Tag: review
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April 2025 ink palette & journal supplies
Let’s try getting this posted before the end of the month this time! Here’s what I’m using for journal/calendar stuff this month, with some mini reviews of the supplies I’ve used already. Notebook As I mentioned last month, I’m starting a new notebook for April even though my iroful one isn’t quite full, because I…
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How is my new journal setup working for me?
I’m already 2/3 of the way through my current journal! I blame fountain pens and have some thoughts about what’s working and what needs adjustment.
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Shark Pen!
It’s a fountain pen shaped like a shark! It’s made by Jinhao, who are known for making cheap but often decent fountain pens. It sounds like not all of their pens are winners because quality control isn’t great but if you’re willing to roll the dice and don’t mind that the design may be a…
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A trip to Oblation Papers
I had a little bit of solo time on my way home from BSidesPDX in October, so I stopped by Oblation Papers. I couldn’t remember if I’d ever visited before — maybe once when I was visiting before we moved to the area? Anyhow, it’s very pretty: I mostly went to look around, but I…
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Best practices in practice: pre-commit
Continuing in my “best practices in practice series” : today’s tool is `pre-commit`. Using pre-commit takes a bunch of failure points out of our code quality and security process, and I highly recommend it.
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Unconventional travel fountain pens: Pilot Kakuno & Platinum Preppy Wa
It was likely inevitable that I’d start thinking seriously about having some travel-specific fountain pens. I’m no longer the world traveller I was in my 20s when writing papers and going to conferences to present them was a key part of my job, but I have a certain amount of travel-specific stuff in my life.…
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Glow Pen! TWSBI Eco (Medium)
I bought a glowing pen to replace my finicky first pen. Plus some musing on how the glowing definitely makes the pen work better for me; science agrees!
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Pilot Metropolitan fountain pen
I picked this pen up at the same time as my TWSBI pens (Making this pen 5 in my collection), with a similar vision in mind: trying the big stub nibs. This one sports a CM / Italic / 1.0mm stub. My first impression upon getting the pen was overwhelmingly positive: this is a solidly…
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Best practices in practice: Black, the Python code formatter
I’m starting a little mini-series about some of the “best practices” I’ve tried out in my real-life open source software development. These can be specific tools, checklists, workflows, whatever. Some of these have been great, some of them have been not so great, but I’ve learned a lot. I wanted to talk a bit about…
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TWSBI ECO-T and TWSBI Swipe Fountain Pens
After a few months of using my mystery wood pen and the Pilot Varsity that I picked up when I bought ink for the first pen, I decided I was clearly having enough fun that I should add a few more pens to my collection. So pen number 3 and 4 were a pair of…
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I hate the “future log” of my bullet journal.
One of the ideas from the “bullet journal” method that never really worked for me is the “future log” one. The idea seems solid: you need a space for writing stuff that’s coming up but maybe not in the current month or week or however you divide your journal. It’s a solid idea and it…
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Pilot Precise Varsity (Disposable) Fountain Pen
I’ve been getting back into fountain pens for the first time since I was a teenager, and it’s a lot more fun this time. I’ve enjoyed reading other people’s musings, so I’m going to try to record some personal notes on the pens I have in my collection thus far. I picked up the Pilot…