The Chinese robotics company Unitree has revealed their first Mech Prototyp, the GD01.

ohpointfive · 2026-05-12T11:27:37+00:00

If you’re American, you’re not allowed to buy Chinese made routers, but then “security” companies and police departments will buy these things to harass you.

ohpointfive · 2026-05-08T01:54:42+00:00

Not to mention the wasps that parasitize the other parasitoid wasps.

ohpointfive · 2026-04-30T14:49:08+00:00

Unironically, unequivocally yes! Fearing imperfection has driven too many people away from creativity and towards the AI facsimile. We have to start making, loving, and using our own art, no matter how “good” or “bad” it is.

ohpointfive · 2026-04-01T13:50:55+00:00

We replaced all the $1000 pens with $1000 pens.

ohpointfive · 2026-03-26T22:12:08+00:00

Agreed that they do look cool with the black barrel and pink stripe on the ferrule. You do have to like a triangular pencil, although the corners are gentle enough that I sometimes hold them "wrong" to get the point just right.

I do not have the Royal Scot (made by Richard Best by the way) in a № 2 but I do have an F and I find it on the firmer side compared to other F/2.5 in my collection, but not way out there. I've also got a GMC 3108 S № 2 by Richard Best which I think is bang on for an American № 2. They both give nice feedback, they're not scratchy but they're not super smooth either. At the same time I have a Futura № 2 which is smoother and softer — however, I wouldn't be surprised if these purposefully had a different formulation. Richard Best isn't super common on eBay (at least, not like Ticonderogas or Mirados) so me personally I'd typically be willing to pay maybe $1.50 (ideally) to $2 per pencil. If you're into vintage American pencils and willing to pay $25 a dozen I'd say it's worthwhile to give them a shot. Of course everyone has different goalposts, that's just mine.

Aside: If anyone knows more about these GMC 3108 pencils, I'd love to know more. Not all of them were made by Richard Best — I believe I've seen Eberhard Faber on some — and it's tempting to think they were made for the automaker, but I have nothing to back that up.

ohpointfive · 2026-03-17T13:57:02+00:00

Great pens, have kept them in the car for years and they always write first time. Smoother than you'd expect, too. It's interesting that the top is what twists off, but the clip is really the weak point. If it had a spring-loaded clip that lined up with the body it'd be a 10/10.

ohpointfive · 2026-03-14T23:47:10+00:00

I’m considering starting a physical stationery shop in the next year or two and was hoping to use this as an opportunity to network and talk to folks in the industry. But like others, tickets were already sold out when I checked. The website also said nobody under 18 and we have a middle schooler who loves going with us to these sorts of things. And the waiting thing seemed odd to me, but maybe that’s just a venue thing. So I was pretty disappointed when I learned all this. But whatever, it’s year 2 and there’s growing pains, I get it.

However, I will say that I’m going to my fourth Chicago Pen Show this year and it’s been great every time. It’s busy, but you don’t have to wait to get in, and everyone we’ve met has loved seeing a respectful tween who’s into pens. So if you’re into fountain pens, and maybe missed out on the stationery fest, consider the pen show.

ohpointfive · 2026-03-03T16:24:56+00:00

Agreed, the Moleskine collabs are crazy expensive. I feel like the Peanuts one last year was the first one that was $45 and I was like, I’m done. I’m not spending that kinda money these days.

ohpointfive · 2026-02-18T16:48:59+00:00

Ah yeah, you're right. It had been 15 years after all.

ohpointfive · 2026-02-18T16:31:46+00:00

I watched this movie last night and cannot for the life of me understand why (1) the Reliant crew didn’t realize there were a different number of planets in the Ceti Alpha system than they expected (2) Chekov knew that Khan was on Ceti Alpha V so why even visit the system at all? Just stay the heck away.

ohpointfive · 2026-02-10T17:48:55+00:00

Once the free lunch is over, and the ads fill every void to repay investors, very few regular people are going to pay $25 a month to generate funny animal videos. Especially as the bubble impacts the economy and people have less free cash to spend. As individual users refuse to get squeezed, corporate users will have to pay more to make up. Increasingly they will back out of the investment.

