VT (for all of my design-obsessed peeps)

photocouresyaimmission.org Peeps, The humble lead pencil can be used in many ways other than to which it was originally intended, such as: chopstick(s), garden stake, sundial, a measuring device, instrument of torture/hypnosis/pleasure/ hygiene, a door stop, etc etc, but most importantly it is the primary writing instrument or art medium in the world, and its surprisingly simple construction is a  narrow, solid pigment (usually graphite or charcoal or  crayon)  core inside   a protective casing (usually wood).    Invented sometime around 1550 in Cumbria, England.  The design of the lead pencil (called lead, however it is graphite) has remained virtually unchanged, other than the addition of a eraser at the end in 1858 by Hymen Lipman.    As children, we all learned our alphabet by copying, memorizing, recognizing the sounds that corresponded to symbols that when compounded in a string of two, three, or four clumsily drawn ...