ballpoint pen. So i don't think it's necessarily that it was written with a fountain pen, although they may have learned with a fountain pen and just continued writing that way.

rsaarelm• 14 years ago

Nice calligraphy, sure, but hopefully not cursive. Careless cursive handwriting ends up illegible much, much faster than print handwriting, and relies way too much on context to let you figure out what individual words are for my liking. I've had to ask people who wrote cursive notes with just a couple of words instead of a full sentence what they actually wrote, since I couldn't make out the word without the priming of a full sentence of barely legible scribbles.

huxley2• 14 years ago

My father used to do a lot of research using microfilmed 17th-19th century documents.

Cursive handwriting (combined with often poor microfilm or fiche photography) was an occupational hazard, he got fairly good at interpreting some documents but it might take him the better part of an afternoon to transcribe 4 or 5 pages of journal entries from some documents.

epo• 14 years ago

Buy a good fountain pen, write slowly. Start by getting cheap pens, preferably those with interchangeable nibs to see which nib size you prefer using. When you know which size you like (for most people it will be medium) get a decent pen and nib and carry it with you.

I have a vintage Parker 51 and some oldish German pens. Modern Japanese pens are quite good though nibs can be narrow for Western taste.

ginko• 14 years ago

I hate fountain pens.

You get splotches everywhere and they often dry up for no apparent reason.

antidoh• 14 years ago

Write Now. It works. I can write again.

http://www.handwritingsuccess.com/write-now.php

speedRS• 14 years ago

I put my money on it being a Back To The Future 3-style letter from the past

redial• 14 years ago

a Hari Seldon style video/letter/audio would be totally cool, but I'm mostly sure it would be only a letter. Still Cool.

mukaiji• 14 years ago

I watched without the subtitles and had no idea what it was about; nonetheless, i got to listen for 5 minutes to a language i never heard before and it was beautiful!

bradly• 14 years ago

Video with English subtitles: http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utrolige-historier/artikkel.php?art...

Article in English: http://www.vg.no/nyheter/utrolige-historier/artikkel.php?art...

Live stream tomorrow: http://www.vgtv.no/#!id=55544

underlines• 14 years ago

Hmm the live stream is black since 20min. Is it down for everyone or just me? :)

TobbenTM• 14 years ago

It should start in 3 hours.

tstev3• 14 years ago

My guess is that it is collection of letters by people about the historic value of the day. It must be something boring like that otherwise he would have kept it for himself.

INTPenis• 14 years ago

Maybe Johan was a huge troll and it's nothing but turn of the century pornography.

rquantz2• 14 years ago

It's actually an old, yellowed photograph of Rick Astley.

sixtypoundhound• 14 years ago

Anyone else remember Al Capone's vault?

ChuckMcM2• 14 years ago

I was thinking the same thing! Big buildup and nada.

unreal37• 14 years ago

I wonder what they would do if inside there was another package that said "don't open until 2112"...

harrylove• 14 years ago

And then inside that is a Rush album on a compact phonograph record with the inscription, "From the Great Library at Temples of Syrinx. Please destroy at your convenience. Do not play. - Best Regards, The Priests."

draggnar2• 14 years ago

but then you play it anyway, and it is actually Rick Astley at his finest.

ImprovedSilence2• 14 years ago

Hahaha, now THAT would be someone with a grand sense of humor.

brianjyee• 14 years ago

I would say fuck it, I'm opening it now.

bearroast• 14 years ago

beautiful website

wilfra• 14 years ago

haha alexa #6 site for Norway too!

Pretty common for Scandinavian countries. Something about engagement plummeting whenever they try to change them. So they do it like Craigslist and never change anything.

troels2• 14 years ago

vg's website has been the poster child for other scandinavian news papers. Apparently their butt-ugly layout works really well.

molmalo• 14 years ago

Imagine if it was a 100-years old, still functioning and yet to be released smartphone, with an HD video of the 1912 celebration. :) That would be so cool... Like in that movie, "Das Jesus Video".

Anyway, as others said, it probably contains letters from people of that time.

Tichy2• 14 years ago

It would be cool if it was a smartphone that looked exactly like an iPhone. Destroy those lawsuits with a bang.

huxley2• 14 years ago

There's a chance that time machines would pretty much destroy prior-art as a defence in patent lawsuits.

old_sound• 14 years ago

In my hometown in Uruguay we have this monument: http://www.flickr.com/photos/flodigrip/1510286707/ the sphere on top is meant to be open every 100 years. In 1992 it was opened and we could see what the people from our hometown 100 years ago left for us.

They had a letter to us, documents, different kind of money, pictures, etc. Very interesting stuff

eslachance• 14 years ago

I'm wondering what prevented them from doing x-rays on the package, or an echography, or something to find out what's inside? I mean, I get that they want to keep the mystery, I just don`t think I'd be able to contain myself for 100 years!

swishercutter• 14 years ago

"...my dirty laundry...the whites."

http://youtu.be/dQbpx5Be5rI

Selfcommit• 14 years ago

They need to open this damn box already.

dsirijus• 14 years ago

Why?

It's a great oportunity for joyous ocassion and natural attractor for romantics.

Savour it.

tstev3• 14 years ago

Here is the package being opened:

http://www.tv2.no/nyheter/innenriks/pakken-er-aapnet-oj-oj-o...

peterwwillis2• 14 years ago

Nothing inside that small package could be as valuable as 100 years of wonder and excitement. But it would have been hilarious if it was pics of the Mayor's wife.

ChuckMcM2• 14 years ago

Ok, what was it?

jufo• 14 years ago

You can watch the unwrapping here:

http://www.vg.no/nyheter/innenriks/artikkel.php?artid=100603...

rsiqueira• 14 years ago

The package was opened. It contains a collection of historical documents, letters, telegrams, newspapers clippings and national decorations. Also a white banner with gold tassels that said "Fra Kongen" which translates to "From the King." and several other banner and flag-like decorations in the Norway's colors of red, blue and white. The package weights 3 kg.

Tomorrow, a 100 year old mysterious package will be opened in a museum in Norway

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