Complying With the Latest Security Policies

Modern websites and modern browsers support a wide range of security features to communicate specifically what is and is not allowed to be loaded, executed, or sent over the network. Being the person that I am, I’m going to comply with the latest guidelines and best practices as much as I can… and it’s a headache.

Fountain Pen Nib Types

Here’s the thing about fountain pens, and fountain pen people… we like choice, we like there being enough options to cover basically any potential use-case or look that we want. (See also: the number of ways we have to fill our pens. As such, there’s a variety of ways to actually produce the nib on a fountain pen, also giving a variety of different results. And that is what I’m going to lightly explain today.

Fountain Pen Filling Mechanisms Explained

If you’re going to be around fountain pen people, you’re going to realize something real quick: there are a variety of way that pens can obtain and then store ink. Just as a quick little reference, I’m going to list off the most common ones for modern fountain pens.

Refilling Fountain Pen Cartridges

Fountain pens can take a variety of different ink storage formats, including cartridges, converters, literally nothing (“eyedropper”), internal pistons, vacuums… you get the point.

Ink cartridges are supposed to be one time use, but some people that I’ve talked to are asking if it’s possible to refill them. And while it’s possible, it’s not likely to be that 100% useful.

Modifying Fountain Pens: Nib Smoothing

So, fountain pens. Maybe you want yours to glide over paper like it’s on glass, maybe the nib is just a little small and scratchy, or maybe you just want to try it out and see what’s going on. In any case, here we’re going to talk about nib smoothing or nib grinding, what it is, and what you need.

The Tools That I Hopefully Won't Ever Need to Use

BIG DISCLAIMER: Study your local laws before getting into these things, you can and will be arrested if you don’t know what you are doing.

Yeah, those things. Those, my friend, are lockpicks. And this is the story of why I have them, and why I hope to never need to seriously put them to use.

The Pocket Ref: Everything You'll Ever Need

This little book is just… too packed with pretty much any form of general information that you’d ever need. I mean even the table of contents is just a table of sections, each section has its own giant TOC. So, what exactly is in this thing?

Dear Diary: Today I Ruined a Pen

So, yeah this was fun.

I was giving all my pens a thorough flush as, well, for most of them it was time for it, and for two of my pens (both the TWSBI brand ones), that means unscrewing the piston off the back. Anyone want to guess what happened just off that alone?

So Many Different Ink Types

Disclaimer: I only have photos for some of these, and that’s because those are the ones that I own.

So, back at it again with fountain pens. For most people, ink is ink. For us, well it’s much more advanced than that. Let’s take a look at some of the different ones: sheening, shimmering, iron gall, you name it.

Syncthing: Cluster Based, P2P File Synchronization

So I know I just got finished talking about Nextcloud, but just stick with me here, there’s only one more piece of software that I’m going to talk about: Syncthing.