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Richard Binder's Site Update With Respect To Inks, And The Beware Of Internet Errors!


Brianm_14

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I just visited Ruchard Binder's website, and noted he updated his page on inks earlier this year, "The good, the bad, and the ugly." If you haven't read it, do so.

 

Which reminds me of a posting I read somewhere about inks. I am not trying to find it, because my remarks are absolutely in no way an ad hominem attack; rather, these comments are a reflection on a certain more general sort of erroneous thinking I am encountering more and more often.

 

The correspondent reflected on some comments made about the relative safety of inks, which referenced Richard Binder's website as a source. The point was made that Mr. Binder's points were some 10 pr 12 years old, and therefore, must be of little use; indeed, isn't it time to stop referring to them at all?

 

This posting wonderfully encapsulates the error which is repeated countless times every day, in an age when so many people use the Internet as their only or principal source of learning.

 

It was only a few decades ago, when many learned people still believed -even hoped- that the Internet would bring about a vast acceleration in the rate of growth of the human acquisition of knowledge. Perhaps you haven't stayed tuned, but this hasn't happened. If we do acquire knowledge at a faster rate, it would be hard to put the laurels on the head of the Internet. Credit instead, more money put into research, more powerful computers (not the same at all as the Internet), more scientists and engineers alive and working now than ever before, and other forces. But credit not the Internet.

 

The Internet has given us rapidly propagated fake news, an incredible hoard of half-baked ideas, fully disproven ideas which will linger in cyberspace for decades (such as that vaccines and autism have been linked). The Internet has made it possible for academics to easily mine the works of other researchers in meta-analtical studies, the great majority of which provide doubtful conclusions. We even have the editors of the greatest scientific journals, The Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine, Nature, and others, saying that peer-review now provides little value in ascertaining the value of scholarly or research papers. The gold standard has fallen. Much or most of this problem can be traced back to changes wrought by the Internet.

 

So it is especially important now, as never before, to stand up and decry the writing off of a gifted, highly experienced man's opinion simply because it seems a "bit old" to someone raised on a different clock and calendar. Mr. Binder brings his education, training, and experience as a professional engineer to the study of pens and inks, and he has never in my experience, shown an unwillingness to change his opinion when the facts give him reason to. He is one of, if not the most, scientific of our pen-people.

 

Ten or fifteen years may seem to "automatically" rule knowledge as invalid in the specious world of the Internet, but in a world which existed before the Internet really became public in the 1980s, such time was respected and references which were many decades old were eagerly consulted for the wisdom-hoards they were, and are. Something is not wrong merely because the clock or calender have spoken, and certainly, not as measured by the faulty metronome of the Internet.

 

Mr Binder's opinion's stands or falls as related to the facts; they are hardly to be rejected casually, out-of-hand because they seem "dated" to someone who has experienced a much shorter timeline. I hold this to be a fault engendered by the false, impatient timeline of the Internet.

Brian

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Some of my pens are around eighty years old; I'm pretty comfortable following Mr. Binder's advice, even if it is a decade old. :)

 

It is worth reflecting that, over that decade, some things have changed. Konrad's KWZ inks, for example, really do put paid to the notion that iron gall inks are high maintenance and require some sort of demanding regimen or extraordinary attention.

Edited by silverlifter

Vintage. Cursive italic. Iron gall.

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It was only a few decades ago, when many learned people still believed -even hoped- that the Internet would bring about a vast acceleration in the rate of growth of the human acquisition of knowledge. Perhaps you haven't stayed tuned, but this hasn't happened. If we do acquire knowledge at a faster rate, it would be hard to put the laurels on the head of the Internet.

 

 

Actually, yes, it has enabled a vast acceleration in the rate of knowledge acquisition. I can learn more about fountain pens, sports gear, diamond engagement rings, etc. in a night of intensive research than it would have taken days or weeks trying to identify information sources and acquire the actual information (by going to the library, ordering something in the post, or visiting an expert in person). Hundreds or even thousands of sources of information — whether the content is factually accurate or inaccurate, and whether truthful or deceptive in intent — are now readily accessible at my fingertips around the clock. The bottleneck in knowledge acquisition is now my personal drive and ability to put in equally as many hours of hard work that would previously be spread over weeks or months to review equally as much information, filter it, analyse it, reject what I think is irrelevant or unreliable, etc.; that part is still entirely up to me.

 

The Internet as a communication channel is not going to do the thinking and learning on my behalf; slow folks like me will continue to be slower than others to digest all that and worse at trying not to be fooled, tricked or misled by sources that may not be credible, well-meaning and honest. The vastness and efficiency of the Internet are not there to equalise individuals' performance across a broad, even global, user base; they merely condense the time-frames in which something can happen, whether beneficial or harmful.

 

Opening people up to "group-think" and "crowd-sourced" information more widely and quickly does not promise to improve the quality of the information received, but merely the volume of stuff one has to process (if he/she so chooses). The discipline of knowledge management is generally applied to where there is a narrow focus in service of the controlling entity's "corporate" values and interests; for such things as the fountain pen "hobby" and community, there are no controlling entities and no common values among the participants (in spite of some shared activity-based interests), and knowledge management is undirected and essentially non-existent.

