Gems and Ink

Posted by Danny on Friday, November 26, 2010 at 3:27 pm

There’s an increasingly rare type of fountain pen ink that was discontinued in 2001 called Parker Penman.  The problem seems to have been that the ink was unusually saturated and included a suspension of metallic particles, achieving vibrant colours and fun reflective effects (as Diamine Majestic Blue is known to, today) but also clogging the pens used with a greater frequency than Parker wanted to be liable for.  Naturally, these inks have become sought after for their now unique properties and historic cache by aficionados who are prepared to maintain their pens more fastidiously, so the price and mythos of the ink have grown.  Penman sapphire is the most expensive ink I know of, selling often for more than $50 a bottle (current in-production inks tend to peak at $30 and most can be had for less than $12); Penman Ruby and Penman Emerald follow closely behind.  Gemstone names are fairly common in inks and there are huge differences between the “ruby” of one brand and another.  However, because of the enduring allure of the Penman inks, new inks that share their names are often decried for being the “wrong” colour—“that’s not sapphire, it’s too light, etc.”

What’s the best way to resolve disputes around emotionally-charged, contending aesthetics and nostalgia-induced disappointment?  Science.  The tremendous success of the Periodic Table of Videos (direct link here, or go here to read my ancient post) has encouraged further chemistry-based videos with the ever-beloved Dr. Martyn Poliakoff, including a recent one on the chemistry of gemstones.  If you’re interested, you’ll get to learn about diamonds, sapphires, and rubies; more importantly, you’ll see Martyn’s wedding photos.

Adrift amidst my Privileged Fluorescence

Posted by Danny on Monday, November 23, 2009 at 2:10 pm

This post is written defiantly on paper, in green fountain pen ink, amidst the high-pitched whine of computer monitors and the low-pitched rumble of the subway beneath the building.  My computer is dead.  It won’t reach the BIOS so I can’t jiggle its software guts from the command prompt or safe mode, and I don’t have time to qualify myself to noodle around with the hardware where the real problem probably resides.  My laptop is useless for accessing my online class, so I’m in the computer lab at OISE, contacting the people who need to be contacted, downloading my readings for the week, and gradually pushing through the shock of being without my personal computer into a state of giddy, Luddish novelty that will in turn give way to the awareness that my paper-crunch and correspondence and peripheral device-charging are going to take place in this room, probably for the next two weeks.

It’s a good room!  The lights and noises are ugly, but I’ve got space to work, it’s clean, it’s got broadband, and it’s free.  I could be so much more unplugged than I am, and the disrepair of my computer could be so much more devastating to me, my family, my education, and my prospects than it is.  When my big paper for Student Experience in Higher Education is finished, I’ll have time to try and resurrect Caligula, and if my data is really gone, I’ll be able to panic and writhe then, responsibly.  This is such a petty catastrophe.

The potential for online education to obviate barriers of finance and geography continues to drive my research interest, but it remains that for most of the people who stand to benefit from it, online distance education won’t be delivered to personal computers with big, bright screens in private rooms with lovingly-tailored sound systems and a clean bathroom and ready food only seconds away.  It probably won’t even be delivered to computer labs as nice as this.  I feel like that expectation could probably be planned for, pedagogically.  When I’ve got time, I want to look into the design of public computer terminals and quantify the tradeoffs between (say) the savings on fluorescent lighting costs vs. incandescent on the one hand, and student comfort, tenacity, and health on the other.  Is the present arrangement of computers and monitors in a sort of wall-less cubicle system ideal for students working in parallel, with screens blocking face-to-face interaction, or could other configurations benefit learning by fostering local collaboration that could subsequently enhance or transfer to work online?  I’m not asking this rhetorically–it may be that face-to-face obstructions prevent more disruption than collaboration of a sort we’d deem valuable, or that instant-messaging interfaces will frustrate this kind of thinking entirely as they become more transparent to the way we communicate.

I wish I could make better use of my time and actually explore some of this stuff.

Content Update, Issue 1

Posted by Danny on Thursday, May 21, 2009 at 4:57 pm

A quick, non-handwritten post for resource links and updates to previous articles will follow almost immediately.

Read more »

Fountain of Affection

Posted by Danny on Monday, May 18, 2009 at 6:39 pm

Only by the innocent standards of laymen am I a connoisseur of pens. I know a few of the more salient companies—Parker, Pilot, Montblanc, Pelikan—though I’ve very little idea how they compare in the eyes of more worthy experts, and certainly to speak with confidence to the granular merits of particular makes would require deeper investigation than I’ve yet committed. I am beginning to experiment with coloured inks, though I still feel uncomfortable using anything other than my staple black Quink, a medium so unassuming that it’s stocked at every Business Depot I’ve been to. I know what capillary action is and why a key design component of ink is the management of its surface tension, but I’d want a few minutes to consult Wikipedia before I could describe the construction and mechanics of a typical fountain pen. I only own two pens. I am soft-core. Read more »