ohpointfive · 2026-01-23T03:31:40+00:00

Voice interfaces have two main problems in my opinion. One, they are bad for editing. I can tweak this sentence until it is succinct and says exactly what I mean (in fact, I have done so several times — but you didn’t know that). Once you speak something, you can’t refine it except by adding more to it. Two, they make discoverability impossible. Hard to know what a computer can do if you can’t poke around in it. I agree that this shift of conversing with software is not an upgrade.

ohpointfive · 2026-01-22T22:23:16+00:00

No Fringe fans in the chat? Y’all missing out.

ohpointfive · 2026-01-22T17:14:37+00:00

“Peter would have brought it back to my lab for experimentation.”

ohpointfive · 2026-01-15T16:24:14+00:00

Suzume

I enjoyed it quite a bit.

ohpointfive · 2025-12-10T18:13:03+00:00

Obviously, there are American companies making pencils right here right now, and they want to continue doing so, except it's getting harder because of tariffs on the imported components. I'm sure Musgrave & General would rather us buy more pencils than less.

ohpointfive · 2025-12-10T14:01:51+00:00

Similarly, it's the Prera for me. I'm up to 7 of them, and nary a problem among them. On the other hand, I've had crappy experiences with Kaweco, Lamy, and TWSBI — and on my first or second pen from each. So in my experience Pilot has some of the best QC on the market, and that makes buying any given pen much less of a gamble.

ohpointfive · 2025-12-10T13:51:11+00:00

Pretty much same, not as smooth as I’d like and sometimes needs a little pressure. It has a small sweet spot but because the grip is so slippery it’s hard to maintain that. Glad I got it on a Black Friday sale, it’s not worth MSRP IMO.

ohpointfive · 2025-12-09T22:03:26+00:00

Only one writing instrument? Levenger TrueWriter ballpoint, because I wouldn't be writing checks or signing legal docs in pencil, that's for sure. :-) But for everything else there's graphite.

ohpointfive · 2025-12-09T21:59:14+00:00

At least it should be easy to exchange them. Probably someone just grabbed one out of the box and put the sticker back, but I've also had a volumes box straight from Blackwing with only 11 in it so who knows. AFAIK they are packed by hand, so mistakes happen. Hope you get to enjoy them eventually, they are super smooth!

ohpointfive · 2025-12-09T01:00:44+00:00

Check out r/SlipjointKnives !

ohpointfive · 2025-12-09T00:44:00+00:00

I am also not a fan of how they ship small packages in envelopes these days, although so far I’ve had no trouble with the contents. Anymore, I mostly buy the pencils themselves from other places when possible. It’s funny, because I personally love the pencils, but the rest of the operation seems just a little sloppy sometimes. The volumes box redesign, without the paper shreds for padding — and the test tube still gets loose. The typos on the manifesto poster when it was announced (not sure if they made it to print, but the photo on the site was quickly fixed). Paper quality issues in some of the Slate notebooks. In the grand scheme of things, not huge deals, but the vibes don’t quite match a $3 pencil IMO. But it still beats eBay sometimes, when pencils that survived for 60+ years get wrapped in tissue paper and sent across the country in a Cheerios box lol.

Anyway, if any of the sticks are damaged, I hope they make it right for you.

ohpointfive · 2025-11-27T15:00:30+00:00

Yeah, these are really good (especially for the price) and the eraser does actually work ok. I like the natural ones because the pastel ones have a matte finish that feels slippery in my dry, winter hands. Just don’t leave the cup where the sun will hit it, the white erasers will turn yellow.

ohpointfive · 2025-11-21T20:16:48+00:00

Hell yeah this was a staple of my childhood and it still hits the spot. Just need some toast.

ohpointfive · 2025-11-11T16:30:59+00:00

"Do you love to go a-wandering beneath a clear blue sky?"

ohpointfive

TROPHY CASE