Edited by A Smug Dill

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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A ) When people like Richard Binder or Ron Zorn speak, a wise man listens.

B ) About the internet: Dill hit the nail on the head.

Edited by TheDutchGuy
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The 'net may dispense information, but knowledge is a different matter. I tend to seek out the knowledgeable and the wise.

Add lightness and simplicate.

 

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People are becoming more and more knowledgeable thanks to internet. But there's an essential aspect to this. One must be able to put things in perspective . Easier to say than to do actually.

Edited by Patrick L
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Actually, the problem regarding the lack of the development of knowledge by individuals is related to connectivity of individuals; a development of both the Internet and of mobile low cost communication devices.

The Internet was created to connect individuals with knowledge to other individuals with knowledge to keep the flow of information between them when normal means of communication were not available.

Mobiles literally were created to untether people from phone lines.

When both became cheap and available to the masses they used these fine tools to do what they always did in person; gossip, spread half truths, tell stories badly and engage in stupid attention seeking behavior. That is what we see, plus commercial speech trying to sell to us or influence us in our decisions. Add in the modern equivalent of cheap books, newspapers and broad sheets at such a low cost and high volume as to allow even the smallest and most destructive of groups to appear to be authoritative and you get the mess there is today.

What I am describing is a typical secondary school of the past and if you recall, the mature persons then and now ignores the masses and their momentary, pointless and destructive interests and focuses instead on valuable activities such as we do here.

I once was a teaching assistant and I recall over 30 years ago when the Internet was not available to all, but still an academic that academic connector and mobile phones were expensive to obtain and use and students then were uninterested in gaining knowledge. They just wanted the information of what was going to be on the tests. Even the Professor teaching the course mentioned at the beginning of the course the difference between us, the teaching staff and them, the students; we cared about the subject while they largely did not and they were only taking it because it was a required course.

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But then, what constitutes knowledge, and knowledge of what specifically? If a science buff was one of the first to learn in the 1930s about the ninth planet in our solar system, and studied information about Pluto ever since as more became known and disseminated by astronomers, would he be considered knowledgeable? If he still maintains today that there are nine planets in our solar system including Pluto, has he somehow become less knowledgeable even if he hasn't forgotten anything he learnt in the past?

Edited by A Smug Dill

I endeavour to be frank and truthful in what I write, show or otherwise present, when I relate my first-hand experiences that are not independently verifiable; and link to third-party content where I can, when I make a claim or refute a statement of fact in a thread. If there is something you can verify for yourself, I entreat you to do so, and judge for yourself what is right, correct, and valid. I may be wrong, and my position or say-so is no more authoritative and carries no more weight than anyone else's here.

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If he still maintains today that there are nine planets in our solar system including Pluto, has he someone become less knowledgeable even if he hasn't forgotten anything he learnt in the past?

Yet another semantic excursion? :headsmack:

Anyway. According to the NASA Administrator he would be correct. 9 planets. And Mr Binder rocks!!

Add lightness and simplicate.

 

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I haven't seen anything to give me reason to change my views on inks and what ones are best and which ones to avoid. Quite to the contrary. If anything, the developments that I've seen have reinforced them.

 

Richard, though retired, is still active, updating his website and writing about pen related matters. If he had found anything to the contrary, I suspect that the information on the page would reflect that.

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Thank you, Richard Binder, Ron Zorn and other very knowledgeable people for helping me be wise in my choice of inks.

 

On the broader scale, while I may regret venturing into this discussion, let us not forget another key component. I am very grateful for the internet as a continually growing resource for information. But, to what level we research and test the information we acquire for validity and application, what we do with the information we glean from the internet and how we respond to that information requires wisdom. And, it seems from my limited perspective, that wisdom isn't popular.

"Today will be gone in less than 24 hours. When it is gone, it is gone. Be wise, but enjoy! - anonymous today

 

 

 

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It is worth reflecting that, over that decade, some things have changed. Konrad's KWZ inks, for example, really do put paid to the notion that iron gall inks are high maintenance and require some sort of demanding regimen or extraordinary attention.

 

 

Thank you for this information. I was not aware of it, and I now have reason to investigate KWZ inks. If what I find changes what I think, there will be a change in my page's comments about iron gall inks.

sig.jpg.2d63a57b2eed52a0310c0428310c3731.jpg

 

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Regarding Noodler's inks. They can't all be tarred with the same brush. They exhibit different properties, and some are safer than others.

 

Dill, nice analysis of information dispersion and the internet. The educational opportunities created by Khan Academy on YouTube, for example, are remarkable. Closer to home, it is so amazing that YouTube enables all of us to study italic calligraphy with Lloyd Reynolds of Reed College, even though he died in 1978.

