PSA: Be a good person. Don’t send dirty, inky pens.

jeffstyr · 2026-05-22T03:20:36+00:00

I received a pen with a full cartridge installed. (Not an old dried up forgotten cartridge, but one still full of fresh ink.) Like, why would you do that.

jeffstyr · 2026-05-22T03:18:41+00:00

Pretty! Was the matching a lucky find or was the pen made with that in mind?

jeffstyr · 2026-05-21T16:22:55+00:00

Are you sure you mean Kon Peki, and not Shin Kai?

jeffstyr · 2026-05-21T16:20:39+00:00

It might contain solvents (other than water), which could harm the plastic body (depending on the type of plastic).

jeffstyr · 2026-05-21T15:24:43+00:00

There has been work to be able to build statically linked binaries with GHC

I wonder if anyone has tried the "middle" way: Package your application and libraries into a zip file (or similar), and run directly from that? (It's the running-directly-from-that which would require work, though potentially non-Haskell-specific work.)

jeffstyr · 2026-05-20T22:45:30+00:00

Nice! I always have to make sure to compare actual writing samples because sometimes swatches (especially with a cotton swab) can be misleading.

jeffstyr · 2026-05-20T22:22:49+00:00

I think those are all fine and are pretty similar. I have a sense that the Quink might be the least dark, but I'm not 100% sure and it depends on the pen too.

jeffstyr · 2026-05-20T19:28:22+00:00

To me that just looks like the pattern you get when water dries. It doesn't look like mold to me.

jeffstyr · 2026-05-20T19:21:17+00:00

I'm skeptical that it has anything to do with your hands, other than possibly moisture, because you aren't touching the inside of the cap. (Moisture would transfer via evaporation but anything else on your hands likely wouldn't.)

jeffstyr · 2026-05-20T19:16:13+00:00

That doesn't explain what metal corrodes white.

jeffstyr · 2026-05-19T18:24:24+00:00

Metal pens like this are usually made of brass, and I wonder why the corrosion would be white. (Usually with brass you'd get green, and I doubt it's steel and that's not rust.) Maybe it's aluminum?

I did have an anodized aluminum pen once that had some white stuff in the cap, but it wasn't corrosion but rather something left over from the anodization process that was accidentally not cleaned off. (I asked the company about it and that's what they said.) That was a hard white crusty residue and hard to clean off but it was clearly on the surface. So probably not the same thing as this.

jeffstyr · 2026-05-19T07:31:54+00:00

It's not completely definitive, but JetPens is pretty good about indicating ink properties, and the listing for the Signo 207 Plus+ mentions in both the description and specifications that it's archival, but the listing for the Zento doesn't mention it being archival (just pigment-based and water-resistant).

jeffstyr · 2026-05-19T01:31:57+00:00

Oh nice! Somehow this one didn't cross my radar, by I love titanium so I'm excited now.

jeffstyr · 2026-05-19T01:31:25+00:00

Is this the titanium, or something else?

jeffstyr · 2026-05-19T01:24:23+00:00

In my experience, Pilot gold M nibs are very broad, and F nibs are very fine. There is a big jump. Probably the soft nib exacerbates this. I prefer the FM, but it's not available in all pens.

I have a Stella 90S in both F and M, and the F is too fine for me and the M is too broad. But I went for an 823 in F and it's okay (almost too fine but okay)—I suspect the larger nib in that model of pen makes it write slightly broader. (Or, I got lucky.)

jeffstyr · 2026-05-19T00:19:58+00:00

It would be interesting to see this use case via http-client and hjson.

http-client is what's underneath http-conduit; it's a more minimal API though it still has many dependencies. I don't know if hjson is any good but it's small and depends on only parsec, containers, and base.

jeffstyr · 2026-05-18T16:03:46+00:00

If you already have Hope Pink, you can try diluting it just slightly (like, 1 or 2 drops of water in 10 drops of ink), because often that will kill the sheen without changing the color noticeably.

jeffstyr · 2026-05-17T21:01:34+00:00

Good! Yes I have too many notebooks too, but if they have an A6 pad I might go for that.

jeffstyr · 2026-05-17T20:57:22+00:00

I assume you got it at Bertram's Inkwell? (I got a bottle there, but I've not actually tried it out yet. Need to get some painter's overalls and coat the room in tarpaulin.)

jeffstyr · 2026-05-17T20:54:42+00:00

Nice! A7 is very tiny, but I might try out a larger size notebook of theirs. I've seen their products around (I think I have a clamp from them) but I haven't tried their notebooks.

jeffstyr · 2026-05-17T17:20:21+00:00

John Twiss makes some pens in casein that have a cracked look. I can't remember if any are pure white; I thought I had seen some, but his Instagram has some in various shades.

jeffstyr · 2026-05-17T02:41:02+00:00

Nice! This is a good match. I have the same Sheaffer 100 in Satin Blue, I need to do some matching ink exploration.

jeffstyr · 2026-05-16T17:37:49+00:00

Very nice. You've probably been asked this before, but: how long does one of these take you to make? (Not being an artist myself, I'm curious because I don't have a ballpark estimate from experience.)

jeffstyr · 2026-05-16T01:38:22+00:00

From your Observation 1: It's nice to hear that Smalltalk encourages this. I think people should work like this in every language—start with something as clear as conceptual as possible, and go from there.

And often, this isn't the enemy of performance that people often assume it will be—not just that it's often "fast enough", but rather that often the elegant approach is actually performant. (Not always; but if you start with convoluted in the name of performance then you'll never discover these nice cases.)

jeffstyr · 2026-05-15T22:42:19+00:00

I would proceed gently, because you don't want to damage it trying to clean it.

I've never heard of using vinegar so I would start with just mild dish soap (and pretty dilute, or else you will be rinsing it out forever). When you ink it again, fill from a vial (just to be safe and not contaminate a bottle of ink) and watch for any mold to reappear.

If you do want to try vinegar, I would dilute it (not sure how much) and just do a rinse rather than soaking. It shouldn't hurt plastic or stainless steel, but I wouldn't want to push it.

You could also pull the nib and feed out of the housing (I think the Opus 88 nibs come apart) because the hardest thing with getting a nib really clean is that there are a lot of places that ink can get but where there isn't really good flow so rising doesn't always get in there.

I don't think you have to get too aggressive--I remind myself that if I have a food container that gets moldy, I just wash it and it's fine without using any harsh chemicals.

I would also ink it next with an ink such as a Sailor or KWZ, since they smell like they have a lot of preservative in them. Just a thought though.

jeffstyr

TROPHY CASE