Reviews and articles on Fountain Pen Network

 

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ITALY AND THE UK

FILCAO Roxi | FILCAO Atlantica | Italix Churchman's Prescriptor

USA, INK, AND EXPERIMENTS

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The issue is not the absolute length of time, but the relative length of time. It's termed knowledge half-life. P51's are dead, like latin, no changes. That knowledge of P51 also won't change. But inks, like the page you refer to, changed immensely over the past 10 years. 10 years ago, there were only about 5 manufactureres, each with, say, 5 colors for a total of about 25 inks. Now there are makers out the wazoo and even more colors and sparkles and what-not.

 

I can't compare the before-after of the page. But think about it this way: he updated it from 10 years ago. Was he disseminating incorrect information for those 10 years?

 

Precisely because Binder is a trusted go-to reference, it's all the more important that his information is up-to-date.

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10 years ago, there were only about 5 manufactureres, each with, say, 5 colors for a total of about 25 inks. Now there are makers out the wazoo and even more colors and sparkles and what-not.

 

 

Don't be so definitive... 14 years ago I bought two of Levenger's "6-packs" (Classic and Slightly Wild) -- so that was one marketer with 12 colors :lticaptd:

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Don't be so definitive... 14 years ago I bought two of Levenger's "6-packs" (Classic and Slightly Wild) -- so that was one marketer with 12 colors :lticaptd:

 

Diamine, J. Herbin, R&K, Noodlers, and Private Reserve all had more than a dozen or two dozen at that time as well....

 

But there certainly has been an uptick in shimmer, and sheen(super dye concentrated inks), and an increase of global availability of alkaline inks since 2012, so it's not so much the number of inks, but the types of ink being developed, and the types of filling systems they then are exposed to....

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You can compare the current contents of a webpage to previous contents by the Wayback Machine.

Current Richardspens ink page: http://www.richardspens.com/ref/care/inks.htm

Jan. 19, 2019 version: https://web.archive.org/web/20190116044904/http://www.richardspens.com/ref/care/inks.htm

 

A couple of diffences that I find:

9/6/2019:

 

 

Some Noodler’s inks, including 54th Massachusetts and others whose identities I have not yet pinned down, will reduce latex sacs to goo. This is not the “gummy sac” problem that is caused by improperly formulated latex. Although I cannot state the cause with certainty, I believe it probable that these inks contain copper-based dyes, which tend to produce brilliant colors — but copper is a powerful catalyzing agent that acts on rubber. This problem was recognized historically: Parker SuperChrome (sold from 1948 to 1956) used copper-based dyes and contained a chemical called a “copper inhibitor” to prevent the copper in the dyes from destroying rubber sacs and seals.
1/19/2019: Some other Noodler’s inks, whose identities I have not yet pinned down, will reduce latex sacs to goo. This destruction occurs without the presence of metal; it is not the “gummy sac” problem that is caused by improperly formulated latex.

Also:

 

9/6/2019

Among modern inks, Noodler’s Baystate colors stain terribly and are are also corrosive enough to destroy some plastics. Known to be susceptible are the materials from which modern Pelikan nib units and the feeds in Pilot and Lamy pens are made, as well as the body materials of Wality piston-fillers and Waterman Philéas and Kulture pens. There are doubtless others not yet known. See the photos below, showing an undamaged Vanishing Point feed and one that has begun to die due to exposure to Baystate Blue, which has a measured pH of 4.53. Clearly, the pH of an ink is not the only factor that can render that ink dangerous to pens.

 

1/19/2019 Among modern inks, Noodler’s Baystate colors stain terribly and are are also corrosive enough to destroy some plastics, including the materials from which Pilot and Lamy feeds are made and the resins used in the barrels of some makers’ piston-filling pens. (See the photos below, showing an undamaged Vanishing Point feed and one that has begun to die due to exposure to Baystate Blue, which has a measured pH of 4.53.)

 

I haven't carefully compared the whole pages.

 

He is updating this page with new, more detailed, information. It makes me more cautious of using Noodler's inks and Iroshizuki inks in some pens. Both can be used in some pens but it looks like they can cause problems in others.

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People are becoming more and more knowledgeable thanks to internet.

 

...and many people merely 'think' they are becoming more and more knowledgeable thanks to the internet. There is no substitute for an intelligent, critical, analytical, and discerning human mind.

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...and many people merely 'think' they are becoming more and more knowledgeable thanks to the internet. There is no substitute for an intelligent, critical, analytical, and discerning human mind.

 

 

The thing people don't realize is that the Internet as a whole is a wiki. And the definition of a wiki, as many thoughtful people will testify, is a self-corrupting database.

 

A little anecdote here, in support of the above statement. When my daughter Kate was pregnant with her first child, she combed the Internet for advice. She got it. And no two "authorities" agreed. On anything. It drove her nuts. "Do I do this? Do I do that?" We finally had to tell her to stay away from the Internet insofar as information on being a mother was concerned.

sig.jpg.2d63a57b2eed52a0310c0428310c3731.jpg

 

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